The World's Greatest Books - Volume 11 Part 22

_IV.--The Towns_

Like the Church, the munic.i.p.alities survived the downfall of the Roman empire. Their history varied greatly in different parts of Europe, but none the less some observations can be made that are broadly accurate with respect to most of them.

From the fifth to the tenth century, the state of the towns was a state neither of servitude nor of liberty. They suffered all the woes that are the fate of the weak; they were the prey of continual violence and depredation; yet, in spite of the fearful disorders of the time, they preserved a certain importance. When feudalism was established, the towns lost such independence as they had possessed; they found themselves under the heel of feudal chiefs. But feudalism did bring about a sort of peace, a sort of order; and with the slightest gleam of peace and order a man's hope revives, and on the revival of hope he takes to work. So it was with the towns. New wants were created; commerce and industry arose to satisfy them; wealth and population slowly returned.

But industry and commerce were absolutely without security; the townsmen were exposed to merciless extortion and plundering at the hands of their feudal overlords. Nothing irritates a man more than to be hara.s.sed in his toil, thus deprived of its promised fruits. The only way in which the towns could defend themselves from the violence of their masters was by using violence themselves. So in the eleventh century we find town after town rising in revolt against its despot, and winning from him a charter of liberty.

Although the insurrection was in a sense general, it was in no way concerted--it was not a rising of the combined citizens against the combined feudal aristocracy. All the towns found themselves exposed to much the same evils, and rescued themselves in much the same manner. But each town acted for itself--did not go to the help of any other town.

Hence these detached communities had no ambitions, no aspirations to national importance; their outlook was limited to themselves. But at the same time the emanc.i.p.ation of the towns created a new cla.s.s, a cla.s.s of citizens engaged in the same pursuits, with the same interests and the same modes of life; a cla.s.s that would in time unite and a.s.sert itself, and prevent the domination of a single order of society that has been the curse of Asia.

Although it may be broadly a.s.serted that the emanc.i.p.ation did not alter the relations of the citizens with the general government, that a.s.sertion must be modified in one respect. A link was established between the citizens and the king. Sometimes they appealed for his aid against their lord, sometimes the lord invoked him as judge; in one way or another a relation was established between the king and the towns, and the citizens thus came into touch with the centre of the State.

_V.--The Crusades_

From the fifth to the twelfth century, society, as we have seen, contained kings, a lay aristocracy, a clergy, citizens, peasantry, the germs, in fact, of all that goes to make a nation and a government; yet--no government, no nation. We have come across a mult.i.tude of particular forces, of local inst.i.tutions, but nothing general, nothing public, nothing properly speaking political.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, on the contrary, all the cla.s.ses and the particular forces have taken a secondary place, are shadowy and almost effaced; the stage of the world is occupied by two great figures, government and people.

Here, if I am not mistaken, is the essential distinction between primitive Europe and modern Europe. Here is the change that was accomplished in the period extending from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century. Viewed by itself, that period seems a characterless one of confusion without cause, of movement without direction, of agitation without result. Yet, in relation to the period that followed, this period had a tendency and a progress of its own; it slowly accomplished a vast work. It was the second period of European civilisation--the period of attempt and experiment, succeeding that of origins and formation, and preparing the way for that of development properly so called.

The first great event of this period was the Crusades--a universal movement of all cla.s.ses and all countries in moral unity--the truly heroic event of Europe. Besides the religious impulse that led to the Crusades, there was another impulse. They gave to me an opportunity of widening their horizons, of indulging the taste for movement and adventure. The opportunity, thus freely taken, changed the face of society. Men's minds were opened, their ideas were extended, by contact with other races; European society was dragged out of the groove along which it had been travelling. Religious ideas remained unchanged, but religious beliefs were no longer the only sphere in which the human intellect exercised itself. The moral state of Europe was profoundly modified.

The social state underwent a similar change. Many of the smaller feudal lords sold their fiefs, or impoverished themselves by crusading, or lost much of their power during their absence. Property and power came into fewer hands; society was more centralised, no longer dispersed as it formerly was. The citizens, on their part, were no longer content with local industry and trade; they entered upon commerce on a grander scale with countries oversea. Petty influence yielded place to larger influences; the small existences grouped themselves round the great. By the end of the Crusades, the march of society towards centralisation was in steady progress.

_VI.--The Age of Centralisation_

Already, in the twelfth century, a new idea of kings.h.i.+p had begun, very faintly, to make its appearance. In most European countries the king, under the feudal system, had been a head who could not enforce his heads.h.i.+p. But there was, all the while, such a thing as kings.h.i.+p, and somebody bore the t.i.tle of king; and society, striving to escape from feudal violence and to get hold of real order and unity, had recourse to the king in an experimental way, to see, as one might say, what he could do. Gradually there developed the idea of the king as the protector of public order and justice and of the common interest as the paramount magistrate--the idea that changed Europe society from a series of cla.s.ses into a group of centralised States.

But the old order did not perish without efforts to perpetuate itself.

These efforts were of two kinds; a particular cla.s.s sought predominance, or it was proposed that the cla.s.ses should agree to act in concert. To the first kind belonged the design of the Church to gain mastery over Europe that culminated with Pope Gregory VII. It failed for three reasons--because Christianity is a purely moral force and not a temporal administrative force; because the ambitions of the Church were opposed by the feudal aristocracy; and because the celibacy of the clergy prevented the formation of a caste capable of theocratic organisation.

Attempts at democracy were made, for a time with apparent means, by the Italian civic republics; but they were a prey to internal disorder, their government tended to become oligarchical, and their incapacity for uniting among themselves made them the victims of foreign invaders. The Swiss Republican organisation was more successful, but became aristocratic and immobile. The House Towns and the towns of Flanders and the Rhine organised for pure defence; they preserved their privileges, but remained confined within their walls.

The effort at concerted action by the cla.s.ses was manifested in the States General of France, Spain, and Portugal, the Diet in Germany, and the Parliament in England. All these, except the Parliament, were ineffective and as it were accidental in their action; all they did was to preserve in a manner the notion of liberty. The circ.u.mstances of England were exceptional. The Parliament did not govern; but it became a mode of government adopted in principle, and often indispensable in practice.

Nothing, however, could arrest the march of centralisation. In France the war of independence against England brought a sense of national unity and purpose, and feudalism was finally overthrown, and the central power made dominant, by the policy of Louis XI. Similar effects were brought about in Spain by the war against the Moors and the rule of Ferdinand. In England feudalism was destroyed by the Wars of the Roses, and was succeeded by the Tudor despotism. In Germany, the House of Austria began its long ascendancy. Thus in the fifteenth century the new principles prevailed; the old forms, the old liberties were swept aside to make way for centralised government under absolute rulers.

At the same time another new fact entered into European history. The kings began to enter into relations with each other, to form alliances; diplomacy was created. Since it is in the nature of diplomacy to be conducted more or less secretly by a few persons, and since the peoples did not and would not greatly concern themselves in it, this development was favourable to the strengthening of royalty.

_VII.--The Spiritual Revolt_

Although the Church until the sixteenth century had successfully suppressed all attempts at spiritual independence, yet the broadening of men's minds that began with the Crusades, and received a vigorous impetus from the Renaissance, made its mark even in the fifteenth century upon ecclesiastical affairs. Three main facts of the moral order are presented during this period: the ineffectual attempts of the councils of Constance and Bale to reform the Church from within; the most notable of which was that of Huss in Bohemia; and the intellectual revolution that accompanied the Renaissance. The way was thus prepared for the event that was inaugurated when Luther burnt the Pope's Bull at Wittenberg in 1520.

The Reformation was not, as its opponents contend, the result of accident or intrigue; nor was it, as its upholders contend, the outcome of a simple desire for the reform of abuses. It was, in reality, a revolt of the human spirit against absolute power in spiritual affairs.

The minds of men were during the sixteenth century in energetic movement, consumed by desire for progress; the Church had become inert and stationary, yet it maintained all its pretensions and external importance. The Church, indeed, was less tyrannical than it had formerly been, and not more corrupt. But it had not advanced; it had lost touch with human thought.

The Reformation, in all the lands that it reached, in all the lands where it played a great part, whether as conqueror, or as conquered, resulted in general, constant, and immense progress in liberty and activity of thought, and tended towards the emanc.i.p.ation of the human spirit. It accomplished more than it knew; more, perhaps, than it would have desired. It did not attack temporal absolutism; but the collision between temporal absolutism and spiritual freedom was bound to come, and did come.

Spiritual movement in European history has always been ahead of temporal movement. The Church began as a very loose society, without a properly-const.i.tuted government. Then it placed itself under an aristocratic control of bishops and councils. Then it came under the monarchical rule of the Popes; and finally a revolution broke out against absolutism in spiritual affairs. The ecclesiastical and civil societies have undergone the same vicissitudes; but the ecclesiastical society has always been the first to be changed.

We are now in possession of one of the great facts of modern society, the liberty of the human spirit. At the same time we see political centralisation prevailing nearly everywhere. In the seventeenth century the two principles were for the first time to be opposed.

_VIII.--The Political Revolt_

Their first shock was in England, for England was a country of exceptional conditions both civil and religious. The Reformation there had in part been the work of the kings themselves, and was incomplete; the Reformers remained militant, and denounced the bishops as they had formerly denounced the Pope. Moreover, the aspirations after civil liberty that were stirred up by the emanc.i.p.ation of thought had means of action in the old inst.i.tution of the country--the charter, the Parliament, the laws, the precedents. Similar aspirations in Continental countries had no such means of action, and led to nothing.

Two national desires coincided in England at this epoch--the desire for religious revolution and liberty, and the desire for political liberty and the overthrow of despotism. The two sets of reformers joined forces.

For the political party, civil freedom was the end; for the religious party, it was only a means; but throughout the conflict the political party took the lead, and the others followed. It was not until 1688 that the reformers finally attained their aim in the abolition of absolute power spiritual and temporal; and the accession of William of Orange in that year brought England into the great struggle that was raging on the Continent between the principle of despotism and the principle of freedom.

England differed from other European countries in that the essential diversity of European civilisation was more p.r.o.nounced there than anywhere else. Elsewhere, one element prevailed over the others until it was overthrown; in England, even if one element was dominant, the others were strong and important. Elizabeth had to be far more wary with her n.o.bles and commons than Louis XIV. with his. For this reason, Europe lagged behind England in civil freedom. But there was another reason--the influence of France.

During the seventeenth century, the French Government was the strongest in Europe, and it was a despotic government. During the eighteenth century, French thought was the most active and potent in Europe, and it was unboundedly free thought. Louis XIV. did not, as is sometimes supposed, adopt as his principles the propagation of absolutism; his aim was the strength and greatness of France, and to this end he fought and planned--just as William of Orange fought and planned, not against despotism, but against France. France presented herself at that age as the most redoubtable, skilful, and imposing Power in Europe.

Yet, after the death of Louis XIV., the government immediately degenerated. This was inevitable. No system of government can be maintained without inst.i.tutions, and a despot dislikes inst.i.tutions. The rule of Louis XIV. was great, powerful, and brilliant, but it had no roots. The decrepit remains of it were in the eighteenth century brought face to face with a society in which free examination and free speculation had been carried to lengths never imagined before. Freedom of thought once came to grips with absolute power.

Of the stupendous consequence of that collision it is not for me to speak here; I have reached the end. But let me, before concluding, dwell upon the gravest and most instructive part that is revealed to us by this grand spectacle of civilisation. It is the danger, the insurmountable evil of absolute power in any form--whether in a form of a despot like Louis XIV. or in that of the untrammelled human spirit that prevailed at the Revolution. Each human power has in itself a natural vice, a principle of weakness, to which there has to be a.s.signed a limit. It is only by general liberty of all rights, interests and opinions that each power can be restrained within its legitimate bounds, and intellectual freedom enabled to exist genuinely and to the advantage of the whole community.

HENRY HALLAM

View of the State of Europe During the Middle Ages

Henry Hallam, the English historian, was born on July 9, 1777, at Windsor, his father being Canon of Windsor, and Dean of Bristol. Educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, he was called to the English bar, but devoted himself to the study and writing of history. He received an appointment in the Civil Service, which, with his private means, placed him in comfortable leisure for his wide researches. His son, Arthur Henry, who died at the age of 22, is the subject of Tennyson's "In Memoriam." Hallam died on January 21, 1859, and was buried at Clevedon, Somersets.h.i.+re. The "View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages," commonly known as Hallam's "Middle Ages," was published by the author in 1818. Hallam was already well known among the literary men of the day, but this was his first important work. It is a study of the period from the appearance of Clovis, the creator of the dominion of the Franks, to the close of the Middle Ages, the arbitrary dividing line being drawn at the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII. of France.

_I.--France_

The Frankish dominion was established over the Roman province of Gaul by Clovis at the opening of the sixth century. The Merovingian dynasty degenerated rapidly; and the power pa.s.sed into the hands of the Mayors of the Palace--an office which became hereditary with Pepin Heristal and Charles Martel. With the sanction of the Pope the Merovingian king was deposed by Pepin, the son of Charles Martel, who was crowned king and overthrew the Lombard power in Italy.

Pepin was succeeded by Charlemagne, who completed the conquest of the Lombards, carried his arms into Spain as far as the Ebro, and extended his power eastwards over the Saxons as far as the Elbe. In his person the Roman empire was revived, and he was crowned emperor at Rome on Christmas Day A.D. 800. The great empire he had built up fell to pieces under his successors, who adopted the disastrous plan of part.i.tion amongst brothers.

France fell to the share of one branch of the Carlovingians. The Northmen were allowed to establish themselves in Normandy, and Germany was completely separated from France. The Carlovingians were displaced by Hugh Capet. The actual royal domain was small, and the kings of the House of Capet exercised little control over their great feudatories until the reign of Philip Augustus. That crafty monarch drew into his own hands the greater part of the immense territories held by the kings of England as French feudatories. After a brief interval the craft of Philip Augustus was succeeded by the idealism of St. Louis, whose admirable character enabled him to achieve an extraordinary ascendancy over the imagination of his people. In spite of the disastrous failure of his crusading expeditions, the aggrandis.e.m.e.nt of the crown continued, especially under Philip the Fair; but the failure of the direct heirs after the successive reigns of his three sons placed Philip of Valois on the throne according to the "Salic" law of succession in 1328.