An Introduction to the History of Western Europe Part 4

[Sidenote: Foundation of the power of Charlemagne's family, the so-called Carolingians.]

Among the positions held by the n.o.bility none was reputed more honorable than those near the king's person. Of these offices the most influential was that of the Major Domus, or Mayor of the Palace, who was a species of prime minister. After Dagobert's death these mayors practically ruled in the place of the Merovingian monarchs, who became mere "do-nothing kings,"--_rois faineants_, as the French call them. The Austrasian Mayor of the Palace, Pippin of Heristal, the great-grandfather of Charlemagne, succeeded in getting, in addition to Austrasia, both Neustria and Burgundy under his control. In this way he laid the foundation of his family's renown. Upon his death, in 714, his task of consolidating and defending the vast territories of the Franks devolved upon his more distinguished son, Charles Martel, i.e., the Hammer.[20]

[Sidenote: Fusion of the barbarians and the Roman population.]

15. As one looks back over the German invasions it is natural to ask upon what terms the newcomers lived among the old inhabitants of the Empire, how far they adopted the customs of those among whom they settled, and how far they clung to their old habits? These questions cannot be answered very satisfactorily; so little is known of the confused period of which we have been speaking that it is impossible to follow closely the amalgamation of the two races.

[Sidenote: The number of the barbarians.]

Yet a few things are tolerably clear. In the first place, we must be on our guard against exaggerating the numbers in the various bodies of invaders. The writers of the time indicate that the West Goths, when they were first admitted to the Empire before the battle of Adrianople, amounted to four or five hundred thousand persons, including men, women, and children. This is the largest band reported, and it must have been greatly reduced before the West Goths, after long wanderings and many battles, finally settled in Spain and southern Gaul. The Burgundians, when they appear for the first time on the banks of the Rhine, are reported to have had eighty thousand warriors among them. When Clovis and his army were baptized the chronicler speaks of "over three thousand" soldiers who became Christians upon that occasion. This would seem to indicate that the Frankish king had no larger force at this time.

Undoubtedly these figures are very meager and unreliable. But the readiness with which the Germans appear to have adopted the language and customs of the Romans would tend to prove that the invaders formed but a small minority of the population. Since hundreds of thousands of barbarians had been a.s.similated during the previous five centuries, the great invasions of the fifth century can hardly have made an abrupt change in the character of the population.

[Sidenote: Contrast between spoken and written Latin.]

The barbarians within the old empire were soon speaking the same conversational Latin which was everywhere used by the Romans about them.[21] This was much simpler than the elaborate and complicated language used in books, which we find so much difficulty in learning nowadays. The speech of the common people was gradually diverging more and more, in the various countries of southern Europe, from the written Latin, and finally grew into French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese.

But the barbarians did not produce this change, for it had begun before they came and would have gone on without them. They did no more than contribute a few convenient words to the new languages.

The Germans appear to have had no dislike for the Romans nor the Romans for them, except as long as the Germans remained Arian Christians. Where there was no religious barrier the two races intermarried freely from the first. The Frankish kings did not hesitate to appoint Romans to important positions in the government and in the army, just as the Romans had long been in the habit of employing the barbarians. In only one respect were the two races distinguished for a time,--each had its particular law.

[Sidenote: The Roman and the German law.]

The West Goths in the time of Euric were probably the first to write down their ancient laws, using the Latin language. Their example was followed by the Franks, the Burgundians, and later by the Lombards and other peoples. These codes make up the "Laws of the Barbarians," which form our most important source of knowledge of the habits and ideas of the Germans at the time of the invasions.[22] For several centuries following the conquest, the members of the various German tribes appear to have been judged by the laws of the particular people to which they belonged. The older inhabitants of the Empire, on the contrary, continued to have their lawsuits decided according to the Roman law.

This survived all through the Middle Ages in southern Europe, where the Germans were few. Elsewhere the Germans' more primitive ideas of law prevailed until the thirteenth or fourteenth century. A good example of these is the picturesque mediaeval ordeal by which the guilt or innocence of a suspected person was determined.

[Sidenote: Mediaeval trials.]

The German laws did not provide for the trial, either in the Roman or the modern sense of the word, of a suspected person. There was no attempt to gather and weigh evidence and base the decision upon it. Such a mode of procedure was far too elaborate for the simple-minded Germans.

Instead of a regular trial, one of the parties to the case was designated to prove that his a.s.sertions were true by one of the following methods: (1) He might solemnly swear that he was telling the truth and get as many other persons of his own cla.s.s as the court required, to swear that they believed that he was telling the truth.

This was called _compurgation_. It was believed that the divine vengeance would be visited upon those who swore falsely. (2) On the other hand, the parties to the case, or persons representing them, might meet in combat, on the supposition that Heaven would grant victory to the right. This was the so-called _wager of battle_. (3) Lastly, one or other of the parties might be required to submit to the _ordeal_ in one of its various forms: He might plunge his arm into hot water, or carry a bit of hot iron for some distance, and if at the end of three days he showed no ill effects, the case was decided in his favor. He might be ordered to walk over hot plowshares, and if he was not burned, it was a.s.sumed that G.o.d had intervened by a miracle to establish the right.[23] This method of trial is but one example of the rude civilization which displaced the refined and elaborate organization of the Romans.

[Sidenote: The task of the Middle Ages.]

16. The account which has been given of the conditions in the Roman Empire, and of the manner in which the barbarians occupied its western part, makes clear the great problem of the Middle Ages. The Germans, no doubt, varied a good deal in their habits and spirit. The Goths differed from the Lombards, and the Franks from the Vandals; but they all agreed in knowing nothing of the art, literature, and science which had been developed by the Greeks and adopted by the Romans. The invaders were ignorant, simple, vigorous people, with no taste for anything except fighting and bodily comfort. Such was the disorder that their coming produced, that the declining civilization of the Empire was pretty nearly submerged. The libraries, buildings, and works of art were destroyed and there was no one to see that they were restored. So the western world fell back into a condition similar to that in which it had been before the Romans conquered and civilized it.[24]

The loss was, however, temporary. The barbarians did not utterly destroy what they found, but utilized the ruins of the Roman Empire in their gradual construction of a new society. They received suggestions from the Roman methods of agriculture. When they reached a point where they needed them, they used the models offered by Roman roads and buildings.

In short, the great heritage of skill and invention which had been slowly acc.u.mulated in Egypt, Phnicia, and Greece, and which formed a part of the culture which the Romans diffused, did not wholly perish.

[Sidenote: Loss caused by the coming of the barbarians regained during Middle Ages.]

It required about a thousand years to educate the new race; but at last Europe, including districts never embraced in the Roman Empire, caught up once more with antiquity. When, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, first Italy, and then the rest of Europe, awoke again to the beauty and truth of the cla.s.sical literature and began to emulate the ancient art, the process of educating the barbarians may be said to have been completed. Yet the Middle Ages had been by no means a sterile period. They had added their part to the heritage of the West. From the union of two great elements, the ancient civilization, which was completely revived at the opening of the sixteenth century, and the vigor and the political and social ideals of the Germans, a new thing was formed, namely, our modern civilization.

General Reading.--By far the most exhaustive work in English upon the German invasions is HODGKIN, _Italy and her Invaders_,--very bulky and costly (8 vols., $36.50). The author has, however, given some of the results of his work in his excellent _Dynasty of Theodosius_ (Clarendon Press, $1.50), and his _Theodoric the Goth_ (G.P. Putnam's Sons, $1.50). SERGEANT, _The Franks_ (G.P. Putnam's Sons, $1.50), gives more than is to be found on the subject in either Emerton or Oman.

CHAPTER IV

THE RISE OF THE PAPACY

[Sidenote: The greatness of the Church.]

17. While the Franks were slowly developing the strength which Charlemagne employed to found the most extensive realm that has existed in Europe since the Roman Empire, another government, whose power was far greater, whose organization was far more perfect, and whose vitality was infinitely superior to that of the Frankish empire, namely, the Christian Church, was steadily extending its sway and establis.h.i.+ng the foundations of its later supremacy.

We have already seen how marvelously the Christian communities founded by the apostles and their fellow-missionaries multiplied until, by the middle of the third century, writers like Cyprian came to conceive of a "Catholic," or all-embracing, Church. We have seen how Constantine first made Christianity legal, and how his successors worked in the interest of the new religion; how carefully the Theodosian Code safeguarded the Church and the Christian clergy, and how harshly those were treated who ventured to hold another view of Christianity from that sanctioned by the government.[25]

We must now follow this most powerful and permanent of all the inst.i.tutions of the later Roman Empire into the Middle Ages. We must stop a moment to consider the sources of its power, and then see how the Western, or Latin, portion of Christendom fell apart from the Eastern, or Greek, region and came to form a separate inst.i.tution under the longest and mightiest line of rulers that the world has ever seen, the Roman bishops. We shall see how a peculiar cla.s.s of Christians, the monks, developed; how they joined hands with the clergy; how the monks and the clergy met the barbarians, subdued and civilized them, and then ruled them for centuries.

[Sidenote: Sources of the Church's power.]

The tremendous power of the Church in the Middle Ages was due, we may be sure, to the way in which it adapted itself to the ideas and needs of the time; for no inst.i.tution can flourish unless it meets the wants of those who live under it.

[Sidenote: Contrast between pagan and Christian ideas.]

One great source of the Church's strength lay in the general fear of death and judgment to come, which Christianity had brought with it. The Greeks and Romans of the cla.s.sical period thought of the next life, when they thought of it at all, as a very uninteresting existence compared with that on this earth. One who committed some signal crime might suffer for it after death with pains similar to those of the h.e.l.l in which the Christians believed. But the great part of humanity were supposed to lead in the next world a shadowy existence, neither sad nor glad. Religion, even to the devout pagan, was mainly an affair of this life; the G.o.ds were to be propitiated with a view to present happiness and success.

Since no satisfaction could be expected in the next life, it was naturally deemed wise to make the most of this one. The possibility of pleasure ends--so the poet Horace urges--when we join the shades below, as we all must do soon. Let us, therefore, take advantage of every harmless pleasure and improve our brief opportunity to enjoy the good things of earth. We should, however, be reasonable and temperate, avoiding all excess, for that endangers happiness. Above all, we should not worry uselessly about the future, which is in the hands of the G.o.ds and beyond our control. Such were the convictions of the majority of thoughtful pagans.

[Sidenote: Other-worldliness of mediaeval Christianity.]

Christianity opposed this view of life with an entirely different one.

It laid persistent emphasis upon man's existence after death, which it declared infinitely more important than his brief sojourn in the body.

Under the influence of the Church this conception of life had gradually supplanted the pagan one in the Roman world, and it was taught to the barbarians. The other-worldliness became so intense that thousands gave up their ordinary occupations and pleasures altogether, and devoted their entire attention to preparation for the next life. They shut themselves in lonely cells; and, not satisfied with giving up most of their natural pleasures, they inflicted bodily suffering upon themselves by hunger, cold, and stripes. They trusted that in this way they might avoid some of the sins into which they were p.r.o.ne to fall, and that, by self-inflicted punishment in this world, they might perchance escape some of that reserved for them in the next. As most of the writers and teachers of the Middle Ages belonged to this cla.s.s of what may be called professional Christians, i.e., the monks, it was natural that their kind of life should have been regarded, even by those who continued to live in the world, as the ideal one for the earnest Christian.

[Sidenote: The Church the one agent of salvation.]

The barbarians were taught that their fate in the next world depended largely upon the Church. Its ministers never wearied of presenting the momentous alternative which faced every man so soon as this fleeting earthly existence should be over,--the alternative between eternal bliss and perpetual, unspeakable physical torment. Only those who had been duly baptized could hope to reach heaven; but baptism washed away only past sins and did not prevent constant relapse into new ones. These, unless their guilt was removed through the instrumentality of the Church, would surely drag the soul down to perdition.

[Sidenote: Miracles a source of the Church's power.]

The divine power of the Church was, furthermore, established in the eyes of the people by the miraculous works which her saints were constantly performing. They healed the sick and succored those in distress. They struck down with speedy and signal disaster those who opposed the Church or treated her holy rites with contempt. To the reader of to-day the frequency of the miracles recorded in mediaeval writings seems astonis.h.i.+ng. The chronicles and biographies are filled with accounts of them, and no one appears to have doubted their common occurrence.[26]

[Sidenote: The Church and the Roman government.]

18. The chief importance of the Church for the student of mediaeval history does not lie, however, in its religious functions, vital as they were, but rather in its remarkable relations to the civil government. At first the Church and the imperial government were on a friendly footing of mutual respect and support. So long as the Roman Empire remained strong and active there was no chance for the clergy to free themselves from the control of the emperor, even if they had been disposed to do so. He made such laws for the Church as he saw fit and the clergy did not complain. The government was, indeed, indispensable to them. It undertook to root out paganism by destroying the heathen shrines and preventing heathen sacrifices, and it harshly punished those who refused to accept the teachings sanctioned by the Church.

[Sidenote: The Church begins to seek independence.]

But as the barbarians came in and the great Empire began to fall apart, there was a growing tendency among the churchmen in the West to resent the interference of rulers whom they no longer respected. They managed gradually to free themselves in large part from the control of the civil government. They then proceeded themselves to a.s.sume many of the duties of government, which the weak and disorderly states into which the Roman Empire fell were unable to perform properly. In 502, a church council at Rome declared a decree of Odoacer's null and void, on the ground that no layman had a right to interfere in the affairs of the Church. One of the bishops of Rome (Pope Gelasius I, d. 496) briefly stated the principle upon which the Church rested its claims, as follows: "Two powers govern the world, the priestly and the kingly. The first is indisputably the superior, for the priest is responsible to G.o.d for the conduct of even the emperors themselves." Since no one denied that the eternal interests of mankind, which devolved upon the Church, were infinitely more important than those matters of mere worldly expediency which the state regulated, it was natural for the clergy to hold that, in case of conflict, the Church and its officers, rather than the king, should have the last word.

[Sidenote: The Church begins to perform the functions of government.]

It was one thing, however, for the Church to claim the right to regulate its own affairs; it was quite another for it to a.s.sume the functions which the Roman government had previously performed and which our governments perform to-day, such as the maintenance of order, the management of public education, the trial of lawsuits, etc. It did not, however, exactly usurp the prerogatives of the civil power, but rather offered itself as a subst.i.tute for it when no efficient civil government any longer existed. For there were no states, in the modern sense of the word, in western Europe for many centuries after the final destruction of the Roman Empire. The authority of the various kings was seldom sufficient to keep their realms in order. There were always many powerful landholders scattered throughout the kingdom who did pretty much what they pleased and settled their grudges against their fellows by neighborhood wars. Fighting was the main business as well as the chief amus.e.m.e.nt of the n.o.ble cla.s.s. The king was unable to maintain peace and protect the oppressed, however anxious he may have been to do so.

Under these circ.u.mstances, it naturally fell to the admirably organized Church to keep order, when it could, by threats or persuasion; to see that sworn contracts were kept, that the wills of the dead were administered, and marriage obligations observed. It took the defenseless widow and orphan under its protection and dispensed charity; it promoted education at a time when few laymen, however rich and n.o.ble, pretended even to read. These conditions serve to explain why the Church was finally able greatly to extend the powers which it had enjoyed under the Roman Empire, and why it undertook functions which seem to us to belong to the state rather than to a religious organization.