^te WW THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES W* .|f ' f\ "t ; ') 7/7 HALLAM'S WORKS. VOLUME I. VIEW OF THE STATE OF EUROPE THE MIDDLE AGES. VOLUME I. VIEW THE STATE OF EUROPE THE MIDDLE AGES. BY HENRY HALLAM, LL.D., F.K.A.S., FOBEIGN ASSOCIATE OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOLUME I. NEW YORK: A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON, 714 BROADWAY. 1880. of ROCKWELL AND C II U K C H 1 L L , 39 Arch Street, Boston. PUBLISHERS' PREFACE TO NEW EDITION. THIS new and complete issue of Hallam's Works has been corrected from the latest authorized London edition. We cannot better introduce it in this form to the American Public than by the quotation of Macaulay's famous estimate of their author : " Mr. Hallam is, on the whole, far better qualified than any other writer of our time for the office which he has undertaken. He has great industry and great acuteness. His knowledge is extensive, various, and profound. His mind is equally dis- tinguished by the amplitude of its grasp, and by the delicacy of its tact. His speculations have none of that vagueness which is the common -fault of political philosophy. On the contrary, they are strikingly practical, and teach us not only the general rule, but the mode of applying it to solve particular cases. . . . Mr. Hallam's Work is eminently judicial. Its whole spirit is that of the Bench, not that of the Bar. He sums up with a calm, steady impartiality, turning neither to the right nor to the left, glossing over nothing, exaggerating nothing, while the advocates on both sides are alternately biting their lips to hear their conflicting misstatements and sophism exposed. " On a general survey, we do not scruple to pronounce The Constitutional History the most impartial Work that we have ever read." FEBRUARY, 1880. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. IT is the object of the present work to exhibit, in a series of historical dissertations, a comprehensive survey of the chief circumstances that can interest a philosophical inquirer during the period usually denominated the Middle Ages. Such an undertaking must necessarily fall under the class of historical" abridgments : yet there will perhaps be found enough to distinguish it from such as have already appeared. Many considerable portions of time, especially before the twelfth century, may justly be deemed so barren of events worthy of remembrance, that a single sentence or paragraph is often sufficient to give the character of entire generations, and of long dynasties of obscure kings. Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa. And even in the more pleasing and instructive parts of this middle period it has been my object to avoid the dry compo- sition of annals, and aiming, with what spirit and freedom I could, at a just outline rather than a miniature, to suppress all events that did not appear essentially concatenated with others, or illustrative of important conclusions. But as the modes of government and constitutional laws which prevailed in various countries of Europe, and especially in England, seemed to have been less fully dwelt upon in former works of this description than military or civil transactions, while they were deserving of far more attention, I have taken pains to give a true representation of them, and in every instance to point out the sources from which the reader may derive more complete and original information. Nothing can be farther from my wishes than that the fol- lowing pages should be judged according to the critical laws of historical composition. Tried in such a balance they would be eminently defective. The limited extent of this work, compared with' the subjects it embraces, as well as its Vlii PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. partaking more of the character of political dissertation than of narrative, must necessarily preclude that circumstantial delineation of events and of characters upon which the beauty as well as usefulness of a regular history so mainly depends. Nor can I venture to assert that it will be found altogether perspicuous to those who are destitute of any previous ac- quaintance with the period to which it relates ; though I have only presupposed, strictly speaking, a knowledge of the com- mon facts of English history, and have endeavored to avoid, in treating of other countries, those allusive references which imply more information in the reader than the author designs to communicate. But the arrangement which I have adopted has sometimes rendered it necessary to anticipate both names and facts which are to find a more definite place in a subse- quent part of the work. This arrangement is probably different from that of any former historical retrospect. Every chapter of the following volumes completes its particular subject, and may be con- sidered in some degree as independent of the rest. The order consequently in which they are read will not be very material, though of course I should rather prefer that in which they are at present disposed. A solicitude to avoid continual transitions, and to give free scope to the natural association of connected facts, has dictated this arrangement, to which I confess myself partial. And I have found its inconveniences so trifling in composition, that I cannot believe they will oc- casion much trouble to the reader. The first chapter comprises the history of France from the invasion of Clovis to the expedition, exclusively, of Charles VIII. against Naples. It is not possible to fix accurate limits to the Middle Ages ; but though the ten .centuries from the fifth to the fifteenth seem, in a general point of view, to constitute that period, a less arbitrary division was necessary to render the commencement and conclusion of an historical narrative satisfactory. The continuous chain of transactions on the stage of human society is ih 1 divided by mere lines of chronological demarcation. But as the subversion of the western empire is manifestly the natural termination of ancient history, so the establishment of the Franks in Gaul appears the most convenient epoch for the commencement of a new period. Less difficulty occurred in finding the other limit. The invasion of Naples by Charles VIII. was the PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. ix event that first engaged the principal states of Europe in re- lations of alliance or hostility which may be deduced to the present day, and is the point at which every man who traces backwards its political history will be obliged to pause. It furnishes a determinate epoch in the annals of Italy and France, and nearly coincides with events wlu'ch naturally terminate the history of the Middle Ages in other countries. The feudal system is treated in the second chapter, which I have subjoined to the history of France, with which it has a near connection. Inquiries into the antiquities of that juris- prudence occupied more attention in the last age than the present, and their dryness may prove repulsive to many rea/lers. But there is no royal road to the knowledge of law ; nor can any man render an obscure and intricate disquisi- tion either perspicuous or entertaining. That the feudal sys- tem is an "important branch of historical knowledge will not be disputed, when we consider not only its influence upon our own constitution, but that one of the parties which at present divide a neighboring kingdom professes to appeal to the origi- nal principles of its monarchy, as they subsisted before the subversion of that polity. The four succeeding chapters contain a sketch, more or less rapid and general, of the histories of Italy, of Spain, of Germany, and of the Greek and Saracenic empires. In the seventh I have endeavored to develop the progress of ecclesi- astical power, a subject eminently distinguishing the Middle Ages, and of which a concise and impartial delineation has long been desirable. The English constitution furnishes materials for the eighth chapter. I cannot hope to have done sufficient justice to this theme, which has cost me considerable labor ; but it is worthy of remark, that since the treatise of Nathaniel Bacon, itself open to much exception, there has been no historical develop- ment of our constitution, founded upon extensive researches, or calculated to give a just notion of its character. For those parts of Henry's history which profess to trace the progress of government are still more jejune than the rest of his volumes ; and the work of Professor Millar, of Glasgow, however pleasing from its liberal spirit, displays a fault too common among the philosophers of his country, that of theo- rizing upon an imperfect induction, and very often upon a total misapprehension of particular facts X PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. The ninth and last chapter relates to the general state of society in Europe during the Middle Ages, and comprehends the history of commerce, of manners, and of literature. None, however, of these are treated in detail, and the whole chapter is chiefly designed as supplemental to the rest, in order to vary the relations under which events may be viewed, and to give a more adequate sense of the spirit and character of the Middle Ages. In the execution of a plan far more comprehensive than what with a due consideration either of my abilities or oppor- tunities I ought to have undertaken, it would be strangely presumptuous to hope that I can have rendered myself in- vulnerable to criticism. Even if flagrant errors should not be frequently detected, yet I am aware that a desire of con- ciseness has prevented the sense of some passages from ap- pearing sufficiently distinct ; and though I cannot hold myself generally responsible for omissions, in a work which could only be brought within a reasonable compass by the severe retrenchment of superfluous matter, it is highly probable that defective information, forgetfulness, or too great a regard for brevity, have caused me to pass over many things which would have materially illustrated the various subjects of these inquiries. I dare not, therefore, appeal with confidence to the tri- bunal of those superior judges who, having bestowed a more undivided attention on the particular objects that have interested them, may justly deem such general sketches im- perfect and superficial ; but my labors will not have proved fruitless if they shall conduce to stimulate the reflection, to guide the researches, to correct the prejudices, or to animate the liberal and virtuous sentiments of inquisitive youth : Mi satis ampla Merces, et mihi grande decus, aim ignotus in revum Turn licet, exterao penitusque /nglorius orbi. April, 1818. PREFACE TO A VOLUME PUBLISHED IN 1848, ENTITLED SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES TO THE VIEW OF THE STATE OF EUROPE DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. THIRTY years have elapsed since the publication of the work to which the following notes relate, and almost forty since the first chapter and part of the second were written. The occupations of that time rendered it impossible for me to bestow such undivided attention as so laborious and difficult an un- dertaking demanded ; and at the outset I had very little inten- tion of prosecuting my researches, even to that degree of exactness which a growing interest in the ascertainment of precise truth, and a sense of its difficulty, led me afterwards in some parts to seek, though nowhere equal to what with a fuller command of time I should have desired to attain. A measure of public approbation accorded to me far beyond my hopes has not blinded my discernment to the deficiencies of my own performance ; and as successive editions have been called for, I have continually felt that there was more to cor- rect or to elucidate than the insertion of a few foot-notes would supply, while I was always reluctant to make such al- terations as would leave to the purchasers of former editions a right to complain. From an author whose science is con- tinually progressive, such as chemistry or geology, this is^un- avoidably expected ; but I thought the case not quite the same with a mediaeval historian. In the mean time, however, the long period of the Middle xii PKEFACE TO SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES. Ages had been investigated by many of my distinguished con- temporaries with signal success, and I have been anxious to bring my own volumes nearer to the boundaries of the historic domain, as it has been enlarged within our own age. My ob- ject has been, accordingly, to reconsider those portions of the work which relate to subjects discussed by eminent writers since its pubh'cation, to illustrate and enlarge some passages which had been imperfectly or obscurely treated, and to ac- knowledge with freedom my own errors. It appeared most convenient to adopt a form of publication by which the pos- sessors of any edition may have the advantage of these Sup- plemental Notes, which will not much affect the value of their copy. The first two Chapters, on the History of France and on the Feudal System, have been found to require a good deal of improvement. As a history, indeed, of the briefest kind, the first pages are insufficient for those who have little pre- vious knowledge ; and this I have, of course, not been able well to cure. The second Chapter embraces subjects which have peculiarly drawn the attention of Continental writers for the last thirty years. The whole history of France, civil, constitutional, and social, has been more philosophically exam- hied, and yet with a more copious erudition, by which philoso- phy must always be guided, than in any former age. Two writers of high name have given the world a regular history of that country one for modern as well as mediaeval times, the other for these alone. The great historian of the Italian republics, my guide and companion in that portion of the History of the Middle Ages, published in 1821 the first vol- umes of his History of the French ; it is well known that this labor of twenty years was very nearly terminated when he was removed from the world. The two histories of Sismondi will, in all likelihood, never be superseded ; if in the latter we sometimes miss, and yet we do not always miss, the glow- ing and vivid pencil, guided by the ardor of youth and the distinct remembrance of scenery, we find no inferiority in justness of thought, in copiousness of narration, and espe- cially in love of virtue and indignation at wrong. It seems, indeed, as if the progress of years had heightened the stern sentiments of republicanism with which he set out, and to which the whole course of his later work must have afforded no gratification, except that of scorn and severity. Measur- PREFACE TO SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES. Xlll ing not only their actions but characters by a rigid standard, he sometimes demands from the men of past times more than human frailty and ignorance could have given ; and his histo- ry would leave but a painful impression from the gloominess of the picture, were not this constantly relieved by the pecul- iar softness and easy grace of his style. It cannot be said that Sismondi is very diligent in probing obscurities, or in weighing evidence ; his general views, with which most of hia chapters begin, are luminous and valuable to the ordinary reader, but sometimes sketched too loosely for the critical in- vestigator of history. Less full than Sismondi in the general details, but seizing particular events or epochs with greater minuteness and ac- curacy not emulating his full and flowing periods, but in a style" concise, rapid, and emphatic, sparkling with new and brilliant analogies picturesque in description, spirited in sentiment, a poet in all but his fidelity to truth M. Michelet has placed his own History of France by the side of that of Sismondi. His quotations are more numerous, for Sismondi commonly gives only references, and when interwoven with the text, as they often are, though not quite according to the strict laws of composition, not only bear with them the proof which an historical assertion may fail to command, but exhibit a more vivid picture. In praising M. Michelet we are not to forget his defects. His pencil, always spirited, does not always fill the canvas. The consecutive history of France will not be so well learned from his pages as from those of Sismondi ; and we should protest against his peculiar bitterness towards England, were it not ridiculous in itself by its frequency and exaggeration. I turn with more respect to a great name in historical lit- erature, and which is only less great in that sense than it might have been, because it belongs also to the groundwork of all future history the whole series of events which have been developed on the scene of Europe for twenty years now past. No envy of faction, no caprice of fortune, can tear from M. Guizot the trophy which time has bestowed, that he for nearly eight years, past and irrevocable, held in his firm grasp a power so fleeting before, and fell only with the mon- archy which he had sustained, in the convulsive throes of hig country. xiv PREFACE TO SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES. " Cras vel atrH Nube polum Pater occupato, Vel sole puro : non tamen irritum, Quodcunque retro est, efficiet." It has remained for my distinguished friend to manifest that high attribute of a great man's mind a constant and unsub- dued spirit in adversity, and to turn once more to those tran- quil pursuits of earlier days which bestow a more unmingled enjoyment and a more unenvied glory than the favor of kings or the applause of senates. The Essais sur 1'Histoire de France, by M. Guizot, ap- peared in 1820 ; the Collection de Memoires relatives a 1'Histoire de France (a translation generally from the Latin, under his superintendence and with notes by him), if I mis- take not, in 1825 ; the Lectures on the civilization of Europe, and on that of France, are of different dates, some of the latter in 1829. These form, by the confession of all, a sort of epoch in mediaeval history by their philosophical acuteness, the judicious, choice of their subjects, and the gen- eral solidity and truth of the views which they present. I am almost unwilling to mention several other eminent names, lest it should seem invidious to omit any. It will suf- ficiently appear by these Notes to whom I have been most in- debted. Yet the writings of Thierry, Fauriel, Raynouard, and not less valuable, though in time, almost the latest, Lehuerou, ought not to be passed in silence. I shall not attempt to characterize these eminent men ; but the gratitude of every inquirer into the mediaeval history of France is es- pecially due to the Ministry of Public Instruction under the late government for the numerous volumes of Documens In- e"dits, illustrating that history, which have appeared under its superintendence, and at the public expense, within the last twelve years. It is difficult not to feel, at the present junc ture, the greatest apprehension that this valuable publication will at least be suspended. Several Chapters which follow the second in my volumes have furnished no great store of additions ; but that which re- lates to the English Constitution has appeared to require more illustration. Many subjects of no trifling importance in the history of our ancient institutions had drawn the atten- tion of men very conversant with its" best sources ; and it was naturally my desire to impart in some measure the substance PREFACE TO SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES. XV of their researches to my readers. Ill not many instances have I seen ground for materially altering my own views; and I have not of course hesitated to differ from those whom I often quote with much respect. The pubht ations of the Re- cord Commission the celebrated Report of the Lords' Com- mittee on the Dignity of a Peer the work of my learned and gifted friend Sir Francis Palgrave, On the Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth, replete with omnifa- rious reading and fearless spirit, though not always command- ing the assent of more sceptical tempers the approved and valuable contributions to constitutional learning by Allen, Kemble, Spence, Starkie, Nicolas, Wright, and many others are full of important facts and enlightened theories. Yet I fear that I shall be found to have overlooked much, especially in that periodical literature which is too apt to escape our ob- servation or our memory ; and can only hope that these Notes, imperfect as they must be, will serve to extend the knowledge of my readers and guide them to the sources of historic truth. They claim only to be supplemental, and can be of no service to those who do not already possess the History of the Middle Ages. The paging of the editions of 1826 and 1841, one in three volumes, the other in two, has been marked for each Note, which will prevent I hope, all inconvenience in reference. June, 1848. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE PRESENT EDITION. The Supplemental Notes have been incorporated with the original work, partly at the foot of the pages, partly at the close of each chapter. CONTENTS THE FIRST VOLUME. CHAPTER I. THK HISTORY OF FRANCE FROM ITS CONQUEST BY CLOVIS TO THB INVASION OF NAPLES BY CHARLES VIII. PART I. Fall of the Roman Empire Invasion of Clovis First Race of French Kings Accession of Pepin State of Italy Charlemagne His Reign and Character Louis the Debonair His Successors Calamitous State of the Empire in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries Accession of Hugh Capet His first Successors Louis VII. Philip Augustus Conquest of Normandy War in Languedoc Louis EX. His Charac- ter Digression upon the Crusades Philip HI. Philip IV. Ag- grandizement of French Monarchy under his Reign Reigns of his Chil- dren Question of Salic Law Claim of Edward HI Page 15 PART H. War of Edward HI. in France Causes of his Success Civil Disturb- ances of France Peace of Bretigni Its Interpretation considered Charles V. Renewal of the War Charles VI. His Minority and Insanity Civil Dissensions of the Parties of Orleans and Burgundy Assassination of both these Princes Intrigues of their Parties with England under Henry IV. Henry V. invades France Treaty of Troyes State of France in the first Years of Charles VII. Progress and subsequent Decline of the English Arms their Expulsion from France Change in the Political Constitution Louis XI. His Char- acter Leagues formed against him Charles Duke of Burgundy His Prosperity and Fall Louis obtains Possession of Burgundy His Death Charles VIII. Acquisition of Britany 61 r NOTES TO CHAPTER I 109 VOL. i. M. b xv ill CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. CHAPTER H. OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM, ESPECIALLY IN FKANCK. PART I. State of ancient Germany Effects of the Conquest of Gaul by the Franks Tenures of Land Distinction of Laws Constitution of the ancient Frank Monarchy Gradual Establishment of Feudal Tenures Prin- ciples of a Feudal Relation Ceremonies of Homage and Investiture Military Service Feudal Incidents of Relief, Aid, Wardship, &c. Different Species of Fiefs Feudal Law-books Page 148 PABT II. Analysis of the Feudal System Its local Extent View of the different Orders of Society during the Feudal Ages Nobility Their Ranks and Privileges Clergy Freemen Serfs or Villeins Comparative State of France and Germany Privileges enjoyed by the French Vas- sals Right of coining Money and of Private War Immunity from Taxation Historical View of the Royal Revenue in France Methods adopted to augment it by Depreciation of the Coin, &c. Legislative Power Its State under the Merovingian Kings, and Charlemagne His Councils Suspension of any general Legislative Authority during the Prevalence of Feudal Principles The King's Council Means adopted to supply the Want of a National Assembly Gradual Progress of the King's Legislative Power Philip VI. assembles the States-General Their Powers limited to Taxation States under the Sons of Philip IV. States of 1355 and 1356 They nearly effect an entire Revolution The Crown recovers its Vigor States of 1380, under Charles VI. Subsequent Assemblies under Charles VI. and Charles VII. The Crown becomes more and more absolute Louis XI. States of Tours in 1484 Historical View of Jurisdiction in France Its earliest Stage under the first Race of Kings, and Charlemagne Territorial Jurisdiction Feudal Courts of Justice Trial by Combat Code of St. Louis The Territorial Jurisdictions give way Progress of the Judicial Power of the Crown Parliament of Paris Peers of France Increased Author- ity of the Parliament Registration of Edicts Causes of the Decline of the Feudal System Acquisitions of Domain by the Crown Char- ters of Incorporation granted to Towns Their previous Condition First Charters in the Twelfth Century Privileges contained in them Military Service of Feudal Tenants commuted for Money Hired Troops Change in the Military System of Europe General View of the Ad- vantages and Disadvantages attending the Feudal System 185 NOTES TO CHATTER 11. 266 CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. xix CHAPTER HI. THB HISTORY OF ITALY, FROM THE EXTINCTION OF THE CARLOVINGIAM EMPERORS TO THE INVASION OF NAPLES BY CHARLES VIII. PART I. State of Italy after the Death of Charles the Fat Coronation of Otho the Great State of Rome Conrad II. Union of the Kingdom of Italy with the Empire Establishment of the Normans in Naples and Sicily Roger Guiscard Rise of the Lombard Cities They gradually be- come more independent of the Empire Their internal Wars Frederic Barbarossa Destruction of Milan Lombard League Battle of Leg- nano Peace of Constance Temporal Principality of the Popes Guelf and Ghibelin Factions Otho IV. Frederic II. Arrangement of" the Italian Republics Second Lombard War Extinction of the House of Suabia Causes of the Success of Lombard Republics Their Prosperity and Forms of Government Contentions between the No- bility and People Civil Wars Story of Giovanni di Vicenza. Page 313 PART n. State of Italy after the Extinction of the House of Suabia Conquest of Naples by Charles of Anjou The Lombard Republics become severally subject to Princes or Usurpers The Visconti of Milan Their Aggran- dizement Decline of the Imperial Authority over Italy Internal State of Rome Rienzi Florence her Forms of Government historically traced to the end of the Fourteenth Century Conquest of Pisa Pisa Its Commerce, Naval Wars with Genoa, and Decay Genoa her Contentions with Venice War of Chioggia Government of Genoa Venice her Origin and Prosperity Venetian Government its Vices Territorial Conquests of Venice Military System of Italy Com- panies of Adventure 1, foreign ; Guarnieri, Hawkwood and 2, native ; Braccio, Sforza Improvements in Military Service Arms, offensive and defensive Invention of Gunpowder Naples --First Line of Anjou Joanna I. Ladislaus Joanna II. Francis Sforza becomes Duke of Milan Alfonso King of Naples State of Italy during the Fifteenth Century Florence Rise of the Medici, and Ruin of their Adversaries Pretensions of Charles VIIL to Naples 390 CHAPTER IV. THE HISTORY OF SPAIN TO THE CONQUEST OF 6RANADA. Kingdom of the Visigoths Conquest of Spain by the Moors Gradual Revival of the Spanish Nation Kingdoms of Leon, Aragon, Navarre, and Castile successively formed Chartered Towns of Castile Mill- XX CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. tary Orders Conquest of Ferdinand III. and James of Aragon - Causes of the Delay in expelling the Moors History of Castile con- tinued Character of the Government Peter the Cruel House of Trastamare John II. Henry IV. Constitution of Castile Na- tional Assemblies or Cortes Their constituent Parts Right of Taxa- tion Legislation Privy Council of Castile Laws for the Protection of Liberty Imperfections of the Constitution Aragon its History in the fourteenth and fifteenth Centuries Disputed Succession Con Btitution of Aragon Free Spirit of its Aristocracy Privilege of Union Powers of the Justiza Legal Securities Illustrations Other Con- stitutional .Laws Valencia and Catalonia Union of two Crowns by the Marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella Conquest of Granada 485 NOTE TO CHAPTER IV 541 CHAPTER V. HISTORY OF GERMANY TO THE DIET OF WORMS IN 1495. Sketch of German History under the Emperors of the House of Saxony House of Franconia Henry IV. House of Suabia Frederic Bar- barossa Fall of Henry the Lion Frederic II. Extinction of House of Suabia Changes in the Germanic Constitution Electors Terri- torial Sovereignty of the Princes Rodolph of Hapsburgh State of the Empire after his Time Causes of Decline of Imperial Power House of Luxemburg Charles IV. Golden Bull House of Austria Frederic III. Imperial Cities Provincial States Maximilian Diet of Worms Abolition of private Wars Imperial Chamber Aulic Council Bohemia Hungary Switzerland 545 CHAPTER VI. HISTORY OF THE GREEKS AND SARACENS. Rise of Mohammedism Causes of its Success Progress of Saracen Arms Greek Empire Decline of the Khalifs The Greeks recover Part of their Losses The Turks The Crusades Capture of Con- stantinople by the Latins its Recovery by the Greeks The Moguls The Ottomans Danger at Constantinople Timur Capture of Constantinople by Mahomet II. Alarm of Europe 5!)0 CHAPTER VII. HISTORY OF ECCLESIASTICAL POWER DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. PART I. Wealth of the Clergy its Sources Encroachments on Ecclesiastical Property their J urisdiction arbitrative coercive their political CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. xxi Power Supremacy of the Crown Charlemagne Change after his Death, and Encroachments of the Church in the Ninth Century Primacy of the See of Rome its early Stage Gregory I. Council of Frankfort False Decretals Progress of Papal Authority Effects of Excommunication Lothaire State of the Church in the Tenth Century Marriage of Priests Simony Episcopal Elections Im- perial Authority over the Popes Disputes concerning Investitures Gregory VII. and Henry IV. Concordat of Calixtus Election by Chapters General System of Gregory VII. Progress of Papal Usur- pations in the Twelfth Century Innocent III. his Character and Schemes 614 VIEW OF THE STATE OF EUROPE DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. CHAPTER I. THE HISTORY OP FRANCE, FROM ITS CONQUEST BY CLOVIS TO THE INVASION OF NAPLES BY CHARLES VIII. PAKT I. Fall of the Soman Empire Invasion of Cloris First Race of French Kings Accession of Pepin State of Italy Charlemagne His Reign and Character Louis the Debonair His Successors Calamitous State of the Empire in the ninth and tenth Centuries Accession of Hugh Capet His first Successors Louis VII. --Philip Augustus Conquest of Normandy War in Languedoc Louis IX. Hia Character Digression upon the Crusades Philip III. Philip IV. Aggrandizement of French Monarchy under his Reign Reigns of his Children Question of Salic Law Claim of Edward III. BEFORE the conclusion of the fifth century the mighty fabric of empire which valor and policy had founded upon the seven hills of Borne was finally overthrown in all the west SubTerg i oa ^ of Europe by the barbarous nations from the north, the Roman whose martial energy and whose numbers were ir- Empm>> resistible. A race of men, formerly unknown or despised, had not only dismembered that proud sovereignty, but permanently settled themselves in its fairest prov- mentifof the inces, and imposed their yoke upon the ancient barbarous poswssors. The Vandals were masters of Africa ; the Suevi held part of Spain ; the Visigoths possessed the remainder, with a large portion of Gaul ; the Burgundiana occupied the provinces watered by the Rhone and Saone ; the Ostrogoths almost all Italy. The north-west of Gaul, between the Seine and the Loire, some writers have filled 16 INVASION OF CLOVIS. CHAP. I. PART L with an Armorican republic ; * while the remainder was still nominally subject to the Roman empire, and governed by a certain Syagrius, rather with an independent than a deputed authority. At this time Clovis, king of the Salian Franks, a tribe of invasion of Germans long connected with Rome, and originally ciovis. settled upon the right bank of the Rhine, 2 but who A.D. 486. na( j latterly penetrated as far as Tournay aud Cambray, 8 invaded Gaul, and defeated Syagrius at Soissons. The result of this victory was the subjugation of those prov- inces which had previously been considered as Roman. But as their allegiance had not been very strict, so their loss was not very severely felt ; since the emperors of Constantinople were not too proud to confer upon Clovis the titles of consul and patrician, which he was too prudent to refuse. 4 Some years after this, Clovis defeated the Alemanni, or 1 It is impossible not to speak scepti- cally as to this republic, or rather confed- eration of independent cities under the rule of their respective bishops, which Dubos has with great ingenuity raised upon a passage of Zosimus, but in defi- ance of the silence of Gregory, whose see of Tours bordered upon their supposed territory. Yet his hypothesis is not to be absolutely rejected, because it is by uo means deficient in internal proba- bility, and the early part of Gregory's history is brief and negligent. Dubos, Hist. Critique de 1'Etablissement des Francais dans les Gaules, t. i. p. 253. Gibbon, c. 38, after following Dubos in his text, whispers as usual, his suspicions in a note. [NOTE I.] 2 TNoiE II.] 8 The system of Pere Daniel who de- nies any permanent settlement of the Franks on the left bank of the Rhine before Clovis, seems incapable of being supported. It is difficult to resist the presumption that arises from the dis- covery of the tomb and skeleton of Childeric, father of Clovis, at Tournay, in 1653. See Montfaucon, Monumena de la Monarchic Francaise, tome i. p. 4 The theory of Dubos, who considers Clovis as a sort of lieutenant of the em- perors, and as governing the Roman part of his subjects by no other title, has justly seemed extravagant to later crit- ical inquirers into the history of France. But it may nevertheless be true that the connection between him and the empire, and the emblems of Roman magistracy which he bore, reconciled the conquered to their new masters. This is judiciously stated by the Duke de Nivernois, Mein. de 1'Acad. des Inscrip., tom xx. p. 174 [NOTE III.] In the sixth century, how- ever, the Greeks appear to have been nearly ignorant of Clovis's countrymen. Nothing can be made out of a passage in Procopius where he seems to men- tion the Armoricans under the name ' A.p(3dpvxot ; and Agathias gives a strangely romantic account of the Franks, whom he extols for their con- formity to Roman Laws, Tro/liret^ (if T(J 7ro/l/ld xP& VTai 'P&ytaiKy, KOL vouoif rot<; avroif, KOI TU, a/lAa 6/iot.uf u,[j.i re TU av/j.t36Xaia nal yd/iovf not TTJV rov $aou -depaTreiav vofiL^ovai .... ifjLoi ye SoK.ovai afyodpa elvai noafuoi re /cat dorewrarot, ovdev TS e%eiv rd diuA/MTTOV, jj /MVOV T& ftapjtaplKOV Tr/f aro'^f, not rb TTJC fyuvrjg idialjov. He goes on to commend their mutual union, and observes particularly that, in partitions of the kingdom, which had frequently been made, they had never taken up arms against each other, not polluted the land with civil bloodshed. One would almost believe him ironical. The history of Agathias conies down to A.D. 559. At this time many of the savage murders and other crimes which fill the pages of Gregory of Tours, a writer somewhat more likely to know the truth than a Byzantine rhetorician, had taken place. FBAXCE. HIS CONVERSION. Swabians, in a great battle at Zulpich, near Cologne. In consequence of a vow, as it is said, made during this engage- ment, 1 and at the instigation of his wife Clotilda, a princess of Burgundy, he became a convert to Christianity. It would be a fruitless inquiry whether he was sincere in this change ; but it is certain, at least, that no policy could have been more successful. The Arian sect, which had been early introduced among the barbarous, nations, was predominant, though apparently without in- tolerance, 2 in the Burgundian and Visigoth courts ; but the clergy of Gaul were strenuously attached to the Catholic side, and, even before his conversion, had favored the arms of Clovis. They now became his most zealous supporters, and were rewarded by him with artful gratitude, and by his descendants with lavish munificence. Upon the pretence of religion, he attacked Alaric, king of the Visigoths, and, by one great victory near Poitiers overthrow- ing their empire in Gaul, reduced them to the maritime province of Septimania, a narrow strip of coast between the 1 Gregory of Tours makes a very rhe- torical story of this famous vow, which, though we cannot disprove, it may be permitted to sospect. L. ii. c. 30. 2 Hist, de Languedoc, par Vicli et Vais- sette, tome i. p. 238; Gibbon, c. 37. A Bpecious objection might be drawn from the history of the Gothic monarchies in Italy, as well as Gaul and Spain, to the great principles of religious toleration. These Arian sovereigns treated their Catholic subjects, it may be said, with tenderness, leaving them in possession of every civil privilege, and were rewarded for it by their defection or sedition. But in answer to this it may be observed : 1. That the system of persecution adopt- ed by the Vandals in Africa succeeded no better, the Catholics of that province having risen against them upon the landing of Belisarius: 2. That we do not know what insults and discouragements the Catholics of Gaul and Italy may have endured, especially from the Arian bishops, in that age of bigotry; although the administrations of Alaric and Theo- doric were liberal and tolerant : 3. That the distinction of Arian and Catholic was intimately connected with that of Goth and Roman, of conqueror and conquered; so that it is difficult to separate the ef- fects of national from those of sectarian animosity. The tolerance of the Visigoth sove- reigns must not be praised without VOL. I. M. '2 making an exception for Buric, predeces- sor of Alaric. He was a prince of some eminent qualities, but so zealous in his religion as to bear hardly on his Catholic subjects. Sidonius Apollinaris loudly complains that no bishoprics were per- mitted to be filled, that the churches went to ruin, and that Arianifin made a great progress. (Fauriel, Hist, de la Ganle Meridionale, vol. i. p. 578. Under Alaric himself, however, as well as under the earlier kings of the Visigothic dy- nasty, a more liberal spirit prev:ii!< 1. Salvinn, about the middle of the fifth century, extols the Visigothic govern- ment, in comparison with that of the empire, whose vices and despotism had met with a deserved termination. Eu- cherius speaks of the Burgundians in the same manner. (Id. ibid, and vol. ii. p. 28.) Yet it must have been in it.-elf mortifying to live in subjection to bar- barians and heretics; not to mention the hospitality^ as it was called, which the natives were obliged to exercise towards the invaders, by ceding two thirds of their lands. What, then, must the West- ern empire have been, when such a con- dition was comparatively enviable ! But it is more than probable that the Gaulish bishops subject to the Visigoths hailed the invasion of the Franks with sanguine hope, and were undoubtedly great gain- ers by the exchange. 18 DESCENDANTS OF CLOVIS. CHAP. I. Rhone and the Pyrenees. The last exploits of Clovis were the reduction of certain independent chiefs of his own tribe and family, who were settled in the neighborhood of the Rhine. 1 All these he put to death by force or treachery ; for he was cast in the true mould of conquerors, and may justly be ranked among the first of his class, both for the splendor and the guiltiness of his ambition. 2 Clovis left four sons ; one illegitimate, or at least born be- fore his conversion ; and three by his queen Clotilda. These HU de- four made, it is said, an equal partition of his scendants. dominions, which comprehended not only France, A.D. 611. but the western and central parts of Germany, besides Bavaria, and perhaps Swabia, which were governed by their own dependent, but hereditary, chiefs. Thierry, the eldest, had what was called Austrasia, the eastern or Ger- man division, and fixed his capital at Metz ; Clodomir, at Orleans ; Childebert, at Paris ; and Clotaire, at Soissons. 8 1 Modern historians, in enumerating these reguli, call one of them king of Mans. But it is difficult to understand how a chieftain, independent of Clovis, could have been settled in that part of France. In fact, Gregory of Tours, our only authority, does not say that this prince, RegnoinerLs, was king of Mans, but that he was put to death in that city : apud Cenomauuis civitatem jussu Chlodovechi interfectus est. The late French writers, as far as I have observed, continue to place a king- dom at Mana. It is certain, neverthe- less, that Gregory of Tours, and they have no other evidence, does not assert this ; and his expressions rather lead to the contrary; since, if Regnomeris were king of Mans, why should we not have been informed of it? -It is, indeed, im- possible to determine such a point nega- tively from our scanty materials ; but if a Frank kingdom had been formed at Mans before the battle of Soissous, this must considerably alter the received no- tions of the history of Gaul in the fifth eentury ; and it seems difficult to under- stand how it could have sprung up after- wards during the reign of Clovis. 2 The reader will be gratified by an ad- mirable memoir, by the Duke de Niver- nois, on the policy of Clovis, in the twentieth volume of the Academy of In- acriptions. 3 Quatuor filii regnum accipiunt, et inter se requa lance dividunt. Greg. Tur 1. iii. c. 1. It would rather perplex a geographer to make an equal division of Clovis's empire into portions, of which Paris, Orleans, Metz, and Soissons should be the respective capitals. I apprehend, in fact, that Gregory's expression is not very precise. The kingdom of Soissons seems to have been the least of the four, and that of Austrasia the greatest. But the partitions made by these princes were exceedingly complex; insulated fragments of territory, and even undi- vided shares of cities, being allotted to the worse-provided brothers, by way of compensation, out of the larger king doms. It would be very difficult to ascertain the limits of these minor mon- archies. But the French empire was al- ways considered as one, whatever might be the number of its inheritors; and from accidental circumstances it was so frequently reunited as fully to keep up this notion. M. Fauriel endeavors to show the equality of this partition (Hist, de la Gaule Meridiouale. vol. ii. p. 92. ) But he is obliged to suppose that Germany beyond the Rhine, part of which owned the dominion of Clovis, was counted aa nothing, not being inhabited by Franks. It was something, nevertheless, in the scale of power ; since from this fertile source the Austnisian kings continually recruited their armies. Aquitaine, that is, the provinces south of the Loire, was divided into three, or rather perhaps two portions. For though Thierry and Childe- bert had considerable territoriea.it seems Dot certain that Clodomir took any share, and improbable that Clotaire had oue. FKAKCK. DESCENDANTS OF CLOYIS. 19 During their reigns the monarchy was aggrandized by the con- quest of Burgundy. Clotaire, the youngest brother, ^ ultimately reunited all the kingdoms ; but upon his death they were again divided among his four sons, and brought together a second time by another Clo- 61 _ taire, the grandson to the first. It is a weary and unprofitable task to follow these changes in detail, through scenes of tumult and bloodshed, in which the eye meets with no sunshine, nor can rest upon any interesting spot. It would be difficult, as Gibbon has justly observed, to find any- where more vice or less virtue. The names of two queens are distinguished even in that age for the magnitude of their crimes : Fredegonde, the wife of Chilperic, of whose atroci- ties none have doubted ; and Brunehaut, queen of Austrasia, who has met with advocates in modern times, less, perhaps, from any fair presumptions of her innocence than from com- passion for the cruel death which she underwent. 1 Thierry, therefore, king of Austrasia, may be reckoned the best provided of the brethren. It will be obvious from the map that the four capitals, Metz, Sois- sons. Paris, and Orleans, are situated at no great distance from each other, rela- tively to the whole of France. They were, therefore, in the centre offeree; and the brothers might have lent assis- tance to each other in case of a national revolt. The cause of this complexity in the partition of France among the sons of Clovis has been conjectured by Dubos, with whom Sismondi (vol. i. p. 242) agrees, to have been their desire of own- ing as subjects an equal number of Franks. This is supported by a passage in Agathias, quoted by the former, Hist, de 1'Etablissement, vol. ii. p. 413. Others have fancied that Aquitaine was reck- oned too delicious a morsel to be enjoyed by only one brother. In the second great partition, that of 567 (for tnat of 561 did not last long), when Sigebert, Gontran, and Chilperic took the kingdoms of Aus- trasia, Burgundy, and what was after- wards called Neustria, the southern provinces were again equally divided. Thus Marseilles fell to the king of Paris, or Neustria, while Aix and Avignon were in the lot of Burgundy. 1 Every history will give a sufficient epitome of the Merovi igian dynasty. The facts of these tunes are of little other importance than as they impress on the mind a thorough notion of the extreme wickedness of almost ever/ person con- cerned in them, and consequently of the state to which society was reduced But there is no advantage in crowding the memory with barbarian wars and assassinations. [NOTE IV.] For the question about Brunehaut's character, who has had partisans al- most as enthusiastic as those of Mary of Scotland, the reader may consult Pas- quier, Recherches de la France, 1. viii., or Telly, Hist, de France, tome i., on one side, and a dissertation by Gaillard, in the Memoirs of the Academy of Inscrip- tions, tome xxx., on the other. The last is unfavorable to Brunehaut, and per- fectly satisfactory to my judgment. Brunehaut was no unimportant per- sonage in this history. She had become hateful to the Australian aristocracy by her Gothic blood, and still more by her Roman principles of government. There was evidently a combination to throw off the yoke of civilized tyranny. It was a great conflict, which ended in the virtual dethronement of the house of Clovis. Much, therefore, may have been exag- gerated by Fredegarius, a Burgundian by birth, in relating the crimes of Brune- haut. But, unhappily, the antecedent presumption, in the history of that age, is always on the worse side. She was un- questionably endowed with a masculine energy of mind, and very superior to such a mere imp of audacious wickedness as Fredegronde Brunehaut left a great and almost fabulous name ; public cause- ways, towers, castles, in different parts of France, are popularly ascribed to her. 20 MAYORS OF THE PALACE. CHAP. I. PART But after Dagobert, son of Clotaire II., the kings of A * 68-C38 France dwindled into personal insignificance, and are generally treated by later historians as insen- degeneracy. sati, or idiots. 1 The whole power of the kingdom Mayors of devolved upon the mayors of the palace, originally the palace. o ffi cers o f the household, through whom petitions or representations were laid before the king. 2 The weakness of sovereigns rendered this office important, and still greater weakness suffered it to become elective ; men of energetic talents and ambition united it with military command ; and the history of France for half a century presents no names more conspicuous than those of Ebroin and Grimoald, may- ors of Neustria and Austrasia, the western and eastern divi- sions of the French monarchy. 8 These, however, met with violent ends ; but a more successful usurper of the royal authority was Pepin Heristal, first mayor, and after\s r ards duke, of Austrasia ; who united with almost an avowed sovereignty over that division a paramount command over the French or Neustrian provinces, where nominal kings of the Merovingian family were still permitted to exist. 4 This au- thority he transmitted to a more renowned hero, his son, Charles Martel, who, after some less important exploits, was called upon to encounter a new and terrible enemy. The Saracens, after subjugating Spain, had penetrated into the "32 ver y heart of France. Charles Martel gained a complete victory over them between Tours and Poitiers, 5 in which 300,000 Mohammedans are hyperbolically It has even been suspected by some that that denominated Neustria, to which Bur- she suggested the appellation of Brune- gundy was generally appendant, though child in the Nibelungeu Lied. That there distinctly governed by a mayor of its is no resemblance in the story, or in the own election. But Aquitaine, the exact character, courage excepted, of the two bounds of which I do not know, was, heroines, cannot be thought an objec- from the time of Dagobert I., separated tion. from the re.st of the monarchy, under a 1 An ingenious attempt is made by the ducal dynasty, sprung from Aribert, Abbe Vertot, Mem. de 1' Academic, tome brother of that monarch. [NOTE VI.] vi., to rescue these monarchs from this [ 4 NOTE VII.] long-established imputation. But the 5 Tours is above seventy miles distant leading fact is irresistible, that all the from Poitiers; but I do not find that any royal authority was lost during their French antiquary has been able to ascer- reigns. However, the best apology seems tain the place of this great battle with to be, that, after the victories of Pepin more precision; which is remarkable, Heristal, the Merovingian kings were, in since, after so immense a slaughter, we effect, conquered, and their inefficiency should expect the testimony of ''grandia was a matter of necessary submission to effossis ossa sepulcris." It is now, how- a master. ever, believed that the slaughter at the 2 [NOTE V.] battle near Poitiers was by no means 3 The original kingdoms of Soissons, immense, and even that the Saracens Paris, and Orleans were consolidated into retired without a decisive action (Sis- FRANCE. ACCESSION OF PEPIN. 21 asserted to have fallen. The reward of thia victory was thp province of Septimania, which the Saracens had conquered from the Visigoths. 1 Such powerful subjects were not likely to remain long con- tented without the crown ; but the circumstances un- Chan . der which it was transferred from the race of Clovis the royal are connected with one of the most important revo- Aeei'sion lutions in the history of Europe. The mayor Pe- of Pepin. pin, inheriting his father Charles Martel's talents and ambition, made, in the name and with the consent of the nation, a solemn reference to the Pope Zacharias, as to the deposition of Childeric III., under whose nominal authority he himself was reigning. The decision was favorable ; that he who possessed the power should also bear the title of king. The unfortunate Merovingian was dismissed into a convent, and" the Franks, with one consent, raised Pepin to the throne, the founder of a more illustrious dynasty. 2 In order to judge of the importance of this revolution to the see of Rome, as well as to France, we must turn our eyes upon the affairs of Italy. The dominion of the Ostrogoths was annihilated by the arms of Belisarius and Narses in the sixth century, The Lom- and that nation appears no more in history. But bards - not long afterwards the Lombards, a people for some time settled in Pannonia, not only subdued that northern part of Italy which has retained their name, but, extending themselves southward, formed the powerful duchies of Spoleto and Bene- vento. The residence of their kings was in Pavia ; but the hereditary vassals, who held those two duchies, might be mondi, ii. 132; Micbelet, ii. 13.) There can Was not this the fatal error by which be no doubt but that the battle was Roderic had lost his kingdom? Was it fought much nearer to Poitiers than to possible that the Saracens could have Tours. retained any permanent possession of The victory of Charles Martel has im- France except by means of a victory ? mortalized his name, and may justly be And did not the contest upon the broad reckoned among those few battles of champaign of Pnitou afford them a coir which a contrary event would have es- siderable prospect of success, which a sentially varied the drama of the world more cautious policy would have with in all its subsequent scenes ; wHh Mara- held? thon, Arbela, the Metaurus, Chalons, ' This conquest was completed by and Tjeipsic. Yet do we not judge a lit- Pepin in 759. The inhabitant!! preserved tie too much by the event, and follow, as their liberties by treaty; and Vijssette usual, in the wake of fortune? Has not deduces from this solemn assurance the more frequent experience condemned privileges of Languedoc. Hist. d Lang. those who set the fate of empires upon a tome i. p. 412. single cast, and risk a general battle with 2 [NoTE VIII.] iuvaders, whose greater peril is in delay ? 22 CHARLEMAGNE. CHAP. I. PAKT I. deemed almost independent sovereigns. 1 The rest of Italy was governed by exarchs, deputed by the Greek emperors, and fixed at Ravenna. In Rome itself neither the people nor the bishops, who had already conceived in part their schemes of ambition, were much inclined to endure the supe- riority of Constantinople ; yet their disaffection was counter- balanced by the inveterate hatred as well as jealousy, with which they regarded the Lombards. But an impolitic and intemperate persecution, carried on by two or three Greek emperors against a favorite superstition, the worship of im- ages, excited commotions throughout Italy, of which the Lom- They bards took advantage, and easily wrested the ex- reduce the archate of Ravenna from the eastern empire. It txaronate _ . _ , . of Ravenna, was tar from the design ot the popes to see their A.D. <52; nearest enemies so much aggrandized; and any effectual assistance from the emperor Constantine Coprony- mus would have kept Rome still faithful. But having no hope from his arms, and provoked by his obstinate intolerance, the pontiffs had recourse to France ; * and the service they had rendered to Pepin led to reciprocal obligations of the which greatest magnitude. At the request of Stephen Pepin II. the new king of France descended from the and? bestows Alps, drove the Lombards from their recent con- on the pope. q ues ts, and conferred them upon the pope. This memorable donation nearly comprised the modern provinces of Romagna and the March of Ancona. 8 The state of Italy, which had undergone no change for nearly two centuries, was now rapidly verging to a great revolution. Under the shadow of a mighty name Charlemagne. , , -11 i i ^i . c- the Greek empire had concealed the extent ot its A ' D- ' decline. That charm was now broken : and the Lombard kingdom, which had hitherto appeared the only competitor in the lists, proved to have lost his own energy in awaiting the occasion for its display. France was far more than a match for the power of Italy, even if she had not been guided by the towering ambition and restless ac- 1 The history, character, and policy of tures to Charles Martel as well as to the Lombards are well treated by Gib- Pepin himself; the habitual sagacity of bon, c. 45. See, too, the fourth and fifth the court of Rome perceiving the growth books of Giarinone, and some papers by of anew western monarchy, which would Gaillard in the Memoirs of the Academy be, in faith and arms, their surest allj . of Inscriptions, tomes xxxii., xxxv., xlv. Miiratori, Ann. d : Ital. A.D. 741. SThore had been some previous over- 3 Giaunoue, 1. v. c. 2. FRANCE. CONQUESTS OF CHAKLEMAGNE. 23 tivity of the son of Pepin. It was almost the first exploit of Charlemagne, after the death of his brother A-D 772 . Carlomau had reunited the Frankish empire under He conquers his dominion, 1 to subjugate the kingdom of Lorn- Lombardy; barely. Neither Pavia nor Verona, its most con- A - D - 774 - siderable cities, interposed any material delay to his arms : and the chief resistance he encountered was from the dukes of Friuli and Benevento, the latter of whom could never be brought into thorough subjection to the conqueror. Italy, however, be the cause what it might, seems to have tempted Charlemagne far less than the dark forests of Germany. For neither the southern provinces, nor Sicily, could have with- stood his power if it had been steadily directed against them. Even Spain hardly drew so much of his attention 11 / "li i x n u partofSpam; as the splendor or the prrze might naturally have excited. He gained, however, a very important accession to his empire, by conquering from the Saracens the territory contained between the Pyrenees and the Ebro. This was formed into the Spanish March, governed by the count of Barcelona, part of which at least must be considered as ap- pertaining to France till the twelfth century. 2 But the most tedious and difficult achievement of Charle- magne was the reduction of the Saxons. The .,,,,. . , . T T , , and Saxony. wars wrth this nation, who occupied nearly the modern circles of Westphalia and Lower Saxony, lasted for thirty years. Whenever the conqueror withdrew his armies, or even his person, the Saxons broke into fresh rebellion, which his unparalleled rapidity of movement seldom failed to crush without delay. From such perseverance on either side, destruction of the weaker could alone result. A large colony of Saxons were finally transplanted into Flanders and Brabant, countries hitherto ill-peopled, in which their descend- 1 Carloman, younger brother of Charles, kings of France, till some time after their took the Austrasian or German provinces own title had been merged in that of of the empire. The custom of partition kings of Aragon. In 1180 legal instru- was so fully established, that those wise ments executed in Catalonia ceased to be and ambitious princes, Charles Martel, dated by the year of the king of Frauee; lepin, and Charlemagne himself, did not and as there certainly remained no other venture to thwart the public opinion by mark of dependence, the separation of introducing primogeniture. Carloman the principality may.be referred to that would not long have stood against his year. But the rights of the French brother; who, after his death, usurped crown over it were finally ceded by the inheritance of his two infant chil- Louis IX. in 1258. De Maroa, Jlarca dren. Hispanica, p. 514. Art de verifier les 2 The counts of Barcelona always ac- Dates, t. i; p. 291. knjwledged the feudal superiority of the 24 , EXTENT OF HIS DOMINIONS. CHAP. I. PAIU I. ants preserved the same unconquerable spirit of resistance to oppression. Many fled to the kingdoms of Scandimivia, and, mingling with the Northmen, who were just preparing to run their memorable career, revenged upon the children and sub- jects of Charlemagne the devastation of Saxony. The rem- nant embraced Christianity, their aversion to which bud been the chief cause of their rebellions, and acknowledged the sovereignty of Charlemagne a submission which even Witikind, the second Arminius of Germany, after such irresistible conviction of her destiny, did not disdain to make. But they retained, in the main, their own laws ; they were governed by a duke of their own nation, if not of their own election ; and for many ages they were dis- tinguished by their original character among the nations of Germany. 1 The successes of Charlemagne on the eastern frontier of his empire against the Sclavonians of Bohemia and Huns or Avars of Pannonia, though obtained with less cost, were hardly less eminent. In all his wars the newly conquered nations, or those whom fear had made dependent allies, were employed to subjugate their neighbors, and the inces- sant waste of fatigue and the sword was supplied by a fresh population that swelled the expanding circle of dominion. Extent of his I do not know that the limits of the new western dominions, empire are very exactly defined by contemporary writers, nor would it be easy to appreciate the degree of subjection in which the Sclavonian tribes were held. As an organized mass of provinces, regularly governed by imperial officers, it seems to have been nearly bounded, in Germany, by the Elbe, the Saale, the Bohemian mountains, and a line drawn from thence crossing the Danube above Vienna, and prolonged to the Gulf of Istria. Part of Dalmatia was com- prised in the duchy of Friuli. In Italy the empire extended not much beyond the modern frontier of Naples, if we exclude, as was the fact, the duchy of Benevento from any- thing more than a titular subjection. The Spanish boundary, as has been said already, was the Ebi-o. 2 1 [NOTE IX.] the Oder and frontiers of Poland. The 2 I follow iu this the map of Koch, in authors of L'Art de verifier les Dates his Tableau des Revolutions dc TEurope, extend it to the Raah. It would require tome i. That of Vaugoudy, Paris, 1752, a long examination to give a precise includes the dependent Sclavonic tribes, statement. and carries the limit of the empire to FRANCE. CORONATION OF CHARLEMAGNE. 25 A seal was put to the glory of Charlemagne when Leo III., in the name of the Roman people, placed upon riiscorona- his head the imperial crown. His father, Pepin, j r M Km ' had borne the title of Patrician, and he had him- A.D. 800. self exercised, with that title, a regular sovereignty over Rome. 1 Money was coined in his name, and an oath of fidel- ity was taken by the clergy and people. But the appellation of ISmperor seemed to place his authority over all his subjects on a new footing. It was full of high and indefinite preten- sion, tending to overshadow the free election of the Franks by a fictitious descent from Augustus. A fresh oath of fidel- ity to him as emperor was demanded from his subjects. His own discretion, however, prevented him from affecting those more despotic prerogatives which the imperial name might still be supposed to convey. 2 In analyzing the characters of heroes it is hardly possible to separate altogether the share of fortune from their own. The epoch made by Charlemagne in the history of the world, the illustrious families which prided themselves in him as their progenitor, the very legends of romance, which are full of his fabulous exploits, have cast a lustre around his head, and testify the greatness that lias em- bodied itself -in his name. None, indeed, of Charlemagne's wars can be compared with the Saracenic victory of Charles Martel ; but that was a contest for freedom, his for conquest ; and fame is more partial to successful aggression than to pat- riotic resistance. As a scholar, his acquisitions were probably little superior to those of his uninspected son ; and in several points of view the glory of Charlemagne might be extenuated i The Patricians of the lower empire abrogated. Muratori, Annali d'ltalia, were governors sent from Constantinople ad. ann. 772; St. Marc, t. i. p. 356, 372. to the provinces. Rome had long been A mosaic, still extant in the Uiteru n accustomed to their name and power, palace, represents our Saviour giving the The subjection of the Romans, both keys to St. Peter with one hand, and clergy and laity, to Charlemagne, as well with the other a standard to a crowned before as after he bore the imperial prince, bearing the inscription Coustan- name, seems to be established. See Dis- tine V. But Const.intine V. did not sertation Uistorique, par le Blanc, sub- begin to reign till 780 ; and if this piece joined to his Traite de Monnoyes de of workmanship was made under lo France, p. 18; and St. Marc, Abrege III., as the authors of IV Art de verifier Chronologique de 1'IIistoire de 1'Italie, les Dates imagine, it could not be earlier t. i. The first of these writers does not than 795. T. i. p. 262; Muratori ad allow that Pepin exercised any authority aim. 798. However this may be. there at Rome. A good deal of obscurity rests can be no question that a considerable over its internal government for near share of jurisdiction and authority W.H fifty years; but there is some reason to practically exercised by the popes during believe that the nominal sovereignty of this period. Vid. Murat. ad anu. 789. the Greek emperors was not entirely a [NOTE X.] 26 CHARACTER OF CHARLEMAGNE. CHAP. I. TART I. by an analytical dissection. 1 But rejecting a mode of judging equally uncandid and fallacious, we shall find that he pos- sessed in everything that grandeur of conception which dis- tinguishes extraordinary minds. Like Alexander, he seemed born for universal innovation : in a life restlessly active, we see him reforming the coinage and establishing the legal divisions of money ; gathering about him the learned of every country ; f<< mding schools and collecting libraries ; interfering, but with the tone of a king, in religious controversies ; aiming, though prematurely, at the formation of a naval force ; attempting, for the sake of commerce, the magnificent enterprise of uniting the Rhine and Danube ; 2 and meditating to mould the discordant codes of Roman and barbarian laws into an uniform system. The great qualities of Charlemagne were, indeed, alloyed by the vices of a barbarian and a conqueror. Nine wives, whom he divorced with very little ceremony, attest the license of his private life, which his temperance and frugality can hardly be said to redeem. Unsparing of blood, though not constitutionally cruel, and wholly indifferent to the means which his ambition prescribed, he beheaded in one day four thousand Saxons an act of atrocious butchery, after which his persecuting edicts, pronouncing the pain of death against those who refused baptism, or even who ate flesh during Lent, seem scarcely worthy of notice. This union of bar- barous ferocity with elevated views of national improvement might suggest the parallel of Peter the Great. But the degrading habits and brute violence of the Muscovite place him at an immense distance from the restorer of the empire. A strong sympathy for intellectual excellence was the leading characteristic of Charlemagne, and this undoubtedly biassed him in the chief political error of his conduct that of encouraging the power and pretensions of the hierarchy. But, perhaps, his greatest eulogy is written in the disgraces of succeeding times and the miseries of Europe. He stands alone, like a beacon upon a waste, or a rock in the broad 1 Eginhard attests his ready eloquence, 2 See an essay upon this project in the his perfect mastery of Latin, his knowl- Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions, edge of Greek so far as to read it, his t. xviii. The rivers which were designed acquisitions in logic, grammar, rhetoric, to form the links of this junction were and astronomy. But the anonymous the Altniuhl, the Regnitz, and the Main ; authors of the life of Louis the Debonair but their want of depth, and the spongi- attributes most of these accomplishments ness of the soil, appear to present insu- to that unfortunate prince. perable impediments to its completion. FRANCE. LOUIS THE DEBONAIR. 27 ocean. His sceptre was the bow of Ulysses, which could not be drawn by any weaker hand. In the dark ages of European history the reign of Charlemagne affords a solitary resting- place between two long periods of turbulence and igno- miny, deriving the advantages of contrast both from that of the preceding dynasty and of a posterity for whom he had formed an empire which they were unworthy and unequal to maintain. 1 Pepin, the eldest son of Charlemagne, died before him, leaving a natural son, named Bernard 2 Even Lou ^ the if he had been legitimate, the right of representa- Debonair. tion was not at all established during these ages ; A ' indeed, the general prejudice seems to have inclined against it. Bernard, therefore, kept only the kingdom of Italy, which had been transferred to his father ; while Louis, the younger son of Charlemagne, inherited the empire. 8 But, in a short time, Bernard, having attempted a rebellion against his uncle, was sentenced to lose his eyes, which occasioned his death a cruelty more agreeable to the pre- vailing tone of manners than to the character of Louis, who bitterly reproached himself for the severity he had been per- suaded to use. Under this prince, called by the Italians the Pious, and by the French the Debonair, or Good-natured, 4 the mighty 1 The Life of Charlemagne, by Gaillard, without being made perhaps so interest- ing as it ought to have been, presents an adequate view both of his actions and character. Schmidt, Hist, des Allemands, tome ii., appears to me a superior writer. An exception to the general suffrage of historians in favor of Charlemagne is made by Sismondi. He seems to consider him as having produced no permanent effect; the empire, within half a century, having been dismembered, and relapsing into the merest weakness : " Tellernent la grandeur acquise par les armes est trornpeuse, quand elle ne se donne pour appui aucune institution bienfaisante ; et tellement le regne d'un grand roi deineure Bterile, quand il ne fonde pas la liberte do ses concitoyens." (Vol. iii. p. 97.) But certainly some of Charlemagne's in- stitutions were likely to prove beneficial if they could have been maintained, such as the Scabini and the Missi Dominici. And when Sismondi hints that Charle- magne ought to have given a charte con- stitutionne'le, it is difficult not to smile at such a proof of his inclination to judge past times by a standard borrowed from the theories of his own. M. Guizot asks whether the nation was left in the samo state in which the emperor found it. Nothing fell with him, he remarks, but the central government, which could only have been preserved by a series of mea like himself. (Essais sur 1'IIist. de France, pp. 276-294; Hist, de la Civilisa- tion en France, Lecon ii. p. 39.) Some, indeed, of his institutions cannot be said to have long survived him; but this again must be chiefly attributed to tli8 weakness of his successors. No one man of more than common ability arose in the Carlovingian dynasty after himself, a fact very disadvantageous to the per- manence of his policy, and perhaps rathel surprising : though it is a theory of Sis- mondi that royal families naturally dwin- dle into imbecility, especially in a semi- barbarous condition of society. 2 A contemporary author, Thegan, ap. Muratori, A.D. 810, asserts that Bernard was born of a concubine. I do not know why modern historians represent it other- wise. a [NOTE XI.] * These names, as a French writer ol> 28 HIS MISFORTUNES AND ERRORS. CHAP. 1 PAKT i structure of his father's power began rapidly to decay. I do not know that Louis deserves so much contempt as he has undergone ; but historians have in general more indulgence for splendid crimes than for the weaknesses of virtue. There was no defect in Louis's understanding or courage ; he was accomplished in martial exercises, and in all the learning which an education, excellent for that age, could supply. No one was ever more anxious to reform the abuses of adminis- tration ; and whoever compares his capitularies with those of Charlemagne will perceive that, as a legislator, he was even superior to his father. The fault lay entirely in his heart ; and this fault was nothing but a temper too soft and a con- science too strict. 1 It is not wonderful that the empire should have been speedily dissolved ; a succession of such men as Charles Martel, Pepin, and Charlemagne, could alone have preserved its integrity ; but the misfortunes of Louis and his people were immediately owing to the following errors of his conduct. Soon after his accession Louis thought fit to associate his . , eldest son, Lothaire, to the empire, and to confer Hismiafor- .' ' . 1 ' . tunes aud the provinces of Bavaria and Aquitame, as sub- errors, ordinate kingdoms, upon the two younger, Louis *' D ' ' and Pepin. The step was, in appearance, conform- able to his father's policy, who had acted towards himself in a similar manner. But such measures are not subject to general rules, and exact a careful regard to characters and circumstances. The principle, however, which regulated this division was learned from Charlemagne, and could alone, if strictly pursued, have given unity and permanence to the em- pire. The elder brother was to preserve his superiority over the others, so that they should neither make peace nor war, nor even give answer to ambassadors, without his consent. Upon the death of either no further partition was to be made ; but whichever of his children might become the popular choice was to inherit the whole kingdom, under the same su- call dcbonnaire. Synonymes de Kou- sette attests the goodness of his govern- band, torn. i. p. 257. Our English word ment iu Aquitaine, which he held as a debonair is hardly used in the same subordinate kingdom during his father's sense, if indeed it can be called an Eng- life. It extended from the Loire to the lish word; but I have not altered Lou- Ebro, so that the trust was not con- Is's appellation, by which he is so well temptible. Hist, de Languedoc, torn. i. known. p. 476. FRANCE. PARTITION OF THE EMPIRE. 29 periority of the head of the family. 1 This compact was, from the beginning, disliked by the younger brothers ; and an event, upon which Louis does not seem to have calculated, soon dis- gusted his colleague Lothaire. Judith of Bavaria, the emper- or's second wife, an ambitious woman, bore him a sen, by name Charles, whom both parents were naturally anxicus to place on an equal footing with his brothers. But this could only be done at the expense of Lothaire, who was ill disposed to see his empire still further dismembered for this child of a second bed. Louis passed his life in a struggle with three undutiful sons, who abused his paternal kindness by constant rebellions. These were rendered more formidable by the concurrence of a different class of enemies, whom it had been another er- ror of the emperor to provoke. Charlemagne had assumed a thorough control and supremacy over the clergy ; and his son was perhaps still more vigilant in chastising their irregulari- ties, and reforming their rules of discipline. But to this, which they had been compelled to bear at the hands of the first, it was not equally easy for the second to obtain their submission. Louis therefore drew on himself the inveterate enmity of men. who united with the turbulence of martial no- bles a skill in managing those engines of offence which were peculiar to their order, and to which the implicit devotion of his character laid him very open. Yet, after many vicissi- tudes of fortune, and many days of ignominy, his A . D . 340. wishes were eventually accomplished. Charles, partition of his youngest son, surnamed the Bald, obtained, theem P ire upon his death, most -part of France, while Ger- A- D- 847- many fell to the share of Louis, and the rest of hiTsong the imperial dominions, with the title, to the eldest, Lothaire, T ^i TIL- i-i- J.T- TJ. f Louis, and Lothaire. Ihis partition was the result of a san- cuariesthe guinary, though short, contest ; and it gave a fatal Bald - blow to the empire of the Franks. For the treaty of Ver- dun, in 843, abrogated the sovereignty that had been attached to the eldest brother and to the imperial name in former par- titions : each held his respective kingdom as an independent right. 2 This is the epoch of a final separation between the Ve veuy, tome n., p. 10. J.ne expressions of this treaty are perhaps equivocal; but ITS DISMEMBEKM ENT. CHAP. I. PAKT L French and German members of the empire. Its millenary was celebrated by some of the latter nation in 1843. 1 The subsequent partitions made among the children of these brothers are of too rapid succession to be here related. In about forty years the empire was nearly reunited under Charles the Fat, son of Louis of Germany ; but his short and inglorious reign ended in his deposition. From this time the possession of Italy was contested among her na- tive princes ; Germany fell at first to an illegitimate descendant of Charlemagne, and in a short time menTafThe was entirely lost by his family ; two kingdoms, af- empire. terwards united, were formed by usurpers out of what was then called Burgundy, and comprised the provinces between the Rhone and the Alps, with Franche Comte, and great part of Switzerland. 2 In France the Carlovingian kings continued for another century ; but their line was inter- rupted two or three times by the election or usur- pation of a powerful family, the counts of Paris and Orleans, who ended, like the old mayors of the palace, in dispersing the phantoms of royalty they had professed to serve. 8 Hugh Capet, the Decline of the Carlo- vingian family. Charles the Fat, em- peror, 881. King of France, 885. Deposed. 887. Dismember- Kings of I' ranee. Eudes, 887. Charles the Simple, 898. Robert? 922. iThe partition, which the treaty of Verdun confirmed, had been made by commissioners specially appointed in the preceding year. " Le nombre total des commissaires fut porte a trois cents ; ils se distribuerent toute la surface de I'em- pire, qu'ils s'engagerentaparcouriravant le mois d' aout de 1'annee suivante : cet immense travail etoit en effet alors neces- Baire pour se procurer les connoissances qu'on obtientaujourd'hui en un instant, par 1 inspection d'une carte geograph- ique: malheureusement on ecrivoit a cette dpoque aussi peu qu'on lisoit. Le rapport des commissaires ne fut point mis par ecrit, ou point depose dans les archives. S'il nous avoit ete conserve, ce seroit le plus curieux de tous les mon- umens su.- 1'etat de 1'Europe au moyen age." (Sismondi, Hist, des Franc, iii. 76.) For this he quotes Nithard, a contem- porary historian. In the division made on this occasion the kingdom of France, which fell to Charles the Bald, had for its eastern boundary, the Meuse, the Saone, and the Rhone ; which, nevertheless, can only be understood of the Upper Meuse, since Brabant was certainly not comprised in It. Lothaire, the elder brother, besides Italy, had a kingdom called Lorraine, from his name (Lotharingia), extending from the mouth of the Rhine to Provence, bounded by that river on one frontier, by France ou the other. Louis took all be- yond the Rhine, and was usually styled The Germanic. 2 These kingdoms were denominated Provence .and Transjurane Burgundy. The latter was very small, comprising only part of Switzerland ; but its second sovereign, Hodolph II., acquired by treaty almost the whole of the former; and the two united were called the king- dom of Aries. This lasted from 933 to 1032, when Rodolph III. bequeathed his dominions to the emperor Conrad II. Art de verifier les Dates, torn. ii. p. 427-432. 3 The family of Capet is generally ad- mitted to possess the most ancient pedi- gree of any sovereign line in Europe. Its succession through males is unequivo- cally deduced from Robert the Brave, made governor of Anjou in 864, and father of Eudes king of France, and of Robert, who was chosen by a party in 922, though, as Charles the Simple was still acknowledged in some provinces, it FRANCE. STATE OF THE PEOPLE. 3] representative of this house upon the death of Ralph, 923. Louis V., placed himself upon the throne; thus founding the third and most permanent race of French sovereigns. Before this happened, the de- Louis v. scendants of Charlemagne had sunk into insignifi- ^ ntsof cance, and retained little more of France than the Paris, city of Laon. The rest of the kingdom had been seized by the powerful nobles, who, with the nominal fidelity of the feudal system, maintained its practical independence and re- bellious spirit. 1 These were times of great misery to the people, and the worst, perhaps, that Europe has ever known. Even under Charlemagne, we have abundant proofs of the ca- state of the lamities which the people suffered. The light P e P' e - which slrone around him was that of a consuming fire. The free proprietors who had once considered themselves as only called upon to resist foreign invasion, were harassed by end- less expeditions, and dragged away to the Baltic Sea, or the banks of the Drave. Many of them, as we learn from his Capitularies, became ecclesiastics to avoid military conscrip- tion. 2 But far worse must have been their state under the lax government of succeeding times, when the dukes and counts, no longer checked by the vigorous administration of Charlemagne, were at liberty to play the tyrants in their sev- eral territories, of which they now became almost the sover- eigns. The poorer landholders accordingly were forced to bow their necks to the yoke ; and, either by compulsion or through hope of being better protected, submitted their inde- pendent patrimonies to the feudal tenure. is uncertain whether he ought to be independent and bound by no feudal tie. counted in the royal list It is, more- (Lettres sur 1'Hist. de France, Lett. IX.) over, highly probable that Robert the 2 Capitularia, A. D. 805. Whoever pos- Brave was descended, equally through sessed three mansi of alodial property males, from St. Arnoul, who died in 640, was called upon for personal service, or and consequently nearly allied to the at least to furnish a substitute. Nigellus, Carlovingian family, who derive their author of a poetical Life of Louis I., pedigree from the same head. See seems to implicate Charlemagne himself Preuves de la Genealogie de Hughes Ca- in some of the oppressions of his reign, pet, in FArt de verifier les Dates, torn. i. It was the first care of the former to re- p- 566. dress those who had been injured in his i[ NOTE XII.] father's time. Recueil des Historiens, At the close of the ninth century there tome vi. N.B. I quote by this title tha were twenty-nine hereditary fiefs of the great collection of French historians, crown. At the accession of Hugh Capet, charters and other documents illustra- in S87, they had increased to fifty-five, tive of the middle ages, more commonly (Guizot, Civilis en France, Leqon 24.) known by the name of its first editor, Thierry maintains that those between the Benedictine Bouquet. But as several the Loire and the Pyrenees were strictly learned men of that order were SUCCHS- 32 THE SAKACENS. CHAP. I. PART I, But evils still more terrible than these political abusen were the lot of those nations who had been subject to Charle- magne. They, indeed, may appear to us little better than ferocious barbarians ; but they were exposed to the assaults of tribes, in comparison of whom they must be deemed humane and polished. Each frontier of the empire had to dread the attack of an enemy. The coasts of Italy were l8 ' continually alarmed by the Saracens of Africa, who possessed themselves of Sicily and Sardinia, and became masters of the Mediterranean Sea. 1 Though the Greek 04-040 dominions in the south of Italy were chiefly exposed to them, they twice insulted and ravaged the terri- tory of Rome ; nor was there any security even in the neigh- borhood of the maritime Alps, where, early in the tenth century, they settled a piratical colony. 2 Much more formidable were the foes by whom Germany The was assailed. The Sclavonians, a widely extended Hungarians, people, whose language is still spoken upon half the surface of Europe, had occupied the countries of Bohemia, Poland, and Pannonia, 3 on the eastern confines of the empire, and from the time of Charlemagne acknowledged its superi- ority. But at the end of the ninth century, a Tartarian tribe, the Hungarians, overspreading that country which since has borne their name, and moving forward like a vast wave, brought a dreadful reverse upon Germany. Their numbers were great, their ferocity untamed. They fought with light cavalry and light armor,- trusting to their showers of arrows, against which the swords and lances of the Euro- pean armies could not avail. The memory of Attila was renewed in the devastations of these savages, who, if they were not his compatriots, resembled them both in their coun- eively concerned in this work, not one Monaco, were extirpated by a count of half of which has yet been published, it Provence in 972. But they had estab- geemed better to follow its own title-page, lished themselves more inland than Fras- 1 These African Saracens belonged to siueto. Creeping up the line of the Alps, the Aglabites, a dynasty that reigned at they took possession of St. Maurice, in Tunis for the whole of the ninth century, the Valais, from which the feeble kings of after throwing off the yoke of the Abbas- Transjurane Burgundy could not dislodge site Khalifs. They were overthrown them. themselves in the next age by the Fati 3 I am sensible of the awkward effect mites. Sicily was first invaded in 827 of introducing this name from a more but the city of Syracuse was only re ancient geography, but it saves a circum- duced in 878. locution still more awkward. Austria - Muratori. Annali d'ltalia, ad. ann would convey an imperfect idea, and the 906, et alibi. These Saracens of Frassi Austrian dominions could not be named neto, supposed to be between Nice and without a tremendous anachronism. t RANGE. THE HUNGARIANS. 33 tenances and customs. All Italy, all Germany, and the south of France felt this scourge ; 1 till Henry the ^ D 934^954 Fowler, and Otho the Great, drove them 'back by successive victories within their own limits, where, in a short time, they learned peaceful arts, adopted the religion and followed the policy of Christendom. If any enemies could be more destructive than these Hun- garians, they were the pirates of the north, known The commonly by the name of Normans. The love of Normans. a predatory life seems to have attracted adventurers of different nations to the Scandinavian seas, from whence they infested, not only by maritime piracy, but continual invasions, the northern coasts both of France and Germany. The causes of their sudden appearance are inexplicable, or at least could only be sought in the ancient traditions of Scandi- navia. - For, undoubtedly, the coasts of France and England were as little protected from depredations under the Mero- vingian kings, and those of the Heptarchy, as in subsequent times. Yet only one instance of an attack from this side is recorded, and that before the middle of the sixth century, 2 till the age of Charlemagne. In 787 the Danes, as we call those northern plunderers, began to infest England, which lay most immediately open to their incursions. Soon afterwards they ravaged the coasts of France. Charlemagne repulsed them by means of his fleets ; yet they pillaged a few places during his reign. It is said that, perceiving one day, from a port in the Mediterranean, some Norman vessels, which had pene- trated into that sea, he shed tears, in anticipation of the miseries which awaited his empire. 8 In Louis's reign their depredations upon the coast were more incessant, 4 but they 1 In 924 they overran Languedoe. Greg. Turon. 1. iii. c. 3. Raymond-Pons, count of Toulouse, cut 3 In the niuth century the Norman their army to pieces ; but they had pre- pirates not only ravaged the Balearic viously committed such ravages, that the isles, and nearer coasts of the Mediterra- bishops of thac province, writing Soon nean, but even Greece. DeMarca, Mar- afterwards to Pope John X., assert that ca Hispanica, p. 327. scarcely any eminent ecclesiastics, out < Nigellus, the poetical biographer of of a great number, were left alive. Louis, gives the following description of Hist, de Languedoe, tome ii. p. 60. They the Normans : penetrated into Guienne, as late as 951. Nort quoque Francisco dicuntur no- Flodoardi Chronicon, in Recueil des mine manni. Historiens, tome viii. In Italy they in- Veloces, agiles, armigerique nimis : spired such terror that a muss was com- Ipse quideni populus late pernotus ha- posed expressly deprecating this calain- betur, ity : Ab Ungarorum nos defendas jaculis ! Lintre dapes quaerit, jncolitatque mare. In 937 they ravaged the country as far Pulcher adest facie, vultuque statuquo as Benevento aud Capua. Muratori, decorus. 1. IT. Ann. d'ltalia. VOL. I, M. 3 34 THE NORMANS. CHAP. I PART I, did not penetrate into the inland country till that of Charles the Bald. The wars between that prince and his family, which exhausted France of her noblest blood, the insubordi- nation of the provincial governors, even the instigation of some of Charles's enemies, laid all open to their inroads. They adopted an uniform plan of warfare both in France and England ; sailing up navigable rivers in their vessels of small burden, and fortifying the islands which they occasion- ally found, they made these intrenchments at once an asylum for their women and children, a repository for their plunder, and a place of retreat from superior force. After pillaging a town they retired to these strongholds or to their ships ; and it was not till 872 that they ventured to keep possession of Angers, which, however, they were compelled to evacuate. Sixteen years afterwards they laid siege to Paris, and com- mitted the most ruinous devastations on the neighboring country. As these Normans were unchecked by religious awe, the rich monasteries, which had stood harmless amidst the havoc of Christian war, were overwhelmed in the storm. Perhaps they may have endured some irrecoverable losses of ancient learning ; but their complaints are of monuments disfigured, bones of saints and kings dispersed, treasures carried aVay. St. Denis redeemed its abbot from captivity with six hundred and eighty-five pounds of gold. All the chief abbeys were stripped about the same time, either by the enemy, or for contributions to the public necessity. So impoverished was the kingdom, that in 860 Charles the Bald had great difficulty in collecting three thousand pounds of silver to subsidize a body of Normans against their country- men. The kings of France, too feeble to prevent or repel these invaders, had recourse to the palliative of buying peace at their hands, or rather precarious armistices, to which reviving thirst of plunder soon put an end. At length Charles the Simple, in 918, ceded a great province, which they had already partly occupied, partly rendered desolate, and which has derived from them the name of Normandy. Ignominious as this appears, it proved no impolitic step. Hollo, the Norman chief, with all his subjects, became Christians and Frenchmen ; and the kingdom was at once He goes on to tell us that they -wor- of name, or of attributes, that deceived shipped Neptune Was it a similarity him? FRANCE. ACCESSION OF HUGH CAPET. 35 relieved from a terrible enemy, and strengthened by a race of hardy colonists. 1 The accession of Hugh Capet had not the immediate effect of restoring the royal authority over France. His Accesgion of own very extensive fief was now, indeed, united to Hugh Capet. the crown ; but a few great vassals occupied the A ' D 9 remainder of the kingdom. Six of these obtained, at a sub- sequent time, the exclusive appellation of peers of France, the count of Flanders, whose fief stretched from gtate of the Scheldt to the Somme ; the count of Cham- France at pagne ; the duke of Normandy, to whom Britany that tkne ' did homage ; the duke of Burgundy, on whom the count of Nivernois seems to have depended ; the duke of Aquitaine, whose territory, though less than the ancient kingdom of that name, comprehended Poitou, Limousin, and most of Guienne, with the feudal superiority over the Angoumois, and some other central districts ; and lastly the count of Toulouse, who possessed Languedoc, with the small countries of Quercy and Rouergue, and the superiority- over Auvergne. 2 Besides these six, the duke of Gascony, not long afterwards united with Aquitaine, the counts of Anjou, Ponthieu, and Verman- dois, the viscount of Bourges, the lords of Bourbon and Coucy, with one or two other vassals, held immediately of the last Carlovingian kings. 8 This was the aristocracy, of which Hugh Capet usurped the direction ; for the suffrage of no general assembly gave a sanction to his title. On the death of Louis V. he took advantage of the absence of Charles, duke of Lorraine, who, as the deceased king's uncle, was nearest heir, and procured his own consecration at Rheirns. At first he was by no means acknowledged in the kingdom ; but his contest with Charles proving successful, the chief vassals ultimately gave at least a tacit consent to the usurpation, and permitted the royal name to descend undisputed upon his posterity. 4 But this was almost the sole attribute of sover- 1 An exceedingly good sketch of these then got possession of it; but early in Norman incursions, and of the political the twelfth century the counts of Au- gituation of France during that period, vergne again did homage to Guienne. It may be found in two Memoirs by M. is very difficult to follow the history of Bonamy, Mem. de 1'Acad. des Inscript. these fiefs. tomes xv. and xvii. These I have chiefly 3 The immediacy of vassals in times so followed in the text. [NOTE XIII.] ancient is open to much controversy. I 2 Auvergne changed its feudal superior have followed the authority of those in- twice. It had been subject to the duke dustrious Benedictines, the editors of of Aquitaine till about the middle of the L'Art de verifier les Dates. tenth century. The counts of Toulouse * The south of France net only took 36 STATE OF FRANCE AT THAT TIME. CHAP. I. PAKI I eignty which the first kings of the third dynasty enjoyed. For a long period before and after the accession of that family France has, properly speaking, no national history. The character or fortune of those who were called its kings were little more important to the majority of the nation than those of foreign princes. Undoubtedly, the degree of influence Robert, which they exercised with respect to the vassals A.D. 998. o f th e crown varied according to their power and their proximity. Over Guienne and Toulouse the first four Capets had very little authority ; nor do they seem to have Henry T. ever received assistance from them either in civil Phi'iip ? 1 ' or nat i na l wars. 1 With provinces nearer to their A.D. loeb. own domains, such as Normandy and Flanders, they were frequently engaged in alliance or hostility ; but each seemed rather to proceed from the policy of independent states than from the relation of a sovereign towards his subjects. 2 It should be remembered that, when the fiefs of Paris and Orleans are said to have been reunited by Hugh Capet to the crown, little more is understood than the feudal superi- ority over the vassals of these provinces. As the kingdom of Charlemagne's posterity was split into a number of great fiefs, so each of these contained many barons, possessing no part in Hugh's elevation, but long of Gulielmus Pictaviensis be considered refused to pay him any obedience, or as matter of fact, aud not rather as a rather to acknowledge his title, for obe- rhetorical flourish. He tells us that a dience was wholly out of the question, vast army w:is collected by Henry I. The style of charters ran, instead of the against the duke of Normandy : Bur- king's name, Deo regnante, rege expec- guudium, Ar^erniain, atque Vasconiani tante, or absents regeterre.no. He forced properare videres horribiles ferro ; inimo Guienne to submit about 990. But in vires tanti regni quantum in climata Limousin they continued to acknowledge quatuor mundi patent cunctas. Kecueil the sons of Charles of Lorraine till 1009. des Historieus, t. xi. p. 83. But we have Vaissette, Hist, de Lang. t. ii. p. 120, the roll of the army which Louis VI. led 150. Before this Toulonse had refused against the emperor Henry V., A.D. 1120, to recognize Eudes and Kaoul. two kings in a national war: and it was entirely of France who were not of the Carlovin- composed of troops from Champagne, the gian family, and even hesitated about Isle of France, the Orleannois, and other Louis IV and Lothaire, who had an provinces north of the Loire. Velly, hereditary right. Idem. t. iii. p. 62. Yet this was a sort of jon- These proofs of Hugh Capet's usurpa- vocation of the ban ; Rex ut eum tota tion seem not to be materially invalidated Francia sequatur, invitat. Even sc late by a dissertation in the 50th volume of as the reign of Philip Augustus, in a the Academy of Inscriptions, p. 553. It list of the knights bannerets of France, is not of course to be denied that the though those of Britany, Flanders.Cham- northern parts of France acquiesced in pagne, and Burgundy, besides the royal his assumption of the royal title, if tliey domains, are enumerated, no mention ia did not give an express scnsent to it. made of the provinces beyond the Loire l I have not found any authority for Du Chesne, Script. Kerum Gallicarum, supposing that the provinces south of the t. v. p. 262. Loire contributed tlieir assistance to the 2 [NoTE XIV.] king in war, unless tbu following passage FRANCE. LOUIS VI. 37 exclusive immunities within their own territories, waging war at their pleasure, administering justice to their military tenants and other subjects, and free from all control beyond the conditions of the feudal compact. 1 At the Louis vi. accession of Louis VI. in 1108, the cities of Paris, A - D - 1108< Orleans, and Bourges, with the immediately adjacent districts, formed the most considerable portion of the royal domain. A number of petty barons, with their fortified castles, inter- cepted the communication between these, and waged war against the king almost under the walls of his capital. It cost Louis a great deal of trouble to reduce the lords of Montlhery, and other places within a few miles of Paris. Under this prince, however, who had more activity than his predecessors, the royal authority considerably revived. From his reign we may date the systematic rivalry of the French and English monarchies. Hostilities had several times occurred between Philip I. and the two Williams ; but the wars that began under Louis VI. lasted, with no long interruption, for three centuries and a half, and form, indeed, the most leading feature of French history during the middle ages. 2 Of all the royal vassals, the dukes of Normandy were the proudest and most po.werful. Though they h? of Frisengen, c. 35, has in- 48 FIRST CRUSADE. CHAP. I. PART L crusade ; but many of their chief vassals, great part of the inferior nobility, and a countless multitude of the common people. The priests left their parishes, and the monks their cells ; and though the peasantry were then in general bound to the soil, we find no check given to their emigration for this cause. Numbers of women and children swelled the crowd ; it appeared a sort of sacrilege to repel any one from a work which was considered as the manifest design of Providence. But if it were lawful to interpret the will of Providence by events, few undertakings have been more branded by its dis- approbation than the crusades. So many crimes and so much misery have seldom been accumulated in so short a space as in the three years of the first expedition. We should be warranted by contemporary writers in stating the loss of the Christians alone during this period at nearly a million ; but at the least computation it must have exceeded hah' that num- ber. 1 To engage in the crusade, and to perish hi it, were almost synonymous. Few of those myriads who were mus- tered in the plains of Nice returned to gladden their friends in Europe with the story of their triumph at Jerusalem. Besieging alternately and besieged in Antioch, they drained to the lees the cup of misery : three hundred thousand sat down before that place ; next year there remained but a sixth part to pursue the enterprise. But their losses were least in the field of battle ; the intrinsic superiority of European prowess was constantly displayed ; the angel of Asia, to apply the bold language of our poet, high and unmatchable, where her rival was not, became a fear ; and the Christian lances bore all before them in their shock from Nice to Antioch, Edessa, and Jerusalem. It was here, where their triumph was consummated, that it was stained with the most atrocious massacre ; not limited to the hour of resistance, but renewed deliberately even after that famous penitential procession to the holy sepulchre, which might have calmed their ferocious dispositions, if, through the misguided enthusiasm of the enterprise, it had not been rather calculated to excite them. 2 1 William of Tyre says that at the been made in Hungary of the rabble review before Nice there were found under Qaultier Sana-Avoir. 600,000 of both sexes, exclusive of 100,000 2 The work of Mailly, entitled L'Esprit cavalry armed in mail. L. ii. c. 23. But des Croisades, is deserving of considerable Fulk of Chartres reckons the same num- praise for its diligence and impartiality, ber, besides women, children, and priests. It carries the history, however, no farther An immense slaughter had previously than the first expedition. Gibbon's two FKAJSCE. THE SECOND CRUSADE. 49 The conquests obtained at such a price by the first crusade were chiefly comprised in the maritime parts of ^^ con- Syria. Except the state of Edessa beyond the quests in Euphrates, 1 which, in its best days, extended over Syna ' great part of Mesopotamia, the Latin possessions never reached more than a few leagues from the sea. Within the barrier of Mount Libanus their arms might be feared, but their power was never established ; and the prophet was still invoked in the mosques of Aleppo and Damascus. The prin- cipality of Autioch to the north, the kingdom of Jerusalem with its feudal dependencies of Tripoli and Tiberias to the south, were assigned, the one to Boemond, a brother of Rob- ert Guiscard, count of Apulia, the other to Godfrey of Bou- logne, 2 whose extraordinary merit had justly raised him to a degree of influence with the chief crusaders that has been sometimes confounded with a legitimate authority. 8 In the course of a few years Tyre, Ascalon, and the other cities upon the sea-coast, were subjected by the successors of Godfrey on the throne of Jerusalem. But as their enemies had been stunned, not killed, by the western storm, the Latins were constantly molested by the Mohammedans of Egypt and Syria. They were exposed as the outposts of Christendom, with no respite and few resources. A second crusade, in which the emperor Conrad III. and Louis VII. of gecon(1 France were engaged, each with seventy thousand crusade. cavalry, made scarce any diversion ; and that A ' D ' 1147 ' vast army wasted away in the passage of Natolia. 4 chapters on the crusades, thongh not himself, Hex Hierusalem. Latinorum without inaccuracies, are a brilliaut por- primus. Will. Tyr. 1. ii. c. 12. tion of his great work. The original 3 The heroes of the crusade are just writers are chiefly collected iu two folio like those of romance. Godfrey is not volumes, entitled Qesta Dei per Francos, only the wisest but the strongest man in Hanover, 1611. the army. Perhaps Tasso has lost some 1 Edessa was a little Christian princi- part of this physical superiority for the pality, surrounded by, and tributary to, sake of contrasting him with the imagi- the Turks. The inhabitants invited nary Rinaldo. He cleaves a Turk in Baldwin, on his progress in the first cru- twain, from the shoulder to the haunch, gade, and he made no great scrup'e of A noble Arab, after the taking of Jeru supplanting the reigning prince, who salern, requests him to try his sword upon indeed is represented as a tyrant and a camel, when Godfrey, with ease, cuta usurper. Esprit des Croisades, t. iv. p. off the head The Arab, suspecting there 62. De Guignes, Hist, des Huns, torn. ii. might be something peculiar in the blade, p. 135-162. desires him to do the same with his - Godfrey never took the title of King sword; and the hero obliges him by of Jerusalem, not choosing, he said, to demolishing a second camel. Will. Tyr. wear a crown of gold in that city where 1. ix. c. 22. his Saviour had been crowned with * Vertot puts the destruction tn the thorns. Ualdwin, Godfrey's brother, who second crusade at two hundred thousand succeeded him within two years, entitles men (Hist, de Malthc, p. 129); and from VOL. i. M. 4 50 THE SECOND CRUSADE. CHAP. I. PART i. The decline of the Christian establishments in the East ig ascribed by William of Tyre to the extreme viciousness of Decline of their manners, to the adoption of European arms the Latin by the Orientals, and to the union of the Moham- es n in P the medan principalities under a single chief. 1 With-. East - out denying the operation of these causes, and especially the last, it is easy to perceive one more radical than all the three, the inadequacy of their means of self-defence. The kingdom of Jerusalem was guarded only, exclusive of European volunteers, by the feudal service of eight hundred and sixty-six knights, attended each by four archers on horseback, by a militia of five thousand and seventy-five burghers, and by a conscription, in great exigencies, of the remaining population. 2 William of Tyre mentions an army of one thousand three hundred horse and fifteen thousand foot, as the greatest which had ever been collected, and pre- dicts the utmost success from it, if wisely conducted. 8 This was a little before the irruption of Saladin. In the last fatal battle Lusignan seems to have had somewhat a larger force. 4 Nothing can more strikingly evince the ascendency of Europe than .the resistance of these Frankish acquisitions in Syria during nearly two hundred years. Several of their victories over the Moslems were obtained against such disparity of numbers, that they may be compared with whatever is most illustrious in history or romance. 6 These perhaps were less due to the descendants of the first crusaders, settled in the William of Tyre's language, there seems in flowing robes. Montfaucon, Monu- no reason to consider this an exaggera- mens de la Monarchic Francaise, t. i. tion. L. xvi. c. 19. pi. 60. i L. xxi. o. 7. John of Vitry also 2 Gibbon, c. 29, note 125. Jerusalem mentions the change of weapons by the itself was very thinly inhabited. For all Saracens, in imitation of the Latins, using the heathens, says William of Tyre, had the lances and coat of mail instead of perished in the massacre when the city bows and arrows, c. 92.' But, according was taken; or, if any escaped, they were to a more ancient writer, part of Soli- not allowed to return ; no heathen being mans (the Kilidge Arslan of De Guignes) thought fit to dwell in the holy city, army in the first crusade was in armor, Baldwin invited some Arabian Christians loricis et galeis et clypeis aureis valde to settle in it. armati. Albertus Aquensis, 1. ii. c. 27. 3 L. xxii. c. 27. I may add to this a testimony of another * A primo introitu Latinorum in ter kind, not less decisive. In the Abbey ram sanctam, says John de Vitry, nosrri of St. Denis there were ten pictures, in tot milites in uno proelio conprregare stained glass, representing sieges and nequiverunt. Erant enim mille ducenti battles in the first crusade. These were milites loricati; peditura autem cum made by order of Suger, the minister of armis, arcubus et balistis circiter vigintl Louis VI., and consequently in the early millia, infaustse expeditioni interfuisse part of the twelfth century. In many of dicuntur. Gesta dei per Francos, p. 1118. them the Turks are painted in coats of 5 A brief summary of these victories is mail, sometimes even in a plated cuirass, given by John of Vitry, c. 93 In others they are quite unarmed, and FRANCE. THIRD CRUSADE. 51 Holy Land, 1 than to those volunteers from Europe whom martial ardor and religious zeal impelled to the service. It was the. penance commonly imposed upon men of rank for the most heinous crimes, to serve a number of years under the banner of the cross. Thus a perpetual supply of warriors was poured in from Europe ; and in this sense the crusades may be said to have lasted without intermission during the whole period of the Latin settlements. Of these defenders the most renowned were the military orders of the Knights of the Temple and of the Hospital of St. John ; 2 instituted, the one in 1124, the other in 1118, for the sole purpose of protecting the Holy Land. The Teutonic order, established in 1190, when the kingdom of Jerusalem was falling, soon diverted its schemes of holy warfare to a very different quar- ter of the world. Large estates, as well in Palestine ag throughout Europe, enriched the two former institutions ; but the pride, rapaciousness, and misconduct of both, especially of the Templars, seem to have balanced the advantages derived from their valor. 8 At length the famous A D 1187 Saladin, usurping the throne of a feeble dynasty which had reigned in Egypt, broke in upon the Christians of Jerusalem ; the king and the kingdom fell into his hands ; nothing remained but a few strong towns upon the sea-coast These misfortunes roused once more the princes of Europe, and the third crusade was undertaken by three Third of her sovereigns, the greatest in personal estima- crusade - tion as well as dignity by the emperor Frederic A-Dg 1189- Barbarossa, Philip Augustus of France, and our own Rich- ard Coeur de Lion. But this, like the preceding enterprise, failed of permanent effect ; and those feats of romantic prowess which made the name of Richard so famous both in Europe and Asia 4 proved oolv the total inefficacy of all ex- 1 Blany of these *>rs of a mongrel ex- * See a curious instance of the miscon- traction, descended from a Frank parent duct and insolence of the Templars, in on one side, and Syrian on the other. William of Tyre, 1. xx. c. 32. The Tem- Theae were called Poulains, Pullani ; and plars possessed nine thousand manors, were looked upon as a mean, degenerate and the Knights of St. John nineteen race. DuCange; Gloss, v. Pullani ; and thousand, in Europe The latter were Observations sur Joinville, in Collection almost as much reprtached as the Tern- des Memoires relatifs i 1'Histoire de plars for their pride and avarice. L. France, t. ii. p. 190. xviii. c. 6. 2 The St. John of Jerusalem was * When a Turk's horse started at a neither the Evangelist nor yet the Bap- bush, he would chide him, Joinville says, tist, but a certain Cypriot, surnained the with, Cuides-tu qu'y soit le roi Richard; Charitable, who had been patriarch of Women kept their children quiet with Alexandria. the threat of bringing Richard to them. 52 CRUSADES OF ST. LOUIS. CHAP. I. PA XT 1 ertions in an attempt so impracticable ; Palestine was never A.D. 1204. the scene of another crusade. One great anna A.D. 1218. ment was diverted to the siege of Constantinople and another wasted in fruitless attempts upon Egypt. Thf emperor Frederic II. afterwards procured the restoration of Jerusalem by the Saracens ; but the Christian princes of Syria were unable to defend it, and their possessions were gradually reduced to the maritime towns. Acre, the last of these, was finally taken by storm in 1291 ; and its ruin closes the history of the Latin dominion in Syria, which Europe had already ceased to protect. The two last crusades were undertaken by St. Louis. In Crusades of tne first he was attended by 2,800 knights and St. Louis. 50,000 ordinary troops. 1 He landed at Damietta A.D. 1248. j n Egypt, for that country was now deemed the key of the Holy Land, and easily made himself master of the city. But advancing up the country, he found natural im- pediments as well as enemies in his way ; the Turks assailed him with Greek fire, an instrument of warfare almost as surprising and terrible as gunpowder ; he lost his brother the count of Artois, with many knights, at Massoura, near Cairo ; and began too late a retreat towards Damietta. Such calami- ties now fell upon this devoted army as have scarce ever been surpassed ; hunger and want of every kind, aggravated by an unsparing pestilence. At length the king was made prisoner, and very few of the army escaped the Turkish cimeter in battle or in captivity. Four hundred thousand livres were paid as a ransom for Louis. He returned to France, and passed near twenty years in the exercise of those virtues which are his best title to canonization. But the fatal illusions of superstition were still always at his heart ; nor did it fail to be painfully observed by his subjects that he still J2-.J kept the cross upon his garment. His last expedi- tion was originally designed for Jerusalem. But he had received some intimation that the king of Tunis waa desirous of embracing Christianity. That these intentions might be carried into effect, he sailed out of his way to the coast of Africa, and laid siege to that city. A fever here put 1 The Arabian writers give him 9500 bcra's authority, I put the main body at knights and 130,000 common soldiers. 60,000; but. if Joiuville has stated this, But I greatly prefer the authority of I have missed the passage. Their vassals Joinville v wno has twice mentioned the amounted to 1800. number of knights in the text. On Qib- FRANCE. PHILIP IH. 53 an end to his life, sacrificed to that ruling passion which never would have forsaken him. But he had survived the spirit of the crusades ; the disastrous expedition to Egypt had cured his subjects, though not himself, of their folly ; 1 his son, after making terms with Tunis, returned to France ; the Christians were suffered to lose what they still retained in the Holy Land ; and though many princes hi subsequent ages talked loudly of renewing the war, the promise, if it were ever eincere, was never accomplished. Louis IX. had increased the royal domain by the annexa- tion of several counties and other less important Philip ni. fiefs ; but soon after the accession of Philip III. A - D - 12 '- (surnamed the Bold) it received a far more considerable aug- mentation. Alfonso, the late king's brother, had been in- vested -with the county of Poitou, ceded by Henry III., together with part of Auvergne and of Saintonge ; and held also, as has been said before, the remains of the great fief of Toulouse, in right of his wife Jane, heiress of Raymond VIL Upon his death, and that of his countess, which happened about the same time, the king entered A " into possession of all these territories. This acquisition brought the .sovereigns of France into contact with new neighbors, the kings of Aragon and the powers of Italy The first great and lasting foreign war which they carried on was that of Philip III. and Philip IV. A " against the former kingdom, excited by the insurrection of Sicily. Though effecting no change in the boundaries of their dominions, this war may be deemed a sort of epoch in the history of France and Spain, as well as in that of Italy, to which it more peculiarly belongs. 1 The refusal of Joinville to accompany puis ouy-je dire a plusieurs, qne eeux :rusade is very qui luy conseillerent 1'enterprinse de la the king in this second cr memorable, and gives us an insight into croix firent un trez grant nial, et peche- the bad effects of both expeditions. Le rent mortellement. Car tandis qu'il fust Roy de France et le Koy de Navarre me au royaume de France, tout son royaume pressoient fort de me croiser, et entre- vivoit en paix, et regnoit justice. Et in- prendre le chemin du pelerinage de la continent qu'il en fust ors, tout com- croix. Mais je leur respond!, que teudia menca a decliner et a empire r. T. ii. que j'avoie este oultre-mer au service de p 158. Dieu, que les gens et officers du Roy de In the Fabliaux of Le Grand d'Aussy telkl et moy ne nous en rortissons. Et veoie wherein, though he gives the last word clerement. si je me mecloie au pelerinage to the former, it is plain that he designed de la croix, que ce seroit la totale de- the opposite scale to preponderate. T. struction de me*-liz povres subjefrs. De- ii. p. 163. 54 PHILIP IV. CHAP. I. PART 1. Theie still remained five great and ancient fiefs of "the French crown ; Champagne, Guienne, Flanders, Burgundy, Philip the and Britany. But Philip IV., usually called Fair. ^j ie Fai r? married the heiress of the first, a little A.D. 1285. before his father's death; and although he gov- erned that county in her name without pretending to reunite it to the royal domain, it was, at least in a political sense, no longer a part of the feudal body. With some of his other vassals Philip used more violent methods. A parallel might be drawn between this prince and Philip Augustus. But while in ambition, violence of temper and unprincipled rapac- ity, as well as in the success of their attempts to me7it of the establish an absolute authority, they may be con- monarchy sidered as nearly equal, we may remark this differ- under his ence, that Philip the Fair, who was destitute of military talents, gained those ends by dissimulation which his predecessor had reached by force. The duchy of Guienne, though somewhat abridged of its original extent, was still by far the most considerable of the French fiefs, even independently of its connection with Eng- land. 1 Philip, by dint of perfidy, and by the egregious inca- pacity of Edmund, brother of Edward I., contrived to obtain, and to keep for several years, the possession of this great province. A quarrel among some French and English sailors having provoked retaliation, till a sort of piratical war commenced between the two countries, Edward, as duke of Guienne, was summoned into the king's court to answer for the trespass of his subjects. Upon this he despatched his brother to settle terms of reconciliatiou, with fuller powers than should have been intrusted to so cred ulous a negotiator. Philip so outwitted this prince, through a fictitious treaty, as to procure from him the surrender of all the fortresses in Guienne. He then threw off the mask, and after again summoning Edward to appear, pronounced the 1 Philip was highly offended that in- P. rege Francise, E. rege Angliae tenenta struments made in Guienne should be ducatum Aquitaniae. Several precedents dated by the year of Edward's reign, and were shown by the English where the not of his own. This almost sole badge counts of Toulouse had used the form, of sovereignty had been preserved by the Regnante A. Comite Tolosse. Ryruer, t. kings of France during all the feudal ii. p. 1083. As this is the first time ages. A struggle took place about it, that I quote Rj-mer, it may be pro per ^o which is recorded in a curious letter from observe that my references are to the John de Greilli to Edward. The French London edition, the paging of >\ich ia court at last consented to let dates be preserved on the margin of that printed thus expressed : Actum fuit, regnante at the Hague. FBANCE. AGGRANDIZEMENT OF FRANCE. 55 confiscation of his fief. 1 This business is the greatest blemish in the political character of Edward. But his eagerness about the acquisition of Scotland rendered him less sensible to the danger of a possession in many respects more valuable ; and the spirit of resistance among the English nobility, which his arbitrary measures had provokedj broke out very 10()3 opportunely for Philip, to thwart every effort for the recovery of Guienne by arms. But after repeated sus- pensions of hostilities a treaty was finally concluded, by which Philip restored the province, on the agreement of a marriage between his daughter Isabel and the heir of England. To this restitution he was chiefly induced by the ill success that attended his arms in Flanders, another of the great fiefs which this ambitious monarch had endeavored to confiscate. We have not, perhaps, as clear evidence of the original injus- tice of his proceedings towards the count of Flanders as hi the case of Guienne ; but he certainly twice detained his per- son, once after drawing him on some pretext to his court, and again, in violation of the faith pledged by his generals. The Flemings made, however, so vigorous a resistance, that Philip was unable to reduce that small coun- try ; and in one famous battle at Courtray they discomfited a powerful army with that utter loss and ignominy to which the undisciplined impetuosity of the French nobles Avas preemi- nently exposed. 2 Two other acquisitions of Philip the Fair deserve notice ; that of the counties of Angouleme and La Marche, upon a sentence of forfeiture (and, as it seems, a very harsh one) passed against the reigning count ; and that of the city of Lyons, and its adjacent territory, which had not even feu- dally been subject to the crown of France for more than three hundred years. Lyons was the dowry of Matilda, daughter of Louis IV., on her marriage with Conrad, king of Bur- gundy, and was bequeathed with the rest of that kingdom by Rodolph, in 1032, to the empire. Frederic Barbarossa con- ferred upon the archbishop of Lyons all regalian rights over the city, with the title of Imperial Vicar. France seems to 1 In the view I have taken of this 2 The Flemings took at Courtray 4000 transaction I haveheen guided by several pair of gilt spurs, which were only worn instruments in Ryiner, which leave no by knights. These Velly. happily enough, doubt on my mind. Velly of course rep- compares to Hannibal's three bushels of resents the matter more favorably for gold rings at Cannae. Philip. 56 THE SALIC LAW. CHAP. I. PART I. have had no concern with it, till St. Louis was called in as a mediator in disputes between the chapter and the city, during a vacancy of the see, and took the exercise of jurisdiction upon himself for the time. Philip III., having been chosen arbitrator in similar circumstances, insisted, before he would restore the jurisdiction, upon an oath of fealty from the new archbishop. This oath, which could be demanded, it seems, by no right but that of force, continued to be taken, till, in 1310, an archbishop resisting what he had thought an usurpa- tion, the city was besieged by Philip IV., and, the inhabitants not being unwilling to submit, was finally united to the French crown. 1 Philip the Fair left three'sons, who successively reigned in i j i sovereign and judge. After a years delay the A ' D ' ' king ventured to summon the Black Prince to answer these charges before the peers of France, and the war immediately recommenced between the two countries. 8 Though it is impossible to reconcile the conduct of Charles upon this occasion to the stern principles of rectitude which ought always to be obeyed, yet the exceeding injustice of Ed- ward hi the former war, and the miseries which he inflicted upon an unoffending people in the prosecution of his claim, will go far towards extenuating this breach of the treaty of 1 Froissart, part i. chap. 214. 8 On November 20, 1368, some time be- 2 See an anecdote of his difference with fore the summons of the prince of Wales, the seigneur d'Albret, one of the princi- a treaty was concluded between Charles pal barons in Gascony, to which Frois- and Henry king of Castile, wherein the eart, who was then at Bordeaux, ascribes latter expressly stipulates that whatever the alienation of the southern nobility, parts of Guienne or England he might ehap. 244. Edward III., soon after the conquer he would give up to the lung of peace of Bretigni, revoked all his grants France. Kymer, t. vi. p. 598. in Guienue. Kymer, t. vi. p. 391 FRANCE. LOSS OF THE ENGLISH CONQUESTS. 73 Bretigni. It is observed, indeed, with some truth by Rapin, that we judge of Charles's prudence by the event ; and that, if he had been unfortunate in the war, he would have brought on himself the reproaches of all mankind, and even of those writers who are now most ready to extol him. But his measures had been so sagaciously taken, that, except through that perverseness of fortune, against which, especially in war there is no security, he could hardly fail of success. Tha elder Edward was declining through age, and the yourigel through disease ; the ceded provinces were eager to return to their native king, and their garrisons, as we may infer by their easy reduction, feeble and ill-supplied. France, on the other hand, had recovered breath after her losses ; the sons of those who had fallen or fled at Poitiers were in the field ; a king, not personally warlike, but eminently wise and popular, occupied the throne of the rash and intemperate John. She was restored by the policy of Charles V. and the valor of Du Guesclin. This hero, a Breton gentleman without fortune or exterior graces, was the greatest ornament of France during that age. Though inferior, as it seems, to Lord Chandos in military skill, as well as in the polished virtues of chivalry, his unwearied activity, his talent of inspiring confidence, his good fortune, "the generosity and frankness of his character, have preserved a fresh recollection of his name, which has hardly been the case with our countryman. In a few campaigns the English were deprived of almost all their conquests, and even, in a great degree, of .,. / ^i rnu The English their original possessions in Gruienne. I hey were lose ail still formidable enemies, .not only from their cour- ^"J 011 " age and alacrity in the war, but on account of the keys of France which they held in their hands ; Bordeaux, Bayonne, and Calais, by inheritance or conquest ; Brest and Cherbourg, in mortgage from their allies, the duke of Britany and king of Nararre. But the successor of Edwan? III. was Richard II. ; a reign of feebleness and sedition gave no opportunity for prosecuting schemes of ambition. The war, protracted with few distinguished events for several years, was at length suspended by repeated armistices, not, indeed, very strictly observed, and which the animosity of the English would not permit to settle in any regular treaty. Nothing less than the terms obtained at Bretigni, emphati- cally called the Great Peace, would satisfy a frank and cour- 74 CHARLES V. AND VI. CHAT. 1 PART. II. ageous people, who deemed themselves cheated by the man- ner of its infraction. The war was therefore always popular in England, and the credit which an ambitious prince, Thomas duke of Gloucester, obtained in that country, was chiefly owing to the determined opposition which he showed to all French connections. But the politics of Richard II. were of a different cast ; and Henry IV. was equally anxious to avoid hostilities with France ; so that, before the unhappy condition of that kingdom tempted his son to revive the claims of Ed- ward in still more favorable circumstances, there had been thirty years of respite, and even some intervals of friendly intercourse between the two nations. Both, indeed, were weakened by internal discord; but France more fatally than England. But for the calamities of Charles VI.'s reign, she would probably have expelled her enemies from the kingdom. The strength of that fertile and populous country . was re- cruited with surprising rapidity. Sir Hugh Calverley, a famous captain in the wars of Edward III., while serving in Flanders, laughed at the herald, who assured him that the king of France's army, then entering the country, amounted to 26,000 lances ; asserting that he had often seen their larg- est musters, but never so much as a fourth part of the num- ber. 1 The relapse of this great kingdom under Charles VI. was more painful and perilous than her first crisis ; but she recovered from each through her intrinsic and inextinguish- able resources. Charles V., surnamed the Wise, after a reign, which, if we Accession of over lk a little obliquity in the rupture of the CharL-s vi., peace of Bretigni, may be deemed one of the most honorable in French history, dying prematurely, left the crown to his son, a boy of thirteen, under the care of three ambitious uncles, the dukes of Anjou, Berry, and Bur- gundy. Charles had retrieved the glory, restored the tran- quillity, revived the spirit of his country ; the severe trials which exercised his regency after the battle of Poitiers had disciplined his mind; he became a sagacious statesman, an encourager of literature, a beneficent lawgiver. He erred, doubtless, though upon plausible grounds, in accumulating a vast treasure, which the duke of Anjou seized before he was cold in the grave. But all the fruits of his wisdom were lost in the succeeding reign. In a government essentially popu- iFroissart, p. ii. o. 142. FRANCE. SEDITIONS AT PARIS. 75 lar the youth or imbecility of the sovereign creates no mate- rial derangement. In a monarchy, where all the springs of the system depend upon one central force, these accidents, which are sure in the course of a few generations to recur, can scarcely fail to dislocate the whole machine. During the forty years that Charles VI. bore the name of king, rather than reigned in France, that country was reduced to a state far more deplorable than during the captivity of John. A great change had occurred hi the political condition of France during the fourteenth century. As the feudal militia became unserviceable, the expenses of war were increased through the necessity of taking troops into constant pay ; and while more luxurious refinements of living heightened the temptations to profuseness, the means of enjoying them were lessened *by improvident alienations of the domain. Hence, taxes, hitherto almost unknown, were levied incessantly, and with all those circumstances of oppression which are natural to the fiscal proceedings of an arbitrary government. These, as has been said before, gave rise to the unpopularity of the two first Valois, and were nearly leading to a complete revo- lution hi the convulsions that succeeded the battle of Poitiers. The confidence" reposed in Charles V.'s wisdom and economy kept everything at rest during his reign, though the taxes were still very heavy. But the seizure of his vast accumula- tions by the duke of Anjou, and the ill faith with which the new government imposed subsidies, after promising their abo- lition, provoked the people of Paris, arid some- Seditions times of other places, to repeated seditions. The at Paris> States-General not only compelled the government to revoke these impositions and restore the nation, at least according to the language of edicts, to all their liberties, but, with less wis- dom, refused to make any grant of money. Indeed a re- markable spirit of democratical freedom was then rising in those classes on whom the crown and nobility had so long trampled. An example was held out by the Flemings, who, always tenacious of their privileges, because conscious of their ability to maintain them, were engaged in a furious conflict with Louis count of Flanders. 1 The court of France took part 1 The Flemish rebellion, which origi- upon the people of Ghent without their nated in an attempt, suggested by bad consent, is related in a very interesting advisers to the count, (o impose a tax manner by Froissart, p. ii. c. 87, &c., wh. 76 SEDITIONS AT PAKIS. CHAP. I. PAKT IT in this war ; and after obtaining a decisive victory over the citizens of Ghent, Charles VI. returned to chastise those of Paris. 1 Unable to resist the royal army, the city was treated as the spoil of conquest ; its immunities abridged ; its most active leaders put to death ; a fine of uncommon severity im- posed ; and the taxes renewed by arbitrary prerogative. But the people preserved their indignation for a favorable mo- ment ; and were unfortunately led by it, when rendered sub- servient to the ambition of others, into a series of crimes, and a long alienation from the interests of their country. It is difficult to name a limit beyond which taxes will not be borne without impatience, when they appear to be called for by necessity, and faithfully applied ; nor is it impracticable for a skilful minister to deceive the people in both these respects. But the sting of taxation is wastefulness. What high-spirited man could see without indignation the earnings of his labor, yielded ungrudgingly to the public defence, become the spoil of parasites and speculators? It is this that mortifies the liberal hand of public spirit ; and those statesmen who deem the security of government to depend not on laws and armies, but on the moral sympathies and prejudices of the people, will vigilantly guard against even the suspicion of prodigality. In the present stage of society it is impossible io conceive that degree of misapplication which existed in the French treasury under Charles VI., because the real exigencies of the state could never again be so inconsiderable. Scarcely any military force was kept up ; equals Herodotus in simplicity, liveliness, and power over the heart. I would ad- vise the historical student to acquaint himself with these transactions and with the corresponding tumults at Paris. They are among the eternal lessons of history ; for the unjust encroachments of courts, the intemperate passions of the multitude, the ambition of dema- gogues, the cruelty of victorious factions, will never cease to have their parallels and their analogies ; while the military achievements of distant times afford in general no instruction, and can hardly occupy too little of our time in historical studies. The prefaces to the fifth and sixth volumes of the Ordon nances des Rois de France contain more accurate intbrmation as to the Parisian disturb- ances than can be found ia Froissart. i If Charles VI. had been defeated by the Flemings, the insurrection of the Parisians, Froissart says, would have spread over France : toute gentillesse et noblesse eut ete morte et perdue en France ; nor would the Jacquerie have ever been si grande et si horrible, c. 120. To the example of the Gantois he as- cribes the tumults which broke out about the same time in England as well as in France, c. 84. The Flemish insurrection would probably have had more im portant consequences if it had been cordially sup- ported by the English government. But the danger of encouraging that derno- cratical spirit which so strongly leavened the commons of England might justly be deemed by Richard II. 's council much more than a counterbalance to the ad- vantage of distressing France. When too late, some attempts were made, and the Flemish towns acknowledged Rich- ard as king of France in 1384. Rynier, t. vii. p. 448 SEDITIONS AT FARIS. 77 and the produce of the grievous impositions then levied was chiefly lavished upon the royal household, 1 or plundered by the officers of government. This naturally resulted from the peculiar and afflicting circumstances of this reign. The duke of Anjou pretended to be entitled by the late king's appointment, if not by the constitution of France, to exercise the government as regent during the minority ; ' 2 but this period, which would naturally be very short, a law of Charles V. having fixed the age of majority at thirteen, was still more abridged by consent ; and after the young monarch's corona- tion, he was considered as reigning with full personal au- thority. Anjou, Berry, and Burgundy, together with the king's maternal uncle, the duke of Bourbon, divided the actual exercise of government. The ficst of these soon undertook an expedition into Italy, to possess himself of the crown of Naples, in which he per- ished. Berry was a profuse and voluptuous man, of no great talents ; though his rank, and the middle position which he held between struggling parties, made him rather conspicuous throughout the revolutions of that age. The most respecta- ble of the king's uncles, the duke of Bourbon, being further removed from the royal stem, and of an unassuming charac- 1 The expenses of the royal household, which under Charles V. were 94,000 livres, amounted in 1412 to 450,000. Villaret. t. iii. p. 243. Yet the king was so ill supplied that his plate had been pawned. When Montagu, minister of the finances, was arrested, in 1409, all this plate was found concealed in his house. 8 It has always been an unsettled point whether the presumptive heir is entitled to the regency of France; and, if he be so to the regency, whether this includes the custody of the minor's per- son. The particular case of the duke of Anjou is subject to a considerable appar- ent difficulty. Two instruments of Charles V., bearing the same date of October, 1374, as published by Dupuy (Traite de Ma- jorite des Kois, p. 161), are plainly irrec- oncilable with each other; the former giving the exclusive regency to the duke of Anjou, reserving the custody of the minor's person to other guardians ; the latter conferring not only this custody, but the- government of the kingdom, on the queen, and on the dukes of Bur- gundy and Bourbon, without mention- ing the duke of Anjou's name. Daniel calls these testaments of Charles V., whereas they are in the form of letters- patent ; and supposes that the king had suppressed both, as neither party seems to have availed itself of their authority in the discussions that took place aftei the king's death. (Hist, de France, t. iii. p. 662, edit. 1720). Villaret, as is too much his custom, slides over the diffi- culty without notice. But M. de Bre- quiprni (Mem. de 1'Acad. des Inscript. 1. 1. p. 533) observes that the second of these instruments, as published by M. Se- cousse, in the Ordonnances des Kois, t. vi. p. 406. differs most essentially from that in Dupuy, and contains no mention whatever of the government. It is, therefore, easily reconcilable with the first, that confers the regency on th.9 duke of Anjou. As Dupuy took it from the same source as Secousse, namely, the Tresor des Chartes, a strong sus- picion of wilful interpolation falls upoc him, or upon the editor of his posthu- mous work, printed in 1655. This date will readily suggest a motive for such an interpolation to those who recollect the circumstances of France at that time and for some years before ; Anne of Austria having maintained herself in possession of a testamentary regency against the presumptive heir 78 DERANGEMENT OF CHARLES VI. CHAP. I. PART II, ter, took a less active part than his three coadjutors. Bur- gundy, an ambitious and able prince, maintained the. ascen- dency, until Charles, weary of a restraint which had been 138 7 protracted by his uncle till he was in his twenty- first year, took the reins into his own hands. The dukes of Burgundy and Berry retired from court, and the administration was committed to a different set of men, at the head of whom appeared the constable de Clisson, a sol- dier of great fame in the English wars. The people rejoiced in the fall of the princes by whose exactions they had been plundered ; but the new ministers soon rendered themselves odious by similar conduct. The fortune of Clisson, after a few 'years' favor, amounted to 1,700,000 livres, equal in weight of silver, to say nothing of the depreciation of money, to ten times that sum at present. 1 Charles VI. had reigned five years from his assumption of power, when he was seized with a derangement Derange- *> n ^ t 11 i / mentof of intellect, which continued, through a senes of recoveries and relapses, to his death. He passed thirty years in a pitiable state of suffering, neglected by his family, particularly by the most infamous of women, Isabel of Bavaria, his queen, to a degree which is hardly credible. 2 The ministers were immediately disgraced; the princes reassumed their stations. For several years the duke of Burgundy conducted the government. But this was Parties of * n opposition to a formidable rival, Louis, Duke Burgundy of Orleans, the king's brother. It was impossible 1 that a prince so near to the throne, favored by t^e queen, perhaps with criminal fondness, and by the people on account of his external graces, should not acquire a share of power. He succeeded at length in obtaining the whole man- agement of affairs ; wherein the outrageous dissoluteness of his conduct, and still more the excessive taxes imposed, ren- dered him altogether odious. The Parisians compared his administration with that of the duke of Burgundy ; and from that time ranged themselves on the side of the latter and his FRANCE. MURDER OF THE DTTKE OF ORLEANS. 79 family, throughout the long distractions to which the ambition of these princes gave birth. The death of the duke of Burgundy, in 1404, after sev- eral fluctuations of success between him and the duke of Orleans, by no means left his party without a head. Equally brave and ambitious, but far more audacious and unprinci- pled, his son John, sumamed Sanspeur, sustained the same contest. A reconciliation had been, however, brought about with the duke of Orleans ; they had sworn reciprocal friend- ship, and participated, as was the custom, in order to render these obligations more solemn, in the same communion. In the midst of this outward harmony, the duke of Orleans was assassinated hi the streets of Paris. J^'duke of After a slight attempt at concealment, Burgundy Orleans, avowed and boasted of the crime, to which he had been instigated, it is said, by somewhat more than political jealousy. 1 From this fatal moment the dissensions of the royal family began to assume the complexion of civil war. The queen, the sons of the duke of Orleans, with the dukes of Berry and Bourbon, united against the assassin. But he possessed, hi addition to his own appanage of Burgundy, the county of Flanders as his maternal inheritance ; and the people of Paris, who hated the duke of Orleans, readily for- gave, or rather exulted in his murder. 2 1 Orleans is said to have boasted of the duchess of Burgundy's favors. Vill. t. xii. p. 474. Amelgard, who wrote about eighty years after the time, says, yim etiam inferre attentare praesumpsit. Notices des Manuscrits du Roi, t. i. p. 411. 8 Michelet represents this young prince as regretted and beloved ; but his lan- guage is full of those strange contrasts and inconsistencies which, for the sake of effect, this most brilliant writer some- times employs. " II avait, dans ses em- portemens de jeunesse, terriblement vexe le peuple ; il fut maudit du peuple, pleure du peuple. Vivant, il couta bien de larmes; mais combieu plus, mort ! Si vous eussiez demaude a la France si ce jeune nomine etait bien digne de tante d'amour, elle eut repondu, Je 1'aimais. Ce n'est pas seulement pour le bien qu'on aime ; qui aime, aime tout, les defauts aussi. Celui-ci plut comme il etait, mele de bien et de mal. (Hist, de France, vi. 6.) What is the meaning of this love for one who, he has just told us, was cursed by the people? And if Paris was the representative of France, how did the people show their affection for the duke of Orleans, when they were openly and vehemently the partisans of his mur- derer? On the first return of the dukb of Burgundy to Paris after the assassi- nation, the citizens shouted Noel, thb usual cry on the entrance of the kiug, to the great displeasure of the queen and other princes. "Et pour vrai, cornmt dit est dessus, il estoit tres fort ayme du commun peuple de Paris, et avoient grand esperance qu'iceluy due eust tre? grand affection au royaume, et a la chost publicque, et avoient souvenance de grans tallies qui avoient este raises BU depuis la mort du duo Philippe de Bour- gogne pere d'iceluy, jusques a 1'heure presente, lesquelles ils eutendoient que feust par le moyen dudit due d'Orleans. Efc pource estoit grandement encouru en 1'indignation d'iceluy peuple, et leur sembloit que Dieu de sa grace le.? avoit tres-grandement pour recommandez, quaud il avoit souffert qu'ils fussent hors de sa subjection et governement. et qu'ils en estoient delivrez." Monstrelet, 34. Compare this with what M. Mickfclet has written. 80 CIVIL WAR. CHAP. I. PAKT Q. It is easy to estimate the weakness of the government, from the terms upon which the duke of Burgundy was permitted to obtain pardon at Chartres, a year after the perpetration of the crime. As soon as he entered the royal presence, every one rose, except the king, queen, and dauphin. The duke, approaching the throne, fell on his knees ; when a lord, who acted as a sort of counsel for him, addressed the king : " Sire, the duke of Burgundy, your cousin and servant, is come before you, being informed that he has incurred your dis- pleasure, on account of what he caused to be done to the duke of Orleans your brother, for your good and that of your king- dom, as he is ready to prove when it shall please you to hear it, and therefore requests you, with all humility, to dismiss your resentment towards him, and to receive him into your favor." 1 This insolent apology was all the atonement that could be extorted for the assassination of the first prince of A.D.^KLO. t j ie kigo^ j t j g not won( j er f u i that the duke of between Burgundy soon obtained the management of affairs, the parties. an( j (j rove n j s adversaries from the capital. The princes, headed by the father-in-law of the young duke of Orleans, the count of Armagnac, from whom their party was now denominated, raised their standard against him ; and the north of France was rent to pieces by a protracted civil war, in which neither party scrupled any extremity of pillage or massacre. Several times peace was made ; but each faction, conscious of their own insincerity, suspected that of their adversaries. The king, of whose name both availed them- selves, was only in some doubtful intervals of reason capable of rendering legitimate the acts of either. The dauphin, aware of the tyranny which the two parties alternately exer- cised, was forced, even at the expense of perpetuating a civil war, to balance one against the other, and permit neither to be wholly subdued. He gave peace to the Armagnacs at D 1412 Auxerre, in despite of the duke of Burgundy ; and, having afterwards united with them against this prince, and carried a successful war into Flanders, he disap- pointed their revenge by concluding with him a treaty at Arras. This dauphin and his next brother died within sixteen months of each other, by which the rank devolved upon i Monstrelet, part i. f. 112. FKANCE. MURDER OF DUKE OF BURGUNDY. 81 Charles, youngest son of the king. The count of Armagnac, now constable of France, retained possession of the govern- ment. But his severity, and the weight of taxes, revived the Burgundian party in Paris, which a rigid proscription had endeavored to destroy. He brought on his head the implacable hatred of the queen, whom he had not only shut out from public affairs, but disgraced by the detection of her gallantries. Notwithstanding her ancient enmity to the duke of Burgundy, she made overtures to him, and, being delivered by his troops from con- finement, declared herself openly on his side. A few obscure persons stole the city keys, and admitted the Burgundians into Paris. The tumult which arose showed in a moment the disposition of the inhabitants ; but this was more horribly displayed- a few days afterwards, when the populace, rushing to the prisons, massacred the constable d' Armagnac j u- T> 4. j c June 12,1418 and his partisans. Between three and four thou- sand persons were murdered on this day, which has no paral lei but what our own age has witnessed, in the massacre perpetrated by the same ferocious populace of Paris, under circumstances nearly similar. Not long afterwards an agree- ment took place between the duke of Burgundy, who had now the king's person as well as the capital in his hands, and the dauphin, whose party was enfeebled A ' D ' 14 by the loss of almost all its leaders. This reconciliation, which mutual interest should have rendered per- manent, had lasted a very short time, when the Assassination duke of Burgundy was assassinated at an interview Burgundy?" with Charles, in his presence, and by the hands of his friends, though not, perhaps, with his previous knowledge. 1 i There are three suppositions conceiy- could not accept without offending God ; able to explain this important passage ia and conjecture that this might mean the history, the assassination of John Sans- assassination of the dauphin. But the peur. 1. It was pretended by the dau- expressions of Henry do not relate to any phin's friends at the time, and has been private proposals of the duke, but to de- maintained more lately (St. 1'oix, Essais mands made by him and the queen, as sur Paris, t. iii. p. 209, edit. 1767), that he proxies for Charles VI. in conference for had premeditated the murder of Charles, peace, which he says he could not accept and that his own was an act of self-de- without offending God and contravening fence. This is, I think, quite improbable : his own letters-patent. (Kymer, t. ix. p the dauphin had a great army near the 790.) It is not, however, very clear what spot, while the duke was only attended this means. 2. The next hypothesis is, by five hundred men. Villaret, indeed, that it was the deliberate act of Charles, and St. Foix, in order to throw suspicion But his youth, his feebleness of spirit, upon the duke of Burgundy's motives, and especially the consternation into assert that Henry V. accused him of which, by all testimonies he was thrown having made proposals to hiia which ho by the event, are rather adverse to this Vol.. 1. M, G 82 INTRIGUES WITH ENGLAND. CHAP. I. PART II. From whomsoever the crime proceeded, it was a deed of in- fatuation, and plunged France afresh into a sea of perils, from which the union of these factions had just afforded a hope of extricating her. It has been mentioned already that the English war had almost ceased during the reigns of Richard II. and French 63 Henry IV. The former of these was attached by En"ia S d With i nc l ma ti n 5 an d latterly by marriage, to the court of France ; and, though the French government showed at first some disposition to revenge his dethronement, yet the new king's success, as well as domestic quarrels, deterred it from any Serious renewal of the war. A long commercial connection had subsisted between England and Flanders, which the dukes of Burgundy, when they became sovereigns of the latter country upon the death of count Louis in 1384, were studious to preserve by separate truces. 1 They acted upon the same pacific policy when their interest predominated in the councils of France. Henry had even a negotiation pending for the marriage of his eldest son with a princess of Burgundy, 2 when an unexpected proposal from the opposite side set more tempting views before his eyes. The Armagnacs, pressed hard by the duke of Burgundy, offered, in consideration of only 4000 troops, the pay of which they would themselves defray, to assist him in the recov- M 1412 erv ^ Gm enne and Poitou. Four princes of the blood Berry, Bourbon, Orleans, and Alen9on disgraced their names by signing this treaty. 8 Henry broke off his alliance with Burgundy, and sent a force into France, which found on its arrival that the princes had made a sep- arate treaty, without the least concern for their English allies. After his death, Henry V. engaged for some time in a series of negotiations with, the French court, where the Orleans party now prevailed, and with the duke of Burgundy. He' even secretly treated at the same time for a marriage with Catherine of France (which seems to have been his favorite, explanation. 3. It remains only to con- quences, than that which had provoked elude that Tanegui de Chastel, and other it. Charles, however, by his subsequent favorites of the dauphin, long attached conduct, recognized their deed, and nat to the Orleans faction, who justly re- urally exposed himself to the resentment garded the duke as an infamous assassin, of the young duke of Burgundy. and might question his sincerity or their ! Rymer, t. viii. p. 611 ; Villaret. * own safety if he should regain the ascen- xii. p. 174. dant, took advantage of this opportunity 2 Idem, t. viii. p. 721. to commit an act of retaliation, less crim- 3 Idem, t. viii. p. 726, 737 j 738 in.'!, ) it not less ruinous in its couse- FKANCE. INVASION BY HENRY V. 83 as it was ultimately his successful project), and with a daughter of the duke a duplicity not creditable to his memory. 1 But Henry's ambition, which aimed at the highest quarry, was not long fettered by negotiation ; and, indeed, his proposals of marrying Catherine were coupled with such exorbitant demands, as France, notwithstanding all her weakness, could not admit, though she would I^In^e by f have ceded Guienne, and given a vast dowry with Henry v. the princess. 2 He invaded Normandy, took Har- fleur, and won the great battle of Azincourt on his march to Calais. 8 The flower of French chivalry was mowed down in this fatal day, but especially the chiefs of the Orleans party, and the princes of the royal blood, met with death or captivity. Burgundy had still suffered nothing ; but a clandestine nego- tiation had secured the duke's neutrality, though he seems not to have entered into a regular alliance till a year after the battle of Azincourt, when, by a secret treaty at Calais, he acknowledged the right of Henry to the crown of France, and his own obligation to do him homage, though its per- formance was to be suspended till Henry should become master of a considerable part of the kingdom. 4 In a second invasion the English achieved the conquest of Normandy ; and this, in all subsequent negotiations for peace during the life of Henry, he would never consent to relinquish. After several conferences, which his demands rendered abortive, the French court at length consented to add Normandy to the cessions made in the peace at Bretigni ; 5 and the treaty, though laboring under some difficulties, seems to have been nearly completed, when the duke of Burgundy, for Ju i y i^ reasons unexplained, suddenly came to a reconcil- 1419 - 1 Rymer, t. ix. p. 136. 9000 were knights or gentlemen. Almost The terms required by Henry's am- as many were made prisoners. The Kng- ssadors in 1415 were the crown of lish, according to Monstrelet, lost 1600 ' . . . . . . 3 The English army at Azincourt was of Calais. by. some comp, - merous. They lost 10.00CW led, of whom p. 628. 84 TREAT! OF TROYES. CHAP. I. PAKT IL iation with the dauphin. This event, which must have been intended adversely to Henry, would probably have broken off Sept. 10 a M parley on the subject of peace, if it had not 1419. been speedily followed by one still more surprising, the assassination of the duke of Burgundy at Montereau. An act of treachery so apparently unprovoked inflamed the minds of that powerful party which had looked up to the duke as their leader and patron. The city of Paris, especially, abjured at once its respect for the supposed author of the murder, though the legitimate heir of the crown. A solemn oath was taken by all ranks to revenge the crime ; the nobility, the clergy, the parliament, vying with the populace in their invectives against Charles, whom they now styled only pre- tended (soi-disant) dauphin. Philip, son of the assassinated duke, who, with all the popularity and much of the ability of his father, did not inherit all his depravity, was instigated by a pardonable excess of filial resentment to ally himself with the king of England. These passions of the people and the duke of Burgundy, concurring with the imbecility of Charles Treaty of VI. and the rancor of Isabel towards her son, led Troyes, to the treaty of Troyes. This compact, signed by the queen and duke, as proxies of the king, who had fallen into a state of unconscious idiocy, stipulated that Henry V., upon his marriage with Catherine, should become immediately regent of France, and, after the death of Charles, succeed to the kingdom, in exclusion not only of the dauphin, but of all the royal family. 1 It is unnecessary to remark that these flagitious provisions were absolutely invalid. But they had at the time the strong sanction of force ; and Henry might plausibly flatter himself with a hope of establishing his own usurpation as firmly in France as his father's had been in England. What not even the comprehensive policy of Ed- ward III., the energy of the Black Prince, the valor of their Knollyses and Chandoses, nor his own victories could attain, now seemed, by a strange vicissitude of fortune, to court his 1 As if through shame on account of treaty, which he was too proud to admit. what was to follow, the first articles con- The treaty of Troyes was confirmed by tain petty stipulations about the dower the States-General, or rather by a partial of Catherine. The sixth gives the king- convention which assumed the name, in dom of France after Charles's decease to December 1420. Rym. t. x. p. 30. The Henry and his heirs. The seventh con- parliament of England did the same. cedes the immediate regency. Henry Id p. 110. It is printed at full length kept Normandy by right of conquest, by Villaret, t. xv. p. 84. not in virtue of any stipulation in the FRANCE. CAUSES OF THE SUCCESS OF THE ENGLISH. 85 ambition. During two years that Henry lived after the treaty of Troyes, he governed the north of France with unlimited authority in the name of Charles VI. The latter survived his son-in-law but a few weeks ; and the infant Henry VI. was immediately proclaimed king of France and England, under the regency of his uncle the duke of Bedford. Notwithstanding the disadvantage of a minority, the Eng- lish cause was less weakened by the death of Henry than might have been expected. The duke of Bedford partook of the same character, and resembled his brother in gtate of faults as well as virtues ; in his haughtiness and France at th* . . , . 111 * . accession of arbitrary temper as in his energy and address. At Charles VH. the accession of Charles VII. the usurper was ac- A-D- 1422> knowledged by all the northern provinces of France, except a few ^fortresses, by most of Guienne, and the dominions of Burgundy. The duke of Britany A ' soon afterwards acceded to the treaty of Troyes, but changed his party again several times within a few years. The central provinces, with Languedoc, Poitou, and Dauphine, were faithful to the king. For some years the war continued without any decisive result ; but the balance was clearly swayed in favor of England. For this it is not difficult to assign sev- eral causes. The animosity of the Parisians and causes of the the duke of Burgundy against the Armagnac party success of the still continued, mingled in the former with dread EngUs of the king's return, whom they judged themselves to have inexpiably offended. The war had brought forward some accomplished commanders in the English army ; surpassing, not indeed in valor and enterprise, but in military skill, any whom France could oppose to them. Of these the most dis- tinguished, besides the duke of Bedford himself, were War- wick, Salisbury, and Talbot. Their troops, too, were still very superior to the French. But this, we must in candor allow, proceeded in a great degree from the mode in which they were raised. The war was so popular in England that it was easy to pick the best and stoutest recruits, 1 and their high pay allured men of respectable condition to the service. We find in Rymer a contract of the earl of Salisbury to supply a body of troops, receiving a shilling a day for every man-at-arms, and sixpence for each archer. 3 This is, per- 1 Monstielet, part i. f. 803. for 600 men-at-arms, including six ban- * Rym. t. x. p. 392 This contract was nerets and thirty-four bachelors ; and tor' 86 CAUSES OF SUCCESS OF THE ENGLISH. CHAP. I. PAET II. haps, equal to fifteen times the sura at our present value of money. They were bound, indeed, to furnish their own equipments and horses. But France was totally exhausted by her civil and foreign war, and incompetent to defray the expenses even of the small force which defended the wreck of the monarchy. Charles VII. lived in the utmost poverty at Bourges. 1 The nobility had scarcely recovered from the fatal slaughter of Azincourt ; and the infantry, composed of peasants or burgesses, which had made their army so numer- ous upon that day, whether from inability to compel their services, or experience of their inefficacy, were never called into the field. It became almost entirely a war of partisans. Every town in Picardy, Champagne, Maine, or wherever the contest might be carried on, was a fortress ; and in the attack or defence of these garrisons the valor of both nations was called into constant exercise. This mode of warfare was undoubtedly the best in the actual state of France, as it gradually improved her troops, and flushed them with petty successes. But what principally led to its adoption, was the license and insubordination of the royalists, who, receiving no pay, owned no control, and thought that, provided they acted against the English and Burgundians, they were free to choose their own points of attack. Nothing can more evidently show the weakness of France than the high terms by which Charles VII. was content to purchase the assistance of some Scottish auxiliaries. The earl of Buchan was made constable ; the earl of Douglas had the duchy of Touraine, with a new title, lieutenant-general of the kingdom. At a subsequent time Charles offered the province of Saintonge to James I. for an aid of 6000 men. These Scots fought bravely for France, though unsuccessfully, at Crevant and Verneuil ; but it must be owned they set a sufficient value upon their service. Un- der all these disadvantages it would be unjust to charge the French nation with any inferiority of courage, even in the most unfortunate periods of this war. Though frequently panic-struck in the field of battle, they stood sieges of their Availed towns with matchless spirit and endurance. Perhaps some analogy may be found between the character of the 1700 archers ; blen et sufflsamment mon- at-arms, 1*. ; and for each archer, 6rf. tez, armez, et arraiez comme a leurs Artillery-men were paid higher than estate appartient. The pay was, for the men-at-arms. earl, 6s. 8rf. a day; for a banneret, 4s.; 1 Villaret, t. xiv. p. 802. for a bachelor, 2s. ; for erery other man- FKAJJCE. SIEGE OF ORLEANS. 87 French commonalty during the English invasion and the Spaniards of the late peninsular war. But to the exertions of those brave nobles who restored the monarchy of Charles VII. Spain has afforded no adequate parallel. It was, however, in the temper of Charles VII. that his ene- mies found their chief advantage. This prince is character of one of the few whose character has been improved Charles vn. by prosperity. During the calamitous morning of his reign he shrunk from fronting the storm, and strove to forget him- self in pleasure. Though brave, he was never seen in war ; though intelligent, he was governed by flatterers. Those who had committed the assassination at Montereau under his eyes were his first favorites ; as if he had determined to avoid the only measure through which he could hope for better success, a reconciliation with the duke of Burgundy. The count de f Richemont, brother of the duke of Britany, who became af- terwards one of the chief pillars of his throne, consented to renounce the English alliance, and accept the rank of consta- ble, on condition that these favorites should quit the court. Two others, who successively gained i- a similar influence over Charles, Richemont publicly caused to be assassinated, assuring the king that it was for his own and the public'good. Such was the debasement of morals and government which twenty years of civil war had produced ! Another favorite, La Tremouille, took the dangerous office, and, as might be expected, employed his influence against Richemont, who for some years lived on his own domains, rather as an armed neutral than a friend, though he never lost his attachment -to the royal cause. It cannot therefore surprise us that with all these advan- tages the regent duke of Bedford had almost completed the capture of the fortresses north of the Loire when siege of he invested Orleans in 1428. If this city had Orleans - fallen, the central provinces, which were less furnished with defensible places, would have lain open to the enemy > and it is said that Charles VII. in despair was about to retire into Dauphine. At this time his affairs were restored by one of the most marvellous revolutions in history. A Joan of country girl overthrew the power of England. "We Arc ' cannot pretend to explain the surprising story of the Maid of Orleans ; for, however easy it may be to suppose that a heated and enthusiastic imagination produced her own visions, it is a 88 JOAN OF CHAP. I. PART II. much greater problem to account for the credit they obtained, and for the success that attended her. Nor will this be solved by the hypothesis of a concerted stratagem ; which, if we do not judge altogether from events, must appear liable to so many chances of failure, that it could not have suggested it- self to any rational person. However, it is certain that the appearance of Joan of Arc turned the tide of war, which from that moment flowed without interruption in Charles's favor. A superstitious awe enfeebled the sinews of the Eng- lish. They hung back in their own country, or deserted from the army, through fear of the incantations by which alone they conceived so extraordinary a person to succeed. 1 As men always make sure of Providence for an ally, whatever untoward fortune appeared to result from preternatural causes was at once ascribed to infernal enemies ; and such bigotry may be pleaded as an excuse, though a very miserable one, for the detestable murder of this heroine. 2 The spirit which Joan of Arc had roused did not subside. The king France recovered confidence in her own strength, retrieves which had been chilled by a long course of adverse 118 ' fortune. The king, too, shook off his indolence, 8 > Rym. t. x. p. 458-472. This, how- ever, is conjecture ; for the cause of their desertion is not mentioned in these proc- lamations, though Rymer has printed it in their title. But the duke of Bed- ford speaks of the turn of success as astonishing, and due only to the supersti- tious fear which the English had con- ceived of a female magician. Rymer, t. x. p. 408. 2 M. de 1'Averdy, to whom we owe the copious account of the proceedings against Joan of Arc, as well as those which Charles VII. instituted in order to rescind the former, contained in the third volume of Notices des Manuscrits du Roi, has justly made this remark, which is founded on the eagerness shown by the University of Paris in the prosecution, and on its being conducted before an Inquisitor; a circumstance exceedingly remarkable in the ecclesiastical history of France. But another material ob- servation arises out of this. The Maid was pursued with peculiar bitterness by her countrymen of the English, or rather Burgundian, faction; a proof that in 1430 their animosity against Charles VII. was still ardent. [NOTE XVI.] 3 It is a current piece of history that Agnes Sorel, mistress of Charles VII., had the merit of dissuading him from giving up the kingdom as lost at the time when Orleans was besieged in 1428. Mezeray, Daniel, Villaret, and. I believe, every other modern historian, have men- tioned this circumstance; and some of them, among whom is Hume, with the addition that Agnes threatened to leave the court of Charles for that of Henry, affirming that she was born to be the mistress of a great king. The latter part of this tale is evidently a fabrication, Henry VI. being at the time a child of seven years old. But I have, to say the least, great doubts of the main story. It is not mentioned by contemporary writers. On the contrary, what they say of Agnes leads me to think the dates in- compatible. Agnes died (in childbed, as some say) in 1450; twenty-two years after the siege of Orleans. Monstrelet says that she had been about five years in the service of the queen ; and the king tak ing pleasure in her liveliness and wit, common fame had spread abroad that she lived in concubinage with him. She certainly had a child, and was willing that it should he thought the king's ; but he always denied it, et le pouvoit bien avoir emprunte ailleurs. Pt. iii. f. 25. Olivier de la Marche another contempo- rary, who lived in the court of Burgundy, aays, about the year 1444, le roy avoit FJULNCE. AGNES SOREL. 89 and permitted Kichemont to exclude his unworthy favor- ites from the court. This led to a very important conse- quence. The duke of Burgundy, whose alliance with Eng- land had been only the fruit of indignation at his father's murder, fell naturally, as that passion wore out, into senti- ments more congenial to his birth and interests. A prince of the house of Capet could not willingly see the inheritance of his ancestors transferred to a stranger. And he had met with provocation both from the regent and the duke of Glou- cester, who, in contempt of all policy and justice, had endeav- ored, by an invalid marriage with Jacqueline, countess of Hainault and Holland, to obtain provinces which Burgundy designed for himself. Yet the union of his sister with Bed- nouvellement eslev6 une pauvre demoi- selle, gentifemme, nominee Agnes Sorel, et mis en tl triumphe et tel pouvoir, que son estat estoit a comparer aux grandes princesses de royaume, et certes c'estoit une des plus belles femmes que je vey oucques, et fit en sa qualite beau- coup au royaume de France. Elle avan- (joit devers le roy jeunes gens d'armes et gentils compaignons, et dont le roy de- puig fut bien servy. La Marche; Mem. Hist. t. viii. p. 145. Du Clercq, whose memoirs were first published in the same collection, says that ^ Agnes mourut par poison moult jeune," Ib. t. Tiii. p. 410. And the eontinuator of Monstrelet, prob- ably John Chartier, speaks of the youth and beauty of Agnes, which exceeded that of any other woman in France, and of the favor shown her by the king, which so much excited the displeasure of the dauphin, on his mother's account, and he was suspected of having caused her to be poisoned, fol. 68. The same writer affirms of Charles VII. that he was, before the peace of Arras, de moult belle vie et devote ; but afterwards en- laidit sa vie de tenir malles femmes en son hostel, &c. fol. 86. It is for the reader to judge how far these passages render it improbable that Agnes Sorel was the mistress of Charles VII. at the siege of Orleans in 1428, and, consequently, whether she is entitled to the praise which she has received, of be- ing instrumental in the deliverance of France. The tradition, however, is as an- cient as Francis I., who made in her honor a quatrain which is well known. This probably may have brought the story more into vogue, and led Mezeray, who was not very critical, to insert it in Uis history, from which it has passed to his followers. Its origin was apparently the popular character of Agues. She waa the Nell Qwyn of France ; and justly be- loved, not only for her charity and cour- tesy, but for bringing forward men of merit, and turning her influence, a vir- tue very rare in her class, towards the public interest. From thence it was natural to bestow upon her, in after- times, a merit not ill suited to her char acter, but which an accurate observation of dates seems to render impossible. But whatever honor I am compelled to de- tract from Agnes Sorel, I am willing to transfer undiminished to a more unblem- ished female, the injured queen of Charles \ II., Mary of Anjou, who has hitherto only shared with the usurper of her rights the credit of awakening Charles from his lethargy. Though I do not know on what foundation even this rests, it is not unlikely to be true, and, in def- erence to the sex, let it pass undisputed. Sismondi (vol. .xiii. p. 204), where he first mentions Agues Sorel, says that many of the circumstances told of her influence over Charles VII. are fabulous. " Cependant 51 faut bien qu'Agnes ait merite, en quelque maniere, la reconnois- sance qui s'est attachee a son nom." This is a loose and inconclusive way of reasoning in history ; many popular tra- ditions have no basis at all. And in p. 345 he slights the story told in Bran- t3me to the honor of Agnes, as well he might, since it is ridiculously untrue that she threatened Charles to go to the court of Henry VI., knowing herself to be born to be the mistress of a great king. Sismondi afterwards (p. 497 and 604) quotes, as I have done, Chartier and Jacques du Clercq; but without adverting to the incongruity of their dates with the current story. M. Michelet does not seem to attach much credit to it, though he adopts the earlier date for the king attachment to Agues. 90 IMPOLICY OF THE ENGLISH. CHAP, I. PART IL ford, the obligations by which he was bound, and, most of all, the favor shown by Charles VII. to the assassins of his father, and is rec- kept him for many years on the English side, al- onciied to though rendering it less and less assistance. But Burgundy, at length he concluded a treaty at Arras, the terms A.D. 1435. o f w hich be dictated rather as a conqueror than a subject negotiating with his sovereign. Charles, however, re- fused nothing for such an end ; and, in a very short time, the Burgundians were ranged with the French against their old allies of England. It was now time for the latter to abandon those magnificent impolicy of projects of conquering France which temporary the English. c i rC umstances alone had seemed to render feasible. But as it is a natural effect of good fortune in the game of war to render a people insensible to its gradual change, the English could not persuade themselves that their affairs were irretrievably declining. Hence they rejected the offer of Normandy and Guienne, subject to the feudal superiority of France, which was made to them at the congress of Arras; 1 and some years afterwards, when Paris, with the adjacent provinces, had been lost, the English ambassadors, though empowered by their private instructions to relax, stood upon demands quite disproportionate to the actual position of af- fairs. 2 As foreign enemies, they were odious even in that part of France which had acknowledged Henry ; 8 and when the duke of Burgundy deserted their side, Paris and every other city were impatient to throw off the They lose J J all their yoke. A feeble monarchy, and a selfish council, A^D. q im' completed their ruin : the necessary subsidies were raised with difficulty, and, when raised, misapplied. It is a proof of the exhaustion of France, that Charles was unable, for seyeral years, to reduce Normandy or Guienne, which were so ill-provided for defence. 4 At last he came Ch * , prict6 sous la clause de fhommage d la says only, que per certaincs conditions eouronne, t. xv. p. 174. But he does not luy seroient accordees les seigneuries de quote his authority, and I do not like to Guienne et Normandie. FKA>-CE. LOSS OF THEIR CONQUESTS. 91 with collected strength to the contest, and, breaking an armis- tice upon slight pretences, within two years overwhelmed the English garrisons in each of these provinces. All the inher- itance of Henry II. and Eleanor, all the conquests of Edward III. and Henry V. except Calais and a small adjacent district, were irrecoverably torn from the crown of England. A barren title, that idle trophy of disappointed ambition, was preserved with strange obstinacy to our own age. In these second English wars we find little left of that gen- erous feeling which had, in general, distinguished condition the contemporaries of Edward III. The very virtues which a state of hostility promotes are not second proof against its long continuance, and sink at last En s Ush wars - into brutal fierceness. Revenge and fear excited the two factions of Orleans and Burgundy to all atrocious actions. The troops serving under partisans on detached expedi- tions, according to the system of the war, lived at free quar- ters on the people. The histories of the time are full of their outrages, from which, as is the common case, the unpro- tected peasantry most suffered. 1 Even those laws of war, which the courteous sympathies of chivalry had enjoined, were disregarded by a merciless fury. Garrisons surrendering after a brave defence were put to death. Instances of this are very frequent. Henry V. excepts Alain Blanchard, a citizen who had distinguished himself during the siege, from the capitulation of Rouen, and orders him to execution. At the taking of a town of Champagne, John of Luxemburg, the Burgundian general, stipulates that every fourth and sixth man should be at his discretion ; which he exercises by gome valuable extracts are made in the si non de crier miserablement a Dieu Notices des Manuscrits, t. i. p. 403,attrib- leur createnr vengeance; et que pis utes the delay in recovering Normandy estoit, quand ils obtenoient aucun sauf- golely to the king's slothf ulness and sen- conduit d'aucuns capitaines, peu en estoit Buality. In fact the people of that prov- entretenu, mesraement tout d'un parti, ince rose upon the English and almost part ii. fol. 139. These pillagers were emancipated themselves with little aid called Ecorcheurs, because they stripped from Charles. the people of their shirts. And this name 1 Monstrelet, passim. A long metrical superseded that of Annagnacs, by which complaint of the people of France, curious one side had hitherto been known. Even as a specimen of versification, as well as Xaintrailles and La Hire, two of the a testimony to the misfortunes of the bravest champions of France, were dis- time, mav be found in this historian, graced bv these habits of outrage. Ibid, part i. fol. 321. Notwithstanding the fol. 144, 150, 175 Oliv. de la Marche, in treaty of Arras, the French and Burgun- Collect, des Memoires, t. viii. p. 25 ; t. v. dians made continual incursions upon p. 323. each other's frontiers, especially about Pour la plupart, says Villaret, se faire Laon and in the Vermandois. So that guerrier, ou voleur de grands chemins, the people had no help, says Monstrelet, signifioit la meuie chose. 92 COSTDITION OF FRANCE. CHAP. I. PART II causing them all to be hanged. 1 Four hundred English from Pontoise, stormed by Charles VII. in 1441, are paraded in chains and naked through the streets of Paris, and thrown afterwards into the Seine. This infamous action cannot but be ascribed to the king. 2 At the expulsion of the English, France emerged from the chaos with an altered character and new features fve^hfthe f government. The royal authority and supreme reign of jurisdiction of the parliament were universally Charles VII. J , v , ,1 r j j recognized. Yet there was a tendency towards insubordination left among the great nobility, arising in part from the remains of old feudal privileges, but still more from that lax administration which, in the convulsive struggles of the war, had been suffered to prevail. In the south were some considerable vassals, the houses of Foix, Albret, and Armagnac, who, on account of their distance from the seat of empire, had always maintained a very independent conduct. The dukes of Britany and Burgundy were of a more formi- dable character, and might rather be ranked among foreign powers than privileged subjects. The princes, too, of the royal blood, who, during the late reign, had learned to partake or contend for the management, were ill-inclined towards Charles VII., himself jealous, from old recollections, of their ascendancy. They saw that the constitution was verging rapidly towards an absolute monarchy, from the direction of which they would studiously be excluded. This apprehension gave rise to several attempts at rebellion during the reign of Charles VII., and to the war, commonly entitled, for the Public Weal (du bien public), under Louis XI. Among the pretences alleged by the revolters in each of these, the injuries of the people were not forgotten ; 8 but from the people they i Monstrelet, part ii. f. 79. This John luy en feit occire aucuns, le quel y of Luxemburg, count de Ligny, was a prenoit grand plaisir. part ii. fol. 95. distinguished captain on the Burgundian 2 Villaret, t. XT. p. 327. side, and for a long time would not ac- 8 The confederacy formed at Nevers quiesce in the treaty of Arras. He dis- in 1441, by the dukes of Orleans and graced himself by giving up to the duke Bourbon, with many other princes, made of Bedford his prisoner Joan of Arc for a variety of demands, all relating to the 10,000 francs. The famous count of St. grievances which different classes of the Pol was his nephew, and inherited his state, or individuals among themselves, great possessions in the county of Ver- suffered under the administration of mandois. Monstrelet relates a singular Charles. These may be found at length proof of the good education which his in Monstrelet, pt. ii. f. 193 ; and are a uncle gave him. Some prisoners having curious document of the change which been made ill an engagement, si fut le was then working in the French consti- jeune comte de St. Pol mis en voye de tution. In his answer the king claims guerre j car le comte de Ligny son oncle the right, in urgent cases, of levying taxes FRANCE. EVENTS UNDER CHARLES VII. 93 received small support. Weary of civil dissension, and anxious for a strong government to secure them from depre- dation, the French had no inducement to intrust even their real grievances to a few malcontent princes, whose regard for the common good they had much reason to distrust. Every circumstance favored Charles VII. and his son in the attainment of arbitrary power. The country was pillaged by military ruffians. Some of these had been led by the dauphin to a war in Germany, but the remainder still infested the high roads and villages. Charles established his companies of ordonnance, the basis of the French regular army, in order to protect the country from such depredators. They con- sisted of about nine thousand soldiers, all cavalry, of whom fifteen hundred were heavy armed ; a force not very consid- erable, but .the first, except mere body-guards, which had been raised in any part of Europe as a national standing army. 1 These troops were paid out of the produce of a permanent tax, called the taille ; an innovation still more important than the former. But the present benefit cheating the people^ now prone to submissive habits, little or no opposition wa's made, except in Guienne, the inhabitants of which had speedy reason to regret the mild government of England, and vainly endeav- ored to return to its protection. 2 It was not long before the new despotism exhibited itself without waiting for the consent of the States-General. 1 Olivier del a Marche speaks very much in favor of the companies of ordonnance, as having repressed the plunderers, and restored internal police. Collect, des Hemoires, t. viii. p. 148. Amelgard pro- nounces a vehement philippic against them ; but it is probable that his obser- vation of the afcuses they had fallen into was confined to the reign of Louis XI. Notices des Manuscrits, ubi supra. 2 The insurrection of Guienne in 1462, which for a few months restored that province to the English crown, is ac- counted for in the curious memoirs of Amelgard, above mentioned. It pro- ceeded solely from the arbitrary taxes imposed by Charles VII. in order to defray the expenses of his regular army. The people of Bordeaux complained of exactions not only contrary to their an- cient privileges, but to the positive con- ditions of their capitulation. But the king was deaf to such remonstrances. The province of Guienne, he says, then perceived that it was meaut to subject it to tbe same servitude as the rest of France, where the leeches of the state boldly maintain as a fundamental maxim, that the king has a right to tax all his subjects how and when he pleases ; which is to advance that in France no man has anything that he can call his own. and that the king can take all at his pleasure ; the proper condition of slaves, whose peculium enjoyed by their master's per- mission belongs to him, like their persons, and may be taken away whenever he chooses. Thus situated, the people of Guienne, especially those of Bordeaux, alarmed themselves, and, excited by som of the nobility, secretly sought about for means to regain their ancient freedom ; and having still many connections with persons of rank in England, they nego- tiated with them, &c. Notices des Manu- scrits, p. 433. The same cause is assigned to this revolution by Du Clercq, also a contemporary writer, living in the do- minions of "Burgundy. Collection de8 M'imoires, t. ix. p. 400. Villaret has no* known, or not chosen to know, anything of the matter. 94 LOUIS XI. CHAP. 1. PART II. in its harshest character. Louis XI., son of Charles VII., who, during his father's reign, had been con- nected with the discontented princes, came to the throne greatly endowed with those virtues and vices which conspire 1461 to t ^ ie success f a king. Laborious vigilance in His char- business, contempt of pomp, affability to inferiors, were his excellences ; qualities especially praise- worthy in an age characterized by idleness, love of pageantry, and insolence. To these virtues he added a perfect knowledge of all persons eminent for talents or influence in the countries with which he was connected, and a well-judged bounty, that thought no expense wasted to draw them into his service or interest. In the fifteenth century this political art had hardly been known, except perhaps in Italy ; the princes of Europe had contended with each other by arms, sometimes by treach- ery, but never with such complicated subtlety of intrigue. Of that insidious cunning, which has since been brought to perfection, Louis XI. may be deemed not absolutely the inventor, but the most eminent improver ; and its success has led, perhaps, to too high an estimate of his abilities. Like most bad men, he sometimes fell into his own snare, and was betrayed by his confidential ministers, because his confidence was generally reposed in the wicked. And his dissimulation was so notorious, his tyranny so oppressive, that he was nat- urally surrounded by enemies, and had occasion for all his craft to elude those rebellions and confederacies which might perhaps not have been raised against a more upright sover- eign. 1 At one time the monarchy was on the point of sinking before a combination which would have ended in dismember- ing France. This was the league denominated of the Public League Weal, in which all the princes and great vassals of denominated the French crown were concerned : the dukes of weaL IC Britany, Burgundy, Alen9on, Bourbon, the count A.D. 1461. of Dunois, so renowned for his valor in the English wars, the families of Foix and Armagnac ; and at the head i Sismondi (vol. xiv. p. 312) and Mich- against his enemies, and especially against elet (vol. ix. p. 347) agree in thinking bis rebellious subjects. Louis composed Louis XI. no worse than other kings of for his son's use, or caused to be com his age ; in fact the former seems rarely posed a political treatise entitled ' Le to make a distinction between one king Rosier des Guerres,' which has never and another. Louis was just and even been published. It is written in a spirit attentive towards the lower people, and of public morality very unlike his prac- spared the blood of his soldiers. But he tice. (Sismondi, vol. xiv. p. 616.) Thus had imbibed a notion that treachery and two royal Anti-Hachiavels have satirized cruelty could not be carried too fur themselves. FRANCE. LEAGUE OF THE PUBLIC WEAL. APPANAGES. 95 of all, Charles duke of Berry, the king's brother and pre- sumptive heir. So unanimous a combination was not formed without a strong provocation from the king, or at least with- out weighty grounds for distrusting his intentions ; but the more remote cause of this confederacy, as of those which had been raised against Charles VII., was the critical position of the feudal aristocracy from the increasing power of the crown. This war of the Public Weal was, in fact, a struggle to pre- serve their independence ; and from the weak character of the duke of Berry, whom they would, if successful, have placed upon the throne, it is possible that France might have been in a manner partitioned among them in the event of their success, or, at least, that Burgundy and Britany would have thrown off the sovereignty that galled them. 1 The strength of the confederates in this war much exceeded that of the king ; but it was not judiciously employed ; and after an indecisive battle at Montlhery they tailed in the great object of reducing Paris, which would have obliged Louis to fly from his dominions. It was his policy to promise every- thing, in trust that fortune would- afford some opening to repair his losses and give scope to his superior prudence. Accordingly, by the treaty of Conflans, he not only surren- dered afresh the towns upon the Somme, which he had lately redeemed from the duke of Burgundy, but invested his brother with the duchy of Normandy as his appanage. The term appanage denotes the provision made for the younger children of a king of France. This always consisted of lands and feudal superiorities held of Pl>a the crown by the tenure of peerage. It is evident that this usage, as it produced a new class of powerful feudataries, was hostile to the interests and policy of the sovereign, and re- tarded the subjugation of the ancient aristocracy. But an usage coeval with the monarchy was not to be abrogated, and the scarcity of money rendered it impossible to provide for the younger branches of the royal family by any other means. It was restrained, however, as far as circumstances would permit. Philip IV. declared that the county of Poitiers, bestowed by 1 Sismondi has a just observation on 6te proclamfi ; c'est que le bien public the League of the Public Weal. " Le doit etre le but du gouvernement ; niaia nom seul du Bien Public, qui fut donne les princes qui s'associaientpourl'obti-inr 4 cette ligue, etait Tin hommage au pro- etaient encore bien peu en etat tie cou gres des lumieres.; c'etait la profession naitre sa nature." (xiv. 161.) d'un principe iui n'avait point encore 90 APPANAGES. CHAP. I. PAKT II him on his son, should revert to the crown on the extinction of male heirs. But this, though an important precedent, was not, as has often been asserted, a general law. Charles V. limited the appanages of his own sons to twelve thousand livres of annual value in land. By means of their appanages, and through the operation of the Salic law, which made their inheritance of the crown a less remote contingency, the princes of the blood royal in France were at all times (for the remark is applicable long after Louis XI.) a distinct and formidable class of men, whose influence was always disadvantageous to the reigning monarch, and, in general, to the people. No appanage had ever been granted to France so enormous as the duchy of Normandy. One third of the whole national revenue, it is declared, was derived from that rich province. Louis could not, therefore, sit down under such terms as, with his usual insincerity, he had accepted at Conflans. In a very short tune he attacked Normandy, and easily compelled his brother to take refuge in Britany ; nor were his enemies ever able to procure the restitution of Charles's appanage. Dur- ing the rest of his reign Louis had powerful coalitions to with- stand ; but his prudence and compliance with circumstances, joined to some mixture of good fortune, brought him safely through his perils. The duke of Britany, a prince of moder- ate talents, was unable to make any formidable impression, though generally leagued with the enemies of the king. The less powerful vassals were successfully crushed by Louis with decisive vigor ; the duchy of Alenfon was confiscated ; the count of Armagnac was assassinated ; the duke of Nemours, and the constable of St. Pol, a politician as treacherous as Louis, who had long betrayed both him and the duke of Burgundy, suffered upon the scaffold. The king's brother Charles, after disquieting him for many years, died suddenly in Guienne, which had finally been granted as his appanage, with strong suspicions of having been poisoned by the king's contrivance. 1 Edward IV. of England was too dissipated and too indolent to be fond of war ; and, though he once entered France with an army more considera- ble than could have been expected after such civil bloodshed as England had witnessed, he was induced, by the i Sismondi, however, and Michelet do was poisoned by his brother ; he had been not believe that the duke of Quieuue ill for several mouths. FKAXCE. HOUSE OF BURGUNDY. 97 stipulation of a large pension, to give up the entei prise. 1 So terrible was still in France the apprehension of an English war, that Louis prided himself upon no part of his policy so much as the warding this blow. Edward showed a desire to visit Paris ; but the king gave him no invitation, lest, he said, his brother should find some handsome women there, who might tempt him to return in a different manner. Hastings, Howard, and others of Edward's ministers, were secured by >ribes in the interest of Louis, which the first of these did not scruple to receive at the same time from the duke of Burgundy. 2 This was the most powerful enemy whom the craft of Louis had to counteract. In the last days of the feudal sys- tem, when the house of Capet had almost achieved the subju- gation of _those proud vassals among whom it had House of been originally numbered, a new antagonist sprung Bur g una y up to dispute the field against the crown. John 1^%^ king of France granted the duchy of Burgundy, by sitions. way of appanage, to his third son, Philip. By his marriage with Margaret, heiress of Louis count of Flanders, Philip ac- quired that province, Artois, the county of Burgundy (or Fran- che-comte), and the Nivernois. Philip the Good, his grandson, who carried the prosperity of this family to its height, pos- sessed himself, by various titles, of the several other provinces which composed the Netherlands. These were fiefs of the empire, but latterly not much dependent upon it, and alienated by their owners without its consent. At the peace of Arras the districts of Macon and Auxerre were absolutely ceded to Philip, and great part of Picardy conditionally made over to him, redeemable on the payment of four hundred thousand crowns. 8 These extensive, though not compact dominions, JThe army of Edward consisted of will not have it gaid that the Great 1,500 men at arms and 14,000 archers; Chamberlain of England is a pensioner the whole very well appointed. Comines, of the king of France, nor have my t. xi. p. 238. There seems to have been name appear in the books of the Chain- a great expectation of what the English bres des Comptes." Ibid, would do, and great fears entertained by 3 The duke of Burgundy was person- Louis, who grudged no expense to get ally excused from all homage and service rid of them. to Charles VII.; but, if either died, H 2 Comines, 1. vi. e. 2. Hastings had was to be paid by the heir, or to the the mean cunning to refuse to give his heir. Accordingly, on Charles's death receipt for the pension he took from Philip did homage to Louis. This ex- Louis XI. " This present, he said to the emption can hardly, therefore, have been king's agent, comes from your master's inserted to gratify the pride of Philip, as good pleasure, and not at my request ; historians suppose. Is it not probable and if you mean I should receive it, you that, during his resentment against may put it here into my sleeve, but you Charles, he might have made some vow shall have no discharge from me ; for I never to do him homage ; which thin VOL. 1. M. 7 98 CHARLES OF BURGUNDY. CHAP. 1. PART II were abundant in population and wealth, fertile in corn, wine, and salt, and full of commercial activity. Thirty years of peace which followed the treaty of Arras, with a mild and free government, raised the subjects of Burgundy to a degree of prosperity quite unparalleled in these times of disorder, and this was displayed in general surnptuousness of dress and feasting. The court of Philip and of his son Charles was distinguished for its pomp and riches, for pag eauts and tournaments ; the trappings of chivalry, perhaps without its spirit ; for the military character of Burgundy had been impaired by long tranquillity. 1 During the lives of Philip and Charles VH. each under- Characte stood the other's rank, and their amity was little in- of Charles terrupted. But their successors, the most opposite Burgundy. ^ human kind in character, had one common quality, ambition, to render their antipathy more powerful. Louis was eminently timid and suspicious in policy ; Charles intrepid beyond all men, and blindly presumptuous : Louis stooped to any humiliation to reach his aim ; Charles was too haughty to seek the fairest means of strengthen- ing his party. An alliance of his daughter with the duke of Guienne, brother of Louis, was what the malecontent French princes most desired and the king most dreaded ; but Charles, either averse to any French connection, or willing to keep his daughter's suitors in dependence, would never directly accede to that or any other proposition for her mar- riage. On Philip's death in 1467, he inherited a great treasure, which he soon wasted in the prosecution of his schemes. These were so numerous and vast, that he had not time to live, says Comines, to complete them, nor would one half of Europe have contented him. It was his intention to assume the title reservation in the treaty was intended to treaty Philip is entitled duke by the preserve ? grace of God ; whii'h was reckoned a his successors kings of France, t. xvi. p. moires, t. is. p. 389. In the investiture 404. For this assertion too he seems to granted by John to the first Philip of quote the Tresor des Chartes, where, Burgundy, a reservation is made that probably, the original treaty is preserved, the royal taxes shall be levied throughout Nevertheless, it appears otherwise, as that appanage. But during the long published by Monstrelet at full length, hostility between the kingdom and duchy who could have no motive to falsify it ; this could not have been enforced : and and Philip's conduct in doing homage to by the treaty of Arras Charles surren- Louis is hardly compatible with Villaret's dered all right to tax the di'ke's domia assertion. Daniel copies Monstrelet ions. Houstrelet, f. 114. without any observation. In the same the Flemish cities. FRANCE. INSUBORDINATION OF THE FLEMISH CITIES. 09 of King ; and the emperor Frederic III. was at one time act- ually on his road to confer this dignity, when some suspicion caused him to retire, and the project was never renewed. 1 It is evident that, if Charles's capacity had borne any propor- tion to his pride and courage, or if a prince less politic than Louis XL had been his contemporary in ' France, the prov- ince of Burgundy must have been lost to the monarchy. For several years these great rivals were engaged, sometimes in open hostility, sometimes in endeavors to overreach each other; but Charles, though not much more scrupulous, was far less an adept in these mysteries of politics than the king. Notwithstanding the power of Burgundy, there were some disadvantages in its situation. It presented (I , i_ 11 rt i _ J- ' Insubordi- speak or all Charles s dominions under the com- nation of mon name, Burgundy) a very exposed frontier on the side of Germany and Switzerland, as well as France ; and Louis exerted a considerable influence over the adjacent princes of the empire as well as the United Cantons. The people of Liege, a very populous city, had for a long time been continually rebelling against their bishops, who were the allies of Burgundy ; Louis was of course not back- ward to foment their insurrections, which sometimes gave the dukes a good de'al of trouble. The Flemings, and especially the people of Ghent, had been during a century noted for their republican spirit and contumacious defiance of their sov- ereign. Liberty never wore a more unamiable countenance than among these burghers, who abused the strength she gave them by cruelty and insolence. Ghent, when Froissart wrote, about the year 1400, was one of the strongest cities in Europe, and would have required, he says, an army of two hundred thousand men to besiege it on every side, so as to shut up all access by the Lys and Scheldt. It contained eighty thousand men of age to bear arms ; 2 a calculation i Gamier, t. xviii. p. 62. It is observa- tained to the French crown, with Fran- ble that Ooinines says not a word of this; che-cointeand other countries which had for which Garnior seems to quote Belca- belonged to the kingdom of Burgundy, rius, a writer of the sixteenth age. But Hence he talked at Dijon, in 1473, to the even Philip, when Morvilliers. Louis's estates of the former, about the kingdom chancellor, used menaces towards him, of Burgundy, " que ceux de France ont Interrupted the orator with these words : longtema usurpe e.t d'icelui fait duche; Je vettx que chacunseache que,sij'eusse que tous les sujets doivent bien avoir 4 voulu, je fusse roi. Villaret, t. xvii. regret, et dit qu'il avait en soi des choses p. 44. qu'il n'appartenait de savoir i nul qu'A Charles had a vague notion of history, lui." Michelet (ix. 162) is the first who and confoanded the province or duchy has published this, ol Burgundy, which had alwa.vs apper- 2 Froissart, part ii. c. 67- 100 THE FLEMISH CITIES. CHAP. I. PART ii which, although, as I presume, much exaggerated, is evidence of great actual populousness. Such a city was absolutely im- pregnable at a time when artillery was very imperfect both in its construction and management. Hence, though the citizens of Ghent were generally beaten in the field with great slaugh- ter, they obtained tolerable terms from their masters, who knew the danger of forcing them to a desperate defence. No taxes were raised in Flanders, or indeed throughout the dominions of Burgundy, without consent of the three es- tates. In the time of Philip not a great deal of money was levied upon the people ; but Charles obtained every year a pretty large subsidy, which he expended in the hire of Ital- ian and English mercenaries. 1 An almost uninterrupted suc- cess had attended his enterprises for a length of time, and rendered his disposition still more overweening. A. D. 1474. His first failure was before Neuss, a little town near Cologne, the possession of which would have made him nearly master of the whole course of the Rhine, for he had already obtained the landgraviate of Alsace. Though com- pelled to raise the siege, he succeeded in occupying, next year, the duchy of Lorraine. But his overthrow was reserved for an enemy whom he despised, and whom none could have 1 thought equal to the contest. The Swiss had given him some slight provocation, for which they were ready to atone ; but Charles was unused to forbear ; and perhaps Switzerland came within his projects of conquest. At Granson, in the Pays de Vaud, he was entirely routed, with more disgrace than slaughter. 2 But having reas- 1 Comines, 1. iv. c. 13. It was very re- doute faisoient les sujetg, et pour plu luctantly that the Flemings granted any sieurs raisons, de se mettre en cette su- nioney. Philip once begged for a tax jetion ou ils voyoient le royanme de on salt, promising never to ask anything France, 4 cause de ses gens d'arines. A la more ; but the people of Ghent, and, in Yerite, leur grand doute n : estoit pas sans imitation of them, the whole county, re- cause ; car quand il se trouva cinq cena fused it. Du Olercq, p. 389. Upon his hommes d'armes, la volonte luy Tint d'en pretence of taking the cross, they granted avoir plus, et de plus hardiment entre- him a subsidy, though less than he had prendre contre tous ses voisins. Comiues, requested, on condition that it should 1. iii. c. 4, 9. not be levied if the crusade did not take Du Clercq, a contemporary writer of place, which put an end to the attempt, very good authority, mentioning the The states knew well that the duke would story of a certain widow who had re- employ any money they gave him in keep- married the day after her husband's ing up a body of gens-d'armes, like hia death, says that she was in some degree neighbor, the king of France ; and though excusable, because it was the practice of the want of such a force exposed their the duke and his officers to force rich wid- country to pillage, they were too good ows into marrying their soldiers or other patriots to place the means of enslaving servants, t. ix. p. 418- it iu the hands of their sovereign. Grand a A famous diamond, belonging to FRANCE. CLAIM OF LOUIS XI 101 sembled his troops, and met the confederate army Defeats of of Swiss and Germans at Morat, near Friburg, he Qtanson* was again defeated with vast loss. On this day and Morat. the power of . Burgundy was dissipated : deserted by hia allies, betrayed by his mercenaries, he set his life His death, upon another cast at Nancy, desperately giving A - D - 1477 - battle to the duke of Lorraine with a small dispirited army, and perished in the engagement. Now was the moment when Louis, who had held back while his enemy was breaking his force against the claim of rocks of Switzerland, came to gather a harvest {^"he^ue- which his labor had not reaped. Charles left an cession of only daughter, undoubted heiress of Flanders and Bur s und y Artois, as well as of his dominions out of France, but whose right of succession to the duchy of Burgundy was more ques- tionable. Originally the great fiefs of the crown descended to females, and this was the case with respect to the two first mentioned. But John had granted Burgundy to his son Philip by way of appanage ; and it was contended that the appanages reverted to the crown in default of male heirs. In the form of Philip's investiture, the duchy was granted to him and his lawful heirs, without designation of sex. The construction, therefore, must be left to the established course of law. This, however, was by no means acknowledged by Mary, Charles's daughter, who maintained both that no gen- eral law restricted appanages to male heirs, and that Bur- gundy had always been considered as a feminine fief, John himself having possessed it, not by reversion as king (for descendants of the first dukes were then living), but by inher- itance derived through females. 1 Such was this question of succession between Louis XL and Mary of Burgundy, upon Charles of Burgundy, was taken in the female succession ; thus Artois had pass- plunder of his tent by the Swiss at Gran- ed, by a daughter of Louis le Male, into Bon. After several changes of owners, the house of Burgundy. As to the above- most of whom were ignorant of its value, mentioned ordinances, the first applies it became the first jewel in the French only to the county of Poitiers ; the sec- crown. Garnier, t. xviii. p. 361. ond does not contain a syllable that re- 1 It is advanced with too much conn- lates to succession. (Ordonnances des dence by several French historians, either Rois, t. vi. p. 64.) The doctrine of ex- that the ordinances of Philip IV. and eluding female heirs was more consonant Charles V. constituted a general law to the pretended Salic Law, and the re- against the descent of appanages to fe- cent principles as to inalienability of do- male heirs, or that this was a fundament- main than to the analogy of feudal rules al law of the monarchy. Du Clos, Hist, and precedents. M. Gaillard, in his Ob-* de Louis XI. t. ii. p. 252. Garnier, Hist, serrations sur 1'HfStoire de Velly, Villa- de France, t. xviii. p. 258. The latter po- ret, et Garnier, has a judicious note on gitioii is refuted by frequent instances of this subject, t. iii. p. 804. 102 CONDUCT OF LOUIS. CHAP. -I. PART II the merits OLKEIOV 6e /car' e^avaiav iroJuTevpa Kadiaraoai. Lib. vi. C. 5. Guizot gives so much authority to this as to say of the Armoricans, " Ils se maintinrent toujours libres, entre les barbares et lea Romains." Introduction a la Collection des Memoires, vol. i. p. 336. Sismondi pays little regard to it. The proofs alleged by Daru for the existence of a king of Britany named Conan, early in the fifth century, would throw much doubt on the Armorican republic ; but they seem to me rather weak. Britany, it may be observed by the way, was never subject to the Merovingian kings, except sometimes in name. Dubos does not think it probable that there was anr central authority in what he calls the Armorican confederacy, but conceives the cities to have acted as independent states during the greater part of the fifth century. (Hist, de 1'Etablissement, &c., vol. i. p. 338.) He gives, however, an enormous extent to Armorica, supposing it to have comprised Aquitaine. But, though the contrary has been proved, it is to be observed that Zosimus mentions other provinces of Gaul, erepa. "'oAardiv eTrapxiai, as well as Armorica. Procopius 110 THE FRANKS. Noras ro by the word 'A.p@6pvxoi, seems to indicate all the inhabitants at least of Northern Gaul ; but the passage is so ambiguous, and his acquaintance with that history so questionable, that little can be inferred from it with any confidence. On the whole, the history of Northern Gaul in the fifth century is extremely obscure, and the trustworthy evidence very scanty. Sismondi (Hist, des Franjais, vol. i. p. 134) has a good passage, which it will be desirable to keep in mind when we launch into mediaeval antiquities : " Ce peu des mots a donne matiere a d'amples commentaires, et au developpement de beaucoup de conjectures ingenieuses. L'abbe Dubos, en expliquant le silence des historiens, a fonde sur des sousenten- dus une histoire assez complete de la republique Armorique. Nous serons souvent appeles k nous tenir en garde contre le zele des ecrivains qui ne satisfait point 1'aridite de nos chroniques, et qui y suppleent par des divinations. Plus d'une fbis le lecteur pourra etre surpris en voyant a combiea peu se reduit ce que nous savons reellement sur un evene- ment assez celebre pour avoir motive de gros livres." NOTE II. Page 16. The Franks are not among the German tribes mentioned by Tacitus, nor do they appear in history before the year 240. Guizot accedes to the opinion that they were a confederation of the tribes situated between the Rhine, the Weser, and the Main ; as the Alemanni were a similar league to the south of the last river. 1 Their origin may be derived from the necessity of defending their independence against Rome ; but they had become the aggressors in the period when we read of them in Roman history ; and, like other barbarians in that age, were often the purchased allies of the declining empire. Their history is briefly sketched by Guizot (Essais sur I'Histoire de France, p. 53), and more copiously by other antiquarians, among whom M. Lehuerou, the latest and not the least original or ingenious, conceives them to have been a race of exiles or outlaws from other German tribes, taking the name Franc from frech, fierce or bold, 2 and settling at 1 Alemanni Is generally supposed to moires de.l'Academie de Bruxelles, vol. mean "all men." Meyer, however, takes iii. p. 439'. It for another form of Arimanni, from 2 This etymology had been given by Heermanner, soldiers. Nouveaux Me- Thierry, or was of older origin CHAP. I. THE FRANKS. Ill first, by necessity, near the mouth of the Elbe, whence they moved onwards to seek better habitations at the expense of less intrepid, though more civilized nations. " Et ainsi naquit la premiere nation de 1'Europe moderne." l Institutions Merovingiennes, vol. i. p. 91. An earlier writer considers the Franks as a branch of the great stock of the Suevi, mentioned by Tacitus, who, he tells us, " majorem Germanise partem obtiuent, propriis adhuc nationibus nominibusque discreti, quanquam in comuiuni Suevi dicuntur. Insigne gentis obliquare crinem, nodoque substringere." De Moribus German, c. 38. Ammianus mentions the Salian Franks by name : " Francos eos quos consuetude Salios appellavit." See a memoir in the Trans actions of the Academy of Brussels, 1824, by M. Devez, " sur 1'etablissement des Francs dans la Belgique." In the great battle of Chalons, the Franks fought on the Roman side against Attila ; and we find them mentioned several times in the history of Northern Gaul from that time. Lehuerou (Institutions Merovingiennes, c. 11) endeavors to prove, as Dubos had done, that they were settled in Gaul, far beyond Tournay and Cambray, under Meroveus and Childeric, though as subjects of the empire ; and Luden conjectures that the whole country between the Moselle and the Somme had fallen into their hands even as early as the reign of Honorius. (Geschichte des Deutschen Volkes, vol. ii. p. 08 1.) This is one of the obscure and debated points in early French history. But the seat of the monarchy appears . clearly to have been established at Cambray before the middle of the fifth century. NOTE in. Page 16. This theory, which is partly countenanced by Gibbon, has lately been revived, in almost its fullest extent, by a learned and spirited investigator of early history, Sir Francis Pal- grave, in his Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth, i. 360 ; and it seems much in favor with M. Raynouard, in his Histoire du Droit Municipal en France. M. Lehuerou, in a late work (Histoire des Institutions Merovingiennes et Carolingiennes, 2 vols., 1843), has in a great measure adopted ' As M. Lehuerou belongs to what is quaries, he should not have brought the called the Roman school of French anti- nation from beyond the Rhine. 112 THE F1UNKS. NOTES TO it : " Nous croyons devoir declarer que, dans notre opinion, le livre de Dubos, malgre les erreurs trop reelles qui le de*parent, et Pesprit de systeme qui en a considerablement exagere les consequences, est, de tous ceux qui ont aborde le meme probleme au xviii me siecle, celui ou la question des origines Merovingiennes se trouve le plus pres de la veritable solution. Get aveu nous dispense de detailler plus longue- ment les obligations que nous lui avons. Elles se reveleront d'ailleurs suffisamment d'elles-memes." (Introduction, p. xi.) M. Lehuerou does not, however, follow his celebrated guide so far as to overlook the necessary connection between barbarian force and its aggressive character. The final establishment of the Franks in Gaul, according to him, rested partly on the concession and consent of the emperors, who had invited them to their service, and rewarded them, as he conceives, with lands, while the progenitors of Clovis boi*e the royal name, partly on their own encroachments, and especially on the victory of that prince over Syagrius in 486. (Vol. i. p. 228.) It may be alleged against Dubos that Clovis advanced into the heart of Gaul as an invader ; that he defeated in battle the lieutenant of the emperor, if Syagrius were such ; or, if we chose to consider him as independent, which probably in terms he was not, that the emperors of Constantinople could merely have relinquished their authority, because they had not the strength to enforce it. Gaul, like Britain, in that age, had become almost a sort of derelict possession, to be seized by the occupant ; but the title of occupancy is not that of succession. It may be true that the Roman subjects of Clovis paid him a ready allegiance ; yet still they had no alternative but to obey. Twenty-five years elapsed, during which the kingdom of the Salian Franks was prodigiously aggrandized by the sub- mission of all Northern Gaul, by the reduction of the Ale- manni on the right bank of the Rhine, and by the overthrow of the Visigoths at Vougle, which brought almost the whole of the south into subjection to Clovis. It is not disputed by any one that he reigned and conquered in his own right. No one has alleged that he founded his great dominion on any other title than that of the sword, which his Frank people alone enabled him to sustain. But about two years before his death, as Gregory of Tours relates, the emperor Auas- CHAP. I. THE FRANKS. 113 tasius bestowed upon him the dignity of consul ; and this has been eagerly caught at by the school of Dubos as a fact of high importance, and as establishing a positive right of sovereignty, at least over the Romans, that is, the provincial inhabitants of Gaul, which descended to the long line of the Merovingian house. Sir Francis Palgrave, indeed, more strongly than Dubos himself, seems to consider the French monarchy as deriving its pedigree from Borne rather than the Elbe. The first question that must naturally arise is, as to the value assignable to the evidence of Gregory of Tours re- specting the gift of Anastasius. Some might hesitate, at least, to accept the story in all its circumstances. Gregory is neither a contemporary nor, in such a point, an altogether trustworthy witness. His style is verbose and rhetorical; and, even in matters of positive history, scanty as are our means of refuting him, he has sometimes exposed his igno- rance, and more often given a tone of improbability to his nar- rative. An instance of the former occurs in his third book, respecting the death of the widow of Theodoric, contradicted by known history ; and for the latter we may refer to the language he puts into the mouth of Clotilda, who urges her husband to the worship of Mars and Mercury, divinities of whom he had never heard. The main fact, however, that Anastasius conferred the dig- nity of consul upon Clovis, cannot be rejected. Although it has been alleged that his name does not occur in the Consular Fasti, this seems of no great importance, since the title was merely an honorary distinction, not connecting him with the empire as its subject. Guizot, indeed, and Sismondi conceive that he was only invested with the consular robe, according to what they take to have been the usage of the Byzantine court. But Gregory, by the words codicillos de consulatu, seems to imply a formal grant. Nor does the fact rest solely on his evidence, though his residence at Tours would put him in possession of the local tradition. Hincmar, the famous bishop of Rheims, has left a Life of St. Remy, by whom Clovis was baptized ; and, though he wrote in the ninth century, he had seen extracts from a contemporary Life of that saint, not then, he says, entirely extant, which Life may reasonably be thought to have furnished the substance of the second book of Gregory's history. We find in Hincmar VOL. i. M. g 114 THE FRANKS. NOTES TO the language of Gregory on the consulship of Clovis, with a little difference of expression : " Cum quibus codicillis etiam illi Anastasius coronam auream cum geminis, et tunicam blateam inisit, et ab ea die consul et Augustus est appellatus." (Rec. des Hist. vol. iii. p. 379.) Now, the words of Gregory are the following: " Igitur ab Anastasio imperatore codicillos de consulatu accepit, et in basilica beati Martini tunica blatea iu- dutus est et clarayde, iraponens vertici diadema. Tune ascenso equite, aurura, argentumque in itinere illo, quod inter portam atrii basilicas beati Martini et ecclesiatn civitatis est, prsesenti- bus populis manu propria spargens, voluntate benignissima erogavit, et ab ea die tanquam consul aut Augustus est voci- tatus." The minuteness of local description implies the tra- dition of the city of Tours, which Gregory would, of course, know, and renders all scepticism as to the main story very unreasonable. Thus, if we suppose the Life of St. Remy to have been the original authority, Anastasius will have sent a crown to Clovis. And this would explain the word? of Greg- ory, " imponens vertici diadema." Such an addition to the dignity of consul is, doubtless, remarkable, and might of itself lead us to infer that the latter was not meant in its usual sense. . This passage is in other respects more precise than in Gregory; it has not the indefinite and almost unintelligible words tanquam consul, and has et instead of aut Augustus ; which latter conjunction, however, in low Latin, is often put for the former. But, though the historical evidence is considerably strength- ened by the supposition that Gregory copied a Life of St. Remigius of nearly contemporary date with the event, we do not find all our difficulty removed so as to render it implicit credence in every particular. That Clovis would be called consul by the provincial Romans after he had received the title from Anastasius is very natural ; that he was ever called, even by them, Augustus, that is, Emperor, except perhaps in a momentary acclamation, we may not unreasonably scruple to believe. The imperial title would hardly be assumed by one who pretended only to a local sovereignty ; nor is such a usurpation consistent with the theory that the Frank chieftain was on terms of friendship with the court of Constantinople, and in subordination to it. One or other hypothesis must sure- ly be rejected. If Clovis was called emperor (and when did Augustus bear any other meaning ?), he was no vicegerent of OHAI I. THE FRANKS. 115 Anasfasius, no consul of the empire. But the most material observations that arise are, first, that the dignity of consul was merely personal, and we have not the slightest evidence that any of the posterity of Clovis either acquired or assumed it ; secondly that the Franks alone were the source of power to the house of Meroveus. " The actual and legal authority of Clovis," says Gibbon, " could not receive any new acces- sion from the consular dignity. It was a name, a shadow, an empty pageant ; and, if the conqueror had been instructed to claim the ancient prerogatives of that high office, they must have expired with the period of its annual duration. But the Romans were disposed to revere in the person of their master that antique title which the emperors condescended to as- sume ; the barbarian himself seemed to contract a sacred obligation to respect the majesty of the republic; and the successors of Theodosius, by soliciting his friendship, tacitly forgave and almost ratified the usurpation of Gaul." (Chap. Xxxviii.) It does not appear to me, therefore, very material towards the understanding French history, what was the in- tention of Anastasius in conferring the name of consul on the king of the Franks. It was a token of amity, no doubt ; a pledge, perhaps, that the court of Constantinople renounced the hope of asserting its pretensions to govern a province so irrecoverably separated from it as Gaul; but were it even the absolute cession of a right, which, by the usual law of nations, required something far more explicit, it would not affect in any degree the real authority which Clovis had won by the sword, and had exercised for more than twenty years over the unresisting subjects of the Roman empire. A different argument for the theory of devolution of power from the Byzantine emperor on the Franks is founded on the cession of- Justinian to Theodebert king of Austrasia, in 540. Provence, which continued in the possession of the emperors for some time after the conquest of Gaul by Clovis, had fallen into the hands of the Ostrogoths, then masters of Italy. The alliance of the Frank king was sought by both parties, at the price of what one enjoyed and the other claimed Provence, with its wealthy cities of Marseilles and Aries. Theodebert was no very good ally, either to the Greeks or the Goths ; but he occupied the territory, and after a few years it was formally ceded to him by Justinian. " That emperor," in the words of Gibbon, who has not told tl e history very exactly. 116 - THE FRANKS. NOTES TO "generously yielding to the Franks the sovereignty of the countries beyond the Alps Avhich they already possessed, ab- solved the provincials from their allegiance, and established, on a more lawful, though not more solid foundation, the throne of the Merovingians." Procopius, in his Greek vanity, pre- tends that the Franks never thought themselves secure of Gaul until they obtained this sanction from the emperor. " This strong declaration of Procopius," says Gibbon, " would almost suffice to justify the abbe Dubos." I cannot, however, rate the courage of that people so low as to believe that they feared the armies of Justinian, which they had lately put to flight in Italy ; nor do I know that a title of sixty years' pos- session gains much legality by the cession of one who had as- serted no claim during that period. Constantinople had tacitly renounced the western provinces of Rome by her ina- bility to maintain them. I must, moreover, express some doubt whether Procopius ever meant to say that Justinian con- firmed to the Frank sovereign his rights over the whole of Gaul. He uses, indeed, the word To/l/Ua? ; but that should, I think, be understood according to the general sense of the passage, which would limit its meaning to Provence, their recent acquisition, and that which the Ostrogoths had already relinquished to them. Gibbon, on the authority of Procopius, goes on to say that the gold coin of the Merovingian kings, "by a singular privilege, which was denied to the Persian monarch, obtained a legal currency in the empire." But this legal currency is not distinctly mentioned by Procopius, though he strangely asserts that it was not lawful, oi> di/us, for the king of Persia to coin gold with his own effigy, as if the tffywf of Constantinople were regarded at Seleucia. There is reason to believe that the Goths, as well as Franks, coined gold, which might possibly circulate in the empire, without having, strictly speaking, a legal currency. The expressions of Agathias, quoted above, that the Franks had nearly the same form of government, and the same laws, as the Romans, may be understood as a mistaken view of what Procopius says in a passage which will be hereafter quoted, and which Agathias, a later writer, perhaps has followed, that the Roman inhabitants of Gaul retained their institutions under the Franks ; which was certainly true, though by no means more S6 than und'T the Visigoths. CHAP. I. THE MEROVINGIAN PERIOD. 117 NOTE IV. Page 19. It ought, perhaps, to be observed, that no period of ecclesi- astical history, especially in France, has supplied more saints to the calendar. It is the golden age of hagiology. Thirty French bishops, under Clovis and his sons alone, are vener- ated in the Roman church ; and not less than seventy-one saints, during the same short period, have supplied some his- torical information, through their Lives in Acta Sanctorum. " The foundation of half the French churches," says Sis- mondi, " dates from that epoch." (Vol. i. p. 308.) Nor was the seventh century much less productive of that harvest. Of the service which the Lives of the Saints have rendered to history, as well as of the incredible deficiencies of its ordi- nary sources, some notion may be gained by the strange fact mentioned in Sismondi, that a king of Austrasia, Dagobert II., was wholly overlooked by historians ; and his reign, from 674 to 678, only retrieved by some learned men in the seven- teenth century, through the Life of our Saint Wilfred, who had passed through France on his way to Rome. (Hist, des Fran9ais, vol. ii. p. 51.) But there is a diploma of this prince in Rec. des Hist. vol. iv. p. 685. Sismondi is too severe a censurer of the religious senti- ment which actuated the men of this period. It did not pre- vent crimes, even in those, frequently, who were penetrated by it. But we cannot impute to the ascetic superstition of the sixth and seventh centuries, as we may to the persecuting spirit of later ages, that it occasioned them : crimes, at least, which stand forth in history ; for to fraud and falsehood it, no question, lent its aid. The Lives of the Saint?, amidst all the mass of falsehood and superstition which incrusts them, bear witness not only to an intense piety, which no one will dis- pute, but to much of charity and mercy toward man. But, even if we should often doubt particular facts from slender- ness of proof, they are at least such as the compilers of these legends thought praiseworthy, and such as the readers of them would be encouraged to imitate. 1 1 M. Ampere has well observed that it of Providence supporting the Riitliful in was Dot the mere interest of the story, those troublous times, and of saints al- nor even the ideal morality, which con- ways interfering in favor of the inno- stituted the principal charm of the le- cent. Hist. Litt. de la France avant ! gends of saints ; it was the constant id'-a 12"> siecle. ii. 360. 118 THE MEROVINGIAN PERIOD. NOTES TO St. Balhilda, of Anglo-Saxon birth, queen of Clovis II., redeeming her countrymen from servitude, to which the bar- barous manners of their own people frequently exposed them, is in some measure a set-oft' against the tyrant princes of the family into which she had come. And many other instances of similar virtue are attested with reasonable probability. Sismondi never fully learned to judge men accoiding to a subjective standard, that is, their own notions of right and wrong ; or even to perceive the immediate good consequences of many principles, as well as social institutions connected with them, which we would no more willingly tolerate at present than himself. In this respect Guizot has displayed a more philosophical temper. Still there may be some caution necessary not to carry this subjective estimate of human actions too far, lest we lose sight of their intrinsic quality. We have, unfortunately, to set against the saintly legends an enormous mass of better-attested crimes, especially of op- pression and cruelty. Perhaps there is hardly any history extending over a century which records so much of this with so little information of any virtue, any public spirit, any wis- dom, as the ten books of Gregory of Tours. The seventh century has no historian equally circumstantial ; but the tale of the seventh century is in substance the same. The Ro man fraud and perfidy mingled, in baleful confluence, with the ferocity and violence of the Frank. " Those wild men's vices they receiv'd, And gave them back their own." If the church was deeply tainted with both these classes ot crime, it was at least less so, especially with the latter, than the rest of the nation. A saint might have many faults ; but it is strongly to be presumed that mankind did not canonize such monsters as the kings and nobles of whom we read almost exclusively in Gregory of Tours. A late writer, actu- ated by the hatred of antiquity, and especially of kings, nobles, and priests, which is too much the popular creed of France, has collected from age to age every testimony to the wickedness of the powerful. His proofs are one-sided, and, consequently, there is some unfairness in the conclusions ; but the facts are, for the most part, irresistibly true. (Dulaure, Hist, de Paris, passim. CHAP I. MAYOKS OF THE PALACE. 119 NOTE V. Page 20. The Mayor of the Palace appears as the first officer of the crown in the three Frank kingdoms during the latter half of the sixth century. He had the command, as Guizot sup- poses, of the Antrustions, or vassals of the king. Even after- wards the office was not, as this writer believes, properly elective, though in the case of a minority of the king, or upon other special occasions, the leudes, or nobles, chose a mayor. The first instance we find of such an election was in 575, when, after the murder of Sigebert by Fredegonde, his son Childebert being an infant, the Austrasian leudes chose Gogon for their mayor. There seem, however, so many in- stances of elective mayors in the seventh century, that, al- though the royal consent may probably have been legally requisite, it is hard to doubt that the office had fallen into the hands of the nobles. Thus, in 641 : " Flaochatus, genere Francus, major-domus in regnum Burgundiae, electione ponti- ficum et cunctorum ducum a rfantechilde regina in hunc gradum honoris nobiliter stabilitur." (Fredegar. Chron. c. 89.) And on the election of Ebroin : " Franci in incertum vacillantes, accepto consilio, Ebruinum in hujus honoris curam ac dignitatem statuunt." (c. 92.) On the death of Ebroin in 681, " Franci Warratonem virum illustrem in locum ejus cum jussione regis majorem-domus palatio constituunt." These two instances were in Neustria ; the aristocratic power was still greater in the other parts of the monarchy. Sismondi adopts a very different theory, clinging a little too much to the democratic visions of Mably. "If we knew better," he says, " the constitution of the monarchy, perhaps we might find that the mayor, like the Justiciary of Aragon, was the representative, not of the great, but of the freemen, and taken generally from the second rank in society, charged to repress the excesses of the aristocracy as well as of the crown." (Hist, des Fran9ais, vol. ii. p. 4.) Nothing appears to warrant this vague conjecture, which Guizot wholly rejects, as he does also the derivation of major-domus from mord- dohmen, a verb signifying to sentence to death, which Sis- mondi brings forward to sustain his fanciful analogy to the Aragonese justiciary. The hypothesis, indeed, that the mayor of the palace was 120 MAYORS OF THE PALACE. NOTES to chosen out of the common freeholders, and not the highest class, is not only contrary to everything we read of the aristo- cratical denomination in the Merovingian kingdoms, but to a passage in Fredegarius, to which probably others might be added. Protadius, he informs us, a mayor of Brunehaut's vhoice, endeavored to oppress all men of high birth, that no one might be found capable of holding the charge in his room (c. 27). This, indeed, was in the sixth century, before any sort of election was known. But in the seventh the power of the great, and not of the people, meets us at every turn. Mably himself would have owned that his democracy had then ceased to .exercise any power. The Austrasian mayors of the palace were, from the reign of Clotaire II., men of great power, and taken from the house of Pepin of Landen. They carried forward, ultimately for their own aggrandizement, the aristocratic system which had overturned Brunehaut. Ebroin, on the other hand, in Neus- tria, must be considered as keeping up the struggle of the royal authority, which he exercised in the name of several phantoms of kings, against the encroachments of the aristoc- racy, though he could not resist them with final success. Sismondi (vol. ii. p. 64) fancies that Ebroin was a leader of the freemen against the nobles. But he finds a democratic party everywhere ; and Guizot justly questions the conject- ure (Collection des Memoires, vol. ii. p. 320). Sismondi, in consequence of this hypothesis, favors Ebroin ; for whom it may be alleged that we have no account of his character but from his enemies, chiefly the biographer of St. Leger. M. Lehuerou sums up his history with apparent justice: " Ainsi pe"rit, apres une administration de vingt ans, un homme remarquable a tous egards, mais que le triomphe de ses ennemis a failli de"sheriter de sa gloire. Ses violences sont peu douteuses, mais son genie ne Test pas davantage, et rien ne prouve mieux la terreur qu'il inspirait aux Austra- eiens que les injures qu'ils lui ont prodiguees.'"' (Institutions Carolingiennes, p. 281.) NOTE VI. Page 20. Aribert, or rather Caribert, brother of Dagobert I., was declared king of Aquitaine in 628 ; but or his death, in 631, it became a duchy dependent on the monarchy under his two CHAP. I. AQUITAINE. 121 sons, witL its capital at Toulouse. This dependence, however, appears to have soon ceased, in the decay of the Merovingian line ; and for a century afterwards Aquitaine can hardly be considered as part of either the Neustrian or Austrasian kingdom. " L'ancienne population Romaine travaillait sans cesse a ressaisir son independance. Les Francs avaient conquis, mais ne possedaient vraiment pas ces contrees. Des que leurs grandes incursions cessaient, les villes et les cam- pagnes se soulevaient, et se confederaient pour secouerje joug." (Guizot, Cours d'Hist. Moderne, ii. 229.) This important fact, though acknowledged in passing by most historians, has been largely illustrated in the valuable Histoire de la Gaule Meridionale, by M. Fauriel. Aquitaine, in its fullest extent, extended from the Loire beyond the Garonne, with the exception of Touraine and the Orleannofs. The people of Aquitaine, in this large sense of the word, were chiefly Romans, with a few Goths. The Franks, as a conquering nation, had scarcely taken up their abode in those provinces. But undoubtedly, the Merovingian kings possessed estates in the south of France, which they liberally bestowed as benefices upon their leudes, so that the chief men were frequently of Frank origin. They threw off, nevertheless, their hereditary attachments, and joined with the mass of their new countrymen in striving for the independence of Aquitaine. After the battle of Testry, which subverted the Neustrian monarchy, Aquitaine, and even Burgundy, ceased for a time to be French ; under Charles Martel they were styled the Roman countries. (Michelet, ii. 9.) Eudon, by some called Eudes, grandson of Caribert, a prince of conspicuous qualities, gained ground upon the Franks during the whole period of Pepin Heristal's power, and united to Aquitaine, not only Provence, but a new conquest from the independent natives, Gascony. Eudon obtained in 721 a far greater victory over the Saracens than that of Charles Martel at Poitiers. The slaughter was immense, and confessed by the Arabian writers ; it even appears that a funeral solemnity, in commemoration of so great a calamity, was observed in Spain for four or five centuries afterwards. (Fauriel, iii. 79.) But in its conse- quences it was far less impor tant ; for the Saracens, some years afterwards, returned to avenge their countrymen, anil 122 AUSTRASIA AND NEUSTR[A. NOTES TO Eudon had no resource but in the aid of Charles MarteL After the retreat of the enemy it became the necessary price of the service rendered by the Frank chieftain that Aquitaine acknowledged his sovereignty. This, however, was still but nominal, till Pepin determined to assert it more seriously, and after a long war overcame the last of the ducal line sprung from Clotaire II., which had displayed, for almost a century and a half, an energy in contrast with the imbecility of the .elder branch. Even this, as M. Fauriel observes, was little more than a change in the reigning family ; the men of Aquitaine never lost their peculiar nationality ; they remained a separate people in Gaul, a people distinguished by their character, and by the part which they were called to play in the political revolutions of the age. (Vol. iii. 300.) NOTE VII. Page 20. Pepin Heristal was styled Duke of Australia, but assumed the mayoralty of Neustria after his great victory at Testry in 687, which humbled for a long time the great rival branch of the monarchy. But he fixed his residence at Cologne, and his family seldom kept their court at Paris. The Franks under Pepin, his son and grandson, " seemed for a second time," says Sismondi, " to have conquered Gaul ; it is a new invasion of the language, the military spirit, and the manners of Germany, though only recorded by historians as the vic- tory of the Austrasians over the Neustrians in a civil war. The chiefs of the Carlovingian family called themselves, like their predecessors, kings of the Franks : they appear as legitimate successors of Clovis and his family ; yet all is changed in their spirit and their manners." (Vol. ii. p. 170.) This revival of a truly German spirit in the French mon- archy had not been sufficiently indicated by the historians of the eighteenth century. It began with the fall of Brunehaut, which annihilated the scheme, not peculiar to herself, but carried on by her with remarkable steadiness, of establishing a despotism analogous to that of the empire. The Roman policy expired with her ; Clotaire II. and Dagobert I. were merely kings of barbarians, exercising what authority they might, but on no settled scheme of absolute power. Their successors were unworthy to be mentioned ; though in Neustria, through their mayors of the palace, the royal CHAP. I. THE MEROVINGIAN PERIOD. 123 authority may "have been apparently better maintained than in the eastern portion of the kingdom. The kingdoms of Austrasia and Neustria rested on different bases. In the fonnei the Franks were more numerous, less scattered, and, as far as we can perceive, had a more considerable nobility. They had received a less tincture of Roman policy. They were nearer to the mother country, which had been, as the earth to Antseus, the source of perpetually recruited vigor. Burgundy, a member latterly of the Neustrian monarchy, had also a powerful aristocracy, but not in so great a degree, probably, of Frank, or even barbarian descent. The battle of Testry was the second epoch, as the fall of Brunehaut had been the first, in the restoration of a barbaric supremacy to the kingdom of Clovis ; and the benefices granted by Charles Martel were the third. It required the interference of the Holy See, "in confirming the throne of the younger Pepin, and still more the splendid qualities of Charlemagne, to keep up, even for a time, the royal authority and the dominion of 'law. It is highly important to keep in our minds this distinction between Austrasia and Neustria, subsisting for some ages, and, in fact, only replaced, speaking without exact geographical precision, by that of Germany and France. NOTE VHI. Page 21. The Merovingian period is so briefly touched in the text, as not, I fear, to be very distinctly apprehended by every reader. It may assist the memory to sketch rather a better outline, distributing the period into the following divisions : I. The reign of Clovis. The Frank monarchy is estab- lished in Gaul ; the Romans and Visigoths are subdued ; Christianity, in its Catholic form, is as entirely recognized as under the empire ; the Franks and Romans, without greatly intermingling, preserve in the main their separate institutions. II. The reigns of his four sons, till the death of Clotaire I., the survivor, in 561. A period of great aggandizement to the monarchy. Burgundy ^nd Provence in Gaul itself, Thuringia, Suabia, and Bavaria on the other side of the Rhine, are annexed to their dominions ; while every crime disgraces the royal line, and in none more than in Clotaire I. III. A second partition among his four sons ensues : the four kingdoms of Paris, Soissons, Orleans, and Austrasia 124 THE MEROVINGIAN PERIOD. NOTES TO revive ; but a new partition of these is required by the re- cent conquests, and Gontran of Orleans, without resigning that kingdom, removes his residence to Burgundy. The four kingdoms are reduced to three by the death of Caribert of Paris ; one, afterwards very celebrated by the name Neus- tria, 1 between the Scheldt and the Loire, is formed under Chilperic, comprehending those of Paris and Soissons. Ca- ribert of Paris had taken Aquitaine, which at his death was divided among the three survivors ; Austrasia was the por- tion of Sigebert. This generation was fruitful of still more crimes than the last, redeemed by no golden glory of con- .quest. Fredegonde, the wife of Chilperic, diffuses a baleful light over this period. But while she tyrannizes with little control in the west of France, her rival and sister in crime, Brunehaut, wife of Sigebert and mother of Thierry II. his successor, has to encounter a powerful opposition from the Austrasian aristocracy ; and in this part of the monarchy a new feature develops itself; the great proprietors, or nobil- ity, act systematically with a view to restrain the royal pow- er. Brunehaut, after many vicissitudes, and after having seen her two sons on the thrones of Austrasia and Burgun- dy, falls into the hands of Clotaire II., king of the other division, and is sentenced to a cruel death. Clotaire unites the three Frank kingdoms. IV. Reigns of Clotaire II. and his son Dagobert I. The royal power, though shaken by the Australian aristocracy, is still effective. Dagobert, a prince who seems to have rather excelled most of his family, and to whose munificence sev- eral extant monuments of architecture and the arts are refer- red, endeavours to stem the current. He was the last of the Merovingians who appears to have possessed any distinctive character ; the Insensati follow. After the reign of Dago- bert most of the provinces beyond the Loire fall off, as it may be said, from the monarchy, an had made to deviate from the provisions of 819 in favor of his youngest son, Charles the Bald. NOTE XII. Page 31. The second period of Carlovingian history, or that which elapsed from the reign of Charles the Bald to the accession CHAP. I. THE CARLO VINGIANS. 131 of Hugh Capet, must be reckoned the transitional state, through scenes of barbarous anarchy, from the artificial scheme devised by Charlemagne, in which the Roman and ' German elements of civil policy were rather in conflict than in union, to a new state of society the feudal, which, though pregnant itself with great evil, was the means both of preserving the frame of European policy from disintegra- tion, and of elaborating the moral and constitutional princi- ples upon which it afterwards rested. This period exhibits, upon the whole, a failure of the grand endeavor made by Charlemagne for the regeneration of his empire. This proceeded very much from the common chances of hereditary succession, especially when not coun- terbalanced by established powers independent of it. Three of his name, Charles the Bald, the Fat, and the Simple, had time to pull down what the great legislator and conqueror had erected. Encouraged by their pusillanimity and weak- ness, the nobility strove to revive the spirit of the seventh century. They entered into a coalition with the bishops, though Charles the Bald had often sheltered himself behind the crosier; and they compelled his son, Louis the Stam- merer, not only to confirm their own, privileges and those of the Church, but to style himself " King, by the grace of God and election of the people ; " which, indeed, according to the established constitution, was no more than truth, since the absolute right to succession was only in the family. The ina- bility of the crown to protect its subjects from their invaders rendered this assumption of aristocratic independence abso- lutely necessary. In this age of agony, Sismondi well says, the nation began to revive ; new social bodies sprung from the carcass of the great empire. France, so defenceless under the Bald and the Fat Charleses, bristled with castles before 930. She renewed the fable of Deucalion ; she sowed stones, and armed men rose out of them. The lords surrounded themselves with vassals ; and had not the Norman incursions ceased before, they would have met with a much more deter- mined resistance than in the preceding century. (Hist, des Frangais, iii. 218, 378; iv. 9.) Notwithstanding the weakness of the throne, the promise of the Franks to Pepin, that they would never elect a king out of any other family, though broken on two or three occa- sions in the tenth century, seems to have retained its hold 132 . TRANSITION FEEIOD OF NOTES TO upon the nation, so that an hereditary right in his house was felt as a constitutional sentiment, until experience and neces- sity overcame it. The first interruption to this course was at the election of Eudes, on the death of Charles the Fat, in 888. Charles the Simple, son of Caiioman, a prince whose short and obscure reign over France had ended in 884, being himself the only surviving branch, in a legitimate line, of the imperial house (for the frequent deaths of those princes without male issue is a remarkable and important circumstance), was an infant of three years old. The king- dom was devastated by the Normans, whom it was just beginning to resist with somewhat more energy than for the last half-century ; and Eudes, a man of considerable vigor, possessed several counties in the best parts of France. The nation had no alternative but to choose him for their king. Yet, when Charles attained the age of fifteen, a numerous party supported his claim to the throne, which he would probably have substantiated, if the disparity of abilities be- tween the competitors had been less manifest. Eudes, at his death, is said to have recommended Charles to his own party ; and it is certain that he succeeded without opposition. His own weak character, however, exposing him to fresh rebellion, Robert, brothSr of Eudes, and his son-in-law Ro- dolph, became kings of France, that is, we find their names in the royal list, and a part of the kingdom acknowledged their sovereignty. But the south stood off altogether, and Charles preserved the allegiance of the north-eastern provinces. Robert, in fact, who was killed one year after his partisans had proclaimed him, seems to have no great pretensions, de facto any more than de jure, to be reckoned at all ; nor does any historian give the appellation of Robert II. to the son of Hugh Capet. The father of Hugh Capet, Hugh the Great, son of Robert and nephew of Eudes, being count of Paris and Orleans, who had bestowed the crown on his brother-in-law Rodolph of Burgundy, instead of wearing it himself, paid such deference to the prejudices of at least the majority of the nation in favor of the house of Charlemagne, that he procured the election of Louis IV., son of Charles the Simple, a boy of thirteen years, and then an exile in England ; from which circumstance he has borne the name of Outremer And though he did not reign without some opposition from his powerful vassal, he died in possession of CHAP. I. THE CARLO VINGIANS. 133 the crown, and transmitted it to be worn by his son Loihaire, and his grandson Louis V. It was on the death of this last young man that Hugh Capet thought it time to set aside the rights of Charles, the late king's uncle, and call himself king, with no more national consent than the prelates and barons who depended on him might afford; principally, it seems, through the adherence of Adalberon, archbishop of Rheims, a city in which the kings were already wont to receive the crown. Such is the national importance which a merely local privilege may sometimes bestow. Even the voice or the capital, regular or tumultuous, which in so many revolutions has determined the obedience of a nation, may be considered as little more than a local superiority. A writer distinguished among living historians, M. Thi- erry, has* found a key to all the revolutions of two centuries in the antipathy of the Romans, that is, the ancient inhab- itants, to the Franks or Germans. The latter were repre- sented by the house of Charlemagne ; the former by that of Robert the Brave, through its valiant descendants, Eudes, Robert, and Hugh the Great. And this theory of races, to which M. Thierry is always partial, and recurs on many occasions, has seemed to the judicious and impartial Guizot the most satisfactory of all that have been devised to eluci- date the Carlovingian period, though he does not embrace it to its full extent. (Hist, de la Civilisation en France, Le^on 24.) Sismondi (vol. iii. p. 58) had said in 1821, what he had probably written as early as M. Thierry : " La guerre entre Charles et ses deux freres fut celle des peuples remains, des Gaules qui rejetaient le joug germanique ; la querelle insignifiante des rois fut soutenue avec ardeur, parce qu'elle s'unissait a la querelle des peuples ; et tous ces prejuges hos- tiles qui s'attachent toujours aux differences des langues et des moeurs, donnerent de la Constance et de 1'acharnement aux combattans." This relates, indeed, to an earlier period, but still to the same conflict .of races which M. Thierry has taken as the basis of the resistance made by the Neustrian provinces to the later Carlovingians. Thierry finds a similar contest in the wars of Louis the Debonair. In this he is compelled to suppose that the Neustrian Franks fell in with the Gauls, among whom they lived. But it may well be doubted whether the distinction of Frank descent, and con- sequently of national supremacy, n r as obliterated in the first 13-1 TRANSITION PERIOD OF NOTES TO part of (lie ninth century. The name of Franci was always applied to the whole people; the kings are always reges Fnincomm ; so that we might in some respects rather say that the Gauls or Romans had been merged in the dominant races than the reverse. Wealth, also, and especially that springing from hereditary benefices, was chiefly in the hands of fixe barbarians ; they alone, as is generally believed, so long as the distinction of personal law subsisted, were sum- moned to county or national assemblies ; they perhaps re- tained, in the reign of Louis the Debonair, though we cannot speak decisively as to this, their original language. It has been observed that the famous oath in the Romance language, pronounced by Louis of Germany at the treaty of Strasburg, in 842, and addressed to the army of his brother Charles the Bald, bears more traces of the southern, or Provencal, than of the northern dialect ; and it is probable that the inhabitants of the southern provinces, whatever might have been the origin of their ancestors, spoke no other. This would not be conclusive as to the Neustrian Franks. But this is a disputable question. A remarkable presumption of the superiority still retained by the Franks as a nation, even in the south of France, may be drawn from the Placitum, at Carcassonne, in 918. (Vais- sotte, Hist, de Languedoc, vol. ii. Append, p. 56; 'Meyer, In- stitutions Judiciaires, vol. i. p. 419.) In this we find named six Roman, four Gothic, and eight Salian judges. It is cer- tain that these judges could not have been taken relatively to the population of the three races in that part of France. Does it not seem most probable that the Franks were still reckoned the predominant people ? Probably, however, the personal distinction, founded on difference of laws, expired earlier in Neustria ; not that the Franks fell into the Roman jurisprudence, but that the original natives adopted the feu- dal customs. This specious theory of hostile races, in order to account for the downfall of the Carlovingian, or Australian, dynasty, has not been unanimously received, especially in the extent to which Thierry has urged it, M. Gaudet, the French editor of Richer (a contemporary historian, whose narrative of the whole period, from the accession of Eudes to the death of Hugh Capet, is published by Pertz in the Monu- meuta Germanise Historica, vol. iii., and contains 'a great CHAP. L THE CABLOVIXGIAXS. 135 quantity of new and interesting fact?, especially from A.D. 966 to 987), appeals to this writer in contradiction of the hypothesis of M. Thierry. The appeal, however, is not solely upon his authority, since the leading circumstances were eufficiently known ; and, to say the truth, I think that more has been made of Richer's testimony in this particular view than it will bear. Richer belonged to a monastery at Rheims, and his father had been a man of some rank in the confi- dence of Louis IV. and Lothaire. He had, therefore, been nursed in respect for the house of Charlemagne, though, with deference to his editor, I do not perceive that he displays any repugnance to the change of dynasty. Though the differences of origin and language, so far as they existed, might be by no means unimportant in the great .revolution near the close of the tenth century, they cannot be relied upon as sufficiently explaining its cause. The par- ti -arn of either family were not exclusively of one blood. The house of Capet itself was not of Roman, but probably of Saxon descent. The difference of races had been much effaced after Charles the Bald, but it is to be remembered that the great beneficiaries, the most wealthy and potent families in Neustria or France, were of barbarian origin. One people, so far as we can distinguish them, was by far the more numerous ; the other, of more influence in political affairs. The personal distinction of law, however, which had been the test of descent, appears not to have been preserved in the north of France much after the ninth century ; and the Roman, as has been said above, had yielded to the bar- baric element to the feudal customs. The Romance lan- guage, on the other hand, had obtained a complete ascenden- cy ; and that not only in Neustria, or the parts west of the Somme, but throughout Picardy, Champagne, and part of Flanders. But if we were to suppose that these regions were etill in some way more Teutonic in sentiment than Neustria, we certainly could not say the same of those beyond the Loire. Aquitaine and Languedoc, almost wholly Roman, to use the ancient word, or French, as they might now be called, among whose vine-covered hills the barbarians of the Lower Rhine had hardly formed a permanent settlement, or, having done so, had early cast off the slough of their rude manners, had been the scenes of a long resistance to the Merovingian dynasty. The tyranny of Childoric and Clotaire, the bar- 136 TRANSITION PERIOD OF NOTES TO barism of the Frank invaders, had created an indelible hatred of their yoke. But they submitted without reluctance to the more civilized government of Charlemagne, and dis- played a spontaneous loyalty towards his line. Never did they recognize, at least without force, the Neustrian usurpers of the tenth century, or date their legal instruments, in truth the chief sign of subjection that they gave, by any other year than that of the Carlovingian sovereign. If Charles the Simple reaped little but this nominal allegiance from his southern subjects, he had the satisfaction to reflect that they owned no one else. But a rapacious aristocracy had pressed so hard on the weakness of Charles the Bald and his descendants that, the kingdom being wholly parcelled in great fiefs, they had not the resources left to reward self-interested services as before, nor to resist a vassal far superior to themselves. Laon was much behind Paris in wealth and populousness, and yet even the two capitals were inadequate representatives of the pro- portionate strength of the king and the count. Power, as simply taken, was wholly on one side ; yet on the other was prejudice, or rather an abstract sense of hereditary right ; and this sometimes became a source of power. But the long greatness of one family, its manifest influence over the suc- cession to the throne, the conspicuous men whom it produced in Eudes and Hugh the Great, had silently prepared the way for a revolution, neither unnatural nor premature, nor in any way dangerous to the public interests. It is certainly probable that the Neustrian French had come to feel a greater sympathy with the house of Capet than with a line of kings who rarely visited their country, and whom they could not but contemplate as in some adverse relation to their natural and popular chiefs. But the national voice was not greatly consulted in those ages. It is remarkable that sev- eral writers of the nineteenth century, however they may sometimes place the true condition of the people in a vivid light, are constantly relapsing into a democratic theory. They do not by any means underrate the oppressed and almost servile condition of the peasantry and burgesses, when it is their aim to draw a picture of society ; yet in reasoning on a political revolution, such as the decline and fall of the German dynasty, they ascribe to these degraded classes both the will and the power to effect it. The proud nationality CHAP. I. 1'HE CARLO VINGIANS. 137 which spurned a foreign line of princes could not be felt by an impoverished and afflicted commonalty. Yet when M. Thierry alludes to the rumor that the family of Capet was sprung from the commons (some said, as we read in Dante, from a butcher), he adds, " Cette opinion, qui se conserva durant plusieurs siecles, ne fut pas nuisible a sa cause," as if there had been as effective a tiers-etat in 987 as 800 years afterwards. If, however, we are meant only to seek thia sentiment among the nobles of France, I fear that self- interest, personal attachments, and a predominant desire of maintaining their independence against the crown, were motives far more in operation than the wish to hear the king speak French instead of German. It seems, upon the whole, that M. Thierry's hypothesis, countenanced as it is by M. Guizot, will not afford a com- plete explanation of the history of France between Charles the Fat and Hugh Capet. The truth is, that the accidents of personal character have more to do with the revolutions of nations" than either philosophical historians or democratic politicians like to admit. If Eudes and Hugh the Great had been born in the royal line, they would have preserved far better the royal power. If Charles the Simple had not raised too high a favorite of mean extraction, he might have retained the nobles of Lorraine and Champagne in their fidelity. If Adalberon, archbishop of Rheims, had been loyal to the house of Charlemagne, that of Capet would not, at least so soon, have ascended the throne. If Louis V. had lived some years, and left a son to inherit the lineal right, the more precarious claim of his uncle would not have undergone a disadvantageous competition with that of a vig- orous usurper. M. Gaudet has well shown, in his notice on Richer, that the opposition of Adelberon to Charles of Lor- raine was wholly on personal grounds. No hint is given of any national hostility ; but whatever of national approbation was given to the new family, and doubtless in Neustrian France it was very prevalent, must rather be ascribed to their own reputation than to any peculiar antipathy towards their competitor. Hugh Capet, it is recorded, never wore the crown, though styling himself king, and took care to procure, in an assembly held in Paris, the election of his son Robert to succeed him ; an example which was followed for several reigns. 138 THE NORMANS. NorEs TO A late Belgian writer, M. Gerard, in a spirited little work, ' La Barbaric Franque et la Civilisation Romaine ' (Brux- elles, 1845), admitting the theory of the conflict of races, indignantly repels the partisans of what has been called the Roman element. Thierry, Michelet, and even Guizot, are classed by him as advocates of a corrupted race of degenerate provincials, who called themselves Romans, endeavoring to set up their pretended civilization against the free and generous spirit of the barbarians from whom Europe has derived her proudest inheritance. Avoiding the aristo- cratic arrogance of Boulainvilliers, and laughing justly at the pretensions of modern French nobles, if any such there are, which I disbelieve, who vaunt their descent as an order from the race of Franks, he bestows his admiration on the old Austrasian portion of the monarchy, to which, as a Belgian, he belongs. But in his persuasion that the two races were in distinct opposition to each other, and have continued so ever since, he hardly falls short of Michelet. I will just add to this long note a caution to the reader, that it relates only to the second period of the Carlo vingian kings, that from 888 to 987. In the reigns of Louis the Debonair and Charles the Bald I do not deny that the desire for the separation of the empire was felt on both sides. But this separation was consummated at Verdun in 843, except that, the kingdom of Lorraine being not long afterwards dis- membered, a small portion of the modern Belgium fell into that of France. NOTE XIII. Page 35. The cowardice of the French, during the Norman incur sions of the ninth century, has struck both ancient and modern writers, considering that the invaders were by no means numerous, and not better armed than the inhabitants. No one, says Paschasius Radbert, could have anticipated that a kingdom so powerful, extensive, and populous, would have been ravaged by a handful of barbarians. (Me"m. de 1'Acad. des Inscr. vol. xv. p. 639.) Two hundred Normans entered Paris, in 865, to take away some wine, and retired unmolested ; their usual armies seem to have been only of a few hundreds. (Sismondi, vol. iii. p. 170.) Michelet even fancies that the French could not have fought so obstinately CHAP. I. THE NORMALS. 139 at Fontenay as historians relate, on account of the effeminacy which ecclesiastical influence had produced. This is rather an extravagant supposition. But panic is very contagious, and sometimes falls on nations by no means deficient in gen- eral courage. It is to be remembered that the cities, even Paris, were not fortified (Mem. de 1'Acad. vol. xvii. p. 289) ; that the government of Charles the Bald was imbecile ; that no efforts were made to array and discipline the people ; that the feudal polity was as yet incomplete and unorganized. Can it be an excessive reproach, that the citizens fled from their dwellings, or redeemed them by money from a terrible foe against whom their mere superiority of numbers furnished no security ? Every instance of barbarous devastation aggravated the general timidity. Aquitaine was in such a state that the pope removed the archbishop of Bordeaux to Bourges, because his province was entirely wasted by the pagans. (Sismondi, vol. iii. p. 210.) Never was France in so deplorable a condition as under Charles the Bald ; the laity seem to have deserted the national assemblies ; almost all his capitularies are ecclesiastical ; he was the mere ser- vant of his bishops. The clergy were now at their zenith ; and it has been supposed that, noble families becoming extinct (for few names of laymen appear at this time in his- tory), the Church, which always gained and never lost, took the ascendant in national councils. And this contributed to render the nation less warlike, by depriving it of its natural leaders. It might be added, according to Sismondi's very probable suggestion, that the faith in relics, encouraged by the Church, lowered the spirit of the people. (Vol. iii. passim; Michelet, vol. ii. p. 120, et post.) And it is a quality of superstition not to be undeceived by experience. Some have attributed the weakness of France at this period to the bloody battle of Fontenay, in 841. But if we should suppose the loss of the kingdom on that day to have been forty thousand, which is a high reckoning, this would not explain the want of resistance to the Normans for hah a century. The beneficial effect of the cession of Normandy has hard- ly been put by me in sufficiently strong terms. No measure was so conducive to the revival of France from her abase ment in the ninth century. The Normans had been dis- tinguished by a peculiar ferocity towards priests ; yet when 140 THE NORMANS. NOTES TO their conversion to Christianity was made the condition of their possessing Normandy, they were ready enough to com- ply, andm another . generation became among 'the most devout of the French nation. It maybe observed that pa-an superstitions, though they often take great hold on the iina"-- mation, seldom influence the conscience or sense of duty; they are not definite or moral enough for such an effect,' which belongs to positive religions, even when false. And as their efficacy over/he imagination itself is generally a good deal dependent on local associations, it is likely to be weak- ened by a change of abode. But a more certain explana- tion of the new zeal for Christianity which sprung up amono- the Normans may be found in the important circumstance! that, having few women with them, they took wives (they had made widows enough) from the native inhabitants. Ihese taught their own faith to their children. They taught also their own language ; and in no other manner can weso well account for the rapid extinction of that of Scandinavia in that province of France. Sismondi discovers two causes for the determination of the Normans to settle peaceably in the territory assigned to them ; the devastation which they had made along the coast, rendering it difficult to procure subsistence ; and the growing spirit of resistance in the French nobility, who were fortify- mg their castles and training their vassals on every side But we need not travel far for an inducement to occupy the fine lands on the Seine and Eure. Piracy and plunder had become their resource, because they could no longer find sub- sistence at home; they now found it abundantly in a more genial climate. They would probably have accepted the same terms fifty years before. NOTE XIV. Page 36. This has been put in the strongest language by Sismondi, Thierry, and other writers. Guizot, however, thinks that it has been urged too far, and that the first four Capetians were lr?T f ' nsi S nificant in their kingdom as has been asserted "When we look closely at the documents and events of their age, we see that they have played a more important part and exerted more influence, than is ascribed to them. Read their history; you will see them interfere CHAP. i. THE CAPETS. 141 incessantly, whether by arms or by negotiation, in the affairs of the county of Burgundy, of the county of Anjou, of the county of Maine, of the duchy of Guienne ; in a word, in the affairs of all their neighbors, and 'even of very distant fiefs. No other suzerain certainly, except the dukes of Nor- mandy, who conquered a kingdom, took a part at that time so frequently, and at so great a distance from the centre of his domains. Turn over the letters of contemporaries, for example those of Fulbert and of Yves, bishops of Chartres, or those of William III. duke of Guienne, and many others, you will see that the king of France was not without importance, and that the most powerful suzerains treated him with great deference." He appeals especially to the extant act of the consecration of Philip I., in 1059, where a duke of Guienne is mentioned among the great feudataries, arid asks whether any other suzerain took possession of his rank with so much solemnity. (Civilisation en France, Lejon 42.) " As there waS always a country called France and a French people, -so there was always a king of the French ; very far indeed from ruling the country called his kingdom, and with- out influence on the greater part of the population, but yet no foreigner, and with his name inscribed at the head of the deeds of all the local sovereigns, as one who was their superior, and to whom they owed several duties." (Le9on 43.) It may be observed also that the Church recognized no other sovereign ; not that all the bishops held of him, for many depended on the great fiefs, but the ceremony of consecration gave him a sort of religious character, to which no one else aspired. And Suger, the politic minister of Louis VI. and Louis VII., made use of the bishops to maintain the royal authority in distant provinces. (09011 42.) This nevertheless rather proves that the g3rm of future power was in the kingly office than that Hugh, Robert, Henry, and Philip exercised it. The most remarkable instance of authority during their reigns was the war of Robert in Bur gundy, which ended in his bestowing that great fief on hia brother. I have observed that the duke of Guienne sub- scribes a charter of Henry I. in 1051. (Rec. des Historiens, vol. xi. p. 589.) Probably there are other instances. Henry uses a more pompous and sovereign phraseology in his diplomas than his father; the young lion was trying his roar. 142 THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS. NOTES TO I concur on the whole in thinking with M. Guizot, that in shunning the language of uninformed historians, who spoke of all kings of France as equally supreme, it had become usual to depreciate the power of the first Capetians rather too much. He had, however, to appearance, done the same a few years before the delivery of these lectures, in 1829 ; for in his Collection of Memoirs (vol. i. p. 6, published in 1825), he speaks rather differently of the first four reigns : " C*est 1'epoque ou le royaume de France et la nation fran- $aise n'ont existe, a vrai dire, que de nom." He observes, also, that the chroniclers of the royal domain are peculiarly meagre, as compared with those of Normandy. NOTE XV. Page 56. It may excite surprise that in any sketch, however slight, of the reign of Philip IV., no mention should be made of an event, than which none in his life is more celebrated the fate of the Knights Templars. But the truth is, that when I first attended to the subject, almost forty years since, I could not satisfy my mind on the disputed problem as to the guilt imputed to that order, and suppressed a note which I had written, as too inconclusive to afford any satisfactory deci- sion. Much has been published since on the Continent, and the question has assumed a different aspect ; though, perhaps, I am not yet more prepared to give an absolutely determi- nate judgment than at first. The general current of popular writers in the eighteenth century was in favor of the innocence of the Templars ; in England it would have been almost paradoxical to doubt of it. The rapacious and unprincipled character of Philip, the submission of Clement V. to his will, the apparent incredi- bility of the charges from their monstrousness, the just prej- udice against confessions obtained by torture and retracted afterwards the other prejudice, not always so just, but in the case of those not convicted on fair evidence deserving a better name in favor of assertions of innocence made on the scaffold and at the stake created, as they still preserve, a strong willingness to disbelieve the accusations which came so suspiciously before us. It was also often alleged that con- temporary writers had not given credit to these accusations, and that in countries where the inquiry had been less iniq- CHAP. I. THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAKS. 143 uitously conducted no proof of them was brought to light. Of these two grounds for acquittal, the former is of little value in a question of legal evidence, and the latter is not quite so fully established as we could desire. Raynouard, who might think himself pledged to the vin- dication of the Knights Templars by the tragedy he had written on their fate, or at least would naturally have thus imbibed an attachment to their cause, took up their defence in a History of the Procedure. This has been reckoned the best work on that side, and was supposed to confirm their innocence. The question appears to have assumed some- thing of a party character in France, as most history does ; the honor of the crown, and still more of the church, had advocates ; but there was a much greater number, especially among men of letters, who did not like a decision the worse for being derogatory to the credit of both. Sismondi, it may easily be supposed, scarcely treats it as a question with two sides ; but even Michaud, the firm supporter of church and crown, in his History of the Crusades, takes the favorable view. M. Michelet, however, not under any bias towards either of these, and manifestly so desirous to acquit the Templars that he labors by every ingenious device to elude or explain away the evidence, is so overcome by the force and number of testimonies, that he ends by admitting so much as leaves little worth contending for by their patrons. He is the editor of the " Proces des Templiers," in the " Doc- umens Inedits, 1841," and had previously given abundant evi- dence of his acquaintance with the subject in his " Histoire de France," vol. iv. p. 243, 345. (Bruxelles edition.) But the great change that has been made in this process, as carried forward before the tribunal of public opinion from age to age, is owing to the production of fresh evidence. The deeply-learned orientalist, M. von Hammer, now count Hammer Purgstall, in the sixth volume of a work published at Vienna in 1818, with the title "Mines de 1'Orient exploitees," * inserted an essay in Latin, " Mysterium Baphometis Revela- tum, seu Fratres Militise Templi qua Gnostici et quidem Ophiani, Apostasiae, Idolodulia?, et Impuritatis convicti per ipsa eorum Monumenta." This is designed to establish the identity of the idolatry ascribed to the Templars with that of ; I give this French title, but there is memoirs are either in that language or nl.e?e don -i. FEUDAL SYSTEM. PRINCIPLES OF FEUDAL RELATION. 169 operate in securing the feudal connection. The associations founded upon ancient custom and friendly attachment, the impulses of gratitude and honor, the dread of infamy, the sanctions of religion, were all employed to strengthen these ties, and to render them equally powerful with the relations of nature, and far more so than those of political society. It is a question, agitated among the feudal lawyers, whether a vassal is bound to follow the standard of his lord against his own kindred. 1 It was one more important whether he must do so against the king. In the works of those who wrote when the feudal system was declining, or who were anxious to maintain the royal authority, this is commonly decided in the negative. Littleton gives a form of homage, with a reserva- tion of the allegiance due to the sovereign ; 2 and the same prevailed in Normandy and some other countries. 8 A law ot Frederic Barbarossa enjoins that in every oath of fealty to an inferior lord the vassal's duty to the emperor should be ex- pressly reserved. But it was not so during the height of the feudal system in France. The vassals of Henry II. and Richard I. never hesitated to adhere to them against the sov- ereign, nor do they appear to have incurred any blame on that account. Even so late as the age of St. Louis, it is laid down in his Establishments, that, if justice is refused by the king to one of his vassals, he might summon his own tenants, under penalty of forfeiting their fiefs, to assist him in obtain- ing redress by arms. 4 The count of Britany, Pierre de Dreux, had practically asserted this feudal right during the minority of St. Louis. In a public instrument he announced to the world, that, having met with repeated injuries from the regent, and denial of justice, he had let the king know that he 1 Crag. 1. ii. tit. 4. tre vous. Si la reponse est que volon- 2 Scot. Ixxxv. tiers il fera droit en sa cour, 1'homnie 3 Uouard, Anc. Loix des Francois, p. n'est point oblige de defercr a la requi>i- 114. See too an instance of this reserva- tion du sire ; mais il doit, ou le suivre, tion in Recueil dea Historiens, t. xi. ou leresoudre 4 perdreson fief, si le chef 147. seigneur persiste dans son refus. Kt.i- 4 Si le sire dit a son homme lige, blissemens de St. Louis, c. 49. T have Venez vous en avec moi. je veux guer- copied this from Velly, t. vi. p. 213. who royer mon seigneur, qui me denie le has modernized the orthography, which 'ugement de sa. cour, le vassal doit re- is almost unintelligible in the Ordonnan- pondre, J'irai scavoir s'il est ainsi que ees des Rois. One MS. gives the rc.i ling vous me dites. Alors il doit aller trou- Roi instead of Seigneur. And the law ver le superieur, et luy dire. Sire, le certainly applies to the king er< '< geutilhouitue de qui je tiens moti fief se for, in "case of denial of justice by a plaint que vous lui refusez justice; je musne lord, there was an apne.il to 'the viens pour en scavoir la verite ; car je king's court, but from his injury there suis SPOIOUCC de marcher eu guerre con- could be no appeal but to the sword. 170 ' FEUDAL CEREMONIES. CHAP. II. PART i. no longer considered himself as his vassal, but renounced his homage and defied him. 1 The ceremonies used in conferring a fief were principally Ceremo- three homage, fealty, and investiture. 1. The nies of first was designed as a significant expression of image ' the submission and devotedness of the vassal tow- ards his lord. In performing homage, his head was uncov- ered, his belt ungirt, his sword and spurs removed ; he placed his hands, kneeling, between those of the lord, and promised to become his man from thenceforward ; to serve him -with life and limb and worldly honor, faithfully and loyally, in consideration of the lands which he held under him. None but the lord in person could accept homage, which was com- 2 Feait monly concluded by a kiss. 2 2. An oath of fealty was indispensable in every fief; but the ceremony was less peculiar than that of homage, and it might be re- ceived by proxy. It was taken by ecclesiastics, but not by minors ; and in language differed little from the form of 8. invest!- homage. 8 3. Investiture, or the actual conveyance ture. o f f eu( j a i lands, was of two kinds ; proper and im- proper. The first was an actual putting in possession upon the ground, either by the lord or his deputy ; which is called, in our law, livery of seisin. The second was symbolical, and consisted in the delivery of a turf, a stone, a wand, a branch, or whatever else might have been made usual by the caprice of local custom. Du Cange enumerates not less than ninety-eight varieties of investitures. 4 Upon investiture, the duties of the vassal commenced. Obligations These it is impossible to define or enumerate ; of a vassal, because the services of military tenure, which is chiefly to be considered, were in their nature uncertain, and 1 Du Cange, Observations sur Join- s. 85. Assises de Jerusalem, e. 204 ; Crag. villo, in Collection des Meuioires, t. i. p. 1. i. tit. 11; Recueil des Historiens, t. ii. 196.. It was always necessary for a vassal preface, p. 174. Homagium per para- to renounce his homage before he made gium was unaccompanied by any feudal war on his lord, if he would avoid the obligation, and distinguished from ho- shame and penalty of feudal treason, magium ligeum, which carried with it an After a reconciliation the homage was obligation of fidelity. The dukes of Ncr- renewed. And in this no distinction was mandy rendered only homage per para made between the king and another su- gium to the kings of France, and received perior. Thus Henry II. did homage to the like from the dukes of Britany. In the king of France in 1188, having re- liege homage it was usual to make reser- nounced his former obligation to him at vations of allegiance to the king, or any the commencement of the preceding war. other lord whom the homager had previ M.it. Paris, p. 126. Ously acknowledged. - Du Cange, Hominium, and Carpen- 3 Littl. s. 91; Du Cauge, voc. Fulelitas- tier's Supplement, id. voc. Littleton, * Du Cange, voc. Investitura FEUDAL, SYSTEM. MILITARY SERVICE. 171 distinguished as such from those incident to feuds of an infe- rior description. It was a breach of faith to divulge the lord's counsel, to conceal from him the machinations of others, to injure his person or fortune, or to violate the sanctity of his roof and the honor of his family. 1 In battle he was bound to lend his horse to his lord, when dismounted; to adhere to his side, while fighting ; and to go into captivity as a hostage for him, when taken. His attendance was due to the lord's courts, sometimes to witness, and sometimes to bear a part in, the administration of justice. 2 The measure, however, of military service was generally settled by some usage. Forty days was the usual Limitation8 term during which the tenant of a knight's fee was of military bound to be in the field at his own expense. 8 This ^ was extended by St. Louis to sixty days, except when the charter of infeudation expressed a shorter period. But the length of service diminished with the quantity of land. For half a knight's fee but twenty days were due ; for an eighth 1 Assises de Jerusalem, c. 265. Home ne doit a la feme de son seigneur, ne i sa fille requerre vilainie de sou core, ne 4 sa sceur tant com file est demoiselle en son hostel. I mention this part of feudal duty on account of the light it throws ou the statute of treasons, 25 E. III. One of the treasons therein specified is. si omne violast la com puisne le roy, ou lej^ne file le roy nieiit marie ou la com- paigne leigne fitz et heire le roy. Those who, like Sir E. Coke and the modern lawyers in general, explain this provision by the political danger of confusing the royal blood, do not apprehend its spirit. It would be absurd, upon such grounds, to render the violation of the king's eldest daughter treasonable, so long only as she remains unmar ied. when, as is obvious, the danger of a spurious issue inheriting could notarise. I consider this provision therefore as entirely founded upon the feudal principles, which make it a breach of faith (that is. in the primary sense of the word, a treason) to sully the honor of the lord in that of the near relations who were immediately protected by resi- dence iu his house. If it is asked why this should be restricted by the statute to the person of the eldest daughter, I can only answer that this, which is not more reasonable according to the com- mon political interpretation, is analogous to many feudal customs in our own and other countries, which attribute a sort of superiority in dignity to the eldest daughter. It may be objected that in the reipn of Edward III. there was little left of the feudal principle in any part of Europe, and least of all in England. But the statute of treasons is a declaration of the ancient law, and comprehends, undoubt- edly, what the judges who drew it could find in records now perished, or in legal traditions of remote antiquity. Similar causes of forfeiture are enumerated in the Libri Feudorum, 1. i. tit. 5. and 1. ii. tit. 24. In the Establishments of St. Louis, c. 51, 52, it is said that a lord seducing his vassal's daughter intrusted to his custody lost his seigniory; a vassal guilty of the same crime towards the family of his suzerain forfeited his land. A proof of the tendency which the feudal law had to purify public morals, and to create that sense of indignation and re sentment vith which we now regard such breaches of honor. * Assises de Jerusalem, c. 222. A vas- sal, at least in many places, was bound to reside upon his fief, or not to quit it withbut the lord's consent. Du Can<''i. and Thau- not legally have beeu subject to that massiere's note; Du Cange, ubi supri; eifcitoiu Tw-vsdeu. X Scriptores, p. 599 Olauvii. 1. vii. c. 12; tiiauuone, 1. xi. o 180 FEUDAL INCIDENTS. CHAP. II. PART I remarkable law prevailed in the kingdom of Jerusalem. The lord might summon any female vassal to accept one of three whom he should propose as her husband. No other condition seems to have been imposed on him in selecting these suitors than that they should be of equal rank with herself. Neither the maiden's coyness nor the widow's affliction, neither aver- sion to the proffered candidates nor love to one more favored, seem to have passed as legitimate excuses. One, only one plea, could come from the lady's mouth who was resolute to hold her land in single blessedness. It was, that she was past sixty years of age ; and after this unwelcome confession it is justly argued by the author of the law-book which I quote, that the lord could not decently press her into matrimony. 1 However outrageous such an usage may appear to our ideas, it is to be recollected that the peculiar circumstances of that little state rendered it indispensable to possess in every fief a proper vassal to fulfil the duties of war. These feudal servitudes distinguish the maturity of the system. No trace of them appears in the capitularies of Charlemagne and his family, nor in the instruments by which benefices were granted. I believe that they did not make part of the regular feudal law before the eleventh, or, per- haps, the twelfth century, though doubtless partial usages of this kind had grown up antecedently to either of those periods. If I am not mistaken, no allusion occurs to the lucrative rights of seigniory in the Assises de Jerusalem, which are a monument of French usages in the eleventh century. Indeed, that very general commutation of alodial property into tenure which took place between the middle of the ninth and eleventh centuries would hardly have been effected if fiefs had then been liable to such burdens and so much extortion. In half-barbarous ages the strong are constantly encroaching upon the weak ; a truth which, if it needed illustration, might find it in the progress of the feudal system. We have thus far confined our inquiry to fiefs holden on terms of military service ; since those are the most ancient 6 ; Wright on Tenures, p. 94. St. Louis lord not to marry her without his con- in return declared that he would not sent. Etablissemens de St. Louis, c. 63. marry his own daughter without the ' Ass. de Jerus. c. 224. I must observe consent of his barons. Joinville, t. ii. p. that Lauriere says this usage prevailed 140. Henry I. of England had promised en plusieurs lieux, though he quotes no the same. The guardian of a female authority. Ordonnancus des Rois, p. minor was obliged to give security to her 155. FEUDAL SYSTEM. PROPER AXD DIPROPER FEUDS. 181 and regular, as well as the most consonant to the Prope , and spirit of the system. They alone were called proper improper feuds, and all were presumed to be of this descrip- ei tion until the contrary was proved by the charter of investi- ture. A proper feud was bestowed without price, without fixed stipulation, upon a vassal capable of serving personally in the field. But gradually, with the help of a little legal in- genuity, improper fiefs of the most various kinds were intro- duced, retaining little of the characteristics, and less of the spirit, which distinguished the original tenures. Women, if indeed that were an innovation, were admitted to inherit them ; * they were granted for a price, and without reference to military service. The language of the feudal law was applied by a kind of metaphor to almost every transfer of property. Hence pensions of money and allowances of pro- visions, however remote from right notions of a fief, were sometimes granted under that name ; and even where land was the subject of the donation, its conditions were often lucrative, often honorary, and sometimes ludicrous. 2 There is one extensive species of feudal tenure which may be distinctly noticed. The pride of wealth in the Fiefe O f middle ages was principally exhibited in a multi- ffic - tude of dependents. The court of Charlemagne was crowded with officers of every rank, some of the most eminent of whom exercised functions about the royal person which would have been thought fit only for slaves in the palace of Augus- tus or Antonine. The freeborn Franks saw nothing menial in the titles of cup-bearer, steward, marshal, and master of the horse, which are still borne by the noblest families in many parts of Europe, and, till lately, by sovereign princes in the empire. 8 From the court of the king this favorite piece of magnificence descended to those of the prelates and 1 Women did not inherit fiefs in the the king stipulates to pay annually 400 German empire. Whether they were marks of silver, in feodo, for the mili- ever excluded from succession in France tary service of hia ally. Rymer, Foede- I know not ; the genius of a military ra, t. i. p. 2. tenure, and the old Teutonic customs, 3 The count of Anjou, under Louis VI., preserved in the Salic law, seem adverse claimed the office of Great Seneschal of to their possessiop of feudal lands ; yet France ; that is, to carry dishes to the the practice, at least from the eleventh king's table on state days. (Sismcndi, eentury downwards, does not support v. 136.) Thus the feudal notions of the theory. grand serjeanty prepared the way for the 2 Crag. Jus Feudale, 1. i. tit. 10 ; Du restoration of royal supremacy, as the Cange, voc. Feudum de Camera, &c. In military tenures had impaired it. The the treaty between Henry I. of England wound and the remedy came from the and Kobert count of Flanders, A.D. 1101, same lance. If the feudal system waa 182 FIEF S OF OFFICE. CHAP. II. PART L barons, who surrounded themselves with household officers called ministerials ; a name equally applied to those of a ser- vile and of a liberal description. 1 The latter of these were re- warded with grants of lands, which they held under a feudal tenure by the condition of performing some domestic service to the lord. What was called in our law grand serjeanty affords an instance of this species of fief. 2 It is, however an instance of the noblest kind ; but Muratori has given abun- dance of proofs that the commonest mechanical arts were car- ried on in the houses of the great by persons receiving lands upon those conditions. 8 These imperfect feuds, however, belong more properly to the history of law, and are chiefly noticed in the present sketch because they attest the partiality manifested during the middle ages to the name and form of a feudal tenure! In the regular military fief we see the real principle of the system, which might originally have been defined an alliance free landholders arranged in degrees of subordination, according to their respective capacities of affording mutual support. The peculiar and varied attributes of feudal tenures natu Feudal law- rally gave rise to a new jurisprudence, regulating C*'* t ^f nal n S hts in th se Parts of Europl which had adopted the system. For a length of time this rested in traditionary customs, observed in the domains of each prince or lord, without much regard to those of his neighbors. Laws were made occasionally by the emperor in Germany Ibnn ^^ t0 fix the Usa es of those countries. wv. vST, 1170 ' Girard and Obertus > tw Milanese awyers, published two books of the law of fiefs, winch ob- th " ty ' *** have been rearded ^ the , ' A number of subse- commentators swelled this code with their glosses and t authority, it kept uve seJsHf^ J h 1 T^* f the kiu & cp hfa lance supreme chief, of a superiority o?rL ? &A hl8 array ' or to be his ^, of a certain subjection to Mh^H^ T * C f rry Us SWOrd before him at h * oro atlon ' ~ to b *** sewer at his cor- . ments of our sovereign lord The kins by .ch services as he ought to d o'K FEUDAL SYSTEM. FEUDAL LAW-BOOKS. 183 opinions, to enlighten or obscure the judgment of the imperial tribunals. These were chiefly civilians or canonists, who brought to the interpretation of old barbaric customs the principles of a very different school. Hence a manifest change was wrought in the law of feudal tenure, which they assimilated to the usufruct or the emphyteusis of the lloman code ; modes of property somewhat analogous in appearance, but totally distinct in principle, from the legitimate fief. These Lombard lawyers propagated a doctrine which has been too readily received, that the feudal system originated in their country ; and some writers upon jurisprudence, such as Duck and Sir James Craig, incline to give a preponder- ating authority to their code. But whatever weight it may have possessed within the limits of the empire, a different guide must be followed in the ancient customs of France and England. 1 These were fresh from the fountain of that curi- ous polity with which the stream of Roman law had never mingled its waters. In England we know that the Norman system established between the Conquest and the reign of Henry II. was restrained by regular legislation, by paramount courts of justice, and by learned writings, from breaking into discordant local usages, except in a comparatively small num- ber of places, and has become the principal source of our common law. But the independence of the French nobles produced a much greater variety of customs. The whole number collected and reduced to certainty in the sixteenth century, amounted to two hundred and eighty-five, or, omit- ting those inconsiderable for extent or peculiarity, to sixty. The earliest written customary in France is that of Beam, which is said to have been confirmed by Viscount Gaston IV. in 1088. 2 Many others were written in the two subsequent ages, of which the customs of Beauvoisis, compiled by Beau- 1 Giannone explicitly contrasts the lished with a fresh title-page and per- French and Lombard laws respecting mission of Henry IV. in 1002 ; the other fiefs. The latter was the foundation of at Lescars, in 1633. These laws, as we the Libri Feudorum, and formed the read them, are subsequent to a revision common law of Italy. The former was made in the middle of the sixteenth cen- introduced by Roger Guiscard into his tury in which they were more or less dominions, in three books of constitu- corrected. The basis, however, is un- tions, printed in Lindebrog's collection, questionably very ancient. We even There were several material differences, find the composition for homicide pre- which Giannone enumerates, especially served in them, so that murder was not the Norman custom of primogeniture, a capital offence in Beam, though rob- Ist. di Nap. 1. xi. c. 5. bery was such'. Rubrica de Homicidis, 2 There are two editions of this curious Art. xxxi. See too Rubrica de Poenis. old code ; one at Pau. in 1552, repub- Art. i. and ii. 184 FEUDAL LAW-BOOKS. CHAP. II. PART L manoir under Philip HI., are the most celebrated, and con- tain a mass of information on the feudal constitution and manners. Under Charles VII. an ordinance was made for the formation of a general code of customary law, by ascer- taining forever in a written collection those of each district ; but the work was not completed till the reign of Charles IX. This was what may be called the common law of the pays coutumiers, or northern division of France, and the rule of all their tribunals, unless where controlled by royal edicts. ANALYSIS CF FEUDAL SYSTEM. 185 PART H. Analysis of the Feudal System Its local Extent View of the different Orders ot Society during the Feudal Ages Nobility their Rankf" a,nd Privileges Kevenue in trance flletnods adopted to augment it oy .Depreciation 01 uie Coin, &c. Legislative Power its State under the Merovingian Kings, and Charlemagne His Councils Suspension of any general Legislative Authority during the Prevalence of Feudal Principles the King's Council Means adopted to supply the Want of a National Assembly Gradual Progress of the King's Legislative Power Philip IV. assembles the States-General Their Powers limited to Taxation States under the Sons of Philip IV. States of 1355 and 1356 They nearly effect an entire Revolution The Crown recovers its Vigor States of 1380, under Charles VI. Subsequent Assemblies nndef Charles VI. and Charles VII. The Crown becomes more and more absolute Louis XI. States of Tours in 1484 Historical View of Jurisdiction in Franca Its earliest Stage under the first Race of Kings, and Charlemagne Territorial Jurisdiction Feudal Courts of Justice Trial by Combat Code of St. Louia The Territorial Jurisdictions give way Progress of the Judicial Power of the Crown Parliament of Paris Peers of France Increased Authority of the Parliament Registration of Edicts Causes of the Decline of the Feudal commuted for Money Hired Troops Change in the Military System of Europe General View of the Advantages and Disadvantages attending the Feudal System. THE advocates of a Roman origin for most of the institu- tions which we find in the kingdoms erected on the ruins of the empire are naturally prone to magnify the analogies to feudal tenure which Rome presents to us, and even to deduce it either from the ancient relation of patron and client, and that of personal commendation, which was its representative in a later age, or from the frontier lands granted in the third century to the Laeti, or barbarian soldiers, who held them, doubtless, subject to a condition of military service. The usage of commendation especially, so frequent in the fifth century, before the conquest of Gaul, as well as afterwards, does certainly bear a strong analogy to vassalage, and I have already pointed it out as one of its sources. It wanted, how- ever, that definite relation to the tenure of land which dis- tinguished the latter. The royal Antrustio (whether the word commendatus were applied to him or not) stood bound by gratitude and loyalty to his sovereign, and in a very differ- 186 ANALYSIS OF FEUDAL SYSTEM. CHAP. H. PART EL ent degree from a common subject ; but he was not perhaps strictly a vassal till he had received a territorial benefice. 1 The complexity of subinfeudation could have no analogy in commendation. The grants to veterans and to the La3ti are so far only analogous to fiefs, that they established the prin- ciple of holding lands on a condition of military service. But this service was no more than what, both under Charlemagne and in England, if not in other times and places, the alodial freeholder was bound to render for the defence of the realm ; it was more commonly required, because the lands were on a barbarian frontier; but the duty was not even very analo- gous to that of a feudal tenant. 2 The essence of a fief seems to be, that its tenant owed fealty to a lord, and not to the state or the sovereign ; the lord might be the latter, but it was not, feudally speaking, as a sovereign that he was obeyed. This is, therefore, sufficient to warrant us in tracing the real theory of feuds no higher than the Merovingian history in France ; their full establishment, as has been seen, is considerably later. But the preparatory steps in the constitutions of the declining empire are of considerable importance, not merely as analogies, but as predisposing circumstances, and even germs to be subsequently developed. The beneficiary tenure of lands could not well be brought by the conquerors from Germany ; but the donatives of arms or precious metals bestowed by the chiefs on their followers were also analogous to fiefs ; and, as the Roman institutions were one source of the law of tenure, so these were another. It is of great importance to be on our guard against seeming analogies which vanish away when they are closely observed. We should speak inaccurately if we were to use the word feudal for the service of the Irish or Highland clans to their chieftain ; their tie was that of imagined kindred and respect for birth, not the spontaneous compact of vassalage. Much less can we extend the name of feud, though it is sometime; 1 This -word "vassal" is used very consequebantur, ut delect ibus quorjue ob Indefinitely; it means, in its original noxii essent et legionibus insererentur sense, only a servant or dependant. But (Not. ad Cod. Theod. 1. vii. tit. 20, c. 12.) in the continental records of histories Sir Francis Palgrave, however, pays, we commonly find it applied to feudal "The duty of bearing arms was insepara tenants. bly connected with the property." (Eug 2 If Gothofred is right in his construe- lish Commonwealth, i. 354.) This is to* tion of the tenure of these Laeti, they were equivocal ; but he certainly means mon not even generally liable to this part of than Gothofred ; he supposes a pernianen our trmoiJa necessitas, but only to con- universal obligation to render service in ecription for the legions. Et ea tamen all public warfare. conditions terras illis excolendas Lseti FEUDAL SYSTEM. ITS EXTENT. 187 strangely misapplied, to the polity of Poland and Russia. All the Polish nobles were equal in rights, and independent of each other ; all who were less than noble were in servitude. No government am be more opposite to the long gradations and mutual duties of the feudal system. 1 The regular machinery and systematic establishment of feuds, in fact, may be considered as almost confined Extentof to the dominions of Charlemagne, and to those the feudal countries which afterwards derived it from thence. system ' In England it can hardly be thought to have existed in a complete state before the Conquest. Scotland, it is supposed, borrowed it soon after from her neighbor. The Lombards of Benevento had introduced feudal customs into the Neapolitan provinces, which the Norman conquerors afterwards perfected. Feudal tenures were so general in the kingdom of Aragon, that I reckon it among the monarchies which were founded upon that basis. 2 Charlemagne's empire, it must be remem- bered, .extended as far as the Ebro. But in Castile 8 and Portugal they were very rare, and certainly could produce no 1 In civil history many instances might be found of feudal ceremonies in countries not regulated by the feudal law. Thus Selden has published an infeudation of a vayvod of Moldavia by the king of Poland, A.D. 1485, in the regular forms, vol. iii. p. 614. But these political fiefs have hardly any connection with the general system, and merely denote the subordination of one prince or people to another. 2 It is probable that feudal tenure was as ancient in the north of Spain as in the contiguous provinces of France. But it seems to have chiefly prevailed in Aragon about the twelfth and thirteenth centu- ries, when the Moors south of the Ebro were subdued by the enterprise of private nobles, who, after conquering estates for themselves, did homage for them to the king. James I., upon the reduction of Valencia, granted lands by way of fief, on condition of defending that kingdom against the Moors, and residing person- ally upon the estate. Many did not per- form this engagement, and were deprived of the lands in consequence. It appears by the testament of this monarch that feudal tenures subsisted in ever)' part of his dominions. Martenne. Thesaurus Anecdotorum, t. 5. p. 1141, 1155. An edict of Peter II. in 1210 prohibits the aliena- tion of emphyteuses without the lord's consent. It is hard to say whether regular fiefs are meant by this word. De Marca, Marca Hispanica, p. 1396. This author says that there were no arriere-fiefs in Catalonia. The Aragonese fiefs appear, however, to have differed from those of other countries in some respects. Zurita mentions fiefs according to the custom of Italy, which he explains to be such as were liable to the usual feudal aids for marrying the lord's daughter, and other occasions. We may infer, therefore, that these prestations were not customary in Aragon. Anales de Aragon, t. ii. p. 62. 3 What is said of vassalage in Alfonzo X.'s code, Las siete partidas, is short and obscure : nor am I certain that it meant anything more than voluntary commen- dation, the custom mentioned in the former part of this chapter, from which the vassal might depart at pleasure. See, however. Du Cange, v. Honor, where authorities are given for the existence of Castilian fiefs ; and I have met with occasional mention of them in history. I believe that tenures of this kind were introduced in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries ; but not to any great extent. Marina, Teoria de las Cortes, t. iii. p. 14. Tenures of a feudal nature, as I collect from Freirii Institut. Juris Lusitani, torn, ii. 1. 1 and 3, existed in Portugal, though the jealousy of the crown prevented the system from being established. There were even territorial jurisdictions in that kingdom, though not, at least originally, in Castile. 188 NOBILITY. CHAP. II. PART II. political effect. Benefices for life were sometimes granted in Jhe kingdoms of Denmark and Bohemia. 1 Neither of these, however, nor Sweden, nor Hungary, come under the descrip- tion of countries influenced by the feudal system. 2 That system, however, after all these limitations, was so extensively diffused, that it might produce confusion as well as prolixity to pursue collateral branches of its history in all the countries where it prevailed. But this embarrassment may be avoided without any loss, I trust, of important information. The English constitution will find its place in another portion of these volumes ; and the political condition of Italy, after the eleventh century, was not much affected, except in the king- dom bf Naples, by the laws of feudal tenure. I shall confine myself, therefore, chiefly to France and Germany ; and far more to the former than the latter country. But it may be expedient first to contemplate the state of society in its various classes during the prevalence of feudal principles, before we trace tbeir influence upon the national government. It has been laid down already as most probable that no Classes of proper aristocracy, except that of wealth, was Society. known under the early kings of France ; and it Nobility. was hinted that hereditary benefices, or, in other words, fiefs, might supply the link that was wanting between personal privileges and those of descent. The possessors of beneficiary estates were usually the richest and most con- spicuous individuals in the estate. They were immediately connected with the crown, and partakers in the exercise of justice and royal counsels. Their sons now came to inherit this eminence ; and, as fiefs were either inalienable, or at least not very frequently alienated, rich families were kept long in sight ; and, whether engaged in public affairs, or living with magnificence and hospitality at home, naturally drew to themselves popular estimation. The dukes and counts, who had changed their quality of governors into that of lords over 1 Daniee regni politicus status. Elzevir, this does not in the least imply that 1629. Stransky, Respublica Bohemica, lands in Denmark proper were feudal, of ib. In one of the oldest Danish historians, which I find no evidence. Sweno, I have noticed this expression : 8 Though there were no feudal tenures Waldemarus, patris tune potitus feoilo. in Sweden, yet the nobility and others Langebek, Scrip. Rerum Danic. t. i. p. 62. were exempt from taxes on condition of By this he means the duchy of Sleswic, serving the king with a horse and amis not a fief, but an honor or government at their own expense ; and a distinction possessed by Waldemar. Saxo Grammat- was taken between liber and tril/utarius. icus calls it, more classically, paternaB But any one of the latter might become prasfecturai dignitas. Sleswic was, in of the former class, or vice versa. Sueciae later times, sometimes held as a fief; but descriptio. Elzevir, 1631, p. 92. FEUDAL SYSTEM. NOBILITY. 18 ( J the provinces intrusted to them, were at the head of this noble class. And in imitation of them, their own vassals, as well as those of the crown, and even rich alodialists, assumed titles from their towns or castles, and thus arose a number of petty counts, barons, and viscounts. This distinct class of nobility became coextensive with the feudal tenures. 1 For the military tenant, however poor, was subject to no tribute ; no prestation, but service in the field ; he was the companion of his lord in the sports and feasting of his castle, the peer of his court ; he fought on horseback, he was clad in the coat of mail, while the commonalty, if summoned at all to war, came on foot, and with no armor of defence. As everything in the habits of society conspired with that prejudice which, in spite of moral philosophers, will constantly raise the profession of arms above all others, it was a natural consequence that a new species of aristocracy, founded upon the mixed consider- ations of birth, tenure, and occupation, sprung out of the feudal system. Every possessor of a fief was a gentleman, though he owned but a few acres of land, and furnished his slender contribution towards the equipment of a knight. In the Libri Feudorum, indeed, those who were three degrees removed from the emperor in order of tenancy are considered as ignoble ; 2 but this is restrained to modern investitures ; and in France, where subinfeudation was carried the farthest, no such distinction has met my observation. 8 There still, however, wanted something to ascertain gentili- ty of blood where it was not marked by the actual tenure of land. This was supplied by two innovations devised in the eleventh and twelfth centuries the adoption of surnames and of armorial bearings. The first are commonly referred to the former age, when the nobility began to add the names of their estates to their own, or, having any way acquired a distinctive appellation, transmitted it to their posterity. 4 As 1 M. Guerard observes that in the * L. ii. t. 10. Chartulary of Chartres, exhibiting the 3 The nobility of an aloJial possession, usages of the eleventh and beginning in France, depended upon its right to of the twelfth centuries, " La noblesse territorial jurisdiction. Hence thera s'y montre completemenfr constitutee ; were franc-aleux nobles and franc-alt 'ill c'est 4 dire, privilegiee et hereditaire. roturitrs ; the latter of which were sub- Kilo peut etre divisee eu haute, moyenne, ject to the jurisdiction of the neighbor- et basse." By the first he understands ing lord. Loiseau, Traite des Seigneuries, those who held immediately of the crown ; p. 76. Denisart, Dictionnaire des Deci- tlie middle nobility were mediate vassals, sions, art. 1'runc-iUeu. but had righto of jurisdiction, which the * Mabillon, Traite de Diplomatique, lower had not. (Prolegomenes i la, 1 ii. c. 7. The authors of the Nouveau Cartulaire do Chartres, p. 30.) Tnute de Diplomatique, t. ii. p. 663, 190 NOBILITY. CHAP. II. PAHT. II to armorial bearings, there is no doubt that emblems some- what similar have been immemorially usi d both in war and peace. The shields of ancient warriors, and devices upon coins or seals, bear no distant resemblance to modern blazon- ry. But the general introduction of such bearings, as hereditary distinctions, has been sometimes attributed to tour- naments, wherein the champions were distinguished by fanci- ful devices ; sometimes to the crusades, where a multitude of all nations and languages stood in need of some visible token to denote the banners of their respective chiefs. In fact, the peculiar symbols of heraldry point to both these sources, and have been borrowed in part from each. 1 Hereditary arms were perhaps scarcely used by private families before the beginning of the thirteenth century. 2 From that time, how- ever, they became very general, and have contributed to elucidate that branch of history which regards the descent of illustrious families. trace the use of surnames in a few in- stances even to the beginning of the tenth century ; but they did not become general, according to them, till the thir- teenth. M. Guerard finds a few hereditary sur- names in the eleventh century and many that were personal. (CartulairedeChar- tres, p. 93.) The latter are not surnames at all, in our usual sense. A good many may be found in Domesday, as that of Burdet in Leicestershire, Malet in Suf- folk, Corbet in Shropshire, Colville in Yorkshire, besides those with de, which of course is a local designation, but be- came hereditary. 1 Mem de 1'Acad. des Inscriptions, t. xx. p. 579. 2 I should be unwilling to make a negative assertion peremptorily in a mat- ter of mere antiquarian research ; but I am not aware of any decisive evidence that hereditary arms were borne in the twelfth century, except by a very few royal or almos; royal families. Mabil- lon, Traite de Diplomatique, 1. ii. c. IS. Those of Geoffrey the Fair, count of Anjou, who died in 1150, are extant on his shield ; azure, four lions rampant or. Uist. Litteraire de la France, t. ix. p. 105. If arms had been considered as hereditary at that time, this should be the bearing of England, which, as we all know, differs considerably. Louis VII. pprinkled his seal and coin with fleurs-de- lys, a very ancient device, or rather orna- ment, and the same as what are some- times called bees. The golden ornauumta found in the tomb of Childeric I. at Tournay, which may be seen in the library of Paris, may pass either for fleurs-de-lys or bees. Charles V. reduced the number to three, and thus fixed the arms of France. The counts of Tou- louse used their cross in the twelfth .age ; but no other arms, Vaissette tells us, can be traced in Languedoc so far back. T. iii. p. 514. Armorial bearings were in use among the Saracens during the later crusades ; as appears by a passage in Joinville, t. i. p. 88 (Collect, des Memoires), and Da Gauge's note upon it. Perhaps, however, they may have been adopted in imitation of the Franks, like the ceremonies of knighthood. Villaiet ingeniously con- jectures that the separation of different branches of the same family by their settlements in Palestine led to the use of hereditary arms, in order to pieserve the connection. T. xi. p. 113. M. Sismondi, I observe, seoms to enter tain no doubt that the noble families of Pisa, including that whose name he bears, had their armorial distinctions in the beginning of the twelfth century. Hist, des Repub. Ital. t. i. p. 373. It is at least probable that the heraldic devices were as ancient in Italy as in any part of Europe. And the authors of Nouveau Traite de Diplomatique, t. iv. p. 388, in- cline to refer hereditary arms even ia France to the beginning of the twelfth century, though without producing any evidence for this. FEUDAL SYSTEM. ITS PRIVILEGES. 19] When the privileges of birth had thus been rendered ca pable of legitimate proof, they were enhanced in a i ts pnrl great degree, and a line drawn between the high- le s es - born and ignoble classes, almost as broad as that which sepa rated liberty from servitude. All offices of trust and powei were conferred on the former ; those excepted which apper- tain to the legal profession. A plebeian could not possess a fief. 1 Such at least was the original strictness : but as the aristocratic principle grew weaker, an indulgence was ex- tended to heirs, and afterwards to purchasers. 2 They were even permitted to become noble by the acquisition, or at least by its possession for three generations. 8 But notwithstanding this ennobling quality of the land, which seems rather of an equivocal description, it became an established right of the crown to take, every twenty years, and on every change of the vassal, a fine, known by the name of franc-fief, from plebeians in possession of land held by a noble tenure. 4 A gentleman in France or Germany could not exercise any trade without derogating, that is, losing the advantages of his rank. A few exceptions were made, at least in the former country, in favor of some liberal arts, and of foreign com- merce. 5 But in nothing does the feudal haughtiness of birth more show itself than in the disgrace which attended unequal marriages. No children could inherit a territory held im- mediately of the empire unless both their parents belonged to the higher class of nobility. In France the offspring of a gentleman by a plebeian mother were reputed noble for the 1 We have no English word that con- veys the full sense of roturier. How glorious is this deficiency in our political language, and how different are the ideas suggested by commoner! Koturier, ac- cording to Du Gauge, is derived from rupturarius, a peasant, ab agrum rum- pendo. - The Establishments of St. Louis for- bid this innovation, but Beaumanoir contends that the prohibition does not extend to descent or marriage, c. 48. The roturier who acquired a fief, if he chal- lenged any one, fought with ignoble arms; but in all other respects was treated as a gentleman. Ibid. Yet a (might was not obliged to do homage to the roturier who became his superior by the acquisition of a fief on which he de- pended. CarpentiiT, Supplement, ad Du Gauge, voc. llouiagium. * Etablisseuiens de St. Louis, c. 143, ind note, in Ordonnances dee Hois, t. i. See also preface to the same volume, p. xii. According to Mably, the possession of a fief did not cease to confer nobility (analogous to our barony by tenure) tili the Ordonnances des Blois in 1579. Ob- servations sur 1'Hist. de France, 1. iii. c. 1 note 6. But Laurie-re, author of the pre- face above cited, refers to liouteiller, writer of the fourteenth century, to prove that no one could become noble without the king's authority. The contradiction will not much perplex us, when we re- flect on the disposition of lawyers to as- cribe all prerogatives to the crown, at the expense of territorial proprietors and of ancient customary law. * The right, originally perhaps usurpa- tion, called franc fief, began under Philip the Fair. Ordonnances des Rois, t. i. p. 324; Denisart, art. Franc-fief. 5 Houard, Diet, du Droit Normand. Encyclopedic, art Noblesse. Argou, I ii. c. 2. 192 NOBILITY. CHAP. U. PART II. purposes of inheritance and of exemption from tribute. 1 But they could not be received into any order of chivalry, though capable of simple knighthood ; nor were they considered as any better than a bastard class deeply tainted with the alloy of their maternal extraction. Many instances occur where let- ters of nobility have been granted to reinstate them in their rank. 2 For several purposes it was necessary to prove four, eight, sixteen, or a greater number of quarters, that is, of coats borne by paternal and maternal ancestors, and the same practice still subsists in Germany. 8 It appears, therefore, that the original nobility of the Con- tinent were what we may call self-created, and did not derive their rank from any such concessions of their respective sov- ereigns as have been necessary in subsequent ages. In Eng- land the baronies by tenure might belong to the same class, if the lands upon which they depended had not been granted by the crown. But the kings of France, before the end of the thirteenth century, began to assume a privilege of creating nobles by their own authority, and without regard to the ten- ure of land. Philip the Hardy, in 1271, was the first French king who granted letters of nobility; under the reigns of Philip the Fair and his children they gradually became fre- quent. 4 This effected a change in the character of nobility, and had as obvious a moral, as other events of the same age had a political, influence in diminishing the power and inde- pendence of the territorial aristocracy. The privileges orig- inally connected with ancient lineage and extensive domains became common to the low-born creatures of a court, and lost consequently part of their title to respect. The lawyers, as I have observed above, pretended that nobility could not exist without a royal concession. They acquired themselves, in return for their exaltation of prerogative, an official nobil- ity by the exercise of magistracy. The institutions of chiv- alry again gave rise to a vast increase of gentlemen, knight- 1 Nobility, to a certain degree, was gentility from the father, and of freedom communicated through the mother alone, from the mother. not ouly by the custom of Champagne, 2 Beaumanoir, c. 45 ; Du Cange, Dis- but in all parts of France; that is, the sert. 10, sur Joinville ; Carpentier voc. issue were " gentilhommes du fait de leur Nobilitatio. corps." and could possess fiefs ; but, says 3 [NOTE XII.] Beaumanoir, " la geutilesse par laquelle * Velly, t. vi. p. 432 ; Du Cange and on decent chevalier doit vetiir de par le Carpentier, yoce Nobilitaire, &e. ; Bou- pere," c. 45. There was a proverbial lainvilliers, llist. de 1'Ancieu Gouverne- niaxim in French law, rather emphatic ment de France, t. i. p. 317. tii;in decent, to exprws the derivation of FEUDAL SYSTEM. DIFFERENT ORDERS. 193 hood, on whomsoever conferred by the sovereign, being a sufficient passport to noble privileges. It was usual, perhaps, to grant previous letters of nobility to a plebeian for whom the honor of knighthood was designed. In this noble or gentle class there were several gradations. All those in France who held lands immediately depending upon the crown, whatever titles they might bear, were com prised in the order of barons. These were origi- Different nally the peers of the king's court ; they possessed orders of Ihe higher territorial jurisdiction, and had the right of carrying their own banner into the field. 1 To these cor- responded the Valvassores majores and Capitanei of the em- pire. In a subordinate class were the vassals of this high nobility, who, upon the Continent, were usually termed Va- vassors an appellation not unknown, though rare, hi Eng- land. 2 The Chatelains belonged to the order of Vavassors, as they held only arriere fiefs ; but, having fortified houses, from which they derived their name (a distinction very im- portant in those times), and possessing ampler rights of terri- torial justice, they rose above the level of their fellows in the scale of tenure. 8 But after the personal nobility of chivalry J Beaumanoir, c. 34 ; Du Cange, T. Bare; Etablissemens de St. Louis. 1. i. c. 24, 1. ii. c. 36. The vassals of inferior lords were, however, called, improperly, Barons, both in France and England. Recueil des Ilistoriens, t. xi. p. 300 ; Madox, Baronia Anglica, p. 133. In perfect strictness, those only whose im- mediate tenure of the crown was older than the accession of Hugh Capet were barons of France ; namely, Bourbon, Coucy, and Beaujeu, or Beaujolois. It appears, howev&r, by a register in the reigu of Philip Augustus, that fifty-nine were reckoned in that class ; the feuda- taries of the Capetian fiefs, Paris and Orleans being confounded with the ori- ginal vassals of the crown. Du Cange, voc Baro. - Du Cange, v. Vavassor ; Velly t. vi. p. 151 ; Madox, Baronia Anglica, p. 135. There is, perhaps, hardly any word more loosely used than Vavassor. Bracton gays, Sunt etiam Vavossores, magnse dig- nitatis viri. In France and Germany they are sometimes named with much less honor. Je suis un chevalier ne de c< i-t part, de varasseurs et rj? basse gent, says a romance. This is to be explained by the poverty to which the subdivision Of fiefs reduced idle gentlemen. Chaucer concludes his picturesque de- VOL. I. JM. 13 Bcription of the Franklin, in the prologue to the Canterbury Tales, thus : " \Vas never such a worthy vavassor." This has perplexed some of our com- mentators, who. not knowing well what was meant by a franklin or by a vavassor, fancied the latter to be of much higher quality than the former. The poet, how- ever, was strictly correct; his acquaint ance with French manners showed him that the country squire, for his franklin is no other, precisely corresponded to the vavassor in France. Those who, having been deceived, by comparatively modern law-books, into a notion that the word franklin denoted but a stout yeoman, in spite of the wealth and rank which Chaucer assigns to him, and believing also, on the authority of the loose phrase in Bracton, that all vavussors were " magnae dignitatis viri," might well be puzzled at seeing the words employed as synonyms. See Todd's Illustrations of Gower and Chaucer for an instance. 3 Du Cange, v. Castellanus ; Coutumes de Poitou, tit. iii.; Loiseau Traite des Seigneuries, p. 160. Whoever had a right to a castle had la haute justice ; this be- ing so incident to the castle, that it was transferred along with it. There might, however, be a Seigneur haut-justicier be low the Chatelain and a ridiculous dis- 194 CLERGY. CHAP. II. PAST EL became the object of pride, the Vavassors who obtained knight- hood were commonly styled bachelors ; those who had not re- ceived that honor fell into the class of squires, 1 or damoiseaux. It will be needless to dwell upon the condition of the infe- ciergy. " or c ^ er SJt whether secular or professed, as it bears little upon the general scheme of polity. The prelates, and abbots, however, it must be understood, were completely feudal nobles. They swore fealty for their lands to the king or other superior, received the homage of their vassals, enjoyed the same immunities, exercised the same jurisdiction, maintained the same authority, as the lay lords among whom they dwelt. Military service does not appear to have been reserved in the beneficiary grants made to cathedrals and monasteries. But when other vassals of the crown were called upon to repay the bounty of their sover- eign by personal attendance in war, the ecclesiastical tenants were supposed to fall within the scope of this feudal duty, which men little less uneducated and violent than their com- patriots were not reluctant to fulfil. Charlemagne exempted or rather prohibited them from personal service by several capitularies. 2 The practice, however, as every one who has some knowlege of history will be aware, prevailed in succeed- ing ages. Both in national and private warfare we find very frequent mention of martial prelates. 8 But, contrary as this actual service might be to the civil as well as ecclesiastical tinction was made as to the number of inter Equltem et Generosum. Quod et posts by which their gallows might be alibi in usu fuit." Squire was not used supported. A baron's instrument of exe- as a title of distinction in England till cution stood on four posts ; a chatelain's the reign of Edward III., and then but on three ; while the inferior lord who sparingly. Though by Henry VI. 's time happened to possess la haute justice was it was grown more common, yet none forced to hang his subjects on a two- assumed it but the sons and heirs of legged machine. Coutumes de Poitou ; knights and some military men ; except Du Cange, v. Furca. officers in courts of justice", who, by pa- Lauriere quotes from an old manu- tent or prescription, had obtained that script the following short scale of ranks : addition Spelman's Posthumc us Works. Due est la premiere diguite, puis comtes, p. 234. puis viseomtes, et puis baron, et puis 2 Mably, 1. i. c. 6 ; Baluze, t. i. p. 410, chatelain, et puis vavasseur, et puis 932. 987. Any bishop, priest, deacon, cr citaeu, et puisjillain. Ordonnauces des subdeacon bearing arms was to be de- Rois, t. i. p. 21 1. graded and not even admitted to lay i The sons of knights, and gentlemen communion. Id. p. 932. not yet knighted, took the appellation of * One of the latest instances probably Bquires in the twelfth century. Vaissette, of a fighting bishop is Jean Montaigu Hist, de Lang. t. ii. p. 513. That of Da- archbishop of Sens, who was killed at moiseau came into use in the thirteenth. Azincourt. Monstrelet says that he was Id. t. iii. p. 529. The latter was, I think, " non pas en estat pontifical, car au lieu more usual in France. Du Cange gives de mitre il portoit une bacinet, pour dal- little information as to the word squire, matique portoit un haubergeon, pour (Scutifer.) "Ar,ud Anglos," he says, chasuble la piece d'acier; et au lieu de "peiiultima eat nobilitatis descriptio, crosse, portoit une hache." Fol. 182 SYSTEM. FREEMEN. J 95 laws, the clergy who held military fiefs were of course bound to fulfil the chief obligation of that tenure and send their vassals into the field. We have many instances of their ac- companying the army, though not mixing in the conflict ; and even the parish priests headed the militia of their villages. 1 The prelates, .however, sometimes contrived to avoid this mili tary service, and the payments introduced in commutation for it, by holding lands in frank-almoigne, a tenure which ex- empted them from every species of obligation except that of saying masses for the benefit of the grantor's family. 2 But, notwithstanding the warlike disposition of some ecclesiastics, their more usual inability to protect the estates of their churches against rapacious neighbors suggested a new spe- cies of feudal relation and tenure. The rich abbeys elected an advocate, whose business it was to defend their interests both in secular courts and, if necessary, in the field. Pepin and Charlemagne are styled Advocates of the Roman church. This, indeed, was on a magnificent scale ; but in ordinary practice the advocate of a monastery was some neighboring lord, who, in return for his protection, possessed many lucra- tive privileges, and very frequently considerable estates by way of fief from his ecclesiastical clients. Some of these advocates are reproached with violating their obligation, and becoming the plunderers of those whom they had been re- tained to defend. 8 The classes below the gentry may be divided into freemen and villeins. Of the first were the inhabitants of chartered towns, the citizens and burghers, of whom more will be said presently. As to those who dwelt in the country, we can have no difficulty in recognizing, so far as England is con- cerned, the socagers, whose tenure was free, though not so noble as knight's service, and a numerous body of tenants for term of life, who formed that ancient basis of our strength the English yeomanry. But the mere freemen are not at first sight so distinguishable in other countries, In French records and law-books of feudal times, all besides the gen- try are usually confounded under the names of villeins or hommes de pooste (gens potestatis). 4 This proves the slight 1 Daniel, Hist, de la Milice Franqoise, s Du Cange. v. Advocatus ; a full and t. i. p. 88. useful article. Kecueil des Historiena, 2 Du Cange, Eleemosyna Libera ; t. xi. preface, p. 184. Madox, Baronia Angl. p. 115; Coke on * Homo potestatis, non nobilis Tta Littleton, and other English, law-books. nuncupautux, quod in potentate domini 1'JG SEEFS OR VILLEINS. CHAP. 1. PART II estimation in which all persons of ignoble birth were consider- ed. For undoubtedly there existed a great many proprietors of land and others, as free, though not as privileged, as the no- bility. In the south of France, and especially Provence, the number of freemen is remarked to have been greater than in the parts on the right bank of the Loire, where the feudal tenures were almost universal. 1 I shall quote part of a pas- sage in Beaumanoir, which points out this distinction of ranks pretty fully. "It should be known," he says, 2 "that there are three conditions of men in this world ; the first is that of gentlemen ; and the second is that of such as are naturally free, being born of a free mother. All who have a right to be called gentlemen are free, but all who are free are not gentlemen. Gentility comes by the father, and not by the mother ; but freedom is derived from the mother only ; and whoever is born of a free mother is himself free, and has free power to do anything that is lawful." 8 In every age and country until times comparatively recent, Serfs or personal servitude appears to have been the lot villeins. O f a large, perhaps the greater, portion of man- kind. We lose a good deal of our sympathy with the spirit of freedom in Greece and Rome, when the importunate rec- ollection occurs to us of the tasks which might be enjoined, and the punishments which might be inflicted, without control either of law or opinion, by the keenest patriot of the Comitia, or the Council of Five Thousand. A similar, though less powerful, feeling will often force itself on the mind when we read the history of the middle ages. The Germans, in their primitive settlements, were accustomed to the notion of slavery, incurred not only by captivity, but by crimes, by debt, and especially by loss in gaming. When they invaded the Roman empire they found the same condition established in all its provinces. Hence, from the beginning of the era now under review, servitude, under somewhat different modes, was extremely common. There is some difficulty in ascer- taining its varieties and stages. In the Salic laws, and in the gunt Opponunturvirisnobilibus; apud to many tributes and oppressive claims Butilerium Consuetudinarii vocantur, on the part of their territorial superiors, Coustumiers, prestationibus scilicet ob- we cannot be surprised that they are con- noxii et operis. l)u Cange, v. Potestas. founded, at this distance, with men in As all these freemen were obliged, by the actual servitude. ancient laws of France, to live under the J Heeren, Essai sur les Croisades, protection of some particular lord, and p. 122. found great difficulty in choosing a new 2 CoiUumes deBeauvoisis, c. 45, p. 256 place of residence, as they were subject 8 [NOTE XIII.] FEUDAL SYSTEM. SERFS OR VILLEINS. 197 Capitularies, we read not only of Servi, but of Tributarii, Lidi, and Coloni, who were cultivators of the earth and sub- ject to residence upon their lord's estate, though not destitute of property or civil rights. 1 Those who appertained to the demesne lands of the crown were called Fiscalini. The com- position for the murder of one of these was much less than that for a freeman. 2 The number of these servile cultivators was undoubtedly great, yet in those early times, I should con- ceive, much less than it afterwards became. Property was for the most part in small divisions, and a Frank who could hardly support his family upon a petty alodial patrimony was not likely to encumber himself with many servants. But the accumulation of overgrown private wealth had a natural ten- dency to make slavery more frequent. Where the small pro- prietors lost their lands by mere rapine, we may believe that their liberty was hardly less endangered. 8 Even where this was not the case, yet, as the labor either of artisans or of free husbandmen was but sparingly in demand, they were often compelled to exchange their liberty for bread. 4 In seasons also of famine, "and they were not unfrequent, many freemen sold themselves to slavery. A capitulary of Charles the Bald in 864 permits their redemption at an equitable price. 5 Others became slaves, as more fortunate men became vassals, to a powerful lord, for the sake of his protection. Many were reduced into this state through inability to pay those pe- cuniary compositions for offences which were numerous and sometimes heavy in the barbarian codes of law ; and many more by neglect of attendance on military expeditions of the 1 These passages are too numerous for till strict inquiry had been made in the reference. In a very early charter in place to which he was asserted to belong, Martenne's Thesaurus Anecdotorum, t. as to his condition, and that of his fam \. p. 20, lands are granted, cum homini- ily : p. 400. Ami if the villein showed a bus ibidem permanentibus, quos colon- charter of enfranchisement, the proof ario online invert constituiraus. Men of its forgery was to lie upon the lord, of this class were called, in Italy, Al- No man's liberty could be questioned in diones. A Lombard capitulary of Charle- the Hundred-court, magne says, Aldiones el lege vivunt in 3 Montesquieu ascribes the increase of Italia sub servitute dominorum suorum, personal servitude in France to the con- qua Fiscalini, vel Liili vivunt in Francil. tinued revolts and commotions under the Muratori, Dissert. 14. [Xoie XIV.] two first dynasties, 1. xxx. c. 11. 2 Originally it was but 45 solidi 4 Du Cange, v. Obnoxatio. (Leges Salicae, c. 43), but Charlemagne 6 Baluzii Capitularia. The Greek trad- raised it to 100. Buluzii Capitularia, p. era purchased famished wretches on the 402. -There are several provisions in the coasts of Italy, whom they sold to the laws of this great and wise monarch in Saracens. Muratori, Annalia d'ltalia, favor of liberty. If a lord claimed any A.D. 785. Much more would persons in one either as his villein or slave (colonus this extremity sell themselves to neigh- give servus), who had escaped beyond boring lords, his territory, he was not to be given up 198 SERFS OB VILLEESTS. CHAP. II. PAKT II. king, the penally of which was a fine called Heribann, with the alternative of perpetual servitude. 1 A source of loss of liberty which may strike us as more extraordinary was superstition ; men were infatuated enough to surrender them- selves, as well as their properties, to churches and monaste- ries, in return for such benefits as they might reap by the prayers of their new masters. 2 The characteristic distinction of a villein was his obligation to remain upon his lord's estate. He was not only precluded from selling the lands upon which he dwelt, -but his person was bound, and the lord might reclaim him at any time, by suit in a court of justice, if he ventured to stray. But, equally liable to this confinement, there were two classes of villeins, whose condition was exceedingly different. In England, at least from the reign of Henry II., one only, and that the inferior species, existed ; incapable of property, and destitute of redress, except against the most outrageous injuries. 8 The lord could seize whatever they acquired or inherited, or convey them, apart from the land, to a stranger. Their tenure bound them to what were called villein services, ignoble in their nature, and indeterminate in their degree ; the felling of timber, the carrying of manure, the repairing of roads for their lord, who seems to have possessed an equally unbounded right over their labor and its fruits. But by the customs of France and Germany, persons in this abject state seem to have been called serfs, and distinguished from villeins, who were only bound to fixed payments and duties in respect of their lord, though, as it seems, without any legal redress if injured by him. 4 " The third estate of men," says Beaumanoir, in the passage above quoted, " is that of such as are not free ; and these are not all of one condition, for some are so subject to their lord that he may 1 Du Cange, Heribannum. A full heri- bien que selon Dieu tu n'as mie pleniere bannum was 60 solid!; but it was some- poeste sur ton vilain. Dont se tu prens times assessed in proportion to the wealth du sien fors les drcAtes redevances que of () t 'j e party. te doit, tu les prens centre Dieu, et sur - Beaumanoir, c. 45. [NOTE XV.] le peril de fame et come robierres. Et 3 Littleton, 1. ii. c. 11. Non potest ce qu'on dit toutos les choses que vilains ahquis (says Glanvil), in villenagio posi- a, sont son Seigneur, c'est voir a garder. tus, hbertatem suam propriis denariis Car s'il estoient son seigneur propre, il urns quaerere quia oninia catalla cu- n'avoit nule difference eutre serf et vilain, jushbet nativi intelhguntur esse in po- mais par notre usao-e n'a entre toi et ton testate domini sui. 1. v. c. 5. vilain juge fors Dieu, taut com il est tes i I his is clearly expressed in a French couchaus et tes levans, s'il n'a autre loi law-book of the thirteenth century, the vers toi fors la commune. This seems Conseil ol Pierre des Fontaines, quoted to render the distinction little more than by Du Cange, voc. Villanus. Et sache theoretical. FEUDAL SYSTEM. ABOLITION OF VILLEXAGE. 195) take all they have, alive or dead, and imprison them, when- ever he pleases, being accountable to none but God ; while others are treated more gently, from whom the lord can take nothing but customary payments, though at their death all they have escheats to him." 1 Under every . denomination of servitude, the children followed their mother's condition ; except in England, where the father's state determined that of the children ; on which account bastards of female villeins were born free, the law presuming the liberty of their father. 2 The pro- General portion of freemen, therefore, would have been abolition of miserably diminished if there had been no reflux n of the tide which ran so strongly towards slavery. But the usage of manumission made a sort of circulation between these two states of mankind. This, as is well known, was an' exceedingly common practice with the Romans ; and is mentioned, with certain ceremonies prescribed, in the Frankish and other early laws. The clergy, and especially several popes, enforced it as a duty upon laymen ; and inveighed against the scandal of keeping Christiana in bondage. 8 As society advanced in Europe, the manumission of slaves grew more frequent. 4 By the indulgence of custom in some 1 Beaumanoir, c. 45; Du Cange, Vil- holds that the spurious issue of a neif, Ian us, Servus, and several other articles, though by a free father, should be a vii- Schmidt. Hist, des Allemands. t. ii. p. lein, quia sequitur conditiouem matris, 171, 435. By ajaw of the Lombards, a quasi vulgo conceptus, 1. i. c. 6. But free woman who married a slave might the laws under the name of Henry I. be killed by her relations, or sold ; if declare that a son should follow his they neglected to do so, the fisc might father's condition; so that thU peculiar- claim her as its own. Muratori, Dis- ity is very ancient in our law. Leges Bert. 14. In France also she was lianle Hen. I. c. 75 and 77. to be treated as a slave. Marculfi For- 3 Enfranchisements by testament are mulae, 1. ii. 29. Even in the twelfth cen- very common. Thus in the will of Se- tury it was the law of Flanders that niofred. count of Barcelona, in 966, we whoever married a villein became one find the following piece of corrupt Latin: himself after he had lived with her a De ipsos servos meos et ancillas, illi qui twelvemonth Recueil des Historiens, traditi fuerunt faciatis illos libros propter t. xiii. p. 350. And, by a capitulary of remedium animte mese; et alii <]ui fue Pepiu, if a man married a villein believ- runt de parentormn meorum remaneant ing her to be free, he might repudiate ad fratres meos. Marca Hispauica, p. her and marry another. Baluze, p. 887. 181. * No one could enfranchise his villein Villeins themselves could not marry without the superior lord's consent; for without the lord's license, under penalty this was to diminish the value of his of forfeiting their goods, or at least of a land, apetlcer le fief. Beaumanoir, c. mulct. Du Cange, v. Forismaritagium. 15. Etablissemens de St. Louis, c. 84. This seems to be the true origin of the It was necessary, therefore, for the villein famous mercheta mulierum, which has to obtain the suzerain's confirmation ; been ascribed to a very different custom, otherwise he only changed masters and Du Cunge, v. Mercheta Mulierum; escheated, as it were, to the superior' Dalrymple's Annals of Scotland, vol. i. for the lord who had granted the charter p 312; Archaeologia, vol. xii. p! 31. of franchise was estopped from claiming 8 Littleton, 8. 188. Bracton indeed him again. 200 ABOLITION OF 7ILLENAGE. CHAP. II. PART II. places, or perhaps by original convention, villeins might possess property, and thus purchase their own redemption. Even where they had no legal title to property, it was accounted inhuman to divest them of their little possession (the peculium of Roman law), nor was their poverty, per- haps, less tolerable, upon the whole, than that of the modern peasantry in most countries of Europe. It was only in respect of his lord, it must be remembered, that the villein, at least in England, was without rights ; 1 lie might inherit, purchase, sue in the courts of law ; though, as defendant in a real action or suit wherein land was claimed, he might shelter himself under the plea of villenage. The peasants of this condition were sometimes made use of in war, and rewarded with enfranchisement ; especially in Italy, where the cities and petty states had often occasion to defend them- selves with their own population ; and in peace the industry of free laborers must have been found more productive and better directed. Hence the eleventh and twelfth centuries saw the number of slaves in Italy begin to decrease ; early in the fifteenth a writer quoted by Muratori speaks of them as no longer existing. 2 The greater part of the peasants in some countries of Germany had acquired their liberty before the end of the thirteenth century ; in other parts, as well as in all the northern and eastern regions of Europe, they re- mained in a sort of villenage till the present age. Some very few instances of predial servitude have been discovered in England so late as the time of Elizabeth, 8 and perhaps they might be traced still lower. Louis Hutin, in France, after innumerable particular instances of manumission had taken place, by a general edict in 1315, reciting that his kingdom is denominated the kingdom of the Franks, that he would have the fact to correspond with the name, emancipates all persons in the royal domains upon paying a just composi- tion, as an example for other lords possessing villeins to _ ^ _., . ~.., V teries to give evidence, or to enguge in 2 Dissert. 14. the judicial combat, against freemen. a Barrington's Observation* on the An- Ordonnances des Kois, t. i. p. 3. But I cient Statutes p 274 do not know that their testimony, except FEUDAL SYSTEM. TENURES OF LAXDS. 201 follow. 1 Philip the Long renewed the same edict three years afterwards ; a proof that it had not been carried into execution. 2 Indeed there are letters of the former prince, wherein, considering that many of his subjects are not ap- prised of the extent of the benefit conferred upon them, he directs his officers to tax them as high as their fortunes can well bear. 3 It is deserving of notice that a distinction existed from very early times in the nature of lands, collateral, as it were, to that of persons. Thus we find mansi ingenui and mansi serviles in the oldest charters, corresponding, as we may not unreasonably conjecture, to the liberum tenementum and vil- lenagium, or freehold and copyhold of our own law. la France, all lands held in roture appear to be considered as villein tenements, and are so termed in Latin, though many of them rather answer to our socage freeholds. But although originally this servile quality of lands was founded on the state of their occupiers, yet there was this particularity, that 1 Ordonnances des Hois. t. i. p. 583. * Id. p. 653. s Vblly, t. viii. p. 38. Philip the Fair had emancipated the villeins in the royal domains throughout Languedoc, retain- ing only an annual rent for their lands, which thus became censivts, or emp/iy- teuses. It does not appear by the charter that he sold this enfranchisement, though there can *>e litfle doubt about it. lie permitted his vassals to follow the ex- ample Viii*?ette, Hist, de Languedoc, t. iv. ; Appendix, p. 3, 12. It is not generally known, I think, that predial servitude was not abolished in all parts of France till the revolution. In some places, says Pasquier, the peas- ants are taillables i volonte, that is, their contribution is not permanent, but as- sessed by the lord with the advice of prud' homines, resseants sur les lieux, according to the peasant's ability. Oth- ers pay a fixed sum. Some are called serfs de poursuite, who cannot leave their habitations, but may be followed by the lord into any part of France for the taille upon their goods. This was the case in part of Champagne and the Nivernois. Nor could these serfs, or gens de mainmorte, as they were some- times called, be manumitted without let- ters patent of the king, purchased by a fine. Recherches de la France, 1. iv. c. 5. Dubos informs us that, in 1615, the Tiers Etat prayed the king to cause all serfs (kommes de pooste) to be enfranchised on paving a composition ; but this was not complied with, and they existed in many parts when he wrote. Histoire, Critique, t. iii. p. 298. Argou, in his Institutions du Droit Francois, confirms this, and refers to the customaries of Xi- vernois and Vitry. 1. i. c. 1. And M. de Brequigny, in his preface to the twelfth, volume of the collection of Ordonnances, p. 22, says that throughout almost the whole jurisdiction of the parliament of Bensanron the peasants were attached to the soil, not being capable of leaving it without the lord's consent; and that in some places he even inherited their goods in exclusion of the kindred. I recollect to have read in some part of Voltaire's correspondence an anecdote of his interference, with that zeal against oppression which is the shining side of his moral character, in behalf of some of these wretched slaves of Franche- comte. About the middle of the fifteenth cen- tury, some Catalonian serfs who had es- caped into France beiug claimed by their lords, the parliament of Toulouse de- clared that every man who entered the kingdom en criant France should be- come free. The liberty of our kingdom is such, says Mezeruy, that its air com- municates freedom to those who breathe it, and our kings are too august to reign over any but freemen. A'illaret, t. xv. p. 348. How much pretence Mezeray had for such a flourish may be decided by the former part of this note. 202 STATE OF FRANCE AND GERMANY. CHAP. II. PART II. lands never changed their character along with that of the possessor ; so that a nobleman might, and often did, hold estates in roture, as well as a roturier acquire a fief. Thus in England the terre tenants in villenage, who occur in our old hooks, were not villeins, but freemen holding lands which had been from time immemorial of a villein quality. At the final separation of the French from the German eide of Charlemagne's empire by the treaty of Verdun in 843, there was perhaps hardly any difference in the constitu- tion of the two kingdoms. If any might be con- UTstateof jectured to have existed, it would be a greater France and independence and fuller rights of election in the nobility and people of Germany. But in the lapse of another century France had lost all her political unity, and her kings all their authority ; while the Germanic empire was entirely unbroken under an effectual, though not absolute, control of its sovereign. No comparison can be made between the power of Charles the Simple and Conrad the First, though the former had the shadow of an hereditary right, and the latter was chosen from among his equals. A long succession of feeble princes or usurpers, and destructive incursions of the Normans^ reduced France almost to a disso- lution of society ; while Germany, under Conrad, Henry, and the Othos, found their arms not less prompt and successful against revolted vassals than external enemies. The high dignities were less completely hereditary than they had become in France ; they were granted, indeed, pretty regu- larly, but they were solicited as well as granted ; while the chief vassals of the French crown assumed them as patrimo- nial sovereignties, to which a royal investiture gave more of ornament than sanction In the eleventh century these imperial prerogatives began to lose part of their lustre. The long struggles of the princes and clergy against Henry IV. and his son, the revival of more effective rights of election on the extinction of the house of Franconia, the exhausting contests of the Swabian emper- ors in Italy, the intrinsic weakness produced by a law of the empire, according to which the reigning sovereign could not retain an imperial fief more than a year in his hands, gradu- ally prepared that independence of the German aristocracy which reached its height about the middle of the thirteenth century. During this period the French crown had been FEUDAJ, SYSTEM. COINING MONEY. 203 insensibly gaining strength ; and as one monarch degenerated into the mere head of a confederacy, the other acquired un- limited power over a solid kingdom. It would be tedious, and not very instructive, to follow the details of German public law during the middle ages ; nor are the more important parts of it easily separable from civil history. In this relation they will find a place in a subse- quent chapter of the present work. France demands a more minute attention ; and in tracing the character of the feudal system in that country, we shall find ourselves developing the progress of a very different polity. To understand in what degree the peers and barons of France, during the prevalence of feudal principles, e ,i ' Privileges were independent or the crown, we must look at O f the their leading pi-ivileges. These may be reckoned : Frenca 1. The right of coining money ; 2. That of waging private war ; 3. The exemption from all public tributes, except the feudal aids; 4. The freedom from legislative control; and, 5. The exclusive exercise of original judicature in their dominions. Privileges so enormous, and so contrary to all principles of sovereignty, might lead us, in strictness, to ac- count France rather a collection of states, partially allied to each other, than a single monarchy. 1. Silver and gold were not very scarce in the first ages of the French monarchy ; but they passed more coining by weight than by tale. A lax and ignorant gov- mone y- eminent, which had not learned the lucrative mysteries of a royal mint, was not particularly solicitous to give its subjects the security of a known stamp in their exchanges. 1 In some cities of France money appears to have been coined by pri- vate authority before the time of Charlemagne ; at least one of his capitularies forbids the circulation of any that had not been stamped in the royal mint. His successors indulge^ some of their vassals with the privilege of coining money fo the use of their own territories, but not without the royai stamp. About the beginning of the tenth century, however, 1 The practice of keeping fine gold and tie money was coined in France, and that silver uncoined prevailed among private only for small payments. Tra;te des persons, as well as in the treasury, down Monnoyes. It is curious that, though to the time of Philip the Fair. Nothing there are many gold coins extant of the is more common than to find, in the in- first race of kings, yet few or none are Btruments of earlier time, payments or preserved of the second 6r third before fines stipulated hy weight of gold or sil- the reign of Philip the Fair. Du Cange, ver. Le Blanc therefore thinks that lit- v. Moneta 204 COINING MONEY. CHAP. II. PART II. the lords, among their other assumptions of independence, issued money with no marks but their own. 1 At the accession of Hugh Capet as many as a hundred and fifty are said to have exercised this power. Even under St. Louis it was possessed by about eighty, who, excluding as far as possible the royal coin from circulation, enriched themselves at their subjects' expense by high duties (seigniorages), which they imposed upon every new coinage, as well as by debasing its standard. 2 In 1185 Philip Augustus requests the abbot of Corvey, who had desisted from using his own mint, to let the royal money of Paris circulate through his territories, prom- ising that, when it should please the abbot to coin money afresh for himself, the king would not oppose its circulation. 8 Several regulations were made by Louis IX. to limit, as far as lay in his power, the exercise of this baronial privilege, and, in particular, by enacting that the royal money should circulate in the domains of those barons who had mints, con currently with their own, and exclusively within the territories of those who did not enjoy that right. Philip the Fair established royal officers of inspection in every private mint. It was asserted in his reign, as a general truth, that no subject might coin silver money. 4 In fact, the adulteration practised in those baronial mints had reduced their pretended silver to a sort of black metal, as it was called (moneta nigra), into which little entered but copper. Silver, however, and even gold, were coined by the dukes of Britany so long as that fief continued to exist. No subjects ever enjoyed the right of coining silver in England without the royal stamp and superintendence 6 a remarkable proof of the restraint in which the feudal aristocracy was always held in this country. 2. The passion of revenge, always among the most ungov- 1 Vaissette, Hist, de Languedoc, t. ii p. 110 ; Kec. des Historiens, t. xi. pref p. 180; Du Cange, v. Moneta. profit especial, mais en profit et en la defence du commun. This was in a pro- cess commenced by the king's procureur- general against the conite de Nevers, for defacing his coin. Le Blanc, Traite des Monnoyes, p. 92. In many places the v 't*-n' n l r< l to k a sum fr m n ' s tenants every * Du Cange, v. Moneta. The right of three years, under the name of mone- debasmg the coin was also claimed by tagium or focagium, in lieu of debasing this prince as a choice flower of his his money. This was finally abolished crown. Item, abaisser et amenuser la in 1830. Du Cange. v. Monetagium. monnoye est privilege especial au roy de 5 I do not extend this to the fact ; for son droit royal, si que a luy appartient, in the anarchy of Stephen's reign both et a non autre, et encore en un seul cas, bishops and barons coined money fctf c^est a scavoir en necessite, et lors ne themselves - HoveUen, p. 490. Tient pas le ganeg, ne convertit en son FEUDAL SYSTEM. RIGHT OF PRIVATE WAR. 205 ernable in human nature, acts with such violence Rio . ht of upon barbarians, that it is utterly beyond the con- pirate trol of their imperfect arrangements of polity. It wa seems to them no part of the social compact to sacrifice the privilege which nature has placed in the arm of valor. Gradually, however, these fiercer feelings are blunted, and another passion, hardly less powerful than resentment, is brought to play in a contrary direction. The earlier object accordingly of jurisprudence is to establish a fixed atonement for injuries, as much for the preservation of tranquillity as the prevention of crime. Such were the weregilds of the bar- baric codes, which, for a different purpose, I have already mentioned. 1 But whether it were that the kindred did not always accept, or the criminal offer, the legal composition, or that other causes of quarrel occurred, private feuds (faida) were perpetually breaking out, and many of Charlemagne's capitularies are directed against them. After his time all hope of restraining so inveterate a practice was at an end ; and ever/ man who owned a castle to shelter him hi case of defeat, and a sufficient number of dependents to take the field, was at liberty to retaliate upon, his neighbors whenever he thought himself injured. It must be kept in mind that there was, frequently, either no jurisdiction to which he could appeal, or no power to enforce its awards ; so that we may consider the higher nobility of France as in a state of nature with respect to each other, and entitled to avail themselves of all legitimate grounds of hostility. The right of waging private war was moderated by Louis IX., checked by Philip IV., suppressed by Charles VI. ; but a few vestiges of its practice may be found still later. 2 3. In the modern condition of governments, taxation is a 1 The antiquity of compositions fop penetrating eye of that historian; and murder is illustrated by Iliad 2, 498, they are arranged so well as to form a where, in the description of the shield of comprehensive treatise in small compass. Achilles, two disputants are represented I know not that I could add any much wrangling before the judge for the were- worthy of notice, unless it be the fol- gild or price of blood; ElVEKd TTOLvf/f lowing: In the treaty between I'hilip av6pd (lTTO engine of the w ell -compacted machinery from which regulates the system. The payments, the K^venues prohibitions, the licenses, the watchfulness of col of kings of lection, the evasions of fraud, the penalties and for- feitures, that attend a fiscal code of laws, present continually to the mind of the most remote and humble indi- vidual the notion of a supreme, vigilant, and coercive au- thority. But the early European kingdoms knew neither the necessities nor the ingenuity of modern finance. From their demesne lands the kings of France and Lombardy supplied the common expenses of a barbarous court. Even Charle- magne regulated the economy of his farms with the minute- ness of a steward, and a large portion of his capitularies are directed to this object. Their actual revenue was chiefly derived from free gifts, made, according to an ancient German custom, at the annual assemblies 1 of the nation, from amerce- ments paid by alodial proprietors for default of military ser- vice, and from the freda, or fines, accruing to the judge out of compositions for murder. 2 These amounted to one third of the whole weregild ; one third of this was paid over by the count to the royal exchequer. After the feudal govern ment prevailed in France, and neither the heribannum nor the weregild continued in use, there seems to have been hardly any source of regular revenue besides the domanial estates of the crown ; unless we may reckon as such, that during a journey the king had a prescriptive right to be supplied with necessaries by the towns and abbeys through which he passed ; commuted sometimes into petty regular payments, called droits de gist et de chevauche. 8 Hugh Capet was nearly indigent as king of France, though, as count of Paris and Orleans, he might take the feudal aids and reliefs of his vassals. Several other small emoluments of himself and his successors, whatever they may since have been considered, were in that age rather seigniorial than royal. The rights of toll, of customs, of alienage (aubaine), gener- ally even the regale or enjoyment of the temporalities of vacant episcopal sees and other ecclesiastical benefices, 4 were 1 Du Cange, Dissertation quatri&me sur twelfth century. But far the most lu Joinville. minous view of that subject, for the 2 Mably. 1. i. c. 2 note 3 ; Du Cange three next ages, is displayed by M. lie roc. Heribannum, Fredum. Pastoret in his prefaces to the fifteenth 3 Velly, t. ii. p. 329; Villaret, t. xiv. and sixteenth volumes of the Ordon- P- 174-195 ; Tlecueil des Historiens, t. xiv. nances des Hois. preface, p. 37. The last is a perspicuous * The duke of Burgundy ard count of account of the royal revenue in the Champagne did not possess the regale FBUDAL SYSTEM. EXACTIONS FROM THE JEWS. 207 possessed within their own domains by the great feudataries of the crown. They, I apprehend, contributed nothing to their sovereign, not even those aids which the feudal customs en- joined. 1 The history of the royal revenue in France is, however, too important to be slightly passed over. As the Exactiona necessities of government increased, partly through from th the love of magnificence and pageantry introduced by the crusades and the temper of chivalry, partly in consequence of employing hired troops instead of the feudal militia, it became impossible to defray its expenses by the ordinary means. Several devices, therefore, were tried, in order to replenish the exchequer. One of these was by extorting money from the Jews. It is almost incredible to what a length this Avas carried. Usury, forbidden by law and su- perstition to Christians, was confined to this industrious and covetous people. 2 It is now no secret that all regulations interfering with the interest of money render its terms more rigorous and burdensome. The children of Israel grew rich in despite of insult and oppression, and retaliated upon their Christian debtors. If an historian of Philip Augustus may be believed, they possessed almost one half of Paris. Un- questionably they must have had support both at the court and in the halls of justice. The policy of the kings of France was to employ them as a sponge to suck their subjects' money, which they might afterwards express with less odium than direct taxation would incur. Philip Augustus released all Christians in his dominions from their debts to the Jews, reserving a fifth part to himself. 3 He afterwards expelled the whole nation from France. But they appear to have returned again whether by stealth, or, as is more probable, by pur- chasing permission. St. Louis twice banished and twice recall- ed the Jews. A series of alternate persecution and tolerance was borne by this extraordinary people with an invincible perseverance, and a talent of accumulating riches which kept louse, Poiton. and Planderi. Mablr, 2 The Jews were celebrated for usury 1. iii. c. 4; Recueil des Historiens, t. ii. as early as the sixth century. Greg p. 229. and t. xiv. p. 53; Ordonnauces Turon. 1. iv. c. 12, and 1. vii. c. 23. des Hois, t. i. p. 621. 8 Rigord. in Du Chef ne. Uist. Fran* l l have never met with any instance Script, t. iii. p. 8. Of a relief, aid, or other feudal contribu- 208 DEBASEMENT OF THE COIN. CHAP. II. PART IL pace with their plunderers ; till new schemes of finance sup- plying the turn, they were finally expelled under Charles VI., and never afterwards obtained any legal establishment in France. 1 A much more extensive plan of rapine was carried on by lowering the standard of coin. Originally the Debase- n c i i uientof pound, a money ot account, was equivalent to the coin. twelve ounces of silver ; 2 and divided into twenty pieces of coin (sous), each equal consequently to nearly three shillings and four pence of our new English money. 3 At the revolution the money of France had been depreciated in the proportion of seventy-three to one,- and the sol was about equal to an English halfpenny. This was the effect of a long continuance of fraudulent and arbitrary government. The abuse began under Philip I. in 1103, who alloyed his silver coin with a third of copper. So good an example was not lost upon subsequent princes ; till, under St. Louis, the mark-weight of silver, or eight ounces, was equivalent to fifty sous of the debased coin. Nevertheless these changes seem hitherto to have produced no discontent ; whether it were that a people neither commercial nor enlightened did not readily perceive their tendency ; or, as has been ingeni- ously conjectured, that these successive diminutions of the standard were nearly counterbalanced by an augmentation in the value of silver, occasioned by the drain of money during the crusades, with which they were about contemporaneous. 4 But the rapacity of Philip the Fair kept no measures with the public; and the mark in his reign had become equal to eight livres, or a hundred and sixty sous of money. Dis- 1 Villaret, t. ix. p. 433. Metz con- seems not to have been much observed tained, and I suppose still contains, a by those who had previo*!y written great many Jews ; but Metz was not part upon the subject. of the ancient kingdom. a Besides this silver coin there was a 2 In every edition of this work, till golden sol, worth forty pence. Le Blanc that of 1846. a strange misprint has ap- thinks the solidi of the Salic law and peared oftirfnty instead of twelve ounces, capitularies mean the latter piece of as the division of the pound of silver, money. The denarius, or penny, was Most readers will correct this for them- worth two sous six deniers of modern selves ; but it is more material to observe French coin. th:it, according to what we find in the 4 Villaret, t. xiv. p. 198. The price of Memoires de 1'Acad. des Inscriptions commodities, he asserts, did not rife till (Nouvelle Serie). vol. xiv. p. 234, the the time of St. Louis. If this be said on pound in the time of Charlemagne was good authority it is a remarkable fact ; not of 12 ounces, but oi 13i. We must, but in England we know very little of therefore, add one ninth to the value of prices before that period, and i doubt If the sol. so long as this continued to be their history has been better traced in the case. I do not know the proofs upon France. Which this assertion rests; but the tact FEUDAL SYSTEM. DIRECT TAXATION. 2l>y satisfaction, and even tumults, arose in consequence, and he was compelled to restore the coin to its standard under St. Louis. 1 His successors practised the same arts of enriching their treasury ; under Philip of Valois the mark was again worth eight livres. But the film had now dropped from the eyes of the people ; and these adulterations of money, ren- dered more vexatious by continued recoinages of the current pieces, upon which a fee was extorted by the moneyera, showed in their true light as mingled fraud and robbery. 2 These resources of government, however, by no means su- perseded the necessity of more direct taxation. Direct The kings of France exacted money from the ro- te 3 " 1 * 1011 - turiers, and particularly the inhabitants of towns, within their domains. In this they only acted as proprietors, or suze- rains ; and the barons took the same course in their own lands. Philip Augustus first ventured upon a stretch of pre- rogative, which, in the words of his biographer, disturbed all France. He deprived by force, says Rigord, both his own vassal*, who had been accustomed to boast of their immuni- ties, and their feudal tenants, of a third part of their goods. 8 Such arbitrary taxation of the nobility, who deemed that their military service discharged them from all pecuniary burdens, France was far too aristocratical a country to bear. It seems not to have been repeated ; and his successors generally pur- sued more legitimate courses. Upon obtaining any contribu- tion, it was iKual to grant letters-patent, declaring that it had been freely given, and should not be turned into precedent in time to come. Several of these letters-patent of Philip the Fair are extant, and published in the general collection of 1 It is curious, and not perhaps unim- telle monnoye comme 1'on aura em when the States-General, or popular 32. clamor, forced the court to retract its 2 Continuator Gal. de Nangis in Spici- fraudulent policy. Le Blanc has pub- legio, t. iii. For the successive changes ILslied several ordinances nearly to the in the value of French coins the reader ame effect. One of Charles VI. explains may consult Le Blanc's treatise, or the he method adopted rather more fully Ordonnances des Hois : also a disserto- .to it;] value. Thoee incurred previously Moneta. The bad conse juences of these to its commencement were to be paid ac- innovations are well treated by M. de cording to the value of the money cir- Pastoret, in his elaborate preface to the dilating at the time of the contract, sixteenth volume of the OricnnauceB Item, que tous Ics vrnis emprunts faits des Hois, p. 40 en deniers sann fraude se payeront en 3 Du Chesne, t. V. p. 43. VOL.1, M. 14 210 NO SUPREME LEGISLATION. CHAP. II. PART II. ordinances. 1 But in the reign of this monarch a great inno- vation took place in the French constitution, which, though it principally affected the method of levying money, may seem to fall more naturally under the next head of consideration. 4. There is no part of the French feudal policy so re- markable as the entire absence of all supreme supreme legislation. We find it difficult to conceive the legislative existence of a political society, nominally one 3nty ' kingdom and under one head, in which, for moro than three hundred years, there was wanting the most essen- tial attribute of government. It will be requisite, however, to take this up a little higher, and inquire what was the original legislature of the French monarchy. Arbitrary rule, at least in theory, was uncongenial to the character of the northern nations. Neither the legislative power of making laws, nor that of applying them assemblies t o t ne circumstances of particular cases, was left at of France. , ,. . . .-,,. T . , the discretion of the sovereign. I he -Lombard kings held assemblies every year at Pavia, where the chief officers of the crown and proprietors of lands deliberated upon all legislative measures, in the presence, and nominally at least with the consent, of the multitude. 2 Frequent men- tion is made of similar public meetings in France by the his- torians of the Merovingian kings, and still more unequivocally by their statutes. 8 These assemblies have been called parlia- ments of the Champ de Mars, having orginally been held in the month of March. But they are supposed by many to have gone much into disuse under the later_JMerovingian kings. That of 615, the most important of which any traces remain, was at the close of the great revolution which pun 1 Fasons scavoir et recognoissons que omni populo assistente. Muratori, Ids la deruiere subvention que ils nous ont sert. 22. foite (les barons, vassaux, et nobles d'Au- 3 Mably, 1. i. c. i. note 1; Lindebrog vergne) de pure grace sans ce que ils y Codex Legum Antiquarum, p. 363, 369. fussent tenus que de grace : et voulons et The following passage, quoted by Mably leur octroyones que les autres subven- (c. ii. n. 6), from the preamble of the tions que ils nous ont faites ne leur facent revised Salic law under Clotnire II., is nul prejudice, es choses esquelles ils n'e- explicit : Temporibus Clotairii resris uni toient tenus, ne par ce nul nouveau droit cum principibus r.uis, id est 83 cj iseopis ne nous soit acquis ne amenuisie. Or- et 34 ducibus et 79 comitibus, i-el caetero donnance de 1304, apud Mably, 1. iv. c. populo constituta est. A remarkable in- 8, note 5. See other authorities in the stance of the use of vel instead of t, same place. which was not uncommon, and is noticed 2 Liutprand, king of the Lombards, by Du Cange, under the word Vel. An- says that his laws sibi placuisse una cum other proof of it occurs in the very next omnibus judicibus de Austrise et Neus- quotation of Mably from the edict of trine partlbus. et ie Tuscise linibus, cum 615 : cum pontificibus, vel cum magnii reliquis fldulibus meis Langobardis, et viris optiinatibus. FEUDAL SYSTEM LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLIES. 211 ished Brunehaut for aspiring to despotic power. Whether these assemblies were composed of any except prelates, great landholders, or what we may call nobles, and the Antrustiong of the king, is still an unsettled point. Some have even sup- posed, since bishops are only mentioned by name in the great statute of Clotaire II. in 615, that they were then present for the first time ; and Sismondi, forgetting this fact, has gone so far as to think that Pepin first admitted the prelates to national councils. 1 But the constitutions of the Merovingian kings frequently bear upon ecclesiastical regulations, and must have been prompted at least by the advice of the bishops. Their influence was immense ; and though the Romans generally are not supposed to have been admitted by right of territorial property to the national assemblies, there can be no improbability in presuming that the chiefs of the church, especially when some of them were barbarians, stood in a different position. We know this was so at least in 615, and nothing leads to a conclusion that it was for the first time. It is -far more difficult to determine the participation of the Frank people, the alodialists or JRachimburgii, in these as- semblies of the Field of March. They could not, it is said, easily have repaired thither from all parts of France. But while the monarchy was divided, and all the left bank of the Loire, in consequence of the paucity of Franks settled there, was hardly connected politically with any section of it, there does not seem an improbability that the subjects of a king of Paris or Soissons might have been numerously present in those capitals. It is generally allowed that they attended with annual gifts to their sovereign ; though perhaps these were chiefly brought by the beneficiary tenants and wealthy alodialists. We certainly find expressions, some of which I have quoted, indicating a popular assent to the resolutions taken, or laws enacted, in the Field of March. Perhaps the most probable hypothesis may be that the presence of the nation was traditionally required in conformity to the ancient 1 Voltaire (Essai stir 1'Histoire TJni- the early French history, and amused Terselle) ascribes this to the elder Pepin, himself by questioning the most public surnained Heristal, and quotes the An- as well as probable facts, such as the nals of Metz for 692 ; but neither under death of Brunehaut. The compliment that year nor any other do I find a word which Robertson has paid to Voltaire's to the purpose. Yet he pompously an- historical knowledge is much exagger- nounccs this as " an epoch not regarded ated relatively to the mediaeval period ; by historians, but that of the temporal the latter history of his country he pen- Tower of the church in France and Ger- sessed very well, many." Voltaire knew but superficially 212 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLIES. CHAP. IL PART II German usage, which had not been formally abolished ; while the difficulty of prevailing on a dispersed people to meet every year, as well as the enhanced influence of the king through his armed Antrustions, soon reduced the free- men to little more than spectators from the neighboring dis- tricts. We find indeed that it was with reluctance, and by means of coercive fines, that they were induced to attend the mattus of their count for judicial purposes. 1 Although no legislative proceedings of the Merovingian line are extant after 615, it is intimated by early writers that Pepin Heristal and his son Charles Martel restored the national council after some interruption ; and if the language of certain historians be correct, they rendered it considerably popular. 2 Pepin the younger, after his accession to the throne, chang- ed the month of tliis annual assembly from March to May ; and we have some traces of what took place at eight sessions during his reign. 8 Of his capitularies, however, one only is said to be made in generali populi conventu ; the rest are en- acted in synods of bishops, and all without exception relate merely to ecclesiastical affairs. 4 And it must be owned that,, as in those of the first dynasty, we find generally mention of the optimates who met in these conventions, but rarely any word that can be construed of .ordinary freemen. Such, indeed, is the impression conveyed by a remarkable passage of Hincmar, archbishop of Rlfeims, during the time of Charles the Bald, who has preserved, on the authority of a writer contemporary with Charlemagne, a sketch of the Assemblies Frankish government under that great prince. heWby Two assemblies (placita) were annually held, magne. In the first, all regulations of importance to the 1 Mably generally strives to make the government only the preponderance of most of any vestige of popular govern- the kings during one period, and that of ment, and Sismondi is not exempt from the aristocracy during another. a similar bias. He overrates the liberties 2 The first of these Austrnsian dukes, of the Franks. "Leurs dues et leurs 8ay the Annals of Metz, " Singulis annis comtes etaient electifs: leurs generaux in Kalendis Martii generale cum omnibus etaient choisis par lessoldats, leurs grands Francis, secundum priscoruin consuetu- juges^ou maires par les hommes libres " dinem. concilium agebat." The second, (vol. ii. p. 87.) But no part of these according to the biographer of St. Salvian privileges can be inferred from the exist- " jussit carnpuni magnum parari, sicut ing histories or other documents. The mos erat Francorum. Venerunt autem dukes and counts were, as we find by optimates et magistratus. oirmisque pop- Marculfus and other evidence, solely ulus." See the quotations in Guizot appointed by the crown. A great deal (Kssais sur 1'Hist. de France, p. 321.) of personal liberty may have been pre- 3 Essais sur 1'IIist. de France, p. 324. erved by means of the local assemblies 4 Kec. des Hist v. 637. f the Franks ; but we find in ths general FEUDAL SYSTEM. LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLIES. 213 public weal for the ensuing year were enact* ,d ; and to this, he says, the whole body of clergy and laity repaired ; the greater, to deliberate upon what was fitting to be done; and the less, to confirm by their voluntary assent, not through deference to power, or sometimes even to discuss, the resolu- tions of their superiors. 1 In the second annual assembly the chief men and officers of state were alone admitted, to consult upon the most urgent affairs of government They debated, in each of these, upon certain capitularies, or short proposals, laid before th^m by the king. The clergy and nobles met in separate chambers, though sometimes united for the purposes of deliberation. In these assemblies, principally, I presume, in the more numerous of the two annually summoned, that extensive body of laws, the capitularies of Charlemagne, were enacted. And though it would contradict the testimony just adduced from Hincmar, to suppose that the lesser free- holders took a very effective share in public counsels, yet their presence, and the usage of requiring their assent, indicate" the liberal principles upon which the system of Charlemagne was founded. It is continually expressed in his capitularies and those of his family that they were enacted by general consent.* In one of Louis the Debonair, we even trace the first germ of representative legislation. Every count is directed to bring with him to the general assembly twelve Scabini, if there should be so many in his county ; or, if not, should" fill up the number out of the most respectable persons resident. 8 These Scabini were judicial assessors of the count, chosen by the alodial proprietors, in the county co-irt, or mallus, though generally on his nomination. 4 1 Consuetude tune temporis talis erat, esse ccnsuimus. (A.D. 801.) Ut populus nt non saepius, aed bis in anno placita interrogetur de eapitulis quje in legs duo tenereutur. Unum, quando ordina- noviter addita sunt, et postquam oinnes batur status totius regni ad anni ver- consenserint. subscriptiones et manu tentis spatinm ; quod ordiuatum nullus finnationessuas in ipsis capitulis faciant eventus reram, nisi summa necessitas, (A.D. 813.) Capitularia patrU nostri que quae similiter toti regno incumbebat, Franci pro lege tenenda judujiverunt mutabat. In quo placito generalitas (A.D. 837.) I have borrowed these quo- universorum majorurn, tarn clericorum tations from Mably, who remarks that quam laicorum, conveniebat; seniores the word populus is never used in th propter consilium ordinandum ; minores. earlier laws. See, to- i. Du Cange, TV. Lex, propter idem consilium susoipiendum, Malluin, Pactum. et intejdum pariter tractandum, et non 8 Vult doininus tapenitor nt in tale ex potestate, sed ex proprio mentis in- placitum quaie ille iiunc jusserit veniat tellectu Tel sententia, coufirmandum. unusquisque comes, et adduc.it secuni Hincmar, Epist. 5. de ordine palatii. I duodecim scabisios si tanti fuerint ; sin haTe not translated the word niajorum auteiu. de mclioribus hominibus illius la the above quotation, not apprehend- coir.itatns suppleat ntimerum duodena ing its sense. [NOTE XVI.] rinm. M.-ibl; . 1. ii. c. ii. * Capitula quae prseterito auno legi * This seems to be sufficiently proTed Salicae cum omnium con^nau addenda by aaviguy (vol. i. p. 192, 217, et pott\ 214 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLIES. CHAP. II. PAUT II The chcumstances, however, of the French empire for sev- eral subsequent ages were exceedingly adverse to such en- larged schemes of polity. The nobles contemned the imbecile descendants of Charlemagne ; and the people, or lesser free- holders, if they escaped absolute villenage, lost their immedi- ate relation to the supreme government in the subordinatioc to their lord established by the feudal law. Yet we may trace the shadow of ancient popular rights in one constitution- al function of high importance, the choice of a sovereign. Historians who relate the election of an emperor or king of France seldom omit to specify the consent of the multitude, as well as of the temporal and spiritual aristocracy ; and even in solemn instruments that record such transactions we find a sort of importance attached to the popular suffrage. 1 It is surely His opinion Is adopted by Meyer, Quizot, Grimm, and Troja. The last of these has found Scabini mentioned in Lombardy as early as 724; though Savigny had re- jected all documents in which they are named anterior to Charlemagne. The Scabiui are not to be confounded, as sometimes has been the case, with the Rachimburgii, who were not chosen by the alodial proprietors, but were them- selves such, or sometimes, perhaps, bene- ficiaries, summoned by the court as jurors were in England. They answere4# to the prarf hommes, boni homines, of later times ; they formed the county or the hundred court, for the determina- tion of civil and criminal causes. [NOTE XVI.] 1 It has been intimated in another place, p. 156, that the French monarchy seems not to have been strictly hereditary under the later kings of the Merovingian race: at least expressions indicating a lormal election are frequently employed by historians. Pepin of course came in by the choice of the nation. At his death he requested the consent of the counts and prelates to the succession of his sons (Haluzii Capitularia, p. 187); though they had bound themselves by oath at his consecration never to elect a king out of another family. Ut nunquam de alteri- us lumbis regem eligere praesumant. (Formula Consecrationis Pippini in Re- cueil des Historiehs, t. v.) In the instru- ment of partition by Charlemagne among his descendants he provides for their im- mediate succession in absolute terms, without any mention of consent. But Vn the event of the decease of one of his sons leaving a child, whom tke people shall choose, the other princes were to permit him to reign. Baluze, p. 440. This is repeated nure perspicuously in the partition made by Louis I. in 817. Si quis eorum decedens legitimos filios reliquerit, nou inter eos potestas ipsa dividatur. sed potius populus pariter conveuiens, unum ex iis, quern dominus voluerit, eligat, et hunc senior frater in loco fratris et filii recipiat. Baluze, p. 577. Proofs of popular consent given to the succession of kings during the two next centuries are frequent, but of less importance on accout of the irregular condition of government. Even after Hugh Capet's accession, hereditary right was far from .being established. The first six kings of this dynasty procured the cooptatton of their sons by having them crowned during their own lives. And this was not done without the consent of the chief vassals. (Recueil des Hist, t. xi. p. 133.) In the reign of Robert it was a great question whether the elder son should be thus designated as heir in preference to his younger brother, whom the queen, Constance, was anxious to place upon the throne. Odolric, bishop of Orleans, writes to Fulbert, bishop of Chartres, in terms which lead one to think that neither hereditary succession nor primogeniture was settled on any fixed principle. (Id. t. x. p. 504.) And a writer in the same collection, about the year 1000, expresses himself in the fol- lowing manner : Melius est election! prineipis non subscribere, quim post subscriptionem electum contemnere; in altero enim lihertatU amor laudaiur, in altero servilis contumacia probro datur. Tres namque generales electiones novi- mus; quarum una est regis vel impera- toris, altera pontificis, altera abbatis. Et primam quidem facit concordia totius regni; secundam vero unanimitas civiuna et cleri; tertiam sanius consilium coeno- biticae congregationis. (Id. p. 626.) At FEUDAL SYSTEM. LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLIES. 215 less probable that a recognition of this elective right should have been introduced as a mere ceremony, than that the form should have survived alter length of time and revolutions of gov- ernment had almost obliterated the recollection of its meaning. It must, however, be impossible to ascertain even the theo- retical privileges of the subjects of Charlemagne, much more to decide how far they were substantial or illusory. We can only assert in general that there continued to be some mix- ture of democracy in the French constitution during the reigns of Charlemagne and his first successors. The prime- val German institutions were not eradicated. In the capitu- laries the consent of the people is frequently expressed. Fif- ty years after Charlemagne, his grandson Charles the Bald succinctly expresses the theory of legislative power. A law, he says, is made by the people's consent and the king's enact- ment. 1 It would hardly be warranted by analogy or prece- dent to interpret the word people so very narrowly as to exclude any alodial proprietors, among whom, however une- qual in opulence, no legal inequality of rank is supposed to have yet arisen. But by whatever authority laws were enacted, whoever were the n 45.) Ibid. But he quotes no authority for The royal authority gained so much this : and bis vague language does not ascendency in his rei^n, that, while we justify us in supposing that any repre- have only 50 ordonnances of St. Louis in sentation of the three est-ites. properly forty-two years, we have 334 of Philip so understood, did, or indeed could, take IV in about thirty. place in 1145. while the power of the * It is almost unanimously agreed aristocracy was unbroken, and very fear among French writers that Philip the towns had been incorporated. If it ba Fair first introduced a representation of true that the deputies of some royal the towns into his national assembly of towns were summoned to the parliament States-General. Nevertheless, the Ohron- of 1241. the conclusion must not be in- kles of St. Deni>. and other historians ferml that they possessed any consent- tt rather a late date, assert that the dep- ing voice, nor perhaps that they formed, STATES-GENERAL. CHAP. II. PAKT II. were first convened in 1302, in order to give more weight to the king's cause in his great quarrel with Boniface VIII. ; but their earliest grant of a subsidy is in 1314. Thus the nobility surrendered to the crown their last privilege of territorial in- dependence ; and, having first submitted to its appellant juris- diction over their tribunals, next to its legislative supremacy, now suffered their own dependents to become, as it were, immediate, and a third estate to rise up almost coordinate with themselves, endowed with new franchises, and bearing a new relation to the monarchy. It is impossible not to perceive the motives of Philip iri embodying the deputies of towns as a separate estate in the national representation. He might, no question, have con- voked a parliament of his barons, and obtained a pecuniary contribution, which they would have levied upon their bur- gesses and other tenants. But, besides the ulterior policy of diminishing the control of the barons over their dependents, strictly speaking, an integrant portion of the assembly. There is reason to believe that deputies from the royal burghs of Scotland occasionally appeared at the bar of parliament long before they had any deliberative voice. Pinkerton's Hist, of Scotland, vol. i. p. 371. An ordinance of St Louis, quoted in a very respectable book, Vaissette's His- tory of Languedoc, t. Hi. p. 480, but not published in the Recueil des Ordon- nances, not only shows the existence, in one instance, of a provincial legislative assembly, but is the earliest proof per- haps of the tiers etat appearing as a con- stituent part of it. This relates to the seneschaussee, or county, of Beaucaire in Languedoc, and bears date in 1254. It provides that, if the seneschal shall think fit to prohibit the export of merchandise, he shall summon some of the prelates, barons, knights, and inhabitants of the chief towns, by whose advice he shall issue such prohibition, and not recall it, when made, without like advice. But though it is interesting to see the pro- gressive importance of the citizens of towns, yet this temporary and insulated ordinance is not of itself sufficient to establish a constitutional right. Neither do we find therein any evidence of rep- resentation ; it rather appears that the persons assisting in this assembly were notables, selected by the seneschal. I am not aware of any instance of regular- provincial estates being sum- moned with such full powers, although it was very common in the fourteenth century to ask their consent to grants of money, when the court was unwilling to convoke the States-General. Yet there is a passage in a book of considerable credit, the Grand Customary, or Somme Rurale of Bouteiller, which seems to render general the particular case of the seneschaussee of Beaucaire. Bouteiller wrote about the end of the fourteenth century. The great courts summoned from time to time by the baillis and seneschals were called assises. Their usual function was to administer justice, especially by way of appeal, and perhaps to redress abuses of inferior officers. But he seems to give them a more extended authority. En assise, he says, appelles, lee sages et seigneurs du pais, peuvent estre tnises sus nouvelles constitutions, et ordonnances sur le pais et destruitea autre que serout grevables, et en autre temps non, et doivent etre publiees safin que nul ne les pueust ignorer, et lors ne les peut ne doit jamais nul redarguer. Mem. del'Acad. des Inscriptions, t. xxx. p. 606. The taille was assessed by respectable persons chosen by the advice of the parish priests and others, which gave tte people a sort of share in the repartition, to use a French term, of public burdens; a matter of no small importance where a tax is levied on visible property. Ordon- nances des Rois, p. 291 ; Beaumanoir, p. 269. This, however, continued, 1 be- lieve, to be the practice in later times : I know it is so in the present system of Frtince, and is perfectly distinguishable from a popular consent to taxation. FECPAL SYSTEM. STATES -GENERAL. 223 he had good reason to expect more liberal aid from the im- mediate representatives of the people than through the con- cession of a dissatisfied aristocracy. " He must be blind, indeed," says Pasquier, " who does not see that the roturier was expressly summoned to this assembly, contrary to the ancient institutions of France, for no other reason than that, inasmuch as the burden was intended to fall principally upon him, he might engage himself so far by promise, that he could not afterwards murmur or become refractory." * Nor would I deny the influence of more generous principles ; the ex- ample of neighboring countries, the respect due to the pro- gressive civilization and opulence of the towns, and the appli- cation of that ancient maxim of the northern monarchies, thai whoever was elevated to the perfect dignity of a freeman ac- quired a claim to participate in the imposition of public tributes. It is very difficult to ascertain the constitutional rights of the States-General, claimed or admitted, during forty Rights of years after their first convocation. If, indeed, we G^nersdas could implicitly confide in an historian of the six- to taxation, teenth century, who asserts that Louis Hutin bound himself and his successors not to levy any tax without the consent of the three estates, the problem would find its solution. 2 This ample charter does not appear in the French archives ; and, though by no means to be rejected on that account, when \ve consider the strong motives for its destruction, cannot fairly be adduced as- an authentic fact. Nor can we altogether infer, perhaps, from the collection of ordinances, that the crown had ever intentionally divested itself of the right to impose tallages on its domanial tenants. All others, however, were certainly exempted from that prerogative ; and there seems to have been a general sentiment that no tax whatever could be levied without free consent of the estates. 3 Louis Hutin, in a char- ter granted to the nobles and burgesses of Picardy, pi-omises to abolish the unjust taxes (mal totes) imposed by his father; 4 and in another instrument, called the charter of Normandy, 1 Recherches de la France, 1. ii. c. 7. to impo=e taxes. M^-ntlosier (Monarcbie 2 Boulainvilliers (Hist, de l ; Ane. Gou- Francaite, t. i. p. 202) is of the smiio Yernement, t. ii. p 128) refers for this to opinion. In fact, there i? reason to be- Nichoias Gilles. a chronicler of no great lieve that the kings in general did not repute. ciaim that prerogative absolutely, vhat- 3 Mably, Observat. surl'Hist. de France, ever pretext* they might set up for occur 1. f. r. 1, is positive against the right sional stretches of power. of Philip the fair and his successors * Ordonnances ties Kois, t. i. p. 506. 224 STATES-GENERAL. CHAP. II. PART U declares that he renounces for himself and his successors all undue tallages and exactions, except in case of evident utility. 1 This exception is doubtless of perilous ambiguity ; yet, as the charter was literally wrested from the king by an insurrec- tionary league, it might be expected that the same spirit would rebel against his royal interpretation of state-necessity. His successor, Philip the Long, tried the experiment of a gabelle, or excise upon salt. But it produced so much discontent that he was compelled to assemble the States-General, and to pub- lish an ordinance, declaring that the impost was not designed to be perpetual, and that, if a sufficient supply for the existing war could be found elsewhere, it should instantly determine. 2 Whether this was done I do not discover ; nor do I conceive that any of the sons of Philip the Fair, inheriting much of his rapacity and ambition, abstained from extorting money with- out consent. Philip of V alois renewed and augmented the duties on salt by his own prerogative, nor had the abuse of debasing the current coin been ever carried to such a height as during his reign and the first years of his successor. These exactions, aggravated by the smart of a hostile invasion, pro- duced a very remarkable concussion in the government of France. I have been obliged to advert, in another place, to the states- memorable resistance made by the States- General of e i355 f 1355 and 1356 to the royal authority, on account and 1356. of its inseparable connection with the civil history of France. 8 In the present chapter the assumption of politi- cal influence by those assemblies deserves particular notice. Not that they pretended to restore the ancient constitution of th3 northern nations, still flourishing in Spain and England, the participation of legislative power with the crown. Five hundred years of anarchy and ignorance had swept away all remembrance of those general diets in which the capitularies of the Carlovingian dynasty had been established by common consent. Charlemagne himself was hardly known to the French of the fourteenth century, except as the hero of some silly romance or ballad. The States-General remonstrated, indeed, against abuses, and especially the most flagrant of all, the adulteration of money ; but the ordinance granting redress wnanated altogether from the king, and without the least 1 Ordonnances des Rois. t. i. p. 679. Chan. 1. D 66. s Idem, t. i. p. 589. FEUDAL SYSTEM. STATES-GENEKAL. 225 reference to their consent, which sometimes appears to be studiously omitted. 1 But the privilege upon which the States under John solely relied for securing the redress of grievances was that of granting money, and of regulating its collection. The latter, indeed, though for convenience it may be devolved upon the executive government, appears to be incident to every assembly in which the right of taxation resides. That, accordingly, which met in 1355 nominated a committee chosen out of the three orders, which was to sit after their separation, and which the king bound himself to consult, not only as to the internal arrangements of his administration, but upon every proposition of peace or armistice with England. Dep- uties were despatched into each district to superintend the collection and receive the produce of the subsidy granted by the States. 2 These assumptions of power would not long, we may be certain, have left the sole authority of legislation in the king, and might, perhaps, be censured as usurpation, if the peculiar emergency in which France was then placed did not furnish their defence. But, if it be true that the kingdom was reduced to the utmost danger and exhaustion, as much by malversation of its government as by the armies of Edward III., .who shall deny to its representatives the right of ultimate sovereignty, and of suspending at least the royal prerogatives, by the abuse of which they were falling into destruction ? 8 I confess that it is exceedingly difficult, or perhaps imprac- ticable, with such information as we possess, to decide upon the motives and conduct of the States-General in their several meetings before and after the battle of Poitiers. Arbitrary power prevailed ; and its opponents became, of course, the theme of obloquy with modern historians. Froissart, however, does not seem to impute any fault to these famous assemblies 1 The proceedings of States-General any limitations in respect of enacting held under Philip IV. and his sons have laws, save those which, until the reign loft no trace in the French statute-book, of Philip the Fair, the feudal principles Two ordonnances alone, out of some had imposed. hundred enacted by Philip of Valois, * Ordonnances des Rois, t. iii. p. 21 appear to have been founded upon their and preface, p. 42. This preface by M. suggestions. Secou.se, the editor, gives a very clear It is absolutely certain that the States- view of the general and provincial asseui- Geueral of France had at no period, and blies held in the reign of John. Bou- in no instance, a coordinate legislative lainvilliers. Hist, de 1'Ancien Qouverue- authority with the crown, or even a con- meut de France, t. ii., or Villaret, t. ix., senting voice. Mably, Boulainvilliers, may be perused with advantage, ami .Vlontlosier, are as decisive on this 3 The second continuator of Nantes in subject as the most courtly writers of the Spicilegium dwells on the heavy taxes, that country. It follows as a just con- diminution of money, and general oppres- nequeuce that France never possessed a sivei>e*s of government in this age : t. iii free constitution ; iior had the monarchy p. 108. V the accession of Charles VI., the government was t.D. 1380. , , n . .,f compelled to revoke all taxes illegally imposed since the reign of Philip IV. This is the most remedial or dinance, perhaps, in the history of French* legislation. " We will, ordain and grant," says the king, " that the aids, subsi- dies, and impositions, of whatever kind, and however imposed, that have had course in the realm since the reign of our predecessor, Philip the Fair, shall be repealed and abolished ; and we will and decree that, by the course which the said im- positions have had, we or our successors shall not have ac- quired any right, nor shall any prejudice be wrought to our people, nor to their privileges and liberties, which shall be reestablished in as full a manner as they enjoyed them in the reign of Philip the Fair, or at any time since ; and we will and decree that, if anything has been done contrary to them since that time to the present hour, neither we nor our successors shall take any advantage therefrom." 8 If circum- stances had turned out favorably for the cause of liberty, this ordinance might have been the basis of a free constitution, in respect, at least, of immunity from arbitrary taxation. But the coercive measures of the court and tumultuous spirit of i A very full account of these trans- lairivilliers and Mably, whom, however, actions is given by Secousse, in his His- it is well worth while to hear, tory of Charles the Bad, p. 107, and in 2 Mably, 1. v. c. 6, note 5. his preface to the third volume of the 3 Ordomianees des Rois, t. vi. p. 564. Ordonnances des Kois. The reader must The ordinance is Ions, containing fre- make allowance for the usual partialities quent repetitions, and a great redun- ol a trench historian, whore an opposi- dance of words, intended to give more tion to the reigning prince is his subject, force, or at least solemnity. A contrary bias is uiauife-'od by Bou- FEUDAL SYSTEM. AND REMEDIAL ORDINANCE. 229 the Parisians produced an open quarrel, in which the pop- ular party met with a decisive failure. It seems, indeed, impossible that a number of deputies, elected merely for the purpose of granting money, can pos- sess that weight, or be invested in the eyes of their constitu- ents with that awfulness of station, which is required to withstand the royal authority. The States-General had no right of redressing abuses, except by petition ; no share in the exercise of sovereignty, which is inseparable from the legislative power. Hence, even in their proper department of imposing taxes, they were supposed incapable of binding their constituents without their special assent. Whether it were the timidity of the deputies, or false notions of freedom, which produced this doctrine, it was evidently repugnant to the stability and dignity of a representative assembly. Nor was it less ruinous in practice than mistaken in theory. For as the necessary subsidies, after being provisionally granted by the States, were often rejected by their electors, the king found a reasonable pretence for dispensing with the concur- rence of his subjects when he levied contributions upon them. The States-General were convoked but rarely under Charles VI. and VII., both of whom levied money without their concurrence. Yet there are remark- General able testimonies under the latter of these princes ^ that the sanction of national representatives was still esteemed strictly requisite to any ordinance imposing a general tax, however the emergency of circumstances might excuse a more arbitrary procedure. Thus Charles VII., in 1436, declares that he has set up again the aids which had been previously abolished by the consent of the three estates. 1 And hi the important edict establishing the companies of or- donnance, which is recited to be done by the advice and counsel of the States-General assembled at Orleans, the for- ty-first section appears to bear a necessary construction that no tallage could lawfully be imposed without such consent. 9 It is maintained, indeed, by some writers, that the perpetual taille established about the same tune was actually granted by these States of 1439, though it does not so appear upon the 1 Ordonnances des Rois, t. xiii. p. 211. granted money during this reign : t. iil 2 Ibid , p. 312. Boulainvilliers men- p. 70 tions other instances where the States 230 PROVINCIAL ESTATES. CHAP. II. PART IL face of any ordinance. 1 And certainly this is consonant to the real and recognized constitution of that age. But the crafty advisers of courts in the fifteenth century, Provincial enlightened by experience of past dangers, were estates. averse to encountering these great political masses, from which there were, even in peaceful times, some disquiet- ing interferences, some testimonies of public spirit, and rec- ollections of liberty to apprehend. The kings of France, indeed, had a resource, which generally enabled them to avoid a convocation of the States-General, without violating the national franchises. From provincial assemblies, composed of the three orders, they usually obtained more money than they could have extracted from the common representatives of the nation, and heard less of remonstrance and demand. 8 Languedoc in particular had her own assembly of states, and was rarely called upon to send deputies to the general body, or representatives of what was called the Languedoil. But Auvergne, Normandy, and other provinces belonging to the latter division, had frequent convocations of their respective estates during the intervals of the States- General intervals which by this means were protracted far beyond that dura- tion to which the exigencies of the crown would otherwise have confined them. 8 This was one of the essential differ- ences between the constitutions of France and England, and arose out of the original disease of the former monarchy the distraction and want of unity consequent upon the de- cline of Charlemagne's family, which separated the different provinces, in respect of their interests and domestic govern- ment, from each other. But the formality of consent, whether by general or pro- vincial states, now ceased to be reckoned indispensable. The lawyers had rarely seconded any efforts to restrain arbitrary power : in their hatred of feudal principles, especially those of territorial jurisdiction, every generous sentiment of free- dom was proscribed ; or, if they admitted that absolute pre- rogative might require some checks, it was such only as themselves, npt the national representatives, should impose. Taxes of Charles VII. levied money, by his own authority. Louis xi. Louis XI. carried this encroachment to the highest 1 Brequigny, preface at treizieme * Villaret, t. xi. p. 270. tome des Ordounaaces. Boulainvilliers, ' Ordonnances des Rois, t. iii. pretao* t. iii. p. 108. FEUDAL SYSTEM. STATIS-GENERAL OF TOURS. 231 pitch of exaction. It was the boast of courtiers that he first released the kings of France from dependence (hors de page) ; or, in other words, that he effectually demolished those bar- riers which, however imperfect and ill-placed, had imposed some impediment to the establishment of despotism. 1 The exactions of Louis, however, though borne with patience, did not pass for legal with those upon whom they pressed. Men still remembered their ancient privileges, which they might see with mortification well preserved in England. " There is no monarch or lord upon earth (says Philip de Comines, himself bred in courts) who can raise a farthing upon his subjects, beyond his own domains, without their free concession, except through tyranny and violence. It may be objected that in some cases there may not be time to assemble them, and that war will bear no delay ; but I re- ply (he proceeds) that such haste ought not to be made, and there will be time enough ; and I tell you that princes are more powerful, and more dreaded by their enemies, when they undertake anything with the consent of their subjects." 2 The States- General met but twice during the reign of Louis XI., and on neither occasion for the purpose of granting money. But an assembly in the first General of year of Charles VIII., the States of Tours in ^ ia 1484, is too important to be overlooked, as it marks the last struggle of the French nation by its legal representa- tives for immunity from arbitrary taxation. A warm contention arose for the regency upon the acces- sion of Charles VIII., between his aunt, Anne de Beaujeu, whom the late king had appointed by testament, and the princes of the blood, at the head of whom stood the duke of Orleans, afterwards Louis XII. The latter combined to de- mand a convocation of the States-General, which accordingly took place. The king's minority and the factions at court seemed no unfavorable omens for liberty. But a scheme was artfully contrived which had the most direct tendency to 1 The preface to the sixteenth volume do Comities was forcibly struck with the of Ordonnances, before quoted, displays different situation of England and tho a lamentable picture of the internal sit- Netherlands. And Sir John Fortescus nation of Prance in consequence of ex- has a remarkable passage on the poverty Cfissive taxation and other abuses. These and servitude of the French commons, evils, in a less aggravated degree, con- contrasted with English freemen. Dif- tinued ever since to retard the improve- ference of Limited aurt Absolute MOB- ment and diminish the intrinsic pros- archy, p. 17. peHty of a country so extraordinarily 2 Mem de Comines, 1. iv. c. 19. endowed with natural advantages. Philip 232 STATES-GENERAL OF TOURS. CHAP. II. PART n break the force of a popular assembly. The deputies were classed in six nations, who debated in separate chambers, and consulted each other only upon the result of their respective deliberations. It was easy for the court to foment the jeal- ousies natural to such a partition. Two nations, the Norman and Burgu'vlian, asserted that the right of providing for the regency devolved, in the king's minority, upon the States- General ; a claim of great boldness, and certainly not much founded upon precedents. In virtue of this, they proposed to form a council, not only of the princes, but of certain depu- ties to be elected by the six nations who composed the States. But the other four, those of Paris, Aquitaine, Languedoc, and Languedoil (which last comprised the central provinces), re- jected this plan, from which the two former ultimately de- sisted, and the choice of councillors was left to the princes. A firmer and more unanimous spirit was displayed upon the subject of public reformation. The tyranny of Louis XL had been so unbounded, that all ranks agreed in calling for redress, and the new governors were desirous, at least by punishing his favorites, to show their inclination towards a change of system. They were very far, however, from ap- proving the propositions of the States-General. These went to points which no court can bear to feel touched, though there is seldom any other mode of redressing public abuses : the profuse expense of the royal household, the number of pensions and improvident grants, the excessive establishment of troops. The States explicitly demanded that the taille and all other arbitrary imposts should be abolished; and that from thenceforward, "according to the natural liberty of France," no tax should be levied in the kingdom without the consent of the "States. It was with great difficulty, and through the skilful management of the court, that they con- sented to the collection of the taxes payable in the time of Charles VIL, with the addition of one fourth as a gift to the king upon his accession. This subsidy they declare to be granted "by way of gift and concession, and not otherwise, and so as no one should from thenceforward call it a tax, but a gift and concession." And this was only to be in force for two years, after which they stipulated that another meetin" should be convoked. But it was little likely that the govern- ment would encounter such a risk ; and the princes, whose factious views the States had by no means seconded, felt no FEUDAL SYSTEM. SCHEME OF JURISDICTION. '235 temptation to urge again their convocation. No assembly in the annals of France seems, notwithstanding some party selfishness arising out of the division into nations, to have conducted itself with so much public spirit and moderation ; nor had that country perhaps ever so fair a prospect of estab- lishing a legitimate constitution. 1 5. The right of jurisdiction has undergone changes in France and in the adjacent countries still more remarkable than those of the legislative power ; changes in and passed through three very distinct stages, as th e u |y^f Ial the popular, aristocratic, or regal influence pre- France, dominated in the political system. The Franks, original Lombards, and Saxons seem alike to have been scheme of , .-..., , , jurisdiction jealous ot judicial authority, and averse to surren- dering what concerned every man's private right out of the hands of his neighbors and his equals. Every ten families are supposed to have had a magistrate of their own election : the tithingman of England, the decanus of France and Lom- bardy. 2 * Next in order was the Centenarius or Hundredary, whose name expresses the extent of his jurisdiction, and who, like the Decanus, was chosen by those subject to it. 8 But the authority of these petty magistrates was gradually confined to the less important subjects of legal inquiry. No man, by a capitulary of Charlemagne, could be impleaded for his life, or liberty, or lands, or servants, in the hundred court. 4 In such weighty -matters, or by way of appeal from the lower jurisdictions, the count of the district was judge. He indeed was appointed by the sovereign ; but his power was checked by assessors, called Scabini, who held their office by the election, or at least the concurrence, of the people. 6 An ulti- 1 1 am altogether indebted to Qarnier Decanua ; and Muratori, Antiq. Ital. for the proceedings of the States of Tours. Dissert. 10. His account (Hist, de France, t. xviii. p. 3 It is evident from the Capitularies of 154-3-18) is extremely copious, and de- Charlemagne (Baluze, t. i. p. 426, 466) rived from a manuscript journal. Co- that the Centeuarii were elected by the mines alludes to them sometimes, but people ; that is, I suppose, the free- with little particularity. The above- holders. mentioned manuscript was published in * Ut nullus homo in placito centenarii 1835, among the Documens Inedits sur neque ad mortem, neque ad libertatem 1'HUtoire de France. guain amittendam, aut ad res reddeudas 3 The Decanus is mentioned by a vel mancipia judicetur. Sed ista aut in writer of the ninth age as the lowest present!* comitis vel missorum nostro- Bpecibt! of judge, immediately under the rum judicentur. Capit. A.D. 812; Baluz. Ceutenarius. The latter is compared to p. 497. the Plebanus, or priest, of a church where 8 Baluzii Capitularia, p. 466; Mura- baptism was performed, and the former tori, Dissert. 10 ; Du CanL'e, v. Scabini. to an inferior presbyter Du Gauge, v. These Scabini may be traced by the light 234 TERRITORIAL JURISDICTION. CHAP. II. TART II mate appeal seems to have lain to the Count Palatine, an officer of the royal household ; and sometimes causes were decided by the sovereign himself. 1 Such was the original model of judicature ; but as complaints of injustice and neg- lect were frequently made against the counts, Charlemagne, desirous on every account to control them, appointed special judges, called Missi Regii, who held assises from place to place, inquired into abuses and maladministration of justice, enforced its execution, and expelled inferior judges from their offices for misconduct. 2 This judicial system was gradually superseded by one Territorial founded upon totally opposite principles, those of jurisdiction, feudal privilege. It is difficult to ascertain the progress of territorial jurisdiction. In many early charters of the French kings, beginning with one of Dagobert I. in 630, we find inserted in their grants of land an immunity from the entrance of the ordinary judges, either to hear causes, or to exact certain dues accruing to the king and to themselves. 8 These charters indeed relate to church lands, which, as it seems implied by a law of Charlemagne, univer- of charters down to the eleventh century. Recueil des Historiens, t. vi. preface, p. 186. There is, in particular, a decisive proof of their existence in 918, in a record which I have already had occasion to quote. Vaissette, Hist, de Languedoc, t. li. Appendix, p. 56. Du Cange, Baluze, and other antiquaries have confounded the Scabini with the Rachimburgii, of whom we read in the oldest laws. But Savigny and Guizot have proved the lat- ter were landowners, acting in the coun- ty courts as judges under the presidency of the count, but wholly independent of him. The Scabini in Charlemagne's age superseded them. Essais sur 1'Histoire de France, p. 259, 272. 1 Du Cange. Dissertation 14. Bur Join- ville ; and Glossary, v. Comites Palatini ; Mem. de 1'Acad. des Inscript. t. xxx. p. 690. Louis the Debonair jrave one day in every week for hearing causes ; but his .subjects were required not to have recourse to him, unless where the Missi or the counts had not done justice. Ba- luze, t. i. p. 668. Charles the Bald ex- pressly reserves an appeal to himself from the inferior tribunals. Capit. 869, t. ii. p. 215. In his reign there was at least a claim to sovereignty preserved. 2 For the jurisdiction of the Missi Regii, besides the Capitularies themselves, ee Muratori's eighth Dissertation. They went their circuits four times a-year. Capitul. A.D. 812 ; A.D. 823. A vestige of this institution long continued in the province of Auvergne, under the name of Grands Jours d' Auvergne; which Louis XI. revived in 1479. Garnier, Hist, de France, t. xviii. p. 458. 3 If a charter of Clovis to a monastery called Reomaense, dated 496, is genuine, the same words of exemption occurring in it, we must refer territorial jurisdic- tion to the very infancy of the French monarchy. And M. Lehuerou (Inst. Caroling, p. 225 et post) has strongly contended for the right of lords to exer- cise jurisdiction in virtue of their owner- ship of the foil, and without regard to the personal law of those coming within its scope by residence. This territorial right he deduces from the earliest times ; it was an enlargement of the ancient mundium, or protection, among the Ger- mans ; which must have been solely per- sonal before the establishment of sepa- rate property in land, but became local after the settlement in Gaul, to whir h that great civil revolution was due. The authority of M. Lehuerou is entitled to much respect ; yet his theory seems to involve a more extensive development of the feudal system in the Merovingian period than we generally admit. FEUDAL SYSTEM. TERRITORIAL JURISDICTION. 235 sally possessed an exemption from ordinary jurisdiction. A precedent, however, in Marculfus leads us to infer a similar immunity to have been usual in gifts to private persons. 1 These rights of justice in the beneficiary tenants of the crown are attested in several passages of the capitularies. And a charter of Louis I. to a private individual contains a full and exclusive concession of jurisdiction over all persons resident within the territory, though subject to the appellant control of the royal tribunals. 2 It is obvious, indeed, that an ex- emption from the regular judicial authorities implied or natu- rally led to a right of administering justice in their place. But this could at first hardly extend beyond the tributaries or villeins who cultivated their master's soil, or, at most, to free persons without property, resident in the territory. To de- termine their quarrels, or chastise their offences, was no very illustrious privilege. An alodial freeholder could own no jurisdiction but that of the king. It was the general preva- lence of subinfeudation which gave importance to the terri- torial jurisdictions of the nobility. For now the military tenants, instead of repairing to the county-court, sought jus- tice in that of their immediate lord ; or rather the count him- self, become the suzerain instead of the governor of his dis- trict, altered the form of his tribunal upon the feudal model. 8 A system of procedure so congenial to the spirit of the age spread universally over France and Germany. The tri- bunals of the king were forgotten like his laws ; the one retaining as little authority to correct, as the other to regu- late, the decisions of a territorial judge. The rules of evi- dence were superseded by that monstrous birth of ferocity and superstition, the judicial combat, and the maxims of law reduced to a few capricious customs, which varied in almost every barony. 1 Marculfl Formulae, 1. i. c. 17. well as royal tribunals. Si aliquis epis- 2 Et nullus comes, neo vicarius, nee copus, Tel comes ac vassus noster BUO juniores eorum, nee illus judex pubH- homini contra rectum et justitiam feee- cus illoruci, homines qui super illorum rit, et si inde ad nos reclamaverit, sciat aprisione habitant, aut in illorum pro- quia, sicut ratio et lex est, hoc emendare prio, distringere neo judicare praesumant ; faciemus. Bed Johannes et filii sui, et posteritas il- 3 \y e ma y perhaps infer, from a capitu- lorum, illi eos judicent et distringant. lary of Charlemagne in 809, that the Et quicquid per legem judicaverint, sta- feudal tenants were already employed as bills permaneat. Et si extra legem fece- assessors in the administration of justice, rint, per legem emendent. Baluzii Ca- concurrently with the Scabini mentioned pitularia, t. ii. p. 1405. above. Ut nullus ad placitnm venire This appellant control was preserved cogatur, nisi qui causani habet ad quae- by the capitulary of Charles the l!a!d, rendum, exceptis scabinis et vassallis 3uote were d { v ided into the high, the middle, and the low jurisdiction. 1 The first species alone (la haute justice) conveyed the power of life and death ; it was inherent in the baron and the chatelain, and sometimes enjoyed by the simple vavassor. The lower jurisdictions were not competent to judge in capital cases, and consequently forced to send such criminals to the court of the superior. But in some places, a thief taken in the fact might be punished with death by a lord who had only the low jurisdiction. In England this priv- ilege was known by the uncouth terms of Infangthef and Outfangthef. The high jurisdiction, however, was not very common in this country, except in the chartered towns. 2 Several customs rendered these rights of jurisdiction far it? admin- less instrumental to tyranny than we might infer istration. from their extent. While the counts were yet officers of the crown, they frequently appointed a deputy, or viscount, to administer justice. Ecclesiastical lords, who were prohibited by the canons from inflicting capital punishment, and supposed to be unacquainted with the law followed in civil courts, or unable to enforce it, had an officer by name of advocate, or vidame, whose tenure was often feudal and hereditary. The viguiers (vicarii), bailiffs, provosts, and seneschals of lay lords were similar ministers, though not in general of so permanent a right in their offices, or of such eminent station, as the advocates of monasteries. It seems to have been an established maxim, at least in later times, that the lord could not sit personally in judgment, but must intrust that function to his bailiff and vassals. 8 According to 1 Velly, t. ri. p. 131 ; Denisart, Hou- It \a remarkable that the Neapolitan ard, and other law-books. barons had no criminal jurisdiction, at a A strangely cruel privilege was pos- least of the higher kind, till the reign eessed in Aragon by the lords who had of Alfonso, hi 1443, who sold this de- not the higher jurisdiction, and conse- structive privilege, at a time when it quently could not publicly execute a was almost abolished in other king- criminal : that of starving him to death doms. Qiannone, 1. xxii. c. 6, and 1. in prison. This was established by law xxvi. c. 6. in 1247. Si vassallus domini non ha- * Boutillier, in his Somme Rurale, bentis merum nee mixtum imperium, in -written' near the end of the fourteenth loco occideret vassallum, dominus loci century, asserts this positively. II eon- potest eum occldere fame, frigore et siti. vient quilz facent jugier par anltre que Kt quilibet dominus loci habet hanc ju- par eulx, cest a savoir par leurs hommea risdictionum necandi fame, frigore et siti feudaulx a leur semonce et conjure [?] ou in suo loco, licet nullam aliam jurisdic- de leur bailiff ou lieutenant, et out re*- tionem criminalem habeat. Du Cange, sort a leur souverain. Fol. 3 voc. Fume necare. FEUDAL SYSTEM. TRIAL BY COMBAT. 237 the feudal rule?, the lord's vassals or peers of his court were to assist at all its proceedings. " There are some places," sa) s Beaumanoir, ' where* the bailiff decides in judgment, and others where the vassals of the lord decide. But even where the bailiff is the judge, he ought to advise with the most prudent, and determine by their advice ; since thus he shall be most secure if an appeal is made from his judg- ment." * And indeed the presence of these assessors was so essential to all territorial jurisdiction, that no lord, to what- ever rights of justice his fief might entitle him, was qualified to exercise them, unless he had at least two vassals to sit as peers in his court. 2 These courts of a feudal barony or manor required neither the knowledge of positive law nor the dictates of Trial by natural sagacity. In all doubtful cases, and espe- combat- cially where a crime not capable of notorious proof was charged, the combat was awarded ; and God, as they deemed, was the judge. 8 The nobleman fought on horseback, witli all his arms of attack and defence ; the plebeian on foot, with his club and target. The same were the weapons of the cham pions to whom women and ecclesiastics were permitted to intrust their rights. 4 If the combat was intended to ascer- ' tain a civil right, the vanquished party of course forfeited his claim and paid a fine. If he fought by proxy, the champion was liable to have his hand struck off; a regulation necessary, 1 Coiitume? de Beauvoisis, p. 11. established by the laws of the Alemanni * It was lawful, in such case, to bor- or Suabians. Baluz. t. i. p. BO. It was row the yassals of the superior lord, always popular in Lombardy. Liutprand, Thaumassiere sur Beaumanoir, p. 375. king of the Lombards, says in one of his See Du Cange, T. Pares, an excellent ar- laws, Incerti suraus de judicio Dei, el ticle ; and Placitum. quo-flam audivimus per pugnam 8in In England a manor is extinguished, justa causa suam causam perdere. St.- 1 at least ;is to jurisdiction, when there are propter consuetudinem gentis nostrss not two freeholders subject to escheat Langobardorum legem iinpiam vetare left as suitors to the court-baron. Their non possumus. Muratori, Script. Rerum tenancy must therefore have been creat- Italicarum, t. ii. p. 65. Otho II. estab- ed before the statute of Quia Emptores, lished it in all disputes concerning real 18 E'lw. I. {1290), since which no new property ; and there is a famous case estate in fee-simple can be held of the where the ri^ht of representation, or lord, nor consequently, be liable to es- preference of the sou of a deceased elder cheat tc him. child to his unc'.e in succession to his 3 Trial by combat does not seem to grandfather's estate, was settled by this hare established itself completely in test. France till ordeals went into disuse, * For the ceremonies of trial by com- which Charlemagne rather encouraged, bat, see Houard, Ancienues Loix Fr.in- aol which, in his age, the clergy for the coises, t. i. p. 2*>4 : Veliy, t. yi. p. 106; most part approved. The former species Ilecueil des Uistoriens. t. xi preface, p. of decision, may. however, be met with 189: Du Cange, v. Duellom. The grt-at under the first Merovingian kin:*s (Gre;?. original authorities are the Arises J* Turon. 1. rii. c. 19. I. x. c. 10). and seems Jerusalem, c. 104. and Beaumanoir, o to have prevailed in Burgundy. It Is 31. 238 TRIAL BY COMBAT. CHAP. II. P.* UT IL perhaps, to obviate the corruption of these hired defenders. In criminal cases the appellant suffered, in the event of defeat, the same punishment which the law awarded to the offence of which he accused his adversary. 1 Even where the cause wag more peaceably tried, and brought to a regular adjudication by the court, an appeal for false judgment might indeed be made to the suzerain, but it could only be tried by battle. 3 And in this, the appellant, if he would impeach the concur- rent judgment of the court below, was compelled to meet suc- cessively in combat every one of its members ; unless he should vanquish them all within the day, his life, if he escaped from so many hazards, was forfeited to the law. If fortune or miracle should make him conqueror in every contest, the judges were equally subject to death, and 'heir court forfeited their jurisdiction forever. A less perilous mode of appeal was to call the first judge who pronounced a hostile sentence into the field. If the appellant came off victorious in this challenge, the decision was reversed, but the court was not impeached. 8 But for denial of justice, that is, for a refusal to try his suit, the plaintiff repaired to the court of the next superior lord, and supported his appeal by testimony. 4 Yet, even here the witnesses might be defied, and the pure stream of justice turned at once into the torrent of barbarous con- test. 5 1 Beaumanoir, p. 315. 2 Id. c. 61. In England the appeal for false judgment to the king's court was not tried by battle. Glanvil, 1. xii. c. 7. 3 Id. c. 61. * Id. p. 315. The practice was to chal- lenge the second witness, since the testi- mony of one was insufficient. But this must be done before he completes his oath, says Beauuianoir, for after he has been sworn he must be heard and be- lieved : p. 316. No one was bound, as we may well believe, to be a witness for another, in cases where such an appeal might be made from his testimony. ' Mably is certainly mistaken in his opinion that appeals for denial of justice were not older than the reign of Philip Augustus. (Observations sur 1'Hist. de F. 1. iii. c. 3.) Before this time the vas- sal's remedy, he thinks, was to make war upon his lord. And this may probably have been frequently practised. Indeed It is permitted, as we have seen by the code of St. Louis. But those who were not strong enough to adopt this danger- ous means of redress would surely avail themselves of the assistance of the suze- rain, which in general would be readily afforded. We find several instances of the king's interference for the redress of injuries in Suger's Life of Louis VI. That active and spirited prince, with the assistance of his enlightened biographer, recovered a great part of the royal au thority, which had been reduced to the lowest ebb in the long and slothful reign of his father, Philip I. One passage especially contains a clear evidence of the appeal for denial of justice, and con- sequently refutes Mably's opinion. In 1105 the inhabitants of St. Severe, in Berri, complain of their lord Humbald, and request the king aut ad exequendam justitiam cogere, aut jure pro injuria castrurn lege SalicSi amittere. I quote from the preface to the fourteenth volume of the Recueil des Historiens, p. 44. It may be noticed, by the way, that lex Salica is here used for the feudal cus- toms ; in which sense I believe it not uufrequently occurs. Many proofs might be brought of the interposition of both Louis VI. and VII. in the disputes be- tween their barons and arriere vassals. Thus the war between the latter and FEC->AU SYSTEM. ESTABLISHMENTS OF ST. LOUIS 239 Such was the judicial system of France when St. Louis enacted that great code which bears the name ^tabiish- of his Establishments. The rules of civil and meats of criminal procedure, as well as the principles of legal decisions, are there laid down with much detail. But that incomparable prince, unable to overthrow the judicial combat, confined himself to discourage it by the example of a wiser jurisprudence. It was abolished throughout the royal domains. The bailiffs and seneschals who rendered justice to the king's immediate subjects were bound to follow his own laws. He not only received appeals from then- sen- tences in his own court of peers, but listened to all complaints with a kind of patriarchal simplicity. " Many time-. Joinville, u I have seen the good saint, after hearing mass, in the summer season, lay himself at the foot of an oak hi the wood of Vincennes. and make us all sit round him ; when those who would, came and spake to him without let of any officer, and he would ask aloud if there were any present who had suits ; and when they appeared, would bid two of his bailiffs determine their cause upon the spot." l The influence of this new jurisprudence established by St. Louis, combined with the great enhancements of the royal prerogatives in every other respect, produced a rapid change in the legal administration of France. Though trial by com- bat occupies a considerable space in the work of Beaumanoir, written under. Philip the Bold, it was already much limited. Appeals for false judgment might sometimes be tried, as he expresses it, par erremeus de plait ; that is, I presume, where the alleged error of the court below was in matter of law. For wager of battle was chiefly intended to ascertain contro- verted facts. 2 So where the suzerain saw clearly that the judgment of the inferior court was right, he ought not to per- mit the combat. Or if the plaintiff, even in the first instance, could produce a record or a written obligation, or if the fact l>efore the court was notorious, there was no room for battle.' Henry II. of England in 1166 was occs- lishments of St. Louis are not the orig- swmed by his entertaining a complaint inal constitutions of that prince, but .1 from the count of Auvergne. without work founded oc them a compilation waiting for the decision of Henry, as of the old customs blended with his new Juke of Guienne. Velly, t. ii. p. 190 provisions. Esprit des I/oix. xxviii. 3^ Lyttelton's Henry II. TO!, ii. p. 448; 38. I do not know that any later in- Recueil des Hi-toriens., ubi supra, p. 48. quirers have adopted this tr> p Khesis. I Collection des Memoires, t. i. p. 25. ! Beaumanoir, p. 22. Montesquieu supposes that the Estab- 3 Id. p. 314. 240 ESTABLISHMENTS OF ST. LOUIS. CHAP. II. PABX 11. It would be a hard thing, says Beaumanoir, that if one had killed my near relation in open day before many credible persons, I should be compelled to fight in order to prove his death. This reflection is the dictate of common sense, and shows that the prejudice in favor of judicial combat was dying away. In the Assises de Jerusalem, a monument of customs two hundred years earlier than the age of Beau- manoir, we find little mention of any other mode of decision. The compiler of that book thinks it would be very injurious if no wager of battle were to be. allowed against witnesses in causes affecting succession ; since otherwise every right heir might be disinherited, as it would be easy to find two person* who would perjure themselves for money, if they had no fear of being challenged for their testimony. 1 This passage indi- cates the real cause of preserving the judicial combat, sys- tematic perjury in witnesses, and want of legal discrimination in judges. It was, in all civil suits, at the discretion of the litigant parties to adopt the law of the Establishments, instead of resorting to combat. 2 As gentler manners prevailed, espe- cially among those who did not make arms their profession, the wisdom and equity of the new code was naturally pre- ferred. The superstition which had originally led to the latter lost its weight through experience and the uniform opposition *of the clergy. The same superiority of just and settled rules over fortune and violence, which had forwarded the encroachments of the ecclesiastical courts, was now mani- fested in those of the king. Philip Augustus, by a famous ordinance in 1190, first established royal courts of justice, held by the officers called bailiffs or seneschals, who acted as the king's lieutenants in his domains. 8 Every barony, as it became reunited to the crown, was subjected to the jurisdic- tion of one of these officers, and took the name of a bailliage or seneschaussee ; the former name prevailing most in the north- ern, the latter in the southern, provinces. The vassals whose lands depended upon, or, in feudal language, moved, from the superiority of this fief, were obliged to submit to the ressort or supreme appellant jurisdiction of the royal court estab- lished in it. 4 This began rapidly to encroach upon the feudal *" C. 167. 1'Acad. des Inscriptions, t. xxx. p. 603 2 Boiiunianoir, p. 309. M il.lv, 1. iv. > 4. Boulainvilliers, t. it. 3 Orilonnftnces des Kois, t. i. p. 18. p. 22. Du Cunge, v. Balivi. Mem. L. 1. 31. 16 242 KOYAL COUNCIL. CHAP. II. PAKT JL remaining superstition which had preserved this mode of decision. 1 The supreme council, or court of peers, to whose deliberate functions I have already adverted, was also the council, great judicial tribunal of the French crown from of peers! tne accession of Hugh Capet. 2 By this alone the barons of France, or tenants in chief of the king, could be judged. To this court appeals for denials of justice were referred. It was originally composed, as has been ob- served, of the feudal vassals, coequals of those who were to be tried by it ; and also of the household officers, whose right of concurrence, however anomalous, was extremely ancient. But after the business of the court came to increase through the multiplicity of appeals, especially from the bailiffs estab- lished by Philip Augustus in the royal domains, the barons found neither leisure nor capacity for the ordinary administra- tion of justice, and reserved their attendance for occasions where some of their own orders were implicated in a criminal process. St. Louis, anxious for regularity and enlightened decisions, made a considerable alteration by introducing some Cours councillors of inferior rank, chiefly ecclesiastics, !res- as advisers of the court, though, as is supposed, without any decisive suffrage. The court now became known by the name of parliament. Registers of its proceedings were kept, of which the earliest extant are of the year 1254. It was still perhaps, in some degree ambulatory ; but by far the greater part of its sessions in the thirteenth century were at Paris. The councillors nominated by the king, some of them clerks, others of noble rank, but not peers of the ancient baronage, acquired insensibly a right of suffrage. 8 An ordinance of Philip the Fair, in 1302, is generally Parliament supposed to have fixed the seat of parliament at Paris, as well as altered its constituent parts. 4 1 Philip IV. restricted trial by combat the same conditions as in France. Pink- to cases where four conditions were unit- erton's Hist, of Scotl. vol. i. p. 66. ed. Thecrimemust be capital; its com- 2 [NOTE XVII.] mission certain ; The accused greatly sus- 3 Boulainvilliers, t. ii. p. 29, 44 ; Mably, pected ; And no proof to be obtained by 1. Iv. c. 2 ; Encyclopedic, art. Parlenient ; witnesses. Under these limitations, or Mem. de 1 : Acad. des Inscript. t. xxx. p. at least some of them, for it appears that 603. The great difficulty I have found they were not all regarded, instances oc- in this investigation will plead my ex- cur for some centuries. cuse if errors are detected. bee the singular story of Carouses and * Pasquier (llechcrches de la France, Le (iris, to which I allude in the text. 1. ii. c. 3) published this ordinance, which, Villaret, t. xi. p. 412. Trial by combat indeed, as the editor of Ordonnancea des was allowed in Scotland exactly uuder Hois, t. i. p. 547, observes, is 110 ordinance, FEUDAL STSTEM. PEERS OF FRANCE. 243 Perhaps a series of progressive changes has been referred to a single epoch. But whether by virtue of this ordinance, or of more gradual events, the character of the whole feudal court was nearly obliterated in that of the parliament of Paris. A systematic tribunal took the place of a loose aristocratic assembly. It was to hold two sittings in the year, each of two months' duration ; it was composed of two prelates, two counts, thirteen clerks, and as many laymen. Great changes were made afterwards in this constitution. The nobility, who originally sat there, grew weary of an attendance which detained them from war, and from their favorite pursuits at home. The bishops were dismissed to their necessary residence upon their sees. 1 As obligations they withdrew, a class of regular lawyers, origi- of * Tassal nally employed, as it appears, in the preparatory business, without any decisive voice, came forward to the higher places, and established a complicated and tedious system of proce- dure, which was always characteristic of French jurisprudence. They introduced at the same tune a new theory of abso- lute power, and unlimited obedience. All feudal j^^e of privileges were treated as encroachments on the the feudal imprescriptible rights of monarchy. With the 8ystem - natural bias of lawyers in favor of prerogative conspired that of the clergy, who fled to the king for refuge against the tyranny of the barons. In the civil and canon laws a system of political maxims was found very uncongenial to the feudal customs. The French lawyers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries frequently give their king the title of emperor, and treat disobedience to him as sacrilege. 2 But among these lawyers, although the general tenants of the crown by barony ceased to appear, there still Peers of continued to sit a more eminent body, the lay and France - spiritual peers of France, representatives, as it were, of that ancient baronial aristocracy. It is a very controverted question at what time this exclusive dignity of peerage, a word obviously applicable by the feudal law to all persons coequal in degree of tenure, was reserved to twelve vassals. At the coronation of Philip Augustus, in 1179, we first per- bnt a regulation for the execution of one the best authorities I have found. There previously made; nor does it establish may very possibly be superior works x>n the residence of the parliament in Paris, this branch of the French constitution 1 Velly, llift de France, t. vii. p. 303, which have not fallen into my hands, and Encyclopedic, art. Parlement, are - Mably, 1. iv. c. 2, note 10. 244 JURISDICTION OF PARLIAMENT. CHAP. II. PART H. ceive the six great feudataries, dukes of Burgundy, Nor- mandy, Guienne, counts of Toulouse, Flanders, Champagne, distinguished by the offices they performed in that ceremony. It was natural, indeed, that, by their princely splendor and importance, they should eclipse such petty lords as Bourbon and Coucy, however equal in quality of tenure. During the reign of Philip Augustus, six ecclesiastical peers, the duke- bishops of Rheims, Laon, and Langres, the count-bishops of Beauvais, Chalons, and Noyon, were added as a sort of parallel or counterpoise. 1 Their precedence does not, how- ever, appear to have carried with it any other privilege, at least in judicature, than other barons enjoyed. But their preeminence being fully confirmed, Philip the Fair set the precedent of augmenting their original number, by conferring the dignity of peerage on the duke of Britany and the count of Artois. 2 Other creations took place subsequently ; but these were confined, during the period comprised in this work, to princes of the royal blood. The peers were con- stant members of the parliament, from which other vassals holding in chief, were never, perhaps, excluded by law, but their attendance was rare in the fourteenth century, and soon afterwards ceased altogether. 8 A judicial body, composed of the greatest nobles in France, as well as of learned and eminent lawyers, must thefurisdie- naturally have soon become politically important. tion.of th Notwithstanding their disposition to enhance every parliament. , , . ., royal prerogative, as opposed to feudal privileges, the parliament was not disinclined to see its own protection invoked by the subject. It appears by an ordinance of Charles V., in 1371, that the nobility of Languedoc had appealed to the parliament of Paris against a tax imposed by the king's authority ; and this, at a time when the French constitution did not recognize the levying of money without consent of the States- General, must have been a just ground of appeal, though the present ordinance annuls and cverturns it. 4 During the tempests of Charles VI.'s unhappy reign the parliament acquired a more decided authority, and held, in some degree, the balance between the contending factions of Orleans and Burgundy. This influence was partly owing 1 Velly, t. li. p. 287 ; t. iii. p. 221 ; t. iv. 8 Encyclopedic, art. Parlement, p. 6. P- 41 * Mably, 1. v. c. 5, note 5. 2 Id. t. rii. p. 97. FEUDAL SYSTEM. REGISTRATION OF ROYAL EDICTS. 245 to one remarkable function attributed to the parliament, which raised it much above the level of a merely political tribunal, and has at various times wrought striking effects in the French monarchy. The few ordinances enacted by kings of France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were generally by the advice of their royal council, in which probably they were solemnly declared as*w ment. king s edicts, and substituted a new magistracy for the ancient baronial court, these legislative ordinances were commonly drawn up by the interior council, or what we may call the ministry. They were in some instances promulgated by the king in parliament. Others were sent thither for registration or entry upon their records. This formality was by degrees, if not from the beginning, deemed essential to render them authentic and notorious, and therefore indirectly gave them the sanction and validity of a law. 1 Such, at least, appears to have been the received doctrine before the end of the fourteenth century. It has been contended by Mably, among other writers, that at so early an epoch the parliament of Paris did not enjoy, nor even claim to itself, that anomalous right of judging the expediency of edicts proceeding from the king, which afterwards so remarkably modified the absoluteness of his power. In the fifteenth century, however, it certainly manifested pretensions of this nature : first, by registering ordinances in such a manner as to testify its own unwillingness and disapprobation, of which one instance occurs as early as 1418, and another in 1443; and, afterwards, by remonstrating against and delaying the registration of laws which it deemed inimical to the public interest. A conspicuous proof of this spirit was given in their opposition to Louis XL when repealing the Pragmatic Sanction of his father an ordinance essential, in their opinion, to the liberties of the Gallican church. In this instance they ultimately yielded ; but at another time they persisted in a refusal to enregister letters containing an alienation of the royal domain. 2 The counsellors of parliament were originally appointed 1 Encyclopedic, art. Parloment. G'irnier. Hist, de France, t. xvii. p. 219- * Mablr, I. vi. c. 5, inte* 19 and 21 , 380. 246 COUNSBLLOKS OF PARLIAMENT. CHAP. II. PART II by the king ; and they were even changed according to cir- cumstances. Charles V. made the first alteration, by per- mitting them to fill up vacancies by election, which usage continued during the next reign. Charles VII. resumed the Counsellors nomination of fresh members upon vacancies, of pariiamen. Louis XI. even displaced actual counsellors. But appointed for . + ,f. e i. * ^ i i v i i life and by in 1468, from whatever motive, he published a election. most important ordinance, declaringthe presidents and counsellors of parliament immovable, except in case of legal forfeiture. 1 This extraordinary measure of conferring independence on a body which had already displayed a con- sciousness of its eminent privilege by opposing the regis- tration of his edicts, is perhaps to be deemed a proof of that shortsightedness as to points of substantial interest so usually found in crafty men. But, be this as it may, there was formed in the parliament of Paris an independent power not emanating from the royal will, nor liable, except through force, to be destroyed by it ; which, in later times, became almost the sole depositary, if not of what we should call the love of freedom, yet of public spirit and attachment to justice. France, so fertile of great men in the sixteenth and seven- teenth centuries, might better spare, perhaps, from her annals any class and description of them than her lawyers. Doubt- less the parliament of Paris, with its prejudices and narrow views, its high notions of loyal obedience so strangely mixed up with remonstrances and resistance, its anomalous privi- lege of objecting to edicts, hardly approved by the nation who did not participate in it, and overturned with facility by the king whenever he thought fit to exert the sinews of his prerogative, was but an inadequate substitute for that co- ordinate sovereignty, that equal concurrence of national representatives in legislation, which has long been the ex- clusive pride of our government, and to which the States- General of France, in their best days, had never aspired. No man of sane understanding would desire to revive insti- tutions both uncongenial to modern opinions and to the natural order of society. Yet the name of the parliament of Paris must ever be respectable. It exhibited upon vari- ous occasions virtues from which human esteem is as insepa- rable as the shadow from the substance a severe adherence to prin iiples, an unaccommodating sincerity, individual disin- 1 Villaret, t. xiv. p. 231 ; Encyclopedic, art. Parlement. FEUDAt. SYSTEM. DECLINE OF FEUDAL SYSTEM. 247 terestedness and consistency. TVhether indeed these quali ties have been so generally characteristic of the French people as to afford no peculiar commendation to the parlia- ment of Paris, it is rather for the observer of the present day than the historian of past times to decide. 1 The principal causes that operated in subverting the feudal system may be comprehended under three distinct causes of heads the increasing power of the crown, the the decline elevation of the lower ranks, and the decay of the ^-stem. eu ' feudal principle. It has been my object in the last pages to point out the acquisitions of power by the crown of France in /> i 1 1 .. i T i .1 . rr-u Acquisitions respect of legislative and judicial authority, ihe O f power by principal augmentations of its domain have been te crown, historically mentioned in the last chapter, but the Axigment . subiect may here require further notice. The tion of the -nil- iiii domain. r rench kings naturally acted upon a system, in order to recover those possessions which the improvidence or necessities of the Carlovingian race had suffered almost to fall away from the monarchy. This course, pursued with tolerable steadiness for two or three centuries, restored their effective power. By escheat or forfeiture, by bequest or purchase, by marriage or succession, a number of fiefs were merged in their increasing domain. 3 It was part of their i The province of Languedoc, with its dependencies of _Quercy and Rouergue, having belonged almost in full sover- eignty to the counts of Toulouse, was not perhaps subject to the feudal resort or appellant jurisdiction of any tribunal at Paris. Philip the Bold, after its reunion tc the crown, established the parliament of Toulouse, a tribunal without appeal, in 1280. This was, however, suspended from 1291 to 1443. during which interval the parliament of Paris exercised an appellant jurisdiction over Languedoc. -:. Hist, de Lang. t. iv. p. 60, 71, 624. Sovereign courts or parliaments were established by Charles VII. at Gre- noble for Dauphine, and by Louis XI. at Bordeaux and Dijon for Guienne and Burgundy. The parliament of Rouen is not so ancient. These institutions rather diminished the resort of the parliament of Paris, which had extended over Bur- gundy, and, in time of peace, over Gui- enne. A work has appeared within a few years which throws an abundant light on the judicial system, aud indeed on the *hole civil polity of France, as well as other countries, during the middle ages. I allude to L'Esprit. Origine. et Progres des Institutions judiciaires des princi- paux Pays de 1'Europe. by M. Meyer, of Amsterdam ; especially the first and third volumes. It would have been fortunate had its publication preceded that of the first edition of the present work ; as I might have rendered this chapter on the feudal system in many respects more perspicuous and correct. As it is. with- out availing myself of M. Meyer's learn- ing aud acuteness to illustrate the ob- scurity of these researches, or discussing the few questions upon which I might venture, with deference, to adhere to another opinion, neither of which could conveniently be done on the present occasion. I shall content myself with this general reference to a performance of singular diligence and ability, which no student of these antiquities should neg- lect. In all essential points I am happy to perceive that M. Meyer's views of the middle ages are not far different from my own. Note to th' fourth edit. - The word domain ^is calculated, by a seeming ambiguity, to* perplex the readei 248 CAUSES OF DECLINE CHAP. n. PACT H policy to obtain possession of arriere-fiefs, and thus to bo come tenants of their own barons. In such cases the king was obliged by the feudal duties to perform homage, by proxy, to his subjects, and engage himself to the service of his fief. But, for every political purpose, it is evident that the lord could have no command over so formidable a vassal. 1 The reunion of so manj fiefs was attempted to be secured by a legal principle, that the domain was inalienable and imprescriptible. This became at length a fundamental maxim in the law of France. But it does not seem to be much older than the reign of Philip V., who, in 1318, revoked the alienations of his predecessors, nor was it thoroughly established, even in theory, till the fifteenth cen- tury. 2 Alienations, however, were certainly very repugnant to the policy of Philip Augustus and St. Louis. But there was one species of infeudation so consonant to ancient usage and prejudice that it could not be avoided upon any sugges- tions of policy ; this was the investiture of younger princes of the blood with considerable territorial appanages. It is of French history. In its primary sense, the domain or desmesne (dominicum) of any proprietor was confined to the lands in his immediate occupation ; excluding those of which his tenants, whether in fief or villenage, whether for a certain estate or at will, had an actual possea- sion. or, in our law-language, pernancy of the profits. Thus the compilers of Domesday-Book distinguish, in every manor, the lands held by the lord in demesne from those occupied by his villeins or others tenants. And in Eng- land the word, if not technically, yet in use, is still confined to this sense. But in a secondary acceptation, more usual in France, the domain comprehended all lands for which rent was paid (censives), and which contributed to the regular annual revenue of the proprietor. The great distinction was between lands in demesne and those in fief. A grant of territory, whether by the king or another lord, comprising as well domanial estates and tributary towns as feudal superiori- ties, was expressed to convey " in domi- nico quod est in dominico, et in feodo quod est in feodo." Since, therefore, fiefs, even those of the vavassors or inferior tenantry, were not part of the lord's domain, there is, as I said, an apparent ambiguity in the language of historians who speak of the reunion of provinces to the royal domain. This ambiguity, how- ever, is rather apparent than real. When the duchy of Normandy, for example, ia said to have been united by Philip Au- gustus to his domain, we are not, of course, to suppose that the soil of that province became the private estate of the crown. It continued, as before, in the possession of the Norman barons and their sub-vassals, who had held their es- tates of the dukes. But it is meant on- ly that the king of France stood exactly in the place of the duke of Normandy, with the same rights of possession over lands absolutely in demesne, of rents and customary payments from the burgesses of towns and tenants in roture or villen- age, and of feudal services irom the mil- itary vassals. The immediate superiori- ty, and the immediate resort, or juris- diction, over these devolved to the crown; and thus the duchy of Normandy, con- sidered as a fief, was reunited, or, more properly, merged in the royal domain, though a very small part of the territory might become truly domanial. 1 See a memorial on the acquisition of arriere-fiefs by the kings of France, in Mem. de 1'Acad. des Inscript. t. i. by M. Dacier. 2 Preface au 15me tome des Ordon- naucus, par M. Pa-storet. FKL-DAI, SYSTEM. OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. 249 remarkable that the epoch of appanages on so great a >eale was the reign of Sr. Louis, whose efforts were constantly directed against feudal independence. Yet he invested his brothers with the counties of Poitou, Anjou, and Artois, and his sons with those of Clermont -and Alen9on. This practice, in later tunes, produced very mischievous conse- quences. Under a second class of events that contributed to destroy the spirit of the feudal system we may reckon the abolition of villenage, the increase of commerce and consequent opn lence of merchants and artisans, and especially the institu- tions of free cities and boroughs. This is one of the most important and interesting steps in the progress of society during the middle ages, and deserves particular consider- ation. The provincial cities under the Roman empire enjoyed, as is well known, a municipal magistracy and the Free and right of internal regulation. Nor was it repug- chartered nant to the spirit of the Frank or Gothic con- querors to leave them in possession of these privileges. It was long believed, however, that little, if any, satisfactory proof of their preservation, either in France or Italy, could be found ; or, at least, if they had ever existed, that they were wholly swept away in the former country during the confusion of the ninth century, which ended in the establish- ment of the faudal system. Every town, except within the royal domains, was subject to some lord. In episcopal cities the bishop possessed a considerable authority ; and in many there was a class of resident nobility. But this subject has been better eluci- dated of late years ; and it has been made to appear that instances of municipal government were at least not rare, especially in the south of France, throughout the long period between the fall of the western empire and the be- ginning of the twelfth century, 1 though becoming far more common in its latter part. The earliest charters of community granted to towns in France have been commonly referred to the time Earliest of Louis VI. Noyon, St. Quentin, Laon, and charters - Amiens appear to have been the first that received emanci- 1 [NOTE XVIII.] 250 CAUSES OF DECLINE CHAP. II. PART IL pation at the hands of this prince. 1 The chief towns in the royal domains were successively admitted to the same privi- leges during the reigns of Louis VI., Louis V1L, and Philip Augustus. This example was gradually followed by the peers and other barons ; so that by the end of the thirteenth century the custom had prevailed over all France. It has Causes of been sometimes imagined that the crusades had fhem^not to & mater i a l inriuence in promoting the erection of be found in communities. Those expeditions would have re- des > paid Europe for the prodigality of crimes and miseries which attended them if this notion were founded in reality. But I confess that in this, as in most other respects, their beneficial consequences appear to me very much exaggerated. The cities of Italy obtained their internal liberties by gradual encroachments, and by the con- cessions of the Franconian emperors. Those upon the Rhine owed many of their privileges to the same monarchs, whose cause they had espoused in the rebellions of Germany. In France the charters granted by Louis the Fat could hard- ly be connected with the first crusade, in which the crown had taken no part, and were long prior to the second. It was not till fifty years afterwards that the barons seem to have trod in his steps by granting charters to their vassals, and these do not appear to have been particularly related in time to any of the crusades. Still less can the corporations erected by Henry II. in England be ascribed to these holy wars, in which our country had hitherto taken no consider- able share. The establishment of chartered towns in France has also nor in been ascribed to deliberate policy. " Louis the deliberate Gross," says Robertson, " in order to create some power that might counterbalance those potent vassals who controlled or gave law to the crown, first adopted the plan of conferring new privileges on the towns situated within his own domain." Yet one does not im- mediately perceive what strength the king could acquire by granting these extensive privileges within his own domains, if the great vassals were only weakened, as he asserts after- wards, by following his example. In what sense, besides, can it be meant that Noyon or Amiens, by obtaining certain Fm>AL STSTEM. OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. 251 franchi-es, became a power that could counterbalance the duke of Xorraandy or count of Champagne? It is more natural to impute this measure, both in the king and his barons, to their pecuniary exigencies ; for we could hardly doubt that their concessions were sold at the highest price, even if the existing charters did not exhibit the fullest proof of it, 1 It is obvious, however, that the coarser methods of rapine must have grown obsolete, and the rights of the in- habitants of towns to property established, before they could enter into any compact with their lord for the circum- purchase of liberty. Guibert, abbot of Su No- nces -r 11-1 f attending gent, near Laon, relates the establishment of a the treaty community in that city with circumstances, that, in of Laoa - the main, might probably occur in any other place. Con- tinual acts of violence and robbery having been committed, which there was no police adequate to prevent, the clergy and principal inhabitants agreed to enfranchise the populace for a sum of money, and to bind the whole society by regula- tions for general security. These conditions were gladly ac- cepted ; the money was paid, and the leading men swore to maintain the privileges of the inferior freemen. The bishop of Laon, who happened to be absent, at first opposed this new institution, but was ultimately induced, by money, to take a similar oath; and the community was confirmed by the king. Unluckily for himself, the bishop afterwards annulled the charter r when the inhabitants, hi despair at seeing them- selves reduced to servitude, rose and murdered him. This was in 1112 ; and Guibert's narrative certainly does not sup- port the opinion that charters of community proceeded from the policy of government. He seems to have looked upon them with the jealousy of a feudal abbot, and blames the bishop of Amiens for consenting to such an establishment in his city, from which, according to Guibert, many evils re- sulted. In his sermons, we are told, this abbot used to descant on " those execrable communities, where serfs, against law and justice, withdraw themselves from the power of their lords," a In some cases they were indebted for success to their own courage and love of liberty. Oppressed by the exactions of their superiors, they had recourse to arms, and united them- 1 Ordoanancea des Roii *.. xi. preface, * Hist. Litteraire de la France, t. x. 448 p. IS et 50 Da Gauge, voc. Conimunia. 252 CAUSES OF DECLINE CHAP. II. PAKT II. selves in a common league, confirmed by oath, for the sake of redress. One of these associations took place at Man? as early as 1067, and, though it did not produce any charter of privileges, is a proof of the spirit to which ultimately the superior classes were obliged to submit. 1 Several charters bear witness that this spirit of resistance was justified by op- pression. Louis VII. frequently declares the tyranny exer- cised over the towns to be his motive for enfranchising them. Thus the charter of Mantes, in 1150, is said to be given " pro nimia oppressione pauperum : " that of Compiegne, in 1153, " propter enormitates clericorum:" that of Dourlens, granted by the count of Ponthieu in 1202, "propter injurias et molestias a potentibus terras burgensibus frequenter il- latas." 2 The privileges which these towns of France derived from The extent their charters were surprisingly extensive ; espe- of their cially if we do not suspect some of them to be mere- prmieges. j^ ^ con fj rma tj on o f previous usages. They were made capable of possessing common property, and authorized to use a common seal as the symbol of their incorporation. The more oppressive and ignominious tokens of subjection, such as the fine paid to the lord for permission to marry their children, were abolished. Their payments of rent or tribute were limited both in amount and as to the occasions when they might be demanded : and these were levied by assessors of their own electing. Some obtained an exemption from assisting their lord in war ; others were only bound to follow him when he personally commanded ; and almost all limited their service to one, or, at the utmost, very few days. If they were persuaded to extend its duration, it was, like that of feudal tenants, at the cost of their superior. Their cus- toms, as to succession and other matters of private right, were reduced to certainty, and, for the most part, laid down in the charter of incorporation. And the observation of these was secured by the most valuable privilege which the chartered towns obtained that of exemption from the juris- diction, as well of the royal as the territorial judges. They were subject only to that of magistrates, either wholly elected ' by themselves, or, in some places, with a greater or less par- ticipation of choice in the lord. They were empowered to i Recueil des Historiens, t. xiv. preface 2 Ordonnances des Rols, t. xi preface, P 66. p. 17. PEI-DAL SYSTEM. OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. 253 make special rules, or, as we call them, by-laws, so as not to contravene the provisions of their charter, or the ordinances of the king. 1 It was undoubtedly far from the intention of those barons who conferred such immunities upon their subjects to relinquish their own superiority and rights not expressly conceded. But a remarkable change toWB s took place in the beginning of the thirteenth cen- tury, which affected, in a high degree, the feudal constitu tion of France. Towns, distrustful of their lord's fidelity, sometimes called in the king as guarantee of his engage- ments. The first stage of royal interference led to a more extensive measure. Philip Augustus granted letters of safe- guard to communities dependent upon the barons, assuring to them his own protection and patronage. 2 And this was followed up so quickly by the court, if we believe some wri- ters, that in the next reign Louis VIII. pretended to the im- mediate sovereignty over all chartered towns, in exclusion of their original lords. 3 Nothing, perhaps, had so decisive an effect in subverting the feudal aristocracy. The barons perceived, too late, that, for a price long since lavished in prodigal magnificence or useless warfare, they had suffered the source of their wealth to be diverted, and the nerves of their strength to be severed. The government prudently respected the privileges secured by charter. Philip the Long established an officer in all large towns to preserve peace by an armed police ; but though subject to the orders of the crown, he was elected by the burgesses, and they took a mutual oath of fidelity to each other. Thus shielded under the king's mantle, they ventured to encroach upon the neigh- boring lords, and to retaliate for the long oppression of , the commonalty. 4 Every citizen was bound by oath to stand by 1 Ordonnanees des Rois. prefaces am manoir, however, sixty years afterwards, tomes xi. et xii ; Da Cange, voc. Com- lays it down that no one can erect munia. Hostis : Carpentier, Suppl. ad Du co'mmune without the king's consent, Can. where they existed, were called upon for service. Kings did not. however, al- ways dispense with such aid as the lower people could supply. Louis the Fat call- ed out the militia of towns and parishes uii'ler their priest.*, who marched at their bead, though they did not actually com- mand them in battle. In the charters of incorporation which towns received the number of troops required was usually VOL. l. ii. 17 expressed. These formed the infantry of the French armies, perhaps more numer- ous than formidable loan enemy. In the war of the same prince with the em- peror Henry V. all the population of the frontier provinces was called out ; for the militia of the counties of Rheims and Chalons is said to have amounted to sixty thousand men. Philip IV. sum- moned one foot-soldier for every twenty hearths to take the field after the battle of Courtrai. (Daniel. Hist, de la Milice Franchise ; Velly. t. iii. p. 62, t. vii. p. 287.) Commissions of array, either to call out the whole population, or, as was more common, to select the most service able by forced impressment, occur in English records from the reign of Edward I. (Stuart's View of Society, p. 400) ; and there are even several writs directed to the bishops, enjoining them to cause all ecclesiastical persons to be arrayed and armed on account of an expected in- vasion. Rymer, t. vi. p. 726 (46 E. III.), t. vii. p. 162 (1 R. II.), and t. viii. p. 270 (3 H. IV.) 2 The preface to the eleventh volume of Recueil dcs Historiens. p. 232. notices the word solidarii. for hired soldiers, as early as 1030. It was probably unusual at that time ; though in Roger Hoveden, Ordericus Vit;ilis. and other writers of the twelfth century, it occurs not very unfroquently. We may perhaps conjec- ture the abbots, as both the richest and the most defenceless, to have been the first who availed themselves of merce- nary valor. 258 CAUSES OF DECLINE CHAP. II. PAKT H land. A code of martial law compiled for their, regulation is extant in substance ; and they are reported to have displayed a military spirit of mutual union, of which their master stood in awe. 1 Harold II. is also said to have had Danish soldiers in pay. But the most eminent example of a mercenary army is that by whose assistance William achieved the conquest of England. Historians concur in representing this force to have consisted of sixty thousand men. He afterwards hired soldiers from various regions to resist an invasion from Norway. William Rufus pursued the same course. Hired treops did not, however, in general form a considerable portion of armies till the wars of Henry II. and Philip Augustus. Each of these monarchs took into pay large bodies of mercenaries, chiefly, as we may infer from their appellation of Braban9ons, enlisted from the Netherlands. These were always disbanded on cessation of hostilities ; and, unfit for any habits but of idleness and license, oppressed the peasantry and ravaged the country without control. But their soldier-like principles of indiscriminate obedience, still more than their courage and field-discipline, rendered them dear to kings, who dreaded the free spirit of a feudal army It was by such a foreign force that John saw himself on the point of abrogating the Great Charter, and reduced his barons to the necessity of tendering his kingdom to a prince of France. 2 It now became manifest that the probabilities of war inclined to the party who could take the field with selected and experienced soldiers. The command of money was the command of armed hirelings, more sure and steady in battle, as 1 For these facts, of which I remember They were distinguished by their drcra no mention in English history, I am in- and golden ornaments. Their manners debtedto the Danish collection of Lan- towards each other were regulated ; quar- gebek, Scriptores Kerum Danicarum rels and abusive words subjected to a Medii .ffivi. Though the Leges Castrensis penalty. All disputes, even respecting ^anuti Magni, published by him, t. iii. lands, were settled among themselves at p. 141, are not in their original statutory their general parliament. A singular form, they proceed from the pen of story is told, which, if false, may still Sweno, the earliest Danish historian, who illustrate the traditionary character of lived under Waldemar I., less than a these guards : that, Canute having killed century and a half after Canute. 1 ap- one of their body in a fit of anger, it ply the word huscarle, familiar in Anglo- was debated whether the king should in- Saxon documents, to these military re- cur the legal penalty of death ; and this tamers, on the authority of Langebek, in was only compromised by his kneeling another place, t. ii. p. 454. The object of on a cushion before the assembly, and Canute's institutions was to produce an awaiting their permission to rise. T iil. uniformity of discipline and conduct p. 150. among his soldiers, and thus to separate 2 Matt Paris, them more decidedly from the people. FEUDAL SYSTEM. OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. 259 we must confess with shame, than the patriot citizen. Though the nobility still composed in a great degree the strength of an army, yet they served in a new character ; their animating spirit was that of chivalry rather than of feudal tenure ; their connection with a superior was personal rather than territorial The crusades had probably a material tendency to effectuate this revolution by substituting, what was inevitable in those expeditions, a voluntary stipendiary service for one of abso lute obligation. 1 It is the opinion of Daniel that in the thir- teenth cantury all feudal tenants received pay, even during their prescribed term of service. 3 This does not appear con- sonant to the law of fiefs ; yet their poverty may often have rendered it impossible to defray the cost of equipment on distant expeditions. A large proportion of the expense must in all cases have fallen upon the lord ; and hence that per- petually increasing taxation, the effects whereof we have lately been investigating. A feudal army, however, composed of all tenants in chief and their vas-als, still presented a formidable array. It is very long before the paradox is generally admitted that numbers do not necessarily contribute to the intrinsic effi- ciency of armies. Philip IV. assembled a great force by publishing the arriere-ban, or feudal summons, for his un- happy expedition against the Flemings. A small and more disciplined body of troops would not, probably, have met with the discomfiture of Courtray. Edward I. and Edward II. frequently called upon those who owed military service, in their invasions of Scotland. 8 But in the French wars of Edward III. the whole, I think, of his army served for pay, and was raised by contract with men of rank and influence, who received wages for every soldier according to his station and the arms he bore. The rate of pay was so remarkably high, that, unless we imagine a vast profit to have been intended for the contractors, the private lancers and even archers must have been chiefly taken from the middling 1 Joinville. in several passages, inti- * Hist, de la Milice Franchise, p. 8t. mates that most of the knights serving in The use of mercenary troops prevailed St. Louis's crusade received pay, either much in Germany during the thirteenth from their superior lord, if he were on century. Schmidt, t. iv. p. 89. In Italy the expedition, or from some other, into it was also very common ; though its whose service they entered for the time, general adoption Is to be referred to th He set out himself with ten knights, commencement of the succeeding age. whom he afterwards found it difficult 3 Rymer, t. iii. p. 173, 189, 199, et alibt enough to maintain. Collection des stepius. Meinoires, t. L p. 49, and t. ii. p. 53 260 CAUSES OF DECLINE CHAT, II PARI II classes, the smaller gentry, or rich yeomanry of England. 1 This part of Edward's military system was probably a lead- ing cause of his superiority over the French, among whom the feudal tenantry were called into the field, and swelled their unwieldy armies at Crecy and Poitiers. Both parties, how- ever, in this war employed mercenary troops. Philip .had 15,000 Italian crossbow-men at Crecy. It had for some time before become the trade of soldiers of fortune to enlist under leaders of the same description as themselves in companies of adventure, passing from one service to another, uncon- cerned as to the cause in which they were retained. These military adventurers played a more remarkable part in Italy than in France, though not a little troublesome to the latter country. The feudal tenures had at least furnished a loyal native militia, whose duties, though much limited in the ex- tent, were defined by usage and enforced by principle. They gave place, in an evil hour for the people and eventually for sovereigns, to contracts with mutinous hirelings, generally strangers, whose valor in the day of battle inadequately re- deemed their bad faith and vexatious rapacity. France, in her calamitous period under Charles VI. and Charles VII., experienced the full effects of military licentiousness. At the expulsion of the English, robbery and disorder were substi- tuted for the more specious plundering of war. Perhaps few Establish- measures have ever been more popular, as few re*uiar f * certainly have been more politic, than the estab- force by lishment of regular companies of troops by an ordi- Chariesvn. nance of Charles VII. in 1444. 2 These may justly pass for the earliest institution of a standing army in Europe, though some Italian princes had retained troops constantly in their pay, but prospectively to hostilities, which were seldom 1 Many proofs of this may be adduced The estates at Orleans in 1439 had from Rymer's Collection. The following advised this measure, as is recited in the is from Brady's History of England, vol. preamble of the ordinance. Ordonnan- 11. Appendix, p. 86. The wages allowed ces des Rois, t. xii. p. 312. Sismondi ob- by contract in 1346, were for an earl, 6s. serves (vol. xiii. p. 352) that very little is 8tf. per day ; for barons and bannerets, to be found in historians about the es- 4s. ; for knights, 2s. ; for squires, Is. ; for tablishment of these compagnies d'or- archers and hobelers (light cavalry), 6rf.; donnance, though the most important for archers on foot, 3d ; for Welshmen, event in the reign of Charles VII. The i'l. These sums multiplied by about 24. old soldiers of fortune who pillaged the to bring them on a level with the present country either entered into these com- Talue of money [1818], will show the pay panies or were disbanded, and after their to have been extremely high. The eav- dispersion were readily made amenable airy of course, furnished themselves to the law. This writer is exceedingly with horses and equipments, as well as full on the subject, arms, which were very expensive. See too Chap. I. p. 77, of this volume. FETDAL SYSTEM. OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. 2G1 long intermitted. Fifteen companies were composed each of a hundred men at arms, or lancers ; and, in the language of that age. the whole body was one thousand five hundred lances. But each lancer had three archers, a courtlier, or soldier armed with a knife, and a page or valet attached to him. all serving on horseback so that the fifteen companies amounted to nine thousand cavalry. 1 From these small be- ginnings, as they must appear in modern times, arose the regular army of France, which every succeeding king was solicitous to augment. The ban was sometimes convoked, that is, the possessors of fiefs were called upon for military service in subsequent ages ; but with more of ostentation than real efficiency. The feudal compact, thus deprived of its original efficacy, soon lost the respect and attachment which had p^y^ attended it. Homage and investiture became un- feu-iai meaning ceremonies ; the incidents of relief and P" 11 "? 1 **- aid were felt as burdensome exactions. And indeed the rapacity with which these were levied, especially by our Norman sovereigns and their barons, was of itself sufficient to extinguish all the generous feelings of vassalage. Thus galled, as it were, by the armor which he was compelled to wear, but not to use, the military tenant of England looked no longer with contempt upon the owner of lands in socage, who held his estate with almost the immunities of an alodial proprietor.- But the profits which the crown reaped from wardships, and perhaps the prejudices of lawyers, prevented the abolition of military tenures till the restoration of Charles II. In France the fiefs of noblemen were very unjustly exempted from all territorial taxation, though the tallies of later times had, strictly speaking, only superseded the aids to which they had been always liable. The distinction, it is well known, was not annihilated till that event which, annihilated all distinctions, the French revolution. It is remarkable that, although the feudal system established in England upon the Conquest broke in very much upon our ancient Saxon liberties though it was attended with harsher servitudes than in any other country, particularly those two intolerable burdens, wardship and marriage yet it has in general been treated with more favor by English than French 1 Daniel, HL=t -!> used to swear fealty, to profess subjection, to follow, at home and in the field, a feudal superior and his family, eu-ily transferred the same allegiance to the monarch. It was a very powerful feeling which could make the bravest men put up with slights and ill-treatment at the hands of their sovereign ; or call forth all the energies of disinterested exertion for one whom they never saw, and La whose char- acter there was nothing to esteem. In ages when the rights of the community Avere unfelt this sentiment was one great preservative of society ; and, though collateral or even sub- servient to more enlarged principles, it is still indispensable to the tranquillity and permanence of every monarchy. In a moral view loyalty has scarcely perhaps less tendency to refine and elevate the heart than patriotism itself; and holds a middle place in the scale of human motives, as they ascend from the grosser inducements of self-interest to the further- ance of general happiness and conformity to the purposes of Infinite Wisdom. 266 STATE OF ANCIENT GERMANY. NOTES TO NOTES TO CHAPTER II. NOTE I. Page 149. IT is almost of course with the investigators of Teutonic antiquities to rely with absolute confidence on the authority of Tacitus, in his treatise ' De Moribus Germanorum.' And it is indeed a noble piece of eloquence a picture of man- ners so boldly drawn, and, what is more to the purpose, so probable in all its leading characteristics, that we never hesi- tate, in reading, to believe. It is only when we have closed the book that a question may occur to our minds, whether the Roman writer, who had never crossed the Rhine, was altogether a sufficient witness for the internal history, the social institutions, of a people so remote and so dissimilar. But though the sources of his information do not appear, it is manifest that they were copious. His geographical details are minute, distinct, and generally accurate. Perhaps in no instance have his representations of ancient Germany been falsified by direct testimony, if in a few circumstances there may be reason to suspect their exact faithfulness. In the very slight mention of German institutions which I have made in the text there can be nothing to excite doubt. They are what Tacitus might easily learn, and what, in fact, we find confirmed by other writers. But when he comes to a more exact description of the social constitution, and of the different orders- of meji, it may not be unreasonable to receive his testimony with a less unhesitating assent than has commonly been accorded to it. A sentence, a word of Tacitus has passed for conclusive ; and no theory which they contradict would be admitted. A modern writer, however, has justly pointed out that his informers might easily be deceived about the social institutions of the tribes beyond the Rhine ; and, in fact, it is not on Tacitus himself, but on these unknown authorities, that we rely for the fidelity of his representations. We may readily conceive, by our own . II. STATE OF AXCIEXT GERMANY. 267 experience, the difficulty of obtaining a clear and exact knowledge of laws, customs, and manners for which we have no corresponding analogies. " Let us," says Luden to his countrymen, "ask an enlightened Englishman who speaks German concerning the political institutions of his country, and it will be surprising how little we shall understand from him. Ask him to explain what is a freeman, a freeholder, a copyholder, or a yeoman, and we shall find how hard it is to make national institutions and relations intelligible to a for- eigner." (Luden, Geschichte . des Deutschen Volkes, vol. i. p.702.)^ This is of course not designed to undervalue the excellent work of Tacitus, to which almost exclusively we are indebted for any acquaintance with the progenitors of the Anglo- Saxons and the Franks, but to point out a general principle, which may be far better applied to inferior writers, that they give a color of their own country to their descriptions of foreign manners, and especially by the adoption of names only analogically appropriate. Thus the words servus, libertinus, ingenuity, nobilis, are not necessarily to be understood in a Roman sense when Tacitus employs them in his treatise on Germany. Semis is in Latin a slave ; but the German described by him under that name is the lidus, subject to a lord, and liable to payment*, but not without limit, as he himself explains.. " Frumenti modum dominus, aut pecoris, aut vestis. ut colono, imperat ; et servus hactenus paret." Here colonus, in the age of Tacitus, was as much a wrong word in one direction as servus was in another. For we believe that the colonus of early Rome was a tenant, or farmer, yielding rent, but absolutely a free man ; J though in the third century, after barbarians had been settled on lands in the empire, we find it applied to a semi-servile condition It is more worthy to be observed that his account of the kingly office among the Germans is not quite consistent Sometimes it appears as if peculiar to certain tribes, " iis gentibus qua? regnantur " (c. 25) ; and here he seems to speak of the power as very great, opposing it to liberty ; while at other times we are led to suppose an aristocratic senate and an ultimate right of decision in {he people at large, with a very limited sovereign at the head (c. 7, 11, &c.). This triple constitution has been taken by Montesquieu for the ' Vid> Facciolati Lexicon. 268 PARTITION OF CONQUERED LANDS. NOTF.S 10 foundation of our own in the well-known words " Ce beau sj'steme a ete trouve dans les bois." NOTE II. Page 150. It is not easy to explain these partitions made by the bar- barous nations on their settlement in the empire ; and, what would be still more- remarkable if historians were not so defective in that age, we find no mention of such partitions in any records, excepting their own laws and a few docu- ments of the same class. Montesquieu says, " Ces deux tiers n'etaient pas que dans certains quartiers qu'on leur assigna." (1. 30, c. 8). Troja seems to hold the same opinion as to the first settlement of the Burgundians in Gaul, but admits a general division in 471 : Storia d'ltalia nel medio evo (iii. 1293). It is indeed impossible to get over the proof of such a partition, or at least one founded on a general law, arising from the fifty-fourth section of the Burgundian code : " Eodem tempore quo populus noster mancipiorum tertiam, et duas terrarum partes accepit." This code was promulgated by Gundobald early in the sixth century. It contains several provisions protecting the Roman in the possession of his third against any encroachment of the hospes, a word applied indifferently to both parties, as in common Lathi, to host and guest. The word sortes, which occurs both with the Burgundians and Visigoths, has often been referred to the general parti- tion, on the hypothesis that the lands had been distributed by lot. This perhaps has no evidence except the erroneous inference from the word sors, but it is not wholly improbable. Savigny, indeed, observes that both the barbarian and the Roman estates were called sortes, referring to Leges Visi- gothorum, lib. x. tit. 2, 1. 1, where we find, in some editions, "sortes Gothicse vel Romanse;" but all the manuscripts, according to Bouquet, read " sortes Gothicae et tertia Roman- orum," which, of course, gives a contrary sense. (Rec. des Hist. iv. 43 O). 1 It seems, from some texts of the Burgun- 1 Procopius says, of the division made cm' O.VTOV K^rjpoi 'BavdiTiuv ot aypol by Qenseric in Italy, At/3waf rouf 2,- o {, rot ^ T Eitero (itv rove aypoOf , ol , , . , Ka l TU JJ.EV xupia ^v^avra 5aa rielcTOi re 1/cav Kal upiaroi, f 6s T0 i f re ^alai not Tolg uXkois Bavdi- r<> TUV Bavdihuv dieveipev e&vof Kal a oic rtfepi^of Trapa6e6u^ei, oi/de/uof CHAP. n. PARTITION OF COXQUEBED LAXDS. 269 dian lavr. that the whole territory was not partitioned at once ; because, in a supplement to the code not much before 520, provision is made for new settlers, who were to receive only a moiety. " De Roinanis hoc ordinavimus, ut nou amplius a Burgundionibus qui infra venerunt, requiratur, quarn, ut prssens necessitas fuerit, medietas terree. Alia vero jnedie- tas cum integritate mancipiorum a Romanis teneatur; nee exinde ullam violentiam patiantur." (Leges Burgimdionum, Additamentum Secundum, c, 11.) In this, as in the whole Burgundian law, we perceive a tenderness for the Roman inhabitant, and a continual desire to place him, as far as possible, on an equal footing with his new neighbor. The reason assigned for the partition is necessity ; the Burgundian must live. It is true that to assign him two thirds of the land strikes us a- 5 an enormous spoliation. Montesquieu supposes that the barbarian took open and pasture" lands, leaving the tilth to the ancient possessor, and that this accounts for the smaller proportion of slaves which he required (L 30, c. 9). Sismondi has made a similar suggestion. It is dwelt upon by Troja, that the Lombards, taking a third of the produce in- stead of a portion of the lands themselves, reduced all the original possessors to the rank of tributaries. In none of the barbarous kingdoms was the Roman of so low a status as in theirs. But it may be said that the ancient law of nations, exercised by none more unsparingly than by the Romans themselves in Italy, confiscated the whole soil ; that, if the Visigoths and Burgundiaus spared one third, if the Franks left some Roman possessors, this was an indulgent relaxation of their right. And this would be an excuse if we could for a moment look upon the barbarians as having a just cause of war. The contrary, however, is manifest in almost every ca ; e. M. Fauriel thinks it probable that the Franks made, like the other barbarians, a partition, more or less regular, of the Roman lands in northern France. (Hist, de la Gaule Meridionale, ii. 34.) Guizot takes a somewhat different view, and conceives that each chief took what best suited him, and lived there with his followers about him. (Civilia dopov d~.7/XM passage gives no confirmation to the hy- BoiwCU* and sortes Salicae in the sam* pothesis~of a partition by lot. but the manner. " contrary ; and though we cannot reason 270 PARTITION OF CONQUERED LANDS. NOTES TO en France, Legon 32.) But if the Franks adopted so aris- tocratic a division as to throw the lands which they occupied into the hands of a few proprietors, they must have gone on very different principles from the other nations, among whom we should infer, from their laws, a much greater equality to have been preserved. It seems, however, most probable on the whole, considering the silence of historians and laws, that the Franks made no such systematic distribution of lands as the earlier barbarians. They were, perhaps, less numerous, and, being at first less civilized, would feel more reluctance at submitting to any fixed principle of appropriation. That they dispossessed many of the Roman owners on the right bank of the Loire cannot well be doubted. For, though Raynouard, who treads in the steps of Dubos, denies that they took any but fiscal lands, which had belonged to the imperial domains ^Hist. du Droit Municipal, i. 256), Franks were surely as little disposed, and as little able, to live with- out lands as Burgundians, and they were a rougher people. 1 Yet both with respect to them and the other barbarians we may observe that the spoliation was not altogether so ruinous as would naturally be presumed. In consequence of the long decline and depopulation of the empire, the fruit of fiscal oppression, of frequent invasion, and civil wars, we may add also of pestilences and unfavorable seasons, much land had gone out of cultivation in Gaul ; and though the proportion taken by the Goths and Burgundians was enormous, they probably occupied, in great measure, what the Roman pro- prietor had not the means of tilling. This subject, after all, is by no means clear of embarrass- ment, especially as regards the Visigothic and Burgundian partitions. We are driven to suppose a dispersion of these conquering nations among their subjects, each man living separately on his sors, contrary to the policy of all invaders ; we are, apparently, to presume an equality of numbers be tween the Roman possessors and the barbarians, so that each should have his own hospes. The latter hypothesis, may, perhaps, be dispensed with, or considerably modified ; but I do not see how to get rid of the former. 1 M. Lehuerou supposes that the their subsequent acquisitions would be Franks, who served the empire in Gaul at the expense of the nations which they under the predecessors of Clovis, had re- conquered. (Instit. Merov. i. 237, 268. ceived lands like the Burgundians and But the private estates of the Franks Visigoths : so that they were already in seem to have been principally in the ft great measure provided for, and that north of France. CHAP n. THE SALIC LAW. 271 NOTE III. Page 152. The Salic law exists in two texts ; one purely Latin, of which there are fifteen manuscripts ; the other mingled with German words, of which there are three. Mo.-t have con- sidered the latter to be the original; the manuscripts con- taining it are entitled Lex Salica antiqm'ssima, or vetustior ; the others generally run, Lex Salica recentior, or emendata. This seems to create a presumption. But M. Wraida, who published a history of the Salic law in 1808, inclines to think the pure Latin older than the other. M. Guizot adopts the same opinion (Civilisation en France, Le9on 9). 31. "Wraida refers its original enactment to the period when the Franks were still on the left bank of the Rhine ; that is, long before the reign of Clovis. And this seems an evident in- ference from what is said in the prologue to the law, written long afterwards. But of course it cannot apply to those passages which allude to the Romans as subjects, or to Chris- tianity. M. Guizot is of opinion that it bears marks of an age when the Franks had long been mingled with the Roman population. This is consistent with its having been revised by the sons of Clovis, Childebert, and Clotaire, as is asserted in the prologue. One manuscript has the words " Hoc decretum est apud regem et principes ejus, et apud cunctum populum Chrisfianum qui infra regnfhn Merwingorum con- sistunt," Neither Wraida nor Guizot think it older in ite present text than the seventh century ; and as Dagobert I. appears in the prologue as one reviser, we may suppose him to be the king mentioned in the words just quoted. It is to be observed, however, that two later writers, M. Pertz, in "Monumenta Germanise Historica," and M. Pardessus, in " Mem. de 1'Acad. des Inscriptions," vol. xv. (Nouvelle Serie), have entered anew on this discussion, and do not agree with M. Wraida, nor wholly with each other. M. Lehuerou is clearly of opinion that, in all its substance, the Salic code \s to be referred to Germany for its birthplace, and to the period of heathenism for its date. (Institutions Merovin- giennes, p. 83.) The Ripuarian Franks Guizot, with some apparent rea- son, takes for the progenitors of the Australians ; the Salian, of the Neustrians. The former were settled on the left 272 THE SALIC LAW. NOTES TO bank of the Rhine, as Lcett\ or defenders of the frontier, under the empire. These tribes were united under one gov- ernment through the assassination of Sigebert at Cologne, in the last years of Clovis, who assumed his crown. Such a theory might tend to explain the subsequent rivalry of these great portions of the Frank monarchy, though it is hardly required for that purpose. The Ripuarian code of law is re- ferred by Guizot to the reign of Dagobert ; Eccard, however, had conceived it to have been compiled under Thierry, the eldest son of Clovis. (Rec. des. Hist. vol. iv.) It may still have been revised by Dagobert. " We find in this," says M. Guizot, " more of the Roman law, more of the royal and ecclesiastical power ; its provisions are more precise, more extensive, less barbarous ; it indicates a further step in the transition from the German to the Roman form of social life." (Civil, en France, Le9on 10.) The Burgundian law, though earlier than either of these in their recensions, displays a far more advanced state of manners. The Burgundian and Roman are placed on the same footing ; more is borrowed from the civil law ; the royal power is more developed. This code remained in force after Charlemagne ; but Hincmar says that few contin- ued to live by it. In the Visigothic laws enacted hi Spain, to the exclusion of the Roman, in 642, all the barbarous ele- ments have disappeared ; it is the work of the clergy, half ecclesiastical, half impiHal. It has been remarked by acute writers, Guizot and Troja, that the Salic law does not answer the purpose of a code, being silent on some of the most important regulations of civil society. The former adds that we often read of mat- ters decided " secundum legem Salicam," concerning which we can find nothing in that law. He presumes, therefore, that it is only a part of their jurisprudence. Troja (Storia d'ltalia nel medio evo, v. 8), quoting Buat for the same opin- ion, thinks it probable that the Franks made use of the Ro- man law where their own was defective. It may perhaps be not less probable than either hypothesis that the judges grad- ually introduced principles of decision which, as in our com- mon law, acquired the force of legislative enactment. The rules of the Salic code principally relate to the punishment or compensation of crimes ; and the same will be found in our earliest Anglo-Saxon laws. ' The object of such written CHAT. n. KOMA3 NATIVES OF GAUL. 275 laws, with a free and barbarous people, was not to record their usages, or to lay down rules which natural equity would suggest as the occasion might arise, but to prevent the arbi- trary infliction of penalties. Chapter Ixii., ' On Successions,' may have been inserted for the sake of the novel provision about Salic lands, which could not have formed a part of old Teutonic customs. NOTE IV. Pages 152, 153. The position of the former inhabitants, after the conquest of Gaul by the Burgundians, the Visigoths and the Franks, both relatively to the new monarchies and to the barbarian settlers themselves, is a question of high importance. It has, of course, engaged the philosophical school of the present day, and has led to much diversity of hypotheses. The extreme poles are occupied, one by M. Raynouard in his ' Hist, du Droit Municipal,' and by a somewhat earlier writer, Sir Francis Palgrave, who, following the steps of Dubos, bring the two nations, conquerors and conquered, almost to an equality, as the common subjects of a sovereign who had assumed the prerogatives of a Roman emperor; and, on the opposite side, by Signor Troja, 1 and by M. Thierry, who finds no closer analogy for their relative condi- tions than that of the Greeks and Turks in the days that have lately gone by. " It is no more a proof," he contends, " that the Roman natives were treated as free, because a few might gain the favor of a despotic court, than that the Chris- tian and Jew stand on an even footing with the Mussulman, because an Eastern Sultan may find his advantage in em ploying some of either religion." (Lettres sur 1'Hist. de F ranee, Lett, vii.) This is not quite coiisistent with his lan- guage in a later work : " Sous le regne de la premiere race se-montrent deux conditions de liberte : la liberte par excel- lence, qui est la condition du Franc ; et la liberte du second ordre, le droit de cite romaine." (Recits des Temps Mero- vingiens, i. 242. Bruxelles, 1840.) 1 La Storia di Fmncia sotto i re della This is not borne out by history. We prima razza pud dirsi non consistere che find no oppression of Romans by Franks, negli t-sempj delle oppression! de' Franchi though much by Frank kings. The gopra i cittadini Komani.e della generosa conquerors may hare been nationally in- protezione de" vescovi o Romani o Franchi. sclent ; but this l-i not recorded. (Stori* d' Italia, vol. i. part y. p. 421.) VOL i. a. 18 274 BOMAN NATIVES OF GAUL. NOTKS TO It is, however, as it seems to me, and as the French writ- ers have generally held, impossible to maintain either of these theories. The Roman " con viva regis " (by which we may perhaps better understand one who had been actually admitted to the royal table, thus bearing an analogy to the Frank Antrustion, than what I have said in the text, one of a rank not unworthy of such an honor) 1 was estimated in his weregild at half the price of the Barbarian Antrustion, the highest known class at the Merovingian court, and above the common alodial proprietor. But between two such land- holders the same proportion subsisted ; the Fi*ank was val- ued twice as high as the Roman ; but the Roman proprietor was set more than as much above the tributary, or semi- servile husbandman, whose nation is not distinguished by the letter of the Salic code. We have, therefore, in this no- torious distinction, subordination without servitude ; exactly what the circumstances of the conquest, and the general rela- tion of the barbarians to the empire, would lead us to antici- pate, and what our historical records unequivocally confirm. The oppression of the people, which Thierry infers from the history of Gregory of Tours, under Gontran and Chilperic, was on the part of violent and arbitrary princes, not of the Frank nation ; nor did the latter by any means escape it. It is true that the civil wars of the early Merovingian kings were most disastrous, especially in Aquitaine, and of course the native inhabitants suffered most ; yet this is very distin- guishable from a permanent condition of servitude. " The Romans," Sir F. Palgrave has said, " retained their own laws. Their municipal administration was not abrogated or subverted ; and wherever a Roman population subsisted, the barbarian king was entitled to command them with the prerogatives that had belonged to the Roman emperors." (Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth, vol. i. p. 362.) In this I demur only to the word entitled, which seems designed to imply something more than the right of the sword. But this is the right, and I can discern no real evidence of any other, which Clovis, and Clotaire, and Chilperic exer- cised ; very like, of course, to the prerogatives of the Roman emperors, since one despotism must be akin to another ; and 1 I do not give thi? as very highly senatorial families, who evidently made a probable : conviva rtgis seems an odd noble class among the Romans, phrase ; but it may have included all the Cir.vp. E. ROMAN NATIVES OF GAUL. 275 a provincial of Gaul, whose ancestors had for centuries obeyed an unlimited monarch, could not claim any better privileges by becoming the subject of a conqueror. It is universally agreed, at least I apprehend so, that the Roman, a- a mere possessor, and independently of any personal dig- nity with which he might have been honored, did not attend the national assemblies in the Field of March ; nor had he any business at the placitum or mallus of the count among the Rachimburgii, or freeholders, who there determined causes according to their own jurisprudence, and transacted other business relating to their own nation. The kings were always styled merely " Reges Francorum : " * whenever, in Gregory of Tours' history, the popular will, is expressed, it is by the Franks ; no other nation separately, nor the Franks as blended with any other nation, appear in his pages to have acted for themselves. It must be almost unnecessary to remind the render that the word Roman is uniformly applied, especially in the bar- barian laws, to the Gaulish subjects of the empire, whose allegiance had been transferred, more or less reluctantly, but always through conquest, to the three barbarian monarchies, two of which were ultimately subverted by the Franks. But it is only in two senses that this can be reckoned a proper appellation ; one, inasmuch as privileges of Roman citizen- ship had been- extended to the whole of Gaul by the emper- ors ; and another, as applicable, with more correctness, to that population of Roman or Italian descent which had gradually settled in the cities. This, during so many ages, must have become not inconsiderable ; the long continuance of the same legions in the province, the wealth and luxury of many cities, the comparative security, up to the close of the fourth century, from military revolution and civil war, the facility, perhaps, of purchasing lands, would naturally create a respectable class, to whose highly civilized manners :he records of the fourth and fifth centuries especially bear witness. 2 The Latin language became universal in cities ; 1 One instance of an apparent excep- charter desen< to be considered. But, tion. for leading me to which I am in- supposing it to be genuine, it does not go debted to Mr. Spence (Laws of Europe, a great way towards the imperial style. p. SW). has met my eyes. Dugobert I. 2 Salvian, in the middle of the fifth calls himself, in an instrument found in century, descants on the beauties of Vita Beati Martini, apud Dm-hesne, i. Aquitaiiie ; ' Adeo illic omnis aJmodum 655. il Rex Francorum et ponitli Romani rezio autintertexta yir.eis. aut florulenta prinreps" Thu authenticity of this pratis, aut distinct* culturis, aut rousita 276 ROMAN NATIVES OF GAUL. NOTES TO and if in country villages some remains of the Celtic might linger, they have left very few traces behind. Sismondi has indeed gone much too far when he infers, es- pecially from this disuse of the old language, an almost com- plete extinction of the Gaulish population. And for this he accounts by their reduction to servitude, by the exactions of their new lords, and the facility of purchasing slaves in the markets of the empire (vol. i. p. 84). But such a tram of events is wholly without evidence ; without at least any evidence that has been alleged. We do not know that the peasantry were ever proprietors of the soil which they culti- vated before the Roman invasion, but may much rather be- lieve the contrary from the language of Caesar " Plebs paene servorum habetur loco." We do not know that they fell into a worse condition afterwards. We do not know that they were oppressed in a greater degree than other subjects of Rome, not surely so as to extinguish the population. We may believe that slaves were occasionally purchased, accord- ing to the usage of the empire, without denying the existence of coloni, indigenous and personally free, of whom the Theo- dosian code is so full. Nor is it evident why even serfs may not have been of native as easily as of foreign origin. All this is presumed by Sismondi, because the Latin language, and not the Celtic, is the basis of French. And a similar hypothesis must, by parity of reasoning, be applied to the condition of Spain during the centuries of Roman dominion. But it is assumed the more readily, through the tendency of this eminent writer to place in the worst light, what seldom can be placed in a very favorable one, the social institutions and usages of mankind. The change of language is no doubt remarkable. But we may be deceived by laying too much stress on this single circumstance in tracing -the history of nations. It is very difficult to lay down a rule as to the ten- dency of one language to gain ground upon another. Some appear in their nature to be aggressive ; such is the Latin, and probably the Arabic. But why is it that so much of the Walachian language, and even its syntax, 1 comes from Latin, in consequence of a merely military occupation, while a more pomis, aut amrenata lucis, aut irrigata ginetn possedisse videantur." (De Qu fontibus, aut interfusa fluminibus, aut bernat. Dei. lib. vii. p. 299. edit. 1611.) circumdata messibus erat, ut vere pos- l Vid. Lauriani Tentamen Criticum sessores et doirmii terrae illius non tarn in linguaiu WalucUicaiu. Vieun. 1840. soli illius portioneiu quarn paradisi iuia- CHAP. n. ROMAN NATIVES OF GAUL. 277 lasting possession of Britain (where flourishing colonies were filled with Roman inhabitants, and the natives bonowed in some degree the arts and manners of their conquerors, con- nected with them also by religion in the latter part of their dominion) did not hinder the preservation of the original Celtic idiom in Wales, with very slight infusion of Latin ? Why is it that innumerable Arabic words, and even some Arabic sounds of letters, are found in the Castilian language, the language of a people foreign and hostile, while scarcely a trace is left of- the Visigothic tongue, that of their fathers ; so that for one word, it is said, of Teutonic origin remaining in Spain, there are ten in Italy, and a hundred in France ? i If we were to take Sismondi literally, the barbarians must have found nothing in Gaul but a Roman or Romanized aristocracy, surrounded by slaves ; and these as much import- ed, or the offspring of importation, as the Negroes in Ameri- ca. This is rather a humiliating origin, an illud quod dicere nolo, for the French nation. For it is the French nation that is descended from the inhabitants of Gaul at the epoch of the barbarian conquest. We have, however, a strong ethnographical argument against this imaginary depopulation, in the national charac- teristics of the French. A brilliant and ingenious writer has well called our attention to the Celtic element, that under all the modifications which difference of race, political con- stitutions, and the stealthy progress of commerce and learn- ing have brought in, still distinguishes the Frenchman : " La base originaire, celle qui a tout re9U, tout accepte, c'est cette jeune molle et mobile race de Gaels, brillante, sensuelle, et legere, prompte a apprendre, prompte a dedaigner, avide des choses nouvelles. Voila 1'element primitif, 1'element perfecti- ble." (Michelet, Hist, de France, i. 156.) This is very good, and we cannot but see the resemblance to the Celtic character. Michelet goes afterwards too far, and endeavors to show that a great part of the French language is Celtic ; failing wholly in his quotations from early writers, which either relate to the peri- od immediately subsequent to the Roman conquest, or to the lingua jRomana rustica which ultimately became French. It is nevertheless true that a certain number of Celtic words have been retained in French, as has been shown even of Visigothic by M. Fauriel. He has found 3,000 words in i Ediub. Review, TO; txxi. p. 109 278 ROMAN NATIVES OF GAUL. NOTES 10 Provenal, which are not Latin. All of these which are not Gothic, Iberian, Greek, or Arabic, may be reckoned Celtic ; and though the former languages can have left few traces in northern French, we may presume the last to have been re tained in a scarcely less degree than in the Provengal dia lect. (Ampere, Hist. Litt. de la France, vol. i. p. 34.) Many French monosyllables are Celtic. But if we try to read any French of the twelfth century, we shall feel no doubt that a vast majority of words are derived from the Latin ; and it may be added that the terms- of rural occupa- tion, and generally of animals, are full as much Latin as those more familiar in towns. The cities of Gaul were occupied probably by a more mingled population than the villages. In the cities dwelt the more ancient and wealthy families, called senators, and dis- tinct, as far as we can see our way in a very perplexed in- quiry, from the ordinary curiales, or decurions. It is true that these also are sometimes called senators ; but the word has not, as Guizot observes (Collect, des Memoires, i. 247), in Gregory and other writers, a precise sense. Families were often elevated to the senatorial rank by the emperors, which gave their members the title of clarissimi ; and these were probably meant by Gregory, in the expression e primis Galliarum senatoribus, which naturally must be rendered " of the first Gaulish nobility." The word is several times employed by him in what seems the same sense. It is, how- ever, also used, as Guizot and Raynouard think, for the high- est class of curiales who had served municipal offices. But more will be said of this in another note. Sismondi has remarked (i. 198) that in the lives of the saints, during the Merovingian period, most part of whom were of Roman descent, it is generally mentioned that they were of good family. The Church afforded the means of preserving their respectability ; and thus (without much weight in the monarchy, and often with diminished patrimo- ny, but in return less oppressed by taxation than under the imperial fisc, deriving also a reflected importance from the bishop when he was a Roman, and sheltered by his protec- tion) this class of the native inhabitants held not only a free but an honorable position. Yet this was still secondary. In a free commonwealth the exclusion from political rights, by a broad line of legal separation, brings with it an indelibla CHAP. n. KOMAX NATIVES OF GAUL. 279 sense of inferiority. But this inferiority is not allowed by all our inquirers. " The nations who were unequal before the law soon be- came equal before the sovereign, if not in theory yet in practice ; and the children of the companions of Clovis were subjected, with few and not very material exceptions, to the same positive dominion as the descendants of the proconsul or the senator. It is not difficult to form plausible conjec- tures concerning the causes of this equalization ; nor are the means by which it was effected entirely concealed. Con.sid- ered in relation to the Romans, the Franks, for we will con- tinue to instance them, constituted a distinct state, but, compared to the Romans, a very small one ; and the indi- viduals composing it, dispersed over Gaul, were almost lost among the tributaries. Experience has shown that whenever a lesser or poorer dominion is conjoined, in the person of the same sovereign, to a greater or more opulent one, the minuter mare tioii was replaced by that of military ser- originally exempt from this and all other vice. tribute. Of this M. Lehuerou unifies no 'i This note was written before I had doubt ; nor, perhaps, has any one doubt- looked at a work published in 1843, by ed it, except Dubos. But, under the sons M. Lehuerou, ' Histoire des Institutions and grandsons of Clovis. endeavors were Merovinpiennes,' in which, with much made, to which I h.ive drawn attention impartiality and erudition, he draws a in a subsequent note, by those despotic line between the theories of Dubos and princes, eager to assume the imperial Montesquieu ; and, upon this particular prerogative over all their subjects, so CHAP. H. ROMAN NATIVES OF GAUL. 281 It seems, however, clear that the Frank landholder, the Franc us inyenuiiSj born to his share, according to old notions, of national sove'reignty, gave indeed his voluntary donation annually to the king, but reckoned himself entirely free from compulsory tribute. We read of no tax imposed by the as- semblies of the Field of March ; and if the kings had pos- sessed the prerogative of levying money at will, the monarchy must have become wholly absolute without opposition. The barbarian was distinguished by his abhorrence of tribute. Tyranny might strip one man of his possessions, banish another from his country, destroy the life of a third ; the rest would at the utmost murmur in silence ; but a general imposition on them as a people was a yoke under which they would not pass without resistance. I shall mention a few instances in a future note. The Roman, on the other hand, complained doubtless of new or unreasonable taxation ; but he could not avoid acknowledging a principle of government to which his forefathers had for so many ages submitted. The house of Clovis stood to him in place of the Caesars ; this part of the theory of Dubos cannot be disputed. But when that writer extends the same to the Frank, as a constitutional position, and not merely referring to acts protested against as illegal, the voice of history refutes him. Dubos has asserted, and is followed by many, that the army of Clovis was composed of but a few thousand Salian Franks. And for this the testimony of Gregory has been adduced, who informs us only that 3,000 jf the army of Clovis (a later writer says 6,000) were baptized with him. (Greg. Tur. lib. ii. c. 33.) But Clovis was not the sole chieftain of his tribe. It has been seen that he enlarged his command towards the close of his life, by violent measures with respect to other kings as independent apparently as himself, and some of whom belonged to his family. Thus the Ripuarian Franks, who occupied the left bank of the Rhine, came under his sway. And besides this, the argument from the number of soldiers baptized with Clovis as-umes that the whole army embraced Christianity with their king. It is true that Greg- ory seems to imply this. But, even in the seventh century the Franks on the Mease and Scheldt were still chiefly pagan, rob them of their national immunity; sonal authority of the soyereign. JHist nil a struggle of the German an*tocra- dea Inst. Meroving. i. 425, et post ) ey ensued, which annihilated the per- 282 ROMAN NATIVES OF GAUL. NOTES TO as the Lives of the Saints are said by Thierry to prove. We have only, it is to be remembered, a declamatory arid super- ficial history for this period, derived, as I believe, from the panegyrical life of St. Remy, and bearing traces of legendary incorrectness and exaggeration. We may, however, appeal to other criteria. It cannot be too frequently inculcated on the reader who desires to form a general but tolerably exact notion of the state of France under the first line of kings, that he is not hastily to draw inferences from one of the three divisions, Austrasia, Neustria, and Aquitaine, to which, for a part of the period, we must add Burgundy, to the rest. The differ- ence of language, though not always decisive, furnishes a pre- sumption of different origin. We may therefore estimate, with some probability, the proportion of Franks settled in the monarchy on the left bank of the Rhine, by the extent of country wherein the Teutonic language is spoken, unless we have reason to suspect that any change in the boundaries of that and the French has since taken place. The Latin was certainly an encroaching language, and its daughter has in some measure partaken of the same character. Many causes are easy to assign why either might have gained ground on two dialects, the German and Flemish, contiguous to it on the eastern frontier, while we can hardly perceive one for an opposite result. We find, nevertheless, that both have very nearly kept their ancient limits. ' It has been proved by M. Raoux, in the Memoirs of the Academy of Brussels (vol. iv. p. 411), that few towns or villages have changed their lan- guage since the ninth century. The French or Walloon fol- lowed in that early age the irregular line which, running from Calais and St. Omer to Lisle and Tournay, stretches north of the Meuse as far as Liege, and, bending thence to the south- westward, passes through Longwy to Metz. These towns speak French, and spoke it under Charlemagne, if we can say that under Charlemagne French was spoken anywhere ; at least they spoke a dialect of Latin origin. The exceptions are few ; but where they exist, it is from the progress of French rather than the contrary. A writer of the sixteenth century says of St. Omer that it was " Olim haud dubie mere Flandricum, deinde tamen bilingue, nunc autem in totuin fere Gallicum." There has also been a slight movement toward French in the last fifty years. CHAP. II. ROMAN NATIVES OF GAUL. 283 The most remarkable evidence for the duration of the limit i=> the act of partition between Lothaire of Lorraine and Charles the Bald, in 870, whence it appears that the names of places where French is now spoken were then French. Yet most of these had been built, especially the abbeys, sub- sequently to the Frank conquest : " d'ou on peut conclure que meme dans le periode franque, le langage vulgaire du grand nombre des habitans du pays, qui sont presentement AVallons, n'etait pas teutonique ; car on en verrait des traces dans les actes historiques et geographiques de ce temps-la." (P. 434.) Nothing, says M. Michelet, can be more French than the Walloon country. (Hist, de France, viii. 287.) He expatiates almost with enthusiasm on the praise of this people, who seem to have retained a large share of his favorite Celtic element. It appears that the result of an investiga- tion into the languages on the Alsatian frontier would be much the same. Here, therefore, we have a very reasonable presumption that the forefathers of the Flemish Belgians, as well as of the people of Alsace, were barbarians : some of the former may be sprung from Saxon colonies planted in Brabant by Charlemagne ; but we may derive the majority from Salian and Ripuarian Franks. These were the strength of Australia, and among these the great restorer, or rather founder, of the empire fixed his capital at Aix-la- Chapelle. - In Aquitaine, on the other hand, everything appears Roman, hi contradistinction to Frank, except the reigning family. The chief difficulty, therefore, concerns Neustria that is, from the Scheldt, or, perhaps, the Somme, to the Loire ; and to this important kingdom the advocates of the two nations, Roman and Frank, lay claim. M. Thierry has paid much attention to the subject, and come to the conclu- sion that, in the seventh century, the number of Frank land holders, from (he Rhine to the Loire, much exceeded that of the Roman. And this excess he takes to have be " ^ in- creased through the seizure of Church lands hi the next age by Charles Martel, who bestowed them on his German troops enlisted beyond the Rhine. The method which Thierry has pursued, in order to ascertain this, is ingenious and presump- tively right. He remarked that the names of places will often indicate whether the inhabitants, or more often the chief proprietor, were of Roman or Teutonic origin. Thus 284 ROMAN NATIVES OF GAUL. NOTES TO Franconville and Romainville, near Paris, are distinguished, in charters of the ninth century, as Francorurn villa and Romanorum. villa. This is an instance where the population seems to have been of different race. But commonly the owner's Christian name is followed by a familiar termination. In that same neighborhood proper names of German origin, with the terminations vitte, court, mont, val, and the like, are very frequent. And this he finds to be generally the case north of the Loire, compared with the left bank of that river. It is, of course, to be understood that this proportion of superior landholders did not extend to the general population. For that, in all Neustrian France, was evidently composed of those who spoke the rustic Roman tongue the corrupt language which, in the tenth or eleventh century, became worthy of the name of French ; and this was the case, as we have just seen, in part of Austrasia, as Champagne and Lorraine. We may, therefore, conclude that the Franks, even in the reign of Clovis, were rather a numerous people including, of course, the Ripuarian as well as the Salian tribe. They certainly appear in great strength soon afterwards. If we believe Procopius, the army which Theodebert, king only of Austrasia, led into Italy in 539, amounted to 100,000. And, admitting the probability of great exaggeration, we could not easily reconcile this with a very low estimate of Frank numbers. But, to say the truth, I do not rely much on this statement. It is, at all events, to be remembered that the dominions of Theodebert, on each side of the Rhine, would furnish barbarian soldiers more easily than those of the western kingdoms. Some may conjecture that the army was partly composed of Romans ; yet it is doubtful whether they served among the Franks at so early a period, though we find them some years afterwards under Chilperic, a Neustrian sovereign. The armies of Aquitaine, it is said, were almost wholly composed of Romans or Goths ; it could not hare been otherwise. The history of Gregory, which terminates in 598, affords numerous instances of Romans in the highest offices, not merely of trust, but of power. Such were Celsus, Arnatus, Mummolus, and afterwards Protadius in Burgundy, and De- siderius in Aquitaine. But in these two parts of the mon- archy we might anticipate a greater influence of the native CHAP. II. K03IAN NATIVES OF GAUL. 285 population. In Neustria and Australia, a Roman count, or mayor of the palace, might have been unfavorably- beheld. Yet in the latter kingdom, all Frank as it was in its general character, we find, even before the middle of the sixth cen- tury, Lupus, duke of Champagne, a man of considerable weight, and a Roman by birth ; and, it was the policy after- wards of Brunehaut to employ Romans. But this not only excited the hostility of the Austrasian Franks, but of the Burgundians themselves ; nor did anything more tend to the ruin of that ambitious woman. Despotism, through its most ready instruments, was her aim ; and, when she signally failed in the attempt, the star of Germany prevailed. From that time, Australia at least, if not Neustria, became a Frank aristocracy. We hear little more of Romans, ecclesiastics excepted, in considerable power. If, indeed, we could agree with Montesquieu and Mably, that a Roman subject might change his law and live by the Salic code at his discretion, his equality with the Franks would have been virtually recognized; since every one might place himself in the condition of the more favored nation. And hence Mably accounts for the prevalence of the Frank jurisprudence in the north of France, since it was more advantageous to adopt it as a personal law. The Roman might become an alodial landholder, a member of the sovereign legislature in the Field of March. His weregild would be raised, and with that his relative situation in the commonwealth ; his lands would be exempt from taxation. But this theory has been latterly rejected. We cannot, indeed, conceive one less consonant to the principles of the barbarian kingdoms, or the general language of the laws. Montesquieu was deceived by a passage in an early capitu- lary, of which the best manuscripts furnish a different read- ing. Mably was pleased with an hypothesis which rendered the basis of the state more democratical. But the first who propagated this error, and on more plausible grounds than Montesquieu, though he (Esprit des Loix, liv. xxviii. c. 4) seems to claim it as a discovery of his own, were Du Cange and Muratori. They were misled by an edict of the em- peror Lothaire I. in 824 : " Volumus ut cunctus populus Romanus intcrrogetur quali lege vult vivere, ut tali, quali pro- fessi fuerint vivere velle, vivant." But Savigny has proved that this was a peculiar exception of favor granted at that time 286 DISTINCTION OF LAWS. NOTES TO to the Romans, or rather separately to each person ; and that not as a privilege of the ancient population, but for the sake of the barbarians who had settled at Rome. Raynouard is one of those who have been deceived by the more obvious meaning of this law, and adopts the notion of Mably on its authority. Were it even to bear such an interpretation, we could not draw a general inference from it. In the case of married women, or of the clergy, the liberty of changing the law of birth was really permitted. (See Savigny, i. 134, et post, Engl. transl.) It should, however, be mentioned, that a late very learned writer, Troja, admits the hypothesis of a change of law in France, not as a right in every Roman's power, but as a special privilege sometimes conceded by the king. And we may think this conjecture not unworthy of regard, since it serves to account for what is rather anomalous the admis- sion of mere Romans, at an early period, to the great offices of the monarchy, and especially to that of count, which in- volved the rank of presiding in the Frank mallus. It is said that Romans sometimes assumed German names, though the contrary never happened ; and this of itself seems to in- dicate a change, as far as was possible, of national connection. But it is of little service to the hypothesis of Montesquieu and Mably. Of the edict of Lothaire Troja thinks likj Savigny ; but he adopts the reading of the capitulary, as quoted by Montesquieu, " Francum, aut barbarum, aut iiominem qui lege Salicd, vivit ; " where the best manuscripts omit the second aut. NOTE V. Page 155. This subject has been fully treated in the celebrated work by Savigny, ' History of Roman Law in the Middle Ages. The diligence and fidelity of this eminent writer have been acknowledged on all sides ; nor has any one been so copious in collecting materials for the history of mediaeval jurispru- dence, or so perspicuous in arranging them. In a few points later inquirers have not always concurred with him. But, with the highest respect for Savigny, we may say, that of the two leading propositions namely, first, the continuance of the Theodosian code, copied into the Breviarium Aniani, as the personal law of the Roman inhabitants, both of France CHAP. H DISTINCTION OF LAWS. 287 and Italy, for several centuries after the subjugation of those countries by the barbarians ; and, secondly, the quotation of the Pandects and other parts of the law of Justinian by some few writers, before the pretended discovery of a manu- script at Amalfi the former has been perfectly well known, as least ever since the publication of the glossary of Ducange in the seventeenth century, and that of Muratori's Disserta- tions on Italian Antiquities in the next ; nor, indeed, could it possibly have been overlooked by any one who had read the barbarian codes, full as they are of reference to those who followed the laws of Rome ; while the second is also proved, though not so abundantly, by several writers of the last age. Guizot, praising Savigny for his truthfulness, and for having shown the permanence of Roman jurisprudence in Europe, well asks how it could ever have been doubted. (Civil, en France, Lepon 11.) A late writer, indeed, has maintained that the Romans did not preserve their law under the Lombards ; elaborately re- pelling the proofs to the contrary, alleged by Muratori and Savigny. (See Troja, Discorso della Condizione del Romani vinti dai Longobardi, subjoined to the fourth volume of his Storia d' Italia.) He does not admit that the inhabitants were treated by the Lombard conquerors as anything better than tributaries or coloni. Even the bishops and clergy were judged according to the Lombard law (vol. v. p. 86). The personal -law did not come in till the conquest of Charle- magne, who established it in Italy. And though later, ac- cording to this writer, in its origin, the distinctions introduced by it subsisted much longer than they did in France. In- stances of persons professing to live by the Lombard law are found very late in the middle ages ; the last is at Bergamo, in 1388. But Bergamo was a city in which the J/ombard population had predominated. (Savigny, vol. i. p. 378.) Whatever may have been the case in Lombardy, the exis- tence of personal law in France is beyond question. It is far more difficult to fix a date for its termination. These national distinctions were indelibly preserved in the south of France by a law of Valentinian III., copied into the Bre- viarium Aniani, which prohibited the intermarriage of Ro- mans with barbarians. This was abolished so far as to legalize such unions, with the permission of the count, by a law of the Visigoths in Spain, between 653 and 672. But 288 DISTINCTION OF lAWS. NOTES TO Mich an enactment could not have been obligatory in France. Whether the Franks ever took Roman wives I cannot say ; we have, as far as I am aware, no instance of it in their royal family. Proofs might, perhaps, be found, with respect to private families, in the Lives of the Saints ; or, if none, presumptions to the contrary. Troja (Storia d'ltalia, p. 1204) says that St. Medard was the offspring of a marriage between a Frank and a Roman mother, before the conquest by Clovis, and that the father lived in the Vermaudois. Savigny observes that the prohibition could only have ex- isted among the Visigoths ; else a woman could not have changed her law by marriage. This, however, seems rather applicable to Italy than to the north of France, where we have no proof of such a regulation. Raynouard, whose con- stant endeavor is to elevate the Roman population, assumes that they would have disdained intermarriage with barba- rians. (Hist, du Droit Municipal, i. 288.) But the only instance which he adduces, strangely enough, is that of a Goth with a Frank ; which, we are informed, was reckoned to disparage the former. It is very likely, nevertheless, that a Frank Antrustion would not have held himself higlily honored by an alliance with either a Goth or a Roman. Each nation had its own pride ; the conqueror in arms and dominion, the conquered in polished manners and ancient renown. " At the beginning of the ninth century," says M. Guizot, " the essential characteristic is that laws are personal and not territorial. At the beginning of the eleventh the reverse prevails, except in a very few instances." (Lecon 25. But can we approximate no nearer? The territorial element, to use that favorite word, seems to show itself in an expression of the edict of Pistes, 864: "In iis regionibus quse legem Romanam sequuntur." (Capit. Car. Calvi.) This must be taken to mean the south of France, where the number of persons who followed any other law may have been incon- siderable, relatively to the rest, so that the name of the dis- trict is used collectively for the inhabitants. (Savigny, i. 1 62.) And this became the pays du droit ecrit, bounded, at least in a loose sense, by the Loire, wherein the Roman was the common law down to the French revolution ; the laws of Justinian, in the progress of learning, having naturally taken place of the Theodosian. But in the sanie capitulary CHAP. II. DISTINCTION OF LAWS. 289 we read, " De illis qui secundum legem Romanam vivunt, nihil aliud nisi quod in iisdem continetur legibu?, definimus. And the king (Charles the Bald) emphatically declares that neither that nor any other capitulary which he or his prede- cessors had made is designed for those who obeyed the Roman law. The fact may be open to some limitation ; but we have here an express recognition of the continuance of the separate races. It seems highly probable that the interference of the bishops, still in a great measure of Roman birth, and, even where otherwise, disposed to favor Roman policy, contributed to protect the ancient inhabitants from a legislature wherein they were not represented. And this strongly corroborates the probability that the Romans had never partaken of the legislative power in the national assemblies. In the middle of the tenth century, however, according to Sismondi, the distinction of races was lost ; none were Goths, or Romans, or even Franks, but Aquitanians, Bur- gundians, Flemings. French had become the language of the nation (iii. 400). French must here be understood to include Provenfal, and to be used in opposition to Ger- man. In this sense the assertion seems to be nearly true ; and it may naturally have been the consequence that all difference of personal laws had come to an end. The feudal customs, the local usages of counties and fiefs, took as much the lead in northern France as the Roman code still pre- served in the" south. The pays coutumiers separated them- selves by territorial distinctions from the pays du droit. 1 Still the instance quoted in my note, p. 134, from Vaissette (where, at Carcassonne, so late as 918, we find Roman, Goth, and Frank judges enumerated), is a striking evidence 8 PEKSONAL COMMENDATION. NOTES TO were so situated that he was able to defend them. Nothing ;an better explain the principle which riveted the feudal yoke upon alodialists. (Hist, du Droit Municipal, ii. 261.) In my text, though M. Guizot has done me the honor to say, "M. Montlosier et M. Hallam en ont mieux demele Ja nature et les causes," the subject is not sufficiently disen- tangled, and the territorial character which commendation ultimately assumed is too much separated from the personal. The latter preceded even the conquest of Gaul, both among the barbarian invaders themselves and the provincial sub- jects, 1 and was a sort of clientela ; 2 but the former deserves also the name of commendation, though the Franks had a word of their own to express it. We find in Marculfus the form by which the king took an ecclesiastical person, with his property and followers, under his own mundeburde, or safeguard. (Lib. i. c. 44.) This was equivalent to com- mendation, or rather another word for it ; except as one rather expresses the act of the tenant, the other that of the lord. Letters of safeguard were not by any means confined to the church. They were frequent as long as the crown had any power to protect, and revived again in the decline of the feudal system. Nor were they limited to the crown ; we have the form by which the poor might place themselves un- der the mundeburde of the rich, still being free, " ingenuili ordine servientes." Formulae Veteres Bignonii, c. 44 ; vide Naudet, ubi supra. They were then even sometimes called, as the latter supposes, lidi or liti, so that a freeman, even of 1 M. Lehuerou has gone very deeply plication of the origin of feudal polity, Into the mundium, or personal safeguard, which was in no degree of a domestic by which the inferior class among the character. The utmost they can allow Germans were commended to a lord, and is, that territorial jurisdiction was ex- placed under his prot^tion, in return tended to feudal vassals, by analogy to for their own fidelity and service. (Insti- that which the patron, or chief of the tutions Carolingiennes, liv. i. ch. i. 2.) mundium, had exercised over those who It is a subject, as he conceives, of the recognized him as protector, as well as highest importance in these inquiries, over his family and servants. There is being, in fact, the real origin of the nevertheless, perhaps, a larger basis of feudal polity afterwards established in truth in M. Lehuerou's system than they Europe ; though, from the circumstances admit, though I do not conceive it to of ancient Germany, it was f necessity explain the whole feudal system. a personal and not a territorial vassalage. 2 Gamier has happily adduced a very It fell in very naturally with the similar ancient authority for this use of th principle of commendation existing in word, the Roman empire. This bold and orig- inal theory, however, has not been ad- Thais patri se commendavit ; in client*- uiitted by his contemporary antiquaries. lam et fidem M. Giraud and M. Mignet (Seances et Nobis dedit se. Ter. Eun., Act 6- Travaus de 1'Academie des Sciences Mo- rales et Politiques. pour Novembre, 1843), Origine du Gouvernement Prancais (in specially the latter, dissent from this ex- Leber ii. 194). CHAP. II. PERSONAL COMMENDATION. 309 the higher class might, at his option, fall, for the sake of protection, into an inferior position. I have no hesitation in agreeing with Guizot that the conversion of alodial into feudal property was nothing more than an extension of the old commendation. It was not necessary that there should be an express surrender and regrant of the land; the acknowledgment of seigniory by the commendatus would supply the place. M. Naudet (Nouv. Mem. de 1'Acad. des Inscrip. vol. viii.) accumulates proofs of commendation ; it is surprising that so little was said of it by the earlier antiquaries. One of his instances deserves to be mentioned. " Isti homines," says a writer of Charlemagne's age, " fuerunt liberi et ingenui ; sed quod militiam regis non valebant exercere, tradiderunt alodos suos sancto Germano." 1 (P. 567.) We may perhaps infer from this that the tenants of the church were not bound to military service. " No general law," says M. Guizot (Col- lect, de Mem. i. 419), "exempted them from it; but the clergy endeavored constantly to secure such an immunity, either by grant or by custom, which was one cause that their tenants were better off than those of laymen." The differ- ence was indeed most important, and must have prodigiously enhanced the wealth of the church. But after the feudal polity became established we do not find that there was any dispensation- for ecclesiastical fiefs. The advantage of their tenants lay in the comparatively pacific character of their spiritual lords. It may be added that, from many passages in the laws of the Saxons, Alemanns, and Bavarians, all the " commendati " appear to have been denominated vassals, whether they possessed benefices or not. That word after- wards implied a more strictly territorial limitation. Thus then let the reader keep hi mind that the feudal system, as it is commonly called, was the general establish- ment of a peculiar relation between the sovereign (not as king, but as lord) and his immediate vassals ; between these again and others standing to them in the same relation of vassalage, and thus frequently through several links in the chain of tenancy. If this relation, and especially if the lat- ter and essential element, subinfeudation, is not to be found, there is no feudal system, though there may be analogies to i It will be remarked that liberi and ingenui appear here to be distinguished: " not only free, but gentlemen " 3LO PERSONAL COMMENDATION. NOTES TO it, more or less remarkable or strict. But if he asks what were the immediate causes of establishing this polity, we must refer him to three alone to the grants of beneficiary lands to the vassal and his heirs, without which there could hardly be subinfeudation ; to the analogous grants of official honors, particularly that of count or governor of a district; and, lastly, to the voluntary conversion of alodial into feudal tenure, through free landholders submitting their persons and estates, by way of commendation, to a neighboring lord or to the count of a district. All these, though several instan- ces, especially of the first, occurred much earlier, belong generally to the ninth century, and may be supposed to have been fully accomplished about the beginning of the tenth to which period, therefore, and not to an earlier one, we refer the feudal system in France. We say hi France, because our attention has been chiefly directed to that kingdom ; in none was it of earlier origin, but in some it cannot be traced so high. An hereditary benefice was strictly a fief, at least if we presume it to have implied military service ; hereditary gov- ernments were not : something more, therefore, was required to assimilate these, which were far larger and more impor- tant than donations of land. And, perhaps, it was only by degrees that the great chiefs, especially in the south, who, in the decay of the Caroline race, established their patri- monial rule over extensive regions, condescended to swear fealty, and put on the condition of vassals dependent on the crown. Such, at least, is the opinion of some modern French writers, who seem to deny all subjection during the evening of the second and dawn of the third race. But if they did not repair to Paris or Laon in order to swear fealty, they kept the name of the reigning king in their charters. The hereditary benefices of the ninth century, or, in other words, fiefs, preserved the nominal tie, and kept France from utter dissolution. They deserve also the greater praise of having been the means of regenerating the national char- acter, and giving its warlike bearing to the French people ; not, indeed, as yet collectively, but in its separate centres of force, after the pusillanimous reign of Charles the Bald. They produced much evil and misery ; but it is reasonable to believe that they prevented more. France was too ex- tensive a kingdom to be governed by a central administra CHAP. II. FRENCH NOBILITY. 311 tion, unless Charlemagne had possessed the gift of propagat- ing a race of Alfreds and Edwards, instead of Louis the Stammerers and Charles the Balds. Her temporary dis- integration by the feudal system was a necessary conse- quence ; without that system there would have been a final dissolution of the monarchy, and perhaps its conquest by barbarians. NOTE XH. Page 192. M. Thierry, whose writings display so much antipathy to the old nobility of his country that they ought not to be fully trusted on such a subject, observes that the Franks were more haughty towards their subjects than any other barbarians, as is shown in the difference of weregild. From them this spirit passed to the French nobles of the middle ages, though they were not all of Frank descent. " L'exces d'orgueil attache a longtemps au nom de gentilhomme est no* en France ; son foyer, comme celui de Torganization feodale, fut la Gaule du Centre et du Nord, et peut-etre aussi 1'Italie Lombarde. C'est de la qu'il s'est propage dans les pays Germaniques, ou la noblesse anterieurement se distinguait peu de la simple condition d'homme libre. Ce mouvement crea, par-tout ou il s'etendit, deux populations, et comme deux nations, proprement distinctes." (Recits des Temps Merovingiens, i. 250.) The feudal principle was essentially aristocratic, and tend- ed to enhance every unsocial and unchristian sentiment involved in the exclusive respect for birth. It had, of course, its countervailing virtues, which writers of M. Thier- ry's school do not enough remember. But a rural aris- tocracy in the meridian of feudal usages was insulated in the midst of the other classes of society far more than could ever happen in cities, or in any period of an advanced civilization. " Never," says Guizot, " had the primary social molecule been so separated from other similar molecules ; never had the distance been so great between the simple and essential elements of society." The chatelain, amidst his machicolated battlements and massive gates with their iron portcullis, received the vavassor, though as an inferior, at his board ; but to the roturier no feudal board was open ; the owner of a " terre censive," the opulent burgess of a 312 FRENCH NOBILITY. NOTES TO neighboring town, was as little admitted to the banquet of the lord as he was allowed to unite himself in marriage to his family. " Nee Deus hunc mensa, Dea nee dignata cubili esi." Pilgrims, indeed, and travelling merchants, may, if we trust romance, have been always excepted. Although, therefore, some of Guizot's phrases seem overcharged, since there was, in fact, more necessary intercourse between the different classes than they intimate, yet that of a voluntary nature, and what we peculiarly call social, was very limited. Nor is this surprising when we recollect that it has been so till comparatively a recent period. Guizot has copied a picturesque description of a feudal castle in the fourteenth century from Monteil's " Histoir des Franfais des divers Etats aux cinq derniers Siecles." It is one of the happiest passages in that writer, hardly more distinguished by his vast reading than by his skill in com- bining and applying it, though sometimes bordering on tediousness by the profuse expenditure of his commonplace- books on the reader. " Representez vous d'abord une position superbe, une montagne escarpee, herissee de rochers, sillonee de ravins et de precipices ; sur le penchant est le chateau. Les petites maisons qui 1'entourent enfbnt ressortir la grandeur ; 1'Imlre semble s'ecarter avec respect ; elle fait un large demi-cercle a ses pieds. " II faut voir ce chateau lorsqu'au soleil levant ses gale lies exterieures reluisent des armures de ceux qui font le guet, et que ses tours se montrent toutes brillantes de leurs grandes grilles neuves. II faut voir tous ces hauts bailments qui remplissent de courage eeux qui les defeudent, et de frayeur ceux qui seraient tentes de les attaquer. " La porte se presente toute couverte de tetes de sang- liers ou de loups, flanquee de tourelles et com*onnee d' in haut corps de garde. Entrez-vous? trois encientes, trois fosses, trois pont-levis a passer ; vous vous trouverez dans la grande cour carree ou sont les citernes, et a droite ou a gauche les ecuries, les poulaillers, les colombiers, les remises. Les caves, les souterrains, les prisons sont par dessous ; par dessus sont les logements, les magasins, les lardoirs ou saloirs, les arsenaux. Tous les combles sont hordes des machicoulis, CHAP. II. FREEMEN. 313 des parapets, des chemins le ronde, des guerites. Au milieu de la tour est le donjon, qui renferme les archives et le tresor. II est profondement fossoye dans tout son pourtour, et on n'y entre que par un pont presque toujours leve* ; bien que les murailles aient, comme celles du chateau, plus de six pieds d'epaisseur, il est revetu jusqu'a la moitie de sa hauteur, d'une chemise, ou second mur, en grosses pierres de taille. " Ce chateau vient d'etre refait a neuf. II y a quelque chose de leger, de frais, que n'avaient pas les chateaux lourds et massifs des siecles passes." (Civilis. en France, Le9on 35.) And this was true ; for the castles of the tenth and eleventh centuries wanted all that the progress of luxury and the cessation, or nearly such, of private warfare had in- troduced before the age to which this description refers ; they were strongholds, and nothing more ; dark, small, com- fortless, where one thought alone could tend to dispel their gloom, that life and honor, and what was most valuable in goods, were more secure in them than in the champaign around. NOTE XIII. Page 196. M. Guizot has declared it to be the most difficult of ques- tions relating to the state of persons in the period from the fifth to the tenth century, whether there existed in the coun- tries subdued by the Germans, and especially by the Franks, a numerous and important class of freemen, not vassal?. either of the king or any other proprietor, nor any way de- pendent upon them, and with no obligation except towards the state, its laws and magistrates. (Essais sur 1'Hist. de France, p. 232.) And this question, contrary to almost all his predecessors, he inclines to decide negatively. It is, indeed, evident, and is confessed by M. Guizot, that in the ages nearest to the conquest such a class not only existed, but even comprised a large part of the nation. Such were the owners of sortes or of terra Salica, the alodialists of the early period. It is also agreed, as has been shown in another place, that, towards the tenth centiiry, the number of these independent landholders was exceedingly dimin- ished by territorial commendation ; that is, the subjection of their lands to a feudal tenure. The last of these changes 314 FREEMEN. NOTES TO however, cannot have become general under Charlemagne, on account of the numerous capitularies which distinguish those who held lauds of their own, or alodia, from beneficiary tenants. The former, therefore, must still have b'sen a large and important class. What proportion they bore to the whole nation at that or any other era it seems impossi- ble to pronounce ; and equally so to what extent the whole usage of personal commendation, contradistinguished from territorial, may have reached. Still alodial lands, as has been observed, were always very common in the south of France, to which Flanders might be added. The strength of the feudal tenures, as Thierry remarks, was between the Somme and the Loire. (Recits des T. M. i. 245.) These alodial proprietors were evidently freemen. In the law of France alodial lands were always noble, like fiefs, till the reformation of the Coutume de Paris in 1580, when "aleux roturiers" were for the first tune recognized. I owe this fact, which appears to throw some light on the subject of this note, to Laferriere, Hist, du Droit Franjais, p. 129. But, perhaps, this was not the case in Flanders, which was an alodial country : " La maxime fran^aise, nulle terre sans seigneur, n'avait point lieu dans les Pays-Bas. On s'en tenait au principe de la liberte naturelle des biens, et par suite a la necessite d'en prouver la sujetion ou la servitude ; aussi les biens allodiaux etaient tres nombreux, et rappe- laient toujours 1'esprit de liberte que les Beiges ont aime et conserve tant a 1'egard de leurs biens que de leurs person- nes." (Mem. de 1'Acad. de Bruxelles, vol. iii. p. 16.) It bears on this, that in all the customary law of the Nether- lands no preference was given to sex or primogeniture in succession (p. 21). But there were many other freemen in France, even in the tenth century, if we do not insist on the absolute and insulated independence which Guizot requires. "If we must understand," says M. Guerard (Cartulaire de Chartres, p. 34), " by freemen those who enjoyed a liberty without re- striction, that is, who, owing no duties or service to any one, could go and settle wherever they pleased they would not be found very numerous in our chartulary during the pure feudal regimen. But if, as we should, we comprehend under this name whoever is neither a noble nor a serf, the number of people in this intermediate condition was very consid- CHAP. H. COLONI. 315 erable." And of these he specifies several varieties. This was in the eleventh century, and partly later, when the con- version of alodial property had been completed. Savigny was the first who proved the Arimanni of Lom- bardy to have been freemen, corresponding to the Rachim burgii of the Franks, and distinguished both from bondmen and from those to whom they owed obedience. Citizens are sometimes called Arimanni. The word occurs, though very rarely, out of Italy. (Vol. i. p. 176, English translation.) Guizot includes among the Arimanni the leudes or benefi- ciary vassals. See, too, Troja, v. 146, 148. There seems, indeed, no reason to doubt that vassals, and other commen- datij would be counted as Arimanni. Neither feudal tenure iior personal commendation could possibly derogate from a free and honorable status. NOTE XIV. Page 197. These names, though in a general sense occupying simi- lar positions in the social scale, denote different persons. The coloni were Romans, in the sense of the word then usual ; that is, they were the cultivators of land under the empire, of whom we find abundant notice both in the Theo- dosian Code and that of Justinian. 1 An early instance of this use of the word occurs in the Historiae Augustas Scrip- tores. TrebeHius Pollio says, after the great victory of Claudius over the Goths, where an immense number of pris- oners was taken " Factus miles barbarus ac colonus ex Gotho ; " an expression not clear, and which perplexed Salma- sius. But it may perhaps be rendered, the barbarians partly entered the legions, partly cultivated the ground, in the rank of coloni. It is thus understood by Troja (ii. 705). He con- ceives that a large proportion of the coloni, mentioned under the Christian emperors, were barbarian settlers (iii. 1074). They came in the place of pnedial slaves, who, though not wholly unknown, grew less common after the establishment of Christianity. The Roman colonus was free ; he could marry a free woman, and have legitimate children ; he could serve in the army, and was capable of property ; his peculium, unlike that of the absolute slave, could not be touched by i See Cod. Theod. 1. v. tit. 9, with the copious Paratitlon of Gothofred. Ccd. Just si tit 47 et alibi 316 TRIBUTARII, LIDI. NOTES TO Iris master. Nor could his fixed rent or duty be enhanced. He could even sue his master for any crime committed with respect to him, or for undue exaction. He was attached, on the other hand, to the soil, and might in certain cases re- ceive corporal punishment. (Troja, iii. 1072.) He paid a capitation tax or census to the state, the frequent enhance- ment of which contributed to that decline of the agricultural population which preceded the barbarian conquest. Guizot, in whose thirty-seventh lecture on the Civilization of France the subject is well treated, derives the origin of this state of society from that of Gaul before the Roman conquest. But since we find it in the whole empire, as is shown by many laws in the Code of Justinian, we may look on it perhaps rather as a modification of ancient slavery, unless we sup- pose all the coloni, in this latter sense of the word, 1 to have been originally barbarians, who had received lands on con- dition of remaining on them. But this, however frequent, seems a basis not quite wide enough for so extensive a ten- ure. Nor need we believe that the coloni were always raised from slavery ; they might have descended into their own order, as well as risen to it. It appears by a passage in Salvian, about the middle of the fifth century, that many freemen had been compelled to fall into this condition ; which confirms, by analogy, the supposition above mentioned of M. Naudet, as to a similar degradation of a part of the Franks themselves after the conquest. It was an inferior species of commendation or vassalage, or, more strictly, an analogous result of the state of society. The forms of Marculfus, and all the documents of the following ages, furnish abundant proofs of the continuance of the coloni in this middle state between entire freedom and servitude. And these were doubtless reckoned among the " tributarii " of the Salic law, whose composition was fixed at forty-five solidi ; for a slave had no composition due to his kindred ; he was his master's chattel, and to be paid for as such. But the tributary was not necessarily a colonus. All who possessed no lands were subjected by the imperial fisc to a personal capitation. And it has appeared to us that the Romans in Gaul continued regularly to pay this under the house of Clovis. To these Roman tributaries the barbarian 1 The nolonus of Catp and other classical authors was a free tenant or farmer, a* has been already mentioned. CHAP. n. VILLEIXAGE. 317 lidi seem nearly to have corresponded. This was a class, as has been already said, not quite freebom ; so that u Francus ingenuus " was no tautology, as some have fancied, yet far from slaves ; without political privileges or rights of adminis- tering justice in the county court, like the Rachimburgii, and so little favored, that, while the Frank accused of a theft, that is, I presume, taken in the fact, was to be brought before his peers, the lidus, under the name of " debilior persona," which probably included the Roman tributary, was to be hanged on the spot. Throughout the Salic and Ripuarian codes the ingenuus is opposed both to the lidus and to the servus ; so that the threefold division is incontestable. It corresponds in a certain degree to the edelingi, frilingi, and lazzi, or the eorl, ceorl, and thrall of the northern nations (Grimm, Deut- sche Rechts Alterthiimer, p. 306 et alibi) ; though we do not find a strict proportion in the social state of the second order in every country. The "coloni partiarii," frequently men- tioned in the Theodosian Code, were metayers ; and M Guerard says that lands were chiefly held by such in the age of Charlemagne and his family. (Cart, de Chartres, i. 109.) The demesne lands of the manor, however, were never occu- pied by coloni, but by serfs or domestic slaves. NOTE XV. Page 198. The poor early felt the necessity of selling themselves foi subsistence in times of famine. " Subdiderunt se pauperes servitio," says Gregory of Tours, A.D. 585, " ut quantulum- cunque de alimento porrigerent." (Lib. vii. c. 45.) This long continued to be the practice ; and probably the remark- able number of famines which are recorded, especially in the ninth and eleventh centuries, swelled the sad list of those unhappy poor who were reduced to barter liberty for bread. Mr. Wright, in the thirtieth volume of the Archseologia (p. 223), ha? extracted an entry from an Anglo-Saxon manu- script, where a lady, about the time of the Conquest, manu- mits some slaves, ' whose heads." as it is simply and forcibly expressed, " she had taken for their meat in the evil days." Evil indeed were those days in France, when out of seventy three years, the reigns of Hugh Capet and his two successors, forty-eight were years of famine. Evil were the days for five years from 1015, in the whole western world, when not a 318 VILLEINAGE. NOTES T, one employed in general administration of af- fairs. 350 ROBERT GUISCARD. CHAP. III. PART I In small bodies, well armed on account of the lawless charac- ter of the countries through which they passed, the Norman pilgrims visited the shrines of Italy and even the Holy Land. Some of these, very early in the eleventh century, were en- gaged by a Lombard prince of Salerno against the Saracens, who had invaded his territory ; and through that superiority of valor, and perhaps of corporal strength, which this singular people seem to have possessed above all other Europeans, they made surprising havoc among the enemy. 1 This ex- ploit led to fresh engagements, and these engagements drew new adventurers from Normandy ; they founded the little city of Aversa, near Capua, and were employed by the Greeks against the Saracens of Sicily. But, though perform- ing splendid services in this war, they were ill repaid by their ungrateful employers ; and being by no means of a tem- per to bear with injury, they revenged themselves by a sud- A D. 1042. ^ en i nvas i n f Apulia. This province was speedi- Conquests ly subdued, and divided among twelve Norman Oulscard! counts ; but soon afterwards Robert Guiscard, one of twelve brothers, many of whom were renowned A.D. 1057. . ., J . , .. in these Italian wars, acquired the sovereignty ; and, adding Calabria to his conquests, put an end to the long dominion of the Eastern emperors in Italy. 2 He reduced the principalities of Salerno and Benevento, in the latter in- stance sharing the spoil with the pope, who took the city to himself, while Robert retained the territory. His conquests in Greece, which he invaded with the magnificent design of overthrowing the Eastern empire, were at least equally splendid, though less durable. Roger, his younger brother, undertook meanwhile the romantic enter- prise, as it appeared, of conquering the island of Sicily with a small body of Norman volunteers. But the Saracens were broken into petty states, and discouraged by the bad success of their brethren in Spain and Sardinia. After many years of war Roger became sole master of Sicily, and took the title of Count. The son of this prince, upon the extinction of Robert Guiscard's posterity, united the two Norman sover- 1 Giannone. t. ii. p. 7 [edit. 1753]. I * The final blow was given to the Greek should observe that St. Marc, a more domination over Italy by the capture of critical writer in examination of facts Bari in 1071. after a siege of four years than Giannone, treats this first adventure It had for some time been confined to of the Normans as unauthenticated. this single city. Huratori, St. Marc. Abrege Chronologique, p. 990. ITALY. PROGRESS OF THE LOMBARD CITIES. Sol eignties, and, subjugating the free republics of Naples and Amain", and the principality of Capua, A " established a boundary which has hardly been changed since his time. 1 The first successes of these Norman leaders were viewed unfavorably by the popes. Leo IX. marched in p , in . person against Robert GuLscard with an army of vestitures German mercenaries, but was beaten and made of prisoner in this unwise enterprise, the 'eandal of which noth- ing but good fortune could have lightened. He fell, however, into the hands of a devout people, who implored his absolu- tion for the crime of defending themselves ; and, whether through gratitude, or as the price of his liberation, invested them with their recent conquests in Apulia, as fiefs of the Holy See. This investiture was repeated and enlarged as the popes, especially in their contention with Henry IV. and Henry V., found the advantage of using the Normans as faithful auxiliaries. Finally, Innocent II., in 1139, conferred upon Roger the title of King of Sicily. It is difficult to understand by what pretence these countries could be claimed by the see of Rome in sovereignty, unless by virtue of the pre- tended donation of Constantine, or that of Louis the Debonair, which is hardly less suspicious ; 2 and least of all how Inno- cent II. could surrender the liberties of the city of Naples, whether that was considered as an independent republic, or as a portion of the Greek empire. But the Normans, who had no title but their swords, were naturally glad to give an appearance of legitimacy to their conquest; and the kingdom of Naples, even in the hands of the most powerful princes in Europe, never ceased to pay a feudal acknowledgment to the chair of St. Peter. The revolutions which time brought forth on the opposite side of Italy were still more interesting. Under Pro . JTegg of the Lombard and French princes every city with theLoin- its adjacent district was subject to the govern- to ment and jurisdiction of a count, who was himself subor- 1 M. SLsmondi has excelled himself in the interpolated, if not spurious, grante describing the conquest of Amalfi and of Louis the Debonair, Otho I., and Naples by Roger Guiscard (t. i. c. 4); Henry II. to the see of Rome, were pro warming his imagination with visions of mulgated about the time of the first con- liberty and virtue in those obscure re- cessions to the Xormaiig. in order to givo publics, which no real history survives the popes a colorable pretext to dispose to disptl. of the southern provinces ol Italy. A. 2 Muratori presumes to suppose that 1059. 352 PROGRESS OF THE . CHAP. HI. PART 1 dinate to the duke or marquis of the province. From these counties it was the practice of the first German emperors to dismember particular towns or tracts of country, grant- ing them upon a feudal tenure to rural lords, by many of whom also the same title was assumed.' Thus by degrees the authority of the original officers was confined almost to the walls of their own cities ; and in many cases the bishops obtained a grant of the temporal government, and exercised the functions which had belonged to the count. 1 It is impossible to ascertain the time at which the cities of Lombardy began to assume a republican form of government, or to trace with precision the gradations of their progress. The last historian of Italy asserts that Otho the First erected them into municipal communities, and permitted the election of their magistrates ; but of this he produces no evidence ; and Muratori, from whose authority it is rash to depart with- out strong reasons, is not only silent about any charters, but discovers no express unequivocal testimonies of a popular government for the whole eleventh century. 2 The first ap- pearance of the citizens acting for themselves is in a tumult at Milan in 991, when the archbishop was expelled from the city. 8 But this was a transitory ebullition, and we must de- scend lower for more specific proofs. It is possible that the disputed succession of Ardoin and Henry, at the beginning of the eleventh age, and the kind of interregnum which then took place, gave the inhabitants an opportunity of choosing magistrates and of sharing in public deliberations. A similar relaxation indeed of government in France had exposed the people to greater servitude, and established a feudal aristoc- racy. But the feudal tenures seem not to have produced in Italy that systematic and regular subordination which existed in France during the same period ; nor were the mutual duties of the relation between lord and vassal so well under- stood or observed. Hence we find not only disputes, but actual civil war, between the lesser gentry or vavassors, and the higher nobility, their immediate superiors. These differ- ences were adjusted by Conrad the Salic, who published a remarkable edict in 1037, by which the feudal law of Italy was reduced to more certainty. 4 From this disunion among 1 Muratori, Antiquit. Italiae, Dissert. 8 ; * Sismondi, t. i. p. 97, 384 ; Muratori Annali d'ttalia, A.B. 989; Anticluta Ks- Dissert. 49. tonsi, p 26. 3 Muratori, Annali d'ltalia. * Aluruturi, Auuali d'ltalia. St Marc. ITALY. LOMBARD CITIES. 353 the members of the feudal confederacy, it was more easy for the citizens to render themselves secure against its dominion. The cities too of Lombardy were far more populous and better defended than those of France; they had learned to stand sieges in the Hungarian invasions of the tenth century, and had acquired the right of protecting themselves by strong fortifications. Those which had been placed under the tem- poral government of their bishops had peculiar advantages in struggling for emancipation. 1 This circumstance in the state of Lombardy I consider as highly important towards explain- ing the subsequent revolution. Notwithstanding several ex ceptions, a churchman was less likely to be bold and active in command than a soldier; and the sort of election which was always necessary, and sometimes more than nominal, on a vacancy of the see, kept up among the citizens a notion that the authority of their bishop and chief magistrate ema- nated in some degree from themselves. In many instances, especially in the church of Milan, the earliest perhaps, and certainly the most famous of Lombard republics, there occurred a disputed election ; two, or even three, competitors claimed the archiepiscopal functions, and were compelled, in the ab- sence of the emperors, to obtain the exercise of them by means of their own faction among the citizens. 2 1 The bishops seem to have become others, the Piedmontese cities are hardly counts, or temporal governors, of their to be reckoned among the republics of Bees, about the end of the tenth, or be Lombardy. Denina, Istoria dell' Italia fore the middle of the eleventh century. Occident-lie, t. i. p. 191. Muratori, Diss. 8 ; Denina. 1. ix. c. 11 ; - Muratori, A.D. 1345. Sometimes the St. Marc. A.D. 1041, 1047, 1070. In Ar- inhabitants of a city refused to acknowl- nulf s History of Milan, written before edge a bishop named by the emperor, as the close of the latter age, we have a con- happened at Pavia and Asti about 1057. temporary evidence. And from the peru- Aruulf, p. 22. This was, in other words, sal of that work I should infer that the setting up themselves as republics. But archbishop was, in the middle of the the most remarkable instance of this eleventh century, the chief magistrate of kind occurred in 1070, when the Milanese the city. But, at the same time, it ap- absolutely rejected Godfrey, appointed pears highly probable that an assembly by Henry IV., and, after a resistance of of the citizens, or at least a part of the several years, obliged the emperor to fix ijtizeus, partook in the administration upon another person. The city had beeu of public affairs. Muratori, Scriptores previously involved in long and violent Keruiu Italicarum, t. iv. p. 16, 22,23, tumults, which, though rather belonging and particularly the last. In most cities to ecclesiastical than civil history, as they to the eastward of the Tesino, the bishops arose out of the endeavors made to re- lost their temporal authority in the form the conduct and enforce the celibacy twelfth century, though the archbishop of the clergy, had a considerable tendency of Milan had no small prerogatives while to diminish the archbishop's authority, that city was governed as a republic, and to give a republican character to the But in Piedmont they continued longer inhabitants. These proceedings are told in the enjoyment of power. Vejcelli, at great length by St. Marc, t. iii. A.D. and even Turin, were almost subject to 1056-1077. Aruulf and Landiilf are the their respective prelates till the tliir- original sources, toeuth century. For this reason, aiuonjc t ;>i, i \t 23 354 PROGRESS OF THE LOMBARD CITIES. CHAP. HI. PART L These were the general causes which, operating at various times during the eleventh century, seem gradually to have produced a republican form of government in the Italian cit- ies. But this part of history is very obscure. The archives of all cities before the reign of Frederic Babarossa have per- ished. For many years there is a great deficiency of con- temporary Lombard historians ; and those of a later age, who endeavored to search into the antiquities of their country have found only some barren and insulated events to record. We perceive, however, throughout the eleventh century, that the cities were continually in warfare with each other. This, indeed, was according to the manners of that age, and no inference can absolutely be drawn from it as to their internal freedom. But it is observable that their chronicles speak, in recording these transactions, of the people, and not of their leaders, which is the true republican tone of history. Thus, in the Annals of Pisa, we read, under the years 1002 and 1004, of victories gained by the Pisans over the people of Lucca ; in 1006, that the Pisans and Genoese conquered Sardinia. 1 These annals, indeed, are not by a contemporary writer, nor perhaps of much authority. But we have an original account of a war that broke out in 1057, between Pavia and Milan, in which the citizens are said to have raised armies, made al- liances, hired foreign troops, and in every respect acted like independent states. 2 There was, in fact, no power left in the empire to control them. The two Henrys IV. and V. were so much embarrassed during the quarrel concerning investi- tures, and the continual troubles of Germany, that they were less likely to interfere with the rising freedom of the Italian cities, than to purchase their assistance by large concessions. Henry IV. granted a charter to Pisa in 1081, full of the most important privileges, promising even not to name any mar- quis of Tuscany without the people's consent ; 8 and it is possi ble that, although the instruments have perished, other places might obtain similar advantages. However this may be, it is certain that before the death of Henry V., in 1125, almost all iMurat. Diss. 45. Arnulfus, the his- That of Landulphus corroborates this torian of Milan, makes no mention of supposition, which indeed is capable of any temporal counts, which seems to be proof as to Milan and several other cities a proof that there were none in any in which the temporal government had authority. He speaks always of Mediola- been legally vested in the bishops, nenses, Papienses, Ravenates, &c. This 2 Mur.t. Diss. 45; Arnull. Hist. Mtiiio- history was written about 1085, but re- Ian. p. 22. latos to the earlier part of that century. 3 Mural. Dissert. 45 ITALY. LOMBARD ACQUISITIONS. 335 the cities of Lombardy, and many among those of Tuscany, were accustomed to elect their own magistrates, and to act as independent communities in waging war and in domestic gov- ernment. 1 The territory subjected originally to the count or bishop of these cities, had been reduced, as I mentioned Tneirac _ above, by numerous concessions to the rural nobility, quisitious of But tiie new republics, deeming themselves entitled to all which their former governors had once possessed, began to attack their nearest neighbors, and to recover the sov- ereignty of all their ancient territory. They besieged the castles of the rural counts, and successively reduced them into subjection. They suppressed some minor communities, which had been formed in imitation of themselves by little towns belonging to their district. Sometimes they purchased feudal superiorities or territorial jurisdictions, and, according to a policy not unusual with the stronger party, converted the rights of property into those of government. 2 Hence, at the middle of the twelfth century, we are assured by a contempo- rary writer that hardly any nobleman could be found, except the marquis of Montferrat, who had not submitted to some city. 8 We may except, also, I should presume, the families of Este and Malaspina, AS well as that of Savoy. Muratori produces many charters of mutual compact between the nobles and the neighboring cities ; whereof one invariable ar- ticle is, that the former should reside within the walls a cer- tain number of months in the year. 4 The rural nobility, thus deprived of the independence which had endeared their cas- tles, imbibed a new ambition of directing the municipal gov- ernment of the cities, which consequently, during this period of the republics, fell chiefly into the hands of the superior families. It was the sagacious policy of the Lombards to invite settlers by throwing open to them the privileges of citi- zenship, and sometimes they even bestowed them by compul- sion. Sometimes a city, imitating the wisdom of ancient Rome, granted these privileges to all the inhabitants of 1 Murat. Annali d'ltal. A.D. 1107. zaone, e 1' altro d' un' altra Itenina, 1 2 II dominio utile delle citta e de' vil- xii. c. 3. This produced a vast intricacy ^aggi era talvolta diviso fra due o piii pa- of titles, which was of course advanta droni, ossia che i' assegnassero a ciascuuo geous to those who wanted a pretext foi diversi quartieri, o si dividessoro i pro- robbing their neighbors. venti della gabeile, ovvero che 1'uno sig- 3 Otho 1'risingens. 1. ii c. 13 uore godesse d'uua spe/.ie dolla jjiuri.sdi- * Murat. Diss. 49 S56 THEIR MUTUAL ANIMOSITIES. CHAP. III. PART I another. 1 Thus, the principal cities, and especially Milan, reached, before the middle of the twelfth century, a degree of population very far beyond that of the capitals of the great kingdoms. Within their strong walls and deep trenches, and in the midst of their well-peopled streets, the industrious dwelt secure from the license of armed pillagers and the op- pression of feudal tyrants. Artisans, whom the military landholders contemned, acquired and deserved the right of bearing arms for their own and the public defence. 2 Their occupations became liberal, because they were the foundation of their political franchises ; the citizens were classed in com- panies according to their respective crafts, each of which had its tribune or standardbearer (gonfalonier), at whose com- mand, when any tumult arose or enemy threatened, they rushed in arms to muster in the market-place. But, unhappily, we cannot extend the sympathy which in- Their stitutions so full of liberty create to the national mutual conduct of these little republics. Their love of animosities. f ree( j om was a il O y e( j by that restless spirit, from which a democracy is seldom exempt, of tyrannizing over weaker neighbors. They played over again the tragedy of ancient Greece, with all its circumstances of inveterate hatred, unjust ambition, and atrocious retaliation, though with less consummate actors upon the scene. Among all the Lombard cities, Milan was the most conspicuous, as well for power and population as for the abuse of those resources by arbitrary and ambitious conduct. Thus, in 1111, they razed the town of Lodi to the ground, distributing the inhabitants among six villages, and subjecting them to an unrelenting despotism. 8 Thus, in 1118, they commenced a war of ten years' duration with the little city of Como ; but the surprising perseverance of its inhabitants procured for them better terms of capitula- 1 Murat. Diss. 49. Lodi was of very old standing. It origl- 2 Otho Frisingensis ap. Murat. Scr. Her. nated, according to Arnulf, in the resist- Ital. t. vi. p. 708. Ut etiam ad compri- ance made by the inhabitants of the latter niendos vicinos material non careant, in- city to an attempt made by archbishop ferioris ordinis juvenes, vel quoslibet Eribert to force a bishop of his own contemptibilium etiam mechanicarum nomination upon them. The bloodshed, artium opifices,.quos caeterae gentes ab plunder, and conflagrations which had honestioribus et liberioribus studiis ton- ensued, would, he says, fill a volume, ii quaiu pestem propellunt, ad militia- cin- they were related at length. Scriptores gulum. vel diguitatum gradus assumere Rerum Italic, t. iv. p. 16. And this is non dedignantur. Ex quo factum est, the testimony of a writer who did not ut caeteris orbis civitatibus, divitiis et live beyond 1085. Seventy years more poteiitia pra-emineant. either of hostility or servitude elapsed 3 The animosity between Milan and before Lodi was permitted to respire. ITAI.T. SOVEREIGNTY OF THE EMPERORS. -357 tion, though they lost their original independence. The Cre- monese treated so harshly the town of Crema that it revoke 1 from them, and put itself under the protection of Milan. Cities of more equal forces carried on interminable hostilities by wasting each other's territory, destroying the harvests, and burning the villages. The sovereignty of the emperors, meanwhile, though not very effective, was in theory always admitted. SovereiKnt y Their name was used in public acts, and appeared of the upon the coin. When they came into Italy they em P crors - had certain customary supplies of provisions, called fodrum regale, at the expense of the city where they resided ; during their presence all inferior magistracies were suspended, and the right of jurisdiction devolved upon them alone. But such was the jealousy of the Lombards, that they built the royal palaces outside their gates ; a precaution to which the empe- rors were compelled to submit. This was at a very early time a subject of contention between the inhabitants of Pavia and Conrad II., whose palace, seated in the heart of the city, they had demolished in a sedition, and were unwilling to re- build in that situation. 1 Such was the condition of Italy when Frederic Barbarossa, duke of Suabia, and nephew of the last emperor, Frederic Conrad III., ascended the throne of Germany. Barbarw. His accession forms the commencement of a new period, the duration of which is about one hundred years, and which is terminated by the death of Conrad IV., the last emperor of the house of Suabia. It is characterized, like the former, by three distinguishing features in Italian history ; the victorious struggle of the Lombard and other cities for independence, the final establishment of a temporal sovereignty over the middle provinces by the popes, and the union of the kingdom of Na- ples to the dominions of the house of Suabia. In. Frederic Barbarossa the Italians found a very different sovereign from the two last emperors, Lothaire and Conrad III., who had seldom appeared in Italy, and with forces quite inadequate to control such insubordinate subjects. The dis- tinguished valor and ability of this prince rendered a severe and arbitrary temper and a haughty conceit of his imperial rights more formidable. He believed, or professed to believe, Otho Frisingens. p. 710; Muratori, A.D. 1027. 358 FREDERIC BARBAROSSA. CHAP. III. PART I. the niagniiicent absurdity, that, as successor of Augustus, he inherited the kingdoms of the Avorld. In the same right, he more powerfully, if not more rationally, laid claim to the entire prerogatives of the Roman emperors over their own subjects ; and in this the professors of the civil law, which was now diligently studied, lent him their aid with the utmost servility. To such a disposition the self-government of the Lombard cities appeared mere rebellion. Milan especially, the most renowned of them all, drew down upon herself his inveterate resentment. He found, unfortunately, too good a pretence in her behavior towards Lodi. Two natives of that ruined city threw themselves at the emperor's feet, imploring him, as the ultimate source of justice, to redress the wrongs of their country. It is a striking proof of the terror in- spired by Milan that the consuls of Lodi disavowed the com- plaints of their countrymen, and the inhabitants trembled at the danger of provoking a summary vengeance, against which the imperial arms seemed no protection. 1 The Milan- ese, however, abstained from attacking the people of Lodi, though they treated with contempt the emperor's order to leave them at liberty. Frederic meanwhile came into Italy, and held a diet at Roncaglia, where complaints poured in from many quarters against the Milanese. Pavia and Cre- mona, their ancient enemies, were impatient to renew hostili- ties under the imperial auspices. Brescia, Tortona, and Crema were allies, or rather dependents, of Milan. Frederic soon took occasion to attack the latter confederacy. Tortona was compelled to surrender and levelled to the ground. But a feudal army was soon dissolved ; the emperor had much to demand his attention at Rome, where he was on ill terms with Adrian IV. ; and when the imperial troops were with- drawn from Lombardy, the Milanese rebuilt Tortona, and expelled the citizens of Lodi from their dwellings. Frederic assembled a fresh army, to which almost every city of Lom- bardy, willingly or by force, contributed its militia. It is said to have exceeded a hundred thousand men. The Milanese shut themselves up within their walls ; and perhaps might have defied the imperial forces, if their immense population, which gave them confidence in arms, had not exposed them 1 See an interesting account of these reproaches Morena for partiality towards circumstances in the narrative of Otho Frederic in the Milane.se war, should M arena, a citizen of Lodi. Script. Rer. have remembered the provocations of Ual t. vi. p 866. M. Sismondi, who Lodi. Uist. des llepub. Ital. t. ii. p. 102. ITA.LY. CAPTURE OF MILAN. S59 to a different enemy. Milan was obliged by hunger to capitu- ate, upon conditions not very severe, if a vanquished people could ever safely rely upon the convention that testifies their submission. Frederic, after the surrender of Milan, held a diet at Eoncaglia, where the effect of his victories was jj. et of fatally perceived. The bishops, the higher nobility, Roncagjia. the lawyers, vied with one another in exalting his A ' D> U58 ' prerogatives. He defined the regalian rights, as they were called, in such a manner as to exclude the cities and private proprietors from coining money, and from tolls or territorial dues, which they had for many years possessed. These, however, he permitted them to retain for a pecuniary stipula- tion. A more important innovation was the appointment of magistrates, with the title of podesta, to administer justice concurrently with the consuls ; but he soon proceeded to abolish the latter office in many cities, and to throw the whole government into the hands of his own magistrates. He pro- hibited the cities from levying war against each other. It may be presumed that he showed no favor to Milan. The capitulation was set at naught in its most express provisions ; a podesta was sent to supersede the consuls, and part of the territory taken away. Whatever might be the risk of resist- ance, and the Milanese had experience enough not to under- value it, they were determined rather to see their liberties at once overthrown than gradually destroyed by a faithless tyrant. They availed themselves of the absence of his army to renew the war. Its issue was more calamitous than that of the last. Almost all Lombardy lay patient under subjec- tion. The small town of Crema, always the faithful ally of Milan, stood a memorable siege against the imperial army ; but the inhabitants were ultimately compelled to capitulate for their lives, and the vindictive Cremonese razed their dwellings to the ground. 1 But all smaller calami- capture and ties were forgotten when the great city of Milan, destruction worn out by famine rather than subdued by force, was reduced to surrender at discretion. Lombardy stood in anxious suspense to know the determination of Frederic 1 The siege of Crema is told at great count of the methods used in the attack length by Otto Morena; it is interesting, and defence of fortified places before th not only as a display of extraordinary, introduction of artillery. Scrip. Ker. though unsuccessful, perseverance and Ital. t. vi. p. 1032-1052. fatrepidity . but as the most detailed ac 360 LEAGUE OF LOMBARDY CHAP. III. PART L respecting this ancient metropolis, the seat of the early Chris- tian emperors, and second only to Rome in the hierarchy of the Latin church. A delay of three weeks excited fallacious hopes ; but at the end of that time an order was given to the Milanese to evacuate their habitations. The deserted streets were instantly occupied by the imperial army ; the people of Pavia and Cremona, of Lodi and Como, were commissioned to revenge themselves on the respective quarters of the city assigned to them ; and in a few days the pillaged churches stood alone amidst the ruins of what had been Milan. There was now little left of that freedom to which Lom- bardy had aspired : it was gone like a pleasant dream, and she awoke to the fears and miseries of servitude. Frederic obeyed the dictates of his vindictive temper, and of the policy usual among statesmen. He abro- gated the consular regimen in some even of the cities which had supported him, and established his podesta in their place. This magistrate was always a stranger, frequently not even an Italian ; and he came to his office with all those prejudices against the people he was to govern which cut off every hope of justice and humanity. The citizens of Lombardy, espe- cially the Milanese, who had been dispersed in the villages adjoining their ruined capital, Avere unable to meet the per- petual demands of tribute. In some parts, it is said, two thirds of the produce of their lands, the only wealth that re- mained, were extorted from them by the imperial officers. It was in vain that they prostrated themselves at the feet of Frederic. He gave at the best only vague promises of re- dress ; they were in his eyes rebels ; his delegates had acted as faithful officers, whom, even if they had gone a little be- yond his intentions, he could not be expected to punish. But there still remained at the heart of Lombardy the League of strong principle of national liberty, imperishable ' LO a? l> st Ay amon g tne perishing armies of her patriots, incon- Frederic. sumable in the conflagration of her cities. 1 Those A.D. 1167. whom private animosities had led to assist the German conqueror blushed at the degradation of their coun- try, and at the share they had taken in it. A league was secretly formed, in which Cremona, one of the chief cities on *he imperial side, took a prominent part. Those beyond 1 Quae neque Dardaniis campis potnere perire, Nee cum capta capi, nee cum combusta crernari. Enmut. ITALY. AGAINST FREDERIC. 361 the Adige, hitherto not much engaged in the disputes of central Lombardy, had already formed a separate confederacy to secure themselves from encroachments, which appeared the more unjust, as they had never borne arms against the emperor. Their first successes corresponded to ., . , . c ,, . -.-, , , , A.D. 1164. the justice ot their cause ; r redenc was repulsed from the territory of Verona, a fortunate augury for the rest of Lombardy. These two clusters of cities on the east and west of the Adige now united themselves into the famous Lombard league, the terms of which were settled in a general diet.. Their alliance was to last twenty years, during which they pledged themselves to mutual assistance against any one who should exact more from them than they had been used to perform from the time of Henry to the first coming of Frederic into Italy ; implying in this the recovery of their elective magistracies, their rights of war and peace, and those lucrative privileges which, under the name of regalian, had been wrested from them in the diet of Roncaglia. 1 This union of the Lombard cities was formed at a very favorable juncture. Frederic had almost ever since his accession been engaged in open hostility with the see of Rome, and was pursuing the fruitless policy of Henry IV., who had endeavored to substitute an antipope of his own faction for the legitimate pontiff. In the prosecution of this scheme he had besieged Rome with a great army, which, the citizens resisting longer than he expected, fell a prey to the autumnal pestilence which visits the neighborhood of that capital. The flower of German nobility was cut off by this calamity, and the emperor recrossed the Alps, entirely unable for the present to withstand the Lombard confederacy. Their first overt act of insurrection was the rebuilding of Milan ; the confederate troops all joined in this undertaking ; and the Milanese, still numerous, though dispersed and persecuted, revived as a powerful republic. Lodi was compelled to enter into the league ; Pavia alone continued on the in pe- i For the nature and conditions of the any numerical designation, to interpret Lombard league, besides the usual au- it of the last bearing that name; as w thorities, see MunUori's 48th dissertation, say King William, for William the Third The 'ords, a teni pore Henrici Regis usque And cerMinly the liberties of Lombardy ad .1 !<-.; tuni imperatoris Frederici, leave were more perfect under Henry V. than it ambiguous which of the Henries was his father: besides which, the one reign intended. Muratori thinks it was Henry might still be remembered, and the othei IV., because the cities then began to be rested in tradition. The question, how independent. It seems, however, natu- ever, is of little moment, ral, when a kiug is meutioued without 362 PEACE OF CONSTANCE CHIP. III. PART f. rial side. As a check to Pavia, and to the marquis of Mont- ferrat, the most potent of the independent nobility, the Lombards planned the erection of a new city between the confines of these two enemies, in a rich plain to the south of the Po, and bestowed upon it, in compliment to the Pope, Alexander III., the name of Alessandria. Though, from its hasty construction, Alessandria was even in that age deem- ed rude in appearance, it rapidly became a thriving and populous city. 1 The intrinsic energy and resources of Lom- bardy were now made manifest. Frederic, who had tri- umphed by their disunion, was unequal to contend against their league. After several years of indecisive war the emperor invaded the Milanese territory ; but the confederates gave him battle, and gained a complete victory at Legnano. Battle of Frederic escaped alone and disguised from the Legnano. field, with little hope of raising a fresh army, A.D. 1176. though still reluctant from shame to acquiesce in the freedom of Lombardy. He was at length persuaded, through the mediation of the republic of Venice, to consent to a truce of six years, the provisional terms of which were all favorable to the league. It was weakened, however, by the defection of some of its own members ; Cremona, which had never cordially united with her ancient enemies, made separate conditions with Frederic, and suffered herself to be named among the cities on the imperial side in the armistice. Tortona and even Alessandria followed the -same course during the six years of its duration ; a fatal testimony of unsubdued animosities, and omen of the calamities of Italy. At the expiration of the truce Frederic's anxiety to secure Peace of * ne crovvn f r his son overcame his pride, and the Constance, famous peace of Constance established the Lom- A.D. 183. Dar( j republics in real independence. By the treaty of Constance the cities were maintained in the enjoyment of all the regalian rights, whether within their walls or in their district, which they could claim by usage. Those of levying war, of erecting fortifications, and of admin- istering civil and criminal justice, were specially mentioned. The nomination of their consuls, or other magistrates, was left absolutely to the Citizens ; but they were to receive the 1 Alessandria was surnamed, in deri- Csesarea, as it is actually called in tho Bion, della paglia, from the thatch with peace of Constance, being at that time which the houses were covered. Frederic on the imperial side. But it soon recoy wua very desirous to change its name to ered its former appellation. ITALY. lEACE OF CONSTANCE. 363 investiture of their office from an imperial legate. The cus- tomary tributes of provision during the emperor's residence in Italy were preserved ; and he was authorized to appoint in every city a judge of appeal in civil causes. The Lombard league was confirmed, and the cities were permitted to renew it at their own discretion ; but they were to take every ten years an oath of fidelity to the emperor. This just compact preserved, along with every security for the liberties and welfare of the cities, as much of the imperial prerogatives as could be exercised by a foreign sovereign consistently with the people's happiness. 1 The successful insurrection of Lombardy is a memorable refutation of that system of policy to which its advocates give the appellation of vigorous, and which they perpetually hold forth as the only means through which a disaffected people are to be restrained. By a certain class of statesmen, and by all men of harsh and violent disposition, measures of con- ciliation, adherence to the spirit of treaties, regard to ancient privileges, or to those rules of moral justice which are para- mount to all positive right, are always treated with derision. Terror is their only specific ; and the physical inability to rebel their only security for allegiance. But if the razing of cities, the abrogation of privileges, the impoverishment and oppression of a nation could assure its constant submission, Frederic Barbarossa would never have seen the militia of Lombardy arrayed against him at Legnano. Whatever may be the pressure upon a conquered people, there will come a moment of their recoil. Nor is it material to allege, in answer to the present instance, that the accidental destruction of Frederic's army by disease enabled the cities of Lombardy to succeed in their resistance. The fact may well be dis- puted, since Lombardy, when united, appears to have been more than equal to a contest with any German force that could have been brought against her ; but even if we admit the effect of this circumstance, it only exhibits the preca- riousness of a policy which collateral events are always liable to disturb. Providence reserves to itself various means by which the bonds of the oppressor may be broken ; and it is not for human sagacity to anticipate whether the army of a conqueror shall moulder in the unwholesome marshes of Rome or stiffen with frost in a Russian winter. 1 Muratori, Antiquitates Italiae, Diss 50. 364 AFFAIRS OF SICILY. CHAI III. PART I. The peace of Constance presented a noble opportunity to the Lombards of establishing a permanent federal union of small republics ; a form of government congenial from the earliest ages to Italy, and that, perhaps, under which she is again destined one day to flourish. They were entitled by the provisions of that treaty to preserve their league, the basis of a more perfect confederacy, which the course of events would have emancipated from every kind of subjec- tion to Germany. 1 But dark, long-cherished hatreds, and that implacable vindictiveness which, at least in former ages, distinguished the private manners of Italy, deformed her national character, which can only be the aggregate of in- dividual passions. For revenge she threw away the pear' of great price, and sacrificed even the recollection of that liberty which had stalked like a majestic spirit among the ruins of Milan. 2 It passed away, that high disdain of abso- lute power, that steadiness and self-devotion, which raised the half-civilized Lombards of the twelfth century to the level of those ancient republics from whose history our first notions of freedom and virtue are derived. The victim by turns of selfish and sanguinary factions, of petty tyrants, and of foreign invaders, Italy has fallen like a star from its place iu heaven ; she has seen her harvests trodden down by the horses of the stranger, and the blood of her children wasted in quarrels not their own : Conquering or conquered, in the indignant language of her poet, still alike a slave, 8 a long retribution for the tyranny of Rome. Frederic did not attempt to molest the cities of Lombardy Affaire of i n t fle enjoyment of those privileges conceded by Sicily. the treaty of Constance. His ambition was di- verted to a new scheme for aggrandizing the house of Suabia by the marriage of his eldest son Henry with Constance, the aunt and heiress of William II., king of Sicily. That king- dom, which the first monarch Roger had elevated to a high 1 Though there was no permanent diet in a federal constitution. Muratori, An- of the Lombard league, the consuls and tichiti Italiane, t. iii. p. 126; Dissert. 50; poJest&s af the respective cities compos- Sismondi, t. ii. p. 189. ing it occasionally met in congress to de- 2 Anzi girar la liberta mirai, liberate upon measures of general safety. K baciar lieta ogni ruina, e dire, Thus assembled, they were called Recto- Ruine si, ma servita non mai. res Societatis Lombardiae. It is evident Qaetana Passerini (ossia piutosto that, if Lombardy had continued in any Giovan Battista Pastorini,) in degree to preserve the spirit of union, Mathias, Componimenti Lirici, this congress might readily have become vol. iii. p. 331. a permanent body, like the Helvetic diet, * Per servir sempre o vincitrice o vinta. with as extensive powers as are necessary Filicaja. ITALY. INNOCENT III. 3S5 pitch of renown and power, fell into decay through the misconduct of his son William, surriamed the Bad, and did not recover much of its lustre under the second William, though styled the Good. His death without issue was apparently no remote event; and Constance was the sole legitimate survivor of the royal family. It is a curious cir- cumstance that no hereditary kingdom appears absolutely to have excluded females from its throne, except that which from its magnitude was of all the most secure from falling into the condition of a province. The Sicilians felt too late the defect of their constitution, which permitted an independent people to be transferred, as the dowry of a woman, to a foreign prince, by whose ministers they might justly expect to be insulted and oppressed. Henry, whose marriage with Constance took place in 1186, and who suc- ceeded in her right to the throne of Sicily three years after- wards, was exasperated by a courageous but unsuccessful effort of the Norman barons to preserve the crown for an illegitimate branch of the royal family; and his reign is disgraced by a series of atrocious cruelties. The power of the house of Suabia was now at its zenith on each side of the Alps ; Henry received the Imperial crown the year after his father's death in the third crusade, and even prevailed upon the princes of Germany to elect his infant son Frederic as his successor. But his own premature decease clouded the prospects of his. family : Constance survived him but a year ; and a child of four years old was left with the inheritance of a kingdom which his father's severity had rendered disaf- fected, and which the leaders of German mercenaries in his service desolated and disputed. During the minority of Frederic II., from 1198 to 1216, the papal chair was filled by Innocent III., a name innocent second only, and hardly second, to that of Gregory m - VII. Young, noble, and intrepid, he united with the accus- tomed spirit of ecclesiastical usurpation, which no one had ever carried to so high a point, the more worldly ambition of consolidating a separate principality for the Holy See in the centre of Italy. The real or spurious donations of Constan- tine, Pepin, Charlemagne, and Louis, had given rise* to a perpetual claim, on the part of the popes, to very extensive dominions ; but little of this had been effectuated, and in Rome itself they were thwarted by the prefect, an officei SG6 BEQUEST OF COUNTESS MATILDA. CHAP. III. PART L who swore fidelity to the emperor, and by the insubordinate spirit of the people. In the very neighborhood the small cities owned no subjection to the capital, and were probably as much self-governed as those of Lombardy. One is trans- ported back to the earliest times of the republic in reading of the desperate wars between Rome and Tibur or Tusculum ; neither of which was subjugated till the latter part of the twelfth century. At a further distance were the duchy of Spoleto, the march of Ancona, and what had been the ex- archate of Ravenna, to all of which the popes had more or less grounded pretensions. Early in the last-mentioned age the famous countess Matilda, to whose zealous protection Gregory VII. had been eminently indebted during his long dispute with the emperor, granted the reversion of all her possessions to the Holy See, first in the lifetime of Gregory, and again under the pontificate of Paschal III. These were very extensive, and held by different titles. Of her vast Bequest of imperial fiefs, Mantua, Modena, and Tuscany, she the countess certainly could not dispose. The duchy of Spoleto and march of Ancona were supposed to rest upon a different footing. I confess myself not distinctly to com- prehend the nature of this part of her succession. These had been formerly among the great fiefs of the kingdom of Italy. But if I understand it rightly, they had tacitly ceased to be subject to the emperors some years before they were seized by Godfrey of Lorraine, father-in-law and step-father of Matilda. To his son, her husband, she succeeded in the possession of those countries. They are commonly consid- ered as her alodial or patrimonial property ; yet it is not easy to see how, being herself a subject of the empire, she could transfer even her alodial estates from its sovereignty. Nor on the other hand can it apparently be maintained that she was lawful sovereign of countries which had not long since been imperial fiefs, and the suzerainty over which had never been renounced. The original title of the Holy See, there- fore, does not seem incontestable even as to this part of Ma- tilda's donation. But I state with hesitation a difficulty to which the authors I have consulted do not advert. 1 It is 1 It is almost hopeless to look for ex- the whole, the fairest of them all, mores plicit information upon the rights and cautiously over this ground; except when pretensions of the Roman see in Italian the claims of Rome happen to clash with writers even of the eighteenth century, those of the house of Este. But I haT* Muratori, the most learned, and upon not been able to satisfy myself by th ITALY. ECCLESIASTICAL STATE REDUCED. 367 certain, however, that the emperors kept possession oi the whole during the twelfth century, and treated both Spoleto and Ancona as parts of the empire, notwithstanding continual remonstrances from the Roman pontiffs. Frederic Barba- rossa, at the negotiations of Venice in 1177, promised to restore the patrimony of Matilda in fifteen years ; but at the close of that period Henry VI. was not disposed to execute this arrangement, and granted the county in fief to some of his German followers. Upon his death the circumstances were favorable to Innocent III. The infant king of Sicily had been intrusted by Constance to his guardianship. A double election of Philip, brother of Henry VI., and of Otho duke of Brunswick, engaged the princes of Germany, who had entirely overlooked the claims of young Frederic, in a doubtful civil war. Neither party was in a condition to enter Italy ; and the imperial dignity was vacant for several years, till, the death of Philip removing one competitor, Otho IV., whom the pope had constantly favored, was crowned emperor. During this interval the Italians had no superior ; and Innocent availed himself of it to maintain the pretensions of the see. These he backed by the production of rather a questionable document, the will of Henry VI., said to have been found among the baggage of Marquard, one of the German soldiers who had been invested with fiefs by the late emperor. The cities of what we now call the Ecciesiasti- ecclesiastical stale had in the twelfth century their cal 8tate own municipal government like those of Lombardy ; innocent but they were far less able to assert a complete in- IIL dependence. They gladly, therefore, put themselves under the protection of the Holy See, which held out some prospect of securing them from Marquard and other rapacious parti- sans, without disturbing their internal regulations. Thus the duchy of Spoleto and march of Ancona submitted to Innocent III. ; but he was not strong enough to keep constant posses- sion of such extensive territories, and some years afterwards adopted the prudent course of granting Ancona in fief to the marquis of Este. He did not, as may be supposed, neglect his authority at home ; the prefect of Rome was now com- pelled to swear allegiance to the pope, which put an end to perusal of gome dry and tedious disserta- learning scarcely inferior to that of Mu- tions in St. Marc (Abrege Curouologique ratori, possessed more opportunity and 4e 1'IIist. de 1'Italie, t. iv.), who, with inclination to speak out. 3 68 LEAGUE OF TUSCANY. CHAP. III. PAKT I. the regular imperial supremacy over that city, and the privi- leges of the citizens were abridged. This is the proper era of that temporal sovereignty which the bishops of Rome possess over their own city, though i-till prevented by various causes, for nearly three centuries, from becoming unques- tioned and unlimited. The policy of Rome was now more clearly defined than ever. In order to preserve what she had thus suddenly gained rather by opportunity than strength, it was her interest to enfeeble the imperial power, and consequently to maintain League of the freedom of the Italian republics. Tuscany Tuscany. j im j hitherto been ruled by a marquis of the em- peror's appointment, though her cities were flourishing, and, within themselves, independent. In imitation of the Lom- bard confederacy, and impelled by Innocent III., they now (with the exception of Pisa, which was always strongly attached to the empire) formed a similar league for the preservation of their rights. In this league the influence of the pope was far more strongly manifested than in that of Lombardy. Although the latter had been in alliance with Alexander III., and was formed during the height of his dispute with Frederic, this ecclesiastical quarrel mingled so little in their struggle for liberty that no allusion to it is found in the act of their confederacy. But the Tuscan union was expressly established " for the honor and aggrandizement of the apostolic see." The members bound themselves to defend the possessions and rights of the church, and not to i;cknowledge any king or emperor without the approbation of the supreme pontiff. 1 The Tuscans accordingly were more thoroughly attached to the church party than the Lom- bards, whose principle was animosity towards the house of Suabia. Hence, when Innocent III., some time after, sup- ported Frederic II. against the emperor Otho IV., the Mi- lanese and their allies were arranged on the imperial side ; but the Tuscans continued to adhere to the pope. In the wars of Frederic Barbarossa against Milan and Factions of * ts a ^ nes we have seen the cities of Lombardy Gueifsand divided, and a considerable number of them firmly aas< attached to the imperial interest. It does not ap- ITALY. GUEI^FS AND GHIBELINS. 369 pear, I believe, from history, though it is by no means im- probable, that the citizens were at so early a time divided among themselves, as to their line of public policy, and that the adherence of a particular city to the emperor, or to the Lombard league, was only, as proved afterwards the case, that one faction or another acquired an ascendancy in its councils. But jealousies long existing between the different classes, and only suspended by the national struggle which terminated at Constance, gave rise to new modifications of in- terests, and new relations towards the empire. About the year 1200, or perhaps a little later, the two leading parties which divided the cities of Lombardy, and whose mutual ani- mosity, having no general subject of contention, required the association of a name to dirtct as well as invigorate its preju- dices, became distinguished by the celebrated appellations of Guelfs and Ghibelins ; the former adhering to the papal side, the latter to that of the emperor. These names were derived from Germany, and had been the rallying word of faction for more than half a century in that country before they were transported to a still more favorable soil. The Guelfs took their name from a very illustrious family, several of whom had successively been dukes of Bavaria in the tenth and eleventh centuries. The heiress of the last of these inter- married with a younger son of the house of Este, a noble family settled near Padua, and possessed of great estates on each bank of flie lower Po. They gave birth to a second line of Guelfs, from whom the royal house of Brunswick is descended. The name of Ghibelin is derived from a village in Franconia, whence Conrad the Salic came, the progenitor, through females, of the Suabian emperors. At the election of Lothaire in 1125, the Suabian family were disappointed of what they considered almost an hereditary possession ; and at this time an hostility appears to have commenced between them and the house of Guelf, who were nearly related to Lo- thaire. Henry the Proud, and his son Henry the Lion, rep- resentatives of the latter family, were frequently persecuted by the Suabian emperors ; but their fortunes belong to the history of Germany. 1 Meanwhile the elder branch, though not reserved for such glorious destinies as the Guelfs, contin- 1 The German origin of these cele- ination transferred to Italy. Struvius, brated factions is clearly proved by a Corpus Hist. German, p. 378, and Hun passage in Otho of Frisingen. who lived tori, A.D. 1152. half a centurv before we find the denom- VOL I. M 2-4 370 OTHO IV. CHAP. HI. PAET ... ued to flourish in Italy ; the marquises of Este were by far the most powerful nobles in eastern Lombardy, and about the end of the twelfth century began to be considered as the heads of the church party in their neighborhood. They were frequently chosen to the office of podesta, or chief magistrate, by the cities of Romagna ; and in 1208 the people of Fer- rara set the fatal example of sacrificing their freedom for tranquillity, by electing Azzo VII., marquis of Este, as their lord or sovereign. 1 Otho IV. was son of Henry the Lion, and consequently Otho iv k ga d ^ ^ ie Guelfs. On his obtaining the imperial crown, the prejudices of Italian factions were di- verted out of their usual channel. He was soon engaged in a quarrel with the pope, whose hostility to the empire was certain, into whatever hands it might fall. In Milan, how- ever, and generally in the cities which had belonged to the Lombard league against Frederic I., hatred of the house of Suabia prevailed more than jealousy of the imperial prerog- atives ; they adhered to names rather than to principles, and supported a Guelf emperor even against the pope. Terms of this description, having no definite relation to principles which it might be troublesome to learn and defend, are al- ways acceptable to mankind, and have the peculiar advantage of precluding altogether that spirit of compromise and ac- commodation, by which it is sometimes endeavored to ob- struct their tendency to hate and injure each other. From this time, every city, and almost every citizen, gloried in one of these barbarous denominations. In several cities the im- perial party predominated through hatred of their neighbors, who espoused that of the church. Thus the inveterate feuds between Pisa and Florence, Modena and Bologna, Cremona and Milan, threw them into opposite factions. But there was in every one of these a strong party against that which prevailed, and consequently a Guelf city frequently became Ghibelin, or conversely, according to the fluctuations of the time. 2 1 Sismondi, t. ii. p. 329 nulla si operfi sotto nome o pretesto delle 2 For the Guelf and Ghibelin factions, fazioni suddette. Solamente ritennnro besides the historians, the 51st disserta- esse piede in alcume private famiglie. tion of Muratori should be read. There Antichiti Italiane. t. iii. p. 148. But is some degree of inaccuracy in his Ian- certainly the names of Guelf and Ghibe- guage, where he speaks of these distrac- lin, as party distinctions, may be traced tions expiring at the beginning of the all through the fifteenth century. The fifteenth century. Quel .secolo, e vero, former faction showed itself distinctly in abboudo anch' esso di molte guerre, uia the insurrection of the cities subject to ITALT. FREDERIC H. 371 The change to which we have adverted in the politics of the Guelf party lasted only during the reign of . Otho IV. When the heir of the house of Suabia grew up to manhood, Innocent, who, though his guardian, had taken little care of his interests, as long as he flattered himself with the hope of finding a Guelf emperor obedient, placed the young Frederic at the head of an opposition, com- posed of cities always attached to his family, and of such as implicitly followed the see of Rome. He met with consider- able success both in Italy and Germany, and after the death of Otho, received the imperial crown. But he had no longer to expect any assistance from the pope who conferred it. In- nocent was dead, and Honorius III., his successor, could not behold without apprehension the vast power of Frederic, sup- ported in Lombardy by a faction which balanced that of the church, and menacing the ecclesiastical territories on the oth- er side, by the possession of Naples and Sicily. This king- dom, feudatory to Rome, and long her firmest ally, was now, by a fatal connection which she had not been able to prevent, thrown into the scale of her most dangerous enemy. Hence the temporal dominion which Innocent III. had taken so much pains to establish, became a very precarious possession, exposed on each side to the attacks- of a power that had legit- imate pretensions to almost every province composing it. The life of Frederic II. was wasted in an unceasing conten- tion with the church, and with his Italian subjects, whom she excited to rebellions against him. Without inveighing, like the popish writers, against this prince, certainly an encour- ager of letters, and endowed with many eminent qualities, we may lay to his charge a good deal of dissimulation ; I will not add ambition, because I am not aware of any period in the reign of Frederic, when he was not obliged to act on his defence against the aggression of others. But if he had been a model of virtues, such men as Honorius III., Gregory IX., and Innocent IV., the popes with whom he had successively Milan, upon the death of Gian Galeazzo Stefano Infessura, in 1487. speaks famil- Visconti in 1404. It appeared again in iarly of them. Script. Ker. Ital. t. iii. the attempt of the Milanese to reestab- p. 1221. And even in the conquest of lish their republic in 1447. Sismondi, Milan by Louis XII. in 1500, the Guelfs t. ix. p. 334. So in 1477, Ludovico Sforza, of that city are represented as attached made use of Ghibelin prejudices to ex- to the French party, while the Giiibelins elude the regent Bonne of Savoy as a abetted Ludovico Sforza and Maximilian. 3uelf. Sisiuondi, t. xi. p. 79. In the Guicciardini, p. 399. Other passages in ecclesiastical state the same distinctions the same historian show these factions to appear to have been preserved still later, have beeu alive iu various parts of Italy 372 FREDERICK II. CHAP. 111. PART I. to contend, would not have given him respite, while he re- mained master of Naples, as well as the empire. 1 It was the custom of every pope to urge princes into a crusade, which the condition of Palestine rendered indispen sable, or, more properly, desperate. But this great piece of supererogatory devotion had never yet been raised into an absolute duty of their station, nor had even private persona been ever required to take up the cross by compulsion. Hono- rius III., however, exacted a vow from Frederic, before he con- ferred upon him the imperial crown, that he would undertake a crusade for the deliverance of Jerusalem. Frederic sub- mitted to this engagement, which perhaps he never designed to keep, and certainly endeavored afterwards to evade. Though he became by marriage nominal king of Jerusalem, 3 his excellent understanding was not captivated with so barren a prospect, and at length his delays in the performance of his vow provoked Gregory IX. to issue against him a sentence of excommunication. Such a thunderbolt was not to be lightly regarded ; and Frederic sailed, the next year, for Pal- estine. But having disdained to solicit absolution for what he considered as no crime, the court of Rome was excited to still fiercer indignation against this profanation of a crusade by an excommunicated sovereign. Upon' his arrival in Pal- estine, he received intelligence that the papal troops had broken into the kingdom of Naples. No one could ration 1 The rancor of bigoted Catholics ter and heiress of Isabella, wife of Conrad against Frederic has hardly subsided at marquis of Montferrat. This Isabella the present day. A very moderate com- was the youngest daughter of Alniario mendation of him in Tiraboschi, vol. iv. or Amaury, king of Jerusalem, and by t. 7, was not suffered to pass uncontra- the deaths of her brother Baldwin TV., dieted by the Roman editor. And though of her eldest sister Sibilla, wife of Guy do Muratori shows quite enough prejudice Lusignan. and that sister's child Bald- against that emperor's character, a fierce win V., succeeded to a claim upon Jeru- Roman bigot, whose animadversions are salem, which, since the victories of printed in the 17th volume of his Annals Saladin, was not very profitable. It is (8vo. edition), flies into paroxysms of fury said that the kings of Naples deduce at every syllable that looks like modera- their title to that sounding inheritance tion. It is well known that, although from this marriage of Frederic (Gian- the public policy of Rome has long dis- none, 1. xvi. c. 2); but the extinction of played the pacific temper of weakness, Frederic's posterity must have, strictly the thermometer of ecclesiastical senti- speaking, put an end to any right derived ment in that city stands very nearly as from him ; and Giannone himself indi- high as in the thirteenth century [1810]. cates a better title by the cession of Giannone, who suffered for his boldness, Maria, a princess of Antioch, and legiti- has drawn Frederic II. very favorably, mate heiress of Jerusalem, to Charles of perhaps too favorably, in the 16th and Anjou in 1272. How far, indeed, this 17th books of the Istoria Civile di Napoli. may have been regularly transmitted to 2 The second wife of Frederic was the present king of Naples, I de not [olantc, or Violante. daughter of John, know, and am sure that it is not worth count of Brieuue, by Maria, eldest, daujjh- "Idle to inquire. ITALY. HIS WARS WITH THE LOMBARDS. a 73 ally have blamed Frederic, if he had quitted the Holy Land as he found it ; but he made a treaty with the Saracens, which, though by no means so disadvantageous as under all the circumstances might have been expected, served as a pre- text for new calumnies against him in Europe. The charge of irreligion, eagerly and successfully propagated, he repelled by persecuting edicts against heresy, that do no great honor to his memory, and availed him little at the time. Over his Neapolitan dominions he exercised a rigorous government, rendered perhaps necessary by the levity and insubordination characteristic of the inhabitants, but which tended, through the artful representations of Honorius and Gregory, to alarm and alienate the Italian republics. A new generation had risen up in Lombardy since the peace of Constance, and the prerogatives reserved His warg by that treaty to the empire were so seldom called with the into action, that few cities were disposed to recol- Lom lect their existence. They denominated themselves Guelfs or Ghibelins, according to habit, and out of their mutual oppo- sition, but without much reference to the empire. Those how- ever of the former party, and especially Milan, retained their antipathy to the house of Suabia. Though Frederic II. was entitled, as far as established usage can create a right, to the sovereignty of Italy, the Milanese would never acknowledge him, nor permit his coronation at Monza, according to ancient ceremony, with the iron crown of the Lombard kings. The pope fomented, to the utmost of his power, this disaffected spirit, and encouraged the Lombard cities to renew their for- mer league. This, although conformable to a provision in the treaty of Constance, was manifestly hostile to Frederic, and may be considered as the commencement of a second contest between the republican cities of Lombardy and the empire. But there was a striking difference between this and the former confederacy against Frederic Barbarossa. In the league of 1167, almost every city, forgetting all smaller ani- mosities in the great cause of defending the national privi- leges, contributed its share of exertion to sustain that perilous conflict; and this transient unanimity in a people so distracted by internal faction as the Lombards is the surest witness to the justice of their undertaking. Sixty years afterwards, their war against the second Frederic had less of provocation and less of public spirit. It was in fact a party struggle of 374 ARRANGEMENT OF CHAP. HI. PART. I. Guelf and Ghibelin cities, to which the names of the church and the empire gave more of dignity and consistence. The republics of Italy in the thirteenth century were so numerous and independent, and their revolutions so mtof~ frequent, that it is a difficult matter to avoid con- cities >ard fusion in following their history. It will give more arrangement to our ideas, and at the same time illustrate the changes that took place in these little states, if we consider them as divided into four clusters or constellations, not indeed unconnected one with another, yet each having its own centre of motion and its own boundaries. The first of these we may suppose formed of the cities in central Lombardy, between the Sessia and the Adige, the Alps and the Ligurian mountains ; it comprehends Milan, Cremona, Pavia, Brescia, Bergamo, Parma, Piacenza, Man- tua, Lodi, Alessandria, and several others less distinguished. These were the original seats of Italian liberty, the great movers in the wars of the elder Frederic. Milan was at the head of this cluster of cities, and her influence gave an ascen- dency to the Guelf party ; she had, since the treaty of Con- stance, rendered Lodi and Pavia almost her subjects, and was in strict union with Brescia and Piacenza. Parma, however, and Cremona, were unshaken defenders of the empire. In the second class we may place the cities of the march of Ve- rona, between the Adige and the frontiers of Germany. Of these there were but four worth mentioning : Verona, Vicenza, Padua and Treviso. The citizens of all the four were in- clined to the Guelf interests ; but a powerful body of rural nobility, who had never been compelled, like those upon the Upper Po, to quit their fortresses in the hilly country, or reside within the walls, attached themselves to the opposite denomination. 1 Some of them obtained very great authority in the civil feuds of these four republics ; and especially two brothers, Eccelin and Alberic da Romano, of a rich and dis- tinguished family, known for its devotion to the empire. By extraordinary vigor and decision of character, by dissimula- tion and breach of oaths, by the intimidating effects of almost unparalleled cruelty, Eccelin da Romano became after some years the absolute master of three cities, Padua, Verona, and Vicenza; and the Guelf party, in consequence, was i Sismondi, t. ii. p. 222. ITALY. LOMBARD CITIES. 375 entirely subverted beyond the Adige, during the continuance of his tyranny. 1 Another cluster was composed of the cities in Romagna ; Bologna, Imola, Faenza, FeiTara, and several other.-. Of these, Bologna was far the most powerful, and, as no city was more steadily for the interests of the church, the Guelfs usually predominated in this class > to which also the influence of the house of Este not a little contributed. Modena, though not geographically within the limits of this division, may be classed along with it from her constant wars with Bologna. A fourth class will comprehend the whole of Tuscany, separated almost entirely from the politics of Lombardy and Romagna. Florence headed the Guelf cities in this province, Pisa the Ghibelin. The Tuscan union was formed, as has been said above, by Innocent III., and was strongly inclined to the popes; but gradually the Ghibelin party acquired its share of influence ; and the cities of Siena, Arezzo, and Lucca shifted their policy, according to external circumstances or the fluctuations of their internal factions. The petty cities in the region of Spoleto and Ancona hardly perhaps deserve the name of republics ; and Genoa does not readily fall into any of our four classes, unless her wars with Pisa may be thought to connect her with Tuscany. 2 After several years of transient hostility and precarious truce, the Guelf cities of Lombardy engaged in a regular and protracted war with Frederic II., or more properly with their Ghibelin' adversaries. Few events of this contest de- serve particular notice. Neither party ever obtained such decisive advantages as had alternately belonged to Frederic ' The cruelties of Eccelin excited uni- country seems to be less elucidated by rsal horror in an age when inhumanity ancient or modern writers than that of e many ancen or moern wrers an a o towards enemies was as common as fear other parts of Italy. It was at this time . r In this division. The history of that Torino, 1809, 6 vois. 8vo 376 LOMBARD CITIES. CHAP. HI. PART L Barbarossa and the Lombard confederacy, during the war of the preceding century. A defeat of the Milanese by the emperor, at Corte Nuova, in 1237, was balanced by his unsuccessful siege at Brescia the next year. The Pisans assisted Frederic to gain a great naval victory over the Genoese fleet, in 1241; but he was obliged to rise from the blockade of Parma, which had left the standard of Ghibelin- ism, in 1248. Ultimately, however, the strength of the house of Suabia was exhausted by so tedious a struggle ; the Ghibelins of Italy had their vicissitudes of success ; but their country, and even themselves, lost more and more of the ancient connection with Germany. In this resistance to Frederic II. the Lombards were much indebted to the constant support of Gregory IX. and his successor Innocent IV. ; and the Guelf, or the church party, were used as synonymous terms. These pontiffs bore an unquenchable hatred to the house of Suabia. No concessions mitigated their animosity ; no reconciliation was sincere. Whatever faults may be imputed to Frederic, it is impossible for any one, not blindly devoted to the court of Rome, to deny that he was iniquitously proscribed by her unprincipled ambition. His real crime was the inheritance of his ances- tors, and the name of the house of Suabia. In 1239 he was excommunicated by Gregory IX. To this he was tol- erably accustomed by former experience ; but the sentence was attended by an absolution of his subjects from their allegiance, and a formal deposition. These sentences were not very effective upon men of vigorous minds, or upon those whose passions were engaged in their cause ; but they influ- enced both those who feared the threatening.-? of the clergy and those who wavered already as to their line of political conduct. In the fluctuating state of Lombardy the excom- munication of Frederic undermined his interests even in cities like Parma, that had been friendly, and seemed to identify the cause of his enemies with that of religion a prejudice artfully fomented by means of calumnies propagated against himself, and which the conduct of such leading Ghibelins as Eccelin, who lived in an open defiance of God and man, did not contribute to lessen. In 1240, Gregory proceeded to publish a crusade against Frederic, as if he had been an open enemy to religion; which he revenged by putting to death all the prisoners he made who wore the COUNCIL OF LYONS. 377 cross. There was one thing wanting to make the expulsion of the emperor from the Christian commonwealth more com- plete. Gregory IX. accordingly projected, and Innocent IV carried into effect, the convocation of a general council. This was held at Lyons, an imperial city, but over Counc ii O f which Frederic. could no longer retain his suprem- Lyons. acy. In this assembly, where one hundred and A ' D ' forty prelates appeared, the question whether Frederic ought to be deposed was solemnly discussed ; he submitted to de- fend himself by his advocates : and the pope in the presence, though without formally collecting the suffrages of the council, pronounced a sentence, by which Frederic's excommunica- tion was renewed, the empire and all his kingdoms taken away, and his subjects absolved from their fidelity. This is the most pompous act of usurpation in all the records of flie church of Rome ; and the tacit approbration of a general council seemed to 'incorporate the pretended right of deposing kings, which might have passed as a mad vaunt of Gregory VII. and his successors, with the established faith of Chris- tendom. Upon the death of Frederic II. in 1250, he left to his son Conrad a contest to maintain for every part of his inheritance, as well as for the imperial crown. But the visror r- A . i /. o i /~t Conrad IV. of the house ot buabia was gone ; Conrad was re- duced to fight for the kingdom of Naples, the only succession which he could hope to secure against the troops of Innocent IV., who still pursued his family with implacable hatred, and claimed that kingdom as forfeited to its feudal superior, the Holy See. After Conrad's premature death, which happen- ed in 1254, the throne was filled by his illegitimate brother Manfred, who retained it by his bravery and address, in de- spite of the popes, till they were compelled to call in the assistance of a more powerful arm. The death of Conrad brings to a termination that period in Italian history which we have described as nearly coex- tensive with the greatness of the house of Suabia. It is perhaps upon the whole the most honorable to Italy : that in which she displayed the most of national energy and patriot- ism. A Florentine or Venetian may dwell with pleasure upon later times, but a Lombard will cast back his eye across the desert of centuries, till it reposes on the field of Legnano. Great changes followed in the foreign and internal policy. i 378 CAUSES OF SUCCESS OF LOMI\ARDY. CHAP. HI. PAM i. the moral and military character of Italy. But before we de- scend to the next period, it will be necessary to remark some material circumstances in that which has just passed under our review. The successful resistance of the Lombard cities to such Causes of the P rm ces as both the Frederics must astonish a success of reader who brings to the story of these middle ar y ' ages notions derived from modern times. But when we consider not only the ineffectual control which could be exerted over a feudal army, bound only to a short term of service, and reluctantly kept in the field at its own cost, but the peculiar distrust and disaffection with which many German princes regarded the house of Suabia, less reason will appear for surprise. Nor did the kingdom of Naples, almost always in agitation, yield any material aid to the second Frederic. The main cause, however, of that triumph which attended Lombardy was the intrinsic energy of a free government. From the eleventh century, when the cities became virtually republican, they put out those vigor- ous shoots which are the growth of freedom alone. Their domestic feuds, their mutual wars, the fierce assaults of their national enemies, checked not their strength, their wealth, or their population ; but rather as the limbs are nerved by labor and hardship, the republics of Italy grew in vigor and courage through the conflicts they sustained. If we but re- member what savage license prevailed during the ages that preceded their rise, the rapine of public robbers, or of feudal nobles little differing from robbers, the contempt of industri- ous arts, the inadequacy of penal laws and the impossibility of carrying them into effect, we shall form some notion of the change which was wrought in the condition of Italy by ths growth of its cities. In comparison with the blessings of industry protected, injustice controlled, emulation awak ened, the disorders which ruffled their surface appear slight and momentary. I speak only of this first stage of their in- dependence, and chiefly of the twelfth century, before those civil dissensions had reached their height, by which the glory and prosperity of Lombardy were soon to be subverted. We have few authentic testimonies as to the domestic im- provement of the free Italian cities, while they still deserve the name. But we may perceive by history that their power and population, according to their extent of territory, were ITALY. LOMBAKD CITIES. o79 almost incredible. In Galvaneus Flamma, a Milanese writer, we find a curious statistical account of that city in 1288, which, though of a date about thirty years after its liberties had been overthrown by usurpation, must be con- sidered as implying a high degree of previous advancement, even if we make allowance, as probably we should, for some exaggeration. The inhabitants are reckoned at 200,000 ; the private houses 13,000 ; the nobility alone dwelt in sixty streets ; 8,000 gentlemen or heavy cavalry (milites) might be mustered from the city and its district, and 240,000 men capable of arms : a force sufficient, the writer observes, to crush all the Saracens. Thei'e were in Milan six hundred notaries, two hundred physicians, eighty schoolmasters, and fifty transcribers of manuscripts. In the district were one hundred and fifty castles with adjoining villages. Such was the state of Milan, Flamma concludes, in 1288 ; it is not for me to say whether it has gained or lost ground since that time. 1 At this period, the territory of Milan was not per- haps more extensive than the county of Surrey; it was bounded at a little distance, on almost every side, by Lodi, or Pavia, or Bergamo, or Como. It is possible, however, that Flamma may have meant to include some of these as dependencies of Milan, though not strictly united with it. How flourishing must the state of cultivation have been in such a country, which not only drew no supplies from any foreign land, but exported part of her own produce ! It was in the best age of their liberties, immediately after the battle of Legnano, that the Milanese commenced the great canal which conducts the waters of the Tesino to their capital, a work very extraordinary for that tune. During the same period the cities gave proofs of internal prosperity that in many instances have descended to our own observation in the solidity and magnificence of their architecture. Eccle- siastical structures were perhaps more splendid in France and England ; but neither country could pretend to match 1 Muratori, Script. Rerum Italic, t. xi. work to the praises of Azzo, asserts This expression of Flamma may seem to therein, that he had greatly improved intimate, that Milan had declined in his the beauty and convenience of the city ; time, which was about 1340. Yet as though Brescia, Cremona, and other she had been continually advancing in places had declined. Azarius, too, a writer power, and had not yet experienced any of the same age, makes a similar repre- tyraunical government, 1 cannot imagine sentation. Script. Her. Ttal. t. xvi. pp. this to have been the case; and the same 314. 317. Of Luchino Visconti he says Flamma, who is a great flatterer of the Statum Madiolani reintegravit in tantum, Visconti, and has dedicated a particular quodnoucivitas, sedprovincia videbatur 380 LOMBARD CITIES. CHAP. m. PART 1. the palaces and public buildings, the streets flagged with stone, the bridges of the same material, or the commodious private houses of Italy. 1 The courage of these cities was wrought sometimes to a tone of insolent defiance through, the security inspired by their means of defence. From the time of the Romans to that when the use of gunpowder came to prevail, little change was made, or perhaps could be made, in that part of military science which relates to the attack and defence of fortified places. We find precisely the same engines of offence ; the cumbrous towers, from which arrows were shot at the besieged, the machines from which stones were dis- charged, the battering-rams which assailed the walls, and the basket-work covering (the vinea or testudo of the an- cients, and the gattus or chat-chateil of the middle ages) under which those who pushed the battering engines were protected from the enemy. On the other hand, a city was fortified with a strong wall of brick or marble, with towers raised upon it at intervals, and a deep moat in front. Some- times the antemural or barbacan was added ; a rampart of less height, which impeded the approach of the hostile en- gines. The gates were guarded with a portcullis ; an inven- tion which, as well as the barbacan, was borrowed from the Saracens. 2 With such advantages for defence, a numerous and intrepid body of burghers might not unreasonably stand at bay against a powerful army ; and as the consequences of capture were most terrible, while resistance was seldom hopeless, we cannot wonder at the desparate bravery of so many besieged towns. Indeed it seldom happened that one of considerable size was taken, except by famine or treach- ery. Tortona did not submit to Frederic Barbarossa till the besiegers had corrupted with sulphur the only fountain that supplied the citizens ; nor Crema till her walls were over- topped by the battering engines. Ancona held out a noble example of sustaining the pressure of extreme famine. Brescia tried all the resources of a skilful engineer against the second Frederic; and swerved not from her steadiness, when that prince, imitating an atrocious precedent of his grandfather at the siege of Crema, exposed his prisoners 1 Sisciondi, t. iv. p. 176 ; Tiraboschi, indeed, applicable to a period rather later t. iv. p. 426. See also the observations than that of her free republics. of Denina on the population and agri- 2 Muratori, Antiquit. Ital. Dissert. 26 culture of Italy, 1. xiv. c. 9, 10 chiefly, ITALY. THEIR INTERNAL GOVERNMENT. 381 upon his battering engines to the stones that were hurled by their fellow-citizens upon the walls. 1 Of the government which existed in the republics of Italy during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, no Their definite sketch can be traced. The chroniclers of internal those times are few and jejune ; and, as is usual gove with contemporaries, rather intimate than describe the civil polity of their respective countries. It would indeed be a weary task, if it were even possible, to delineate the consti- tutions of thirty or forty little states which were in perpetual fluctuation. The magistrates elected in almost all of them, when they first began to shake off the jurisdiction of their count or bishop, were styled consuls ; a word very expressive to an Italian ear, since, in the darkest ages, tradition must have preserved some acquaintance with the republican gov- ernment of Rome. 2 The consuls were always annual ; and their office comprehended the command of the national mili- tia in war, as well as the administration of justice and pre- servation of public order ; but their number was various ; two, four, six, or even twelve. In their legislative and de- liberative councils the Lombards still copied the Roman con- stitution, or perhaps fell naturally into the form most calcu- lated to unite sound discretion Avith the exercise of popular sovereignty. A council of trust and secrecy (della credenza) was composed of a small number of persons, who took the management t>f public affairs, and may be called the minis- ters of the state. But the decision upon matters of general importance, treaties of alliance or declarations of war, the choice of consuls, or ambassadors, belonged to the general council. This appears not to have been uniformly constitut- ed in every city ; and according to its composition the gov- ernment was more or less democratical. An ultimate sover- eignty, however, was reserved to the mass of the people ; and a parliament or general assembly was held to deliberate on any change in the form of constitution. 3 About the end of the twelfth century a new and singular species of magistracy was introduced into the Lombard cities. 1 See these sieges in the second and himself publicorum offlciorum particepj third Tolumes of Sismondi. That of et consulum epistolarum dictator. Script. Ancona, t. ii. p. 145-206, is told with re- Iter. Ital. t. v. p. 486. This is, I believe, markable elegance, and several interest- the earliest mention of those magistrates, ing circumstances. Muratori, Annali d' Italia, A.D. 1107. 2 Landulf, the younger, whose history 3 Muratori, Dissert. 46 and 52. Si if Milan extends from 1094 to 1133, call's mondi, t. i. p. 383 382 LOMBARD CITIES. CHAP. III. PART 1. During the tyranny of Frederic I. he had appointed officers of his own, called podestas, instead of the elective consuls. It is remarkable that this memorial of despotic power should not have excited insuperable alarm and disgust in the free republics. But, on the contrary, they almost universally, after the peace of Constance, revived an office which had been abrogated when they first rose in rebellion against Frederic. From experience, as we must presume, of the par- tiality which their domestic factions carried into the adminis- tration of justice, it became a general practice to elect, by the name of podesta, a citizen of some neighboring state as their general, their criminal judge, and preserver of the peace. The last duty was frequently arduous, and requir- ed a vigorous as well as an upright magistrate. Offences against the laws and security of the commonwealth were during the middle ages as often, perhaps more often, com- mitted by the rich and powerful than by the inferior class of society. Rude and licentious manners, family feuds and private revenge, or the mere insolence of strength, rendered the execution of criminal justice practically and in every day's experience, what is now little required, a necessary protection to the poor against oppression. The sentence of a magistrate against a powerful offender was not pronounced without danger of tumult; it was seldom executed without force. A convicted criminal was not, as at present, the stricken deer of society, whose disgrace his kindred shrink from participating, and whose memory they strive to forget. Imputing his sentence to iniquity, or glorying in an act which the laws of his fellow-citizens, but not their sentiments, con- demned, he stood upon his defence amidst a circle of friends. The law was to be enforced not against an individual, but a family not against a family, but a faction not perhaps against a local faction, but the whole Guelf or Ghibelin name, which might become interested in the quarrel. The podesta was to arm the republic against her refractory citi- zen ; his house was to be besieged and razed to the ground, his defenders to be quelled by violence : and thus the people, become familiar with outrage and homicide under the com- mand of their magistrates, were more disposed to repeat such scenes at the instigation of their passions. 1 i Sismondi, t. iii. p. 268; from whom trated by Villani's history of Florence, the substance of these observations is and Stella's annals of Genoa, borrowed. They may be copiously Ulus- ITALY. THEIR DISSENSIONS. 383 The podesta was sometimes chosen in a general assembly, sometimes by a select number of citizens. His office was annual, though prolonged in peculiar emergencies. He was invariably a man of noble family, even in those cities which excluded their own nobility from any share in the govern- ment. He received a fixed salary, and was compelled to remain in the city after the expiration of his office for the purpose of answering such charges as might be adduced against his conduct. He could neither marry a native of the city, nor have any relation resident within the district, nor even, so great was their jealousy, eat or drink in the house of any citizen. The authority of these foreign magis- trates was not by any means alike in all cities. In some he seems to have superseded the consuls, and commanded the armies in war. In others, as Milan and Florence, his au- thority Avas merely judicial. We find in some of the old annals the years headed by the names of the podestas, as by tho>e of the consuls in the history of Rome. 1 The effects of the evil spirit of discord that had so fatally breathed upon the republics of Lombardy were by and dissen- no means confined to national interests, or to the sions- grand distinction of Guelf and Ghibelin. Dissensions glow ed in the heart of every city, and as the danger of foreign war became distant, these grew more fierce and unappeasa- ble. The feudal system had been established upon the prin- ciple of territorial aristocracy ; it maintained the authority, it encouraged the pride of rank. Hence, when the rural nobility were compelled to take up their residence in cities, they preserved the ascendency of birth and riches. From the natural respect which is shown to these advantages, all offices of trust and command were shared amongst them ; it is not material whether this were by positive right or con- tinual usage. A limited aristocracy of this description, where the inferior citizens possess the right of selecting their magistrates by free suffrage from a numerous body of nobles is not among the worst forms of government, and affords no contemptible security against oppression and an- archy. This regimen appears to have prevailed in most of the Lombard cities during the eleventh and twelfth centuries ; though, in so great a deficiency of authentic materials, il 1 Muratori, Dissert. 46. 384 LOMBARD CITIES. CHAP. III. PART L would be too peremptory to assert this as an unequivocal truth. There is one very early instance, in the year 1041, of a civil war at Milan between the capitanei, or vassals of the empire, and the plebeian burgesses, which was appeased by the mediation of Henry III. This is ascribed to the ill treatment which the latter experienced as was usual in- deed in all parts of Europe, but which was endured with inevitable submission everywhere else. In this civil war, which lasted three years, the nobility were obliged to leave Milan, and carry on the contest in the adjacent plains ; and one of their class, by name Lanzon, whether moved by am- bition, or by virtuous indignation against tyranny, put him- self at the head of the people. 1 From this time we scarcely find any mention of dissen- sions among the two orders till after the peace of Constance a proof, however defective the contemporary annals may be, that such disturbances had neither been frequent nor serious. A schism between the nobles and people is noticed to have occurred at Faenza in 1185. A serious civil war of some duration broke out between them at Brescia in 1200. From this time mutual jealousies interrupted the domestic tranquil- lity of other cities, but it is about 1220 that they appear to have taken a decided aspect of civil war ; within a few years of that epoch the question of aristocratical or popular com- mand was tried by arms in Milan, Piacenza, Modena, Cremo- na, and Bologna. 2 It would be in vain to enter upon the merits of these feuds, which the meagre historians of the time are seldom much disposed to elucidate, and which they saw with their own prejudices. A writer of the present age would show little philosophy if he were to heat his passions by the reflection, as it were, of those forgotten animosities, and aggravate, like a partial contemporary, the failings of one or another faction. We have no need of positive testimony to acquaint us with the general tenor of their history. We know that a nobility is always insolent, that a populace is always intemperate ; and may safely presume that the former began, as the latter end- ed, by injustice and abuse of power. At one time the aris- tocracy, not content with seeing the annual magistrates selected 1 Irandulfus, Hist. Mediolan. in Script. 2 Sismondi, t. ii. p. 444 ; Muratori, Reruni Ital. t. iv. p. 86; Muratori, Dis- Annali d' Italia, A.D. 1186, &c. sert. 52; Annali d' Italia, A.D. 1011; .>t. Marc, t. iii. p. 94. ITALT. THEIR DISSENSIONS. 385 from their body, would endeavor by usurpation to exclude the bulk of the citizens from suffrage. At another, the mer- chants, grown proud by riches, and confident of their strength, would aim at obtaining the honors of the state, which had been reserved to the nobility. This is the inevitable conse- quence of commercial wealth, and indeed of freedom and social order, which are the parents of wealth. There is in the progress of civilization a term at which exclusive prm- leges must be relaxed, or the possessors must perish along with them. In one or two cities a temporary compromise was made through the intervention of the pope, whereby of- fices of public trust, from the highest to the lowest, were di- vided, in equal proportions, or otherwise, between the nobles and the people. This also is no bad expedient, and proved singularly efficacious in appeasing the dissensions of ancient Rome. There is, however, a natural preponderance in the popular scale, which, in a fair trial, invariably gains on that of the less numerous class. The artisans, who composed the bulk of the population, were arranged in companies according to their occupations. Sometimes, as at Milan, they formed sep- arate associations, with rules for their internal government. 1 The clubs, called at Milan la Motta and la Credenza, obtained a degree of weight not at all surprising to those who consider the spirit of mutual attachment which belongs to such frater- nities ; and we shall see a more striking instance of this here- after in the republic of Florence. To so formidable and organized a democracy the nobles opposed their numerous families, the generous spirit that belongs to high birth, the in- fluence of wealth and established name. The members of each distinguished family appear to have lived in the same street ; their houses were fortified with square massive towers of commanding height, and wore the semblance of castles within the walls of a city. Brancaleon, the famous senator of Rome, destroyed one hundred and forty of these domestic entrenchments, which were constantly serving the purpose of civil broils and outrage. Expelled, as frequently happened, from the city, it was in the power of the nobles to avail them- selves of their superiority in the use of cavalry, and to lay waste the district, till weariness of an unprofitable contention i Muratori, Dissert. 52; Siamondi, t. iii. p. 262. VOL. 1 M. 25 386 LOMBARD CITIES. CHAP. III. PART I. reduced the citizens to terms of compromise. But when all these resources were ineffectual, they were tempted or forced to sacrifice the public liberty to their own welfare, and lent their aid to a foreign master or a domestic usurper. In all these scenes of turbulence, whether the contest was between the nobles and people or the Guelf or Ghibelin fac- tions, no mercy was shown by the conquerors. The van- quished lost their homes and fortunes, and, retiring to other cities of their_pwn party, waited for the opportunity of revenge. In a popular tumult the houses of the beaten side were fre- quently levelled to the ground not perhaps from a sort of senseless fury, which Muratori inveighs against, but on ac- count of the injury which these fortified houses inflicted upon the lower citizens. The most deadly hatred is that which men exasperated by proscription and forfeiture bear to their country ; nor have we need to ask any other cause for the calamities of Italy than the bitterness with which an unsuc cessful faction was thus pursued into banishment. When the Ghibelins were returning to Florence, after a defeat given to the prevailing party in 1260, it was proposed among them to demolish the city itself which had cast them out ; and, but for the persuasion of one man, Farinata degl' Uberti, their revenge would have thus extinguished all patriotism. 1 It is to this that we must ascribe their proneness to call in assist- ance from every side, and to invite any servitude for the sake of retaliating upon their adversaries. The simple love of public liberty is in general, I fear, too abstract a passion to glow warmly in the human breast ; and though often in- vigorated as well as determined by personal animosities and predilections, is as frequently extinguished by the same cause. Independently of the two leading differences which embattled the citizens of an Italian state, their form of government and their relation to the empire, there were others more contemp- tible though not less mischievous. In every city the quarrels of private families became the foundation of general schism, sedition, and proscription. Sometimes these blended them- selves with the grand distinctions of Guelf and Ghibelin ; 1 Q. Villani, 1. ri. c. 82. Sistnondi. conversation of the poet with Farinata. I cannot forgive Dante for placing this cant. 10, is very fine, and illustrative of patriot tr& 1' anime piu nere, in one of Florentine history, the worst regions of his luferno. The CITIL DISSENSIONS. 387 sometimes they were more nakedly conspicuous. This may be illustrated by one or two prominent examples. Imilda de' Lambertazzi, a noble young lady at Bologna, was surprised by her brothers in a secret interview with Boniface Gieremei, whose family had long been separated by the most inveterate enmity from her own. She had just time to escape, while the Lambertazzi despatched her lover with their poisoned daggers. On her return she found his body still warm, and a faint hope suggested the remedy of sucking the venom from his wounds. But it only communicated itself to her own veins, and they were found by her attendants stretched lifeless by each other's side. So cruel an outrage wrought the Gieremei to madness ; they formed alliances with some neighboring republics ; the Lambertazzi took the same meas- ures ; and after a fight in the streets of Bologna, of forty days' duration, the latter were driven out of the city, with all the Ghibelins, their political associates. Twelve thousand citizens were condemned to banishment, their houses razed, and their estates confiscated. 1 Florence was at rest till, in 1215, the assassination of an individual produced a mortal feud between the families Buondelmonti and Uberti, in which all the city took a part. An outrage committed at Pistoja in 1300 split the inhabitants into the parties of Bianchi and Neri ; and these, spreading to Florence, created one of the most virulent divisions which annoyed % that republic. In one of the changes which attended this little ramification of fac- tion, Florence expelled a young citizen who had borne of- Gces of magistracy, and espoused the cause of the Bian- chi. Dante Alighieri retired to the courts of some Ghibelin princes, where his sublime and inventive mind, in the gloom of exile, completed that original combination of vast and extravagant conceptions with keen political satire, which has given immortality to his name, and even lustre to thu petty contests of his time. 2 In the earlier stages of the Lombard republics their differ- ences, as well mutual as domestic, had been frequently ap- peased by the mediation of the emperors ; and the loss of this salutary influence may be considered as no slight evil 1 Sismondi, t. Hi. p. 442. This story 2 Dj no Compagni, in Scr. Rer. Ttal. t. laay suggest that of Romeo and Juliet, ix. ; Villani, 1st. Fiorent. 1. riii. ; Dante, tfelf founded upon an Italian novel, and passim not an unnatural picture of luauncrs. 388 GIOVANNI DI V1CENZA. CHAP. III. I'AKT I. attached to that absolute emancipation which Italy attained in the thirteenth century. The popes sometimes endeavored to interpose an authority which, though not quite so direct, was held in greater veneration ; and if their own tempers had been always pure from the selfish and vindictive pas- sions of those whom they influenced, might have produced more general and permanent good. But they considered the Ghibelins as their own peculiar enemies, arid the triumph of the opposite faction as the church's best security. Gregory X. and Nicholas III., whether from benevolent motives, or because their jealousy of Charles of Anjou, while at the head of the Guelfs, suggested the revival of a Ghibelin party as a counterpoise "to his power, distinguished their pon- tificate by enforcing measures of reconciliation in all Italian cities ; but their successors returned to the ancient policy and prejudices of Rome. The singular history of an individual far less elevated in Giovanni di station than popes or emperors, Fra Giovanni di Vicenza. Vicenza, belongs to these tunes and to this subject. This Dominican friar began his career at Bologna in 1233, preaching the cessation of war and forgiveness of injuries. He repaired from thence to Padua, to Verona, and the neigh- boring cities. At his command men laid down their in- struments of war, and embraced their enemies. With that susceptibility of transient impulse natural to popular govern- ments, several republics implored him to reform their laws and to settle their differences. A general meeting was sum- moned in the plain of Paquara, upon the banks of the Adige. The Lombards poured themselves forth from Romagna and the cities of the March ; Guelfs and Ghibelins, nobles and burghers, free citizens and tenantry of feudal lords, mar- shalled around their carroccios, caught from the lips of the preacher the allusive promise of universal peace. They submitted to agreements dictated by Fra Giovanni, which contain little else than a mutual amnesty ; whether it were that their quarrels had been really without object, or that he had dexterously avoided to determine the real points of con- tention. But power and reputation suddenly acquired are transitory. Not satisfied with being the legislator and arbi- ter of Italian cities, he aimed at becoming their master, and abused the enthusiasm of Vicenza and Verona to obtain a grant of absolute sovereignty. Changed from an apostle to ITALY. GIOVAXXI DI YICKN"ZA obi; an usurper, the fate of Fra Giovanni might be predicted; and he speedily gave place to those who, though they made a worse use of their power, had, in the eyes of mankind, more natural pretensions to possess it. 1 i Tirabowhi, Storia della Letteratura. t. iv. p. 214 (a very well-written account) Siamondi, t. ii. p. 484 390 STATE OF ITALY. CHAP. in. PAKT ft. . PART H. State of Italy after the Extinction of the House of Suabia Conquest of Naples by Charles of Anjou The Lombard Republics become severally subject to Princes or Usurpers The Visconti of Milan Their Aggrandizement Decline of the Imperial Authority over Italy Internal State of Rome Rienzi Florence her Forms of Government historically traced to the End of the Fourteenth Cen- tury Conquest of Pisa Pisa its Commerce, Naval Wars with Genoa, and Decay Genoa her Contentions with Venice War of Chioggio Government of Genoa Venice her Origin and Prosperity Venetian Government its Vices Territorial Conquests of Venice Military System of Italy Companies of Adven- ture 1, foreign; Guarnieri, Hawkwood and 2, native; Braccio, Sforza Im- provements in Military Service Arms, offensive and defensive Invention of Gunpowder Naples First Line of Anjou Joanna I. Ladislaus Joanna II. Francis Sforza becomes Duke of Milan Alfonzo King of Naples State of Italy luring the Fifteenth Century Florence Rise of the Medici, and Ruin of their Adversaries Pretensions of Charles VIII. to Naples. FROM the death of Frederic II. in 1250, to the invasion of Charles VIII. in 1494, a long and undistinguished period occurs, which it is impossible to break into any natural divi- sions. It is an age in many respects highly brilliant : the age of poetry and letters, of art, and of continual improve- ment. Italy displayed an intellectual superiority in this period over the Transalpine nations which certainly had not appeared since the destruction of the Roman empire. But her political history presents a labyrinth of petty facts so obscure and of so little influence as not to arrest the atten- tion, so intricate and incapable of classification as to leave only confusion in the memory. The general events that are worthy of notice, and give a character to this long period, are the establishment of small tyrannies upon the ruins of republican government in most of the cities, the gradual rise of three considerable states, Milan, Florence, and Venice, the naval and commercial rivalry between the last city and Genoa, the final acquisition by the popes .of their present territorial sovereignty, and the revolutions in the kingdom of Naples under the lines of Anjou and Aragon. After the death of Frederic II. the distinctions of Guelf and Ghibelin became destitute of all rational meaning. The most odious crimes were constantly perpetrated, and the ut- most miseries endured, for an echo and a shade that mocked ITALY. AFFAIRS OF NAPLES. 391 the leluded enthusiasts of faction. None of the Guelfs de- nied the nominal but indefinite sovereignty of the empire and beyond a name the Ghibelins themselves would have been little disposed to carry it. But the virulent hatreds at- tached to these words grew continually more implacable, till ages of ignominy and tyrannical government had extin- guished every energetic passion in the bosoms of a degraded people. In the fall of the house of Suabia, Rome appeared to have consummated her triumph ; and although the Ghibelin party was for a little time able- to maintain itself, and even to gain ground, in the north of Italy, yet two events that occurred not long afterwards restored the ascendency of their adver- saries. The first of these was the fall of Eccelin da Romano, whose rapid successes in Lombardy appeared to ^^ threaten the establishment of a tremendous despot- ism, and induced a temporary union of Guelf and Ghibelin states, by which he was overthrown. The next and far more important was the change of dynasty in Naples. Affairs of This kingdom had been occupied, after the death Na P les - of Conrad, by his illegitimate brother, Manfred, in the be- half, as he at first pretended, of young Conradin the heir, but in fact as his own acquisition. He was a prince of an active and firm mind, well fitted for his difficult post, to whom the Ghibelins looked up as their head, and as the representative of his father. It was a natural ob- ject with the popes, independently of their ill-will towards a son of Frederic II., to see a sovereign on whom they could better rely placed upon so neighboring a throne. Charles of Charles count of Anjou. brother of St. Louis, was Al 'J u - tempted by them to lead a crusade (for as such all wars for the interest of Rome were now considered) against the Neapolitan usurper. The chance* of a battle de- cided the fate of Naples, and had a striking in- fluence upon the history of Europe for several centuries. Manfred was killed in the field : but there remained the legitimate heir of the Frederics, a boy of seventeen years old, Conradin, son of Conrad, who rashly, as we say at least after the event, attempted to regain his inheritance. He fell into the hands of Charles ; and the voice of those rude ages, as well as of a more enlightened posterity, has united in brand- ing with everlasting infamy the name of that prince, who 592 DECLINE OF THE GHfBELINS. CHAP. III. PART II A D 1268 *^ no * hesitate to purchase the security of his own title by the public execution of an honorable competitor, or rather a rightful claimant of the throne he had usurped. With Conradin the house of Suabia was ex- tinguished; but Constance the daughter of Manfred had transported his right to Sicily and Naples into the hcuse of Aragon, by her marriage with Peter III. This success of a monarch selected by the Roman pontiffs Decline of as their particular champion, turned the tide of the GMbeiin faction over all Italy. He expelled the Ghibelins from Florence, of which they had a few years before obtained a complete command by means of their ' memorable victory upon the river Arbia. After the fall of Conradin that party was everywhere discouraged. Germany held out small hopes of support, even when the imperial throne, which had long been vacant, should be filled by one of her princes. The populace were in almost every city attached to the church and to the name of Guelf ; the kings of Naples employed their arms, and the popes their excom- munications ; so that for the remainder of the thirteenth cen tury the name of Ghibelin was a term of proscription in the majority of Lombard and Tuscan republics. Charles was constituted by the pope vicar-general in Tuscany. This was a new pretension of the Roman pontiffs, to name the lieuten- ants of the empire during its vacancy, which indeed could not be completely filled up without their consent. It soon, however, became evident that he aimed at the sovereignty of Italy. Some of the popes themselves, Gregory X. and Nich- olas IV., grew jealous of their own creature. At the congress of Cremona, in 1269, it was proposed to confer upon Charles the seigniory of all the Guelf cities; but the greater part were prudent enough to choose him rather as a friend than a master. 1 Ti.e Lom- The cities of Lombardy, however, of either de- bwoinesub- nomination, were no longer influenced by that ject to lords, generous disdain of one man's will which is to re- 1 Sismondi, t. iii. p. 417. Several, how- empire, and either to acquire that title ever, including Milan, took an oath of himself, or at least to stand in the same fidelity to Charles the same year. Ibid, relation as the emperors had done to the In 1273 he was lord of Alessandria and Italian states; which, according to the Piacenza, and received tribute from Mi- usage of the twelfth and thirteenth cm- lan, Bologna, and most Lombard cities, turies, left them in possession of every- Muratori. It was evidently his intention thing that we call independence, with to avail himself of the va^aucy of the the reservation of a nouiiual allegiance ITALY. SUBJECTION OF LOMBARD CITIES. 393 publican governments what chastity is to women a conser- vative principle, never to be reasoned upon, or subjected to calculations of utility. By force, or stratagem, or free con- sent, almost all the Lombard republics had already fallen un- der the yoke of some leading citizen, who became the lord (signore) or, in the German sense, tyrant of his country. The first instance of a voluntary delegation of sovereignty was that above mentioned of Ferrara, which placed itself under the lord of Este. Eccelin made himself truly the tyrant of the cities beyond the Adige ; and such experience ought naturally to have inspired the Italians with more universal abhorrence of despotism. But every danger ap- peared trivial in the eyes of exasperated factions when compared with the ascendency of their adversaries. Weary of unceasing and useless contests, in which ruin fell with an alternate but equal hand upon either party, liberty withdrew from a people who disgraced her name ; and the tumultuous, the brave, the intractable Lombards became eager to submit themselves to a master, and patient under the heaviest oppression. Or, if tyranny sometimes overstepped the limits of forbearance, and a seditious rising expelled the reigning prince, it was only to produce a change of hands, and transfer the impotent people to a different, and perhaps a worse, des- potism. 1 In many cities not a conspiracy was planned, not a sigh was breathed, in favor of republican government, after once they had passed under the sway of a single person. The progress indeed was gradual, though sure, from limited to absolute, from temporary to hereditary power, from a just and conciliating rule to extortion and cruelty. But before the middle of the fourteenth century, at the latest, all those cities which had spurned at the faintest mark of submission to the emperors lost even the recollection of self-government, and were bequeathed, like an undoubted patrimony, among the children of their new lords. Such is the progress of usurpation ; and such the vengeance that Heaven reserves 1 See an instance of the manner In the spot, put his son to death in cold which one tyrant was exchanged for an- blood, e poi si fece signore della terra, other, in the fate of Passerine Bonaccorsi, Villani, 1. x. c. 99, observes, like a good lord of Mantua, in 1328. Luigi di Qon- republican, that God had fulfilled in this zaga surprised him, nxle the city (corse the words of his Gospel (query, what la citti) with a troop of horse, crying, Gospe, '), I will slar my enemy by my Viva il popolo, e muoja Messer Passerino enemy abbattend* 'uno tiranno pel le sue gahelle' killed Passerino upon 1'altr*. 394 THE TORRIANI AND VISCONTI. CHAP. HI. PART IL for those who waste in license and faction its first of social blessings, liberty. 1 The city most distinguished in both wars against the house The of Suabia, for an unconquerable attachment to amTvis 1 . republican institutions, was the first to sacrifice conti at them in a few years after the death of Frederic II. Milan had for a considerable time been agi- tated by civil dissensions between the nobility and inferior citizens. These parties were pretty equally balanced, and their success was consequently alternate. Each had its own podesta, as a party-leader, distinct from the legitimate magis- trate of the city. At the head of the nobility was their arch- bishop, Fra Leon Perego ; the people chose Martin della Torre, one of a noble family which had ambitiously sided with the democratic faction. In consequence of the crime of a nobleman, who had murdered one of his creditors, the two parties took up arms in 1257. A civil war, of various suc- cess, and interrupted by several pacifications, which in that unhappy temper could not be durable, was terminated in about two years by the entire discomfiture of the aristocracy, and by the election of Martin della Torre as chief and lord (capitano e signore) of the people. Though the Milanese did not probably intend to renounce the sovereignty resident in their general assemblies, yet they soon lost the republican spirit ; five in succession of the family della Torre might be said to reign in Milan ; each, indeed, by a formal election, but with an implied recognition of a sort of hereditary title. Twenty years afterwards the Visconti, a family of opposite interests, supplanted the Torriani at Milan ; and the rivalry between these great houses was not at an end till the final establishment of Matteo Visconti in 1313; but the people were not otherwise considered than as aiding by force the one or other party, and at most deciding between the pretensions of their masters. The vigor and concert infused into the Guelf party by the 1 See the observations of Sismondi, t. people was consulted upon several occa- Iv. p. 212, on the conduct of the Lorn- sions. At Milan there was a council ot bard signori (I know not of any English 900 nobles, not permanent or represent- word that characterizes them, except ative, but selected and convened at th ti/rant in its primitive sense) during the discretion of the government, throughout first period of their dominion. They the reigns of the Visconti. Corio, p. 519, were generally chosen in an assembly of 683. Thus, as Sismondi remarks, they the people, sometimes for a short term, respected the sovereignty of the people, prolonged in the same manner. The while they destroyed its liberty. ITALY. REVIVAL OF THE GHLBELINS. 395 successes of Charles of Anjou, was not very dura- R ev i va i of ble. That prince was soon involved in a protracted ^ GMbe- and unfortunate quarrel with the kings of Aragon, to whose protection his revolted subjects in Italy had recurred. On the other hand, several men of energetic character retrieved the Ghibelin interests in Lombardy, and even in the Tuscan cities. The Visconti were acknowledged heads of that faction. A family early established as lords of Verona, the della Scala, maintained the credit of the same denomination between the Adige and the Adriatic. Castruccio Castrucani, an adven- turer of remarkable ability, rendered himself prince of Lucca, and drew over a formidable accession to the imperial side from the heart of the church-party in Tuscany, though his death restored the ancient order of things. The inferior tyrants were partly Guelf, partly Ghibelin, according to local revolutions ; but upon the whole the latter acquired a gradual ascendency. Those indeed who cared for the independence of Italy, or for their own power, had far less to fear from the phantom of imperial prerogatives, long intermitted and inca- pable of being enforced, than from the new race of foreign princes whom the church had substituted for the house of Suabia. The Angevin kings of Naples Nap^saim were sovereigns of Provence, and from thence a ' command o of Italy. easily encroached upon Piedmont, and threatened the Milanese.. Robert, the third of this line, almost openly aspired, like his grandfather Charles I., to a real sovereignty over Italy. His offers of assistance to Guelf cities in war were always coupled with a demand of the sovereignty. Many yielded to his ambition ; and even Florence twice bestowed upon him a temporary dictatorship. In 1314 he was acknowledged lord of Lucca, Florence, Pavia, Alessan- dria, Bergamo, and the cities of Romagna. In 1318 the Guelfs of Genoa found no other resource against the Ghibe- lin emigrants who were under their walls than to resign their liberties to the king of Naples for the term of ten years, which he procured to be renewed for six more. TherAvignon popes, especially John XXII., out of blind hatred to the em- peror Louis of Bavaria and the Visconti family, abetted all these measures of ambition. But they were rendered abor- tive by Robert's death and the subsequent disturbances of his kingdom. At the latter end of the thirteenth ctntury there were 396 STATE OF LOMBARDY. CHAP. III. PART IL almost as many princes in the north of Italy as there had been free cities in the preceding age. Their equality, and the frequent domestic revolutions which made their seat un- steady, kept them for a while from encroaching on each other. Gradually, however, they became less numerous : a quantity of obscure tyrants were swept away from the smaller cities ; and the people, careless or hopeless of liberty, were glad to State of exchange the rule of despicable petty usurpers for Lombardy that of more distinguished and powerful families, 'of the mi ' le About the year 1350 the central parts of Lombar- fourteenth /> empire. magistrates ; a very equivocal proof of sovereignty in cities much more considerable than Venice. But both the western and the eastern empire alternately pretended to ex- ercise dominion over her ; she was conquered by Pepin, son of Charlemagne, and restored by him, as the chronicles say, to the Greek emperor Nicephorus. There is every appear- ance that the Venetians had always considered themselves as subject, in a large sense not exclusive of their municipal self-government, to the eastern empire. 4 And this connec- i Sismondi, t. ni. p. 237, 367. Sismondi, t. i. p. 309. * Ebbe principle, says Sanuto haugh- * Nicephorus stipulates with Charle tily, non da pa^tori. come ebbe Roma, magne for his faithful city of Venice, ma da potenti, e nobili. Quaa in devotione imperil iliibatee te> 436 ACQUISITIONS OF VENICE. CHAP. HI. PART II tion was nol broken, in the early part, at least, of the tenth century. But, for every essential purpose, Venice might long before be deemed an independent state. Her doge was not confirmed at Constantinople ; she paid no tribute, and lent no assistance in war. Her own navies, in the ninth cen- tury, encountered the Normans, the Saracens, and the Scla- vonians in the Adriatic Sea. Upon the coast of Dalmatia were several Greek cities, which the empire had ceased to protect, and which, like Venice itself, became republics for want of a master. Ragusa was one of these, and, more for- tunate than the rest, survived as an independent city till our conquest of own age. In return for the assistance of Venice, these little seaports put themselves under her gov A.D. 997. einment; the Sclavonian pirates were repressed; and after acquiring, partly by consent, partly by arms, a large tract of maritime territory, the doge took the title of duke of Dalmatia, which is said by Dandolo to have been confirmed at Constantinople. Three or four centuries, however, elapsed before the republic became secure of these conquests, which were frequently wrested from her by rebellions of the inhab- itants, or by her powerful neighbor, the king of Hungary. A more important source of Venetian greatness was com- Her acqui- merce. In the darkest and most barbarous period, sitions m before Genoa or even Pisa had entered into mer- cantile pursuits, Venice carried on an extensive traffic both with the Greek and Saracen regions of the Le- vant. The crusades enriched and aggrandized Venice more, perhaps, than any other city. Her splendor may, however, be dated from the taking of Constantinople by the Latins in 1204. In this famous enterprise, which diverted a great ar- mament destined for the recovery of Jerusalem, the French and Venetian nations were alone engaged ; but the former only as private adventurers, the latter with the whole strength terant. Danduli Chronicon, in Muratori, Giannone's history, t. ii. p. 283. edit. Script. Rer. Ital. t. xii. p. 156. In the Haia, 1753. Muratori informs us that tenth century Constantine Porphyro- so late as 1084 the doge obtained the title genitus, in his book De Administratione of Imperialis Protosevastos from the Imperil, claims the Venetians as his sub- court of Constantinople ; a title which jects, though he admits that they had, he continued always to use. (Annall for peace sake, paid tribute to Pepin and d' Italia, ad ann.) But I should lay no his successors as kings of Italy, p. 71. stress on this circumstance. The Greek, I have not read the famous Squittinio like the German emperors in modern della liberti Veneta, which gave the re- times, had a mint of specious titles public so much offence in the seventeenth which passed for ready money ovel century ; but a very strong case is made Christendom, out against their early independence in HER GOVERNMENT. 437 of their republic under its doge Henry Dandolo. Three eighths of the city of Constantinople, and an equal propor- tion of the provinces, were allotted to them in the partition of the spoil, and the doge took the singular but accurate title, Duke of three eigths of tlie Roman empire. Their share was increased by purchases from less opulent crusaders, es- pecially one of much importance, the island of Candia, which they retained till the middle of the seventeenth century. These foreign acquisitions were generally granted out in fief to pri- vate Venetian nobles under the supremacy of the republic. 1 It was thus that the Ionian islands, to adopt the vocabulary of our day, came under the dominion of Venice, and guar- anteed that sovereignty which she now began to affect over the Adriatic. Those of the Archipelago were lost in the sixteenth century. This political greatness was sustained by an increasing commerce. No Christian state preserved so considerable an intercourse with the Mohammedans. "While Genoa kept the keys of the Black Sea by her colo- nies of Pera and Caffa, Venice directed her vessels to Acre and Alexandria. These connections, as is the natural effect of trade, deadened the sense of religious antipathy ; and tho Venetians were sometimes charged with obstructing all efforts towards a new crusade, or even any partial attacks upon the Mohammedan nations. The earliest form of government at Venice, as we collect from an epistle of Cassiodorus in the sixth century, Venetian was by twelve annual tribunes. Perhaps the g vernment - union of the different islanders was merely federative. However, in 697, they resolved to elect a chief magistrate by name of duke, or, in. their dialect, doge of Venice. No councils appear to have limited his power, or represented the national will. The doge was general and judge ; he was sometimes permitted to associate his son with him, and thus to prepare the road for hereditary power ; his government had all the prerogatives, and, as far as in such a state of manners was possible, the pomp, of a monarchy. But he acted in important matters with the concurrence of a general assembly, though, from the want of positive restraints, his executive government might be considered as nearly abso- lute. Time, however, demonstrated to the Venetians the i Sismoudi, t. U. p. 431 438 GOVEKNMENT OF VENICE. CHAP. IH. PART II. imperfections of such a constitution. Limitations were ac cordingly imposed on the doge in 1032 ; he was prohibited from associating a son in the government, and obliged to act with the consent of two elected counsellors, and, on impor- tant occasions, to call in some of the principal citizens. No other change appears to have taken place till 1172, long after every other Italian city had provided for its liberty by constitutional laws, more or less successful, but always mani- festing a good deal of contrivance and complication. Venice was, however, dissatisfied with her existing institutions. General assemblies were found, in practice, inconvenient and unsatisfactory. Yet some adequate safeguard against a magistrate of indefinite powers was required by freemen. A representative council, as in other republics, justly appear- ed the best innovation that could be introduced. 1 The great council of Venice, as established in 1172, was to consist of four hundred and eighty citizens, equally taken from the six districts of the city, and annually renewed. But the election was not made immediately by the people. Two electors, called tribunes, from each of the six districts, ap- pointed the members of the council by separate nomination. These tribunes at first were themselves chosen by the people, so that the intervention of this electoral body did not appar- ently trespass upon the democratical character of the consti- tution. But the great council, principally composed of men of high birth, and invested by the law with the appointment of the doge, and of all the councils of magistracy, seem, early in the thirteenth century, to have assumed the right of naming their own constituents. Besides appointing the trib- unes, they took upon themselves another privilege, that of confirming or rejecting their successors before they resigned their functions. These usurpations rendered the annual election almost nugatory; the same members were usually renewed ; and though the dignity of councillor was not yet hereditary, it remained, upon the whole, in the same families. In this transitional state the Venetian government continued during the thirteenth century ; the people actually debarred 1 Sismondi, t. iii. p. 287. As T have rian. To avoid frequent reference, thn never read the Storia civile Veneta by principal passages in Sismondi relative to Vettor Sandi, in nine vols. 4to., or even the domestic revolutions of Venice are Laugier's History of Venice, my reliance t. i. p. 323, t. iii. p. 287-300, t. iv. p. 349- has chiefly been placed on M. Sismondf, 370. The history of Daru had not bee who has made use of Sandi, the latest, published when this was written, md probably the most accurate, histo ITALY. GOVERNMENT OF VENICE. 439 of power, but an hereditary aristocracy not completely or legally confirmed. The right of electing, or rather of re- electing, the great council was transferred, in 1297, from the tribunes, whose office was abolished, to the council of forty ; they balloted upon the names of the members who already sat ; and whoever obtained twelve favoring balls out of forty re- tained his place. The vacancies occasioned by rejection or death were filled up by a supplemental list formed by three electors nominated in the great council. But they were ex- pressly prohibited, by laws of 1298 and 1300, from inserting the name of any one whose paternal ancestors had not en- joyed the same honor. Thus an exclusive hereditary aris- tocracy was finally established. And the personal rights of noble descent were rendered complete in 1319 by the aboli tion of all elective forms. By the constitution of Venice as it was then settled, every descendant of a member of the. great council, on attaining twenty-five years of age, entered as of right into that body, which, of course, became un- limited in its numbers. 1 But an assembly so numerous as the great council, even before it was thus thrown open to all the nobility, could never have conducted the public affairs with that secrecy and steadiness which were characteristic of Venice ; and without an intermediary power between the doge and the patrician multitude the constitution would have gained nothing in stability to compensate for the loss of popular freedom. The great council had proceeded very soon after its institution to limit the ducal prerogatives. That of exer- cising criminal justice, a trust of vast importance, was trans- ferred in 1179 to a council of forty members annually chosen. The executive government itself was thought too considerable for the doge without some material limitations. Instead of naming his own assistants or pregadi, he wa* only to preside in a council of sixty members, to whom the care of the state in all domestic and foreign relations, and 1 These gradual changes between 1297 noble had a right to take his seat in the and 1319 were first made known by Sandi, great council. But the names of those from whom M. Sismondi has introduced who had passed the age of twenty were the facts into his own history. I notice annually put into an urn, and one fifth this, because all former writers, both an- drawn out by lot, who were thereupon cient and modern, fix the complete and admitted. On an average, therefore, the flmil establishment of the Venetian aris- age of admission was about twenty -three, toeracyin 1297. Janotus de Rep. Venet. Contarini. Twenty-five years complete was the Amelot de la Houssaye. statutable age at which every Venetian 440 GOVERNMENT OF VENICE. CHAP. III. PART Ii the previous deliberation upon proposals submitted to the great council, was confided. This council of pregadi, gen- erally called in later times the senate, was enlarged in the fourteenth century by sixty additional members ; and as a great part of the magistrates had also seats in it, the whole number amounted to between two and three hundred. Though the legislative power, properly speaking, remained with the great council, the senate used to impose taxes, and had the exclusive right of making peace and war. It was annually renewed, like almost all other councils at Venice, by the great council. But since even this body was too nu- merous for the preliminary discussion of business, six coun- cillors, forming, along with the doge, the signiory, or visible representative of the republic, were empowered to dispatch orders, to correspond with ambassadors, to treat with foreign states, to convoke and preside in the councils, and perform other duties of an administration. In part of these they were obliged to act with the concurrence of what was term- ed the college, comprising, besides themselves, certain select councillors, from different constituted authorities. 1 It might be imagined that a dignity so shorn of its lustre as that of doge would not excite an overweening ambition. But the Venetians were still jealous of extinguished power ; and while their constitution was yet immature, the great council planned new methods of restricting their chief mag- istrate. An oath was taken by the doge on his election, so comprehensive as to embrace every possible check upon un- due influence. He was bound not to correspond with foreign states, or to open their letters, except in the presence of the signiory; to acquire no property beyond the Venetian do- minions, and to resign what he might already possess; to in- terpose, directly or indirectly, in no judicial process ; and not to permit any citizen to use tokens of subjection in saluting him. As a further security, they devised a remarkably com- plicated mode of supplying the vacancy of his office. Elec- tion by open suffrage is always liable to tumult or corruption ; uor does the method of secret ballot, while it prevents the 1 The college of Savj consisted of six- bate. The signiory had the same prtvi- teen pe'rsons ; and it possessed the initia- lege. Thus the virtual powers even of five in all public measures that required the senate were far more limited than the assent of the senate. For no single they appear at first sight ; and no possi- senator, much less any noble of the great bility remained of innovation in the fun- council, could propose anything for de- damental principles of the constitution [TALT. GOVERNMENT OF VENICE. 441 one, afford in practice any adequate security against the other. Election by lot incurs the risk of placing incapable persons in situations of arduous trust. The Venetian scheme was intended to combine the two modes without their evils, by leaving the absolute choice of their doge to electors taken by lot. It was presumed that, among a competent number of persons, though taken promiscuously, good sense and right principle? would gain such an ascendency as to prevent any flagrantly improper nomination, if undue influence could be excluded. For this purpose the ballot was rendered exceed- ingly complicated, that no possible ingenuity or stratagem might ascertain the electoral body before the last moment. A single lottery, if fairly conducted, is certainly sufficient for this end. At Venice as many balls as there were members of the great council present were placed in an urn. Thirty of these were gilt. The holders of gilt balls were reduced by a second ballot to nine. The nine elected forty, whom lot reduced to twelve. The twelve chose twenty-five by separate nomination. 1 The twenty-five were reduced by lot to nine ; and each of the nine chose five. These forty-five were reduced to eleven as before ; the eleven elected forty- one, who were the ultimate voters for a doge. This intri- cacy appears useless, and consequently absurd ; but the original principle of a Venetian election (for something of the same kind was applied to all their councils and magistrates) may not always be unworthy of imitation. In one of our best modern statutes, that for regulating the trials of contested elections, we have seen this mixture of chance and selection very happily introduced. 2 An hereditary prince could never have remained quiet in such trammels as were imposed upon the doge of Venice. But early prejudice accustoms men to consider restraint, even upon themselves, as advantageous ; and the limitations of du- cal power appeared to every Venetian as fundamental as the great laws of the English constitution do to ourselves. Many doges of Venice, especially in the middle ages, were consid- erable men ; but they were content with the functions assigned 1 Amelot de la Houssaye asserts this: reason to doubt whether grosser instances but. according to Contarini. the method of partial or unjust, or at best erroneous, wras by ballot. determination have not taken place si.io - nils was written about 1810. The a new tribunal was erected, than couU statute to which I allude grew out of be imputed to the celebrated GrenviLU favor afterwards But there in too much Act. [1860 ' 442 GOVERNMENT OF VENICE. CHAP. III. PART II. to them, which, if they could avoid the tantalizing comparison of sovereign princes, were enough for the ambition of repub- licans. For life the chief magistrates of their country, her noble citizens for ever, they might thank her in their own name for what she gave, and in that of their posterity for what she withheld. Once only a doge of Venice was tempted j-^ to betray the freedom of the republic. Marin Falieri, a man far advanced in life, engaged, from some petty resentment, in a wild intrigue to .overturn the government. The conspiracy was soon discovered, and the doge avowed his guilt. An aristocracy so firm and so severe did not hesitate to order his execution in the ducal palace. For some years after what was called the closing of the great council by the law of 1296, which excluded all but the families actually in possession, a good deal of discontent showed itself among the commonalty. Several commotions took place about the beginning of the fourteenth century, with the object of restoring a more popular regimen. Upon the suppression of the last, in 1310, the aristocracy sacrificed their own individual freedom, along with that of the people, to the preservation of an imaginary privilege. They established the famous council of ten, that most remarkable part of the Venetian constitution. This council, it should be observed, consisted in fact of seventeen, comprising the signiory, or the doge and his six councillors, as well as the ten properly so called. The council of ten had by usage, if not. by right, a controlling and dictatorial power over the senate and other magistrates, rescinding their decisions, and treating separately with foreign princes. Their vast influence strengthened the executive government, of which they formed a part, and gave a vigor to its movements which the jealousy of the councils would possibly have impeded. But they are chiefly known as an arbitrary and inquisitorial tribunal, the standing tyranny of Venice. Excluding the old council of forty, a regular court of criminal judicature, not only from the inves- tigation of treasonable charges but of several other crimes of magnitude, they inquired, they judged, they punished, ac- cording to what they called reason of state. The public eye never penetrated the mystery of their proceedings ; the ac- cused was sometimes not heard, never confronted with wit- nesses ; the condemnation was secret as the inquiry, the ITALY. GOVERNMENT OF VENICE. 443 punishment undivulged like both. 1 The terrible and odious ma- chinery of a police, the insidious spy, the stipendiary informer, unknown to the carelessness of feudal governments, found their natural soil in the republic of Venice. Tumultuous assem- blies were scarcely possible in so peculiar a city ; and privare conspiracies never failed to be detected by the vigilance of the council of ten. Compared with the Tuscan republics the tranquillity of Venice is truly striking. The names of Guelf and Ghibelin hardly raised any emotion in her streets, though the government was considered in the first part of the four- teenth century as rather inclined towards the latter party. 9 But the wildest excesses of faction are less dishonoring than the stillness and moral degradation of servitude. 8 It was a very common theme with political writers till about the beginning of the last century, when Venice fell almost into oblivion, to descant upon the wisdom of this gov- ernment. And, indeed, if the preservation of ancient insti- tutions be, as some appear to consider it, not a means but an end, and an end for which the rights of man and laws of God may at any time be set aside, we must acknowledge that it was a wisely constructed system. Formed to compres> th<; two opposite forces from which resistance might be expected, it kept both the doge and the people in perfect subordination. Even the coalition of an executive magistrate with the multi- tude, so fatal to most aristocracies, never endangered that of Venice. It is most remarkable that a part of the constitution which destroyed every man's security, and incurred general hatred, was still maintained by a sense of its necessity. The council of ten, annually renewed, might annually have been, annihilated. The great council had only to withhold their 1 Ilium etiam morem observant, ne tian government: but Daru informs us reum, cum de eo judicium laturi sunt, it was by a law enacted in 1400. Hist, in collegium admittant, neque eognito- de Venise. 1. 589. It is noticed by Ame- rern, aut oratorem queinpiam, qui ejus lot de la Houssaye, who tells us also, as causam agat. Contarini de Rep. Venet. Daru does, that the nobility evaded the 2 Villani several times speaks of the law by secret partnership with the privi- Venetians as regular Qhibelins. 1. is. c. leged merchants or cittaJmi. who formed 2, 1. x. c. 89, &c. But this is put much a separate class at Venice. This was the too strongly : though their government custom in modern times. But I have may have had a slight bias towards that never understood the principle or corn- faction, they were in reality neutral, and mon sense of such a restriction, e.pe- far enough remove 1 from any domestic cially combined with that other funda- fends upon that score. mental law which disqualified a Venetian 3 By the modern law of Venice a noble- nobleman from possessing a landed estate man could not engage in trade without on the terra firnia of the republic. The derogating from his rank : I do not find latter, however, did not extend, as I have this peculiarity observed by Jannotti and been informed, to Dalmatia, or the Ionian Contarini. the oldest writers on the Vene- islands 444 GOVERNMENT OF VENICE. CHAP III. f>FT II suffrages from the new candidates, and the tyranny expired of itself. This was several times attempted (I speak now of more modern ages) ; but the nobles, though detesting the council of ten, never steadily persevered in refusing to re- elect it. It was, in fact, become essential to Venice. So great were the vices of her constitution that she could not endure their remedies. If the council of ten had been abolished at any time since the fifteenth century, if the removal of that jealous despotism had given scope to the corruption of a poor and debased aristocracy, to the license of a people unworthy of freedom, the republic would have soon lost her territorial possessions, if not her own independence. If, indeed, it be true, as reported, that during the last hundred years this for- midable tribunal had sensibly relaxed its vigilance, if the Ve- netian government had become less tyrannical through sloth or decline of national spirit, our conjecture will have acquired the confirmation of experience. Experience has recently shown that a worse calamity than domestic tyranny might befall the queen of the Adriatic. In the Place of St. Mark, among the monuments of extinguished greatness, a traveller may regret to think that an insolent German soldiery has re- placed even the senators of Venice. Her ancient liberty, her bright and romantic career of glory in countries so dear to the imagination, her magnanimous defence in the war of Chiog- gia, a few thinly scattered names of illustrious men, will rise upon his mind, and mingle with his indignation at the treach- ery which robbed her of her independence. But if he has learned the true attributes of wisdom in civil policy, he will not easily prostitute that word to a constitution formed without reference to property or to population, that vested sovereign power partly in a 'body of impoverished nobles, partly in an overruling despotism ; or to a practical system of government that made vice the ally of tyranny, and sought impunity for its own assassinations by encouraging dissoluteness of private life. Perhaps, too, the wisdom so often imputed to the sen- ate in its foreign policy has been greatly exaggerated. The balance of power established in Europe, and above all in Italy, maintained for the two last centuries states of small intrinsic resources, without any efforts of their own. In the ultimate crisis, at least, of Venetian liberty, that solemn mockery of statesmanship was exhibited to contempt ; too blind to avert danger, too cowardly to withstand it, the most ancient gov- ITALY. STATE OF LOiTBAEDY. 445 crnment of Europe made not an instant's resistance; the peasants of Underpaid died upon their mountains ; die nobles of Venice clung only to their lives. 1 Until almost the middle of the fourteenth century Venice had been content without any territorial possessions in Italy; unless we reckon a very narrow strip of sea-coast, bordering on her lagunes, called the Dogato. Neutral in Territorial the great contests between the church and the acquisitions empire, between the free cities and their sover- eigns, she was respected by both parties, while neither ven- tured to claim her as an ally. But the rapid progress of Mastino della Scala, lord of Verona, with some particular injuries, led the senate to form a league with Florence against him. Villani mentions it as a singular honor for his country to have become the confederate of the Venetians, " who, for their great excellence and power, had never allied themselves with any state or prince, except at their ancient conquest of Constantinople and Romania." 2 The result of this combination was to annex the district of Treviso to the Venetian dominions. But they made no further conquests in that age. On the contrary, they lost Treviso in the unfortunate war of Chioggia, and did not regain it till 1389. Nqr did they seriously attempt to withstand the progress of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, who, after overthrowing the family of Scala, stret.ched almost to the Adriatic, and altogether subverted for a time the balance of power in Lombardy. But upon the death of this prince, in 1404, a remarkable crisis took place in that country. He left two state of sons. Giovanni Maria and Filippo Maria, both af ^e ardy young, and under the care of a mother who was beginning little fitted for her situation. Through her mis- fifteenth conduct and the selfish ambition of some military century. 1 The circumstances to which Venice doge himself lies in that of the Jesuits, was reduced in her last agony by the The words Manini Cineres may be read violence and treachery of Napoleon, and in both, which probably was the cau.-e the apparent impossibility of an effective of my forgetfulness. [18oO.] resistance, so fully described by Darn, See in the Edinburgh Review, vol. Hi and still better by Bott.-x, induce me to p. 379, an account of a book which is, modify the severity of this remark. In perhaps, little known, though interest- former editions I have by mistake said ing to the history of our own age : a col- that the last doge of Venice, Manini, is lection of documents illustrating the fell buried it the church of the Scalii. with of the republic of Venice. The article is the inscription on the stone, Manini well written, and, I presume, contains a Cineres. This church was indeed built faithful account of the work ; the author by the contributions of several noble of which, Signor Barzoni, is respected ai fiimilies, among them the Manini. most a patriotic writer in Italy. of whom are interred there ; but the last 8 L. xi. c. 49. 446 STATE OF LOMBAEDY. CHAP. Ill TAKT II leaders, who had commanded Gian Galeazzo's mercenaries, that extensive dominion was soon broken into fragments. Bergamo, Como, Lodi, Cremona, and other cities revolted, submitting themselves in general to the families of their former princes, the earlier race of usurpers, who had for nearly a century been crushed by the Visconti. A Guelf faction revived after the name had long been proscribed in Lombardy. Francesco da Carrara, lord of Padua, availed himself of this revolution to get possession of Verona, and seemed likely to unite all the cities beyond the Adige. No family was so odious to the Venetians as that of Carrara. Though they had seemed indifferent to the more real danger tn Gian Galeazzo's lifetime, they took up arms against this inferior enemy. Both Padua and Verona were reduced, and, the duke of Milan ceding Vicenza, the republic of Venice came suddenly into the possession of an extensive territory. Francesco da Carrara, who had surrendered in his capital, was put to death in prison at Venice. Notwithstanding the deranged condition of the Milanese, no further attempts were made by the senate of Venice for twenty years. They had not yet acquired that decided love of war and conquest which soon began to influence them against all the rules of their ancient policy. There were still left some wary statesmen of the old school to check ambitious designs. Sanuto has preserved an interesting account of the wealth and commerce of Venice in those days. This is thrown into the mouth of the Doge Mocenigo, whom he represents as dissuading his country, with his dying words, from undertaking a war against Milan. " Through peace our city has every year," he said, " ten millions of ducats employed as mercantile capital in different parts of the world; the annual profit of our traders upon this sum amounts to four millions. Our housing is valued at 7,000,000 ducats ; its annual rental at 500,000. Three thousand mer- chant-ships carry on our trade ; forty-three galleys and three hundred smaller vessels, manned by 19,000 sailors, secure our naval power. Our mint has coined 1,000,000 ducats within the year. From the Milanese dominions alone we draw 1,654,000 ducats in coin, and the value of 900,000 more in cloths ; our profit upon this traffic may be reckoned at 600,000 ducats. Proceeding as you have done to acquire this wealth, you will become masters of all the gold in Chris- ITALY. WARS OF MILAN AND VENICE. 4-17 tendom ; but war. and especially unjust war, will lead infal- libly to ruin. Already you have spent 900,000 ducats in the acquisition of Verona and Padua ; yet the expense of pro- tecting these places absorbs all the revenue which they yield. You have many among you, men of probity and experience ; choose one of these to succeed me ; but beware of Francesco Foscari. If he is doge, you will soon have war, and war will bring poverty and loss of honor." 1 Mocenigo died, and Foscari became doge: the prophecies of the former were neglected ; and it cannot wholly be affirmed that they were fulfilled. Yet Venice is described by a writer thirty years later as somewhat impaired in opulence by her long warfare with the dukes of Milan. The latter had recovered a great part of their dominions as rapidly as they had lost them. Giovanni Maria, WliTS ot the elder brother, a monster of guilt even among Milan and the Visconti, having been assassinated, Filippo Maria assumed the government of Milan and Pavia, almost his only possessions. But though weak and unwarlike him- self, he had the good fortune to employ Carmagnola, one of the greatest generals of that military age. Most of the revolted cities were tired of their new masters, and, their inclinations conspiring with Carmagnola's eminent talents and activity, the house of Visconti reassumed its former a~- cendency from the Sessia to the Adige. Its fortunes might have been still more prosperous if Filippo Maria had not rashly as well as .ungratefully offended Carmagnola. That great captain retired to Venice, and inflamed a disposition towards war which the Florentines and the duke of Savoy had already excited. The Venetians had previously gained some important advantages in another quarter, by reducing the country of Friuli, with part of Istria, which had for many centuries depended on the temporal authority of a neighbor- ing prelate, the patriarch of Aquileia. They entered into 1 Sannto, Vite di Duchi di Venezia, in standing her acquisition, in the mean- Script. Rer. Ital. t. xxii. p. 958. Moceni- time, of Brescia, Bergamo, Ravenna, and go's harangue is very long in Sanuto. I Crema Id. ii. 462. They increased con- have endeavored to preserve the sub- siderably in the next twenty years. The stance. But the calculations are so taxes, however, were light in the Venetian strange and manifestly inexact that they dominions ; and Daru conceives the reve- deserve little regard. Daru has given nues of the republic, reduced to a corn them more at length, Ilist. de Venise, price, to have not exceeded the value fol. ii. p. 205. The revenues of Venice, of 11^000,000 francs at the present day. which had amounted to 996.290 ducats in p. 543 1423. were but 945,750 in 1469, uotwith 418 CHANGE IN MILITARY SYSTEM. CHAP. III. PART II. this new alliance. No undertaking of the republic had been more successful. Carmagnola led on their armies, A.D. 1426. . <5_ . ' and in about two years Venice acquired Brescia and Bergamo, and extended her boundary to the river Adda, which she was destined never to pass. Such conquests could only be made by a city so peculiar- change in ty maritime as Venice through the help of mcr- tue military cenary troops. But, in employing them, she merely conformed to a fashion which states to whom it was less indispensable had long since established. A great revolution had taken place in the system of military service through most parts of Europe, but especially in Italy. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, whether the Italian cities were engaged in their contest with the em- perors or in less arduous and general hostilities among each other, they seem to have poured out almost their whole population as an armed and loosely organized militia. A single city, with its adjacent district, sometimes brought twenty or thirty thousand men into the field. Every man, according to the trade he practised, or quarter of the city wherein he dwelt, knew his own banner and the captain he was to obey. 1 In battle the carroccio formed one com- mon rallying-point, the pivot of every movement. This was a chariot, or rather wagon, painted with vermilion, and bearing the city standard elevated upon it. That of Milan required four pair of oxen to drag it forward. 2 To defend this sacred emblem of his country, which Muratori compares to the ark of the covenant among the Jews, was the constant object, that, giving a sort of concentration and uniformity to the army, supplied in some degree the want of more regular tactics. This militia was of course principally composed of infantry. At the famous battle of the Arbia, in 1260, the Guelf Florentines had thirty thousand foot and three thousand horse ; 8 and the usual proportion was five, six, or ten to one. Gentlemen, however, were always mounted ; and the superiority of a heavy cavalry must have been prodig- iously great over an undisciplined and ill-armed populace. 1 Muratori, Antiq. Ital. Diss. 26: Deni- to Rome. Parma and Cremona lost their *a, Rivoluzioiii d : Italia, 1. xii. c. 4. carroccios to each other, and exchanged 2 The carroccio was invented by Eribert, them some years afterwards with great i celebrated archbishop of Milan, about exultation. In the fourteenth century 1039. Annali di Murat. ; Antiq. Ital. this custom had gone into disuse. Id. Diss. 26. The carroccio of Milan was ibid. Denina, 1. xii. c. 4. taken by Frederic II. in 1237, uud seat 3 Yillani, I. vi. c. 79. ITALT. EMPLOYMENT OF FOREIGN TROOPS. 449 In the thirteenth and following centuries armies seem to have been considered as formidable nearly in proportion to the number of men-at-arms or lancers. A charge of cav- alry was irresistible ; battles were continually won by inferior numbers, and vast slaughter was made among the fugitives. 1 As the comparative inefficiency of foot-soldiers became evident, a greater proportion of cavalry was employed, and armies, though better equipped and disciplined, were less numerous. This we find in the early part of the fourteenth century. The main point for a state at war was _ L. . ,*. . , /. r / Employment to obtain a sufficient force of men-at-arms. As few of foreign Italian cities could muster a large body of cavalry tro P 8 - from their own population, the obvious resource was to hire mercenary troops. This had been practised in some instances much earlier. The city of Genoa took the count of Savoy into pay with two hundred horse in 1225. 2 Florence re- tained five hundred French lances in 1282. 8 But it became much more general in the fourteenth century, chiefly after the expedition of the emperor Henry VII. in 1310. Many German soldiers of fortune, remaining in Italy upon this oc- casion, engaged in the service of Milan, Florence, or some other state. The subsequent expeditions of Louis of Ba- varia in 1326, and of John king of Bohemia in 1331, brought a fresh accession of adventurers from the same country. Others again came from France, and some from Hungary. All preferred to continue in the richest country and finest climate of Europe, where their services were anxiously solicited and abundantly repaid. An unfortunate prejudice in favor of strangers prevailed among the Italians of that age. They ceded to them, one knows not why, cer- tainly without having been vanquished, the palm of military skill and valor. The word Transalpine (Oltramontani) ia frequently applied to hired cavalry by the twq Villani as an epithet of excellence. The experience of every fresh campaign now told more 1 Sismondi. t. iii. p. 263, &c., has some the 1500 lances who composed the origi- ju'lieious observations on this subject. nal companies of ordonnance raised by 2 Muratori, Dissert. 26. Charles VI. amounted to nine thousand 3 Ammirato, 1st. Kiorent. p. 159. The cavalry. But in Italy the number was ame was done in 129", p. 200. A. lance, smaller. We read frequently of barbuti, itary. genius which nature furnishes to energetic characters were wanting to the leaders of a barbarian or feudal army : untroubled perspicacity in confusion, firm decision, rapid exe- cution, providence against attack, fertility of resource and stratagem these are in quality as much required from the chief of an Indian tribe as from the accomplished commander i Matt. Villani, p. 537. 454 WANT OF MILITARY SCIENCE. CHAP. III. PAKT II But we do not find them in any instance so consummated by habitual skill as to challenge the name of generalship. No one at least occurs to me, previously to the middle of the fourteenth century, to whom history has unequivocally as- signed that character. It is very rarely that we find even the order of battle specially noticed. The monks, indeed, our only chroniclers, were poor judges of martial excellence ; yet, as war is the main topic of all annals, we could hardly re- main ignorant of any distinguished skill in its operations. This neglect of military science certainly did not proceed from any predilection for the arts of peace. It arose out of the gen- eral manners of society, and out of the nature and composition of armies hi the middle ages. The insubordinate spirit of feu- dal tenants, and the emulous equality of chivalry, were alike hostile to that gradation of rank, that punctual observance of irksome duties, that prompt obedience to a supreme command, through which a single soul is infused into the active mass, and the rays of individual merit converge to the head of the general. In the fourteenth century we begin to perceive something of a more scientific character in military proceedings, and historians for the first time discover that success does not en- tirely depend upon intrepidity and physical prowess. The victory of Muhldorf over the Austrian princes in 1322, that decided a civil war in the empire, is ascribed to the ability of the Bavarian commandei'. 1 Many distinguished officers were formed in the school of Edward III. Yet their excellences were perhaps rather those of active partisans than of expe rienced generals. Their successes are still due rather to daring enthusiasm than to wary and calculating combination. Like inexpert chess-players, they surprise us by happy sallies against rule, or display their talents in rescuing themselves from the consequence of their own mistakes. Thus the ad- mirable arrangements of the Black Prince at Poitiers hardly redeem the temerity which placed him in a situation where the egregious folly of his adversary alone could have per- mitted him to triumph. Hawkwood therefore appears to me the first real general of modern times ; the earliest master, however imperfect, in the science of Turenne and Welling- ton. Every contemporary Italian historian speaks with 1 Struvius, Corpus Hist. German, p. ral, Is called by a contemporary writei 685. Schwepperuiau, the Bavarian gene- clarus militari scieutii vir. ITALY SCHOOL OF ITALIAN GENERALS. 455 admiration of his skilful tactics in battle, his stratagems, his well-conducted retreats. Praise of this description, as I have observed, is hardly bestowed, certainly not so continually, on any former captain. Hawkwood was not only the greatest but the last of the foreign condottieri, or captains of mercenary bands. School of While he was yet living, a new military school Italian had been formed in Italy, which not only super- ^^ geded, but eclipsed, all the strangers. This important reform was ascribed to Alberic di Barbiano, lord of some petty ter- ritories near Bologna. He formed a company altogether of Italians about the year 1379. It is not to be supposed that natives of Italy had before been absolutely excluded from service. We find several Italians, such as the Malatesta family, lords of Rimini, and the Rossi of Parma, command- ing the armies of Florence much earlier. But this was the first trading company, if I may borrow the analogy, the first regular body of Italian mercenaries, attached only to their commander without any consideration of party, like the Ger- mans and English of Lando and Hawkwood. Alberic di Barbiano, though himself no doubt a man of military talents, is principally distinguished by the school of great generals which the company of St. George under his command pro- duced, and which may be deduced, by regular succession, to the sixteenth century. The first in order of time, and imme- diate contemporaries of Barbiano, were Jacopo del Verme, Facino Cane, and Ottobon Terzo. Among an intelligent and educated people, little inclined to servile imitation, the mili- tary art made great progress. The most eminent condottieri being divided, in general, between belligerents, each of them had his genius excited and kept in tension by that of a rival in glory. Every resource of science as well as experience, every improvement in tactical arrangements, and the use of arms, were required to obtain an advantage over such equal enemies. In the first year of the fifteenth century the Italians brought their newly acquired superiority to a test. The emperor Robert, in alliance with Florence, invaded Gian Galeazzo's dominions with a considerable army. From old reputation, which so frequently survives the intrinsic qualities upon which it was founded, an impression appears to have been excited in Italy that the native troops were still unequal to meet the charge of German cuirassiers. The duke of 456 DEFENSIVE ARMS. CHAP. III. PART IL Milan gave orders to his general, Jacopo del Verme, to avoid a combat. But that able leader was aware of a great relative change in the two armies. The Germans had neglected to improve their discipline ; their arms were less easily wielded, their horses less obedient to the bit. A single skirmish was enough to open their eyes ; they found themselves decidedly inferior ; and having engaged in the war with the expectation of easy success, were readily disheartened. 1 This victory, or rather this decisive proof that victory might be achieved, set Italy at rest for almost a century from any apprehensions on the side of her ancient masters. Whatever evils might be derived, and they were not trifling, from the employment of foreign or native mercenaries, it was impossible to discontinue the system without general consent ; and too many states found their own advantage in it for such an agreement. The condottieri were indeed all notorious for contempt of engagements. Their rapacity was equal to their bad faith. Besides an enormous pay, for every private cui- rassier received much more in value than a subaltern officer at present, they exacted gratifications for every success. 2 But everything was endured by ambitious governments who wanted their aid. Florence and Venice were the two states which owed most to the companies of adventure. The one loved war without its perils ; the other could never have obtained an inch of territory with a population of sailors. But they were both almost inexhaustibly rich by commercial industry ; and, as the surest paymasters, were best served by those they employed. The Visconti might perhaps have extended their conquest over Lombardy with the militia of Milan ; but with- out a Jacopo del Verme or a Carmagnola, the banner of St. Mark would never have floated at Verona and Ber- gamo. The Italian armies of the fifteenth century have been re- Defensiye marked for one striking peculiarity. War has arms of never been conducted at so little personal hazard to the soldier. Combats frequently occur, in the i Sismon.vii. p. 89. It was a Burgundian ncgotia. 1. xvii. c. 4. And the same as well as English fashion. Eutre lea was done by the English in their engage- Bonrguignong, says Comines, lors es- ment with the Scotch near North-Aller- totent les plus honorez ceux qua des ton, commonly called the battle of the ceiidoient avec les archers. 1. i. c. 3. 460 INVENTION OF GUNPOWDER. CHAV. III. PAKT II an Arabic winter in the Escurial collection about the year 1249. 1 It was known not long afterwards to our philosopher Roger Bacon, though he concealed, in some degree, the secret of its composition. In the first part of the fourteenth century cannon, or rather mortars, were invented, and the applicabil- ity of gunpowder to purposes of war was understood. Ed- ward III. employed some pieces of artillery with considerable effect at Crecy. 2 But its use was still not very frequent ; a circumstance which will surprise us less when we consider the unscientific construction of artillery ; the slowness with which it could be loaded ; its stone balls, of uncertain aim and imperfect force, being commonly fired at a considerable elevation ; and especially the difficulty of removing it from place to place during an action. In sieges, and in naval en- gagements, as, for example, in the war of Chioggia, it was more frequently employed. 8 Gradually, however, the new artifice of evil gained ground. The French made the princi- pal improvements. They cast their cannon smaller, placed them on lighter carriages, and used balls of iron. 4 They in- vented portable arms for a single soldier, which, though clumsy in comparison with their present state, gave an augury of a prodigious revolution in the military art. John Duke of Bur- 1 Caairi, Bibl. Arab. Hispan. t. ii. p. 7, thus renders the original description of certain missiles used by the Moors. Ser- punt, susurrantque scorpiones circumli- gati ao pulvere nitrato incensi, unde explosi fulgurant ac incendunt. Jam videre erat manganum excussum veluti nubem per aera extendi ac tonitrus instar horrendum edere fragorem, ignemque undequique voinens, omnia dirumpere, incendere, in cineres redigere. The Ara- bic passage is at the bottom of the page ; and one would be glad to know whether pulvis nitratus is a fair translation. But I think there can on the whole be no doubt that gunpowder is meant. An- other Arabian writer seems to describe the use of cannon in the years 1312 and 1323. Id. ibid. And the chronicle of Alphonso XI., king of Castile, distinctly mentions them at the siege of Algeciras in 1.342. But before this they were suf- ficiently known in France. Gunpowder and cannon are both mentioned in regis- ters of accounts under 1338 (Du Cange, v. Bombarda). and in another document of 1345. Hist, du Languedoc. t. iv. p. 204. But the strongest evidence is a passage of Petrarch, written before 1344, and quoted 'n Muratori, Antich. Ital. Dissert. 26, p. 456, where he speaks of the art, nuper rara. nunc communis. 2 G. Villani, 1. xii. c. 67. Gibbon has thrown out a sort of objection to the cer- tainty of this fact, on account of Frois- sart's silence. But the positive testimony of Villani, who died within two years afterwards, and had manifestly obtained much information as to the great events passing in France, cannot be rejected. He ascribes a material effect to the cannon of Edward, colpi delle bombarde, which I suspect, from his strong expressions, had not been employed before, except against stone walls. It seemed, he says, as if God thundered con grande uccisione di geiiti, e sfondainento di cavalli. 3 Gattarp, 1st. Padovana, in Script. Her. Ital. t. xvii. p. 360. Several proofs of the employment of artillery in French sieges during the reign of Charles V. occur in Villaret. See the word Artillerie in the index. Gian Galeazzo had, according to Corio, thirty-four pieces of cannon, small and great, in the Milanese army, about 1397. 4 Guicciardini, 1. i. p. 75, has a remark- able passage on the superiority of the French over the Italian artillery in con- sequence of these improvements. ITALY. SFORZA AND BRACCIO. 46l gundy, in 1411, had 4000 hand-cannons, as they were called, in his army. 1 They are found, under different names and mod- ifications of form for which I refer the reader to professed writers on tactics in most of the wars that historians of the fifteenth century record, but less in Italy than beyond the Alps. The Milanese, in 1449, are said to have armed their militia with 20,000 muskets, which struck terror into the old generals. 2 But these muskets, supported on a rest, and charged with great delay, did less execution than our sanguinary science would require ; and, uncombined with the admirable invention of the bayonet, could not in any degree resist a charge of cavalry The pike had a greater tendency to subvert the military sys- tem of the middle ages, and to demonstrate the efficiency of dis- ciplined infantry. Two free nations had already discomfited, by the help of such infantry, those arrogant knights on whom the fate of battles had depended the Bohemians, instructed in the art of war by their great master, John Zisca ; and the Swiss, who, after winning their independence inch by inch from the house of Austria, had lately established their renown by a splendid victory over Charles of Burgundy. Louis XI. took a body of mercenaries from the United Can- tons into pay. Maximilian had recourse to the same assist- ance. 8 And though the importance of infantry was not perhaps decidedly established till the Milanese wars of Louis XII. and Francis I., in the sixteenth century, yet the last years of the mrddle ages, according to our division, indicated the commencement of that military revolution in the general employment of pikemen and musketeers. Soon after the beginning of the fifteenth century, to return from this digression, two illustrious captains, edu- Rivalry of cated under Alberic di Barbiano, turned upon |for and themselves the eyes of Italy. These were Braccio di Montone, a noble Perugian, and Sforza Attendolo, origi- nally a peasant in the village of Cotignuola. Nearly equal in reputation, unless perhaps Braccio may be reckoned the more consummate general, they were divided by a long 1 ViUaret, t. xiii p. 176, 310. ".See Guicciardinrs character of the very much doubt the fact of so many pria, the nobility monopolizing all war muskets having been collected. In 1432 like occupations. Ibid, that arm was seen for the first time in Tuscany. Muratori, Dissert. 26, p. 45 7 462 FKANCESCO SFORZA. CHAP. HI. PART n rivalry, which descended to the next generation, and involved all the distinguished leaders of Italy. The distractions of Naples, and the anarchy of the ecclesiasticul state, gave scope not only to their military but political ambition. Sforza was invested with extensive fiefs in the kingdom of Naples, and with the office of Great Constable. Braccio aimed at inde- pendent acquisitions, and formed a sort of principality around Perugia. This, however, was entirely dissipated at his death. When Sforza and Braccio were no more, their re- Francesco spective parties were headed by the son of the former, Francesco Sforza, and by Nicholas Picci- nino, who for more than twenty years fought, with few ex- ceptions, under opposite banners. Piccinino was constantly in the service of Milan. Sforza, whose political talents fully equalled his military skill, never lost sight of the splendid prospects that opened to his ambition. From Eugenius IV. he obtained the March of Ancona, as a fief of the Roman see. Thus rendered more independent than the ordinary condottieri, he mingled as a sovereign prince in the politics of Italy. He was generally in alliance with Venice and Florence, throwing his weight into their scale to preserve the balance of power against Milan and Naples. But his ulti- mate designs rested upon Milan. Filippo Maria, duke of that city, the last of his family, had only a natural daughter, whose hand he sometimes offered and sometimes withheld from Sforza. Even after he had consented to their union, He acquires ^is suspicious temper was incapable of admitting the duchy such a son-in-law into confidence, and he joined in aa " a confederacy with the pope and king of Naples to strip Sforza of the March. At the death of Filippo Maria in 1 447, that general had nothing left but his glory, and a very disputable claim to the Milanese succession. This, how- ever, was set aside by the citizens, who revived their republi- can government. A republic in that part of Lombardy might, with the help of Venice and Florence, have withstood any domestic or foreign usurpation. But Venice was hostile, and Florence indifferent. Sforza became the general of this new state, aware that such would be the probable means of becoming its master. No politician of that age scrupled any breach of faith for his interest. Nothing, says Machiavel, was thought shameful, but to fail. Sforza, with his army, deserted to the Venetians ; and the republic of Milan, being ITALY. REBELLION OF SICILY. 463 both incapable of defending itself and distracted by civil dis- sensions, soon fell a prey to his ambition. In 1450 he was proclaimed duke, rather by right of election, or of conquest, than in virtue of his marriage with Bianca, whose sex, as well as illegitimacy, seemed to preclude her from inheriting. I have not alluded for some time to the domestic history of a kingdom which bore a considerable part, dur- Affairs without a competitor, might be ranked in the first class of European sovereigns. Master of Provence and Naples, and at the head of the Guelf faction in Italy, he had already prepared a formidable attack on the Greek empire, when a memorable revolution in Sicily brought humiliation on his latter years. John^of Procida, a Neapolitan, whose patri- mony had been confiscated for his adherence to Rebellion the party of Manfred, retained, during long years ^ ^ cily of exile, *an implacable resentment against the Charles house of Anjou. From the dominions of Peter of An J u - III., king of Aragon, who had bestowed estates upon him in Valencia, he kept his eye continually fixed on Naples and Sicily. The former held out no favorable prospects ; the Ghibeh'n party had been entirely subdued, and the principal barons were of French extraction or inclinations. But the island was in a very different state. Unused to any strong government, it was now treated as a conquered country. A large body of French soldiers garrisoned the fortified towns, and the systematic oppression was aggravated by those in- sults upon the honor of families which are most intolerable to an Italian temperament. John of Procida, travelling in disguise through the island, animated the barons with a hope of deliverance. In like disguise he repaired to the pope, Nicolas III., who was jealous of the new Neapolitan dynasty, and obtained his sanction to the projected insurrec- tion ; to the court of Constantinople, from which he readily obtained money ; and to the king of Aragon, who employed that money in fitting out an armament, that hovered upon the coast of Africa, under pretext of attacking the Moors. 4:04 SICILIAN VESPERS. CHAP. III. PART U. It is, however, difficult at this time to distinguish the effects of preconcerted conspiracy from those of casual resentment. Before the intrigues so skilfully conducted had taken effect, yet after they were ripe for development, an outrage commit- ted upon a lady at Palermo, during a procession on the vigil of Easter, provoked the people to that terrible massacre of Sicilian all the French in their island which has obtained Vespers. t ne name of Sicilian Vespers. Unpremeditated as such an ebullition of popular fury must appear, it fell in 1283 ^7 the happiest coincidence, with the pi'evious con- spiracy. The king of Aragon's fleet was at hand ; the Sicilians soon called in his assistance ; he sailed to Paler- mo, and accepted the crown. John of Procida is a remarka- ble witness to a truth which the pride of governments will seldom permit them to acknowledge : that an individual, ob- scure and apparently insignificant, may sometimes, by perse- verance and energy, shake the foundations of established states ; while the perfect concealment of his intrigues proves also, against a popular maxim, that a political secret may be preserved by a number of persons during a considerable length of time. 1 The long war that ensued upon this revolution involved or War in interested the greater part of civilized Europe. bdtw e een ence Pnili p H 1 - of France adhered to his uncle, and the France and king of Aragon was compelled to fight for Sicily within his native dominions. This indeed was the more vulnerable point of attack. Upon the sea he was lord of the ascendant. His Catalans, the most intrepid of Med- iterranean sailors, were led to victory by a Calabrian refu- gee, Roger di Loria, the most illustrious and successful admiral whom Europe produced till the age of Blake and de Ruyter. In one of Loria's battles the eldest son of the king of Naples was made prisoner, and the first years of his own J Qiannone, though he has well de- Palermo. The thought of calling in scribed the schemes of John of Procida, Peter, he asserts, did not occur to the yet, as is too often his custom, or rather Sicilians till Charles had actually corn- that of Costanzo, whom he implicitly fol- menced the siege of Messina. But this lows, drops or slides over leading facts ; is equally removed from the truth, and thus, omitting entirely, or inisrepre- Gibbon has made more errors than are senting, the circumstances of the Sicilian usual with SQ accurate an historian in Vespers, treats the whole insurrection as his account of this revolution, such as the result of a deliberate conspiracy, calling Constance, the queen of Peter, On the other hand, N'icolas Specialis. a sinter instead of rlaugkter of Manfred, contemporary writer, in the seventh vol- A good narrative of the Sicilian Vespers ume of Muratori : s collection, represents may be found in Velly's History o. the Sicilian Vespers as proceeding entirely France, t. TJ. from the casual outrage in the streets of ITALY. WAR BETWEEN FRANCE AND ARAGON. 465 reign were spent in confinement. But notwithstanding these advantages, it was found impracticable for Aragon to contend against the arms of France, and latterly of Castile, sustained by the rolling thunders of the Vatican. Peter III. had be- queathed Sicily to his second son James ; Alfonso, the eldest, king of Aragon, could not fairly be expected to ruin his in- heritance for his. brother's cause ; nor were the barons of that free country disposed to carry on a war without national ob- jects. He made peace, accordingly, in 1295, and engaged to withdraw all his subjects from the Sicilian service. Upon his own death, which followed very soon, James succeeded to the kingdom of Aragon, and ratified the renunciation of Sic- ily. But the natives of that island had received too deeply the spirit of independence to be thus assigned over by the letter of a treaty. After solemnly abjuring, by their ambas- sadors, their allegiance to the king of Aragon, they placed the crown upon the head of his brother Frederic. They main- tained the war against Charles II. of Naples, against James of Aragon, their former king, who had bound himself to en- force their submission, and even against the great Roger di Loria, who, upon some discontent with Frederic, deserted their banner, and entered into the Neapolitan service. Peace was at length made in 1300, upon condition that Frederic should retain during his life the kingdom, which was after- wards to revert to the crown of Naples : a condition not likely to be fulfilled. Upon the death of Charles II. king of Naples, in 1305, a question arose as to the succession. His eldest son, Charles Martel, had been called by maternal inheritance to the throne of Hungary, and had left at his decease a son, Carobert, the reigning sovereign of that country. According to the laws of representative succession, which were at this time tolerably settled in private inheritance, the crown of Naples ought to have regularly devolved upon that prince. But it Robert king was contested by his uncle Robert, the eldest living of son of Charles II., and the cause was pleaded by civilians at Avignon before Pope Clement V., the feudal superior of the Neapolitan kingdom. Reasons of public utility, rather than of legal analogy, seem to have prevailed in the decision which was made in favor of Robert. 1 The course of his i Giannonc, 1. xxii. ; Summonte, t. ii. p. 370. Some of the civilians of that-ag*. however, approved the decision. VOL. I. M. 30 466 ROBERT KING OF NAPLES. CHAP. III. PART 1 1. reign evinced the wisdom of this determination. Robert, a wise and active, though not personally a martial prince, main- tained the ascendency of the Guelf faction, and the papal influence connected with it, against the formidable combina- tion of Ghibelin usurpers in Lombardy, and the two empe- rors Henry VII. and Louis of Bavaria. No male issue survived Robert, whose crown descended to his granddaughter Joanna. She had been espoused, while a child, to her cousin Andrew, son of Carobert king of Hungary, who was educated with her in the court of Naples. Auspiciously contrived as this union might seem to silence a subsisting claim upon the kingdom, it proved eventually the source of civil war and calamity for a hundred and fifty years. Andrew's manners were barbarous, more worthy of his native country than of that polished court wherein he had been bred. He gave himself up to the society of Hungarians, who taught him to believe that a matrimonial crown and derivative royalty were derogatory to a prince who. claimed by a paramount hered- 1343 itary right. In fact, he was pressing the court of Avignon to permit his own coronation, which would have placed in a very hazardous condition the rights of the queen, with whom he was living on ill terms, when one night he was seized, strangled, and thrown out of a window. Public Joanna rumor, in the absence of notorious proof, imputed Murder of the guilt of this mysterious assassination to Joanna. Andre U w! )an Hdkd. so many recollections to attach to the name of lib- A-D ' 1469 ' erty, among so many citizens whom their ancient constitution invited to public trust, the control of a single family should iMachiavelli.J. v. ; Ammirato. The two latter are perpetual reference* - Ammirato, t. up. 82-87. in this part of history, where no other ia 3 Ammirato, p. 93: Kospoe's Tx>renzo made, de Medici, ch. 2 ; Muchiavelii ; Sismoudi. 480 LORENZO DE' MEDICI. CHAP. HI. PART 11.. excite no dissatisfaction ; and perhaps their want of any posi- tive authority heightened the appearance of usurpation in their influence. But, if the people's wish to resign their freedom gives a title to accept the government of a country, the Medici were no usurpers. That family never lost the affections of the populace. The cry of Palle, Palle (their armorial distinction), would at anytime rouse the Florentines to defend the chosen patrons of the republic. If their sub- stantial influence could before be questioned, the conspiracy of the Pazzi, wherein Julian perished, excited an enthusiasm for the surviving brother, that never ceased during his life. Nor was this anything unnatural, or any severe reproach to Florence. All around, in Lorubardy and Romagna, the lamp of liberty had long since been extinguished in blood. The freedom of Siena and Genoa was dearly purchased by revo- lutionary proscriptions ; that of Venice was only a name. The republic which had preserved longest, and with greatest purity, that vestal fire, had at least no relative degradation to fear in surrendering herself to Lorenzo de' Medici. I need not in this place expatiate upon what the name instantly sug- gests, the patronage of science and art, and the constellation of scholars and poets, of architects and painters, whose re- flected beams cast their radiance around his head. His polit- ical reputation, though far less durable, was in his own age as conspicuous as that which he acquired in the history of letters. Equally active and sagacious, he held his way through the varying combinations of Italian policy, always with credit, and generally with success. Florence, if not en- riched, was upon the whole aggrandized during his adminis- tration, which was exposed to some severe storms from the unscrupulous adversaries, Sixtus IV. and Ferdinand of Naples, whom he was compelled to resist. As a patriot, in- deed, we never can bestow upon Lorenzo de' Medici the meed of disinterested virtue. He completed that subversion of the Florentine republic which his two immediate ancestors had so well prepared. The two councils, her regular legisla- ture, he superseded by a permanent senate of seventy per sons ; 1 while the gonfalonier and priors, become a mockery 1 Ammirato, p. 145. Machiavel says were now abolished, yet from M. Sis- (1. viii.) that this was done ristringere il mondi, t. xi. p. 186, who quotes an author governo, e che ledeliberazioni important! I have not seen, and from Nardi, p. 7, &i riducesscro in uiinore numero. But I should infer that they still formally though it rather appears from Animi- subsisted, rutu's expressions that the two council* ITALY. PRETENSIONS OF FRANCE. 481 and pageant to keep up the illusion of liberty, were taught that in exercising a legitimate authority without the sanctTon of their prince, a name now first heard at Florence, they in- curred the risk of punishment for their audacity. 1 Even the total dilapidation of his commercial wealth was repaired at the cost of the state ; and the republic disgracefully screened the bankruptcy of the Medici by her own. 2 But compared with the statesmen of his age, we can reproach Lorenzo with no heinous crime. He had many enemies ; his descendants had many more ; but no unequivocal charge of treachery or assassination has been substantiated against his memory. By the side of Galeazzo or Ludovico Sforza, of Ferdinand or his son Alfonso of Naples, of the pope Sixtus IV., he shines with unspotted lustre. So much was A " Lorenzo esteemed by his contemporaries, that his premature death has frequently been considered as the cause of those unhappy revolutions that speedily ensued, and which his fore- sight would, it was imagined, have been able to prevent ; an opinion which, whether founded in probability or otherwise, attests the common sentiment about his character. If indeed Lorenzo de' Medici could not have changed the destinies of Italy, however premature his death may appear if we consider the ordinary duration Sn^T of human existence, it must be admitted that for upon Na P le3 - 1 Cambi, a gonfalonier of justice, had, In concert with the priors, admonished some public officers for a breach of duty. Fu giudicato questo atto molto superbo, says Ammirato, che senza participazioue di Lorenzo de' Medici, principe del go- verno, fosse seguito, che in Pisa in quel tempo si ritrovava. p. 184. The gonfa- lonier was fined for executing his con- stitutional functions. This was a down- right confession that the republic was at an end ; and all it provokes M. Sismondi to say is not too much, t. xi. p. 345. 2 Since the Medici took on them- selves the character of princes, they had forgotten how to be merchants. But, imprudently enough, they had not dis- continued their commerce, which was of course mismanaged by agents whom they did not overlook. The consequence was the complete dilapidation of their vast fortune. The public revenues had been for some years applied to make up its deficiencies. But from the measures adopted by the republic, if we may still use that name, she should appear to have considered herself, rather than Lorenzo, as the debtor. The interest of the public VOL. I. ju, 31 debt was diminished one half. Many charitable foundations were suppressed. The circulating specie was taken at one- fifth below its nominal value in payment of taxes, while the government continued to issue it at its former rate. Thus was Lorenzo reimbursed a part of his loss at the expense of all his fellow-citizens. Sis- mondi, t. xi. p. 347. It is slightly alluded to by Machiavel. The vast expenditure of the Medici for the sake of political influence would of itself have absorbed all their profits. Cosmo is said by Guicciardini to have spent 400,000 ducats in building churches, monasteries, and other public works 1. i. p. 91. The expenses of the family between 1434 and 1471, in buildings, charities, and taxes alone, amounted to 663.755 florins ; equal in value, according to Sismondi, to 32,000,000 francs at pres- ent. Hist, des Kepubl. t. x. p. 173. They seem to have advanced moneys imprudently, through their agents, to Edward IV., who was not the best of debtors. Comiues. Mem . de Charles VIII 1. vii. c. 6. 482 PRETENSIONS OF FRANCE CHAP. III. PAKT II his own welfare, perhaps for his glory, he had lived out the full measure of his time. An age of new and uncommon revolutions was about to arise, among the earliest of which the temporary downfall of his family was to be reckoned. The long-contested succession of Naples was again to involve Italy in war. The ambition of strangers was once more to desolate her plains. Ferdinand king of Naples had reigned for thirty years after the discomfiture of his competitor with success and ability ; but with a degree of ill faith as well as tyranny towards his subjects that rendered his government deservedly odious. His son Alfonso, whose succession seemed now near at hand, was still more marked by these vices than himself. 1 Meanwhile, the pretensions of the house of Anjou had legally descended, after the death of old Regnier, to Regnier duke of Lorraine, his grandson by a daughter; whose marriage into the house of Lorraine had, however, so displeased her father, that he bequeathed his Neapolitan title, along with his real patrimony, the county of Provence, to a count of Maine ; by whose testament they became vested in the crown of France. Louis XL, while he took posses- sion of Provence, gave himself no trouble about Naples. But Charles VIII., inheriting his father's ambition without that cool sagacity which restrained it in general from im- practicable attempts, and far better circumstanced at home than Louis had ever been, was ripe for an expedition to vindicate his pretensions upon Naples, or even for more extensive projects. It was now two centuries since the kings of France had begun to aim, by intervals, at conquests in Italy. Philip the Fair and his successors were anxious to keep up a connection with the Guelf party, and to be considered its natural heads, as the German emperors were of the Ghibelins. The long English wars changed all views of the court of France to self-defence. But in the fifteenth century its plans of aggrandizement beyond the Alps begun to revive. Several times, as I have mentioned, the republic of Genoa put itself under the dominion of France. The dukes of Savoy, possessing most part of Piedmont, and mas- ters of the mountain-passes, were, by birth, intermarriage, and habitual policy, completely dedicated to the French in- 1 Comines, who speaks sufficiently ill cruel que lui, tie plus mauvais, ne plus of the father, sums up the sou's character vicieux et plus infect, ne plus gourmand very concisely : Nul homme n'a este plus que lui. 1. vii. c. 13. ITALY. UPON NAPLES. 483 terests. 1 In the former wars of Ferdinand against the house of Anjou, Pope Pius II., a very enlightened statesman, fore saw the danger of Italy from the prevailing influence of France, and deprecated the introduction of her armies. 2 But at that time the central parts of Lombardy were held by a man equally renowned as a soldier and a politician, Francesco Sforza. Conscious that a claim upon his o\vn dominions sub- sisted in the house of Orleans, he maintained a strict alliance with the Aragonese dynasty at Naples, as having a common interest against France. But after his death the connection between Milan and Naples came to be weakened. In the new system of alliances Milan and Florence, sometimes in- cluding Venice, were combined against Ferdinand and Sixtus IV., an unprincipled and restless pontiff. Ludovico Sforza, who had usurped the guardianship of his nephew the duke of Milan, found, as that young man advanced to maturity, that one crime required to be completed by another. To depose and murder his ward was, however, a scheme that prudence, though not conscience, bade him hesitate to exe- cute. He had rendered Ferdinand of Naples and Piero de' Medici, Lorenzo's heir, his decided enemies. A revolution at Milan would be the probable result of his continuing in usurpation. In these circumstances Ludovico Sforza excited the king of France to undertake A ' the conquest of Naples. 3 So long as the three great nations of Europe were unable to put forth their natural strength through internal separation or foreign war, the Italians had so little to dread for their independence, that their policy was altogether directed to regulating the domestic balance of power among themselves. 1 Denina, Storia dell' Italia Occiden- armis ejici, neque id Italise libertati con tale, t. ii. passim. Louis XI. treated ducere ; Gallos, si regnum obtinuisseut Savoy as a fief of France ; interfering in Senas baud dubiesubacturos; Florentinog all its affairs, and even taking on himself adversus lilia nihil acturos ; Borsium the regency after the death of Philibert I., Mutinae ducem Gallis galliorem videri under_ pretence of preventing disorders. Flaminiae regulos ad Francos inclinare ; p. 185. Tbe marquis of Saluzzo, who Genuam Francis subesse, et civitatem, possessed considerable territories in the Astensem ; si pontifex Romanus alj- south of Piedmont, had done homage to quando Francorum amicus assumatur, France ever since 1353 (p. 40), though nihil reliqui in Italia remanere quod non to the injury of his real superior, the transeat in Gallorum nomen ; tueri so duke of Savoy. This gave France another Italiam, dum Ferdinandum tueretur. pretext for interference in Italy, p. 187. Commentar. Pii Secundi, 1. iv. p. 96. '-Cosmo de' Medici, in a conference Spondamus, who led me to this passage, with Pius II. at Florence, having ex- is very angry ; but the year 1494 proved pressed his surprise that the pope should Pius II. to be a wary statesman. Bupport Ferdinand : Pontifex haud fe- 3 Guicciardini, 1. i. rendum fuisse ait,regem a se constitutuin, 484 CLAIMS ON NAPLES. CHAP. III. P>RT II. In the latter part of the fifteenth century a more enlarged view of Europe would have manifested the necessity of reconciling petty animosities, and sacrificing petty ambition, in order to preserve the nationality of their governments ; not by attempting to melt down Lombards and Neapolitans, principalities and republics, into a single monarchy, but by the more just and rational scheme of a common federation. The politicians of Italy were abundantly competent, as far as cool and clear understandings could render them, to perceive the interests of their country. But it is the will of Provi- dence that the highest and surest wisdom, even in matters of policy, should never be unconnected with virtue. In re- lieving himself from an immediate danger, Ludovico Sforza overlooked the consideration that the presumptive heir of the king of France claimed by an ancient title that princi- pality of Milan which he was compassing by usurpation and murder. But neither Milan nor Naples was free from other claimants than France, nor was she reserved to enjoy unmo- lested the spoil of Italy. A louder and a louder strain of warlike dissonance will be heard from the banks of the Danube, and from the Mediterranean gulf. The dark and wily Ferdinand, the rash and lively Maximilian, are pre- paring to hasten into the lists ; the schemes of ambition are assuming a more comprehensive aspect ; and the controversy of Neapolitan succession is to expand into the long rivalry between the houses of France and Austria. But here, while Italy is still untouched, and before as yet the first lances of France gleam along the defiles of the Alps, we close the history of the Middle Ages. SPAIN. -VISIGOTHS IN SPAIN. 485 CHAPTER IV. THE HISTORY OP SPAIN TO THE CONQUEST OP GRANADA Kingdom of the Visigoths Conquest of Spain hy the Moors Gradual Revival of the Spanish Nation Kingdoms of Leon, Aragou, Navarre, and Castile, suceea swely formed Chartered towns of Castile Military Orders Conquest of Fer- dinand III. and James of Aragon Causes of the Delay in expelling the Moors History of Castile continued Character of the Government Peter the Cruel House of Trastamare John II. Henry TV. Constitution of Castile National Assemblies or Cortes their constituent Parts Right of Taxation Legislation Privy Council of Castile Laws for the Protection of Liberty Imperfections of the Constitution Aragon its History in the fourteenth and fifteenth Cen- turies disputed Succession Constitution of Aragon free Spirit of its Aris- tocracy Privilege of Union Powers of the Justiza Legal Securities Illus- trations other Constitutional Laws Valencia and Catalonia Union of two Crowns by the Marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella Conquest of Granada. THE history of Spain during the middle ages ought to commence with the dynasty of the Visigoths ; a Kingdom of nation among the first that assaulted and over- Visigoths in threw the Roman Empire, and whose establish- Spam - meat preceded by nearly half a century the invasion of Clovis. Vanquished by that conqueror in the battle of Poitiers, the Gothic monarchs lost their extensive dominions in Gaul, and transferred their residence from Toulouse to Toledo. But I will not detain the reader by naming one sov- ereign of that obscure race. It may suffice to mention that the Visigothic monarchy differed in several respects from that of the Franks during the same period. The crown was less hereditary, or at least the regular succession was more fre- quently disturbed. The prelates had a still more command- ing influence in temporal government. The distinction of Romans and barbarians was less marked, the laws more uni- form, and approaching nearly to the imperial code. The power of the sovereign was perhaps more limited by an aristocratical council than in France, but it never yielded to the dangerous influence of mayors of the palace. Civil wars and disputed successions were very frequent, but the integrity of the kingdom was not violated by the custom of partition. 486 CONQUEST BY THE SARACENS. CHAP. IV Spain, after remair.ing for nearly three centuries in the Conquest possession of the Visigoths, fell under the yoke of by ti> the Saracens in 712. The fervid and irresistible enthusiasm which distinguished the youthful period of Mohammedism might sufficiently account for this conquest, even if we could not assign additional causes the factions which divided the Goths, the resentment of disappointed pre- tenders to the throne, the provocations, as has been generally believed, of count Julian, and the temerity that risked the fate of an empire on the chances of a single battle. 1 It is more surprising that a remnant of this ancient monarchy should not only have preserved its national liberty and name in the northern mountains, but waged for some centuries a successful, and generally an offensive warfare against the con- querors, till the balance was completely turned in its favor, and the Moors were compelled to maintain almost as obstinate and protracted a contest for a small portion of the peninsula. But the Arabian monarchs of Cordova found in their success and imagined security a pretext for indolence ; even in the cultivation of science and contemplation of the magnificent architecture of their mosques and palaces they forgot their poor but daring enemies in the Asturias ; while, according to the nature of despotism, the fruits of wisdom or bravery in one generation were lost in the follies and effeminacy of the next. Their kingdom was dismembered by successful rebels, who formed the states of Toledo, Huesca, Saragosa, and others less eminent ; and these, in their own mutual contests, not only relaxed their natural enmity towards the Christian princes, but sometimes sought their alliance. 2 The last attack which seemed to endanger the reviving Kingdom monarchy of Spain was that of Almanzor, the rf Leon illustrious vizir of Haccham II., towards the end of the tenth century, wherein the city of Leon, and even the shrine of Compostella, were burned to the ground. For some ages before this transient reflux, gradual encroachments had been made upon the Saracens, and the kingdom originally styled of Oviedo, the seat of which was removed to Leon in 914, had extended its boundary to the Douro, and even to [NOTE.] Cardonne, Histoire de I'Afrique et de 1'Espagne. SPAIN. LEON, XATARKE, ARAGON. 487 % the mountainous chain of the Guadarrama. The province of Old Castile, thus denominated, as is generally supposed, from the castles erected while it remained a march or frontier against the Moors, was governed by hereditary counts, elected originally by the provincial aristocracy, and virtually inde- pendent, it seems probable, of the kings of Leon, though commonly serving them in war as brethren of the same faith and nation. 1 While the kings of Leon were thus occupied in recovering the western provinces, another race of Christian Kingdoms princes grew up silently under the shadow of the of Navarre o -T i i i &nd Ariigon Pyrenean mountains. Nothing can be more ob- scure than the beginnings of those little states which were formed in Navarre and the country of Soprarbe. They might perhaps be almost contemporaneous with the Moorish con- quests. On both sides of the Pyrenees dwelt an aboriginal people, the last to undergo the yoke, and who had never ac- quired the language, of Rome. We know little of these intrepid mountaineers in the dark period which elapsed under the Gothic and Frank dynasties, till we find them cutting off the rear-guard of Charlemagne in Roncesvalles, and main- taining at least their independence, though seldom, like the kings "of Asturias, waging offensive war against the Saracens. The town of Jaca, situated among long narrow valleys that intersect the -southern ridges of the Pyrenees, was the capital of a little free state, which afterwards expanded into the mon- archy of Aragon. 2 A territory rather more extensive be- longed to Navarre, the kings of which fixed their seat at Pampelona. Biscay seems to have been divided between this kingdom and that of Leon. The connection of Aragon or Soprarbe and Navarre was very intimate, and they were often united under a single chief. i According to Roderic of Toledo, one at least from the time of Ferdinand Gon- of the earliest Spanish historians, though salvo about the middle of the tenth cei not older than the beginning of the thi'r- tury. Ex quo iste suscepit su patn* teenth century, the uobles of Castile, in comitatum, cessaverunt reges Asturiaruin the reian of Froila, about the year 921. insolescere in Castellam, et a flumme eibi et posteris providerunt, et duos I>isoric4 nihil amplius vindiearunt. 1. milites non de potentioribus. sed de pru- c. 2. Marina, in his Ensayo Histonco dentioribus elegerunt, quos et judices Critico. is disposed to controvert tuia statuerunt, ut dissensiones patriaeet que- fact. relantium causa suo judicio sopirentur. "- The Fueros, or written laws of Jaca, I v c 1 Several other passages in the were perhaps more ancient than any local iam'e writer prove that the counts of customary in Europe Alfonso III. con- Castile were nearly independent of Leon, firms them by name of the ancient usae ,4S3 CAPTURE OF TOLEDO AND SARAGOSA. CHAP. TV At the beginning of the eleventh century, Sancho the Ki ciomof Great, king of Navarre and Aragon, was enabled to render his second son Ferdinand count, or, as he assumed the title, king of Castile. This effectually dis- membered that province from the kingdom of Leon ; but their union soon became more complete than ever, though with a reversed supremacy. Bermudo III., king of Leon, fell in an engagement with the new king of Castile, who had married his sister; and Ferdinand, in her right, or in that of conquest, became master of the united monarchy. This cessation of hostilities between the Christian states enabled them to direct a more unremitting energy against their ancient enemies, who were now sensibly weakened by the various causes of decline to which I have already alluded. During the eleventh century the Spaniards were almost always supe- rior in the field ; the towns which they began by pillaging, they gradually possessed ; their valor was heightened by the customs of chivalry and inspired by the example of the Cid ; and before the end of this age Alfonso VI. recovered the Capture of ancient metropolis of the monarchy, the city of To- Toiedo, ledo. This was the severest blow which the Moors had endured, and an unequivocal symptom of that change in their relative strength, which, from being so gradual, wa? the more irretrievable. Calamities scarcely inferior fell upon them in a different quarter. The kings of Aragon (a title belonging originally to a little district upon the river of that name) had been cooped up almost in the mountains by the small Moorish states north of the Ebro, especially that of Huesca. About the middle of the eleventh century they began to attack their neighbors with success ; the Moors lost one town after another, till, in 1118, exposed and weakened of Jaca. They prescribe the descent of magis remoti, invenerint in Till! magis lands and movables, as well as the elec- proxima appellito. [deest aliquid?] onines tion of municipal magistrates. The fol- qui nondum fuerint egressi tune villain lowing law, which enjoins the rising in illam. quse tardius secuta estappellitum, arms on a sudden emergency, illustrates, pecent [solvant] unam bacoam [vaccam] ; with a sort of romantic wildness, the et unusquisque homo ex illis qui tardius manners of a pastoral but warlike people, secutus est appellitum, et quern magis and reminds us of a well-known passage remoti praecesserint, pecet tres solidos, in the Lady of the Lake. De appellitis quomodo nobis videbitur, partiendo^. ita statuimus. Cum homines de villis, Tamen in Jaca et in aliis villis, sint velqui stantinmoutaniscumsuisganatis aliqui nominati et eerti, quos elugerint [gregibus], audierint appellitum; omnes consules, qui remaneant ad villas custo- capiant arma, et diinissis ganatis, et om- diendas et defendendas. Biancae Com- nibus aliis suis faziendis [negotiis] se- mentaria, in Scuotti Uispania lllustrata, quantur appellitum. Et si illi qui fuerint p. 595. SPAIN. MODE OF SETTLING COXQU.ESTS. 489 !v the reduction of all these places, the city of Saragosa, in which a line of Mohamm3dan princes had flour- and s^ra i-hed for several ages, became the pri?e of Al- s 08 *- l' tinued rebellions which disturbed that government for more than a century after the death of Ferdinand III. His son, Alfonso X., might justly acquire the surname of Wise for his general proficiency in learning, and especially in astronomi- cal science, if these attainments deserve praise in a king who was incapable of preserving his subjects in their duty. As a legislator, Alfonso, by his code of the Siete Partidas, sacri- ficed the ecclesiastical rights of his crown to the usurpation of Rome ; l and his philosophy sunk below the level of ordi- nary prudence when he permitted the phantom of an impe- rial crown in Germany to seduce his hopes for almost twenty years. For the sake of such an illusion he would even have withdrawn himself from Castile, if the states had not remon- strated against an expedition that would probably have cost him the kingdom. In the latter years of his turbulent reign Alfonso had to contend against his son. The right of repre- sentation was hitherto unknown in Castile, which had bor- rowed little from the customs of feudal nations. By the received law of succession the nearer was always preferred to the more remote, the son to the grandson. Alfonso X. had established the different maxim of representation by his code of the Siete Partidas, the authority of which, however, was not universally acknowledged. The question soon cama to an issue : on the^death of his elder son Ferdinand, leaving two male children, Sancho their uncle asserted his claim, founded upon the ancient Castilian right of succession ; ao'J 1 Marina, Ensayo Historico-Critico, p. 272, &e. 496 CIVIL DISTURBANCES OF CASTILE. CHAP. IV this, chiefly no doubt through fear of arms, though it did not want plausible arguments, was ratified by an assembly of the cortes, and secured, notwithstanding the king's reluctance, by the courage of Sancho. But the descendants of Ferdi- nand, generally called the infants of la Cerda, by the protec- tion of France, to whose, royal family they were closely allied, and of Aragon, always prompt to interfere in the dis- putes of a rival people, continued to assert their pretensions for more than half a century, and, though they were not very successful, did not fail to aggravate the troubles of their country. The annals of Sancho IV. and his two immediate succes- sors, Ferdinand IV. and Alfonso XI., present a turbances series of unhappy and dishonorable civil dissen- Saneho'iv s i ns with too much rapidity to be remembered A. D. 1284. or even understood. Although the Castilian no- tordmand bility had no pretence to the original independence A.D. 1295. of the French peers, or to the liberties of feudal A.D n i3i2. ' tenure, they assumed the same privilege of rebel- ling upon any provocation from their sovereign. "When such occurred, they seem to have been permitted, by legal custom, to renounce their allegiance by a solemn instru- ment, which exempted them from the penalties of treason. 1 A very few families composed an oligarchy, the worst and most ruinous condition of political society, alternately the favorites and ministers of the prince, or in arms against him. It unable to protect themselves in their walled towns, and by the aid of their faction, these Christian patriots retired to Aragon or Granada, and excited an hostile pjower against their country, and perhaps their religion. Nothing is more common in the Castilian history than instances of such de- fection. Mariana remarks coolly of the family of Castro, that they were much in the habit of revolting to the Moors. 2 This house and that of Lara were at one time the great rivals for power ; but from the time of Alfonso X. the former seems to have declined, and the sole family that came in competition with the Laras during the tempestuous period that followed was that of Haro, which possessed the lordship of Biscay by an hereditary title. The evils of a weak gov- 1 Mariana, 1. xiii. c. 11. tria gens per hsec tempora ad Mauros 2 Alvarus Castrius patriJ aliquanto saepe dufcctase visa est. 1. xii. c. lij. Seo tntea, uti moils erat, reuuiidatu. Cas- also chapters 17 and 19. SI-AIJT. PETER THE CEUEL. 497 ernment were aggravated by the unfortunate ciicumstances in which Ferdinand IV. and Alfonso XL ascended the throne ; both minors, with a disputed regency, and the in- terval too short to give ambitious spirits leisure to subside. There is indeed some apology for the conduct of the Laras and Haros in the character of their sovere/gns, who had but one favorite method of avenging a dissembled injury, or anticipating a suspected treason. Sancho IV. assassinates Don Lope Haro in his palace at Valladolid. Alfonso XL invites to court the infant Don Juan, his first-cousin, and commits a similar violence. Such crimes may be found in the history of other countries, but they were nowhere so usual as in Spain, which was far behind France, England, and even Germany, in civilization. But whatever violence and arbitrary spirit might be im- puted to Sancho and Alfonso was forgotten in the , j /. -t- Peter the unexampled tyranny of Peter the Cruel. A sus- Cruel. picion is frequently intimated by Mariana, which A-D- 1350- seems, in more modern times, to have gained some credit, that party malevolence has at least grossly exaggerated the enor- mities of this prince. 1 'It is difficult, however, to believe that a number of atrocious acts unconnected with each other, and generally notorious enough in their circumstances, have been ascribed to any innocent man. The history of his reign, chiefly derived, it is admitted, from the pen of an inveterate enemy, Lope de Ayala, charges him with the murder of his wife, Blanche of Bourbon, most of his broth- ers and sisters, with Eleanor Gusman, their mother, many Castilian nobles, and multitudes of the commonalty ; besides continual outrages of licentiousness, and especially a pre- tended marriage with a noble lady of the Castrian family At length a rebellion was headed by his illegitimate brother, 1 There is in general room enough for day, within the recollection of many per- scepticism as to the characters of men sons living when he wrote ? There may who are only known to us through their be a question whether Richard III. enemies. History is full of calumnies, smothered his nephews in the Tower; and of calumnies that ?an never be but nobody can dispute that Henry VIII. effaced. But I really see no ground for cut off Anna Boleyn's head. thinking charitably of Peter the Cruel. The passage from Matteo Villani above * roissart, part i. c. 230. and Matteo Vil- mentioned is as follows : Comincio aspra- lani (m Script. Rerum Italic, t. xiv. mente a se far ubbidire, perche temendo p o3), the latter of whom died before the de' suoi baroni, trovo rnodo di far iufamare rebellion of Henry of Trastamare, speak 1' uno 1' altro, e prerdendo cagione, gli 5f him much in the same terms as the comincio ad uccidere con le sue mani. S Spanish historians. And why should in brieve tempo ne fece morire 25 e tre Ayala be doubted, when he gives a long suoi fratelli fece morire, &o. hst of murders committed in the face of VOL. I, it. 498 HOUSE OF TRASTAMARE. CHAP. IV Henry count of Trastamare, with the assistance of Aragon and Portugal. This, however, would probably have failed of dethroning Peter, a resolute prince, and certainly not destitute of many faithful supporters, if Henry had not in- voked the more powerful succor of Bertrand du Guesclin, and the companies of adventure, who, after the pacification between France and England, had lost the occupation of war, and retained only that of plunder. With mercenaries so disciplined it was in vain for Peter to contend ; but, abandoning Spain for a moment, he had recourse to a more powerful weapon from the same armory. Edward the Black Prince, then resident at Bordeaux, was induced by the prom- ise of Biscay to enter Spain as the ally of Castile ; and at A.D. 1367. tne g rea t battle of Navarette he continued lord of the ascendant over those who had so often already been foiled by his prowess. Du Guesclin was made prisoner ; Henry fled to Aragon, and Peter remounted the throne. But a second revolution was at hand : the Black Prince, whom he had ungratefully offended, withdrew into Guienne ; and he lost his kingdom and life in a second short contest with his brother. A more fortunate .period began with the accession of House of Henry. His own reign was hardly disturbed by Trastamare. any rebellion ; and though his successors, John I. A.^Tses! and Henry III., were not altogether so unmolested, John ,o'-n especially the latter, who ascended the throne io A. r>. 13*9. ." . J . Henry in. his minority, yet the troubles of their time were A.D. 1390. slight in comparison with those formerly excited by the houses of Lara and Haro, both of which were now happily extinct. Though Henry II.'s illegitimacy left him no title but popular choice, his queen was sole representative of the Cerdas, the offspring, as has been mentioned above, of Sancho IV.'s elder brother, and, by the extinction of the younger branch, unquestioned heiress of the royal line. Some years afterwards, by the marriage of Henry III. with Catherine, daughter of John of Gaunt and Constance, an illegitimate child of Peter the Cruel, her pretensions, such as they were, became merged in the crown. No kingdom could be worse prepared to meet the disorders John IT. of a minority than Castile, and in none did the A.D. 1406. circumstances so frequently recur. John II. waa but fourteen months old at his accession ; and but for the ALVARO DE LUNA. 499 disinterestedness of his uncle Ferdinand, the nobility would have been inclined to avert the danger by placing that prince upon the throne. In this instance, however, Castile suffered less from faction during the infancy of her sovereign than in his maturity. The queen dowager, at first jointly with Fer- dinand, and solely after his accession to the crown of Aragon, administered the government with credit. Fifty years Imd elapsed at her death in 1418 since the elevation of the house of Trastamare, who had entitled themselves to public affec- tion by conforming themselves more strictly than their pred- ecessors to the constitutional laws of Castile, which were never so well established as during this period. In external affairs their reigns were not what is considered as glorious. They were generally at peace with Aragon and Granada ; but one memorable defeat by the Portu- A-D ' 1385 ' guese at Aljubarrota disgraces the annals of John I., whose cause was as unjust as his arms were unsuccessful. This comparatively golden period ceases at the majority of John II. His reign was filled up by a series of conspiracies and civil wars, headed by his cousins John and Henry, the infants of Aragon, who enjoyed very extensive territories in Castile, by the testament of their father Ferdinand. Their brother the king of Aragon frequently lent the assistance of his arms. John himself, the elder of these two princes, by marriage with the heiress of the kingdom .of Navarre, stood in a double relation to Castile, as a neighboring sovereign, and as a mem- ber of the native oligarchy. These conspiracies were all ostensibly directed against the favorite of ^MofTi* John II., Alvaro de Luna, who retained for five- ^ r a de and-thirty years an absolute control over his fee- ble master. The adverse faction naturally ascribed to this powerful minister every criminal intention and all public mischiefs. He was certainly not more scrupulous than the generality of statesmen, and appears to have been rapacious in accumulating wealth. But there was an energy and courage about Alvaro de Luna which distinguishes him from the cowardly sycophants who usually rise by the favor of weak princes; and Castile probably would not have been happier under the administration of his enemies. His fate is among the memorable lessons of history. After a life of troubles endured for the sake of this favorite, sometimes a fugitive, sometimes a prisoner, his son heading rebellions 500 HENRY IV. CHAP. IV against him, John II. suddenly yielded to an intrigue of the palace, and adopted sentiments of dislike towards the man he had so long loved. No substantial charge appears to have been brought against Alvaro de Luna, except that general malversation which it was too late for the king to object to him. The real cause of John's change of affection was, most probably, the insupportable restraint which the weak are apt to find in that spell of a commanding understand- ing which they dare not break ; the torment of living subject to the ascendant of an inferior, which has produced so many examples of fickleness in sovereigns. That of John II. is not the least conspicuous. Alvaro de Luna was brought to a summary trial and beheaded ; his estates were confiscated. He met his death with the intrepidity of Strafford, to whom he seems to have borne some resemblance in character. John II. did not long survive his minister, dying in 1454, . after a reign that may be considered as inglorious, Henry IV. . i compared with any except that of his successor. If the father was not respected, the son fell completely into contempt. He had been governed by Pacheco, marquis of Villena, as implicitly as John by Alvaro de Luna. This influence lasted for some time afterwards. But the king in- clining to transfer his confidence to the queen Joanna of Portugal, and to one Bertrand de Cueva, upon whom com- mon fame had fixed as her paramour, a powerful confederacy of disaffected nobles was formed against the royal authority. In what degree Henry IV.'s government had been improvi- dent or oppressive towards the people, it is hard to deter- mine. The chiefs of that rebellion, Carillo archbishop of Toledo, the admiral of Castile, a veteran leader of faction, and the marquis of Villena. so lately the king's favorite, were undoubtedly actuated only by selfish ambition and revenge. 146 _ They deposed Henry in an assembly of their fac- tion at Avila with a sort of theatrical pageantry which has often been described. But modern historians, struck by the appearance of judicial solemnity in this pro- ceeding, are sometimes apt to speak of it as a national act ; while, on the contrary, it seems to have been reprobated by the majority of the Castilians as an audacious outrage upon a sovereign who, with many defects, had not been guilty of any excessive tyranny. The confederates set up Alfonso, the king's brother, and a civil war of some duration ensued, SPAIN. HENRY IV. 501 in which they had the support of Aragon. The queen of Castile had at this time borne a daughter, whom the enemies of Henry IV., and indeed no small part of his adherents, were determined to treat as spurious. Accordingly, after the death of Alfonso, his sister Isabel was considered as heiress of the kingdom. She might have aspired, with the assist- ance of the confederates, to its immediate possession ; but, avoiding the odium of a contest with her brother, Isabel agreed to a treaty, by which the succession was absolutely settled upon her. This arrangement was not long A D 1469 afterwards followed by the union of that princess with Ferdinand, son of the king of Aragon. This marriage was by no means acceptable to a part of the Castilian oli- garchy, who had preferred a connection with Portugal. And as Henry had never lost sight of the interests of one whom he considered, or pretended to consider, as his daughter, he took the first opportunity of revoking his forced disposition of the crown and restoring the direct line of succession in favor of the princess Joanna. Upon his death, in 1474, the right was to be decided by arms. Joanna had on her side the common presumptions of law, the testamentary disposi- tion of the late king, the support of Alfonso king of Portu- gal, to whom she was betrothed, and of several considerable leaders among the nobility, as the young marquis of Villena, the family of Mendoza, and the archbishop of Toledo, who, charging Ferdinand with ingratitude, had quitted a party which he had above all men contributed to strengthen. For Isabella were the general belief of Joanna's illegitimacy, th'j assistance of Aragon, the adherence of a majority both among the nobles and people, and, more than all, the reputation of ability which both she and her husband had deservedly ac- quired. The scale was however pretty equally balanced, till the king of Portugal having been defeated at Toro in 1476, Joanna's party discovered their inability to prosecute the war by themselves, and successively made their submission to Ferdinand and Isabella. The Castilians always considered themselves _ J ,. . , T-, Constita- as subject to a legal and limited monarchy, r 1 or tion of several ages the crown was elective, as in most succession nations of German origin, within the limits of one of t*e royal family. 1 In general, of course, the public cr 1 Defuncts it pace principe, primates cessorum regni concilio communl con- regtii uiia cum sacerdotibus sue- stituaut. Concil. Toletaa. IV. c. 76| 502 NATIONAL COUNCILS. CHAP. IV choice fell upon the nearest heir ; and it became a prevailing usage to elect a son during the lifetime of his father, till about the eleventh century a right of hereditary succession was clearly established. But the form of recognizing the heir apparent's title in an assembly of the cortes has subsisted until our own time. 1 In the original Gothic monarchy of Spain, civil as well as ecclesiastical affairs were decided in national councils, the National acts of many of which are still extant, and have councils. been published in ecclesiastical collections. To these assemblies the dukes and other provincial governors, and in general the principal individuals of the realm, were summoned along with spiritual persons. This double aris- tocracy of church and state continued to form the great coun- cil of advice and consent in the first ages of the new king- doms of Leon and Castile. The prelates and nobility, or rather some of the more distinguished nobility, appear to have concurred in all general measures of legislation, as we infer from the preamble of their statutes. It would be against analogy, as well as without evidence, to suppose that any rep- resentation of the commons had been formed in the earlier period of the monarchy. In the preamble of laws passed in 1020, and at several subsequent times during that and the ensuing century, we find only the bishops and magnats re- Admission cited as present. According to the General Chron- of deputies icle of Spain, deputies from the Ca^tilian towns rom towns f orme( j a p art o f cor tes in 1169, a date not to be rejected as incompatible with their absence in 1178. How- ever, in 1188, the first year of the reign of Alfonso IX., they are expressly mentioned ; and from that era were con- stant and necessary parts of those general assemblies. 2 It has been seen already that the corporate towns or districts of apud Marina, Teoria de las Cortes, t. ii. Pelayo downwards to the twelfth cen p. 2. This important work, by the author tury . of the Ensayo Historico-Critico, quoted i Teoria de las Cortes, t. ii. p. 7. above, contains an ample digest of the 2 Ensayo Hist.-Crit. p. 77 ; Teoria d parliamentary law of Castile, drawn from las Cortes, t. i. p. 66. Marina seems original and, in a great degree, unpub- to have somewhat changed his opinion lisheiJ records. I have been favored since the publication of the former work, with the use of a copy, from which I am where he inclines to assert that the corn- the more disposed to make extracts, as mons were from the earliest times ad- Dpam as in Jiiigiana. manna's inrmer we nnu positive mention 01 in work (the Ensayo Hist-Crit.) furnishes dumbre de las cibdades e embiados da a series of testimonies c. 66) to the cada cibdat. elective character of the monarchy from SPAIN. NATIONAL COUNCILS. 503 Castile had earl/ acquired considerable importance, arising less from commercial wealth, to which the towns of other kingdoms were indebted for their liberties, than from their utility in keeping up a military organization among the peo- ple. To this they probably owe their early reception into the cortes as integrant portions of the legislature, since we do not read that taxes were frequently demanded, till the extravagance of later kings, and their alienation of the domain, compelled them to have recourse to the national representatives. Every chief town of a concejo or corporation ought per- haps, by the constitution of Castile, to have received its regu- lar writ for the election of deputies to cortes. 1 But there does not appear to have been, in the best times, any uniform practice in this respect. At the cortes of Burgos,-in 1315, we find one hundred and ninety-two representatives from more than ninety towns ; at those of Madrid, in 1391, one hundred and twenty-six were sent from fifty towns ; and the latter list contains names of several places which do not ap- pear in the former. 2 No deputies were present from the king- dom of Leon in the cortes of Alcala in 1348, where, among many important enactments, the code of the Siete Partidas first obtained a legislative recognition. 8 We find, in short, a good deal more irregularity than during the same period in Eng- land, where the number of electing boroughs varied pretty considerably -at every parliament. Yet the cortes of Castile did not cease to be a numerous body and a fair representa- tion of the people till the reign of John II. The first princes of the house of Trastamare had acted in all points with the advice of their cortes. But John II., and still more his son Henry IV., being conscious of their own unpopularity, did not venture to meet a full assembly of the nation. Their writs were directed only to certain towns an abuse for which the looseness of preceding usage had given a pre- tence. 4 It must be owned that the people bore it in general very patiently. Many of the corporate towns, impoverished 1 Teoria de las Cortes, p. 139. * Sepades (says John II. in 1442) que 2 Id. p. 148. Geddes gives a list of en el ayuntamiento que yo fice en la OUP hundred and twenty-seven deputies noble villa de Vulladolid . . 1? pro- frora forty-eigh* towns to the cortes at curadores de ciertas cibdades e villas de Madrid iii 1390 Miscellaneous Tracts, mis reynos que por mi maudado fueron vol. iii. llamados. This language is repeated aj Id. p. 154. to subsequent meetings, p. 156. 504 NATIONAL COUNCILS. CHAP. IV. by civil warfare and other cause?, were glad to saA e the cost of defraying their deputies' expenses. Thus, by the year 14bo only seventeen cities had retained privilege of repre- sentation. A vote was afterwards added for Granada, and three more in later times for Palencia, and the provinces of Estremadura and Galicia. 1 It might. have been easy perhaps to redress this grievance while the exclusion was yet fresh and recent. But the privileged towns, with a mean and preposterous selfishness, although their zeal for liberty was at its height, could not endure the only means of effectually securing it, by a restoration of elective franchises to their fellow-citizens. The cortes of 1506 assert, with one of those bold falsifications upon which a popular body sometimes ven- tures, that " it is established by some laws, and by imme- morial usage, that eighteen cities of these kingdoms have the right of sending deputies to cortes, and no more ; " remon- strating against the attempts made by some other towns to obtain the same privilege, which they request may not be conceded. This remonstrance is repeated in 15 12. 2 From the reign of Alfonso XI., who restrained the gov- ernment of corporations to an oligarchy of magistrates, the right of electing members of cortes was confined to the ruling body, the bailiffs or regidores, whose number seldom exceeded twenty-four, and whose succession was kept up by close elec- tion among themselves. 8 The people' therefore had no direct share in the choice of representatives. Experience proved, as several instances in these pages will show, that even upon this narrow basis the deputies of Castile were not deficient in zeal for their country and its liberties. But it must be confessed that a small body of electors is always liable to cor- rupt influence and to intimidation. John II. and Henry IV. often invaded the freedom of election ; the latter even named some of the deputies. 4 Several energetic remonstrances were made in cortes against this flagrant grievance. Laws were enacted and other precautions devised to secure the due re- 1 The cities which retained their rep- adjacent towns. Thus Toro voted for Pa- resentation in cortes were Burgos, To- lencia and the kingdom of Galicia, before govia, Avila. Madrid, Guadalaxara, and - Idem, p. 161. Cuenca. The representatives of these 3 Idem, p. 86, 197. were supposed to vote not only for their * Idem, p. 199. Immediate constituents, but for other SPAIN. CONSTITUTION OF CORTES. 505 turn of deputies. In the sixteenth century the evil, of course, wa< aggravated. Charles and Philip corrupted the members by bribery. 1 Even in 1573 the cortes are bold* enough to complain that creatures of government were sent thither, "who are always held for suspected by the other deputies, and cause disagreement among them." 2 There seems to be a considerable obscurity about the con stitution of the cortes, so far as relates to the two _ i i j 11 !. Spiritual higher estates, the spiritual and temporal nobility, and tempo- It is admitted that down to the latter part of the %? thirteenth century, and especially before the intro- duction of representatives from the commons, they were sum- moned in considerable numbers. But the writer to whom I must almost exclusively refer for the constitutional history of Castile contends that from the reign of Sancho IV. they took much less share and retained much less influence in the deliberation of cortes. 8 There is a remarkable protest of the archbishop of Toledo, in 1295, against the acts done in cortes, because neither he nor the other prelates had been admitted to their discussions, nor given any consent to their resolutions, although such consent was falsely recited in the laws enacted therein. 4 This protestation is at least a testimony to the con- stitutional rights of the prelacy, which indeed all the early history of Castile, as well as the analogy of other govern- ments, conspires to demonstrate. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, however, they were more and more ex- cluded. None of the prelates were summoned to the cortes of 1299 and 1301 ; none either of the prelates or nobles to those of 1370 and 1373, of 1480 and 1505. In all the latter cases, indeed, such members of both orders as happened to be present in the court attended the cortes a fact which seems to be established by the language of the statutes. 1 Teoria de las Cortes, p. 213. tados et estrannados ct secados express- * p. 202. mente DOS et los otros perlados et ricoc 3 p. 67. homes et los fijosdaljro: et non fue hi * Protestamos que desde aqni venimos cosa fecha con nuestro consejo. Otrosi uon fuemos llamados a consejo. ni a los protestamos por razon de aquello qu tratados soore los fechos del reyno, ni dice en los previlefrios que les otorgaron, score las otras cosa^que hi fueren trac- que fueren los perlados llamados, et que tadaset fechaa! et sennaladamente sobre eran otorpidos de con*=entimiento et de los fechos de los consejo* de las her- voluntad dellos, que non fuemos hi pre- mandades et de las peticiones que fueron sentes ni llamados nin fue ftcho c< fechas de su parte. et sobre los otorga- nuestra voluntad. njn eonsenticmos, mo mentos que les ficieron. et sobre los pre- consentimos en ellos. &c. P- 72. Filegios que pt>r csta nazon les fueron * Teoria de las Cortes, p. <4. otorgados; mas ante fuemos ende apar- 506 CONSTITUTION OF CORTES. CHAP. IV Other instances of a similar kind may be adduced. Never- theless, the more usual expression in the preamble of laws reciting those summoned to and present at the cortes, though subject to considerable variation, seems to imply that all the three estates were, at least nominally and according to legiti- mate forms, constituent members of the national assembly. And a chronicle mentions, under the year 1406, the nobility and clergy as deliberating separately, and with some differ- ence of judgment, from the deputies of the commons. 1 A theory, indeed, which should exclude the great territorial ar- istocracy from their place in cortes, would expose the dignity and legislative rights of that body to unfavorable inferences. But it is manifest that the king exercised veiy freely a pre- rogative of calling or omitting persons of both the higher orders at his discretion. The bishops were numerous, and many of their sees not rich ; while the same objections of inconvenience applied perhaps to the ricoshombres, but far more forcibly to the lower nobility, the hijosdalgo or caballe- ros. Castile never adopted the institution of deputies from this order, as in the States General of France and some other countries, much less that liberal system of landed representa- tion, which forms one of the most admirable peculiarities in 1 1. H. p. 234. Marina is influenced by a prejudice in favor of the abortive Spanish constitution of 1812, which ex- cluded the temporal and spiritual aristoc- racy from a place in the legislature, to imagine a similar form of government in ancient times. But his own work fur- nishes abundant reasons, if I am not mistaken, to modify this opinion very essentially. A few out of many instances may be adduced from the enacting words of statutes, which we consider in England as good evidences to establish a constitu- tional theory. Sepades que yo hube mio acuerdo e mio consejo con mios her- manos e los arzobispos, e los obispos, e con los ricos homes de Castella, e de Leon, e con homes buenos de las villas de Castella. e de Leon, que fueron conuiigo en Valladolit, sobre muchas cosas, &c. Alfonso X. in 1258.) Mandamos enviar '.lama por cartas del rei e nuestras & los infantes e perlados e ricos homes e in- fanzones e caballeros & homes buenos de las cibdades e de las villas de los reynos de Castilia et de Toledo e de Leon e de las Estramaduras, e de Gallicia e de las Asturias e del Andalusia. (Writ of sum- mons to cortes of Burgos in 1315.) Con acuerdo de los perlados e de los ricos homes e procuradores de las cibdades e villas (s logares de los miestros reynos. (Ordinances of Toro in 1371.) Bstauho hi con el el infante Don Ferr.iudo. &c., e otros perlados e condes e ricos homes e otros caballeros e escuderos, e los prueu- radores de las cibdades e villas e logares de sus reynos. (Cortes of 1391.) Los trcs estados que deben vcnir & las cortes e ayuntamientossegunt se debe facer e es de bueria costumbre antigua. (Cortes of 1393. ) This last passage is apparently conclusive to prove that three estates, the superior clergy, the nobility, and the commons, were essential members of the Legislature in Castile, as they were in France and England ; and one is aston- ished to read in Marina that no faltaron 4 ninguna de las formalidades de derecho los nionarcas que no tuvieron por opor- tuno llamar 4 cortes para semejantes actos ni al clero ni a la nobleza ni a las per- snii.-is singulares de uno y otro estado. t. i. p. 69. That great citizen, .levellanos, appears to have had- much wiser notious of the ancient government of his country, as well as of the sort of reformation whicli she wanted : as we may inter from ]i:i..-iges in his Memoria & sus compatri- otas, OoruiTa, 1X11. i| noted by Marina foi the purpose of tensure. SPAIN RIGHT OF TAXATION". 507 our own constitution. It will be seen hereafter that spiritual and even temporal peers were summoned by our kings with much irregularity ; and the disordered state of' Castile through almost every reign was likely to prevent the establishment of any fixed usage in this and most other points. The primary and most essential characteristic of a limited monarchy is that money can only be levied upon Right of the people through the consent of their represent- Cation. atives. This principle was thoroughly established in Castile ; and the statutes which enforce it, the remonstrances which protest against its violation, bear a lively analogy to corre- sponding circumstances in the history of our constitution. The lands of the nobility and clergy were, I believe, always exempted from direct taxation an immunity which perhaps rendered the attendance of the members of those estates in the cortes less regular. The corporate districts or concejos, which, as I have observed already, differed from the com- munities of France and England by possessing a large extent of territory subordinate to the principal town, were bound by their charter to a stipulated annual payment, the price of their franchises, called moneda forera. 1 Beyond this sum nothing could be demanded without the consent of the cortes. A1-" fonso VIII., in 1177, applied for a subsidy towards carrying on the siege of Cuenca. Demands of money do not however seem to have been very usual before the prodigal reign of Alfonso X. ' That prince and his immediate successors were not much inclined to respect the rights of their subjects ; but they encountered a steady and insuperable resistance. Fer- dinand IV., in 1307, promises to raise no money beyond his legal and customary dues. A more explicit law was enacted by Alfonso XI. in 1328, who bound himself not to exact from his people, or cause them to pay any-tax, either partial or gen- eral, not hitherto established by law, without the previous grant of all the deputies convened to the cortes. 2 This aboli- tion of illegal impositions was several times confirmed by the same prince. The cortes, in 1393, having made a grant to 1 Marina, Ensayo Hist.-Crit. cap. 158; et, mihi cum bond voluntate vestra fece- Teoria de las Cortes, t. ii. p. 387. This ritis, nullum servitium faciatis. is expressed in one of their fueros, or 2 De los eon echar nin mandar pagar charters : Liberi et ingenui semper ma- pecho de.saforado ninguno, especial nia neatis, reddendo mihi et successoribus general, en toda mi tierra, sin ser llania- meis in uuoquoque anno in die Pente- dos primerameute 4 cortes e otorgado poi tostes de unaquaque domo 12 denarios ; todos los procuradores que hi venieren p. 588. 508 RIGHT OF TAXATION. CHAP. IV Henry III., annexed this condition, that "since they had granted him enough for his present necessities, and even to lay up a part for a future exigency, he should swear before one of the archbishops not to take or demand any money, service, or loan, or anything else, of the cities and towns, nor of individuals belonging to them, on any pretence of necessity, until the three estates of the kingdom should first be duly summoned and assembled in cortes according to ancient usage. And if any such letters requiring money have been written, that they shall be obeyed and not complied with." * His son, John II., having violated this constitutional privilege on the allegation of a pressing necessity, the cortes, in 1420, pre- sented a long remonstrance, couched in very respectful but equally firm language, wherein they assert " the good custom, founded in reason and in justice, that the cities and towns of your kingdoms shall not be compelled to pay taxes or requi- sitions, or other new tribute, unless your highness order it by advice and with the grant of the said cities and towns, and of "their deputies for them." And they express their apprehen- sion lest this right should be infringed, because, as they say, " there remains no other privilege or liberty which can be profitable to subjects if this be shaken." 2 The king gave them as full satisfaction as they desired that his encroach- ment should not be drawn into precedent. Some fresh abuses during the unfortunate reign of Henry IV. produced another declaration in equally explicit language, forming part of the sentence awarded by the arbitrators to whom the differences between the king and his people had been referred at Medina del Campo in 1465. 8 The catholic kings, as they are emi nently called, Ferdinand and Isabella, never violated this 1 Obedecidas e non cumplidas. This previlegio ni libertad de que los subditos expression occurs frequently in' pro- puediin gozar ni aprovechar quebrantado visions made against illegal acts of the el sobre dicho. t. iii. p. 30. crown; and is characteristic of the singu- 3 Declaranios e ordeuamos, que el lar respect with which the Spaniards dicho senor rei nin los otros reyes que always thought it right to treat their despues del fueren non echan nin repar- eoveroign, while they were resisting the tan nin pidan pedidosnin monedasensus abuses of his authority. reynos, salvo por gran necessidad, e sey- 2 La buena costumbre e possession endo primero accordado con los perlados fniiilada en razon e en justicia que las e graudes de sus reynos, e con los otros cibjades e villas de vuestros reinos tenian que la sazon residierin en su consejo, e de no ser maudado coger monedas e pe- seyendo para ello llamados los procura- didos nin otro tribute nuevo alguno en dores de las cibJadcs e villas de sus rey- los vuestros reinos sin que la vuestra se- nos, que para las talcs cosas se suelesi e noria lo faga e ordene de consejo e con acostumbran llamar, e seyendo per lo otorgamiento de las cibdades e villas Ue dichps procuradores otorgado el dicho los vuestros reinos e de sus procuradores pediinento e monedas. t. ii. p. 391. BU su noinbre .... no queda otro SPAIN. POWER OF THE CORTES. 509 part of the constitution ; nor did even Charles L, although sometimes refused money by the cortes, attempt to exact it without their consent. 1 In the Recopilacion, or code of Gas-" tilian law published by Philip II., we read a positive declara- {ion against arbitrary imposition of taxes, which remained unaltered on the face of the statute-book till the present age. 2 The law was indeed frequently broken by Philip II. ; but the cortes, who retained throughout the sixteenth century a degree of steadiness and courage truly admirable when we consider their political weakness, did not cease to remonstrate with that suspicious tyrant, and recorded their unavailing appeal to the law of Alfonso XL, " so ancient and just, and which so long time has been used and observed." 8 The free assent of the people by their representatives to grants of money was by no means a mere matter of c form. It was connected with other essential rights cortes over indispensable to its effectual exercise ; those of ex- ex P enditure - amining public accounts and checking the expenditure. The cortes, in the best times at least, were careful to grant no money until they were assured that what had been already levied on their constituents had been properly employed. 4 They refused a subsidy in 1390 because they had already given so much, and, " not knowing how so great a sum had been expended, it would be a great dishonor and mischief to promise any more." In 1406 they stood out a long time, and at length gave only half of what was demanded. 5 Charles I. attempted to obtain money in 1527 from the nobility as well as commons. But the former protested that " their obligation was to follow the king in war, wherefore to contribute money i Marina has published two letters leyes reales. y que ne se impusiessen from Charles to the city of Toledo, in nuevas rentas sin an asistencia ; pues 1542 and 1548. requesting them to instruct podria v. m. estar satisfecho de que el their deputies to consent to a further reino sirve en las cosas necessarias con grant of money, which they had refused toda lealtad y hasta ahora no se ha pro- to do without leave of their constituents, veido lo susodicho ; y el reiuo por la t. iii. p. 180, 187. obligacion que tiene & pedir A v. m. - t. ii. p. 393. guarde la dicha lei, y que no solamente 3 En las cortes de ano de 70 y en las ban cessado las necessidades de los sub- de 76 pedimos a>v. m. fuese servide de no ditos y naturales de v. m. pero antes poner nuevos impuestos, rentas, pechos, crecen de cada dia : vuelve A. suplicar 4 ni derechos ui otros tributos particulares v. m. sea servido concederle lo susodicho, ni generates sin junta del reyuo en cortes. y que las nuevas rentas pechos y dere- como esta dispuesto por lei del senor rei chos se quiten, y que de aqui adelante Don Alonso, y se signified a v. ni. el daiio se guarde la dicha lei del senor rei Don graude que con las nuevas reutas habia Alonso, coino tan antigua y justa y qu rescibido el veino, suplicando a v. m. tanto tiempo se uso y guardo. p. 395 fuese servido de inandarle aliviar y des- This petition was in 1579. f-argar, y que en lo de adelante se les * Marina, t. ii. p. 404,406. hieitsse uierced de guardar las dichas '> p. 409. 510 POWER OF THE CORTES. CHAP. FV was totally against their privilege, and for that reason they could not acquiesce in his majesty's request." * The commons also refused on this occasion. In 1538, on a similar proposi- tion, the superior and lower nobility (los grandes y caballeros) " begged with all humility that they might never hear any more of that matter." 2 The contributions granted by cortes were assessed and collected by respectable individuals (hombres buenos) of the .several towns and villages. 8 This repartition, as the French call it, of direct taxes is a matter of the highest importance in those countries where they are imposed by means of a gross assessment on a district. The produce was paid to the royal council. It could not be applied to any other purpose than that to which the tax had been appropriated. Thus the cortes of Segovia, in 1407, granted a subsidy for the war against Granada, on condition " that it should not be laid out on any other service except this war ; " which they requested the queen and Ferdinand, both regents in John IL's minority, to confirm by oath. Part, however, of the money remaining unexpended, Ferdinand wished to apply it to his own object of procuring the crown of Aragon ; but the queen first obtained not only a release from her oath by the pope, but the consent of the cortes. They continued to insist upon this appropria- tion, though ineffectually, under the reign of Charles I. 4 The cortSs did not consider it beyond the line of their duty, notwithstanding the respectful manner in which they always addressed the sovereign, to remonstrate against profuse ex- penditure even in his own household. They told Alfonso X. in 1258, in the homely style of that age, that they thought it fitting that the king and his wife should eat at the rate of a hundred and fifty maravedis a day, and no more ; and that the king should order his attendants to eat more moderately than they did. 5 They remonstrated more forcibly against the pro- digality of John II. Even in 1559 they spoke with an un- ' daunted Castilian spirit to Philip II. : " Sir, the expenses of your royal establishment and household are much increased ; and we conceive it would much redound to the good of these kingdoms that your majesty should direct them to be lowered, 1 Pero que contribuir &. la guerra con 2 Marina, t. ii. p. 411. eiertaa suinas era totalmente opuesto 3 Marina, t. ii. p. 398. sus previlegios, e asi que no podrian * p. 412. acomodarse lo que 8. m. deseaba. 5 p. 417. p. 411. SPAIN. THEIR FORMS. 511 both as a relief to your wants, and that all the great men and other subjects of your majesty may take example therefrom to restrain the great disorder and excess they commit in that respect." 1 The forms of a Castilian cortes were analogous to those of an English parliament in the fourteenth century. Forms of They were summoned by a writ almost exactly co.- the cortcs - incident in expression with that in use among us. 2 The ses- sion was opened by a speech from the chancellor or other chief officer of the court. The deputies were invited to con sider certain special business, and commonly to grant money. After the principal affairs were despatched they conferred to gether, and, having examined the instructions of their re- spective constituents, drew up a schedule of petitions. These were duly answered one by one ; and from the petition and answer, if favorable, laws were afterwards drawn up where the matter required a new law, or promises of redress were given if the petition related to an abuse or grievance. In the struggling condition of Spanish liberty under Charles I., the crown began to neglect answering the petitions of cortes, or to use unsatisfactory generalities of expression. This gave rise to many remonstrances. The deputies insisted in 1523 on having answers before they granted money. They repeat- ed the same contention in 1525, and obtained a general law inserted in the Recopilacion enacting that the king should answer all their petitions before he dissolved the assembly. 4 This, however, was disregarded as before ; but the cortes, whose intrepid honesty under Philip II. so often attracts our admiration, continued as late as 1586 to appeal to the written statute and lament its violation. 5 According to the ancient fundamental constitution of Castile, the king did not legislate for his subjects without Riu ., lf of their consent. The code of the Visigoths, called e^tes in r<.,i-r-* T i 11- legislation. in .Spain the k uero Jusgo, was enacted in public councils, as were also the laws of the early kings of Leon, which appears by the reciting words of their preambles. 6 This i Seuhor, los gastos de vuestro real desorden y excesses que hacen en lar estadp y mesa son muy crescidos, y en- cosas sobredichas. p. 437- tendemos que converuia mucho al Men 2 Marina, t. i. p. 176 ; t. iii. p. 103. 3e estos reinos qne v. m. los mandasse 8 t. i. p. 278. moderar, asi para algun remedio de sus * p. 301. necessidades, como para que de v. m. to- 5 p. 288-304. men egemplo totos los grandes y cabal- 6 t. ii. p. 202. The acts ot tne cortes leros y otros subditos de v. ni. en la gran of Leon in 1020 run thus : Oumes pon 512 LEGISLATIVE RIGHT CHAP. IV consent was originally given only by the higher estates, who might be considered, in a large sense, as representing the na tion, though not chosen by it ; but from the end of the twelftl century by the elected deputies of the commons in cortes The laws of Alfonso X. in 1258, those of the same prince in 1274, and many others in subsequent times, are declared to be made with the consent (con acuerdo) of the several orders of the kingdom. More commonly, indeed, the preamble of Castilian statutes only recites their advice (consejo) ; but I do not know that any stress is to be laid on this circumstance. The laws of the Siete Partidas, compiled by Alfonso X., did not obtain any direct sanction till the famous cortes of Alcala, in 1348, when they were confirmed along with several others, forming altogether the basis of the statute-law of Spain. 1 Whether they were in fact received before that time has been a matter controverted among Spanish antiquaries, and upon the question of their legal validity at the time of their pro- mulgation depends an important point in Castilian history, the disputed right of succession between Sancho IV. and the in- fants of la Cerda ; the former claiming under the ancient customary law, the latter under the new dispositions of the Siete Partidas. If the king could not legally change the es- tablished laws without consent of his cortes, as seems most probable, the right of representative succession did not exist in favor of his grandchildren, and Sancho IV. cannot be con- sidered as an usurper. It appears, upon the whole, to have been a constitutionar principle, that laws could neither be made nor annulled ex- cept in cortes. In 150G this is claimed by the deputies as an established right. 2 John I. had long before admitted that what was done by cortes and general assemblies could not be undone by letters missive, but by such cortes and assemblies alone. 8 For the kings of Castile had adopted the English tifices et abbates et optimates regni His- publication of these two works, in the panisc jvissu ipsius regis talia decreta tie- former of which he contends for the pre- irevimus quae fimiiter teneantur futuris vious authority of the Siete Partidas, and temporibus. So those of Salamanca, in In favor of the infants of la Cerda. 1178 : Kgft rex Fernandus inter caotera " Los reyes establicieron que cuando quae cum episcopis et abbatibus regni hubiesen de hacer leyes, para que fuesen nostri et quamplurimis aliis religiosis, provechosas a sus reynos y cada provi^ cum comitibus terrarum et prinoipibus cias fueseri proveidas, se llamasen corteg et rectoribus provinciarum, toto posse y proeuradores que entendiesen en ellas, tetienda statnimus apud Salamancam. y por esto se establecio lei que no no i Knxayo Ilist.-Crit. p. 353; Teoria de hiciesen ni renovasen leyes sino en cortes las Cortes, t. ii. p. 77. Marina seems to Teoria de las Cortes, t. ii. p. 218. nave changed his opluion between the 8 Lo que es fecho por cortes 6 por SPAIN. OF THE COETES. 513 practice of dispensing with statutes by a non obstante clause ui their grants. But the cortes remonstrated more steadily against this abuse than our own parliament, who suffered it to remain in a certain degree till the Revolution. It was sever- al times enacted upon their petition, especially by an explicit statute of Henry II., that grants and letters-patent dispensing with statutes should not be obeyed. 1 Nevertheless, John II., trusting to force or the servility of the judges, had the assur- ance to dispense explicitly with this very law. 2 The cortes of Valladolid, in 1442, obtained fresh promises and enactments against such an abuse. Philip I. and Charles I. began to legislate without asking the consent of cortes ; this grew much worse under Philip II., and reached its height under his suc- cessors, who entirely abolished all constitutional privileges. 8 In 1555 we find a petition that laws made in cortes should be revoked nowhere else. The reply was such as became that age : " To this we answer, that we shall do what best suits our government." But even in 1619, and still afterwards, the patriot representatives of Castile continued to lift an un- availing voice against illegal ordinances, though in the form of very humble petition ; perhaps the latest testimonies to the expiring liberties of their country. 4 The denial of exclusive legislative authority to the crown must, however, be under- stood to admit the legality of particular ordinances designed to strengthen the king's executive government. 5 These, no doubt, like the royal proclamations in England, extended sometimes very far, and subjected the people to a sort of ar- bitrary coercion much beyond what our enlightened notions of freedom would consider as reconcilable to it. But in the middle ages such temporary commands and prohibitions were not reckoned strictly legislative, and passed, perhaps rightly, for inevitable consequences of a scanty codo and short sessions of the national council. The kings were obliged to swear to the observance of laws enacted in cortes, besides their general coronation oath to keep the laws and preserve the liberties of their people. Of this we find several instances from the middle of the thir- ayuntamientos que non se pneda disfacer * Ha suplicado el reino & v. m. no ee por las tales cartas, salvo por ayunta- promulguen nueras leyes, ni en todo ni mientos e cortes. Teoria de las Cortes, en parte las antiguas se alteren, sin que t. ii. p. 215- sea por cortes . . . . y por ser de tanta 1 p. 215. importancia yuelve el reiuo & suplicarlo 2 p. 216 ; t. iii. p. 40. huinilmente a v. ni. p. 220 t. ii. p. 218. 6 p. 207. voj, I.-^M. 33 514 RIGHTS OF THE CORTES. CHAP. IV teenth century, and f he practice continued till the time of John II., who, in 143 J .on being requested to swear to the laws then enacted, answered that he intended to maintain them, and consequently no oath was necessary ; an evasion in which the cortes seem unaccountably to have acquiesced. 1 The guardians of Alfonso XI. not only swore to observe all that had been agreed on at Burgos in 1315, but consented that, if any one of them did not keep his oath, the people should no longer be obliged to regard or obey him as regent. 2 It was customary to assemble the cortes of Castile for Other ri hts manv purposes besides those of granting money of the and concurring in legislation. They were sum- cortes. moned in every reign to acknowledge and confirm the succession of the heir apparent ; and upon his accession to swear allegiance. 8 These acts were, however, little more than formal, and accordingly have been preserved for the sake of parade after all the real dignity of the cortes was annihilated. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries they claimed and exercised very ample powers. They assumed the right, when questions of regency occurred, to limit the prerogative, as well as to designate the persons who weie to use it. 4 And the frequent minorities of Castilian kings, which were unfavorable enough to tranquillity and subordina- tion, served to confirm these parliamentary privileges. The cortes were usually consulted upon all material business. A law of Alfonso XI. in 1328, printed in the Recopilacion or code published by Philip II., declares, " Since in the arduous affairs of our kingdom the counsel of our natural subjects is necessary, especially of the deputies from our cities and towns, therefore we ordain and command that on such great occa- sions the cortes shall be assembled, and counsel shall be taken of the three estates of our kingdoms, as the kings our fore- fathers have been used to do." 6 A cortes of John II., in 1419, claimed this right of being -consulted in all matters of importance, with a warm remonstrance against the alleged violation of so wholesome a law by the reigning prince ; who answered, that in weighty matters he had acted, and would continue to act, in conformity to it. 6 What should be intend- ed by great and weighty affairs might be not at all agreed 1 Teoria de las Cortes, t '. p. 306. 4 p. 230. 2 t. iii. p. 62. 6 t. i. p. 31. t. i. p. 33; t. ii. p. 24. p. 34. COUNCIL OF CASTILE. 515 upon by the two parties ; to each of whose interpretations these words gave pretty full scope. However, the current usage of the monarchy certainly permitted much authority in public deliberations to the cortes. Among other instances, which indeed will continually be found in the common civil histories, the cortes of Ocana, in 1469, remonstrate with Hen- ry IV. for allying himself with England rather than France, and give, as the first reason of complaint, that, " according to the laws of your kingdom, when the kings have anything of great importance in hand, they ought not to undertake it without advice and knowledge of the chief towns and cities of your kingdom." 1 This privilege of general interference was asserted, like other ancient rights, under Charles, whom they strongly urged, in 1548, not to permit his son Philip to depart out of the realm. 2 It is hardly necessary to observe, that, in such times, they had little chance of being regarded. The kings of Leon and Castile acted, during the interval of the cortes, by the advice of a smaller council, council of answering, as it seems, almost exactly to the Castile, king's ordinary council in England. In early ages, before the introduction of the commons, it is sometimes difficult to dis- tinguish this body from the general council of the nation ; being composed, in fact, of the same class of persons, though in smaller numbers. A similar difficulty applies to the Eng- lish history. The nature of their proceedings seems best to ascertain the distinction. All executive acts, including those ordinances which may appear rather of a legislative nature, all grants and charters, are declared to be with the assent of the court (curia), or of the magnats of the palace, or of the chiefs or nobles. 3 This privy council was an essential part of all European monarchies ; and, though the sovereign might be considered as free to call in the advice of whomso- ever he pleased, yet, in fact, the princes of the blood and most powerful nobility had anciently a constitutional right to be members of such a council, so that it formed a very mate- rial check upon his personal authority. The council underwent several changes in progress of time, which it is not necessary to enumerate. It was justly deemed 1 Porque, segunt leyes de nuestros " t. iii. p. 183. reynos, cuando los reyes han de facer 3 Cum assonsu ningimtnm palatii: Cura alguna cosa de gran iiiiportancia, non lo consilio curia; mete: Cum consilio etbene- IvbuQ facer sin consejo e sabiduria de las placito omnium priwipiim ineorum. nullo cibdadus e villas priucipales de Tiiestroa contotdieente BC rwelaiueute. 1 curia do tet uos. Tool-id, du las Cortc.s, t. ii. p. liil. las Cortes, t. iii. p. <32. 51G ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. CHAP. IV. an important member of the constitution, and the cortes showed a laudable anxiety to procure its composition in such a manner as to form a guarantee for the due execution of laws after their own dissolution. Several times, especially in minorities, they even named its members or a part of them ; and in the reigns of Henry III. and John II. they obtained the privilege of adding a permanent deputation, consisting of four persons elected out of their own body, annexed as it were to the council, who were to continue at the court dur- ing the interval of cortes and watch over the due observance of the laws. 1 This deputation continued as an empty formal- ity in the sixteenth century. In the council the king was bound to sit personally three days in the week. Their busi- ness, which included the whole executive government, was distributed with considerable accuracy into what might be despatched by the council alone, under their own seals and signatures, and what required the royal seal. 2 The consent of this body was necessary for almost every act of the crown : for pensions or grants of money, ecclesiastical and political promotions, and for charters of pardon, the easy concession of which was a great encouragement to the homicides so usual in those ages, and was restrained by some of our own laws. 8 But the council did not exercise any judicial authori- ty, if we may believe the well-informed author from whom I have learned these particulars; unlike in this to the ordi- nary council of the kings of England. It was not until the days of Ferdinand and Isabella that this, among other inno- vations, was introduced.* Civil and criminal justice was administered, in the first Adminis- instance, by the alcaldes, or municipal judges of tratipn of towns ; elected within themselves, originally, by the community at large, but, in subsequent times, by the governing body. In other places a lord possessed the right of jurisdiction by grant from the crown, not, what we find in countries where the feudal system was more thorough- ly established, as incident to his own territorial superiority The kings, however, began in the thirteenth century to ap- point judges of their own, called corregidores, a name which seems to express concurrent jurisdiction with the regidores, or ordinary magistrates. 6 The cortes frequently remoti.strat- 1 Teoria de las Cortes, t. ii. p. :,'46. 4 t. ii. p. 375, 379. 2 p. 3;>4. 3 AllniiKo X. ria\>. Nin^un orae soa osado 8 p. 3oU, 362, 372. juzgar pie} Uns, so 110 1'uere alcaide puesto SPAIN. ACTIONS OF CASTILIAN KINGS. 517 ed against this encroachment. Alfonso XI. consented to withdraw his judges from all corporations by which he had not been requested to appoint them. 1 Some attempts to in- terfere with the municipal authorities of Toledo produced serious disturbances under Henry III. and John II. 2 Even where the king appointed magistrates at a city's request, he was bound to select them from among the citizens. 8 From this immediate jurisdiction an appeal lay to the adelantado or governor of the province, and from thence to the tribunal of royal alcaldes. 4 The latter, however, could not take cog- nizance of any cause depending before the ordinary judges ; a contrast to the practice of Aragon, where the justiciary's right of evocation (juris firma) was considered as a principal safeguard of public liberty. 6 As a court of appeal, the royal alcaldes had the supreme jurisdiction. The king could only cause their sentence to be revised, but neither alter nor re- voke it. 6 They have continued to the present day as a criminal tribunal ; but civil appeals were transferred by the ordinances of Toro in 1371 to a new court, styled the king's audience, which, though deprived under Ferdinand and his successors of part of its jurisdiction, still remains one of the principal judicatures in Castile. 7 No people in a half-civilized state of society have a full practical security against particular acts of arbi- trary power. -They were more common perhaps actions of in Castile than in any other European monarchy s e **"& which professed to be free. Laws indeed were not wanting to protect men's lives and liberties, as well as their properties. Ferdinand IV., in 1299, agreed to a petition that "justice shall be executed impartially according to law and right ; and that no one shall be put to death or imprison- ed, or deprived of his possessions, without trial, and that this be better observed than heretofore." 8 He renewed the same law in 1307. Nevertheless, the most remarkable circum- stance of this monarch's history was a violation of so sacred pol el rey. Id. fol. 27. This seems an many other passages, will not confuse encroachment on the municipal mag- the attentive reader. istrates. 8 Q ue mandase facer la justicia en 1 Teoria de las Cortes, t. ii. p. 251. aquellos que la merecen comunalruente 2 p. 255. Mariana, 1. xx. c. 13. con fuero econ derecho 6 los homes que 8 p. 255. non sean muertos nin presos nin tomadoa * p. 266. lo que han sin ser oidos por derecho 6 & p. 260. por fuero de aquel logar do acaesciere. 6 p. 287, 304. e que sea guardajo mejor que se guardo 7 Teoria de las Cortes, t. ii. p. 292-302. fastaaqui. Maroa, Ensayo Hist.-Critico, The use of the present tense, in this and p. 148 518 COISTFEDERACIES OF NOBILITY. CHAP. 17. and apparantly so well-established a law. Two gentlemen hav- ing been accused of murder, Ferdinand, without waiting for :vny process, ordered them to instant execution. They sum- moned him with their last words to appear before the tribunal of God in thirty days ; and his death within the time, which has given him the surname of the Summoned, might, we may hope, deter succeeding sovereigns from iniquity so flagrant. But from the practice of causing their enemies to be assas- sinated, neither law nor conscience could withhold them. Alfonso XI. was more than once guilty of this crime. Yet he too passed an ordinance in 1325 that no warrant should issue for putting any one to death, or seizing his property, till he should be duly tried by course of law. Henry II. repeats the same law in very explicit language. 1 But the civil history of Spain displays several violations of it. An extraordinary prerogative of committing murder appears to have been admitted in early times by several nations who did not acknowledge unlimited power in their sovereign. 2 Before any regular police was established, a powerful criminal might have been secure from all punishment, but for a notion, as barbarous as any which it served to counteract, that he could be lawfully killed by the personal mandate of the king. And the frequent attendance of sovereigns in their courts of ju- dicature might lead men not accustomed to consider the indispensable necessity of legal forms to confound an act of assassination with the execution of justice. Though it is very improbable that the nobility were not considered as essential members of the cortes, they Confede- > raciisofthe certainly attended in smaller numbers than we nobility. should expect to find from the great legislative and deliberative authority of that assembly. This arose chiefly from the lawless spirit of that martial aristocracy which plac- ed less confidence in the constitutional methods of resisting arbitrary encroachment than in its own armed combinations. 8 Such confederacies to obtain redress of grievances by force, of which there were five or six remarkable instances, were called Hermandad (brotherhood or union), and, though not 1 Que non mandemos matar nin pren- esto esti ordenado por el rei dou Alonso nucatro padre. Teoria de las Cortes, t. ii. p. 287. CONFEDERACIES OF NOBILITY. 519 so explicitly sanctioned as they were by the celebrated Privilege of Union in Aragon, found countenance in a law of Alfonso X., which cannot be deemed so much to have voluntarily emanated from that prince as to be a record of original rights possessed by the Castilian nobility. "The duty of subjects towards their king," he says, enjoins them not to permit him knowingly to endanger his salvation, nor to incur dishonor and inconvenience in his person or family, nor to produce mischief to his kingdom. And this may be fulfilled in two ways : one by good advice, showing him the reason wherefore he ought not to act thus; the other by deeds, seeking means to prevent his going on to his own ruin, and putting a stop to those who give him ill counsel . forasmuch as his errors are of worse consequence than those of other men, it is the bounden duty of subjects to prevent his committing them. 1 To this law the insurgents appealed in their coalition against Alvaro de Luna ; and indeed we must confess that, however just and admirable the principles which it breathes, so general a license of rebellion was not likely to preserve the tranquillity of a kingdom. The depu- ties of towns in a cortes of 1445 petitioned the king to declare that no construction should be put on this law incon- sistent with the obedience of subjects towards their sove- reign : a request to which of course he willingly acceded. Castile, it will be apparent, bore a closer analogy to Eng- land in its form of civil polity than France or even Aragon. But the frequent disorders of its government and a barbar- ous state of manners rendered violations of law much more continual and flagrant than they were in England under the Plantagenet dynasty. And besides these practical mischiefs, there were two essential defects in the constitution of Castile, through which perhaps it was ultimately subverted. It wanted those two brilliants in the coronet of British liberty, the representation of freeholders among the commons, and trial by jury. The cortes of Castile became a congress of deputies from a few cities, public-spirited indeed and intrepid, as we find them in bad times, to an eminent degree, but too much limited in number, and too unconnected with the terri- torial aristocracy, to maintain a just balance against the crown. Yet, with every disadvantage, that country possessed a liberal form of government, and was animated with a noble spirit for its defence. Spain, in her late memorable though 1 Ensayo Hist.-Critico, p. 312 520 AFFAIRS OF ARAGON. CHAP. IV. short resuscitation, might well have gone back to her ancient institutions, and perfected a scheme of policy which the great example of England would have shown to be well adapted to the security of freedom. What she did, or rather attempted, instead, I need not recall. May her next effort be more wisely planned, and more happily terminated ! l Though the kingdom of Aragon was very inferior in ex Affairs of tent to that of Castile, yet the advantages of a better form of government and wiser sovereigns, with those of industry and commerce along a line of sea- coast, rendered it almost equal in importance. Castile rarely intermeddled in the civil dissensions of Aragon ; the kings of Aragon frequently carried their arms into the heart of Castile. During the sanguinary outrages of Peter the Cruel, and the stormy revolutions which ended in establishing the house of Trastamare, Aragon was not indeed at peace, nor altogether well governed ; but her political consequence rose in the eyes of Europe through the long reign of the ambitious and wily Peter IV., whose sagacity and good fortune redeemed, according to the common notions of mankind, the iniquity with which he stripped his relation the king of Majorca of the Balearic islands, and the constant perfidiousness of his character. I have mentioned in another place the Sicilian war, prosecuted with so much eagerness for many years by Peter III. and his son Alfonso III. After this object was relinquished James II. undertook an enterprise less splendid, but not much less difficult : the conquest of Sardinia. That island, long accustomed to independence, cost an incredible expense of blood and treasure to the kings of Aragon dur- ing the whole fourteenth century. It was not fully subdued till the commencement of the next, under the reign of Martin. At the death of Martin king of Aragon, in 1410, a mem- Disputed orable question arose as to the right of succession, succession Though Petronilla, daughter of Ramiro II.. had after the . ' . , ?, /> -,* OT . -, i rrn death of reigned m her own right from Ilo7 to 11/2, an Martm. opinion seems to have gained ground from the thirteenth century that females could not inherit the crown of Aragon. Peter IV. had excited a civil war by attempting to settle the succession upon his daughter, to the exclusion of his next brother. The birth of a son about the same time suspended the ultimate decision of this question ; but it was tacitly understood that what is called the Salic law ought to 1 The first edition of this work was published in 1818. DISPUTED SUCCESSION. 521 prevail. 1 Accordingly on the death of John I. in 1395, his two daughters were set aside in favor of his brother Martin, though not without opposition on the part of the elder, whose husband, the count of Foix, invaded the kingdom, and de- sisted from his pretension only through want of force. Mar- tin's son, the king of Sicily, dying in his father's lifetime, the nation was anxious that the king should fix upon his successor, and would probably have acquiesced in his choice. But his dissolution occurring more rapidly than was expected, the throne remained absolutely vacant. The count of Urgel had obtained a grant of the lieutenancy, which was the right of the heir apparent. This nobleman possessed an extensive territory in Catalonia, bordering on the Pyrenees. He was grandson of James, next brother to Peter IV., and, according to our rules of inheritance, certainly stood in the first place. The other claimants were the duke of Gandia, grandson of James II., who, though descended from a more distant ances- tor, set up a claim founded on proximity to the royal stock, which in some countries was preferred to a representative title ; the duke of Calabria, son of Violante, younger daughter of John I. (the countess of Foix being childless) ; Frederic count of Luna, a natural son of the younger Martin king of Sicily, legitimated by the pope, but with a reservation ex- cluding him from royal succession; and finally, Ferdinand, infant of Castile, son of the late king's sister. 2 The count of 1 Zurita, t. ii. f. 188. It was pretended that women were excluded from the crown in England as well as France : and this analogy seems to have had some in- fluence in determining the Aragonese to adopt a Salic law. 2 The subjoined pedigree will show more clearly the respective titles of the com- petitors : JAMES II. died 1327. ALFOI PETI andia. so IV. d. 1336. D. of C E IV. d. 1337 James D. of Gandia. C. of Urgel. . Peter C. of Urgel. C. of Urgel Eleanor Q. of Castile. 1 Joi N I. d. 1395. MAKTIN, d. 1410. Martin of Sicily, 1409. Henry HI. Ferdinand. K. of Castile. 1 | K. John IT. Countess Q. of Naples. K. of Castile, of Fois. Frederic C. of Luna Louis D. of Calabria. 522 DISPUTED SUCCESSION. CHAP. IV. Urgel was favored in general by the Catalans, and he seemed to have a powerful support in Antonio de Luna, a baron of Aragon, so rich that he might go through his own estate from France to Castile. But this apparent superiority frustrated his hopes. The justiciary and other leading Aragonese were determined not to suffer this great constitutional question to be decided by an appeal to fqrce, which might sweep away their liberties in the struggle. Urgel, confident of his right, and surrounded by men of ruined fortunes, was unwilling to submit his pretensions to a civil tribunal. His adherent, Antonio de Luna, committed an extraordinary outrage, the assassination of the archbishop of Saragosa, which alienated the minds of good citizens from his cause. On the other hand, neither the duke of Gandia, who was very old, 1 nor the count of Luna, seemed fit to succeed. The party of Ferdi- nand, therefore, gained ground by degrees. It was determined however, to render a legal sentence. The cortes of each nation agreed upon the nomination of nine persons, three Aragonese, three Catalans, and three Valencians, who 'were to discuss the pretensions of the several competitors, and by a plurality of six votes to adjudge the crown. Nothing could be more solemn, more peaceful, nor, in appearance, more equitable than the proceedings of this tribunal. They sum- moned the claimants before them, and heard them by counsel. One of these, Frederic of Luna, being ill defended, the court took charge of his interests, and named other advocates to maintain them. A month was passed in hearing arguments ; a second was allotted to considering them ; and at the expira- tion of the prescribed time it was announced to the people, by the mouth of St. Vincent Ferrier, that Ferdinand of Cas- tile had ascended the throne. 2 1 This duke of Gandia died during the vote. Zurita, t. iii. f. 71. It is curious interregnum. His son, though not so enough that John king of Castile was al- objectionable on the score of age, seemed together disregarded ; though his claim to have a worse claim ; yet he became a was at least as plausible as that of his competitor. uncle Ferdinand. Indeed, upon the prin- 2 Biancse Commentaria, in Schotti His- ciples of inheritance to which we are ac- ?ania Illustrata, t. ii. Zurita, t. iii. f. customed, Louis duke of Calabria had a -74. Vincent Ferrier was the most dis- prior right to Ferdinand, admitting the tinguished churchman of his time in rule which it was necessary for both of Spain. His influence, as one of the nine them to establish ; namely, that a right of judges, is said to have been very instru- succession might be transmitted through mental in procuring the crown for Ferdi- females, which females could not person- nand. Five others voted the same way ; ally enjoy. This, as is well known, had one for the count of Urgel; one doubt- been advanced in the preceding age by fully between the count of Urgel and Edward III. as the foundation of hi* duke of Qandia ; the ninth declined to claim to the crown of France. SPAIN. KINGS OF AEAGON. 523 In this decision it is impossible not to suspect that the judges were swayed rather by politic considera- Decision in tious than a strict sense of hereditary right. It f|^^ nd was, therefore, by no means universally popular, of Castile, especially in Catalonia, of which principality the * lil2 - count of Urgel was a native ; and perhaps the great rebellion of the Catalans fifty years afterwards may be traced to the disaffection which this breach, as they thought, of the lawful succession had excited. Ferdinand however was well received in Aragon. The cortes generously recommended the count of Urgel to his favor, on account of the great expenses he had incurred in prosecuting his claim. But Urgel did not wait the effect of this recommendation. Unwisely attempting a rebellion with very inadequate means, he lost his estates, and was thrown for life into prison. Ferdinand's successor was his son, Alfonso V., more distinguished in the his- Alfonso v tory of Italy than of "Spain. For all the latter A - D - mo - years of his life he never quitted the kingdom that he had acquired by his arms ; and, enchanted by the delicious air of Naples, intrusted the government of his patrimonial territories to the care of a brother and an heir. John II., John n. upon whom they devolved by the death of Alfonso A - D - 1458> without legitimate progeny, had been engaged during his youth in the turbulent revolutions of Castile, as the head of a strong party that opposed the domination of Alvaro de Luna. By marriage wifh the heiress of Navarre he was entitled, accord- ing to the usage of those times, to assume the title of king, and administration of government, during her life. But his ambitious retention of power still longer produced events which are the chief stain on his memory. Charles , .~ f -IT- It f -XT A ' D ' !*' prince of Viana was, by the constitution ot .Na- varre, entitled to succeed his mother. She had requested him in her testament not to assume the government without his father's consent. That consent was always 1449 withheld. The prince raised what we ought not to call a rebellion ; but was made prisoner, and remained for some tune in captivity. John's ill disposition towards his son was exasperated by a step-mother, who scarcely disguised her intention of placing her own child on the throne of Aragon at the expense of the eldest-born. After a life of perpetual oppression, chiefly passed in exile or captivity, the prince of Viana died in Catalonia, at a moment when that province 524 CONSTITUTION OF AEAGON. CHAP. IV. was in open insurrection upon his account. Though it hardly 1461 seems that the Catalans had any more general pro- vocations, they persevered for more than ten years with inveterate obstinacy in their rebellion, offering the sovereignty first to a prince of Portugal, and afterwards to Regnier duke of Anjou, who was destined to pass his life in unsuccessful competition for kingdoms. The king of Aragon behaved with great clemency towards these insurgents on their final submission. It is consonant to the principle of this work to pass lightly over the common details of history, in order to fix the reader's Constitu- attention more fully on subjects of philosophical in- tion of quiry. Perhaps in no European monarchy except Aragon. our Qwn w&g ^ e f orm O f government more inter- esting than in Aragon, as a fortunate temperament of law and justice with the royal authority. So far as anything Originally a can be pronounced of its earlier period before tho sort of regal capture of Saragosa in 1118, it was a kind of racy ' regal aristocracy, where a small number of power- ful barons elected their sovereign on every vacancy, though, as usual in other countries, out of one family ; and considered him as little more than the chief of their confederacy. 1 These were the ricoshombres or barons, the first ofThe^cos- order of the state. Among these the kings of barons 68 or -A- ra g n > in subsequent times, as they extended their dominions, shared the conquered territory in grants of honors on a feudal tenure. 2 For this system was fully established in the kingdom of Aragon. A ricohombre, as we read in Vitalis bishop of Huesca, about the middle of the thirteenth century, 8 must hold of the king an honor or barony capable of supporting more than three knights ; and 1 Alfonso III. complained that his bar- tenian del rey, eran obligados de seguir ons wanted to bring back old times, al rey, si yva en persona a la guerra, y quando havia en el reyno tantos reyes residir en ella tres ineses en cadaun ano. como rico's hombres. Bianc Commen- Zurita, t. i. fol. 43. (Saragosa, 1610.) A taria, p. 787. The form of election sup- fief was usually called in Aragon an posed to have been used by these bold honor, que en Castilla Haruavan tierra, y barons is well known. " We, who are en el principado de Cataluna feudo. fol. as good as you, choose you for our king 46. and lord, provided that you observe our 3 I do not know whether this work of laws and privileges ; and if not, not." Vitalis has been printed ; but there are But I do not much believe the authen- large extracts from it in Blancas's history, ticitj of this form of words. See Rob- and also in Du Cange. under the words ertson's Charles V. vol. i. note 81. It Infancia, Mesnadarius, &c. Several illus- is, however, sufficiently agreeable to the trations of these military tenures may b spirit of the old government. found in the Fueros de Aragon, especial * Los ricos hombres, por los feudos que ly lib. 7. SPAIN CONSTITUTION OF ARAGON. 525 this he was bound to distribute among his vassals in military fiefs. Once in the year he might be summoned with his feu- dataries to serve the sovereign for two months (Zurita says three) ; and he was to attend the royal court, or general assembly, as a counsellor, whenever called upon, assisting in its judicial as well as deliberative business. In the tovns and villages of his barony he might appoint bailiffs to ad- minister justice and receive penalties; but the higher crimi- nal jurisdiction seems to have been reserved to the crown. According to Vitalis, the king could divest these ricoshombres of their honors at pleasure, after which they fel) into the class of mesnadaries, or mere tenants in chief. But if this were constitutional in the reign of James I., which Blancas denies, it was not long permitted by that high-spirited aris- tocracy. By the General Privilege or Charter of Peter III. it is declared that no barony can be taken away without a just cause and legal sentence of the justiciary and council of barons. 1 And the same protection was extended to the vassals of the ricoshombres. Below these superior nobles were the mesnadaries, cor- responding to our mere tenants in chief, holding Lower estates not baronial immediately from the crown ; nobiut y- and the military vassals of the high nobility, the knights and infanzones ; a word which may be rendered by gentlemen. These had considerable privileges in that aristocratic govern- ment ; they were exempted from all taxes, they could only be tried by the royal judges for any crime; and offences committed against them were punished with addi- Burgesses tional severity. 2 The ignoble classes were, as in and other countries, the burgesses of towns, and the pea * villeins or peasantry. The peasantry seem to have been subject to territorial servitude, as in France and England. Vitalis says that some villeins were originally so unprotected that, as he expresses it, they might be divided into pieces by sword among the sons of their masters, till they were pro- voked to an insurrection, which ended in establishing certain stipulations, whence they obtained the denomination of villeins ae parada, or of convention. 8 Though from the twelfth century the principle Liberties of hereditary succession to the throne superseded, Agones* in Aragon as well as Castile, the original right kingdom. 1 Uiunea; Couun. p. 730. * p. 732. 3 Biuncx Comm. p. 72S) 526 PRIVILEGES OF ARAGON. CHAP. IV. of choosing a sovereign within the royal family, it waa still founded upon one more sacred and fundamental, that of compact. No king of Aragon was entitled to assume that name until he had taken a coronation oath, administered by the justiciary at Saragosa, to observe the laws and liber- ties of the realm. 1 Alfonso III., in 1285, being in France at the time of his father's death, named himself king in ad- dressing the states, who immediately remonstrated on this premature assumption of his title, and obtained an apology. 3 Thus, too, Martin, having been called to the crown of Ara- gon by the cortes in 1395, was specially required not to exercise any authority before his coronation. 8 Blancas quotes a noble passage from the acts of cortes in 1451. " We have always heard of old time, and it is found by experience, that, seeing the great barrenness of this land, and the poverty of the realm, if it were not for the liberties thereof, the folk would go hence to live and abide in other realms and lands more fruitful." 4 This high spirit of free- dom had long animated the Aragonese. After several con- tests with the crown in the reign of James I., not to go back General to ear ^ er times, they compelled Peter III. in 1283 Privilege to grant a law, called the General Privilege, the Magna Charta of Aragon, and perhaps a more full and satisfactory basis of civil liberty than our own. It contains a series of provisions against arbitrary tallages, spoliations of property, secret process after the manner of the Inquisition in criminal charges, sentences of the justiciary without assent of the cortes, appointment of foreigners or Jews to judicial offices ; trials of accused per- sons in places beyond the kingdom, the use of torture, 1 Znrita^ Anales de Aragon, t. i. fol. 104, Aragon was, in fact, a poor country, t. iii. fol. 76. barren and ill-peopled. The kings were 2 Binnras Comm. p. 661. They ac- forced to go to Catalonia for money, and knowledged, at the same time, that he indeed were little able to maintain ex- was their natural lord, and entitled to pensive contests. The wars of Peter IV. reign as lawful heir to his father so in Sardinia, and of Alfonso V. with oddly were the hereditary and elective Genoa and Naples, impoverished their titles jumbled together. Zurita, t. i. people. A hearth-tax having been im- fol. 303. posed in 1404, it was found that tlx-re 3 Zurita, t. ii. fol. 424. were 42,683 houses in Aragou, which, < Siempre havemos oydo dezir antiga- according to most calculations, will give ment, e se troba por esperiencia, que at- less' than 300,000 inhabitants. In 1429, tcndida la grand sterilidad de aquesta a similar tax being laid on, it is said tlutt tierra, e pobreza de aqueste regno, si the number of houses was diminished in non fues por las libertades de aquel, se consequence of war. Zurita, t. iii. fnl. 1S9. yrian 4 bivir, y habitar las geutes & otros It contains at present between 000,000 *gnos. e tierras mas frutieraa. p. 671. and 700,000 inhabitants. SPAIN. REVOLT AGAINST PETER IV. 527 except in charges of falsifying the coin, and the bribery of judges. These are claimed as the ancient liberties of their country. " Absolute power (mero imperio e mixto), it is declared, never was the constitution of Aragon, nor of Valencia, nor yet of Ribagorca, nor shall there be in time to come any innovation made ; but only the law, custom, and privilege which has been anciently used in the aforesaid kingdoms. 1 The concessions extorted by our ancestors from John, Henry III., and Edward I., were secured by the privilege only guarantee those times could afford, the deter- of Union - mination of the barons to enforce them by armed confedera cies. These, however, were formed according to emergencies, and, except in the famous commission of twenty-five con servators of Magna Charta, in the last year of John, were certainly unwarranted by law. But the Aragonese estab- lished a positive right of maintaining their liberties by arms. This was contained in the Privilege of Union granted by Alfonso III. in 1287, after a violent conflict with his subjects ; but which was afterwards so completely abolished, and even eradicated from the records of the kingdom, that its precise words have never been recovered. 2 According to Zurita, it consisted of two articles : first, that in the case of the king's proceeding forcibly against any member of the union without previous sentence of the justiciary, the rest should be absolved from their allegiance ; secondly, that he should hold cortes every year in Saragosa. 8 During the two subsequent reigns of James II. and Alfonso IV. little pretence seems to have been given for the exercise of this right. But dissen- sions breaking out under Peter IV. in 1347, rather on account of his attempt to settle the crown upon his daughtei than of any specific public grievances, the nobles had recours to the Union, that last voice, says Blancas, of an Revolt almost expiring state, full of weight and dignity, ^ s * v to chastise the presumption of kings. 4 They as- 1 Fueros de Aragon, fol. 9 ; Zurita, t. i. * Zurita, t. i. fol. 322. fol. 265. * Priscam illam Unionis, quasi mo 2 Blancas says that he had discovered rientis reipublicae extremam vocem, auc a copy of the Privilege of Union in the toritatis et gra>itutis plenum, reguui m- archives of the see of Tarragona, and solentise apertum vindioeui excitarunt, would gladly have published it, but for sumnia ac singular! bonorum omnn his deference to the wisdom of former consensione. p. 669. It is rernarkam us;es, which had studiously endeavored that surh strong language should have to destroy all recollectiou of that dan- been tolerated under Philip II cerous law. p. t>62. 528 PRIVILEGE OF UNION ABOLISHED. CHAP. IV. sembled at Saragosa, and used a remarkable seal for all their public instruments, an engraving from which may be seen in the historian I have just quoted. It represents the king sitting on his throne, with the confederates kneeling in a suppliant attitude around, to denote their loyalty and unwil- lingness to oifend. But in the background tents and lines of spears are discovered, as a hint of their ability and resolution to defend themselves. The legend is Sigillum Unionis Ara- gonum. This respectful demeanor towards a sovereign against whom they were waging war reminds us of the language held out by our Long Parliament before the Pres- byterian party was overthrown. And although it has been lightly censured as inconsistent and hypocritical, this tone is the safest that men can adopt, who, deeming themselves under the necessity of withstanding the reigning monarch, are anxious to avoid a change of dynasty, or subversion of their constitution. These confederates were defeated by the king at Epila in 1348. 1 But his prudence and the remaining strength of his opponents inducing him to pursue a moderate course, there ensued a more legitimate and permanent balance of the constitution from this victory of the royalists. The Privilege of Union was abrogated, Peter himself Privilege of Union cutting to pieces with his sword the original mstru- otber hed ' ment. But in return many excellent laws for the provisions security of the subject were enacted ; 2 and their instituted. *_.. . . a* preservation was intrusted to the greatest officer of the kingdom, the justiciary, whose authority and pre- eminence may in a great degree be dated from this period. 8 That watchfulness over public liberty, which originally be- longed to the aristocracy of ricoshombres, always apt to thwart the crown or to oppress the people, and which was afterwards maintained by the dangerous Privilege of Union, became the duty of a civil magistrate, accustomed to legal rules and responsible for his actions, whose office and func- 1 Ziirita observes that the battle of from thence the name of Union was, by Kpila was the last fought in defence of common consent, proscribed, t. ii. fol. public liberty, for which it was held law- 226. Blancas also remarks that nothing ful of old to take up arms, and resist the could have turned out more advantageous king, by virtue of the Privileges of Union, to the Aragonese than their ill fortune at For the authority of the justiciary being Epila. afterwards established, the former con- 2 Fueros de Aragon. De iia, qua Do- teutions and wars came to an end ; means minus rex. fol 14, et alibi passim, being found to put the weak on a level 3 Bianc. Cornm. p. 671, 811 ; Zurita, with the powerful, in which consists the t. ii. fol. 229. peace and tranquillity of all states ; anil SPAIN - OFFICE OF JUSTICIARY. 529 tions are the most pleasing feature in the constitutional history of Aragon. The justiza or justiciary of Aragon has heen treated by some writers as a sort of anomalous magistrate, office of created originally as an intermediate power be- Justiciary. tween the king and people, to watch over the exercise of royal authority. But I do not perceive that his functions were, in any essential respect, different from those of the chief justice of England, divided, from the time of Edward I., among the judges of the King's Bench. We should under- value our own constitution by supposing that there did not reside in that court as perfect an authority to redress the sub- ject's injuries as was possessed by the Aragonese magistrate. In the practical exercise, indeed, of this power, there was an abundant difference. Our English judges, more timid and pliant, left to the remonstrances of parliament that redress of grievances which very frequently lay within the sphere of their jurisdiction. There is, I believe, no recorded instance of a habeas corpus granted in any case of illegal imprison- ment by the crown or its officers during the continuance of the Plantagenet dynasty. We shall speedily take notice of a very different conduct in Aragon. The office of justiciary, whatever conjectural antiquity some have assigned to it, is not to be traced beyond the cap- ture of Saragosa in 1118, when the series of magistrates commences. 1 - But for a great length of time they do not ap- pear to have been particularly important ; the judicial author- ity residing in the council of ricoshombres, whose suffrages the justiciary collected, in order to pronounce their sentence rather than his own. A passage in Vitalis bishop of Huesca, whom I have already mentioned, shows this to have been the practice during the reign of James I. a Gradually, as notions of liberty became more definite, and laws more numerous, the reverence paid to their permanent interpreter grew stronger, and there was fortunately a succession of prudent and just men in that high office, through whom it acquired dignity and stable influence. Soon after the accession of James II., on 1 Hiancae_Comment. p. 638. ing of Vitalis, his testimony seems to be 8 Id. p. 772. Zurita indeed refers the beyond dispute. By the General Privi- justiciary's preeminence to an earlier lege of 1283, the justiciary was to advise date, namely, the reign of Peter II., who with the ricoshombres, in all cases where took away a great part of the local juris- the king was a party against any of his dictions of the ricoshombres. t.i.fol. 102. subjects. Zurita, f. 281. See also f. But if I do not misunderstand the mean- 180. VOL. I. II. 34 530 PROCESSES OF CHAP. IV some dissensions arising between the king and his barons, he called in the justiciary as a mediator whose sentence, says Blancas, all obeyed. 1 At a subsequent time in the same reign the military orders, pretending that some of their privi- leges were violated, raised a confederacy or union against the king. James offered to refer the dispute to the justiciary, Ximenes Salanova, a man of eminent legal knowledge. The knights resisted his jurisdiction, alleging the question to be of spiritual cognizance. He decided it, however, against them in full cortes at Saragosa, annulled their league, and sen- tenced the leaders to punishment. 2 It was adjudged also that no appeal could lie to the spiritual court from a sentence of the justiciary passed with assent of the cortes. James II. is said to have frequently sued his subjects in the justiciary's court, to show his regard for legal measures ; and during the reign of this good prince its authority became more established. 8 Yet it was not perhaps looked upon as fully equal to maintain public liberty against the crown, till in the cortes of 1348, after the Privilege of Union was forever abolished, such laws were enacted, and such authority given to the justiciary, as proved eventually a more adequate barrier against oppression than any other country could boast. All the royal as well as territorial judges were bound to apply for his opinion in case of legal difficulties arising in their courts, which he was to certify within eight days. By subsequent statutes of the same reign it was made penal for any one to obtain letters from the king, impeding the execution of the justiza's process, and they were declared null. Inferior courts were forbid- den to proceed in any business after his prohibition. 4 Many other laws might be cited, corroborating the authority of this great magistrate ; but there are two parts of his remedial ju- risdiction which deserve special notice. Processes of These are the processes of jurisfirma, or firma del an(Tman? tta derecho, and of manifestation. The former bears festation. some analogy to the writs of pone and certiorari 1 Zurita, p. 663. surname of Just, el Justiciero, by his fair 2 Zurita, t. i. f. 403; t. ii. f. 34; Bian. dealings towards his subjects. Zurita, p. 666. The assent of the cortes seems t. ii. fol. 82. El Justiciero properly de- to render this in the nature of a legis- notes his exercise of civil and criminal lative, rather than a judicial proceeding ; justice. but it is difficult to pronounce anything * Fueros de Aragon: Quod in dubiis about a transaction so remote in time, noncrassis. (A. D. 1348.) Quod i in pe trans and in a foreign country, the native his- (1372), &c. Zurita, t. ii. fol. 229. Eiano torians writing rather concisely. p. 671 and 811. Biaac. p. 663. James acquired the SPAIN. JURISFIRMA AXD MANIFESTATION". 531 in England, through which the Court of King's Bench exer- cises its right of withdrawing a suit from the jurisdiction of inferior tribunals. But the Aragonese jurisfirina was of more extensive operation. Its object was not only to bring a cause commenced in an inferior court before the jus- ticiary, but to prevent or inhibit any process from issuing against the person who applied for its benefit, or any mo- lestation from being offered to him ; so that, as Blancas ex- presses it, when we have entered into a recognizance (firme et graviter asseveremus) before the justiciary of Aragon to abide the decision of law, our fortunes shall be protected, by the interposition of his prohibition, from the intolerable iniquity of the royal judges. 1 The process termed manifesta- tion afforded as ample security for personal liberty as that of jurisfirina did for property. " To manifest any one," says the writer so often quoted, " is to wrest him from the hands of the royal officers, that he may not suffer any illegal vio- lence ; not that he i at liberty by this process, because the merits of his case are still to be inquired into ; but because he is now detained publicly, instead of being as it were con- cealed, and the charge against him is investigated, not sud- denly or with passion, but in calmness and according to law, therefore this is called manifestation." 2 The power of this 1 p. 751. Fueros de Aragon. f. 137. festationibus personamm. Independently 2 Est apud nos manifestare, ream of this right of manifestation by writ of eubito gumere. atque e regiis uianibns the justiciary, there are seTera] statutes extorquere, ne qua ipsi contra jus vis in- in the Fueros against illegal detention, or feratur. Non quod tune reus judicio unnecessary severity towards prisoners, liberetnr ; nihilominus tamen, ut loqui- (De Custodia reorum, f. 163.) No judge mur, de meritia causae ad plenum cog- could proceed secretly in a criminal pro- noscitur. Sed quod deinceps manifesto cess ; an indispensable safeguard to pub- teneatur, quasi antea celatus extitisset ; lie liberty, and one of the most salutary, necesseque deinde sit de ipsius cnlpa, as well as most ancient, provisions in our non impetu et cum furore, sed sedatis own constitution. (De judiciis.) Tor- prorsus animis, et jnxta constitntas leges ture was abolished, except in cases of judicari. Ex eo autern, quod hujusmodi coining false money, and then only in judicium manifesto deprehensnm, omni- respect of vagabonds. (General Pnvi- bus jam patere debeat. Manifestationis lege of 1283.) gibi nomen arripuit. p. 675. Zurita has explained the two processes Ipsius Manifestartonis potestas tarn of jurisfirma and manifestation so per- tolida est et repentina, ut homini jam spicuously, that, as the subject is very collum in laqueum inserenti subveniat. interesting.and rather out of the common Illius enim preesidio, damnatus, dum per way, I shall both quote and translate the leges licet, quasi experiendi juris gratia, passage. Con finnar de derecho. que e de manibns judicum confestim extor- dar caution a estar a justicia.se consedea quetur, et in earcerem duciturad id 8edi- literas inhibitorias por el justicia de ficatum. ibidemque asservatur tamdiu, * Aragon, para que no puedan sur presos, qnaindiu jurene. an injurii, quid in e4 ni privados, ni despojados de su posses- causa factum fuerit, juuicatur. Prop sion. hasta que judicialmente se copozca, terea career hie vulgar! lingui, la carcel y declare sobre la pretension, y justicia de de 108 manifestados nuncupatur. p. 751. las partes. y parezca por processo legi runo, yueros de Aragon. fol 60 De Mani- que se deve revocar la tal mhibmon. 532 PROCESSES OF CHAP. IV writ (if I may apply our term) was such, as he elsewhere as- serts, that it would rescue a man whose neck was in the hal- ter. A particular prison was allotted to those detained for trial under this process. Several proofs that such admirable provisions did not re- instanoes m ain a dead letter in the law of Aragon appear of their in the two historians, Blancas and Zurita, whose lon ' noble attachment to liberties, of which they had either witnessed or might foretell the extinction, continually displays itself. I cannot help illustrating this subject by two remarkable instances. The heir apparent of the kingdom of Aragon had a constitutional right to the lieutenancy or re- gency during the sovereign's absence from the realm. The title and office indeed were permanent, though the functions must of course have been superseded during the personal ex- ercise of royal authority. But as neither Catalonia nor Va- lencia, which often demanded the king's presence, were con- sidered as parts of the kingdom, there "were pretty frequent occasions for this anticipated reign of the eldest prince. Such a regulation was not likely to diminish the mutual and almost inevitable jealousies between kings and their heirs apparent, which have so often disturbed the tranquillity of a court and a nation. Peter IV. removed his eldest son, after- wards John L, from the lieutenancy of the kingdom. The Estafu6 la suprema y principal autoridad inhibiting all persons to arrest the party, del Justicia de Aragond esde que este or deprive him of his possession, until magistrado tuvo origen, y lo que llama the matter shall be judicially inquired manifestation; porque assi como la firma into, and it shall appear that such inhi- de derecho por privilegio general del bition ought to be revoked. This pro- reyno impide, que no puede ninguno ser cess and that which is called uianifesta- preso, 6 agraviado contra razou y jus- tion have been the chief powers of the ticia, de la misma manera la manifesta- justiciary, ever since the commencement cion, que e otro privilegio, y remedia of that magistracy. And as the firma de muy principal, tiene fuerca, quando al- derecho by the general privilege of the guno es preso sin preceder processo le- realm secures every man from being ar- gitimo, 6 quando lo prenden dehecho sin rested or molested against reason and orden de justicii ; y en estos casos solo justice, so the manifestation, which is el Justicia de Aragon, quando se tiene another principal and remedial right recurso al el, se interpone, manifestando takes place when any one is actually ar- il preso, que es tomarlo & su mano ! , de rested without lawful process ; and in podef de qualquiera juez, aunque sea el such cases only the Justiciary of Aragon, mas supremo ; y es obligado el Justicia when recourse is had t him, interposes de Aragon, y sus lugartenientes de pro- by manifesting the person arrested, that veer la manifestacion en el mismo in- is, by taking him into his own hands, out stante, que les es pedida sin preceder of the power of any judge, however high informacion ; y basta que se pida por in authority ; and this manifestation tho qualquiere persona que se diga procura-* justiciary, or his deputies in his absence, dor del que quiere que lo teugan por are bound to issue at the same iustant it manifesto, t. ii. fol. 386. "Upon a is demanded, without further inquiry; finua de derecho, which is to give se- and it may be demanded by any one a& lurity for abiding the decision of the law, attorney of the party requiring to be the Justiciary of Aragon issues letters manifested." SPAIN. JTJEISFIRMA AND MANIFESTATION. 533 prince entered into a firraa del derecho before the justiciary, Dominic de Cerda, who, pronouncing in his favor, enjoined the king to replace his son in the lieutenancy as the undoubt- ed right of the eldest born. Peter obeyed, not only in fact, to which, as Blancas observes, the law compelled him, but with apparent cheerfulness. 1 There are indeed no private persons who have so strong an interest in maintaining a free constitution and the civil liberties of their countrymen as the members of royal families, since none are so much exposed, in absolute governments, to the resentment and suspicion of a reigning monarch. John L, who had experienced the protection of law in his weakness, had afterwards occasion to find it interposed against his power. This king had sent some citizens of Saragosa to prison without form of law. They applied to Juan de Cerda, the justiciary, for a manifestation. He issued his writ ac- cordingly ; nor, says Blancas, could he do otherwise without being subject to a heavy fine. The king, pretending that the justiciary was partial, named one ' of his own judges, the vice-chancellor, as coadjutor. This raised a constitutional question, whether, OH suspicion of partiality, a coadjutor to the justiciary could be appointed. The king sent a private order to the justiciary not to proceed to sentence upon this interlocutory point until he should receive instructions in the council, to which he was directed to repair. But he instantly pronounced "sentence in favor of his exclusive jurisdiction without a coadjutor. He then repaired to the palace. Here the vice-chancellor, in a long harangue, enjoined him to sus- pend sentence till he had heard the decision of the council. Juan de Cerda answered that, the case being clear, he had already pronounced upon it. This produced some expres- sions of anger from the king, who began to enter into an ar- gument on the merits of the question. But the justiciary answered that, with all deference to his majesty, he was bound to defend his conduct before the cortes, and not elsewhere. On a subsequent day the king, having drawn the justiciary to his country palace on pretence of hunting, renewed the con- versation with the assistance of his ally the vice-chancellor ; but no impression was made on the venerable magistrate, whom John at length, though much pressed by his advisers to violent courses, dismissed with civility. The king was 1 Zurita, ubi supra. Blancas, p. 673. 534 RESPONSIBILITY OF JUSTICIARY. CHAP. IV probably misled throughout this transaction, which I have thought fit to draw from obscurity, not only in order to il- lustrate the privilege of manifestation, but as exhibiting an instance of judicial firmness and integrity, to which, in the fourteenth century, no country perhaps hi Europe could offer a parallel. 1 Before the cortes of 1348 it seems as if the justiciary Office of might have been displaced at the king's pleasure, justiciary From that time he held his station for life. But ' in order to evade this law, the king sometimes ex- acted a promise to resign upon request. Ximenes Cerdan, the justiciary in 1420, having refused to fulfil this engage- ment, Alfonso V. gave notice to all his subjects not to obey him, and, notwithstanding the alarm which this encroachment created, eventually succeeded in compelling him to quit his office. In 1439 Alfonso insisted with still greater severity upon the execution of a promise to resign made by another justiciary, detaining him in prison until his death. But the cortes of 1442 proposed a law, to which the king reluctantly acceded, that the justiciary should not be compellable to re- sign his office on account of any previous engagement he might have made. 2 But lest these high powers, imparted for the prevention Responsi- ^ a b uses > should themselves be abused, the justi- biiity of this ciary was responsible, in case of an unjust sen- magistrate. tence ^ to the extent O f the i n j ur y inflicted ; 8 and was also subjected, by a statute of 1390, to a court of inqui- ry, composed of four persons chosen by the king out of eight named by the cortes ; whose office appears to have been that of examining and reporting to the four estates in cortes, by whom he was ultimately to be acquitted or condemned. This superintendence of the cortes, however, being thought dilato- ry and inconvenient, a court of seventeen persons was ap- pointed in 1461 to hear complaints against the justiciary. Some alterations were afterwards made in this tribunal.* The justiciary was always a knight, chosen from the second 1 Biancae Commentar. ubi supra. Zu- tiza of Aragon had possessed ranch mow rita relates the story, but not so fully. unlimited powers than ought to oe iu- 2 Kueros de Aragon, fol. 22 ; Zurita, t. trusted to any single magistrate. The iii. fol. 140, 255, 272 ; Biano. Comment. Court of King's Bench in England, be- p. 701. sides its consisting of four coordinate 8 Fueros de Aragon, fol. 25. judges, is checked by the appellant juris- 4 Blancas ; Zurita. t. iii. fol. 321 ; t. iv. dictions of the Exchequer Chamber and f. 103. These regulations were very ac- House of Lords, and still more hupor evptuhle to the nation. In fact, the jus- tantly by the rights of juries. SPAIN. RIGHTS OF LEGISLATION, ETC. 535 order of nobility, the barons not being liable to personal pun- ishment. He administered the coronation oath to the king and in the cortes of Aragon the justiciary acted as a sort of royal commissioner, opening or proroguing the assembly by the king's direction. No laws could be enacted or repealed, nor any tax impos- ed, without the consent of the estates duly assem- Rights of bled. 1 Even as early as the reign of Peter II., in f,j 8lation 1205, that prince having attempted to impose a taxation, general tallage, the nobility and commons united for the pres- ervation of their franchises ; and the tax was afterwards granted hi part by the cortes. 2 It may easily be supposed that the Aragonese were not behind other nations in statutes to secure these privileges, which upon the whole appear to have been more respected than in any other monarchy. 8 The general privilege of 1283 formed a sort of groundwork for this legislation, like the Great Charter in England. By a clause in this law, cortes were to be held every year at Saragosa. But under James II. their time of meeting was reduced to once in two years, and the place was left to the king's discretion. 4 Nor were the cortes of Aragon less vigi- lant than those of Castile in claiming a right to be consulted in all important deliberations of the executive power, or in remonstrating against abuses of government, or in superin- tending the proper expenditure of public money. 5 A vari- 1 Majores nostri, quae de omnibus Btatueuda essent, noluerunt juberi, veta- rive posse, nisi vocatis, descriptisque ordinibus, a.c cunctis eoruin adhibitis Buffragiis, re ipsa coguita et promulgate. Unde perpetuum illud nobis comparatum est jus, ut communes et publicaa leges neque tolli, neque rogari possint, nisi prius universus populus una voce comitiis institutis suum el de re liberum sutfra- gium ferat; idque posten ipsius regis assensu comprobetur. Biancas, p. 761. 2 Zurita, t. i. fol. 92. 3 Fueros de Aragon : Quod sissse in Aragonil removeantur. (A.D. 1372.) De prohibitione sissarum. (1398.) De con- gervatione patrimonii. (1461.) I have only remarked two instances of arbitrary taxation in Zurita's history, which is singularly full of information ; one, in 1343, when Peter IV. collected money from various cities, though not without opposition ; and the other a remonstrance of the cortes in 1383 against heavy taxes ; and it is not clear that this refers to general unauthorized taxation Zurita, t. ii. f. 168 and 382. Blancas mentiora that Alfonso V. set a tallage upon his towns for the marriage of his natural daughters, which he might have done had they been legitimate; but they ap- pealed to the justiciary's tribunal, and the king receded from his demand, p. 701. Some instances of tyrannical conduct in violation of the constitutional lawa occur, as will naturally be supposed, in the annals of Zurita. The execution of Bernard Cabrera under Peter IV., t. ii. f. 336, and the severities inflicted on queen Forcia by her son-in-law John I., f. 391, are perhaps as remarkable as any. < Zurita, t. i. f. 426. In general the session lasted from four to six months. One assembly was prorogued from time to time, and continued six years, from 1446 to 1452, which was complained of as a violation of the law for their biennial renewal, t. iv. f. 6. 6 The "Sicilian war of Peter III. was very unpopular, because it had been un- dertaken without consent of the b:u-oix, contrary to the practice of the kingdom. 536 CORTES OF AHAGON". CHAP. IV. ety of provisions, intended to secure these parliamentary privileges and the civil liberties of the subject, will be found dispersed in the collection of Aragonese laws, 1 which may be favorably compared with those of our own statute- book. Four estates, or, as they were called, arms (brazos), form- Cortesof ed the cortes of Aragon the prelates and com- Aragon. manders of military orders, who passed for eccle- siastics ; 2 the barons or ricoshombres ; the equestrian order or infanzones, and the deputies of royal towns. 8 The two former had a right of appearing by proxy. There was no representation of the infanzones, or lower nobility. But it must be remembered that they were not numerous, nor was the kingdom large. Thirty-five are reckoned by Zurita as present in the cortes of 1395, and thirty-three in those of 1412 ; and as upon both occasions an oath of fealty to a new monarch was to be taken, I presume that nearly all the no- bility of the kingdom were present. 4 The ricoshombres do not seem to have exceeded twelve or fourteen in number. The ecclesiastical estate was not much, if at all, more numer- ous. A few principal towns alone sent deputies to the cortes ; but their representation was very full; eight or ten, and sometimes more, sat for Saragosa, and no town appears to have had less than four representatives. During the interval of the cortes a permanent commission, varying a ^ood deal as to numbers, but chosen out of the four estates, was em- powered to sit with very considerable authority, receiving porque ningtm negocio arduo empren- summoned a los perlados, ricoshombres, dian, sin acuerdo y consejo de sus ricos- y cavalleros, y procuradorcs de las ciu- hombres. Zurita, t. i. fol. 264. The dades y villas, que le juntassen 4 corteg cortes, he tells us, were usually divided generates en la ci udiid de Huesca. Zurita, into two parties, whigs and tories ; estava t. i. fol. 71. So in the cortes of 1275, and ordinariamente dividida en dos partas. la on other occasions. una que pensava procurar el beueficio 3 Popular representation was more del reyno, y la otra que el servicio del ancient in Aragon than in any other rey. t. iii. fol. 321. monarchy. The deputies of towns ap 1 Fueros y observancias del reyno de pear in the cortes of 1133, as Robertson Aragon. 2 vols. in fol. Saragosa, 1667. has remarked from Zurita. Hi.st. of The most important of these are collected Charles V. note 32. And this cannot by Blancas, p. 750. well bo called in question, or treated as 2 It is said by some writers that the an anomaly ; for we find them men- ecclesiastical arm was not added to the tioned in 1142 (the passage cited in the cortes of Aragon till about the year 1300. last note), and again in 1164, when Zu- But I do not find mention in Zurita of rita enumerates many of their names, any such constitutional change at that fol. 74. The institution of consejos, or time ; and the prelates, as we might ex- corporate districts under a presiding pect from the analogy of other countries, town, prevailed in Aragon as it did in appear as members of the national coun- Castile. Cil long before. Queen Petronilla, in 1142, < Zurita, t. ii. f. 490 ; t. iii. f. 76 SPAIN. VALENCIA AND CATALONIA. 537 and managing the public revenue, and protecting the justi- ciary in his functions. 1 The kingdom of Valencia, and principality of Catalonia, having been annexed to Aragon, the one by con- quest, the other by marriage, were always kept of'vaienc^* distinct from it in their laws and government, andCata- Each had its cortes, composed of three estates, for the division of the nobility into two orders did not exist in either country. The Catalans were tenacious of their an- cient usages, and averse to incorporation with any other people of Spain. Their national character was high-spirited and independent ; in no part of the peninsula did the terri- torial aristocracy retain, or at least pretend to, such extensive privileges, 2 and the citizens were justly proud of wealth ac- quired by industry, and of renown achieved by valor. At the accession of Ferdinand I., which they had not much de- sired, the Catalans obliged him to swear three times succes- sively to maintain their liberties, before they would take the reciprocal oath of allegiance. 8 For Valencia it seems to have been a politic design of James the Conqueror to establish a constitution nearly analogous to that of Aragon, but with such limitations as he should impose, taking care that the nobles of the two kingdoms should not acquire strength by union. In the reigns of Peter III. and Alfonso III., one of the principal objects contended for by the barons of Aragon was the establishment of their own laws in Valencia; to which the kings never acceded. 4 They permitted, how- ever, the possessions of the natives of Aragon in the latter kingdom to be governed by the law of Aragon. 5 These three states, Aragon, Valencia, and Catalonia, were perpetu- ally united by a law of Alfonso III. ; and every king on his accession was bound to swear that he would never separate them. 6 Sometimes general cortes of the kingdoms and prin- cipality were convened ; but the members did not, even in this case, sit together, and were no otherwise united than as they met in the same city. 7 1 Biancse, p. 762 ; Zurita, t. iii. f. 76, originally a justiciary In the kingdom of f. 182 et alibi. Valencia, f. 281; but this, I believe, did 2 Zurita, t. ii. f. 360. The villenage of not long continue, the peasantry in some parts of Cata- 5 Zurita, t. ii. f. 433. Ionia was very severe, even near the end 6 t. ii. f. 91. of the fifteenth century, t. iv. f. 327. 7 Biancae. Comment, p. (GO; Zunta, 3 Zurita, t. iii. f. 81. t. iii. fol. 239 < Id t. i. f. 281, 310, 333. There was 538 UNION OF CASTILE AND ARAGON. CHAP. IV. I do not mean to represent the actual condition of society State of m Aragon as equally excellent with the constitu- 'poiice. tional laws. Relatively to other monarchies, aa I have already observed, there seem to have been fewer ex- cesses of the royal prerogative in that kingdom. But the licentious habits of a feudal aristocracy prevailed very long. We find in history instances of private war between the great families, so as to disturb the peace of the whole nation, even near the close of the fifteenth century. 1 The right of avenging injuries by arms, and the ceremony of diffidation, or solemn defiance of an enemy, are preserved by the laws. We even meet with the ancient barbarous usage of paying a composition to the kindred of a murdered man. 2 The citizens of Saragosa were sometimes turbulent, and a refractory nobleman sometimes defied the ministers of jus- tice. But owing to the remarkable copiousness of the prin- cipal Aragonese historian, we find more frequent details of this nature than in the scantier annals of some countries. The internal condition of society was certainly far from peaceable in other parts of Europe. By the marriage of Ferdinand with Isabella, and by the Union of death of John II., in 1479, the two ancient and Castile and rival kingdoms of Castile and Aragon were for- ever consolidated in the monarchy of Spain. There had been some difficulty in adjusting the respective rights of the husband and wife over Castile. In the middle ages it was customary for the more powerful sex to exercise all the rights which it derived from the weaker, as much hi sovereignties as in private possessions. But the Castilians were determined to maintain the positive and distinct pre- rogatives of their queen, to which they attached the indepen- dence of their nation. A compromise therefore was con- cluded, by which, though, according to our notions, Ferdinand obtained more than a due share, he might consider himself as more strictly limited than his father had been in Navarre. The names of both were to appear jointly in their style and upon the coin, the king's taking the precedence in respect of his sex. But in the royal scutcheon the arms of Castile were preferred on account of the kingdom's dignity. Isabella bad the appointment to all civil offices in Castile ; the nom- 1 Zurita t. iv. fol. 189 2 Fueros de Aragon, f. 1660. $o. SPAIN. CONQUEST OF GRANADA. 539 ination to spiritual benefices ran in the name of both. The government was to be conducted by the two conjointly when they were together, or by either singly in the province where one or other might happen to reside. 1 This partition was well preserved throughout the life of Isabel without mutual encroachments or jealousies. So rare an unanimity between persons thus circumstanced must be attributed to the superior qualities of that princess, who, while she maintained a con- stant good understanding with a very ambitious husband, never relaxed in the exercise of her paternal authority over the kingdoms of her ancestors. Ferdinand and Isabella had no sooner quenched the flames of civil discord in Castile than they determined to conquest of give an unequivocal proof to Europe of the vigor Qranada - which the Spanish monarchy was to display under their gov- ernment. For many years an armistice with the Moors of Granada had been uninterrupted. Neither John II. nor Henry IV. had been at leisure to think of aggressive hostili- ties ; and the Moors themselves, a prey, like their Christian enemies, to civil war and the feuds of their royal family, -nere content with the unmolested enjoyment of the finest province in the peninsula. If we may trust historians, the sovereigns of Granada were generally usurpers and tyrants. Bat I know not how to account for that vast populousness, that grandeur and magnificence, which distinguished the Monam- medan kingdom of Spain, without ascribing some measure of wisdom and beneficence to their governments. These south- ern provinces have dwindled in later times ; and in fact Spain itself is chiefly interesting to many travellers for the monu- ments which a foreign and odious race of conquerors have left behind them. Granada was, however, disturbed by a series of revolutions about the time of Ferdinand's accession, which naturally encouraged his designs. The Moors, contrary to what might have been expected from their relative strength, were the aggressors by attacking a town in Andalusia. 2 Pred- atory inroads of this nature had hitherto been only retaliated by the Christians. But Ferdinand was conscious that his resources extended to the conquest of Granada, the consum- mation of a struggle protracted through nearly eight centuries. Even in the last stage of the Moorish dominion, exposed ou 1 Zurita, t. ir. fol. 224 ; Mariana, 1. xriv. c. 6 * Zurita, t. ir fol. 314 540 CONQUEST OF GKANADA. CHAP. IV every side to invasion, enfeebled by civil dissension that led one party to abet the common enemy, Granada was not sub- dued without ten years of sanguinary and unremitting contest. Fertile beyond all the rest of Spain, that kingdom contained seventy walled towns ; and the capital is said, almost two cen- turies before, to have been peopled by 200,000 inhabitants. 1 Its resistance to such a force as that of Ferdinand is perhaps the best justification of the apparent negligence of earlier monarchs. But Granada was ultimately to undergo the yoke. ' The city surrendered on the 2nd of January 1492 an event glorious not only to Spain but to Christendom and which, in the political combat of the two religions, seemed almost to counterbalance the loss of Constantinople. It raised the name of Ferdinand and of the new monarchy which he governed to high estimation throughout Europe. Spain appeared an equal competitor with France in the lists of ambition. These great kingdoms had for some time felt the jealousy natural to emulous neighbors. The house of Aragon loudly complained of the treacherous policy of Louis XI. He had fomented the troubles of Castile, and given, not indeed an effectual aid, but all promises of support, to the princess Joanna, the competitor of Isabel. Rousillon, a province be- longing to Aragon, had been pledged to France by John II. for a sum of money. It would be tedious to relate the sub- sequent events, or to discuss their respective claims to its possession. 2 At the accession of Ferdinand, Louis XL still held Rousillon, and showed little intention to resign it. But Charles VIII., eager to smooth every impediment to his Italian expedition, restored the province to Ferdinand in 1493. Whether by such a sacrifice he was able to lull the king of Aragon into acquiescence, while he dethroned his relation at Naples, and alarmed for a moment all Italy with the apprehension of French dominion, it is not within the limits of the present work to inquire. 1 Zurita, t. iv. fol. 314. is the most impartial French writer I a For these transactions see Gamier, have ever read, in matters where his own Hist, de France, or Qaillard, Rivalite de country is concerned. France et d'Espagne, t. iii. The latter NOTES TO CHAP. IV. COUNT JULIAN. NOTE TO CHAPTER IV. NOTE. Page 486. THE story of Cava, daughter of count Julian, whose se- duction by Roderic, the last Gothic king, impelled her father to invite the Moors into Spain, enters largely into the cycle of Castilian romance and into the grave narratives of every historian. It cannot, however, be traced in extant writings higher than the eleventh century, when it appears in the Chronicle of the Monk of Silos. There are Spanish histori- ans of the eighth and ninth centuries ; in the former, Isidore bishop of Beja (Pacensis), who wrote a chronicle of Spain , in the latter, Paulus Diaconus of Merida, Sebastian of Sala- manca, and an anonymous chronicler. It does not appear, however, that these dwell much on Roderic's reign. (See Masdeu, Historia Critica de Espana, vol. xiii. p. 882.) The most critical investigators of history, therefore, have treated the story as too apocryphal to be stated as a fact. A sensible writer in the History of Spain and Portugal, published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, has de fended its probability, quoting a passage from Ferreras, a Spanish writer of the eighteenth century, whose authority gtands high, and who argues in favor of the tradition from the brevity of the old chroniclers who relate the fall of Spain, and from the want of likelihood that Julian, who had hitherto defended his country with great valor, would have invited the Saracens, except through some strong motives. This, if we are satisfied as to the last fact, appears plausible ; but another hypothesis has been suggested, and is even mentioned by one of the early writers, that Julian, being of Roman descent, was ill-affected to the Gothic dynasty, who had never attached to themselves the native inhabitants. This I cannot but reckon the less likely explanation of the two. Roderic, who became archbishop of Toledo in 1208, and our earliest au- 542 COUNT JULIAN, flora TO thority after the monk of Silos, calls Julian "vir nobilis de nobili Gothorura prosapia ortus, illustris in officio Palatine, in armis exercitalus," &c. (See Schottus, Hispania Illustrata, ii. 63.) Few, however, of those who deny the truth of the story as it relates to Cava admit the defection of count Julian to the Moors, and his existence has been doubted. The two parts of the story cohere together, and we have no better evidence for one than for the other. Southey, in his notes to the poem of Roderic, says, " The best Spanish historians and antiquaries are persuaded that there is no cause for disbelieving the uniform and concurrent tradition of both Moors and Christians." But this is on the usual assumption, that those are the best who agree best with ourselves. Southey took generally the credulous side, and his critical judgment is of no superlative value. Masdeu, in learning and laboriousness the first Spanish antiquary, calls the story of Julian's daughter " a ridiculous tale, framed in the age of romance, when histories were thrust aside (arrin- conadas) and any love-tale was preferred to the most serious truth." (Hist. Grit, de Espana, vol. x. p. 223.) And when, in another passage (vol. xii. p. 6), he recounts the story at large, he says that the silence of all writers before the monk of Silos " should be sufficient in my opinion to expel from our history a romance so destitute of foundation, which the Ara- bian romancers doubtless invented for their ballads." A modern writer of extensive learning says, " This fable, which has found its way into most of the sober histories of Spain, was first introduced by the monk of Silos, a chronicler of the eleventh century. There can be no doubt that he bor- rowed it from the Arabs, but it seems hard to believe that it was altogether a tale of their invention. There are facts in it which an Arab could not have invented, unless he drew them from Christian sources ; and, as I shall show hereafter, the Arabs knew and consulted the writings of the Christians." (Gayangos, History of the Mohammedan Dynasties of Spain, vol. i. p. 513.) It does not appear to be a conclusion from this passage that the story is a fable. For if a chronicler of the eleventh century borrowed it from the Arabs, and they again from Christian sources, we get over a good deal of the chasm of time. But if writers antecedent to the monk of Silos have related the Arabian invasion and the fall of Rod- eric without alluding to so- important a point as the treachery CHAP. IV. COUNT JULIAN. 543 of a great Gothic noble, it seems difficult to resist the infer- ence from their silence.- Gayangos investigates in a learned note (vol. i. p. 537) the following points : By whom and when was the name of Ilyau, the Arabic form of Julian, first introduced into Spanish history ? Did such a man ever exist ? What were his coun- try and religion ? Was he an independent prince, or a tribu- tary to the Gothic monarchs ? What part did he take in the conquest of Spain by the Arabs ? The account of Julian in the Chronicon Silense appears to Gayangos indisputably borrowed from some Arabian author- ity ; and this he proves by several writers from the ninth century downwards, " all of whom mention, more or less ex- plicitly, the existence of a man living in Africa, and named Ilyan, who helped the Arabs to make a conquest of Spain ; to which I ought to add that the rape of Ilyan's daughter, and the circumstances attending it, may also be read in detail in the Mohammedan au'thors who preceded the monk of Silos." The result of this learned writer's investigation is, that Ilyan really existed, that he was a Christian chief, settled, not in Spain, but on the African coast, and that he betrayed, not his country (except indeed as he was probably of Spanish de- scent), but the interests of his religion, by assisting the Sara- cens to subjugate the Gothic kingdom. 1 The story of Cava is not absolutely overthrown by this hypothesis, though it certainly may be the invention of some Christian or Arabian romancer. It is perfectly true that of itself it contains no apparent 'improbability. Injuries have been thus inflicted by kings, and thus resented by subjects. But for this very reason it was likely to be invented ; and the unwillingness with which many seem to surrender so romantic a tale attests the probability of its obtaining currency in an uncritical period. We must reject it as false or not, according as we lay stress on the negative argument from the silence of very early writers (an argument, strong even as it is, and which would be insuperable if they were less brief and im- 1 The Arabian writer whom Gayangos residence of Julian on that side of the translates, one of late date, speaks of straits would not be incompatible with Ilyan as governor of Ceuta, but tells the his being truly a Spaniard. Ilyan is story of Cava in the usual manner. The evidently not an European form of the Goths may very probably have possessed name. tome of the African coast; so that the 544 COUNT JULIAN. NOTE TO CHAP. IV. perfect) and on the presumptions adduced by Gayangos that Julian was not a noble Spaniard ; but we cannot receive this celebrated legend at any rate with more than a very sceptical assent, not sufficient to warrant us in placing it among the authentic facts of history. GERMANY. SEPARATION FROM FRANCE. 545 CHAPTER V. HISTORY OF GERMANY TO THE DIET OP WORMS IN 1495. Sketch of German History under the Emperors of the House of Saxony House of Franconia Henry IV. House of Suabia Frederic Barbarossa Fall of Henry the Lion Frederic II. Extinction of House of Suabia Changes in the Germanic Constitution Electors Territorial Sovereignty of the Princes Rodolph of Hapsburg State of the Empire after his Time Causes of Decline of Imperial Power House of Luxemburg Charles IV. Golden Bull House of Austria Frederic III. Imperial Cities Provincial States Maximilian Diet of Worms Abolition of Private Wars Imperial Chamber Aulic Council Bohemia Hungary Switzerland. AFTER the deposition of Charles the Fat in 888, which finally severed the connection between France and Germany, 1 Arnulf, an illegitimate descendant of Charlemagne, obtained the throne of the latter country, in which he was g eparation succeeded by his son Louis. 2 But upon the death of Germany of this prince in 911, the German branch of that fr< dynasty became extinct. There remained indeed Charles the Simple, acknowledged as king in some parts of France, but rejected in others, and possessing no personal claims to respect. The Germans therefore wisely determined to choose a sovereign from among themselves. They were at this time divided into five nations, each under its own duke, and distin- guished by difference of laws, as well as of origin ; the Franks, whose territory, comprising Franconia and the modern Pala- tinate, was considered as the cradle of the empire, and who seem to have arrogated some superiority over the rest, the Suabians, the Bavarians, the Saxons, under which name the 1 There can be no question about this dependence of the crown in that age, in a general sense. But several German which had been established by the treaty writers of the time assert that both of Verdun in 843, but proves the weak- Eudes and Charles the Simple, rival ness of the competitors, and their want kings of France, acknowledged the feudal of patriotism. In Eudes it is more re- superiority of Arnulf. Charles, says Re- markable than in Charles the Simple, a gino, regnum quod usurpaverit ex manu man of feeble character, and a Carlovin- , ey no appear e e, rendered homage, cannot affect the in- writing to the pope VOL, I. M. 546 HOUSE OF SAXONY. CHAP. V. inhabitants of Lower Saxony alone and Westphalia were in- cluded, and the Lorrainers, who occupied the left bank of the Election of Rhine as far as its termination. The choice of Conrad. these nations in their general assembly fell upon Conrad, duke of Franconia, according to some writers, or at, least a man of high rank, and descended through females from Charlemagne. 1 Conrad dying without male issue, the crown of Germany House of was bestowed upon Henry the Fowler, duke of Saxony. Saxony, ancestor of the three Othos, who followed Henry the him in direct succession. To Henry, and to the AD*919. first Otho, Germany was more indebted than to th 936 anv sovere 'g n since Charlemagne. The conquest Otho ii. of Italy, and recovery of the imperial title, are in- Otho 9 m. deed the most brilliant trophies of Otho the Great ; A.D.983. but he conferred far more unequivocal benefits upon his own country by completing what his father had begun, her liberation from the inroads of the Hungarians. Two marches, that of Misnia, erected by Henry the Fowler, and that of Austria, by Otho, were added to the Germanic territories by their victories. 2 A lineal succession of four descents without the least opposition seems to show that the Germans were disposed to consider their monarchy as fixed in the Saxon family. Otho II. and III. had been chosen each in his father's life- time, and during legal infancy. The formality of election subsisted at that time in every European kingdom ; and the imperfect rights of birth required a ratification by public assent. If at least France and England were hereditary monarchies in the tenth century, the same may surely be said of Germany ; since we find the lineal succession fully as well observed in the last as in the former. But upon the early and unexpected decease of Otho III., a momentary op- Henry ii. position was offered to Henry duke of Bavaria, a AD. 1002. collateral branch of the reigning family. He ob- 1 Schmidt, Hist, des Allemands, t. ii. dency to promote the improvement of p. 288. Struvius, Corpus Histories Ger- that territory, and. combined with the manicae, p. 210. The former of these discovery of the gold and silver mine? writers does not consider Conrad as duke of Goslar under Otho I., rendered it the of Franconia. richest and most important part of a Many towns in Germany, especially the empire. Struvius. p. 225 and 251. on the Saxon frontier, were built by Schmidt, t. ii. p. 322. Putter, Historical Henry I., who is said to have compelled Development of the German Constith- every ninth man to take up his residence tion, vol. i. p. 115. til them. This had a remarkable tea- GERMANY. HOUSE OF FRANCONIA. 547 tained the crown, however, by what contemporary historian call an hereditary title, 1 and it was not until his death in 1024 that the house of Saxony was deemed to be extin- guished. No person had now any pretensions that could interfere with the unbiassed suffrages of the nation ; and accordingly a general assembly was determined Fnmconia. by merit to elect Conrad, surnamed the Salic, a Conrad n nobleman of Franconia. 2 From this prince sprang A.D.1024. three successive emperors, Henry III., IV., and ^"Yosg. 1 ' V. Perhaps the imperial prerogatives over that Henry iv , ,. J c -. l L J i r. A - D - 1056. insubordinate confederacy never reached so high a Henry v. point as in the reign of Henry III., the second em- A - D - 1106> peror of the house of Franconia. It had been, as was natural, the object of all his predecessors, not only to render their throne hereditary, which, in effect, the nation was willing to concede, but to surround it with authority sufficient to control the leading vassals. These were the dukes of the four nations of Germany, Saxony, Bavaria, Suabia, and Franco- nia, and the three archbishops of the Rhenish cities, Mentz, Treves, and Cologne. Originally, as has been more fully shown in another place, duchies, like counties, were temporary governments, bestowed at the pleasure of the crown. From this first stage they advanced to hereditary offices, and finally to patrimonial fiefs. But their progress was much slower in Germany than- in France. Under the Saxon line of empe- rors, it appears probable that, although it was usual, and consonant to the prevailing notions of equity, to confer a duchy upon the nearest heir, yet no positive rule enforced this upon the emperor, and some instances of a contrary proceeding occurred. 8 But, if the royal prerogative in this respect stood higher than in France, there was a counter- vailing principle that prohibited the emperor from uniting a fief to his domain, or even retaining one which he had pos- sessed before his accession. Thus Otho the Great granted 1 A maxima multitudine vox una re- s Schmidt, t. ii. p. 393. 403. Struvius, gpondit ; Henricum, Christ! adjutorio, et p. 214, supposes the hereditary rights of jure heereditario, regnaturum. Ditmar dukes to have commenced under Conrad aptid Struvium, p. 273. See other pas- I. ; but Schmidt is perhaps a better au- sages quoted in the same place. Schmidt, thority ; and Struvius afterwards meu- t. ii. p. 410. tions the refusal of Otho I. to grant the 2 Conrad was descended from a daugh- duchy of Bavaria to the sons of the last ter of Otho the Great, and also from duke, which, however, excited a rebel- Conrad I. His first-cousin was duke of lion. p. 235. Vraucouia. ri truvius ; Schmidt ; Pfefiel. 548 HOUSE OF FKANCONIA. CHAP. T. a\vay his duchy of Saxony, and Henry II. that of Bavaria, Otho the Great endeavored to counteract the effects of this custom by conferring the duchies that fell into his hands upon members of his own family. This policy, though appar- ently well conceived, proved of no advantage to Otho, his son and brother having mixed in several rebellions against him. It was revived, however, by Conrad H. and Henry IH. The latter was invested by his father with the two duchies of Suabia and Bavaria. Upon his own accession he retained the former for six years, and even the latter for a short time. The duchy of Franconia, which became va- cant, he did not regrant, but endeavored to set a precedent of uniting fiefs to the domain. At another time, after sen- tence of forfeiture against the duke of Bavaria, he bestowed that great province on his wife, the empress Agnes. 1 He put an end altogether to the form of popular concurrence, which had been usual when the investiture of a duchy was conferred ; and even deposed dukes by the sentence of a few princes, without the consent of the diet 2 If we combine with these proofs of authority in the domestic administration of Henry III. his almost unlimited control over papal elec- tions, or rather the right of nomination that he acquired, we must consider him as the most absolute monarch in the annals of Germany. These ambitious measures of Henry HI. prepared fifty Unfortunate vears ^ calamity for his son. It is easy to per- reign of ceive that the misfortunes of Henry IV. were Henry iv. primarily occasioned by the jealousy with which repeated violations of their constitutional usages had inspired the nobility. 8 The mere circumstance of Henry IV.'s mi- nority, under the guardianship of a woman, was enough to dissipate whatever power his father had acquired. Hanno, archbishop of Mentz, carried the young king away by force from his mother, and governed Germany in his name ; till another archbishop, Adalbert of Bremen, obtained greater influence over him. Through the neglect of his education, Henry grew up with a character not well fitted to retrieve the mischief of so unprotected a minority ; brave indeed, 1 Schmidt, t. iii. p. 25, 37. of Asehaffenburg to have formed a con- * Id. p. 207. gpiracy to depose him, out of resentment 9 In the very first year of Henry's for the injuries they had sustained from reign, while he was but six years old. the his father. Struvius, p. 306. St. Marc, f.:iaces of Saxony are said by Lambert t. iii. p. 248. GERMAITY. HOUSE OF FRAJSTCONIA. 549 well-natured, and affable, but dissolute beyond measure, and addicted to low and debauched company. He was IT- i .,,,-, A.D. lOld. soon involved m a desperate war with the Saxons, a nation valuing itself on its populousness and riches, jealous of the house of Franconia, who wore a crown that had belonged to their own dukes, and indignant at Henry's con- duct in erecting fortresses throughout their country. In the progress of this war many of the chief princes evinced an unwillingness to support the emperor. 1 Not- withstanding this, it would probably have terminated, as other rebellions had done, with no permanent loss to either party. But in the middle of this contest another far more memorable broke out with the Roman see, concerning eccle- siastical investitures. The motives of this famous quarrel will be explained in a different chapter of the present work. Its effect in Germany was ruinous to Henry. A A D 1077 sentence, not only of excommunication, but of deposition, which Gregory VII. pronounced against him, gave a pretence to all his enemies, secret as well as avowed, to withdraw their allegiance. 2 At the head of these was Rodolph duke of Suabia, whom an assembly of revolted princes raised to the throne. We may perceive, in the con- ditions of Rodolph's election, a symptom of the real principle that animated the German aristocracy against Henry IV. It was agreed that the kingdom should no longer be hereditary, not conferred on the son of a reigning monarch, unless his merit should challenge the popular approbation. 8 The pope strongly encouraged this plan of rendering the empire elec- tive, by which he hoped either eventually to secure the nomination of its chief for the Holy See, or at least, by Bowing the seed of civil dissensions in Germany, to render 1 Struvhis. Schmidt. manifests great dissatisfaction with the 2 A party had been already formed, court of Rome, which he reproaches with who were meditating to depose Henry, dissimulation and venality. His excommunication came just in time 8 Hoc etiam ibi consensu communi to confirm their resolutions. It appears comprobatum, Romani pontifieis auc- clearly, upon a little consideration of toritate est corroboratum, ut regia po- Henry IV. 's reign, that the ecclesiastical testas nulli per haereditatem, sicut antea qunrrel was only secondary in the eyes fuit consuetude, cederet, sed filius regis, of Germany. The contest against him etiamsi valde dignus esset. per electionem was a struggle of the aristocracy, jealous spontaneam, Don per successions lineam, of the imperial prerogatives which Con- rex proveniret : si vero non esset dignug rad II. and Henry III. bad strained to regis fllius, vel si nollet eum populus, the utmost. Those who were in rebellion quern regem facere vellet, haberet in against Henry were not pleased with potestate populus. Bruno de Bello Sax- Gregory VII. Bruno, author of a histo- onico, apud Struvium, p. 327. ty of the Saxon war, a furious invective, 550 ELECTION OF LOTHAIRE. CHAP. V. Italy more independent. Henry IV., however, displayed greater abilities in his adversity than his early conduct had promised. In the last of several decisive battles, Rodolph, A D 1080 though victorious, was mortally wounded ; and no one cared to take up a gauntlet which was to be won with so much trouble and uncertainty. The Germans were sufficiently disposed to submit ; but Rome persevered in her unrelenting hatred. At the close of Henry's long reign she excited against him his eldest son, and, after more than thirty years of hostility, had the satisfaction of wearing him down with misfortune, and casting out his body, as excommunicated, from its sepulchre. In the reign of his son Henry V. there is no event worthy Extinction of ^ mucn attention, except the termination of the the house of great contest about investitures. At his death in 1125 the male, line of the Franconian emper- ors was at an end. Frederic duke of Suabia, grandson by 1125 ki g mot ^ er f Henry IV., had inherited their pat- rimonial estates, and seemed to represent their dynasty. But both the last emperors had so many enemies, and a disposition to render the crown elective prevailed so Election of strongly among the leading princes, that Lothaire Lothaire. duke of Saxony was elevated to the throne, though rather in a tumultuous and irregular manner. 1 Lothaire, who had been engaged in a revolt against Henry V., and the chief of a nation that bore an inveterate hatred to the house of Franconia, was the natural enemy of the new family that derived its importance and pretensions from that stock. It was the object of his reign, accordingly, to oppress the two brothers, Frederic and Conrad, of the Hohenstauffen or Suabian family. By this means he expected to secure the succession of the empire for his son-in-law. Henry, sur- named the Proud, who married Lothaire's only child, was fourth in descent from Welf, son of Azon marquis of Este, by Cunegonda, heiress of a distinguished family, the Welfs of Altorf in Suabia. Her son was invested with the duchy i See an account of Lothaire's election fundamental principle of the Germanic by a contemporary writer in Struvius, constitution from the accession of Lo- p. 357. See also proofs of the dissatis- tliaire. Previously to that era, birth faction of the aristocracy at the Franco- seems to have given not only a fair title nian government. Schmidt, t. iii. p. to preference, but a sort of inchoate 328. It was evidently their determination right, as in France, Spain, and England. to render the empire truly elective (Id. Lothaire signed a capitulation at his ac- p. 335) : and perhaps we may date that cession. GERMANY. HOUSE OF SUABIA. 551 of Bavaria in 1071. His descendant, Henry the Proud, represented also, through his mother, the ancient dukes of Saxony, surnamed Billung, from whom he derived the duchy of Luneburg. The wife of Lothaire transmitted to her daughter the patrimony of Henry the Fowler, consisting of Hanover and Brunswic. Besides this great dowry, Lothaire bestowed upon his son-in-law the duchy of Saxony in addi- tion to that of Bavaria. 1 This amazing preponderance, however, tended to alienate the princes of Germany from Lothaire' s views in favor of Henry ; and the latter does not seem to have possessed abili- ties adequate to his eminent station. On the death of Lo- thaire in 1138 the partisans of the house of Suabia made a hasty and irregular election of Conrad, in which the Saxon faction found itself obliged to acquiesce. 2 The new emperor availed himself of the jealousy which Henry the House of Proud's aggrandizement had excited. Under pre- uabia ,- , , . t , 11 i i if, Conrad HI. tence that two duchies could not legally be held by the same person, Henry was summoned to resign A-D 1138- one of them ; and on his refusal, the diet pronounced that he had incurred a forfeiture of both. Henry made but little resistance, and before his death, which happened soon after- wards, saw himself stripped of all his hereditary as well as acquired possessions. Upon this occasion the Orio . in of famous names of Guelf and Ghibelin were first Gueifs and heard, which were destined to keep alive the flame QhlbeUn8 - of civil dissension in far distant countries, and after their meaning had been forgotten. The Guelfs, or Welfs, were, as I have said, the ancestors of Henry, and the name has be- come a sort of patronymic in his family. The word Ghibelin is derived from Wibelung, a town in Franconia, whence the emperors of that line are said to have sprung. The house of Suabia were considered in Germany as representing that of Franconia ; as the Guelfs may, without much impropriety, be deemed to represent the Saxon line. 8 Though Conrad III. left a son, the choice of the electors fell, at his own request, upon his nephew Frederic Frederic Barbarossa. 4 The most conspicuous events of this Barharossa great emperor's life belong to the history of Italy. At home i Pfeftel, Abrege Chronologique de a Schmidt. I'Histoire d'Allemagne, t. i. p. 209. (Pa- 3 Struvius, p 370 and 378. ris, 1777.) Gibbon's Antiquities of the * Struvius. House of Brunswic 552 HOUSE OF SUABIA CHAP. V. he was feared and respected ; the imperial prerogatives stood as high during his reign a?, after their previous decline, it was possible for a single man to carry them. 1 But the only circumstance which appears memorable enough for the pres- Faii of ent sketch is the second fall of the Guelfs. Henry Lkm ry the ^ e -kion, son f Henry the Proud, had been re- stored by Conrad III. to his father's duchy of A.D. ll(8. Saxony, resigning his claim to that of Bavaria which had been conferred on the margrave of Austria. This renunciation, which indeed was only made in his name during childhood, did not prevent him from urging the emperor Frederic to restore the whole of his birthright ; and Fred- eric, his first-cousin, whose life he had saved in a sedition at Rome, was induced to comply with this request in 1156. Far from evincing that political jealousy which some writers im pute to him, the emperor seems to have carried his generosity beyond the limits of prudence. For many years their unioi was apparently cordial. But, whether it was that Henry took umbrage at part of Frederic's conduct, 2 or that mere ambition rendered him ungrateful, he certainly abandoned his sover- eign in a moment of distress, refusing to give any assistance in that expedition into Lombardy which ended in the unsuc- cessful battle of Legnano. Frederic could not forgive this injury, and, taking advantage of complaints, which Henry's power and haughtiness had produced, summoned him to an- swer charges in a general diet. The duke refused to appear, and, being adjudged contumacious, a sentence of confiscation, similar to that which ruined his father, fell upon his head ; and the vast imperial fiefs that he possessed were shared among some potent enemies. 8 He made an ineffectual resist- ance ; like his father, he appears to have owed more to for- tune than to nature ; and after three years' exile, was obliged to remain content with the restoration of his alodial estates in Saxony. These, fifty years afterwards, were converted into imperial fiefs, and became the two duchies of the house 1 Pfeffel, p. 341. ousy of the Guelfs, and as illegally pro 2 Frederic had obtained the succession scribed by the diet. But the provocation! of Wolf qiarquis of Tuscany, uncle of he had given Frederic are undeniable ; Henry the Lion, who probably considered and, without pretending to decide on a himself as entitled to expect it. Schmidt, question of German history, I do not see p. 427. that there was any precipitancy or mani 3 Putter, in his Historical Development fest breach of justice in the course of of the Constitution of the German Em- proceedings against him. Schmidt, Pfof pire, is inclined to consider Henry the fel, and Struvius do not represent the Uon as sacrificed to the emperor's jeal- condemnation of Henry as uujust. GERMANY. HOUSE OF SUABLA 553 of Bnmswic, the lineal representatives of Henry the Lion, and inheritors of the name of Guelf. 1 Notwithstanding the prevailing spirit of the German oligarchy, Frederic Barbarossa had found no difficulty in procuring the election of his son Henry, even during infancy, as his successor. 2 The fall of Henry the Lion Henry vi. had greatly weakened the ducal authority in A - D - 119 - Saxony and Bavaria; the princes who acquired that title, especially in the former country, finding that the secular and spiritual nobility of the first class had taken the opportunity- to raise themselves into an immediate dependence upon the empire. Henry VI. came, therefore, to the crown with con- siderable advantages in respect of prerogative; and these inspired him with the bold scheme of declaring the empire hereditary. One is more surprised to find that he had no contemptible prospect of success in this attempt: fifty-two princes, and even what appears hardly credible, the See of Rome, under Clement III., having been induced to concur in it. But the Saxons made so vigorous an opposition, that Henry did not think it advisable to persevere. 8 He procured, however, the election of his son Frederic, an infant only two years- old. But, the emperor dying almost immediately, a powerful body of princes, supported by P*ope Innocent III., were desirous to withdraw their consent. Philip phili and duke of Suabia, the late king's brother, unable to otho iv. secure his nephew's succession, brought about his A ' D ' ' own election by one party, while another chose Otho of Brunswic, younger son of Henry the Lion. This double election renewed the rivalry between the Guelfs and Ghibe- 1ms, and threw Germany into confusion for several years. Philip, whose pretensions appear to be the more legitimate of the two, gained ground upon his adversary, notwithstand- ing the opposition of the pope, till he was assassinated in consequence of a private resentment. Otho IV. reaped the benefit of a crime in which he did not participate, and became for some years undisputed sovereign. But, having offended the pope by not entirely abandoning his imperial A D .^g rights over Italy, he had, in the latter part of his reign, to contend against Frederic, son of Henry VI., who, 1 Putter, p. 220. tern, distincta proximorum successions, 2 Struvius, p. 418. transiret, et sic in ipso terminus esset 3 Struvius, p. 424. Impetravit a sub- electionis, principiumque successive dig- ditis, ut cessante pristina Palatinorum nitatis. Qervas. Tilburiens. ibidem, electione, imperium in ipsius posterita- 554 RICHARD OF CORNWALL. CHAP. V. having grown up to manhood, came into Germany as heir of the house of Suabia, and, what was not very usual in his own history, or that of his family, the favored candidate of the Holy See. Otho IV. had been almost entirely deserted except by his natural subjects, when his death, in 1218, removed every difficulty, and left Frederic II. in the peaceable posses- sion of Germany. The eventful life of Frederic II. was chiefly passed in Italy. To preserve his hereditary dominions, and Frederic EC. ,'. , r T , . . J . chastise the L/ombard cities, were the leading ob- jects of his political and military career. He paid therefore but little attention to Germany, from which it was in vain for any emperor to expect effectual assistance towards objects of his own. Careless of prerogatives which it seemed hardly worth an effort to preserve, he sanctioned the independence of the princes, which may be properly dated from his reign. In return, they readily elected his son Henry king of the Romans ; and on his being implicated in a rebellion, deposed him with equal readiness, and substituted his brother Conrad at the emperor's request. 1 But in the latter part of Fred- eric's reign the deadly hatred of Rome penetrated beyond Conse- *' ie Alps. After his solemn deposition in the coun- quencesof c il o f Lyons, he was incapable, in ecclesiastical the council ,, *, , ' of Lyons. eyes, or holding the imperial sceptre. Innocent A D 1245 ^' f un< ^5 however, some difficulty in setting up a rival emperor. Henry landgrave of Thuringia A.D. 1248. ma( ] e an indifferent figure in this character. Upon his death, William count of Holland was chosen by the party adverse to Frederic and his son Conrad ; and after the em- peror's death he had some success against the latter. It is hard indeed to say that any one was actually sovereign for twenty-two years that followed the death of Frederic II.: Grand in- a .period of contested title and universal anarchy, terre i25o m ' ^ mcn * s usually denominated the grand interreg- num. On the decease of William of Holland, in AD. 1272. 1256, a schism among the electors produced ihe Richard of double choice of Richard earl of Cornwall, and Cornwall. Alfonso X. king of Castile. It seems not easy to determine which of these candidates had a legal majority of votes ; 2 but the subsequent recognition of almost all Germany, 1 Struvius, p. 457. of Treves, having got possession of the 2 The election ought legally to have town, shut out the archbishops of Mentz been made at i'rankfort. But the elector and Cologne and the count palatine. OB GEKMAST. GERMANIC CONSTITUTION. 555 and a sort of possession evidenced by public acts, which have been held valid, as well as the general consent of contem- poraries, may justify us in adding Richard to the imperial list. The choice indeed was ridiculous, as he possessed no talents which could compensate for his want of power ; but the electors attained their objects ; to perpetuate a state of confusion by which their own independence was consolidated, and to plunder without scruple a man, like Didius at Rome, rich and foolish enough to purchase the first place upon earth. That place indeed was now become a mockery of great- ness. For more than two centuries, notwithstand- ing the temporary influence of Frederic Barbarossa G^mb"* and his son, the imperial authority had been cpnstuu- in a state of gradual decay. From the time of Frederic II. it had bordered upon absolute insignificance; and the more prudent German princes were slow to canvass for a dignity so little accompanied by respect. The changes wrought in the Germanic constitution during the period of the Suabian emperors chiefly consist in the establishment of an oligarchy of electors, and of the territorial sovereignty of the princes. 1. At the extinction of the Franconian line by the death of Henry V. it was determined by the German ,.,.' , ., . . J . Electors. nobility to make their empire practically elective, admitting no right, or even natural pretension, in the eldest son of a reigning sovereign. Their choice upon former oc- casions had been made by free and general suffrage. But it may be presumed that each nation voted unanimously, and according to the disposition of its duke. It is probable, too, that the leaders, after discussing in previous deliberations the merits of the several candidates, submitted their own resolu- tions to the assembly, which would generally concur in them without hesitation. At the election of Lothaire, in 1124, we pretence of apprehending violence. They Ottocar had voted for Alfonso, and that met under the walls, and there elected he did not think fit to recognize their Richard. Afterwards Alfonso was chosen act. by the rotes of Treves. Saxony, and There can be no doubt that Richard Brandenburg. Historians differ about was de facto sovereign of Germany ; and the vote of Ottocar king of Bohemia, it is singular that Strurius should assert which would turn the scale. Some time the contrary, on the authority of an in- afUr the election it is certain that he strument of Rodolph, which expressly was on the side of Richard. Perhaps we designate^ him king, per quondam mar collect from the opposite statements Richardum regem illustrem. Struv. p. la Strurius, p. 6(4, that the proxies of 602. 556 GERMANIC CONSTITUTION. CHAP. V find an evident instance of this previous choice, or, as it was called, prcetaxation, from which the electoral college of Ger- many has been derived. The princes, it is said, trusted the choice of an emperor to ten persons, in whose judgment they promised to acquiesce. 1 This precedent was, in all likeli- hood, followed at all subsequent elections. The proofs indeed are not perfectly clear. But in the famous privilege of Austria, granted by Frederic I. in 1156, he bestows a rank upon the newly-created duke of that country, immediately after the electing princes (post principes electores); 2 a strong presumption that the right of pretaxation was not only estab- lished, but limited to a few definite persons. In a letter of Innocent III., concerning the double election of Philip and Otho in 1198, he asserts the latter to have had a majority in his favor of those to whom the right of election chiefly be- longs (ad quos principal! ter spectat electio). 8 And a law of Otho in 1208, if it be genuine, appears to fix the exclusive privilege of the seven electors. 4 Nevertheless, so obscure is this important part of the Gejmanic system, that we find four ecclesiastical and two secular princes concurring with the regular electors in the act, as reported by a contemporary writer, that creates Conrad, son of Frederic II., king of the Romans. 6 This, however, may have been an irregular de- viation from the principle already established. But it is admitted that all the princes retained, at least during the twelfth century, their consenting suffrage ; like the laity in an episcopal election, whose approbation continued to be necessary long after the real power of choice had been withdrawn from them. 6 It is not easy to account for all the circumstances that gave to seven spiritual and temporal princes this distinguish- ed preeminence. The three archbishops, Mentz, Treves, and Cologne, were always indeed at the head of the German church. But the secular electors should naturally have been the dukes of four nations : Saxony, Franconia, Suabia, and Bavaria. We find, however, only the first of these in the 1 Struvius, p. 357. Schmidt, t. iii. the style of the act of election from the p. 331. Chronicle of Francis Pippin. 2 Schmidt, t. iii. p. 390. This is manifest by the various pas- 8 Pfeffel, p. 360. gages relating to the elections of Philip < Schmidt, t. iv. p. 80. and Otho, quoted by Struvius. p. 428. 6 This is not mentioned in Strvvius, or 430. See, too, Pfeffel, ubi supra. Schmidt, the other German writers. But Denina t. iy. p. 79. fliivoluzioui d'luilia, 1. ix. o. 9) quotes GERMJLNT. GEEMANIC CONSTITUTION. 557 undisputed exercise of a vote. It seems probable that, when the electoral princes came to be distinguished from the rest, their privilege was considered as peculiarly connected with the discharge of one of the great offices in the imperial court. These were attached, as early as the diet of Mentz hi 1184, to the four electors, who ever afterwards possessed them : the duke of Saxony having then officiated as arch- marshal, the count palatine of the Rhine as arch-steward, the king of Bohemia as arch-cupbearer, and the margrave of Brandenburg as arch-chamberlain of the empire. 1 But it still continues a problem why the three latter offices, with the electoral capacity as their incident, should not rather have been granted to the dukes of Franconia, Suabia, and Bavaria. I have seen no adequate explanation of this circumstance ; which may perhaps lead us to presume that the right of pre- election was not quite so soon confined to the precise number of seven princes. The final extinction of two great original duchies, Franconia and Suabia, in the thirteenth century, left the electoral rights of the count palatine and the mar- grave of Brandenburg beyond dispute. But the dukes of Bavaria continued to claim a vote in opposition to the kings of Bohemia. At the election of Rodolph in 1272 the two brothers of the house of "VVittelsbach voted separately, as count palatine and duke of Lower Bavaria. Ottocar was ex- cluded upon this occasion; and it was not till 1290 that the suffrage of Bohemia was fully recognized. The Palatine and Bavarian branches, however, continued to enjoy their family vote conjointly, by a determination of Rodolph ; upon which Louis of Bavaria slightly innovated, by rendering the suffrage alternate. But the Golden Bull of Charles IV. put an end to all doubts on the rights of electoral houses, and ab- solutely excluded Bavaria 'from voting. The limitation to seven electors, first perhaps fixed by accident, came to be in- vested with a sort of. mysterious importance, and certainly was considered, until times comparatively recent, as a funda- mental law of the empire. 2 2. It might appear natural to expect that an oligarchy of seven persons, who had thus excluded their equals Princes and '. , , r ij unfitted in- from all share in the election of a sovereign, would f er i r no- assume still greater authority, and trespass fur- biut y- 1 Schmidt, t. iv. p. 78. * Ibid p 78. 568 ; Putter, p. 274; Pfoffel, p. 435, 565 ; Strimus, p. 511. 558 GERMANIC CONSTITUTION. CHAP. V. ther upon the less powerful vassals of the empire. Bui while the electors were establishing their peculiar privilege, the class immediately inferior raised itself by important acqui- sitions of power. The German dukes, even after they be- came hereditary, did not succeed in compelling the chief nobil- ity within their limits to hold their lands in fief so completely as the peers of France had done. The nobles of Suabia re- fused to follow their duke into the field against the emperor Conrad II. 1 Of this aristocracy the superior class were de- nominated princes ; an appellation which, after the eleventh century, distinguished them from the untitled nobility, most of whom were their vassals. They were constituent parts of all diets ; and though gradually deprived of their original partici- pation in electing an emperor, possessed, in all other respects, the same rights as the dukes or electors. Some of them were fully equal to the electors in birth as well as extent of domin- ions ; such as the princely houses of Austria, Hesse, Brunswic, and Misnia. By the division of Henry the Lion's vast terri- tories, a and by the absolute extinction of the Suabian family in the following century, a great many princes acquired ad- ditional weight. Of the ancient duchies, only Saxony and Bavaria remained ; the former of which especially was so dis- membered, that it was vain to attempt any renewal of the ducal jurisdiction. That of the emperor, formerly exercised by the counts palatine, went almost equally into disuse during the contest between Philip and Otho IV. The princes ac- cordingly had acted with sovereign independence within their own fiefs before the reign of Frederic II. ; but the legal rec- ognition of their immunities was reserved for two edicts ot that emperor; one, in 1220, relating to ecclesiastical, and the other, in 1232, to secular princes. By these he engaged nei- ther to levy the customary imperial dues, nor to permit the jurisdiction of the palatine judges, within the limits of a state of the empire ; 8 concessions that amounted to little less than an abdication of his own sovereignty. From this epoch the territorial independence of the states may be dated. A class of titled nobility, inferior to the princes, were the counts of the empire, who seem to have been separated from the former in the twelfth century, and to have lost at the same 1 Pfeffel, p. 209. quite a new face to Germany, in Pfeffel, 2 See the arrangements made in conse- p. 234 ; also p. 437. quence of Henry's forfeiture, which gave Pfeflel, p. 3S4; Putter, p. 233. GERMANY. RODOLPH OF HAPSBURG. 559 time their right of voting in the diets. 1 In some parts of Germany, chiefly in Franconia and upon the Rhine, there always existed a very numerous body of lower nobility ; unti- tled at least till modern times, but subject to no superior ex- cept the emperor. These are supposod to have become im- mediate, after the destruction of the house of Suabia, within whose duchies they had been comprehended. 2 A short interval elapsed after the death of Richard of Corn- wall before the electors could be induced, by the deplorable state of confusion into which Germany SStoiph of had fallen, to fill the imperial throne. Their choice ^ ps ^ s - was however the best that could have been made. A " It fell upon Rodolph count of Hapsburg, a prince of very an- cient family, and of considerable possessions as well in Switz- erland as upon each bank of the Upper Rhine, but not suffi- ciently powerful to alarm the electoral oligarchy. Rodolph WAS brave, active, and just ; but his characteristic quality appears to have been good sense, and judgment of the circumstances in which he was placed. Of this he gave a signal proof in relinquishing the favorite project of so many preceding em- perors, and leaving Italy altogether to itself. At home he manifested a vigilant spirit in administering justice, and is said to have destroyed seventy strongholds of noble robbers in Thuringia and other parts, bringing many of the criminals to capital punishment. 8 But he wisely avoided giving offence to the more powerful princes ; and during his reign there were hardly any rebellions in Germany. It was a very reasonable object of every emperor to ag- grandize his family by investing his near kindred investment with vacant fiefs ; but no one was so fortunate in . f ,'' is f so " , . . . ' __ . Albert with nis opportunities as Rodolph. At his accession, duchy of Austria, Styria, and Carniola were in the hands of Austna - Ottocar king of Bohemia. These extensive and fertile coun- tries had been formed into a march or margraviate, after the victories of Otho the Great over the Hungarians. Frederic Barbarossa erected them into a duchy, with many distinguish ed privileges, especially that of female succession, hithert 1 In the instruments relating to the 2 Pfeffel, p. 456; Putter, p. 254 ; Stru election of Otho IV. the princes sign vius. p. 511. their names, Ego N. elegi et subscripsi. a Struvius, p. 530. Coxe's Hist, of But the counts only as follows : Ej;o N. House of Austria, p. 57. This valuable couseusi et subscripsi. Pfeffel, p. 360. work contains a full and interesting no count of Kodolph's reigu. 500 THE EMPIRE AFTER RODOLPH. CHAP. V- unknown in the feudal principalities of Germany. 1 Upon the extinction of the house of Bamberg, which had enjoyed this duchy, it was granted by Frederic II. to a cousin of his own name ; after whose death a disputed succession gave rise to several changes, and ultimately enabled Ottocar to gain possession of the country. Against this king of Bohemia A D 1283 Rodolph waged two successful wars, and recovered the Austrian provinces, which, as vacant fiefs, he conferred, with the consent of the diet, upon his son Albert. 2 Notwithstanding the merit and popularity of Rodolph, Btate of the ^ e e l ec t rs refused to choose his son king of the empire after Romans in his lifetime ; and, after his death, de- doiph. termined to avoid the appearance of hereditary succession, put Adolphus of Nassau upon the throne. There Adolphus. is very little to attract notice in the domestic history A. D. 1292. of the empire during the next two centuries. From Albert I. ,, r n- i i A.D. 1298. . Adolphus to Sigismund every emperor had either to A^ikYse 1 ' struggle against a competitor claiming the majority Louis iv. of votes at his election, or against a combination Charles iv. f the electors to dethrone him. The imperial A.D. 1347. authority became more and more ineffective ; Wenceslaus. . J , , n . . ,, , A.D. 1378. yet it was frequently made a subject of reproach A^-llbo against the emperors that they did not main- Sigism nn.ii. tain a sovereignty to which no one was disposed to "- 1414 - submit It may appear surprising that the Germanic confederacy under the nominal supremacy of an emperor should have been preserved in circumstances apparently so calculated to dissolve it. But, besides the natural effect of prejudice and a famous name, there were sufficient reasons to induce the elec- tors to preserve a form of government in which they bore so i The privileges of Austria were granted vius, p. 463. The instrument runs as to the margrave Henry in 1156. by way follows : Ducatus Austriae et Styrije, of indemnity for his restitution of Bava- cum pertinentiis et terminis suits (juot ria to Henry the Lion. The territory hactenus habuit, ad nomen et honorem between the Inn and the Ems was sepa- regium tnmsferentes, te hactenus duca- ratcd from the latter province, and an- tuurn praedictorum ducem, de potrstatis nexed to Austria at this time. The nostras plenitudine et magnifirentift dukes of Austria are declared equal in special! promovemus in regem, per liber- rank to the palatine archdukes (archi- tates et jura priedictum regnuni ttium ducibus palatinis). This expression gave prseseutis epigrammatis auctoritate do- a hint to the duke Rodolph IV. to as- nantes, quse regiam deceant dignitatem; Bume the title of archduke of Austria, ut tanien ex honore quern trbi libenter Schmidt, t. iii. p. 390. Frederic II. even addimus, nihil honoris et juris uostri creatod the duke of Austria king : a very diadematis aut imperii subtrahatur. curious fact though neither he nor his 2 Struvius, p. 525 ; Schmidt ; Coze. Successors ever assumed the title. Stru- GERMAN*. CUSTOM OF PARTITION. 501 decided a sway. Accident had in a considerable degree re- stricted the electoral suffrages to seven princes. Without the college there were houses more substantially powerful than any within it. The duchy of Saxony had been subdi- vided by repeated partitions among children, till the electoral right was vested in a prince who possessed only the small territory of Wittenberg. The great families of Austria, Ba- varia, and Luxemburg, though not electoral, were the real heads of the German body ; and though the two former lost much of their influence for a time through the pernicious custom of partition, the empire seldom looked for its head to any other house than one of these three. While the duchies and counties of Germany retained their original character of offices or governments, they custom of were of course, even though considered as hered- P artition - itary, not subject to partition among children. When they acquired the nature of fiefs, it was still consonant to the prin- ciples of a feudal tenure that the eldest son should inherit according to the law of primogeniture ; an inferior provision or appanage, at most, being reserved for the younger children. The. law of England favored the eldest exclusively ; that of France gave him great advantages. But in Germany a dif- ferent rule began to prevail about the thirteenth century. 1 An equal partition of the inheritance, without the least regard to priority of birth, was the general law of its principalities. Sometimes this was effected by undivided possession, or ten- ancy in common, the brothers residing together, and reigning jointly. This tended to preserve the integrity of dominion ; but as it was frequently incommodious, a more usual practice was to divide the territory. From such partitions are derived those numerous independent principalities of the same house, many of which still subsist in Germany. In 1589 there were ei*ht reigning princes of the Palatine family; and fourteen, in1675, of that of Saxony. 2 Originally these partitions were in general absolute and without reversion ; but, as their effi in weakening families became evident, a practice was intro- duced of making compacts of reciprocal succession, by whicj a fief was prevented from escheating to the empire, until all 1 Schmidt, t. iv. p. 66. Pfeffel, p. 289, vided Into two b^*?^,^ maintains that partitions were not intro- Hochberg, in 1190, with rights tluced till the latter end of the thirteenth reversion. century. This may be true as a general - Pfeffel, p. 289, Putter, p. IHI rule ; but I find the house of Baden di- VOL. I. M. 36 5G2 HOUSE OF LUXEMBURG. CHAP. V. the mule posterity of the first feudatory should be extinct. Thus, while the German empire survived, all the princes of Hesse or of Saxony had reciprocal contingencies of succes^ sion, or what our lawyers call cross-remainders, to each other's dominions. A different system was gradually adopted. By the Golden Bull of Charles IV. the electoral territory, that is, the particular district to which the electoral suffrage was inseparably attached, became incapable of partition, and was to descend to the eldest son. In the fifteenth century the present house of Brandenburg set the first example of estab- lishing primogeniture by law; the principalities of Anspach and Bayreuth were dismembered from it for the benefit of younger branches ; but it was declared that all the other do- minions of the family should for the future belong exclusively to the reigning elector. This politic measure was adopted in several other families ; but, even in the sixteenth century the prejudice was not removed, and some German princes denounced curses on their posterity, if they should introduce the impious custom of primogenitui'e. 1 Notwithstanding these subdivisions, and the most remarkable of those which I have mentioned are of a date rather subsequent to the middle ages, the antagonist principle of consolidation by various means of acquisition was so actively at work that several princely houses, especially those of Hohenzollern or Brandenburg, of Hesse, Wirtemburg, and the Palatinate, derive their impor- tance from the same era, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in which the prejudice against primogeniture was the strong- est. And thus it will often be found in private patrimonies ; the tendency to consolidation of property works more rapidly than that to its disintegration by a law of gavelkind. Weakened by these subdivisions, the principalities of Ger- many in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries shrink to a more and more diminutive size in the scale of nations. But House of one family, the most illustrious of the former age, Luxemburg. was ] ess exposed to this enfeebling system. Henry VII. count of Luxemburg, a man of much more personal merit than hereditary importance, was elevated to the empire in 1308. Most part of his short reign he passed in Italy ; but he had a fortunate opportunity of obtaining the crown of Bohemia for his son. John king of Bohemia did not himself 1 Pfeffel, p. 280. G>RMAXT. GOLDEN BULL. 563 wear the imperial crown ; but three of his descendants pos- sessed it, with less interruption than could have been expected. His son Charles IV. succeeded Louis of Bavaria in 1347; not indeed without opposition, for a double election and a civil war were matters of course in Germany. Charles IV. has boen treated with more derision by his contemporaries, and consequently by later writers, than almost any prince in his- tory ; yet he was remarkably successful in the only objects that he seriously pursued. Deficient in personal courage, insensible of humiliation, bending without shame to the pope, to the Italians, to the electors, so poor and so little reverenced as to be arrested by a butcher at Worms for want of paying his demand, Charles IV. affords a proof that a certain dex- terity and cold-blooded perseverance may occasionally supply, in a sovereign, the want of more respectable qualities. He has been reproached with neglecting the empire. But he never designed to trouble himself about the empire, except for his private ends. He did not neglect the kingdom of Bohemia, to which he almost seemed to render Germany a province. Bohemia had been long considered as a fief of the empire, and indeed could pretend to an electoral vote by no other title. Charles, however, gave the states by law the right of choosing a king, on the extinction of fhe royal family, which seems derogatory to the imperial prerogative. 1 It was much more material that, upon acquiring Brandenburg, partly by conquest, "and partly by a compact of succession in 1373, he not only invested his sons with it, which was conformable to usage, but tried to annex that electorate forever to the kingdom of Bohemia. 2 He constantly resided at Prague, where he founded a celebrated university, and embellished the city with buildings. This kingdom, augmented also dur- ing his reign by the acquisition of Silesia, he bequeathed to his son Wenceslaus, for whom, by pliancy towards the elec- tors and the court of Rome, he had procured, against all recent example, the imperial succession. 8 The reign of Charles IV. is distinguished in the constitu- tional history of the empire by his Golden Bull ; GoidenBuii. an instrument which finally ascertained the pre- A ' rogatives of the electoral college. The Golden Bull ter- minated the disputes which had arisen between different 1 StruTius, p. 641. 2 Pfeffel, p. 575: Schmidt, t. iv. p. 595 s Struvius, p. 637. 5G4 DEPOSITION OF WENCESLAUS. CHAP. V members of the same house as to their right of suffrage, which was declared inherent in certain definite territories. The number was absolutely restrained to seven. The place of legal imperial elections was fixed at Frankfort ; of coro- nations, at Aix-la-Chapelle ; and the latter ceremony was to be performed by the archbishop of Cologne. These regula- tions, though consonant to ancient usage, had not always been observed, and their neglect had sometimes excited questions as to the validity of elections. The dignity of elector was enhanced by the Golden Bull as highly as an imperial edict could carry it ; they were declared equal to kings, and con- spiracy against their persons incurred the penalty of high treason. 1 Many other privileges are granted to render them more completely sovereign within their dominions. It seems extraordinary that Charles should have voluntarily elevated an oligarchy, from whose pretensions his predecessors had frequently suffered injury. But he had more to apprehend from the two great families of Bavaria and Austria, whom he relatively depressed by giving such a preponderance to "the seven electors, than from any members of the college. By his compact with Brandenburg he had a fair prospect of adding a second vote' to his own ; and there was more room for intrigue and management, which Charles always preferred to arms, with a small number, than with the whole body of princes. The next reign, nevertheless, evinced the danger of in- Deposition vesting the electors with such preponderating of Wences- authority. "Wenceslaus, a supine and voluptuous laus. , J i' f man, less respected, and more negligent 01 Germany, if possible, than his father, was regularly deposed by a majority of the electoral college in 1400. This right, if it is to be considered as a right, they had already used against Adolphus of Nassau hi 1298, and against Louis of Bavaria in 1346. They chose Robert count palatine instead of Wenceslaus ; and though the latter did not cease to have some adherents, Robert has generally been counted among the lawful emperors. 2 Upon his death the empire returned 1 Pfeffel, p. 565; Putter, p. 271; * Many of the cities besides some Schmidt, t. iv. p. 566. The Golden Bull princes, continued to recognize Wences- not only fixed the Palatine vote, in ab- laus throughout the life of Robert ; and solute exclusion of Bavaria, but settled the latter was so much considered as an a controversy of long standing between usurper by foreign states, that his am- the two branches of the house of Saxony, bassadors were refused admittance at the Wittenberg and Lauenburg, in favor of council of Pisa. Struvius, p. 658. the former. GEBMAHT. HOUSE OF AUSTRIA. 5G5 to the house of Luxemburg; TTenceslaus himself waiving his rights in favor of his brother Sigismund of Hungary. 1 The house of Austria had hitherto given but two emperors to Germany, Rodolph its founder, and his son House of Albert, whom a successful rebellion elevated in Austna - the place of Adolphus. Upon the death of Henry of Lux- emburg, in 1313, Frederic, son of Albert, disputed the election of Louis duke of Bavaria, alleging a majority of genuine votes. This produced a civil war, in which the Austrian party were entirely worsted. Though they ad- vanced no pretensions to the imperial dignity during the rest of the fourteenth century, the princes of that line added to their possessions Carinthia, Istria, and the Tyrol. As a counterbalance to these acquisitions, they lost a great part of their ancient inheritance by unsuccessful wars with the Swiss. According to the custom of partition, so injurious to princely houses, their dominions were divided among three branches : one reigning in Austria, a second in Styria and Albert n. the adjacent provinces, a third in the Tyrol and A - D - 1438 - Alsace. This had in a considerable degree eclipsed the glory of the house of Hapsburg. But it was now its destiny to revive, and to enter upon a career of prosperity which has never since been permanently interrupted. Albert duke of Austria, who had married Sigismund's only daughter, the queen of Hungary and Bohemia, was raised to the imperial throne upon the death of his father-in-law in 1437. He died in two years, leaving his wife pregnant with a son, Ladislaus Posthumus. who afterwards reigned in the two kingdom- ju-t mentioned ; and the choice of the electors fell upon Frederic duke of Styria, second-cousin of the last emperor, from whose posterity it never departed, except in a single instance, upon the extinction of his male line in 1740. Frederic III. reigned fifty-three years, a longer period than any of his predecessors ; and his personal character was more insignificant. With better fortune than could be expected, considering both these circumstances, he escaped any overt attempt 1 This election of Sigismund was not was not crowned nncontested:Jo ? .=e. or Jodocus. margrave been reckoned among the emper of Moravia, having been chosen, a far though mod . e c " Ucs st !^ th _ at . appears, by a lezal majority. Howev- title was legitimate Struvius, p. t er, his death within three months re- Pfeffel. p. oi^. moved Uie difficulty; and Josse, who 566 FREDERIC IH. CHAP. V. to depose him, though such a project was sometimes in agi- tation. He reigned during an interesting age, full of remarkable events, and big with others of more leading importance. The destruction of the Greek empire, and appearance of the victorious crescent upon the Danube, gave an unhappy distinction to the earlier years of his reign, and displayed his mean and pusillanimous character in circum- stances which demanded a hero. At a later season he was drawn into contentions with France and Burgundy, which ultimately produced a new and more general combination of European politics. Frederic, always poor, and scarcely able to protect himself in Austria from the seditions of his subjects, or the inroads of the king of Hungary, was yet another founder of his family, and left their fortunes incom- parably more prosperous than at his accession. 1 The mar- riage of his son Maximilian with the heiress of Burgundy began that aggrandizement of the house of Austria which Frederic seems to have anticipated. 2 The electors, who had 1 Ranke has drawn the character of Frederic III. more favorably, on the whole, than preceding historians, and with a discrimination which enables us to account better for his success in the objects which he had at heart. " From his youth he had been inured to trouble and adversity. When compelled to yield, he never gave up a point, and always gained the mastery in the end. The maintenance of his prerogatives was the governing principle of all his actions, the more because they acquired an ideal value from their connection with the im- perial dignity. It cost him a long and severe struggle to allow his son to be crowned king of the Romans ; he wished to take the supreme authority undivided with him to the grave : in no case would he grant Maximilian any independent share in the administration of govern- ment ; but kept him, even after he was king, still as ' son of the house ' ; nor would he ever give him anything but the countship of Cilli ; ' for the rest he would have time enough.' His frugality bordered on avarice, his slowness on in- ertness, his stubbornness on the most determined selfishness ; yet all these faults are removed from vulgarity by high qualities. He had at bottom a sober depth of judgment, a sedate and inflex- ible honor ; the aged prince, even when a fugitive imploring succor, had a per- sonal bearing which never allowed the majesty of the empire to sink." Hist. Reformation (Trauslation), vol. ii. p. 103. A character of such obstinate passive resistance was well fitted for his station in that age ; spite of his poverty and weakness, he was hereditary sovereign of extensive and fertile territories ; he was not loved, feared, or respected, but he was necessary ; he was a German, and therefore not to be exchanged for a king of Hungary or Bohemia ; he was, not as Frederic of Austria, but as elected em- peror, the sole hope for a more settled rule, for public peace, for the mainte- nance of a confederacy so ill held togeth er by any other tie. Hence he succeeded in what seemed so difficult in pro- curing the election of Maximilian as king of the Romans : and interested the German diet in maintaining the Burgun- dian inheritance, the western provinces of the Netherlands, which the latter's mar- riage brought into the house of Austria. 2 The famous device of Austria, A. E. I. 0. U., was first used by Frederic III., who adopted it on his plate, books, and buildings. These initials stand for, Austria} Est Imperare Orbi Universe ; or, in German, Alles Erdreich 1st Oster- reich Unterthan ; a bold assumption for a man who was not safe in an inch of his dominions. Struvius, p. 722. Ho confirmed the archiducal title of his family, which might seem implied in the original grant of Frederic I ; and be- stowed other high privileges above all princes of the empire. These ire enu- merated in Coxe's House of Austria. vol..i. p. 263. GERMAN*. FREE EVIPERIAL CITIES. 567 lost a good deal of their former spirit, and were grown sensible of the necessity of choosing a powerful sovereign, made no opposition to Maximilian's becoming king of the Romans in his father's lifetime. The Austrian provinces were reunited either under Frederic, or in the first years of Maximilian ;. so that, at the close of that period which we denominate the Middle Ages, the German empire, sustained by the patrimonial dominions of its chief, became again con- siderable in the scale of nations, and capable of preserving a balance between the ambitious monarchies of France and Spain. The period between Rodolph and Frederic III. is distin- guished by no circumstance so interesting as the prosperous state of the free imperial cities, which had attained their maturity about the commencement of that interval, "We find the cities of Germany, in the tenth cen- free m , 'I. T.I rial cities. tury, divided into such as depended immediately upon the empire, which were usually governed by their bishop as imperial vicar, and such as were included in the territories of the dukes and counts. 1 Some of the former, lying principally upon the Rhine and in Franconia, acquired a certain degree of importance before the expiration of the eleventh century. Worms and Cologne manifested a zealous attachment to Henry IV., whom they supported in despite of their bishops. 2 His son Henry V. granted privileges of en- franchisement to the inferior townsmen or artisans, who had hitherto been distinguished from the upper class of freemen, and particularly relieved them from oppressive usages, which either gave the whole of their movable goods to the lord upon their decease, or at least enabled him to seize the best chattel as his heriot. 8 He took away the temporal authority of the bishop, at least in several instances, and restored the cities to a more immediate dependence upon the empire. The citizens were classed in companies, according to their several occupations ; an institution which was speedily adopted in other commercial countries. It does not appear that any German city had obtained, under this emperor, those privi- leges of choosing its own magistrates, which were conceded i Pfeffel, p. 187. The Othos adopted to the lay aristocracy. Patter, p. 136; the same policy in Germany which they Struvius. p. '182. had introduced in Italy, conferring the 2 Schmidt, t. in. p. *. temporal government of cities upon the 3 Schmidt, p. 242 Pfeffel, p. *M . Dn bisaops; probably as a counterbalance mont, Corps Diplomatique, 1. 1. p. t*. 568 FREE IMPERIAL CITIES. CHAP. V. about the same time, in a few instances, to those of France. 1 Gradually, however, they began to elect councils of citizens, as a sort of senate and magistracy. This innovation might psvhaps take place as early as the reign of Frederic I.-, 3 at least it was fully established in that of his grandson. They were at first only assistants to the imperial or episcopal bailiff, who probably continued to administer criminal justice. But in the thirteenth century the citizens, grown richer and stronger, either purchased the jurisdiction, or usurped it through the lord's neglect, or drove out the bailiff by force. 8 The great revolution in Franconia and Suabia occasioned by the fall of the Hohenstauffen family completed the victory of the cities. Those which had depended upon mediate lords became immediately connected with the empire ; and with the empire in its state of feebleness, when an occasional present of money would easily induce its chief to acquiesce in any claims of immunity which the citizens might prefer. It was a natural consequence of the importance which the free citizens had reached, and of their immediacy, that they were admitted to a place in the diets, or general meetings of the confederacy. They were tacitly acknowledged to be equally sovereign with the electors and princes. No proof exists of any law by which they were adopted into the diet. We find it said that Rodolph of Hapsburg, in 1291, renewed his oath with the princes, lords, and cities. Under the em- peror Henry VII. there is unequivocal mention of the three orders composing the diet; electors, princes, and deputies from cities. 4 And in 1344 they appear as a third distinct college in the diet of Frankfort. 5 The inhabitants of these free cities always preserved their respect for the emperor, and gave him much less vexation than his other subjects. He was indeed their natural friend. But the nobility and prelates were their natural enemies ; and the western parts of Germany were the scenes of irrec- oncilable warfare between the possessors of fortified castles 1 Schmidt, p. 245. 3 Schmidt, t. iv. p. 96; Pfeffel, p. 441. 2 In the charter granted hy Frederic I. * Mansit ibi rex sex hehdom adibug to Spire in 1182, confirming and enlarg- cum principibus electoribus et aliis priu- ing that of Henry V., though no express cipjbus et civitatum luntiis, de suo tntn mention is made of an3 r municipal juris- situ et de praestandis servitiis in Ituiiain diction, yet it seems implied in the fol- disponendo. Auctor apud Schmidt, t. Y! lowing words: Causam in civitate jam p. 31. lite contestatam non episcopus aut alia 6 Pfeffel, p. 552. potestas extra civitatem determinari cornpellet. Dumont, p. 108. GBKMANT. LEAGUES OF THE CITIES. 5C g and the inhabitants of fortified cities. Each party wa* fre- quently the aggressor. The nobles were too often mere robbers, who lived upon the plunder of travellers. But the citizens were almost equally inattentive to the rights of others. ft was their policy to offer the privileges of burghership to all strangers. The peasantry of feudal Jords, flying to a neighboring town, found an asylum constantly open. A multitude of aliens, thus seeking as it were sanctuary, dwelt in the suburbs or liberties, between the city walls and the palisades which bounded the territory. Hence they were called Pfahlburger, or burgesses of the palisades ; and this encroachment on the rights of the nobility was positively, but vainly, prohibited by several imperial edicts, especially the Golden Bull. Another class were the Ausburger, or outburghers, who had been admitted to privileges of citizen- ship, though resident at a distance, and pretended in conse- quence to be exempted from all dues to their original feudal superiors. If a lord resisted so unreasonable a claim, he incurred the danger of bringing down upon himself the ven- geance of the citizens. These outburghers are in general classed under the general name of Pfahlburger by contem- porary writers. 1 As the towns were conscious of the hatred which the nobility bore towards them, it was their interest Leagues of to make a common cause, and render mutual the clties - assistance. -From this necessity of maintaining, by united exertions, their general liberty, the German cities never suffered the petty jealousies, which might no doubt cxi-t among them, to ripen into such deadly feuds as sullied the glory, and ultimately destroyed the freedom, of Lombardy. They withstood the bishops and barons by confederacies of their own, framed expressly to secure their commerce against rapine", or unjust exactions of toll. More than sixty cities, with three ecclesiastical electors at their head, formed the league of the Rhine, in 1255, to repel the inferior nobility, who, having now become immediate, abused that independence by perpetual robberies. 2 The Hanseatic Union owes its ori- gin to no other cause, and may be traced perhaps to rather a higher date. About the year 1370 a league was formed, i Schmidt, t. iv. p. 98; t. vi. p. 76; 2 Struvius. p. 498; Schmidt, t IT. Pfeffel. p. 402 : Du Cange, Gloss. v. p. 101 ; Pfeffel, p. 416. Pfahlburger. Faubourg is derived from this word. 570 PROVINCIAL STATES. CHAP. V. which, though it did not continue so long, seems to have produced more striking effects in Germany. The cities of Suabia and the Rhine united themselves in a strict con- federacy against the princes, and especially the families of "VVirtemburg and Bavaria. It is said that the emperor Wenceslaus secretly abetted their projects. The recent successes of the Swiss, who had now almost established their republic, inspired their neighbors in the empire with expec- tations which the event did not realize ; for they were de- feated in this war, and ultimately compelled to relinquish their league. Counter-associations were formed by the no- bles, styled Society of St. George, St. William, the Lion, or the Panther. 1 The spirit of political liberty was not confined to the free Provincial immediate cities. In all the German principalities states of the a form of limited monarchy prevailed, reflecting, on a reduced scale, the general constitution of the empire. As the emperors shared their legislative sovereignty with the diet, so ah 1 the princes who belonged to that assem- bly had their own provincial states, composed of their feudal vassals and of their mediate towns within their territory. No tax could be imposed without consent of the states ; and, in some countries, the prince was obliged to account for the proper disposition of the money granted. In all matters of importance affecting the principality, and especially in cases of partition, it was necessary to consult them ; and they sometimes decided between competitors in a disputed succes- sion, though this indeed more strictly belonged to the emperor. The provincial states concurred with the prince in making laws, except such as were enacted by the general diet. The city of Wurtzburg, in the fourteenth century, tells its bishop that, if a lord would make any new ordinance, the custom is that he must consult the citizens, who have always opposed his innovating upon the ancient laws without their consent. 2 The Ancient imperial domain, or possessions which be- longed to the chief of the empire as such, had Alienation MI T -i i of the im- originally been very extensive. Besides large main 1 d German! atque Alemanni, quibus gans, de quo castrum deberet retinere, census patrimonii ad victum suppetit, et cum annuls careret reditibus, dicitur hos qui procul urbibus, aut qui castellis respondisse ; Quatuor viae sunt trans et oppidulis dominantur, quorum mag- castrum situatse. Auctor apud Schmidt, no pars latrocinio deditur, nobiies cen- p. 492. DIPERIAL CHAMBER. 573 and law. Temporary cessations, during which all private hostility was illegal, were sometimes enacted; and, if ob- served, which may Avell be doubted, might contribute to accustom men to habits of greater tranquillity. The leagues of the cities were probably more efficacious checks upon tiie disturbers of order. In 1486 a ten years' peace was pro- claimed, and before the expiration of this period the per- petual abolition of the right of defiance was happily accom- plished in the diet of Worms. 1 These wars, incessantly waged by the states of Germany, seldom ended in conquest. Very few princely houses of the middle ages were aggrandized by such means. That small and independent nobility, the counts and knights of the em- pire whom the revolutions of our own age have annihilated, stood through the storms of centuries with little diminution of their numbers. An incursion into the enemy's territory, a pitched battle, a siege, a treaty, are the general circumstances of the minor wars of the middle ages, as far as they appear in history. Before the invention of artillery, a strongly forti- fied castle or walled city, was hardly reduced except by famine, which a besieging army, wasting improvideutly its means of subsistence, was full as likely to feel. That in- vention altered the condition of society, and introduced an inequality of forces, that rendered war more inevitably ruin- ous to the inferior party. Its first and most beneficial effect was to bring the plundering class of the nobility into control ; their castles were more easily taken, and it became their in- terest to deserve the protection of law. A few of these con- tinued to follow their old profession after the diet of Worms ; but they were soon overpowered by the more efficient police established under Maximilian. The next object of the diet was to provide an effectual remedy for private wrongs which might supersede imperial all pretence for taking up arms. The administra- Chamber - tion of justice had always been a high prerogative as well as bounden duty of the emperors. It was exercised originally by themselves in person, or by the count palatine, the judge who always attended their court. In the provinces of Ger- many the dukes were intrusted with this duty ; but, in order to control their influence, Otho the Great appointed provin- cial counts palatine, whose jurisdiction was in some respects 1 Scnmidt, t. iv. p. 116; t. T. p. 338, 371', t. yi. p. 34; Putter, p. 292, 348. 574 IMPERIAL CHAMBER. CHAP. V. exclusive of that still possessed by the dukes. As the latter became more independent of the empire, the provincial counts palatine lost the importance of their office, though their name may be traced to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. 1 The ordinary administration of justice by the emperors went into disuse; in cases where states of the empire were concerned, it appertained to the diet, or to a special court of princes. The first attempt to reestablish an imperial tribunal was made by Frederic II. in a diet held at Mentz in 1235. A judge of the court was appointed to sit daily, with certain assessors, half nobles, half lawyers, and with jurisdiction over all causes where princes of the empire were not concerned. 2 Rodolph of Hapsburg endeavored to give efficacy to this judicature ; but after his reign it under- went the fate of all those parts of the Germanic constitution which maintained the prerogatives of the emperors. Sigis- mund endeavored to revive this tribunal ; but as he did riot render it permanent, nor fix the place of its sittings, it pro- duced little other good than as it excited an earnest anxiety for a regular system. This system, delayed throughout the reign of Frederic III., was reserved for the first diet of his son. 8 The Imperial Chamber, such was the name of the new tribunal, consisted, at its original institution, of a chief judge, who was to be chosen among the princes or counts, and of sixteen assessors, partly of noble or equestrian rank, partly professors of law. They were named by the emperor witb the approbation of the diet. The functions of the Imperial Chamber were chiefly the two following. They exercised an appellant jurisdiction over causes that had been decided by the tribunals established in states of the empire. But their jurisdiction in private causes was merely appellant According to the original law of Germany, no man could be sued except in the nation or province to which he belonged. The early emperors travelled from one part of their domin- ions to another, in order to render justice consistently with this fundamental privilege. When the Luxemburg emperors fixed their residence in Bohemia, the jurisdiction of the im perial court in the first instance would have ceased of itself 1 Pfeffel, p. 180. 2 Idem, p. 386 ; Schmidt, t. iv. p. 66. Pfeffel, t. ii. p. 66. GERMANY. ESTABLISHMENT OF CIRCLES. 575 by the operation of this ancient rule. It was not, however, strictly complied with ; and it is said that the emperors had a concurrent jurisdiction with the provincial tribunals even in private causes. They divested themselves, nevertheless, of this right by granting privileges de non evocando ; so that no subject of a state which enjoyed such a privilege could be summoned into the imperial court. All the electors possess- ed this exemption by the terms of the Golden Bull ; and it was specially granted to the burgraves of Nuremberg, and some other princes. This matter was finally settled at the diet of Worms ; and the Imperial Chamber was positively restricted from taking cognizance of any causes in the first instance, even where a state of the empire was one of the parties. It was enacted, to obviate the denial of justice that appeared likely to result from the regulation in the latter case, that every elector and prince should establish a tribunal in his own dominions, where suits against himself might be entertained. 1 The second part of the chamber's jurisdiction related to disputes between two states of the empire. But these two could only come before it by way of appeal. During the period of anarchy which preceded the establishment of its jurisdiction, a custom was introduced, in order to prevent the constant recurrence of hostilities, of referring the quarrels of states to certain arbitrators, called Austregues, chosen among states of the same rank. This conventional reference be- came so popular that the princes would not consent to aban- don it on the institution of the Imperial Chamber ; but, on the contrary, it was changed into an invariable and universal law, that all disputes between different states must, in the first instance, be submitted to the arbitration of Aus- tregues. 2 The sentences of the chamber would have been very idly pronounced, if means had not been devised to carry Egta i,iJ8h- them into execution. In earlier times the want of m^nt of coercive process had been more felt than that of C11 actual jurisdiction. For a few years after the establishment of the chamber this deficiency was not supplied. But in 1501 an institution, originally planned under Wenceslaus, and attempted by Albert II., was carried into effect. The i Schmidt, t. v. p. 373 ; Putter, p. 372. * Putter, p. 361 ; Pfeffel, p. 452. 576 AULIC COUNCIL. CHAP. \. empire, with the exception of the electorates and the Austrian dominions, was divided into six circles ; each of which had its council of states, its director whose province it was to convoke them, and its military force to compel obedience. In 1512 four more circles were added, comprehending those states which had been excluded in the first division. It was the business of the police of the circles to enforce the execution of sentences pronounced by the Imperial Chamber against re fractory states of the empire. 1 As the judges of the Imperial Chamber were appointed Auiic with the consent of the diet, and held their sittings Council. j n a f ree i m p er i a i c ;ty ? its establishment seemed rather to encroach on the ancient prerogatives of the emperors. Maximilian expressly reserved these in consenting to the new tribunal. And, in order to revive them, he soon afterwards instituted an Aulic Council at Vienna, composed of judges appointed by himself, and under the political control of the Austrian government. Though some German patriots re- garded this tribunal with jealousy, it continued until the dis- solution of the empire. The Aulic Council had, in all cases, a concurrent jurisdiction with the Imperial Chamber ; an ex- clusive one in feudal and some other causes. But it was equally confined to cases of appeal ; and these, by multiplied privileges de non appeUando, granted to the electoral and su- perior princely houses, were gradually reduced into moderate compass. 2 The Germanic constitution may be reckoned complete, as to all its essential characteristics, in the reign of Maximilian. In later times, and especially by the treaty of Westphalia, it underwent several modifications. Whatever might be its de- fects, and many of them seem to have been susceptible of re- formation without destroying the system of government, it had one invaluable excellence : it protected the rights of the weaker against the stronger powers. The law of nations was first taught in Germany, and grew out of the public law of the empire. . To narrow, as far as possible, the rights of war and of conquest, was a natural principle of those who be- longed to petty states, and had nothing to tempt them in am- bition. No revolution of our own eventful age, except the fall of the ancient French system of government, has been so 1 Putter, p. 355, t. ii. p. 100. 8 Putter, p. 357 ; Pfeffel, p. 102. GERy\5nr. LIMITS OF THE EMPIRE. 5~7 extensive, or so likely to produce important consequences, as the spontaneous dissolution of the German empire. Whether the new confederacy that has been substituted for that vener- able constitution will be equally favorable to peace, justice, and liberty, is among the most interesting and difficult prob- lems that can occupy a philosophical observer. 1 At the accession of Conrad I. Germany had by no means reached its present extent on the eastern frontier. Limits of Henry the Fowler and the Othos made great ac- the em f ins ' quisitions upon that side. But tribes of Sclavonian origin, generally called Venedic, or less properly, Vandal, occupied the northern coast from the Elbe to the Vistula. These were independent, and formidable both to the kings of Denmark and princes of Germany, till, in the reign of Frederic Barba- rossa, two of the latter, Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony, and Albert the Bear, margrave of Brandenburg, subdued Meck- lenburg and Pomerania, which afterwards became duchies of the empire. Bohemia was undoubtedly subject, in a feudal sense, to Frederic I. and his successors ; though its connection with Germany was always slight. The emperors sometimes assumed a sovereignty over Denmark, Hungary, and Poland. But what they gained upon this quarter was compensated by the gradual separation of the Netherlands from their domin- ion, and by the still more complete loss of the kingdom of Aries. The house of Burgundy possessed most part of the former, and paid as little regard as possible to the imperial supremacy ; though the German diets in the reign of Maxi- milian still continued to treat the Netherlands as equally sub- ject to their lawful control with the states on the right bank of the Rhine. But the provinces between the Rhone and the Alps were absolutely separated; Switzerland had completely succeeded in establishing her own independence ; and the kings of France no longer sought even the ceremony of an imperial investiture for Dauphine and Provence. Bohemia, which received the Christian faith in the tenth century, was elevated to the rank of a kingdom Bohemia _ near the end of the twelfth. The dukes and kings its constuu- of Bohemia were feudally dependent upon the em- perors, from whom they received investiture. They possessed, in return, a suffrage among the seven electors, and held one 1 The first edition of t'ais work was published early in 1818 VOL. I. M. 37 578 HOUSE OF LUXEMBURG. CHAP. V. of the great offices in the imperial court. But separated by a rampart of mountains, by a difference of origin and language, and perhaps by national prejudices from Germany, the Bohe- mians withdrew as far as possible from the general politics of the confederacy. The kings obtained dispensations from at- tending the diets of the empire, nor were they able to re- instate themselves in the privilege thus abandoned till the beginning of the last century. 1 The government of this king- dom, in a very slight degree partaking ot the feudal character, 4 bore' rather a resemblance to that of Poland ; but the nobility were divided into two classes, the baronial and the equestrian, and the burghers formed a third state in the national diet. For the peasantry, they were in a condition of servitude, or predial villeinage. The royal authority was restrained by a corona- tion oath, by a permanent senate, and by frequent assemblies of the diet, where a numerous and armed nobility appeared to secure their liberties by law or force. 8 The sceptre passed, in ordinary times, to the nearest heir of the royal blood ; but the right of election was only suspended, and no king of Bo- hemia ventured to boast of it as his inheritance. 4 This mix- ture of elective and hereditary monarchy was common, as we have seen, to most European kingdoms in their original con- stitution, though few continued so long to admit the participa- tion of popular suffrages. The reigning dynasty having become extinct in 1306, by House of the death of Wenceslaus, son of that Ottocar who, Luxemburg. a fter extending his conquests to the Baltic Sea, and almost to the Adriatic, had lost his life in an unsuccessful contention with the emperor Rodolph, the Bohemians chose John of Luxemburg, son of Henry VII. Under the kings of this family in the fourteenth century, and especially Charles IV., whose character appeared in a far more advantageous light in his native domains than in the empire, Bohemia im- bibed some portion of refinement and science. 6 An university 1 Pfeffel, t. ii. p. 497. of the kings, about the year 1300, sent 2 Bona ipsorum tot5 Bohemia plera- for an Italian lawyer to compile a code. que oumia hsereditaria sunt seu alodi- But the nobility refused to consent to alia, perpauca foudalia. Stransky, Resp. this: aware, probably, of the conse- Bohemica, p. 392. Stransky was a Bo- quences of letting in the prerogative nemian protestarit, who fled to Holland doctrines of the civilians. They opposed, after the subversion of the civil and re- at the same time, the institution of an ligious liberties of his country by the university at Prague; which, however fatal battle of Prague in 1621. took place afterwards under Charles IV. 3 Dubravius, the Bohemian historian * Stransky, Kesp. Bohem. Ooxe' relates (lib. xviii.) that, the kingdom House of Austria, p. 487. having no written laws, VVenceslaus, one 5 Schmidt; Coxe GEBMAST. THE HUSSITES. 579 * erected by Charles at Prague, became one of the most cele- brated in Europe. John Huss, rector of the uni- John Hu ss. versity, who had distinguished himself by opposi- A - D - 1416 - tion to many abuses then prevailing in the church, repaired to the council of Constance, under a safe-conduct from the em- peror Sigismund. In violation of this pledge, to the indelible infamy of that prince and of the council, he was condemned to be burned ; and his disciple. Jerome of Prague, underwent afterwards the same fate. His countrymen, aroused by this atrocity, flew to arms. They found at their head x ' , ,. J , . Hussite war. one ot those extraordinary men whose genius, created by nature and called into action by fortuitous events, appears to borrow no reflected light from that of others. John Zisca had not been trained in any school T , . , 111 ... ii. . i f John Zisca. which could have initiated him in the science 01 war ; that indeed, except in Italy, was still rude, and nowhere more so than in Bohemia. But, self-taught, he became one of the greatest captains who had appeared hitherto in Europe. It renders his exploits more marvellous that he was totally deprived of sight. Zisca has been called the inventor of the modern art of fortification ; the famous mountain near Prague, fanatically called Tabor, became, by his skill, an impregna- ble entrenchment. For his stratagems he has been compared to Hannibal. In battle, being destitute of cavalry, he dis- posed at intervals ramparts of carriages filled with soldiers, to defend his troops from the enemy's horse. His own station was by the chief standard ; where, after hearing the cir- cumstances of the situation explained, he gave his orders for the disposition of the army. Zisca was never defeated ; and his genius inspired the Hussites with such enthusiastic affec- tion, that some of those who had served under him refused to obey any other general, and denominated themselves Orphans in commemoration of his loss. He was indeed a ferocious enemy, though some of his cruelties might, perhaps, be ex- tenuated by the law of retaliation ; but to his soldiers affable and generous, dividing among them all the spoil. 1 Even during the lifetime of Zisca the Hussite sect was disunited ; the citizens of Prague and many of the caiixtins. nobility contenting themselves with moderate de- A - D - 1424 - mands, while the Taborites, his peculiar followers, were actu- i Lenfant, Hist. d<- la Guerre des Hussites; Schmidt ; Coze 580 HUNGARY. CHAP. V. ated by a most r anatical frenzy. The former took the name of Calixtins, from their retention of the sacramental cup, of which the priests had latterly thought fit to debar laymen an abuse so totally without pretence or apology, that nothing less than the determined obstinacy of the Romish church could have maintained it to this time. The Taborites, though no longer led by Zisca, gained some remarkable victories, but were at last wholly defeated ; while the Catholic and Calixtin parties came to an accommodation, by which Sigismund was acknowledged as king of Bohemia, which he had claimed by the title of heir to his brother Wenceslaus, and a few indul- 1433 gences, especially the use of the sacramental cup, conceded to the moderate Hussites. But this com- pact, though concluded by the council of Basle, being ill observed, through the perfidious bigotry of the see of Rome, the reformers armed again to defend their religious liberties, and ultimately elected a nobleman of their own party, by 1468 name George Podiebrad, to the throne of. Bohemia, which he maintained during his life with great vigor and prudence. 1 Upon his death they chose Uladislaus, A.D. 1471. son f Casimir king of Poland, who afterwards obtained also the kingdom of Hungary. Both A.U. 5 7. these crowns were conferred on his son Louis, after whose death, in the unfortunate battle of Mohacz, Fer- dinand of Austria became sovereign of the two kingdoms. The Hungarians, that terrible people who laid waste the Hungary Italian and German provinces of the empire in the tenth century, became proselytes soon after- wards to the religion of Europe, and their sovereign, St. Stephen, was admitted by the pope into the list of Christian kings. Though the Hungarians were of a race perfectly distinct from either the Gothic or the Sclavonian tribes, their system of government was in a great measure analogous. None indeed could be more natural to rude nations who had but recently accustomed themselves to settled possessions, than a territorial aristocracy, jealous of unlimited or even hereditary power in their chieftain, and subjugating the infe- rior people to that servitude which, in such a state of society, is the unavoidable consequence of poverty. The marriage of an Hungarian princess with Charles II * Lenfant ; Schmidt ; Coxe. GEEMANT. BATTLE OF WAKNA. 581 king of Naples, eventually connected her country far more than it had been with the affairs of Italy. I have mentioned in a different place the circumstances which led to the inva- sion of Naples by Louis king of Hungary, and the wars of that powerful monarch with Venice. By marry ing the eldest daughter of Louis, Sigismund, afterwards emperor, sigismund. acquired the crown of Hungary, which upon her A - D< 1392 - death without issue he retained in his own right, and was even able to transmit to the child of a second marriage, and to her husband Albert duke of Austria. From this commencement is deduced the connection between Hungary and Austria. In two years, however, Albert dying left A ' his widow pregnant; but the states of Hungary, ^^l 3 ]^ 8 ' jealous of Austrian influence, and of the intrigues of a minority, without waiting for her delivery, bestowed the crown upon Uladislaus king of Poland. The birth of Albert's posthumous son, Ladislaus, produced an opposition in behalf of the infant's right ; but the Austrian party turned out the weaker, and Uladislaus, after a civil war of some duration, became undisputed king. Meanwhile a more formidable enemy drew near. The Turkish arms had subdued all Servia, and excited a just alarm throughout Christendom. Uladislaus led a considerable force, to which the presence of the cardinal Julian gave the appearance of a crusade, into Bulgaria, and, after several successes, concluded an Battle of honorable treaty with Amurath II. But this he Wama. was unhappily persuaded to violate, at the instiga- A ' D ' I4f tion of. the cardinal, who abhorred the impiety of keeping faith with infidels. 1 Heaven judged of this otherwise, if the judgment of Heaven was pronounced upon the field of TTarna. In that fatal battle Uladislaus was killed, and the Hungarians utterly routed. The crown was now permitted to rest on the head of young Ladislaus ; but the regency was allotted by the states of Hungary to a native warrior, John Hunniadeg . Hunniades. 2 This hero stood in the breach for 1 JEneas Sylvius lays this perfidy on vius, p. 398.) And the Greeks impute Pope Eugenins IV. Scripsit cardinal!, the same to him. Or at least desertion of nullum valere fnedus, quod se inconsulto his troops, at Oossova, where he was de cum hostibus religionis percussum esset, feated in 1448. (Spondanus, ad ann. p. 397. The words in italics are slipped 1448.) Probably he was one of those In, to give a slight pretext for breaking prudently brave men who, when victory the treaty. is out of their power, reserve themselves 2 Hunniades was a Walbchian. of a to fight another day ; which is the char- Email family. The poles charged him acter of all partisans accustomed to with cowardice at Warna. (.Xneas Syl- desultory warfare. This ia the apcljgy 582 RELIEF OF BELGRADE. CHAP. V twelve years against the Turkish power, frequently defeated but unconquered in defeat. If the renown of Hunniades may seem exaggerated by the partiality of writers who lived under the reign of his son, it is confirmed by more unequivocal evi- dence, by the dread and hatred of the Turks, whose children were taught obedience by threatening them with his name, and by the deference of a jealous aristocracy to a man of no distinguished birth. He surrendered to young Ladislaus a trust that he had exercised with perfect fidelity; but his merit was too great to be forgiven, and the court never treated him with cordiality. The last and the most splendid service of ikjjgf of Hunniades was the relief of Belgrade. That strong Belgrade. city was besieged by Mahomet II. three years after A.D. 1456. ne f a jj Q f Constantinople ; its capture would have laid open all Hungary. A tumultuary army, chiefly collected by the preaching of a friar, was intrusted to Hunniades : he penetrated into the city, and, having repulsed the Turks in a fortunate sally wherein Mahomet was wounded, had the honor of compelling him to raise the siege in confusion. The relief of Belgrade was more important in its effect than in its imme- diate circumstances. It revived the spirits of Europe, which had been appalled by the unceasing victories of the infidels. Mahomet himself seemed to acknowledge the importance of the blow, and seldom afterwards attacked the Hungarians. Hunniades died soon after this achievement, and was followed by the king Ladislaus. 1 The states of Hungary, although the emperor Frederic III. had secured to himself, as he thought, the reversion, were justly averse to his character, Matthias an( ^ to Austrian connections. They conferred their Corvinus. crown on Matthias Corvinus, son of their great Hunniades. This prince reigned above thirty years with considerable reputation, to which his patronage LIO v,iii uni id vi ./uuu 11 n iv*. /., n uv lunuB UH i/iictL me uuueiiiju u lived under Matthias. Bonfluius, an have fully disproved the charge. Italian compiler of the same age, has GKRMANY. EARLY fflSTORY OF SWITZERLAND. 5 S3 of learned men, who repaid his munificence with very pro- fuse eulogies, did not a little contribute. 1 Hungary, at least in his time, was undoubtedly formidable to her neighbors, and held a respectable rank as an independent power in the republic of Europe. The kingdom of Burgundy or Aries comprehended the whole mountainous region which we now call Switzerland, It was accordingly reunited to the Germanic empire by the bequest of Rodolph along with the rest of his dominions. A numerous and ancient nobility, vassals one to another, or to the empire, divided the possession with ecclesias- ., , , , l , Switzerland tical lords hardly less powerful than themselves. its early Of the former we find the counts of Zahringen, ^ t J^ 2 . Kyburg, Hapsburg, and Tokenburg, most conspic- uous ; of the latter, the bishop of Coire, the abbot of St. Gall, and abbess of Seckingen. Every variety of feudal rights was early found and long preserved in Helvetia ; nor is there any country whose histoiy better illustrates that am- biguous relation, half property and half dominion, in which the territorial aristocracy, under the feudal system, stood with respect to their dependents. In the twelfth century the Swiss towns rise into some degree of importance. Zurich was eminent for commercial activity, and seems to have had no lord but the emperor. Basle, though subject to its bishop, possessed the usual privileges of municipal govern- ment. Berne and Friburg, founded only in that century, made a rapid progress; and the latter was raised, along with Zurich,- by Frederic II. in 1218, to the rank of a free im- perial city. Several changes in the principal Helvetian families took place in the thirteenth century, before the end of which the house of Hapsburg, under the politic and en- terprising Rodolph and his son Albert, became possessed, through various titles, of a great ascendency in Switzer- land. 2 Of these titles none was more tempting to an ambitious 1 Spondanns frequently blames the an Italian litterateur. De dictis et factU Italians, who received pensions from Mathiae, though it often notices an ordi- Matthias, or wrote at his court, for ex- nary saying as jocose or facete dictum, aggerating his virtues, or dissembling gives a favorable impression of Matthias's .his misfortunes. And this was probably ability, and also of his integrity. the case. However, Spondanus has - Pl.iTita's History of the Helvetic rather contracted a prejudice against the Confederacy, vol i chaps. 2-5. Corvini. A treatise of GaleotnsMartius, 584 THE SWISS CHAP. V Albert of chief than that of advocate to a convent. That Austria. specious name conveyed with it a kind of indefi- nite guardianship, and right of interference, which fre- quently ended in reversing the conditions of the ecclesiasti- cal sovereign and its vassal. But during times of feudal anarchy there was perhaps no other means to secure the rich abbeys from absolute spoliation ; and the free cities in their early stage sometimes adopted the same policy. Among other advocacies, Albert obtained that of some convents which had estates in the valleys of Schweitz and Underwald. These sequestered regions in the heart of the Alps had been for ages the habitation of a pastoral race, so happily forgotten, or so inaccessible in their fastnesses, as to have acquired a virtual independence, regulating their own affairs in their general assembly with a perfect equality, though they acknowledged the sovereignty of the empire. 1 The people of Schweitz had made Rodolph their advocate. They distrusted Albert, whose succession to his father's inheritance spread alarm through Helvetia. It soon appeared that their suspicions were well founded. Be- sides the local rights which his ecclesiastical advocacies gave him over part of the forest cantons, he pretended, after his election to the empire, to send imperial bailiffs into their val- leys, as administrators of criminal justice. Their oppression of a people unused to control, whom it was plainly the design of Albert to reduce into servitude, excited those generous emo- tions of resentment which a brave and simple race have sel- Their insur- dom the discretion to repress. Three men, Stauf- rection. facher of gchweitz, Furst of Uri, Melchthal of Underwald, each with ten chosen associates, met by night in a sequestered field, and swore to assert the common cause of their liberties, without bloodshed or injury to the rights of others. Their success was answerable to the justice of their undertaking ; the three cantons unanimously, took up arms, and expelled their oppressors without a contest. Albert's assassination by his nephew, which followed soon afterwards, fortunately gave them leisure to con- solidate their union. 2 He was succeeded in the empire by Henry VII., jealous of the Austrian family, and not at all 1 Planta's History of the Helyetic Confederacy, vol. i. c. 4. 2 Flanta, c. 6. SWISS CONFEDERACY. 585 displeased at proceedings which had been accompanied with so little violence or disrespect for the empire. But Leopold duke of Austria, resolved to humble the peasants who had rebelled against his father, led a considerable force into their country. The Swiss, commending themselves to Heaven, and determined rather to perish than undergo that yoke a second time, though ignorant of regular discipline, Battle of and unprovided with defensive armor, utterly dis- Morgarten. comfitted the assailants at Morgarten. 1 This great victory, the Marathon of Switzerland, confirmed the independence of the three original cantons. After some years, Lucerne, contiguous in situation and alike Formation of in interests, was incorporated into their confed- Swiss Con- eracy. It was far more materially enlarged about fec the middle of the fourteenth century, by the accession of Zurich, Glaris, Zug, and Berne, all which took place within two years. The first and last of these cities had already been engaged in frequent wars with the Helvetian nobility, and their internal polity was altogether republican. 2 They acquired, not independence, which they already enjoyed, but additional security, by this union with the Swiss, properly so called, who in deference to their power and reputation ceded to them the first rank in the league. The eight already enumerated are called the ancient cantons, and continued, till the late reformation of the Helvetic system, to possess several distinctive privileges and even rights of sovereignty over sub- ject territories, in which the five cantons of Friburg, Soleure, Basle, Schaffhausen, and Appenzell did not participate. From this time the united cantons, but especially those of Berne and Zurich, began to extend their territories at the expense of the rural nobility. The same contest between these parties, with the same termination, which we know generally to have taken place in Lombardy during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, may be traced with more minuteness in the annals of Switzerland. 8 Like the Lombards, too, the Helvetic cities acted with policy and moderation towards the nobles whom they overcame, admitting them to the franchises of their community as co-burghers (a privilege which vir- tually implied a defensive alliance against any assailant), and uniformly respecting the legal rights of property. Many iPlanta,o, 7. * Id. cc. 8, 9. * Id. c. 10. 586 SWISS CONFEDERACY CHAP. V feudal superiorities they obtained from the owners in a more peaceable manner, through purchase or mortgage. Thus the house of Austria, to which the extensive domains of the counts of Kyburg had devolved, abandoning, after repeated defeats, its hopes of subduing the forest cantons, alienated a great part of its possessions to Zurich and Berne. 1 And the last remnant of their ancient Helvetic territories in Argovia was wrested in 1417 from Frederic count of Tyrol, who, im- prudently supporting pope John XXIII. against the council of Constance, had been put to the ban of the empire. These conquests Berne could not be induced to restore, and thus completed the independence of the confederate republics. 3 The other free cities, though not yet incorporated, and the few remaining nobles, whether lay or spiritual, of whom the abbot of St. Gall was the principal, entered into separate leagues with different cantons. Switzerland became, there- fore, in the first part of the fifteenth century, a free country, acknowledged as such by neighboring states, arid subject to no external control, though still comprehended within the nominal sovereignty of the empire. The affairs of Switzerland occupy a very small space in the great chart of European history. But in some respects they are more interesting than the revolutions of mighty Kingdoms. Nowhere besides do we find so many titles to our sympathy, or the union of so much virtue with so complete success. In the Italian republics a more splendid temple may seem to have been erected to liberty ; but, as we ap- proach, the serpents of faction hiss around her altar, and the form of tyranny flits among the distant shadows behind the shrine. Switzerland, not absolutely blameless, (for what re- public has been so?) but comparatively exempt from turbu- lence, usurpation, and injustice, has well deserved to employ the native pen of an historian accounted the most eloquent of the last age. 8 Other nations displayed an insuperable resolu- 1 Planta, n. 11. ation In a modern historian of distant 2 Id. vol. ii. c. 1. times. But I must observe that, if the 3 I am -unacquainted with Muller's authentic chronicles of Switzerland have history in the original language ; but, enabled Muller to embellish his narra- presuming the first volume of Mr. Plan- tion with so much circumstantial de- ta's History of the Helvetic Confederacy tail, he has been remarkably fortunate to be a free translation or abridgment of in his authorities. No man could write it, I can well conceive that it deserves the the annals of England or France in the encomiums of Madame deStael and other fourteenth century with such particu- foreign critics. It is very rare to meet larity, if he was scrupulous not to fill up with such picturesque and lively deline- the meagre sketch of chroniclers from GERMA.VT. SWISS TBOOPS. 587 tion in the defence of walled towns ; but the steadiness of the Swiss in the field of battle was without a parallel, unless we recall the memory of Lacedajmon. It was even established as a law, that whoever returned from battle after a defeat should forfeit his life by the hands of the executioner. Six- teen hundred men, who had been sent to oppose a predatory invasion of the French in 1444, though they might have re- treated without loss, determined rather to perish on the spot, and fell amidst a far greater heap of the hostile slain. 1 At the famous battle of Sempach in 1385, the last which Aus- tria presumed to try against the forest cantons, the enemy's knights, dismounted from their horses, presented an impreg- nable barrier of lances, which disconcerted the Swiss ; till Winkelried, a gentleman of Underwald, commending his wife and children to his countrymen, threw himself upon the op- posite ranks, and collecting as many lances as he could grasp, forced a passage for his followers by burying them in his bosom. 2 The burghers and peasants of Switzerland, ill provided with cavalry, and better able to dispense with it EsceUence than the natives of champaign countries, may be of the Swiss deemed the principal restorers of the Greek and roops ' Roman tactics, which place the strength of armies in a steady mass of infantry. Besides their splendid victories over the dukes of Austria and their own neighboring nobility, they had repulsed, in the year 1375, one of those predatory bodies of troops, the scourge of Europe in that age, and to whose licentiousness kingdoms and free states yielded alike a passive submission. They gave the dauphin, afterwards Louis XL, who entered their country in 1444 with a similar body of ruffians, called Armagnacs, the disbanded mercenaries of the English war, sufficient reason to desist from his invasion and to respect their valor. That able prince formed indeed so high a notion of the Swiss, that he sedulously cultivated their alliance during the rest of his life. He was made abundantly sensible of the wisdom of this policy when he saw his greatest enemy, the duke of Burgundy, routed at Granson and Morat, and his affairs irrecoverably ruined, by these hardy repub- the stores of his invention. The striking another advantage as a painter of hi- Bcenery of Switzerland, and Muller's ex- tory. ct acquaintance with it, have given him i"Planta, vol. ii. c. 2. Id. vol. i. c. 10. 588 RATIFICATION OF CHAP. V. licans. The ensuing age is the most conspicuous, though not the most essentially glorious, in the history of Switzerland. Courted for the excellence of their troops by the rival sovereigns of Europe, and themselves too sensible both to ambitious schemes of dominion and to the thirst of money, the united cantons came to play a very prominent part in the wars of Lombardy, with great military renown, but not without some impeachment of that sterling probity which had distinguished their earlier efforts for independence. These events, however, do not fall within my limits ; but the last year of the fifteenth century is a leading epoch, ^ tSn- r ith which I shall close this sketch. Though the e house f Austria had ceased to menace the liberties of Helvetia, and had even been for many years its ally, the emperor Maximilian, aware of the important service he might derive from the cantons in his projects upon Italy, as well as of the disadvantage he sustained by their partiality to French interest, endeavored to revive the unextinguished supremacy of the empire. That supremacy had just been restored in Germany by the establishment of the Imperial Chamber, and of a regular pecuniary contribution for its support, as well as for other purposes, in the diet of Worms. The Helvetic cantons were summoned to yield obedience to these imperial laws ; an innovation, for such the revival of obsolete prerogatives must be considered, exceedingly hostile to their republican independence, and involving consequences not less material in their eyes, the abandonment of a line of policy, which tended to enrich, if not to aggrandize them. Their refusal to comply brought on a war, wherein the Tyrolese subjects of Maximilian, and the Suabian league, a confederacy of cities in that province lately formed under the emperor's auspices, were principally engaged against the Swiss. But the success of the latter was decisive ; and after a terrible devastation of the frontiers of Germany, peace was concluded upon terms very honorable for Switzerland. The cantons were declared free from the jurisdiction of the Impe- rial Chamber, and from all contributions imposed by the diet. Their right to enter into foreign alliance, even hostile to the empire, if it was not expressly recognized, continued unim- paired in practice ; nor am I aware that they were at any time afterwards supposed to incur the crime of rebellion by such proceedings. Though, perhaps, in the strictest letter GERMAHY. SWISS INDEPENDENCE. 589 of public law, the Swiss cantons were not absolutely released from their subjection to the empire until the treaty of West- phalia, their real sovereignty must Be dated by an historian from the year when every prerogative which a government can exercise was finally abandoned. 1 11. o. 4. 590 COMMENCEMENT OF MODERN HISTORY. CHAP. VL C11AFTEK VI. HISTORY OP THE GREEKS AND SARACENS. Rise of Mohammedism Causes of its Success Progress of Saracen Arms Greek Empire Decline of the Khalifs The Greeks recover Part of their Losses The Turks The Crusades Capture of Constantinople by the Latius Its Recovery by the Greeks The Moguls The Ottomans Danger at Constantinople Timur Capture of Constantinople by Mahomet II. Alarm of Europe. THE difficulty which occurs to us in endeavoring to fix a natural commencement of modern history even in the Western countries of Europe is much enhanced when we direct our attention to the Eastern empire. In tracing the long series of the Byzantine annals we never lose sight of antiquity ; the Greek language, the Roman name, the titles, the laws, all the shadowy circumstance of ancient greatness, attend us throughout the progress from the first to the last of the Con- stantines ; and it is only when we observe the external condition and relations of their empire, that we perceive ourselves to be embarked in a new sea, and are compelled to deduce, from points of bearing to the history of other nations, a line of separation which the domestic revolutions of Con- stantinople would not satisfactorily afford. The appearance of Mohammed, and the conquests of his disciples, present an epoch in the history of Asia still more important and more definite 'han the subversion of the Roman empire in Europe ; and hence the boundary-line between the ancient and modern divisions of Byzantine history will intersect the reign of He- raclim. That prince may be said to have stood on the verge of both hemispheres of time, whose youth was crowned with the last victories over the successors of Artaxerxes, and whose age was clouded by the first calamities of Moham- medan invasion. Of all the revolutions which have had a permanent influ- Appearance 6nce upon the civil history of mankind, none could of Moham- so little be anticipated by human prudence as that effected by the religion of Arabia. As the seeds of invisible disease grow up sometimes in silence to maturity, GBKEKS, ETC. APPEARANCE OF JIAHOMMED. 591 till they manifest themselves hopeless and irresistible, the gradual propagation of a new faith in a barbarous country beyond the limits of the empire was hardly known perhaps, and certainly disregarded, in the court of Constantinople. Arabia, in the age of Mohammed, was divided into many small states, most of which, however, seem to have looked up to Mecca as the capital of their nation and the chief seat of their religious worship. The capture of that city accord- ingly, and subjugation of its powerful and numerous aris- tocracy, readily drew after it the submission of the minor tribes, who transferred to the conqueror the reverence they were used to show to those he had subdued. If we consider Mohammed only as a military usurper, there is nothing more explicable or more analogous, especially to the course of oriental history, than his success. But as the author of a religious imposture, upon which, though avowedly unattested by miraculous powers, and though originally discountenanced by the civil magistrate, he had the boldness to found a scheme of universal dominion, which his followers were half enabled to realize, it is a curious speculation by what means he could inspire so sincere, so ardent, so energetic, and so permanent a belief. A full explanation of the causes which contributed to the progress of Mohammedism is not perhaps, at causes of present, attainable by those most conversant with i ^ 3 success, this department of literature. 1 But we may point out several of leading importance : in the first place, those just and elevated notions of the divine nature and of moral duties, the gold-ore that pervades the dross of the Koran, which were calculated to strike a serious and reflecting people, already perhaps dis- inclined, by intermixture with their Jewish and Christian fellow-citizens, to the superstitions of their ancient idolatry ; a next, the artful incorporation of tenets, usages, and traditions 1 We are very destitute of satisfactory prophet, except as it is deducible from materials for the history of Mohammed the Koran. himself. Abulfeda, the most judicious 3 The very curious romance of Antar of his biographers, lived in the fourteenth written, perhaps, before the appearanc century, when it must have been mor- of Mohammed, seems to render it proba ally impossible to discriminate the truth ble that, however idolatry, as we are amidst the torrent of fabulous tradition, told by Sale, might prevail in some parts Al Jannabi. whom Qagnier translated, is of Arabia, yet the genuine religion of a mere legend writer ; it would be as the descendants of Ishmael was a belief rational to rely on the Acta Sanctorum in the unity of God as strict as i? laij as his romance. It is therefore difficult down in the Koran itself, and accompa- to ascertain the real character of the rued by the same antipathy, partly re- 592 CAUSES OF THE CHAP. VI from the various religions that existed in Arabia; 1 and thirdly, the extensive application of the precepts in the Koran, a book confessedly written with much elegance and purity, to all legal transactions and all the business of life. It may be expected that I should add to these what is com- monly considered as a distinguishing mark of Mohammedism, its indulgence to voluptuousness. But this appears to be greatly exaggerated. Although the character of its founder may have been tainted by sensuality as well as ferociousness, I do not think that he relied upon inducements of the former kind for the diffusion of his system. We are not to judge of this by rules of Christian purity, or of European practice. If polygamy was a prevailing usage in Arabia, as is not questioned, its permission gave no additional license to the proselytes of Mohammed, who will be found rather to have narrowed the unbounded liberty of oriental manners in thia respect ; while his decided condemnation of adultery, and of incestuous connections, so frequent among barbarous nations, does not argue a very lax and accommodating morality. A devout Mussulman exhibits much more of the Stoical than the Epicurean character. Nor can any one read the Koran without being sensible that it breathes an austere and scrupu- lous spirit. And, in fact, the founder of a new religion or sect is little likely to obtain permanent success by indulging the vices and luxuries of mankind. I should rather be dis- posed to reckon the severity of Mohammed's discipline among the causes of its influence. Precepts of ritual observance, being always definite and unequivocal, are less likely to be neglected, after their obligation has been acknowledged, than those of liir.ous, partly national, towards the are to be found in the Koran, but spe- Fire-worshippers which Mohammed in- cially that of Arianism. No ou who culcated. This corroborates what I had knows what Arianism is, and what Mo- said in the text before the publication of hammedism is, could possibly fall ipto BO that work. strange an error. The misfortune has i I am very much disposed to believe, been, that the learned writer, whil ac- notwithstanding what seems to be the cumulating a mass of reading upon this general opinion, that Mohammed had part of his subject, neglected what should never read any part of the New Testa- have been the nucleus of the whole, . pe- meut. His knowledge of Christianity rusal of the single book which contains appears to be wholly derived from the the doctrine of the Arabian impostor, apocryphal gospels and similar works. In this strange chimera about the Arian- Ile admitted the miraculous conception ism of Mohammed, he has been led away and prophetic character of Jesus, but not by a misplaced trust in Whitaker; a his divinity or preexistence. Hence it writer almost invariably in the wrong, is rather surprising to read, in a popular and whose bad reasoning upon all tbt book of sermons by a living prelate, that points of historical criticism which b all the heresies of the Christian church attempted to discuss is quite notoriow*. (I quote the substance from memory) GREEKS, ETC. SUCCESS OF MAHOMMED. 593 moral virtue. Thus the long fasting, the pilgrimages, the regular prayers and ablutions, the constant alms-giving, the abstinence from stimulating liquors, enjoined by the Koran, created a visible standard of practice among its followers, and preserved a continual recollection of their law. But the prevalence of Islam in the lifetime of its prophet, and during the first ages of its existence, was chiefly owing to the spirit of martial energy that he infused into it. The religion of Mohammed is as essentially a military system as the institution of chivalry hi the west of Europe. The peo- ple of Arabia, a race of strong passions and sanguinary temper, inured to habits of pillage and murder, found in the law of their native prophet, not a license, but a command, to desolate the world, and the promise of all that their glowing imaginations could anticipate of Paradise annexed to all in which they most delighted upon earth. It is difficult for us in the calmness of our closets to conceive that feverish inten- sity of excitement to which man may be wrought, when the animal and intellectual energies of his nature converge to a point, and the buoyancy of strength and courage reciprocates the influence of moral sentiment or religious hope. The effect of this union I have formerly remarked in the Cru- sades ; a phenomenon perfectly analogous to the early history of the Saracens. In each, one hardly knows whether most to admire the prodigious exertions of heroism, or to revolt from the ferocious bigotry that attended them. But the Crusades were a temporary effort, not thoroughly congenial to the spirit of Christendom, which, even in the darkest and most superstitious ages, was not susceptible of the solitary and overruling fanaticism of the Moslem. They needed no excitement from pontiffs and preachers to achieve the work to which they were called ; the precept was in their law, the principle was in their hearts, the assurance of success was in their swords. " O prophet," exclaimed Ali, when Moham- med, in the first years of his mission, sought among the scanty and hesitating assembly of his friends a vizir and lieutenant in command, " I am the man ; whoever rises against thee, I will da>h out his teeth, tear out his eyes, break his legs, rip up his belly. O prophet, I will be thy vizir over them." l These words of Mohammed's early and 1 Gibljon, vol. is. p. 284. VOL. I. M. 38 594 CONQUESTS OF THE SARACENS. CHAP. VL illustrious disciple are, as it were, a text, upon which the commentary expands into the whole Saracenic history. They contain the vital essence of his religion, implicit faith and ferocious energy. Death, slavery, tribute to unbelievers, were the glad tidings of the Arabian prophet. To the idolaters, indeed, or those who acknowledged no special reve- lation, one alternative only was proposed, conversion or the sword. The people of the -Book, as they are termed in the Koran, or four sects of Christians, Jews, Magians, and Sa- bians, were permitted to redeem their adherence to their ancient law by the payment of tribute, and other mark? of humiliation and servitude. But the limits which Moham- medan intolerance had prescribed to itself were seldom transgressed ; the word pledged to unbelievers was seldom forfeited; and with all their insolence and oppression, the Moslem conquerors were mild and liberal in comparison with those who obeyed the pontiffs of Rome or Constanti- nople. At the death of Mohammed in 632 his temporal and religious sovereignty embraced, and was limited conquests by, the Arabian peninsula. The Roman and Saracens Persian empires, engaged in tedious and indeci- sive hostility upon the rivers of Mesopotamia and the Armenian mountains, were viewed by the ambitious fanatics of his creed as their quarry. In the very first year of Mohammed's immediate successor, Abubeker, each of these mighty empires was invaded. The latter opposed but a short resistance. The crumbling fabric of eastern despot- ism is never secure against rapid and total subversion ; a few victories, a few sieges, carried the Arabian arms from the Tigris" to the Oxus, and overthrew, with the Sassanian dynasty, the ancient and famous religion they had professed. Seven years of active and unceasing warfare sufficed to sub- A.D. jugate the rich province of Syria, though defended by numerous armies and fortified cities ; and the khalif Omar had scarcely returned thanks for the accom- plishment of this conquest, when Amrou, his lieutenant, announced to him the entire reduction of Egypt. After some interval the Saracens won their way along the coast A.D. of Africa as far as the Pillars of Hercules, and 64<-698. a third province was irretrievably torn from the Greek empire. These western conquests introduced them GREEKS, ETC. STATE OF THE GREEK EMPIRE. 595 to fresh enemies, and ushered in more splendid successes ; encouraged by the disunion of the Visigoths, and perhaps invited by treachery, Musa, the general of a master who sat beyond the opposite extremity of the Mediterra- A D 710 nean Sea, passed over into Spain, and within about two years the name of Mohammed was invoked under the Pyrenees. 1 These conquests, which astonish the careless and superfi- cial, are less perplexing to a calm inquirer than their cessation the loss of half the Roman empire, than the preservation of the rest. A glance from Medina to Constantinople state of in- the middle of the seventh century would proba- the Greek bly have induced an indifferent spectator, if such emplre - a being may be imagined, to anticipate by eight hundred years the establishment of a Mohammedan dominion upon the shores of the Hellespont. The fame of Heraclius had withered in the Syrian war ; and his successors appeared as incapable to resist, as they were unworthy to govern. Their despotism, unchecked by law, was often punished by success- ful rebellion ; but not a whisper of civil liberty was ever heard, and the vicissitudes of servitude and anarchy consum- mated the moral degeneracy of the nation. Less ignorant than the western barbarians, the Greeks abused their ingenuity in theological controversies, those especially which related to the nature and incarnation of our Saviour ; wherein the dis- putants, as is usual, became more positive and rancorous as their creed receded from the possibility of human apprehen- sion. Nor were these confined to the clergy, who had not, in the East, obtained the prerogative of guiding the national faith ; the sovereigns sided alternately with opposing factions ; Heraclius was not too brave, nor Theodora too infamous, for discussions of theology; and the dissenters from an imperial decision were involved in the double proscription of treason and heresy. But the persecutors of their opponents at home pretended to cowardly scrupulousness in the field ; nor was 1 Ockley's History of the Saracens ; trary, it may be laid down as a pretty Cardonne, Revolutions de 1'Afrique et general rule, that circumstantiality, de 1'Espagne. The former of these works which enhances the credibility of a wit- is well known and justly admired for ness, diminishes that of an historian re- its simplicity and picturesque details, mote in time or situation. And I observe Scarcely any narrative has ever excelled that Keiske, in his preface to Abulfeda, in beauty that of the death of Hossein. speaks of \Vakidi, from whom Ockley's But these do not tend to render it more book is but a translation, as a mere fab- deserving of confidence. On the con- ulieit. 596 DECLINE OF THE SARACENS. CHAP. Vl. the Greek church ashamed to require the lustration of a canonical penance from the soldier who shed the blood of his enemies in a national war. But this depraved people were preserved from destruction Decline ty" the vices of their enemies, still more than by some intrinsic resources which they yet possessed. A rapid degeneracy enfeebled the victorious Mos- lem in their career. That irresistible enthusiasm, that earnest and disinterested zeal of the companions of Mohammed, was in a great measure lost, even before the first generation had passed away. In the fruitful valleys of Damascus and Bas- so ra the Arabs of the desert forgot their abstemious habits. Rich from the tributes of an enslaved people, the Mohamme- dan sovereigns knew no employment of riches but in sensual luxury, and paid the price of voluptuous indulgence in the relaxation of their strength and energy. Under the reign of Moawiah, the fifth khalif, an hereditary succession was sub- stituted for the free choice of the faithful, by which the first representatives of the prophet had been elevated to power ; and this regulation, necessary as it plainly was to avert in some degree the dangers of schism and civil war, exposed the kingdom to the certainty of being often governed by feeble tyrants. But no regulation could be more than a temporary preservative against civil war. The dissensions which still separate and render hostile the followers of Mohammed may be traced to the first events that ensued upon his death, to the rejection of his son-in-law AH by the electors of Medina. Two reigns, those of Abubeker and Omar, passed in external glory and domestic reverence ; but the old age of Othman was weak and imprudent, and the conspirators against him established the first among a hundred precedents of rebellion and regicide. Ali was now chosen ; but a strong faction dis- puted his right ; and the Saracen empire was, for many years, distracted with civil war, among competitors who appealed, in reality, to no other decision than that of the sword. The family of Ommiyah succeeded at last in establishing an unre- sisted, if not an undoubted title. But rebellions were perpet- ually afterwards breaking out in that vast extent of dominion, till one of these revolters acquired by success a better name than rebel, and founded the dynasty of the Abbassides. Damascus had been the seat of empire under the Ommi- GREEKS, ETC. K1TATTFS OF BAGDAD. 597 ades ; it was removed by the succeeding family to Khaiis of their new city of Bagdad. There are not any Bagdad, names in the long line of khalifs, after the companions of Mohammed, more renowned in history than some of the earlier sovereigns who reigned in this capital Almansor, Plaroun Alraschid, and Almamun. Their splendid palaces, their numerous guards, then* treasures of gold and silver, the populousness and wealth of their cities, formed a striking contrast to the rudeness and poverty of the western nations in the same age. In their court learning, which the first Moslem had despised as unwarlike or rejected as profane, was held in honor. 1 The khalif Almamun especially was distinguished for his patronage of letters ; the philosophical writings of Greece were eagerly sought and translated ; the stars were numbered, the course of the planets was measured. The Arabians improved upon the science they borrowed, and returned it with abundant interest to Europe in the commu- nication of numeral figures and the intellectual language of algebra. 2 Yet the merit of the Abbassides has been exagger- ated by adulation or gratitude. After all the vague praises of hireling poets, which have sometimes been repeated in Europe, it is very rare to read the history of an eastern sov- ereign unstained by atrocious crimes. No Christian govern- ment, except perhaps that of Constantinople, exhibits such a series of tyrants as the khalifs of Bagdad ; if deeds of blood, wrought through unbridled passion or jealous policy, may challenge the name of tyranny. These are ill redeemed by ceremonious devotion and acts of trifling, perhaps ostentatious, humility, or even by the best attribute of Mohammedan princes a rigorous justice in chastising the offences of others. Anecdotes of this description give as imperfect a sketch of an oriental sovereign as monkish chroniclers some- times draw of one in Europe who founded monasteries and i The Arabian writers date the origin Philological Arrangement \a perhaps a of their literature (except those works of book better known ; and though it baa fiction which had always been popular) since been much excelled, was one of the from the reign of Almansor, A.D. 758. first contributions in our own language Abulpharagins, p. 160 ; Gibbon, c. 52. to this department, in which a great deal * Several very recent publications con- yet remains for the oriental scholars of tain interesting details on Saracen litera- Europe. Casiri's admirable catalogue of ture : Berington's Literary History of Arabic MSS. in the Escurial ought before the Middle Ages, Mill's History of Mo- this to have been followed up by a more hammedanism, chap. yi.. Turner's His- accurate examination of their contents orv of England, vol. i. Harris's than it was possible for him to giT 598 SEPARATION OF SPAIN AND AFRICA. CHAP. VI obeyed the clergy ; though it must be owned that the former are in much better taste. Though the Abbassides have acquired more celebrity, they never attained the real strength of their predecessors. Under the last of the house of Ominiyah, one command was obeyed almost along the whole diameter of the known world, from the banks of the Sihon to the utmost promontory of Portugal. But the revolution which changed the' succession of klialifs produced another not less important. A fugitive of the van- quished family, by name Abdalrahman, arrived in Spain and the Moslem of that country, not sharing in the prejudices Separation which had stirred up the Persians in favor of the of Spain line of Abbas, and conscious that their remote sit- and Africa. uat j on en titled them to independence, proclaimed him khalif of Cordova. There could be little hope of re- ducing so distant a dependency; and the example was not unh'kely to be imitated. In the reign of Haroun Alraschid two principalities were formed in Africa of the Aglabites, who reigned over Tunis and Tripoli ; and of the Edrisites in the western parts of Barbary. These yielded in about a century to the Fatimites, a more powerful dynasty, who after- wards established an empire in Egypt. 1 The loss, however, of Spain and Africa was the inevitable effect of that immensely extended dominion, which their sepa- ration alone would not have enfeebled. But other revolutions Decline of awaited it at home. In the history of the Abas- the khaiifi. s {fa s o f Bagdad we read over again the decline of European monarchies, through their various symptoms of ruin ; and find successive analogies to the insults of the bar- barians towards imperial Rome in the fifth century, to the per- sonal insignificance of the Merovingian kings, and to the feu- dal usurpations that dismembered the inheritance of Charle- magne. 1. Beyond the northeastern frontier of the Sar- acen empire dwelt a warlike and powerful nation of the Tartar family, who defended the independence of Turkestan from the sea of Aral to the great central chain of mountains. In the wars which the khalifs or their lieutenants waged against them many of these Turks were led into captivity, and dispersed over the empire. Their strength and courage dis- 1 For these revolutions, which it is not Cardonne, who has made as much of very easy to fix in the memory, consult them as the subject would bear. GKEEKS, ETC. DECLESTE OF THE KHALIFS 599 languished them among a people grown effeminate by lux ury ; and that jealousy of disaffection among his subjects so natural to an eastern monarch might be an additional motive with the khalif Motassem to form bodies of guards out of these prisoners. But his policy was fatally erroneous. More rude and even more ferocious than the Arabs, they contemned the feebleness of the khalifate, while they grasped at its riches. The son of Motassem, Motavvakkel, was murdered in his palace by the barbarians of the north ; and his fate re- vealed the secret of the empire, that the choice of its sover- eign had passed to their slaves. Degradation and death were frequently the lot of succeeding khalifs ; but in the East the son leaps boldly on the throne which the blood of his father has stained, and the praetorian guards of Bagdad rarely failed to render a fallacious obedience to the nearest heir of the house of Abbas. 2. In about one hundred years after the introduction of the Turkish soldiers the sovereigns of Bagdad sunk almost into oblivion. Al Radi, who died in 940, was the last of these that officiated in the mosque, that command- ed the forces in person, that addressed the people from the pulpit, that enjoyed the pomp and splendor of royalty. 1 But he was the first who appointed, instead of a vizir, a new offi- cer a mayor, as it were, of the palace with the title of Emir al Omra, commander of commanders, to whom he dele- gated by compulsion the functions of his office. This title was usually seized by active and martial spirits ; it was some- times hereditary, and in effect irrevocable by the khalifs, whose names hardly appear after this time in Oriental annals. 3. During these revolutions of the palace every province successively shook off its allegiance ; new principalities were formed in Syria and Mesopotamia, as well as in Khorasan and Persia, till the dominion of the Commander of the Faith- ful was literally confined to the city of Bagdad and its adja- cent territory. For a time some of these princes, who had been appointed as governors by the khalifs, professed to re- spect his supremacy by naming him in the public prayers and upon the coin ; but these tokens of dependence were gradually obliterated. 2 1 Abulfeda, p 261 ; Gibbon, c. 62 ; discussed in thw 52nd chapter of Gibbon, Modern Uuir. Hist. vol. ii. Al Radi's which is, in itself, a complete philo- command of the army is only mentioned sophical dissertation upon this part of by the last. history 2 The decline of the Saracens is fully GOO REVIVAL OF CHAP. VI. Such is the outline of Saracenic history for three centuries Revival of after Mohammed ; one age of glorious conquest ; a the Greek second of stationary but rather precarious great- ness ; -a third of rapid decline. The Greek empire meanwhile survived, and almost recovered from the shock it had sustained. Besides the decline of its enemies, several circumstances may be enumerated tending to its preservation. The maritime province of Cilicia had been overrun by the Mohammedans ; but between this and the Lesser Asia Mount Taurus raises its massy buckler, spreading as a natural bul- wark from the sea-coast of the ancient Pamphylia to the hilly district of Isauria, whence it extends in an easterly direction, separating the Cappadocian and Cilician plains, and, after throwing off considerable ridges to the north and south, con- nects itself with other chains of mountains that penetrate far into the Asiatic continent. Beyond this barrier the Saracens formed no durable settlement, though the armies of Alraschid wasted the country as far as the Hellespont, and the city of Amorium, in Phrygia, was razed to the ground by Al Motas- sem. The position of 'Constantinople, chosen with a sagacity to which the course of events almost gave the appearance of prescience, secured her from any immediate danger on the side of Asia, and rendered her as little accessible to an enemy as any city which valor and patriotism did not protect. Yet A.D. 668. m ^ e days of Arabian energy she was twice at- tacked by great naval armaments. The first siege, or rather blockade, continued for seven years ; the second, though shorter, was more terrible, and her walls, as well as her port, were actually invested by the combined forces of the khalif Waled, under his brother Moslema. 1 The final discomfiture of these assailants showed the resisting force of the empire, or rather of its capital ; but perhaps the aban- donment of such maritime enterprises by the Saracens may be in some measure ascribed to the removal of their metrop- olis from Damascus to Bagdad. But the Greeks in their turn determined to dispute the command of the sea. By pos- sessing the secret of an inextinguishable fuc, they fought on superior terms ; their wealth, perhaps their skill, enabled them to employ larger and better appointed vessels ; and they ulti- mately expelled ttteir enemies from the islands of Crete and i Gibbon, c. 52 GREEKS, ETC. THE GEEEK EMPIRE. 601 Cyprus. By land they were less desirous of encountering the Moslem. The science of tactics is studied by the pusillani- mous, like that of medicine by the sick ; and the Byzantine emperors, Leo and Constantine, have left written treatises on the art of avoiding defeat, of protracting contest, of resisting attack. 1 But this timid policy, and even the purchase of ar mistices from the Saracens, were not ill calculated for the state of both nations. "While Constantinople temporized, Bagdad shook to her foundations ; and the heirs of the Roman name might boast the immortality of their own empire when they contemplated the dissolution of that which had so rapidly sprung up and perished. Amidst all the crimes and revolu- tions of the Byzantine government and its history is but a series of crimes and revolutions it was never dismembered by intestine war. A sedition in the army, a tumult in the theatre, a conspiracy in the palace, precipitated a monarch from the throne ; but the iallegiance of Constantinople was instantly transferred to his successor, and the provinces im- plicitly obeyed the voice of the capital. The custom too of partition, so baneful to the Latin kingdoms, and which was not altogether unknown to the Saracens, never prevailed in the Greek empire. It stood in the middle of the tenth century, as vicious indeed and cowardly, but more wealthy, more en- lightened, and far more secure from its enemies than under the first successors of Heraclius. For about one hundred years preceding there had been only partial wars with the Mohammedan potentates ; and in these the emperors seem gradually to have gained the advantage, and to have become more frequently the aggressors. But the increasing distrac- tions of the East encouraged two brave usurpers, A .D. Nicephorus Phocas and John Zimisces, to attempt 96S - 975 - the actual recovery of the lost provinces. They carried the Roman arms (one may use the term with less reluctance than usual) over Syria ; Antioch and Aleppo were taken by storm ; Damascus submitted ; even the cities of Mesopotamia, beyond the ancient boundary of the Euphrates, were added to the trophies of Zimisces, who unwillingly spared the cap- ital of the khalifate. From such distant conquests it was expedient, and indeed necessary, to withdraw ; but Cilicia i Gibbon, o. 63. roger to tb trays 602 CONQUESTS OF THE TURKS. CHAP. VL and Antioch were permanently restored to the empire. At the close of the tenth century the emperors of Constantinople possessed the best and greatest portion of the modern king- dom of Naples, a part of Sicily, the whole European domin- ions of the Ottomans, the province of Anatolia or Asia Minor, with some part of Syria and Armenia. 1 These successes of the Greek empire were certainly much rather due to the weakness of its enemies than to any revival of national courage and vigor ; yet they would probably have The Turks Deen more durable if the contest had been only with the khalifate, or the kingdoms derived from it. But a new actor was to appear on the stage of Asiatic tragedy. The same Turkish nation, the slaves and captives from which had become arbiters of the sceptre of Bagdad, passed their original limits of the laxartes or Sihon. The sultans of Ghazna, a dynasty whose splendid conquests were of very short duration, had deemed it politic to divide the strength of these formidable allies by inviting a part of them into Khorasan. They covered that fertile province with their pastoral tents, and beckoned their compatriots to share Their *he r ' c h es OI * the south. The Ghaznevides fell conquests, the earliest victims ; but Persia, violated in turn A ' D ' ' by every conqueror, was a tempting and unresist- ing prey. Togrol Bek, the founder of the Seljukian dynasty of Turks, overthrew the family of Bowides, who had long reigned at Ispahan, respected the pageant of Mohammedan sovereignty in the khalif of Bagdad, embraced with all his tribes the religion of the vanquished, and commenced the at- tack upon Christendom by an irruption into Armenia. His nephew and successor Alp Arslan defeated and took prisoner the emperor Romanus Diogenes ; and the conquest of Asia Minor was almost completed by princes 01 the same family, the Seljukians of Rum, 2 who were permitted by Malek Shah, the third sultan of the Turks, to form an in- dependent kingdom. Through their own exertions, and the selfish impolicy of rival competitors for the throne of Con- stantinople, who bartered the strength of the empire for as- sistance, the Turks became masters of the Asiatic cities and 1 Gibbon, c. 62 and 53. The latter of cally, according to the order of time but these chapters contains as luminous a philosophically, according to their lela- gketch of the condition of Greece as the tious. former does of Saracenic history. In 2 Rum, i. e. country of the Romans, each, thj facts are uot grouped histori- GREEKS, ETC. PROGRESS OF THE GREEKS. 603 fortified passes ; nor did there seem any obstacle to the inva- sion of Europe. 1 In this state of jeopardy the Greek empire looked for aid to the nations of the West, and received it in fuller The first measure than was expected, or perhaps desired, ^u*" 18 - The deliverance of Constantinople was indeed a very second- ary object with the crusaders. But it was necessarily -in- cluded in their scheme of operations, which, though they all tended to the recovery of Jerusalem, must commence with the first enemies that lay on their line of march. The Turks were entirely defeated, their capital of Nice restored to the empire. As the Franks passed onwards, the emperor Alexius Comnenus trod on their footsteps, and secured to himself the fruits for which their enthusiasm disdained to wait. He regained possession of the strong" places on the JEgean shores, of the defiles of Bithynia, and of the entire coast of Asia Minor, both on the Euxine and Mediterranean seas, which the Turkish armies, composed of cavalry and unused to regular warfare, could not recover. 2 So much must undoubtedly be ascribed to the first crusade. But I think that the general effect of these expeditions has been overrated by those who consider them as having permanently retarded the progress of the Turkish power. The progress of Christians in Palestine and Syria were hardly in the Greeks, contact with the Seljukian kingdom of Rum, the only ene- mies of the empire ; and it is not easy to perceive that their small and feeble principalities, engaged commonly in defend- ing themselves against the Mohammedan princes of Meso- potamia, or the Fatimite khalifs of Egypt, could obstruct the arms of a sovereign of Iconium upon the Maeander or the Halys. Other causes are adequate to explain the equipoise in which the balance of dominion in Anatolia was kept during the twelfth century : the valor and activity of the two Comneni, John and Manuel, especially the former ; and the frequent partitions and internal feuds, through which the Seljukians of Iconium, like all other Oriental governments, became incapable of foreign aggression. But whatever obligation might be due to the first crusaders from the Eastern empire was cancelled by their descend- i Gibbon, c. 57 ; De Guignes, Hist, des was reannexed to the empire during the Huns, t. ii. 1. 2. reign of Alexius, or of his gallant eon * It does not seem perfectly clear John Comnenusi But the doubt if whether the sea-coast, north and south, hardly worth noticing. G04 CAPTURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE. CHAP. VL ants one hundred years afterwards, when the fourth in num- Captureof ber of those expeditions was turned to the sub- nopfe t by tl " jugation of Constantinople itself. One of those the Latins, domestic revolutions which occur perpetually in Byzantine history had placed an usurper on the imperial throne. The lawful monarch was condemned to blindness and a prison ; but the heir escaped to recount his misfortunes to the fleet and army of crusaders assembled in the Dalmatian port of Zara. This armament had been collected for the usual purposes, and through the usual motives, temporal and spiritual, of a crusade ; the military force chiefly consisted of French nobles ; the naval was sup- plied by the republic of Venice, whose doge commanded personally in the expedition. It was not apparently consis- tent with the primary object of retrieving the Christian affairs in Palestine to interfere in the government of a Christian empire ; but the temptation of punishing a faithless people, and the hope of assistance in their subsequent operations, prevailed. They turned their prows up the Archipelago ; and, notwithstanding the vast population and defensible strength of Constantinople, compelled the usurper to fly, and the citizens to surrender. But animosities spring- ing from religious schism and national jealousy were not likely to be allayed by such remedies ; the Greeks, wounded in their pride and bigotry, regarded the legitimate emperor as a creature of their enemies, ready to sacrifice their church, a stipulated condition of his restoration, to that of Rome. In a few months a new sedition and conspiracy raised another usurper in defiance of the crusaders' army encamped without the walls. The siege instantly recommenced ; and after three months the city of Constantinople was taken by storm. The tale of pillage and murder is always uniform ; but the calamities of ancient capitals, like those of the great, impress us more forcibly. Even now we sym- pathize with the virgin majesty of Constantinople, decked with the accumulated wealth of ages, and resplendent with the monuments of Roman empire and of Grecian art. Her populousness is estimated beyond credibility : ten, twenty, thirty-fold that of London or Paris ; certainly far beyond the united capitals of all European kingdoms in that age. 1 In 1 Ville Hardouin reckons the inhabit- mil nommes ou plus, by which Gibbon ants of Constantinople at quatre cens understands him to mean men of a mill- GREEKS, ETC. PARTITION OF THE EMPIRE. 605 magnificence she excelled them more than in numbers ; instead of the thatched roofs, the mud walls, the narrow streets, the pitiful buildings of those cities, she had marble and gilded palaces, churches and monasteries, the works of skilful architects, through nine centuries, gradually sliding frdm the severity of ancient taste into the more various and brilliant combinations of eastern fancy. 1 In the libraries of Constantinople were collected the remains of Grecian learning ; her forum and hippodrome were decorated with those of Grecian sculpture ; but neither would be spared by undistinguishing rapine ; nor were the chiefs of the crusaders more able to appreciate the loss than their soldiery. Four horses, that breathe in the brass of Lysippus, were removed from Constantinople to the square of St. Mark at Venice; destined again to become the trophies of war, and to follow the alternate revolutions of conquest. But we learn from a contemporary Greek to deplore the fate of many other pieces of sculpture, which were destroyed in wantonness, or even coined into brass money. 2 The lawful emperor and his son had perished in the rebellion that gave occasion to this catastrophe ; partition of and there remained no right to interfere with that the em P ire - of conquest. But the Latins were a promiscuous multitude, and what their independent valor had earned was not to be transferred to a single master. Though the name of emperor seemed necessary for the government of Constantinople, the unity of despotic power was very foreign to the principles and the interests of the crusaders. In their selfish schemes of aggrandizement they tore in pieces the Greek empire. One fourth only was allotted to the emperor, three eighths were the share of the republic of Venice, and the remainder was divided among the chiefs. . Baldwin count of Flanders obtained the imperial title, with the feudal sovereignty over the minor principalities. A monarchy thus dismembered had tary age. Le Beau allows a million for latia sunt in ea, opere mero febrefacta ! the whole population. Gibbon, vol. xi. quo etiam in plateis vel in vicis opera p. 213. We should probably rate Lon- ad spectandum mirabilia! Taedium eg* don, in 1204, too high at 60.000 souls, qiiidem magnum recitare, quanta sit ibi Paris had been enlarged by Philip Au- opulentia bonorum omnium, auri et gustus, and stood on more ground than argenti palliorum muitiformium. sacra- London. Delamare sur la Police, t. i. p. rumque reliquiarum. Omni etiam tem- 76. pore, navigio frequentl cuncta horninum i quanta civitas, exclaims Fulk of necessaria illuc afferuntur. Du Chesne, Gbartres a hundred years before, nobilis Scrip. Keruiu Gallicaruin, t. iy. p. 822. t decora! quot monasturia quotque oa- '-' Gibbon, c. 60 GOG INVASIONS OF ASIA. CHAP. Vt. little prospect of honor or durability. The Latin emperors of Constantinople were more contemptible and unfortunate, not so much from personal character as political weakness, than their predecessors ; their vassals rebelled against sover- eigns not more powerful than themselves ; the Bulgarians, a nation who, after being long formidable, had been subdued -by the imperial arms, and only recovered independence on the eve of the Latin conquest, insulted their capital ; the Greeks The Greeks viewed them with silent hatred, and hailed the recover Con- dawning deliverance from the Asiatic coast. On that side of the Bosphorus the Latin usurpation was scarcely for a moment acknowledged ; Nice became the seat of a Greek dynasty, who reigned with honor as far as the Maeander ; and crossing into Europe, after having estab- 2 .. lished their dominion throughout Romania and other provinces, expelled the last Latin emperors from Constantinople in less than sixty years from its capture. During the reign of these Greeks at Nice they had for- tunately little to dread on the side of their former enemies, and were generally on terms of friendship with the Selju- kians of Iconium. That monarchy indeed had sufficient ob- jects of apprehension for itself. Their own example in , changing the upland plains of Tartary for the cul- Inyasums of . . ,, , . . . Asia by the tivated valleys or the south was imitated in the Karismians, thirteenth century by two successive hordes of northern barbarians. The Karismians, whose tents had been pitched on the lower Oxus and Caspian Sea, availed themselves of the decline of the Turkish power to establish their dominion In Persia, and menaced, though they dkl not overthrow, the kingdom of Iconium. A more tremendous storm ensued in the eruption of Moguls under the sons of Zingis Khan. From the farthest regions of Chinese Tartary issued a race more fierce and destitute of civilization than those who had preceded, whose numbers were told by hundreds of thousands, and whose only test of victory was devastation. All Asia, from the sea of China to the A.D 1218. Euxine, wasted beneath the locusts of the north. A.D. 1272. They annihilated the phantom of authority which still lingered with the name of khalif at Bagdad. They re- duced into dependence and finally subverted the Seljukian dynasties of Persia, Syria, and Iconium. The Turks of the latter kingdom betook themselves to the mountainous country, GREEKS, ETC. THE OTTOMANS. G07 where they formed several petty principalities, which sub- sisted by incursions into the territory of the Moguls or the Greeks. The chief of one of these, named Oth- man, at the end of the thirteenth century, pene- A ' trated into the province of Bithynia, from which his pos- terity were never withdrawn. 1 The empire of Constantinople had never recovered the blow it received at the hands of the Latins. Most of the islands in the Archipelago, and the provinces ftate of D fne of proper Greece from Thessaly southward, were Gree . k still possessed by those invaders. The wealth and e naval power of the empire had passed into the hands of the maritime republics ; Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and Barcelona were enriched by a commerce which they carried on as independent states within the precincts of Constantinople, scarcely deign- ing to solicit the permission or recognize the supremacy of its master. In a great battle fought under the walls of the city between the Venetian and Geno- A ' ese fleets, the weight of the Roman empire, in Gibbon's expression, was scarcely felt in the balance of these opulent and powerful republics. Eight galleys were the contribution of the emperor Cantacuzene to his Venetian allies ; and upon their defeat he submitted to the ignominy of excluding them forever from trading in his dominions. Meantime the re- mains of the empire in Asia were seized by the independent Turkish dynasties, of which the most illustrious, The that of the Ottomans, occupied the province of ottomans. Bithynia. Invited by a Byzantine faction into A-D " 1431 ' Europe, about the middle of the fourteenth century, they fixed themselves in the neighborhood of the capital, and in the thirty years' reign of Amurath I. subdued, with little re- sistance, the province of Romania and the small Christian kingdoms that had been formed on the lower Danube. Ba- jazet, the successor of Amurath, reduced the independent emirs of Anatolia to subjection, and, after long threatening Constantinople, invested it by sea and land. The Greeks called loudly upon their brethren of the West for aid against the common enemy of Christendom ; A ' but the flower of French chivalry had been slain or taken in the battle of Nicopolis in Bulgaria, 2 where the king of Hun- i De Guignes. Hist. des.Huns, t. iii. 1. 2 The Hungarians fled in this battle 15; Gibbon, c. 64 and deserted their allies, according to 608 THE TARTARS OR MOGULS. CHAP. VI. gaiy, notwithstanding the heroism of these volunteers, was entirely defeated by Bajazet. The emperor Manuel left his capital with a faint hope of exciting the courts of Europe to some decided efforts by personal representations of the danger; and, during his absence, Constantinople was saved, not by a friend, indeed, but by a power more formidable to her ene- mies than to herself. The loose masses of mankind, that, without laws, agricul The Tartars ^ ure ? or fi xe( ! dwellings, overspread the vast centra or Moguls regions of Asia, have, at various times, been im~ mr ' pelled by necessity of subsistence, or through the casual appearance of a commanding genius, upon, the domain of culture and civilization. Two principal roads connect the nations of Tartary with those of the west and south ; the one into Europe along the sea of Azoph and northern coast of the Euxine; the other across the interval between the Buk- harian mountains and the Caspian into Persia. Four times at least within the period of authentic history the Scythian tribes have taken the former course and poured themselves into Europe, but each wave was less effectual than the pre- ceding. The first of these was in the fourth and fifth cen- turies, for we may range those rapidly successive migrations of the Goths and Huns together, when the Roman empire fell to the ground, and the only boundary of barbarian con- quest was the Atlantic ocean upon the shores of Portugal. The second wave came on with the Hungarians in the tenth century, whose ravages extended as far as the southern prov- inces of France. A third attack was sustained from the Moguls under the children of Zingis at the same period as that which overwhelmed Persia. The Russian monarchy was destroyed in this invasion, and for two hundred years that great country lay prostrate under the yoke of the Tartars. As they advanced, Poland and Hungary gave little opposi tion; and the farthest nations of Europe were appalled by the tempest. But Germany was no longer as she had been in the anarchy of the tenth century; the Moguls were un- the Memoires de Bou. -leant, c. 25. But very high price. Many of eminent birth 1'roissart, who seems a fairer authority, and merit were put to death ; a fate mputes the defeat to the rashness of the from which Boucicaut was saved by the French. Part iv. ch. 79. The count de interference of the count de Xevers. who Nevers (Jean Sans Pear, afterwards duke might better himself have perished with of Burgundy), who commanded the honor on that occasion than survived to French, was made prisoner with others plunge his country into civil war and hia of the roval blood, and ransomed at a name into infamy GREEKS, ETC. DEFEAT OF BAJAZET. 609 used to resistance, and still less inclined to regular warfare ; they retired before the emperor Frederic II., and the utmost points of their western invasion were the cities of \ . . . .. . 1 -T 1 T A.D. 1245. JLignitz in bilesia and Neustadt in Austria. In the fourth and last aggression of the Tartars their progress in Europe is hardly perceptible; the Moguls of Timur's army could only boast the destruction of Azoph and the pil- lage of some Russian provinces. Timur, the sovereign of these Moguls and founder of their second dynasty, which has been more permanent and celebrated than that of Zingis, had been the prince of a small tribe in Transoxiana, between the Gihon and Sirr, the doubtful frontier of settled and pastoral nations. His own energy and the weakness of his neighbors are sufficient to explain the revolution he effected. Like former conquerors, Togrol Bek and Zingis, he chose the road through Persia ; arid, meeting little resistance from the dis- ordered governments of Asia, extended his empire on one side to the Syrian coast, while by successes still more re- nowned, though not belonging to this place, it reached on the other to the heart of Hindostan. In his old age the restless- ness of ambition impelled him against the Turks of Anatolia. Bajazet hastened from the siege of Constantinople to a more perilous contest : his defeat and captivity in the j^^ of plains of Angora clouded for a time the Ottoman Bajazet. crescent, and preserved the wreck of the Greek A ' D ' empire for fifty, years longer. The Moguls did not improve their victory ; in the western parts of Asia, as in Hindostan, Timur was but a D-m^of barbarian destroyer, though at Samarcand a sov- constanti- ereign and a legislator. He gave up Anatolia to n the sons of Bajazet ; but the unity of their power was broken ; and the Ottoman kingdom, like those which had preceded, experienced the evils of partition and mutual animosity. For about twenty years an opportunity was given to the Greeks of recovering part of their losses ; but they were incapable' of making the best use of this advantage, and, though they regained possession of part of Romania, did not extirpate a strong Turkish colony that held the city of Galli- poli in the Chersonesus. When Amurath II., there- 1421 fore, reunited under his vigorous sceptre the Otto- man monarchy, Constantinople was exposed to another siege and to fresh losses. Her walls, however, repelled the enemy ; VOL. i. M. 39 G10 FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. CHAP. VL and during the reign of Amurath she had leisure to repeat those signals of distress which the princes of Christendom refused to observe. The situation of Europe was, indeed sufficiently inauspicious ; France, the original country of the crusades and of chivalry, wa^involved in foreign and domestic war ; while a schism, apparently interminable, rent the bosom of the Latin church and impaired the efficiency of the only power that could unite and animate its disciples in a religious war. Even when the Roman pontiffs were best disposed to rescue Constantinople from destruction, it was rather as masters than as allies that they would interfere ; their ungen- erous bigotry, or rather pride, dictated the submission of her church and the renunciation of her favorite article of dis- tinctive faith. The Greeks .yielded with reluctance and insincerity in the council of Florence ; but soon rescinded their treaty of union. Ugenius IV. procured a short diver- A D 1444 s ^ on on *^e s ^ e ^ Hungary ; but after the un- fortunate battle of Warna the Hungarians were abundantly employed in self-defence. The two monarchies which have successively held their seat in the city of Constantine may be contrasted in the cir- cumstances of their decline. In the present day we anticipate, with an assurance that none can deem extravagant, the ap- proaching subversion of the Ottoman power ; but the signs of internal weakness have not yet been confirmed by the dis- memberment of provinces ; and the arch of dominion, that long since has seemed nodding to its fall and totters at every blast of the north, still rests upon the landmarks of ancient conquest, and spans the ample regions from Bagdad to Bel- grade. Far different were the events that preceded the disso- lution of the Greek empire. Every province was in turn subdued every city opened her gates to the conqueror : the limbs were lopped off one by one; but the pulse still beat at the heart, .arid the majesty of the Ro- man name was - ultimately confined to the walls of Constanti- nople. Before Mahomet II. planted his cannon against them, he had completed every smaller conquest and deprived the expiring empire of every hope of succor or delay. It was necessary thai Constantinople should fall ; but the magnani- mous resignation of her emperor bestows an honor upon her ID 1453 ^ w hich her prosperity seldom earned. The long deferred but inevitable moment arrived ; and GREEKS, ETC. , . i f Si- in Europe, sentiment or consternation, perhaps of selt- reproach, thrilled to the heart of Christendom. There seemed no longer anything to divert the Ottoman armies from Hungary; and if Hungary should be subdued, it was evident that both Italy and the German empire were exposed to invasion. 1 A general union of Christian powers was re- quired to withstand this common enemy. But the popes, who had so often armed them against each other, wasted their spiritual and political counsels in attempting to restore una- nimity. War was proclaimed against the Turks at the diet of Frankfort, in 1454; but no efforts were made to carry the menace into execution. No prince could have sat on the im- perial throne more unfitted for the emergency than Frederic III. ; his mean spirit and narrow capacity exposed him to the contempt of mankind his avarice and duplicity ensured the hatred of Austria and Hungary. During the papacy of Pius II., whose heart was thoroughly engaged in this legitimate crusade, a more specious attempt was made by convening an European congress at Mantua. Almost all the sovereigns attended by their envoys ; it was concluded that 50,000 men- at-arms should be raised, and a tax levied for three years of one tenth from the revenues of the clergy, A ' one thirtieth from those of the laity, and one twentieth from the capital of the Jews. 2 Pius engaged to head this arma- 1 Sive vincitur Hungaria, give coacta * Spondanus. Neither Charles VII. jungitur Turcis, neque Italia neque nor even Philip of Burgundy, who had Hermania tuta erit, neque satis Rhenus made the loudest professions, and pledged Gallos secures reddet. JEn. Sylv. p. himself in a fantastic pageant at his 678. This is part of a discourse pro- court, soon after the capture of Constan nounced by Jineas Sylvius before the tinople, to undertake this crusade, were diet of Frankfort ; which, though too sincere in their promises. The former declamatory, like most of his writings, pretended apprehensions of invasion from is an interesting illustration of the state England, as an excuse for sending no of Euiope and of the impression pro- troops; which, considering the situation duced by that calamity. Spondanus, of England" in 1459, was a bold attempt ad ann. 1454, has jpTtu large extracts upon the credulity of mankind from this oration G12 INSTITUTION OF JANIZAEIES. CHAP. Vi. ment in person ; but when he appeared next year at Ancona, the appointed place of embarkation, the princes had failed ir, all their promises of men and money, and he found only a headlong crowd of adventurers, destitute of every necessary, and expecting to be fed and paid at the pope's expense. It was not by such a body that Mahomet could be expelled from Constantinople. If the Christian sovereigns had given a steady and sincere cooperation, the contest would still have institution of been arduous and uncertain. In the early crusades Janizaries. ^ ne superiority of arms, of skill, and even' of dis- cipline, had been uniformly on the side of Europe. But the present circumstances were far from similar. An institution, begun by the first and perfected by the second Amurath, had given to the Turkish armies what their enemies still wanted, military subordination and veteran experience. Aware, as it seems, of the real superiority of Europeans in war, these sultans selected the stoutest youths from their Bulgarian, Ser- vian, or Albanian captives, who were educated in habits of martial discipline, and formed into a regular force with the name of Janizaries. After conquest had put an end to per- sonal captivity, a tax of every fifth male child was raised upon the Christian population for the same purpose. The arm of Europe was thus turned upon herself; and the west- ern nations must have contended with troops of hereditary robustness "and intrepidity, whose emulous enthusiasm for the country that had adopted them was controlled by habitual obe- dience to their commanders. 1 1 In the long declamation of JEneas insight into European politics ; and hia Sylvius before the diet of Frankfort in views are usually clear and sensible 1454. he has the following contrast Though not so learned as some popes, he between the European and Turkish mill- kuew much better wbat was going for- tia ; a good specimen of the artifice with ward in his own time. But the vanity which an ingenious orator can disguise of displaying his eloquence betrayed him the truth, while he seems to be stating into a strange folly, when he addressed a it most precisely. Conferamus nuno very long letter to Mahomet II., explain- Turcos et vos invicem ; et quid speran- ing the Catholic faith, and urging him to d urn sit si cum illis pugni j tis, examine- be baptized ; in which case, so far from mus. Vos nati ad arma, illi tracti. Vos preaching a crusade against the Turks, armsti, illi inermes ; vos gladios versatis, he would gladly make use of their power illi cultris utuntur ; vos balistas tenditis, to recover the rights of the church. Some illi arcus trahuut ; vos loricae thoraces- of his inducements are curious, and quo protegunt, illos culcitra tegit ; vos must, if made public, have been highly equos regitis. illi ab equis reguntur ; vos gratifying to his friend Frederic III. nobiles in bellum ducitis, illi servos aut Quippe ut arbitramur, si Christianus artifices cogunt, &c. &c. p. 685. This, fuisses, mortuo Ladislao Uugarise et Bo- however, had little effect upon the hear- hernias rege, nciuo prater te sua regna ers, who were better judges of military fuisset adeptus. Sperassent Ungari post affairs than the secretary of Frederic III. diuturna beilorum mala sub tuo regim- Pius II., or .iEneas Sylvius, was a lively ine pacem, et illos Bohenii secuti fuis- writer and a skilful intriguer. Long sent: so. I cum esses nostrae roligionis experience had given him a considerable hustis, elegeruut Uiigari, &c. Upist. 396. GREEKS, ETC. SUSPENSION OF OTTOMAN CONQUESTS. 613 Yet forty years after the fall of Constantinople, at the epoch of Charles VIIL's expedition into Italy, the just Suspension , apprehensions of European statesmen might have the Ottoman gradually subsided. Except the Morea, Negropont, con ^ uests - and a few other unimportant conquests, no real progress had been made by the Ottomans. Mahomet II. had been kept at bay by the Hungarians ; he had been repulsed with some ignominy by the knights of St. John from the island of Rhodes. A petty chieftain defied this mighty conqueror for twenty years in the mountains of Epirus ; and the perse- vering courage of his desultory warfare with such trifling resources, and so little prospect of ultimate success, may justify the exaggerated admiration with which his contem- poraries honored the name of Scanderbeg. Once only the crescent was displayed on the Calabrian coast; but the city of Otranto remained but a year in A ' D ' the possession of Mahomet. On his death a disputed suc- cession involved liis children in civil war. Bajazet, the eldest, obtained the victory; but his rival brother Zizim fled to Rhodes, from whence he was removed to France, and afterwards to Rome. Apprehensions of this exiled prince seem to have dictated a pacific policy to the reigning sultan, whose character did not possess the usual erergy of Ottoman sovereigns. 614 WEALTH OF THE CHURCH. CHAP. VH. PABT i. CHAPTER VII. HISTOKY OP ECCLESIASTICAL POWER DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. PART I. Wealth of the Clergy its Sources Encroachments on Ecclesiastical Propeity their Jurisdiction arbitrative coercive their political Power Supremacy of the Crown Charlemagne Change after his Death, and Encroachments of the Church in the ninth Century Primacy of the See of Rome its early Stage Gregory I. Council of Frankfort false Decretals Progress of Papal Au- thority Effects of Excommunication Lothaire State of the Church in the tenth Century Marriage of Priests Simony Episcopal Elections Imperial Authority over the Popes Disputes concerning Investitures Gregory VII. and Henry IV. Concordat of Calixtus Election by Chapters general System of Gregory VII. Progress of Papal Usurpations in the twelfth Century Inno- cent III. his Character and Schemes. AT the irruption of the northern invaders into the Roman empire they found the clergy already endowed with extensive possessions. Besides the spontaneous oblations upon which the ministers of the Christian church had origin- the a cnurch ally subsisted, they had obtained, even under the under the pagan emperors, by concealment or connivance for the Roman law did not permit a tenure of lands in mortmain certain immovable estates, the revenues of which were applicable to their own maintenance and that of the poor. 1 These indeed were precarious and liable to confiscation in times of persecution. But it was among the first effects of the conversion of Constantino to give not only a security, but a legal sanction, to the territorial acquisitions of the church. The edict of Milan, in 313, recognizes the actual estates of ecclesiastical corporation?. 2 Another, pub- lished in 321, grants to all the subjects of the empire the power of bequeathing their property to the church. 8 His 1 Giannone, Istoria di Napoli, 1. ii. c. tion ; but a comparison of the three 8; Gibbon, c. 15 and c. 20; F. Paul's seems to justify my text. Treatise on Benefices, c. 4. The last 2 Qiannone ; Gibbon, ubi supra ; F writer does not wholly confirm this posi- Paul, c. 6. 8 Idem. F.CCLES. POWER. ITS INCREASE. 615 own liberality and that of his successors set an example which did not want imitators. Passing rapidly from a con- dition of distress and persecution to the summit of prosperity, the church degenerated as rapidly from her ancient purity, and forfeited the respect of future ages in the same propor- tion as she acquired the blind venei'ation of her own. Cov- etousness, especially, became almost a characteristic vice. Valentinian I., in 370, prohibited the clergy from receiving the bequests of women a modification more discreditable than any general law could have been. And several of the fathers severely reprobate the prevailing avidity of their contemporaries. 1 The devotion of the conquering nations, as it was still less enlightened than that of the subjects of the empire, Increa8ed so was it still more munificent. They left indeed after its the worship of Hesus and Taranis in their forests ; 8U but they retained the elementary principles of that and of all barbarous idolatry, a superstitious reverence for the priesthood, a credulity that seemed to invite imposture, and a confidence in the efficacy of gifts to expiate offences. Of this temper it is undeniable that the ministers of religion, influenced prob- ably not so much by personal covetousness as by zeal for the interests of their order, took advantage. Many of the pecu- liar and prominent characteristics in the faith and discipline of those ages-appear to have been either introduced or sedu- lously promoted for the purposes of sordid fraud. To those purposes conspired the veneration for relics, the worship of images, the idolatry of saints and martyrs, the religious in- violability of sanctuaries, the consecration of cemeteries, but, above all, the doctrine of purgatory and masses for the relief of the dead. A creed thus contrived, operating upon the minds of barbarians, lavish though rapacious, and devout though dissolute, naturally caused a torrent of opulence to pour in upon the church. Donations of land were contin- ually made to the bishops, and, in still more ample proportion, to the monastic foundations. These had not been very numerous in the West till the beginning of the sixth century, when Benedict established his celebrated rule. 2 A more remarkable show of piety, a more absolute seclusion from 1 Oiannnone, ubi supra ; F. Paul, c. 6. ifeme Discours sur I'llist. Ecclesiastique 2 Giannone, 1. iii. c. 6 ; I. iv. c. 12 ; Muratori, Dissert. 66. Treatise on Benefices, o. 8; Fleury, Huifc- 616 WEALTH OF THE CHUECH CHAP VII. PART I the world, forms more impressive and edifying prayers and masses more constantly repeated, gave to the professed in these institutions an advantage, in public est( em, over the secular clergy. The ecclesiastical hierarchy never received any territorial endowment by law, either under the Roman empire or the kingdoms erected upon its ruins. But the voluntary munifi- cence of princes, as well as their subjects, amply supplied the place of a more universal provision. Large private estates, or, as they were termed, patrimonies, not only within their own dioceses, but sometimes in distant countries, sustained the dignity of the principal sees, and especially that of Rome. 1 The French monarchs of the first dynasty, the Carlovingian family and their great chief, the Saxon line of emperors, the kings of England and Leon, set hardly any bounds to their liberality, as numerous charters still extant in diplomatic collections attest. Many churches possessed seven or eight thousand mansi ; one with but two thousand passed for only indifferently rich. 2 But it must be remarked that many of these donations are of lands uncultivated and unappropriated. The monasteries acquired legitimate riches by the culture of these deserted tracts and by the prudent management of their revenues, which were less exposed to the ordinary means of dissipation than those of the laity. Their wealth, continually accumulated, enabled them to become the regular purchasers of landed estates, especially in the time of the crusades, when the fiefs of the nobility were constantly in the market for sale or mortgage. 4 If the possessions of ecclesiastical communities had all Sometimes ^ een a3 f au ^7 earned, we could find nothing in improperly them to reprehend. But other sources of wealth were less pure, and they derived their wealth from many sources. Those who entered into a monastery threw frequently their whole estates into the common stock ; and even the children of rich parents were expected to make a donation of land on assuming the cowl. Some gave their property to the church before entering on military expedi- tions; gifts were made by some to take effect after their lives, and bequests by many in the terrors of dissolution. 1 St. Marc, t. i. p. 281 ; Qiannone, 1. Muratori, Dissert. 65; Du Gauge y v. c. 12 Eremus. 8 Schmidt, t. ii. p. 205. * Heeren, Essai sur les Croisades, p 166; Schmidt, t. iii. p. 293. ECCLES. POWER. SOMETIMES IMPROPERLY ACQUIRED. G17 Even those legacies to charitable purposes, which the clergy could with more decency and speciousness recommend, and of which the administration was generally confined to them, were frequently applied to their own benefit. 1 They failed not, above all, to inculcate upon the wealthy sinner that no atonement could be so acceptable to Heaven as liberal presents to its earthly delegates. 2 To die without allotting a portion of worldly wealth to pious uses was accounted almost like suicide, or a refusal of the last sacraments ; and hence intes- tacy passed for a sort of fraud upon the church, which she punished by taking the administration of the deceased's effects into her own hands. This, however, was peculiar to England, and seems to have been the case there only from the reign of Henry III. to that of Edward III., when the bishop took a portion of the intestate's personal estate for the advantage of the church and poor, instead of distributing it among his next of kin. 8 The canonical penances imposed upon repent- ant offenders, extravagantly severe in themselves, were com- muted for money or for immovable possessions a fertile though scandalous source of monastic wealth, which the popes afterwards diverted into their own coffers by the usage of dispensations and indulgences. 4 The church lands enjoyed an immunity from taxes, though not in general from military service, when of a feudal tenure. 5 But their tenure was frequently in- what was called frankalmoign, without any obligation of service. Hence it became a customary fraud 1 Prim 6 sacris pastoribus data est fa- benter, et ardentissimo animo ego ao- cultas, ut hsereditatis portio in pauperes cepi. et egenos dispergeretur; sed sensim 3 Selden, vol. iii. p. 1676; Prynne's ecclesise quoque in pauperum censum Constitutions, vol. iii. p. 18; Blackstone, venerunt, atque intestatae gentis mens vol. ii. chap. 32. In France the lord of creditaest proclivior ineasfuturafuisse : the fief seems to have taken the whole qua ex re pinguius illarum patrimonium spoil. Da Cange, v. Intestatus. evasit. Imino episcopi ipsi in rem suam 4 Muratori, Dissert. 68. ejusmodi consuetudinem interdum con- 8 Palgrave has shown that the Anglo- vertebant : ac tributum evasit, quod Saxon clergy were not exempt, originally antea pii moris fuit. Muratori, Antiqui- at least, from the trinoda necfssitas im- tates Italiae, t. v. Dissert. 67. posed on all alodial proprietors. They 2 Muratori, Dissert. 67 (Antiquit. were better treated on the Continent; Italia, t. v. p. 1056), has preserved a and Bo7iiface exclaims that !n no part of cuiious charter of an Italian count, who the world was such servitude imposed on declares that, struck with reflections the church as among the English. Eng- upon his sinful state, he had taken lish Commonwealth, i. 158. But when counsel with certain religious how he we look at the charters collected in Kem- should atone for his offences. Accepto ble's Codex Diplomaticus (most or near- consilio ab iis, excepto si renunciare ly all of them in favor of the church), saeculo possera, nullum esse melius inter we shall hardly think they were ill off, eleemosinarum virtutes, quam si de pro- though they might be forced sometimes priis rneis substantiis in monasteriuin to repair a bridge, or send their tenants coucederem. Hoc consiliuni ab iis li- against the Danes, 618 TITHES. CHAP. VII. PART L of lay proprietors to grant estates to the church, which they received again by way of tief or lease, exempted from public burdens. And, as if all these means of accumulating what they could not legitimately enjoy were insufficient, the monks prostituted their knowledge of writing to the purpose of forging charters in their own favor, which might easily im- pose upon an ignorant age, since it has required a peculiar science to detect them in modern times. Such rapacity might seem incredible in men cut off from the pursuits of life and the hope of posterity, if we did not behold every day the unreasonableness of avarice and the fervor of professional attachments. 1 As an additional source of revenue, and in imitation of Tithes ^ e ^ ew ^ sn l aw > the payment of tithes was recom- mended or enjoined. These, however, were not applicable at first to the maintenance of a resident clergy. Parochial divisions, as they now exist, did not take place, at least in some countries, till several centuries after the' estab- lishment of Christianity. 2 The rural churches, erected suc- cessively as the necessities of a congregation required, or the piety of a landlord suggested, were in fact a sort of chapels dependent on the cathedral, and served by itinerant ministers at the bishop's discretion. 8 The bishop himself 1 Muratori's 65th, 67th, and 68th Dis- gantur ; et si laicus idoneum utilemque sertations on the Antiquities of Italy clericum obtulerit nulla qualibet occa- have furnished the principal materials of sione ab episcopo sine ratione certa re- my text, with Father Paul's Treatise on pellatur ; et si rejiciendus est, propter Benefices, especially chaps. 19 and 29. scandalum vitandum evident! rations Giannone, loc. cit. and 1. iv. c. 12 ; 1. v. manifestetur." Another capitulary of c. 6; 1. x. c. 12. Schmidt, Hist. des. Alle- Charles the Bald, in 864, forbids the es- mands, t. i. p. 370 ; t. ii. p. 203, 462 ; t. tablishment -of priests in the churches iv. p. 202. Fleury, III. Discours sur of patrons, or their ejection without the 1'Hist. Eccles. Du Cange, voc. Precaria. bishop's consent: " De his qui sine 2 Muratori, Dissert. 74, and Fleury, In- consensu episcopi presbyteros in ecclesiis Rtitutions au Droit ecclesiastique, t. i. p. suis constituunt, vel d"e ecelesiis dejici- 162, refer the origin of parishes to the unt." Thus the churches are recognized fourth century ; but this must be limited as the property of the lord ; and the par- to the most populous part of the em- ish may be considered as an established pire. division, at least very commonly, so 3 These were not always itinerant ; early as the Carlovingian empire. I do commonly, perhaps, they were depend- not by any means deny that it was par- ants of the lord, appointed by the bishop tially known in France before that time, on his nomination. Iiehuerou, Institut. Guizot reckons the patronage of Carolingiennes, p. 526, who quotes a ca- churches by the laity among the circum- pitulary of the emperor Lothaire in 825. stances which diminished or retarded "Be clericis vero laicorum, unde non- ecclesiastical power. (Leconl3.) It may nulli 9orum conquer! videantur, eo quod have been so ; but without this patronage quidam episcopi ad eorum preces nolint there would have been very few parish In ecc-lesiis suis eos, cum utilessint, ordi- churches. It separated, in some degree, nare, visum nobis fuit, at .... et cum the interests of the secular clergy from caritate et ratione utiles et idonei eli- those of thejjishops and the regulars. ECCLES. POWER. TITHES. 619 received the tithes, and apportioned them as he thought fit. A capitulary of Charlemagne, however, regulates their division iiito three parts ; one for the bishop and his clergy, a second for the poor, and a third for the support of the fabric of the church. 1 Some of the rural churches obtained by episcopal concessions the privileges of baptism and burial, which were accompanied with a fixed share of tithes, and seem to imply the residence of a minister. The same privileges were grad- ually extended to the rest ; and thus a complete parochial division was finally established. But this was hardly th case in England till near the time of the conquest. 2 The slow and gradual manner in which parochial churches became independent appears to be of itself a sufficient an- swer to those who ascribe a great antiquity to the universal payment of tithes. There are, however, more direct proofs that this species of ecclesiastical property was acquired not only by degrees but with considerable opposition. We find the payment of tithes first enjoined by the canons of a pro- vincial council in France near the end of the sixth century From the ninth to the end of the twelfth, or even later, it is continually enforced by similar authority. 8 Father Paul remarks that most of the sermons preached about the eighth century inculcate this as a duty, and even seem to place the summit of Christian perfection in its performance. 4 This reluctant submission of the people to a general and perma- nent tribute is perfectly consistent with the eagerness dis- played by them in accumulating voluntary donations upon the church. Charlemagne was the first who gave the confirmation of a civil statute to these ecclesiastical injunctions ; no one at least has, so far as I know, adduced any earlier law for the payment of tithes than one of his capitularies. 6 But it would be precipitate to infer either that the practice had not already gained ground to a considerable extent, through the influence of ecclesiastical authority, or, on the other hand, that it became 1 Schmidt, t. ii. p 206. This seems to remarkable rashness, attacked the cur have been founded on an ancient canon, rent opinion that Charlemagne estab- F. Paul. c. 7. lished the legal obligation of tithes, and * Collier's Ecclesiastical Hbtory, p. 229. denied that any of his capitularies bear 3 Selden's History of Tithes, vol. iii. such an interpretation. Those which he p. 1108, edit. Wilkins. Tithes are said quotes have indeed a different meaning ; by Qiannone to have been enforced by but he has overlooked an express enact- .gome papal decrees in the sixth century, merit in 789 (Baluzii Capitularia, t. i. 1. iii c. 6. p. 253), which admits of no question ; * Treatise on Benefices, c. 11. and I believe that there are others in 5 Mably, (Observations sur 1'Hist. de confirmation. France, t. L p. 238 et 438) has, with C20 SPOLIATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY. CHAP. VH. PA*r 1. universal in consequence of the commands of Charlemagne. 1 In the subsequent ages it was very common to appropriate tithes, which had originally been payable to the bishop, either tosvards the support of particular churches, or, according to the prevalent superstition, to monastic foundations. 2 These arbitrary consecrations, though the subject of complaint, lasted, by a sort of prescriptive right of the landholder, till about the year 1200. It was nearly at the same time that the obligation of paying tithes, which had been originally confined to those called predial, or the fruits of the earth, was extended, at least in theory, to every species of profit, and to the wages of every kind of labor. 8 Yet there were many hindrances that thwarted the clergy Spoliation * n their acquisition of opulence, and a sort of reflux if church that set sometimes very strongly against them. In property. ^{ mes o f barbarous violence nothing can thoroughly compensate for the inferiority of physical strength and prowess. The ecclesiastical history of the middle ages pre- sents one long contention of fraud against robbery ; of acqui- sitions made by the church through such means as I have described, and torn from her by lawless power. Those very men who in the hour of sickness and impending death showered the gifts of expiatory devotion upon her altars, had passed the sunshine of their lives in sacrilegious plunder. Notwithstanding the frequent instances of extreme reverence for religious institutions among the nobility, we should be deceived in supposing this to be their general character. Rapacity, not less insatiable than that of the abbots, was commonly united with a daring fierceness that the abbots could not resist. 4 In every country we find continual lamen- 1 The grant of Ethelwolf in 865 has hare been for life, but were frequently appeared to some antiquaries the most renewed. They are not to be confounded probable origin of the general right to with terree censuales, or lands let to a tithes in England [Nois I.] It is said tenant at rack-rent, which of course by Marina that tithes -were not legally formed a considerable branch of revenue, established in Castile till the reign of The grant was called precaria from being Alfonso X. Ensayo sobre les Siete Par- obtained at the prayer of a grantee ; tidas, c. 359. and the uncertainty of its renewal seems - Selden, p. 1114 et seq. ; Coke, 2 Inst. to have given rise to the adjective pre p. 641. carious. 3 Selden's History of Tithes; Treatise In the ninth century, though the pre- on Benefices, c. 28 ; Giannone, 1. x. c. 12. tensions of the bishops were never higher, 4 The church was often compelled to the church itself was more pillaged un- grant leases of her lands, under the name der pretext of these pfecarier,, and in of precaritz, to laymen, who probably other ways, than at any former time. rendered little or no service in return, See Du Cange for a long article on Pre- though a rent or census was expressed in cariae. he instrument. These precaria seem to ECCLES. POWER. SPOLIATION OF CHUECH PROPERTY. 621 tation over the plunder of ecclesiastical possessions. Charles Martel is reproached with having given the first notorious example of such spoliation. It was not, however, commonly practised by sovereigns. But the evil was not the less uni- versally felt. The parochial tithes especially, as the hand of robbery falls, heaviest upon the weak, were exposed to unlaw- ful seizure. In the tenth and eleventh centuries nothing was more common than to see the revenues of benefices in the hands of lay impropriators, who employed curates at the cheapest rate ; an abuse that has never ceased in the church. 1 Several attempts were made to restore these tithes ; but even Gregory VII. did not venture to proceed in it ; 2 and indeed it is highly probable that they might be held in some instances by a lawful title. 3 Sometimes the property of monasteries was dilapidated by corrupt abbots, whose acts, however clan- destine and unlawful, it was not easy to revoke. And both the bishops and convents were obliged to invest powerful lay protectors, under the name of advocates, with considerable fiefs, as the price of their assistance against depredators. But these advocates became too often themselves the spoilers, and oppressed the helpless ecclesiastics for whose defence they had been engaged. 4 If it had not been for these drawbacks, the clergy must, one would imagine, have almost acquired the exclusive property of the soil. They did enjoy, according to some authorities, nearly one half of England, and, I believe, a greater proportion in some countries of Europe. 5 They had reached, perhaps, their zenith in respect of territorial prop- 1 Du Gauge, voc. Abbas. gaurus Anecdotorum, t. 1. p. 595. Yais- 2 Schmidt, t JT. p. 204. At an assem- sette. Hist, de Languedoc, t. ii. p. 109, bly held at St. Denis in 997 the bishops and Appendix, passim. proposed to restore the tithes to the secu- 8 Turner's Hist, of England, vol ii. lar clergy; but such a tumult was ex- p. 413, from Avesbury. According to a cited by this attempt, that the meeting calculation founded on a passage in was broken up. Recueil des Historiens, Knyghton, the revenue of the English, t. xi. prafat. p. 212. church in 1337 amounted to 730.000 i Selden's Hist, of Tithes, p. 1136. marks per annum. Macpherson's An- Hi might bring it within the limits of eccle- particuiar siastical jurisdiction. In all questions simply religious the church had an original right of decision ; in those of a temporal nature the civil magistrate had, by the imperial constitution, as exclusive an authority. 2 popes who were his subjects. St. Marc, general (Baluz. Capital, t. i. p. 227); ami t. i. p. 60; Fleury, Hist. Eccles. t. vii. the same is expressed still more forcibly P- 292. in the collection published by Ansegisus i Memoires de 1'Academie, ubi supra; under Louis the Debonair. (Id. p. 904 Giannone, l.iii.c. 6; Schmidt, t. ii. p. 236; and 1115.) See other proofs in Fleury, Fleury, ubi supra. Hist. Eccles. t. is. p. 607. Some of these writers do not state the 2 Quoties de religione agitur, episcopos law of Charlemagne so strongly. Never- oportet judicare : alteras vero caus;is qnaa theless the words of a capitulary in 789, ad ordinaries cognitores vel ad usum Ut cleric! ecclesiastic] ordmis si culpam publici juris pertinent, legibus oportet incurrerint apud ecclesiasticos judioen- audiri. Lex Arcadii et Honorii apud tur, non apud saeculares, are sufficiently Mem. de 1'Academie, t. xxxix, p. 571. ECCLES. POWER. POLITICAL POWER OF CLERGY. 625 Later ages witnessed strange innovations in this respect, when the spiritual courts usurped, under sophistical pretences, almost the whole administration of justice. But these encroachments were not, I apprehend, very striking till the twelfth century ; and as about the same time measures, more or less vigorous and successful, began to be adopted in order to restrain them, I shall defer this part of the subject for the present. In this sketch of the riches and jurisdiction of the hie- rarchy I may seem to have implied their political p olitical influence, which is naturally connected with the power of two former. They possessed, however, more di- clergy< rect means of acquiring temporal power. Even under the Roman emperors they had found their road into palaces ; they were sometimes ministers, more often secret counsellors, always necessary but formidable allies, whose support was to be conciliated, and interference to be respected. But they assumed a far more decided influence over the new kingdoms of the West. They were entitled, in the first place, by the nature of those free governments, to a privilege unknown under the imperial despotism, that of assisting in the delib- erative assemblies of the nation. Councils of bishops, such as had been convoked by Constantine and his successors, were limited in their functions to decisions of faith or canons of ecclesiastical discipline. But the northern nations did not so well preserve "the distinction between secular and spiritual legislation. The laity seldom, perhaps, gave their suffrage to the canons of the church ; but the church was not so scru- pulous as to trespassing upon the province of the laity. Many provisions are found in the canons of national and even provincial councils which relate to the temporal constitution of the state. Thijs one held at Calcluith (an unknown place in England), in 787, enacted that none but legitimate princes should be raised to the throne, and not such as were engen- dered in adultery or incest. But it is to be observed that, although this synod was strictly ecclesiastical, being sum moned by the pope's legate, yet the kings of Mercia and Northumberland, with many of their nobles, confirmed the canons by their signature. As for the councils held under the Visigoth kings of Spain during the seventh century, it is not easy to determine whether they are to be considered as ecclesiastical or temporal assemblies. 1 No kingdom was so 1 Marina. Teoria de las Cortes, t. i. p. 9 VOL. I. M. 40 626 SUPREMACY OF THE STATE. CHAP. VII. PABT I thoroughly under the bondage of the hierarchy as Spain. 1 The first dynasty of France seem to have kept their national convention, called the Field of March, more distinct from merely ecclesiastical councils. The bishops acquired and retained a great part of their ascendency by a very respectable instrument of power, intel- lectual superiority. As they alone were acquainted with the art of writing, they were naturally entrusted with political correspondence, and with the framing of the laws. As they alone knew the elements of a few sciences, the education of royal families devolved upon them as a necessary duty. In the fall of Rome their influence upon the barbarians wore down the asperities of conquest, and saved the provincials half the shock of that tremendous revolution. As captive Greece is said to have subdued her Roman conqueror, so Rome, in her own turn of servitude, cast the fetters of a moral captivity upon the fierce invaders of the north. Chief- ly through the exertions of the bishops, whose ambition may be forgiven for its effects, her religion, her language, in part even her laws, were transplanted into the courts of Paris and Toledo, which became a degree less barbarous by imi- tation. 2 Notwithstanding, however, the great authority and privi- Supremacy leges of the church, it was decidedly subject to the of the state; supremacy of the crown, both during the continu- ance of the Western empire and after its subversion. The emperors convoked, regulated, and dissolved universal coun- cils ; the kings of France and Spain exercised the same right over the synods of their national churches. 8 The Ostrogoth kings of Italy fixed by their edicts the limits within which matrimony was prohibited on account of consanguinity, and granted dispensations from them. 4 Though the Roman em- perors left episcopal elections to the clergy and people of the diocese, in which they were followed by the Ostrogoths and Lombards, yet they often interfered so far as to conh'rm a 1 See instances of the temporal power to extenuate the royal supremacy, bu of the Spanish bishops in Fleury, Hist, his own work furnishes abundant evi Eccles. t. viii. p. 368, 397 ; t. ix. p. 68, &c. dence of it; especially 1. vi. c. 19, &c. 2 Schmidt, t. i. p. 365. For the ecclesiastical independence of 8 Encyclopedic, art. Concile. Schmidt, Spain, down to the eleventh century, see t. i. p. 384. De Marca, De Concordantia Marina, Ensayo sobre las Siete Partidas, Sacerdotii et Imperil, 1. ii. c. 9, 11; et c. 322, &c. ; and De Marca, 1. vi. c 28. '. iv. passim. < Giaunone, 1. iii. c. 6. The last of these sometimes endeavors ECCLES. POWER. SUPREMACY OF THE STATE. G27 decision or to determine a contest. The kings of France went further, and seem to have invariably either nominated the bishops, or, what was nearly tantamount, recommended their own candidate to the electors. But the sovereign who maintained with the greatest vigor his ecclesiastical supremacy was Charlemagne. espe ciaiiy Most of the capitularies of his reign relate to the f charie- discipline of the church ; principally indeed taken m from the ancient canons, but not the less receiving an addi- tional sanction from his authority. 1 Some of his regulations, which appear to have been original, are such as men of high church principles would, even in modern times, deem infring- ments of spiritual independence ; that no legend of doubtful authority should be read in the churches, but only the canoni- cal books, and that no saint should be honored whom the whole church did not acknowledge. These were not passed in a synod of bishops, but enjoined by the sole authority of the emperor, who seems to have arrogated a legislative power over the church which he did not possess in tem- poral affairs. Many of his other laws relating to the eccle- siastical constitution are enacted in a general council of the lay nobility as well as of prelates, and are so blended with those of a secular nature, that the two orders may appear to have equally consented to the whole. His father Pepin, in- deed, left a remarkable precedent in a council held in 744, where the Nicene faith is declared to be established, and even a particular heresy condemned, with the consent of the bishops and nobles. But whatever share we may imagine the laity in general to have had in such matters, Charlemagne himself did not consider even theological decisions as beyond his province ; and, in more than one instance, manifested a determination not to surrender his own judgment, even in questions of that nature, to any ecclesiastical authority. 2 1 Baluzii Capitularia, passim ; Schmidt, pelled to acknowledge the supremacy of t. ii. p. 239; Gaillard, Vie de Charle- a great mind. By a vigorous repression magne, t. iii. of those secular propensities which were 2 Charlemagne had apparently devised displaying themselves among the superior an ecclesiastical theory, which would now clergy, he endeavored to render their be called Erastian, and perhaps not very moral influence more effective. This, short of that of Henry VIII. He directs however, could not be achieved in the the clergy what to preach in his own ninth century; nor could it have been name, and uses the first person in eccle- brought about by any external power. Biastical canons. Yet, if we may judge Nor was it easily consistent with the by the events, the bishops lost no part of continual presence of the bishops in their permanent ascendency hi the state national assemblies, which had become through this interference, though com- essential to the polity of his age, and C28 PRETENSIONS OF THE HIERARCHY CHAP. VII. PART I. This part of Charlemagne's conduct is duly to be taken into the account before we censure his vast extension of ecclesiastical privileges. Nothing was more remote from his character than the bigotry of those weak princes who have suffered the clergy to reign under their names. He acted upon a systematic plan of government, conceived by his own comprehensive genius, but requiring too continual an applica- tion of similar talents for durable execution. It was tli* error of a superior mind, zealous for religion and learning to believe that men dedicated to the functions of the one, arid possessing what remained of the other, might, through strict rules of discipline, enforced by the constant vigilance of the sovereign, become fit instruments to reform and civilize a barbarous empire. It was the error of a magnanimous spirit to judge too favorably of human nature, and to presume that great trusts would be fulfilled, and great benefits re- membered. It is highly probable, indeed, that an ambitious hierarchy did not endure without reluctance this imperial supremacy of Charlemagne, though it was not expedient for them to Pretensions resist a prince so formidable, and from whom they of the h a( j so m uch to expect. But their dissatisfaction inthTninth at a scheme of government incompatible with century. their own objects of perfect independence produced a violent recoil under Louis the Debonair, who attempted to act the censor of ecclesiastical abuses with as much earnest- ness as his father, though with very inferior qualifications for so delicate an undertaking. The bishops accordingly were among the chief instigators of those numerous revolts of his children which harrassed this emperor. They set, upon one occasion, the first example of an usurpation which was to be- come very dangerous to society the deposition of sover- eigns by ecclesiastical authority. Louis, a prisoner in the hands of his enemies, had been intimidated enough to under- go a public penance ; and the bishops pretended that, accord- ing to a canon of the church, he was incapable of returning with which he would not, for several rebus secularibus debeat inserere, Tel in reasons, have wholly dispensed. Yet it quantum comes, vel alter laicus, in eocle- tippears, by a remarkable capitulary of siastica negotia. But as the laity, him- 811, that he had perceived the incouve- self excepted, had probably interfered nience of allowing the secular and spir- very little in church affairs, this oayitu- itual powers to clash with each other : lary seems to be restrictive of the pre- Discutiendum est atque intervenien- lates. dum in quantum se episcopus aut abbas ECCI.ES. POWER. IN .THE NINTH CENTURY. G29 afterwards to a secular life or preserving the character of sovereignty. 1 Circumstances enabled him to retain the em- pire in defiance of this sentence ; but the church had tasted the pleasure of trampling upon crowned heads, and was eager to repeat the experiment. Under the disjointed and feeble administration of his posterity in their several king- doms, the bishops availed themselves of more than one op- portunity to exalt their temporal power. Those weak Car- lovingian princes, in their mutual animosities, encouraged the pretensions of a common enemy. Thus Charles the Bald and Louis of Bavaria, having driven their brother Lothaire from his dominions, held an assembly of some bishops, who adjudged him unworthy to reign, and, after exacting a promise from the two allied brothers to govern better than he had done, permitted and commanded them to divide his territories. 2 After concurring in this unprecedent- ed encroachment, Charles the Bald had little right to com- plain when, some years afterwards, an assembly of bishops declared himself to have forfeited his crown, released his subjects from their allegiance, and transferred his kingdom to Louis of Bavaria. But, in truth, he did not pretend to deny the principle which he had contributed to maintain. Even in his own behalf he did not appeal to the rights of sove- 1 Habitu saeculi se exuens habitum deposed Wamba ; it may have been a poenitentis per impositionem manuum voluntary abdication, influenced by su- episcoporum suscepit ; ut post tantam perstition, or, perhaps, by disease. A talemque poenitentiam nemo ultra ad late writer has taken a different view of inilitiam saecularem redeat. Acta ex- this event, the deposition of Louis at auctorationis Ludovici, apud Schmidt, Compiegne. It was not, he thinks, une t. ii. p. 68. There was a sort of prece- hardiesse sacerdotale, une temerite ecele- dent, though not, I think, very apposite, siastique, mais Men une lachete politique. for this doctrine of implied abdication, Ce n'etait point une tentative pour in the case of \Vamba king of the Visi- clever I'autorit6 religieuse au-dessus de goths in Spain, who. having been clothed 1'autorite royale dans les affaires tempo- with a monastic dress, according to a relies; c'etait, au contraire, unabaisse- common superstition, during a dangerous ment servile de la premiere dcvant le illness, was afterwards adjudged by a monde. Fauriel, Hist, de la Gaule Me- council incapable of resuming his crown ; ridionale, iv. 150. In other words, the to which he voluntarily submitted. The bishops lent themselves to the aristocratic story, as told by an original writer, faction which was in rebellion against quoted in Baronius ad A.D. 681, is too Louis. Ilauke, as has been seen in an obscure to warrant any positive infer- early note, thinks that they acted out of ence ; though I think we may justly revenge for his deviation from the law of suspect a fraudulent contrivance between 817, which established the unity of the the bishops and Ervigius, the successor empire. The bishops, in fact, had so of Wamba. The latter, besides his mo- many secular and personal interests and nastic attire, had received the last sacra- sympathies, that we cannot always judge ments ; after which he might be deemed of their behavior upon general priu- civilly dead. Fleury, 8>e Discours sur ciples. 1'Hist. Ecclesiast., puts this case too 2 Schmidt, t. ii. p. 77. Velly t. ii strongly when he tells us that the bishops p. 61 ; see, too, p. Ik. G30 PRETENSIONS OF THE HIERARCHY. CHAP. VII. PART I. reigns, and of the nation whom they represent. " No one," says this degenerate grandson of Charlemagne, " ought to have degraded me from the throne to which I was consecrat- ed, until at least I had been heard and judged by the bishops, through whose ministry I was consecrated, who are called the thrones of God, in which God sitteth, and by whom he dispenses his judgments ; to whose paternal chastise- ment I was willing to submit, and do still submit my- self." 1 These passages are very remarkable, and afford a decisive proof that the power obtained by national churches, through the superstitious prejudices then received, and a train of favorable circumstances, was as dangerous to civil govern- ment as the subsequent usurpations of the Roman pontiff, against which Protestant writers are apt too exclusively to direct their animadversions. Voltaire, I think, has remarked that the ninth century was the age of the bishops, as the eleventh and twelfth were of the popes. It seemed as if Europe was about to pass under as absolute a domination of the hierarchy as had been exercised by the priesthood of ancient Egypt or the Druids of Gaul. There is extant a remarkable instrument recording the election of Boson king of Aries, by which the bishops alone appear to have elevated him to the throne, without any concurrence of the nobility. 2 But it is inconceivable that such could have really been the case ; and if the instrument is genuine, we must suppose it to have been framed in order to countenance future preten- sions. For the clergy, by their exclusive knowledge of Latin, had it in their power to mould the language of public documents for their own purposes ; a circumstance which should be cautiously kept in mind when we peruse instru- ments drawn up during the dark ages. It was with an equal defiance of notorious truth that the bishop of Winchester, presiding as papal legate at an assembly of the clergy in 1141, during the civil war of Stephen and Matilda, asserted the right of electing a king of England to appertain principally to that order; and, by virtue of this unprecedented claim, raised Matilda to the throne. 8 England, 1 Schmidt, t. ii. p. 217. que primo in auxilium Diyinitate, filiam 2 Kecueil des Historiens, t. ix. p 804. pacific! regis, &c., in Anglia Norman- 3 Ventilata est causa, says the Legate, niacque dominam eligimus, et ei fidem co rum majori parte cleri Anglia 1 , ad et manutenementum pronuttimus. OuL cujus jus potissimum spectat principem Maliasb. p. 188. eligere, simulque ordinare. Invocata ita ECCL.KS POWER. RISE OF THE PAPAL POWER. fi,31 indeed, has been obsequious, beyond most other countries, to the arrogance of her hierarchy ; especially during the Anglo- Saxon period, when the nation was sunk in ignorance and effeminate superstition. Every one knows the story of king Edwy in some form or other, though I believe it impossible to ascertain the real circumstances of that controverted anec- dote. 1 But, upon the supposition least favorable to the king, the behavior of Archbishop Odo and Dunstan was an intoler- able outrage of spiritual tyranny. But while the prelates of these nations, ' each within his respective sphere, were prosecuting their system n* , r , . *, Rise of the or encroachment upon the laity, a new scheme papal power. was secretly forming within the bosom of the Its com ' . I,,!. i , mencement. church, to enthral both that and the temporal governments of the world under an ecclesiastical monarch. Long before the earliest epoch that can be fixed for modern history, and, indeed, to speak fairly, almost as far back as ecclesiastical testimonies can carry us, the bishops of Rome had been venerated as first in rank among the rulers of the church. The nature of this primacy is doubtless a very con- troverted subject. It is, however, reduced by some moderate catholics to little more than a precedency attached to the see of Rome in consequence of its foundation by the chief of the apostles, as well as the dignity of the imperial city. 2 A sort of general superintendence was admitted as an attribute of this primacy, so that the bishops of Rome were entitled, and indeed bound, to remonstrate, when any error or irregularity came to their knowledge, especially in the western churches, a greater part of which had been planted by them, and were connected, as it were by filiation, with the common capital of the Roman empire and of Christendom. 4 Various causes 1 [XoTK II.] Irenseus rather vaguely, and Cyprian 8 These foundations of the Roman pri- more positively, admit, or rather assert, macy are indicated by Valeutinian III., the primacy of the church of Koine. a great favorer of that see, in a novel of which the latter seems even to have con the year 455 : Cum igitur sedis aposto- sidered as a kind of centre of Catholia licae primatum B. Petri meritum, qui unity, though he resisted every attempt est princeps sacerdotalis coronse et Ro- of that church to arrogate a controlling mana? dignitas civitatis, sacrae etiam sy- power. See his treatise De Unitate Ec- ncxli firmavit auctoritas. The last words clesiae. [1818. | [NOTE III.] allude to the sixth canon of the Nicene 3 Dupin, De antiqui Eeclesise Disci- council, which establishes or recognizes plina. p. 306 et seqq. ; Histoire du Droit the patriarchal supremacy, in their re- public ecclesiastique Francois, p. 149. speetive districts, of the churches of The opinion of the Roman see's suprem- Roine, Antioch, and Alexandria. De acy, though apparently rather a vague Marca, de Concordantia Sacerdotii et Im- and general notion, as it still continues peril, 1. i. c. 8. At a much earlier period, in those Catholics who deny its infalli- C32 PATRIARCHATE OF ROME. CHAP. VII. PART I had a tendency to prevent the bishops of Rome from aug- menting their authority in the East, and even to diminish that which they had occasionally exercised ; the institution of patriarchs at Antioch, Alexandria, and afterwards at Con- stantinople, with extensive rights of jurisdiction ; the differ- ence of rituals and discipline ; but, above all, the many disgusts taken by the Greeks, which ultimately produced an irreparable schism between the two churches in the ninth century. But within the pale of the Latin church every succeeding age enhanced the power and dignity of the Roman see. By the constitution of the church, such at least as it became in the fourth century, its divisions being ar- ranged in conformity to those of the empire, every province ought to have its metropolitan, and every vicariate its ecclesi- astical exarch or primate. The bishop of Rome presided, in the latter capacity, over the Roman vicariate. comprehending southern Italy, and the three chief Mediterranean islands. But as it happened, none of the ten provinces forming this division had any metropolitan ; so that the popes exercised all metropolitical functions within them, such as the consecra- tion of bishops, the convocation of synods, the ultimate decision of appeals, and many other sorts of authority. These provinces are sometimes called the Roman patri- patriarchate archate ; the bishops of Rome having always been of Home. reckoned one, generally indeed the first, of the patriarchs ; each of whom was at the head of all the metro- politans within his limits, but without exercising those privileges which by the ecclesiastical constitution appertained to the latter. Though the Roman patriarchate, properly so called, was comparatively very small in extent, it gave its chief, for the reason mentioned, advantages in point of authority which the others did not possess. 1 I may perhaps appear to have noticed circumstances inter- esting only to ecclesiastical scholars. But it is important to apprehend this distinction of the patriarchate from the primacy of Rome, because it was by extending the bounda- bility, seems to have prevailed very much ii. c. 8; 1. iii c. 6.; De Marca, 1. i. c. 7 et in the fourth century. Fleury brings alibi. There is some disagreement among remarkable proofs of this from the writ- these writers as to the extent of the Ko- ings of Socrates, Sozomen, Ammianus man patriarchate, which some suppose Marcellinus, and Optatus. Hist. Eccles. to have even at first comprehended all t. iii. p. 282, 320, 449 ; t. iv. p. 227. the western churches, though they ad- 1 Dupin, De Antiqua Eccles. Discipline, mit that, in a more particular sense, it p. 39, &c. ; Qiannone, 1st. di Napoli, 1. was confined to the vicariate of Home ECCLES. POWER. PATRIARCHATE OF ROME. 633 ries of the former, and by applying the maxims of hef administration in the south of Italy to all the western churches, that she accomplished the first object of her scheme of usurpation, in subverting the provincial system of govern- ment under the metropolitans. Their first encroachment of this kind was in the province of Illyricum, which they annexed in a manner to their own patriarchate, by not permitting any bishops to be consecrated without their con- sent. 1 This was before the end of the fourth century. Their subsequent advances were, however, very gradual. About the middle of the sixth century we find them confirm- ing the elections of archbishops of Milan. 2 They came by degrees to exercise, though not always successfully, and seldom without opposition, an appellant jurisdiction over the causes of bishops deposed or censured in provincial synods. This, indeed, had been granted, if we believe the fact, by the canons of a very early council, that of Sardica, in 347, so far as to permit the pope to order a revision of the process, but not to annul the sentence. 8 Valentinian III., influenced by Leo the Great, one of the most ambitious of pontiffs, had gone a great deal further, and established almost an absolute judicial supremacy in the Holy See. 4 But the metropolitans 1 Dupin, p. 66 ; Fleury, Hist. Eccles. t. v. p. 373. The ecclesiastical province of Illyricum included Macedonia. Siri- cius, the author of this encroachment, seems to have been one of the first usurpers. In a letter to the Spanish bishops (A.D. 375) he exalts his own au- thority very high. De Marca, 1. i. c. 8. 2 St. Marc, t. i. p. 139, 153. Dupin, p. 109; De Marca, 1. vi. c. 14. These canons have been questioned, and Dupin does not seem to lay much stress on their authority, though I do not per- ceive that either he, or Fleury (Hist. Eccles. t. iii. p. 372), doubts their genu- ineness. Sardica was a city of Illyricum, which the translator of Mosheim has con- founded with Sardes. Consultations or references to the bishop of Rome, in difficult cases of faith or discipline, had been common in early ages, and were even made by provincial and national councils. But these were also made to other bishops emiment for personal merit, or the dignity of their sees. The popes endeavored to claim this as a matter of right. Innocent I. asserts (A.D. 402) that he was to be consulted, quoties fidei ratio ventilatur; and Gelasius (A.D. 492), quantum ad re- lijiioueui pertinet, non nisi apostolicae sedi, juxta canones, debetur summa ju- dicii totius. As the T>ak is in the acorn, so did these maxims contain the system of Bellannin. De Marca, 1. i. c. 10 ; and 1. vii. c. 12. Dupin. 4 Some bishops belonging to the pro- vince of Hilary, metropolitan of Aries, appealed from his sentence to Leo, who not only entertained their appeal, but presumed to depose Hilary. This as- sumption of power would have had little effect, if it had not been seconded by the emperor in very unguarded language ; hoc perenni sanctione decernimus, ne quid tarn episcopis Gallicanis, quam ali- arum provinciarum, contra consuetu- dinein veterem liceat sine auctoritate viri venerabilis papae urbis aeternaD ten- tare ; sed illis omnibusque pro lege sit, quidquid sanxit vel sanxerit apostolicae sedis auctoritas. De Marca, De Concor- dantia Sacerdotii et Imperil, 1. i. c. 8. The same emperor enacted that any bishop who refused to attend the tribunal of the pope when summoned should be compelled by the governor of 1 is prov- ince; ut quisquis episcoporum ad ju dicium Komani episcopi evocatus venire neglexerit, per moderatorein ejusdutu pro- vinciae adesse cogatur. Id. 1. vij. c. 13; Dupiu, De Ant. Discipl. p. 29 et 171. 634 GREGORY I. CHAP. VII. PART 1. were not inclined to surrender their prerogatives ; and, upon the whole, the papal authority had made no decisive progress in France, or perhaps anywhere beyond Italy, till the pon- tificate of Gregory I. This celebrated person was not distinguished by learning, Grewy I. which he affected to depreciate, nor by his literary performances, which the best critics consider as below mediocrity, but by qualities more necessary for his purpose, intrepid ambition and unceasing activity. He maintained a perpetual correspondence with the emperors and their ministers, with the sovereigns of the western king- doms, with all the hierarchy of the Catholic church ; employ- ing, as occasion dictated, the language of devotion, arrogance, or adulation. 1 Claims hitherto disputed, or half preferred, assumed under his hands a more definite form ; and nations too ignorant to compare precedents or discriminate principles yielded to assertions confidently made by the authority which they most respected. Gregory dwelt more than his prede- cessors upon the power of the keys, exclusively, or at least principally, committed to St. Peter, which had been supposed in earlier times, as it is now by the Gallican Catholics, to be inherent in the general body of bishops, joint sharers of one indivisible episcopacy. Arid thus the patriarchal rights, be- ing manifestly of mere ecclesiastical institution, were artfully confounded, or as it were merged, in the more paramount supremacy of the papal chair. From the time of Gregory the popes appear in a great measure to have thrown away that scaffolding, and relied in preference on the pious venera- tion of the people, and on the opportunities which might occur for enforcing their dominion with the pretence of divine authority. 2 1 The flattering style in which this Rome, which had been long in suspense, pontiff addressed Brunehautaad Phocas, Stephen, a Spanish bishop, having been the most flagitious monsters of his time, deposed, appealed to Rome. Gregory is mentioned in all civil and ecclesiastical sent a legate to Spain, with full powers histories. Fleury quotes a remarkable to confirm or rescind the sentence. He letter to the patriarchs of Antioch and says in his letter on this occasion, a Alexandria wherein he says that St. sede apostolica, quae omnium ecclesi- Peter has one see, divided into three, arum caput est, causa hae audienda ao Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria; stoop- dirhnenda fuerat. De Marca, 1. vii. c. 18. ing to this absurdity, and inconsisteuce In writing to the bishops of Franc* he Vith his real system, in order to concil- enjoins them to obey Virgilius bishop of iate their alliance against his more im- Aries, whom he has appointed his legate nuedUte rival, the patriarch of Constan- in France, secundiim antiquam consue- tinople. Hist. Eccles. t. viii. p. 124. tudinem ; so that, if any contention 2 (Jregory seems to have established should arise in the church, he may ap- ihe appellant jurisdiction of the see of pease it by his authority, as vicegerent ECCLKS. POVVIIR. GREGORY I. 635 It cannot, I think, be said that any material acquisitions of ecclesiastical power were obtained by the successors of Greg- ory for nearly one hundred and fifty years. 1 As none of them possessed vigor and reputation equal to his own, it might even appear that the papal influence was retrograde. of the apostolic see ; auctoritatis suae vigore, vicibus nerape apostolicae sedis fuuctus, disereta nioderatione compescat. Gregorii Opera, t. ii. p. 783 (edit. Bene- dict.); Dupin, p. 34; Pasquier, Recher- ches de la France, 1. iii. c. 9. 1 I observe that some modern publi- cations annex considerable importance to a supposed concession of the title of Universal Bishop, made by the emperor Phocas in 606 to Boniface III., and even appear to date the papal supremacy from this epoch. Those who have imbibed this notion may probably have been misled by a loose expression in Mosheim's Eccle- siastical History, vol. ii. p. 169 ; though the general tenor of that passage by no means gives countenance to their opin- ion. But there are several strong objec- tions to our considering this as a leading fact, much less as marking an era in the history of the papacy. 1. Its truth, as commonly stated, appears more than questionable. The Roman pontiffs, Greg- ory I. and Boniface III., had been ve- hemently opposing the assumption of this title by the patriarch of Constanti- nople, not as due to themselves, but as one to which no bishop could legitimately pretend. There would be something al- most ridiculous in the emperor's imme- diately conferring an appellation on themselves which they had just dis- claimed ; and though this objection would not stand against evidence, yet when we find no better authority quoted for the fact than Barouius, who is no authority at all, it retains considerable weight. And indeed the want of early testimony is so decisive an objection to any alleged historical fact, that, but for the strange prepossessions of some men, one might rest the case here. Fleury takes no notice of this part of the story, t'jough he tells us that Phocas compelled the patriarch of Constanti- nople to resign his title. 2. But if the strongest proof could be advanced for the authenticity of this circumstance, we might well deny its importance. The concession of Phocas could have been of no validity in Lombardy, France, and other western countries, where neverthe- less the papal supremacy was incom- parably wore established than in the East. 3. Even within the empire it could have had no efflcacy after the vio- leut death of that usurper,which followed soon afterwards. 4. The title of Uni- versal Bishop is not very intelligible; but, whatever it meant, the patriarchs of Constantinople had borne it before, and continued to bear it ever afterwards. (Dupin, De Antiqul Disciplina, p. 329.) 6. The preceding popes. Pelagius II. and Gregory I. had constantly disclaimed the appellation, though it had been adopted by some towards Leo the Great in the council of Chalcedon (Fleury, t. viii. p. 95) ; nor does it appear to have been retained by the successors of Boniface. It is even laid down in the decretuni of Gratian that the pope is not styled uni- versal : nee etiam Romanns pontifex uni- versalis appellatur (p. 303, edit. 1591), though some refer its assumption to the ninth century. Nouveau Traite de Diplo- matique, t. v. p. 93. In fact it has never been an usual title. 6. The popes had unquestionably exercised a species of supremacy for more than two centuries before this time, which had lately reached a high point of authority under Gregory I. The rescript of Valentinian III. in 455, quoted in a former note, would certainly be more to the purpose than the letter of Phooas. 7. Lastly, there are no sen- sible marks of this supremacy making a more rapid progress for a century and a half after the pretended grant of that emperor. [1818.] The earliest mention of this transaction that I have found, and one which puts an end to the pretended concession of such a title as Universal Bishop, is in a brief general chronology, by Bede, entitled ' De Temporum Ra- tione.' He only says of Phocas, Hie, rogante papa Bonifacio, statuit sedem Romanae et apostolicae ecclesise caput esse omnium ecclesiarum, quia ecclesia Constantinopolitana primam se omnium ecclesiarum scribebat. Bedae Opera, curl Giles, vol. vi. p. 323. This was probably the exact truth; and the subsequent additions were made by some zealous partisans of Rome, to be seized hold of in a later age, and turned against her by some of her equally zealous enemies. The distinction generally made is, that the pope is " uuiversalis ecclesia; epis- copus," but not '-episcopus universalis;'- 1 that is, he has no immediate jurisdiction in the dioceses of other bishops, though he can correct them for the undue exer- cise of their own. The Ultramontanes of coarse go further. G36 ST. BONIFACE. CHAP. VII. PART I. But in effect the principles which supported it were taking deeper root, and acquiring strength by occasional though not very frequent exercise. Appeals to the pope were some- times made by prelates dissatisfied with a local sentence ; but his judgment of reversal was not always executed, as we per- ceive by the instance of bishop .Wilfrid. 1 National councils were still convoked by princes, and canons enacted under Iheir authority by the bishops who attended. Though the thurch of Lombardy was under great subjection during this period, yet those of France, and even of England, planted as the latter had been by Gregory, continued to preserve a tolerable measure of independence. 2 The first striking in- fringement of this was made through the influence of an Englishman, Winfrid, better known as St. Boniface, the apostle of Germany. Having undertaken the St. Boniface. . rp . J . . , P, . , , conversion ol Ihunngia, and other still heathen countries, he applied to the pope for a commission, and was consecrated bishop without any determinate see. Upon this occasion he took an oath of obedience, and became ever af- terwards a zealous upholder of the apostolical chair. His success in the conversion of Germany was great, his reputa- tion eminent, which enabled him to effect a material revolu- tion in ecclesiastical government. Pelagius II. had, about 580, sent a pallium, or vest peculiar to metropolitans, to the bishop of Aries, perpetual vicar of the Roman see in Gaul. 8 1 1 refer to the English historians for Saxon church. Nor do I perceive any the history of Wilfrid, which neither improbability in this, considering that tl together supports, nor much impeaches, the church had been founded by Au- the independency of our Anglo-Saxon gustin, and restored by Theodore, both church in 700 ; a matter hardly worth so under the authority of the Roman Bee. much contention as Usher and Stilling- This intrinsic presumption is worth more fleet seem to have thought. The con- than the testimony of Eddius. But we secratiou of Theodore by pope Vitalian see by the rest of Wilfrid's history that in 068 is a stronger fact, and cannot be it was not easy to put the sentence of got over by those injudicious protestants Rome in execution. The plain facts are, who take the bull by the horns. The that, having gone to Rome claiming the history of Wilfrid has been lately put in see of York, and having had his claim a light as favorable as possible to him- recognized by the pope, he ended his self and to the authority of Rome by Dr. days as bishop of Hexham. Lingard. We have for this to rely on 2 Schmidt, t. i. p. 386, 394. Eddius (published in Gale's Scriptores), 3 Ut ad instar suum, in Galliarum a panegyrist in the usual style of legend- partibus primi sacerdotis locum obtineat, ary biography. a style which has, on et quidquid ad gubernatiouem vel dis- nie at least, the effect of producing utter pensationem ecclesiastici status geren- distrust. Mendacity is the badge of all dum est, servatis patrum regulis, et sedis the tribe. Bede is more respectable ; apostolicae constitutis, facial. Praeterea, but in this case we do not learn much pallium illi concedit, &c. Dupin, p. 34. from him. It seems impossible to deny Gregory I. confirmed this vicariate to that, if Eddius is a trustworthy histo- Virgilius bishop of Aries, and gave him rian, Dr. Lingard has made out his case ; the power of convoking synods. De and that we must own appeals to Rome Marca, 1. vi. c. 7. to have been recognized in the Anglo- ECCLKS. POWER. SYNOD OF FRANKFORT. C37 Gregory I. had made a similar present to other metropoli- tans. But it was never supposed that they were obliged to wait for this favor before they received consecration, antil a synod of the French and German bishops, held at s yn od of Frankfort in 742, by Boniface, as legate of pope Frankfort. Zachary. It was here enacted that, as a token of their wil- ling subjection to the. see of Rome, all metropolitans should request the pallium at the hands of the pope, and obey his lawful commands. 1 This was construed by the popes to mean a promise of obedience before receiving the pall, which was changed in after times by Gregory VII. into an oath of fealty. 2 This council of Frankfort claims a leading place as an epoch in the history of the papacy. Several events ensued, chiefly of a political nature, which rapidly elevated that usurpation almost to its greatest height. Subjects of the throne of Constantinople, the popes had not as yet interfered, unless by mere admonition, with the temporal magistrate. The first instance wherein the civil duties of a nation and the rights of a crown appear to have been submitted to his decision was in that famous reference as to the deposition of Childeric. It is impossible to consider this in any other light than as a point of casuistry laid before the first religious judge in the church. Certainly, the Franks Avho raised the king of their choice upon their shields never dreamed that a foreign priest had conferred upon him the right of governing. Yet it was easy for succeeding advocates of Rome to construe this transaction very favorably for its usurpation over the thrones of the earth. 8 i Decrevimus, says Boniface, in nostro Constantinople in 872, this prerogative Bynodali conventu, et confessi sumus of sending the pallium to metropolitans fldem catholicam, et unitatem et subjec- was not only confirmed to the pope, but tionem Romanae ecclesiae fine tenus ser- extended to the other patriarchs, who Tare, S. Petro et vicario ejus velle sub- had every disposition to become as great jici, metropolitanos pallia ab ilia sede usurpers as their more fortunate elder qnaerere, et, per omnia, praecepta S. Pe- brother. tri canonice sequi. De Marca, 1. vi. c. 7 ; 2 De Marca, ubi supra. Schmidt, t. il. Schmidt, t. i. p. 424, 438, 446. This p. 262. According to the latter, this writer justly remarks the obligation oath of fidelity was exacted in the ninth which Koine had to St. Boniface, who century; which is very probable, since anticipated the system of Isidore. We Gregory VII. himself did but fill up the have a letter from him to the English sketch which Nicholas I. and John VIII. clergy, with a copy of canons passed iu had delineated. I have since found this one of his synods, for the exaltation of confirmed by Gratian, p. 305. the r.postolic see. but the church of Eng- 3 Eginhard says that Pepin was mada land was not then inclined to. acknowl- king per auctoritattm Komani pontitiris; edge so great a supremacy in Rome, an ambiguous word, which may rise to Collier's Eccles. History, p. 128. command, or sink to ail rice., according t In the eighth general council, that of the disposition of the interpreter. C38 FALSE DECRETALS. CHAP. VII. PART 1. I shall but just glance at the subsequent political revolu- tions of that period ; the invasion of Italy by Pepin, his donation of the exarchate to the Holy See, the conquest of Lombardy by Charlemagne, the patriarchate of Rome con- ferred upon both these princes, and the revival of the West- ern empire in the person of the latter. These events had a natural tendency to exalt the papal supremacy, which it is needless to indicate. But a circumstance of a very different, nature contributed to this in a still greater degree. About the conclusion of the eighth century there appeared, under the name of one Isidore, an -unknown person, a collection of False ecclesiastical canons, now commonly denominated Decretals. ^ e E a l se Decretals. 1 These purported to be re- scripts or decrees of the early bishops of Rome ; and their effect was to diminish the authority of metropolitans over their suffragans, by establishing an appellant jurisdiction of the Roman See in all causes, and by forbidding national councils to be holden without its consent. Every bishop, according to the decretals of Isidore, was amenable only to the immediate tribunal of the pope ; by which one of the most ancient rights of the provincial synod was abrogated. Every accused person might not only appeal from an inferior sentence, but remove an unfinished process before the supreme pontiff. And the latter, instead of directing a revision of the proceedings by the original judges, might annul them by his own authority ; a strain of jurisdiction beyond the canons of Sardica, but certainly warranted by the more recent practice of Rome. New sees were not to be erected, nor bishops translated from one see to another, nor their resignations accepted, without the sanction of the pope. They were still indeed to be consecrated by the metropolitan, but in the pope's name. It has been plausibly suspected that these decretals were forged by some bishop, ha jealousy or resentment ; and 1 The era of the False Decretals has this collection of Adrian ; but I have not been precisely fixed ; they have sel- not observed the same opinion in any dora been supposed, however, to have other writer. The right of appeal from appeared much before 800. But there a sentence of the metropolitan deposing is a genuine collection of canons pub- a bishop to the Holy See is positively lished by Adrian I. in 785, which contain recognized in the Capitularies of Louis nearly the sauie principles, and many of the Debonair (Baluze, p. 1UOO) ; the three which are copied by Isidore, as well as last books of which, according to the Charlemagne in his Capitularies. De collection of Ansegisus, are said to be Marca, 1. vii. c. 20 ; Giannone, 1. v. c. 6; apostolici auctoritate roborata, quia his Dupin, De AntiquS Disciplina, p. 133. cudendis maxime apostolica interfuit le- Fleury, Hist. Eccles. t. ix p. 500, seems gatio. p. 1132. to consider the decretals as older than ECCLES. POWER. PAPAL ENCROACHMENTS. G'33 their general reception may at least be partly ascribed to such sentiments. The archbishops were exceedingly power- ful, and might often abuse their superiority over interior prelates ; but the whole episcopal aristocracy had abundant reason to lament their acquiescence in a system of which the metropolitans were but the earliest victims. Upon these spu- rious decretals was built the great fabric of papal supremacy over the different national churches ; a fabric which has stood after its foundation crumbled beneath it ; for no one has pre- tended to deny, for the last two centuries, that the imposture is too palpable for any but the most ignorant ages to credit. 1 The Gallican church made for some time a spirited though unavailing struggle asainst this rising despotism. "Pa.tia.1 (*n- Gregory IV., having come into France to abet the croachments children of Louis the Debonair in their rebellion, n the , 11-1 i hierarchy, and threatened to excommunicate the bishops who adhered to the emperor, was repelled with indignation by those prelates. " If he comes here to excommunicate," said they, " he shall depart hence excommunicated." 2 In the subsequent reign of Charles the Bald a bold defender of ecclesiastical independence was found in Hincmar archbishop of Rheims, the most distinguished statesman of his age. Appeals to the pope even by ordinary clerks had become common, and the provincial councils, hitherto the supreme spiritual tribunal, as well as legislature, were falling rapidly into decay. The frame of church government, which had lasted from the third or fourth century, was nearly dissolved ; a refractory bishop was sure to invoke the supreme court of appeal, and generally met there with a more favorable judi- cature. Hincmar, a man equal in ambition, and almost in public estimation, to any pontiff, sometimes came off success- fully in his contentions with Rome. 8 But time is fatal to the 1 1 have not seen any account of the the papal court, without sacrificing al decretals eo clear and judicious as in together the Gallican church and the Schmidt's History of Germany, t. ii. p. crovrn. 249. Indeed all the ecclesiastical part 2 De Marca, 1. iv. c. 11 : Velly, &c. of that work is executed in a very supe- 8 De Marca 1. iv. c. 68, &c.; 1 vi. c. 14, rior manner. See also De Marca, 1. iii. 28: 1. vii. c. 21. Dupin, p. 133, &c. c. 5 ; 1. vii. c. 20. The latter writer, Hist, du Droit Eccles. Francois, p. l*-i, from whom I have derived much infor- 224. Velly, &c. Hiucmar however waa mation, U by no means a strenuous ad- not consistent; for, having obtained the versary of ultramontane pretensions. In see of Rheims in an equivocal manner, fact, it was his object to please both in he had applied for confirmation at Itome, France and at Home, to become both an and in other respects impaired the Gal- archbishop and a cardinal. He failed lican rights. Pa-squier, Kecuerches de ia nevertheless of the latter hope ; it being France, 1. iii. c. 12. impossible at that tune (16oO) to satisfy C40 PAPAL ENCROACHMENTS. CHAP. VII. PART I unanimity of coalitions ; the French bishops were accessible to superstitious prejudice, to corrupt influence, to mutual jealousy. Above all, they were conscious that a persuasion of the pope's omnipotence had taken hold of the laity. Though they complained loudly, and invoked, like patriots of a dying state, names and principles of a freedom that was no more, they submitted almost in every instance to the con- tinual usurpations of the Holy See. One of those which most annoyed their aristocracy was the concession to monas- teries of exemption from episcopal authority. These had been very uncommon till about the eighth century, after which they were studiously multiplied. 1 It was naturally a favorite object with the abbots ; and sovereigns, in those ages of blind veneration for monastic establishments, were pleased to see their own foundations rendered, as it would seem, more respectable by privileges of independence. The popes had a closer interest in granting exemptions, which attached to them the regular clergy, and lowered the dignity of the bishops. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries whole orders t The earliest instance of a papal ex- eniption is in 455, which indeed is a respectable antiquity. Others scarcely occur till the pontificate of Zachary in the middle of the eighth century, -who granted an exemption to Monte Casino, Ita ut nullius juri subjaceat, nisi solius Houiani pontificis. See this discussed in Oiannone, 1. v. c. 6. Precedents for the exemption of monasteries from epis- copal jurisdiction occur in Marculfus's forms compiled towards the end of the seventh century, but these were by royal authority. The kings of France were supreme heads of their national church. Schmidt, t. i. p. 382 ; De Marca, 1. iii. c. 16 ; Fleury, Institutions au Droit, t. i. p. 228. Miiratori, Dissert. 70 (t. iii. p. 104, Italian), is of opinion that ex- emptions of monasteries from episcopal visitation did not become frequent in Italy till the eleventh century; and that many charters o/ this kind are forgeries. It is held also by some English anti- quaries that no Anglo-Saxon monastery was exempt, and that the first instance is that of Battle Abbey under the Con- queror ; the charters of an earlier date having been forged. Hody on Convoca- tions, p. 20 and 170. It is remarkable that this giant is made by William, and confirmed hy Lanfranc. Collier, p. 256. Exemptions became very usual in Eng- land afterwards. Henry, vol. v. p. 337. It is nevertheless to be admitted that the bishops had exercised an arbitrary, and sometimes a tyrannical power over the secular clergy ; and after the monks became part of the church, which was before the close of the sixth century, they also fell under a control not always fairly exerted. Both complained greatly, as the acts of councils bear witness : Un fait important et trop peu remarque se revele ci et 14 dans le cours de cette epoque ; c'est la lutte des pretres de paroisse centre leg eveques. Guizot, Hist, de la Civilis. en France, Lecon 13. In this contention the weaker must have given way : but the regulars, sustained by public respect, and having the coun- tenance of the see of Rome, which began to encroach upon episcopal authority, came out successful in securing them- selves by exemptions from the jurisdic- tion of the bishops. The latter furnished a good pretext by their own relaxation of manners. The monasteries in the eighth and ninth centuries seem not to have given occasion to much reproach, at least in comparison with the prelacy. Au commencement du huitieme siecle, 1'eglise etait elle toinbee dans un desordre presque egal i celui de la societe civile. Sans superieurs et sans inferieurs 4 re- douter, degages de la surveillance des metropolitans comme des conciles et de rinfluence des pretres, une foule d'eve ques se livraient aux plus scaudaleuz exces. FCCLES. POWER. PAPAL ENCROACHMENTS. 641 of monks were declared exempt at a single stroke ; and the abuse began to awaken loud complaints, though it did not fail to be aggravated afterwards. The principles of ecclesiastical supremacy were readily applied by the popes to support still more insolent and upon usurpations. Chiefs by divine commission of the civU g Tern - whole church, every earthly sovereign must be sub- ject to their interference. The bishops indeed had, ^o* 11311 *- with the common weapons of their order, kept their own sov- ereigns in check ; and it could not seem any extraordinary stretch in their supreme head to assert an equal prerogative. Gregory IV., as I have mentioned, became a party in the revolt against Louis L, but he never carried his threats of excommunication into effect. The first instance where the IJornan pontiffs actually tried the force of their arms against a sovereign was the excommunication of Lothaire king of Lorraine, and grandson of Louis the Debonair. This prince had repudiated his wife, upon unjust pretexts, but with the ap- probation of a national council, and had subsequently married his concubine. Nicolas I., the actual pope, despatched two legates to investigate this business, and decide according to the canons. They hold a council at Metz, and confirm the divorce and marriage. Enraged at this conduct of his am- bassadors, the _pope summons a council at Rome, annuls the sentence, deposes the archbishops of Treves and Cologne, and directs the king to discard his mistress. After some shuffling on the part of Lothaire he is excommunicated ; and, in a short tune, we find both the king and his prelates, who had begun with expressions of passionate contempt towards the pope, suing humbly for absolution at the feet of Adrian II., successor of Nicolas, which was not granted without diffi- culty. In all its most impudent pretensions the Holy See has attended to the circumstances of the time. Lothaire had powerful neighbors, the kings of France and Germany, eager to invade his dominions on the first intimation from Rome ; while the real scandalousness of his behavior must have intimidated his conscience, and disgusted his subjects. Excommunication, whatever opinions may be entertained as to its religious efficacy, was originally nothing Excommuni- more in appearance than the exercise of a right ca4 DIFFERENCES OF GREGORY VII. CHAP. VII. PART I. cardinal bishops (seven in number, holding sees in the neighborhood of Rome, and consequently suffragans of the pope as patriarch or metropolitan) were to choose the su- preme pontiff, with the concurrence first of the cardinal priests and deacons (or ministers of the parish churches of Rome), and afterwards of the laity. Thus elected, the new pope was to be presented for confirmation to Henry, " now king, and hereafter to become emperor," and to such of his successors as should personally obtain that privilege. 1 This decree is the foundation of that celebrated mode of election in a conclave of cardinals which has ever since determined the headship of the church. It was intended not only to exclude the citizens, who had indeed justly forfeited their primitive right, but as far as possible to prepare the way for an absolute emancipation of the papacy from the imperial control ; reserving only a precarious and personal concession to the emperors instead of their ancient legal prerogative of confirmation. The real author of this decree, and of all other vigorous Gregory vii. measures adopted by the popes of that age, whether A.D. 10.3. or fljg a j; Ser tion of their independence or the restoration of discipline, was Hildebrand, archdeacon of the church of Rome, by far the most conspicuous person of the eleventh century. Acquiring by his extraordinary qualities an unbounded ascendency over the Italian clergy, they re- garded him as their chosen leader and the hope of their common cause. He had been empowered singly to nominate a pope on the part of the Romans after the death of Leo IX., and compelled Henry III. to acquiesce in his choice of Victor II. 2 No man could proceed more fearlessly towards his object than Hildebrand, nor with less attention to conscien- tious impediments. Though the decree of Nicolas II., his own work, had expressly reserved the right of confirmation of the young king of Germany, yet on the death of that pope Hildebrand procured the election and consecration of Alex- ander II. without waiting for any authority. 8 During this pontificate he was considered as something greater than the pope, who acted entirely by his counsels. On Alexander's decease Hildebrand, long since the real head of the church, 1 St. Marc, t. iii. p. 276. The first necessary for a pope's election. Labbe, canon of the third Lateran council makes Concilia, t. x. p. 1508. the consent of two thirds of the college 2 St. Marc, p. 97. Id. p. 306. ECCLES. POWEB. WITH HEXRT IV. G55 was raised with enthusiasm to its chief dignity, and assumed the name of Gregory VII. Notwithstanding the late precedent at the election of Alex- ander IL, it appears that Gregory did not. yet His differ . consider his plans sufficiently mature to throw off ences with the yoke altogether, but declined to receive conse- enry cration until he had obtained the consent of the king of Germany. 1 This moderation was not of long continuance. The situation of Germany speedily afforded him an opportu- nity of displaying his ambitious views. Henry IV., through a very bad education, was arbitrary and dissolute ; the Saxons were engaged in a desperate rebellion ; and secret disaffection had spread among the princes to an extent of which the pope was much better aware than the king. 2 He began by excommunicating some of Henry's ministers on pretence of simony, and made it a ground of remonstrance that they were not instantly dismissed. His next step was to publish a decree, or rather to renew one of Alexander II., against lay investitures. 3 The abolition of these was a fa- vorite object of Gregory, and formed an essential part of his general scheme for emancipating the spiritual and subjugating the temporal power. The ring and crosier, it was asserted by the papal advocates, were the emblems of that power which no monarch could bestow; but even if a less offensive symbol were adopted in investitures, the dignity of the church was lowered, and her purity contaminated, when her highest ministers were compelled to solicit the patronage or the approbation of laymen. Though the estates of bishops might, strictly, be of temporal right, yet, as they had been inseparably annexed to their spiritual office, it became just that what was first in dignity and importance should carry with it those accessory parts. And this was more necessary than in former times on account of the notorious traffic which sovereigns made of their usurped nomination to benefices, so that scarcely any prelate sat by their favor whose possession was not invalidated by simony. The contest about investitures, though begun by Gregory VII., did not occupy a very prominent place during his pon tificate ; its interest being suspended by other more extraordi- 1 St. Marc, p. 552. He acted, however, Schmidt; St. Marc. These two re as pope, corresponding in that character my principal authorities for the content with bishops of all countries, from the between the church ami the empire. Jay of his election, p. 551. 3 St. Marc, t. iii. p. 670. Gf>(5 DIFFERENCES OF GREGORY VII. CHAP. VII. PAKT I nary and important dissensions between the church and em- pire. The pope, after tampering some time with the dis- affected party in Germany, summoned Henry to appear at Rome and vindicate himself from the charges alleged by his subjects. Such an outrage naturally exasperated a young and passionate monarch. Assembling a number of bishops and other vassals at Worms, he procured a sentence that Gregory should no longer be obeyed as lawful pope. But the time was past for those arbitrary encroachments, or at least high prerogatives, of former emperors. The relations of dependency between church and state were now about to be reversed. Gregory had no sooner received accounts of the proceedings at Worms than he summoned a council in the Lateran palace, and by a solemn sentence not only ex communicated Henry, but deprived him of the kingdoms of Germany and Italy, releasing his subjects from their alle- giance, and forbidding them to obey him as sovereign. Thus Gregory VII. obtained the glory of leaving all his predeces- sors behind, and astonishing mankind by an act of audacity and ambition which the most emulous of his successors could hardly surpass. 1 The first impulses of Henry's mind on hearing this denun- ciation were indignation and resentment. But, like other in- experienced and misguided sovereigns, he had formed an erroneous calculation of his own resources. A conspiracy, long prepared, of which the dukes of Suabia and Carinthia were the chiefs, began to manifest itself. Some were alien- 1 The sentence of Gregory VII. against deponere posse denegabit, quicunqua the emperor Henry was directed, we decreta sanctissimi papas Gregorii non should always remember, to persons al- proscribenda judicabit. Ipse enira vir ready well disposed to reject his author- apostolicus .... Praeterea, libcri ho- ity. Men are glad to be told that it is mines Henricum eo pacto sibi praeposue- their duty to resist a sovereign against runt in regem, ut electores suos juste whom they are in rebellion, and will not judicare et regali providential gubernave be very scrupulous in examining conclu- gatageret, quod pactnni ille postea pras- cise. lo the Germans ol the eleventh sent, quod iis pro electione su promi- century a prince unfit for Christian serat; quo non adimpleto, nee rex esse communion would easily appear unfit to poterat. Vita Greg. VII. in Muratori, reign over them ; and though Henry had Script. Rer. Ital. t. iii. p. 342. not given much real provocation to the Upon the other hand, the friends and pope, his vices and tyranny might seem supporters of Henry, though ecclesiastics, to challenge any spiritual censure or protested against this novel stretch of temporal chastisement. A nearly con- prerogative in the Roman see. Several temporary writer combines the two jus- proofs of this are adduced by Schmidt, tifications of the rebellious party. Nemo t. iii. p. 315. Uouianorum poutificeui reges a regno EccLfcs. POWER. WITH HENRY IV. Co 7 atecl by his vices, and others jealous of his family. The re- bellious Saxons took courage ; the bishops, intimidated by ex- communications, withdrew from his side ; and he suddenly found himself almost insulated yi the midst of his dominions. In this desertion he had recourse, through panic, to a miser- able expedient. He crossed the Alps with the avowed de- termination of submitting, and seeking absolution from the pope. Gregory was at Canossa, a fortress near Reggio, be- longing to his faithful adherent the countess Matilda. It was in a winter of unusual severity. The emperor 10 _- was admitted, without his guards, into an outer court of the castle, and three successive days remained from morning till evening in a woollen shirt and with naked feet ; while Gregory, shut up with the countess, refused to admit him to his presence. On the fourth day he obtained absolu- tion ; but only upon condition of appearing on a certain day to learn the pope's decision whether or no he should be re- stored to his kingdom, until which time he promisednot to assume the ensigns of royalty. This base humiliation, instead of conciliating Henry's ad- versaries, forfeited the attachment of his friends. In his con- test with the pope he had found a zealous support in the prin- cipal Lombard cities, among whom the married and simonia- cal clergy had great influence. 1 Indignant at his submission to Gregory, -whom they affected to consider as an usurper of the papal chair, they now closed their gates against the em- peror, and spoke openly of deposing him. In this singular po- sition between opposite dangers, Henry retrod his late steps, and broke off his treaty with the pope ; preferring, if he must fall, to fall as the defender rather than the betrayer of his im- perial rights. The rebellious princes of Germany chose an- other king, Rodolph duke of Suabia, on whom Gregory, after eome delay, bestowed the crown, with a Latin verse import- ing that it was given by virtue of the original commission 1 There had been a kind of civil war Marc, t. iii. p. 230, &c., and in Mura- at Milan for about twsnty years before tori's Annals. The Milanese clergy set this time, excited by the intemperate up a pretence to retain wives, under the zeal of some partisans who endeavored authority of their great archbishop, St. to execute the papal decrees against Ambrose, who, it seems, has spoken with Irregular clerks by force. The history of more indulgence of this practice than these feuds has been written by two con- most of the fathers. Both Arnulf and temporaries. Arnulf and Landulf, pub- Landulf favor the married clerks; and lishc'l in .the 4th volume of Muratori's were perhaps themselves of that descrip- ScriptOivs Keruin taiicarum ; sufficient tkm. Muratori. extracts from which will be found in St. VOL. I . M. 42 058 DISPUTE ABOUT INVESTITURES. CHAF. VII. PART I. of St. Peter. 1 But the success of this pontiff in his imme- diate designs was not answerable to his intrepidity. Henry both subdued the German rebellion and carried on the war with so much vigor, or rather so little resistance in, Italy, that he wa' crowned in Rome by the antipope Guibert, whom he had raised in a council of his partisans to the gov- ernment of the church instead of Gregory. The latter found an asylum under the protection of Roger Guiscard, at Sa- w^pnte lerno, where he died an exile. His mantle, how- aboutin- ever, descended upon his successors, especially vesiuures. TT , -.-.. , _ * J Urban 11. and l^aschal II., who strenuou-ly per- severed in the great contest for ecclesiastical independe the former with a spirit and policy worthy of Gregory VJL, the latter with steady but disinterested prejudice. 2 They raised up enemies against Henry IV. out of the bosom of his family, instigating the ambition of two of his sons successive- ly, Conrad and Henry, to mingle in the revolts of Germany. But Borne, under whose auspices the latter had not scrupled to engage in an almost parricidal rebellion, was soon di pointed by his unexpected tenaciousness of that obnoxious prerogative which had occasioned so much of his father's rni-ery. He steadily refused to part with the right of in titure ; and the empire was still committed in open hostility with the church for fifteen years of his reign. But Henry V. being stronger in the support of his German vassals than his father had been, none of the popes with whom he engaged had the boldness to repeat the measures of Gregory Compro-. VII. At length, each party grown weary of this c^ordlt ruinous contention, a treaty was agreed upon b<- of caiixtM, tween the emperor and Calixtus II. which put an end by compromise to the question of ecclesia.-tiVaj investitures. By this compact the emperor resigned forever all pretence to inve.-t bishops by the ring and crosier, and ' Petra. dedit Petro, Petrns diadema as may be imagined, was not rcry satis- Rodolpho. fectory to the cardinals and bishops about s Paschal TJ. was go eonaeientions in Paschal's court, more worldlv-inindf;4 his abhorrence of investitures, that he than himself, nor to thoe of the ernpc actually signed an agreement with rors party, whose joint clamor POOD put a Henry V. in 1110, whereby the prelates stop to the treaty. St. Marc, t. iv. j," were to resign all the lands and other A letter of Paschal to Aiwelm (Schmidt, possessions which they held in fief of the t. iii. p. 304) seems to imply that he emperor, on condition of the latter re- thought it better for the church to b nouncing the right of investiture, which without riches than to enjoy them oa Indeed, in such circumstance*, would fall condition of doing ->omage to laymen. Of iteelf This extraordinary concessitn, ECCLES. POWER. , COMPROMISED BY CONCORDAT. 059 recognized the liberty of elections. But in return it was agreed that elections should be made in his presence or that of his officers, and that the new bishop should receive hia temporalities from the emperor by the sceptre. 1 Both parties in the concordat at Worms receded from so much of their pretensions, that we might almost hesitate to determine which is to be considered as victorious. On the one hand, in restoring the freedom of episcopal elections the emperors lost a prerogative of very long standing, and almost necessary to the maintenance of authority over not the least turbulent part of their subjects. And though the form of in- vestiture by the ring and crosier seemed in itself of no im- portance, yet it had been in effect* a collateral security against the election of obnoxious persons. For the emperors detaining this necessary part of the pontificals until they should confer investiture, prevented a hasty consecration of the new bishop, after which, the vacancy being legally filled, it would not be decent for them to withhold the temporali- ties. But then, on the other hand, they preserved by the concordat their feudal sovereignty over the estates of the church, in defiance of the language which had recently been held by its rulers. Gregory VII. had positively declared, in the Lateran council of 1080, that a bishop or abbot receiving investiture from a layman should not be reckoned as a prel- ate. 2 The same doctrine had been maintained by all his successors, without any limitation of their censures to the formality of the ring and crosier. But Calixtus II. himself had gone much further, and absolutely prohibited the com- pelling ecclesiastics to render any service to laymen on ac- count of their benefices. 8 It is evident that such a general immunity from feudal obligations for an order who possessed nearly half the lands in Europe struck at the root of those in- stitutions by which the fabric of society was principally held together. This complete independency had been the aim of Gregory's disciples ; and by yielding to the continuance of lay investitures in any shape Calixtus may, in this point of i St. Marc, t. iv. p. 1093; Schmidt, between those of impure laymen, p. 956. t. iii. p. 178. The latter quotes the Latin The same expressions are used by others, ivords. and are levelled at the form of feudal * St. Marc. t. ir. p. 774. A bishop of homage, which, according to the priu- Placentia asserts that prelates dishonored ciples of that age, ought to have been a* their order by putting their hands, obnoxious as investiture, which held the" body and blood of Christ, 3 ia. p . 1061, 1067. C60 INVESTITURES. _ CHAP. VII. PART I view, appear to have relinquished the principal object of contention. 1 The emperors were not the only sovereigns whose practice of investiture excited the hostility of Rome, although they sustained the principal brunt of the war. A similar contest broke out under the pontificate of Paschal II. with Henry I. of England ; for the circumstances of which, as they contain nothing peculiar, I refer to our own historians. It is remark- able that it ended in a compromise not unlike that adjusted at Worms ; the king renouncing all sorts of investitures, while the pope consented that the bishop should do homage for his temporalities. This was exactly the custom of France, where an investiture by the ring and crosier is said not to have prevailed ; 2 and it answered the main end of sovereigns by keeping up the feudal dependency of ecclesiastical estates. But the kings of Castile were more fortunate than the rest ; discreetly yielding to the pride of Rome, they obtained what was essential to their own authority, and have always pos- sessed, by the concession of Urban II., an absolute privilege 1 Ranke observes that according to though she seemed to come out success- the concordat of Worms predominant fully, yet it produced a hatred on the influence was yielded to the emperor in part of the laity, and, above all, a deter- JJ1COOUU WaUl [rCUllUU, OiUU VTIUOJl CUU- DUBBVnUUVJr WilB LU UC UJBpUMM*. 111. '.K7. tained the germ of fresh disputes. Hist. The emperors retained a good deal the of Reform.!. 34. But even if this victory regale, or possession of the temporalities an unnecessary ceremony, ne sun re- ever was gained oy me lormer was so tained the substance. The right which much subtracted from the efficacy of the he assumed of nominating bishops and latter. This left an importance to the abbots was left unimpaired." Hist, of imperial investiture after the Calixtin Engl. ii. 169. But if this nomination by concordat, which was not intended prc- the crown was so great an abuse, why bably by the pope. For the words, aa did the popes concede it to Spain and quoted by Schmidt (iii. 301), Habeat France ? The real truth is, that no mode imperatoria dignitas electum liber , con- liuimuiiuuu m uit; uruwu is u&mjr tu lufuj uuuiiug inure umu a luruiituty. work better than any other, even for the The emperor is, as it were, commanded religious good of the church. As a to invest the bishop after consecration, means of preserving the connection of the But in practice the emperors always clergy with the state, it is almost indis- conferred the investiture before couso pensable. cration. Schmidt, iv. 153 Schmidt observes, as to Germany, that 2 Histoire du Droit public ecclesias- the dispute about investitures was not tique Francois, p. 261. I. do not fully wholly to the advantage of the church ; rely on this authority. ECCLES. POWER, CAPITULAR ELECTIONS. GG1 of nomination to bishoprics in their dominions. 1 An early evidence of that indifference of the popes towards the real independence of national churches to which subsequent ages were to lend abundant confirmation. ."W hen the emperors had surrendered their pretensions to interfere in episcopal elections, the primitive mode T c 11 - , n> t~ i 1-1. Introduction or collecting the suffrages of clergy and laity in of capitular conjunction, or at least of the clergy with the elections - laity's assent and ratification, ought naturally to have revived. But in the twelfth century neither the people, nor even the general body of the diocesan clergy, were considered as worthy to exercise this function. It soon devolved altogether upon the chapters of cathedral churches. 3 The original of these may be traced very high. In the earliest ages we find a college of presbytery consisting of the priests and deacons, assistants as a council of advice, or even a kind of parliament, to their bishops. Parochial divisions, and fixed ministers attached to them, were not established till a later period. But the canons, or cathedral clergy, acquired afterwards a more distinct character. They were subjected by degrees to certain strict observances, little differing, in fact, from those imposed on monastic orders. They lived at a common table, they slept in a common dormitory, their dress and diet were regulated by peculiar laws. But they were distin- guished from monks by the right of possessing individual property, which was afterwards extended to the enjoyment of separate prebends or benefices. These strict regulations, chiefly imposed by Louis the Debonair, went into disuse through the relaxation of discipline ; nor were they ever effectually restored. Meantime the chapters became ex- tremely rich ; and as they monopolized the privilege of electing bishops, it became an object of ambition with noble 1 P. Paul on Benefices, c. 24 ; Zurita, though perhaps little else than a matter Anales de Aragon, t. iv. p. 305. Fleury of form. Innocent II. seems to have gays that the kings of Spain nominate to been the first who declared that whoever bishoprics by virtue of a particular indul- had the majority of the chapter in his genee, renewed bv the pope for the life favor should be deemed duly elected ; of each prince. Institutions au Droit, and this was confirmed by Otho IV. in t. i. p. 106. the capitulation upon hi* accession. Hist. * Fra Paolo (Treatise on Benefices, c. des Allemands, t. iv. p. 175. Fleury 24) says that between 1122 and 1145 thinks that chapters had not an ex.-lusive it became a rule almost everywhere election till the end of the twelfth cen- eetablished that bishops should be chos- tury. The second Latenin council in en by the chapter. Schmidt, however, 1139 n-pre-e- th.-ir attempts to engroM brings a few instances where the consent it. Institutions au Droit Eccles. t. i. at the nobility and other laics in expressed, p. 100. CG2 GENERAL CONDUCT CHAP. VII. PART i families to obtain canonries for their younger children, as the surest road to ecclesiastical honors and opulence. Contrary, therefore, to the general policy of the church, persons of inferior birth have been rigidly excluded from these founda- tions. 1 The object of Gregory VII., in attempting to redress those General more flagrant abuses which for two centuries had conductor deformed the face of the Latin church, is not Bregcry vn. mca p a bi ej perhaps, of vindication, though no suf- ficient apology can be offered for the means he employed. But the disinterested love of reformation, to which candor might ascribe the contention against investitures, is belied by the general tenor of his conduct, exhibiting an arrogance without parallel, and an ambition that grasped at universal and unlimited monarchy. He may be called the common enemy of all sovereigns whose dignity as well as independence mortified his infatuated pride. Thus we find him menacing Philip I. of France, who had connived at the pillage of some Italian merchants and pilgrims, not only with an interdict, but a sentence of deposition. 2 Thus too he asserts, as a known historical fact, that the kingdom of Spain had formerly belonged, by special right, to St. Peter ; and by virtue of this imprescriptible claim he grants to a certain count de Rouei all territories which he should reconquer from the Moors, to be held in fief from the Holy See by a stipulated rent. 8 A similar pretension he makes to the kingdom of Hungary, and bitterly reproaches its sovereign, Solomon, who had done hom- age to the emperor, in derogation of St. Peter, his legitimate lord. 4 It was convenient to treat this apostle as a great 1 Schmidt, t. ii. p. 224, 473; t. iii. Roceio, cujus famatn apud vos baud ob- p. 281. Encyclopedic art. Chanoine. F. scuram esse putamus, terram illam ad Paul on Benefices, c. 16. Floury, 8