Part 16 (1/2)
INTRODUCTION.
CHARACTER OF THE MIDDLE AGES.--The middle ages include the long interval between the first general irruption of the Teutonic nations towards the close of the fourth century, to the middle of the fifteenth century, when the modern era, with a distinctive character of its own, began. Two striking features are observed in the mediaeval era. First, there was a mingling of the conquering Germanic nations with the peoples previously making up the Roman Empire, and a consequent effect produced upon both. The Teutonic tribes modified essentially the old society. On the other hand, there was a reaction of Roman civilization upon them. The conquered became the teachers and civilizers of the conquerors. Secondly, the Christian Church, which outlived the wreck of the empire, and was almost the sole remaining bond of social unity, not only educated the new nations, but regulated and guided them, to a large extent, in secular as well as religious affairs. Thus out of chaos, Christendom arose, a single h.o.m.ogeneous society of peoples. It was in the middle ages that the pontifical authority reached its full stature. The Holy See exercised the lofty function of arbiter among contending nations, and of leaders.h.i.+p in great public movements, like the Crusades. Civil authority and ecclesiastical authority, emperors and popes, were engaged in a long conflict for predominance. Thus there are three elements which form the essential factors in Mediaeval History,-the _Barbarian_ element, the _Roman_ element, with its law and civil polity, and with what was left of ancient arts and culture, and the _Christian_, or _Ecclesiastical_, element. As we approach the close of the mediaeval era, a signal change occurs. The nations begin to acquire a more defined individuality; the superintendence of the church in civil affairs is more and more renounced or relinquished; there dawns a new era of invention and discovery, of culture and reform.
PERIOD I. FROM THE MIGRATIONS OF THE TEUTONIC TRIBES TO THE CARLOVINGIAN LINE OF FRANK RULERS. (A.D. 375-751.)
CHAPTER I. CAUSES OF THE FALL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE: THE TEUTONIC CONFEDERACIES.
GRADUAL OVERTHROW OF THE EMPIRE.--When we speak of the destruction of the Roman Empire by the barbarians, we must not imagine that it was sudden, as by an earthquake. It was gradual. Had the empire not been undermined from within, it would not have been overthrown from without. The Roman armies were recruited by bringing numerous barbarians into the ranks. At length whole tribes were suffered to form permanent settlements within the boundaries of the empire. A ”king” with his entire tribe would engage to do military service in exchange for lands. More and more both the wealth and the weakness of Rome were exposed to the gaze of the Germanic nations. Their cupidity was aroused as their power increased. Meantime the barbarians were learning from their employers the art of war, and were gaining soldierly discipline. Their brave warriors rose to places of command. They made and unmade the rulers, and finally became rulers themselves. Another important circ.u.mstance is, that most of the Germanic tribes were converts to Christianity before they made their attacks and subverted the throne of the Caesars. In fine, there was a long preparation for the great onset of the barbarian peoples in the fifth century.
CAUSES OF THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE.--But the success of the barbarian invasions presupposes an internal decay in the empire. It was one symptom of a conscious decline, that the conquering spirit was chilled, and the policy was adopted of fixing the limits of the Roman dominion at the Rhine and the Danube. Rome now stood on the defensive. The great service of the imperial government, for which it was most valued, was to protect the frontiers. This partly accounts for the consternation of _Augustus_, when, in the forests of Germany, the legions of _Varus_ were destroyed (p. 172). The essential fact is, that Rome became unable to keep up the strength of its armies. _First_, there were lacking the men to fill up the legions. The civil wars had reduced the population in Italy and in other countries. The efforts of _Augustus_ to encourage marriage by bounties proved of little avail. _Secondly_, the cla.s.s of independent Italian yeomen, which had made up the bone and sinew of the Roman armies, pa.s.sed away. Slavery supplanted free labor. _Thirdly_, in the third century terrible plagues swept over the empire. In 166 a frightful pestilence broke out, from which, according to _Niebuhr_, the ancient world never recovered. It was only the first in a series of like appalling visitations. _Fourthly_, the death of liberty carried after it a loss of the virtue, the virile energy, by which Rome had won her supremacy. _Fifthly_, the new imperial system, after _Diocletian_, effective as it was for maintaining an orderly administration, drained the resources of the people. The munic.i.p.al government in each town was put into the hands of _curiales_, or the owners of a certain number of acres. They were made responsible for the taxes, which were levied in a gross amount upon the town. The _fiscus_, or financial administration of the empire, was so managed that the civil offices became an intolerable burden to those who held them. Yet it was a burden from which there was no escape. One result was, that, while slaves were often made _coloni_,--that is, tillers or tenants, sharing with the owner the profits of tillage,--and thus had their condition improved, many freeholders sank to the same grade, which was a kind of serfdom. When to the exhausting taxation by government, there were added the disposition of large proprietors to despoil the poorer cla.s.s of landholders, and from time to time the predatory incursions of barbarians, the small supply of Roman legionaries is easily accounted for.
THREE RACES OF BARBARIANS.--While the empire, as regards the power of self-defense, was sinking, the barbarians were not only profiting by the military skill and experience of the Romans, but were forming military _unions_ among their several tribes. In the East, there was one civilized kingdom, _Persia_, the successor of the Parthian kingdom, but not powerful enough to be a rival,--certainly not in an aggressive contest. But northward and northeast of the Roman boundaries, there stretched ”a vague and unexplored waste of barbarism,” ”a vast, dimly-known chaos of numberless barbarous tongues and savage races.” A commotion among these numerous tribes, the uncounted mult.i.tudes spreading far into the plain of Central Asia, had begun as early as the days of Julius Caesar. They were made up of three races,--the _Teutons_, or _Germanic_ peoples; eastward of them, the _Slavonians_; and, farther beyond, the Asiatic _Scythians_. The Slavonians, an Aryan branch, like the Teutons, had their abodes in the s.p.a.ce between Germany and the Volga. They were a pastoral and an agricultural race, of whose religion little is known. Their incursions and settlements belong to the sixth and seventh centuries, and to the history of the Eastern Empire.
TEUTONIC CONFEDERACIES.--Of the confederacies of German tribes, the _Goths_ are first to be mentioned. In the third century they had spread over the immense territory between the Baltic and the Black seas. They were divided into the West Goths (_Visigoths_) and East Goths (_Ostrogoths_). Their force was augmented by the junction of kindred tribes. To the east of them, towards the Don, was a tribe of mixed race, the _Alani_. In the third century the Goths had made their terrible inroads into _Maesia_ and _Thrace_, and the brave emperor _Decius_ had perished in the combat with them. They had pushed their marauding excursions as far as the coasts of Greece and Ionia. In the middle of the fourth century they were united, with their allied tribes, under the sovereignty of the East Gothic chieftain, _Hermanric_. A second league of Germanic peoples was the _Alemanni_, which included the formidable tribes called by Caesar the _Suevi_, and who, after various incursions, had established themselves on the Upper Rhine, in what is now Baden, Wurtemberg, and north-east in Switzerland, and in the region southward to the summits of the Alps. Their invasion of Italy in 255, when they poured through the pa.s.ses of the Rhetian Alps, and penetrated as far as _Ravenna_, was repelled by _Aurelian_, afterwards emperor. A third confederacy was that of the _Franks_ (or Freemen) on the Lower Rhine and the Weser. In North Germany, between the Elbe and the Rhine, were the _Saxons_. The _Burgundians_, between the Saxons and the Alemanni, made their way to the same river near _Worms_. East of the Franks and Saxons, were the valiant _Lombards_, who made their way southwards to the center of Europe, and finally to the Danube. The _Frisians_ were situated on the sh.o.r.e of the North Sea and in the adjacent islands. North of the Saxons were the _Danes_ and other peoples of _Scandinavia_,--Teutons all, but a separate branch of the Teutonic household. To bold and warlike tribes, now banded together, such as were the Franks and the Alemanni, the Rhine, with its line of Roman cities and fortresses, could form no permanent barrier. When they crossed it, they might be driven back; but this was only to renew their expeditions at the first favorable moment. The prey which they saw near by, and of which they dreamed in the distance, was too enticing. No more could the Danube fence off the thronging nations; all of whom had heard, and some of whom had beheld, the wealth and luxury of the civilized lands.
Beginning at the _Euxine_, and moving westward along the line of the _Danube_ and the _Rhine_, we find, at the end of the fourth century, that the six most prominent names of _Teutonic_ tribes are the _Goths_, _Vandals_, _Burgundians_, _Franks_, _Saxons_, and _Lombards_. Over the vast plains to the south and west of the Caspian are spread the _Huns_, who belong to one branch of the Scythian or Turanian group of nations.
HABITS OF THE GERMANS.--We have notices of the Germans from _Julius Caesar_, the most full description of them in the _Germania_ of _Tacitus_. They were tall and robust, and seemed to the Romans, who were of smaller stature, as giants. Tacitus speaks of their ”fiercely blue eyes.” They lived in huts made of wood, and containing the cattle as well as the family. They tilled the soil, but their favorite employments were war and the chase. Capable of cruelty, they were still of a kindly temper, and fond of feasts and social gatherings, where they were apt to indulge in excessive drinking and in gambling. They were brave, and not without a delicate sense of honor. Family ties were sacred. The women were chaste, and were companions of their husbands, although subject to them. Most of the people were _freemen_, who were land-owners, and carried arms. The n.o.bles were those of higher birth, but with no special privileges. The freemen owned _slaves_, who were either criminals or persons who had lost their freedom in gaming or prisoners of war. There were also _freedmen_ or _leti_, who held land of a superior. Many freedmen lived apart, but many were gathered in villages. The land about a village was originally held in common. Each village had a chief, and each collection of villages, or _hundred_, possessed a chief of high rank; and there was a ”king,” or head of the tribe. All these chieftains were elected by the freemen at a.s.semblies periodically held. When the duke or general was chosen, he was raised on a s.h.i.+eld on the shoulders of the men. The judges in the trial of causes sat, with a.s.sessors or jurymen around them, in the open air. But private injuries were avenged by the individual or by his family. One marked characteristic of the Germans was the habit of devoting themselves to the service of a military leader. They paid to him personal allegiance, and followed him in war. The Germans were, above all, distinguished by a strong sense of personal independence. If their mode of living resembled outwardly that of other savage races, yet in their free political life, and in the n.o.ble promise of their language even in its rudiments, the comparison does not hold. In their faithfulness, courage, and personal purity, they are emphatically contrasted with the generality of barbarous peoples.
RELIGION OF THE GERMANS.--We know more of the Scandinavian religion through the _Eddas_, the Iliad of the Northmen, than of the religion of the Germans; but the two religions were closely allied. Among the chief G.o.ds wors.h.i.+ped by the Germans were _Woden_, called ”Odin” in the North, the highest divinity, the G.o.d of the air and of the sky, the giver of fruits and delighting in battle; _Donar_ (Thor), the G.o.d of thunder and of the weather, armed with a hammer or thunderbolt; _Thiu_ (Tyr), a G.o.d of war, answering to Mars; _Fro_ (Freyr), G.o.d of love; and _Frauwa_ (Freya), his sister. Particular days were set apart for their wors.h.i.+p. Their names appear in the names of the days of the week,--Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Sunday is the day of the sun, and Monday the day of the moon. Sat.u.r.day alone is a name of Latin origin. Among the minor beings in the German mythology were fairies, elves, giants, and dwarfs. There were festivals to the G.o.ds. Their images were preserved in groves. Lofty trees were held sacred to divinities. The oak and the red ash were consecrated to _Donar_. Sacrifices, and among them human sacrifices, were offered to the G.o.ds. Their will was ascertained by means of the lot, the neighing of wild horses, and the flight of birds. Priests were not without influence, but were not a professional cla.s.s, and were never dominant. Valiant warriors at death were admitted into Walhalla (the _hall of the slain_), where they sat at banquet with the G.o.ds.
THE THEODOSIAN IMPERIAL HOUSE
THEODOSIUS | +--THEODOSIUS I (the Great), _m._, | 1, Flaccilla; | 2, Galla sister of Valentinian II | | | +--Grantia.n.u.s | | | +--Pulcheria | | | +--ARCADIUS | | _m._ Eudoxia | | | | | +--THEODOSIUS II | | | _m._ Eudocia | | | | | | | +--Eudoxia | | | | _m._ VALENTINIAN III | | | | | | | +--Flaccilla | | | | | +--Pulcheria | | | _m._ MARCIAN | | | | | +--Three other daughters | | | +--HONORIUS | | _m._ Maria, daughter of Stilicho | | | +--Placidia _m._ | 1, Adolphus; | 2, CONSTANTIUS | | | +--VALENTINIAN III, | | _m._ Eudoxia.
| | | | | +--Eudoxia, _m._ | | | 1, Palladius, son of MAXIMUS; | | | 2, Huneric, son of GENSERIC.
| | | | | | | +--Ideric | | | | | +--Placidia | | _m._ OLYBRIUS | | | +--Honoria | +--Honorius | +--Serena, | _m._ Stilicho | | | +--Maria | +--Thermantia
[From Rawlinson's _Manual of Ancient History._]
CHAPTER II. THE TEUTONIC MIGRATIONS AND KINGDOMS.
THE GOTHS: THEODOSIUS I.--Towards the close of the fourth century, when _Valens_ (364-378) was reigning in the East, the _Huns_ moved from their settlements north of the Caspian, defeated the _Alans_, a powerful nation, and, compelling them to enter their service, invaded the empire of the _Ostrogoths_, then ruled by _Hermanric_. The Huns belonged to one branch of the Scythian race. They had migrated in vast numbers from Central Asia. Repulsive in form and visage, with short, thick bodies, and small, fierce eyes, living mostly on horseback or in their wagons, these terrible warriors, with their slings and bone-pointed arrows, struck terror into the nations whom they approached. The Gothic Empire fell. The Ostrogoths submitted, and Hermanric died, it is thought by his own hand. The _Visigoths_ crowded down to the Danube, and implored Valens to give them an asylum upon Roman territory. They had previously been converted to Christianity, mainly by the labors of _Ulphilas_, who had framed for them an alphabet, and translated nearly the whole Bible into their tongue. Fragments of this _Moeso-Gothic_ version are the oldest written monument in the Teutonic languages. Christianity was taught to them by Ulphilas in the Arian type; and this circ.u.mstance was very important, since it was the occasion of the spread of _Arianism_ among many other Teutonic peoples. Valens granted their request to cross the Danube, and, under _Fritigern_ and _Alavivus_, to settle in Moesia (376). By the connivance of the officers of Valens, they were allowed to retain their arms. The avarice of corrupt imperial governors provoked them to revolt; and, in the battle of _Adrianople_, Valens was defeated. The house into which the wounded emperor was carried was set on fire, and he perished. _Gratian_, who, since the death of Valentinian I. (375), had been the ruler of the West, summoned the valiant _Theodosius_ from his estate in Spain, to which he had been banished, to sustain the tottering empire. Gratian made him regent in the East. His father had cleared Britain of the Picts and Scots, and restored it to the empire. Under him the son had learned to be a soldier. He had been driven into retirement by court intrigues. He now accomplished, as well as it could be done, the mighty task laid upon him. He checked the progress of the Goths, divided them, incorporated some of them in the army, and dispersed the rest in Thrace, Moesia, and Asia Minor (382). Four years later forty-thousand Ostrogoths were received into the imperial service. Once Rome had conquered the barbarians, and planted its colonies among them; now, after they had proved their power, and gained boldness by victory, it received them within its own borders. The indolence and vice of _Gratian_ produced a revolution in the West. _Maximus_ was proclaimed imperator by the legions of Britain, and Gratian was put to death by his cavalry (383). After sanguinary conflicts, _Theodosius_ obtained, also, supreme power in the West. He gave to orthodoxy, in the strife with Arianism, the supremacy in the East; and, under his auspices, the _General Council of Constantinople_ re-affirmed the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity (381). In the ancient church he had a glory second only to that of Constantine. With the exception of his harsh and inquisitorial laws for the forcible suppression of Arianism and paganism, his legislation was generally wise and beneficent.
ARCADIUS: HONORIUS.--Theodosius left the government of the East to his son _Arcadius_, then eighteen years of age, and that of the West to a younger son, _Honorius_. The empire of the East continued ten hundred and fifty-eight years after this division; that of the West, only eighty-one years. The Eastern Empire was defended by the barriers of the Danube and the Balkan mountains, by the strength of Constantinople, together with the care taken to protect it, and by the general tendency of the barbarian invasions westward. Rome, in the course of a half-century, was the object of four terrible attacks,--that of _Alaric_ and the Visigoths; of _Radagaisus_ with the Suevi, Vandals, and Alans; of _Genseric_ with the Vandals; of _Attila_ with the Huns.
ALARIC IN ITALY.--The Visigoths made _Alaric_--the head of their most ill.u.s.trious family, the Balti--their leader. _Honorius_ was controlled by the influence of _Stilicho_, a brave soldier, by birth a Vandal; _Arcadius_ was ruled by a Goth, _Rufinus_, a cunning and faithless diplomatist. Alaric and his followers were enraged at the withholding of the pay which was due to them yearly from _Arcadius_. _Rufinus_, in order to keep up his sway, and out of hostility to _Stilicho_, arranged that they should invade _Eastern Illyric.u.m_, a province on which each of the emperors had claims, and which he feared that Stilicho would seize. They ravaged Thrace and Macedonia, pa.s.sed through the undefended strait of Thermopylae, spared Athens, but devastated the rest of Greece. The only protector of the empire now was _Stilicho_, to whom Theodosius had committed the care of his two sons, and whose power was exercised in the West. He caused the perfidious _Rufinus_ to be put to death by _Gainas_, one of the Gothic allies of Arcadius. The place of the minister was taken by _Eutropius_, an Armenian who had been a slave. _Stilicho_ fought the Goths in two campaigns, but, perhaps from policy, suffered them to escape by the Strait of _Naupactus_ (_Lepanto_). To prevent further ravages, Arcadius had no alternative but to appoint _Alaric_ master-general or duke of Illyric.u.m. This obliged _Stilicho_ to retire. Raised upon the s.h.i.+eld, and thus made king by his followers, Alaric led them to the conquest of Italy. _Honorius_ fled for refuge from Milan to the impregnable fortress of _Ravenna_. Stilicho came to his relief, and defeated the Visigoths at _Pollentia_ (402). But Honorius copied the example of Arcadius, made Alaric a general, and gave him the commission to conquer Illyric.u.m for the Western Empire. After his defeat, he was moving against Rome with his cavalry, when his retreat was purchased by a pension. It was when Honorius was celebrating his triumph at Rome that a monk named _Telemachus_ leaped into the arena to separate the gladiators. He was stoned to death by the spectators, but the result of his self-devotion was an edict putting a final stop to the gladiatorial shows. The emperor now fixed his residence, which had been at Milan, at _Ravenna_, a city that was covered on the land side by a wide and impa.s.sable mora.s.s, over which was an artificial causeway, easily destroyed in case it could not be defended. It had served him as an asylum during the invasion of Alaric.
RADAGAISUS.--The empire was not long left in peace. _Alaric_ was a Christian, and partially civilized. _Radagaisus_ was a Goth, but a heathen and a barbarian. The _Suevi_ under his command, took their course southward from the neighborhood of the Baltic, and, drawing after them the _Burgundians, Vandals_, and _Alans_,--tribes which began to be alarmed by the hordes of _Huns_ that were gathering behind them,--advanced to the pillage of the empire. Leaving the bulk of their companions on the borders of the Rhine, two hundred thousand of them crossed the Alps, and made their way as far as _Florence_. _Stilicho_ once more saved Rome and the empire by forcing them back into the Apennines, where most of them perished from famine. _Radagaisus_ surrendered, and was beheaded. The news of this disaster moved the host which had been left behind, joined by the remainder of the army of Radagaisus, to make an attack upon _Gaul_. Despite the resistance of the Ripuarian Franks, to whom Rome had committed the defense of the Rhine, they crossed that river on the last day of the year 406. For two years Gaul was a prey to their ravages, until the Suevi, the Alans, and the Vandals, sought for fresh booty on the south of the Pyrenees (409). In Gaul they ”destroyed the cities, ravaged the fields, and drove before them in a promiscuous crowd, the bishop, the senator, and the virgin, laden with the spoils of their houses and altars.” Brief as was this period of devastation, it marks the severance of _Gaul_ from the empire.
ALARIC AGAIN IN ITALY.--_Stilicho_ had kept up friendly relations with _Alaric_, and had retained in Italy thirty thousand barbarians in the pay of the empire. The brave general became an object of suspicion to _Honorius_, who caused him to be a.s.sa.s.sinated, and the wives and children of the barbarian troops to be ma.s.sacred. The men fled to _Alaric_. He came back with them to avenge them. He appeared under the walls of Rome. ”It was more than six hundred years since a foreign enemy had been there, and Hannibal had advanced so far, only to retreat.” When the envoys of the Senate represented to Alaric how numerous was the population, he answered, ”The thicker the hay, the easier it is mowed.” But he consented to accept an enormous ransom, and retired to winter quarters in Tuscany. The court at Ravenna refused to a.s.sign lands to the Visigoths for a permanent settlement in Northern Italy. Alaric demanded the post of master-general of the Western armies. Once more he advanced to Rome, seized the ”Port” of _Ostia_, and compelled the Senate to appoint _Attalus_, the prefect of the city, emperor. He besieged _Ravenna_ without effect, quarreled with Attalus, and deposed him, and for the third time marched upon Rome. Slaves within the city opened the Salarian gate to their countrymen, and on the 24th of August, 410, the sack of the city began. To add to the horrors of the scene, a terrific thunderstorm was raging. For three days Rome was given up to pillage. Only the Christian temples were respected, which were crowded by those who sought within them an asylum. Rome had been the center of Paganism. The scattering and destruction of its patrician families was the ruin of the old religion. Alaric did not long survive his victory. He died at _Consentia_ in _Bruttium_. He was buried under the little river _Basentius_, which was turned out of its course while the sepulcher was constructing, and then restored to its former channel. The slaves employed in the work were put to death, that the place of his burial might remain a secret (410).
ATHAULF: WALLIA.--_Athaulf_ (called Adolphus), the brother and successor of Alaric, was an admirer of the empire. He enlisted in the service of _Honorius_, and married his sister, _Placidia_, who was in the hands of the Goths, either as a captive or as a hostage. He put down usurpers in the south of Gaul who had set themselves up as emperors, and entered _Spain_, in order to drive out the barbarians from that country. But he was a.s.sa.s.sinated (415). His successor, _Wallia_, carried forward his plans, in the name of Honorius, against the Alans, the Suevi, and the Vandals. He partly exterminated the Alans, chased the Suevi into the mountains on the north-west, and the Vandals into the district called after them, _Andalusia_.