Volume I Part 32 (1/2)
If thus Europe, by its conversion, received from Rome an immense benefit, it repaid the obligation at length by infusing into Latin Christianity what was sadly needed--a higher moral tone. Earnestness is the attribute of savage life. That divorce between morality and faith which the southern nations had experienced was not possible among these converts. If, by communicating many of their barbarous and pagan conceptions to the Latin faith, they gave it a tendency to develop itself in an idolatrous form, their influence was not one of unmitigated evil, for while they lowered the standard of public belief, they elevated that of private life. In truth, the contamination they imparted is often over-rated. The infusion of paganism into religion was far more due to the people of the cla.s.sical countries. The inhabitants of Italy and Greece were never really alienated from the idolatries of the old times. At the best, they were only Christianized on the surface. With many other mythological practices, they forced image-wors.h.i.+p on the clergy. But Charlemagne, who, in this respect, may be looked upon as a true representative of Frankish and German sentiment, totally disapproved of that idolatry.
[Sidenote: The conspiracy of the papacy and the Franks.]
2nd. From this consideration of the psychical revolution that had occurred in Central Europe, I turn to an investigation of the position of the papacy and its compact with the Franks.
[Sidenote: Position of the Franks and Saracens.]
[Sidenote: Relations of Charles Martel to the Church.]
Scarcely had the Arabs consolidated their conquest of Africa when they pa.s.sed into Spain, and quickly, as will be related in a subsequent chapter, subjugating that country, prepared to overwhelm Europe. It was their ambition and their threat to preach the unity of G.o.d in Rome. They reached the centre of France, but were beaten in the great battle of Tours by Charles Martel, the Duke of the Franks, A.D. 732. That battle fixed the religious destiny of Europe. The Saracens did not, however, give up their attempt. Three years afterward they returned into Provence, and Charles was himself repulsed. But by this time their power had expanded too extensively for consolidation. It was already giving unmistakable tokens of decomposition. Scarcely, indeed, had Musa, the conqueror of Spain, succeeded in his expedition, when he was arrested at the head of his army, and ordered to give an account of his doings at Damascus. It was the occurrence of such disputes among the Saracens in Spain that const.i.tuted the true check to their conquest of France.
Charles Martel had permitted Chilperic II. and Thierry IV. to retain the t.i.tle of king; but his foresight of approaching events seems to be indicated by the circ.u.mstance that after the death of the latter he abstained from appointing any successor. He died A.D. 741, leaving a memory detested by the Church of his own country on account of his having been obliged to appropriate from its property sufficient for the payment of his army. He had taken a t.i.the from the revenues of the churches and convents for that purpose. The ignorant clergy, alive only to their present temporal interests, and not appreciating the great salvation he had wrought out for them, could never forgive him. Their inconceivable greed could not bear to be taxed even in its own defence.
”It is because Prince Charles,” says the Council of Kiersi to one of his descendants, ”was the first of all the kings and princes of the Franks who separated and dismembered the goods of the Church; it is for that sole cause that he is eternally d.a.m.ned. We know, indeed, that St.
Eucherius, Bishop of Orleans, being in prayer, was carried up into the world of spirits, and that among the things which the Lord showed to him, he beheld Charles tormented in the lowest depths of h.e.l.l. The angel who conducted him, being interrogated on this matter, answered him that, in the judgment to come, the soul and body of him who has taken, or who has divided the goods of the Church, shall be delivered over, even before the end of the world, to eternal torments by the sentence of the saints, who shall sit together with the Lord to judge him. This act of sacrilege shall add to his own sins the acc.u.mulated sins of all those who thought that they had purchased their redemption by giving for the love of G.o.d their goods to holy places, to the lights of divine wors.h.i.+p, and to the alms of the servants of Christ.” This amusing but instructive quotation strikingly shows how quickly the semi barbarian Frankish clergy had caught the methods of Rome in the defence of temporal possessions.
[Sidenote: The epoch of Pepin.]
[Sidenote: His conspiracy with the pope.]
[Sidenote: Its results.]
Pepin, the son of Charles Martel, introduces us to an epoch and a policy resembling in many respects that of Constantine the Great; for he saw that by an alliance with the Church it would be possible for him to displace his sovereign and attain to kingly power. A thorough understanding was entered upon between Pepin and the pope. Each had his needs. One wanted the crown of France, the other liberation from Constantinople and the Lombards. Pepin commenced by enriching the clergy with immense gifts, and a.s.signing to the bishops seats in the a.s.sembly of the nation. In thus consolidating ecclesiastical power he occasioned a great social revolution, as was manifested by the introduction of the Latin and the disuse of the Frankic on those occasions, and by the trans.m.u.ting of military reviews into theological a.s.semblies. Meantime Pope Zachary, on his part, made ready to accomplish his engagement, the chaplain of Pepin being the intermedium of negotiation. On the demand being formally made, the pope decided that ”he should be king who really possessed the royal power.” Hereupon, in March, A.D. 752, Pepin caused himself to be raised by his soldiers on a buckler and proclaimed King of the Franks. To give solemnity to the event, he was anointed by the bishops with oil. The deposed king, Childeric III., was shut up in the convent of St. Omer. Next year Pope Stephen III., driven to extremity, applied to Pepin for a.s.sistance against the Lombards. It was during these transactions that he fell upon the device of enforcing his demand by a letter which he feigned had been written by St. Peter to the Franks. And now, visiting France, the pope, as an earnest of his friends.h.i.+p, and as the token of his completion of the contract, in the monastery of St. Denis, placed, with his own hands, the diadem on Pepin's brow, and anointed him, his wife, and children, with ”the holy oil,” thereby reviving the Jewish system of creating kings by anointment, and imparting to his confederate ”a divine right.” Pepin now finally defeated the Lombards, and a.s.signed a part of the conquered territory to the pope. Thus, by a successful soldier, two important events had been accomplished--a revolution in France, attended by a change of dynasty, and a revolution in Christendom--the Bishop of Rome had become a temporal sovereign. To the hilt of the sword of France the keys of St. Peter were henceforth so firmly bound that, though there have been great kings, and conquerors, and statesmen who have wielded that sword, not one to this day has been able, though many have desired, to wrench the enc.u.mbrance away.
[Sidenote: The reign of Charlemagne.]
Charlemagne, on succeeding his father Pepin, thoroughly developed his policy. At the urgent entreaty of Pope Stephen III. he entered Italy, subjugated the Lombards, and united the crown of Lombardy to that of France. Upon the pagan Saxons burning the church of Deventer, he commenced a war with them which lasted thirty-three years, and ended in their compulsory Christianization. As the circle of his power extended, he everywhere founded churches and established bishoprics, enriching them with territorial possessions. To the petty sovereigns, as they successively succ.u.mbed, he permitted the t.i.tle of counts. True to his own and his father's understanding with the pope, he invariably insisted on baptism as the sign of submission, punis.h.i.+ng with appalling barbarity any resistance, as on the occasion of the revolt, A.D. 782, when, in cold blood, he beheaded in one day 4500 persons at Verden. Under such circ.u.mstances, it is not to be wondered at that clerical influence extended so fast; yet, rapid as was its development, the power of Charlemagne was more so.
[Sidenote: He is crowned Emperor of the West,]
In the church of St. Peter at Rome, on Christmas-day, A.D. 800, Pope Leo III., after the celebration of the holy mysteries, suddenly placed on the head of Charlemagne a diadem, amid the acclamations of the people, ”Long life and victory to Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned by G.o.d, the great and pacific Emperor of the Romans.” His head and body were anointed with the holy oil, and, as was done in the case of the Caesars, the pontiff himself saluted or adored him. In the coronation oath Charlemagne promised to maintain the privileges of the Church.
[Sidenote: and carries out his compact with the papacy.]
The n.o.ble t.i.tle of ”Emperor of the West” was not inappropriate, for Charlemagne ruled in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Hungary. An inferior dignity would not have been equal to his deserts. His princely munificence to St. Peter was worthy of the great occasion, and even in his minor acts he exhibited a just appreciation of his obligations to the apostle. He proceeded to make in his dominions such changes in the Church organization as the Italian policy required, subst.i.tuting, for instance, the Gregorian for the Ambrosian chant, and, wherever his priests resisted, he took from them by force their antiphonaries. As an example to insubordinates he, at the request of the pope, burnt some of the singers along with their books.
[Sidenote: He declines image-wors.h.i.+p,]
[Sidenote: but permits relic-wors.h.i.+p.]
[Sidenote: His policy as respects slavery.]
The rapid growth of the power of Charlemagne, his overshadowing pre-eminence, and the subordinate position of the pope, who had really become his Italian lieutenant, are strikingly manifested by the event of image-wors.h.i.+p in the West. On this, as we shall in another chapter see, the popes had revolted from their iconoclastic sovereigns of Constantinople. The second Council of Nicea had authorized image-wors.h.i.+p, but the good sense of Charlemagne was superior to such idolatry. He openly expressed his disapproval, and even dictated a work against it--the Carolinian books. The pope was therefore placed in a singular dilemma, for not only had image-wors.h.i.+p been restored at Constantinople, and the original cause of the dispute removed, but the new protector, Charlemagne, had himself embraced iconoclasm. However, it was not without reason that the pope at this time avoided the discussion, for a profitable sale of bones and relics, said to be those of saints but in reality obtained from the catacombs of Rome, had arisen. To the barbarian people of the north these gloomy objects proved more acceptable than images of wood, and the traffic, though contemptible, was more honourable than the slave-trade in va.s.sals and peasant children which had been carried on with Jews and Mohammedans.
Like all the great statesmen of antiquity, who were unable to comprehend the possibility of a highly civilized society without the existence of slavery, Charlemagne accepted that unfortunate condition as a political necessity, and attempted to draw from it as much benefit as it was capable of yielding to the state. From certain cla.s.ses of slaves he appointed, by a system of apprentices.h.i.+p, those who should be devoted to the mechanical arts and to trade. It was, however, slavery and warfare which, during his own life, by making the possession of property among small proprietors an absolute disadvantage, prepared the way for that rapid dissolution of his empire so quickly occurring after his death.
[Sidenote: The European slave-trade.]
Yet, though Charlemagne thus accepted the existence of slavery as a necessary political evil, the evidences are not wanting that he was desirous to check its abuses wherever he could. When the Italian dukes accused Pope Adrian of selling his va.s.sals as slaves to the Saracens, Charlemagne made inquiry into the matter, and, finding that transactions of the kind had occurred in the port of Civita Vecchia, though he did not choose to have so infamous a scandal made public, he ever afterwards withdrew his countenance from that pope. At that time a very extensive child slave-trade was carried on with the Saracens through the medium of the Jews, ecclesiastics as well as barons selling the children of their serfs.
[Sidenote: Improvements of the physical state of the people.]
[Sidenote: State of the clergy.]