General History for Colleges and High Schools Part 36

THE COUNCIL OF WHITBY (A.D. 664).--With a view to settling the quarrel Oswy, king of Northumbria, called a synod composed of representatives of both parties, at the monastery of Whitby. The chief question of debate, which was argued before the king by the ablest advocates of both Churches, was the proper time for the observance of Easter. Finally Wilfred, the speaker for the Roman party, happening to quote the words of Christ to Peter, "To thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven," the king asked the Celtic monks if these words were really spoken by Christ to that apostle, and upon their admitting that they were, Oswy said, "He being the door-keeper,... I will in all things obey his decrees, lest when I come to the gates of the kingdom of heaven, there should be none to open them."

[Footnote: Bede's _Eccl. Hist._ III. 25.]

The decision of the prudent Oswy gave the British Isles to Rome; for not only was all England quickly won to the Roman side, but the Celtic churches and monasteries of Wales and Ireland and Scotland soon came to conform to the Roman standard and custom. "By the a.s.sistance of our Lord,"

says the pious Latin chronicler, "the monks were brought to the canonical observation of Easter, and the right mode of the tonsure."

THE ROMAN VICTORY FORTUNATE FOR ENGLAND.--There is no doubt but that it was very fortunate for England that the controversy turned as it did. For one of the most important of the consequences of the conversion of Britain was the re-establishment of that connection of the island with Roman civilization which had been severed by the calamities of the fifth century. As Green says,--he is speaking of the emba.s.sy of St. Augustine,-- "The march of the monks as they chanted their solemn litany was in one sense a return of the Roman legions who withdrew at the trumpet call of Alaric.... Practically Augustine's landing renewed that union with the western world which the landing of Hengest had destroyed. The new England was admitted into the older Commonwealth of nations. The civilization, art, letters, which had fled before the sword of the English conquerors returned with the Christian faith."

Now all this advantage would have been lost had Iona instead of Rome won at Whitby. England would have been isolated from the world, and would have had no part or lot in that rich common life which was destined to the European peoples as co-heirs of the heritage bequeathed to them by the dying empire.

A second valuable result of the Roman victory was the hastening of the political unity of England through its ecclesiastical unity. The Celtic Church, in marked contrast with the Latin, was utterly devoid of capacity for organization. It could have done nothing in the way of developing among the several Anglo-Saxon states the sentiment of nationality. On the other hand, the Roman Church, through the exercise of a central authority, through national synods and general legislation, overcame the isolation of the different kingdoms, and helped powerfully to draw them together into a common political life.

THE CONVERSION OF GERMANY.--The conversion of the tribes of Germany was effected by Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, and Frankish missionaries,--and the sword of Charlemagne (see p. 406). The great apostle of Germany was the Saxon Winfred, or Winifred, better known as St. Boniface. During a long and intensely active life he founded schools and monasteries, organized churches, preached and baptized; and at last died a martyr's death (A.D.

753).

The christianizing of the tribes of Germany relieved the Teutonic states of Western Europe from the constant peril of ma.s.sacre by their heathen kinsmen, and erected a strong barrier in Central Europe against the advance of the waves of Turanian paganism and Mohammedanism which for centuries beat so threateningly against the eastern frontiers of Germany.

[Footnote: The conversion of Russia dates from about the close of the tenth century. Its evangelization was effected by the missionaries of Constantinople, that is, of the Greek, or Eastern Church. Of the Turanian tribes, only the Hungarians, or Magyars, embraced Christianity. All the other Turanian peoples that appeared on the eastern edge of Europe during the Middle Ages, came as pagan or Moslem enemies.]

CHRISTIANITY IN THE NORTH.--The progress of Christianity in the North was slow: but gradually, during the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, the missionaries of the Church won over all the Scandinavian peoples. One important effect of their conversion was the checking of their piratical expeditions, which previously had vexed almost every sh.o.r.e to the south.

By the opening of the fourteenth century all Europe was claimed by Christianity, save a limited district in Southern Spain held by the Moors, and another in the Baltic regions possessed by the still pagan Finns and Lapps.

MONASTICISM.--It was during this very conflict with the barbarians that the Church developed the remarkable inst.i.tution known as Monasticism, which denotes a life of seclusion from the world, with the object of promoting the interests of the soul. The central idea of the system is, that the body is a weight upon the spirit, and that to "mortify the flesh"

is a prime duty.

The monastic system embraced two prominent cla.s.ses of ascetics: 1.

Hermits, or anchorites, persons who, retiring from the world, lived solitary lives in desolate places; 2. Cen.o.bites, or monks, who formed communities and lived under a common roof.

St. Antony, an Egyptian ascetic, who by his example and influence gave a tremendous impulse to the strange enthusiasm, is called the "father of the hermits." The persecutions that arose under the Roman emperors, driving thousands into the deserts, contributed vastly to the movement. The cities of Egypt became almost emptied of their Christian population.

About the close of the fourth century the cen.o.bite system was introduced into Europe, and in an astonis.h.i.+ngly short s.p.a.ce of time spread throughout all the western countries where Christianity had gained a foothold.

Monasteries arose on every side, in the wilds of the desert and in the midst of the crowded city. The number that fled to these retreats was vastly augmented by the disorder and terror attending the invasion of the barbarians and the overthrow of the empire in the West.

With the view of introducing some sort of system and uniformity among the numerous communities, fraternities or a.s.sociations were early organized and spread rapidly. The three essential vows required of their members were poverty, chast.i.ty, and obedience. The most celebrated of these fraternities was the Order of the Benedictines, so called from its founder St. Benedict (A.D. 480-543). This order became immensely popular. At one time it embraced about 40,000 abbeys.

ADVANTAGES OF THE MONASTIC SYSTEM.--The early establishment of the monastic system in the Church resulted in great advantages to the new world that was shaping itself out of the ruins of the old.

The monks became missionaries, and it was largely to their zeal and devotion that the Church owed her speedy and signal victory over the barbarians; they also became teachers, and under the shelter of the monasteries established schools which were the nurseries of learning during the Middle Ages; they became copyists, and with great care and industry gathered and multiplied ancient ma.n.u.scripts, and thus preserved and transmitted to the modern world much cla.s.sical learning and literature that would otherwise have been lost; they became agriculturists, especially the Benedictines, and by skilful labor converted the wilderness about their retreats into fair gardens, thus redeeming from barrenness some of the most desolate districts of Europe; they became further the almoners of the pious and the wealthy, and distributed alms to the poor and needy. Everywhere the monasteries opened their hospitable doors to the weary, the sick, and the discouraged. In a word, these retreats were the inns, the asylums, and the hospitals, mediaeval Europe. Nor should we fail to mention how the asceticism of the monks checked those flagrant social evils that had sapped the strength of the Roman race, and which uncounteracted would have contaminated and weakened the purer peoples of the North; nor how, through its requirements of self-control and self- sacrifice, it gave prominence to the inner life of the spirit.

CONCLUSION.--With a single word or two respecting the general consequences of the conversion to Christianity of the Teutonic tribes, we will close the present chapter.

The adoption of a common faith by the European peoples drew them together into a sort of religious brotherhood, and rendered it possible for the continent to employ its undivided strength, during the succeeding centuries, in staying the threatening progress toward the West of the colossal Mohammedan power of the East. The Christian Church set in the midst of the seething, martial nations and races of Europe an influence that fostered the gentler virtues, and a power that was always to be found on the side of order, and usually of mercy. It taught the brotherhood of man, the essential equality in the sight of G.o.d of the high and the low, and thus pleaded powerfully and at last effectually for the freedom of the slave and the serf. It prepared the way for the introduction among the barbarians of the arts, the literature, and the culture of Rome, and contributed powerfully to hasten the fusion into a single people of the Latins and Teutons, of which important matter we shall treat in the following chapter.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

FUSION OF THE LATIN AND TEUTONIC PEOPLES.

INTRODUCTORY.--Having seen how the Hebrew element, that is, the ideas, beliefs, and sentiments of Christianity, became the common possession of the Latins and Teutons, it yet remains to notice how these two races, upon the soil of the old empire, intermingled their blood, their language, their laws, their usages and customs, to form new peoples, new tongues, and new inst.i.tutions.

THE ROMANCE NATIONS.--In some districts the barbarian invaders and the Roman provincials were kept apart for a long time by the bitter antagonism of race, and a sense of injury on the one hand and a feeling of disdainful superiority on the other. But for the most part the Teutonic intruders and the Latin-speaking inhabitants of Italy, Spain, and Gaul very soon began freely to mingle their blood by family alliances. It is quite impossible to say what proportion the Teutons bore to the Romans. Of course the proportion varied in the different countries. In none of the countries named, however, was it large enough to absorb the Latinized population; on the contrary, the barbarians were themselves absorbed, yet not without changing very essentially the body into which they were incorporated. By the close of the ninth century the two elements had become quite intimately blended, and a century or two later Roman and Teuton have alike disappeared, and we are introduced to Italians, Spaniards, and Frenchmen.

These we call Romance nations, because at base they are Roman. [Footnote: Britain did not become a Romance nation on account of the nature of the barbarian conquest of that island. The Romanized provincials, as has been seen, were there almost destroyed by the fierce Teutonic invaders.]

THE FORMATION OF THE ROMANCE LANGUAGES.--During the five centuries of their subjection to Rome, the natives of Spain and Gaul forgot their barbarous dialects and came to speak a corrupt Latin. Now in exactly the same way that the dialects of the Celtic tribes of Gaul and of the Celtiberians of Spain had given way to the more refined speech of the Romans, did the rude languages of the Teutons yield to the more cultured speech of the Roman provincials. In the course of two or three centuries after their entrance into the empire, Goths, Lombards, Burgundians, and Franks had, in a large measure, dropped their own tongue, and were speaking that of the people they had subjected. But of course this provincial Latin underwent a great change upon the lips of the mixed descendants of the Romans and Teutons. Owing to the absence of a common popular literature, the changes that took place in one country did not exactly correspond to those going on in another. Hence, in the course of time, we find different dialects springing up, and by about the ninth century the Latin has virtually disappeared as a spoken language, and its place been usurped by what will be known as the Italian, Spanish, and French languages, all more or less resembling the ancient Latin, and all called Romance tongues, because children of the old Roman speech.

PERSONAL CHARACTER OF THE TEUTONIC LEGISLATION.--The legislation of the barbarians was generally personal instead of territorial, as with us; that is, instead of all the inhabitants of a given country being subject to the same laws, there were different ones for the different cla.s.ses of society.

The Latins, for instance, were subject in private law only to the old Roman code, while the Teutons lived under the rules and regulations which they had brought with them from beyond the Rhine.

Even among themselves the Teutons knew nothing of the modern legal maxim that all should stand equal before the law. The penalty inflicted upon the evil-doer depended, not upon the nature of his crime, but upon his rank, or that of the party injured. Thus slaves and serfs could be beaten and put to death for minor offences, while a freeman might atone for any crime, even for murder, by the payment of a fine, the amount of the penalty being determined by the rank of the victim. Among the Saxons the life of a king's thane was worth 1200 s.h.i.+llings, while that of a common free man was valued only one-sixth as high.

ORDEALS.--The modes by which guilt or innocence was ascertained show in how rude a state was the administration of justice among the barbarians.

One very common method of proof was by what were called ordeals, in which the question was submitted to the judgment of G.o.d. Of these the chief were the _ordeal by fire_, the _ordeal by water_, and the _ordeal by battle_.

The _ordeal by fire_ consisted in taking in the hand a red-hot iron, or in walking blindfolded with bare feet over a row of hot ploughshares laid lengthwise at irregular distances. If the person escaped without serious harm, he was held to be innocent. Another way of performing the fire ordeal was by running through the flame of two fires built close together, or by walking over live brands; hence the phrase "to haul over the coals."

The _ordeal by water_ was of two kinds, by hot water and cold. In the hot-water ordeal the accused person thrust his arm into boiling water, and if no hurt was visible upon the arm three days after the operation, the person was considered guiltless. When we speak of one's being "in hot water," we use an expression which had its origin in this ordeal.

In the cold-water trial the suspected person was thrown into a stream or pond: if he floated, he was held guilty; if he sank, innocent. The water, it was believed, would reject the guilty, but receive the innocent into its bosom. The practice common in Europe until a very recent date of trying supposed witches by weighing them, or by throwing them into a pond of water to see whether they would sink or float, grew out of this superst.i.tion.

The _trial by combat_, or _wager of battle_, was a solemn judicial duel.

It was resorted to in the belief that G.o.d would give victory to the right.

Naturally it was a favorite mode of trial among a people who found their chief delight in fighting. Even religious disputes were sometimes settled in this way. The modern duel may probably be regarded as a relic of this form of trial.

The ordeal was frequently performed by deputy, that is, one person for hire or for the sake of friends.h.i.+p would undertake it for another; hence the expression "to go through fire and water to serve one." Especially was such subst.i.tution common in the judicial duel, as women and ecclesiastics were generally forbidden to appear personally in the lists. The champions, as the deputies were called, became in time a regular cla.s.s in society, like the gladiators in ancient Rome. Religious houses and chartered towns hired champions at a regular salary to defend all the cases to which they might become a party.

THE REVIVAL OF THE ROMAN LAW.--Now the barbarian law-system, if such it can be called, the character of which we have simply suggested by the preceding ill.u.s.trations, gradually displaced the Roman law in all those countries where the two systems at first existed alongside each other, save in Italy and Southern France, where the provincials greatly outnumbered the invaders. But the admirable jurisprudence of Rome was bound to a.s.sert its superiority. About the close of the eleventh century, there was a great revival in the study of the Roman law as embodied in the _Corpus Juris Civilis_ of Justinian (see p. 358), and in the course of a century or two this became either the groundwork or a strong modifying element in the jurisprudence of almost all the peoples of Europe.

What took place may be ill.u.s.trated by reference to the fate of the Teutonic languages in Gaul, Italy, and Spain. As the barbarian tongues, after maintaining a place in those countries for two or three centuries, at length gave place to the superior Latin, which became the basis of the new Romance languages, so now in the domain of law the barbarian maxims and customs, though holding their place more persistently, likewise finally give way, almost everywhere and in a greater or less degree, to the more excellent law-system of the empire. Rome must fulfil her destiny and give laws to the nations.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE EAST.

THE REIGN OF JUSTINIAN (A.D. 527-565).--During the fifty years immediately following the fall of Rome, the Eastern emperors struggled hard and doubtfully to withstand the waves of the barbarian inundation which constantly threatened to overwhelm Constantinople with the same awful calamities that had befallen the imperial city of the West. Had the new Rome--the destined refuge for a thousand years of Graeco-Roman learning and culture--also gone down at this time before the storm, the loss to the cause of civilization would have been incalculable.

Fortunately, in the year 527, there ascended the Eastern throne a prince of unusual ability, to whom fortune gave a general of such rare genius that his name has been allotted a place in the short list of the great commanders of the world. Justinian was the name of the prince, and Belisarius that of the soldier. The sovereign has given name to the period, which is called after him the "Era of Justinian."

It will be recalled that it was during this reign that Africa was recovered from the Vandals and Italy from the Goths (see p. 372). These conquests brought once more within the boundaries of the empire some of the fairest lands of the West.

But that which has given Justinian's reign a greater distinction than any conferred upon it by brilliant military achievements, is the collection and publication, under the imperial direction, of the _Corpus Juris Civilis_, or "Body of the Roman Law." This work is the most precious legacy of Rome to the modern world. In causing its publication, Justinian earned the t.i.tle of "The Lawgiver of Civilization" (see p. 358).

In the midst of this brilliant reign an awful pestilence, bred probably in Egypt, fell upon the empire, and did not cease its ravages until about fifty years afterwards. This plague was the most terrible scourge of which history has any knowledge, save perhaps the so called Black Death, which afflicted Europe in the fourteenth century. The number of victims of the plague has been estimated at 100,000,000.