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Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon,
Jim OConnor and Distributed Proofreaders
Transcriber's Comment
In the original text, the author sought, "by the use of different sorts
of type, … to introduced a considerable amount of detail without
breaking the main current of the narrative, or making it too long". In
the text below, paragraphs in the smallest type have been indented.
OUTLINES OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY
Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading
By
George Park Fisher, D.D., LL.D.
Professor in Yale University
Inscribed by the author as a token of love and thankfulness to his
daughter
C. R. F.
PREFACE.
In writing this work I have endeavored to provide a text-book suited to
more advanced pupils. My idea of such a work was, that it should
present the essential facts of history in due order, and in conformity
to the best and latest researches; that it should point out clearly the
connection of events and of successive eras with one another; that
through the interest awakened by the natural, unforced view gained of
this unity of history, and by such illustrative incidents as the
brevity of the narrative would allow to be wrought into it, the dryness
of a mere summary should be, as far as possible, relieved; and that,
finally, being a book intended for pupils and readers of all classes,
it should be free from sectarian partiality, and should limit itself to
well-established judgments and conclusions on all matters subject to
party contention. Respecting one of the points just referred to, I can
say that, in composing this work, I have myself been more than ever
impressed with the unity of history, and affected by this great
and deeply moving drama that is still advancing into a future that is
hidden from view. I can not but hope that this feeling, spontaneous and
vivid in my own mind, may communicate itself to the reader in his
progress through these pages.
The most interesting object in the study of history is, to quote Dr.
Arnold's words, "that which most nearly touches the inner life of
civilized man, namely, the vicissitudes of institutions, social,
political, and religious." But, as the same scholar adds, "a knowledge
of the external is needed before we arrive at that which is within. We
want to get a sort of frame for our picture….And thus we want to know
clearly the geographical boundaries of different countries, and their
external revolutions. This leads us in the first instance to geography
and military history, even if our ultimate object lies beyond."
Something more is aimed at in the present work than the construction of
this "frame," without which, to be sure, a student wanders about
"vaguely, like an ignorant man in an ill-arranged museum." By the use
of different sorts of type, it has been practicable to introduce a
considerable amount of detail without breaking the main current of the
narrative, or making it too long. By means of these additional
passages, and by appending lists of books at the close of the several
periods, the attempt has been made to aid younger students in carrying
forward the study of history beyond the usual requirements of the
class-room. I make no apology for the sketches presented of the history
of science, literature, art, and of moral and material decline or
improvement. Professor Seeley, in his interesting book on The
Expansion of England, is disposed to confine history to the civil
community, and to the part of human well-being which depends on
that. "That a man in England," he tells us, "makes a scientific
discovery or paints a picture, is not in itself an event in the history
of England." But, of course, as this able writer himself remarks,
"history may assume a larger or a narrower function;" and I am
persuaded that to shut up history within so narrow bounds, is not
expedient in a work designed in part to stimulate readers to wide and
continued studies.
One who has long been engaged in historical study and teaching, if he
undertakes to prepare such a work as the present, has occasion to
traverse certain periods where previous investigations have made him
feel more or less at home. Elsewhere at least his course must be to
collate authorities, follow such as he deems best entitled to credit,
and, on points of uncertainty, satisfy himself by recurrence to the
original sources of evidence. Among the numerous works from which I
have derived assistance, the largest debt is due, especially in the
ancient and mediæval periods, to Weber's Lehrbuch der
Weltgeschichte, which (in its nineteenth edition, 1883) contains
2328 large octavo pages of well-digested matter. Duruy's Histoire
du Moyen Age (eleventh edition, 1882), and also his Histoire
des Temps Modernes (ninth edition), have yielded to me important
aid. From the writings of Mr. E. A. Freeman I have constantly derived
instruction. In particular, I have made use of his General Sketch
of European History (which is published in this country, under the
title, Outlines of History), and of his lucid, compact, and
thorough History of European Geography. The other writings,
however, of this able and learned historian, have been very
helpful. Mr. Tillinghast's edition of Ploetz's Epitome I have
found to be a highly valuable storehouse of historical facts, and have
frequently consulted it with advantage. The superior accuracy of
George's Genealogical Tables is the reason why I have freely
availed myself of the aid afforded by them. Professor (now President)
C. K. Adams's excellent Manual of Historical Literature, to
which reference is repeatedly made in the following pages, has been of
service in preparing the lists of works to be read or consulted. Those
lists, it hardly need be said, aim at nothing like a complete
bibliography. No doubt to each of them other valuable works might
easily be added. As a rule, no mention is made of more technical or
abstruse writings, collections of documents, and so forth. The titles
of but few historical novels are given. Useful as the best of these
are, works of this class are often inaccurate and misleading; so that
a living master in historical authorship has said even of Walter
Scott, who is so strong when he stands on Scottish soil, that in his
Ivanhoe "there is a mistake in every line." With regard, however, to
historical fiction, including poems, as well as novels and tales, the
student will find in Mr. Justin Winsor's very learned and elaborate
monograph (forming a distinct section of the catalogue of the Boston
Public Library), the most full information up to the date of its
publication. Most of the historical maps, to illustrate the text of
the present work, have been engraved from drawings after Spruner,
Putzger, Freeman, etc. Of the ancient maps, several have been adopted
(in a revised form) from a General Atlas. That the maps contain more
places than are referred to in the text, is not a disadvantage.
I wish to express my obligation to a number of friends who have kindly
lent me aid in the revisal of particular portions of the proof-sheets
of this volume. My special thanks are due, on account of this service,
to Professor Francis Brown of the Union Theological School; to
Professors W. D. Whitney, Tracy Peck, T. D. Seymour, W. H. Brewer, and
T. R. Lounsbury, of Yale College; to Mr. A. Van Name, librarian of
Yale College; and to Mr. W. L. Kingsley, to whose historical knowledge
and unfailing kindness I have, on previous occasions, been indebted
for like assistance. To other friends besides those just named, I am
indebted for information on points made familiar to them by their
special studies.
G. P. F.
PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION.
The characteristics of this work are stated in the Preface to the
First Edition, which may be read on page v and the next following
pages of the present volume.
The work has been subjected to a careful revision. The aim has been to
make whatever amendments are called for by historical investigations
in the interval since it was published. Besides corrections, brief
statements have been woven here and there into the text. The revision
has embraced the bibliography connected with the successive periods or
chapters. Titles of books which are no longer of service have been
erased. Titles of select recent publications, as well as of
meritorious writings of a remoter past, have been inserted.
In preparing this edition for the press I have not been without the
advantage of aid from friends versed in historical studies. Professor
Henry E. Bourne, of Western Reserve University, besides particular
annotations, has prolonged the history so far as to include in its
compass, in Chapter VII, the last decade of the nineteenth century and
events as recent as the close of the South African War and the
accession of President Roosevelt. Professor Charles C. Torrey, Ph.D.,
of Yale University, has placed in my hands notes of his own on
Oriental History, a portion of history with which, as well as with the
Semitic languages, he is conversant. It will not be for lack of
painstaking if any part of the new edition fails, within the limits of
its plan, to correspond to the present state of historical knowledge.
G. P. F.
Yale University, January, 1904.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION
PART I. ANCIENT HISTORY.
From the Beginning of Authentic History to the Migrations of the
Teutonic Tribes (A.D. 375)
DIVISION I. ORIENTAL HISTORY.
INTRODUCTION
SECTION I. CHINA AND INDIA.
CHAPTER I.—CHINA
CHAPTER II.—INDIA
SECTION II. THE EARLIEST GROUP OF NATIONS.
CHAPTER I.—EGYPT
CHAPTER II.—ASSYRIA AND BABYLON
CHAPTER III.—THE PHOENICIANS AND CARTHAGINIANS
CHAPTER IV.—THE HEBREWS
CHAPTER V.—THE PERSIANS
DIVISION II. EUROPE.
INTRODUCTION
SECTION I. GRECIAN HISTORY.
INTRODUCTION
PERIOD I. GREECE PRIOR TO THE PERSIAN WARS.
CHAPTER I.—THE PREHISTORIC AGE
CHAPTER II.—THE FORMATION OF THE PRINCIPAL STATES
PERIOD II. THE FLOURISHING ERA OF GREECE.
CHAPTER I.—THE PERSIAN WARS
CHAPTER II.—THE ASCENDENCY OF ATHENS
CHAPTER III.—THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR
CHAPTER IV.—RELATIONS WITH PERSIA: THE SPARTAN AND THEBAN HEGEMONY
PERIOD III. THE MACEDONIAN ERA.
CHAPTER I.—PHILIP AND ALEXANDER
CHAPTER II.—THE SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER
SECTION II. ROMAN HISTORY.
INTRODUCTION
PERIOD I. ROME UNDER THE KINGS AND THE PATRICIANS (753-304 B.C.).
CHAPTER I.—ROME UNDER THE KINGS (753-509 B.C.)
CHAPTER II.—ROME UNDER THE PATRICIANS (509-304 B.C.)
PERIOD II. TO THE UNION OF ITALY (304-264 B.C.).
CHAPTER I.—CONQUEST OF THE LATINS AND ITALIANS (304-282 B.C.)
CHAPTER II.—WAR WITH PYRRHUS AND UNION WITH ITALY (282-264 B.C.)
PERIOD III. THE PUNIC WARS.
To the Conquest of Carthage and of the Greek States (264-146 B.C.)
CHAPTER I.—THE FIRST AND SECOND PUNIC WARS (264-202 B.C.)
CHAPTER II.—CONQUEST OF MACEDONIA: THE THIRD PUNIC WAR: THE DESTRUCTION
OF CORINTH (202-146 B.C.)
PERIOD IV. THE ERA OF REVOLUTION AND OF THE CIVIL WARS (146-3l B.C.).
CHAPTER I.—THE GRACCHI: THE FIRST MITHRIDATIC WAR: MARIUS AND SULLA
(146-78 B.C.)
CHAPTER II.—POMPEIUS AND THE EAST: TO THE DEATH OF CRASSUS (78-53 B.C.)
CHAPTER III.—POMPEIUS AND CAESAR: THE SECOND TRIUMVIRATE.
PERIOD V. THE IMPERIAL MONARCHY.
To the Migrations of the Teutonic Tribes (375 A.D.)
CHAPTER I.—THE REIGN OF AUGUSTUS
CHAPTER II.—THE EMPERORS OF THE AUGUSTAN HOUSE
CHAPTER III.—THE FLAVIANS AND THE ANTONINES
CHAPTER IV.—THE EMPERORS MADE BY THE SOLDIERS: THE ABSOLUTE MONARCHY:
THE TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY
PART II. MEDIAEVAL HISTORY.
From the Migrations of the Teutonic Tribes to the Fall of
Constantinople (A.D. 375-1453).
INTRODUCTION
PERIOD I. TO THE CARLOVINGIAN LINE OF FRANK RULERS (A.D. 375-751).
CHAPTER I.—CAUSES OF THE FALL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE: THE TEUTONIC
CONFEDERACIES
CHAPTER II.—THE TEUTONIC MIGRATIONS AND KINGDOMS
CHAPTER III.—THE EASTERN EMPIRE
CHAPTER IV.—MOHAMMEDANISM AND THE ARABIC CONQUESTS
PERIOD II. FROM THE CARLOVINGIAN LINE OF FRANK KINGS TO THE
ROMANO-GERMANIC EMPIRE (A.D. 751-962).
CHAPTER I.—THE CARLOVINGIAN EMPIRE TO THE DEATH OF CHARLEMAGNE
(A.D. 814)
CHAPTER II.—DISSOLUTION OF CHARLEMAGNE'S EMPIRE: RISE OF THE KINGDOMS
OF FRANCE, GERMANY, AND ITALY
CHAPTER III.—INVASIONS OF THE NORTHMEN AND OTHERS: THE FEUDAL SYSTEM
PERIOD III. FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ROMANO-GERMANIC EMPIRE TO THE
END OF THE CRUSADES (A.D. 962-1270).
CHAPTER I.—THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE: PREDOMINANCE OF THE EMPIRE: TO
THE CRUSADES (A.D. 1096)
CHAPTER II.—THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE: PREDOMINANCE OF THE CHURCH: TO
THE END OF THE CRUSADES (A.D. 1270)
CHAPTER III.—ENGLAND AND FRANCE: THE FIRST PERIOD OF THEIR RIVALSHIP
(A.D. 1066-1217)
CHAPTER IV.—RISE OF THE BURGHER CLASS: SOCIETY IN THE ERA OF THE
CRUSADES
PERIOD IV. FROM THE END OF THE CRUSADES TO THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE
(A.D. 1270-1453): THE DECLINE OF ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITY:
THE GROWTH OF THE NATIONAL SPIRIT AND OF MONARCHY.
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I.—ENGLAND AND FRANCE: SECOND PERIOD OF RIVALSHIP: THE HUNDRED
YEARS' WAR (A.D. 1339-1453)
CHAPTER II.—GERMANY: ITALY: SPAIN: THE SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRIES: POLAND
AND RUSSIA: HUNGARY: OTTOMAN TURKS: THE GREEK EMPIRE
CHAPTER III.—THE COUNTRIES OF EASTERN ASIA
PART III. MODERN HISTORY.
From the Fall of Constantinople (1453) to the Present Time
INTRODUCTION
PERIOD I. FROM THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE TO THE REFORMATION
(1453-1517).
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I.—FRANCE: ENGLAND: SPAIN: GERMANY: ITALY: THE OTTOMAN TURKS:
RUSSIA: THE INVASIONS OF ITALY
CHAPTER II.—INVENTION AND DISCOVERY: THE RENAISSANCE
PERIOD II. THE ERA OF THE REFORMATION (1517-1648).
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I.—THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY: TO THE TREATY OF NUREMBERG
(1517-1532)
CHAPTER II.—THE REFORMATION IN TEUTONIC COUNTRIES: SWITZERLAND,
DENMARK, SWEDEN, ENGLAND
CHAPTER III.—THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY, FROM THE PEACE OF NUREMBERG TO
THE PEACE OF AUGSBURG (1532-1555)
CHAPTER IV.—CALVINISM IN GENEVA: BEGINNING OF THE CATHOLIC
COUNTER-REFORMATION
CHAPTER V.—PHILIP II., AND THE REVOLT OF THE NETHERLANDS
CHAPTER VI.—THE CIVIL WARS IN FRANCE, TO THE DEATH OF HENRY IV. (1610)
CHAPTER VII.—THE THIRTY-YEARS' WAR, TO THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA
(1618-1648)
CHAPTER VIII.—SECOND STAGE OF THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND: TO THE DEATH
OF ELIZABETH (1547-1603)
CHAPTER IX.—THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION AND THE COMMONWEALTH (1603-1658)
CHAPTER X.—COLONIZATION IN AMERICA: ASIATIC NATIONS: CULTURE AND
LITERATURE (1517-1648)
PERIOD III. FROM THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
(1648-1789).
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I.—THE PREPONDERANCE OF FRANCE: FIRST PART OF THE REIGN OF
LOUIS XIV. (TO THE PEACE OF RYSWICK, 1697): THE
RESTORATION OF THE STUARTS: THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION OF 1688
CHAPTER II.—WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION (TO THE PEACE OF UTRECHT,
1713): DECLINE OF THE POWER OF FRANCE: POWER AND MARITIME SUPREMACY OF
ENGLAND
CHAPTER III.—THE GREAT NORTHERN WAR: THE FALL OF SWEDEN: GROWTH OF THE
POWER OF RUSSIA
CHAPTER IV.—WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION: GROWTH OF THE POWER OF
PRUSSIA: THE DESTRUCTION OF POLAND
CHAPTER V.—CONTEST OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE IN AMERICA: WAR OF AMERICAN
INDEPENDENCE: THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES
CHAPTER VI.—LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND RELIGION
PERIOD IV. THE ERA OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION (1789-1815).
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I.—FROM THE ASSEMBLING OF THE STATES-GENERAL TO THE EXECUTION
OF LOUIS XVI. (1789-1793)
CHAPTER II.—FROM THE EXECUTION OF LOUIS XVI. TO THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE
(JAN. 21, 1793-JULY 27, 1794)
CHAPTER III.—FROM THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE TO THE EMPIRE OF NAPOLEON
(1794-1804)
CHAPTER IV.—FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE EMPIRE TO THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN
(1804-1812)
CHAPTER V.—FROM THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN (1812) TO THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA
(1814-15)
CHAPTER VI.—AMERICAN HISTORY IN THIS PERIOD (1789-1815)
CHAPTER VII.—LITERATURE, ART, AND SCIENCE (1789-1815)
PERIOD V. FROM THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA (1815) TO THE PRESENT TIME.
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I.—EUROPE, FROM THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA (1815) TO THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION OF 1830
CHAPTER II.—EUROPE, FROM THE REVOLUTION OF 1830 TO THE REVOLUTIONARY
EPOCH OF 1848
CHAPTER III.—EUROPE, FROM THE REVOLUTIONS OF 1848 TO THE
AUSTRO-PRUSSIAN WAR (1866)
CHAPTER IV.—EUROPE, FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE AUSTRO-PRUSSIAN WAR TO
THE END OF THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR (1866-1871)
CHAPTER V.—EUROPE, FROM THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC, AND
THE UNION OF ITALY (1871)
CHAPTER VI.—THE UNITED STATES SINCE 1815: THE SOUTH AMERICAN STATES:
EASTERN ASIA
CHAPTER VII.—THE LAST DECADE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
CHAPTER VIII.—DISCOVERY AND INVENTION: SCIENCE AND LITERATURE: PROGRESS
OF HUMANE SENTIMENT: PROGRESS TOWARDS THE UNITY OF MANKIND
LIST OF MAPS.
THE WORLD AS KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS
PHYSICAL FEATURES OF ASIA
ANCIENT EGYPT
ANCIENT PALESTINE
PHYSICAL FEATURES OF EUROPE
ANCIENT GREECE AND THE AEGEAN ISLANDS
GREEK AND PHOENICIAN COLONIES
EMPIRE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
KINGDOMS OF THE SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER
ANCIENT ITALY (NORTHERN PART)
ANCIENT ITALY (SOUTHERN PART)
ANCIENT ROMAN EMPIRE
THE NEW NATIONS AFTER THE GREAT MIGRATIONS (ABOUT A.D. 500)
EMPIRE OF THE SARACENS (ABOUT A.D. 750)
EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE
EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE A.D. 843
EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE A.D. 887
CENTRAL EUROPE ABOUT A.D. 980
MEDITERRANEAN LANDS AT THE TIME OF THE CRUSADES
FRANCE AND ENGLAND, A.D. 1154-1189
CENTRAL EUROPE, A.D. 1360
CENTRAL EUROPE, A.D. 1660
ITALY ABOUT THE MIDDLE OF IHE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
EUROPE AT THE TIME OF NAPOLEON'S GREATEST POWER (ABOUT A.D. 1810)
CENTRAL EUROPE IN 1815
EUROPE AFTER 1878
AUSTRO-HUNGARY SINCE 1878
FRANCE SINCE 1871
GERMAN EMPIRE SINCE 1871
TURKISH EMPIRE, GREECE, ETC., SINCE 1878
TERRITORIAL GROWTH OF THE UNITED STATES
ASIA AT THE PRESENT TIME
UNIVERSAL HISTORY.
INTRODUCTION.
DEFINITION OF HISTORY.—The subject of history is man. History has for
its object to record his doings and experiences. It may then be
concisely defined as a narrative of past events in which men have been
concerned. To describe the earth, the abode of man, to delineate the
different kingdoms of nature, and to inquire into the origin of them,
or to explain the physical or mental constitution of human beings, is
no part of the office of history. All this belongs to the departments
of natural and intellectual science.
But history, as we now understand the term, is more than a bare record
of what men have done and suffered. It aims to point out the
connection of events with one another. It seeks to explain the causes
and the consequences of things that occur. It would trace the steps
that mark the progress of the race, and of the different portions of
it, through extended periods. It brings to light the thread which
unites each particular stage in the career of a people, or of mankind
as a whole, with what went before, and with what came after.
NATIONS.—History has been called "the biography of a society."
Biography has to do with the career of an individual. History is
concerned with the successive actions and fortunes of a community; in
its broadest extent, with the experiences of the human family. It is
only when men are connected by the social bond, and remain so united
for a greater or less period, that there is room for history. It is,
therefore, with nations, in their internal progress and in their
mutual relations, that history especially deals. Of mere clans, or
loosely organized tribes, it can have little to say. History can go no
farther than to explore their genealogy, and state what were their
journeyings and habits. The nation is a form of society that rests on
the same basis—a basis at once natural and part of a divine
system—as the family. By a nation is meant a people dwelling in a
definite territory, living under the same government, and bound
together by such ties as a common language, a common religion, the
same institutions and customs. The elements that enter into that
national spirit which is the bond of unity, are multiple. They vary to
a degree in different peoples. As individuals are not alike, and as
the history of any particular community is modified and molded by
these individual differences, so the course of the history of mankind
is shaped by the peculiar characteristics of the various nations, and
by their interaction upon one another. In like manner, groups of
nations, each characterized by distinctive traits derived from
affinities of race or of religion, or from other sources, act on each
other, and thus help to determine the course of the historic stream.
SCOPE OF HISTORY.—The rise and progress of culture and
civilization in their various constituents is the theme of
history. It does not limit its attention to a particular fraction of a
people, to the exclusion of the rest. Governments and rulers, and the
public doings of states,—such as foreign wars, and the struggles of
rival dynasties,—naturally form a prominent topic in historical
writings. But this is only one department in the records of the
past. More and more history interests itself in the character of
society at large, and in the phases through which it has passed. How
men lived from day to day, what their occupations were, their comforts
and discomforts, their ideas, sentiments, and modes of intercourse,
their state as regards art, letters, invention, religious
enlightenment,—these are points on which history, as at present
studied and written, undertakes to shed light.
POINTS OF VIEW.—An eminent German philosopher of our day, Hermann
Lotze, intimates that there are five phases of human development,
and hence five points of view from which the course of history is to
be surveyed. These are the intellectual (embracing the progress
of truth and knowledge), the industrial, the aesthetic
(including art in all its higher ramifications), the religious,
and the political. An able English scholar, Goldwin Smith,
resolves the elements of human progress, and thus the most general
topics of history, into three, "the moral, the intellectual, and the
productive; or, virtue, knowledge, and industry."
"But these three elements," he adds, "though distinct, are not
separate, but closely connected with each other."
THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY.—That there is, in some sense, a "reign of
law" in the succession of human events, is a conviction warranted by
observed facts, as well as inspired by religion. Events do not spring
into being, disjoined from antecedents leading to them. Even
turning-points in history, which seem, at the first glance, abrupt,
are found to be dependent on previous conditions. They are perceived
to be the natural issue of the times that have gone before. Preceding
events have foreshadowed them. There are laws of historical progress
which have their root in the characteristics of human nature. Ends are
wrought out, which bear on them evident marks of design. History, as a
whole, is the carrying out of a plan:
"… through the ages one increasing purpose runs."
Augustine long ago argued, that he who has not left "even the
entrails of the smallest and most insignificant animal, or the
feather of a bird, or the little flower of a plant, or the leaf of a
tree, without a harmony, and, as it were, a mutual peace among all
its parts,—that God can never be believed to have left the kingdoms
of men, their dominations and servitudes, outside of the laws of his
providence."
To discern the plan of history, and the causes or laws through which
it is accomplished, as far as our limited capacity will allow, is the
object of what is called the philosophy of history.
FREEDOM AND LAW.—It must not be forgotten, however, that man is a
free agent. History, although it is not an aimless process, is,
nevertheless, not subject to the forces and laws which govern in the
realm of matter. Physical analogies are not a literal image of what
takes place in the sphere of intelligence and freedom. Moral evil,
wherever it is a factor in history, has its origin in the will of
man. In respect to it, the agency of God is permissive and
overruling. Through his providence, order is made to emerge, a worthy
goal is at last reached, despite the elements of disorder introduced
by human perversity.
Nor is progress continuous and unbroken. It is often, as one has said,
a spiral rather than a straight line. It is not an unceasing advance:
there are backward movements, or what appear to be such. Of particular
nations it is frequently evident, that, intellectually and morally, as
well as in power and thrift, they have sunk below a level once
attained.
Of the inscrutable blending of human freedom with a pre-ordained
design, GUIZOT says: "Man advances in the execution of a plan which
he has not conceived, and of which he is not even aware. He is the
free and intelligent artificer of a work which is not his own."
"Conceive a great machine, the design of which is centered in a
single mind, though its various parts are intrusted to different
workmen, separated from, and strangers to, each other. No one of
them understands the work as a whole, nor the general result which
he concurs in producing; but every one executes with intelligence
and freedom, by rational and voluntary acts, the particular task
assigned to him." (Lectures on the History of Civilization,
Lect. xi.)
PERSONAL POWER.—The progress of society has been inseparably
connected with the agency of eminent persons. Signal changes, whether
wholesome or mischievous, are linked to the names of individuals who
have specially contributed to bring them to pass. The achievements of
heroes stand out in as bold relief in authentic history as in the
obscure era of myth and fable. Fruitful inventions, after the earlier
steps in civilization are taken, are traceable to particular authors,
exalted by their genius above the common level. So it is with the
literary works which have exerted the deepest and most lasting
influence. Nations have their pilots in war and in peace. Epochs in
the progress of the fine arts are ushered in by individuals of
surpassing mental power. Reforms and revolutions, which alter the
direction of the historic stream, emanate from individuals in whose
minds they are conceived, and by whose energy they are effected. The
force thus exerted by the leaders in history is not accounted for by
reference to general laws. Great men are not puppets moved by the
spirit of the time. To be sure, there must be a preparation for them,
and a groundwork of sympathy among their contemporaries: otherwise
their activity would call forth no response. Independently of the age
that gives them birth, their power would lose its distinctive form and
hue: they would be incapable of influence.
Cromwell would not have been Cromwell had he been born in any
other period of English history. Nor could he have played his part,
being what he was, had not the religious and political struggles of
England for generations framed a theater adapted to his talents and
character. Michael Angelo could not have arisen in a
half-civilized tribe. His creative power would have found no field in
a society rude, and blind to the attractions of art. Nevertheless, his
power was creative. Cromwell and Michael Angelo, and such as
they, are not the passive organs, the mere outcome, of the communities
in which they appear. Without the original thought and personal energy
of leaders, momentous changes in the life of nations could never have
taken place. A great man may be obliged to wait long for the answering
sympathy which is required to give effect to his thoughts and
purposes. Such a mind is said to be in advance of the age. Another
generation may have to appear before the harvest springs from the seed
that he has sown. Moreover, it is not true that great men, efficient
leaders, come forward whenever there is an exigency calling for them,
or an urgent need. Rather is it true that terrible disasters sometimes
occur, at critical points in history, just for the lack of leaders fit
for the emergency.
THE MEANING OF HISTORY.—A thoughtful student can hardly fail to
propose to himself the question, "What is the meaning of history?
Why is this long drama with all that is noble and joyous in it, and
with its abysses of sin and misery, enacted at all?" It is only a
partial answer that one can hope to give to this grave inquiry, for
the designs of Providence can not be fully fathomed. But, among the
ends in view, the moral training of mankind stands forth with a
marked prominence. The deliverance of the race from moral evil and
error, and the building-up of a purified society, enriched with all
the good that belongs to the ideal of humanity, and exalted by
fellowship with God, is not only an end worthy in itself, but it is
the end towards which the onward movement of history is seen to be
directed. Hence, a central place in the course of history belongs to
the life and work of Jesus Christ.
No more satisfactory solution of this problem of the significance of
history has ever been offered than that brought forward by the
Apostle Paul in Acts xvii. 27, where he says that the nations of men
were assigned to their places on the earth, and their duration as
well as boundaries determined, "that they should seek the Lord, if
haply they might feel after him, and find him."
WORKS ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY.-(Professor C. K. ADAMS'S
Manual of Historical Literature (1882) is an excellent guide
in historical reading. Briefer lists of works in Methods of
Teaching and Studying History, edited by G. Stanley Hall.)
Books on the Philosophy of History: R. FLINT, The
Philosophy of History, vol. i.,—Writers on the subject in
France and Germany. Vol. ii. will treat of England and Italy. The
work is a critical review of the literature on the
subject. Schlegel, The Philosophy of History; Shedd's
Lectures on the Philosophy of History; Bunsen's God in
History (3 vols., 1870); LOTZE, Mikrokosmus, vol. iii,
book vii.; Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws; Buckle,
History of Civilization in England (2 vols.). This work is
based on the denial of free-will, and the doctrine that physical
influences,—climate, soil, food, etc.,—are the main causes of
intellectual progress. Draper's History of the Intellectual
Development of Europe(2 vols., 2d edition, 1876) is in the same
vein. Opposed to this philosophy are GOLDWIN SMITH'S Lectures on
the Study of History; C. Kingsley, in his Miscellanies, The
Limits of Exact Science as applied to History; Froude, in
Short Studies, vol. i., The Science of History; Lotze,
as above; also, Flint, and Droysen, Grundriss der
Historik. Hegel's Philosophy of History has profound
observations, but connected with an a priori theory.
HISTORICAL WRITING.—The beginning of historical writing was in the
form of lists of kings, or bare records of battles, or the simple
registration of other occurrences of remarkable interest. The
Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Chinese, and other nations,
furnish examples of this rudimental type of historical writing. More
continuous annals followed; but these are meager in contents, and
make no attempt to find links of connection between events. The
ancient Hebrew historians are on a much higher plane, and, apart
from their religious value, far surpass all other Asiatic
histories. It was in Greece, the fountain-head of science,
that history, as an art, first appeared. Herodotus, born
early in the fifth century B.C., first undertook to satisfy
curiosity respecting the past by a more elaborate and entertaining
narrative. He begins his work thus: "These are the researches of
Herodotus of Halicarnassus, which he publishes, in the hope of
thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done,
and of preventing the great and marvelous actions of the Greeks and
the barbarians from losing their due meed of glory, and withal to
put on record what were the grounds of their hostility." In
Herodotus, history, owing to the inquiry made into the causes of
events, begins to rise above the level of a mere chronicle, its
primitive type. Thucydides, who died about 400 B.C.,
followed. He is far more accurate in his investigations, having a
deep insight into the origin of the events which he relates, and is
a model of candor. He, too, writes to minister to the inquisitive
spirit of his countrymen, and of the generations that were to
follow. He began to write his history of the war between the
Athenians and the Peloponnesians while it was still going on, in the
belief, he says, "that it would turn out great, and worthier of
being recorded than any that had preceded it." The attention of
historical writers was still confined to a particular country, or to
insulated groups of events. Before there could spring up the idea of
universal history, it was necessary that there should be a broader
view of mankind as a whole. The ancient Stoics had a glimpse
of the race as a family, and of the nations as forming one complex
unity. The conquests and extended dominion of Rome first suggested
the idea of universal history. Polybius, a Greek in the
second century B.C., had watched the progress of Rome, in its career
of conquest, until "the affairs of Italy and Africa," as he says,
"joined with those of Asia and Greece, and all moved together
towards one fixed and single point." He tells us that particular
histories can not give us a knowledge of the whole, more than the
survey of the divided members of a body once endowed with life and
beauty can yield a just conception of all the comeliness and vigor
which it has received from Nature. To Polybius belongs the
distinction of being the first to undertake a universal
history. Christianity, with its doctrine of the unity of mankind,
and with all the moral and religious teaching characteristic of the
gospel, contributed effectively to the widening of the view of the
office and scope of history. It is only in quite recent times that
history has directed its attention predominantly to social
progress, and to its causes and conditions.
History, in its etymological sense (from the Greek, historia), meant
the ascertaining of facts by inquiry; then, the results of this
inquiry, the knowledge thus obtained. The work of Herodotus was
"history" in the strictest sense: he acquired his information by
travel and personal interrogation.
The German philosopher, Hegel, has divided histories into
three classes: 1. Original histories; i.e., works written by
contemporaries of the events described, who share in the spirit of
the times, and may have personally taken part in the
transactions. Such are the works of Herodotus, Thucydides,
Xenophon's Anabasis, Clarendon's History of the Great Rebellion in
England, Caesar's Commentaries. 2. Reflective histories,
where the author writes at a later point of time, on the basis of
materials which he gathers up, but is not himself a partaker in the
spirit of the age of which he treats. 3. Philosophical
histories, which set forth the rational development of history
in its inmost idea.
Another classification is the following: 1. Genealogies, like
the records of Manetho, the Egyptian priest. 2. The
chronicle, following the chronological order, and telling the
story in a simple, popular way. 3. The "pragmatic" form of
writing, which aims to explain by reference to the past some
particular characteristic or phase of the present, and uses history
to point a special moral lesson. 4. The form of history which traces
the rise and progress of "ideas," tendencies, or ruling
forces,—such as the idea of civil equality in early Rome or in
modern France, the religious ideas of Mohammedanism, the idea of
representative government, the idea of German unity, etc.
A broad line of distinction has been drawn between "the old or
artistic type of history," and the new or sociological
type which belongs to the present century. The ancient historians
represented the former type. They prized literary form. They aimed
to interweave moral and political reflections. Polybius often
interrupts his narrative to introduce remarks of this sort. But they
were not, as a rule, diligent and accurate in their researches. And,
above all, they had no just conception of society as a whole, and of
the complex forces out of which the visible scene springs. The
Greeks were the masters in this first or artistic form of
history. The French Revolution was one stimulus to a profounder and
more comprehensive method of studying history. The methods and
investigations of natural science have had a decided influence in
the same direction.
THE SOURCES OF HISTORY.—History must depend for credence on credible
evidence. In order to justify belief, one must either himself have
seen or heard the facts related, or have the testimony, direct or
indirect, of witnesses or of well-informed contemporaries. The sources
of historic knowledge are mainly comprised in oral tradition,
or in some form of written records.
Tradition is exposed to the infirmities of memory, and to the
unconscious invention and distortion which grow out of imagination and
feeling. Ordinarily, bare tradition, not verified by corroborative
proofs, can not be trusted later than the second generation from the
circumstances narrated. It ceases to be reliable when it has been
transmitted through more than two hands. In the case of a great and
startling event, like a destructive convulsion of nature or a
protracted war, the authentic story, though unwritten, of the central
facts, at least, is of much longer duration. There may be visible
monuments that serve to perpetuate the recollection of the occurrences
which they commemorate. Institutions may exist—popular
festivals and the like—which keep alive the memory of past events,
and, in certain circumstances, are sufficient to verify them to
generations far removed in time. Events of a stirring character, when
they are embodied in songs of an early date, may be transmitted
orally, though in a poetic dress. Songs and legends, it may be added,
even when they do not suffice to verify the incidents to which they
refer, are valuable as disclosing the sentiments and habits of the
times when they originated, or were cherished. The central fact, the
nucleus of the tradition, may be historical when all the details
belonging with it have been effaced, or have been superseded by other
details, the product of imagination. The historical student is to
distinguish between traditionary tales which are untrustworthy
throughout, and traditions which have their roots in
fact. Apart from oral tradition, the sources of historical
knowledge are the following:—
1. Contemporary registers, chronicles, and other documents, either
now, or known to have been originally, in a manuscript form.
2. Inscriptions on monuments and coins. Such, for example, are the
inscriptions on the monuments of Egypt and on the buried ruins of
Nineveh and Babylon. Such are the ancient epitaphs, heathen and
Christian, in the Roman catacombs. The study of ancient inscriptions
of various sorts has thrown much light of late upon Grecian and Roman
antiquity.
3. The entire literature of a people, in which its intellectual,
moral, and social condition, at any particular era, is mirrored.
4. Material structures of every kind, as altars, tombs, private
dwellings,—as those uncovered at Pompeii,—public edifices, civil and
religious, paintings, weapons, household utensils. These all tell a
story relative to the knowledge and taste, the occupations and
domestic habits, and the religion, of a past generation or of an
extinct people.
5 Language is a memorial of the past, of the more value since it is
not the product of deliberate contrivance. Comparative
philology, following languages back to their earlier stages and to
the parent stocks, unveils the condition of society at remote
epochs. It not only describes the origin of nations, but teaches
something respecting their primitive state.
6. Histories written at former periods, but subsequently to the events
described in them, are a secondary but valuable source of historical
knowledge. This is especially true when their authors had access to
traditions that were nearer their fountain, or to literary monuments
which have perished.
HISTORICAL CRITICISM.—Historical scholars are much more exacting as
regards evidence than was formerly the case. The criticism of what
purports to be proof is more searching. At the same time, what is
called "historical divination" can not be altogether
excluded. Learned and sagacious scholars have conjectured the
existence of facts, where a gap in recorded history—"the logic of
events"—seemed to presuppose them; and later discoveries have
verified the guess. This is analogous to the success of Leverrier
and Adams in inferring the existence of an unknown planet, which the
telescope afterwards discovered. An example of historical divination
on a large scale is furnished by the theories of the great German
historian, Niebuhr, in respect to early Roman history. He
propounded opinions, however, which in many particulars fail to
obtain general assent at present.
CREDIBILITY OF HISTORY.—At the opposite pole from credulity is an
unwarrantable historical skepticism. The story is told of Sir Walter
Raleigh, that when he was a prisoner in the Tower, and was engaged
in writing his History of the World, he heard the sounds of a
fracas in the prison-yard. On inquiry of those who were concerned in
it, and were on the spot, he found so many contradictions in their
statements that he could not get at the truth. Whereupon, it
occurred to him as a vain thing to undertake to describe what had
occurred on the vast theater of the world, when he could not
ascertain the truth about an event occurring within a bow-shot. The
anecdote simply illustrates, however, the difficulty of getting at
the exact truth respecting details,—a difficulty constantly
exemplified in courts of justice. The fact of the conflict in the
court of the Tower, the general cause, the parties engaged, the
consequences,—as, for example, what punishment was inflicted,—were
undisputed. The great facts which influence the course of history,
it is not difficult to ascertain. Moreover, as against an
extravagant skepticism, it may be said that history provides us with
a vast amount of authentic information which contemporaries, and
even individual actors, were not possessed of. This is through the
bringing to light of documents from a great variety of sources, many
of which were secret, or not open to the view of all the leaders in
the transactions to which they refer. The private correspondence of
the Protestant leaders,—Luther, Melanchthon, Cranmer, etc.,—the
letters of Erasmus, the official reports of the Venetian
ambassadors, the letters of William the Silent and of Philip II.,
put us in possession of much information, which at the time was a
secret to most of the prominent participants in the events of the
sixteenth century. The correspondence of Washington, Hamilton,
Jefferson, John Adams, Wolcott, Pickering, etc., introduces us into
the secret counsels of the American political leaders of that
day. Numerous facts conveyed from one to another under the seal of
privacy, and not known to the others, are thus revealed to us.
On the nature and value of tradition, a very valuable discussion is
that of EWALD, History of Israel, vol. i. pp. 13-38; Sir
G. C. LEWIS, Essays on the Credibility of Early Roman
History, in which Niebuhr's conclusions are criticised;
A. Bisset, Essays on Historical Truth. On the sources of
history, Art. by GAIRDNER in The Contemporary Review,
vol. xxxviii.
HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY.—Political Geography, which describes the earth
as inhabited, and as parceled out among nations, has a close relation
to history. Without a distinct idea of the position of places and the
boundaries of countries, historical narrations are enveloped in a sort
of haze. France, for example, is a name with very different
meanings at different dates in the past. Unless the varying uses of
the word Burgundy are understood, important parts of European
history are left in confusion.
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.—Even more helpful is Physical Geography,
which surveys the earth in its three great divisions,—land, sea, and
air,—without reference to lines of political demarkation. The
configuration of the different portions of the globe, with the
varieties of climate, the relations of mountain and plain, of land and
water, have strongly affected the character of nations and the
currents of history. In regions extremely hot or extremely cold man
can not thrive, or build up a rich and enduring civilization. The
occupations of a people are largely dependent on its
situation,—whether it be maritime or away from the sea,—and on
peculiarities of soil and temperature. The character of the Nile
valley, and its periodical inundation, is a striking illustration of
the possible extent of geographical influences. The peninsular and
mountainous character of Greece went far to shape the form of Greek
political society. The high plateau which forms the greater portion of
Spain, with the fertile belts of valley on the Atlantic and
Mediterranean border, have helped to determine the employments and the
character of the Spanish people. Had the physical characteristics of
the Spanish peninsula been essentially different, the success of
Wellington in expelling the French, with the forces at his disposal,
would not have been possible. Were there a chain of mountains along
our Atlantic coast as near as are the Andes to the Pacific, what
different results would have arisen from the English settlements in
North America! The Alpine barrier in the north of Italy was
indispensable to the building-up and maintenance of the dominion of
ancient Rome. Of the great basin or plain between the Alps and the
Apennines, open to the sea only on the east, through which flows one
great river, fed by streams from the mountains on either side,
Dr. Arnold says: "Who can wonder that this large and richly watered
plain should be filled with flourishing cities, or that it should have
been contended for so often by successful invaders?" While the agency
of climate, soil, and other physical circumstances may easily be
exaggerated, that agency must be duly considered in accounting for
historical phenomena.
The best historical Atlas is the copious German work of VON
SPRUNER. FREEMAN'S Historical Geography of Europe is a work
of great value. DROVSEN'S Allg. Hist. Atlas. Smaller atlases
are those of PUTZGER, Rhode, Appleton's Hist. Atlas, the
International, and the Collegiate. Smaller still,
Keith Johnston's Crown Atlases and Half-Crown Atlases. On Mediæval
History, Labberton's Atlas; also, Koeppen: in Ancient Geography,
SMITH'S work, KIEPERT'S, Long's. On Physical Geography, GUYOT'S
text-books; Vaughan's Connection between History and Physical
Geography, in Contemp. Review, vol. v.; Hall's Methods
of Studying History, etc., p. 201 seq.,
Encycl. Brit., Art. Geography.
CHRONOLOGY.—An exact method of establishing dates was slowly reached.
The invention of eras was indispensable to this end. The earliest
definite time for the dating of events was established at
Babylon,—the era of Nabonassar, 747 B.C. The Greeks, from about 300
B.C., dated events from the first recorded victory at the Olympic
games, 776 B.C. These games occurred every fourth year. Each Olympiad
was thus a period of four years. The Romans, though not until some
centuries after the founding of Rome, dated from that event; i.e.,
from 753 B.C. The Mohammedan era begins at the Hegira, or flight of
Mohammed from Mecca, 622 A.D. The method of dating from the birth of
Jesus was introduced by Dionysius Exiguus, a Roman abbot, about the
middle of the sixth century. This epoch was placed by him about four
years too late. This requires us to fix the date of the birth of
Christ at 4 B.C.
The day was the simplest and earliest division of time. The week has
been in use for this purpose in the East from time immemorial. It
was not introduced among the Romans until after the spread of
Christianity in the Empire. The month was the earlier unit for
periods of greater length. To make the lunar and the solar years
correspond, and to determine the exact length of the solar year, was
a work of difficulty, and was only gradually effected. Julius
Cæsar reformed the calendar in 46 B.C., the date of the
Julian era. This made the year eleven minutes too long. Pope
Gregory XIII. corrected the reckoning, in 1582, by ordering
Oct. 5th to be called the 15th, and instituted the "Gregorian
calendar." The change, or the "New Style," was subsequently adopted
by Great Britain (in 1752), and by the other Protestant nations. The
difference for the present century between the Old and the New Style
is twelve days: during the last century it was eleven. The Julian
civil year began with Jan. 1. It was not until the eighteenth
century that this became the uniform date for the commencement of
the legal year among the Latin Christian nations.
On the general subjects of chronology: Encycl. Britt.,
Arts. Chronology and Calendar. Manuals of Reference:
ROSSE'S Index of Dates (1858); Haydn's Dictionary of
Dates (Vincent's edition, 1866); BLAIR'S Chronological
Tables; Woodward and Cates, Encycl. of Chronology (1872).
ETHNOLOGY.
Ethnology is a new science. Its function is to ascertain the origin
and filiation, the customs and institutions, of the various nations
and tribes which make up, or have made up in the past, the human
race. In tracing their relationship to one another, or their
genealogy, the sources of information are mainly three,—physical
characteristics, language, and written memorials of every
sort.
Ethnology is a branch of Anthropology, as this is a subdivision of
Zoölogy, and this, again, of Biology. Ethnography differs from
Ethnology in dealing more with details of description, and less with
rational exposition.
RACES OF MANKIND.—Authorities differ widely from one another in their
classification of races. Prichard made seven, which were
reduced by Cuvier to three; viz., Caucasian, Mongolian,
Ethiopic. Blumenbach made five, and Pickering eleven. It
is the Caucasian variety which has been chiefly distinguished in
history, and active in the building-up of civilization. None of the
numerous schemes of division, from a zoölogical point of view,
however, are satisfactory.
Huxley has proposed a fourfold classification: 1. The
Australoid, represented by the Australians and the indigenous tribes
of Southern India. 2. The Negroid. 3. The Mongoloid. 4. The
Xanthochroi, or fair whites, among whom are comprised most of the
inhabitants of Northern Europe. To these are added a fifth variety,
the Melanochroi, to which belong a part of the Celts, the Spaniards,
Greeks, Arabs, etc.
Of the various methods of race-division, A. van Humboldt
says: "We fail to recognize any typical sharpness of definition, or
any general or well-established principle, in the division of these
groups. The extremes of form and color are certainly separated, but
without regard to the races which can not be included in any of
these classes." (Cosmos, i. 365.) For example, black skin,
woolly hair, and a negro-like cast of countenance, are not
necessarily connected together.
MONOGENISM.—Zoölogists, from the point of view of their own science,
now more generally favor the monogenist doctrine, which traces
mankind to a single pair, than the polygenist, which assumed different
centers of origin. The present tendencies of natural science,
especially since Darwin, are favorable to the monogenist view.
"The opinion of modern Zoölogists, whose study of the species and
breeds of animals makes them the best judges, is against this view
of the several origins of man, for two principal reasons. First,
That all tribes of men, from the blackest to the whitest, the most
savage to the most cultured, have such general likeness in the
structure of their bodies and the working of their minds, as is
easiest and best accounted for by their being descended from a
common ancestry, however distant. Second, That all the human races,
notwithstanding their form and color, appear capable of freely
intermarrying, and forming crossed races of every combination, such
as the millions of mulattoes and mestizoes sprung in the New World
from the mixture of Europeans, Africans, and native Americans; this
again points to a common ancestry of all the races of man. We may
accept the theory of the unity of mankind as best agreeing with
ordinary experience and scientific research." (Tylor's
Anthropology, etc., pp. 5, 6.)
EVIDENCE OF LANGUAGE.—Languages, through marked affinities, are
grouped together into several great families, i. The Aryan, or
Indo-European, of which the oldest known branch is the Sanskrit, the
language in which the ancient books of the Hindus, the Vedas, were
written. With the Sanskrit belong the Iranian or Persian, the Greek,
the Latin or Italic, the Celtic, the Germanic or Teutonic (under which
are included the Scandinavian tongues), the Slavonian or
Slavo-Lettic. 2. The Semitic, embracing the communities
described in Genesis as the descendants of Shem. Under this head are
embraced, first, the Assyrian and Babylonian; secondly, the Hebrew and
Phoenician, with the Syrian or Aramaic; and thirdly, the Arabic. The
Phoenician was spread among numerous colonies, of which Carthage was
the chief. The Arabic followed the course of Mohammedan conquest. It
is the language of the northern border of Africa, and has strongly
affected various other languages,—the Persian, Turkish, etc. 3. The
Turanian or Scythian. This is an extensive family of
languages. The Finno-Hungarian, which includes two cultivated peoples,
the Fins and Hungarians; the Samoyed, stretching from the North Sea
far eastward to the boundary between Russia and China; and the Turkish
or Tartar, spreading from European Turkey over a great part of Central
Asia, are connected together by family ties. They spring from one
parent stock. Whether the Mongolian and the Tungusic—the last is the
language of the Manchus—are also thus affiliated, is a point not
absolutely settled.
Besides these three great divisions, there are other languages, as the
Chinese, and the monosyllabic tongues of south-eastern Asia,
which possibly are connected lineally with it; the Japanese;
the Malay-Polynesian, a well-developed family; the
Hamitic (of which the Egyptian or Coptic is the principal
member); the Dravidian or South Indian; the South
African; the Central African; the American Indian
languages, etc.
On language and the divisions of language, W. D. WHITNEY,
Language, and the Study of Language (1867), Oriental and
Linguistic Studies (two series, 1872-74), Life and Growth of
Language (1875); Art. Philology, in Encycl. Brit.,
vol. xviii.; Max Müller's Lectures on the Science of Language
(two series), and other writings by the same author.
ETHNOLOGY AND HISTORY.—History is generally written from the
political point of view. It is the history of nations considered
separately and in relation to one another. There are, also, histories
of culture. History, from a cultural point of view, without paying
regard to national boundaries, seeks to unfold the rise and progress
of arts and industry, of inventions, of customs, manners, and
institutions. It is the history of culture and civilization. History,
from the ethnological point of view, would describe the migrations and
experiences of the different races of men, and the formation of the
various nationalities by these races, through conquest and
intermixture. Following the divisions of linguistic science, we should
have, first, the Egyptian race and their history. Then we
should have the Semitic race, in the three eras of their
pre-eminence, and in their various branches. Then would come the
Aryan, or Indo-European family, whose power, except when
interrupted and partially broken by the Mohammedan conquests, has
continued to dominate in history since the rise of the ancient Persian
Empire.
There have been three periods of Semitic ascendency,—the era of the
Assyrian and Babylonian empires; that of the Phoenician cities and
of Carthage (a Tyrian settlement), with their colonies; and that of
the Arabic-Mohammedan Conquests. This last epoch falls within the
Christian era. In this course of Semitic history would be embraced
the narrative of the Israelites, and of their dispersion in ancient
and in modern times. The Indo-European, or Aryan family, follows
next in order. In recording its history, we should consider, first,
its oldest representative of which we have knowledge,—the Indian
race, with its literature, its social organization, and its
religions, Brahmanism and Buddhism. Then come the Persians, with
their religion founded by Zoroaster, and the Armenians. With
the fall of the Ancient Persian Empire, the center of power was
transferred from Asia to Europe, where it has since continued,
though still in the hands of the same Aryan race. The history of the
Greeks and of the Romans succeeds; then the history of the three
races,—the Celtic, Teutonic, and Slavonian,—as they present
themselves at the threshold of authentic history. The forming of the
several nationalities of Europe would have to be traced: the
Slavonian, including Russia and Poland; the Teutonic, comprising
England, Holland, Germany, and the Scandinavian peoples (viz.,
Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland); the Romanic or Italic nations
(viz., Portugal, Spain, Provence, Italy, Wallachia, the Grisons of
Switzerland), which are the nations the basis of whose languages is
the rustic or people's Latin of the middle ages. Such, in brief
outline, is the method which history, from the point of view of race
affinities, as these are indicated by language, would adopt.
UNITY OF DESCENT.—Whether mankind are all descended from one
pair—the Monogenist view, or spring from more than one center
of origin—the Polygenist view, is a question which
philological science can not answer. The facts of language are
reconcilable with either doctrine. While cautious philologists are
slow in admitting distinct affinities between the generic families of
speech,—as the Semitic and Indo-European,—which would be indicative
of a common origin, they agree in the judgment, that, on account of
the mutability of language, especially when unwritten, and while in
its earlier stages, no conclusion adverse to the monogenist doctrine
can be drawn from the diversities of speech now existing, or that are
known to have existed at any past time. As far as science is
concerned, the decision of the question must be left to zoölogy. The
tendencies of natural science at present, as we have said above, are
strongly toward the monogenist view. The variety of physical
characteristics not only affords no warrant for assuming diversity of
species among men; they do not even imply diversity of parentage at
the beginning.
"Nothing," says Max Müller, "necessitates the admission of different
independent beginnings for the material elements" [the
vocabulary] "of the Turanian, Semitic, and Aryan branches of
speech." The same thing Müller affirms of "the formal elements"
[the grammatical structure] "of these groups of languages." "We can
perfectly understand how, either through individual influences or by
the wear and tear of speech in its continuous working, the different
systems of grammar of Asia and Europe may have been produced."
(Lectures on Language, 1st series, p. 340.) The same
conclusions are reached by Professor W. D. Whitney, who, while
disclaiming for linguistic science the power to prove that the human
race in the beginning formed one society, says, that it is "even far
more demonstrable" that it can "never prove the variety of human
races and origins." (Life and Growth of Language, p. 269.)
We know that nations can learn and unlearn a language. The Irish,
adopting the language of their English conquerors, is one of many
examples of the same sort in history. What effects upon language
took place, prior to recorded history, from the mingling of tribes
and peoples, it is impossible to ascertain. The consequences to
language, of mixture among different forms of speech, were like
those which must have been produced upon the physical man from the
mingling of diverse physical types in remote ages. Science, if it
has no decided verdict to render, does not stand in conflict with
the monogenist doctrine, which has generally been understood to be
the teaching of the Scriptures.
MYTHOLOGY.
The polytheistic religions are in themselves a highly interesting part
of the history of mankind. In the multiform character that belongs to
them we find reflected the peculiar traits of the several peoples
among whom they have arisen. The history of religion stands in a close
connection with the development of the fine arts,—architecture and
sculpture, painting, music, and also poetry. The earliest rhythmical
utterance was in hymns to the gods. To worship, all the arts are
largely indebted for their birth and growth. This, however, is only
one of the ways in which religion is interwoven with the rise and
progress of civilization.
By mythology; we mean the collective beliefs of any tribe or
nation respecting deities or semi-divine personages. Recent studies
in language, or the science of comparative philology, have
thrown light on the origin of mythology, and upon the affinities of
different polytheistic religions with one another. Among various
nations belonging to the same family (as, for example, the peoples
of the Aryan race), names of gods, and, to some extent,
qualities and deeds attributed to them, have been identified. Myths
are found to have traveled in different guises from land to land. At
the same time, these discoveries have given rise to much unverified
theory and conjecture. Too much stress has been laid, by certain
writers, on mistakes in language as a source of mythology. In
the primitive stage of language, all nouns had a gender,
either male or female; and verbs, even auxiliary verbs, it is
alleged, expressed activity of some sort. On the basis of
these facts it has been inferred, that, at a later day, figurative
expressions, descriptive of natural changes, were taken as literal;
as if one should interpret the saying, "the sun follows the dawn,"
as meaning that one person pursues another. By this kind of
misunderstanding, it has been thought, a throng of mythological
tales arose. By some it is held that the names of animals, which had
been given to ancestors, were interpreted literally by their savage
descendants, or that traditions of having come from a certain
mountain or river caused these natural objects to be
mistakenly regarded as actual progenitors. These suggestions are of
very limited value in solving the problem of the origin of the
ethnic religions. Much, however, has been learned from observing the
rites and beliefs of existing savage nations. Not a few religious
notions and ceremonies, once in vogue among cultivated heathen
peoples, may be plausibly considered a survival from a more remote
and barbarous condition of society.
That mythology is the product of a mere exaggeration of actual
events, or is an allegorical picture, either of the operations of
nature or of human traits, is an untenable and obsolete view.
We shall not err in defining the main sources of the religions to
be, first, the sense of dependence, and the yearning for the
fellowship and favor of powers "not ourselves," by which the lot of
men is felt to be determined; secondly, the effort to explain
the world of nature above and beneath, and the occurrences of life;
and thirdly, the personifying instinct which belongs to the
childhood of nations as of individuals. This tendency leads to the
attributing of conscious life to things inanimate. A like tendency
may impel the savage and the child to ascribe mind to the lower
animals. The fact that language, in its earlier stage, was charged
with personal life and activity, is itself the work of the
personifying instinct. When nature is thus personified, where there
is no sense of its unity and no capacity to rise in faith to a
living God above nature, the result is a multitude of divinities of
higher and lower rank. Myths respecting them are the
spontaneous invention of unreflecting and uncritical, but
imaginative, peoples. Thus they serve to indicate the range of
ideas, and the moral spirit of those who originate and give credence
to them.
This is not the place to consider the question, What was the
primitive religion of man? The earliest deities that history brings
to our notice were not fetiches, but heavenly beings of lofty
attributes. Whether the religions of savage tribes, in common with
their low grade of intelligence, are, or are not, the result of
degeneracy, is a question which secular history affords no
means of deciding with confidence,
It may be added, that, in historic eras, the mythopoeic fancy is not
inactive. Stories of marvelous adventure clustered about the old
Celtic King Arthur of England and the "knights of the Round-Table,"
and fill up the chronicles relating to Charlemagne. Wherever there
is a person who kindles popular enthusiasm, myths accumulate. This
is eminently true in an atmosphere like that which prevailed in the
mediaeval period, when imagination and emotion were dominant.
PREHISTORIC TIMES.
PREHISTORIC RELICS.—Within the last half century, in various
countries of Europe, and in other countries, also, which have been,
earlier or later, seats of civilization, there have been found
numerous relics of uncivilized races, which, at periods far remote,
must have inhabited the same ground. Many of these antiquities are met
with in connection with remains of fossil elephants, hyenas, bears,
etc.,—with animals which no longer live in the regions referred to,
and some of which have become wholly extinct. Dwelling-places of these
far-distant peoples—such as caves and rock-shelters, and the remains
of the lake-habitations that were built on piles, in Switzerland and
elsewhere—sepulchers, camps, and forts, and an immense number of
implements and ornaments of stone and metal, have been examined. The
most ancient of these monuments carry us as far back as the era called
by geologists the Quaternary or Drift period.
THE THREE STAGES.—But there are marked distinctions in the relative
age of the various relics referred to. They indicate different degrees
of knowledge and skill; and this proof of a succession of peoples, or
of stages of development, is confirmed by geological evidence. The
prehistoric time is divided into the Stone Age, the Age of
Bronze, and the Age of Iron, according as the implements in
use were of one or another of these materials. But the Stone Age
includes an earlier and a later sub-division. In the
first and most ancient section, the weapons and utensils, mostly of
flint, were very rude in their manufacture. This was the
Paleolithic Age, where there are no signs of habitations
constructed by the hand, or of domesticated plants and animals. Men
lived in caves, and their vestments were the skins of beasts. Yet,
among their implements are found fragments of bone, horn, ivory, and
stone, on which are carved in outline, often with much skill,
representations of the reindeer, the bear, the ox, and of other
animals. In the Neolithic period, there was a decided
advance. Implements are better made and polished. There were domestic
animals and cultivated plants. The lake-dwellings in Switzerland were
well contrived for shelter and defense. Every hut had its hearth. It
is probable that most of them were furnished with a loom for
weaving. Fragments of pottery are found, and flax was grown and made
into cord, nettings, etc. Stalls were constructed near the huts for
the ox, the goat, the horse, sheep, and pigs. The lake-dwellers
cultivated wheat and barley. The Bronze Age, when implements
were made of copper or of a mixture of copper and tin, exhibits proof
of decided improvement in various directions; and the Age of
Iron, a still more marked advance. In the Swiss remains referred
to are distinct traces of a transition from the Stone Age to the Age
of Bronze, and then to the Age of Iron. The kitchen-middens, or
shell-mounds, of Denmark belong exclusively to the Neolithic
period. Where the transition was made from the Stone Age to the Age of
Bronze, it apparently occurred in some cases by degrees, and
peacefully; but sometimes by the incoming of an invading people more
advanced. It should be observed that the lines of division between
these periods are not sharply drawn: implements of stone continued to
be used after the Bronze and even the Iron periods had been
introduced. Nor were these several ages in one region contemporaneous
with like conditions in every other. Moreover, it is not possible to
find in all countries once civilized proofs of a passage through these
successive eras. In Egypt, the evidences of a Stone Age are
scanty. The most ancient human remains show that man in his physical
characteristics was on a level with man at present.
Dr. Daniel Wilson, speaking of the age of the Flint-folk,
says: "It is of no slight importance to perceive that the interval
which has wrought such revolutions in the earth" [involving great
geological changes and mutations of climate] "as are recorded in the
mammaliferous drift, shows man the same reasoning, tentative, and
inventive mechanician, as clearly distinguished then from the
highest orders of contemporary life of the Elephantine or Cave
periods, as he is now from the most intelligent of the brute
creation…. The oldest art-traces of the paleotechnic men of
central France not only surpass those of many savage races, but they
indicate an intellectual aptitude in no degree inferior to the
average Frenchman of the nineteenth century." (Prehistoric
Man, pp. 33, 34.)
Literature.—Wilson, Prehistoric Man, etc. (2 vols., 1876);
Joly, Man before the Metals (1883); Keary, The Dawn of
History. The writings of E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture
(2 vols.), Anthropology, Early History of Mankind; his
Art. Anthropology, Encycl. Britt.; Lubbock's Prehistoric
Times, and his Origin of Civilization; Argyll, The
Unity of Nature (1884); J. Geikie, Prehistoric Europe
(1881); Lyell, The Antiquity of Man; W. E. Hearn, The
Aryan Household; L. H. Morgan, Ancient Society.
THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN.—Science does not furnish us with the means of
fixing the date of the first human inhabitants of the earth. But its
various departments of investigation concur in pronouncing the
interval between the creation of man and the present to be far longer
than the traditional opinion has assumed. For the growth of language
and its manifold ramifications; for the development of the different
races of mankind, physically considered; for the geological changes
since the beginning of the Stone Age in the regions where its relics
are uncovered; for the rise of the most ancient civilization in Egypt
as well as in Babylon and China,—it is thought that periods of very
long duration are indispensable.
As to the date of the Neolithic man, or of the last section of the
Stone Age, Professor J. Geikie writes: "Any term of years I might
suggest would be a mere guess; but I have written to little purpose,
however, if the phenomena described in the preceding chapters have
failed to leave the impression upon the reader, that the advent of
Neolithic man in Europe must date back far beyond fifty or seventy
centuries." (Prehistoric Europe, p. 558.)
The chronology gathered from Genesis has been supposed to place the
date of man's creation at a point far less remote. Usher's
calculation, attached to the authorized English Version of the
Bible, sets this date at 4004 B.C. The discussion of these questions
of Scriptural chronology belongs to theology and biblical
criticism. It may be observed here, however, that of the three forms
in which Genesis is handed down to us,—the Hebrew text, the
Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Septuagint, or ancient Greek
translation,—no two agree in the numbers on which the estimate is
founded. Hence Hales and Jackson, following the larger numbers in
the genealogies of the Septuagint, place the date of the creation at
a point about fourteen hundred years prior to that fixed upon by
Usher.
ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY.
The periods of history are not divided from one another by merely
chronological limits, according to intervals of time of a definite
duration. Such a classification may be of use to the memory, but it is
arbitrary in its character. The landmarks of history are properly
placed at the turning-points where new eras take their start, whether
the intervals between them are longer or shorter.
Of these natural divisions, the most general and the most marked is
that between ancient and modern history. Ancient history not only
precedes modern in time: it is distinguished from the latter as
relating to a by-gone state of things. Modern history, on the
contrary, deals with an order of things now existing. Between the two
there is this line of demarkation.
History (with the exception of China and India, which require distinct
consideration, as standing apart) begins with Egypt, and flows down in
a continuous stream, until, in the fourth century A.D., the Roman
Empire, into which the ancient civilized peoples were incorporated,
was broken up. Then the new nations, especially the tribes of the
Germanic race, took power into their hands; Christianity was
established among them; out of the chaos of elements there emerged the
European nations, with their offshoots,—the peoples at present on the
stage of action. Ancient history had its center in the
Mediterranean. It embraced the peoples who dwelt on the shores of that
sea, in the three continents, and the nations that were brought into
relations with them. The Roman Empire, the final outcome of ancient
history, was "the monarchy of the Mediterranean." With the breaking-up
of the Empire, new races, new centers of power, a universal religion
in the room of national religions, and a new type of culture and
civilization, were introduced. Invaluable legacies were handed over
from the past, surviving the wreck of ancient civilization. There is,
however, a unity in history: the transition from the ancient to the
modern era was gradual.
MEDIAEVAL AND LATER MODERN HISTORY.
Since the fall of the Roman Empire, there has occurred no revolution
to be compared with the circumstances and results of that event. An
old world passed away, and a new world began to be. Yet the student,
as he travels hitherward, arrives at another epoch of extraordinary
change,—a period of ferment, when modern society in Europe takes on a
form widely different from the character that had belonged to it
previously. The long interval between ancient history and
modern (in this more restricted sense of thes term) is styled
the Middle Ages. Its termination may be found in the fifteenth
century, and a convenient date to mark the boundary-line is the
capture of Constantinople by the Turks (1453).
History thus divides itself into three parts:—
Part I. Ancient History, to the migrations of the Germanic Tribes (375
A.D).
Part II. Mediæval History, from A.D. 375 to the Fall of Constantinople
(1453).
PART III. Modern History, from 1453 until the present.
Works on General History.—Ranke, Universal History; Ploetz,
Epitome of Ancient, Mediæval, and Modern History (Boston,
1884); Weber, Weitgeschichte (2 vols.); Assmann, Handbuch
d. allgemeinen Geschichte (5 vols., 1853-1862); by the same,
Abriss d. allgem. Gesch. (in 3 parts); Oncken, Allgem.
Geschichte in Einzeidarstellungen (a series of full monographs
of high merit). Copious works on Universal History, in German, by
Weber, Schlosser, Becker, Leo. Laurent, Études sur l'Histoire de
l'Humanitè (this is an extended series of historical
dissertations),—The Orient and Greece (2 vols.); Rome
(1 vol.); Christianity (1 vol.), etc. Prévost-Paradol,
Essai sur l'Histoire Universelle (2 vols.: a suggestive
critical survey of the course of history, with the omission of
details). S. Willard, Synopsis of History.
PART I. ANCIENT HISTORY.
FROM THE BEGINNING OF AUTHENTIC HISTORY TO THE MIGRATIONS OF THE
TEUTONIC TRIBES (A.D. 375).
DIVISIONS OF ANCIENT HISTORY.—Ancient history separates itself into
two main divisions. In the first the Oriental nations form the
subject; in the second, which follows in the order of time, the
European peoples, especially Greece and Rome, have the central
place. The first division terminates, and the second begins, with the
rise of Grecian power and the great conflict of Greece with the
Persian Empire, 492 B.C.
SECTIONS OF ORIENTAL HISTORY.—But Oriental history divides itself
into two distinct sections. The first embraces China and India,
nations apart, and disconnected from the Mediterranean and adjacent
peoples. China and India have a certain bond of connection with one
another through the spread in China of the Buddhistic religion. The
second section includes the great empires which preceded, and paved
the way for, European history; viz., Egypt, Babylonia and Assyria, and
Persia. In this section, along the course of the historic stream,
other nations which exercised a powerful influence, attract special
attention, especially the Phoenicians and the Hebrews. All these
Oriental peoples are so connected together that they stand in history
as the Earliest Group of Nations. The historic narrative must
be so shaped as to describe them in part singly, but, at the same
time, in their mutual relations.
Ancient history, from an ethnographical point of view, would
embrace two general divisions,—Eastern peoples and Western
peoples. The first would comprise Egyptians (Hamitic); Jews,
Babylonians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Lydians (Semitic); Hindus,
Bactrians, Medes, Persians (Aryan); Parthians, Chinese, Japanese. The
second would include Celts, Britons, Greeks, Romans,
Teutons (Aryan). (Ploetz, Universal History, p. 1.)
From a geographical point of view, ancient history would fall
into three general divisions: I. Asia, including (1) India, (2) China
(with Japan), (3) Babylonia and Assyria, (4) Phoenicia, (5) Palestine,
(6) Media and Persia. II. Africa, including (1) Egypt, (2) Carthage.
III. Europe including (1) Greece, with its states and colonies; (2)
Italy.
DIVISION I.
ORIENTAL HISTORY.
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.—Europe and Asia together form one vast continent,
yet have a partial boundary between them in the Ural Mountains and
River, and in the deep bed of the Caspian and Black seas. Asia, which
extends from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific, and from the Arctic
Sea to the Indian Ocean, embraces an immense plateau, stretching from
the Black Sea to Corea. This plateau spreads like a fan as it advances
eastward. It is traversed by chains of mountains, and bordered also by
lofty mountains, of which the Himalayas is the principal range. From
this girdle of mountains descend slopes which lead down into the
lowlands. The great plateau is broken into two by the Hindu-Kush
range. The eastern division, the extensive plateau of Central Asia, is
bordered on the north by the barren plains of Siberia. In the lowlands
on the east and south are included the fertile plains of Central China
and of Hindustan. The plateau of eastern Asia has been the natural
abode of nomad tribes, Tartars and Mongols, whose invading hosts have
poured through the passes of the mountains into the inviting
territories below. The plateau of western Asia, stretching westward
from the Indus, is not so high as that of the east. It begins with the
lofty tablelands of Iran, and extends, ordinarily at a less elevation,
to the extremity of the continent. On the south lie the plains of
Mesopotamia. Arabia is a low plateau of vast extent, connected by the
plateau and mountains of Syria with the mountain region of Asia
Minor. As might be expected, civilization sprang up in the alluvial
valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, the Indus and the Ganges, and on
the soil watered by the great rivers of China, the Hoang-Ho and the
Yang-tse-Kiang. Egypt was looked on by the Ancients as a part of
Asia. Its language was distinct from the languages of the African
nations. The seat of its power and thrift was the valley of the
Nile. The conflicts of the nations settled in the lowlands with the
mountainous peoples, eager for spoil and conquest, are a
characteristic feature of Oriental History.
CHARACTER OF THE ASIATIC NATIONS.—Generalizations covering so wide a
field are, of necessity, inexact. As a rule, in the oriental mind, the
intuitive powers eclipse the severely rational and logical.
Civilization—as, for example, in Egypt and China—attains to a
certain grade, and is there petrified. Immobility belongs to the
Eastern nations. Revolutions bring a change of masters, but leave
character and customs unchanged. The sense of individuality has been
less vivid, and freedom less understood or valued. Governments have
taken the despotic form. Law has had its seat in the ruler's sovereign
will. The ruler has been regarded as clothed with divine
authority. Before him the subject prostrates himself with groveling
servility.
RELIGION IN ASIA.—Asia is the cradle of the principal religions of
the world. Here monotheism appears, as in the faith of the
Hebrews, and in the Mohammedan revival of it in a less pure form. Here
have flourished polytheistic systems, each with its throng of
divinities. In the east, pantheism, dropping out of the
conception of the Deity the element of personality, has found a
cherished home.
PRIESTHOODS.—Connected with the controlling influence of religion
have arisen the priesthoods,—sometimes ruling as an aristocratic
caste or class, sometimes dividing power with the reigning despot, to
whom sacred attributes are ascribed.
LITERATURE AND ART.—The Oriental nature has been mirrored in the
literature and art of the East. Its products lack the measure, the
grace and symmetry, and the human interest, which characterize the
creations of the European mind. In the mechanical arts, invention and
discovery push on progress to a certain point, then languish and die
out.
SECTION I. CHINA AND INDIA.
CHAPTER I. CHINA.
China proper comprises less than half of the present Chinese
Empire. It was called the land of Sinae or Seres by the ancients, and
in the middle ages bore the name of Cathay. In the north of China are
the broad alluvial plains, and in the north-eastern portion of the
empire, an immense delta. The rest of the country is hilly and
mountainous.
The nucleus of the Chinese nation is thought to have been a band of
immigrants, who are supposed by some to have started from the region
south-east of the Caspian Sea, and to have crossed the head waters of
the Oxus. They followed the course of the Hoang-Ho, or Yellow River,
having entered the country of their adoption from the north-west; and
they planted themselves in the present province of Shan-se. Although
nomads, they had some knowledge of astronomy, brought from their
earlier homes; and they quickly made for themselves settled
abodes. The native tribes by degrees were extirpated or driven
out. The new-comers cultivated grain. They raised flax, out of which
they wove garments.
LEGENDARY ERA, TO THE CHOW DYNASTY (1123 B.C.).—The early annals of
the Chinese, like those of other nations, are made up of myth and
fable. The annalists placed the date of the creation at a point more
than two millions of years prior to Confucius. The intervening period
they sought to fill up with lines of dynasties. Preceding the Chow
dynasty, the chroniclers give ten epochs. Prior to the eighth of
these, there are no traces of authentic history. To Yew-Chaou
She (the Nest-having) is given the credit of teaching the people
to make huts of the boughs of trees. Fire was discovered by
Suy-jin-She (the Fire-producer), his successor. Another ruler
(Fuh-he), whose date is fixed at 2852 B.C., discovered iron. He
also divided the people into classes. His successor invented the
plow. These tales, perhaps, retain vague reminiscences of the methods
in which useful inventions originated, or of the order in which they
appeared.
With Yaou (2356 B.C.) we reach the period where the narratives
which were compiled many centuries later by Confucius, begin their
story. In the mass of fable, there is a larger infusion of historical
fact, which, however, it is well-nigh hopeless to separate from the
fiction that is mingled with it. In that golden age, few laws were
required. We are told that the house-door could safely be left
open. Yaou extended the empire: he established fairs and marts over
the land. During the reign of Shun, who followed him, a
tremendous inundation is said to have occurred; and Yu, called
"the Great," was energetic in draining off the waters. He ascended the
throne in 2205 B.C. His degenerate successors provoked a revolt and
the introduction of a new dynasty, called the Shang dynasty,
whose first Emperor, Tang (1760 B.C.), had a wise and
beneficent reign. Tyranny and disaster followed under the later kings
of this house; until finally Woo-Wang, the first sovereign of
the Chow dynasty, acceded to the throne (1123 B.C.).
THE CHOW DYNASTY (1123-255 B.C.).—The traditions now become decidedly
more trustworthy, although still largely mixed with
fable. Woo-Wang was brave and upright. Under him a momentous
change in government took place. By him the kingdom was divided into
seventy-two feudal states. Internal divisions and struggles resulted
from this new political system. The Tartars availed themselves of the
weakened condition of the nation, to make predatory incursions. In
this period of disorder and danger, Confucius, the great
teacher of China, was born (551 B.C.). His father was a district
magistrate, and died when the son was only three years old. He was
trained and taught by his mother. When she died, he gave up all
employments to mourn for her, during three years. His only occupation
during this period was study. A grave and learned youth, he at length
resolved to become an instructor of his countrymen in the ancient
writings, to which he was devoted. He was regular in all his ways, and
never ate or drank to excess. He gathered about him scholars; his fame
increased; and, in 500 B.C., he was made magistrate of Chung-tu
by the sovereign, Duke Ting, an office which he justly and
discreetly administered for three years. Sometimes persecuted, he
compared himself to a dog driven from his home. "I have the fidelity
of that animal, and I am treated like it. But what matters the
ingratitude of men? They can not hinder me from doing all the good
that has been appointed me. If my precepts are disregarded, I have the
consolation of knowing in my own breast that I have faithfully
performed my duty." Both by his literary works and by the lessons
taught to his disciples, he laid the foundation of a most powerful and
lasting influence over his countrymen. He died in 478 B.C., at the age
of seventy-three. Laou-tsze, another famous thinker, was a few
years older than Confucius. "Three precious things," he said, "I
prize, and hold fast,—humility, compassion, and economy."
Mencius, a celebrated teacher and reformer, who followed in the
path of Confucius, after a long life died in 289 B.C. One of his
doctrines was, that the nature of man is good, and that evil is owing
to education and circumstances. One of his maxims was, that the people
can be led aright, but can not be taught the reasons for the guidance
to which they are subjected.
DYNASTY OF TSIN (255-206 B.C.).—Reverting to the course of Chinese
history, the next grand epoch is the enthronement of the Tsin dynasty,
in the person of the ruler of one of the provinces, which, in the
intestine strife among the feudal princes, gained the victory. This
was in 255 B.C. In this line belongs the famous Emperor Che
Hwang-te, who, in 246 B.C., at the age of thirteen years,
succeeded to the crown. His palace in his capital, the modern Se-gan
Foo, the edifices which he built elsewhere, the roads and canals
constructed by him, excited wonder. He routed and drove out the Tartar
invaders, and put down the rebellion of the feudal princes. He
enlarged the kingdom nearly to the limits of modern China proper. For
the protection of the northern frontier he began the "Great Wall,"
which he did not live to finish. It was finished 204 B.C., ten years
after it was begun. When finished, it was not less than fifteen
hundred miles in length. It would reach "from Philadelphia to Topeka,
or from Portugal to Naples." The innovations and maxims of government
of Che Hwang-te were offensive to the scholars and the conservative
class, who pointed the people to the heroes of the feudal days and to
the glories of the past. For this reason, the monarch commanded that
all books having reference to the history of the empire should be
destroyed. He would efface the recollection of the old times. He
would not allow his system to be undermined by tradition. The decree
was obeyed, although hidden copies of many of the ancient writings
were undoubtedly preserved. Numerous scholars were buried alive. His
death, in 210 B.C., was followed by disturbances, growing out of the
disaffection of the higher classes. In the civil war that ensued, his
dynasty was subverted. The throne was next held by
THE HAN RULERS (206 B.C.-22l A.D.).—Their sway, which lasted for four
hundred years, covers a brilliant period in the Chinese annals. During
the reign of Ming-te, 65 A.D., a deputation was sent to India,
to obtain the sacred writings and authorized teachers of the
Buddhistic religion, which had begun to spread among the Chinese. The
power of the feudal lords was reduced. Northern Corea was conquered,
and the bounds of the empire extended on the west as far as Russian
Turkestan, In this period, there was a marked revival of learning and
authorship. Then lived a famous public officer, Yang Chên, who,
when asked to take a bribe, and assured that no one would know it,
answered, "How so? Heaven would know, Earth would know, you would
know, and I should know." Under this dynasty, a custom of burying
slaves with the dead was abolished.
BEGINNING IN 221 A.D., there followed the "era of the three kingdoms."
It was an age of martial prowess, civil war, and bloodshed. This long
period of division was interrupted in 265 A.D. by a re-union of the
greater part of the empire for a brief period. But discord soon sprang
up; and it was not until 590 A.D. that unity and order were restored
by Yang-Kian, who founded the dynasty, named from his local
dominion, Suy.
RELIGION IN CHINA.—The ancient religion of China was
polytheistic. The supreme divinity was called Tien or
Shang-ti. Tien signifies Heaven. Was Heaven, or Shang-ti—or
the Lord—the visible heaven, the expanse above, clothed with the
attribute of personality? This has been, and still is, the prevailing
opinion of missionaries and scholars. Dr. Legge, however, holds
that Tien is the lord of the heavens, a power above the visible
firmament; and thus finds monotheism as the basis of the Chinese
religious creed.
The prevailing religions of China are three,—Buddhism (which
in its original form was brought in from India in the first century of
the Christian era), Confucianism, and Taouism. It may be
observed, that, in all these systems, there is but a vague sense of
personality as inhering in the heavenly powers, in comparison with the
creeds in vogue among heathen nations generally. Another fact to be
noted is, that, in Chinese worship, the veneration for ancestors, a
feeling inbred in the Chinese mind, is a very prominent and pervading
element.
Confucius did not profess to reveal things supernatural. His teaching
is made up of moral and political maxims. He builds on the past, and
always inculcates reverence for the fathers and for what has
been. There is much wise counsel to parents and to rulers. His
morality reaches its acme in the Golden Rule, which he gives, however,
only in its negative relation: "Do not unto others what you would not
that others should do unto you." Laou-tsze is a more speculative and
mystical thinker. In his moral aphorisms, he approaches the theory of
the ancient Stoics. TEH—i.e., virtue—is lauded. Teh proceeds from
TAO. To explain what the Chinese sage means by Tao,—a word that
signifies the "way,"—is a puzzle for commentators and inquirers. From
Tao all things originate: they conform to Tao, and to Tao they
return. There are noble maxims in Laou-tsze,—precepts enjoining
compassion, and condemning the requital of evil with evil. Taouism is
a type of religion which traces itself to the teaching of
Laou-tsze. That teaching became mixed with wild speculations. Then
certain Buddhistic rites and tenets were added to it. The result,
finally, was a compound of knavery and superstition. Taouism is at
once mystical and rationalistic in its tone.
LITERATURE IN CHINA.—The Chinese language was crystallized, in the
written form, in the monosyllabic stage of its development. Beginning
in hieroglyphs, literal pictures of objects, and having no alphabet,
it has so multiplied its characters and combinations of characters as
to put great hindrances in the way of the acquisition of it. The utter
absence of inflection may have crippled the development of poetry and
of the drama, for which the Chinese have a natural taste. In these
departments, Chinese productions do not rise above mediocrity. For
this, however, the lack of imagination and of creative power is
largely accountable. It is in the province of pure prose—as in
historical narrations, topographical writings, such as geographies,
and in the making of encyclopedias—that the Chinese have
excelled. But the yoke of tradition has everywhere weighed heavily. In
one sense, the Chinese have been a literary people. The system of
competitive examinations for public offices has diffused through the
nation a certain degree of book-learning; yet the masses have been
kept in a state of ignorance. At the foundation of all learning are
the "nine classics," which consist of five works, edited or written by
Confucius, of which the "Shoo King," or Book of History, stands at the
head, together with the four books written by his disciples and the
disciples of Mencius. Great as have been the services of Confucius,
his own slavish reverence for the past, so stamped upon his writings,
has had the effect to cramp the development of the Chinese mind, and
to fasten upon it the fetters of tradition.
GOVERNMENT AND CIVILIZATION.—The government of China is "a
patriarchal despotism." As father of his people, the king has absolute
authority. The power of life and death is in his hand. Yet the right
of revolution was taught by Confucius and Mencius, and the Chinese
have not been slow to exercise it. The powers of the emperor are
limited by ceremonial regulations, and by a body of precedents which
are held sacred. He administers rule with the help of a privy
council. Officers of every rank in the employ of the government
constitute the aristocratic class of Mandarins, who are divided into
different ranks.
INVENTION.—Printing by wooden blocks was known in China as early as
the sixth century A.D. Printing did not come into general use until
the thirteenth century. The use of movable types, although devised, it
is said, many centuries earlier, did not come into vogue until the
seventeenth century. Gunpowder was used as early as 250 A.D., in the
making of fire-crackers; but it was certainly as late as the middle of
the twelfth century that it was first employed in war. The Chinese
were early acquainted with the polarity of the loadstone, and used the
compass in journeys by land long before that instrument was known in
Europe. In various branches of manufactures,—as silk, porcelain,
carved work in ivory, wood, and horn,—the Chinese, at least until a
recent period, have been pre-eminent. In the mechanical arts their
progress has been slow. Their crude implements of husbandry are in
contrast with their exhibitions of skill in other directions. Although
imitation long ago supplanted the activity of inventive talent, to
China belongs the distinction of being a civilized land before the
Christian nations of Europe had emerged into being.
LITERATURE.—The Middle Kingdom, by S. WELLS WILLIAMS (2
vols.); Encycl. Brit., Art. China by Professor
Douglas; Arts. Confucius and Mencius by Dr. Legge; Legge,
The Religions of China; Richthofen, China(3 vols.);
Giles, Historic China, and Other Sketches (1882); Legge,
The Chinese Classics; BOULGER, History of China
(1881-84); Thornton, History of China.
JAPAN.—The authentic history of Japan belongs mainly in the modern
period, since the tenth century A.D. The most ancient religion of
Japan, designated by a term which means "the way of the gods,"
included a variety of objects of worship,—gods, deified men, the
mikados, or chief rulers, regarded as "the sons of heaven," animals,
plants, etc. Unquestioning obedience to the mikado was the primary
religious duty. It was a state-religion. Buddhism, brought into the
country in 552 A.D., spread, and became prevalent.
The Japanese are a mixed race. Kiôto and the adjacent provinces are
said to have been occupied by the conquerors. Prior to 660 B.C. we
have no trustworthy history of the island. This is the date assigned
by the Japanese to their hero, Jimmu Tenno, the first mikado,
the founder of an unbroken line. For several centuries, however, the
history is open to question. The tenth mikado, Sujin, is noted as a
reformer, and promoter of civilization. An uncrowned princess,
Jingu-Kogo (201-269 A.D.), is famous for her military
prowess. She suppressed a rebellion, and subdued Corea. Ojin, a
celebrated warrior, is still worshiped as a god of war. The
introduction of Chinese literature and civilization at this period,
makes a turning-point in Japanese history.
LITERATURE.—J. J. REIN, Japan: Travels and Researches,
vol. I. (1881); E. J. Reed, Japan (2 vols., 1880); Siebold,
Nippon (5 vols. 410, and plates); Kampfer, History of
Japan (2 vols. fol., 1728); Encycl. Brit.,
Art. Japan.
CHAPTER II. INDIA.
India is the central one of the three great peninsulas of Southern
Asia. On the north is the mountainous region of the Himalayas, below
which are the vast and fertile river plains, watered by the
Indus, the Ganges, and other streams. On the south,
separated from the Ganges by the Vindhyá range, is the hilly and
mountainous tract called the Deccan.
THE ARYAN INVADERS.—The history of India opens with glimpses of a
struggle on the borders of the great rivers,—first of the Indus and
then of the Ganges,—between an invading race, the Sanskrit-speaking
Aryans from the north-west, and the dusky aborigines. These rude
native tribes have left few relics but their tombs. Before they
tenanted the soil, there dwelt upon it still earlier inhabitants,
whose implements were of stone or bronze. The incoming people referred
to above were of that Indo-European stock to which we belong. From
their home, perhaps in central Asia, they moved in various
directions. A part built up the Persian kingdom; another portion
migrated farther, and were the progenitors of the Greek nation; and a
third founded Rome. The Indian Aryans migrated southward from the
headwaters of the Oxus at some time prior, doubtless, to 2000 B.C. Our
knowledge of them is derived from their ancient sacred books, the
Vedas; of these the oldest, the Rig-Veda, contains ten
hundred and seventeen lyrics, chiefly addressed to the gods. Its
contents were composed while the Aryans dwelt upon the Indus, and
while they were on their way to the neighborhood of the Ganges. The
Rig-Veda, therefore, exhibits this people in their earliest stage of
religious and social development. They were herdsmen, but with a
martial spirit, which enabled them by degrees to drive out the native
tribes, and compel them to take refuge in the mountains on the north,
or on the great southern plateau. Among them women were held in
respect, and marriage was sacred. There are beautiful hymns written by
ladies and queens. No such cruel custom as the burning of widows
existed: it was of far later origin. They were acquainted with the
metals. Among them were blacksmiths, coppersmiths, goldsmiths,
carpenters, and other artisans. They fought from chariots, but had not
come to employ elephants in war. They were settled in villages and in
towns. Mention is made of ships, or river-boats, as in use among
them. They ate beef, and drank a sort of fermented beer made from the
soma plant.
THE VEDIC RELIGION.—The early religion of the Indian Aryans was quite
different from the system that grew up later among them. We do not
find in it the dreamy pantheism that appears afterwards. It is
cheerful in its tone, quite in contrast with the gloomy asceticism
which is stamped on it in after times. The head of each family is
priest in his own household. It is only the great tribal sacrifice
which is offered by priests set apart for the service. The worship is
polytheistic, but not without tendencies to monotheism. The principal
divinities are the powers of nature. The deities (deva) were
the heavenly or the shining ones. "It was the beautiful phenomenon of
light which first and most powerfully swayed the Aryan mind." The
chief gods were the Father-heaven; Indra, the god of thunder and of
rain, from whom the refreshing showers descended; Varuna, the
encompassing sky; and Agni, the god of fire. Among these Indra,
from his beneficence, more and more attracted worship. Soma,
too, was worshiped; soma being originally the intoxicating juice of a
plant. Brihaspati, the lord of prayer, personifying the
omnipresent power of prayer, was adored. Thirty-three gods in all were
invoked. The bodies of the dead were consumed on the funeral-pile. The
soul survived the body, but the later doctrine of transmigration was
unknown. All the attributes of sovereign power and majesty were
collected in Varuna. No one can fathom him, but he sees and
knows all. He is the upholder of order; just, yet the dispenser of
grace, and merciful to the penitent. Worship is made up of oblations
and prayers. It must be sincere. The gods will not tolerate
deceit. They require faith. Of the last things and the last times the
Rig-Veda hardly speaks. The Vedic hymns have much to say of the origin
of things, but little, except in the last book, of the final issues.
There are four Vedas,—the Rig-Veda, which has the body of
hymns; the Yajur-Veda, in which the prescribed formulas to be
used in acts of sacrifice are collected; the Sama-Veda,
containing the chants; and the Atharva-Veda, a collection of
hymns, in part of a later date. Besides, each Veda contains, as a
second part, one or more Brâhmanas, or prose treatises on the
ceremonial system. In addition, there are theological works
supplementary, and of later origin,—the intermediate
Aranyakas, and the Upanishads, which are of a
speculative cast.
Not only is nature—mountains, rivers, trees, etc.—personified in the
Vedas: the animals—as the cow, the horse, the dog, even the apparatus
of worship, the war-chariot, the plow, and the furrow—are addressed
in prayer. The sacrificial fire is deified in Agni, the
sacrificial drink in Soma. Indra has for his body-guards the
Maruts, gods of the storm and lightning. He is a warlike god,
standing in his chariot, but also a beneficent giver of all good
gifts. Varuna is the god of the vast luminous heavens, in their
serene majesty. Indra, on the other hand, represents the
atmosphere in its active and militant energy. The number of the gods
is variously given. In passages, they are said to be many thousands.
RITES.—There is no hierarchy among the gods. But there is a tendency
to confuse the attributes of the different divinities. Occasionally,
for the time being, one eclipses all the rest, and is addressed as if
all others were forgotten. There is sometimes a tendency to regard
them as all one, under different names. But this tendency develops
itself later. Offerings consisted of rice, cakes, soma, etc. Victims
also were sacrificed, the horse especially; also the goat, the
buffalo, and other animals. Sacrifice purchases the gifts and favor of
the gods. It is an expression of gratitude and dependence. It has,
moreover, a deep, mysterious energy of an almost magical character.
THE ARYANS ON THE GANGES.—Later, but earlier than 1000 B.C., we find
that the Aryan invaders have moved onward in their career of conquest,
and have planted themselves on the plains of the Ganges. A marvelous
transformation has taken place in their social constitution, their
religion, and in their general spirit. The caste system has sprung up,
of which there are few traces in the Rig-Veda. In the first or lowest
of these distinct classes are the Sudras, or despised serfs,
who are the subjugated aborigines; the second, or next higher, class
is composed of the tillers of the soil, who are of a lower rank than
the third, the warrior caste. These, in turn, fall below the
Brahmans, or priests, who, as rites of worship grew more
complicated, and superstition increased, gained, though not without a
struggle, a complete ascendency. This marks the beginning of the
sacerdotal era. The tendency of the farmer caste was to decrease,
until, in modern times, in various provinces they are hardly
found. The supremacy of the Brahmans was largely owing to their
eminence as the great literary caste. They arose out of the families
by whom the hymns had been composed, and who managed the tribal
sacrifices. They alone understood the language of the hymns and the
ritual. Brahman, in the earliest Veda, signifies a worshiper.
BRAHMINICAL PANTHEISM.—The polytheism of the earlier type of religion
was converted into pantheism. Brahma, the supreme being, is
impersonal, the eternal source of all things, from which all finite
beings—gods, nature, and men—emanate. It is by emanation,—an
outflow analogous to that of a stream from its fountain, in
distinction from creation, implying will and
self-consciousness,—that all derived existences emerge into
being. With this doctrine was connected the belief in the
transmigration of souls. All animated beings, including plants as well
as animals, partake of the universal life which has its origin and
seat in Brahma. Alienation from Brahma, finite, individual being, is
evil. To work the way back to Brahma is the great aim and
hope. Absorption in Brahma, return to the primeval essence, is the
supreme good. The sufferings of the present are the penalty of sins
committed in a pre-existent state. If they are not purged away, the
soul is condemned to be embodied again and again,—it may be, in some
repulsive animal. This process of metempsychosis might be repeated far
into the indefinite future. With the doctrine of Brahma and of
transmigration was connected the feeling that all life is sacred. The
Brahman spared even trees and plants from destruction. Pollution or
defilement might be contracted in a great variety of ways. There grew
out of these ideas of sin, rigorous penances, most painful forms of
self-torment. It was only by practices of this sort that there was
hope of avoiding the retribution so much dreaded.
THE BRAHMINICAL CODES.—The principal of these codes is the Laws of
Manu. Manu was imagined to be the first human being, conceived of
as a sage. This code is a digest compiled by the priests at a date
unknown, but comprising in it materials of a very high
antiquity. Hence, while exhibiting Brahmanism in its maturer form, it
affords glimpses of society at a much earlier date. A second code was
compiled not earlier than the second century A.D. These codes present
Hindu law under three heads: (1) domestic and civil rights and duties,
(2) the administration of justice, (3) purification and penance. In
truth, the codes prescribe regulations for every department of
life. The obligations of kings, of Brahmans, and of every other class,
are defined in detail. One motive that is kept in view is to set forth
and fortify the special privileges of the Brahminical order.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE BRAHMINS.—In process of time, commentaries on
the Vedas were multiplied. Discord arose in the interpretation of the
sacred books. Out of this debate and confusion there emerged, in the
seventh and sixth centuries B.C., several philosophical systems. These
aimed to give peace to the soul by emancipating it from the bondage of
matter, and by imparting a sense of independence of the body and of
the external world.
These old philosophies are preserved in the Upanishads, or
Instructions. The main idea in these diverse systems—the
Sankhya, the Vedanta, etc.—is, that the soul's notion
of itself as separate from the supreme, impersonal being, is the
fallen state. This duality must be overcome. Conscious of its
identity with the Supreme, the soul enters into yoga, or the
state of unison with the Infinite. He who is thus taken away from
the illusions of sense, or the yogin, is free from the power
of things perishable. Death brings a complete absorption into the
source of all being. It is the bliss of personal extinction. This
sort of philosophy attached great value to contemplation and
self-renunciation. It led to a light esteem of ritual practices and
ceremonies.
BUDDHISM.
The Brahminical system has not ceased to maintain its supremacy in
India since the time when it was presented to view in the
law-codes. But it has not escaped alteration and attack. New
movements, religious and political, have appeared to modify its
character. Of these, Buddhism is by far the most memorable.
THE LIFE OF BUDDHA.—Of the life of Buddha we have only legendary
information, where it is impossible to separate fact from romance. The
date of his death was between 482 and 472 B.C. He was then old. He
belonged to the family of Gautamas, who were said to be of the royal
line of the Çâkyas, a clan having its seat about a hundred and
thirty-seven miles north of Benares. The story is, that, brought up in
luxury, and destined to reign, he was so struck with the miseries of
mankind, that, at the age of twenty-nine, he left his parents, his
young wife, and an only son, and retired to a solitary life to
meditate upon the cause of human suffering. From Brahminical teachers
he could obtain no solution of the problem. But after seven years of
meditation and struggle, during which sore temptations to return to a
life of sense and of ease were successfully resisted, he attained to
truth and to peace. For forty-four years after this he is said to have
promulgated his doctrine, gathering about him disciples, whom he
charged with the duty of spreading it abroad.
THE BUDDHISTIC DOCTRINE.—Buddhism was not a distinct revolt against
the reigning system of religion. Buddha left theology to the
Brahmans. Indra, Agni, and the other divinities, and the services
rendered to them, he left untouched. Being an anchorite, he was not
required to concern himself with the rites and observances in which
others took part. His aim was practical. His doctrine, though resting
on a theoretical basis, was propounded simply as a way of salvation
from the burdens that oppressed the souls of men. Nor did he undertake
a warfare against caste. The blessing of deliverance from the woes of
life he opened to all without distinction. This was the limit of his
opposition to caste.
THE ROAD TO NIRVANA.—Buddha taught, (1) that existence is always
attended with misery; (2) that all modes of misery result from
passion, or desire unsatisfied; (3) that desire must be quenched; (4)
that there are four steps in doing this, and thus of arriving at
NIRVANA, which is the state in which self is lost and absorbed, and
vanishes from being. These four ways are (1) the awakening to a
perception of the nature and cause of evil, as thus defined; (2) the
consequent quenching of impure and revengeful feelings; (3) the
stifling of all other evil desires, also riddance from ignorance,
doubt, heresy, unkindliness, and vexation; (4) the entrance into
Nirvana, sooner or later, after death. The great boon which Buddha
held out was escape from the horrors of transmigration. He attributed
to the soul no substantial existence. It is the Karma, or
another being, the successor of one who dies, the result and effect of
all that he was, who re-appears in case of transmigration. Buddhism
involved atheism, and the denial of personal immortality, or, where
this last tenet was not explicitly denied, uncertainty and
indifference respecting it. On the foundation of Buddha's teaching,
there grew up a vast system of monasticism, with ascetic usages not
less burdensome than the yoke of caste. The attractive feature of
Buddhism was its moral precepts. These were chiefly an inculcation of
chastity, patience, and compassion; the unresisting endurance of all
ills; sympathy and efficient help for all men.
DEIFICATION OF BUDDHA.—By the pupils of Buddha he was glorified. He
was placed among the Brahminical gods, by whom he was served. A
multitude of cloisters were erected in his honor, in which his relics
were believed to be preserved. On the basis of the simpler doctrine
and precepts of the founder, there accumulated a mass of superstitious
beliefs and observances.
THE SPREAD OF BUDDHISM.—After the death of Buddha, it is said that
his disciples, to the number of five hundred, assembled, and divided
his teaching into three branches,—his own words, his rules of
discipline, and his system of doctrine. During the next two centuries
Buddhism spread over northern India. One of the most conspicuous
agents in its diffusion was Asoka, the king of Behar, who was
converted to the Buddhistic faith, and published its tenets throughout
India. His edicts, in which they were set forth, were engraved on
rocks and pillars and in caves. He organized missionary efforts among
the aborigines, using only peaceful means, and combining the healing
of disease, and other forms of philanthropy, with preaching. He
carried the Buddhistic faith as far as Ceylon. It spread over
Burmah (450 A.D.). Siam was converted (638 A.D.), and
Java between the fifth and seventh centuries of our
era. Through Central Asia the Buddhistic missionaries passed into
China in the second century B.C., and Buddhism became an
established system there as early as 65 A.D. At present, this religion
numbers among its professed adherents more than a third of the human
race.
THE BRAHMINICAL RE-ACTION.—In India Buddhism did not supplant the old
religion. The Brahmans modified their system. They made their theology
more plain to the popular apprehension. They took up Buddhistic
speculations into their system. But they rendered their ceremonial
practices more complex and more burdensome. Their ascetic rule grew to
be more exacting and oppressive. In diffusing and making popular their
system, customs, like the burning of widows, were introduced, which
were not known in previous times. The divinities, Brahma, the
author of all things, Vishnu the preserver, and Siva the
destroyer, were brought into a relation to one another, as a sort of
triad. Successive incarnations of Vishnu became an article of the
creed, Krishna being one of his incarnate names. For centuries
Brahmanism and Buddhism existed together. Gradually Buddhism decayed,
and melted into the older system; helping to modify its character, and
thus to give rise to modern Hinduism. For ten centuries Buddhism, with
multitudinous adherents abroad, has had no existence in the land of
its birth.
THE GREEK-ROMAN PERIOD.—In 327 B.C., Alexander the Great
advanced in his victorious career as far as India, entered the Punjab,
which was then divided among petty kingdoms, and defeated one of the
kings, Porus, who disputed the passage of the river Jhelum. The
heat of the climate and the reluctance of his troops caused the
Macedonian invader to turn back from his original design of
penetrating to the Ganges. Near the confluence of the five rivers he
built a town, Alexandria. He founded, also, other towns, established
alliances, and left garrisons. On the death of Alexander (323 B.C.)
and the division of his empire, Bactria and India fell to the lot of
Seleucus Nicator, the founder of the Syrian monarchy. About this time
a new kingdom grew up in the valley of the Ganges, under the auspices
of Chandra Gupti, a native. After various conflicts, Seleucus
ceded the Greek settlements in the Punjab to this prince, to whom he
gave his daughter in marriage. The successors of Seleucus sent
Græco-Bactrian expeditions into India. Thus Greek science and Greek
art exerted a perceptible influence in Hindustan. During the first six
centuries of the Christian era, Scythian hordes poured down into
northern India. They were stoutly resisted, but effected settlements,
and made conquests. The events as well as the dates of the long
struggle are obscure. The non-Aryan races of India, both on the north
and on the south of the Ganges, many of whom received the Buddhistic
faith, were not without a marked influence—the precise lines of which
it is difficult to trace—upon the history and life of India during
the period of Greek and Scythic occupation and warfare. The
Dravidian people in southern India, made up of non-Aryans,
number at present forty-six millions.
LITERATURE.—Mill's History of India (Wilson's edition, 9
vols.); MONIER WILLIAMS, Indian Wisdom; Max Müller's
History of Sanskrit Literature; EARTH'S The Religions of
India, 1882; Encycl. Brit., Arts. India, Brahmanism,
Buddhism.
SECTION II. THE EARLIEST GROUP OF NATIONS.
CHAPTER I. EGYPT.
THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE.—When the curtain that hides the far distant
past is lifted, we find in the valley of the Nile a people of a dark
color, tinged with red, and a peculiar physiognomy, who had long
existed there. Of their beginnings, there is no record. It is not
likely that they came down the river from the south, as some have
thought; more probably they were of Asiatic origin. Their language,
though it certainly shows affinities with the Semitic tongues in its
grammar, is utterly dissimilar in its vocabulary: its modern
descendant is the Coptic, no longer a spoken dialect. The Egyptians
were of the Caucasian variety, but not white like the Lybians on the
west. On the east were tribes of a yellowish complexion and various
lineage, belonging to the numerous people whom the Egyptians
designated as Amu. On the south, in what was called
Ethiopia, was a negro people; and, also beyond them and
eastward, a dusky race, of totally different origin, a branch of the
widely diffused Cushites.
THE NILE: DIVISIONS OF THE COUNTRY.—Egypt (styled by its ancient
inhabitants, from the color of the soil deposited by the Nile,
Kem or the Black Land, and by the Hebrews called
Mizraim) is the creation of the great river. "Egypt," says
Herodotus, "is the gift of the Nile;" and this is not only true, as
the historian meant it, physically, because it is the Nile that
rescued the land from the arid waste by which it is bordered; but the
course of Egyptian history—the occupations, habits, and religion of
the people—was largely determined by the characteristics of the
river. The sources of the Nile have had in all ages the fascination of
mystery, and have been a fruitful theme for conjecture. It was
reserved for modern explorers to ascertain that it takes its rise in
equatorial Africa, in the two great lakes, the Albert and
Victoria Nyanzas. From that region, fed by few tributaries, it
flows to the Mediterranean, a distance of two thousand miles, but
breaks, as it nears the sea, into two main and several minor
arms. These spread fruitfulness over the broad plain called, from its
shape, the Delta. Above the Delta the fringe of productive land
has a width of only a few miles on either side of the stream. Its
fertility is due to the yearly inundation which, as the effect of the
rainfall of Abyssinia, begins early in July, and terminates in
November, when the river, having slowly risen in the interval to an
average height of twenty-three or twenty-four feet, reaches in its
gradual descent the ordinary level. This narrow belt of territory,
annually enriched with a layer of fertile mud, is in striking contrast
with the barren regions, parched by the sun, on either side, with the
long chain of Arabian mountains that adjoin it on the east, and with
the low hills of the Lybian desert on the west. By dikes, canals, and
reservoirs, the beneficent river from the most ancient times has been
made to irrigate the land above, where are the towns and dwellings of
the people, and thus to extend and keep up its unrivaled
fertility. The country of old was divided into two parts,—Upper
Egypt, as it is now called, with Thebes for its principal
city, extending from the first cataract, near Syene, to the
Memphian district; and Lower Egypt, embracing the rest of the
country on the north, including the Delta. The two divisions were
marked by differences of dialect and of customs. The country was
further divided into nomes, or districts, about forty in all,
but varying in number at different times. They were parted from one
another by boundary stones. Each had its own civil organization, a
capital, and a center of worship.
EARLY CULTURE.—At a far remote day, there existed in Lower Egypt an
advanced type of culture. Sepulchers, with their inscriptions and
sculptures, were made of so solid material that they have remained to
testify to this fact. When the pyramids were built, mechanical skill
was highly developed, Egyptian art had reached a point beyond which it
scarcely advanced, and the administration of government had attained
substantially to the form in which it continued to exist. The use of
writing, the division of the year, the beginnings of the sciences and
of literature, are found in this earliest period. Egyptian culture, as
far as we can determine, was not borrowed. It was a native
product. The earliest period was the period of most growth. The
prevailing tendency was to crystallize all arts and customs into
definite, established forms, and to subject every thing to fixed
rules. The desire to preserve what had been gained overmastered the
impulses to progress: individuality and enterprise were blighted by an
excessive spirit of conservatism. Moreover, the culture of the
Egyptians never disengaged itself from its connection with every-day
practical needs, or the material spirit that lay at its root. They did
not, like the Greeks, soar into the atmosphere of theoretical science
and speculation. They did not break loose from the fetters of
tradition.
THE HIEROGLYPHICS.—We owe our knowledge of ancient Egypt chiefly to
hieroglyphical writing. The hieroglyphs, except those denoting
numbers, were pictures of objects. The writing is of three kinds. The
first, the hieroglyphical, is composed of literal pictures, as
a circle, O, for the sun, a curved line for the moon, a pointed oval
for the mouth. The second sort of characters, the hieratic, and
the third, the demotic, are curtailed pictures, which can thus
be written more rapidly. They are seldom seen on the monuments, but
are the writing generally found on the papyrus rolls or
manuscripts. They are written from right to left. The hieroglyphs
proper may be written either way, or in a perpendicular line. In the
demotic, or people's writing, the characters are somewhat more
curtailed, or abridged, than in the hieratic, or priestly,
style. There were four methods of using the hieroglyphics in
historical times. First, there were the primary,
representational characters, the literal pictures. Secondly,
the characters were used figuratively, as symbols. Thus a circle, O,
meant not only the sun, but also "day"; the crescent denoted not only
the moon, but also "a month;" a pen and inkstand signified "writing,"
etc. So one object was substituted for another analogous to it,—as
the picture of a boot in a trap, which stood for "deceit." A
conventional emblem, too, might represent the object. Thus, the hawk
denoted the sun, two water-plants meant Upper and Lower Egypt.
Thirdly, hieroglyphics were used as determinatives. That is, an
object would be denoted by letters (in a way that we shall soon
explain), and a picture be added to determine, or make clear,
what was meant. After proper names, they designated the sex; after the
names of other classes, as animals, they specified the particular
genus. Fourthly, the bulk of the hieroglyphs are phonetic. They
stand for sounds. The picture stood for the initial sound of the name
of the object depicted. Thus the picture of an eagle, akhôm,
represented "A." Unfortunately, numerous objects were employed for a
like purpose, to indicate the same sound. Hence the number of
characters was multiplied. The whole number of signs used in writing
is not less than nine hundred or a thousand. The discovery of the
Rosetta Stone—a large black slab of stone—with an identical
inscription in hieroglyphics, in demotic and in Greek, furnished to
Champollion (1810) and to Young the clew to the
deciphering of the Egyptian writing, and thus the key to the sense of
the monumental inscriptions. The Egyptian manuscripts were made of the
pith of the byblus plant, cut into strips. These were laid side by
side horizontally, with another layer of strips across them; the two
layers being united by paste, and subjected to a heavy pressure. The
Egyptians wrote with a reed, using black and red ink.
SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY.—These are (1) the
inscriptions on the monuments. These, it must be remembered, are
commonly in praise of the departed, and of their achievements. (2)
The list of kings in the Turin papyrus, a very important Egyptian
manuscript, discovered by Champollion. (3) Manetho. An
Egyptian priest, he wrote, about 250 B.C., a history. Only his lists
of dynasties are preserved as given in an Armenian version of
Eusebius, a writer of the fourth century, and in George
Syncellus, a writer of the eighth century, who professed to
embody the statements of Eusebius and of another author, Julius
Africanus, probably of the second century, who had also quoted
the lists of Manetho. Manetho is of great importance; but we do not
know accurately what his original text was, it being so differently
reported. His details frequently clash with the monuments. Moreover,
the method adopted by him in making his lists is, in essential
points, subject to doubt. (4) The Greek historians. Herodotus
had visited Egypt (between 460 and 450 B.C.), and conferred with
Egyptian priests. Diodorus, also, in the time of Julius
Caesar, had visited Egypt. He is largely a copyist of Herodotus. (5)
The Old Testament. Here we have many instructive references to
Egypt. But, until Rehoboam, the kings of Egypt have in the
Scriptures the general name of Pharaoh. Hence it is not
always easy to identify them with corresponding kings on the
Egyptian lists.
CHRONOLOGY.—The date of the beginning of the first dynasty of
Egyptian rulers is a controverted point; there are advocates of a
longer and of a shorter chronology. The data are not sufficient to
settle accurately the questions in dispute. Some judicious scholars
put the beginning of the first dynasty as early as 5000 B.C.;
others have wished to bring it down even lower than 3000 B.C. Egyptian
history, prior to the Persian conquest (525 B.C.), divides itself into
three sections,—the Old Empire, having its seat at Memphis;
the Middle Empire, following upon a period of strife and
division, and embracing the rule of foreign invaders, the
Hyksos; and the New Empire, the era of conquest, by foreign
power, and of downfall.
The expedition of Shishak, king of Egypt, against Rehoboam, is
ascertained, from both Egyptian and Hebrew sources, to have been not
earlier than 971 B.C., and within twenty-five years of that
date. The nineteenth Egyptian dynasty began about the year 1350
B.C. The Middle Empire is thought by some to have commenced as early
as 2200 B.C.; by others as late as 1720 B.C. When we go backward
into the Old Empire, the sources of uncertainty are multiplied. The
main difficulty is to determine whether the lists of dynasties are
consecutive throughout, or in part contemporary. One
class of scholars place the date of the first historic king,
Menes, two or three thousand years earlier than the point
assigned by the other class! The date of Menes given by Böckh
is 5702 B.C.; by Lenormant, 5004 B.C.; by Brugsch,
4455 B.C.; by Lepsius, 3852 B.C.; by Bunsen, 3623 or
3059 B.C.; E. Meyer makes 3180 B.C. the lowest possible date
for Menes; 3233 B.C. is the date assigned by Duncker. On the
contrary, R. S. Poole gives 2717 B.C.; Wilkinson, 2691
B.C.; and G. Rawlinson, between 2450 and 2250 B.C. There are
no means of fully determining the controversy, as Rawlinson has
shown (History of Ancient Egypt, vol. ii., p. 19). It appears
to be well ascertained that Egyptian civilization was in being at
least as far back as about 4000 B.C.
THE POLITICAL SYSTEM.—The bulk of the people were farmers and
shepherds, indisposed to war. The land was owned in large estates by
the nobles, who were possessed of multitudes of serfs and of
cattle. They had in their service, also, artisans, oarsmen, and
traffickers. The centers of industry were the numerous cities. Here
the nobles had their mansions, and the gods their temples with
retinues of priests. But the Nomes had each its particular
jurisdiction. The traces of two original communities are preserved in
the mythological legends and in the titles of the kings. The oldest
inscriptions discover to us a systematic organization of the
state. The king is supreme: under him are the rulers of the two halves
of the kingdom. He creates the army, and appoints its generals. The
whole strength of the kingdom is given to him for the erection of the
temples which he raises to the gods, or of the stupendous pyramid
which is to form his sepulcher. The nobility make up his court; from
them he selects his chief officers of state,—his secretary, his
treasurer, his inspector of quarries, etc. The princes and princesses
are educated in connection with the children of the highest nobles. A
body-guard protects the monarch: he shows himself to the people only
in stately processions. All who approach him prostrate themselves at
his feet. He is the descendant of the gods. The Pharaohs are even
looked upon as gods incarnate. They are clothed with all power on
earth. When they die, they go to the gods; and rites of worship are
instituted for them. That there was a well-ordered and efficient civil
administration admits of no doubt. Whether there existed a thrifty
middle class or not we can not decide. The tendency was for the child
to follow the vocation of the parent, but there were no rigid barriers
of caste. Not until the New Empire, was there an attempt to build up
such a wall even about the priesthood.
THE RELIGION.—With the Egyptians, religion was a matter of supreme
and absorbing interest. There was a popular religion; and there arose
early, in connection with it, an esoteric or secret doctrine relative
to the gods and to the legends respecting them,—a lore that pertained
especially to the priesthood. Moreover, while the religious system,
from the earliest date, is polytheistic, we have proof that the
educated class, sooner or later, put a monotheistic interpretation
upon it, and believed in one supreme deity, of whom all the particular
gods were so many forms and manifestations, or that one being under
different names. Whether this more elevated faith preceded the
reigning system, or was a later offspring of it, is a matter of
dispute. For a long period the two co-existed, and without collision.
The great divinities of Egypt are pre-eminently gods of light. They
are associated with the SUN. With the agency of that luminary, with
his rising and setting, they stand in a close relation. All Egypt
worships the sun under the names of Ra and Horus. Horus
is the adversary of Seth (called Typhon by the Greeks),
the god of darkness, and is born anew every morning to attack and
conquer him. In honor of Ra, the lofty obelisks, or symbols of the
sun's rays, are erected, each of which has its own name and
priests. With the sun-gods are joined the goddesses of the
heavens,—Nut, Hather, Isis, and others. But
Osiris became the most famous sun-god. His worship was
originally at Abydos and Busiris. At length his cult spread over the
whole land. In the legend, he is murdered by Seth; but Horus is his
avenger. Horus conquers the power of darkness. Henceforward Osiris
reigns in the kingdom of the West, the home of the dead. He is the sun
in the realm of the shades. He receives the dead, is their protector,
and the judge whose final award is blessedness or perpetual
misery. The departed, if their lives have not been wicked, become one
with him. They are each of them called by his name. To Osiris, all
sepulchral inscriptions are addressed. His career, with the victory of
the power of darkness over him, and his glorious revival in the
regions of the West, typifies human life and destiny. The principal
god at Memphis is Ptah, the primal divinity, the former of
heaven and earth; yet, perhaps, a god of light, since he is styled by
the Greeks, Hephaestus. At Thebes, Ammon was revered as
the king of the gods: he shared in the properties of the
sun. Thoth is the chief moon-god, who presides over the
reckoning of time. He is the god of letters and of the arts, the
author of sacred books. The Nile is worshiped under the name of
Hapi, being figured as a man with pendent breasts, an emblem of
the fertility of the river. The gods were often connected in triads,
there being in each a father, a mother, and a son. To bring to them
the right offerings, and to repeat the right formulas, was a matter of
momentous concern. Homage was directed to the material objects with
which the activity of the god was thought to be connected, and in
which he was believed to be present. All nature was full of
deities. There were sacred trees, stones, utensils. Above all,
animals, in their mysterious life, were identified with the
divinities. Worship was offered to the crocodile, the cat, the bull,
etc. In the temples these creatures were carefully tended and
obsequiously served.
EMBALMING.—Believing that the soul survives death, the Egyptians
linked its weal with the preservation of the body, from which they
could not conceive its destiny to be wholly dissevered. Thus arose the
universal practice of embalming, and of presenting, at intervals,
offerings of food and drink to the departed. The tomb contains a room
for sacred services to the dead. The most ancient structures are
sepulchers. They were the germ of the pyramid, in which rested the
sarcophagus of the king.
RELIGION AND MORALITY.—The leading gods were held to be the makers of
the world and of men, the givers of good, the rulers and disposers of
all things. Morality was not separated from religion. The gods
punished unrighteousness and inhumanity. In the age of the
pyramid-builders, family life was not wanting in purity; the wife and
mother was held in respect: monogamy prevailed. Ma-t was the
goddess of truth: in the myth of Osiris, it is in her hall that the
dead are judged.
THE PRIESTS.—The priests are the guardians of religious rites. They
are acquainted with the origin and import of them. Their knowledge is
communicated only to select believers. It was a body of traditions,
guarded as a mysterious treasure. But the priests, certainly until a
late period, do not control the king. The civil authority is
uppermost.
LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.—The most important Egyptian book that has
come down to us is the Book of the Dead. It relates, in a
mystical strain, the adventures of the soul after death, and explains
how, by reciting the names and titles of numberless gods, and by means
of other theological knowledge, the soul can make its way to the hall
of Osiris. It is a monument of the pedantic and punctilious formalism
of the Egyptian ritual. Most of the papyri that have been preserved
are of a religious character. There are songs not void of beauty. The
moral writings are of a decidedly higher grade. Works of fiction are
constructed with considerable skill, and are sometimes not wanting in
humor. Some of the hymns are not destitute of merit. It can not be
doubted that there were important mathematical writings. Astronomical
observations were very early made. In medicine, we have writings which
prove that considerable proficiency was attained in this
department. But here, as in other branches, the spirit was empirical
rather than scientific in the higher sense; and the result was to
petrify knowledge in an unalterable form. At length rules of medical
treatment, with specific remedies, were definitely settled, from which
it was a crime against the state to deviate.
THE OLD EMPIRE (to about 2100 B.C.).—Senoferu, who belongs to
the third dynasty, is the first king who has left behind him a
monumental inscription. A rock-tablet in the peninsula of Sinai gives
him the title of conqueror. By some, the pyramid of Meydoun, built in
three distinct stages to a height of 125 feet, is ascribed to him, and
is believed to be his sepulcher. At Saccarah is a pyramid of like
form, 200 feet in height. Khufu, the Cheops of Herodotus, was
the builder of the "Great Pyramid" of Ghizeh, the largest and loftiest
building on earth. Its original perpendicular height was not less than
480 feet, the length of its side 764 feet, and the area covered by it
more than thirteen acres. Near it are the small pyramids, which were
the sepulchers of his wives and other relatives. The statues of
Khafra remain, and the wooden mummy-case of Menkaura,
with the myth of Osiris recorded on it. These were the builders of the
two other most celebrated pyramids, the second and the third. With the
long reign of Unas closes the first era in Egyptian
history. His unfinished pyramid, built of huge blocks of limestone,
indicates that he died too soon to complete it. From this date, back
to the epoch of Senoferu, are included nearly three
centuries. In this period of prevalent peace, art had the opportunity
to develop. The spirit of progress in this department had not yet been
cramped by the "hieratic canon," the fixed rules set for artistic
labor. There is evidence of considerable knowledge in anatomy and
medicine. The myth of Osiris expanded, and his worship spread.
With the sixth dynasty a new epoch begins. The most powerful monarch
in this series is Pepi. He levied armies, conquered the negroes
of Nubia, and waged war against the nomads of the eastern desert. The
interval from the sixth to the tenth dynasty was marked by usurpations
and insurrections. The district governors sought to make themselves
independent. Monarchs rose and fell. Syrian invaders appear to have
seized the occasion to attack the country. Heliopolis, with
Tum for its sun-god, is the center of the new symbolical lore
of the priesthood. Power is transferred to Thebes, and
Ammon becomes the embodiment of the monotheistic conception,
the supreme deity.
The Theban ruling-house gradually extended its supremacy over the
land. The kings of the twelfth dynasty have left their inscriptions
everywhere, and of several of them gigantic portrait-statues
remain. Amenemhat I. and his successors are prosperous
sovereigns. They carry on a lively intercourse of trade with the small
states of Syria, reaching possibly to Babylon. Under the twelfth
dynasty, the valley of the upper Nile was conquered. Usurtasen
III., in after times, was revered as the subduer of the Nubian
land. By monarchs of this epoch, vast structures, like the temple of
Ammon at Thebes and the temple of the Sun at Heliopolis, were
erected. Amenemhat III. built the immense artificial reservoir,
Lake Moeris, to receive and dispense the waters of the Nile. Under the
twelfth dynasty is the blossoming period of literature. The carving of
hieroglyphics and the execution of the details of art reach their
perfection. It is the culminating point of Egyptian culture.
THE MIDDLE EMPIRE (FROM ABOUT 2100 TO 1600 B.C.).—The season of
prosperity under the twelfth dynasty was followed by anarchy and the
downfall of the Theban rule. According to Manetho, it was under
a king named Timaos that a horde of invaders—the
Hyksos, or "shepherds"—came in from the north,
devastated the country, and made themselves its rulers. They were
probably of Semitic descent, but nothing more is known as to their
origin. In connection with them, Semitic, and in particular Canaanite,
elements penetrated into Egypt, and left their traces in its
language. The residence of their kings was Tanis, on the
eastern Delta, a splendid city, which they still more adorned. They
conquered Memphis, but their power was not permanently established in
Lower Egypt. The duration of their control was a number of
centuries,—how many can only be conjectured. It is believed by some
scholars that either Apepi, or Nub, kings of the Hyksos
line, was the sovereign who made Joseph his prime minister, and
invited his family to settle in the land of Goshen. The elevation of a
foreigner and a Semite to an exalted office is thought to be less
improbable in connection with a Semitic dynasty.
The New Empire (from 1600 to 525 B.C.).—The expulsion of the Hyksos
was effected by Aahmes I., first king of the eighteenth
dynasty. It was accomplished, however, not all at once, but
gradually. From this event Egypt enters on a new stage in its
career. It becomes a military, an aggressive, and a conquering
state. Notwithstanding the enormous sacrifice of life that must have
been involved in the erection of pyramids and in other public works,
the Egyptians had not been a cruel people: compared with most Semitic
peoples, they had been disposed to peace. But now a martial spirit is
evoked. A military class arises. Wars for plunder and conquest
ensue. The use of horses in battle is a new and significant fact. The
character of the people changes for the worse. The priestly class
become more compact and domineering. Temples are the principal
edifices, in the room of massive sepulchers.
Under Thothmes I. and his successors, especially Thothmes
III., wars were successfully waged against the Syrians, and
against the Ethiopians on the south. The palaces and temples of
Thebes, including the gigantic structures at Karnak and
Luxor, are witnesses to the grandeur of these monarchs. The
Egyptian arms were carried through Syria, and as far even as
Nineveh. During the reigns of Amenophis III. and Amenophis
IV., that is, in the latter half of the fifteenth century B.C.,
the Amarna Letters (see p. 44) were written. Under the
Ramessides, the conquests of Egypt reached their farthest
limit.
RAMSES II.—Ramses II., or Ramses the Great (1340-1273 B.C.),—who was
called by the Greeks Sesostris, a name with which they linked many
fabulous narratives,—is the most brilliant personage in Egyptian
history. He is the first of the renowned conquerors, the forerunner of
the Alexanders and Napoleons. His monuments are scattered over all
Egypt. In his childhood he was associated on the throne with his
father, himself a magnificent monarch, Seti I. In the seventh
year of the sole reign of the son he had to encounter a formidable
confederacy under the lead of the Syrian Hittites—the
"Khita"—in the north-east, a powerful nation. How he saved himself by
his personal valor, on the field of Kadesh, is celebrated in
the Egyptian Iliad, the heroic poem of Pentaur. A subsequent
treaty with this people is one of the most precious memorials of his
reign.
THE HITTITES.—Recent explorations have shown that the Hittites
of Scripture were families, or smaller communities, in Palestine, of a
people whose proper seat was in northern Syria, especially the country
lying along the Orontes; their territory being bounded on the east by
the Euphrates, and extending westward into the Taurus Mountains. In
one place they are spoken of as distant (Judg. i. 26). The "Khita" of
the Egyptians, called "Khatti" by the Assyrians, were a civilized and
powerful nation, whose sway was so extended that their outposts were
at times on the western coast of Asia Minor. They were a non-Semitic
people. The great victory of Ramses (1320 B.C.) was with difficulty
won. The Hittites were also rivals of the Assyrians from an early
period. At length Sargon captured their capital, Carchemish
(717 B.C.), and broke down their power. Numerous Hittite inscriptions
have been discovered, written in a hieroglyphic script which has not
yet (1903) been deciphered.
Subsequently we find Ramses in Galilee, as it was called
later: we find him storming the city of Askalon in Philistia,
and in various military expeditions, in which he brought home with him
multitudes of captives. The mighty temples which he built at Abydos,
Thebes, and Memphis, and the gorgeous palace, "the House of Ramses,"
south of Karnak, were in keeping with other displays of his energy and
magnificence.
THE BONDAGE OF THE ISRAELITES.—Ramses II. has been generally believed
to be "the Pharaoh of the oppression," under whom the Hebrews
suffered; and his son Menephthah, to be the Pharaoh under whom
the exodus took place. Recent discoveries have rendered these
conclusions very doubtful, however. It is also quite uncertain how
long the Egyptian bondage lasted. According to the Hebrew Old
Testament, its duration was 430 years; according to the
Septuagint, or Greek version, half that period (as implied in
Gal. iii. 17).
To THE PERSIAN CONQUEST.—From about 1500 to 1300 B.C., Egypt was the
foremost nation in culture, arts, and military prowess. Under the
later kings bearing the name of Ramses, the empire began to decay. The
Ethiopians in the south revolted, and set up an independent kingdom,
Meroe, of which Napata was the capital. Shishak
(961-940 B.C.) aspired to restore the Egyptian rule in the East. He
marched into Judæa, and captured and plundered Jerusalem. He made
Rehoboam, king of Judah, a tributary, and strengthened
Jeroboam, the ally of Egypt. He even led his forces across the valley
of the Jordan. At length (730 B.C.) the Ethiopians gained the upper
hand in Egypt. Their three kings form the twenty-fifth dynasty. As the
power of Egypt was on the wane, the power of Assyria was more and more
in the ascendant. Shabak joined hands with Hoshea, king
of Israel, but was defeated by the Assyrians, under Sargon II.,
in a pitched battle at Raphia, in which the superiority of the
Asiatic kingdom was evinced. Later (701 B.C.) Sennacherib
defeated an Egyptian army, sent for the relief of Ekron, and made
Hezekiah a tributary. Tirhakah, the ally of Hezekiah,
continued the struggle. His army was saved from overthrow by the
disaster which happened to Sennacherib's host in the neighboring camp
on the eve of battle. Twenty years later, he was vanquished by an
invading army under the son and successor of Sennacherib,
Esarhaddon. The rule of the Ethiopian dynasty was
subverted. The Assyrians intrusted the government to twenty governors,
of whom the most were natives. Of these governors, one, then king of
Sais, Psammeticus I. (663-616 B.C.), in alliance with Gyges,
king of Lydia, and with the aid of Carians, Phoenicians, and Lycians,
cast off the Assyrian yoke, and became sole ruler of Egypt. This epoch
is marked by the introduction of numerous foreigners into the country,
and by the exertion of a powerful and lasting Greek influence. Neku
II.—the Necho of Scripture—(610-594 B.C.), the son of
Psammeticus I., defeated Josiah, king of Judah, at
Megiddo (608 B.C.); and Josiah fell in the battle. But,
advancing to Carchemish by the Euphrates, Neku, in turn, was
vanquished by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, which had now
become the formidable power. The defeat of Neku ended Egyptian rule in
the East. Apries (588 B.C.), the Hophra of Scripture,
was dethroned by a revolt of his own soldiers, in a war with the
Greeks of Cyrene, and was succeeded by Aahmes, or Amasis
(570-526), under whose auspices foreigners, and especially Greeks,
acquired an augmented influence. Egypt had escaped from permanent
subjection to Assyria or Babylon; but a new empire, the Persian Empire
of Cyrus, was advancing on the path to universal
dominion. Cyrus was too busy with other undertakings to attack
Egypt; but Cambyses, his successor, led an army into that
country; and, having defeated Psammeticus III., at the battle
of Pelusium, he made it a Persian province (525 B.C.).
LITERATURE.—See the list on p. 16. 1. Works on Oriental History as
a whole: DUNCKER'S History of Antiquity. It includes, also,
Greece. Lenormant and Chevalier, Manual of the Ancient History of
the East (2 vols.); G. Rawlinson, The Five Great
Monarchies (3 vols.), The Sixth Great Monarchy (Parthia),
The Seventh Great Monarchy (the Sassanidæ), The Origin of
Nations (1 vol.), Manual of Ancient History (1 vol.),
Egypt and Babylon (1 vol.). LENORMANT, The Beginnings of
History (1 vol.); P. Smith, The Ancient History of the
East (1 vol.), History of the World (Ancient
History, 3 vols.); Maspero, History of the Ancient Orient
(3 vols.); Doublier, Gesch. des Alterthums (from the cultural
point of view, 1 vol.); E. Meyer, Gesch. des Alterthums.
2. Works on the History of Egypt. BRUGSCH-BEY, History of Egypt
under the Pharaohs (2 vols.); G. Rawlinson, History of
Ancient Egypt (2 vols.);, Aperçu de l'Histoire d'Egypte
(1864), and numerous other writings; WILKINSON, Manners and
Customs of Egypt (3 vols.); ERMAN, Egypt; Petrie,
History of Egypt; Erman, Egyptian Life (1894); Birch,
Records of the Past (translations of Egyptian and Assyrian
Monuments, 11 vols.), Egypt from the Earliest Times; Perrot
and Chipiez, History of Art in Ancient Egypt (1883);
FERGUSSON'S History of Architecture; the great illustrative
works of the French savans under Napoleon I.; the great
illustrated works of Rossellini, and the works of Lepsius; the
novels of Ebers, The Sisters; Uarda; The Egyptian Princess.
CHAPTER II.
ASSYRIA AND BABYLON.
THE GEOGRAPHY.—Assyria and Babylonia were geographically
connected. They were inhabited by the same race, and, for the greater
part of their history, were under one government. Babylonia comprised
the lower basin of the Euphrates and Tigris, while
Assyria included the hilly region along the upper and middle Tigris;
the boundary being where the two rivers, in their long progress from
their sources in the mountains of Armenia, at length approach one
another at a place about three hundred and fifty miles from their
outlet in the Persian Gulf. Both streams, in particular the Euphrates,
annually flooded the adjacent territory, and by canals and dams were
made to add to its productiveness. The shores of the Euphrates, after
its descent from the plateau to the plains, were fertile beyond
measure. Here the date-palm, whose juice as well as fruit were so
highly prized, flourished. Even now wheat grows wild near the river's
mouth.
THE EARLY INHABITANTS.—The oldest inhabitants of this region of whom
we have any knowledge were the Sumerians, whose territory
included both Sumer ("Shinar"), or southern Babylonia, and
Akkad, or northern Babylonia. On the east were the
Elamites, with Susa for their capital; to the north of
these were the warlike Kassites. The Sumerians, who preceded
the Semites in the occupancy of Babylonia, were of an unknown
stock. They were the founders of Babylonian culture. Even by them the
soil was skillfully cultivated with the help of dikes and canals. They
were the inventors of the cuneiform writing. The cuneiform characters
were originally pictures; but these were resolved into wedge-shaped
characters of uniform appearance, the significance of which was
determined by their position and local relation to one another. It is
not known how long the Sumerian period lasted, nor even when it
closed; the chronology of the earliest Semitic period is also very
uncertain. The south-Babylonian kings Urukagina, of
Shirpurla (Lagash), and Enshagkushana, of a district
which included Nippur, are dated by most Assyriologists as
early as 4000 B.C., or even earlier. Whether they were Sumerians, or
Semites, is not certain; their inscriptions do not settle the
question. It was probably not far from this time, however, that the
one race supplanted the other. A Semitic people—coming either
directly from the ancestral home, Arabia, or from a previous
settlement in Mesopotamia, north-west of Babylonia—invaded the land
and conquered the Sumerians. They planted themselves first in northern
Babylonia, and then gradually extended their power over the districts
on the south. The conquerors adopted the civilization of the
conquered. The earliest Semitic kings all used the Sumerian dialect in
their inscriptions. It was only by slow degrees that the native
language was superseded by that of the new rulers. Later,—before the
time of Hammurabi; see below,—these Semites carried their
settlements northward, and became the founders of Assyria.
SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE.—Berosus, a Babylonian priest, wrote a
history of his country as early as 250 B.C. He was a trustworthy
writer, as far as his means of knowledge went; but it is only
fragments of his work that we possess, and these in inaccurate
quotations, partly at second hand. Greek writers, as Ctesias,
drew from Persian sources; and their narratives up to the later
times of the Persian rule can not be relied on. The great source of
knowledge is the rapidly increasing store of records in the
cuneiform character. A vast number of inscriptions on stone and
clay, representing nearly every department of literature, have been
unearthed, and the material which they afford has already given us
an extensive knowledge of Babylonian and Assyrian history. The site
of Nineveh has been extensively excavated, and we have,
therefore, especially full information as to the history and
literature of Assyria. Babylonian monuments in considerable number
have more recently come to light. Aside from Nineveh and Babylon,
especially important excavations have been undertaken at Nifpur,
Lagash (Telloh)—thus far the chief source of Sumerian
material—and Susa.
I. THE OLD KINGDOM OF BABYLON.
EARLY HISTORY.—The history of ancient Babylonia is still very
obscure, and the chronology only tentative. We see at first a number
of independent cities, each ruled by a petty king, who was also a
priest. Then appear groups of cities, one of which exercised sway over
a more or less extended district. The center of power was now in
Erech, now in Ur, or Babylon, or some other city, whose king ruled
supreme over numerous vassal kings. Among the first important names
known to us are those of Sargon I. (3800 B.C.), king of Agade,
a great conqueror and builder, and his son, Naram-sin. Another
great builder was Gudea, king of Shirpurla. Most conspicuous of
all is Hammurabi (2250 B.C.), king of Babylon, who is probably
the "Amraphel" of Gen. xiv. His kingdom included not only the whole of
Babylonia proper, but also Assyria, and probably even the "West Land"
as far as the Mediterranean. The records show him to have been a truly
great ruler, both in war and in peace. He is known to us chiefly from
a collection of his Letters to certain officials of his
kingdom, and from his elaborate Code of civil laws, found at
Susa in 1899, and first published in 1902; perhaps the most important
single monument of early civilization which has thus far come to
light. The laws, written in the Babylonian (Semitic) language, and
engraved on a stele of hard black stone, were about two hundred and
eighty in number, and bear an interesting general resemblance to the
old Hebrew laws, especially those preserved in Exodus xxi. and xxii.
In the time of the kings Kadashman-bel and Burnaburiash
II. (about 1400 B.C.) falls the Amarna Correspondence (see
p. 40). At Tell el-Amarna, in upper Egypt, were unearthed, in
1887, more than three hundred clay tablets containing diplomatic
dispatches, written in the cuneiform character, and nearly all in the
Babylonian language. They were addressed to the Egyptian king, or to
his ministers, and had been sent from various officials and royal
personages in Babylonia, Assyria, Palestine (including a number of
letters from Abdi-khiba of Jerusalem), and other
districts. They furnish a large amount of important information as to
conditions in western Asia at that early period.
An important Kassite dynasty occupied the throne of Babylon
from the eighteenth century to the twelfth century B.C. Under these
Kassite rulers, the kingdom at length declined, while the neighboring
Assyrian state had increased in power. Later still, apparently not
earlier than the ninth century B.C., the Chaldoeans (of Semitic
stock?) pushed north-westward into Babylonia from their district about
the mouth of the Euphrates, and eventually made themselves masters of
the land.
RELIGION AND SCIENCE.—If the events connected with old Babylon are
less known, more is ascertained respecting its civilization. The
groundwork, as was stated, was laid by the earlier conquered
people. The religion of the Babylonians rested on the basis of the old
Sumerian worship. There was homage to demons, powerful for good or for
evil, who were brought together into groups, and were figured now as
human beings, now as lions or other wild animals, or as dragons and
that sort of monsters. Of the great gods, Anu, the god of the
sky, was the father and king of all. Sin, the moon-god, a
Sumerian divinity, at the outset had the highest rank. Bel, or
Baal, however, a Semitic divinity, was the god of the earth,
and particularly of mankind. Ea was the god of the deep, and
of the underworld. The early development of astrology and its great
influence in old Babylon were closely connected with the supposed
association of the luminaries above with the gods. The stars were
thought to indicate at the birth of a child what his fortunes would
be, and to afford the means of foretelling other remarkable
events. Ishtar, a goddess of war and of love, was worshiped
also under the name Beltis, the Greek Mylitta. This
deity embodied the generative principle, the spring of
fertility, whose beneficent agency was seen in the abundant
harvest. She was clothed with sensual attributes, and propitiated with
unchaste rites. It was in the worship of this divinity that the coarse
and licentious side of the Semitic nature expressed itself. At the
same time, there was an opposite ascetic side in the service of this
deity. Her priests were eunuchs: they ministered at her altar in
woman's attire. On the relation of the human soul to the gods, and its
condition after death, there was little speculation. In general, the
Babylonians were more interested in religion and worship, than the
Assyrians. The former erected temples; the latter, palaces.
The attainments of the early Babylonians in mathematics and astronomy
were far beyond those of the Egyptians. They divided the year into
twelve months, and arrived at the signs of the ecliptic or zodiac. The
week they fixed at seven days by the course of the moon. They divided
the day into twelve hours, and the hour into sixty minutes. They
invented weights and measures, the knowledge of which went from them
to the other Asiatic nations. Architecture, as regards taste, was in a
rude state. In pottery, they showed much skill and ingenuity, and
invented the potter's wheel. In the engraving of gems, and in the
manufacture of delicate fabrics,—linen, muslin, and silk,—they were
expert. Trade and commerce, favored by the position of Babylon, began
to flourish. As regards literature, the libraries of Nineveh and
Babylon, at a later day, contained many books translated from the
early Sumerian language. Among them are the "Gilgamesh legends," in
which is contained a story of the flood that resembles in essential
features the account in Genesis.
II. THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE.
GROWTH OF ITS POWER.—Assyria was even greater, as a conquering power,
than Babylon. In the legends current among the Greeks, the building-up
of the monarchy, and of Nineveh its capital, as well as of Babylon, is
referred to the legendary heroes, Ninus and his queen
Semiramis. The name of Ninus is not recorded on the monuments,
and is, perhaps, a kind of mythical personification of Assyrian
conquests and grandeur; and the name of Semiramis does not appear
until the ninth century B.C. She may have been a princess or even
queen. Assyrian independence began before 2300 B.C. Between 1500 and
1400 B.C., Assyria was a weak state. It gained a brief mastery over
Babylon through a conquest by Tukulti-Ninib (1300
B.C.). Tiglath-Pileser I. (1100 B.C.) spread his conquests to
the Mediterranean and the Caspian on the west, and south to the
Persian Gulf. But these early acquisitions of Assyria were
transient. There ensued a long interval, until the middle of the tenth
century, when the monarchy was mostly confined within its own proper
borders. A new series of strong and aggressive princes arose. The
conflicts of Damascus and of the nations of Palestine with one another
left room for the growth of the Assyrian might and for the spread of
Assyrian dominion. Asshur-nasir-pal (formerly called
Sardanapalus I.) levied tribute upon Tyre, and the other rich
cities of the Syrian coast, and founded the Assyrian rule in
Cilicia. About the middle of the eighth century, the kingdom of
Israel, having renounced its vassalage to Assyria, in league with
Rezin of Damascus, the ruler of Syria, made war upon the
kingdom of Judah. Ahaz, the Judaean king, against the protest
of the prophet Isaiah, invoked the aid of the Assyrian monarch,
Tiglath-Pileser II. The call was answered. The league was
overthrown by him in a great battle fought near the Euphrates, and
numerous captives, according to the Assyrian practice, were carried
away from Samaria and Damascus. We are told that Ahaz, seeing
the offerings made by Tiglath-Pileser at Damascus, commanded his
priests at Jerusalem, despite the remonstrance of Isaiah, to make
offerings to the Assyrian gods. Judah, as the result of these events,
became tributary to Assyria. All Syria, together with Babylonia, which
was then made up of several states, western Iran, and Armenia, were
subdued by this Assyrian conqueror. He formally assumed the title of
"King of Babylon." Shalmaneser IV. (727-722 B.C.), bent on
completing the subjugation of Syria, subdued anew the revolted cities,
and conquered, as it would seem, the island of Cyprus. Tyre
alone, that is, the insular city of that name, withstood a siege of
five years. Hoshea, the king of Israel (733-722 B.C.), in order
to throw off the Assyrian yoke, sent an embassy to Shabak, the
king of Egypt, to procure his assistance. Hearing of this,
Shalmaneser attacked Israel. After a siege of three years,
Samaria, the capital, fell into the hands of Sargon, who had
succeeded him, the kingdom of Israel was subverted, and a great part
of the people dragged off into captivity. In 720 B.C., Sargon
encountered Shabak, in the great battle of Raphia, in
southern Palestine, whom he defeated, and put to flight. He received
tribute from Egypt, conquered a part of Arabia, and received the
homage of the king of Meroe, who made a journey from Ethiopia
to bow before him. The reign of Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.) was
an eventful one, both for Assyria and for the neighboring
countries. Hezekiah, king of Judah, hoped with the aid of Egypt
to achieve his independence. Sennacherib was obliged to raise the
siege of Jerusalem, after Hezekiah had vainly sought to propitiate him
with large offerings of silver and gold; but the Assyrian was
prevented from engaging in battle with Tirhaka of Egypt by a
great calamity that befell his army. Against Babylon, which frequently
revolted, he was more successful. "Berodach-baladan," as he is called
in Scripture (2 Kings, chap. 20), who at an earlier day had sent an
embassy from Babylon to Hezekiah, was overcome, and a new ruler
enthroned in his place. Esarhaddon (681-668 B.C.) not only
restored the Assyrian sway over Syria, Phoenicia, Cyprus, Judah, and a
part of Arabia, countries that lost no opportunity to shake off the
cruel and hateful rule of Nineveh, but also conquered Egypt, and
parceled it out among twenty governors. By Esarhaddon, or by his
successor, Manasseh, king of Judah, was conquered, and carried
off as a captive, but afterwards restored to his throne. Assyria was
now at the summit of its power. Asshur-bani-pal V. (668-626
B.C.), called Sardanapalus, although he lost Egypt, confirmed the
Assyrian power in the other subject states, and received tribute from
Lydia, on the western border of Asia Minor. Under him, Assyrian
art made its farthest advance. He was the builder of magnificent
palaces. It is his library, dug up from the grave in which it had been
buried for two and a half decades of centuries, that has yielded a
vast amount of welcome information concerning Assyrian and Babylonian
history far back into the Sumerian period.
RELIGION AND ART.—It has been stated that the Assyrian culture was
transplanted from Babylon. The religion was substantially the same,
except that Asshur, the tutelary deity of the country, was made
supreme. The Assyrians from the start were devoted to war, pillage,
and conquest. Their unsparing cruelty and brutal treatment of their
enemies are abundantly witnessed by their own monuments. They lacked
the productive power in literature and art which belonged to the
Babylonians. Although they might have built their edifices of stone,
they generally made use of brick. Their sculptures in relief were much
better than the full figures. They laid color upon their works in
sculpture. But their art was merely a pictorial record of events. The
sense of beauty and creative power were wanting. The more religious
character of the Babylonians created a difference in the architecture
of the two peoples. In gem-cutting both were singularly expert. The
Assyrians gave less attention to the burial of the dead. They showed
an aptitude for trade; and Nineveh, in the eighth and seventh
centuries, was a busy mart.
THE FALL OF ASSYRIA.—The first important blow at the Assyrian
imperial rule was struck by the Medes. After nearly a century
of resistance, they had been subdued (710 B.C.), and were subject to
Assyria for a century after. In 640 B.C., they rose in revolt, under
Phraortes, one of their native chiefs, who fell in battle. The
struggle was continued by his son, Cyaxares. His plans were
interrupted, however, by
THE IRRUPTION OF THE SCYTHIANS (623 B.C.).—More than a century
before, these wandering Asiatic tribes had begun to make predatory
incursions into Asia Minor. When Cyaxares was before Nineveh,
they came down in greater force, and a horde of them, moving southward
from the river Halys, invaded Syria. Jerusalem and the stronger cities
held out against them, but the open country was devastated. They were
met by Psammeticus I., king of Egypt, and bribed to turn
back. They entered Babylonia; but Nabopolassar, the viceroy of
Asshur-bani-pal (Sardanapalus), successfully defended the city of
Babylon against their attacks. By Cyaxares, either these or
another horde were defeated; but it was not until 605 B.C. that the
region south of the Black Sea was cleared of them. The kingdom of
Lydia had now come to play an important part in the affairs of
western Asia.
Our first knowledge of the peoples of Asia Minor is from the Homeric
poems (about 900 B.C.). The Chalybeans were in Pontus; west
of them, the Amazonians and Paphlagonians; west of
these, the Mysians; on the Hellespont, small tribes related
to the Trojans; on the Ægean, the Dardanians and the
Trojans (on the north), the Carians and the
Lycians (on the south); on the north-east of these last, the
Phrygians.
A large portion of the early inhabitants of Asia Minor were
Semitic, and closely related to the Syrians. Semitic
divinities were worshiped; a goddess, Mylitta, under other
names, was adored in Pontus, at Ephesus, in Phrygia, and in Lydia.
The Lydians were of the Semitic race. Cybele, the female
divinity whom they served, was the same deity whose altars were at
Babylon, Nineveh, and Tyre. The rulers of the dynasty of the
Mermnadæ, Gyges and his successors, spread the Lydian dominion
until it extended to the Hellespont, and included Mysia and
Phrygia. Alyattes was able to extirpate the Cimmerian hordes
from the Sea of Azoff, who had overrun the western part of Asia Minor,
and to make the Halys his eastern boundary. Gyges had been slain in
the contest with those fierce barbarians, called in the Old Testament
Gomer. At first he had sought help from the Assyrians, but he
broke away from this dependence.
Liberated from the troubles of the Scythian irruption, Cyaxares
formed an alliance with Nabopolassar, the viceroy in Babylon,
who had revolted, and gained his independence. The Median ruler had
subdued Armenia, and established his control as far as the Halys,
making a treaty with Lydia. Now ensued the desperate conflict on which
hung the fate of the Assyrian Empire. Nineveh was taken (606 B.C.) by
the Medes under Cyaxares, and the Babylonians under
Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabopolassar. The Grecian story of
Sardanapalus burning himself on a lofty bier, is a myth. Assyria was
divided by the Tigris between the Medes and
Babylonians.
THE THREE POWERS: EGYPT.—On the fall of Nineveh, there were three
principal powers left on the stage of action, which were bound
together by treaty, Lydia, Media, and Babylon. Egypt
proved itself unable to cope with Babylonian power. Necho,
during the siege of Nineveh, had attacked Syria, and defeated the Jews
on the plain of Esdraelon, where king Josiah was slain. He
dethroned Jehoahaz, Josiah's son, and enthroned
Jehoiakim in his stead. But when, in 605 B.C., he confronted
Nebuchadnezzar at Carchemish, and was defeated, he was
compelled to give up Syria, and to retire within the boundaries of
Egypt.
III. THE NEW BABYLONIAN EMPIRE.
TRIUMPS OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR.—Syria was now at the mercy of
Nebuchadnezzar. He captured Jerusalem (597 B.C.), despoiled the temple
and palace, and led away Jehoiakim as a captive. He placed on the
throne of Judah Jehoiakim's uncle, Zedekiah. But this king,
having arranged an alliance between Egypt and the Phoenician cities,
revolted (590 B.C.), refusing to pay his tribute. Again Nebuchadnezzar
laid siege to Jerusalem, but raised the siege, in order to drive home
Apries II. (Hophra), the Egyptian ally of Zedekiah. The city
was taken, the king's sons were killed in his presence, his own eyes
were put out; and, after the temple and palace had been burned and the
city sacked, he, with all the families of the upper class who had not
escaped to the desert, was carried away to Babylon (586 B.C.). Tyre
(the old city) in like manner was taken by assault (585 B.C.).
By Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon was enlarged, and adorned on a scale of
unequaled splendor. The new palace, with its "hanging gardens," the
bridge over the Euphrates, the Median wall connecting the Euphrates
and the Tigris on his northern boundary, and magnificent waterworks,
are famous structures which belong to this reign. Wealth and luxury
abounded. But vigor of administration fell away under his successors;
and Babylon, after a dominion short when compared with the long sway
of Nineveh, was conquered by Cyrus, the Medo-Persian king, in
538 B.C. The last king was Nabonetus.
THE CITY OF BABYLON.—Babylon was a city of the highest antiquity. The
name (Bab-ili, "Gate of God") is Semitic. The city is mentioned
in the earliest cuneiform records, and from the time of Hammurabi was
the chief city of the land. Destroyed by Sennacherib (690 B.C.), it
was rebuilt by Esarhaddon, but not fully restored and adorned until
the reigns of Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar.
Babylon surpassed all ancient cities in size and magnificence. Its
walls were forty miles in circumference. This extent of wall probably
included Borsippa, or "Babylon the Second," on the right bank of the
river. Babylon proper was mainly on the left. Within the walls were
inclosed gardens, orchards, and fields: the space was only filled in
part by buildings; but the whole area was laid out with straight
streets intersecting one another at right angles, like the streets of
Philadelphia. The wall was pierced by a hundred gates, probably
twenty-five in each face. The Euphrates, lined with quays on both
sides, and spanned with drawbridges, ran through the town, dividing it
into two nearly equal parts. The city was protected without by a deep
and wide moat. The wall was at least seventy or eighty feet in height,
and of vast and unusual thickness. On the summit were two hundred and
fifty towers, placed along the outer and inner edges, opposite to one
another, but so far apart, according to Herodotus, that there was room
for a four-horse chariot to pass between. The temple of Bel was
in a square inclosure, about a quarter of a mile both in length and
breadth. The tower of the temple was ascended on the outside by an
inclined plane carried around the four sides. An exaggerated statement
of Strabo makes its height six hundred and six feet. Possibly,
this represents the length of the inclined plane. In the shrine on the
top were a golden table and a couch; according to Diodorus,
before the Persian conquest there were colossal golden images of three
divinities, with two golden lions, and two enormous serpents of
silver. It is thought that Herodotus may have described the splendid
temple of Nebo (now Birs Nimrûd), and have mistaken it,
by reason of its enormous ruins, for the temple of Bel, which
it rivaled in magnificence. The great palace is represented to have
been larger than the temple of Bel, the outermost of its three
inclosing walls being three miles in circumference. Its exterior was
of baked brick. The "Hanging Gardens" was a structure built on a
square, consisting of stages or stories, one above another, each
supported by arches, and covered on the top, at the height of at least
seventy-five feet, with a great mass of earth in which grew flowers
and shrubs, and even large trees. The ascent to the top was by
steps. On the way up were stately and elegant apartments. The smaller
palace was on the other side of the river.
LITERATURE.—Works on Oriental History mentioned on p. 42. Tiele,
Babylonisch-assyrische Geschichte (1888); Kaulen, Assyrien
und Babylonien (5th ed., 1899); Rogers, History of Babylonia
and Assyria (1901); Goodspeed, History of the Babylonians and
Assyrians (1902); King, Articles Assyria and
Babylonia in the Encyclopedia Biblica; Sayce,
Babylonians and Assyrians: Life and Customs (1899); Schrader,
The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament; Jastrow,
Religion of Babylonia and Assyria (1898); Perrot & Chipiez,
Histoire de l'art dans l'antiquité, vol. ii., Chaldèe et
Assyrie.
CHAPTER III. THE PHOENICIANS AND CARTHAGINIANS.
PHOENICIA.—A narrow strip of territory separates the mountains of
Syria and Palestine from the Mediterranean. Of this belt the northern
part, west of Lebanon, about one hundred and fifty miles long, varies
in width from five to fourteen miles. In some places the cliffs
approach close to the sea. This belt of land was occupied by the first
of the great maritime and commercial peoples of antiquity, the
Phoenicians. Their language was Semitic, closely akin to Hebrew.
COMMERCE AND PROSPERITY OF THE PHOENICIANS.—The most important of the
Phoenician cities were Sidon—which was the first of them to rise to
distinction and power—and Tyre, which became more famous as a mart,
and comprised, besides the town on the coast, New Tyre, the city built
on the neighboring rocky island. In New Tyre was the sanctuary of the
tutelary god, Melkart. The spirit of trade stimulated
ingenuity. The Phoenicians were noted for their glass, their purple
dyes, their improved alphabet, and knowledge of the art of writing. In
mining and in casting metals, in the manufacture of cloth, in
architecture, and in other arts, they were not less proficient. From
their situation they naturally became a seafaring race. Not only did
they transport their cargoes of merchandise to the islands and shores
of the Mediterranean, conveying thither not merely the fruits of their
own industry and skill, but also the productions of the East: they
ventured to steer their vessels beyond the Strait of Gibraltar; and,
if they did not procure amber directly from the North Sea, they
brought tin either directly from Cornwall or from the Scilly
Islands. Through the hands of Phoenician merchants "passed the gold
and pearls of the East, the purple of Tyre, slaves, ivory, lions' and
panthers' skins from the interior of Africa, frankincense from Arabia,
the linen of Egypt, the pottery and fine wares of Greece, the copper
of Cyprus, the silver of Spain, tin from England, and iron from Elba."
These products were carried wherever a market could be found for
them. At the instigation of Necho, king of Egypt (610-594 B.C.), they
are said to have made a three years' voyage round the southern cape of
Africa.
COLONIES: OPULENCE.-The Phoenicians were the first great colonizing
nation of antiquity. It was the fashion of Assyrians and other
conquerors to transport to their own lands multitudes of people, whom
they carried away as captives from their homes. The Phoenicians—in
this particular the forerunners of the Greeks and of the Dutch and the
English—planted trading settlements in Cyprus and Crete, on the
islands of the Ægean Sea, in southern Spain, and in North
Africa. Cadiz, one of the oldest towns in Europe, was founded
by these enterprising traders (about 1100 B.C.). Tarshish was
another of their Spanish settlements. "Ships of Tarshish," like the
modern "East Indiamen," came to signify vessels capable of making long
voyages. The coast of modern Andalusia and Granada belonged to the
Phoenicians. Through caravans their intercourse was not less lively
with the states on the Euphrates, with Nineveh and Babylon, as well as
with Egypt. Tyre was a link between the East and the West.
HIRAM: SETTLEMENT OF CARTHAGE.—The Tyrian power attained to its
height under King Hiram I., the contemporary and ally of
Solomon. Two Greek historians make his reign to extend from 969
to 936 B.C. The alliance with Solomon extended the traffic of Tyre,
and increased its wealth. Hiram connected old and New Tyre by a
bridge. The Tyrians adorned their city with stately palaces and
temples, and built strong fortifications. Engrossed in manufactures
and commerce, and delighting in the affluence thus engendered, the
Phoenicians were not ambitious of conquest. Although conquerors upon
the sea, they were not a martial people: like commercial states
generally, they preferred peace. Of the people of Laish (Dan), it is
said in the Book of Judges (xviii. 7), "They dwelt careless, after the
manner of the Zidonians, quiet and secure." This pacific temper was
coupled with a fervent attachment to their own land and to their
countrymen wherever they went. But they lacked the political
instinct. They did not appreciate liberty, and their love of traffic
and of gain often made them prefer to pay tribute rather than to
fight. Their colonies were factories, but were not centers of further
conquest, or germs of political communities. When, the family of
Hiram was exterminated (about 850 B.C.) by the high-priest of
the goddess Astarte, who seized on power, civil strife and disorder
ensued. Pygmalion, the great-grandson of the high-priest, as it
is related by a Grecian authority, slew his uncle, who was to marry
Pygmalion's sister, Elissa. On account of this internal
conflict, and from dread of the Assyrian power, a large number of the
old families emigrated to North Africa, and founded Carthage (about
814 B.C.).
The Phoenician cities were confederated together under hereditary
kings, whose power was limited by the lay and priestly
aristocracy. The common people, many of whom were skilled artisans,
made themselves felt in some degree in public affairs. The mercantile
class were influential. Thus there was developed a germinant municipal
feeling and organization. The "strong city," Tyre, is mentioned in
Joshua xix. 29. In Isaiah xxiii., Tyre is described as
"the crowning city, whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are
the honourable of the earth." "He stretched out his hand over the sea,
he shook the kingdoms." The fate of Babylon is pointed at by the
Prophet, to show what Tyre had to expect from Assyria. Later, before
the conquest by Nebuchadnezzar, Ezekiel thus speaks of Tyre
(chap, xxvii.): "They have taken cedars from Lebanon to make masts for
thee." "Of the oaks of Bashan have they made thine oars." "Tarshish
was thy merchant."
RELIGION AND LETTERS.—A very prominent feature of the religion of the
Phaenicians is the local character of their divinities. The word
baal("lord" or "god") was not used in Phaenicia as the proper
name of any one god. But such names as Baal-sidon, "Lord of
Sidon," Baal-libanon, "God of Lebanon," etc., are
common. Astarte was the most common name for the local female
divinities. The gods were often thought of as dwelling in stones,
trees, and other objects; the worship of stone-pillars and sacred
poles (ashera; translated "grove" in the English Bible) was
especially common in Phaenicia. On the other hand, a "god of heaven"
and a "goddess of heaven" were worshiped. In the religion of the
Phaenicians, the more elevated ingredients of the Semitic heathenism
are in the background. The sensual features of it are more prominent,
and savage elements are introduced. It was more adapted to foster than
to check lust and cruelty. To Astarte, maidens sacrifice their
chastity. There was the same double ritual, made up of gross
sensuality on the one hand, and of ascetic practices by the priesthood
on the other, that belonged to the service of Mylitta at
Babylon. Human sacrifice by fire was another horrible
feature. Children, especially, were offered to El ("god";
possibly also called Melek (Moloch), "the king," as among the
Hebrews). To appease him at Tyre and Carthage, girls and boys,
sometimes in large numbers, and of the highest families, were cast
into the flames; while the wailing of their relatives, if it was not
stifled by themselves at the supposed demand of piety, was drowned by
the sound of musical instruments. As late as 310 B.C., when Agathocles
was besieging Carthage, and had reduced the city to the direst
straits, we are told that the people laid two hundred boys of their
noblest families upon the arms of the brazen image of the god, whence
they were allowed to fall into the fire beneath. On similar occasions,
even the head of the state sometimes offered himself as a
sacrifice. Hamilcar, the Carthaginian, son of Hanno, in Sicily,
when the tide of battle was turning against him, threw himself into
the fire (480 B.C.). Juba, king of Numidia, prepared to do the same
after the battle of Thapsus. Large and costly temples were built,
generally in the Egyptian style. Such were the temples of
Melkart at Tyre and Cadiz, of Eshmun at Sidon, and of
"the Lady of Byblos" at that city. Nature—as dying in the autumn, and
again reviving in the spring—is figured as the god Adonisz,
who is honored first by a protracted season of mourning, and then by a
joyous festival.
The Phoenicians were not a literary people. Their alphabet (invented
by them?) was the old Semitic alphabet. Every character represented a
sound. From the Phaenicians it spread, and became the mother of most
of the graphic systems now existing. Cadmus, however, by whom it was
said to be carried to the Greeks, is a fabulous person. The alleged
history of Sanchuniathon, which was published in Greek by
Philo of Byblus, in the second century A.D., is now generally
believed to be the work of Philo himself.
HISTORICAL EVENTS.—In the struggles against the Mesopotamian empires,
the Phaenicians defended themselves with valor and perseverance. When
Sargon (722-705 B.C.) had subjugated their cities on the
mainland, insular Tyre for five years repelled his assaults, although
the conduits bringing fresh water from the shore were cut off, and the
besieged were obliged to content themselves with the scanty supply to
be gained from wells dug with great labor. Soon the Tyrian fleets
regained their mastery on the sea. When Nebuchadnezzar captured old
Tyre, and a multitude of its inhabitants shared the lot of the Jews,
and were dragged off by the conqueror to the Euphrates, the island
city withstood his attack for thirteen years, and did not yield until
it extorted from him a treaty. But the power of resistance was
weakened by the repeated invasions and domination of Nineveh and
Babylon. Tyre submitted to Persia after the downfall of the Babylonian
monarchy, and added her fleet to the Persian forces; although to the
Phoenician towns was left a degree of freedom and their local
government. Sidon, Tyre, and Arados had a council of their own, which
met with their respective kings and senators at Tripolis, for the
regulation of matters of common interest. Manufactures and commerce
continued to flourish. Under the Persian supremacy, Sidon once more
became the chief city. In the middle of the fourth century B.C., it
revolted against the tyranny of the foreign governors. The Persian
king, Ochus, ordered that the noblest citizens should be put to
death; whereupon the inhabitants set the city on fire, and destroyed
themselves and their treasures in the flames. Tyre remained, but
ventured to resist Alexander the Great, after his conquest of
the Persians, and by him was captured and partly demolished (332
B.C.). After the death of Alexander, the Phoenicians fell under the
sway of the Seleucidæ at Antioch, and, for a time, of the
Egyptian Ptolemies. Both Tyre and Sidon were rebuilt, and
flourished anew. It is probably to the third century B.C. that we
should assign the native Sidonian dynasty which included the Kings
Eshmunazar I., Sedek-yaton, Tabnit, Bodashtart, and
Eshmunazar II., whose names are known to us from inscriptions.
In the time of the last-named king, the cities Dor and Joppa, with the
plain of Sharon, belonged to Sidon.
CARTHAGINIAN HISTORY.—The most prominent of all the Phoenician
settlements was Carthage. It had remarkable advantages of
situation. Its harbor was sufficient for the anchorage of the largest
vessels, and it had a fertile territory around it. These
circumstances, in conjunction with the energy of its inhabitants,
placed it at the head of the Phoenician colonies. In Carthage, there
was no middle class. There were the rich landholders and merchants,
and the common people. The government was practically an
oligarchy. There were two kings or judges (Shofetes), with
little power, and a council or senate; possibly a second
council also. But the senate and magistrates were subordinate to an
aristocratic body, the hundred judges. The bulk of the citizens
had little more than a nominal influence in public affairs.
ASCENDENCY OF CARTHAGE.-When the Greeks (about 600 B.C.) spread their
colonies, the rivals of the Phoenician settlements, in the west of the
Mediterranean, Carthage was moved to deviate from the policy of the
parent cities, and to make herself the champion, protector, and
mistress of the Phoenician dependencies in all that region. Thus she
became the head of a North-African empire, which asserted its
supremacy against its Greek adversaries in Sicily and Spain, as well
as in Lybia. When Tyre was subjugated by Persia, Carthage was
strengthened by the immigration of many of the best Tyrian
families. As the Tyrian strength waned, the Carthaginian power
increased. Syracuse, in Sicily, became the first Greek naval
power, and the foremost antagonist of the Carthaginian dominion. In
480 B.C., Carthage made war upon the Greek cities in Sicily. The
contest was renewed from time to time. In the conflicts between
439-409 B.C., she confirmed her sway over the western half of the
island. In later conflicts (317-275 B.C.), in which Agathocles,
tyrant of Syracuse, was a noted leader of the Greeks, and, after his
death, Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, was their ally, Carthage
alternately lost and regained her Sicilian cities. But the result of
the war was to establish her maritime ascendency.
LITERATURE.—Works mentioned on pp. 16, 42: Pietschmann,
Geschichte der Phönizier (1889); Rawlinson, History of
Phoenicia (1889); E. Meycr, Art. Phoenicia in the
Encycl. Bibl.; Perrot & Chipiez, History of Art in
Phoenicia and Cyprus, 2 vols.; Renan, Mission de Phenicie
(1874); Meltzer, Geschichte der Karthager; F. W. Newman's
Defense of Carthage.
CHAPTER IV. THE HEBREWS.
PECULIARITY OF THE HEBREWS.—While the rest of the nations worshiped
"gods many and lords many," whom they confounded with the motions of
the heavenly bodies, or with other aspects of nature, there was one
people which attained to a faith in one God, the Creator and Preserver
of the universe, who is exalted above nature, and whom it was deemed
impious to represent by any material image. More than is true of any
other people, religion was consciously the one end and aim of their
being. To bring the true religion to its perfection, and to give it a
world-wide diffusion and sway, was felt by them to be their
heaven-appointed mission. The peculiarity of their faith made them
stand alone, and rendered them exclusive, and intolerant of the
surrounding idolatries. The mountainous character of their land,
separated by Lebanon from Phoenicia, and by the desert from the
nations on the East and South, was well adapted to the work which they
had to fulfill in the course of history.
THE PATRIARCHAL AGE.—The Israelites traced their descent from
Abraham, who, to escape the infection of idolatry, left his
home, which was in Ur on the lower Euphrates, and came into the
land of Canaan, where he led a wandering life, but became the father
of a group of nations. According to the popular narrative,
Isaac, his son by Sarah, was recognized as the next
chief of the family; while Ishmael, Abraham's son by
Hagar, became the progenitor of the Arabians. Of the two
sons of Isaac, Esau, who was a huntsman, married a daughter of
the native people: from him sprung the Edomites. Jacob
kept up the occupation of a herdsman. Of his twelve sons,
Joseph was an object of jealousy to the other eleven, by whom
he was sold to a caravan of merchants on their way to Egypt. There,
through his skill in interpreting dreams, he rose to high dignities
and honors in the court of Pharaoh; and, by his agency, the entire
family were allowed to settle oh the pasture-lands of Goshen in
northern Egypt (p. 40). Here in the neighborhood of Heliopolis,
for several centuries, they fed their flocks. From Israel, the name
given to Jacob, they were commonly called Israelites. The name
Hebrews was apparently derived from a word signifying "across
the river" (Euphrates); but the original application is quite
uncertain.
THE EXODUS (see p. 41).—The time came when the Israelites were no
longer well treated. A new Egyptian dynasty was on the throne. Their
numbers were an occasion of apprehension. An Egyptian princess saved
Moses from being a victim of a barbarous edict issued against
them. He grew to manhood in Pharaoh's court, but became the champion
of his people. Compelled to flee, he received in the lonely region of
Mount Sinai that sublime disclosure of the only living God
which qualified him to be the leader and deliverer of his brethren. A
"strong east wind," parting the Red Sea, opened a passage for the
Israelites, whom a succession of calamities, inflicted upon their
oppressors by the Almighty, had driven Pharaoh (Menephthah?) to permit
to depart in a body; but the returning waves ingulfed the pursuing
Egyptian army. "The sea covered them: they sank as lead in the mighty
waters." For a long period Moses led the people about in the
wilderness. They were trained by this experience to habits of order
and military discipline. At Horeb, the Decalogue, the kernel,
so to speak, of the Hebrew codes, the foundation of the religious and
social life of the people, was given them under circumstances fitted
to awaken the deepest awe. They placed themselves under Jehovah as the
Ruler and Protector of the nation in a special sense. The worship of
other divinities, every form of idolatry, was to be a treasonable
offense. The laws of Jehovah were to be kept in the Ark of the
Covenant, in the "Tabernacle," which was the sanctuary, and was
transported from place to place. The priesthood was devolved on
Aaron and his successors, at the side of whom were their
assistants, the Levites. The civil authority in each tribe was
placed in the hands of the patriarchal chief and the "elders," the
right of approval or of veto being left to the whole tribe gathered in
an assembly. The heads of the tribes, with seventy representative
elders, together with Aaron and Moses, formed a supreme council or
standing committee. On particular occasions a congregation of all the
tribes might be summoned. The ritual was made up of sacrifices and
solemn festivals. The Sabbath was the great weekly
commemoration, a day of rest for the slave as well as for the master,
for the toiling beast as well as for man. Every seventh year and every
fiftieth year were sabbaths, when great inequalities of condition,
which might spring up in the intervals, respecting the possession of
land, servitude consequent on debts, etc., were removed.
Hebrew Laws.—The Israelites, in virtue of their covenant with
Jehovah, were to be a holy people, a nation of priests. They were
thus to maintain fraternal equality. There was to be no enslaving of
one another, save that which was voluntary and for a limited
time. Only prisoners not of their race, or purchased foreigners,
could be held as slaves. Every fiftieth year, land was to revert to
its original possessor. In the sabbatical years the land was not to
be tilled. What then grew wild might be gathered by all. There were
careful provisions for the benefit of the poor.
HEADS OF TRIBES.—The progenitors of the tribes, the sons of Jacob, as
given in Exodus, were Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar,
Zebulon, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Joseph, and Benjamin.
THE HEBREW RELIGION—Such, in brief, were the beginnings of a religion
as unique as it was elevated in its character,—a religion which stood
from the outset in mortal antagonism to the Egyptian worship of
sun-gods, and to the star-worship, the service of Baal, and of sensual
or savage divinities joined with him,—to that service which was
diffused through the Semitic nations of western Asia. A people was
constituted to be the guardian of this light, kindled in the midst of
the surrounding darkness, to carry it down to later ages, and to make
it finally, in its perfected form, the heritage of mankind.
THE PROPHETS.—Moses was not only a military leader and a
legislator: he stands at the head of the prophets, the class of
men who at different times, especially in seasons of national peril and
temptation, along the whole course of Israelitish history, were raised
up to declare the will of Jehovah, to utter the lessons proper to the
hour, to warn evil-doers, and to comfort the desponding.
CONQUEST OF CANAAN: THE ERA OF THE JUDGES.—Moses himself did not
enter "the promised land," where the patriarchs were buried, and which
the Israelites were to conquer. According to Deut. vii. 2, a war of
extermination was commanded. The reason given for the command was that
the people must avoid the contagion of idolatry, that it was the fit
reward of the nation which they were bidden to dispossess.
The word "Canaanite" was used especially to designate the
inhabitants of the coast region of Palestine. It was applied,
however, to all the tribes, who were under thirty-one kings or
chiefs, in the time of Joshua, There were six principal tribes,—the
Hittites, Hivites, Amorites, Jebusites,
Perizzites, and Girgashites. These, with the exception
of the Hittites, and possibly the Amtorites, were
Semitic in their language. The Canaanites had houses and
vineyards. From them the Israelites learned agriculture. "They were
in possession of fortified towns, treasures of brass, iron, gold,
and foreign merchandise" Their religious rites were brutal and
debasing,—"human sacrifice, licentious orgies, the worship of a
host of divinities."
On the death of Moses, Joshua succeeded to the post of a
leader. He defeated the Amontes and other tribes on the east of
the Jordan. After the first victories of Joshua, each tribe carried on
for itself the struggle with Canaanites, victory over them being often
followed by indiscriminate slaughter. It is plain, however, especially
from the account in the first chapter of the Book of Judges, that
there was a process of assimilation as well as one of conquest. The
actual settlement was effected by peaceful as well as by warlike
methods. Resistance was stubborn, and the progress of occupation
slow. It was not until David's time, centuries after the invasion,
that Jebus, the site of Jerusalem, was captured. This delay was
due largely to a lack of union, not to a lack of valor. The strength
of the Israelites was in their infantry. Hence they preferred to fight
upon the hills, rather than to cope with horsemen and chariots on the
plains below.
THE PERIOD OF THE JUDGES.—The era of the Judges extends from about
1300 B.C. over at least two centuries. Powerful tribes—as
Moabites, Midianites, Ammonites,
Philistines—were unsubdued. The land was desolated by
constant war. It was one sure sign of the prevailing disorder and
anarchy, that "the highways were unoccupied, and the travelers walked
through byways" (Judg. v. 6). Not unfrequently the people forgot
Jehovah, and fell into idolatrous practices. In this period of
degeneracy and confusion, men full of sacred enthusiasm and of heroic
courage arose to smite the enemies of Israel, and to restore the
observance of the law. Of these heroic leaders, Deborah,
Gideon, Jepththa, and Samson were the most
famous. There remains the song of Deborah on the defeat and death of
Sisera (Judg. v.).
The Philistines, on the western coast, captured the sacred
ark,—an act that spread dismay among the Israelites. Then they
pushed on their conquests as far as the Jordan, took away from the
Israelites their weapons, and grievously oppressed them. The
Ammonites threatened the tribes on the east of the Jordan with
a like fate. At this juncture, an effective leader and reformer
appeared, in the person of Samuel, who had been consecrated
from his youth up to the service of the sanctuary, and whose devotion
to the law was mingled with an ardent patriotism. He roused the
courage of the people, and recalled them to the service of Jehovah. In
the "schools of the prophets" he taught the young the law, trained
them in music and song, and thus prepared a class of inspiring
teachers and guides to co-operate with the priesthood in upholding the
cause of religion.
THE MONARCHY: SAMUEL AND SAUL.—In the distracted condition of the
country, the people demanded a king, to unite them, and lead them to
victory, and to administer justice. They felt that their lack of
compact organization and defined leadership placed them at a
disadvantage in comparison with the tribes about. This demand
Samuel resisted, as springing out of a distrust of Jehovah, and
as involving a rejection of Him. He depicted the burdens which regal
government would bring upon them. Later history verified his
prediction. A strong, centralized authority was not in harmony with
the family and tribal government which was the peculiarity of their
system. It brought in, by the side of the prophetic order, another
authority less sacred in its claims to respect. Collisions between the
two must inevitably result. But, whatever might be the ideal political
system, the exigency was such that Samuel yielded to the persistent
call of the people. He himself chose and anointed for the office a
tall, brave, and experienced soldier, Saul. Successful in
combat, the king soon fell into a conflict with the prophet, by
failing to comply with the divine law, and by sparing, contrary to the
injunction laid upon him, prisoners and cattle that he had
captured. Thereupon Samuel secretly anointed David, a young
shepherd of the tribe of Judah; thus designating him for the
throne. The envy of Saul at the achievements of David, and at his
growing popularity, coupled with secret suspicion of what higher
honors might be in store for the valiant youth, embittered the king
against him. David was befriended and shielded by Jonathan,
Saul's son, who might naturally be looked upon as his suitable
successor. The memorials of the friendship of these two youths, in the
annals of that troublous time, are like a star in the darkest
night. David was obliged to take refuge among the Philistines, where
he led a band of free lances, whom the Philistines did not trust as
auxiliaries, but who were inured by their daring combats for the
struggles that came afterwards. Saul and Jonathan were slain, Saul by
his own hand. For six years David was king in Hebron, over the
tribes of Judah and Benjamin. The other tribes were ruled by Saul's
son, Ishbaal ('Ishbosheth'). At length David was recognized as
king by all the tribes. Saul's family were exterminated.
CHRONOLOGY.—There is much difficulty in settling the chronology in
the early centuries of the regal period of Hebrew history. Apart from
the questions which arise in comparing the biblical data, the
information derived from Egyptian and especially from Assyrian sources
has to be taken into account. Hence the dates given below must be
regarded as open to revision as our knowledge increases.
Assyriologists find that Shalmaneser II. received tribute from
Ahab, King of Israel, 854 B.C., and from Jehu, 842 B.C.;
that Tiglath-Pileser III (745-727 B.C.) received tribute from
Menahem in 738 B.C. and that Samaria fell in 722
B.C. Assyriology, on the basis of its data, as at present
ascertained, would make out a chronology something like the
following: Era of the judges, 1300-1020; Saul, 1020-1000; David,
1000-960; Solomon, 960-930; Reho-boam, 930-914 (Jeroboam I., 930-910);
Jehoshaphat, 870+-850 (Ahab, 875-853); Azanah (or Uzziah), 779-740
(Jehu, 842-815); (Jeroboam II., 783-743); (Menahem, 744-738).
DAVID AND SOLOMON.—David's reign (about 1000-970 B.C.) is the period
of Israel's greatest power. He extended his sway as far as the Red Sea
and the Euphrates; he overcame Damascus, and broke down the power of
the Philistines; he subdued the Moabites, Ammonites, and Edomites; he
conquered the Jebusites, and made Jerusalem his capital and the center
of national worship. A poet himself, he enriched the religious
service, which he organized, by lyrics—some of them composed by
himself—of unrivaled devotional depth and poetic beauty. He organized
his military force as well, and established an orderly civil
administration. His favorite son, Absalom, led away by
ambition, availed himself of disaffection among the people to head a
revolt against his father, but perished in the attempt. David left his
crown to Solomon at the close of a checkered life, marked by
great victories, and by flagrant misdeeds done under the pressure of
temptation.
CHARACTERS OF SOLOMON'S REIGN.—Solomon's reign (about 970-933 B.C.)
was the era of luxury and splendor. He sought to emulate the other
great monarchs of the time. With the help of Hiram, king of
Tyre, who furnished materials and artisans, he erected a magnificent
temple on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem. He built costly palaces. He
brought horses from Egypt, and organized a standing army, with its
cavalry and chariots. He established a harem, bringing into it women
from the heathen countries, whom he allowed in their idolatrous
rites. He was even seduced to take part in them himself. Renowned for
his knowledge and for his wisdom—which was admired by the Queen of
Saba (Sheba), who came to visit him from the Arabian coast—famous
as the author of wise aphorisms, he nevertheless entailed disasters on
his country. He established a sort of Oriental despotism, which
exhausted its resources, provoked discontent, and tended to undermine
morality as well as religion.
THE DIVIDED KINGDOM.—The bad effect of Solomon's magnificence soon
appeared. Before his death a revolt was made under the lead of
Jeroboam, which was put down. Of Rehoboam, the successor
of Solomon, the ten tribes north of Judah required pledges that their
burdens should be lightened. In the room of the heads and elders of
the tribes, the late king's officers had come in to oppress them with
their hard exactions. The haughty young king spurned the demand for
redress. The tribes cast off his rule, and made Jeroboam I.
their king (about 933 B.C.). The temple was left in the hands of
Judah and Benjamin. The division of the kingdom into
two, insured the downfall of both. The rising power of the
Mesopotamian Empire could not be met without union. On the other hand,
the concentration of worship at Jerusalem, under the auspices of the
two southern tribes, may have averted dangers that would have arisen
from the wider diffusion, and consequent exposure to corruption, of
the religious system. The development and promotion of the true
religion—the one great historical part appointed for the Hebrews—may
have been performed not less effectively, on the whole, for the
separation.
HEATHEN RITES.—From this time the energetic and prolonged contest of
the prophets with idolatry is a conspicuous feature, especially in the
history of Israel, the northern kingdom. Jeroboam set up golden
calves at Dan and Bethel, ancient seats of the worship
of Jehovah. Wars with Judah and Damascus weakened the strength of
Israel. The Egyptian king, Shishak, captured Jerusalem, and
bore away the treasures collected by Solomon (p. 41). Under
Jehoshaphat (about 873-849 B.C.) the heathen altars were
demolished and prosperity returned.
STRUGGLE WITH IDOLATRY: ELIHAH AND ELISHA.—The contemporary of
Jehoshaphat in the northern kingdom was Ahab (about 876-854
B.C.). He expended his power and wealth in the building up of
Baal-worship, at the instigation of the Tyrian princess,
Jezebel, whom he had married. At Samaria, his capital, he
raised a temple to Baal, where four hundred and fifty of his priests
ministered. The priests of Jehovah who withstood these measures were
driven out of the land, or into hiding-places. The austere and
intrepid prophet Elijah found refuge in Mount
Carmel. The people, on the occasion of a famine, which he declared
to be a divine judgment, rose in their wrath, and slew the priests of
Baal. In a war—the third of a series—which Ahab waged against
Syria, he still fought in his chariot, after he had received a
mortal wound, until he fell dead. He had previously thrown the prophet
Micaiah into prison for predicting this result. By the marriage
of Athalia, a daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, with Jehoshaphat's
son, Baal-worship was introduced into Jerusalem. Joram
succeeded Ahab. The prophet Elisha, who followed in the steps
of Elijah, anointed Jehu "captain of the host of Joram." He
undertook, with fierce and unsparing energy, to destroy Baal-worship,
and to extirpate the house of Ahab, root and branch. The two kings of
Israel and of Judah he slew with his own hand. The priests and
servants of Baal were put to the sword. These conflicts reduced the
strength of Israel, which fell a prey to Syria, until its power was
revived by Jeroboam II. (783-743 B.C.). The death of
Athalia brought on the expulsion of the Phoenician idolatry
from Jerusalem. The southern kingdom suffered from internal strife,
and from wars with Israel, until Uzziah (779-740 B.C.)
restored its military strength, and caused agriculture and trade once
more to flourish.
THE ASSYRIAN CAPTIVITY.—The two kingdoms, in the ninth and eighth
centuries, instead of standing together against the threatening might
of Assyria, sought heathen alliances, and wasted their strength in
mutual contention. Against these hopeless alliances, and against the
idolatry and the formalism which debased the people, the prophets
contended with intense earnestness and unflinching
courage. Amos, called from feeding his flocks, inveighed
against frivolity and vice, misgovernment and fraud, in
Israel. Hosea warned Menahem (743-737 B.C.) against
invoking the help of Assyria against Damascus, but in vain. He was
terribly punished by what he suffered from the Assyrians; but Jotham
(740-736 B.C.) and Ahaz (736-728 B.C.), the Judaean kings,
successively followed his example. Tiglath-Pileser made Judaea
tributary. The Assyrian rites were brought into the temple of
Jehovah. The service of Canaanitish deities was introduced. The one
incorruptible witness for the cause of Jehovah was the fearless and
eloquent prophet, Isaiah. Hosea, king of Israel, by his
alliance with Egypt against Sargon, so incensed this most
warlike of the Assyrian monarchs, that, when he had subdued the
Phoenician cities, he laid siege to Samaria; and, having captured it
at the end of a siege of three years, he led away the king and the
larger part of his subjects as captives, to the Euphrates and the
Tigris, and replaced them by subjects of his own (722 B.C.). The later
Samaritans were the descendants of this mixed population.
The Babylonian Captivity.—When Sargon, the object of general
dread, died, Hezekiah, king of Judah (727-699 B.C.), flattered
himself that it was safe to disregard the warnings of Isaiah, and, in
the hope of throwing off the Assyrian yoke, made a treaty of alliance
with the king of Egypt, and fortified Jerusalem. He abolished,
however, the heathen worship in "the high places."
Sennacherib, Sargon's successor, was compelled to raise the
siege (p. 46). Manasseh (698-643 B.C.), in defiance of the
prophets, fostered the idolatrous and sensual worship, against which
they never ceased to lift their voices. Josiah (640-609 B.C.)
was a reformer. As a tributary of Babylon, he sought to prevent
Necho, king of Egypt, from crossing his territory, but was
vanquished and slain at Megiddo, on the plain of
Esdraelon. Nebuchadnezzar's victory over Necho, at
Carchemish, enabled the Babylonian king to tread in the
footsteps of the Assyrian conquerors. The revolt of Zedekiah,
which the prophet Jeremiah was unable to prevent, and his
alliance with Egypt, led to the Babylonian captivity of the Jews. In
this period of national ruin, the prophetic spirit found a voice
through Jeremiah and Ezekiel. It was during the era of
Assyrian and Babylonian invasion that the predictions of a MESSIAH, a
great Deliverer and righteous Ruler who was to come, assumed a more
definite expression. The spiritual character of Isaiah's
teaching has given him the name of "the evangelical prophet."
Cyrus, the conqueror of Babylon, opened the way (538 B.C.) for
the return of the exiles. A small part first came back under
Zerubbabel, head of the tribe of Judah, who was made Persian
governor. They began to rebuild the temple, which was finished in 516
B.C. Later (458 B.C.) Ezra "the scribe" and Nehemiah led
home a larger body. The newly returned Jews were fired with a zeal for
the observance of the Mosaic ritual,—a zeal which had been sharpened
in the persecutions and sorrows of exile. The era of the
"hagiocracy," of the supreme influence of the priesthood and
the rigid adherence to the law, with an inflexible hostility to
heathen customs, ensued. The spirit of which prophecy had been the
stimulant, and partially the fruit, declined. The political
independence of the land was gone for ever. The day of freedom under
the Maccabees, after the insurrection (168 B.C.) led by that
family against the Syrian successors of Alexander, was short. But
Israel "had been thrown into the stream of nations." Its religious
influence was to expand as its political strength dwindled. Its
subjugation and all its terrible misfortunes were to serve as a means
of spreading the leavening influence of its monotheistic faith.
In the year 63 B.C., Pompeius made the Jews tributary to the
Romans. In the year 40 B.C., Herod began to reign as a
dependent king under Rome.
Hebrew Literature.—The literature of the Hebrews is
essentially religious in its whole motive and spirit. This is true
even of their historical writings. The marks of the one defining
characteristic of their national life—faith in Jehovah and in his
sovereign and righteous control—are everywhere seen. Hebrew poetry is
mainly lyrical. Relics of old songs are scattered through the
historical books. In the Psalms, an anthology of sacred lyrics,
the spirit of Hebrew poesy attains to its highest flight. Examples of
didactic poetry are the Book of Job, and books like the
Proverbs, composed mainly of pithy sayings or gnomes. Nowhere,
save in the Psalms, does the spirit of the Hebrew religion and the
genius of the people find an expression so grand and moving as in the
Prophets, of whom Isaiah is the chief.
ART.—In art the Hebrews did not excel. The plastic arts were
generally developed in connection with religion. But the religion of
the Hebrews excluded all visible representations of deity. Nor were
they proficients in science. "Israel was the vessel in which the water
of life was inclosed, in which it was kept cool and pure, that it
might thereafter refresh the world."
The HISTORICAL BOOKS of the Old Testament comprise, first, the
Pentateuch, which describes the origin of the Hebrew people,
the exodus from Egypt, and the Sinaitic legislation. Questions
pertaining to the date and authorship of these five books, and of
the materials at the basis of them, are still debated among
historical critics. It may be regarded as certain, however, that
materials belonging to nearly every period of Hebrew literature,
from the earliest times, are here combined. The early part of
Genesis is designed to explain the genealogy of the Hebrews, and to
show how, step by step, they were sundered from other peoples. The
narratives in the first ten chapters—as the story of the creation,
the flood, etc.—so strikingly resemble legends of other Semitic
nations, especially the _Babylonians_and Phoenicians, as
to make it plain that all these groups of accounts are historically
connected with one another. But the Genesis narratives are
distinguished by their freedom from the polytheistic ingredients
which disfigure the corresponding narratives elsewhere. They are on
the elevated plane of that pure theism which is the kernel of the
Hebrew faith. This whole subject is elucidated by Lenormant, in
The Beginnings of History (1882). The Book of Joshua
relates the history of the conquest of Canaan; Judges, the
tale of the heroic age of Israel prior to the monarchy; the Books of
Samuel and of Kings, of the monarchy in its glory and
its decline; the Books of Chronicles treat of parts of the
same era, more from the point of view of the priesthood; Ruth
is an idyl of the narrative type; Ezra, Nehemiah, and
Esther have to do with the return of the Jews from exile, and
the events next following.
The POETIC WRITINGS include the Psalter, by many authors; the
Proverbs of Solomon and others; Ecclesiastes, which
gives the sombre reflections of one who had tasted to the full the
pleasures and honors of life; the Canticles, or Song of
Solomon, which depicts a young woman's love in its constancy,
and victory over temptation.
The PROPHETS are divided into four classes: i. Those of the early
period from the twelfth to the ninth century, including
Samuel, Elijah, Eliska, etc, who have left no
prophetical writings. 2. The prophets of the Assyrian age (800-700
B.C.), where belong Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, and
Nahum. 3. The prophets of the Babylonian age, Zephaniah,
Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Ezekiel. Here some scholars would place a
part of Isaiah. 4. The post-exilian prophets, Haggai,
Zachariah, Malackt, Jonah., Daniel, Joel, Obadiah, and
considerable portions of Isaiah and Jeremiah.
The APOCRYPHAL BOOKS belong between the closing of the Old-Testament
canon and the New Testament. They are instructive as to that
intermediate period. The first Book of Maccabees is
specially important for its historical matter; the Books of
Wisdom and the Son of Sirach for their moral
reflections and precepts.
WORKS RELATING TO HEBREW HISTORY.—EWALD, History of the
Israelitish People (Eng. trans., 5 vols.); Milman, History of
the Jews (3 vols.); Stade, Geschichte des Volkes Israel
(2 vols., 1889); Renan, History of the People of Israel
(Eng. trans., 1896); Wellhausen. Israelitische und judische
Geschichte (3d ed., 1897); Kent, History of the Hebrew
People (1898); Guthe, Geschichte des Volkes Israel
(1899); the Art. Israel by Wellhausen, in the
Encycl. Brit., and the one by Guthe in the
Encycl. Bibl. The historical works of Jewish scholars,
Herzfeld, Jost, Zunz, Graetz, DERENBOURG, etc., are valuable.
CHAPTER V. THE PERSIANS.
In the western part of the plateau of Iran, which extends from the
Suleiman Mountains to the plains of Mesopotamia, were the
Medes. On the southern border of the same plateau, along the
Persian Gulf, were the Persians. Both were offshoots of the
Aryan family, and had migrated westward from the region of the upper
Oxus, from Bactria, the original seat of their religion.
RELIGION.—The ancient religion of the Iranians, including the Medes
and Persians, was reduced to a system by the Bactrian sage,
Zoroaster (or Zarathustra), who, in the absence of authentic
knowledge respecting him, may be conjecturally placed at about 1000
B.C. The Zendavesta, the sacred book of the Parsees, the
adherents of this religion, is composed of parts belonging to very
different dates. It is the fragment of a more extensive literature no
longer extant. The Bactrian religion differed from that of their
Sanskrit-speaking kindred on the Indus, in being a form of dualism. It
grew out of a belief in good demons or spirits, and in evil spirits,
making up two hosts perpetually in conflict with each other. At the
head of the host of good spirits, in the Zoroastrian creed, was
Ormuzd, the creator, and the god of light; at the head of the
evil host, was Ahriman, the god of darkness. The one made the
world good, the other laid in it all that is evil. The one is disposed
to bless man, the other to do him harm. The conflict of virtue and
vice in man is a contest for control on the part of these antagonistic
powers. In order to keep off the spirits of evil, one must avoid what
is morally or ceremonially unclean. He who lived pure, went up at
death to the spirits of light. The evil soul departed to consort with
evil spirits in the region of darkness. Mithra, the sun-god in
the Zoroastrian system, is the equal, though the creature, of
Ormuzd. Mithra is the conqueror of darkness, and so the enemy
of falsehood. The Medes and Persians were fire-worshipers. To the good
spirits, they ascribed life, the fruitful earth, the refreshing
waters, fountains and rivers, the tilled ground, pastures and trees,
the lustrous metals, also truth and the pure deed. To the evil spirits
belonged darkness, disease, death, the desert, cold, filth, sin, and
falsehood. The animals were divided between the two realms. All that
live in holes, all that hurt the trees and the crops, rats and mice,
reptiles of all sorts, turtles, lizards, vermin, and noxious insects,
were hateful creatures of Ahriman. To kill any of these was a
merit. The dog was held sacred; as was also the cock, who announces
the break of day. In the system of worship, sacrifices were less
prominent than in India. Prayers, and the iteration of prayers, were
of great moment.
THE MAGI.—The Zoroastrian religion was not the same at all times and
in every place. The primitive Iranian emigrants were monotheistic in
their tendencies. In their western abodes, they came into contact with
worshipers of the elements,—fire, air, earth, and water. It is
thought by many scholars, that the Magian system, with its more
defined dualism and sacerdotal sway, was ingrafted on the native
religion of the Iranians through the influence of tribes with whom
they mingled in Media. The Magi, according to one account, were
charged by Darius with corrupting the Zoroastrian faith and
worship. Whatever may have been their origin, they became the leaders
in worship, and privy-counselors to the sovereign. They were likewise
astrologers, and interpreters of dreams. They were not so distinct a
class as the priests in India. A hereditary order, they might still
bring new members into their ranks. From the Medes, they were
introduced among the Persians.
PERSIAN RELIGIOUS CUSTOMS.—Peculiar customs existed among the Medes
in disposing of the dead. They were not to be cast into the fire or
the water, or buried in the earth, for this would bring pollution to
what was sacred; but their bodies were to be exposed in the high
rocks, where the beasts and birds could devour them. Sacrifices were
offered on hill-tops. Salutations of homage were made to the rising
sun. On some occasions, boys were buried alive, as an offering to the
divinities. In early times, there were no images of the gods. As far
as they were introduced in later times, it was through the influence
of surrounding nations. In the supremacy and the final victory, which,
in the later form of Zoroastrianism, were accorded to Ormuzd,
there was again an approach to monotheism. Hostility to deception of
all sorts, and thus to stealing, was a Persian trait. Herodotus
says that the Persians taught their children to ride, to shoot the
bow, and to speak the truth. To prize the pursuits of agriculture and
horticulture, was a part of their religion. They allowed a plurality
of wives, and concubines with them; but there was one wife to whom
precedence belonged. Voluntary celibacy in man or woman was counted a
flagrant sin.
HISTORY.—The first authentic notice that we have of the MEDES shows
them under Assyrian power. This is in the time of Shalmaneser
II., 840 B.C. Their rise is coincident with the fall of
Assyria. Phraortes (647-625 B.C.) began the Median struggle for
independence; although the name of Deioces is given by
Herodotus as a previous king, and the builder of
Ecbatana the capital. It was reserved for Cyaxares
(625-585 B.C.), having delivered his land from the Scythian marauders
(p. 47), to complete, in conjunction with the Babylonian king,
Nabopolassar, the work of breaking down the Assyrian empire
(p. 48). He brought under his rule the Bactrians, and the
Persians about Pasargadæ and Persepolis, and made
the Halys, dividing Asia Minor, the limit of his kingdom. His
effeminate son, Astyages, lost what his father had won. The
Persian branch of the Iranians gained the supremacy. Cyrus, the
leader of the Persian revolt, by whom Astyages was defeated, is
described as related to him; but this story, as well as the account of
his being rescued from death and brought up among shepherds, is
probably a fiction.
CYRUS.—In the sixth century B.C., this famous ruler and conqueror
became the founder of an empire which comprised nearly all the
civilized nations of Asia. During his reign of thirty years (559-530
B.C.), he annexed to his kingdom the two principal states, LYDIA and
BABYLON. The king of Lydia was Croesus, whose story,
embellished with romantic details, was long familiar as a signal
example of the mutations of fortune. Doomed to be burned after the
capture of Sardis, his capital, he was heard, just when the
fire was to be kindled, to say something about Solon. In answer
to the inquiry of Cyrus, whose curiosity was excited, he related how
that Grecian sage, after beholding his treasures, had refused to call
him the most fortunate of men, on the ground that "no man can be
called happy before his death," because none can tell what disasters
may befall him. Cyrus, according to the narrative, touched by the
tale, delivered Croesus from death, and thereafter bestowed on him
honor and confidence.
There is another form of the tradition, which is deemed by some more
probable. Croesus is said to have stood on a pyre, intending to
offer himself in the flames, to propitiate the god Sandon,
that his people might be saved from destruction; but he was
prevented, it is said, by unfavorable auguries.
The subjection of the Greek colonies on the Asia-Minor coast followed
upon the subjugation of Lydia. From these colonies, the
Phocoeans went forth, and founded Elea in Lower Italy,
and Massilia (Marseilles) in Gaul. The Asian Greek cities were each
allowed its own municipal rulers, but paid tribute to the Persian
master. The conquest of Babylon (538 B.C.), as it opened the
way for the return to Jerusalem of the Jewish exiles, enabled Cyrus to
establish a friendly people in Judaea, as a help in fortifying his
sway in Syria, and in opening a path to Egypt. But in 529 he
lost his life in a war which he was waging against the
Massagetae, a tribe on the Caspian, allied in blood to the
Scythians.
There was a tradition that the barbarian queen, Tomyris,
enraged that Cyrus had overcome her son by deceit, dipped the slain
king's head in a skin-bag of blood, exclaiming, "Drink thy fill of
blood, of which thou couldst not have enough in thy lifetime!"
CAMBYSES.—The successor of Cyrus, a man not less warlike than he, but
more violent in his passions, reigned but seven years (529-522
B.C.). His most conspicuous achievement was the conquest of EGYPT. One
ground or pretext of his hostility, according to the tale of
Herodotus, was the fact that Amasis, the predecessor of Psammeticus
III., not daring to refuse the demand of his daughter as a wife,
to be second in rank to the Persian queen, had fraudulently sent,
either to Cambyses, or, before his time, to Cyrus, Nitetis, the
daughter of the king who preceded him, Apries. Defeated at
Pelusium, and compelled to yield up Memphis after a
siege, it is said that Psammeticus, the Psammenitus of
Herodotus, the unfortunate successor of the powerful Pharaohs, was
obliged to look on the spectacle of his daughters in the garb of
working-women, bearing water, and to see his sons, with the principal
young nobles, ordered to execution. But this tale lacks
confirmation. His cruelties were probably of a later date, and were
provoked by the chagrin he felt, and the satisfaction manifested by
the people, at the failure of great expeditions which he sent
southward for the conquest of Meroe, and westward against the
Oasis of Ammon. His armies perished in the Lybian deserts. Even
the story of his stabbing the sacred steer (Apis), after these
events, although it may be true, is not sanctioned by the Egyptian
inscriptions. His attack upon Ammon probably arose, in part at least,
from a desire to possess himself of whatever lay between Egypt and the
Carthaginian territory. But the Phoenician sailors who manned his
fleet refused to sail against their brethren in
Carthage. Cambyses assumed the title and character of an
Egyptian sovereign. The story of his madness is an invention of the
Egyptian priests.
DARIUS (521-485 B.C.).—For a short time, a pretender, a Magian, who
called himself Smerdis, and professed to be the brother of
Cambyses, usurped the throne. Cambyses is said to have put an end to
his own life. After a reign of seven months, during which he kept
himself for the most part hidden from view, Smerdis was destroyed by a
rising of the leading Persian families. Darius, the son of Hystaspes,
of the royal race of the Achaemenidae, succeeded. He married
Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus. The countries which composed an
Oriental empire were so loosely held together that the death of a
despot or the change of a dynasty was very likely to call forth a
general insurrection. Darius showed his military prowess in conquering
anew various countries, including Babylon, which had revolted. He made
Arabia tributary, and spread the bounds of his vast empire as far as
India and in North Africa. A mighty expedition which he organized
against the Scythians on the Lower Danube failed of the results that
were hoped from it. The barbarians wasted their own fields, filled up
their wells, drove off their cattle, and fled as the army of Darius
advanced. He returned, however, with the bulk of his army intact,
although with a loss of prestige, and enrolled "the Scyths beyond the
sea" among the subjects of his empire. His armies conquered the tribes
of Thrace, so that he pushed his boundaries to the frontiers of
Macedonia. The rebellion of the Greek cities on the Asia-Minor coast
he suppressed, and harshly avenged. Of his further conflicts with the
Greeks on the mainland, more is to be said hereafter. He had built
Persepolis, but his principal seat of government appears to
have been Susa. He did a great work in organizing his imperial
system. The division into satrapies—large districts, each
under a satrap, or viceroy—was a part of this work. He thus
introduced a more efficient and methodical administration into his
empire,—an empire four times as large as the empire of Assyria, which
it had swallowed up.
GOVERNMENT.—Persia proper corresponded nearly to the modern province
of Farsistan or Fars. The Persian Empire stretched from
east to west for a distance of about three thousand miles, and was
from five hundred to fifteen hundred miles in width. It was more than
half as large as modern Europe. It comprised not less than two
millions of square miles. Its population under Darius may have been
seventy or eighty millions. He brought in uniformity of
administration. In each satrapy, besides the satrap himself, who was a
despot within his own dominion, there was at first a commander of the
troops, and a secretary, whose business it was to make reports to the
GREAT KING. These three officers were really watchmen over one
another. It was through spies ("eyes" and "ears") of the king that he
was kept informed of what was taking place in every part of the
empire. At length it was found necessary to give the satraps the
command of the troops, which took away one important check upon their
power. There was a regular system of taxation, but to this were added
extraordinary and oppressive levies. Darius introduced a uniform
coinage. The name of the coin, "daric," is probably not derived from
his name, however. Notwithstanding the government by satraps, local
laws and usages were left, to a large extent, undisturbed. Great
roads, and postal communication for the exclusive use of the
government, connected the capital with the distant provinces. In this
point the Persians set an example which was followed by the
Romans. From Susa to Sardis, a distance of about
seventeen hundred English miles, stretched a road, along which, at
proper intervals, were caravansaries, and over which the fleet
couriers of the king rode in six or seven days. The king was an
absolute lord and master, who disposed of the lives and property of
his subjects without restraint. To him the most servile homage was
paid. He lived mostly in seclusion in his palace. On great occasions
he sat at banquet with his nobles. His throne was made of gold,
silver, and ivory. All who approached him kissed the earth. His
ordinary dress was probably of the richest silk. He took his meals
mostly by himself. His fare was made up of the choicest
delicacies. His seraglio, guarded by eunuchs, contained a multitude of
inmates, brought together by his arbitrary command, over whom, in a
certain way, the queen-mother presided. His chief diversions were
playing at dice within doors, and hunting without. Paradises,
or parks, walled in, planted with trees and shrubbery, and furnished
with refreshing fountains and streams, were his hunting-ground. Such
inclosures were the delight of all Persians. In war he was attended
with various officers in close attendance on his person,—the
stool-bearer, the bow-bearer, etc. In peace, there was another set,
among whom was "the parasol-bearer,"—for to be sheltered by the
parasol was an exclusive privilege of the king,—the fan-bearer,
etc. There were certain privileged families,—six besides the royal
clan of the Achæmenidæ, the chiefs of all of which were his
counselors, and from whom he was bound to choose his legitimate
wives. When the monarch traveled, even on military expeditions, he was
accompanied by the whole varied apparatus of luxury which ministered
to his pleasures in the court,—costly furniture, a vast retinue of
attendants, of inmates of the harem, etc.
ARMY AND NAVY.—The arms of the footman were a sword, a spear, and a
bow. Persian bowmen were skillful. Persian cavalry, both heavy and
light, were their most effective arm. The military leaders depended on
the celerity of their horsemen and the weight of their numbers. It is
doubtful whether they employed military engines. They were not wholly
ignorant of strategy. Their troops were marshaled by nations, each in
its own costume, the commander of the whole being in the center of the
line of battle. The body-guard of the king was "the Immortals," a body
of ten thousand picked footmen, the number being always kept
intact. The enemies of the Persians, except in the case of rebels,
were not treated with inhumanity. In this regard the Persians are in
marked contrast with the Semitic ferocity of the Assyrians. Their
navies were drawn from the subject-peoples. The trireme, with
its projecting prow shod with iron, and its crew of two hundred men,
was the principal, but not the only vessel used in sea-fights.
LITERATURE AND ART.—A Persian youth was ordinarily taught to read,
but there was little intellectual culture. Boys were trained in
athletic exercises. It was a discipline in hardy and temperate
habits. Etiquette, in all ranks of the people, was highly
esteemed. The Persians, as a nation, were bright-minded, and not
deficient in fancy and imagination. But they contributed little to
science. Their religious ideas were an heirloom from remote
ancestors. The celebrated Persian poet, Firdousí, lived in the
tenth century of our era. His great poem, the Shahnameh, or
Book of Kings, is a storehouse of ancient traditions. It is probable
that the ancient poetry of the Persians, like this production, was of
moderate merit. Of the Persian architecture and sculpture, we derive
our knowledge from the massive ruins of Persepolis, which was
burned by Alexander the Great, and from the remains of other
cities. They had learned from Assyria and Babylon, but they display no
high degree of artistic talent. They were not an intellectual people:
they were soldiers and rulers.
LITERATURE—Works mentioned on pp 16, 42; Encycl. Brit.,
Art. Persia; Vaux, Persia from the Monuments (1876); Nöldeke,
Aufsdtze zur persischen Geschichte (1887); Justi,
Geschichte trans (1900); Markham, General Sketch of the
History of Persia (1874).
RETROSPECT.
In Eastern Asia the Chinese nation was built up, the principal
achievement of the Mongolian race. Its influence was restricted to
neighboring peoples of kindred blood. Its civilization, having once
attained to a certain stage of progress, remained for the most part
stationary. China, in its isolation, exerted no power upon the general
course of history. Not until a late age, when the civilization of the
Caucasian race should be developed, was the culture of China to
produce, in the mingling of the European and Asiatic peoples, its full
fruits, even for China herself. India—although the home of a
Caucasian immigrant people, a people of the Aryan family too—was cut
off by special causes from playing an effective part, either actively
or passively, in the general historic movement.
Egypt, from 1500 to 1300 B.C., was the leading community of the
ancient world. But civilization in Egypt, at an early date,
crystallized in an unchanging form. The aim was to preserve unaltered
what the past had brought out. The bandaged mummy, the result of the
effort to preserve even the material body of man for all future time,
is a type of the leaden conservatism which pervaded Egyptian life. The
pre-eminence of Egypt was lost by the rise of the Semitic states to
increasing power. Semitic arms and culture were in the
ascendant for six centuries (1300 to 700 B.C.). Babylonia
shares with Egypt the distinction of being one of the two chief
fountains of culture. From Babylonia, astronomy, writing, and other
useful arts were disseminated among the other Semitic peoples. It was
a strong state even before 2000 B.C. Babylon was a hive of industry,
and was active in trade, a link of intercourse between the East and
the West. But this function of an intermediate was discharged still
more effectively by the Phoenicians, the first great commercial
and naval power of antiquity. Tyre reached the acme of its
prosperity under Hiram, the contemporary of Solomon,
about 1000 B.C. Meantime, among the Hebrew people, the foundations of
the true religion had been laid,—that religion of monotheism which in
future ages was to leaven the nations. Contemporaneously, the
Assyrian Monarchy was rising to importance on the banks of the
Tigris. The appearance, "in the first half of the ninth century B.C.,
of a power advancing from the heart of Asia towards the West, is an
event of immeasurable importance in the history of the world." The
Israelites were divided. About the middle of the eighth century
B.C., both of their kingdoms lost their independence. Assyria was
vigorous in war, but had no deep foundation of national life. "Its
religion was not rooted in the soil, like that of Egypt, nor based on
the observation of the sky and stars, like that of Babylon." "Its gods
were gods of war, manifesting themselves in the prowess of ruling
princes." The main instrument in effecting the downfall of Assyria was
the Medo-Persian power. Through the Medes and
Persians, the Aryan race comes forward into conspicuity and
control. One branch of the Iranians of Bactria, entering India,
through the agency of climate and other physical influences converted
their religion into a mystical and speculative pantheism, and their
social organization into a caste-system under the rule of a
priesthood. The Medes and Persians, under other circumstances, in
contact with tribes about them, turned their religion into a dualism,
yet with a monotheistic drift that was not wholly extinguished. The
conquest of Babylon by Cyrus annihilated Semitic power. The
fall of Lydia, the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses,
and the victories of Darius, brought the world into subjection
to Persian rule.
The dates of some of the most important historical events in this
Section are as follow
Menes, the first historic king of Egypt……. about 4000 B.C.
Accession of Ramses II. to the Egyptian throne…… 1340 B.C.
Rise of the Babylonian kingdom……………. about 4000 B.C.
Reign of Hiram at Tyre, and of Solomon…….. about 950 B.C.
Assyrian captivity: downfall of Israel…………… 722 B.C.
Fall of Nineveh……………………………….. 606 B.C.
Babylonian captivity: downfall of Judah………….. 586 B.C.
Reign of Cyrus begins………………………….. 559 B.C.
Fall of Lydia: capture of Sardis………………… 546 B.C.
Fall of Babylon……………………………….. 538 B.C.
Reign of Darius begins…………………………. 521 B.C.
BEGINNINGS OF CIVILIZATION.—In the history of Western Asia we
discern the beginnings of civilization and of the true religion. In
the room of useless and destructive tribal warfare, great numbers are
banded together under despotic rule. CITIES were built, where property
and life could be protected, and within whose massive walls of vast
circumference the useful arts and the rudiments of science could
spring up. Trade and commerce, by land and sea, naturally
followed. Thus nations came to know one another. Aggressive war and
subjugation had a part in the same result. The power of the peoples of
western Asia, the guardians of infant civilization, availed to keep
back the hordes of barbarians on the north, or, as in the case of the
great Scythian invasion (p. 47), to drive them back to their own
abodes.
DEFECTS OF ASIATIC CIVILIZATION.—But the civilization of the Asiatic
empires had radical and fatal defects. The development of human nature
was in some one direction, to the exclusion of other forms of human
activity. As to knowledge, it was confined within a limit beyond which
progress was slow. The geometry of Egypt and the
astronomy of Babylon remained where the necessity of the
pyramid-builders and the superstition of the astrologers had carried
them. Even the art of war was in a rudimental stage. In battle, huge
multitudes were precipitated upon one another. There are some
evidences of strategy, when we reach the campaigns of Cyrus. But war
was full of barbarities,—the destruction of cities, the expatriation
of masses of people, the pitiless treatment of
captives. Architecture exhibits magnitude without
elegance. Temples, palaces, and tombs are monuments of labor rather
than creations of art. They impress oftener by their size than by
their beauty. Statuary is inert and massive, and appears
inseparable from the buildings to which it is
attached. Literature, with the exception of the Hebrew, is
hardly less monotonous than art. The religion of the Semitic nations,
the Hebrews excepted, so far from containing in it a purifying
element, tended to degrade its votaries by feeding the flame of
sensual and revengeful passion. What but debasement could come from
the worship of Astarte and the Phoenician El?
The great empires did not assimilate the nations which they
comprised. They were bound, but not in the least fused, together.
Persia went farther than any other empire in creating a uniform
administration, but even the Persian Empire remained a conglomerate of
distinct peoples.
ORIENTAL GOVERNMENT.—The government of the Oriental nations was a
despotism. It was not a government of laws, but the will of the one
master was omnipotent. The counterpart of tyranny in the ruler was
cringing, abject servility in the subject. Humanity could not thrive,
man could not grow to his full stature, under such a system. It was on
the soil of Europe and among the Greeks that a better type of manhood
and a true idea of liberty were to spring up.
DIVISION II. EUROPE.
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.—The Alps, continued on the west by the Pyrenees
and the Cantabrian mountains, and carried eastward to the Black Sea by
the Balkan range, form an irregular line, that separates the three
peninsulas of Spain, Italy, and Greece from the great plain of central
Europe. On the north of this plain, there is a corresponding system of
peninsulas and islands, where the Baltic answers in a measure to the
Mediterranean. This midland sea, which at once unites and separates
the three continents, is connected with the Atlantic by the narrow
Strait of Gibraltar, and on the east is continued in the Aegean Sea,
or the Archipelago, which leads into the Hellespont, or the Strait of
the Dardanelles, thence onward into the Propontis, or Sea of Marmora,
and through the Bosphorus into the Black Sea, and the Sea of Azoff
beyond. From the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean the Mediterranean is
parted by a space which is now traversed by a canal. The irregularity
of the coast-line is one of the characteristic features of the
European continent. Especially are the northern shores of the
Mediterranean indented by arms of the sea; and this, along with the
numerous islands, marks out the whole region as remarkably adapted to
maritime life and commercial intercourse.
ITS INHABITANTS.—Europe was early inhabited by branches of the
Aryan race. The cradle or primitive seat of the Aryan family
—from which its two main divisions, the European and the Asiatic,
went forth—is not known. It is a matter of theory and debate. We find
the Graeco-Latin peoples on the south, the more central nations
of Celtic speech, the more northern Teutons, and in the
north-east the Slavonians. But how all these Aryan branches are
mutually related, and of the order and path of their prehistoric
migrations, little is definitely known. The Celts were
evidently preceded by non-Aryan inhabitants, of whom the
Basques in Spain and France are a relic. The
Celtiberians in Spain, as the name implies, were a mixture of
the Celts with the native non-Aryan Iberians. The
Greeks and the Italians had a common ancestry, as we
know by their languages; but of that common ancestry neither Greeks
nor Latins in the historic period retained any recollection; nor can
we safely affirm, that, of that earlier stock, they alone were the
offspring.
"All the known Indo-European languages," writes Professor Whitney,
"are descended from a single dialect, which must have been spoken at
some time in the past by a single limited community, by the spread
and emigration of which—not, certainly, without incorporating also
bodies of other races than that to which itself belonged by
origin—it has reached its present wide distribution." "Of course,
it would be a matter of the highest interest to determine the place
and period of this important community, were there any means of
doing so; but that is not the case, at least at present." "The
condition of these languages is reconcilable with any possible
theory as to the original site of the family." "One point is
established, that 'the separation of the five European branches must
have been later than their common separation from the two Asiatic
branches,' the Iranians and Indians." (Whitney's The Life and
Growth of Language, pp. 191, 193.)
SECTION I. GRECIAN HISTORY.
THE LAND.—"Greeks" is not a name which the people who bore it applied
to themselves. It was a name given them by their kinsfolk, the
Romans. They called themselves Hellenes, and their land they
called Hellas. Hellas, or Greece proper, included the southern
portion of the peninsula of which it is a part, the portion bounded on
the north by Olympus and the Cambunian Mountains, and extending south
to the Mediterranean. Its shores were washed on the east by the
Aegean, on the west by the Adriatic, or Ionian Gulf. The length of
Hellas was about two hundred and fifty English miles: its greatest
width, measured on the northern frontier, or from Attica on a line
westward, was about a hundred and eighty miles. It is somewhat smaller
than Portugal.
Along its coast are many deep bays. Long and narrow promontories run
out into the sea. Thus a great length is given to the sea-coast, which
abounds in commodious harbors. The tideless waters are safe for
navigators. Scattered within easy distance of the shore are numerous
islands of great fertility and beauty. So high and rugged are the
mountains that communication between different places is commonly
easier by water than by land. A branch of the Alps at the forty-second
parallel of latitude turns to the south-east, and descends to
Toenarum, the southern promontory. On either side, lateral
branches are sent off, at short intervals, to the east and the
west. From these in turn, branches, especially on the east, are thrown
out in the same direction as the main ridge; that is, from north to
south. Little room is left for plains of much extent. Thessaly,
with its single river, the Peneus, was such a plain. There were
no navigable rivers. Most of the streams were nothing more than
winter-torrents, whose beds were nearly or quite dry in the
summer. They often groped their way to the sea through underground
channels, either beneath lakes or in passages which the streams
themselves bored through limestone. The physical features of the
country fitted it for the development of small states, distinct from
one another, yet, owing especially to the relations of the land to the
sea, full of life and movement.
THE GRECIAN STATES.—The territory of Greece included (1) Northern
Greece, comprising all north of the Malian (Zeitoum) and Ambracian
(Arta) gulfs; (2) Central Greece, extending thence to the Gulf of
Corinth; (3) the peninsula of Peloponnesus (Morea) to the south of the
isthmus. The country was occupied, in the flourishing days of Greece,
by not less than seventeen states.
Northern Greece contained two principal countries,
Thessaly and Epirus, separated from one another by the
Pindus. Thessaly was the largest and most fertile of the
Grecian states. The Peneus, into which poured the mountain
streams, passed to the sea through a narrow gorge, the famous Vale
of Tempe. In the mountainous region of Epirus were numerous
streams flowing through the valleys. Within it was the ancient
Dodona, the seat of the oracle. Magnesia, east of
Thessaly, on the coast, comprised within it the two ranges of
Ossa and Pelion. Central Greece contained eleven
states. Malis had on its eastern edge the pass of
Thermopylae. In Phocis, on the southern slope of Mount
Parnassus, was Delphi. Boeotia was distinguished for the
number and size of its cities, the chief of which was Thebes.
Attica projected from Boeotia to the south-east, its length
being seventy miles, and its greatest width thirty miles. Its area was
only about seven hundred and twenty square miles. It was thus only a
little more than half as large as the State of Rhode Island, which has
an area of thirteen hundred and six square miles. Its only important
town was Athens. Its rivers, the Ilissus and the two
Cephissusses, were nothing more than torrent courses. In
Southern Greece were eleven countries. The territory of
Corinth embraced most of the isthmus, and a large tract in
Peloponnesus. It had but one considerable city, Corinth, which
had two ports,—one on the Corinthian Gulf, Lechoeum, and the
other on the Saronic Gulf, Cenchreae. Arcadia, the
central mountain country, has been called the Switzerland of
Peloponnesus. It comprised numerous important towns, as
Mantinea, Orchomenus, and, in later times,
Megalopolis. In the south-east was Laconia, with an area
of about nineteen hundred square miles. It consisted mainly of the
valley of the Eurotas, which lay between the lofty mountain
ranges of Parnon and Taygetus. "Hollow Lacedaemon" was a
phrase descriptive of its situation. Sparta, the capital, was
on the Eurotas, twenty miles from the sea. It had no other
important city. Argolis, projecting into the sea, eastward of
Arcadia, had within it the ancient towns of Mycenae and
Argos.
THE ISLANDS.—It must be remembered that the waters between Europe and
Asia were not a separating barrier, but a close bond of
connection. There is scarcely a single point "where, in clear weather,
a mariner would feel himself left in a solitude between sky and water;
the eye reaches from island to island, and easy voyages of a day lead
from bay to bay." Greek towns, including very ancient places, were
scattered along the western coast of Asia Minor, between the mountains
and the shore. The Aegean was studded with Greek islands. These,
together with the islands in the Ionian Sea, on the west, formed a
part of Greek territory.
The principal island near Greece was Euboea, stretching for a
hundred miles along the east coast of Attica, Boeotia, and Locris. On
the opposite side of the peninsula, west of Epirus, was the smaller
but yet large island of Corcyra (Corfu). On the west, besides,
were Ithaca, Cephallenia, and Zacynthus (Zante);
on the south, the Oenussae Islands and Cythera; on the
east, Aegina, Salamis, etc. From the south-eastern
shores of Euboea and Attica, the Cyclades and Sporades
extended in a continuous series, "like a set of stepping-stones,"
across the Aegean Sea to Asia Minor. From Corcyra and the
Acroceraunian promontory, one could descry, in clear weather, the
Italian coast. These were all littoral islands. Besides these, there
were other islands in the northern and central Aegean, such as
Lemnos, Samothrace, Delos, Naxos, etc.;
and in the southern Aegean, Crete, an island mountainous but
fertile, a hundred and fifty miles in length from east to west, and
about fifteen in breadth, and containing more than two thousand square
miles. The Greek race was still more widely diffused through the
settlements in and about the western Mediterranean.
THE BOND OF RACE.—The Greeks, or Hellenes, were not so much a nation
as a united race. Politically divided, they were conscious of a
fraternal bond that connected them, wherever they might be found, and
parted them from the rest of mankind. Their sense of brotherhood is
implied in the fabulous belief in a common ancestor named
Hellen. Together with a fellowship in blood, there was a
community in language, notwithstanding minor differences in
dialect. Moreover, there was a common religion. They worshiped the
same gods. They had the same ritual, and cherished in common the same
beliefs respecting things supernatural. In connection with these ties
of blood, of language, and of religion, they
celebrated together great national festivals, like the Olympic games,
in which Greeks from all parts of the world might take part, and into
which they entered with a peculiar enthusiasm. As the Jews, following
the impulses of a holier faith, went up to Jerusalem to celebrate as
one family their sacred rites; so the Greeks repaired to hallowed
shrines of Zeus or Apollo, assembling from afar on the plain of
Olympia and at the foot of Parnassus.
DIVISIONS OF GREEK HISTORY.
Greek history embraces three general periods. The first is the
formative period, and extends to the Persian wars, 500 B.C. The second
period covers the flourishing era of Greece, from 500 B.C. to 359
B.C. The third is the Macedonian period, when the freedom of Greece
was lost,—the era of Philip and Alexander, and of Alexander's
successors.
PERIOD I. is divided into (1) the mythical or prehistoric age,
extending to 776 B.C.; (2) the age of the formation of the principal
states. PERIOD II. includes (1) the Persian wars, 502-479 B.C.; (2)
the period of Athenian supremacy, 478-431 B.C.; (3) the Peloponnesian
war, 431-404 B.C., with the Spartan, followed by the Theban
ascendency, 404-362 B.C. PERIOD III. includes (1) the reigns of Philip
and Alexander, 359-323 B.C.; (2) the kingdoms into which the empire of
Alexander was divided.
PERIOD I. GREECE PRIOR TO THE PERSIAN WARS.
CHAPTER I. THE PREHISTORIC AGE.
ORIGIN OF THE GREEKS—Before the Hellenes parted from their Aryan
ancestry, they had words for "father," "mother," "brother," "son," and
"daughter," as well as for certain connections by marriage. They lived
in houses, pastured flocks and herds, possessed dogs and horses. They
had for weapons, the sword and the bow. "They knew how to work gold,
silver, and copper; they could count up to a hundred; they reckoned
time by the lunar month; they spoke of the sky as the
'heaven-father.'" The differences between the Greek and the Latin
languages prove, also, that the Greeks and Italians, after their
common progenitors broke off from the primitive Aryan stock, had long
dwelt apart. The Greeks, when they first become known to us in
historical times, consist of two great branches, the Dorians
and Ionians, together with a less distinct branch, the
Aeolians, which differs less, perhaps, from the parent
Hellenes than do the two divisions just named.
It is a probable opinion of scholars, that the halting-place of the
Hellenes, whence, in successive waves, they passed over into Greece,
was Phrygia, in the north-west of Asia Minor. Preceding the
Greeks both in northern Greece and in Peloponnesus, and spread over
the coasts and islands of the Archipelago, was a people of whom they
had an indistinct knowledge, whom they called Pelasgians. They
were husbandmen or herdsmen. Their national sanctuary was at
Dodona, in Epirus. The "Cyclopean" ruins, composed of huge
polygonal blocks of stone, which they left behind in various places,
are the remnant of their walls and fortifications. The Greeks looked
back on these Pelasgian predecessors as different from themselves. Yet
no reminiscences existed of any hostility towards them. It is
plausibly conjectured that this prehistoric people were emigrants from
the region of Phrygia at a more ancient date, and that the Hellenes, a
more energetic and gifted branch of the same stock, followed them,
and, without force or conflict, became the founders and leaders of a
new historic movement, in which the Pelasgians disappeared from
view. In this second migration, the ancestors of the Ionians
went down from Phrygia to the coast of Asia Minor, and began the
career which made them a maritime and commercial people. The
Dorians crossed over to the highlands of northern Greece, where
they became hardy mountaineers, not addicted to the sea. The one tribe
were to be eventually the founders of Athens; the other, of
Sparta. Besides these two main tribes, the Aeolians
occupied Thessaly, Boeotia, Aetolia, and other districts. To them the
Achaeans, who were supreme in Peloponnesus in the days of
Homer, were allied.
FOREIGN INFLUENCES.—Besides Phrygia, the legends of the Greeks bear
traces of a foreign influence from Phoenicia and
Egypt. The Phoenicians were unquestionably early connected with
the Greeks, first by commercial visits to Greek ports, to which they
brought foreign merchandise. The story of Cadmus, who is said
to have founded Thebes, and to have brought in the Phoenician
alphabet, is fabulous. But it is probable, that, as early as the close
of the ninth century B.C., the alphabet was introduced by
Phoenicians, and diffused over Greece. Another legend is that of
Cecrops, conceived of later as an Egyptian, who is said to have
built a citadel at Athens, and to have imported the seeds of
civilization and religion. Danaus, another emigrant from Egypt,
coming with his fifty daughters, is said to have built the citadel of
Argos. In the later times, the Greeks were fond of tracing
their knowledge of the arts to Egyptian sources. It is remarkable that
the agents by whom germs of civilization were said to have been
imported from abroad, though foreign, are nevertheless depicted as
thoroughly Greek in their character. Whatever the Greeks may have owed
to Egypt, it is probable was mainly derived from Ionians who had
previously planted themselves in that country.
THE DORIAN EMIGRATION.—It was in the prehistoric time that the
Dorians left their homes in northern Greece, and migrated into
Peloponnesus, where they proved themselves stronger than the Ionians
and the Achaeans dwelling there. They left the Achaeans on the south
coast of the Corinthian Gulf, in the district called Achaia. Nor did
they conquer Arcadia. But of most of Peloponnesus they became
masters. This is the portion of historic truth contained in the myth
of the Return of the Heraclidae, the descendants of Hercules,
to the old kingdom of their ancestor.
MIGRATIONS TO ASIA MINOR.—The Dorian conquest is said to have been
the cause of three distinct migrations to Asia Minor. The Achaeans,
with their Aeolic kinsmen on the north, established themselves on the
north-west coast of Asia Minor, Lesbos and Cyme being
their strongholds, and by degrees got control in Mysia and the
Troad. Ionic emigrants from Attica joined their brethren on the
same coast. The Dorians settled on the south-west coast; they also
settled Cos and Rhodes, and at length subdued
Crete. The Dorian conquest of Peloponnesus, and the migrations
just spoken of, were slow in their progress, and possibly stretched
over centuries.
CHARACTER OF THE GREEKS.—Originality is a distinguishing trait
of the Greeks. Whatever they borrowed from others they made their own,
and reproduced in a form peculiar to themselves. They were never
servile copyists. All the products of the Greek mind, whether in
government, art, literature, or in whatever province of human
activity, wear a peculiar stamp. When we leave Asiatic ground, and
come into contact with the Greeks, we find ourselves in another
atmosphere. A spirit of humanity, in the broad sense of the term,
pervades their life. A regard for reason, a sense of order, a
disposition to keep every thing within measure, is a marked
characteristic. Their sense of form—including a perception of beauty,
and of harmony and proportion—made them in politics and letters the
leaders of mankind. "Do nothing in excess," was their favorite
maxim. They hated every thing that was out of proportion. Their
language, without a rival in flexibility and symmetry and in
perfection of sound, is itself, though a spontaneous creation, a work
of art. "The whole language resembles the body of an artistically
trained athlete, in which every muscle, every sinew, is developed into
full play, where there is no trace of tumidity or of inert matter, and
all is power and life." The great variety of the spiritual gifts of
this people, the severest formulas of science, the loftiest flights of
imagination, the keenest play of wit and humor, were capable of
precise and effective expression in this language "as in ductile
play." The use of the language, so lucid and so nice in its
discriminations, was itself an education for the young who grew up to
hear it and to speak it. In a genial yet invigorating climate, in a
land where breezes from the mountain and the sea were mingled, the
versatile Greeks produced by physical training that vigor and grace of
body which they so much admired; and they developed the civil polity,
the artistic discernment, and the complex social life, which made them
the principal source of modern culture. Their moral traits are not so
admirable. As a race they were less truthful, and less marked for
their courage and loyalty, than some other peoples below them in
intellect.
RELIGION.—In the early days, when Greece was open to foreign
influences, the simple religion of the Aryan fathers was enlarged by
new elements from abroad. The Tyrian deity, Melkart, appears at
Corinth as Melicertes. Astarte becomes Aphrodite
(Venus), who springs from the sea. The myth of Dionysus and the
worship of Demeter (Ceres) may be of foreign
origin. Poseidon (Neptune), the god of the sea, and
Apollo, the god of light and of healing, whose worship carried
in it cheer and comfort, though they were brought into Greece, were
previously known to the lonians. By Homer and Hesiod,
the great poets of the prehistoric age, the gods in these successive
dynasties, their offices and mutual relations, were depicted. In
Hesiod they stand in a connected scheme or theogony.
1. There are the twelve great gods and goddesses of Olympus, who
were named by the Greeks,—Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, Arês, Hêphaestos,
Hermês, Hêrê, Athênê, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hestia,
Dêmêtêr. 2. Numerous other divinities, not included among the
Olympic, but some not less important than the twelve. Such are
Hadês, Hêlíos, Dionysus, the Charites, the Muses, the Nereids, the
Nymphs, etc. 3. Deities who perform special service to the greater
gods,—Iris, Hêbe, the Horae;, etc. 4. Deities whose personality is
less distinct,—Atê, Eris, Thanatos, Hypnos, etc. 5. Monsters,
progeny of the gods,—the Harpies, the Gorgons, Pegasus, Chimaera,
Cerberus, Scylla and Charybdis, the Centaurs, the Sphinx. Below the
gods are the demigods or heroes.
LEGENDS OF HEROES.—The space which precedes the beginning of
authentic records, the Greeks filled up with mythical tales, in which
gods and heroes are the central figures. The heroes are partly of
divine parentage. They are in near intercourse with the deities. Their
deeds are superhuman, and embody those ideals of character and of
achievement which the early Greeks cherished. The production of a
lively imagination, before the dawn of the critical faculty or the
growth of reflection, these tales may yet include a nucleus of
historical incident or vague reminiscences of historical relations and
changes. To attempt to extract these from the fictitious form in which
they are embodied, is for the most part hopeless.
The exploits of Heracles (Hercules) have a prominent place in
the legends. This hero of Argos submitted to serve a cruel tyrant,
but, by prodigious labors (twelve in number), delivered men from
dangerous beasts,—the Lernaean hydra, the Nemean lion, etc.,—and
performed other miraculous services. Theseus, the national hero
of Attica, cleared the roads of savage robbers, and delivered his
country from bondage. Minos, the mythical legislator of Crete,
cleared the sea of pirates, and founded a maritime state. Of the
legendary stories, three of the most famous are The Seven against
Thebes The Argonautic Expedition, and The Trojan
War. I. Laius, king of Thebes, was told by an oracle that
he should be killed by his son. He exposed him, therefore, as soon as
he was born, on Mount Cithaeron. Saved by a herdsman, Oedipus was
brought up by Polybus, king of Corinth, as his own son. Warned by the
oracle that he should kill his father, and marry his mother, the son
forsook Corinth, and made his abode at Thebes. Meeting Laius in a
narrow pass, and provoked by his attendants, he slew them and him. At
Thebes there was a female monster, the Sphinx, who propounded a
riddle, and each day devoured a man until it should be solved. Oedipus
won the prize which the Queen Jocaste had offered; namely, the
crown and her own hand to whomsoever should free the city. When his
two sons and daughters had grown up, a pestilence broke out; and the
oracle demanded that the murderer of Laius should be
banished. Oedipus, in spite of the warnings of the blind priest,
Tiresias, finds out the truth. He puts out his eyes, and is
driven into exile by his sons, whom he curses. Under the guidance of
his daughter Antigone, he finds a resting-place at
Colonus, a suburb of Athens, in a grove of the
Eumenides, whose function it was to avenge such crimes as his.
He received expiation at the hands of Theseus, and died in a
calm and peaceful way. This legend was the basis of some of the finest
of the Greek dramas, "Oedipus Tyrannus," and the "Oedipus at Colonus"
of Sophocles, and "The Seven against Thebes" of
Aeschylus. The curse of Oedipus still rested on his sons. The
story of Antigone, defying the tyrant Creon, and burying
her slain brother, Polynices, is the foundation of the drama of
Sophocles, bearing her name. Finally, the Epigoni,
descendants of the Seven who had fought Thebes, captured and destroyed
that city.
2. Argonauts were described as a band of heroes, who, through
perilous and unknown seas, sailed from Iolcos in Thessaly, in the ship
"Argo," to Colchis, whence they brought away the golden fleece which
had been stolen, and which they found nailed to an oak, and guarded by
a sleepless dragon. Jason, the leader, was accompanied on his
return by the enchantress, Medea, who had aided him. She, in
order to delay their pursuers, killed her brother Absyrtus, and
threw his body, piece by piece, into the sea. Her subsequent story
involves various other tragic events.
3. The most noted of the legends is the story of the Trojan war. The
deeds of the heroes of this war are the subject of the
Iliad. Paris, son of Priam, king of Ilios (Troy),
in Asia Minor, carried off Helen, the wife of Menelaus,
king of Sparta. To recover her, the Greeks united in an expedition
against Troy, which they took after a siege of ten years. Agamemnon,
Achilles, Odysseus (Ulysses), Ajax son of Telamon, and Ajax son of
Oileus, Diomedes, and Nestor were among the chiefs on the Greek
side. Troy had its allies. The "Odyssey" relates to the long journey
of Odysseus on his return to Ithaca, his home. That there was
an ancient city, Troy, is certain. A conflict between the Greeks and a
kindred people there, is probable. Not unlikely, there was a military
expedition of Grecian tribes. Every thing beyond this is either
plainly myth, or incapable of verification.
UNIONS OF TRIBES.—During the period when the Greek population was
dispersing itself in the districts which its different fractions
occupied in the historic ages, there arose unions among tribes near
one another, for religious purposes. They preceded treaties and
alliances of the ordinary kind. Such tribes agreed to celebrate, in
common, certain solemn festivals. Deputies of these tribes met at
stated intervals to look after the temple and the lands pertaining to
it. Out of these unions, there grew stipulations relative to the mode
of conducting war and other matters of common interest. Treaties of
peace and of mutual defense might follow. Thus arose combinations of
states, in which one state, the strongest, would have the
hegemony, or lead. This became an established characteristic of
Greek political life. It was a system of federal unions under the
headship of the most powerful member of the confederacy. When such a
union was formed, it established a common worship or festival.
THE DELPHIC AMPHICTYONY.—In the north of Greece, there was formed, in
early times, a great religious union. It was composed of twelve tribes
banded together for the worship of Apollo at Delphi, and
to guard his temple. It was called the Delphic Amphictyony, or "League
of Neighbors." The members of this body agreed not to destroy one
another's towns in war, and not to cut off running water from a town
which they were besieging.
THE DELPHIC ORACLE.—The sanctuary at Delphi, where the Amphictyonic
Council met, became the most famous temple in Greece. Here the oracle
of Apollo gave answers to those who came to consult that divinity. The
priests who managed the temple kept themselves well informed in regard
to occurrences in distant places. Their answers were often discreet
and wholesome, but not unfrequently obscure and ambiguous, and thus
misleading. In early times their moral influence in the nation
promoted justice and fraternal feeling. In later times they lost their
reputation for honesty and impartiality. In civil wars the priests
were sometimes bribed to support one of the contending parties.
THE HOMERIC POEMS.—Within the last century, there has been much
discussion about the authorship of the two poems, the Iliad and
the Odyssey. The place where they were composed, whether among
the Ionians in Greece proper or in Asia Minor, is still a matter of
debate. It was probably Asia Minor. Seven places contended for the
honor of having given birth to the blind bard. But nothing is known of
Homer's birthplace or history. It is doubtful whether the art of
writing was much, if at all, in use among the Greeks at the time of
the composition of the Iliad and Odyssey. We know that the custom
existed of repeating poems orally by minstrels or rhapsodists
at popular festivals. This may have been the mode in which for a time
the Homeric poems were preserved and transmitted. The Odyssey has more
unity than the Iliad, and seems to be of a somewhat later date. The
nucleus of the Iliad is thought by some scholars to be embedded in the
group of poems which, it is supposed, constitute the work at present;
but there is no evidence making it possible to identify any portion as
the work of Homer. Whatever may be the truth on these questions, the
Iliad and Odyssey present an invaluable picture of Greek life in the
period when they were composed, which was probably as early as 900
B.C.
SOCIAL LIFE IN THE HOMERIC AGE.—(1) Government. In the Homeric
portraiture of Greek life, there are towns; but the tribe is
predominant over the town. The tribe is ruled by a king, who is not
like an Eastern despot, but has about him a council of chiefs, and is
bound by the themistes, the traditional customs. There is,
besides, the agora, or popular assembly, where debates take
place among the chiefs, and to which their decisions, or rather the
decision of the king, on whom it devolves finally to determine every
thing, are communicated. Public speaking, it is seen, is practiced in
the infancy of Greek society. (2) Customs. People live in
hill-villages, surrounded by walls. Life is patriarchal, and, as
regards the domestic circle, humane. Polygamy, the plague of Oriental
society, does not exist. Women are held in high regard. Slavery is
everywhere established. Side by side with piracy and constant war, and
the supreme honor given to military prowess, there is a fine and
bountiful hospitality which is held to be a religious duty. In the
Homeric poems, there is often exhibited a noble refinement of thought
and sentiment, and a gentle courtesy. (3) Arts and Industry. In
war, the chariot is the engine: cavalry are unknown. The useful arts
are in a rudimental stage. Spinning and weaving are the constant
occupation of women. All garments are made at home: noble women join
with their slaves in washing them in the river. The condition of the
common freeman who took one temporary job after another, was
miserable. Of the condition of those who pursued special
occupations,—as the carpenter, the leather-dresser, the fisherman,
etc.,—we have no adequate information. The principal metals were in
use, and the art of forging them. There was no coined money: payment
was made in oxen. But there is hereditary individual property in land,
cultivated vineyards, temples of the gods, and splendid palaces of the
chiefs. (4) Geographical Knowledge. In Homer, there is a
knowledge of Greece, of the neighboring islands, and western Asia
Minor. References to other lands are vague. The earth is a sort of
flat oval, with the River Oceanus flowing round it. Hesiod is
better informed about places: he knows something of the Nile and of
the Scythians, and of some places as far west as Syracuse.
RELIGION IN THE HOMERIC AGE.—The Homeric poems give us a full idea of
the early religious ideas and practices, (I) The Nature of the
Gods.—The gods in Homer are human beings with greatly magnified
powers. Their dwelling is in the sky above us: their special abode is
Mount Olympus. They experience hunger, but feed on ambrosia and
nectar. They travel with miraculous speed. Their prime blessing is
exemption from mortality. Among themselves they are often discordant
and deceitful. (2) Relation of the Gods to Men. They are the
rulers and guides of nations. Though they act often from mere caprice
or favoritism, their sway is, on the whole, promotive of justice. Zeus
is supreme: none can contend with him successfully. The gods hold
communication with men. They also make known their will and intentions
by signs and portents,—such as thunder and lightning, or the sudden
passing of a great bird of prey. They teach men through dreams. (3)
Service of the Gods. Sacrifice and supplication are the chief
forms of devotion. There is no dominant hierarchy. The temple has its
priest, but the father is priest in his own household. (4) Morals
and Religion. Morality is interwoven with religion. Above all,
oaths are sacred, and oath-breakers abhorred by gods as well as
by men. In the conduct of the divinities, there are found abundant
examples of unbridled anger and savage retaliation. Yet gentle
sentiments, counsels to forbearance and mercy, are not wanting. The
wrath of the gods is most provoked by lawless self-assertion and
insolence. (5) Propitiation: the Dead. The sense of sin leads
to the appeasing of the deities by offerings, attended with
prayer. The offerings are gifts to the god, tokens of the honor due to
him. The dead live as flitting shadows in Hades. Achilles is
made to say that he would rather be a miserable laborer on earth than
to reign over all the dead in the abodes below.
GREEK LITERATURE.—The chief types, both of poetry and of prose,
originated with the Greeks. Their writings are the fountainhead of the
literature of Europe. They prized simplicity: they always had an
intense disrelish for obscurity and bombast. The earliest poetry of
the Greeks consisted of hymns to the gods. It was
lyrical, an outpouring of personal feeling. The lyrical type
was followed by the epic, where heroic deeds, or other events
of thrilling interest, are the theme of song, and the personal emotion
of the bard is out of sight through his absorption in the
subject. Description flows on, the narrator himself being in the
background. This epic poetry culminates in the Iliad and
Odyssey (900-700 B.C.). Their verse is the hexameter. These
poems move on in a swift current, yet without abruptness or
monotony. They are marked by a simplicity and a nobleness, a
refinement and a pathos, which have charmed all subsequent
ages. Homer, far more than any other author, was the educator
of the Greeks. There was a class called Homeridae, in
Chios; but whether they were themselves poets, or reciters of
Homer, or what else may have been their peculiar work, is not
ascertained. There was, however, a class of Cyclic poets, who
took up the legends of Troy, and carried out farther the Homeric
tales. Hesiod was the founder of a more didactic sort of
poetry. He is about a century later than the Iliad. Besides the
Theogony, which treats of the origin of the gods and of nature,
his Works and Days relates to the works which a farmer has to
do, and the lucky or unlucky days for doing them. It contains
doctrines and precepts relative to agriculture, navigation, civil and
family life. Hesiod was the first of a Boeotian school of poets. He
lacks the poetic genius of Homer, and the vivacity and cheerfulness
which pervade the Iliad and the Odyssey.
CHAPTER II. THE FORMATION OF THE PRINCIPAL STATES.
ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT.—The early kings were obeyed as much for
their personal qualities, such as valor and strength of body, as for
their hereditary title. By degrees the noble families about the king
took control, and the kingship thus gave way to the rule of an
aristocracy. The priestly office, which required special knowledge,
remained in particular families, as the _Eumolpidae_e at
Athens,—families to whom was ascribed the gift of the seer, and to
whom were known the Eleusinian mysteries. The nobles were
landholders, with dependent farmers who paid rent. The nobles held
sway over tillers of the soil, artisans and seamen, who constituted
the people (the "demos"), and who had no share in political
power. This state of things continued until the lower class gained
more property and more knowledge; and the example of the colonial
settlements, where there was greater equality, re-acted on the parent
state. The struggle of the lower ranks for freedom was of long
continuance. In all Greek cities, there were Metoeci, or
resident foreigners without political rights, and also slaves from
abroad. Free-born Greeks busied themselves with occupations connected
with the fine arts, or with trade and commerce on an extended
scale. They commonly eschewed all other employments, and especially
menial labor.
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE LYCURGUS.—According to the legend, disorders
in Sparta following the Dorian conquest, and strife between the
victors and the conquered, moved Lycurgus, a man of regal
descent, to retire to Crete, where the old Dorian customs were still
observed. On his return he gave to the citizens a constitution, which
was held in reverence by the generations after him. To him, also, laws
and customs which were really of later date, came to be ascribed. The
Spartan population consisted (1) of the Spartiatæ, who had full
rights, and those of less means,—both comprising the Dorian
conquerors. They were divided into three Phylæ, or tribes, each
composed of ten divisions (Obæ); (2) the Periæci, Achaeans who
paid tribute on the land which they held, were bound to military
service, but had no political rights; (3) the Helots, serfs of
the State, who were divided among the Spartiatæ by lot, and cultivated
their lands, paying to them a certain fraction of the harvest. The
form of government established by Lycurgus was an aristocratic
republic. The Council of Elders, twenty-eight in number, chosen for
life by the Phylæ, were presided over by two hereditary kings, who had
little power in time of peace, but unlimited command of the forces in
war. The popular assembly, composed of all Spartiatæ of thirty years
of age or upwards, could only decide questions without debate. Five
Ephors, chosen yearly by the Phylæ, acquired more and more
authority. Lycurgus is said to have divided the land into nine
thousand equal lots for the families of the Spartiatæ, and thirty
thousand for the Periceci. To keep down the helots required constant
vigilance, and often occasioned measures of extreme cruelty. The
Crypteia was an organized guard of young Spartans, whose
business it was to prevent insurrection.
LAWS AND CUSTOMS.—The Spartan state was thus aristocratic and
military. It took into its own hands the education of the young. Weak
and deformed children were left to perish in a ravine of Taygetus, or
thrust down among the Periceci. Healthy children at the age of seven
were taken from their homes, to be reared under the supervision of the
State. They had some literary instruction, but their chief training
was in gymnastics. They were exercised in hunting and in drills; took
their meals together in the syssitia (the public mess), where
the fare was rough and scanty; slept in dormitories together; and by
every means were disciplined for a soldier's life. The Spartan men
likewise fed at public tables, and slept in barracks, only making
occasional visits to their own houses. No money was in circulation
except iron: no one was permitted to possess gold or silver. Girls
were separately drilled in gymnastic exercises and made to be as hardy
as boys. Marriage was regulated by the State. There was more purity,
and women had a higher standing, in Sparta than in other parts of
Greece. The strength of the Spartan army was in the hoplites,
or heavy-armed infantry. In battle, messmates stood
together. Cowardice was treated with the utmost contempt. The rigorous
subordination of the young to their elders was maintained in war as in
peace. The legend held, that after this constitution of Lycurgus had
been approved by the Delphian oracle, he made the citizens swear to
observe it until he should return from a projected journey. He then
went to Crete, and stayed there until his death.
HEGEMONY OF SPARTA.—Having thus organized the body politic, Sparta
took the steps which gave it the hegemony in Peloponnesus and
over all Greece. First, it conquered the neighboring state of
Messenia in two great wars, the first ending about 725 B.C.,
and the second about 650 B.C. In the first of these wars, the
Messenians submitted to become tributary to Sparta, after their
citadel, Ithome, had been captured, and their defeated hero,
Aristodemus, had slain himself. Many of the vanquished
Messenians escaped from their country to Arcadia and Argolis. Some of
them fled farther, and founded Rhegium in Lower Italy. In the
second war, the Messenians revolted against the tyrannical rule of
Sparta, and at first, under Aristomenes, were successful, but
were afterwards defeated by the Spartans, who were inspirited for the
conflict by the war-songs of the Athenian poet,
Tyrtaeus. Aristomenes fled to Rhodes. Most of his people
were made helots. The Arcadians, after long resistance,
succumbed, and came under the Spartan hegemony (about 600
B.C.). Argos, too, was obliged to renounce its claim to this
position in favor of its Spartan antagonist, after its defeat by
Cleomenes, the Lacedaemonian king, at Thyrea (549 B.C.). The
Argive League was dissolved, and Sparta gained the right to
command in every war that should be waged in common by the
Peloponnesian states, the right, also, to determine the contingent of
troops which each should furnish, and to preside in the council of the
confederacy. She now began to spread her power beyond Peloponnesus,
entered into negotiations with Lydia (555 B.C.), and actually
sent an expedition to the coast of Asia (525 B.C.). Moreover as early
as 510 B.C., by interfering in the affairs of the states north of the
Corinthian isthmus, and with Attica in particular, she sowed
among the Athenians the seeds of a lasting enmity.
GOVERNMENT IN ATHENS: DRACO.—According to the legend, Codrus,
who died about 1068 B.C., was the last of the Athenian kings. The
Eupatrids, the noble families, abolished monarchy, and
substituted for the king an Archon, chosen for life by them out
of the family of Codrus. The Eupatrids stood in a sort of patriarchal
relation to the common people. The inhabitants were divided into four
tribes. These were subdivided, first into Brotherhoods and
Clans, and secondly, into classes based on consanguinity, and
classes arranged for taxation, military service, etc. The entire
community comprised the Nobles,—in whose hands the political
power was lodged,—the Farmers, and the Artisans. The
farmers and the artisans might gather in the Agora, and express
assent to public measures, or dissent. In process of time the archons
came to be chosen not from the family of Codrus exclusively, but from
the Eupatrids generally. From 682 B.C. they were nine in
number, and they served but for one year. The administration of
justice was in the hands of the nobles, who were not restrained by a
body of written laws. The archon Draco, about 621 B.C., in
order to check this evil, framed a code which seemed harsh, though
milder than the laws previously enforced. Later it was said of his
laws that they were written in blood. This legislation was a
concession to which the nobles were driven by an uprising. Their hard
treatment of debtors, many of whom were deprived of their liberty, had
stirred up a serious conflict between the people and their masters. A
rebellion, led by Cylon, one of the Eupatrids, was put down,
and punished by means involving treachery and sacrilege. The
insurgents were slain clinging to the altars of the gods, where they
had taken refuge. Not long after it became necessary to introduce
other reforms at the advice of Solon, one of "the seven wise
men of Greece." He had acquired popularity by recovering
Salamis from the Megarians, and in a sacred war against towns
which had robbed the temple of Apollo at Delphi.
LEGISLATION OF SOLON—The design of Solon was to substitute a better
system for the tyrannical oligarchy, but, at the same time, to keep
power mainly in the hands of the upper class. He divided the people
into four classes, according to the amount of their income. To the
richest of these the archonship, and admission into the
Areopagus, were confined. A new council was established, which
had the right to initiate legislation, composed of one hundred from
each of the four old tribes, and annually elected by the body of the
citizens. The Ecclesia, or assembly of the whole people, having
the right to choose the archons and councilors, was revived. Courts
of Appeal, with jury trials, were instituted. The old council of
the Areopagus was clothed with high judicial and executive
powers. There were laws to relieve a portion of the debtors from their
burdens, and to abolish servitude for debt. Every father was required
to teach his son a handicraft.
PARTIES IN ATHENS.—The legislation of Solon was a measure of
compromise. It satisfied neither party. After journeys abroad, he
passed his old age in Athens, and was a spectator of the rising
contests between the discordant factions, which his constitution was
only able for a time to curb. There were three parties,—a
re-actionary party under Lycurgus, a progressive party led by
Pisistratus, and a moderate or middle party under
Megacles.
THE TYRANTS.—At this time, in almost all of the Grecian states,
monarchy had given place to aristocracy. The reign of an
oligarchy, the unbridled sway of a few, was commonly the next
step. Against this the people in different states,—the
demos,—rose in revolt. The popular leader, or "demagogue," was
some conspicuous and wealthy noble, who thus acquired supreme
authority. In this way, in the seventh and sixth centuries, most of
the states were ruled by "tyrants,"—a term signifying absolute
rulers, whether their administration was unjust and cruel, or fair and
mild. They endeavored to fortify their rule by collecting poets,
artists, and musicians about them, for their own pleasure and for the
diversion of the populace. Occasionally they gave the people
employment in the erection of costly buildings. They formed alliances
with one another and with foreign kings. Not unfrequently they
practiced violence and extortion. The oligarchies sought to
dethrone them. Their overthrow often had for its result the
introduction of popular sovereignty. Among the most noted tyrants were
Periander of Corinth (625-585 B.C.), Pittacus in Lesbos
(589-579 B.C.), and Polycrates in Samos (535-522 B.C.).
The PISISTRATIDS.—The government of Athens, framed by Solon, was in
effect a "timocracy," or rule of the rich. At the head of the popular
party stood Pisistratus, a rich nobleman of high descent. He
succeeded, by means of his armed guard, in making himself master of
the citadel. Twice driven out of the city, he at length returned (538
B.C.), and gained permanent control by force of arms. He managed his
government with shrewdness and energy. Industry and trade
flourished. He decorated Athens with buildings and statues. Religious
festivals he caused to be celebrated with splendor. He ruled under the
legal forms by having archons chosen to suit him. He died 527
B.C. Hippias, his son, governed with mildness until his younger
brother and colleague in power, Hipparchus, was slain by the
two friends, Harmodius and Aristogiton. Then he gave the
rein to revengeful passion, and laid upon the people burdensome
taxes. Hippias was driven out of the city by the
Alcmaeonidae and other exiled nobles, assisted by the Spartan
king, Cleomenes (510 B.C.). He fled to Asia Minor in order to
secure Persian help.
THE ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY.—Clisthenes, a brilliant man, the head of the
Alcmaeonid family, connected himself with the popular party, and
introduced such changes in the constitution as to render him the
founder of the Athenian Democracy. The power of the archons was
reduced. All of the free inhabitants of Attica were admitted to
citizenship. New tribes, ten in number, each comprising ten
denes, or hamlets, with their adjacent districts, superseded
the old tribes. A council of five hundred, fifty from each
tribe, supplanted Solon's council of four hundred. The courts of law
were newly organized. The Ostracism was introduced; that is,
the prerogative of the popular assembly to decree by secret ballot,
without trial, the banishment of a person who should be deemed to be
dangerous to the public weal. Certain officers were designated by
lot. Ten Strategi, one from each tribe, by turns, took the
place of the archon polemarchus in command of the army.
EFFECT OF DEMOCRACY.—Under this system of free government, the
energy of the Athenian people was developed with amazing rapidity. The
spirit of patriotism, of zeal for the honor and welfare of Athens,
rose to a high pitch. The power and resources of the city increased in
a proportionate degree. Culture kept pace with prosperity.
LYRICAL POETRY.—In the eighth century, when monarchy was declining,
and the tendency to democracy began to manifest itself, a new style of
poetry, different from the epic, arose. The narrative poems of
minstrels were heard at the great religious festivals. But there was a
craving for the expression of individual feeling. Hence, lyrical
poetry re-appeared, not in the shape of religious songs, as in the old
time, but in a form to touch all the chords of sentiment. Two new
types of verse appeared,—the Elegiac and the Iambic. At
first the elegy was probably a lament for the dead. It was accompanied
by the soft music of the Lydian flute. The instruments which the
Greeks had used were string-instruments. The early Greek elegies
related to a variety of themes,—as war, love, preceptive wisdom. The
iambic meter was first used in satire. Its earliest master of
distinction was Arckilochus of Paros (670 B.C.). It was
employed, however, in fables, and elsewhere when pointed or intense
expression was craved. The earliest of the Greek elegists,
Callinus and Tyrtaus, composed war-songs. Mimnermus,
Solon, Theognis, Simonides of Ceos, are among the most
famous elegists. Music developed in connection with lyric poetry. The
Greeks at first used the four-stringed lyre. Terpander made an epoch
(660 B.C.) by adding three strings. Olympus and Thaletas
made further improvements. Greek lyric poetry flourished, especially
from 670 to 440 B.C. The Aeolian lyrists of Lesbos founded a
school of their own. The two great representatives are Alcaus,
who sang of war and of love, and Sappho, who sang of
love. "Probably no poet ever surpassed Sappho as an interpreter of
passion in exquisitely subtle harmonies of form and sound."
Anacreon, an Ionian, resembled in his style the Aeolian
lyrists. He was most often referred to by the ancients as the poet of
sensuous feeling of every sort. The Dorian lyric poetry was
mostly choral and historic in its topics. Greek lyric poetry reaches
the climax in Simonides and Pindar. The latter was a
Boeotian, but of Dorian descent. Simonides was tender and
polished; Pindar, fervid and sublime The extant works of Pindar
are the Epinicia, or odes of victory.
HISTORICAL WRITING.—This age witnesses the beginnings of historical
writing. But the logographers, as they were called, only wrote
prose epics. They told the story of the foundation of families and
cities, reconciling as best they could the myths, so far as they
clashed with one another.
PHILOSOPHY: THE IONIAN SCHOOL.—The Greeks were the first to
investigate rationally the causes of things, and to try to comprehend
the world as a complete system. The earliest phase of this movement
was on the side of physics, or natural philosophy. Homer and
Hesiod had accounted for the operations of nature by referring
them to the direct personal action of different divinities. The
earliest philosophers brought in the conception of some kind of matter
as the foundation and source of all things. The Ionian School
led the way in this direction. Thales of Miletus (about 600
B.C.) made this primary substance to be
water. Anaximander (611-? B.C.) made all things spring
out of a primitive stuff, without definite qualities, and without
bounds. He taught that the earth is round, invented the sun-dial,
engraved a map on a brass tablet, and made some astronomical
calculations. Anaximenes (first half, 6th C.) derived all
things from air, which he made to be eternal and infinite.
THE ELEATIC SCHOOL.—The Eleatic School conceived of the world
as one in substance, and held that the natural phenomena which we
behold, in all their variety and change, are unreal. Xenophanes
(who flourished from 572 to 478 B.C.) asserted this. Parmenides
(504-460 B.C.) taught that succession, change, the manifold forms of
things, are only relative; that is, are only our way of
regarding the one universal essence. Zeno sought to vindicate
this theory logically by disproving the possibility of motion.
OTHER PHILOSOPHERS.—Another set of philosophers attempted definitely
to explain the appearances of things, the changing phenomena, which
had been called unreal. Heraclitus made the world to be nothing
but these: There is no substratum of things: there is only an endless
flux, a cycle. All things begin and end in fire, the symbol of what is
real. Empedocles ascribed all things to fire, air, earth, and
water, which are wrought into different bodies by "love" and "hate;"
or, as we should say, attraction and repulsion. Democritus was
the founder of the Atomists, who made all things spring out of
the motions and combinations of primitive atoms. Anaxagoras
brought in intelligence, or reason, as giving the start to the
development of matter,—this principle doing nothing more, however,
and being inherent in matter itself.
PYTHAGORAS.—A different spirit in philosophy belonged to
Pythagoras (580-500 B.C.), who was born in Samos, traveled
extensively, and settled in Croton, in southern Italy. His theory was,
that the inner substance of all things is number. Discipline of
character was a prime object. Pythagoras was sparing in his diet,
promoted an earnest culture, in which music was prominent, and gave
rise to a mystical school, in which moral reform and religious fueling
were connected with an ascetic method of living.
COLONIES.—It was during the era of the oligarchies and tyrannies that
the colonizing spirit was most active among the Greeks. Most of the
colonies were established between 800 and 550 B.C. Their names alone
would make a very long catalogue. They were of two classes: first,
independent communities, connected, however, with the parent
city by close ties of friendship; and secondly, kleruchies,
which were of the nature of garrisons, where the settlers retained
their former rights as citizens, and the mother city its full
authority over them. In Sicily, on the eastern side, were the
Ionian communities,—Naxos, Catana, etc. Syracuse (founded by
Corinth 734 B.C.), Gela, and Agrigentum, which were
among the chief Dorian settlements, lay on the south-eastern and
south-western coasts. The oldest Greek town in Italy was
Cumae (not far from Naples), said to have been founded in 1050
B.C. Tarentum (Dorian), Sybaris, and Croton
(Aeolic) were settled in the latter part of the eighth
century. Locri (Aeolic) and Rhegium (Ionic) were on the
south. The south-western portion of Italy was termed Magna
Graecia. Massilia (Marseilles) was founded by the Phocaean
Ionians (about 600 B.C.). In the western Mediterranean the Greeks were
hindered from making their settlements as numerous as they would have
done, by the fact that Carthage and her colonies stood in the
way. Cyrene, on the coast of Africa, was a Dorian colony (630
B.C.), planted from Thera, an earlier Spartan
settlement. Cyrene founded Barca. Corcyra was
colonized by Corinth (about 700 B.C.). Along the coast of Epirus were
other Corinthian and Corcyrasan settlements. Chalcis planted towns in
the peninsula of Chalcidice, and from thence to Selymbria (or
Byzantium), which was founded by Megara (657 B.C.). The northern
shores of the Ægean and the Propontis, and the whole coast of the
Euxine were strewn with Greek settlements. The Greek towns, especially
Miletus, on the western coast of Asia Minor, themselves sent
out colonies,—as Cyzicus and Sinope, south of the
Propontis and the Euxine. The foregoing statements give only a general
idea of the wide extent of Greek colonization.
An exhaustive statement of the Greek colonies is given in
Rawlinson's Manual of Ancient History, p. 148 seq. See
also Abbott, A History of Greece, I. 333 seq.
PERIOD II. THE FLOURISHING ERA OF GREECE.
CHAPTER I. THE PERSIAN WARS.
THE IONIAN REVOLT.—Hardly were the Greeks in possession of liberty
when they were compelled to measure their strength with the mighty
Persian Empire. The cities of Asia Minor groaned under the tyranny of
their Persian rulers, and sighed for freedom. At length, under
propitious circumstances, Miletus rose in revolt under the lead
of Aristagoras. Alone of the Grecian cities, Athens, and
Eretria on the island of Euboea, sent help. The insurrection was
extinguished in blood: its leaders perished. Miletus was destroyed by
the enemy 495 B.C.; and the Ionian towns were again brought under the
Persian yoke, which was made heavier than before. The Persian monarch,
Darius, swore vengeance upon those who had aided the rebellion.
THE BATTLE OF MARATHON.—Mardonius, the son-in-law of Darius,
moved with a fleet and an army along the Ægean coast. A storm
shattered the fleet upon the rocky promontory of Athos, and the land
force was partly destroyed by the Thracians. Mardonius retreated
homeward. The heralds who came to demand, according to the Persian
custom, "water and earth" of Athens and Sparta, were put to
death. Enraged at these events, Darius sent a stronger fleet under
Datis and Artaphernes. They forced Naxos and the
other Cyclades to submission, captured and destroyed
Eretria, and sent off its inhabitants as slaves to the interior
of Asia. Guided on their path of destruction by the Athenian refugee,
Hippias, the Persians landed on the coast of Attica, and
encamped on the shore adjacent to the plain of Marathon. The
Athenians sent Philippides, one of the swiftest of couriers, to
Sparta for assistance, who reached that city, a hundred and
thirty-five or a hundred and forty miles distant, the next day after
he started. He brought back for answer that the Spartans were deterred
by religious scruples from marching to war before the full moon, which
would be ten days later. There was a Greek, as well as a Judaic,
Pharisaism. Left to themselves, the Athenians were fortunate in having
for their leader Miltiades, an able and experienced soldier,
who had been with the Persians in the Scythian campaign. At the head
of the Athenian infantry, ten thousand in number, whose hearts were
cheered before the onset by the arrival of a re-inforcement of one
thousand men, comprising the whole fighting population of the little
town of Platæa, Miltiades attacked the Persian army, ten times
as large as his own. The Athenians ran down the gentle slope at
Marathon, shouting their war-cry, or pæan, and, after a fierce
conflict, drove the Persians back to their ships, capturing their camp
with all its treasures (Sept. 12, 490 B.C.). This brilliant victory
was not the end of danger. The Greek watchmen saw a treacherous
signal, a glistening shield, on Mount Pentelicus, put there to
signify to the Persians that Athens was open to their attack. In that
direction, round Cape Sunium, the Persian fleet sailed. But
Miltiades, by a rapid march of twenty-three miles, reached the
city in season to prevent the landing. Datis and
Artaphernes sailed away. The traitor, Hippias, died on
the return voyage. The patriotic exultation of the Athenians was well
warranted. Never did they look back upon that victory without a thrill
of joyful pride. It proved what a united free people were capable of
achieving. More than that, MARATHON was one of the decisive battles
which form turning-points in the world's history. It was a mortal
conflict between the East and the West, between Asia and Europe,—the
coarse despotism under which individual energy is stifled, and the
dawning liberty which was to furnish the atmosphere required for the
full development and culture of the human mind.
ARISTIDES AND THEMISTOCLES.—Miltiades subsequently failed in
an attempt against Paros, one of the Ægean islands which had
submitted to the Persians, and which he sought to conquer. Accused of
making false promises to the people, he was fined fifty talents, but
died before the sum could be collected (489 B.C.). His son
Cimon paid the fine. The two leading men in Athens at that time
were Aristides and Themistocles. The former, from his
uprightness, was styled "the just." Themistocles was a man of
genius, of an ambitious spirit, whom the laurels of Miltiades
robbed of sleep. Devoted to Athens, he was not scrupulous in regard to
the means of advancing her prosperity and glory. Duplicity and
intrigue were weapons in the use of which he was not less willing than
expert. He aspired to make Athens a great naval and maritime
power. Aristides believed that the strength of the country lay
in the landholders and in the land forces. In the attainment of public
ends, he would not deviate from a straightforward course. Themistocles
was by far the more captivating of the two men; and, in 484 B.C.,
Aristides was ostracised. Themistocles was thus left free to build up
a powerful fleet.
THE WAR WITH XERXES: THERMOPYLÆ.—Darius died while he was
preparing another grand expedition against Greece. He left his
successor, Xerxes (485 B.C.), to complete and carry out the
plan. This proud monarch drew together from his immense dominions an
army which tradition, as given in Herodotus, made to number one
million seven hundred thousand men and a fleet of twelve hundred large
vessels. He had for a counselor, Demaratus, a fugitive king of
Sparta. The vast array of troops was assembled near Sardes, and
thence marched to the Hellespont. Seven days were spent by this
mighty gathering of nations in passing over the two bridges of
boats. They marched through Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly, the
Persian fleet proceeding along the coast. Bæotia and several
smaller states yielded without resistance. The most of the other Greek
states, inspired by Themistocles, joined hands for defense under the
hegemony of Sparta. In July, 480, the Persian army arrived at the
narrow pass of Thermopylæ. There the Lacedæemonian king,
Leonidas, with his three hundred Spartans and some thousands of
allies, had taken his stand, to stem the vast current that was pouring
down to overwhelm Greece. To the Persian command to give up their
weapons, the "laconic" reply was given by Leonidas, "Come and get
them." For several days the band of Spartans defended the pass,
beating back the Persians, thousands of whom were slain, and
repulsing, even, the ten thousand "immortals," who constituted the
royal guard. At length a treacherous Greek showed the enemy a by-path,
which enabled them to fall on the rear of the gallant troops, every
one of whom fell, bravely fighting, with his weapon in his hand. A
lion made of iron was afterwards placed on the spot where the heroes
had died, "obedient to the commands of Sparta." The Persians pushed
forward to Athens, and burned the city. All citizens capable of
bearing arms were on board the fleet: the women, children, and movable
property had been conveyed to Salamis, Ægina, and
Træzcne.
SALAMIS.—The Greek fleet, under the Spartan Eurybiades, had
come from victory at Artemisium into the Gulf of Salamis. By means of
a device of Themistocles, the Spartans were prevented from withdrawing
their forces to the Corinthian isthmus, where they had built a wall
for their own protection; and a sea-fight was brought on, of which the
Athenians in Salamis, and Xerxes himself from a hill on the mainland,
were anxious spectators (Sept. 27, 480). Once more the cause of
civilization was staked on the issue of a conflict. The Greeks were
completely victorious, and their land was saved. Xerxes hastily
marched towards home, thousands of his army perishing on the way from
hunger, cold, and fatigue. The Spartiatæ gave to
Eurybiades the prize of valor, to Themistocles an olive
crown for his wisdom and sagacity.
PLATÆA: MYCALE: EURYMEDON.—Xerxes left three hundred thousand men
behind in Thessaly, under the command of Mardonius. In the
spring, incensed at the proud rejection of his overtures, he marched
to Athens, whose people again took refuge in Salamis. In the great
battle of Platæa (479 B.C.), the Greeks, led by the Spartan
Pausanias, inflicted on him such a defeat that only forty
thousand Persians escaped to the Hellespont. On the same day at
Mycale, the Persian fleet was vanquished in a sharp encounter
where a Spartan commanded, but where the Athenians were the most
efficient combatants. Sestos, Lemnos, Imbros, and Byzantium were taken
by the Greeks; and a double victory of Cimon, the son of
Miltiades, at the Pamphylian river, Eurymedon, over both the
land and naval forces of the Persians, brought the war to an end (467
B.C.).
CHAPTER II. THE ASCENDENCY OF ATHENS.
PAUSANIAS AND THEMISTOCLES.—Both of the generals by whom the Persians
had been overcome, fell under the displeasure of the states to which
they belonged. Pausanias was so far misled by ambition as to
engage in a negotiation with the Persians for the elevation of
himself, by their aid, to supreme power in Greece. His plots were
discovered, and he was compelled by his countrymen to starve to death
in a temple to which he had fled for refuge. Themistocles
caused Athens to be surrounded by a wall, and built long walls from
the city to the Piræus. This provoked the hatred of the
Spartans, so jealous were they of the power of Athens. In conjunction
with his Athenian enemies, they contrived to procure his banishment
for ten years (471 B.C.). Themistocles fled to Persia, where he was
treated with honor and favor. Artaxerxes I. gave him a princely
domain in Asia Minor where he died (458 B.C.). Grave as his faults
were, Themistocles was the founder of the historical greatness of
Athens.
CONFEDERACY OF DELOS.—It was through the influence of
Aristides that the confederacy of Delos was formed, in which
the Grecian islands and seaports combined with Athens, and under her
leadership, for the further prosecution of the war. By this means, the
Athenians, already so efficient on the sea, were enabled still more to
strengthen their fleet, and gradually to bring the Ægean islands and
smaller maritime states under their sway. Cimon rendered great
service as a naval commander. He drove the Persians out of Thrace
altogether, and he conquered Scyros. He wrested the Chersonese
from the Persians, and freed the Greek cities on the coast. In the
single battle on the Eurymedon, he sunk or captured two hundred
galleys (467 B.C.).
TO THE PEACE OF PERICLES.—Under the leadership of such men, the
Athenian Republic became more and more powerful. Ægina, a rich
and prosperous island, was conquered, and planted with Athenian
colonists. Megara became a dependency of Athens. Sparta, partly
in consequence of a struggle with Argos, a state friendly to the
Persians, and still more on account of an earthquake which laid the
most of the city in ruins (465 B.C.), was so crippled as not to be
able to check the progress of the rival community. She was even
obliged to invoke Athenian help against the revolting Messenians and
helots; but after the troops of Athens had joined them, the Spartans,
jealous and afraid of what they might do, sent them back. This
indignity led to the banishment of Cimon, who had favored the
sending of the force, and to the granting of aid to the Spartans. The
Spartans now did their best to reduce the strength and dominion of
Athens by raising Thebes to the hegemony over the Boeotian
cities. Everywhere, in all the conflicts, Sparta was the champion of
the aristocratic form of government; Athens, of the
democratic. The Athenians were defeated at Tanagra (457
B.C.). This induced them to recall Cimon, a great general and a
worthy citizen. Two months after her victory, Sparta was defeated by
Myronides; and the Athenians became masters of Phocis, Locris,
and Boeotia. Cimon brought about a truce between Athens and Sparta. He
left his country on a high pinnacle of power and dominion. Nearly all
the allies in the confederacy of Delos had fallen into the position of
tributaries, whose heavy contributions were carried no longer to the
sanctuary at Delos, but to the temple of Athena on the Acropolis, and
who had no power to decide on questions of peace and war. The nobles,
however, who were driven into exile in all conquered places, were the
mortal enemies of Athens. At Coronea (447 B.C.), the Boeotian
refugees and aristocrats were so strong that the Athenians experienced
a disastrous defeat. The peril of the situation moved Pericles
to secure, by astute management, a peace with Sparta, the terms of
which were that each of the two cities was to maintain its hegemony
within its own circle, and the several states were to attach
themselves at their option to either confederacy. In market and
harbor, there was to be a free intercourse of trade (445 B.C.).
THE AGE OF PERICLES.—Pericles belonged to one of the principal
Athenian families, but was democratic in his politics, and made
himself a popular leader. By his influence the Areopagus was
stripped of high prerogatives that had belonged to it. He caused it to
be enacted, that every citizen, when engaged in the public service,
even in attending the popular assembly, should receive a stipend. For
fifteen years, as the first citizen of Athens, with none of the
trappings of power, he virtually ruled the commonwealth. One of his
works was the building the third of the long walls which
protected the Piræus and the neighboring ports on the land
side, and connected them with Athens. His patriotism was as sincere as
his talents were versatile and brilliant. He was at once a soldier, an
orator, a statesman of consummate ability, and a man imbued with the
best appreciation of letters and of art. In his hospitable house,
where Aspasia from Miletus, a beautiful and cultured woman, was
his companion, men of genius found a welcome. Under him, Athens became
the metropolis of literature, philosophy, and art for the whole
Hellenic race, and, considering the influence of Athens, it might
almost be said for mankind in all ages. Magnificent buildings—of
which the Parthenon, the temple of Athena that crowned the
Acropolis, whose ruins are the model of architectural perfection, was
one—gave to the city an unrivaled beauty. Sculpture vied with
architecture in this work of adornment. Phidias, who wrought
the frieze of the Parthenon, counted among his wonderful creations the
colossal sitting statue of Zeus at Olympia. It was the blossoming
season of the Greek intellect, as regards literature and the
fine arts. The drama reached its perfection in the
masterly tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and
Euripides, and in the comedies of Aristophanes. The
Athenian community, through its political eminence, its intellectual
character, so original and diversified, its culture,—such that almost
every citizen was qualified for civil office,—has no parallel in
history. It is the elevation, not of a select class of the citizens,
but of the whole society, which gives to Athens its unique
distinction. Public spirit and enterprise, which made her navy
dominant in the Aegean and over the sea-coast of Asia Minor, went hand
in hand with delight in eloquence and in the creations of
genius. There was not, however, as some have affirmed, in the
prevalent absorption in the affairs of state, a neglect of the labors
of agriculture and of mechanical industry.
THE ACROPOLIS—It was customary for a Greek town to be built about an
acropolis,—an eminence by which it was commanded, and on which stood
the citadel. On the acropolis at Athens were the buildings and statues
in which the glory of Athenian art was impressively displayed. There
were three edifices which excelled all the rest in splendor. On the
south side of the elevated area was the Parthenon, built of
Pentelic marble, two hundred and twenty-eight feet in length, and of
faultless proportions. On the northern edge was the Erechtheum,
an Ionic temple of extraordinary beauty. The Propylcea,
approached by sixty marble steps, was a noble gateway: it stood on the
western end of the acropolis, which it magnificently adorned.
ATHENS—No other description of Athens, in the age of Pericles, equals
his own in the Funeral Oration (431 B.C.), as given by
Thucydides, for those who had fallen in the war. It shows how an
Athenian looked upon his city.
"It is true that we are called a democracy; for the administration
is in the hands of the many, and not of the few. But while the law
secures equal justice to all alike in their private disputes, the
claim of excellence is also recognized; and when a citizen is in any
way distinguished, he is preferred to the public service, not as a
matter of privilege, but as the reward of merit. Neither is poverty
a bar; but a man may benefit his country, whatever be the obscurity
of his condition. There is no exclusiveness in our public life; and
in our private intercourse we are not suspicious of one another, nor
angry with our neighbor if he does what he likes: we do not put on
sour looks at him, which, though harmless, are not pleasant. While
we are thus unconstrained in our private intercourse, a spirit of
reverence pervades our public acts: we are prevented from doing
wrong by respect for authority and the laws, having an especial
regard to those which are ordained for the protection of the
injured, as well as to those unwritten laws which bring upon the
transgressor of them the reprobation of the general sentiment.
"And we have not forgotten to provide for our weary spirits many
relaxations from toil. We have regular games and sacrifices
throughout the year. At home the style of our life is refined, and
the delight which we daily feel in all these things helps to banish
melancholy. Because of the greatness of our city, the fruits of the
whole earth flow in upon us; so that we enjoy the goods of other
countries as freely as of our own.
"Then, again, our military training is in many respects superior to
that of our adversaries. Our city is thrown open to the world; and
we never expel a foreigner, or prevent him from seeing or learning
any thing of which the secret, if revealed to an enemy, might profit
him. We rely not upon management or trickery, but upon our own
hearts and hands. And in the matter of education, whereas they from
early youth are always undergoing laborious exercises which are to
make them brave, we live at ease, and yet are equally ready to face
the perils which they face. And here is the proof,—the
Lacedaemonians come into Attica, not by themselves, but with their
whole confederacy following; we go alone into a neighbor's country;
and, although our opponents are fighting for their homes, and we are
on a foreign soil, we have seldom any difficulty in overcoming
them. Our enemies have never yet felt our united strength. The care
of a navy divides our attention, and on land we are obliged to send
our own citizens everywhere. But they, if they meet and defeat a
part of our army, are as proud as if they had routed us all; and,
when defeated, they pretend to have been vanquished by us all.
"If, then, we prefer to meet danger with a light heart, but without
laborious training, and with a courage which is gained by habit, and
not enforced by law, are we not greatly the gainers? since we do not
anticipate the pain, although, when the hour comes, we can be as
brave as those who never allow themselves to rest. And thus, too,
our city is equally admirable in peace and war; for we are lovers of
the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind
without loss of manliness. Wealth we employ, not for talk and
ostentation, but when there is real use for it. To avow poverty with
us is no disgrace: the true disgrace is in doing nothing to avoid
it. An Athenian citizen does not neglect the State because he takes
care of his own household, and even those of us who are engaged in
business have a very fair idea of politics. We alone regard a man
who takes no interest in public affairs, not as harmless, but as a
useless character; and, if few of us are originators, we are all
sound judges of policy. The great impediment to action is, in our
opinion, not discussion, but the want of that knowledge which is
gained by discussion preparatory to action. For we have a peculiar
power of thinking before we act, and of acting too; whereas other
men are courageous from ignorance, but hesitate upon reflection. And
they are surely to be esteemed the bravest spirits who, having the
clearest sense both of the pains and pleasures of life, do not on
that account shrink from danger. In doing good, again, we are unlike
others: we make our friends by conferring, not by receiving,
favors. Now, he who confers a favor is the firmer friend, because he
would fain by kindness keep alive the memory of an obligation; but
the recipient is colder in his feelings, because he knows that in
requiting another's generosity he will not be winning gratitude, but
only paying a debt. We alone do good to our neighbors, not upon a
calculation of interest, but in the confidence of freedom, and in a
frank and fearless spirit. To sum up, I say that Athens is the
school of Hellas, and that the individual Athenian in his own person
seems to have the power of adapting himself to the most varied forms
of action with the utmost versatility and grace. This is no passing
and idle word, but truth and fact; and the assertion is verified by
the position to which these qualities have raised the State. For in
the hour of trial Athens alone among her contemporaries is superior
to the report of her. No enemy who comes against her is indignant at
the reverses which he sustains at the hands of such a city: no
subject complains that his masters are unworthy of him. And we shall
assuredly not be without witnesses; there are mighty monuments of
our power, which will make us the wonder of this and of succeeding
ages. We shall not need the praises of Homer or of any other
panegyrist, whose poetry may please for the moment, although his
representation of the facts will not bear the light of day; for we
have compelled every land and every sea to open a path for our
valor, and have everywhere planted eternal memorials of our
friendship and of our enmity. Such is the city for whose sake these
men nobly fought and died: they could not bear the thought that she
might be taken from them, and every one of us who survive should
gladly toil on her behalf."
RELIGION.—We find in Sophocles a much purer tone of moral and
religious feeling than in Homer. Greek thought upon divine
things is expanded and purified, (i) Higher Conception of the
Gods. The gods are still conceived of as in bodily form. Their
images abide in their temples. Take them away, and the god leaves his
abode. The divinities need not be present, as in Homer, in order to
exert their power. The monotheistic tendency is manifest. The "gods"
are referred to as if a single agency were in the writer's mind. The
regal sway of Zeus is emphasized. He is less subject to Fate. (2)
Divine Government. The gods, especially Zeus, are the
fountain of law. The righteousness of the divine government is
especially evinced in the punishment of evil-doers. Transgressors
generally, and not those of the worst class alone, as in Homer, are
punished in Hades. Pride and insolence call down the vengeance
of the gods. Unsleeping justice pursues the criminal. The theory of
Nemesis, which pursues the prosperous, if they are proud, to
their hurt and ruin, is held. (3) Number of the Gods. The
number of divinities is multiplied as time advances. The worship of
the heroes, children of the gods or goddesses, grows in
importance. (4) Revelation. There was direct revelation, it was
believed, by prophecy, uttered now in an ecstatic, and now in a
tranquil, mood. Oracles acquired a new and vast importance. (5)
Rites. Visible objects of devotion were multiplied; religious
ceremonies ramified in all directions; sacred processions, festivals,
amusements involving religious observances, abounded. (6)
Morality. Moral excellence centered in moderation and
self-government, through which the individual keeps both his own
nature as to its parts, and himself in relation to others, within due
limits. This spirit includes temperance and justice. The stern spirit
of law prevails: the requital of injuries is approved. Yet feelings of
compassion find a beautiful expression. At Athens, there was public
provision for orphans and for the help of the poor. (7) Domestic
Life: Patriotism. The wife lived in retirement, and in submission
to her husband. When he entertained friends at his table, she was
absent; yet domestic affection was evidently strong. Every other duty
merged in patriotism. The Greek placed a great gulf between himself
and the "barbarian." He was conscious of higher intellectual gifts,
superior culture, better customs. (8) Sin. The Future
Life. There was a deeper sense of sin than in the Homeric
era. There was a pathetic consciousness of the trouble and sorrow that
beset human life. Hades was regarded as a scene of trial and
judgment, and of rewards as well as sufferings. The soul was not so
closely identified with the body. Death was an object of gloomy
anticipation. Pericles, in his funeral oration for the fallen
patriots, is silent as to a future life. In the tragic poets, it is
only the select few whose lot is blessed. As concerns the mass of the
people, it is probable that the Homeric notions respecting the state
of the dead still prevailed. Generally speaking, we are not warranted
in ascribing the more elevated views of religion entertained by the
best minds to the mass of the people.
THE TRAGIC DRAMA.—The songs which were sung in the worship of
Dionysus (dithyrambs) were accompanied with dance and pantomime. The
custom followed of mingling speeches and dramatic action with these
lyrics. The change is ascribed to Thespis (about 536 B.C.), a
little later than Solon. Thespis is said to have brought in the stage
for the performers. The Greek theaters were large, open to the sky,
and sometimes on sites which commanded fine views. There was the
amphitheater, with graded seats for spectators, and the stage,
together with the orchestra where the choir in song or musical
recitation reflected the sympathies and views of the spectators of the
play. At first there was only one actor, and, of course, a
monologue. Aeschylus is said to have brought in a second actor,
and Sophocles a third. These, with Euripides, were the
three great dramatists of Greece. The choral song, which had been the
chief thing, was made secondary to the dialogue. Aeschylus, at the age
of forty-five, fought in the battle of Salamis; Sophocles, then
fifteen years old, took part in the festival in honor of the victory;
and Euripides was born, it was supposed, on the very day of the
battle. These three brought the tragic drama to perfection. Of the
productions of Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.), seven remain. They are
inspired with the heroic and elevated mood which was engendered by the
great struggle against the Persians. Of the numerous plays of
Sophocles (495-406 B.C.), the number of those extant is also
seven. They so combine vigor and force with refinement of thought and
style that they are surpassed, if indeed they are equaled, by the
literary products of no age or country. In Euripides (480-406 B.C.),
while there is an insight into the workings of the heart, and the
antique nobleness of sentiment, there is less simplicity, and there is
manifest the less earnest and believing tone of the later day. In the
dramas, the "unities" of time, place, and action are observed. The
acts together seldom stretch over a single day.
COMEDY—Comedy, in which Aristophanes (452-388 B.C.), a great
poet as well as a great wit, was the principal author, dealt largely
in satire. Conspicuous men, and those active in public affairs, were
represented on the stage in satirical pieces, so that they were at
once identified. The spirit of the "old comedy" was patriotic,
although it might be unjust, as in the case of Socrates, who was a
target for the wit of Aristophanes. The "middle comedy" was nothing
really distinct from the "new comedy." The "new comedy," in which
Menander (342-290 B.C.) was an eminent author, ceased to present
actual persons, and dealt with imaginary characters alone. Among the
Greeks in Lower Italy and Sicily, mimes were much in vogue.
GREEK ART: ARCHITECTURE—The Greeks more and more broke away in a free
and joyous spirit from the stiff and conventional styles of Egyptian
and Oriental art. In the room of the somber, massive edifices of
Egypt, they combined symmetry and beauty with grandeur in the temples
which they erected. The temples were originally colored within and
without. Three styles were developed,—the Doric, the
Ionic, and the Corinthian. In the Doric, the
column and entablature have the most solid and simple form. The column
has no other base than the common platform on which the pillars rest,
and the capital that surmounts it is a plain slab.
In the Ionic style, the column has a distinct base, is more
tall and slender, and its capital has two volutes, or spiral
moldings. The capital of the Corinthian column is peculiar,
representing flower calices and leaves, "pointing upwards, and curving
like natural plants." The acanthus, on account of its graceful
form, was generally copied. The most ancient Doric temples, of a date
prior to the Persian war, of which the ruined temple of Neptune at
Paestum is one, are, in comparison with later edifices, of a severe
and massive style. In the period extending from the Persian war to the
Macedonian rule, the stern simplicity of the Doric is modified by the
softer and more graceful character of the Ionic. The temple of
Theseus at Athens is an example. The Parthenon was the
most beautiful specimen of the Doric, which has appropriated the grace
of the Ionic column without losing its own distinctive character. In
the later period, after freedom was lost, there was much more
ornamentation. It was then that the more decorated Corinthian style
flourished.
SCULPTURE.—Before the Persian wars, in the earliest sculpture the
restraint of Egyptian and Oriental styles is perceptible in the
sculptors, of whom Daedalus is the mythical representative. The oldest
statues were of wood, which was subsequently covered with gold and
ivory, or painted. The lofty style of Phidias (488-432 B.C.),
and of Polycletus of Argos, became prevalent in the flourishing
period of Greek liberty. Myron, to whom we owe the
Discobolus (Disk-Thrower), belongs to the school of
Aegina. Statues were now made in brass and marble. They were
everywhere to be seen. The pediments and friezes of the temples were
covered with exquisitely wrought sculptures. The most beautiful
sculptures that have come down from antiquity are the marbles of the
Parthenon. The Greeks appreciated to the full the beauty of
nature. They gave to their gods ideal human forms, in which were
blended every attribute of majesty and grace which are conceived to
belong to perfected humanity. Sculpture in Greece, as elsewhere, was
ally to religion; "but whilst the religion of the Egyptians was a
religion of the tomb, and their ideal world a gloomy spot peopled by
sleeping lions, dreamy sphinxes, or weird unearthly monsters, the
mythology of the Greeks, rightly understood, is an exquisite poem, the
joint creation of the master-minds of infant Greece; and their art is
a translation of that poem into visible forms of beauty." In the
third period, which may be made to terminate with the death of
Alexander the Great (323 B.C.), there were masters in
sculpture, among whom Praxiteles and Scopas are at the
head. More and more, as we come down to the Roman period, while
extraordinary technical perfection is still manifested, the loftier
qualities of art tend to disappear.
PAINTING.—In Greece, painting first ceased to be subordinate to
architecture, and became independent. In early days, there was skill
in the ornamentation of vases and in mural painting. Yet, with much
spirit and feeling, there was a conventional treatment. The earliest
artist of whom we know much is Polygnotus (about 420 B.C.),
whose groups of profile figures were described as remarkable for their
life-like character and fine coloring. Apollodorus of Athens
was distinguished, but Zeuxis of Heraclea is said to have been
the first to paint movable pictures. He is famed for his marvelous
power of imitation: the birds pecked at a bunch of grapes which he
painted. But even he was outdone by Parrhasius. Zeuxis,
however, had far higher qualities than those of a literal copyist. The
most successful of the Greek painters was Apelles. Among his
masterpieces was a painting of Venus rising from the waves, and a
portrait of Alexander the Great. We have not in painting, as in
sculpture, a store of monuments of Greek art; but the skill of the
Greeks in painting fell behind their unequaled genius in molding the
human form in bronze and marble.
CHAPTER III. THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR.
I. TO THE PEACE OF NICIAS (421 B.C.).
TO THE DEATH OF PERICLES.—Wonderful as was the growth of Athens under
Pericles, it is obvious that she stood exposed to two principal
sources of danger. Her allies and dependants, the stay of that naval
power in which her strength lay, were discontented with her spirit of
domination and of extortion. The Peloponnesian Alliance, which
was led by Sparta, the bulwark of the aristocratic interest,
comprised, with the Dorian, most of the Aeolian states,—as Boeotia,
Phocis, Locris, etc. Its military strength lay mainly in its
heavy-armed infantry. Thus Sparta had the advantage of strong
allies. The motive at the bottom of this alliance was what Thucydides
tells was the real cause of the Peloponnesian war,—the jealousy which
the growth of Athens excited in other states. This feeling really
involved a conviction of the need of maintaining in Greece that which
in modern times is called a "balance of power." When Greece was no
longer one, as in the best days of the wars with Persia, but was
divided into two opposite camps, watchful and jealous of one another,
an occasion of conflict could not fail to arise. It was complained
that Athens gave help to Corcyra in a war with Corinth,
its mother city, made war upon Potidaea in Macedonia, a
Corinthian colony, and also shut out Megara from the harbors of
Attica.
The demands made by Sparta, which included the granting of
independence to Aegina, were rejected. Attica was ravaged by
Spartan troops, and the coast of Peloponnesus by the Athenian fleet
(431 B.C.). This desolating warfare was kept up until a frightful
pestilence broke out at Athens,—a plague having its origin in Egypt,
and passing thence over Asia and the Greek islands. Two of the sons of
Pericles died, and an accumulation of public burdens and private
sorrows brought on his own death (Sept., 429).
THE PESTILENCE.—The horrors of the pestilence are thus described in
a celebrated passage of the best of the Greek historians,
Thucydides: "The crowding of the people out of the country
into the city aggravated the misery, and the newly arrived suffered
most. For, haying no houses of their own, but inhabiting, in the
height of summer, stifling huts, the mortality among them was
dreadful, and they perished in wild disorder. The dead lay as they
had died, one upon another; while others, hardly alive, wallowed in
the streets, and crawled about every fountain, craving for
water. The temples in which they lodged were full of the corpses of
those who died in them; for the violence of the calamity was such
that men, not knowing where to turn, grew reckless of all law, human
and divine. The customs which had hitherto been observed at funerals
were universally violated, and they buried their dead, each one as
best he could. Many, having no proper appliances, because the deaths
in their household had been so frequent, made no scruple of using
the burial-place of others. When one man had raised a funeral-pile,
others would come, and, throwing on their dead first, set fire to
it; or, when some other corpse was already burning, before they
could be stopped, would throw their own dead upon it, and depart.
"There were other and worse forms of lawlessness which the plague
introduced at Athens. Men who had hitherto concealed their
indulgence in pleasure, now grew bolder. For, seeing the sudden
change,—how the rich died in a moment, and those who had nothing,
immediately inherited their property,—they reflected that life and
riches were alike transitory, and they resolved to enjoy themselves
while they could, and to think only of pleasure. Who would be
willing to sacrifice himself to the law of honor when he knew not
whether he would ever live to be held in honor? The pleasure of the
moment, and any sort of thing which conduced to it, took the place
both of honor and of expediency: no fear of God or law of man
deterred a criminal. Those who saw all perishing alike, thought that
the worship or neglect of the gods made no difference. For offenses
against human law, no punishment was to be feared: no one would live
long enough to be called to account. Already a far heavier sentence
had been passed, and was hanging over a man's head: before that
fell, why should he not take a little pleasure?"
TO THE TRUCE WITH SPARTA.—The loss of Pericles, coupled with the
terrible calamities which had befallen Athens, let loose the winds of
party passion. New leaders of the democracy, of whom Cleon was
the most noted, who lacked the refinement and self-restraint of
Pericles, took his place. The Athenians were not able to save
Plataea, to which they owed so much, from destruction at the
hands of the Spartans and Boeotians (427 B.C.); but
Lesbos they recovered, and captured Mytilene, the bulk
of whose citizens, against the will of Cleon, they spared. To the
cruelties of war, which the revengeful temper of the Spartans
promoted, there was added another plague at Athens, besides an
earthquake, and tremendous rain-storms, alternating with drought.
Demosthenes, a brave and enterprising Athenian general, took
possession of Pylos in Messenia. The Spartans, under Brasidas,
were on the island of Sphacteria opposite; and their retreat
was cut off by the fleet under Nicias, who was the leader of
the more aristocratic faction at Athens. Cleon, made strategus
in the room of Nicias, took Sphacteria by storm, contrary to general
expectation, and brought home nearly three hundred Spartan
prisoners. Athens had other successes; but when her forces had been
defeated by the Boeotians at Delium, and Brasidas had captured
Amphipolis, and when in a battle there (422 B.C.) Brasidas was
victorious over Cleon, who fell during the flight, the
aristocratic party, which was desirous of peace, gained the upper
hand. Nicias concluded a truce with Sparta for fifty
years. Each party was to restore its conquests and prisoners.
II. THE INFLUENCE OF ALCIBIADES.
THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION.—From this time, Alcibiades, a
relative of Pericles, but lacking his sobriety and disinterested
spirit, plays an active part. Beautiful in person, rich, a graceful
and effective orator, but restless and ambitious, he quickly acquired
great influence. Three years after the peace of Nicias, he persuaded
Athens to join a league of disaffected Peloponnesian allies of Sparta;
but in the battle of Mantinea (418 B.C.) the Spartans regained
their supremacy. It was at the suggestion of Alcibiades that the
Athenians undertook the great Sicilian Expedition, which
resulted in the worst disasters they ever suffered. This expedition
was aimed at the Dorian city of Syracuse, and the hope was that
all Sicily might be conquered. It consisted of about forty thousand
men, besides the sailors. The commanders were Alcibiades,
Nicias, and Lamachus. Alcibiades was recalled to answer
a charge of sacrilege. At Thurii he managed to escape and went over to
the side of Sparta. Gylippus went with a small Spartan fleet to
aid Syracuse. The Athenians were repulsed in their attack on the
city. Although re-inforced by land and naval forces under a gallant
and worthy general, Demosthenes, they fought under great
disadvantages, so that their fleet was destroyed in the Syracusan
harbor. Their retreating forces on land were cut to pieces or
captured. Nicias and Demosthenes died either at the
hands of the executioner or by a self-inflicted death.
NAVAL CONTESTS.—No such calamity had ever overtaken a Grecian
army. The news of it brought anguish into almost every family in
Athens. The Spartans had fortified the village of Decelea in
Attica, and sought on the sea, with Persian help, to annihilate the
Athenian navy. The allies of Athens, Chios, Miletus,
etc., revolted. The oligarchs at Athens overthrew the democratic
constitution, and placed the Government in the hands of a Council
of Four Hundred. The popular assembly was limited to five thousand
members, and was never called together. The object was to make peace
with Sparta. But the army before Samos, of which Thrasybulus, a
patriotic man, was the leader, refused to accept this change of
government. Alcibiades, who had left the Spartans out of anger
on account of their treatment of him, was recalled, and assumed
command. The oligarchical rule was overturned in four months after its
establishment, and the democracy restored,—the assembly being still
limited, however, to five thousand citizens. Three brilliant naval
victories, the last at Cyzicus (410 B.C.), were won over the
Spartans by Alcibiades who came back to Athens in triumph (408
B.C.). Lysander was the commander of the Spartan fleet on the
coast of Asia Minor, and (407 B.C.) gained a victory over the Athenian
ships during a temporary absence of Alcibiades. Alcibiades was not
reëlected general. He now withdrew, and, three years later, died. The
new Spartan admiral, Callicratidas, surrounded the Athenian
fleet under Conon at Mitylene. By very strenuous exertions of
the Athenians, a new fleet was dispatched to the help of Conon; and in
the battle of Arginusæ (406 B.C.), the Peloponnesians were
completely vanquished. The public spirit of Athens and the resources
of a free people were never more impressively shown than in the
prodigious efforts made by the Athenians to rise from the effect of
the crushing disaster which befell the Sicilian expedition on which
their hopes were centered. But these exertions only availed to furnish
to coming generations an example of the heroic energy and love of
country which are possible under free government.
III. THE FALL OF ATHENS.
Lysander once more took command of the Spartan fleet. Shrewd in
diplomacy, as well as skillful in battle, he strengthened his naval
force by the aid of Cyrus the Younger, the Persian governor in
Asia Minor. Watching his opportunity, he attacked the Athenians at
Ægospotami, opposite Lampsacus, when soldiers and sailors were
off their guard (405 B.C.). Three thousand of them, who had not been
slain in the assault, were slaughtered after they had been taken
captive. Conon escaped to Cyprus with only eight ships. One
fast-sailing trireme carried the news of the overwhelming defeat to
Athens. Lysander followed up his success cautiously, but with
energy. Islands and seaports surrendered to him, and in them he
established the aristocratic rule. The Athenians were shut in by land
and by sea. A treacherous aristocratic faction within the walls was
working in the interest of the Spartans. Famine conspired with other
agencies to destroy the multitude of homeless and destitute people who
had crowded into the city. Starvation compelled a surrender to the
Spartan general. The long walls and fortifications were demolished by
the ruthless conqueror, the work of destruction being carried on to
the sound of the flute. All but twelve vessels were given up to the
captors. The democratic system was subverted, and thirty men—the
"Thirty Tyrants"—of the oligarchical party were established in
power, with Critias, a depraved and passionate, though able,
man, at their head (404-403 B.C.). They put a Spartan garrison in the
citadel, and sought to confirm their authority by murdering or
banishing all whom they suspected of opposition. Thrasybulus, a
patriot, collected the democratic fugitives at Phyle, defeated
the Thirty, and seized the Piraeus. Critias was slain. Ten
oligarchs of a more moderate temper were installed in power. In
co-operation with the Spartan king, Pausanias, the two parties
at Athens were reconciled. An amnesty was proclaimed, and democracy in
a moderate form was restored, with a revision of the laws, under the
archonship of Euclides (403 B.C.). It was shortly after this
change that the trial and death of Socrates occurred, the
wisest and most virtuous man of ancient times (399 B.C.).
PHILOSOPHY: SOCRATES.—At the head of the Greek philosophers is the
illustrious name of Socrates. He was the son of Sophroniscus, a
sculptor, and was born 469 B.C., just as Pericles was assuming the
leadership at Athens. Socrates was the founder of moral philosophy. He
was original, being indebted for his ideas to no previous school. He
was as sound in body as in mind. His appearance was unique. His
forehead was massive, but his flat nose gave to his countenance an
aspect quite at variance with the Greek ideal of beauty. He looked, it
was said, like a satyr. He taught, in opposition to the
Sophists, a class of men (including Gorgias, Protagoras,
and others) who instructed young men in logic and grammar, taking
fees,—which was contrary to the custom of the Greek
philosophers,—and cultivating intellectual keenness and dexterity,
often at the expense of depth and sincerity. Their work as thinkers
was negative, being confined mainly to pointing out fallacies in
existing systems, but providing nothing positive in the room of
them. Socrates had been called by the oracle at Delphi the
wisest of men. He could only account for this by the fact, that, in
contrast with others, he did not erroneously deem himself to be
knowing. "Know thyself" was his maxim. His daily occupation was to
converse with different classes, especially young men, on subjects of
highest moment to the individual and to the state. By a method of
quiet cross-examination, the "Socratic irony," he made them
aware of their lack of clear ideas and tenable, consistent opinions,
and endeavored to guide them aright. The soul and its moral
improvement was his principal subject. He asserted Theism and
the spiritual nature and obligations of religion, without calling in
question the existence of the various divinities. He taught the
doctrine of a universal Providence. Absolute loyalty to
conscience, the preference of virtue to any possible advantage without
it, he solemnly inculcated. He believed, perhaps not without a
mingling of doubt, in the immortality of the soul. Taking no part in
public affairs, he devoted his time to this kind of familiar
instruction,—to teaching by dialogue, in compliance with what he
believed to be an inward call of God. An impulse within him, which he
called a divine "voice," checked him when he was about to take a wrong
step. He was charged with corrupting the youth by his teaching, and
with heresy in religion. His rebukes of the shallow and the
self-seeking had stung them, and had made him many enemies. Such men
as Alcibiades and Critias, who had been among his
hearers, but for whose misconduct he was really not in the least
responsible, added to his unpopularity. The Apology, as given
by Plato, contains the substance of his most impressive defense before
his judges. He took no pains to placate them or his accusers, or to
escape after he was convicted. Conversing with his disciples in the
same genial, tranquil tone which he had always maintained, he drank
the cup of hemlock, and expired (May, 399 B.C.). An account of his
teaching and of his method of life is given by his loving scholar,
Xenophon, in the Memorabilia. The dialogues of
Plato, in which Socrates is the principal interlocutor, mingle
with the master's doctrine the pupil's own thoughts and speculations.
PLATO.—Plato (427-347 B.C.), the foremost of the disciples of
Socrates, founded the philosophical school known as the Academy
from the place where his pupils were wont to meet him. One of his
prominent tenets was the doctrine of ideas which he regarded as
spiritual realities, intermediate between God and the world, of which
all visible things are the manifestation. They are the shadow, so to
speak, of which ideas are the substance. He defined virtue in man to
be resemblance to God according to the measure of our ability. In the
Republic, he sets forth his political views, and sketches the
ideal state. More speculative than Socrates, Plato, from the wide
range of his discussions, from their poetic spirit as well as their
depth of thought, not less than their beauty of style, is one of the
most inspiring and instructive of all authors. No other heathen writer
presents so many points of affinity with Christian teaching.
ARISTOTLE.—Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) studied under Plato, but
elaborated a system of his own, which was on some points dissonant
from that of his instructor. His investigations extended over the
field of material nature, as well as over the field of mind and
morals. With less of poetry and of lofty sentiment than Plato, he has
never been excelled in intellectual clearness and grasp. He was
possessed of a wonderful power to observe facts, and an equally
wonderful talent for systemizing them, and reasoning upon them. He is
the founder of the science of Logic. His treatises on
Rhetoric and on Ethics have been hardly less important
in their influence. His Politics is a masterly discussion of
political science, based on a diligent examination of the various
systems of government. In truth, in all departments of research he
exhibits the same capacity for scientific observation and
discussion. In religion he was a theist; but he is less spiritual in
his vein of thought, and more reserved in his utterances on this
theme, than Plato. The names of these two philosophers have been very
frequently coupled. Their influence, like their fame, is imperishable.
LATER SCHOOLS: THE CYNICS.—The impulse given by Socrates gave rise to
still other schools of philosophers. Aristippus of Cyrene
(about 380 B.C.) founded a sect which held that happiness is the
chief end, the goal of rational effort. Antisthenes, who was
born 422 B.C., and especially Diogenes, went to the opposite
extreme, and founded the school of Cynics, who looked with
disdain, not only on luxuries, but on the ordinary comforts of life,
and inured themselves to do without them. Their manners were often as
savage as their mode of living.
HISTORICAL WRITINGS.—The three principal historical writers were
Herodotus (c. 484-0.425 B.C.), the charming but uncritical
chronicler of what he heard and saw, by whom the interference of the
gods in human affairs is devoutly credited; Thucydides, who
himself took part in the Peloponnesian war, the history of which he
wrote with a candor, a profound perception of character, an insight
into the causes of events, a skill in arrangement, and a condensation
and eloquence of style, which are truly admirable; and
Xenophon, an author characterized by naturalness, simplicity,
and a religious spirit.
GREEK LIFE.—It will be convenient to bring together here some
features of Greek life, (1) Public Buildings and
Dwellings. The Greeks almost always preferred to live in
cities. These grew up about an Acropolis, which was a fort on
a hill, generally a steep crag. This was a place of refuge, and the
site of the oldest temple. It became often, therefore, a sacred
place from which private dwellings were excluded. At the nearest
harbor, there would be a seaport town. The Piraeus was more
than four miles from Athens,—a mile farther than the nearest shore,
but was chosen as being an excellent harbor. Sparta, alone, had no
citadel,—the access from the plain being easily defended,—and no
walls. The attractive buildings in a Greek town were the public
edifices. Private houses, as to the exterior, were very plain, with
flat roofs, with few stories, and low. Towards the street "the house
looked like a dead wall with a strong door in it," It was built
round an open court: in the case of the best houses, round two
courts,—one bordered by apartments for the men, the other with the
rooms for women. Bedrooms and sitting-rooms were small, admitting
but little light. Fresco-painting on the walls and ceilings came to
be common. The furniture of the house was plain and simple, but
graceful and elegant in form. The poorer classes slept on skins; the
richer, on woolen mattresses laid on girths. The Greeks lived so
much in the open air that they took less pains with their
dwellings. The public buildings were costly and substantially
built. (2) Meals, Gymnastics, etc. The Greeks rose
early. There are no notices of a morning bath. The first meal was
light. It was succeeded, as was the custom at Rome, by calls on
friends. Business might follow until noon, the hour of the
dèjeuner, or breakfast, which, in the case of the rich, was a
substantial meal. Later in the day, males went to the practice of
gymnastics, which were followed, in later times, by a warm
bath. Towards sunset came the principal meal of the
day. Conversation and music, or the attending of a feast with
friends, took up the evening; if there was a festal company, often
the whole night. At the dinner-table, the Greeks reclined on
couches. Ladies, if allowed to be present, and children, were
required to sit. Spoons, sometimes knives, but never forks, were
used. (3) Costume: Use of Wine. The dress of the Greeks, both
of men and women, was simple and graceful. The men were generally
bareheaded in the streets. In bad weather they wore close-fitting
caps, and, in traveling, broad-brimmed hats. In Athens and Sparta
they always carried walking-sticks. The use of wine was
universal. It was always mixed with water. (4) Slaves. Slaves
were regarded as chattels. No one objected to slavery as
wrong. Slaves were better treated at Athens than elsewhere, but even
at Athens they were tortured when their testimony was required. They
were let out, sometimes by thousands, to work in pestiferous
mines. (5) Women and Children. In Athens, the wife had
seldom learned any thing but to spin and to cook. She lived in
seclusion in her dwelling, and was not present with her husband at
social entertainments, either at home or elsewhere. She had few if
any legal rights, although at Athens she might bring a suit against
her husband for ill-treatment. Concubinage was not condemned by
public opinion. There was no law against exposing infants whom the
parents did not wish to bring up,—that is, leaving them where they
would perish. When found and brought up, they were the slaves of the
person finding them. This cruelty was frequent in the case of
daughters, or of offspring weak or deformed. There were toys and
games for children. Archytas, a philosopher, was said to have
invented the child's rattle. Dolls, hoops, balls, etc., were common
playthings. Boys and girls played hide and seek, blind man's buff,
hunt the slipper, etc. Older people played ball, and gambled with
dice. (6) Education. The education of boys was careful; that
of girls was neglected. The boy went to or from school under the
care of a slave, called pedagogue, or leader. Teachers were
of different social grades, from the low class which taught small
children, to the professors of rhetoric and philosophy. It is
needless to say how much stress was laid on gymnastic and aesthetic
training. Boys read Homer and other authors at an early age,
committing much of them to memory. They were taught to play on the
harp or the flute, and to sing. Lyric poems they learned by
heart. Music held a very high place in the esteem of the
Greeks for its general influence on the mind. Running, wrestling,
throwing the dart, etc., the games practiced at the public contests,
were early taught. Boys at sixteen or eighteen came of age, and were
enrolled as citizens. (7) Musical Instruments: the
Dance. Instrumental music was common among the Greeks at games
and meals, and in battle. They used no bows on the stringed
instruments, but either the fingers or the plectrum,—a stick
of wood, ivory, or metal. There were three sorts of stringed
instruments, the lyre, the cithara (or zithern), and the harp. The
wind-instruments were the pipe, the clarionet, and the
trumpet. Besides these, there were clanging instruments which were
used chiefly in religious ceremonies: such were castanets, the
cymbal, and the tambourine. Dancing was originally connected with
religious worship. Mimetic dances were a favorite diversion at
feasts. There were warlike dances by men in armor, who went through
the movements of attack and defense. In mimetic dances the hands and
arms played a part. There were peaceful dances or choral dances,
marked by rhythmic grace. Sometimes these were slow and measured,
and sometimes more lively. Specially brisk were the dances at the
festivals of Dionysus (Bacchus). Symbolic dances of a religious
character, these Bacchic dances were the germ of the
drama. Recitations were first introduced between hymns that attended
the choric dances. Then, later, followed the dialogue. (8)
Weddings and Funerals. Marriage was attended by a religious
ceremonial. There was a solemn sacrifice and a wedding-feast. The
bride was conveyed to her husband's house, accompanied on the way
with music and song. When a person died, his body was laid out for
one day, during which the relatives and hired mourners uttered
laments round the bier. Burial was at the dawn of day. In later
times, a coin was put into the mouth of the corpse, with which to
pay his passage to the world below. There was a funeral procession,
and at the tomb a solemn farewell was addressed to the deceased by
name. There was then a funeral-feast. Mourning garments were worn
for a short period. The dead were buried in the suburbs of the
cities, generally on both sides of a highway. In the tomb many
little presents, as trinkets and vases, were deposited. (9)
Courts of Law. At law men pleaded their own causes, but might
take advice or have their speeches composed for them by others. In
some cases, friends were allowed to speak in behalf of a
litigant. Men like Demosthenes received large fees for
services of this kind. There being no public prosecutor, informers
were more numerous. They became odious under the name of
sycophants, which is supposed to have been first applied to
those who informed against breakers of an old law forbidding the
exportation of figs from Athens.
CHAPTER IV. RELATIONS WITH PERSIA.—THE SPARTAN AND THEBAN HEGEMONY.
THE RETREAT OF THE TEN THOUSAND.—The Anabasis, the principal
work of Xenophon, describes the retreat from the Tigris to the
coast of Asia Minor, of a body of ten thousand mercenary Greek
troops,—a retreat effected under his own masterly leadership. The
Persian Empire, now in a process of decay, was torn with civil
strife. Xerxes and his eldest son had been murdered (465 B.C.).
The story of several reigns which follow is full of tales of treason
and fratricide. On the death of Darius II. (Darius Nothus)
(423-404 B.C.), the younger Cyrus undertook to dethrone his
brother Artaxerxes II., and for that purpose organized, in Asia
Minor, a military expedition, made up largely of hired Greek
troops. At Cunaxa, not far from Babylon, Cyrus fell in the
combat with his brother. The Persians enticed the Greek generals to
come into their camp, and slew them. Xenophon, an Athenian
volunteer who had accompanied the army, conducted the retreat of his
countrymen, with whom he encountered incredible hardships in the slow
and toilsome journey through Armenia to Trapezus
(Trebizond), and thence to Byzantium. The story of this march,
through snow, over rugged mountains, and across rapid currents, is
told in the Anabasis. A very striking passage is the
description of the joy of the Greeks when from a hilltop they first
descried the Black Sea. The soldiers shouted, "The sea! the sea!" and
embraced one another and their officers.
THE CORINTHIAN WAR AND THE PEACE OF ANTALCIDAS.—Tissaphernes,
the antagonist and successor of the younger Cyrus, was Persian
governor in Asia Minor, and set out to bring under the yoke the Ionic
cities which had espoused the cause of Cyrus. Sparta came to their
aid, and King Agesilaus defeated the Persians near the
Pactolus (395 B.C.). The Persians stirred up an enemy nearer
home, by the use of gold, and the Boeotians, Corinthians, and
Argives, jealous of Sparta, and resentful at the tyranny of her
governors (harmosts), and joined by Athens, took up arms against the
Lacedaemonians. Lysander fell in battle with the allies (395
B.C.). The course of the war in which Conon, the Athenian commander,
destroyed the Spartan fleet at Cnidus, made it necessary to
recall Agesilaus. His victory at Coronea (394 B.C.) did not
avail to turn the tide in favor of Sparta. Conon rebuilt the long
walls at Athens with the assistance of Persian money. The issue of the
conflict was the Peace of Antalcidas with Persia (387
B.C.). The Grecian cities of Asia Minor were given up to the Persians,
as were the islands of Clazomenae and Cyprus. With the
exception of Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, which the
Athenians were to control, all of the other states and islands were to
be free and independent. This was a great concession to Persia. Greek
union was broken up: each state was left to take care of itself as it
best could. Antalcidas cared little for his country: his treaty was
the natural result of Spartan aggressiveness and selfishness.
CONTEST OF THEBES AND SPARTA.—The Spartans had fallen away from the
old rules of life ascribed to Lycurgus. They were possessed by a greed
for gold. There were extremes of wealth and poverty among them. After
the treaty of Antalcidas, they still lorded it over other states, and
were bent on governing in Peloponnesus. At length they were involved
in a contest with Thebes. This was caused by the seizure of the
Cadmeia, the Theban citadel, by the Spartan Phoebidas
acting in conjunction with an aristocratic party in Thebes (383
B.C.). The Theban democrats, who, under Pelopidas, made Athens
their place of rendezvous, liberated Thebes, and expelled the Spartans
from the Cadmeia. Hostile attempts of Sparta against Athens induced
the Athenians to form a new confederacy (or symmachy) composed of
seventy communities (378 B.C.); and, after they had gained repeated
successes on the sea, the two states concluded peace. Athens had
become alarmed at the increased power of Thebes, and was ready to go
over to the side of Sparta, her old enemy. It was a feeling in favor
of a balance of power like that which had prompted Sparta at the close
of the Peloponnesian war, to refuse to consent to the destruction of
Athens, which Thebes and Corinth had desired. Cleombrotus, king
of Sparta, again invaded Boeotia. The principal Boeotian leader was
Epaminondas, one of the noblest patriots in all Grecian
history,—in his disinterested spirit and self-government resembling
Washington. The Spartan king was defeated by him in the great battle
of Leuctra (371 B.C.), and was there slain. At this time the
rage of party knew no bounds. The wholesale massacre of political
antagonists in a city was no uncommon occurrence.
THEBAN HEGEMONY.—The victory of Leuctra gave the hegemony to
Thebes. Three times the Boeotians invaded the Spartan territory. They
founded Megalopolis in Arcadia, to strengthen the Arcadians
against their Lacedæmonian assailants (370 B.C.). They also revived
the Messenian power, recalled the Messenians who had long been
in exile, and founded the city of Messene. In the battle of
Mantinea (362 B.C.), Epaminondas, though victorious
against the Spartans and their allies, was slain. Peace followed among
the Grecian states, Sparta alone refusing to be a party to it. In the
course of this intestine war, the Thebans had broken up the new
maritime sway gained by them.
PERIOD III. THE MACEDONIAN ERA.
CHAPTER I. PHILIP AND ALEXANDER.
THE MACEDONIANS.—The Greeks, exhausted by long-continued war with one
another, were just in a condition to fall under the dominion of
Macedonia, the kingdom on the north which had been ambitious to
extend its power. The Macedonians were a mixed race, partly Greek and
partly Illyrian. Although they were not acknowledged to be Greeks,
their kings claimed to be of Greek descent, and were allowed to take
part in the Olympian games. At first an inland community, living in
the country, rough and uncultivated, made up mostly of farmers and
hunters, they had been growing more civilized by the efforts of their
kings to introduce Greek customs. Archelaus (413-399 B.C.) had
even attracted Greek artists and poets to his court. At the same time
they were exerting themselves to extend their power to the sea. The
people were hardy and brave. When Epaminondas died,
Philip (359-336 B.C.) was on the Macedonian throne. He had
lived three years at Thebes, and had learned much from
Epaminondas, the best strategist and tactician of his day. The decline
of public spirit in Greece had led the states to rely very much on
mercenary troops, whose trade was war. Philip had a well-drilled
standing army. Every thing was favorable to the gratification of his
wish to make himself master of Greece. First he aimed to get
possession of Greek cities in Chalcidice, of which
Olynthus was the chief. The Athenians had towns in that region,
besides Amphipolis, which was formerly theirs. Philip contrived
to make the Olynthians his allies; and then, crossing the river
Strymon, he conquered the western part of Thrace, where
there were rich gold mines. There, for purposes of defense, he founded
the city of Philippi.
THE SACRED WAR.—A pretext for interfering in the affairs of Greece,
Philip found in the Sacred War in behalf of the temple of
Delphi, which had been forced to loan money to the Phocians
during a war waged by them against Thebes, to throw off the Theban
supremacy. Athens and Sparta joined the Phocians. The
Thessalian nobles sided with Philip. He gained the victory in his
character of champion of the Amphictyonic Council, and took
his place in that body, in the room of the Phocians (346 B.C.). But
this was not accomplished until he had made peace with the Athenians,
so that there was no Athenian force at the pass of Thermopylae to
resist his progress.
DEMOSTHENES.—The Athenians had placed themselves at the head of an
Aegean League, and, had they managed with more spirit and
prudence, they might have checked Philip. There was one man, worthy of
the best days of Greece, who penetrated the designs of Philip, and
exerted his great powers to stimulate his countrymen to a timely
resistance. This was Demosthenes (385-322 B.C.). He was the
prince of the school of orators who had sprung up in these troublous
times. Overcoming natural obstacles, he had trained himself with such
assiduity that a place at the head of all orators, ancient and modern,
is generally conceded to him. He was a great statesman, moved by a
patriotic spirit: his speeches were for the welfare and salvation of
the state. In 358 B.C., a war broke out between Athens and its
maritime allies, in which Athens was unsuccessful. It was on the
conquest of Thessaly by Philip, that Demosthenes made against
him the first of that series of famous speeches known as
Philippics (351 B.C.). In vain he urged the Athenians to rescue
Olynthus. The inefficiency of the aid rendered, enabled Philip to
conquer and destroy that city, and to sell its inhabitants as slaves
(348 B.C.). Thirty cities he destroyed, and annexed all
Chalcidice to Macedon. A Macedonian party was formed at Athens,
the foremost leader of which was Aeschines, not a good citizen,
but an orator only second in rank to Demosthenes. They contended that
it was futile to resist the advance of the Macedonian
power. Demosthenes went at the head of an embassy to the Peloponnesian
states which had taken sides with Philip, but his efforts to dissuade
them from this suicidal policy were unavailing. What he wanted was a
union of all Greeks against the common enemy, who was bent on robbing
them of their liberty. He gathered, at length, a strong party about
him at Athens. The overtures of peace from Philip, who was prosecuting
his conquests in Thrace, were rejected. Athenian forces obliged the
king to give up the siege of Byzantium (341 B.C.). The
consequent enlarged influence of Demosthenes was used by him to secure
an increase of the fund for carrying on the war. But Philip had his
paid supporters in all the Greek states. Aeschines at Athens
proved an efficient helper. A deputy at the Amphictyonic
Council, in 338 B.C., he contrived to bring about another "holy
war" against Amphissa in Locris, the end being to give Philip
the command. Philip seized Elatea, in the east of Phocis, which
commanded the entrance to Boeotia and Attica. Dismay spread through
Greece. Demosthenes roused the Athenian assembly, where all
were silent through fear, to confront Philip boldly, and himself went
to Thebes, which he induced to form an alliance with Athens. But the
allies were defeated at the fatal battle of Chaeronea (August,
338 B.C.), where Alexander, Philip's youthful son, decided the
fortune of the day by vanquishing the Theban "sacred band." Philip
treated the Thebans with great severity. He placed a garrison in the
Cadmeia. To Athens he granted favorable terms. Marching into
Peloponnesus, he took from Sparta a large part of its territory, and
apportioned it to the Messenians, Argives, and Arcadians. At a
national assembly at Corinth, from which the Spartans were
absent, Philip caused himself to be created leader of the Grecian
forces against Persia, with the powers of a dictator. Each of the
Greek states was to retain its autonomy; and a congress, to meet at
Corinth, was to settle differences among them. Two years after the
battle of Chaeronea, at the marriage festival of his daughter with the
king of Epirus, Philip was assassinated by means of a conspiracy, in
which his queen is thought to have been a partner.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT.—Alexander was twenty years old when his father
died. His bodily health and vigor qualified him for combats and toils
which few soldiers in his army could endure. His energy, rapidity, and
military skill lift him to a level with Hannibal and the foremost
commanders of any age. He was not without a generous appreciation of
art and literature. The great philosopher, Aristotle, was one
of his tutors. For the eminent authors and artists of Greece he
cherished a warm admiration. But his temper was passionate and
imperious. Homer was his delight, and in Homer he took
Agamemnon for his model; but the direst act of cruelty done by
Achilles—that of dragging Hector after his chariot—he
exceeded when he dragged Batis, a general who had opposed him,
at the tail of his chariot through the streets of
Gaza. Especially when his passions were inflamed by strong
drink,—as at banquets, occasions where Macedonian princes before him
had been wont to drink to excess,—he was capable of savage deeds.
ALEXANDER IN GREECE: HIS ARMY.—At a congress in Corinth, Alexander
was recognized as the leader and general of Greece. In the spring of
335 B.C., he made a campaign against the barbarous peoples north of
Macedonia,—the Thracians, the Getae, and the Illyrians. A false
report of his death led to an uprising of the Greeks. Quickly
returning, he took vengeance on the Thebans by razing their
city to the ground, sparing only the temples and Pindar's
house, and by selling its thirty thousand inhabitants into
slavery. Athens prayed for pardon, which was granted, even the demand
for the surrender of Demosthenes and other leaders being revoked. All
resistance in Greece was over. Alexander's hands were free to complete
his preparations for the task of conquering the Persian Empire. His
army was strong through its valor and discipline rather than its
numbers. The Macedonian phalanx was the most effective force
which had hitherto been used in war. It was made up of foot soldiers
drawn up in ranks, three feet apart, with spears twenty-one feet in
length, held fifteen feet from the point. The length of the spears and
the projection of so many in front of the first rank, gave to the
phalanx a great advantage, although such a body of troops could be
turned around with difficulty. Alexander began his battles with other
troops, and used the phalanx for the decisive charge. Only native
Macedonians served in the phalanx. This was the case, also, with
the Guard, a body of infantry, and with two divisions of
cavalry, one clad in heavy armor, and one in light. With these troops
were Greek and barbarian soldiers, infantry and cavalry, and a
division for hurling stones, which was used not only in sieges, but
also in battles. There was a band of young Macedonian soldiers called
pages, also a body-guard selected from these by promotion; and
out of this the king chose his generals. The army consisted of not
more than forty thousand men, but it was so organized as to be
completely under the control of Alexander; and he was a military
genius of the first order.
THE CAMPAIGN OF ALEXANDER: TO THE BATTLE OF ISSUS.—In the spring of
334 B.C., Alexander crossed the Hellespont at Abydos. At
Ilium (Troy) he performed various rites in honor of the heroes
of the Trojan war, his romantic sympathy with whom was the principal
tie between him and the Greeks. A Persian army disputed the passage of
the Granicus. He was the first to enter the river, and in the
battle displayed the utmost personal valor. His decisive victory
caused nearly the whole of Asia Minor to submit to
him. Halicarnassus, and the few other towns that held out, were
taken by storm. At Tarsus he was cured by his physician,
Philip, of a dangerous fever, brought on by a bath in the chilly
waters of the river Cydnus. Darius III., the king of
Persia, with a large army, approaching from the Euphrates, encountered
him in a valley near Issus, in Cilicia. There (333 B.C.) was
fought the memorable battle which settled the fate of the Persian
Empire. The host of Darius was defeated with great slaughter; and his
camp, with his treasures and his family, fell into the hands of the
victor.
TO THE BATTLE OF ARBELA.—After the victory of Issus, Syria and
Phoenicia submitted, except Tyre, which was captured
after a siege of seven months. Two thousand of the inhabitants were
hung on the walls, and thirty thousand were sold into slavery. Gaza
resisted, and there Alexander was severely wounded. After it was
taken, he entered Egypt, and founded the city of ALEXANDRIA, in
its consequences one of the most memorable acts of his life. He
marched through Lybia to the temple of Jupiter Ammon
(331 B.C.). Having thus subdued the lands on the west, he passed
through Palestine and Syria by way of Damascus,
crossed the Euphrates and the Tigris, and met the
Persian army in the plains of Gaugamela, near Arbela,—an army
more than twenty times as large as his own (October, 331 B.C.). After
a hotly contested battle, the Persians were routed, and their empire
destroyed.
TO THE INVASION OF INDIA.—Babylon and Susa with all
their treasures, and, afterwards, Persepolis and
Pasargadae, fell into the conqueror's hands. He set fire to
Persepolis, and sold its male inhabitants into slavery. He pursued
Darius into Media, Hyrcania, and Parthia, where the flying king
was murdered by Bessus, one of his own nobles, that he might
not give himself up to Alexander. He then marched east and south
through Persia and the modern Afghanistan. He tarried at
Prophthasia (Furrah) for two months. Here it was that he
charged Philotas, one of his best officers, with a conspiracy
against his life, and put him to death; and after this he ordered the
murder of Parmenio, his best general, who had been a companion
in arms of King Philip. Founding cities in different places as he
advanced, he crossed the Oxus, marched through Sogdiana,
and crossed the Jaxartes (Sir-Daria). While at
Samarcand, in a drunken revel, he slew Clitus, the
friend who had saved his life in the battle of the Granicus. In a fit
of remorse he went without food or drink for three days. In
Bactra, the capital of Bactria, he married
Roxana, a princess of the country. By this time his head was
turned by his unexampled victories, conquests and power. He began to
demand of his followers the cringing adulation that was paid to
Oriental monarchs, and when it was denied was ready to inflict summary
vengeance.
TO THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER.—Crossing the eastern Caucasus (the
Hindu-Kush), Alexander moved down the right bank of the
Indus, subduing the tribes whom he met in his path. On the
further side of the Hydaspes, he met the Indian prince
Porus, whom he defeated and captured, and converted into an
ally. He continued his marches and his line of victories as far as the
river Hyphasis. Here the Macedonian troops would go no farther.
Alexander turned back (327 B.C.), and with his army and fleet moved
down the Hydaspes to the Indus, and down the
Indus to the sea. Nearchus, his admiral, sailed along
the shore to the west, while Alexander conducted the rest of the army
amid infinite hardships through the desert, and finally met him on the
coast. In the beginning of the year 325, he reached Susa. Here
he plainly manifested his purpose of combining Macedonia and Greece
with the East in one great empire. He adopted the Persian costume and
ceremonial, and married both the daughter of Darius III. and
the sister of Artaxerxes III. He prevailed on eighty of his
Macedonian officers and ten thousand Macedonian soldiers to take
Persian wives. For himself he exacted the homage paid to a
divinity. These measures, looking to the amalgamation of Macedon and
Greece with the East on terms of equality, were most offensive to the
old comrades and subjects of Alexander. He was obliged to quell a
mutiny, which he accomplished with consummate address and courage
(July, 324 B.C.). In the marshes about Babylon, a place which he
intended to make his capital, he contracted a fever, which was
aggravated by daily revels, and which terminated his life (323 B.C.),
after a reign of twelve years and eight months.
INFLUENCE OF ALEXANDER.—The Persian Empire, when it was attacked by
Alexander, was a gigantic body without much vitality. Yet to overcome
it, there was requisite not only the wonderful military talents of the
conqueror, but the vigilance and painstaking which equally
characterized him. He has been called "an adventurer." To fight and
to conquer, and to spread his dominion wherever there were countries
to subdue, seems to have been his absorbing purpose. The most
substantial result of his exploits, which read more like fable than
authentic history, was to spread Hellenism,—to diffuse at
least a tincture of Greek civilization, together with some
acquaintance with the Greek language, over the lands of the East. This
was a most important work in its bearing on the subsequent history of
antiquity, and more remotely on the history of all subsequent times.
CHAPTER II. THE SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER.
DIVISIONS OF THE EMPIRE.—Alexander left no legitimate children. The
child of Roxana, Alexander the Younger, was born after his
father's death. The empire naturally fell to his principal generals,
of whom Perdiccas, having command of the great army of Asia,
had the chief power. He was obliged to content his military
colleagues, which he did by giving to them provinces. The principal
regents, or guardians, were soon reduced to three,—Antipater
and Craterus in Europe, and Perdiccas. The government
was carried on in the name of Roxana's son, and of Arrhidaeus,
the half-brother of Alexander. But Perdiccas soon found that
each general was disposed to be in fact a king in his own dominion. He
formed the plan of seizing the empire for himself. This combined the
satraps against him. Perdiccas was supported by his friend
Eumenes, but had against him Antipater and
Craterus, the other regents, and the powerful governors,
Ptolemy Lagi in Egypt, and Antigonus in Phrygia, Lycia,
and Pamphilia (322 B.C.). There followed a series of wars lasting for
twenty-two years, involving numerous changes of sovereignty, and fresh
partitions of territory. The rebellious satraps triumphed over the
royalists, whose aim was to keep the empire intact for the family of
Alexander. The ambition of Antigonus to make himself the sole
ruler, led to a league against him (315 B.C.). In a treaty of peace,
Cassander, the son of Antipater, was to retain the government
of Macedonia. By him Roxana and the young Alexander were
put to death. In a second war against Antigonus, in which, as before,
he was supported by his son, Demetrius Poliorcetes, they were
completely defeated in the battle of Ipsus, in Phrygia (301
B.C.). Antigonus was slain: Demetrius fled to Greece. The result of
this protracted contest was, that the Macedonian empire was broken
into three principal states,—Macedonia under the Antigonidae,
the descendants of Antigonus; Egypt under the Ptolemies; Syria
under the Seleucidae. Besides these, there were the smaller
kingdoms of Pergamon and of Bithynia. Other states broke
off from the Syrian realm of the Seleucidae.
I. THE KINGDOM OF THE PTOLEMIES.
PTOLEMY LAGI (323-285 B.C.).—When Alexander transferred the
seat of power in Egypt from Memphis to Alexandria, he
accomplished results which he could not at all foresee. The Greek
element became predominant in Egyptian affairs. A great stimulus was
given to commerce and to foreign intercourse. The Egyptians themselves
entered zealously into industrial pursuits. Ptolemy Lagi
(Soter), the first of the new sovereigns, was wise enough to guard his
own territory, and even to establish his rule in Palestine,
Phoenicia, and Coele-Syria, but to avoid extensive
schemes of conquest. Cyrenaica, on the west of Egypt, and the
intermediate Lybian tribes, he subdued. Ptolemy was an absolute
monarch, but he retained prominent features in the old Egyptian
administrative system, gave offices to Egyptians, and protected their
religion. The most important civil stations and all military offices
were reserved for Graeco-Macedonians: Alexandria was a Greek
city. From the beginning he fostered learning and science. He set to
work to collect a great library in a building connected with his
palace. He founded the Museum, which was a college of
professors. It attracted a great body of students, and became the
university of the eastern world. Under the patronage of
Ptolemy, mathematicians, poets, and critics of high repute
flourished. Among the structures raised by him were the lighthouse of
vast height on the island of Pharos, which was connected with
the shore by a mole, or causeway, a mile in length; the Soma,
or mausoleum, containing the body of Alexander; the Temple
of Serapis, completed by his son; and the Hippodrome.
PTOLEMY PHILADELPHIA.—Ptolemy II., surnamed
Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.), with less talent for war than his
father, did much to encourage commerce, and was especially active in
his patronage of learning. In this last province he did a greater work
than his father. He greatly enlarged the library. He drew learned men
to his court from all directions. In his time the Hebrew scriptures
were translated into Greek, in the version called the
Septuagint. Under his auspices Manetho composed his
History of Egypt.
PTOLEMY EUERGETES.—Ptolemy III. (247-222 B.C.), surnamed
Euergetes (the benefactor), was the most enterprising and
aggressive of this line of monarchs. Most of his conquests were not
permanent, but some of them were. He was a patron of art and of
literature. He raised Egypt to the highest pitch of prosperity that
she ever enjoyed. The first three Ptolemies whose reigns had covered a
century, were followed by a series of incompetent and depraved kings,
nine in number.
Ptolemy IV. (Philopator) (222-205 B.C.) was a weak and dissolute
prince. In war with Antiochus III. (the Great) of Syria, he
saved his kingdom; but his own subjects were rebellious and
disaffected. Ptolemy VI. (Philometor) (181-148 B.C.) was a
boy at his accession. His guardians engaged in war with Syria, which
would have conquered Egypt but for the interposition of the Romans
in his behalf (170 B.C.).
II. MACEDON AND GREECE.
When Alexander was in the far East, the Spartan king, Agis III.
(330 B.C.), headed a revolt against Antipater; but Agis was
vanquished and slain. The death of Alexander kindled the hope of
regaining liberty among patriotic Greeks. Athens, under
Demosthenes and Hyperides, led the way. A large
confederacy was formed. Leosthenes, the Greek commander,
defeated Antipater, and shut him up within the walls of Lamia
(in Thessaly). But the Greeks were finally beaten at
Crannon. Favorable terms were granted to their cities, except
Athens and Aetolia. Twenty-one thousand citizens were deported from
Athens to Thrace, Italy, and other places. The nine thousand richest
citizens, with Phocion at their head, the anti-democratic
party, had all power left in their hands. Demosthenes, Hyperides, and
other democratic leaders, were proscribed. Demosthenes took
refuge in the temple of Neptune, on the little island of
Calaurea. Finding himself pursued by Archias, the
officer of Antipater, he took poison, which he had kept by him in a
quill, and died. Thus closed the life of an intrepid statesman who had
served the cause of liberty and of his country through the direst
perils and trials with unfaltering constancy. The democracy again
acquired power temporarily, and Phocion was condemned to death.
Cassander, excluded from the Macedonian throne by his father,
Antipater, supplanted Polysperchon, the regent (316 B.C.). He
placed Demetrius of Phaleron in power at Athens over a
democracy with restricted prerogatives. He was driven out by
Demetrius Poliorcetes, who was helped by Athens to possess
himself of Macedonia and of the most of Greece, but was compelled
(287 B.C.) to give up his throne, which, however, was gained by his
son, Antigonus Gonatas (277 B.C.).
THE ACHAEAN LEAGUE.—In 279 B.C., there occurred an irruption of the
Gauls into Greece, "one of those vast waves of migration which from
time to time sweep over the world." The Macedonian king, Ptolemy
Ceraunus, was defeated by them in a great battle, captured, and
put to death. It was two years before these marauders were driven out,
and Macedonia acquired a settled government. This episode in history
favored the growth of two leagues—the Achaean League and the
Aetolian League. In these leagues the several cities gave up to
the central council much more power than Greek cities had been in the
habit of granting in former unions. The Achaean League was at first
made up of ten Achaean cities. About 240 B.C. Aratus of Sicyon,
who had brought Sicyon into the league, delivered
Corinth from the Macedonians. To free Greek cities from
subjection to them, was long a great object of the
league. Peloponnesus, except Sparta, with Athens and
Aegina, joined it.
THE AETOLIAN LEAGUE: WAR OF THE LEAGUES.—The rough Aetolians north of
the Corinthian Gulf, semi-barbarous in their mode of life, formed
another league, and got command of Phocis, Locris, and
Boeotia. A praiseworthy attempt at reform was made in Sparta by
the king, Agis IV. (240 B.C.), who was opposed by the rich, and
put to death. Cleomenes, his successor, who had the same spirit
as Agis, engaged in conflict with the Achaean League, which then
called in Macedonian help (223 B.C.). It had to give up to Macedon the
Corinthian citadel. Sparta was overthrown. Soon a war between
the two leagues broke out, when the Achaeans again called on the
Macedonians for aid. These conflicts were followed by the interference
of the Romans.
THE EVIL OF FACTION.—The bane of Greece, from the beginning to the
end of its history, was the suicidal spirit of disunion. Her power was
splintered at many crises, when, if united, it might have saved the
land from foreign tyranny. Her resources were drained, generation
after generation, by needless local contests. She owed her downfall to
the desolating influence of faction.
III. THE SYRIAN KINGDOM.
Seleucus I. (Nicator) (312-280 B.C.) was the founder of the
Syrian kingdom. From Babylon he extended his dominion to the Black
Sea, to the Jaxartes, and even to the Ganges, so far
as to make the Indian prince, Sandracottus, acknowledge him as
suzerain. From Babylon he removed his capital to Antioch on the
Orontes, which he founded,—a city destined to be the rival of
Alexandria among the cities of the East. The effect of this removal,
however, was to loosen his hold upon the Eastern provinces of his
empire. Seleucia, on the west bank of the Tigris, he likewise
founded, which became a great commercial city, but was outstripped
later by the Parthian city opposite, Ctesiphon. The provinces
beyond the Euphrates he committed to his son, Antiochus. With
him (Antiochus I.) begins the decline of the empire through the
influence of Oriental luxury and vice. Under him Syria lost the
eastern part of Asia Minor through the invading Gauls, who converted
northern Phrygia into Galatia, while north-western Lydia became
the kingdom of Pergamon. Antiochus II. (261-246 B.C.)
could not hold the provinces in subjection. The Parthian and Bactrian
kingdoms began under his reign. Antiochus III. (the Great)
(223-1876.0.) checked the Parthians and Bactrians, and expelled the
Egyptians from Asia, but prepared for the downfall of the Syrian
Empire by provoking the hostility of the Romans.
BACTRIA, PARTHIA, PERGAMON, GALATIA.—Bactria, after it broke
off from Syria, was under Greek princes until, having been weakened
by the Parthians, it was conquered by the Scythians (134 B.C.). The
Parthians issued, as marauders, from the north border of
Iran (256 B.C.), under the Arsacidae. They gradually
acquired civilization from contact with Greek culture, especially
after they established the trading-city of Ctesiphon. About
200 B.C. the rulers of Pontus made the Greek city of
Sinope their residence, and attained to a high degree of
strength under Mithridates VI. (the Great). Pergamon
became a flourishing state under the Greek rule of Attalus
I. (241 B.C.). It was famed for its wealth and its
trade. Eumenes II. (197-159 B.C.) founded the library at
Pergamon. For him parchment was improved, if not invented, the
Egyptians having forbidden the exportation of
papyrus. Galatia was so named from the swarm of Gallic
invaders (about 279 B.C.), who, after incursions in the East, which
were continued for forty years, settled there, and by degrees
yielded to the influences of Greek culture.
PALESTINE: THE MACCABEES: THE IDUMAEAN PRINCES.—Palestine
fared comparatively well in the times when the Ptolemies had
control. Not so after it fell under the permanent sway of
Syria. The Jews were surrounded and invaded by Gentilism. On
three sides, there were Greek cities. The perils to which their
religion was exposed by the heathen without, and by a lukewarm party
within, made earnest Jews, the bulk of the people, more inflexible in
their adherence to their law and customs. The party of the
Pharisees grew out of the intensity of the loyal and patriotic
feeling which was engendered in the periods following the exile. The
synagogues, centers of worship and of instruction scattered over the
land, acted as a bulwark against the intrusion of heathen doctrine and
heathen practices. The resistance to these dreaded evils came to a
head when the Syrian ruler, Antiochus Epiphanes, embittered by
his failures in conflict with Egypt, resolved to break down religious
barriers among his subjects, and, for this end, to exterminate Jewish
worship. In 168 B.C. he set up an altar to Jupiter in the temple at
Jerusalem, and even compelled Jewish priests to immolate
swine. Then the revolt broke out in which the family of Maccabees were
the heroic leaders. Judas Maccabees recovered the temple, but
fell in battle (160. B.C.). Under his brother Simon, victory
was achieved, and the independence of the nation secured. The chief
power remained in the hands of this family, the Asmonaean
princes, until their degeneracy paved the way for Roman intervention
under Pompeius. His adviser was the Idumeaean,
Antipater, a Jewish proselyte, whose son Herod was made
king (39 B.C.).
PHILOSOPHY: THE STOICS AND THE EPICUREANS.—In the Greek world the
progress of investigation and reflection tended to produce disbelief
in the old mythological system. Social confusion and degeneracy tended
to undermine all religious faith. Pyrrho (about 330 B.C.)
brought forward the skeptical doctrine, that the highest wisdom is to
doubt every thing. Euhemrus (315 B.C.) interpreted the whole
mythology as an exaggeration, by imagination and invention, of
historical events which form its slender nucleus. With the loss of
liberty and the downfall of the Greek states, philosophy became, so to
speak, more cosmopolitan. It no longer exalted, in the same
narrow spirit, the Greek above the barbarian. It looked
at mankind more as one community. This was a feature of the first of
the two principal sects, the Stoics, of whom Zeno (about
330 B.C.), and Chrysippus (280-207 B.C.) were the founders. They
taught that virtue is the only good; that is consists
in living according to nature; that reason should be dominant,
and tranquillity of spirit be maintained by the complete subjugation
of feeling. The emotions are to be kept down by the force of and iron
will. This is the Stoic apathy. The world is wisely ordered:
whatever is, is right; yet the cause of all things is not
personal. Mankind form on great community, "one city." The
Epicureans, the second of the prominent sects,—so called from
Epicurus, their founder (342-370 B.C.),—made pleasure
the chief good, which is to be secured by prudence, or such a
regulation of our desires as will yield, on the whole, the largest
fruit of happiness. They believed that the gods exist, but denied
Providence.
CULTURE.—In the Greek cities which were founded by the Macedonians,
the political life and independence which Greece had enjoued did not
exist. The "Hellenistic" literature and culture, as it is called,
which followed, lacked the spontaneous energy and original spirit of
the old time. The civilization was that of people not exclusively
Greek in blood. Alexandria was its chief seat. Poetry
languished. It was prose—and prose in the form of learned
inquiries, criticism, and science—that flourished. The
path was the same as that marked out by Aristotle. Theocritus,
born in Syracuse, or Cos, under Ptolemy I. (about 320 B.C.),
had distinction as a pastoral or bucolic poet. Euclid, under
Ptolemy Soter, systemized geometry. Archimedes, who died
in 212 B.C., is said to have invented the screw, and was skillful in
mechanics. Eratosthenes founded descriptive astronomy and
scientific chronology. "The Alexandrian age busied itself with
literary or scientific research, and with setting in order what the
Greek mind had done in its creative time." After Greece became subject
to Rome (146 B.C.) the Graeco Roman period in Greek literature
begins. The Greek historian Polybius stands on the border
between the Alexandrian age and this next era. He was born about 210
B.C., and died about 128 B.C.
LITERATURE.—Works mentioned on p. 16: Histories of Greece by GROTE
(12 vols.) (democratic in his sympathies), E. CURTIUS (5 vols.),
THIRLWALL (8 vols.), W. Smith (1 vol.), G. W. Cox. Busolt,
Griechische Geschichte; Fyffe, History of Greece
(primer); Duncker, History of Greece [separately published];
Abbott (2 vols.); Holm (4 vols.); Bury; Oman.
On special periods: The writings of the ancient authors,—Herodotus
(Rawlinson's translation, 4 vols.), Xenophon, THUCYDIDES (Jowett's
translation, 2 vols.), Polybius, Plutarch's Lives. Schäfer,
Demosthenes und seine Zeit (3 vols.); DROYSEN, Geschichte
des Hellenismus (3 vols.); E. A. FREEMAN, History of Federal
Government (vol. i.); FINLAY, History of Greece from the
Conquest of the Romans (7 vols.); G. W. Cox, History of
Greece from the Earliest Period to the End of the Persian War (2
vols.), and Lives of Greek Statesmen (1 vol.); Freeman,
History of Sicily (4 vols.).
On special topics: BOECKH, The Public Economy of Athens;
Coulanges, The Ancient City, etc.: Gõll, Kulturbilder aus
Hellas und Rom (3 vols.); Guhl and Koner, The Life of the
Greeks and Romans, etc.; Green, Greece and Greek
Antiquities (primer); J. P. Mahaffy, Social Life in
Greece, also Rambles in Greece, Old Greek Education, and
History of Greek Literature (2 vols.); Becker,
Charicles (a story illustrative of Greek life); F. A. Paley,
Greek Wit (2 vols.); Church, Stories from Homer;
Black, The Wise Men of Greece; Neares, Greek Anthology
[in Ancient Classics for English Readers], Chief Ancient
Philosophies [Stoicism, etc.] (1 vol., 1880); Müller and
Donaldson, History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (3
vols.); Mure, A Critical History of the Language and Literature
of Ancient Greece (5 vols.); Jebb, Attic Orators (2
vols.); Symonds, The Greek Poets (2 vols.); G. F. Schömann,
The Antiquities of Greece; Gladstone, Studies on the
Homeric Age and Homer; Lübke, Outlines of the History
of Art; FERGUSSON, History of Architecture; D'Anvers,
Elementary History of Art; Botsford, Development of the
Athenian Constitution; W. W. Fowler, The City-State of the
Greeks and Romans; Gilbert, Constitutional Antiquities of
Sparta and Athens; Greenidge, Handbook of Greek
Constitutional History; H. N. Fowler, History of Greek
Literature; Marshall, Short History of Greek Philosophy;
Gardner, Handbook of Greek Sculpture; Tarbell, History of
Greek Art_; Tozer, Primer of Classical Geography; Kiepert,
Atlas Antiquus; Cunningham, Western Civilization
(vol. 1); Smith (Wayte & Marindin), Dictionary of Greek and Roman
Antiquities (2 vols., 1890); Seyffert (Nettleship and Sandys),
Dictionary of Classical Antiquities.
MACEDONIAN ROYAL HOUSES
A.—House of Alexander the Great.
(1) AMYNTAS II.
|
+—(4) PHILIP, m.
| 1, Olympias;
| |
| +—ALEXANDER THE GREAT, m.
| 1, Roxana;
| |
| +—(7) ALEXANDER.
|
| 2, Concubines.
| |
| +—Hercules.
|
| 2, Cleopatra;
|
| 3, Concubines.
| |
| +—(6) PHILIP ARRHIDAEUS, m. Eurydicé.
| |
| +—Thessalonica, m. Cassander.
| |
| +—Cynané m. Amyntas.
|
+—(2) ALEXANDER II.
|
+—(3) PERDICCAS III.
|
+—Amyntas, m. Cynané
|
+—Eurydicé, m. Philip Arrhidaeus.
B.—House of Antipater.
ANTIPATER.
|
+—(8) CASSANDER, m. Thessalonica.
| |
| +—(9) PHILIP II.
| |
| +—(10) ANTIPATER II.
| |
| +—(11) ALEXANDER.
|
|
+—Philip.
|
+—Eurydicé, m. Ptolemy Lagi,
|
+—Phila, m.
| 1, Craterus;
| 2, Demetrius Poliorcetes.
|
+—Nicaea, m. Perdiccas.
C.—House of Antigonus.
Antigonus I.
|
|
+—(12) DEMETRIUS I (Poliorcetes), m.
| Phila, daughter of Antipater.
| |
| +—(13) Antigonus II (Gonatas), m.
| | Phila, daughter of Seleucus Nicator.
| | |
| | +—(14) Demetrius II, m.
| | 1, Stratonice;
| | |
| | +—(16) PHILIP III.
| | | |
| | | +—(17) PERSEUS, m.
| | | | Laodicé, daughter of Seleucus Philopator.
| | | |
| | | +—Demetrius
| | |
| | +—Apama.
| |
| | 2, Phthia.
| |
| +—Craterus.
| | |
| | +—Alexander
| |
| +—Demetrius the Handsome.
| | |
| | +—Antigonus III (Doson), m.
| | | Phthia, widow of Demetrius II
| | |
| | +—Echecrates,
| | |
| | +—Antigonus.
| |
| +—Stratonice, m.
| | 1, Seleucus Nicator;
| | 2, Antiochus Theus.
| |
| +—Phila.
|
+—Philip.
[From Rawlinson's Manual of Ancient History.]
SECTION II. ROMAN HISTORY.
INTRODUCTION.
PLACE OF ROME IN HISTORY.—Rome is the bridge which unites, while it
separates, the ancient and the modern world. The history of Rome is
the narrative of the building up of a single City, whose dominion
gradually spread until it comprised all the countries about the
Mediterranean, or what were then the civilized nations. "In this great
empire was gathered up the sum total that remained of the religions,
laws, customs, languages, letters, arts, and sciences of all the
nations of antiquity which had successively held sway or
predominance." Under the system of Roman government and Roman law they
were combined in one ordered community. It was out of the wreck of the
ancient Roman Empire that the modern European nations were
formed. Their likeness to one another, their bond of fellowship, is
due to the heritage of laws, customs, letters, religion, which they
have received in common from Rome.
THE INHABITANTS OF ANCIENT ITALY.—Until a late period in Roman
history, the Apennines, and not the Alps, were the northern boundary
of Italy. The most of the region between the Alpine range and the
Apennines, on both sides of the Po, was inhabited by Gauls,
akin to the Celts of the same name north of the Alps. On the west of
Gallia were the Ligurians, a rough people of unknown
extraction. People thought to be of the same race as the Ligurians
dwelt in Sardinia and in Corsica, and in a part of
Sicily. On the east of Gallia were the Venetians, whose lineage
is not ascertained. The Apennines branch off from the Alps in a
southeasterly direction until they near the Adriatic, when they turn
to the south, and descend to the extreme point of the peninsula, thus
forming the backbone of Italy. On the west, in the central portion of
the peninsula, is the hilly district called by the ancients,
Etruria (now Tuscany), and the plains of Latium and
Campania. What is now termed Campania, the district
about Rome, is a part of ancient Latium. The Etrurians differed
widely, both in appearance and in language, from the Romans. They were
not improbably Aryans, but nothing more is known of their
descent. In the east, in what is now Calabria, and in
Apulia, there was another people, the Iapygians, whose
origin is not certain, but who were not so far removed from the Greeks
as from the Latins. The southern and south-eastern portions of the
peninsula were the seat of the Greek settlements, and the
country was early designated Great Greece. Leaving out the
Etrurians, Iapygians, and Greeks, Italy, south of Gallia, was
inhabited by nations allied to one another, and more remotely akin to
the Greeks. These Italian nations were divided into an eastern and a
western stock. The western stock, the Latins, whose home was in
Latium, were much nearer of kin to the Greeks than were the
eastern. The eastern stock comprised the Umbrians and the
Oscans. It included the Sabines, Samnites, and Lucanians.
We are certain, that, "from the common cradle of peoples and
languages, there issued a stock which embraced in common the
ancestors of the Greeks and the Italians; that from this, at a
subsequent period, the Italians branched off; and that these divided
again into the western and eastern stocks, while, at a still later
date, the eastern became subdivided into Umbrians and Oscans."
(Mommsen's History of Rome, vol. i., p. 36.)
ITALY AND GREECE.—In two important points, Italy is geographically
distinguished from Greece. The sea-coast of Italy is more uniform, not
being broken by bays and harbors; and it is not cut up, like Greece,
by chains of mountains, into small cantons. The Romans had not the
same inducement to become a sea-faring people; there were fewer
cities; there was an opportunity for closer and more extended
leagues. It is remarkable that the outlets of Greece were towards the
east; those of Italy towards the west. The two nations were thus
averted from one another: they were, so to speak, back to back.
THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.—The Greeks and Romans, although sprung from a
common ancestry, and preserving common features in their language, and
to some extent in their religion, were very diverse in their natural
traits. The Greeks had more genius: the Romans more stability. In art
and letters the Romans had little originality. In these provinces they
were copyists of the Greeks: they lacked ideality. They had, also, far
less delicacy of perception, flexibility, and native refinement of
manners. But they had more sobriety of character and more
endurance. They were a disciplined people; and in their
capacity for discipline lay the secret of their supremacy in arms and
of their ability to give law to the world. If they produced a much
less number of great men than the Greeks, there was more widely
diffused among Roman citizens a conscious dignity and strength. The
Roman was naturally grave: the fault of the Greek was
levity. Versatility belonged to the Greek:
virility to the Roman. Above all, the sense of right and of
justice was stronger among the Romans. They had, in an eminent degree,
the political instinct, the capacity for governing, and for building
up a political system on a firm basis. This trait was connected with
their innate reverence for authority, and their habit of
obedience. The noblest product of the Latin mind is the Roman
law, which is the foundation of almost all modern codes. With all
their discernment of justice and love of order, the Romans, however,
were too often hard and cruel. Their history is stained here and there
with acts of unexampled atrocity. In private life, too, when the rigor
of self-control gave way, they sunk into extremes of vulgar
sensuality. If, compared with the Greeks, they stood morally at a
greater height, they might fall to a lower depth.
THE ROMAN RELIGION.—The difference between the Greek and Roman mind
was manifest in the sphere of religion. Before their separation from
one another they had brought from the common hearthstone elements of
worship which both retained. Jupiter, like Zeus, was the
old Aryan god of the shining sky. But the Greek conception, even of
the chief deity, differed from the Roman. When the Romans came into
intercourse with the Greeks, they identified the Greek divinities with
their own, and more and more appropriated the tales of the Greek
mythology, linking them to their own deities. Of the early worship
peculiar to the Romans, we know but little. But certain traits always
belonged to the Roman religion. Their mood was too prosaic to invent a
theogony, to originate stories of the births, loves, and romantic
adventures of the gods, such as the Greek fancy devised. The Roman
myths were heroic, not religious: they related to the deeds of valiant
men. Their deities were, in the first place, much more abstract, less
vividly conceived, less endowed with distinct personal
characteristics. And, secondly, their service to the gods was more
punctilious and methodical. It was regulated, down to the minutiæ, by
fixed rules. Worship was according to law, was something due to the
gods, and was discharged, like any other debt, exactly, and at the
proper time. The Roman took advantage of technicalities in dealing
with his gods: he was legal to the core. The word religion had
the same root as obligation. It denoted the bondage or service
owed by man to the gods in return for their protection and favor; and
hence the anxiety, or scrupulous watchfulness against the omission of
what is required to avert the displeasure of the powers above.
ORIGIN OF THE ROMANS.—The Romans attributed their origin to the
mythical Æneas, who fled, with a band of fugitives, from the
flames of Troy, and whose son, Ascanius, or
Iulus, settled in Alba Longa, in Latium. What is known
of the foundation of Rome is, that it was a settlement of Latin
farmers and traders on the group of hills, seven in number, near the
border of Latium, on the Tiber. It was the head of navigation
for small vessels, and Rome was at first, it would seem, the
trading-village for the exchange of the products of the
farming-district in which it was placed. Such an outpost would be
useful to guard Latium against the Etrurians across the
river. Of the three townships, or clans, which united to form
Rome,—the Ramnes, the Tities, and the
Luceres,—the first and third were Latin. The second, which was
Sabine, blended with the Roman element, as the language
proves. The clans, or tribes, in Latium together formed a league, the
central meeting-place of which was at first Alba Longa. There
is some reason to think that the Sabines were from Cures near
Rome. Certain it is that Rome, even at the outset, derived its
strength from a combination of tribes.
PERIOD I. ROME UNDER THE KINGS AND THE PATRICIANS. (753-304 B.C.)
CHAPTER I. ROME UNDER THE KINGS (753-509 B.C.).
CHARACTER OF THE LEGENDS.—There is no doubt that the Romans lived for
a time under the rule of kings. These were not like the Greek kings,
hereditary rulers, nor were they chosen from a single family. But the
stories told in later times respecting the kings, their names and
doings, are quite unworthy of credit. They rest upon no contemporary
evidence or sure tradition. To say nothing of the miraculous elements
that enter into the narratives, they are laden with other
improbabilities, which prove them to be the fruit of imagination. They
contain impossibilities in chronology. They ascribe laws,
institutions, and religion, which were of slow growth, to particular
individuals, apportioning to each his own part in an artificial
way. Many of the stories are borrowed from the Greeks, and were
originally told by them about other matters. In short, the Roman
legends, including dates, such as are recorded in this chapter, are
fabrications to fill up a void in regard to which there was no
authentic information, and to account for beliefs and customs the
origin of which no one knew. They are of service, however, in helping
us to ascertain the character of the Roman constitution, and something
about its growth, in the prehistoric age.
THE LEGENDARY TALES.—Romulus and Remus, so the legend
runs, were sons of the god Mars by Rhea Silvia, a
priestess of Vesta, whose father, Numitor, had been slain by
his wicked brother, Amulius, who thereby made himself king of
Alba Longa. The twins, by his command, were put into a basket, and
thrown into the Tiber. The cradle was caught by the roots of a
fig-tree: a she-wolf came out, and suckled them, and Faustulus,
a shepherd, brought them up as his own children. Romulus grew
up, and slew the usurper, Amulius. The two brothers founded a
city on the banks of the Tiber where they had been rescued (753
B.C.). In a quarrel, the elder killed the younger, and called the city
after himself, Roma. Romulus, to increase the number of the
people, founded an asylum on the Capitoline Hill, which gave welcome
to robbers and fugitives of all kinds. There was a lack of women; but,
by a cunning trick, the Romans seized on a large number of Sabine
women, who had been decoyed to Rome, with their fathers and brothers,
to see the games. The angry Sabines invaded Rome. Tarpeia, the
daughter of the Roman captain, left open for them a gate into the
Capitoline citadel, and so they won the Capitol. In the war that
followed, by the intervention of the Sabine women, the Romans and
Sabines agreed to live peaceably together as citizens of one town,
under Romulus and the Sabine, Tatius. After the death of
Tatius, Romulus reigned alone, and framed laws for the two
peoples. During a thunder-storm he was translated to the skies, and
worshiped as the god Quirinus (716 B.C.). After a year Numa
Pompilius, a Sabine, was elected king (715-673 B.C.). He stood in
close intercourse with the gods, was full of wisdom and of the spirit
of peace. He framed the religious system, with its various offices and
rites. The gates of the temple of Janus, closed only in peace,
were shut during his mild reign. He died of old age, without illness
or pain. The peaceful king was followed by the warlike king, Tullus
Hostilius (673-641 B.C.). War breaks out with Alba. The two
armies face each other, and the contest is decided by the single
combat of the three Horatii, champions of the Romans, and the
three Curiatii, champions of Alba. One Roman, the victor and
sole survivor, is led to Rome in triumph. Thus Alba became
subject to Rome. Afterwards Alba was destroyed, but the Albans
became Roman citizens. The fourth king, Ancus Marcius (641-616
B.C.), loved peace, but could not avoid war. He fought against four
Latin towns, brought their inhabitants to Rome, and planted them on
the Aventine hill. He fortified the hill Janiculum, on
the right bank of the Tiber, and connected it by a wooden bridge with
the town. The next king was by birth an Etruscan. Lucumo and
his wife, Tanaquil, emigrated to Rome. Lucumo took the name of
Lucius Tarquinius, was stout, valiant, and wise, a counselor of
Ancus, and chosen after him, instead of one of the sons of
Ancus, whose guardian he was. Tarquinius Priscus (616-578
B.C.)—for so he was called—waged successful wars with the Sabines,
Latins, and Etruscans. The Etruscans owned him for their king,
and sent a crown of gold, a scepter, an ivory chair, an embroidered
tunic, a purple toga, and twelve axes in as many bundles of rods. He
made a reform of the laws. He built the temple of Jupiter, or the
Capitol, laid out the forum for a market-place, made a great sewer to
drain the lower valleys of the city, leveled a race-course between the
Aventine and Palatine hills, and introduced games like
those of the Etruscans. Tarquinius was killed by the sons of Ancus;
and Servius Tullius (578-534 B.C.), the son of Ocrisia,
a slave-woman, and of a god, was made king through the devices of
Tanaquil. He united the seven hills, and built the wall of
Rome. He remodeled the constitution by the census and the division of
the centuries. Under him Rome joined the Latin league. He was murdered
by his flagitious son-in-law, Tarquinius Superbus (534-510
B.C.)—Tarquin the Proud. He ruled as a despot, surrounding himself
with a bodyguard, and, upon false accusation, inflicting death on
citizens whose property he coveted. By a treacherous scheme, he got
possession of the town of Gabii. He waged war against the
Volscians, a powerful people on the south of Latium. He adorned
Rome with many buildings, and lived in pomp and extravagance, while
the people were impoverished and helpless. The inspired Sibyl
of Cumae offered him, through a messenger, nine books of
prophecies. The price required excited his scorn, whereupon the woman
who brought them destroyed three. She came back with the remaining
six, which she offered at the same price. On being refused in the same
manner, she destroyed another three. This led Tarquin to pay the price
when she appeared the third time with the books that were left. They
were carefully preserved to the end, that in times of danger the will
of the gods might be learned. Another story told of the haughty king
was, that, when he had grown old, and was frightened by dreams and
omens, he sent his two sons to consult the oracle at Delphi. With them
went his sister's son, Junius, who was called Brutus on
account of his supposed silliness, which was really feigned to deceive
the tyrant. The offering which he brought to the Delphian god was a
simple staff. His cousins, who laughed at him, did not know that it
was stuffed with gold. The god, in answer to a question, said that he
would reign at Rome who should first kiss his mother. Brutus
divined the sense of the oracle, pretended to stumble, and kissed the
mother earth. The cruel outrage of Sextus Tarquinius, the
king's son, of which Lucretia, the wife of their cousin, was
the pure and innocent victim, caused the expulsion of the house of
Tarquin, and the abolishing of regal government. Her father and
husband, with Brutus and the noble Publius Valerius Poplicola,
to whom she related "the deed of shame" wrought by Sextus, swore, at
her request, to avenge her wrong. She herself plunged a dagger into
her heart, and expired. Brutus roused the people, and drove out
the Tarquins. Two consuls were appointed in the room of
the king, who should rule for one year. Brutus was one. When it
was ascertained that his own sons had taken part in a conspiracy of
the higher class to restore Tarquinius, the stern Roman gave orders to
the lictors to scourge them, and to cut off their heads with the ax.
Now the senate and people decreed that the whole race of Tarquinius
should be banished for ever. Tarquinius went among the Etruscans, and
secured the aid of the people of Tarquinii, and of
Veii. In a battle, Aruns, the son of Tarquinius, and
Brutus, both mounted, ran upon one another, and were
slain. Each army marched to its home. Tarquinius then obtained the
help of Porsena, king of the Etruscans, with a strong
army. They took Janiculum; but Horatius Cocles, with two
companions, posted himself at the entrance of the bridge, and kept the
place, Horatius remaining until the bridge had been torn away behind
him. He then, with his armor on, leaped into the river, and swam back
to the shore. The town was hard pressed by the enemy and by
famine. Mucius Scaevola went into Porsena's camp,
resolved to kill him. But he slew another whom he mistook for the
king. When threatened with death, he thrust his right hand into the
fire, to show that he had no fear. Porsena, admiring his
courage, gave him his freedom; and, on being informed that three
hundred young Romans were sworn to undertake the same deed which
Mucius had come to perform, Porsena made peace without
requiring the restoration of Tarquinius. Tarquinius, not
despairing, persuaded the Tusculans and other Latins to
begin war against Rome. The Romans appointed a dictator to meet the
exigency, Marcus Valerius. In a battle near Lake
Regillus, when the Romans began to give way, the dictator invoked
Castor and Pollux, vowing to dedicate a temple to them
in case he was victorious. Two young men on white chargers appeared at
the head of the Roman troops, and led them to
victory. Tarquinius now gave up his effort, and went to
Cumae to the tyrant Aristodemus, where he lived until
his death.
TRUTH IN THE LEGENDS.—There are certain facts which are embedded in
the legends. Alba was at one time the head of the Latin
confederacy. The Sabines invaded Latium, settled on some of the
hills of Rome, allied themselves with the Romans, and the two
peoples were resolved into one federal state. This last change was a
very important step. The tradition of a doubling of the senate and of
two kings, Romulus and Taiius, although not in literal
form historical, is believed to be a reminiscence of this union. It is
thought that the earliest royalty was priestly in its character, and
that this was superseded by a military kingship. It is probable that
the Etruscans who had made much progress in civilization, in
the arts and in manufactures, gained the upper hand in
Latium. The insignia of the Roman kings were Etruscan. The
Etruscan kings were driven out. There were advances in civilization
under them, the division of the people into classes took place, and at
that period structures like the "Servian" wall were built.
PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS.—The Romans from the beginning were divided
into the upper class, the Patricians, and the common people, or
Plebeians, who were free, but, like the perioeci and
metoeci in Greece, had no political rights. The plebeians, as
they included the conquered class, were not all poor. A part of them,
who were under the special protection of citizens, their
Patrons, were called Clients. The patricians were the
descendants of the first settlers and proprietors. Under the old
constitution, ascribed in the legends to Romulus, the
patricians alone formed the military force, and were styled the
Populus. They were divided into curiae (districts or
wards), at first ten in number, and, after the union of the Romans
with the Tities and Luceres, thirty. Each curia
was divided into ten families, or gentes. The assembly of the
citizens was called the Comitia Curiata. The Comitia
chose the King. The Senate was a council of elders
representing in some way the gentes.
The clan, or gens, was always of great consequence among the
Romans. Its name was a part of the proper name of every citizen. The
particular or individual names in vogue were not numerous. The name
of the gens was placed between the personal name, or the
praenomen, and the designation of the special family
(included in the gens). Thus in the case of Caius Julius Caesar,
"Julius" was the designation of the gens, "Caesar," of the family,
while "Caius" was the personal name.
THE EARLY CONSTITUTION.—The "Servian constitution" made all
land-owners, whether patrician or plebeian, subject to taxation, and
obliged to do military service. The cavalry—the Equites, or
knights,—was made up, by adding to the six patrician companies
already existing, double the number from both classes. The infantry
were organized without reference to rank, but were graded according to
their property. The whole people were divided thus into five classes,
and, when assembled, formed the Comitia Centuriata,—as being
made up of the companies called "centuries," or "hundreds." At first
this body was only consulted by the king in regard to offensive
wars. Gradually it drew away more and more power from the Comitia
Curiata, which consisted solely of patricians. Those who had no
land were now distinguished from the land-owning plebeians. For the
purposes of conscription, the city was divided into four
Tribes, or wards. Every four years a census was to be
taken.
MAGISTRATES.—When the kingship was abolished, and under the system
that followed, the two Consuls were to be patricians. They
exercised regal power during their term of office. They appointed the
senators and the two Quaestors, who came to have charge of the
treasury, under consular supervision. The consuls were attended by
twelve Lictors, who carried the fasces—bundles of rods
fastened around an ax,—which symbolized the power of the magistrate
to flog or to behead offenders. The Comitia Centuriata acquired
the right to elect the consuls, to hear appeals in capital cases from
their verdicts, and to accept or reject bills laid before it. This was
a great gain for the plebeians. Yet the patricians were strong enough
in this assembly to control its action. On occasions of extraordinary
peril, a Dictator might be selected by one of the consuls, who
was to have absolute authority for the time. The Senate commonly had
an important part, however, in the selection of this officer. There
was a Master of Horse to command the knights under him. He was
appointed by the dictator.
RELIGION.—Worship in families was conducted by the head of the
household, the paterfamilias, who offered the regular
sacrifices. But, as regards the whole people, worship was under the
direction of the pontiffs, with the chief pontiff, the Pontifex
Maximus, at their head, and in the hands of the priests. These
were all officers of the state, elected to their places, and entirely
subordinate to the civil magistrates. The pontiffs were not so
much priests as they were guardians and interpreters of divine
law. They were masters of sacred lore. They looked out that the
numberless and complex rules in respect to religious observances
should be strictly complied with. At the same time they had enough
knowledge of astronomy to enable them to fix the days suitable for the
transaction of business, public or private. They had the control of
the calendar. The Augurs consulted the will of the gods as
disclosed in omens. The augur, his eyes raised to the sky, with his
staff marked off the heavens into four quarters, and then watched for
the passage of birds, from which he took the auspices. In early times,
there was an implicit faith in these supposed indications of the will
of the divinities; but this credulity passed away, and the auguries
became a political instrument for helping forward the schemes of some
person or party. Besides the college of pontiffs and the college of
augurs, there was the college of Fetiales, who were the
guardians of the public faith in relation to other peoples, and
performed the rites attending the declaration of war or the conclusion
of peace. The Soothsayers (haruspices) were of Etruscan
origin. They ascertained the will of the gods by inspecting the
entrails of the slaughtered victims. The Flamens were the
priests having charge of the worship of particular divinities. The
Vestals were virgin priestesses of Vesta, who ministered in her
temple, and kept the sacred fire from being extinguished.
The chief gods worshiped by the Romans were Jupiter, god of
the sky; his wife, Juno, the goddess of maternity;
Minerva, the goddess of wisdom; Apollo, the god of
augury and the arts; Diana, the goddess of the chase and
archery; Mars, the god of war; Bellona, the goddess of
war; Vesta, patron of the Roman state and of the national
hearthstone; Ceres, the goddess of agriculture;
Saturnus, the patron of husbandry; Hercules, the Greek
god, early naturalized in Italy as the god of gain and of mercantile
contracts; Mercury, the god of trade; Neptune god of
the sea. Venus was an old Roman goddess, who presided over
gardens, but gradually was identified with the Grecian
Aphrodite. Lares and Penates were household
divinities, guardians of the family.
The Romans assigned a spirit to almost every thing. Each individual
had his own protecting genius. Janus was the god of
beginnings, Terminus was the god of the boundary,
Silvanus of the forest, Vertumnus of the circling
year. The farmer, in each part of his labor,—in harrowing, plowing,
sowing, etc.,—invoked a spirit. So marriage, birth, and every natural
event had each a sacred life of its own. Not less than forty-three
distinct divinities are spoken of by name as having to do with the
actions of a child. Thus the number of divinities was countless. Gods
were great or small, according to the department of nature or of life
where they severally were present and active.
CHAPTER II. ROME UNDER THE PATRICIANS (509-304 B.C.).
RIVALRY OF CLASSES.—The abolishing of royalty left Rome as "a house
divided against itself." The power granted to the Comitia
Centuriata did not suffice to produce contentment. The patricians
still decided every thing, and used their strength in an oppressive
way. Besides the standing contest between the patricians and
plebeians, there was great suffering on the side of the poorer class
of plebeians. Many were obliged to incur debts; and their creditors
enforced the rigorous law against them, loading them with chains, and
driving their families from their homes. A great and constant
grievance was the taking by the patricians of the public lands which
had been obtained by conquest, for a moderate rent, which might not be
paid at all. If they granted a share in this privilege to some rich
plebeian houses, this afforded no help to the mass of the people, who
were more and more deprived of the opportunity to till the smaller
holdings in consequence of the employment of slaves. Yet the plebeians
had to bear the burden of military service. At length they rose in a
body, probably in returning from some victory, and encamped on a hill,
the Sacred Mount, three miles from Rome, where they threatened
to stay, and found another town. This bold movement led to an
agreement. It was stipulated that they should elect magistrates from
their own class, to be called Tribunes of the People, who
should have the right to interpose an absolute veto upon any legal or
administrative measure. This right each consul already had in relation
to his colleague. To secure the commons in this new right, the
tribunes were declared to be inviolable. Whoever used violence against
them was to be an outlaw. The power of the tribunes at first was
merely protective. But their power grew until it became
controlling. One point where their authority was apt to be exerted was
in the conscription, or military enrollment. This, if it were
undertaken in an unfair way, they could stop altogether, and thus
compel a change.
THE PLEBEIAN ASSEMBLY.—Not far from this time, there was instituted a
new assembly, the Comitia of Tribes, or Comitia Tributa. There
was a new division of the people into tribes or wards,—first twenty,
then twenty-one, and, later, thirty-five. In this comitia, the
plebeians were at the outset, if not always, the exclusive voters. The
patricians had their assembly, the Comitia Curiata. The Comitia
of the Tribes, which was then controlled by the plebeians, chose the
tribunes. By degrees, both the other assemblies lost their
importance. The plebeian body more and more extended its
prerogatives. Besides the tribunes, the Aediles, two in number,
who were assistants of the tribunes, and superintended the business of
the markets, were chosen by the Comitia Tributa.
THE LAW OF CASSIUS.—The anxiety of the plebeians to be rid of the
restrictions upon the holding and enjoyment of land, led to the
proposal of a law for their relief by the consul Spurius
Cassius (486 B.C.). Of the terms of the law, we have no precise
knowledge. We only know, that, when he retired from office, he was
condemned and put to death by the ruling class.
WAR WITH THE AEQUIANS AND THE VOLSCIANS.—About this time Rome
concluded a league with the Latins, and soon after with another
people, the Hernicans, who lived farther eastward, between the,
Aequians and Volscians. It was a defensive alliance, in which Rome had
the leading place. Then follow the wars with the Aequians and
Volscians, where the traditional accounts are mingled with many
fictitious occurrences. There are two stories of special note,—the
story of Coriolanus, and the story of Cincinnatus. It is related that
a brave patrician, Caius Marcius Coriolanus, at a time when
grain was scarce, and was procured with difficulty from Etruria and
Sicily for the relief of the famishing, proposed that it should be
withheld from the plebeians unless they would give up the
tribunate. The anger of this class, and the contempt which he showed
for it, caused him to be banished. Thereupon he went to the
Volscians, and led an army against Rome,—an army too strong to
be resisted. One deputation after another went out of the city to
placate him, but in vain. At length Veturia, his mother, and
Volumnia, his wife, at the head of a company of matrons, went
to his camp, and entreated him. Their prayer he could not deny, but
exclaimed, "O my mother! Rome thou hast saved, but thou hast lost thy
son." He died among the Volscians (491 B.C.). The tale, certainly in
most of its parts, is fictitious. For example, he is said to have been
called Coriolanus, from having previously conquered
Corioli; but such designations were not given among the Romans
until centuries later. The story of Cincinnatus in essential
particulars is probably true. At a time when the Romans were hard
pressed by the Æquians, the messengers of the Senate waited on
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, formerly a senator and a consul of
renown in peace and war, and asked him to become dictator. They found
him plowing in his field. He accepted the post, by his prudence and
vigor delivered the state, and on the sixteenth day laid down his
office, and went back to his farm. The time required by the hero for
his task was doubtless much longer than the legend allows.
There is an authentic tradition of a war with the Etruscans,
who had retained certain towns on the Roman side of the Tiber. The
Romans established a fort on the Cremera, not far from
Veii, which was one of them. In the course of this struggle,
it is said that all the Fabii,—a distinguished Roman
family,—except one boy, were perfidiously slain. This is an
exaggerated tale. A truce was concluded with Veii-in 474
B.C. for forty years, which left Rome free to fight her enemies on
the east and south.
THE DECEMVIRS.—The internal conflict of the patricians against the
commons in Rome went on. In 471 B.C. the Publilian Law was
passed to establish fully the right of the plebeians alone to elect
their tribunes, or to exclude the upper class from their comitia. The
claims of the plebeians, who formed the greater part of the fighting
men, rose. They demanded first, however, that they should have the
same private rights as the patricians, and that the laws should
be made more efficient for their protection by being reduced to a
code. This was the object of the Terentilian Law, proposed in
462. The result was a great dispute. Some concessions failed to
satisfy the plebeians. Finally it was agreed that ten men,
Decemvirs, should be chosen indiscriminately from both classes
to frame a code, they, meantime, to supersede the consuls and tribunes
in the exercise of the government (451 B.C.). They were to equalize
the laws, and to write them down. The story of the mission to Athens
for the study of the laws of Solon, is not worthy of
credit. There is no doubt, however, that many obstacles were put in
the way of the project by the conservative patricians, and that one of
their order, Appius Claudius, took a prominent part, probably
on the side of the people.
VIRGINIUS.—Here comes in the story of Virginia. It is
related that Appius Claudius was an ambitious and bad man,
who, being one of the decemvirs, wished to hold on to power. He
conceived a base passion for the daughter of Virginius, a
brave plebeian centurion, and claimed her on the pretense that she
was the daughter of one of his slaves. Standing at his
judgment-seat, Virginius, seeing that he could do nothing to
save his child from the clutch of the villainous judge, plunged his
dagger in her heart. This was the signal for another revolt of the
people, which extorted the consent of the upper class to the sacred
laws and the restoration of the tribuneship. It is a plausible
theory that Appius Claudius favored the plebeian claims, and
that the tale told above is a later invention to his discredit.
POLITICAL EQUALITY.—The laws of the twelve tables lay at the basis of
all subsequent legislation in Rome, and were always held in
reverence. The plebeians soon gained further advantages. In 449 B.C.,
it was ordained, under the consuls Horatius and
Valerius, that the plebeian assembly of tribes should be a
sovereign assembly, whose enactments should be binding on the whole
Roman people. In 445 B.C., the law of Canuleius legalized
marriage between the plebeians and patricians. This was an important
step towards the closer union of the two classes. The executive power
was still in the hands of the patricians. But in 444 a new office,
that of military tribunes with consular power, to be chosen
from the plebeians, was established. By way of offset to this great
concession, a new patrician office, that of Censor, was
created. The function of the two censors, who were to be chosen by the
Comitia Centuriata, was to take the census at short intervals,
to make out the tax-lists, to appoint senators and knights, to manage
the collection of taxes, to superintend public buildings, and,
finally, to exercise an indefinite supervision over public manners and
morals. These were very great powers. We find that considerable time
elapsed before the plebeians actually realized the advantage which
they had legally won in this compromise. About the year 400, they
succeeded in electing several military tribunes. As early as 410
B.C. three out of the four treasurers, or paymasters
(quæstors), were plebeians. About forty years after (367 B.C.),
they obtained, by the Licinian Laws, the political equality for
which they had so long contended.
WAR WITH THE ETRUSCANS.—But before this result should be reached,
other events of much consequence were to occur. The Etruscans,
who were not only proficients in the arts, but were also active in
trade and commerce, had been defeated at sea by the Greeks, in 474
B.C. But on the north they had a more formidable foe in the
Gauls, by whom their power was weakened. The Romans took
advantage of the situation to lay siege to Veii, which, after
ten years, was captured by their general, Marcus Furius
Camillus. The capture of other towns followed.
It was told of Camillus that Falerii surrendered to
him of its own accord, for his magnanimity in sending back a
treacherous schoolmaster who had taken out to his camp the sons of
the chief citizens. Camillas tied his hands behind him, and ordered
the boys to flog him back into the city. Camillus was sent into
exile, it was related, on a charge of injustice in dividing the
booty obtained at Veii.
INVASION OF THE GAULS.—But the Romans joined with the Etruscans in
the attempt to drive back a dreaded enemy of both, the
Gauls. In the battle of the Allia, a brook eleven miles
north of Rome, on the 18th of July, 390 B.C., the Roman army was
routed by them, and Rome left without the means of defense. All the
people fled, except a few brave men, who shut themselves up in the
Capitol, and, according to the tradition, some aged patricians, who,
in their robes of state, waited for the enemy. The Gauls, under
Brennus, rushed in, and plundered and burned the city. In later
times the story was told, that, when the Gauls were climbing up to the
Capitol secretly by night, the cackling of the geese awoke Marcus
Manlius, and so the enemy was repulsed. There was another story,
that, when the Romans were paying the ransom required by
Brennus, and complained of false weight, the insolent Gaul
threw his sword into the scale, exclaiming, "Woe to the conquered!"
and that just then Camillus appeared, and drove the Gauls out
of the city. This is certain, that the Gauls retired of their own free
will from their occupation of the city. The destruction of the temples
involved the loss of early chronicles, which would have given us
better information as to the times preceding. The city was rebuilt
without much delay.
THE LICINIAN LAWS.—The agitation for political reform soon commenced
again. The Licinian Laws, which make an epoch in the
controversy of parties, were proposed in 376, but were not passed
until 367. Besides provisions for the relief of debtors and for
limiting the number of acres of public lands to be held by an
individual, it was enacted that the military tribuneship should be
given up, and that at least one of the two consuls must be chosen from
the plebeians. A new patrician office, the praetorship, was
founded, the holders of which were to govern in the absence of the
consuls. The patricians did not at once cease from the effort to keep
the reins in their hands. Several times they broke the law, and put in
two patrician consuls. They yielded at last, however; and, as early as
the year 300, all Roman offices were open to all Roman citizens. The
patrician order became a social, not a legal, distinction. A new sort
of nobility, made up of both patricians and plebeians, whose families
had longest held public offices, gradually arose. These were the
optimates. The Senate became the principal executive body. It
was recruited by the censors, principally from those who had
held high stations and were upwards of thirty years old. One
censor was required to be a plebeian. The condition of the
people was improved by other enactments, one of which (in 326 or 313)
secured to the debtor his personal freedom in case he should transfer
his property to the creditor. At about this time, there was a change
in the constitution of the army. The sort of arms assigned was no
longer to depend on property qualifications. There were to be three
lines in battle,—the first two to carry a short spear (pilum),
and the third the long lance (hasta).
INFULENCE OF PARTY CONFLICTS.—The long contest of parties in Rome was
an invaluable political education. It was attended with little
bloodshed. It involved discussion on questions of justice and right,
and on the best civil constitution. It was not unlike party conflicts
in English history. It trained the Romans in a habit of judicious
compromise, of perseverance in asserting just claims, and of yielding
to just demands.
PERIOD II. TO THE UNION OF ITALY. (304-264 B.C.)
CHAPTER I. CONQUEST OF THE LATINS AND ITALIANS (304-282 B.C.).
WARS WITH THE GAULS.—The increased vigor produced by the adjustment
of the conflict of classes manifested itself in a series of minor
wars. The Romans were now able to face the Gauls, who had permanently
planted themselves in Northern Italy. Against them they waged four
wars in succession, the last of which ended in a signal victory for
the Roman side (367-349). Wars with the Etruscan cities brought the
whole of Southern Etruria under Roman rule (358-351).
FIRST SAMNITE WAR.—The neighbor that was the hardest for the Romans
to conquer was the nation of Samnites, who lived among the
Apennines of Central Italy, east of Latium. The conflict with this
tough tribe lasted, with intermissions, for fifty years.
The immediate occasion of the struggle was the appeal of
Capua—a Greek city in Campania in which Samnites had before
settled—for help against their kinsmen in the mountains (343). This
prayer the Romans granted when Capua had placed itself under their
sway. In the first battle, the Romans under Valerius Corvus won
the day. A second Roman army was rescued from imminent danger by the
heroism of the elder Decius Mus, and a Roman victory
followed. After a third victory at Suessula, the Romans, on
account of the threatening attitude of their Latin confederates, made
peace. The Samnites, too, were involved in a war with Tarentum,
a Greek city on the eastern coast.
WAR WITH THE LATINS.—The Latins were not disposed to recognize Rome
any longer as the head of the league. They demanded perfect equality
and an equal share of the Roman public offices (340). In a battle near
Vesuvius, the plebeian consul, Decius Mus, having
devoted himself to death for his country, rode into the thickest ranks
of the enemy, and perished, having secured victory for the Roman
army. Before the battle, the patrician consul, Titus Manlius,
punished his son with death for presuming to undertake, without
orders, a military exploit, in which, however, he had succeeded. After
a second victory of Manlius at Trifanum, the Latins were
subdued (340), the league was broken up, and most of the cities were
made subject to Rome, acquiring citizenship without the right of
suffrage; but they were forbidden to trade or to intermarry with one
another. Some became Roman colonies.
Several had to cede lands, which were apportioned among Roman
citizens. The beaks (rostra) of the old ships of Antium
ornamented the Roman forum. Colonies of Roman citizens were settled in
the district of the Volscii and in Campania. This was an
example of the Roman method of separating vanquished places from one
another, and of inclosing as in a net conquered territories.
SECOND SAMNITE WAR.—The establishment by the Romans of the military
colony of Fregellae, in connection with other encroachments,
brought on the second Samnite war, which lasted for twenty-two
years. The prize of the contest was really the dominion over Italy. A
great misfortune befell the Roman arms in 321. The incautious consuls,
Veturinus and Postumius, allowed themselves to be
surrounded in the Caudine Pass, where they were compelled to
capitulate, swear to a treaty of peace, and give up six hundred Roman
knights as hostages. The whole Roman army was compelled to pass under
the yoke. The Roman Senate refused to sanction the treaty, and gave up
the consuls, at their own request, in fetters to the Samnites. The
Samnites refused to receive them, spared the hostages, and began the
war anew. The Roman consuls, Papirius Cursor and Fabius
Maximus, gained a victory at Capua, drove the Samnites out
of Campania, and reconquered Fregellae. A great military road,
the Appian Way, the remains of which may still be seen, was
built from Rome to Capua (312).
The Etruscan cities joined in the war against Rome. All Etruria
was in arms to overcome the advancing power of the Romans. The
coalition was broken by the great defeat of the Etrurians at the
Vadimonian Lake, in 310. The Samnites had their numerous
allies; but the obstinate valor of the Romans, who were discouraged by
no reverses, triumphed. The capture of Bovianum, the capital of
the Samnite league (305), ended the war. The Samnites sued for
peace. The old treaties were renewed. In the course of this protracted
struggle, various Roman colonies were established, and military roads
were constructed.
THIRD SAMNITE WAR.—Peace was not of long continuance. The Samnites
once more armed themselves for a desperate conflict, having on their
side the Etruscans, the Umbrians, and the Gauls
(300). The Italian peoples, which had been at war with one another,
joined hands in this contest against the common enemy. A decisive
battle was fought at Sentinum,—where Decius Mus the
younger, following his father's example, devoted himself to
death,—resulting in the defeat of the Samnites, and of their allies
(295). Soon after, the Samnite general, Pontius, fell into the
hands of the Romans. The Samnites kept up the contest for several
years. But in 290 they found that they could hold out no longer. The
Romans secured themselves by fortresses and by colonies, the most
important of which was that of Venusia, at the boundary of
Samnium, Apulia, and Lucania, where they placed twenty thousand
colonists.
CHAPTER II.
WAR WITH PYRRHUS AND UNION OF ITALY (282-264 B.C.).
TARENTUM AND PYRRHUS.—The Samnites were overcome. The Greeks and
Romans were now to come into closer intercourse with one another,—an
intercourse destined to be so momentous in its effect on each of the
two kindred races, and, through their joint influence, on the whole
subsequent course of European history. Alexander the Great had
died too soon to permit him to engage in any plan of conquest in the
West. In the wars of his successors the Romans had stood aloof. Now
they were brought into conflict with a Greek monarch, Pyrrhus,
king of Epirus, who was a relative of Alexander, and had married into
the royal family of Egypt. He was a man of fascinating person and
address, a brilliant and famous soldier, but adventurous, and lacking
the coolness and prudence requisite to carry out his project of
building up an Hellenic Empire in the western Mediterranean. In the
war against the Samnite coalition, the Lucanians had rendered
decisive support to the Romans. This was one reason why
Tarentum, the rich and prosperous Dorian city on the Tarentine
Gulf, had been a spectator of the contest in which it had abundant
occasion to feel a deep interest. Rome had given up to the Lucanians
the non-Dorian Greek cities in that region. But when they sought to
subdue Thurii, and the Thurines besought the help of Rome,
offering to submit themselves to her, the Romans warned the Lucanians
to desist. This led to another combination against Rome, in which they
took part. A Roman army was destroyed by the Senonian Gauls. In
consequence of this, the Romans slaughtered, or drove out of Umbria,
this people, and, gaining other decisive victories, put their
garrisons into Locri, Crotona, and Thurii. The
Romans were already masters of Central Italy. Only the Greek cities on
the south remained for them to conquer. It was high time for
Tarentum to bestir itself. It was from the side of Tarentum
that the immediate provocation came. The Tarentines were listening to
a play in the theater as ten Roman ships came into the harbor. Under a
sudden impulse of wrath, a mob attacked them, and destroyed five of
them. Even then the Romans were in no haste to engage in
hostilities. The Tarentines themselves were divided as to the policy
best to be pursued. But the war-party had the more voices. An embassy
was dispatched to solicit the help of Pyrrhus. At Tarentum an
embassy from Rome was treated with contempt. Pyrrhus came over
with a large army. He obliged the Tarentines themselves to arm, and to
join his forces.
EVENTS OF THE WAR.—The Romans were fully alive to the peril, and
prepared to meet it. Even the proletarians, who were not liable to
military service, were enrolled. The first great battle took place at
Heraclea, near the little river Siris (280 B.C.). Then the
Roman cohort and the Macedonian phalanx met for the first time. It was
a collision of trained mercenary troops with the citizen soldiery of
Rome. It was a struggle between the Greek and the Roman for the
ascendency. The confusion caused by the elephants of Pyrrhus,
an encounter with which was something new and strange to the Romans,
turned the tide in his favor. "A few more such victories," said
Pyrrhus, "and I am ruined." He desired peace, and sent Cineas
as a messenger to the Senate. But Appius Claudius, who had been
consul and censor, and was now old and blind, begged them not to make
peace as long as there was an enemy in Italy. Cineas reported
that he found the Senate "an assembly of kings." In the next year, the
two armies, each with its allies numbering seventy thousand men, met
at Asculum (279). After a bloody conflict, Pyrrhus
remained in possession of the field, but with an enormous loss of
men. The Syracusans in Sicily, who had been hard pressed by the
Carthaginians, now called upon him to aid them. He was not
reluctant to leave Italy. The Romans captured all the cities on the
south coast, except Tarentum and Rhegium. After two
years' absence, Pyrrhus returned to Italy. His fleet, on the
passage from Sicily, was defeated by the Carthaginians. At
Beneventum, he was completely vanquished by the Romans, who
captured thirteen hundred prisoners and four elephants. Pyrrhus
returned to Epirus; and, after his death (272), Milon, who
commanded the garrison left by him in Tarentum, surrendered the
city and fortress. The Tarentines agreed to deliver up their ships and
arms, and to demolish their walls. One after another of the resisting
tribes yielded to the Romans, ceding portions of their territory, and
receiving Roman colonies. In 266, the Roman sway was established over
the whole peninsula proper, from the Rubicon and the
Macra to the southern extremity of Calabria.
CITIZENSHIP.—In order to understand Roman history, it is necessary to
have a clear idea of the Roman system in respect to citizenship. All
burgesses of Rome enjoyed the same rights. These were both
Public and Private. The private rights of a Roman
citizen were (1) the power of legal marriage with the families of all
other citizens; (2) the power of making legal purchases and sales, and
of holding property; and (3) the right to bequeath and inherit
property. The public rights were, (1) the power of voting wherever a
citizen was permitted to vote; (2) the power of being elected to all
offices.
CONQUERED TOWNS.—"The Roman dominion in Italy was a dominion of a
city over cities." With regard to conquered towns, there were, (i)
Municipal cities (municipia) the inhabitants of which, when
they visited Rome, could exercise all the rights of citizens. (2)
Municipal cities which had the private, but not the public, rights of
citizenship. Some of them chose their own municipal officers, and some
did not. (3) Latin Colonies, as they were called. Lands ceded
by conquered places were divided among poor Roman citizens, who
constituted the ruling class in the communities to which they were
transplanted. In the Latin colonies, the citizens had given up their
public rights as citizens. (4) Towns of a lower class, called
Praefectures. In these, the principal magistrate was the
Prefect, who was appointed by the Praetor (Praeter
Urbanus) at Rome.
THE ALLIES (Socii).—These were a more favored class of cities.
They had their relation to Rome defined by treaty. Generally they
appointed their own magistrates, but were bound, as were all subject
cities, to furnish auxiliary troops for Rome.
THE LATIN FRANCHISE.—This was the privilege which was first given to
the cities of Latium and then to inhabitants of other
places. It was the power, on complying with certain conditions, of
gaining full citizenship, and thus of taking part in elections at
Rome.
ROMAN COLONIES.—The Roman Colony (which is not to be
confounded with the Latin Colony referred to above) was a small
body of Roman citizens, transplanted, with their families, to a spot
selected by the government. They formed a military station. To them
lands taken from the native inhabitants were given. They constituted
the ruling class in the community where they were established. Their
government was modeled after the government at Rome. They retained
their rights as Roman burgesses, which they could exercise whenever
they were in that city. By means of these colonies, planted in places
wisely chosen, Italy was kept in subjection. The colonies were
connected together by roads. The Appian Way, from Rome
to Capua, was built in the midst of the conflict with
Samnium. It was made of large, square stones, laid on a
platform of sand and mortar. In later times the Roman Empire was
traversed in all directions by similar roads.
PERIOD III. THE PUNIC WARS: TO THE CONQUEST OF CARTHAGE AND OF THE
GREEK STATES. (264-146 B.C.)
CHAPTER I. THE FIRST AND SECOND PUNIC WABS (264-202 B.C.).
THE FIRST PUNIC WAR.—By dint of obstinacy, and hard fighting through
long centuries, the Romans had united under them all Italy, or all of
what was then known as Italy. It was natural that they should look
abroad. The rival power in the West was the great commercial city of
Carthage. The jealousy between Rome and Carthage had slumbered
so long as they were threatened by the invasion of Pyrrhus,
which was dangerous to both. Sicily, from its situation, could
hardly fail to furnish the occasion of a conflict. The
Mamertines, a set of Campanian pirates, had captured
Messana. They were attacked by Hiero II., king of
Syracuse. A part of them besought help of the Romans, and a part
applied to the Carthaginians. The gravity of the question, whether
Rome should enter on an untried path, the end of which no man could
foresee, caused hesitation. The assemblies voted to grant the
request. The Romans had begun as early as 311 to create a fleet. The
ships which they now used, however, were mostly furnished by their
South Italian allies. They crossed the channel, and drove out the
Carthaginian garrison from Messana. The Carthaginians declared
war (264). Hiero was gained over to the side of the Romans; and
after a bloody conflict, with heavy losses to both armies, the city of
Agrigentum was captured by the Romans. The Romans were novices
on the sea, where the Carthaginians were supreme. Successful on the
land, the former were beaten in naval encounters. One of the most
characteristic proofs of the energy of the Romans is their creation of
a fleet, at this epoch, to match that of their sea-faring
enemies. Using, it is said, for a model, a Carthaginian vessel wrecked
on the shore of Italy, they constructed quinqueremes, vessels with
five banks of oars, furnished with bridges to drop on the decks of the
hostile ships,—thus giving to a sea-fight a resemblance to a combat
on land. At first, as might be expected, the Romans were defeated; but
in 260, under the consul Caius Duilius, they won their first
naval victory at Mylae, west of Messana. The Roman Senate
decided to invade Africa. A fleet of three hundred and thirty vessels
sailed under the command of the consul M. Atilius Regulus,
which was met by a Carthaginian fleet at Ecnomus, on the south
coast of Sicily. The Carthaginians were completely vanquished. The
Romans landed at Clupea, to the east of Carthage, and ravaged
the adjacent district. There Regulus remained with half the
army, fifteen thousand men. The Carthaginians sued for peace; but when
he required them to surrender all their ships of war except one, and
to come into a dependent relation to Rome, they spurned the
proposal. Re-enforcing themselves with mercenaries from Greece under
the command of the Spartan, Xanthippus, they overpowered and
captured Regulus in a battle at Tunis (255). A Roman
fleet, sent to Clupea for the rescue of the troops, on the
return voyage lost three-fourths of its ships in a storm. The
Carthaginians, under Hasdrubal, resumed hostilities in
Sicily. He was defeated by the consul Caecilius Metellus, at
Panormus, who included among his captures one hundred elephants
(251). The story of the embassy of Regulus to Rome with the
Carthaginian offer of peace, of his advising the Senate not to accept
it, of his voluntary return according to a promise, and of his cruel
death at the hands of his captors, is probably an invention of a later
time. The hopes of the Romans, in consequence of their success at
Panormus, revived; but two years later, under Appius
Claudius at Drepanum, they were defeated on sea and on
land. Once more their naval force was prostrated. Warfare was now
carried forward on land, where, in the south of Sicily, the
Carthaginian leader, Hamilcar Barca, maintained himself against
Roman attacks for six years, and sent out privateers to harass the
coasts of Italy. Finally, at Rome, there was an outburst of patriotic
enthusiasm. Rich men gave liberally, and treasures of the temples were
devoted to the building of a new fleet. This fleet, under command of
C. Lutatius Catulus, gained a decisive victory over the
Carthaginian Hanno, at the Aegatian Islands, opposite
Lilybaeum (241). The Carthaginians were forced to conclude
peace, and to make large concessions. They gave up all claim to Italy
and to the neighboring small islands. They were to pay an indemnity,
equal to four million dollars, in ten years. The western part of
Sicily was now constituted a province, the first of the
Roman provinces.
CONQUEST OF CISALPINE GUAL.—The Carthaginians were for some time busy
at home in putting down a revolt of mercenary troops, whose wages they
refused to pay in full. The Romans snatched the occasion to extort a
cession of the island of Sardinia (238), which they
subsequently united with Corsica in one province. They entered,
about ten years later (229-228), upon an important and successful war
against the Illyrian pirates, whose depredations on the coasts
of the Adriatic and Ionian seas were very daring and destructive. The
Greek cities which the pirates held were surrendered. The sway of the
Romans in the Adriatic was secured, and their supremacy in
Corcyra, Epidamnus, and other important places. The next
contest was a terrific one with the Cisalpine Gauls, who were
stirred up by the founding of Roman military colonies on the Adriatic,
and by other proceedings of Rome. They called in the help of
transalpine Gauls, and entered Etruria, on their way to Rome,
with an army of seventy thousand men. They met the Roman armies near
Telamon, south of the mouth of the Umbro, but were routed, with
a loss of forty thousand men slain, and ten thousand men prisoners
(225). The Romans marched northward, crossed the Po, and
subdued the most powerful of the Gallic tribes, the Insubrians
(223). Other victories in the following year reduced the whole of
upper Italy, with Mediolanum (Milan) the capital of the
Insubrians, under Roman rule. Fortresses were founded as usual,
and the great Flaminian and Aemilian roads connected
that region with the capital. Later, Cisalpine Gaul became a
Roman province.
CARTHAGINIANS IN SPAIN.—Meantime Carthage endeavored in Southern
Spain to make up for its losses. The old tribes, the
Celtiberians and Lusitanians in the central and western
districts, and the Cantabrians and Basques in the north,
brave as they were, were too much divided by tribal feuds to make an
effectual resistance. The national party at Carthage, which wished
for war, had able leaders in Hamilcar and his three sons. By
the military skill of Hamilcar, and of Hasdrubal his
son-in-law, the Carthaginians built up a flourishing dominion on the
south and east coasts. The Romans watched the growth of the
Carthaginian power there with discontent, and compelled
Hasdrubal to declare in a treaty that the Ebro should be
the limit of Carthaginian conquests (226). At the same time Rome made
a protective alliance with Saguntum, a rich and powerful
trading-city on the south of that river. Hasdrubal was murdered
in 221; and the son of Hamilcar Barca, Hannibal, who was then
only twenty-eight years old, was chosen by the army to be their
general. He laid hold of a pretext for beginning an attack upon
Saguntum, which he took after a stout resistance, prolonged for
eight months (219). The demand of a Roman embassy at Carthage—that
Hannibal should be delivered up—being refused, Rome declared
war.
When the Carthaginian Council hesitated at the proposal of the Roman
embassy, their spokesman, Quintus Fabius, said that he carried
in his bosom peace or war: they might chose either. They answered, "We
take what you give us;" whereupon the Roman opened his toga, saying,
"I give you war!" The Carthaginians shouted, "So let it be!"
THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.—When the treaty of Catulus was made
(241), all patriots at Carthage felt that it was only a truce. They
must have seen that Rome would never be satisfied with any thing short
of the abject submission of so detested and dangerous a rival. There
was a peace party, an oligarchy, at Carthage; and it was their
selfishness which ultimately brought ruin upon the state. But the
party which saw that the only safety was in aggressive action found a
military leader in Hannibal,—a leader not surpassed, and
perhaps not equaled, by any other general of ancient or modern
times. He combined skill with daring, and had such a command over men,
that under the heaviest reverses his influence was not broken. If he
was cruel, it is doubtful whether he went beyond the practices
sanctioned by the international law of the time and by Roman
example. When a boy nine years old, at his father's request he had
sworn upon the altar never to be the friend of the Roman people. That
father he saw fall in battle at his side. The oath he kept, for Rome
never had a more unyielding or a more powerful enemy.
HANNIBAL IN ITALY.—In the summer of 218, Hannibal crossed the
Ebro, conquered the peoples between the Ebro and the
Pyrenees, and, leaving his brother Hasdrubal in Spain,
pushed into Gaul with an army of fifty thousand foot, twelve
thousand horse, and thirty-seven elephants. He crossed the swift
Rhone in the face of the Gauls who disputed the passage, and
then made his memorable march over the Alps, probably by the
way now known as the Little St. Bernard pass. Through ice and
snow, climbing over crags and circling abysses, amid perpetual
conflicts with the rough mountaineers who rolled stones down on the
toiling soldiers, the army made its terrible journey into Northern
Italy. Fifteen days were occupied in the passage. Half the troops,
with all the draught-animals and beasts of burden, perished on the
way. The Cisalpine Gauls welcomed Hannibal as a deliverer. No
sooner had the valiant consul, Cornelius Scipio, been defeated
in a cavalry battle on the Ticinus, a northern branch of the
Po (218), and, severely wounded, retreated to Placentia,
and his rash colleague, Sempronius, been defeated with great
loss in a second battle on the Trebia, than the Gauls joined
Hannibal, and reinforced him with sixty thousand troops inured
to war. Hannibal, by marching through the swampy district of the
Arno, where he himself lost an eye, flanked the defensive
position of the Romans. The consul Flaminius was decoyed into a
narrow pass; and, in the battle of Lake Trasumenus (217), his
army of thirty thousand men was slaughtered or made prisoners. The
consul himself was killed. All Etruria was lost. The way seemed
open to Rome; but, supported by the Latins and Italians, the Romans
did not quail, or lower their mien of stern defiance. They appointed a
leading patrician, Quintus Fabius Maximus,
dictator. Hannibal, not being able to surprise and capture the
fortress of Spoletium, preferred to march towards the
sea-coast, and thence south into Apulia. His purpose was to
open communication with Carthage, and to gain over to his
support the eastern tribes of Italy. Fabius, the Delayer
(Cunctator), as he was called, followed and watched his enemy,
inflicting what injuries he could, but avoiding a pitched battle. The
Roman populace were impatient of the cautious, but wise and effective,
policy of Fabius. In the following year (216) the consulship
was given to L. Aemilius Paulus—who was chosen by the upper
class, the Optimates—and C. Terentius Varro, who was
elected by the popular party for the purpose of taking the
offensive. Varro precipitated a battle at Cannae, in
Apulia, where the Romans suffered the most terrible defeat they had
ever experienced. At the lowest computation, they lost forty thousand
foot and three thousand horse, with the consul Aemilius Paulus,
and eighty men of senatorial rank. No such calamity since the capture
of Rome by the Gauls had ever occurred. The Roman Senate did not lose
heart. They limited the time of mourning for the dead to thirty
days. They refused to admit to the city the ambassadors of
Hannibal, who came for the exchange of prisoners. With lofty
resolve they ordered a levy of all who could bear arms, including boys
and even slaves. They put into their hands weapons from the temples,
spoils of former victories. They thanked Varro that he had not
despaired of the Republic. Some of the Italian allies went over to
Hannibal. But all the Latin cities and all the Roman colonies remained
loyal. The allies of Rome did not fall away as did the allies of
Athens after the Syracusan disaster. It has been thought, that, if
Hannibal had followed up the victory at Cannae by
marching at once on the capital, the Roman power might have been
overthrown. What might then have been the subsequent course of
European history? Even the Roman school-boys, according to Juvenal,
discussed the question whether he did not make a mistake in not
attacking Rome. But it is quite doubtful whether he could have taken
the city, or, even if he had taken it, whether his success would then
have been complete. He took the wiser step of getting into his hands
Capua, the second city in Italy. He may have hoped to seize a
Campanian port, where he could disembark reinforcements "which his
great victories had wrung from the opposition at home."
Hannibal judged it best to go into winter-quarters at
Capua, where his army was in a measure enervated by pleasure
and vice. Carthage made an alliance with Philip V. of
Macedonia, and with Hiero of Syracuse. But fortune turned in
favor of the Romans. At Nola, Hannibal was repulsed by
Marcellus (215); and, since he could obtain no substantial help
from home, he was obliged to act on the defensive. Marcellus
crossed into Sicily, and, after a siege of three years, captured
Syracuse, which had been aided in its defense by the
philosopher Archimedes. Capua, in 211, surrendered to
the Romans, and was visited with a fearful chastisement. Hannibal's
Italian allies forsook him, and his only reliance was on his brother
in Spain. For a long time, the two brothers, Publius and
Cnaeus Scipio, maintained there the Roman cause successfully;
but they were defeated and slain (212).
SCIPIO: ZAMA.—Publius Cornelius Scipio, son of one and nephew
of the other Scipio just named, a young man twenty-five years old, and
a popular favorite, took the command, and gained important successes;
but he could not keep Hasdrubal from going to his brother's
assistance in Italy. The Romans, however, were able to prevent a
junction of his force with that of Hannibal; and
Hasdrubal was vanquished and slain by them in the battle of
Sena Gallica, near the little river Metaurus
(207). Scipio expelled the Carthaginians from Spain, and,
having returned to Rome, was made consul (205). His plan was to invade
Africa. He landed on the coast, and was joined by Masinissa,
the king of Numidia, who had been driven from his throne by
Syphax, the ally of Carthage. The defeat of the Carthaginians,
and the danger of Carthage itself, led to the recall of
Hannibal, who was defeated, in 202, by Scipio in the
decisive battle of Zama. Carthage made peace, giving up all her
Spanish possessions and islands in the Mediterranean, handing over the
kingdom of Syphax to Masinissa, and agreeing to pay a
yearly tribute equal to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, for
fifty years, to destroy all their ships of war but ten, and to make no
war without the consent of the Romans (201). Scipio Africanus,
as he was termed, came back in triumph to Rome. The complete
subjugation of Upper Italy followed (200-191).
CHAPTER II. CONQUEST OF MACEDONIA: THE THIRD PUNIC WAR:
THE DESTRUCTION OF CORINTH (202-146 B.C.).
PHILIP V.: ANTIOCHUS III.—The Romans were now dominant in the
West. They were strong on the sea, as on the land. Within fifty years
Rome likewise became the dominant power in the East. Philip V. of
Macedon had made an alliance with Hannibal, but had furnished him no
valuable aid. The Senate maintained that a body of Macedonian
mercenaries had fought against the Romans at
Zama. Rhodes and Athens, together with King
Attalus of Pergamon, sought for help against Philip. The
Romans were joined by the Ætolians, and afterwards by the
Achaians. In 197, the consul T. Quintius Flamininus
defeated him at the battle of Cynoscephalæ in Thessaly, and
imposed upon him such conditions of peace as left him powerless
against the interests of Rome. At the Isthmian games, amid great
rejoicing, Flamininus declared the Greek states
independent. When they found that their freedom was more nominal than
real, and involved a virtual subjection to Rome, the Ætolians
took up arms, and obtained the support of Antiochus III., king
of Syria. Another grievance laid at the door of this king was the
reception by him of Hannibal, a fugitive from Carthage, whose
advice, however, as to the conduct of the war, Antiochus had
not the wisdom to follow. In 190 he was vanquished by a Roman army at
Magnesia, under L. Cornelius Scipio, with whom was
present, as an adviser, Scipio Africanus. He was forced to give
up all his Asiatic possessions as far as the Taurus
mountains. The territory thus obtained, the Romans divided among their
allies, Pergamon and Rhodes. About seven years later
(183), Hannibal, who had taken refuge at the court of
Prusias, king of Bithynia, finding that he was to be betrayed,
took poison and died. The ingratitude of his country, or of the ruling
party in it, did not move him to relax his exertions against Rome. He
continued until his death to be her most formidable antagonist,
exerting in exile an effective influence in the East to create
combinations against her.
PERSEUS.—Philip V. laid a plan to avenge himself on the
Romans, and regain his lost Macedonian territory. Perseus, his
son, followed in the same path, having slain his brother
Demetrius, who was a friend of Rome. The war broke out in
171. For several campaigns the management of the Roman generals was
ill-judged; but at last L. Æmilius Paulus, son of the consul
who fell at Cannæ, routed the Macedonians at the battle of
Pydna. Immense spoils were brought to Rome by the
conqueror. Perseus himself, who had sat on the throne of
Alexander, adorned the consul's triumphal procession through the
streets of Rome. The cantons of Greece, where there was nothing but
continual strife and endless confusion, were subjected to Roman
influence. One thousand Achaians of distinction, among them the
historian Polybius, were carried to Italy, and kept under
surveillance for many years. The imperious spirit of Rome, and the
deference accorded to her, is illustrated in the interview of
C. Popilius Lænas, who delivered to Antiochus IV. of
Syria a letter of the Senate, directing him to retire from before
Alexandria. When that monarch replied that he would confer with his
counselors on the matter, the haughty Roman drew a circle round him on
the ground, and bade him decide before he should cross that
line. Antiochus said that he would do as the Senate ordered.
THE THIRD PUNIC WAR.—The treaty with Carthage had bound that city
hand and foot. Against the encroachments of Masinissa, the
Carthaginians could do nothing; but at length they were driven to take
up arms to repel them. This act the Romans pronounced a breach of the
treaty (149). That stern old Roman, who in his youth had served
against Hannibal, M. Porcius Cato, had been unceasing in his
exhortation to destroy Carthage. He was in the habit of ending his
speeches with the saying, "But I am of opinion that Carthage should be
destroyed." The Roman armies landed at Utica. Their hard
demands, which included the surrender of war-ships and weapons, were
complied with. But when the Carthaginians were required to abandon
their city, and to make a new settlement ten miles distant, they rose
in a fury of patriotic wrath. The women cut off their hair to make
bowstrings. Day and night the people worked, in forging weapons and in
building a new fleet in the inner harbor. The Romans were repulsed;
but P. Scipio Æmilianus, the adopted son of the first Scipio
Africanus, shut in the city by land and by sea, and, in 146, captured
and destroyed it. Its defenders fought from street to street, and from
house to house. Only a tenth part of the inhabitants were left
alive. These were sold into slavery. Carthage was set on fire, and
almost entirely consumed. The fire burned for seventeen days. The
remains of the Carthaginian wall, when excavated in recent times,
"were found to be covered with a layer of ashes from four to five feet
deep, filled with half-charred pieces of wood, fragments of iron, and
projectiles." Scipio would have preserved the city, but the
Senate was inexorable. With the historian Polybius at his side, the
Roman commander, as he looked down on the horrors of the
conflagration, sorrowfully repeated the lines of Homer,—
"The day shall come when sacred Troy shall be leveled with the
plain, And Priam and the people of that good warrior slain."
"Assyria," he is said to have exclaimed, "had fallen, and Persia and
Macedon. Carthage was burning: Rome's day might come next." Carthage
was converted into a Roman province under the name of Africa.
DESTRUCTION OF CORINTH.—The atrocious crime of the destruction of
Carthage was more than matched by the contemporaneous destruction of
Corinth. Another rising in Macedonia resulted, in 146, in the
conversion of that ancient kingdom into a Roman province. The return
to Greece of three hundred Achaian exiles who had been detained in
Italy for sixteen years, strengthened the anti-Roman party in Greece,
and helped to bring on war with the Achaian league. In 146, after the
battle of Leucopetra, Corinth was occupied by the consul
L. Mummius. The men were put to the sword; the women and
children were sold at auction into slavery; all treasures, all
pictures, and other works of art, were carried off to Rome, and the
city was consigned to the flames. The other Greek cities were mildly
treated, but placed under the governor of Macedonia, and obliged to
pay tribute to Rome. At a later date Greece became a Roman province
under the name of Achaia.
THE PROVINCES.—At this epoch, there were eight
provinces,—Sicily (241), Sardinia (238) and
Corsica, two provinces in Spain (205), Cisalpine
Gaul, Illyricum (168), Africa (146), Macedonia
(146), and Achaia. The first four were governed by
Prætors. Later, however, the judicial functions of the praetors
kept them in Rome. At the end of the year, the prætor, on laying down
his office at home, went as proprætor to rule a province. But
where there was war or other grave disturbances, the province was
assigned to a consul in office, or to a proconsul, who
was either the consul of the preceding year, or an ex-consul, or an
ex-prætor who was appointed proconsul. The provinces were generally
organized by the conquering general and a senatorial commission. Some
cities retained their municipal government. These were the "free
cities." The taxes were farmed out to collectors called
publicans, who were commonly of the equestrian order. The last
military dictator was appointed in 216. In times of great danger,
dictatorial power was given to a consul.
LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY.—The intercourse of the Romans with the
Greeks opened to the former a new world of art, literature, and
philosophy, and a knowledge of other habits and modes of life. There
were those who regarded the Greek authors and artists with sympathy,
and showed an intelligent enthusiasm for the products of Greek
genius. Under the patronage of the Scipios, Roman poets wrote
in imitation of Greek models. Such were Plautus (who died in
184), and the less original, but more refined, Terence
(185-159), who had been the slave of a senator. Ennius
(239-169), a Calabrian Greek, wrote epics, and also tragedies and
comedies. Him the later Romans regarded as the father of their
literature. The beginnings of historical writing—which go beyond mere
chronicles and family histories—appear, as in the lost work on Roman
history by M. Portias Cato (Cato the Censor, 234-149). The
great historian of this period, however, was the Greek
Polybius. The Greek philosophy was introduced, in spite of the
vigorous opposition of such austere conservatives as
Cato. Panaetius (185-112), the Stoic from Rhodes, had a
cordial reception at Rome. The Stoic teaching was adapted to the Roman
mind. The Platonic philosophy was brought in by Carneades. This
was frequently more acceptable to orators and statesmen. Along with
the Stoic, the Epicurean school found
adherents. Cato—who, although a historian and an orator, was, in
theory and practice, a rigid man, with the simple ways of the old
time—procured the banishment of_ Carneades_, together with
Critolaus the Peripatetic, and the Stoic Diogenes. The
schools of oratory he caused to be shut up. He did what he could to
prevent the introduction of the healing art, as it was practiced by
the Greeks. He preferred the old-fashioned domestic remedies.
THE STATE OF MORALS.—If the opposition of the Conservatives to Greek
letters and philosophy was unreasonable, as it certainly proved
futile, there was abundant ground for alarm and regret at the changes
that were going on in morals and in ways of living. The conquest of
Greece and of the East brought an amazing increase of wealth. Rome
plundered the countries which she conquered. The optimates, the
leading families, who held the chief offices in the state and in the
army, grew very rich from the booty which they gained. They left their
small dwellings for stately palaces, which they decorated with works
of art, gained by the pillage of nations. They built villas in the
country, with extensive grounds and beautiful gardens. Even women,
released from the former strict subordination of the wife to her
husband, indulged lavishly in finery, and plunged into gaieties
inconsistent with the household virtues. The optimates, in
order to enrich themselves further, often resorted to extortion of
various sorts. In order to curry favor with the people, and thereby to
get their votes, they stooped to flattery, and to demagogical arts
which the earlier Romans would have despised. They provided games, at
great expense, for the entertainment of the populace. In the room of
the invigorating and of the intellectual contests, which had been in
vogue among the Greeks, the Romans acquired an increasing relish for
bloody gladiatorial fights of men with wild beasts, and of men against
one another. Slaves multiplied to an enormous extent: "as cheap as a
Sardinian" was a proverb. The race of plain farmers dwindled away. The
trade in slaves became a flourishing branch of business. Field-hands
toiled in fetters, and were often branded to prevent escape. If slaves
ran away, and were caught, they might be crucified. If a householder
were killed by a slave, all the slaves in his house might be put to
death. As at Athens, the testimony of slaves was given under
torture. Hatred to the master on the part of the slave was a thing of
course. "As many enemies as slaves," was a common saying.
NUMANTIAN WAR.—The intolerable oppression of the provinces
occasionally provoked resistance. It was in Spain that the
Romans found it most difficult to quell the spirit of freedom. The
Lusitanians in the territory now called Portugal, under a
gallant chieftain, Viriathus, maintained for nine years a war
in which they were mostly successful, and were finally worsted only in
consequence of the perfidious assassination of their leader
(149-140). The Celtiberians, whose principal city,
Numantia, was on the upper Douro, kept up their
resistance with equal valor for ten years (143-133). On one occasion a
Roman army of twenty thousand men was saved from destruction by
engagements which the Senate, as after the surrender at the Caudine
Forks, repudiated. In 133, after a siege of eighteen months, Numantia
was taken by Scipio Africanus Æmilianus. It was hunger that
compelled the surrender; and the noblest inhabitants set fire to the
town, and slew themselves, to avoid falling into the hands of the
enemy.
PERGAMON.—More subservience the Romans found in the East. In the same
year that the desperate resistance of the Numantians was
overcome, Attalus III., king of Pergamon, an ally of
Rome, whose sovereignty extended over the greater part of Asia
Minor, left his kingdom and all his treasures, by will, to the
Roman people. There was a feeble struggle on the part of the expectant
heir, but the Romans formed the larger part of the kingdom into a
province. Phrygia Major they detached, and gave to
Mithridates IV., king of Pontus, who had helped them in
this last brief contest.
PERIOD IV. THE ERA OF REVOLUTION AND OF THE CIVIL WARS. (146-31
B.C.)
CHAPTER I. THE GRACCHI: THE FIRST MITHRIDATIC WAR: MARIUS
AND SULLA (146-78 B.C.).
CONDITION OF ROME.—We come now to an era of internal strife. The
Romans were to turn their arms against one another: Yet it is
remarkable that the march of foreign conquest still went on. It was by
conquests abroad that the foremost leaders in the civil wars rose to
the position which enabled them to get control in the government at
home. The power of the Senate had been more and more
exalted. Foreign affairs were mainly at its disposal. The increase in
the number of voters in the comitia, and their motley
character, made it more easy for the aristocracy to manage
them. Elections were carried by the influence of largesses and by the
exhibition of games. Practically the chief officers were limited to a
clique, composed of rich families of both patrician and plebeian
origin, which was diminishing in number, while the numbers of the
lower class were rapidly growing larger. The gulf between the poor and
the rich was constantly widening. The last Italian colony was sent out
in 177 B.C., and the lands of Italy were all taken up. Slaves
furnished labor at the cost of their bare subsistence. It was hard for
a poor man to gain a living. Had the Licinian Laws (p. 137)
been carried out, the situation would have been different. The public
lands were occupied by the members of some forty or fifty aristocratic
families, and by a certain number of wealthy Italians. A great
proletariate—a needy and disaffected lower class—was growing up,
which boded no good to the state.
TIBERIUS GRACCHUS.—This condition of things moved Tiberius
Gracchus, the son of Cornelia, who was the daughter of the
great Scipio Africanus, to bring forward his Agrarian
Laws. The effect of them would have been to limit the amount of
the public domain which any one man could hold, and to divide portions
of it among poor citizens. In spite of the bitter opposition of the
nobility, these laws were passed (133). But Gracchus had been
obliged to persuade the people to turn a tribune, who resisted their
passage, out of office, which was an unconstitutional act. In order to
carry out the laws, he would have to be re-elected tribune. But the
optimates, led by the consul Scipio Nasica, had been
still more infuriated by other proposals of Gracchus. They
raised a mob, and slew him, with three hundred of his followers. This
gave the democratic leaders a temporary advantage; but violent
measures on their own side turned the current again the other way, and
proceedings under the laws were quashed.
CAIUS GRACCHUS.—The laws of Caius Gracchus, the brother of
Tiberius, were of a more sweeping character. He caused measures to be
passed, and colonies to be sent out, by decrees of the people, without
any action of the Senate. He renewed the agrarian law. He caused a law
to be passed for selling corn for less than the cost, to all citizens
who should apply for it. He also caused it to be ordained, that juries
should be taken from the knights, the equites, instead of the
Senate. These were composed of rich men. The tendency of the law would
be to make the equestrian order distinct, and thus to divide the
aristocracy. The proposal (122), which was not passed, to extend the
franchise to the Latins, and perhaps to the Italians, cost him his
popularity, although the measure was just. The Senate gave its support
to a rival tribune, M. Livius Drusus, who outbid
Gracchus in the contest for popular favor. In 121
Gracchus was not made tribune. In the disorder that followed,
he, with several hundred of his followers, was killed by the
optimates. Before long most of his enactments were
reversed. The law for the cheap sale of corn, the most unwise of his
measures, continued.
THE JUGURTHINE WAR.—An interval of tranquility followed. But the
corruption of the ruling class was illustrated in connection with the
Jugurthine war. Jugurtha, the adopted son of the king of
Numidia, the ally of Rome, wishing the whole kingdom for
himself, killed one of the sons of the late king, and made war upon
the other, who applied to the Romans for help. The commission sent out
by the Senate was bribed by Jugurtha. Not until he took the
city of Cirta, and put to death the remaining brother, with all
his army, was he summoned to Rome. There, too, his money availed to
secure him impunity, although he caused a Numidian prince to be
murdered in Rome itself. When the Romans finally entered on the war
with Jugurtha, he bribed the generals, so that little was
effected. The indignation of the people was raised to such a pitch
that they would not leave the direction of the war in the hands of
Quintus Metellus, whom the Senate had sent out, and who
defeated Jugurtha (108), but insisted on giving the chief
command to one of his subordinate officers, Caius Marius (107),
the son of a peasant, wild and rough in his manners, but of
extraordinary talents as a soldier. He brought the war to an
end. Jugurtha was delivered up by the prince with whom he had
taken refuge to L. Cornelius Sulla, one of the generals under
Marius, and in 105, with his two sons, marched in chains before
the triumphal car of Marius through the streets of
Rome. Marius was now the leader of the popular party, and the
most influential man in Rome.
THE CIMBRI AND TEUTONES.—The power of Marius was augmented by
his victories over the Cimbri and the Teutones. These
were hordes of barbarians who appeared in the Alpine regions, the
Cimbri being either Celts, or, like the Teutones,
Germans. The Cimbri crossed the Alps in 113, and
defeated a Roman consul. They turned westward towards the Rhine,
traversed Gaul in different directions, defeating through a series of
years the Roman armies that were sent against them. These defeats the
democratic leaders ascribed, not without reason, to the corrupt
management of the aristocratic party. In 103 the Cimbri and the
Teutones arranged for a combined attack on Italy. Marius
was made consul; and in order to meet this threatened invasion, which
justly excited the greatest anxiety, he was chosen to this office five
times in succession (104-100). Having repulsed the attack of the
barbarians on his camp, he defeated them in two great battles, the
first at Aquce Sextice (Aix in Provence) in 102, and the second
at Vercellce, in Upper Italy, in 101. These successes, which
really saved Rome, made Marius for the time the idol of the
popular party.
THE ARMY.—At about this time a great change took place in the
constitution of the army. The occupation of a soldier had become a
trade. Besides the levy of citizens, there was established a
recruiting system, which drew into the ranks the idle and lazy, and a
system of re-inforcements, by which cavalry and light-armed troops
were taken from subject and vassal states. Thus there arose a military
class, distinct, as it had not been of old, from the civil orders, and
ready to act separately when its own interest or the ambition of
favorite leaders might prompt.
SATURNINUS.—Marius lacked the judgment and the firmness
required by a statesman, especially in troublous times. When
Saturninus and Glaucia brought forward a series of
measures of a radical character in behalf of the democratic cause, and
the consul Metellus, who opposed them, was obliged to go into
voluntary exile, Marius, growing ashamed of the factious and
violent proceedings of the popular party, was partially won over to
the support of the Senate. When C. Memmius, candidate for
consul, was killed with bludgeons by the mob of Saturninus and
Glaucia, and there was fighting in the forum and the streets,
he helped to put down these reckless innovators (99). But his want of
hearty cooperation with either party made him hated by
both. Metellus was recalled from banishment. Marius went
to Asia, and visited the court of Mithridates.
THE MURDER OF DRUSUS.—Nearly ten years of comparative quiet
ensued. The long continued complaints of the Italians found at last a
voice in the measures of M. Livius Drusus, a tribune, who, in
91, proposed that they should have the right of citizenship. Two other
propositions, one referring to the relations of the Equites and
the Senate, and the other for a new division of lands, had been
accepted by the people, but were by the Senate declared null. Before
Drusus could bring forward the law respecting Italian
citizenship, he was assassinated. Neither Senate nor people was
favorable to this righteous measure.
THE ITALIAN OR SOCIAL WAR (90-88 B.C.).—The murder of Drusus
was the signal for an insurrection of the Italian
communities. They organized for themselves a federal republic. The
peril occasioned by this great revolt reconciled for the moment the
contending parties at Rome. In the North, where Marius fought,
the Romans were generally successful: in the South, the allies were at
first superior; but in 89, in spite of Sulla's bold forays,
they were worsted. But it was by policy, more than by arms, that the
Romans subdued this dangerous revolt. They promised full citizenship
to those who had not taken part in the war, and to those who would at
once cease to take part in it (90). Finally, when it was plain that
Rome was too strong to be overcome, the conflict was ended by granting
to the allies all that they had ever claimed (89). Rome had now made
ALL ITALY (south of Cisalpine Gaul), except the Samnites
and Lucanians, EQUAL WITH HERSELF. But Italy had been ravaged
by desolating war: the number of small proprietors was more than ever
diminished, and the army and the generals were becoming the
predominant force in the affairs of the state.
WAR WITH MITHRIDATES.—Mithridates, king of Pontus, in the
north-east of Asia Minor, was as ardent an enemy of the Romans as
Hannibal had been. With the help of his son-in-law Tigranes,
king of Armenia, he had subdued the neighboring kings in alliance with
Rome. The Asiatic states, who were ruled by the Romans, were impatient
of the oppression under which they groaned. When checked by the
Romans, Mithridates had paused for a while, and then had
resumed again his enterprise of conquest. In 88 the Grecian cities of
Asia joined him; and, in obedience to his brutal order, all the
Italians within their walls, not lelss than eighty thousand in number,
but possibly almost double that number, were put to death in one
day. The whole dominion of the Romans in the East was in jeopardy.
MARIUS AND SULLA.—Sulla was elected consul in 88, and was on
the point of departing for Asia. He was a soldier of marked talents, a
representative of the aristocratic party, and was more cool and
consistent in his public conduct than Marius. Marius
desired the command against Mithridates for
himself. P. Sulpicius, one of his adherents, brought forward a
revolutionary law for incorporating the Italians and freedmen among
the thirty-five tribes. The populace, under the guidance of the
leaders of the Marian faction, voted to take away the command from
Sulla, and to give it to Marius. Sulla refused to
submit, and marched his army to Rome. It was impossible to resist
him. Sulpicius was killed in his flight. Marius escaped
from Italy, and, intending to go to Africa, was landed at
Minturnae. To escape pursuit, he had to stand up to the chin in
a marsh. He was put in prison, and a Gaulish slave was sent to kill
him. But when he saw the flashing eyes of the old general, and heard
him cry, "Fellow, darest thou kill Caius Marius?" he dropped
his sword, and ran. Marius crossed to Africa. Messengers who
were sent to warn him to go away, found him sitting among the ruins of
Carthage.
THE MARIANS IN ROME.—Sulla restored the authority of the
Senate. During Sulla's absence, Cinna, the consul of the
popular party, sought to revive the laws of Sulpicius by
violent means (87). Driven out of the city, he came back with an army
which he had gathered in Campania, and with old Marius, who had
returned from Africa. He now took vengeance on the leaders of the
Optimates. For five days the gates were closed, and every noble
who was specially obnoxious, and had not escaped, was killed by
Marius, who marched through the streets at the head of a body
of soldiers. In 86 Marius and Cinna were made
consuls. Sulla was declared to be deposed. Marius, who
was now more than seventy years old, died (86). The fever of revenge,
and the apprehension of what might follow on Sulla's return,
drove sleep from his eyelids. A brave soldier, he was incompetent to
play the part of a statesman. He went to his grave with the curse of
all parties resting upon him.
RETURN OF SULLA.—Sulla refused to do any thing against his
adversaries at home, or for the help of the fugitive nobles who
appealed to him, until the cause of the country was secure abroad. He
captured Athens in 86, defeated Archelaus, the general
of Mithridates, in a great battle at Chaeronea; and, by
this and subsequent victories, he forced Mithridates to
conclude peace, who agreed to evacuate the Roman province of Asia, to
restore all his conquests, surrender eighty ships of war, and pay
three thousand talents (84). Sulla's hands were now free. In 83
he landed at Brundisium. He was joined by Cneius
Pompeius, then twenty-three years old, with a troop of
volunteers. Sulla did not wish to fight the Italians. He issued
a proclamation, therefore, giving them the assurance that their rights
would not be impaired. This pledge had the desired effect. The army of
the Consuls largely outnumbered his own. Sulla lingered
in South Italy to make good his position there. The Samnites
joined the Marians, and moved upon Rome with the intent to
destroy it. They were defeated before they could enter the city. The
Marians in Spain were defeated afterwards, as were the same
party in Sicily and Africa by Pompeius.
CRUELTY OF SULLA.—The cruelty of Sulla, after his victory, was more
direful than Rome had ever witnessed. It appeared to spring from no
heat of passion, but was cold and shameless. After a few days, there
was a massacre of four thousand prisoners in the Circus. Their
shrieks and groans were heard in the neighboring Temple of
Bellona, where Sulla was in consultation with the Senate. Many
thousands—not far from three thousand in Rome alone—were proscribed
and murdered, and the property of all on these lists of the condemned
was confiscated.
THE LAWS OF SULLA.—In his character as Dictator, Sulla
remade the constitution, striking out the popular elements to a great
extent, and concentrating authority in the Senate. The
Tribunes were stripped of most of their power. The
Senate alone could propose laws. In the Senate, the places in
the juries were given back (p. 154). Besides these and other like
changes, the right of suffrage was bestowed on ten thousand
emancipated slaves; while Italians and others, who had been on
the Marian side, were deprived of it. In the year 80 B.C.,
Sulla caused himself to be elected Consul. The next year
he retired from office to his country estate, and gave himself up to
amusements and sensual pleasure. A part of his time—for he was not
without a taste for literature—he devoted to the writing of his
memoirs, which, however, have not come down to us. He died in 78.
CHAPTER II. POMPEIUS AND THE EAST: TO THE DEATH OF CRASSUS (78-53
B.C.).
WAR WITH SERTORIUS.—Not many years after _Sulla's _death, his
reforms were annulled. This was largely through the agency of
Cneius Pompeius, who had supported Sulla, but was not a
uniform or consistent adherent of the aristocratic party. He did not
belong to an old family, but had so distinguished himself that Sulla
gave him a triumph. Later he rose to still higher distinction by his
conduct of the war against Sertorius in Spain, a brave and able
man of the Marian party, who was supported there for a long time by a
union of Spaniards and Romans. Not until jealousy arose among his
officers, and Sertorius was assassinated, was the formidable
rebellion put down (72).
THE GLADIATORIAL WAR.—Pompeius had the opportunity still
further to distinguish himself on his way back from Spain. A
gladiator, Spartacus, started a revolt among his companions. He
called about him slaves and outlaws until with an army of one hundred
thousand men he defeated the Roman generals, and threatened Rome
itself. For two years they ravaged Italy at their will. They were
vanquished by Marcus Crassus in 71, in two battles, in the last
of which Spartacus fell. The remnant of them, a body of five
thousand men, who had nearly reached the Alps, were annihilated by
Pompeius.
POMPEIUS: CRASSUS: CICERO.—Crassus was a man of great wealth
and of much shrewdness. Pompeius was bland and dignified in his
ways, a valiant, though sometimes over-cautious, general. These two
men, in 70 B.C., became consuls. They had resolved to throw themselves
for support on the middle class at Rome. Pompeius, sustained by
his colleague, secured the abrogation of some of the essential changes
made by Sulla. The Tribunes received back their powers,
and the independence of the Assembly of the Tribes was
restored. The absolute power of the Senate over the law-courts was
taken away. These measures were carried in spite of the resistance of
that body. Pompeius was aided by the great advocate, Marcus Tullius
Cicero. He was born at Arpinum in 106 B.C., of an
equestrian family. He had been a diligent student of law and politics,
and also of the Greek philosophy, and aspired to distinction in civil
life. He studied rhetoric under Molo, first at Rome and then at
Rhodes, during a period of absence from Italy, which continued
about two years. On his return (in 77 B.C.), he resumed legal
practice. Cicero was a man of extraordinary and various
talents, and a patriot, sincerely attached to the republican
constitution. He was humane and sensitive, and much more a man of
peace than his eminent contemporaries. His foibles, the chief of which
was the love of praise, were on the surface; and, if he lacked some of
the robust qualities of the great Roman leaders of that day, he was
likewise free from some of their sins. The captivating oratory of
Cicero found a field for its exercise in the impeachment of
Verres, whose rapacity, as Roman governor of Sicily, had fairly
desolated that wealthy province. Cicero showed such vigor in
the prosecution that Verres was driven into exile. This event
weakened the senatorial oligarchy, and helped Pompeius in his
contest with it.
WAR WITH THE PIRATES.—In 69 B.C., Pompeius retired from
office; but, two years later, he assumed command in the war against
the pirates. These had taken possession of creeks and valleys in
Western Cilicia and Pamphylia, and had numerous
fleets. Not confining their depredations to the sea, they plundered
the coasts of Italy, and stopped the grain-ships on which Rome
depended for food. Pompeius undertook to exterminate this
piratical community. By the Gabinian Law, he was clothed with
more power than had ever been committed to an individual. He was to
have absolute command over the Mediterranean and its coasts for fifty
miles inland. He used this unlimited authority for war purposes alone,
and, in three months, completely accomplished the work assigned
him. He captured three thousand vessels, and put to death ten thousand
men. Twenty thousand captives he settled in the interior of
Cilicia.
POMPEIUS IN THE EAST.—The success of Pompeius was the prelude to a
wider extension of his power and his popularity. After the return of
Sulla from the East, another Mithridatic War (83-81),
the second in the series, had ended in the same terms of peace that
had been agreed upon before (p. 157). In 74 the contest began anew
against Mithridates, and Tigranes of Armenia, his
son-in-law. For a number of years Lucullus, the Roman
commander, was successful; but finally Mithridates regained
what he had lost, and kept up his aggressive course. In 66 B.C., on a
motion that was supported by Cicero, but opposed by the
aristocratic party in the Senate, Pompeius was made commander
in the East for an indefinite term. So extensive powers had never
before been committed to a Roman. He drove Mithridates out of
Pontus into Armenia. Tigranes laid his crown at the feet of the
Roman general, and was permitted to retain
Armenia. Mithridates fled beyond the Caucasus, and, in
63 B.C., committed suicide. Pompeius overthrew the Syrian
kingdom of the Seleucidae. He entered Judaea, captured
Jerusalem from Aristobulus the reigning prince, and placed his
brother Hyrcanus on the throne, who became tributary to Rome.
Pompeius with his officers entered the sanctuary of the temple,
and was surprised to find there neither image nor statue. He
established in the Roman territories in Asia the two provinces,
Pontus and Syria, and re-organized the province of
Cilicia. Several kingdoms he allowed to remain under Roman
protection. After this unexampled exercise of power and responsibility
as the disposer of kingdoms, he slowly returned to Italy, dismissed
his army at Brundisium, and entered the capital as a private
citizen, where, in 61 B.C., he enjoyed a magnificent triumph that
lasted for two days.
THE ROMAN TRIUMPH.—The most coveted reward of a victorious general
was a triumph. It was granted by a vote of the Senate and according to
certain rules, some of which, however, were often relaxed. The general
must have held the office of dictator, consul, or praetor; at least
five thousand of the enemy must have been slain in a single battle;
the war must have been against public foes, etc. The general, with his
army, remained without the city until the triumph had been decreed by
the Senate, which also assembled without the walls to deliberate on
the question. The pageant itself, in later times, was of the most
splendid character. It consisted of a procession which entered the
"Triumphal Gate," and passed through the Via Sacra, up the
Capitoline Hill to the Temple of Jupiter, where sacrifices were
offered. In front were the Senate, headed by the magistrates. Then
came a body of trumpeters, who immediately preceded the long trains of
carriages and frames which displayed the spoils of conquest, including
statues, pictures, gorgeous apparel, gold and silver, and whatever
else had been borne away from the conquered people. Pictures of the
country traversed or conquered, and models of cities and forts, were
exhibited. Behind the spoils came flute-players, and these were
followed by elephants and other strange animals. Next were the arms
and insignia of the hostile leaders; and after them marched the
leaders themselves and their kindred, and all the captives of less
rank, in fetters. The crowns and other tributes voluntarily given to
the general by Roman allies next appeared, and then the central figure
of the procession, the imperator himself, standing in a chariot
drawn by four horses, clad in a robe embroidered with gold, and a
flowered tunic, in his right hand a bough of laurel and in his left a
scepter, with a wreath of laurel on his brow, and a slave standing
behind, and holding a crown over his head. Behind him in the
procession were his family, then the mounted equites and the
whole body of the infantry, their spears adorned with laurels, making
the air ring with their shouts and songs. Meantime the temples were
open, and incense was burned to the gods; buildings were decorated
with festal garlands; the population, in holiday dress, thronged the
steps of the public buildings and stages erected to command a view,
and in every place where a sight of the pageant could be obtained. As
the procession climbed the Capitoline Hill, some of the captives of
rank were taken into the adjoining Mamertine prison, and
barbarously put to death. In the lower chamber of that ancient
dungeon, which the traveler still visits, Jugurtha and many
other conquered enemies perished. After the sacrifices had been
offered, the imperator sat down to a public feast with his
friends in the temple, and was then escorted home by a crowd of
citizens.
The ovation was a lesser triumph. The general entered the city
on foot, and the ceremonies were of a much inferior cast.
CONSPIRACY OF CATILINE.—Meanwhile at Rome, the state had been
endangered by the combination of democrats and anarchists in the
conspiracy of Catiline. The well-contrived plot of this
audacious and profligate man was detected and crushed by the vigilance
and energy of the consul Cicero, whose four speeches on the
subject, two to the Senate and two to the people, are among the most
celebrated of all his orations. Catiline was forced to fly from
Rome; and several of his prominent accomplices were put to death by
the advice of Cato (the younger), the leader of the Senatorial
party, and by the vote of the Senate. This was done without asking for
the verdict of the people, and for this reason was not warranted by
the law; but it was declared to be needful for the salvation of the
state. The next year Catiline was killed in battle, and his
force dispersed by the army of the Senate. A turn of party feeling
afterwards exiled Cicero for departing from the law in the
execution of the conspirators.
JULIUS CAESAR.—Another person strong enough to be the rival of
Pompeius was now on the stage of action. This was Caius
Julius Caesar, who proved himself to be, on the whole, the
foremost man of the ancient Roman world. Caesar's talents were
versatile, but in nothing was he weak or superficial. He was great as
a general, a statesman, an orator, and an author. With as much power
of personal command over men as Hannibal had possessed, he was
likewise an agreeable companion of men of letters and in general
society. Every thing he did he appeared to do with ease. By his family
connections he was naturally designated as the leader of the popular,
Marian party. He was the nephew of Marius and the son-in-law of
Cinna. Sulla had spared his life, although he had
courageously refused to obey the dictator's command to put away his
wife; but he had been obliged to quit Rome. At the funeral of
Julia, the widow of Marius, he had been bold enough to
exhibit the bust of that hero,—an act that involved risk, but pleased
the multitude. He was suspected of being privy to Catiline's
plot, and in the Senate spoke against the execution of his
confederates. In 65 he was elected Aedile, but his profuse
expenditures in providing games plunged him heavily in debt; so that
it was only by advances made to him by Crassus that he was
able, after being praetor, to go to Spain (in 61), where, as
propraetor, he first acquired military distinction. Prior to his
sojourn in Spain, by his bold political conduct, in opposition to the
Senate, and on the democratic side, he had made himself a favorite of
the people.
THE FIRST TRIUMVIRATE.—Pompeius was distrusted and feared by the
Senate; but, on seeing that he took no measures to seize on power at
Rome, they proceeded to thwart his wishes, and denied the expected
allotments of land to his troops. The circumstances led to the
formation of the first Triumvirate, which was an informal
alliance between Pompeius, Caesar, and Crassus,
against the Senatorial oligarchy, and for the protection and
furtherance of their own interests. Caesar became consul in 59
B.C. He gave his daughter Julia in marriage to
Pompeius. Gaul, both Cisalpine, and Transalpine (Gallia
Narbonensis), was given to Caesar to govern for five
years. Cato was sent off to take possession of the kingdom of
Cyprus. Cicero, who was midway between the two parties,
was exiled on motion of the radical tribune, Clodius. But the
independent and violent proceedings of this demagogue led
Pompeius to co-operate more with the Senate. Cicero was
recalled (57 B.C.). A jealousy, fomented by the Senate, sprang up
between Pompeius and Crassus. By Caesar's
efforts, a better understanding was brought about between the
triumvirs, and it was agreed that his own proconsulship should be
prolonged for a second term of five years. Pompeius received
the Spains, and Crassus, who was avaricious, was made
proconsul of Syria, and commander of the armies in the Oriental
provinces. In an expedition against the Parthians in 53, he
perished.
CAESAR IN GAUL.—The campaigns of Caesar in Gaul covered a
period of eight years. An admirable narrative of them is presented by
himself in his Commentaries.
THE GAULS.—The Gauls were Celts. The Celts were spread over
the most of Gaul, over Britain and the north of Italy. In
Gaul, there were three general divisions of people, each
subdivided into tribes. These were the Belgae, the
Galli, and the Aquitani, the last of whom, however,
were not Celts, but, like the Iberians in Spain, belonged to
a pre-Celtic race. The Helvetii and Vindelici
were in Switzerland. The Celts of Gaul had attained to a
considerable degree of civilization. Their gods were the various
objects of nature personified. Their divinities are described by
Caesar as corresponding in their functions to the gods of
Rome. Their priests were the Druids, a close corporation, but
not hereditary. They not only conducted worship: they were the
lawgivers, judges, and physicians of the people. They possessed a
mysterious doctrine, which they taught to the initiated. They held a
great yearly assembly for the trial of causes. The Bards
stood in connection with the Druidical order. In worship, human
sacrifices were offered in large numbers, the victims being
prisoners, slaves, criminals, etc. There were temples, but thick
groves were the favorite seats of worship. Caesar says that
the Gauls were strongly addicted to religious observances. In their
character they are described as brave and impetuous in an onset, but
as lacking persistency.
The Celts in Britain were less civilized than their kinsfolk
across the channel. But in their customs and religious beliefs and
usages, they were similar to them. They probably came over from
Gaul.
CONQUEST OF GAUL.—The first victory of Caesar was in conflict with
the Helvetii, who had invaded Gaul, and whom he drove back to their
homes in the Alps. The Gallic tribes applied to him for help against
the Germans, who had been led over the Rhine by
Ariovistus, chief of the Suevi. Him Caesar forced
to return to the other side of the river. The Gallic tribes, fearing
the power of Caesar, stirred up the Belgae, the most warlike of
all the Gauls. These Csesar subdued, and also, with less difficulty,
conquered the other nations of Gaul. Twice, in conflict with
the Germans, he crossed the Rhine near Bonn and
Andernach (55 and 53 B.C.). Twice, also (55 and 54
B.C.), he landed in Britain. On the second expedition he
crossed the Thames. In 52 there was a general insurrection of
the Gauls under Vercingetorix, a brave chieftain, to conquer
whom required all of Caesar's strength and skill. The result of eight
years of hard and successful warfare was the subjugation of all Gaul
from the Rhine to the Pyrenees. The Celts were subdued, and
steps taken which resulted in their civilization. A barrier was placed
in the way of the advance of the Germans, which availed for
this end during several centuries. By his successes in Gaul, Csesar
acquired a fame as a general, which partly eclipsed the glory
previously gained by Pompeius in the East. He became, also, the
leader of veteran legions who were devoted to his interests.
CHAPTER III. POMPEIUS AND CAESAR: THE SECOND TRIUMVIRATE.
THE CIVIL WAR.—The rupture between Pompeius and Caesar
brought on another civil war, and subverted the Roman republic. They
were virtually regents. The triumvirs had arranged with one another
for the partition of power. The death of Crassus took away a
link of connection which had united the two survivors. The death of
Julia, the beautiful daughter of Caesar, in 54 B.C., had
previously dissolved another tie. Pompeius contrived to remain
in Rome, and to govern Spain by legates. Each of the two rivals had
his active and valiant partisans in the city. The spoils of Gaul were
sent to be expended in the erection of costly buildings, and in
providing entertainments for the populace. To Pompey, in turn,
Rome owed the construction of the first stone theater, which was
dedicated with unprecedented show and splendor. Bloody conflicts
between armed bands of adherents of the two leaders were of daily
occurrence. Clodius, an adherent of Caesar and a reckless
partisan, was slain by Milo, in a conflict on the Appian
Way. The Senate and the republicans, of whom Cato was the
chief, in order to curb the populace, and out of enmity to Caesar,
allied themselves with Pompeius. It was determined to prevent
him from standing as a candidate for the consulship, unless he should
lay down his command, and come to Rome. He offered to resign his
military power if Pompeius would do the same. This was
refused. Finally he was directed to give up his command in Gaul before
the expiration of the time which had been set for the termination of
it. This order, if carried into effect, would have reduced him to the
rank of a private citizen, and have left him at the mercy of his
enemies. The tribunes, including his devoted supporter, Marcus
Antonius, in vain interposed the veto, and fled from the
city. Caesar determined to disobey the order of the Senate. His
legions—two had been withdrawn on the false pretext of needing them
for the Parthian war—clung to him, with the exception of one able
officer, T. Labienus. Caesar acted with great
promptitude. He crossed the Rubicon, the boundary of the Gallic
Cisalpine province, before Pompeius—who had declared, that
with a stamp of his foot he could call up armed men from the
ground—had made adequate preparations to meet him. The strength of
Pompeius was mainly in the East, the scene of his former
glory; and he was, perhaps, not unwilling to retire to that region,
taking with him the throng of aristocratic leaders, who fled
precipitately on learning of the approach of
Caesar. Pompeius sailed from Brundisium to
Epirus. Cicero, who had ardently desired an
accommodation between the rivals, was in an agony of doubt as to what
course it was right and best for him to take, since he saw reason to
dread the triumph of either side. Reluctantly he decided to cast in
his lot with the Senate and its newly gained champion.
PHARSALUS: THAPSUS: MUNDA.—Caesar gained the advantage of securing
the state treasure which Pompeius had unaccountably left behind
him, and was able to establish his power in Italy. Before
pursuing Pompeius, he marched through Gaul into Spain
(49 B.C.), conquered the Pompeian forces at Ilerda, and secured
his hold upon that country. He then crossed the Adriatic, He
encountered Pompeius, who could not manage his imprudent officers, on
the plain of Pharsalus (48 B.C.), where the senatorial army was
completely overthrown. Pompeius sailed for Egypt; but, just as
he was landing, he was treacherously assassinated. His head was sent
to Caesar, who wept at the spectacle, and punished the
murderers. Caesar gained friends everywhere by the exercise of
a judicious clemency, which accorded with his natural disposition. He
next went to Egypt. There he was met by Cleopatra, whose
dazzling beauty captivated him. She reigned in conjunction with her
younger brother, who, according to the Egyptian usage, was nominally
her husband. The Egyptians were roused against Caesar, and, on one
occasion, he saved his life by swimming; but he finally defeated and
destroyed the Egyptian army. At Zela, in Pontus, he met
and vanquished Pharnaces, the revolted son of
Mithridates, and sent the laconic message, "Veni, vidi, vici"
(I came, I saw, I conquered). Early in 46 he landed in Africa,
and, at Thapsus, annihilated the republican forces in that
region. A most powerful combination was made against him in
Spain, including some of his old officers and legionaries, and
the two sons of Pompeius. But in the hard-fought battle at
Munda (March, 45 B.C.), when Caesar was himself in great
personal danger, he was, as usual, triumphant.
CAESAR AS A CIVILIAN.—Marvelous as the career of Caesar as a general
was, his merit as a civilian outstrips even his distinction as a
soldier. He saw that the world could no longer be governed by the
Roman rabble, and that monarchy was the only alternative. He ruled
under the forms of the old constitution, taking the post of dictator
and censor for life, and absorbing in himself the other principal
republican offices. The whole tendency of his measures, which were
mostly of a very wholesome character, was not only to remedy abuses of
administration, but to found a system of orderly administration in
which Rome should be not the sole mistress, but simply the
capital, of the world-wide community which had been subjected
to her authority.
THE GOVERNMENT OF CAESAR.—Caesar made the Senate an advisory
body. He increased the number of senators, bringing in provincials as
well as Roman citizens. He gave full citizenship to all the
Transpadane Gauls, and to numerous communities in
Transalpine Gaul, in Spain, and elsewhere. He
established a wide-spread colonization, thus planting his veterans in
different places abroad, and lessening the number of proletarians in
Italy. He rebuilt Carthage and Corinth. He re-organized
the army, and the civil administration in the provinces. In the space
of five years, while he was busy in important wars, he originated
numerous governmental measures of the utmost value.
THE MOTIVES OF CAESAR.—The designs of Caesar and of his party are to
be distinguished from what they actually accomplished. Caesar was not
impelled by a desire to improve the government of the provinces, in
taking up arms against the Senate. Nor did he owe his success to the
support of provincials; although, in common with the rest of the
democratic party at Rome, he was glad to have them for allies. The
custom had grown up of virtually giving to eminent generals, absolute
power for extended intervals. This was done, for example, in the case
of Marius, on the occasion of the invasion of the
Cimbrians and Teutones. In such exigencies, it was found
necessary to create what was equivalent to a military
dictatorship. The idea of military rule became familiar. The
revolution made by Caesar was achieved by military organization, and
was a measure of personal self-defense on his part. Being raised to
the supreme power, he sought to rule according to the wise and liberal
ideas which were suggested by the actual condition of the world, and
the undesirableness of a continued domination of a single city, with
such a populace as that of Rome. Before he could carry out his large
schemes, he was cut down.
ASSASSINATION OF CAESAR.—Caesar was tired of staying in Rome, and was
proposing to undertake an expedition against the Parthians. Neither
his clemency nor the necessity and the merits of the government
sustained by him, availed to shield him against the machinations of
enemies. The aristocratic party detested his policy. He was suspected
of aiming at the title, as well as the power, of a king. A conspiracy
made up of numerous senators who secretly hated him, of other
individuals influenced by personal spite, and of republican
visionaries like Cassius and Junius Brutus, who gloried
in what they considered tyrannicide, assaulted him on the ides of
March (March 15, 44 B.C.) in the hall of Pompeius, whither he
had come to a session of the Senate. He received twenty-three wounds,
one of which, at least, was fatal, and fell, uttering, a tradition
said, a word of gentle reproach to Brutus, one who had been counted a
special friend. Cicero had acquiesced in the new government,
and eulogized Caesar and his administration. But even he
expressed his satisfaction at the event which left the republic
without a master. An amnesty to those who slew Caesar was advocated by
him, and decreed by the Senate.
THE SECOND TRIUMVIRATE.—The Senate gave to the leading conspirators
provinces; to Decimus Brutus, Cisalpine Gaul. But at Rome there
was quickly a re-action of popular wrath against the enemies of
Csesar, which was skillfully fomented by Marcus Antonius in the
address which he made to the people over his dead body, pierced with
so many wounds. The people voted to give Cisalpine Gaul to
Antonius, and he set out to take it from Decimus Brutus
by force of arms. Cicero delivered a famous series of harangues
against Antonius, called the Philippics. Antonius, being
defeated, fled to Lepidus, the governor of Transalpine
Gaul. Octavius, the grand-nephew and adopted son of
Caesar, a youth of eighteen, now became prominent, and at first
was supported by the Senate in the hope of balancing the power of
Antonius. But in October, 43, Octavianus (as he was
henceforward called), Antonius, and Lepidus together
formed a second triumvirate, which became legal, by the ratification
of the people, for the period of five years. A proscription for the
destruction of the enemies of the three contracting parties was a part
of this alliance. A great number were put to death, among them
Cicero, a sacrifice to the vengeance of Antonius. War against
the republicans was the necessary consequence. At Philippi in
Thrace, in the year 42, Antonius and Octavianus defeated
Brutus and Cassius, both of whom committed
suicide. Porcia, the wife of Brutus, and the daughter of
Cato, on hearing of her husband's death, put an end to her own
life. Many other adherents of the republic followed the example of
their leaders. The victors divided the world between themselves,
Antonius taking the east, Octavianus the west, while to
the weak and avaricious Lepidus, Africa was assigned; but he
was soon deprived of his share by Octavianus.
CIVIL WAR: ACTIUM.—Antonius was enamoured of Cleopatra,
and, following her to Egypt, gave himself up to luxury and sensual
gratification. Civil war between Octavianus and the followers
of Antonius in Italy (40, 41 B.C.) was followed by the marriage
of Octavia, the sister of Octavianus, to
Antonius. But after a succession of disputes between the two
regents, there was a final breach. Antonius (35) went so far as
to give Roman territories to the sons of Cleopatra, and to send
to Octavia papers of divorce. The Senate, at the instigation of
Octavianus, deprived his unworthy colleague of all his
powers. War was declared against Cleopatra. East and West were
arrayed in arms against one another. The conflict was determined by
the naval victory of _Octavianus_at Actium (Sept. 2, 31
B.C.). Before the battle was decided, Cleopatra fled, and was
followed by Antonius. When the latter approached
Alexandria, Antonius, deceived by the false report that
Cleopatra had destroyed herself, threw himself upon his sword
and died. Cleopatra, finding herself unable to fascinate the
conqueror, but believing that he meant that she should adorn his
public triumph at Rome, poisoned herself (30). Egypt was made
into a Roman province. The month Sextilis, on which
_Octavianus_returned to Rome, received in honor of him the name
of "August," from "Augustus," the "venerated" or "illustrious," the
name given him in 27 B.C. by the Roman people and Senate. He
celebrated three triumphs; and, for the third time since the city was
founded, the Temple of Janus was closed.
PERIOD V. THE IMPERIAL MONARCHY: TO THE MIGRATIONS OF THE TEUTONIC
TRIBES (375 A.D.).
CHAPTER I. THE REIGN OF AUGUSTUS.
AUGUSTUS AS A RULER.—The long-continued, sanguinary civil wars made
peace welcome. Augustus knew how to conceal his love of power
under a mild exterior, and to organize the monarchy with a nominal
adherence to republican forms. The controlling magistracies, except
the censorship, were transferred to him. As Imperator, he had
unlimited command over the military forces, and was at the head of a
standing army of three hundred and forty thousand men. To him it
belonged to decide on peace and war. The Senate became the real
legislative body, issuing senatus-consulta. There was also a
sort of "cabinet council" chosen by him from its members. The
authority of the Tribunes belonged to him, and thus the popular
assemblies became more and more a nullity. "The Senate was made up of
his creatures; the people were won by bread and games; the army was
fettered to him by means of booty and gifts." While the forms of a
free state remained, all the functions of authority were exercised by
the ruler.
STATE OF THE EMPIRE.—(1) Its Extent. The Roman Empire extended
from the Atlantic to the Euphrates, a distance of more than three
thousand miles, and from the Danube and the English Channel—later,
from the friths of Scotland—to the cataracts of the Nile and the
African desert. Its population was somewhere from eighty millions to
one hundred and twenty millions. It was composed of the East
and the West, a distinction that was not simply geographical,
but included deeper characteristic differences. (2) The
Provinces. The provinces were divided (27 B.C.) into the
proconsular, ruled by the Senate, and the imperial,
ruled by the legates of Augustus. His authority, however, was
everywhere supreme. Over all the empire extended the system of Roman
law, the rights and immunities of which belonged to Roman citizens
everywhere. (3) The Two Languages. It was a
Romano-Hellenic monarchy. Local dialects remained; but the
Greek language was the language of commerce, and of polite
intercourse in all places. The Greek tongue and Hellenic culture were
the common property of the nations. The Latin was prevalent
west of the Adriatic. It was adopted in Africa, Spain, Gaul, and in
other provinces. It was the language of courts and of the camp. (4)
Journeys and Trade. The Roman territory was covered with a
net-work of magnificent roads. Journeys for purposes of trade and from
motives of curiosity were common. Religious pilgrimages to famous
shrines were frequent. The safety and peace which followed upon the
civil wars stimulated traffic and intercourse between the different
regions united under the imperial government.
LITERATURE.—The Augustan period was the golden age of Roman
literature. Literary works were topics of conversation in social
circles. Libraries were collected by the rich. The shops of
booksellers were places of resort for cultivated people. There were
active and liberal patrons of poets and of other men of letters. Such
patrons were Maecenas, Horace's friend, and
Augustus himself. Then favors were repaid by praises and
flattery, as we see in the verses of Horace, Virgil, and
especially of Ovid. The lectures of grammarians and
rhetoricians, of philosophers and physicians, were largely
attended. Literary societies were formed. Periodicals and bulletins
were published, in which the proceedings of the Senate and of the
courts were recorded. The business of scribes—copyists of
manuscripts—engaged a vast number of persons.
WRITINGS OF CICERO.—Cicero (106-43), in his philosophic writings,
reproduces the thoughts and speculations of the Greek sages, in the
manner of a cultivated and appreciative student. His speeches and his
epistles, especially those to his friend, Atticus, lift the
veil, as it were, and afford us most interesting glimpses of the civil
and social life of the Romans of that day.
THE POETS.—One of the most original of the Latin poets is
Lucretius (95-51 B.C.), whose poem "On the Nature of Things" is
an effort to dispel superstitious fear by inculcating the Epicurean
doctrine that the world is self-made through the movement and
concussion of atoms, and that the gods leave it to care for itself. A
contemporary of Lucretius, and a poet of equal merit, but in an
altogether different vein, is Catullus. He is chiefly noted for
his lyrics. Virgil (70-19 B.C.), in the Aeneid, has
produced a genuine Roman epic, although his dependence on Homer is
obvious throughout, and in the Bucolics, and in particular in
the Georgics, where he shows most originality, has made himself
immortal as a pastoral poet. Horace (65-8 B.C.), like most of
the Roman authors, in many of his poems is inspired by his Greek
models, but, in his Satires and Poetic Epistles,
expresses the character of his own genius. His "Odes," for their
beauty and melody and the variety of their topics, rank among the best
of all productions of their kind. Ovid (43 B.C.-A.D. 18), in
his chief work, the Metamorphoses, handled the mythical tales
of the Greeks, and, in his poems on Love, likewise introduced
many Grecian tales. He was much influenced by the Alexandrian poets.
THE HISTORIANS.—In historical composition, most of the Roman authors
had Greek patterns before their eyes. Nevertheless, Livy (59
B.C.-A.D. 17), thirty-five of the one hundred and forty-two books of
whose "Annals" have been preserved, and Sallust, to whom we are
indebted for narratives of the conspiracy of Cataline and of the
Jugurthine war, are far from being servile copyists. The simple and
lucid but graceful style of the Commentaries of Caesar
makes this work an example of the purest Latin prose.
LAW WRITERS.—In one department, that of jurisprudence, the Romans
were eminently original. The writings of the great jurists were simple
and severe, and free from the rhetorical traits which Roman authors in
other departments borrowed from the Greeks.
OTHER AUTHORS.—Among other eminent authors of this period are the
great Roman antiquary Varro (116-27 B.C.); the elegiac poets,
Tibullus and Propertius; Phaedrus, the Roman
Aesop; the historian, Cornelius Nepos; and the Greek
historical writers of that day, Diodore of Sicily and
Dionysius of Halicarnassus; also Strabo, the Greek
geographer (64 B.C.-A.D. 24).
THE INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY.
THE JEWS AND THEIR DISPERSION.—There were three ancient peoples, each
of which fulfilled an office of its own in history. The Greeks
were the intellectual people, the Romans were founders in law
and politics: from the Hebrews the true religion was to
spring. At the epoch of the birth of Jesus, the Hebrews, like the
Greeks and Romans, were scattered abroad, and mingled with all other
nations. Wherever they went they carried their pure monotheism, and
built their synagogues for instruction in the law and for common
worship. In the region of Babylon, a multitude of Jews had
remained after the captivity. Two out of the five sections of
Alexandria were occupied by them. At Antioch in Syria,
the other great meeting-place of peoples of diverse origin and
religion, they were very numerous. In the cities of Asia Minor, of
Greece and Macedonia, in Illyricum and in Rome, they were planted in
large numbers. Jewish merchants went wherever there was room for
profitable trade. Generally regarded with aversion on account of their
religious exclusiveness, they nevertheless made so many proselytes
that the Roman philosopher, Seneca, said of them, "The
conquered have given laws to the conquerors." Prophecy had inspired
the Jews with an abiding and fervent expectation of the ultimate
conquest of heathenism, and prevalence of their faith. If the hope of
a temporal Messiah to free them from the Roman yoke, and to lead them
to an external victory and dominion, burned in the hearts of most,
there were some of a more spiritual mind and of deeper aspirations,
who looked for One who should minister to the soul, and bring in a
reign of holiness and peace.
PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE HEATHEN.—In the heathen world,
there was not wanting a preparation for such a Deliverer. The union of
all the nations in the Roman Empire had lessened the mutual antipathy
of peoples, melted down barriers of feeling as well as of intercourse,
and weakened the pride of race. An indistinct sense of a common
humanity had entered the breasts of men. Writers, like Cicero,
talked of a great community, a single society of gods and men. The
Stoic philosophy had made this idea familiar. Mankind, it was
said, formed one city. Along with this conception, precepts were
uttered in favor of forbearance and fraternal kindness between man and
man. In religion, there was a drift towards monotheism. The old
mythological religion was decaying, and traditional beliefs as to
divine things were dissolving. Many minds were yearning for something
to fill the void,—for a more substantial ground of rest and of
hope. They longed for a goal on which their aspirations might center,
and to which their exertions might tend. The burden of sin and of
suffering that rested on the common mass excited at least a vague
yearning for deliverance. The Roman Empire, with all its treasures and
its glory, failed to satisfy the hearts of men. The dreams of
philosophy could not be realized on the basis of ancient society,
where the state was every thing, and where no higher, more
comprehensive and more enduring kingdom could spring into being.
CHRIST AND THE APOSTLES.—Four years before the date assigned for the
beginning of the Christian era, Jesus was born. Herod, a
tyrannical king, servile in his attitude toward the Romans, and
subject to them, was then ruling over the Jews in Palestine. But, when
Jesus began his public ministry, the kingship had been abolished, and
Judaea was governed by the procurator, Pontius Pilate
(A.D. 26). Jesus announced himself as the Messiah, the founder
of a kingdom "not of this world;" the members of which were to be
brethren, having God for their Father. He taught in a tone of
authority, yet with "a sweet reasonableness;" and his wonderful
teaching was accompanied with marvelous works of power and mercy, as
"he went about doing good." He attached to himself twelve disciples,
among whom Peter, and the two brothers James and
John, were the men of most mark. These had listened to the
preaching of John, the prophet of the wilderness, by whom Jesus
had been recognized as the Christ who was to come. The ministry of the
Christ produced a wide-spread excitement, and a deep impression upon
humble and truth-loving souls. But his rebuke of the ruling class, the
Pharisees, for their formalism, pretended sanctity,
self-seeking, and enslavement to tradition, excited in them rancorous
enmity. His disappointment of the popular desire for a political
Messiah chilled the enthusiasm of the multitude, many of whom had
heard him gladly. After about three years, he was betrayed by one of
his followers, Judas Iscariot; was accused of heterodoxy and
blasphemy before the Jewish Sanhedrim; the consent of Pilate to his
death was extorted by a charge of treason based on the title of
"king," which he had not refused; and he was crucified between two
malefactors. Not many days elapsed before his disciples rallied from
their despondency, and boldly and unitedly declared, before
magistrates and people, that he had manifested himself to them in
bodily form, in a series of interviews at definite places and
times. They proclaimed his continued though invisible reign, his
perpetual presence with them, and his future advent in power. In his
name, and on the ground of his death, they preached the forgiveness of
sins to all who should believe in him, and enter on a life of
Christian obedience. In the year 33 or 34, the death of
Stephen, the first martyr, at the hands of a Jewish mob, for a
time dispersed the church at Jerusalem, and was one step towards the
admission of the Gentiles to the privileges of the new faith. But the
chief agent in effecting this result, and in thus giving to
Christianity its universal character and mission, was the Apostle
Paul, a converted Pharisee. Antioch in Syria became the
cradle of the Gentile branch of the church, and of the missions to the
heathen, in which Paul was the leader; while Peter was
efficient in spreading the gospel among the Jews in Palestine and
beyond its borders. By Paul numerous churches were founded in the
course of three extended missionary journeys, which led him beyond
Asia into Macedonia, Greece, and Illyricum. By him the gospel was
preached from Jerusalem to Rome, where he died as a martyr under
Nero in 67 or 68. Not far from the same time, according to a
credible tradition, Peter, also, was put to death at Rome. The
preachers of the Christian faith pursued their work with a fearless
and untiring spirit, and met the malignant persecution of the Jews and
the fanatical assaults of the heathen with patient endurance and with
prayer for the pardon and enlightenment of their persecutors.
THE VICTORY OF THE GERMANS.—Augustus avoided war when he could. His
aim was to defend the frontiers of the empire rather than to extend
them. The Parthians were prevailed on to return of their own accord
the standards and prisoners taken from the army of Crassus. But
in Germany, Drusus, the brave step-son of Augustus, made
four campaigns on the east of the Rhine, as far as the Weser and the
Elbe. On his way back from the Elbe, a fall from his horse terminated
his life (9 B.C.). His brother, Tiberius, managed to establish
the Roman power over a part of the Germanic tribes on the right bank
of the river (4 B.C.) Long before (27 B.C.) the western shore of the
river had been formed into two provinces, Upper and Lower
Germany. An incapable and incautious general, Quintilius
Varus, excited the freedom-loving Germans to revolt under the
brave chief of the Cherusci, Arminius (or
Hermann). Three Roman legions were annihilated in the Teutoburg
forest, Varus taking his own life. The civil and military chiefs who
were taken captive, the Germans slew as a sacrifice to their gods. The
rest of the prisoners were made slaves. "Many a Roman from an
equestrian or a senatorial house grew old in the service of a German
farmer, as a servant in the house, or in tending cattle without."
There in the forest of Teutoburg the Germans practically won
their independence. On hearing the bad news, Augustus, for several
days, could only exclaim, "Varus! give me back my legions!" After the
death of Augustus, in his seventy-sixth year, the noble son of Drusus,
Germanicus, conducted three expeditions against Arminius
(A.D. 14-16), obtained a victory over him, and took his wife prisoner,
who died in captivity; but the Romans permanently held only the left
bank of the Rhine.
ROMAN LIFE.—Various particulars characteristic of Roman ways have
been, or will be, incidentally referred to. A few special statements
may be given in this place. The Romans, like the Greeks, built a town
round a height (or capitol) where was a stronghold (arx), a
place of refuge. Here temples were erected. The forum, or
market-place, was near by, where the courts sat, and where the people
came together to transact business. The dwellings were on the sides of
the hill, or on the plain beneath. The streets were narrow. The
exterior of the houses was plain. They were of brick, generally
covered with stucco, and whitewashed. Glass was too costly to be much
used: hence the openings in the walls were few. When the space became
valuable, as in Rome, the houses were built high. The chief room in
the house was the atrium, which, in earlier times, was not only
the common room but also the bedroom of the family. In the primitive
dwellings it had been the only room. A passage led from it through a
door-way into the street. In front and on both sides were apartments,
and in the rear a walled court, or garden. Large houses had several
inclosed courts. Rich men and nobles built magnificent palaces. The
walls of Roman dwellings within were decorated with fresco-paintings,
some of which at Pompeii are left in all their freshness. Round the
dinner-table were couches, on which those who partook of the meal
reclined. In other rooms chairs were plentifully supplied. Lamps were
very numerous and of beautiful design, but the wick was so small that
they gave but little light. There was little furniture in the
atrium. Statues stood round the walls of this room, if the
house were one of the better sort, and in open presses on the walls
were the images or masks of the distinguished ancestors of the
family. At a funeral of a member of the household they were worn in
the procession by persons representing the deceased progenitors.
DRESS.—The principal material of a Roman's dress was woolen
cloth. The main article of wearing apparel for a man was the
toga, thrown over the shoulders, and brought in folds round the
waist in a way to leave the right arm free. Under it was a tunic. At
the age of about seventeen, the boy publicly laid aside the
toga with a purple hem, and put on the white toga, the token of
citizenship. Women wore a long tunic girded about the waist, with a
tunic and a close-fitting vest beneath. Except on a journey or in an
open theater, as a protection from the sun, neither men nor women wore
any covering on the head. Women, when they walked abroad, wore veils
which did not cover the face. The color and form of the shoes varied
with the rank of the individual, and were significant of it. In the
house, sandals were used.
ORDER OF OCCUPATIONS.—The interval from sunrise to sunset was divided
into twelve hours. The seventh hour of the day began at noon. At the
third hour, there was usually a light meal, which was followed by
business, or visits of friendship. The wealthy Roman was followed
about the city by a throng of clients, who called on him with their
morning greeting before he rose, and received their gift of food or
money. At noon came the prandium, or more substantial
breakfast. This was followed by a short sleep, in the case of those
who were at leisure to take it. Then came games and physical exercise
of various sorts. A favorite recreation, both for young and old, was
ball-games. Exercise was succeeded by the bath, for which the Romans
from the later times of the republic had a remarkable fondness. In
private houses the bathing conveniences were luxurious. The emperors
built magnificent bath-houses, which included gymnasia, and sometimes
libraries. What is now called the Turkish bath was very much in
vogue. Dinner, or the cena, the principal meal, was about
midway between noon and sunset. The fork was not used at the table,
but only in carving; but spoons, and sometimes, it would appear,
knives, were used by the host and his guests. The food was so carved
that it was usually taken with the fingers. At the table, the toga was
exchanged for a lighter garment, and sandals were laid aside. The
beverage was wine mixed with water. At banquets of the rich, after the
dessert of fruit and cakes had been taken, there was, in later times,
the convivium, or social "drinking-bout." Under the empire,
this became often a scene of indecent revelry. The Roman dinner-table
was not so likely as a Greek repast to be enlivened by flashes of
intellect and of wit, or by music furnished by the guests. Musicians
were more commonly hired performers, as were also the dancers. The
Romans enjoyed games of chance. Playing with dice, and gambling along
with it, became common.
MARRIAGE AND THE HOUSEHOLD.—There were two kinds of marriage. By one
the wife passed entirely out of the hands (manus) of the father
into the hands of the husband, or under his control. There was
frequently a religious rite (confarreatio); but, when this did
not take place, the other customary ceremonies were essentially the
same. At the betrothal the prospective bride was frequently presented
with a ring, and with some more valuable gift, by the man whom she was
to marry. In the household, notwithstanding the supreme authority of
the husband, the wife had an honored position and an active
influence. The children were, in law, the property of the
father. Their lives were at his disposal. The mother had charge of
their early training. The father took the principal charge of the
young boy, taught him athletic exercises, and took him to the forum
with him. Schools began to exist in the early period. Boys and girls
studied together. The pedagogue was the servant who accompanied
the child to school, and conducted him home. Greek was studied. The
law of the Twelve Tables was committed to memory. Virgil and Horace
became school-books, along with Cicero and earlier writers. In the
later republican period, Greeks took the business of teaching largely
into their hands. There were flourishing schools of rhetoric managed
both by Greek and by Latin teachers. Young Romans who could afford to
do so went to Athens and other cities in the East for their university
training.
SLAVES.—Town-slaves were found in the richer families in great
numbers (p. 152). They were not only employed in menial occupations:
they were clerks, copyists, sculptors, architects, etc., as well as
actors and singers. The work of the farm-slaves was harder. They were
shut up in the night in large barracks, made partly under ground, into
which was admitted but little light or air. They often worked in
chains. In town and country both, the unlimited power of the master
led to great severity and cruelty in the treatment of slaves. Women as
well as men were often guilty of brutal harshness. Females as well as
males were the sufferers. The town-slave, however, might be favored by
his master: he might be allowed to save money of his own, and might,
perhaps, buy his freedom, or receive it as a gift. During the holidays
of the Saturnalia, slaves were allowed unusual privileges and
pleasures. The freedmen could become citizens, and were then
eligible to any office.
MAGISTRATES.—A Roman who sought office went round soliciting votes.
This was called ambitio (from ambire, to go round),
whence is derived the English word ambition. He presented
himself in public places in a toga specially whitened, and was hence
called a candidate (from candida, meaning
white). He sought to get support by providing shows and
games. The voting was by ballot. Magistrates had their seats of honor,
which were made in a particular shape. In the different forms used in
the trial of causes, there was one general practice,—the magistrate
laid down the law, and referred the judgment as to the facts in the
case to an umpire, either an individual or a special court.
THE JULIAN IMPERIAL HOUSE.
C. JULIUS CÆSAR, m. Aurelia.
|
+—C. JULIUS CÆSAR.
|
+—Julia, m. M. Atius Balbus.
|
+—Atia, m. C. Octavius.
|
+—C. Octavius (adopted as son by the will of Julius)
became C. JULIUS CÆSAR OCTAVIANUS AUGUSTUS, m.
2, Scribonia;
|
+—Julia
m. 2, M. Vipsanius Agrippa.
|
+—Agrippina,
| m. Germanicus.
| |
| +—CAIUS (Caligula),
| | m. Cæsonia,
| | |
| | +—Julia Drusilla.
| |
| +—Agrippina,
| m. Cn. Domitius.
| |
| +—L. DOMITIUS NERO,
| m. Poppæa Sabina.
| |
| +—Claudia Augusta.
|
+—Julia,
m. Æmilius Paulus.
|
+—Æmilia Lepida, m.
1, CLAUDIUS;
2, Junius Silanus.
|
+—Junia Calvina,
m. VITELLIUS.
3, Livia.
|
+—TIBERIUS (adopted as son by Augustus).
THE CLAUDIAN IMPERIAL HOUSE.
TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS NERO.
m. Livia Drusilla (afterwards wife of AUGUSTUS).
|
+—TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS NERO.
|
+—Drusus Claudius Nero,
m. Antonia, daughter of the Triumvir and niece of Augustus.
|
+—Germanicus,
| m. Agrippina.
|
+—TI. CLAUDIUS DRUSUS,
m. 5, Valeria Messalina.
|
+—Octavia,
| m. NERO.
|
+—Britannicus.
|
+—By adoption, NERO.
CHAPTER II. THE EMPERORS OF THE AUGUSTAN HOUSE.
TIBERIUS.—During the long reign of the prudent Augustus, there
was peace within the borders of the empire. He said of himself, that
he "found Rome of brick, and left it of marble." This change may be
taken as a symbol of the growth of material prosperity in the Roman
dominions. But in his private relations, the emperor was less
fortunate. His daughter Julia, a woman of brilliant talents,
disgraced him by her immorality, and he was obliged to banish her. Her
two elder sons died when they were young. The empire devolved on his
adopted step-son Tiberius (14-37), who endeavored to continue
the same conservative policy. Tiberius was at first alarmed by
mutinies among the troops in Pannonia and on the Rhine. The army of
the Rhine urged Germanicus, the emperor's adopted son and
probable successor, to lead it to Rome, promising to place him on the
throne, but Germanicus succeeded in quieting the
disturbance. As there were during this reign no great wars,
Tiberius was able to devote himself more exclusively to the
civil administration. He transferred from the popular assembly to the
Senate the right of choosing the magistrates, emphasizing in this way
the dual system that Augustus had created. The rights of the Senate he
appeared scrupulously to respect. For the more effective government of
the city of Rome he established there a permanent prefecture and
brought together in a camp before the Viminal gate the nine prætorian
cohorts. Unhappily this Prætorian Guard, which might serve to overawe
the city mobs, might also interfere in the affairs of
government. Indeed, a little later it had to be counted with in the
choice of emperors. The notorious Sejanus was prefect during a
large part of this reign, and acquired so completely the confidence of
Tiberius that he began to plot his overthrow. He had already caused
Drusus, the son of Tiberius, to be poisoned in order to remove
one obstacle. Finally the emperor discovered his plots and caused him
to be arrested and put to death (31). For several years Tiberius had
been living in retirement on the island of Capreæ. There his
enemies represented him as given over to debauchery, while the lives
of Roman citizens were never safe from his suspicions or from the
accusations of the delators, men who presented formal charges
of crime, there being no public prosecutors. Earlier in his reign
Tiberius had shown a serious purpose to improve the
administration of justice, but with the lapse of years he became
distrustful and cruel. He had, moreover, changed the law of treason so
that to write or speak slightingly of the emperor was interpreted as
conspiracy to bring the commonwealth into contempt and was punished
with death. Although he was justly hated by the Roman nobles, in the
provinces he was respected because he sought to protect them against
extortion and to foster their general interests. He died in the year
37 at the age of seventy-eight.
CALIGULA.—There was no law for the regulation of the succession. But
the Senate, the prætorians, and the people united in calling to the
throne Caius, the son of Germanicus (37-41). This ruler, called
Caligula, at first mild and generous in his doings, soon rushed
into such excesses of savage cruelty and monstrous vice that he was
thought to be half-deranged. He was fond of seeing with his own eyes
the infliction of tortures. His wild extravagance in the matter of
public games and in building drained the resources of the
empire. After four years, this madman was cut down by two of his
guards whom he had grievously insulted.
CLAUDIUS.—Claudius, the uncle and successor of
Caligula, and the son of Drusus and Antonia, was not bad, but
weak. He was a student and a recluse in his habits. His favorites and
nearest connections were unprincipled. The depravity of his wife,
Messalina, was such that he did right in sanctioning her
death. The immoral and ambitious Agrippina, whom he next
married, had an influence less malign. But she was unfaithful to her
husband; and this fact, together with the fear she felt that
Nero, her son by her first marriage, would be excluded from the
throne, impelled her to the crime of taking the life of
Claudius by poison.
NERO.—Nero reigned from 54 to 68. He was the grandson of
Germanicus, and had been the pupil of the philosopher Seneca,
and of Burrus, an excellent man, the captain of the Prætorian
Guard. The first five years of Nero's reign were honorably
distinguished from the portion of it that followed. When a warrant for
the execution of a criminal was brought to him, he regretted that he
had ever learned to write. His first great crime was the poisoning of
Britannicus, the son of Claudius. Nero became enamored
of a fierce and ambitious woman, Poppæa Sabina. On the basis of
false charges, he took the life of his wife, Octavia, the
daughter of Claudius (A.D. 62). His criminal mother, Agrippina, after
various previous attempts made by him to destroy her, was dispatched
by his command (A.D. 59). His unbridled cruelty and jealousy moved him
to order Seneca, one of the men to whom he owed most, to commit
suicide. He came forward as a musician, and nothing delighted him so
much as the applause rendered to his musical performances. He recited
his own poems, and was stung with jealousy when he found himself
outdone by Lucan. His eagerness to figure as a charioteer
prompted him, early in his reign, to construct a circus in his own
grounds on the Vatican, where he could exhibit his skill as a
coachman to a throng of delighted spectators. At length he appeared,
lyre in hand, on the stage before the populace. Senators of high
descent, and matrons of noble family, were induced by his example and
commands to come forward in public as dancers and play-actors. The
public treasure he squandered in expensive shows, and in the lavish
distribution of presents in connection with them.
THE CHRISTIANS.—Nero has the undesirable distinction of being
the first of the emperors to persecute the Christians. In A.D. 64 a
great fire broke out at Rome, which laid a third of the city in
ashes. He was suspected of having kindled it; and, in order to divert
suspicion from himself, he charged the crime upon the Christians, who
were obnoxious, Tacitus tells us, on account of their "hatred
of the human race." Their withdrawal from customary amusements and
festivals, which involved immorality or heathen rites, naturally gave
rise to this accusation of cynical misanthropy. A great number were
put to death, "and in their deaths they were made subjects of sport;
for they were covered with the hides of wild beasts, and worried to
death by dogs, or nailed to crosses, or set fire to, and, when day
declined, were burned to serve for nocturnal lights." At length a
feeling of compassion arose among the people for the victims of this
wanton ferocity. Prior to this time, while the Christians were
confounded with the Jews as one of their sects, they had been more
protected than persecuted by the Roman authorities. Now that they were
recognized as a distinct body,—the adherents of a new religion not
identified with any particular nation, but seeking to spread itself
everywhere,—they fell under the condemnation of Roman law, and were
exposed to the hostility of magistrates, as well as to the wrath of
the fanatical populace.
Nero was a great builder. The ground which had been burnt over in the
fire he laid out in regular streets, leaving open spaces, and limiting
the height of the houses. But a large area he reserved for his "Golden
House," which, with its lakes and shady groves, stretched over the
ground on which the Coliseum afterwards stood, and as far as the
Esquiline.
THE CITY OF ROME.—Ancient Rome was mostly built on the left bank of
the Tiber. It spread from the Palatine, the seat of the original
settlement, over six other hills; so that it became the "city of seven
hills." All of them appeared higher than they do now. Of these hills
the Capitoline was the citadel and the seat of the gods. In earlier
days, from a part of the summit, the Tarpeian Rock, criminals were
hurled. In time the hill became covered with public edifices, of which
the grandest was the Temple of "Capitoline Jupiter." On the Palatine
were eventually constructed the vast palaces of the emperors, the
ruins of which have been uncovered in recent times. The walls of
Servius Tullius encompassed the seven hills. The walls
constructed by Aurelian (270-275 A.D.), Probus, and
Honorius (402 A.D.), inclosed an area twelve miles in
circumference. The streets were most of them narrow; and, to economize
space, the houses were built very high. One of the finest, as well as
most ancient, thoroughfares was the Via Sacra, which ran past
the Coliseum, or the Flavian amphitheater, and under the Triumphal
Arch of Titus, erected after the capture of Jerusalem, along
the east of the Forum to the Capitol. There was a particular street in
Rome where shoemakers and booksellers were congregated. The central
part of the city was thronged, and noisy with cries of teamsters and
of venders of all sorts of wares. The fora—one of which, the
"Roman Forum," between the Capitoline and the Palatine, was the great
center of Roman life—were open places paved, and surrounded with
noble buildings,—temples, and basilicas, or halls of
justice. The fora were either places for the transaction of
public business, or they served the purpose of modern
market-places. Among the public buildings of note were the vast
colonnades, places of resort both for business and for recreation. The
sewers, and especially the aqueducts, were structures of a stupendous
character. Among the most imposing edifices in ancient Rome were the
baths. Those built by Diocletian had room for three thousand
bathers at once. In these establishments the beauty of the gardens and
fountains without was on a level with the elegance of the interior
furnishings, and with the attraction of the libraries, paintings, and
sculptures, which added intellectual pleasure to the physical comfort
for which, mainly, these gigantic buildings were constructed. Besides
the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, there were many other temples, some
of which were but little inferior to that majestic edifice.
The triumphal arches—as that of Titus, already mentioned,
which was built of Pentelic marble—and the commemorative columns—as
the Column of Trajan, which stood in the forum that bears his
name—were among the architectural wonders of the ancient capital of
the world. The plain, named of old the Campus Martius, on the
north-west side of the city, and bordering on the Tiber, contained,
among the buildings and pleasure-grounds by which it was covered, the
Pantheon, and the magnificent mausoleum of Augustus. On the south-west
of the Coelian Hill, the Appian Way turns to the south-east, and
passes out of the Appian Gate. It is skirted for miles with sepulchral
monuments of ancient Romans, of which the circular tomb of Metella
Cæcilia is one of the most interesting. There are varying
estimates of the population of ancient Rome. Probably the number of
free inhabitants, in the early centuries of the empire, was not far
from a million; and the slaves were probably almost as many.
DEATH OF NERO: GALBA.—Growing jealous of the legates who commanded
armies on the frontiers, Nero determined to destroy them. They
consequently revolted; and war between the troops of two of them
issued in the death of Vindex, the general in Gaul. But
Galba was deputed to carry on the contest; and Nero, being
forsaken even by his creature, Tigellinus, and the prætorians,
at last gained courage to call on a slave to dispatch him, and died
(A.D. 68) at the age of thirty. The principal events out of Italy,
during his reign, were the revolt of the Britons under the brave queen
Boadicea (A.D. 61), and the suppression of it by Suetonius
Paulinus; the war with the Parthians and Armenians, extending
slightly the frontier of the empire; and the beginning of the Jewish
war. Despite the corruption at Rome, her disciplined soldiers still
maintained their superiority on the borders.
OTHO: VITELLIUS.—With the death of Nero, the Augustan family came to
an end. Galba began the series of military emperors. A Roman of
the old type, simple, severe, and parsimonious, he pleased nobody. The
prætorians killed him, and elevated Otho, a profligate noble,
to the throne; but he was obliged to contend with a rival aspirant,
Vitellius, commander of the German legions, who defeated him,
and became emperor A.D. 69. Vitellius was not only vicious, like his
predecessor, but was cowardly and inefficient. The Syrian and Egyptian
legions refused to obey so worthless a ruler, and proclaimed their
commander, Flavius Vespasian, as emperor. As Vespasian's
general, Antonius, approached Rome, Vitellius renounced
the throne, and declared his readiness to retire to private life. His
adherents withstood him; and, in the struggle that followed between
the two parties in the city, the Capitoline Temple was burned. The
Flavian army took Rome, and Vitellius was put to an ignominious
death (A.D. 69).
CHAPTER III. THE FLAVIANS AND THE ANTONINES.
VESPASIAN: THE JEWISH WAR.—Vespasian, the first in the list of
good emperors, restored discipline in the army and among the
prætorians, instituted a reform in the finances, and erected the
immense amphitheater now called the Coliseum, for the
gladiatorial games. By his general, Cerealis, he put down the
revolt in Germany and Eastern Gaul, and thus saved several provinces
to the empire. Civilis, the leader of the rebellion, had aimed
to establish an independent German principality on the west of the
Rhine. Vespasian had begun the war with the Jews while Nero
reigned (A.D. 66). The Romans had to face a most energetic
resistance. Among the captives taken by them in Galilee was the Jewish
historian, Josephus. At the end of A.D. 67, all Galilee was
subdued. The fanatical, or popular, party, the Zealots, got the
upper hand at Jerusalem. The city was torn with the strife of
violent factions. In A.D. 70 commenced the memorable siege by
Titus, the son of Vespasian, the details of which are given by
Josephus. The fall of the city was attended with the
conflagration of the temple. Although the estimate given by
Josephus of the number that perished during the siege, which he
places at eleven hundred thousand, is exaggerated, it is true that the
destruction of life was immense. The inhabitants of the city who were
not killed were sold as slaves. In Britain a most competent
officer—Agricola, the father-in-law of Tacitus—was made
governor in A.D. 78. He conquered the country as far north as the
Tyne and the Solway, and built a line of forts across
the isthmus between England and Scotland.
TITUS (A.D. 79-81).—Vespasian's firm and beneficent reign was
followed by the accession of Titus, who had been previously
associated by his father with himself in the imperial office. Titus
was mild in temper, but voluptuous in his tastes, and prodigal in
expenditures. One of the marked events of his short reign was the
destruction of the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum by
a great eruption of Vesuvius (A.D. 79). The uncovering of the streets
and buildings of Pompeii in recent times has added much to our
knowledge of ancient arts and customs. A terrible fire and destructive
pestilence at Rome were regarded as sent by the gods, not on account
of the sins of the emperor, but of the nation.
DOMITIAN (A.D. 81-96).—Domitian, the younger brother of
Titus, succeeded him. By nature autocratic, he refused to share
the government with the senate, as Augustus had planned. In order the
more completely to control this body he assumed the censorship for
life. In the latter part of his reign Domitian, like
Tiberius, was gloomy and suspicious, and committed many acts of
tyranny. He was killed by the freedmen of his own palace
(A.D. 96). His war with the Dacians on the Danube had been
concluded by the dubious stipulation to pay them an annual tribute as
a reward for abstaining from predatory incursions into Moesia
(A.D. 90). For the first time, Rome purchased peace of her
enemies. Domitian was guilty of persecuting the Christians,
among whom, it is now known, was included at least one member of his
own family, his niece, Flavia Domatilla, who was also allied to
him by marriage. The epistle of Clement of Rome, the oldest
extant Christian writing after the Apostles, refers to the barbarities
inflicted upon Christian disciples by this tyrant.
NERVA (A.D. 96-98).—The Senate now took the initiative, and placed on
the throne one of their own number, Nerva, an old man of mild
and virtuous character. The administration was in every point in
contrast with the preceding. But the best thing Nerva did was to
provide for the curbing of the prætorians by appointing, with the
concurrence of the Senate, a most competent man to be his colleague
and successor.
TRAJAN (A.D. 98-117).—Trajan was a native of Spain, and had
been brought up in the camp. He belongs among the very best of the
Roman emperors. He upheld the ancient laws and institutions of the
state. He provided for the impartial administration of justice. He
restored freedom of speech in the Senate. He founded schools, and
establishments for the care of orphans, facilitated commerce by
building new roads, bridges, and havens, and adorned Rome with a
public library, and with a new and magnificent forum, or market-place,
where "Trajan's Column" was placed by Senate and people as a monument
of his victories and services.
He relished the society of literary men like the historian
Tacitus. He was an intimate friend of Pliny (the
younger), whose correspondence while he was governor of
Bithynia throws much light upon the emperor's character and
policy. Trajan's own manner of life was simple, and free from
luxury. To the people he furnished lavishly the diversions which they
coveted. He made an aggressive war against the Dacians on the
Danube, and constituted a new province of Dacia. He carried his
arms into the Parthian territory; and three new
provinces—Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria—were the
fruit of his campaign in the East. In a letter to Pliny, he
defined the policy to be pursued towards Christians, who had become
very numerous in the region where Pliny governed. The effect
of the emperor's rescript was to place Christianity among the
religions under the ban of the law. This decision was long in force,
and guided the policy of future emperors towards the new
faith. HADRIAN (A.D. 117-138).—Trajan was succeeded by
Hadrian, a lover of peace,—a cultivated man, with
extraordinary taste in the fine arts, and their generous patron. He
was diligent and full of vigor in the transaction of public
business. Although genial and affable, his temper was not so even as
that of Trajan; and he was guilty of occasional acts of cruelty. He
spent the larger portion of his reign in traveling through his
dominions, personally attending to the wants and condition of his
subjects. He constructed great works in different portions of the
empire: in Rome, his Mausoleum (now the Castle of St. Angelo),
and his grand temple of Rome and Venus. He began the wall connecting
the Scottish friths. A fresh revolt broke out among the Jews
(A.D. 131), under a fanatic named Bar-Cocaba, which was
suppressed in 135. Jerusalem was razed to the ground; and the
Jewish rites were forbidden within the new city of Ælia
Capitolina, which the emperor founded on its site. This gave a
finishing blow to the Jewish and Judaizing types of Christianity
within the limits of the Church.
ANTONINUS PIUS (A.D. 138-161).—Antoninus Pius was the adopted
son and successor of Hadrian. He was one of the noblest of princes, a
man of almost blameless life. His reign was an era of peace, the
golden age in the imperial history. He fostered learning, was generous
without being prodigal, was firm yet patient and indulgent, and
watched over the interests of his subjects with the care of a
father. It is a sign of the happiness of his reign that it does not
afford startling occurrences to the narrator.
MARCUS AURELIUS (A.D. 161-180).—Hardly less eminent for his virtues
was the next in the succession of sovereigns, Marcus Aurelius
(161-180). "A sage upon the throne," he combined a love of learning
with the moral vigor and energy of the old Roman character, and with
the self-government and serenity of the Stoic school, of the tenets of
which he was a noble exemplar as well as a deeply interesting
expounder. A philosopher was now on the throne; and his reign gives
some countenance to the doctrine of Plato, that the world could be
well governed only when philosophers should be kings, or kings
philosophers. He endured with patience the grievous faults of his wife
Faustina, and of his brother by adoption, and co-regent,
Lucius Verus. He protected the eastern frontier against
Parthia. In the war with the Marcomanni, he drove the
German tribes back over the Danube, and gained a signal victory over
the Quadi in their own land. His great object was to strike
terror into the barbarian enemies of the empire on the north, and
prevent future incursions. Although victorious in many of his battles,
he failed to accomplish this result. The danger from barbarian
invasion increased with the lapse of time. Before his work was
finished, Marcus Aurelius died at Vindobona (Vienna), in
March, 180. During his reign, there was persecution of
Christians. Especially the churches of Lyons and Vienne
have left a record of their sufferings. The virtuous emperors, who
were strenuous in their exertions to maintain the old laws and
customs, were apt to be more severe in their treatment of Christians,
whom they ignorantly regarded as a mischievous sect, than were those
emperors who were men of looser principles.
STATE OF MORALS.—The Roman Empire, in the declining days of
heathenism, presented the spectacle of a flourishing civilization in
contrast with extreme moral degeneracy. Rich and populous cities;
stately palaces; beautiful works of art—as vases, statues, carved
altars—on every hand; bridges and aqueducts, and noble highways,
binding land to land; institutions of education in the provincial
cities as well as in Rome; a thriving trade and commerce; a rapid
spread of the Roman language, of the Roman legal system, and Roman
culture and manners over the subject countries,—these are among the
signs and fruits of civilization. But with all this outward prosperity
and elegance, there was a growing sensuality, a decay of manly
feeling, a disregard of the sanctity of the marriage tie, an
insatiable hunger for wealth and for the pleasures of sense. One of
the most corrupting features in the social condition was
slavery. Every Roman of moderate means aspired to own at least
a few slaves. Some owned from ten to twenty thousand, mostly
field-hands. Many householders possessed as many as five
hundred. Horace gives it as a sign of the simplicity of his
life as a bachelor, that he is waited on at table by only three
slaves. Slave-holding among the Romans brought in temptations to all
sorts of brutality and vice. It brought a poisonous atmosphere into
every household. Nothing more clearly illustrates the moral
degradation of this period than the character of the sports in which
people of all ranks delighted. The most attractive theatrical
performances came to be comedies, from the Greek and Latin plays of
the same order, where scenes were introduced from the licentious
stories of the Greek mythology. But the Pantomime, which was
often of an unchaste and even obscene character, gradually usurped the
place of every other exhibition on the stage. The chief amusements of
the people of all classes were the Circus and the
Arena. In the Circus, before hundreds of thousands of
spectators, nobles of ancient lineage competed in the chariot
race. Gladiatorial games, which had first taken place at
funerals, and in honor of deceased friends, acquired an almost
incredible popularity. At the games instituted by Augustus, ten
thousand men joined in these bloody combats. In the festivals under
the auspices of Trajan, in A.D. 106, eleven thousand tame and
wild animals were slain. Not satisfied with seeing pairs of men engage
in mortal conflict, the Romans were eager to witness bloodshed on a
larger scale. The emperors provided actual battles between hundreds
and, in some cases, thousands of men, which were beheld by countless
spectators. On an artificial lake in Cæsar's garden, Augustus
gave a sea-fight in which three thousand soldiers were engaged. The
effect of these brutal spectacles of agony and death was inevitably to
harden the heart.
LITERATURE.—If the sanguinary fights in the arena excited little or
no condemnation, the prevalence of various other sorts of immorality,
at variance with the practice of better days, could not fail to call
out different forms of censure.
One of these forms of protest was through the satirical
poets. Of these caustic writers, Persius (34-62) is obscure
and of a moderate degree of merit. Juvenal (about 55-135), on
the contrary, is spirited and full of force. Martial (43-101),
a Spaniard by birth, was the author of numerous short poems of a pithy
and pointed character, called epigrammata. All these poets, if
we make proper discount for the exaggeration of satire, are very
instructive as to the manners and morals of their time. Lucian
(120-200), who wrote in Greek, the best known of whose works are his
"Dialogues," touched with his broad humor a great many of the
superstitions and follies of the day.
The popular teachers in the imperial time were the
rhetoricians, analogous to the Greek Sophists,—teachers
of rhetoric and eloquence,—one of whom, Quintilian (who was
born about 40, and died about 118), was the first to receive from the
public treasury a regular salary, and had among his pupils the younger
Pliny and the two grand-nephews of Domitian. The
influence of the mania for rhetoric was more and more to impart an
artificial character to literature and art. The epic poems of such
writers as Lucan and Statitis are to a large extent
imitations; although Lucan's principal poem, "Pharsalia," gives
evidence of poetic talent. Where there was so little productive
genius, it was natural that grammarians and commentators should
abound. There was one great writer, the historian Tacitus
(about 54-117), who towers above his contemporaries, and in vigor and
conciseness has seldom been equaled. The elder Pliny (23-79),
whose curiosity to witness the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 cost him his
life, was a famous observer and author in natural history. His nephew,
the younger Pliny, the friend of Trajan, has left to us ten
books of "Epistles," which present an agreeable picture of the life
and thoughts of a cultivated Roman gentleman. The philosopher
Seneca, with the exception of Marcus Aurelius, the most
eminent expositor of the Roman Stoic school, was a voluminous
author. No ancient heathen writer has uttered so many thoughts and
precepts which bear a resemblance to teachings of the New Testament.
The study that nourished most in this period is
Jurisprudence. It is the classic era of the jurists. Persons
versed in the law were preferred by the emperors for high offices. Men
who would have been statesmen under the Republic, found a solace and
delight in legal studies. Among the most learned jurists of this era,
were Caius Papinian, and Ulpian. Of the Greek writers,
one of the most important is Plutarch (about 50-120), whose
"Lives," and "Essays" (or Moralia), are among the most
delightful and instructive of all the works of antiquity. One of the
noblest philosophical writers of that or of any other period is the
Stoic Epictetus (50-c.120).
The two most popular systems of philosophy in the closing days of the
Republic and the early period of the Empire, were the Stoic and the
Epicurean. The severity of the Stoic doctrine was somewhat softened by
its Roman teachers; but the rigorous self-control, the superiority to
misfortune, and the contempt of death, which it recommended, found
favor with noble Romans in dark days. Cato and other champions
of the falling Republic were disciples of this school. Later, New
Platonism, of a mystical and contemplative type, secured many
adherents.
SKEPTICISM.—Long before the fall of the Republic, faith in the old
mythology had begun to decline. This change followed upon an intimate
contact of the Romans with the Greek religion. It was hastened by the
familiarity acquired by the Romans with so great a variety of heathen
systems. The decay of morality was attended with a spread of
skepticism as regards the supernatural world altogether. In the course
of the debate in the Roman Senate on the punishment of the
confederates of Catiline, Julius Caesar opposed their
execution, on the ground that death puts an end to consciousness, and
thus to all suffering. It does not appear that in that body, where
Cicero and Cato were present, any one disputed this
tenet. Cicero in his philosophical essays advocates the
doctrine of immortality by arguments, mostly gathered from Greek
sources,—arguments some of which are of more and some of less
weight. His correspondence, on the contrary, even in times of
bereavement, affords no proof that this consoling truth had any
practical hold upon his convictions.
SUPERSTITION.—The spread of skepticism was attended, as time went on,
with a re-action to the other extreme of superstition. Magic and
sorcery came into vogue. There was an eagerness to become acquainted
with Oriental religious rites, and to pay homage to deities worshiped
in the East with mysterious ceremonies. Another tendency strongly
manifest was towards what is called syncretism, or a mingling
of different religious systems. It was hoped that the truth might be
found by combining beliefs drawn from many different quarters. This
eclectic drift was signally manifest in religion as well as in
philosophy.
CHAPTER IV. THE EMPERORS MADE BY THE SOLDIERS: THE ABSOLUTE MONARCHY.
COMMODUS.—Rome had enjoyed good government for eighty-four
years. This was owing to the fact that her sovereigns had been
nominated to their office, instead of inheriting it. None of the
emperors during this interval had male children. Marcus
Aurelius made the mistake of associating with him in power his son
Commodus, who was eighteen years old when his father died, and
reigned alone from 180 to 192. He began his despicable career as sole
ruler by buying peace of the Marcomanni and the
Quadi. He turned out to be a detestable tyrant, who was
likewise guilty of the worst personal vices. He was strangled in his
bedroom by one of his concubines, Marcia, with the assistance
of others, all of whom he was intending to kill. At this time the
army, where there had been more energy and virtue than in any other
class, began to decline in discipline. Society was growing more and
more corrupt. It proves the inherent strength of the organization of
the Roman Empire, that, amid all the causes of disintegration and
decay, it lasted for two centuries longer.
I. EMPERORS MADE BY THE SOLDIERS.
We now enter upon a period of military license. The emperors are
appointed by the soldiers. The rulers, when the soldiers fall out with
them, are slain. In the course of ninety-two years, from 192 to 284,
twenty-five emperors, with an average reign of less than four years
for each, sat on the throne. Only two reigns exceeded ten years. Ten
emperors perished by violence at the hands of the soldiers. A real
advantage in this way of making emperors, was, that supreme power
might thus devolve on able generals; but another, and a fatal result,
was the demoralizing of the armies, by whose favor the rulers of the
state were set up and pulled down.
TO ALEXANDER SEVERUS (A.D. 222).—The assassins of Commodus, with the
assent of the praetorians, made a worthy senator, Pertinax,
emperor; but his honesty and frugality, and his disposition to
maintain discipline among the soldiers, caused them to murder him
three months after his accession (193). It is said that they then sold
the imperial office at auction to a rich senator, but the leaders of
the armies in different regions refused their consent. Of these,
Septimius Severus (193-211) made his way to the throne, and put
down his rivals. The empire became a military despotism. A garrison of
forty thousand troops, the prefect of whom was in power second only to
the sovereign, took the place of the old prætorians. Severus
was a good general. In a war against the Parthians, he captured
Ctesiphon, their capital. Caracalla, his son (211-217), was a
base tyrant. He was murdered by the prætorian prefect,
Macrinus, who reigned for a short time (217-218), but perished
in consequence of his attempts to reform the discipline of the
army. Heliogabalus (218-222) was not more cruel than others had
been, but his gross and shameless debauchery was without a precedent.
POWER OF THE PROVINCES: DISCORD.—In the reign of Caracalla is
placed the Edict which gave the rights of citizenship to all the free
inhabitants of the Roman Empire. The provinces had been steadily
rising in power and influence. At Rome, among officials of the highest
grade, as well as in the higher professions, there was a throng of
provincials. The provinces were disposed to nominate emperors of their
own. It was hard for the central authority to keep under control the
frontier armies. To add to these sources of division, there was a
growing jealousy between the East and West, owing to a difference in
language, ideas, and interests. Persia was soon to threaten the
empire on the East, and Gothic barbarians to invade its territories.
ALEXANDER SEVERUS: PERSIA.—Alexander Severus (222-235) was a
man of pure morals, and sincerely disposed to remedy abuses and to
govern well. But the evils were too great for the moderate degree of
vigor with which he was endowed. The overthrow of the Parthian
kingdom, in 226, created, in the New Persian Monarchy, a
formidable enemy to Rome. Alexander did little more than check the
advance of Persia. In a war against the Germans, he was slain by his
own soldiers.
TO DECIUS (A.D. 249).—The fierce and brutal Maximin, who had
excited the soldiers of Alexander Severus to mutiny, reigned
from 235 to 238. The Senate roused itself to resist his advance into
Italy; and he, and his son with him, were killed in his tent by his
soldiers. Gordian (238-244) at least held the frontier against
the attacks of the Persians. Philip, an Arabian, probably a
Roman colonist, after reigning from 244 to 249, was supplanted by
Decius, whom his rebellious Moesian and Pannonian soldiers
raised to power.
DECIUS TO CLAUDIUS (A.D. 250-268).—The short reign of Decius
was marked by the first general persecution of the Christian
Church. During his reign, the Goths (A.D. 250) invaded the
empire. They traversed Dacia, and crossed the Danube. They
ravaged Moesia, and even made their way into
Thrace. Decius was defeated by them in Moesia, and
slain. The peril of the empire continually increased. The German
tribes on the north, the Goths on the Lower Danube and the Euxine, and
Persia in the east, arrayed themselves in hostility.
The reigns of Valerian (253-260) and of his associate and
successor, Gallienus (260-268), were marked by continuous
disaster. Numerous independent rulers—"the thirty
tyrants"—established themselves, generally for a very short time, in
different regions. In the East, one kingdom, the capital of which was
Palmyra, and which had for a ruler Zenobia, the widow of
its founder, lasted for ten years (264-273). The Goths occupied
Dacia, and from the Cimmerian Bosphorus sent out their
predatory expeditions in all directions, plundering cities, including
Athens and Corinth, and carrying off immense booty to
their homes south of the Danube. The Persians conquered
Armenia, took Valerian prisoner, advanced into Syria,
and burned Antioch.
TO DIOCLETIAN (A.D. 284).—It would seem as if the Roman empire was on
the verge of dissolution. But a series of vigorous emperors—among
them Claudius (268-270) and Aurelian (270-275)—quelled
rebellion within its borders, and re-established its boundaries;
although Aurelian gave up to the Goths Dacia, which had
been of no benefit to the empire. Probus (276-282) was a
prudent as well as valiant ruler. Carus (282-283) invaded
Persia, captured Seleucia and Ctesiphon, and might,
perhaps, have completed the conquest of the country, but for his
death. Numerianus (283-284) was the last in the succession of
rulers during this period of military control, of which the corruption
of the army was the worst result.
II. THE ABSOLUTE MONARCHY (TO A.D. 375).
DIOCLETIAN.—Once more the gigantic and weakened frame of the Roman
Empire was invigorated by a change in the character of the chief
rulers and in the method of government. Diocletian (284-305),
one of a number of energetic emperors who were of Illyrian birth,
first stripped the imperial office of its limitations, and converted
it into an absolute monarchy. This new system was carried to its
completion by Constantine. Diocletian took from the
Senate what political jurisdiction was left to it. He abolished the
difference between the treasury of the state and the private coffers
of the prince. The precedence of Rome was taken away by making other
great cities to be seats of government. There were to be two emperors
under the title of Augustus, with two Caesars under
them; and thus the empire was divided, for administrative purposes,
into four parts. Maximian, the second Augustus, was to rule
over Italy, Africa, and the islands, with Milan for his
residence. Constantius Chlorus had the western provinces,
—Spain, Gaul, and Britain. At Nicomedia, Diocletian, a
man of imposing presence and of great talents as a statesman,
exercised rule for twenty years with efficiency and success. The new
system, if it involved the peril of strife among the regents, led to a
more vigilant and efficient government in the different provinces, and
provided for a peaceful succession to the throne. But the government
came to resemble, in the omnipotence of the emperor, in the obsequious
homage paid to him, and in the cringing manners of the court, an
Oriental despotism. The old heathen religion was considered by
conservative Romans to be an essential part of the imperial system,
and indispensable to the unity of the empire. It was this view, in
connection with other influences, which moved Diocletian, near
the close of his reign, in 303, to set on foot a systematic
persecution of the Christian Church, by a series of extremely severe
and well-contrived measures, through which it was designed to
extirpate the new religion. The last great persecution, in the reign
of Decius, cruel though it had been, did not approach in
severity this final effort to exterminate the disciples of the
Christian faith, who had now become very numerous. Terrible sufferings
were inflicted, but without avail. In 305 Diocletian, partly on
account of a serious illness, formally abdicated, and obliged
Maximian to do the same. Civil wars followed, until
Constantine, the son of Constantius, gained the
supremacy, first as joint ruler with Licinius, who governed in
the East, and then, after a bloody struggle which began in A.D. 314,
as sole master of the empire (A.D. 323).
CONSTANTINE (A.D. 306-337).—The career of Constantine was
stained by acts of cruelty towards members of his own family. In the
closing period of his life, he was less just and humane than in
earlier days. The change which had taken place in the imperial system
was signally manifest in his removal of the seat of government to
CONSTANTINOPLE, which was built up by him, and named in his
honor. Placed between Europe and Asia, on a tongue of land where it
was protected from assault, it was admirably suited for a
metropolis. But the change of capital involved dangers for the western
portions of the empire, exposed as they were to the assaults of the
barbarians. The changes in the government begun by Diocletian were
completed by Constantine. The empire was divided, for purposes of
government, into four prefectures, each of which was subdivided
into dioceses. Constantine established, likewise,
different classes of nobles, the type of modern systems of
nobility. He organized the army afresh, under the Master of the
Horse and Master of the Foot, each, however, commanding, in
action, both infantry and cavalry, and each having under him
dukes and counts. In short, the system of central and
despotic administration, with subordinate rulers, which
Diocletian began, was perfected by
Constantine. Diocletian, in order to fortify the imperial power
against the army, had shared his power with "a cabinet of emperors,"
which his genius enabled him to control. To prevent the breaking up of
the empire through the system of viceroys thus created to preserve it,
Constantine separated the civil authority from the military as regards
the subordinate rulers, while both functions were united in
himself. He still further exalted his throne by giving it even more of
an Oriental character, by creating a multitude of officials, who were
satellites of the sovereign, and by becoming the secular head and
guardian of the Christian Church. The arrangements of his court, with
its grades of officials, from the chamberlain downwards, were after
the Oriental pattern.
THE DOWNFALL OF HEATHENISM.
PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY.—The failure of the grand attempt of
Diocletian to exterminate Christianity was an indication of its
coming triumph. Its progress had been gradual yet rapid, and, in its
earlier stages especially, obscure. Of the labors of most of the
apostles we know little. On the approach of the Jewish war (p. 180),
the Apostle John, and other Christians with him, had repaired
to Asia Minor. There, at Ephesus, this apostle lived until the
reign of Trajan, and from that center exerted a wide influence,
the traces of which are marked and various. The cities were the
principal scenes of early missionary work. They were the "strategic
points." In them it was easier for Christian preachers to gain a
hearing, and in them they were exempt from the hindrance created by
strange dialects. Wherever Christians went, even for purposes of trade
or mechanical industry, they carried the seeds of the new
doctrine. Even with regard to the churches of Alexandria and
Carthage, which became so flourishing, and in the case of the
church at Rome itself, we can not say how they were first
planted. The exultant terms in which the ecclesiastical writers at the
end, and even as early as the middle, of the second century speak of
the increasing number of the converts, proves that the Christian cause
was fast gaining ground. Its adherents were sometimes of the higher
class, but mostly from the ranks of the poor.
PERSECUTIONS.—Persecution from the side of the heathen began among
the populace. Always when fire, tempest, or plague occurred, they were
ascribed to the wrath of the heathen gods at the desertion of their
altars, and the cry was for Christian blood. But Christianity, from
the time of Trajan, was an illegal religion. Magistrates might
at any time require Christians to do homage to the emperor's bust, or
to burn incense to the old divinities. To make a proselyte of a Roman
citizen, or to meet in private companies for worship, was
unlawful. The persecutions by public authority have been said to be
ten; but this number is too small if all of them are reckoned, and too
large if only those of wide extent are included. The constancy with
which even young women and children sometimes endured the torture,
excited wonder in the beholders. Among the more noted martyrs are
Ignatius, bishop of Antioch (116); Polycarp, bishop of
Smyrna, who had been a pupil of the Apostle John, and was put to death
in 155; and Cyprian, the aged bishop of Carthage, one of the
leading ecclesiastics of the time, who suffered under Valerian
in 258.
THE CHURCH UNDER CONSTANTINE.—The accession of Constantine made
Christianity the predominant religion in the Roman Empire. His
conversion was gradual. More and more he came to rely for support in
his conflicts with his rivals upon the God of the Christians. The sign
of the cross, which he said that he beheld in the sky, and which led
him to make the cross his standard, may have been an optical illusion
occasioned partly by his own mental state at the moment, when, after
prayer, he was standing at noon-day in the door of his tent. He
remained, like many others in that day, not without relics of the old
beliefs, as is seen from inscriptions on his coins, and other
evidences. His own baptism he deferred until he was near his end, on
account of the prevalent idea that all previous guilt is effaced in
the baptismal water. The edict of unrestricted toleration was issued
from Milan in 312. Constantine did not proscribe
heathenism. He forbade immoral rites, and rites connected with magic
and sorcery. But, with this exception, heathen worshipers were not
molested. But the emperor gave his zealous personal countenance to the
Christian cause, and marks of his favor to its adherents. By the
privileges and immunities which he granted to the Church and its
ministers, he did more than he would have been likely to effect by the
use of severity against its adversaries. ORGANIZATION OF THE
CHURCH.—The early Christian societies were little republics, at first
under the supervision of the apostles. Their organization shaped
itself partly after the model of the synagogue, and partly from the
pattern of the civil communities and the voluntary associations about
them. In the apostolic age a body of elders or bishops
and a body of deacons in each church guided its affairs, while
the members took an active part in the choice of their officers, and
in the general direction of ecclesiastical proceedings. In the second
century, when we get a distinct view of the churches after the obscure
interval that follows the age of the apostles, we find that over the
elders is a bishop, whose office grows in importance as the
churches become larger, as the need of more compact organization is
felt, and as the clergy become more and more distinct from the
laity. The bishop of the city church acquires jurisdiction over the
adjacent country churches. The bishop in the capital of each province
comes to exercise a certain superintendence within the province. This
is the metropolitan system. More and more the bishops of the
great cities, especially Rome, Alexandria, and
Antioch, exercise a parallel supervision in larger divisions of
the empire. This is the patriarchal system. As early as the
closing part of the second century, the catholic or universal church
presents itself before us, conceived of as a unity which is made such
by the hierarchy of bishops, and by connection with the apostolic
sees,—the churches founded by the apostles in person. As the apostles
were thought of as having a head in Peter, the bishops of Rome,
who were looked on as his successors, had accorded to them a
precedence over other bishops. The grandeur of Rome, the strength of
the church there, its services to other churches in the empire,
especially in the West, together with many other considerations
additional to its alleged historic relation to Peter and to Paul, gave
to the Roman See, as time went on, a growing and acknowledged
pre-eminence. The custom of holding synods helped to build up the
unity of the Church, and to give power and dignity to its officials.
SECTS: THEOLOGY.—The Church from the beginning had to contend with
opposing sects. There was a desire to amalgamate the Christian
doctrine with other systems. On the Jewish side, the
Ebionites clung to the Old Testament ritual observances, a part
of them being bitterly hostile to the Apostle Paul, and another part,
the Nazareans, not sharing this fanatical feeling, but still
adhering to the Jewish ceremonies. On the other hand, the
Gnostics introduced a dualism, and ascribed to the
Demiurge—a second deity, either subordinate to the supreme
God, or antagonistic to him—the origination of this world and of the
Old Testament religion. They made a compound of Christianity, Judaism,
and heathen religion and speculation, each Gnostic sect giving to one
or the other of these ingredients the preponderance in the strange and
often fantastic medley. The controversy with heathenism was prosecuted
with the pen. Of the numerous defenses of Christianity, now addressed
to heathen rulers and now to its opponents in private stations, the
most remarkable work in the first three centuries was the writing of
Origen—who was the most eminent of the teachers of theology at
Alexandria—in reply to Celsus. Origen, after scholarly
labors so vast as to earn for him the title of the Adamantine,
died in 254, in consequence of his sufferings in the Diocletian
persecution. Two defenses of the Christian faith, composed about the
middle of the second century by Justin Martyr, are specially
instructive as to the state of Christian opinion and the customs of
the Church. The first great center of theological activity was
Alexandria, where philosophy was studied in a liberal
spirit. In the East, the questions relative to the divinity of Jesus
and the relation of the divine to the human nature, engrossed
attention. In the West, it was the practical aspects of theology, the
doctrine of sin and of the deliverance of the will by grace, which
were chiefly discussed. The Arian controversy grew out of the
assertion by Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria, that Jesus was
the first-made of all beings, the instrument of the creation of all
other beings, but himself a creature. The leader of the orthodox
opposition to this opinion was the famous Alexandrian archdeacon,
afterwards bishop, Athanasius. This debate it was which led to
the assembling, under the auspices of Constantine, of the
Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325), the first of a series of General
Councils, for the adjudication of doctrinal disputes, that were held
in this and the following centuries. The Arian doctrine was condemned
at Nicaea, and, after a long contest in the period subsequent, was
finally determined to be heretical. In the West, the main controversy
was that raised by Pelagius, respecting the power of the will,
the native character of men, and the agency of God in their
conversion. In this debate, Augustine (354-430), the most
eminent theologian of the West, bishop of Hippo in North
Africa, was the renowned champion of the doctrine of grace
against what he considered an exaggerated assertion of
free-will. Pelagianism was condemned in the West, and nominally
in the East where views intermediate between the Pelagians and
Augustinians commonly prevailed. The most eminent scholar contemporary
with Augustine was Jerome, who died in 420, the author of the
Latin version of the Scriptures, called the Vulgate. Preceding
Augustine in North Africa, early in the third century, was
Tertullian, a vigorous and fervid writer, who first made Latin
the vehicle of theological discussion; and, a little later,
Cyprian, whose works relate chiefly to church unity and
hierarchical government, of which he was a devoted champion. Late in
the second century, Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons in Gaul, one of
the most eminent ecclesiastics of that day, composed an elaborate work
against the Gnostic heresies. Irenaeus had known
Polycarp, a disciple of John the apostle.
CHRISTIAN LIFE.—Passing within the sphere of Christian life, there
can be no doubt that Christianity exerted a power, of which there had
been no experience before, in reforming the character and conduct of
those even who had been addicted to crime and vice. The fraternal
feeling of Christians for one another impressed the heathen about them
as something new and singularly attractive. It expressed itself in
unstinted charity for those in poverty, and in helpfulness for all
sorts of distress. The church was a home for the weary and
friendless. In the strong reaction against the sensuality of a
dissolute society, ascetic tendencies appeared, which, in process of
time, issued in monasticism. Anthony of Thebes, born about 250,
was one of the earliest and most celebrated of the Anchorites,
who chose a hermit life, and abjured all the luxuries of life and most
of the comforts which belong to social existence. To the
Anchorites succeeded the Caenobites, societies of monks
who dwelt in a common habitation under fixed rules; and these were
naturally followed by confederacies of such communities under
one organization. The monastic vows were poverty, or the
renunciation of property; celibacy, or abstinence from
marriage; and obedience to the conventual superior. Sometimes
in the early centuries great evils and abuses sprang up in connection
with monastic life. For example, monks might become fanatical and
violent. But they furnished numerous examples of sincere piety, and of
unselfish and intrepid self-sacrifice for the welfare of others.
CHANGES IN WORSHIP.—As the Church grew in numbers and wealth, costly
edifices were constructed for worship. The services within them became
more elaborate. At length art was called in to adorn the Christian
sanctuaries. Sculpture and painting were enlisted in the work of
providing aids to devotion. Relics of saints and martyrs were
cherished as sacred possessions. Religious observances were
multiplied; and the Church, under the Christian emperors, with its
array of clergy and of imposing ceremonies, assumed much of the
stateliness and visible splendor that had belonged to the heathen
system which it had supplanted.
LAST DAYS OF HEATHENISM.—When Christianity had become powerful, its
disciples forgot the precepts of their Master, and sometimes
persecuted the heathen. Christian mobs demolished the old temples. The
great temple of Serapis in Alexandria was destroyed, and
the statue of the god was broken in pieces. Theodosius I.
(379-395) made the celebration of heathen rites a capital offense, and
confiscated the property by which heathen worship had been
supported. Arians, too, he persecuted, but with less harshness. The
Eastern emperor, Justinian, suppressed the school of New
Platonic philosophers at Athens, and banished the teachers
(529). Heathenism lingered in remote districts, and was hence called
paganism, or the religion of rustics. The last adherents of the
ancient religion inhabited in the seventh century remote valleys of
the Italian islands. The oracles were for ever dumb. The old
divinities were never more to be invoked. But it was not by force that
heathenism was extirpated. If it had not lost its vitality, it would
have survived the penal laws against it. It perished by the expulsive
energy of a better faith.
CAUSES OF THE TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY.—The causes of the spread and
triumph of Christianity lie ultimately in the need which men feel of
religion, especially in times of dread and distress, and in the
intrinsic excellence which was felt to belong to Christianity. In the
first and second centuries the dreary feeling engendered by the hollow
skepticism that prevailed was favorable to the Christian cause. There
was a void to be filled, and the gospel came to fill it. In the third
century, when the progress of Christianity was specially rapid, there
was a perceptible revival of religious feeling among the heathen; and
this, too, operated to the advantage of the gospel. At least it must
have done so in numerous instances. In that century the terrible
plagues which desolated the empire, with the sufferings that sprung
from wild anarchy and misgovernment, made the church a welcome asylum
for the afflicted. In the first place, Christianity was a
religion. It was neither a merely speculative nor a merely moral
system. It took hold of the supernatural. Secondly, it
presented to a corrupt society a moral ideal of spotless
perfection. Thirdly, it offered, in the doctrine of the cross,
a welcome solace,—consolation in life, with a sense of
reconciliation, and the hope of everlasting good. Other causes, such
as Gibbon enumerates, were operative. But these are themselves
mostly effects or aspects of the gospel; or they were
auxiliary, not principal, causes.
CHRISTIANITY AND LIBERTY.—The founders of Christianity had no thought
of becoming the authors of a political revolution. They had a very
different purpose in view. To overthrow the existing order of society
would have been equally unwise and impracticable. What was needed was
a new spirit of justice and of love. The virtues that were called for
then were the passive virtues,—gentleness, forbearance, the
calm endurance of ills of which there was no present remedy. The
Christian spirit, therefore, did not evoke in the disciples of the new
faith sentiments of liberty akin to those which had belonged to Greek
and Roman heroes. Indirectly, however, Christianity brought into human
society the germs of liberty. In the first place, while it
enjoined absolute submission to rulers, it made an exception whenever
their commands should require disobedience to God's law. This position
involved the denial to the state of that absolute supremacy accorded
to it by the ancients. The allegiance to the state became a
qualified allegiance. Secondly, there arose within the
state another community, which took into its hands, to a large extent,
the regulation of social life. The boundaries of the two authorities
might be indistinct, but there was a real division of control between
them. It is true that tyranny might arise within the Christian
organization itself: still, its very existence planted on the earth a
principle of liberty, which was destined ultimately to work out the
destruction of all tyranny, whether civil or religious. For the first
time the rulers of the Roman world were faced by an opposition, meek
yet too inflexible for all their power to overcome. This is the first
stage in the history of modern liberty. The "heroic and invincible
Athanasius" as Milton styles him, boldly confronted
Constantine and his successors, and chose to spend twenty years
of his life in voluntary or enforced exile rather than bow to their
tyrannical decrees. Ambrose, the great archbishop of
Milan, compelled the Emperor Theodosius—who, in a fit
of anger had ordered a massacre at Thessalonica—to do penance
before he could be admitted to the communion. Such occurrences
indicate that the days of imperial omnipotence, even over unarmed
subjects, were past.
SUCCESSORS OF CONSTANTINE.—Constantine left his empire to his three
unworthy sons. Constantine, the eldest, had the Western
provinces for his share. He endeavored to wrest Italy from his brother
Constans, but was slain at Aquileia (340). This event
left Constans the master of the entire West. He took up his abode in
Gaul, where he was slain by Magnentius, the leader of a
mutinous body of soldiers (350). Constantius was at
Edessa, engaged in war against the Persians. He marched
westward, and routed Magnentius at Mursia, in Pannonia. This
rival fled to Gaul, and was there attacked and
destroyed. Gallus, the cousin of Constantius, was put to death
for the murder of one of the emperor's officers (354). Julian,
the brother of Gallus, was the sole remaining survivor of the family
from which the emperor sprung. Constantius, under whom the
whole empire was now for a few years (357-361) united, made a
triumphal visit to Rome. He was the defender of the Arians, but he
found it impossible to coerce the Roman Christians into the adoption
of his opinion. The orthodox bishop whom he had banished, was
restored. Constantius was succeeded by his cousin
Julian (361-363), commonly called the
Apostate. Fascinated by the heathen philosophy, and a secret
convert to the old religion, he
THE IMPERIAL HOUSE OF CONSTANTINE.
CONSTANTIUS CHLORUS, m.
1, Helena;
|
+—CONSTANTINE I (the Great) m.
1, Minervina;
2, Fausta
|
+—CONSTANTINE II.
|
+—CONSTANTIUS II.
| |
| +—Constantia,
| m. GRATIAN.
|
+—CONSTANS.
|
+—CONSTANTIA, m.
| 1, Hannibalianus;
| 2, GALLUS.
|
+—HELENA,
m. JULIAN.
2, Theodora.
|
+—Constantius, m.
| 1, Galla;
| 2, Basilina.
| |
| +—GALLUS
| | m. Constantia, widow of Hannibalianus.
| |
| +—JULIAN
| m. Helena, daughter of Constantine I.
|
+—Constantia,
m. LICINIUS.
proved that its vitality was gone, by his ineffectual exertions to
rescue it, and restore its predominance. He was not without merits as
a ruler. He looked out for the impartial administration of justice: he
revived discipline and a military spirit in the army, and sought to
infuse a better spirit into the civil administration. While he avoided
cruel persecution, he directed all his personal efforts to the
weakening of the Christian cause. Julian led an expedition against the
Persians. He sailed down the Euphrates to Circesium, and thence
proceeded into the interior of Persia. He repulsed the enemy, but was
slain while engaged in the pursuit. The soldiers on the field of
battle chose one of his officers, Jovian (363-364), who was a
Christian, to be his successor. He conducted the retreat of the
army. His reign lasted for only seven months. He showed no intolerance
either towards Pagans or Arians, but he gave back to Christianity its
former position. The army next chose Valentinian I. (364-375),
the son of a Pannonian warrior, who associated with him, as emperor in
the East, his brother Valens (364-378). Valens ruled
from Constantinople. Valentinian fixed his court at Milan, and
sometimes at Treves. He was an unlettered soldier, but strict and
energetic in the government of the state, as well as of the army. His
time was mostly spent in conflict with the barbarians on the northern
frontiers. He carried forward this contest with vigor on the Rhine and
on the Danube. He trained up his son Gratian to be his
successor. The great event of the reign of Valens was the irruption of
the Huns into Europe, and the consequent invasion of the
Goths, by whom Valens was defeated and slain in 378.
Several emperors followed, until, on the death of Theodosius
I., (the Great) (395), the Roman Empire was divided. In 476, after
successive invasions of barbarians had disorganized the western part
of the Empire, the line of phantom emperors at Rome came to an
end. The fourth century, in which these invasions—which overthrew the
Western Empire, and transferred power to new races—occurred, forms
the era of transition from ancient to mediaeval history.
LITERATURE.—The general works on Ancient History (p. 16). On
Roman History as a whole: MERIVALE'S General History of
Rome (from 753 B.C. to A.D. 476: 1 vol.); DURUY, History of
Rome, etc. (8 vols., 410); Wägner, Rom, etc. (3 vols.);
Allen, A Short Story of the Roman People; FREEMAN,
Outlines of Roman History.
On the Roman Republic: MOMMSEN, The History of Rome (4
vols.); LIDDELL, A History of Rome, etc. (1 vol.); IHNE,
The History of Rome (Eng. trans., 3 vols.); Michelet,
History of the Roman Republic (1 vol., 12mo); Schwegler,
Römishce Geschichte (4 vols); How and Leigh, A History of
Rome; Shuckburgh, A History of Rome.
On the Roman Empire: MERIVALE, History of the Romans under
the Empire (7 vols ); Seeley, Roman Imperialism [three
Lectures]; MOMMSEN, The Provinces (5th volume of his History,
1885); Bury, Students' Roman Empire; Bury, Later Roman
Empire (2 vols.).
On special periods: IHNE, Early Rome (1 vol.);
T. Arnold, History of Rome (3 vols; reaches into the second
Punic war); Long, The Decline of the Roman Republic (5
vols.); R. B. Smith, Rome and Carthage; MERIVALE, The
Roman Triumvirates; T Arnold, History of the Later Roman
Commonwealth (2 vols.); GIBBON, History of the Decline and
Fall of the Roman Empire (Smith's edition); FINLAY, A History
of Greece from the Conquest of the Romans to the Present Time (7
vols.); Dill, Roman Society (5th century).
Trollope, Life of Cicero (2 vols.); FORSYTH, Life of
Cicero (2 vols.); Middleton's Life of Cicero; Froude,
Life of Caesar (1 vol.); Boissier, Ciceron et ses Amis
(1 vol., 12mo).
Treatises: Taylor, Const, and Polit. History of Rome;
KUHN, Verfassung d. Römischen Städte; GUHL AND KÖNER, Life
of the Greeks and Romans; Marquardt, Handbuch d. Römischen
Alterthümer (7 vols.); BECKER, Gallus (an archaeological
novel); Abbott, Roman Political Institutions; Greenidge,
Roman Public Life; Preston and Dodge, Private Life of the
Romans; Madvig, Verfassung und Verwaltung des Röm Staates
(2 vols.); Lanciani (Ancient Rome, and others); Burn, Rome
and the Campagna; ZIEGLER, Das alte Rom; Smith and Wace's
Dictionary of Christian Biography; Smith and Cheatham's
Dictionary of Christian Antiquities; FRIEDLÄNDER,
Sittengeschichte Roms (2 vols.); Histories of Roman
Literature by Simcox. Cruttwell, SCHMITZ, Teuffel. Mac-Kail, Fowler.
On Early Christianity: The Lives of Jesus, by NEANDER, WEISS,
Farrar, Edersheim, Andrews. Neander's Planting and Training of
the Church. Works on the Life of St. Paul, by CONYBEARE AND
HOWSON, by Lewins, by Farrar. Fisher's The Beginnings of
Christianity; Pressensé, Early Days of
Christianity. Church Histories of NEANDER, GIESELER, SCHAFF,
Robertson, HASE, Kurtz, ALZOG. UHLHORN, Christian Charity in the
Ancient Church; Ramsay, The Church and the Roman Empire,
before 170 A.D.
Reber, History of Ancient Art; Wickoff, Roman Art; see
Dictionaries, p. 122.
PART II. MEDIÆVAL HISTORY.
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 mediæval
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 homogeneous
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 leadership 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 Mediæval 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 mediæval 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 circumstance is, that most of the
Germanic tribes were converts to Christianity before they made their
attacks and subverted the throne of the Cæsars. 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 class of
independent Italian yeomen, which had made up the bone and sinew of
the Roman armies, passed 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 municipal
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 class 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 multitudes 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 space 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 Mæsia 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 Cæsar the Suevi, and who, after
various incursions, had established themselves on the Upper Rhine, in
what is now Baden, Würtemberg, 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 passes 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 shore 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 nobles 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 assemblies periodically held. When the duke or general was
chosen, he was raised on a shield on the shoulders of the men. The
judges in the trial of causes sat, with assessors 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 noble 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 gods worshiped by the Germans were
Woden, called "Odin" in the North, the highest divinity, the
god of the air and of the sky, the giver of fruits and delighting in
battle; Donar (Thor), the god of thunder and of the weather,
armed with a hammer or thunderbolt; Thiu (Tyr), a god of war,
answering to Mars; Fro (Freyr), god of love; and Frauwa
(Freya), his sister. Particular days were set apart for their
worship. 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. Saturday 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
gods. 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 gods. 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 class, and were never
dominant. Valiant warriors at death were admitted into Walhalla (the
hall of the slain), where they sat at banquet with the gods.
THE THEODOSIAN IMPERIAL HOUSE
THEODOSIUS
|
+—THEODOSIUS I (the Great), m.,
| 1, Flaccilla;
| 2, Galla sister of Valentinian II
| |
| +—Grantianus
| |
| +—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 circumstance 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 illustrious 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 Illyricum, a province on which each of the
emperors had claims, and which he feared that Stilicho would
seize. They ravaged Thrace and Macedonia, passed 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 Illyricum. This obliged
Stilicho to retire. Raised upon the shield, 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 Illyricum 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 impassable morass, 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
assassinated, and the wives and children of the barbarian troops to be
massacred. 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 assign 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 assassinated
(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.
THREE BARBARIAN KINGDOMS.—The kingdom of the Suevi thus established
(419), under the kings reigning from 438 to 455 conquered
Lusitania, and would have subdued all Spain had they not been
checked by the Visigoths. As a reward for their services, the
latter received from Honorius, Aquitaine in Gaul, as far as the
Loire and the Rhone, with Toulouse for their capital. They
conquered the Suevi in 456, and in 585 subjugated them; in 507
the Franks had driven them out of Gaul. Early in the fifth century the
Burgundian kingdom grew up in South-eastern Gaul. At the end of
that century the Rhone was a Burgundian river. Lyons and
Vienne were Burgundian cities. Thus in the first twenty years
of the fifth century there arose three barbarian kingdoms. Of
these, that of the Suevi soon vanished (585), being absorbed by
the Visigoths; that of the Burgundians continued until 534;
while that of the Visigoths in Spain lasted until the conquest
by the Arabs in 711.
CONQUEST OF AFRICA BY THE VANDALS.—Honorius died in 423. He
had shown himself a zealous defender of the Church against heresy, and
was the author of edicts for the suppression of heathenism, and for
the destruction of heathen temples and idols. But he had proved
himself inefficient in the defense of the empire. His nephew
Valentinian III., the son of Placidia and of the general
Constantius, whom she had married in 417, succeeded him; but he
was only six years old, and for twenty-five years the government was
carried on in his name by his unworthy mother. She had two able
generals, Aëtius and Boniface, whose discord was fatal
in its effects. At the same time in the East, the government was
managed by Pulcheria for her brother, Theodosius II.,
who had succeeded Arcadias in 408. Aëtius, who was a
Hun, by insidious arts persuaded Placidia to recall Boniface,
who was governor of Africa, at the same time that he advised Boniface
to disobey the order which he represented as a sentence of
death. Boniface sent to Gonderic, king of the Vandals in
Spain,—who, after the retreat of the Visigoths, were strong in that
country,—an offer of an alliance. Genseric, the Vandal leader,
the brother and successor of Gonderic, landed in Africa in 429
with fifty thousand men. Too late the treachery of Aëtius was
explained to Boniface. Genseric, with his allies, tribes of nomad
Moors, defeated him in a bloody battle, and besieged Hippo for
fourteen months. Augustine, the bishop of Hippo, animated the
courage of its defenders until his death in 430, in the seventy-sixth
year of his age. Boniface was again defeated, and Hippo was taken. The
Vandals pushed on their conquest, but eight years passed before
Carthage was reduced (439). Valentinian had recognized
by treaty the kingdom of the Vandals. Genseric was
characterized by genius and energy as well as by cruelty and
avarice. He built up a navy, and made himself master of Sicily,
Corsica, Sardinia, and the Balearic Isles. He was able to defy
Constantinople, on account of his control of the Mediterranean. At the
same time he entered into relations with the barbarians in the north,
in order that Aëtius, who endeavored to bring in some degree of order
and obedience in the empire, might be checked and restrained on all
sides. The Vandals were Arians, and made full use of the difference in
faith as a motive for plundering and maltreating the orthodox
Christians in Africa, whom their arms had subdued.
ATTILA: CHALONS.—The enemy whom Genseric invoked to make a
diversion in his favor against the combined rulers of the East and of
the West, was Attila. For a half-century the Huns had
halted, in their migration, in the center of Europe, and held under
their sway the Ostrogoths, the Gepids, the Marcomanni, and other
tribes. The empire of Attila extended from the Baltic to the north of
the Danube, and as far east as the Volga. His name inspired terror
wherever it was heard. He was styled "the scourge of God." The "sword
of Mars"—the point of an ancient sword which, it was said, was
discovered by supernatural means, and was presented to him—was deemed
the symbol of his right to the dominion of the world. Yet,
notwithstanding his fierce visage and haughty mien, he was an
indulgent ruler of his own people, and not without pity and other
generous traits. Such was the dread of him that it was said that no
blade of grass grew on the path which his armies had traversed. First,
he attacked Theodosius II. in the East, to force him to recall
the troops which he had sent against Genseric. He crossed the
Danube, destroyed seventy cities, and forced the Eastern emperor not
only to pay a tribute heavier than he had paid before, but also to
cede to the Huns the right bank of the river. Theodosius failed in a
treacherous attempt to assassinate him through Attila's ambassador,
Edecon, whom he had bribed. Attila discovered the plot, but
pardoned with disdain the ambassadors of the emperor who went to him
in his wooden palace in Pannonia. He contented himself with
reproaching Theodosius with "conspiring, like a perfidious slave,
against the life of his master." Regarding Constantinople as
impregnable, he turned to the West. He demanded of the Western emperor
the half of his states; and, moving to the Rhine with six hundred
thousand barbarians, he crossed that river and the Moselle, advanced
on his devastating path into the heart of Gaul, crossed the
Seine, and laid siege to Orleans. Everywhere the inhabitants
fled before him. The courage of the people in Orleans was sustained by
their bishop, who at length, as the city was just falling into the
hands of the assailants, saw a cloud of dust, and cried, "It is the
help of God." It was Aëtius, who, on the death of Boniface, had
thought it prudent to fly to the Huns, had come back to Italy
at the head of sixty thousand men, obtained forgiveness of
Placidia, and been made master-general of her forces. He had
united to the Roman troops the barbarians who had occupied Gaul, the
Visigoths under Theodoric, the Saxons, the Burgundians, the Ripuarian
and the Salian Franks. On the Catalaunian fields, a vast plain near
Chalons, whither Attila now retreated to find room for
the effective use of his cavalry, the two multitudinous armies, each
composed of a motley collection of nations, met. It was, like the
conflict at Marathon, one of the decisive battles of history. It was
to determine whether the Aryan or the Scythian was to be supreme in
Europe. The battle-field was strewn, it was said, with the bodies of a
hundred and sixty thousand men,—an exaggeration indicating that the
carnage was too great to be estimated. Attila was worsted. He
encircled his camp with a rampart of wagons; and in the morning the
victors saw him standing on the top of a mound composed of the
trappings of horsemen, which was to serve as his funeral-pile, with
torch-bearers at hand ready to light it in case of defeat. Aëtius was
weakened by the withdrawal of the Visigoths: the allies did not
venture to attack the lion standing thus at bay, but suffered him to
return to Germany (451).
ATTILA IN ITALY.—The next year Attila invaded Upper Italy. He
destroyed Aquileia, the inhabitants of which fled to the
lagoons of the Adriatic, where their descendants founded
Venice. Padua, Verona, and other cities were reduced to
ashes. At Milan he saw a painting which represented the emperor on his
throne, and the chiefs of the Huns prostrate before him. He ordered a
picture to be painted in which the king of the Huns sat on the throne,
and the emperor was at his feet. The Italians were without the means
of defense. Leo I. (Leo the Great), bishop of Rome, at the risk
of his life accompanied the emperor's ambassadors to Attila's
camp. Their persuasions, with rich gifts and the promise of a tribute,
availed. The army of Attila was weakened by sickness, and
Aëtius was approaching. The king of the Huns decided to retire
to his forests. The apparition of the two apostles, Peter and
Paul, threatening the barbarian with instant death if he did
not comply with the prayer of their successor, is the subject of one
of the paintings of Raphael. Some months after he left Italy
Attila died at the royal village near the Danube, probably from
the bursting of an artery during the night (453). The nations which he
had subjugated regained their freedom. The chiefs of the Huns
contended for the crown in conflicts which dissipated their
strength. The expeditions of Attila were like a violent tempest,—
destructive for the moment, the traces of which soon disappear.
About the name of Attila, there gathered cycles of traditions,
Gallo-Roman or Italian, East German or Gothic, West German and
Scandinavian, and Hungarian. Such traditions in Germany formed, later,
the germ of the national epic, the Nibelungen-lied. They
testify to the powerful impression which the hero of the Huns made on
the memory and imagination of the different nations.
GENSERIC.—Attila did not see Rome; but Genseric, his
ally, visited it with fire and sword (455). The emperor was
Petronius Maximus, a senator, who had slain Valentinian
III. as the penalty for a mortal offense. The weakness of Maximus
as a ruler caused him to be destroyed by the populace. Eudoxia,
the widow of Valentinian, whom Maximus had compelled to marry the
author of her husband's death, had secretly implored the aid of the
king of the Vandals. Once more Leo showed his fearless spirit
by going into the camp of the Vandal king, and interceding for
Rome. He only succeeded, however, in mitigating to a limited extent
the horrors that attended the pillage of the city by the fierce and
greedy soldiers, the Vandals and Moors, who followed Genseric,
For fourteen days (June 15-29, 455) Rome was given up to carnage and
robbery. The conqueror carried off every thing of value that was
capable of being transported. Eudoxia was rudely stripped of
her jewels, and with her two daughters, descendants of the great
Theodosius, was conveyed away with the conqueror to Carthage. For
twenty years longer Genseric ruled over the Mediterranean in
spite of the hostility of both empires. An expedition sent against him
at the instigation of Ricimer, the Sueve, by the Eastern
emperor Leo, was ill commanded by Basiliscus, and
failed. But after the Vandal king died (477), his kingdom was torn by
civil and religious disorders, and by the revolts of the Moors, and,
fifty-seven years after the death of its founder, was conquered by the
general of the Eastern Empire.
FALL OF ROME: ODOACER.—After the death of Maximus, Avitus was
appointed emperor by the king of the Visigoths in Gaul. The barbarians
hesitated to assume the purple themselves, but they determined on whom
it should be bestowed. Of the emperors that succeeded, Majorian
(457-461)—who was raised to the throne by Ricimer, military
leader of the German mercenaries in the Roman army—presents an
instance of a worthy character in a corrupt time. At last another
leader of mercenaries (Orestes, a Pannonian) made his son
emperor,—a boy six years old, called Romulus Augustulus
(475). Odoacer, who commanded the Heruli, Rugii, and other
federated tribes,—mercenaries to whom Orestes refused to grant a
third part of the lands of Italy,—made himself ruler of that
country. The Senate of Rome, in pursuance of his wishes, in an address
to the Eastern emperor Zeno, declared that an emperor in the
West was no longer necessary, and asked him to make Odoacer
patrician, and prefect of the diocese of Italy. It was in this
character—not as king, but in nominal subordination to Zeno,
the head of the united Roman Empire—that Odoacer governed (476). For
more than a half-century people had been accustomed to see the
barbarians exercise supreme control, so that the extinguishment of the
Western Empire was an event less marked in their eyes than it seemed
to the view of subsequent ages.
OSTROGOTHIC KINGDOM OF THEODORIC.—When Odoacer had reigned
twelve years, Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths in
Moesia,—who in his youth had lived at the court of
Constantinople, had defended the Eastern emperor, but had been
provoked to hostility to him,—was authorized by Zeno to move
upon Italy. A host consisting of two hundred thousand fighting-men,
together with their families and goods, followed the Gothic
leader. Defeated at Verona (489), Odoacer was forced to make a
treaty for a division of power, and to surrender Ravenna, where
he had taken refuge; but very soon, in the tumult of a banquet, he was
slain by Theodoric's own hand, either from fear of a rival, or because
he suspected that Odoacer was plotting against him. From this time the
long reign of Theodoric was one of justice and of peace. More by
negotiation than by war, he extended his dominion so that it embraced
Illyricum, Pannonia, Noricum, and Rhoetia, and, in the West,
Southeastern Gaul (Provence). The Bavarians paid him tribute; the
Alemanni invoked his assistance against the Franks, against whom he
afforded succor to the Goths of Aquitaine. In his administration he
showed reverence for the old imperial system, and for its laws and
institutions. He fostered agriculture, manufactures, and
trade. Although he could not write, he encouraged learning; and a
learned Roman, Cassiodorus, he appointed to high offices. He
permitted the Goths alone to bear arms. He caused to be compiled from
the Roman law a collection of statutes for the Goths and for his new
subjects, and established mixed tribunals for causes in which both
were parties. Cassiodorus ascribes to Theodoric the words, "Let other
kings seek to procure booty, or the downfall of conquered cities: our
purpose is, with God's help, so to conquer that our subjects shall
lament that they have too late come under our rule." He did what he
could to promote peace among other barbarian nations. The prosperity
of Italy, and the increase of its population, were a proof of the good
government which it enjoyed. An Arian, he respected the Catholics,
confirmed the immunities enjoyed by the churches, and generally
allowed the Romans to elect their own bishop. He also protected the
Jews. The persecution of the Arians in the East (524) by Justin
I., awakened in his mind the belief that a conspiracy was forming
against him. He accused Boethius of being a partner in it, and
adjudged him to death (524). While in prison at Pavia, this cultivated
man, whom Theodoric had highly esteemed, composed a work on the
"Consolations of Philosophy," which has made his name immortal in
literature. The course of Theodoric at this time drew upon him the
severe displeasure of his orthodox subjects. Soon after his death
(526) his ashes were taken out of the tomb, and scattered to the
winds. Hence nothing remains of his sepulcher at Ravenna but his empty
mausoleum.
Before the close of the century, as we shall see, another German
tribe, the Lombards, founded a powerful state in Italy, which
continued for more than two hundred years (568-774).
THE FRANKS: CLOVIS.—When Clovis (481-511), a warlike and
ambitious chief of the Merovingian family of princes, became king of
the Franks, they numbered but a few thousand warriors. The remnant of
the Roman dominion on the Seine and the Loire he annexed, after having
put to death Syagrius, the Roman governor, who was delivered up
to him by the Visigoths. He made Soissons, and then
Paris, the seat of his authority. A Salian Frank himself, he
joined to himself the Ripuarian Franks on the Lower Rhine, and made
war on the Alemanni, who were planted on both sides of the
river. Before a battle (formerly thought to have been at
Tolbiac), he vowed, that, if the victory were given him, he
would worship the God of the Christians, of whom his wife
Clotilde was one. Clotilde was the niece of the Burgundian
king, who was an Arian; but she was orthodox. The victory was
won. Clovis, with three thousand of his nobles, was baptized by
Remigius (St. Remi), Archbishop of Rheims. Hearing a sermon on
the crucifixion, Clovis exclaimed, that, if he and his faithful Franks
had been there, vengeance would have been taken on the Jews. He was a
barbarian still, and the new faith imposed little restraint on his
ambition and cruelty. But his conversion was an event of the highest
importance. The Gallic church and clergy lent him their devoted
support. The Franks were destined to become the dominant barbarian
people. It was now settled that power was to be in the hands of
Catholic—as distinguished from heretical Arian—Christianity. Clovis
forced Gundobald, the Burgundian king, to become tributary, and
to embrace the Catholic faith. He extended his kingdom to the Rhone on
the east, and on the south (507-511), confined the Visigoths in Gaul
to the strip of territory called Septimania, which they held
for three centuries longer. Brittany alone remained independent
under its king. Clovis was hailed as the "most Christian king" and the
second Constantine, and was made patrician and consul by the Eastern
emperor Anastasius, in which titles, with their insignia, he
rejoiced. In the closing part of his life he took care to destroy
other Frank chieftains who might possibly undertake to dispute or
divide with him his sovereignty.
DISTRIBUTION OF TRIBES.—If we look at the map at the close of the
fifth century, we find that all the western dominions of Rome are
subject to Teutonic kings. The Franks, still retaining Western
and Central Germany, rule in Northern Gaul, and are soon to extend
their sway to the Pyrenees, and to conquer Burgundy. The West
Goths are the masters in Spain, and still hold Aquitaine, the most
of which, however, is soon to be lost to the Franks. Italy and the
lands north of the Alps and the Adriatic form the East Gothic
kingdom of Theodoric. Africa is governed by the Arian
Vandals. To the north of the Franks, the tribes of Germany, which were
never subject to Rome, have already begun their conquests in
Britain. With the exception of Britain, which is falling under the
power of the Saxons, and Africa, these countries are still
nominally parts of the Roman Empire, of which Constantinople is the
capital. In the east, the boundaries of the empire, notwithstanding
the aggressions and insults which it has suffered, are but little
altered.
THE MEROVINGIANS.—The dominion of Clovis was partitioned among
his four sons (511). Theodoric, the eldest, in Rheims, ruled
the Eastern Franks, in what soon after this time began to be called
Austrasia, on both banks of the Rhine. Neustria, or the
rest of the kingdom north of the Loire, was governed in parts by the
other three. Theodoric gained by conquest the land of the Thuringians,
whose king, Hermanfrid, he treacherously destroyed. A part of
this land was given to the Saxons. The history of the Franks for half
a century lacks unity. The several rulers rarely acted in
concert. They made expeditions against the Burgundians, the Visigoths,
and the Ostrogoths. Twice they attacked the Burgundians. The
last time, in 534, they conquered them, deprived them of their
national kings, and forced them to become Catholic. In 531 they made
war on the Visigoths to avenge the wrongs inflicted on
Clotilde, a princess of their family who suffered indignities
at the hands of the Arian king Amalaric. They crossed the
Pyrenees, and brought away Clotilde. A second division of the kingdom
was made in 561 among the grandsons of Clovis, and consummated in
567. Austrasia, having Rheims for its capital, had a population
chiefly German. Neustria, where the Gallo-Roman manners were
adopted, had Soissons for its capital; and Burgundy had its
capital at Orleans. The population in both these last dominions was
more predominantly Romano-Celtic, or "Romance." Family contests, and
wars full of horrors,—in which the tragic feud of two women,
Brunhilde of Austrasia, a daughter of Athanagild, king of the
Visigoths, and Fredegunde of Neustria, played a prominent
part,—ensued. In 613 Clotaire II. of Neustria united the
entire kingdom. Brunhilde was captured, and put to death in a
barbarous manner. The son of Clotaire, Dagobert, was a
worthless king. The Frank sovereigns of the royal line are
inefficient, and the virtual sovereignty is in the hands of the
"Mayors of the Palace," the officers whose function it was to
superintend the royal household, and who afterwards were leaders of
the feudal retainers. The family of the Pipins, who were of
pure German extraction, acquired the hereditary right to this office,
first in Austrasia and later in Neustria. The descendants of Pipin
of Heristal, as dukes of the Franks, had regal power, while the
title of king was left to the Merovingian princes. The race of Pipin
was afterwards called Carolingians, or Karlings. The
preponderance of power at first had been with Neustria, but it shifted
to the ruder and more energetic Austrasians. The battle of
Testry, in which Pipin of Heristal at their head
overcame the Neustrians, determined the supremacy of Germany over
France (687). His son and successor, Charles Martel (715-741),
made himself sole "Duke of the Franks;" and Pipin the Short
(741-768), the son of Charles Martel, became king, supplanting the
Merovingian line (752).
SAXON CONQUEST OF ENGLAND.—In the fourth century, when the power of
Rome was declining, the Picts and Scots from the North began to make
incursions into the Roman province of Britain. At the same time
Teutonic tribes from the mouths of the Weser and the Elbe, began to
land as marauders upon the coast. Honorius withdrew the Roman
troops from the island in 411; and it was conquered by these invading
tribes, especially the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. They became one
people, called Anglo-Saxons, Angles or English. They
were fierce barbarians, who drove the Celts whom they did not kill or
enslave—and whom they called Welsh, or strangers—into Wales
and Cornwall. They formed kingdoms, the first of which, Kent, was the
result of the coming of Hengist and Horsa, whom
Vortigern, the native prince, had invited to help him against
the Picts (449). There were seven of these Saxon kingdoms (the
Heptarchy), not all of which were at any one time regular
communities. They were almost constantly at war with one another and
with the natives. They had a king elected from the royal
family. Freemen were either Earls or Churls, the
"gentle" or the "simple." The churl was attached to some one lord whom
he followed in war. The thanes were those who devoted
themselves to the service of the king or some other great man. The
thanes of the king became gentlemen and nobles. There were
thralls, or slaves, either prisoners in war, or made slaves for
debt or for crime. Connected with the king was a sort of Parliament,
called the Witenagemôt, or Meeting of the Wise, composed
originally of all freemen, and then of the great men, the
Ealdormen, the king's thanes. After the Saxons were converted,
the bishops and abbots belonged to it. In minor affairs, the "mark,"
or township, governed itself.
CONVERSION OF THE SAXONS—The seven kingdoms, in the ninth century
(828), were united under Egbert, who became king of Wessex in
802. He was called the king of England. Towards the Celtic Christians
the heathen Saxons were hostile. The conversion of the Saxons was due
to the labors of Augustine and forty monks, whom Gregory the
Great (Gregory I.) sent to the island as missionaries in
597. Their first conversions were in Kent, whose king,
Ethelbert, had married Bertha, the daughter of a
Frankish king. Augustine, who had great success, became the first
archbishop of Canterbury, and he consecrated a bishop of
London. During the seventh century the other Saxon kingdoms were
gradually converted. York became a seat of a second
archbishopric. While Britain had been cut off from close relations
with the continent, the Celtic Church there had failed to keep pace
with the changes of rite and polity which had taken place among
Christians beyond the channel. The consequence was a strife on these
points between the converted Saxons, who were devoted to the holy see,
and the "Culdees" or Old British Christians.
CONVERSION OF THE IRISH.—About the middle of the fifth century the
gospel had been planted in Ireland, mainly by the labors of
Patrick, who had been carried to that country from Scotland by
pirates when he was a boy, and had returned to it as a missionary. The
cloisters, and the schools connected with them, which he founded,
flourished, became nurseries of study as well as of piety, and sent
out missionaries to other countries of Western Europe.
CHARACTER OF THE TEUTONIC KINGDOMS.—The Teutonic tribe was made up of
freemen and of their dependents. The rights of freemen, such as the
right to vote, continued; but these were modified as differences of
rank and wealth arose. Their leaders in peace and war were the duke
(dux), the count (comes, or graf), and the
herzog (duke of higher grade) over larger provinces. The
companions of the king and the local chiefs grew into a nobility. Once
or twice in the year there was a gathering of the freemen in
assemblies, to decree war or to sanction laws. Land was partly held in
common, partly by individuals either as tenants of the community, or
as individual owners. The soil was shared in proportions by the
conquerors and the conquered.
THE CHURCH.—The Germanic tribes were generally more or less
acquainted with the Romans, and were Christians by profession. They
were subject to the influences of religion, of law, and of language,
in the countries where they settled. Power passed from the Empire to
the Church. The Church was strong in its moral force. Its bishops
commanded the respect of the barbarians. They were moral and social
leaders. In the period of darkness and of tempest, the voices of the
Christian clergy were heard in accents of fearless rebuke and of
tender consolation. In the cities of Italy and Gaul, the bishops, at
the call of the people, informally took the first place in civil
affairs. Remarkable men arose in the Church, who were conspicuous as
ambassadors and peace-makers, as intercessors for the suffering, and
courageous protectors of the injured. Such a man was Leo the
Great. The barbarians were awed by the kingdom of righteousness,
which, without exerting force, opposed to force and passion an
undaunted front. There was often a conflict between their love of
power and passionate impatience of control, and their reverence for
the priest and for the gospel. They could not avoid feeling in some
measure the softening and restraining influence of Christian teaching,
and learning the lessons of the cross. Socially, the Church, as such,
"was always on the side of peace, on the side of industry, on the side
of purity, on the side of liberty for the slave, and protection for
the oppressed. The monasteries were the only keepers of literary
tradition: they were, still more, great agricultural colonies,
clearing the wastes, and setting the example of improvement. They were
the only seats of human labor which could hope to be spared in those
lands of perpetual war." Nevertheless, the religious condition of the
West, the condition of the Church and of the clergy, could not fail to
be powerfully affected for the worse by the influx of barbarism, and
the corrupting influence of the barbarian rulers. A great
deterioration in the Church and in its ministry ensued after the first
generation following the Germanic conquests passed away. This
demoralization was more among the secular clergy than the monastic.
The "History of the Franks," by Gregory of Tours (540-594), is
an instructive memorial of the times. He was himself an intrepid
prelate, who did not quail before Chilperic I. and
Fredegunde, but braved their wrath. Chilperic proposed to
establish by his authority a new view of the Trinity of his own
devising, but was resisted by Gregory, who told him that no one but a
lunatic would embrace such an opinion. A still more crude reform of
the alphabet, which the Frankish king contrived, and proposed to put
in force by having existing books rewritten, Gregory effectually
resisted.
ROMAN LAW.—The barbarians were profoundly impressed by the system of
Roman law. This they recognized as the rule for the Roman population
in the different countries. More and more they incorporated its exact
provisions into their own codes. Among the West Goths in
Spain the two elements were ultimately fused into one body of
laws (642-701). Under the Franks, the Roman municipal system
was not extinguished; the Teutonic count or bishop standing in the
room of the Roman president or consular, and a more popular body
taking the place of the restricted municipality. The Roman civil
polity, with its definite enactments for every relation in life and
every exigency, was always at hand, and exercised an increasing
control.
STATE OF LEARNING.—The Latin language—the rustic Latin of the lower
classes—was spoken by the conquered peoples. Latin was the language
of the Church and of the Law. The consequence was, that the two
languages, the tongue of the conquerors and of the Roman subjects,
existed side by side in an unconscious struggle with one another. In
the west and south of Europe, the victory was on the side of the
Latin. The languages of these countries, the "Latin nations," grew out
of the rustic dialects spoken in Roman times. In these nations the
result of the mixture of the races was the final predominance of the
Latin element in the civilization. In Gaul, the Franks yielded to
Latin influences: France was the product. With the fall of the
empire, classical culture died out. The cathedral and cloister schools
preserved the records of literature. The study of language, and the
mental discrimination and refinement which spring from it and from
literary discipline, passed away. Centuries of comparative
illiteracy—dark centuries—followed. Yet the monks were often active
in their own rude style of composition; and among them were not only
good men, but men of eminent natural abilities, who were unconsciously
paving the way for a better time.
SAXON ENGLAND.—In England, by the Saxon conquest, a purely Teutonic
kingdom was built up. The Saxons were heathen, who had never
felt the civilizing influence of Rome. The traces of the earlier state
of things in the province which had long been sundered from the
empire, they swept away in the progress of their conquest.
CHAPTER III. THE EASTERN EMPIRE.
RELIGIOUS DISPUTES.—While the West was beginning to recover from the
shock of the barbarian invasions, society in the Eastern Empire was
growing more enervated and corrupt. For a considerable period the
Byzantine government was managed by the influence of women. Thus
Theodosius II., the successor of Arcadius (408-450), was
governed during his whole reign by his sister Pulcheria. In the
East, there was an intense interest felt in the abstruse questions of
metaphysical theology. The Greek mind was speculative; and eager and
often acrimonious debate on such questions as were raised by
Nestorius respecting the two natures of the Saviour, was heard
even in the shops and markets. The court meddled actively in these
heated controversies, and was swayed to one party or the other by the
theologians whom, for the time, it took into its favor. The emperors
assumed the high prerogative of personally deciding in doctrinal
disputes, and of dictating opinions to the clergy, who gradually lost
their independence, and became abjectly subservient to the imperial
will.
THE HIPPODROME.—The rage for doctrinal dispute in the sixth century
was only exceeded by the passions kindled in connection with the
circus, or hippodrome, at Constantinople. In old Rome the competitors
in the chariot-races were organized, the drivers wore their respective
badges,—red, white, blue, or green,—and emperors of the baser sort,
like Caligula and Caracalla, visited the stables, and
were enrolled on the lists of the rival factions. But in
Constantinople the factions of the blue and the green,
not content with the contest of the race-course, were violent
political parties in which courtiers and the emperor himself took
sides. The animosity of the blues and the greens broke
out in frequent bloody conflicts in the streets. Their respective
adherents spread into the provinces. On one occasion, under
Justinian, they raised a sedition called Nika (from the
watchword used by the combatants), which well-nigh subverted the
throne. In this period the body-guard of the emperor played a
part resembling that of the old praetorians at Rome.
JUSTINIAN.—A new dynasty began with Justin I., who succeeded
Anastasius in 518. A peasant from Dardania (Bulgaria),
who to the end of life was obliged to sign his name by means of an
engraved tablet, but, from being prefect of the Guard, became emperor,
Justin was still not without merit as a ruler. He educated his nephew,
Justinian I. (527-565), and made him his successor. Justinian
married Theodora, who had been a comedian and a courtesan, and
was famous for her beauty. She was the daughter of Acacius, who
had had the care of the wild beasts maintained by one of the factions
of the circus. She joined the blues, and it was her brave
spirit that prevented Justinian from taking flight when he was
in imminent danger from the revolt of the Nika. The most
important proceedings and decisions in affairs of state were
determined by her will. Outwardly correct in her life, and zealous for
orthodoxy, her vigor of mind and cleverness were not without service
to the government; but her vindictive passions had full
indulgence. Justinian's reign was the most brilliant period in the
Byzantine history after the time of Constantine. Under his despotic
rule the last vestiges of republican administration were
obliterated. His love of pomp and of extravagant expenditure, in
connection with his costly wars, subjected the people to a crushing
weight of taxation.
WAR WITH PERSIA.—The brilliant achievements in war during Justinian's
reign were owing to the skill and valor of his generals, especially of
the hero Belisarius. After a hundred years of amity with
Persia, war with that kingdom broke out once more under
Anastasius and Justin. Belisarius saved the
Asiatic provinces, and defended the empire on the east against
Cobad, and against his successor, Chosroes I. (531-579),
who was, perhaps, the greatest of the Persian kings of the
Sassanid dynasty. The "endless peace" made with him in 533
lasted but seven years. Chosroes captured Antioch in
540. The worst consequences of this success were again averted by
Belisarius, who was recalled from Italy in all haste. In the
treaty of 562, Justinian ingloriously agreed to pay for the
honor of being the protector of the Christians in Persia the annual
tribute of thirty thousand pieces of gold.
CONQUEST OF AFRICA—From a military point of view the conquests of
Justinian in Africa, in Italy, and in Spain, were the signal
events of his reign. Victory proved fatal to the barbarian conquerors
in those countries. They were weakened by the southern climate, by
sensual indulgence, and by strife among themselves. Justinian was
ready to profit by this diminished capacity of
resistance. Gelimer, king of the Vandals, had put to
death Hilderic, a kinsman of Theodosius I. The emperor
made this an occasion of attacking the Vandal kingdom, which was
distracted by religious differences and contention. Belisarius
sailed to Africa with a fleet of six hundred vessels, manned with
twenty thousand sailors and fifteen thousand troops. Three months
after landing he gained a decisive victory, and took possession of
Africa, Sardinia, and the Balearic Isles (534). He
carried Gelimer as a captive to Constantinople, and presented
him to Justinian and Theodora, seated side by side in
the hippodrome to receive the triumphal procession in honor of the
victor. The captive ruler could only exclaim, "Vanity, vanity! All is
vanity!"
CONQUEST OF ITALY.—Professedly to avenge the wrongs of
Amalasontha, the ambitious and intriguing daughter of
Theodoric, who had been killed as a consequence of the
disaffection of the Goths, Belisarius was sent to
Italy. Sicily was conquered (535), and Naples and
Rome were taken (536). Vitiges, the new king of the
Goths, united the forces of the nation; but he was driven to shut
himself up in Ravenna, and Ravenna surrendered (540). The Goths
had offered the sovereignty of the country to Belisarius. The
jealousy of Justinian, and war with Persia, led to the recall of
Belisarius before he could complete the work of conquest. The Goths
under Totila, a nephew of the late king, regained the greater
part of Italy. Belisarius (544-549) was sent for the second time to
conquer that country. He gained important successes, and recaptured
Rome; but he was feebly supported by the suspicious and envious ruler
at Constantinople, and was at length called home. Narses, a
eunuch, insignificant in person, but as crafty as he was brave, was
commissioned to accomplish what Belisarius had not been allowed to
effect. He entered Italy at the head of an army, made up mostly of
Huns, Heruli, and other barbarians, and defeated Totila, who
died of his wounds (552). The Ostrogothic kingdom fell. The Gothic
warriors who survived had leave to quit the country with their
property, they having taken an oath never to return. The Ostrogoths,
as a nation, vanish from history. The EXARCHATE, or vice-royalty of
the Eastern Empire, was established, with its seat at
Ravenna. In Spain, Justinian obtained Corduba,
Assidona, Segontia (554), in reward of the assistance which he had
rendered to Athanagild against a competitor for the
throne. Constantinople was saved by Belisarius from a
threatened attack of the Bulgarians, who had crossed the Danube
on the ice (559). This great general, whose form and stature and
benign manners attracted the admiration of the people, as his noble
but poorly requited services gave him a right to the gratitude of the
sovereign, was accused, in 563, of conspiracy against the life of
Justinian. His property was confiscated, but his innocence was finally
declared. The story that he was deprived of his eyes, and compelled to
beg his bread, is not credited. He died in 565. A few months later
Justinian himself died at the age of eighty-three. He has been
aptly compared, as to his personal character and the character of his
reign, to Louis XIV. of France. Among the many structures which he
reared was the temple of St. Sophia at Constantinople, and countless
fortresses for the defense of the capital, of the Danube, and of other
parts of the exposed frontier.
THE CIVIL LAW.—Justinian's principal distinction in history grows out
of his relation to legislation, and to the study of the law. He caused
a famous lawyer, Tribonian, with the aid of a body of jurists,
to make those collections of ancient law which are still in force in
many countries. The Code included the imperial constitutions
and edicts in twelve books (527, 528). This was followed (533) by the
Institutes, embracing the principles of Roman jurisprudence,
which was to be studied in the schools of Constantinople,
Berytus, and Rome; and the Digest, or
Pandects, comprising the most valuable passages from the
writings of the old jurists, that were deemed of authority. In this
last work three million lines were reduced to a hundred and fifty
thousand. Finally a fourth work, The Novels, embraced the laws
of Justinian after the publication of the code (534-565). These works,
taken together, form the Civil Law,—the Corpus Juris
Civilis. They are the legacy of Rome to later times. Humane
principles are incorporated into the civil law, but, likewise, the
despotic system of imperialism.
THE LOMBARDS IN ITALY.—In the great "Wandering of the Nations," the
German tribe of Lombards, or Langobards, had made their way
into Pannonia. To the east of them, in Dacia, there had
arisen the kingdom of the Gepidae, a people akin to the
Goths. In that region, also, were the Turanian Avars,
with whom the Lombards allied themselves, and overthrew the kingdom of
the Gepidæ. After the conquest of Italy, Narses had established
there the Byzantine system of rule and of grinding
taxation. Discontent was the natural result. The enemies of
Narses at Constantinople persuaded Justin II. and his
queen Sophia, who had great influence over him, that prudence
demanded the recall of the able, but avaricious and obnoxious,
governor. The queen was reported to have said, that "he should leave
to men the exercise of arms, and return to his proper station among
the women of the palace, where a distaff should be placed in the
eunuch's hand." "I will spin her such a thread," Narses is said to
have replied, "as she shall not unravel her life long." He forthwith
invited the Lombards into Italy, an invitation which they were
not both to accept. Alboin was their leader, who had married
the beautiful Rosamond, daughter of the Gepid king whom
he had slain. Narses repented of his rash proceeding, but he died
before he could organize a resistance to the invaders. These founded
the great Lombard kingdom in the north of Italy, and the smaller
Lombard states of Spoleto and Beneventum. Ravenna,—the
residence of the Exarchs,—Rome, Naples, and the island city of
Venice, were centers of districts still remaining subject to the Greek
emperor, as were also the southern points of the two peninsulas of
Southern Italy, and, for the time, the three main
islands. Alboin was killed in 574 at the instigation of
Rosamond, to whom, it was said, at a revel he had sent wine to
drink in the skull of Cunimund, her father. The Lombards were
not like the Goths. They formed no treaties, but seized on whatever
lands they wanted, reserving to themselves all political rights. The
new-comers were Arian in religion, and partly heathen. There
was little intermixture by marriage between the two classes of
inhabitants. Lombard and Roman was each governed by his
own system of law. Later, especially under the kings Liutprand,
Rachis, and Aistulf (749-756), this antagonism was much
lessened, and the Roman law gained a preponderating influence in the
Lombard codes. Gradually the power of the independent Lombard duchies
increased. The strength of the Lombard kingdom was thus reduced. The
Lombards more and more learned the arts of civilized life from the
Romans, and shared in the trading and industrial pursuits of the
cities. Their gradual conversion to Catholic Christianity brought the
two peoples still nearer together. It was within half a century of the
Lombard conquest that Gregory I. (Gregory the Great) held the
papal office (590-604).
AFTER JUSTINIAN.—During the century and a half that followed the
death of Justinian, the history of the Byzantine court and empire is
an almost unbroken tale of crime and degeneracy. The cruelty of such
emperors as Phocas (602-610) and Justinian II. surpasses
the brutality of Nero and Domitian. The reign of Heraclius is
the only refreshing passage in this dreary and repulsive record. He
led his armies in person in a series of campaigns against Chosroes
II., the Persian king. At the very time when Constantinople was
besieged in vain by a host of Persians and Avars, he conducted his
forces into the heart of the Persian Empire; and in a great battle
near Nineveh in 627, he won a decisive victory. With the reign
of Heraclius, the transient prosperity of the Greek Empire
comes to an end. It was exhausted, even by its victories. Overwhelmed
with taxation, it was ruined in its trade and industry. Despotism in
the rulers, sensuality and baseness in rulers and subjects, undermined
public and private virtue. In addition to other enemies on every side,
it was attacked by the Arabians; and Heraclius lived to
see the loss of Syria and of Egypt, and the capture of
Alexandria, by these new assailants.
CONTROVERSY ON IMAGE WORSHIP.—The period of theological debate, when
at its height in the fourth and fifth centuries, whatever
extravagances of doctrinal zeal attended it, dealt with themes of
grave importance; and controversy was often waged by men of high
ability and moral worth. After that time, there succeeded to the
tempest an intellectual stagnation, under the blighting breath of
despotism, coupled with the effect of a lassitude, the natural sequel
of the long-continued disputation. But, in the eighth and ninth
centuries, a new controversy took place, which convulsed the Eastern
Empire, and extended to the West. The matter in dispute was the use of
images in worship. Pictorial representations had been gradually
introduced in the earlier centuries, but had been opposed, especially
in Egypt and in the African Church. After the time of
Constantine, they came by degrees into universal use. This
formed a ground of reproach on the part of the Mohammedans. The
warfare upon images was begun by Leo III., the Isaurian
(717-741), a rough soldier with no appreciation of art, who issued an
edict against them. The party of "image-breakers," or
iconoclasts, had numerous adherents; and the opposite party of
"image-worshipers," who had a powerful support from the monks in the
convents, were ardent and inflexible in withstanding the imperial
measures. Neither the remonstrances of John of Damascus, the
last of the Greek Fathers, nor of the Roman bishop, made an impression
on Leo. The agitation spread far and wide. Subsequent emperors
followed in his path. At length, however, the Empress Irene
(780-802) restored image-worship; and, in 842, the Empress
Theodora finally confirmed this act. In the controversy,
religious motives were active, but they were mingled on both sides
with political considerations. The alienation of feeling on the part
of the Roman bishops was one cause of the separation of Italy from the
Greek Empire.
LITERATURE AND CULTURE.—While there was a prevalence of illiteracy in
the West, there continued in the Eastern Empire an interest in
letters, and a respect for classical literature. Devoted Greek monks
taught the Gospel to the Bulgarians and to the Slavonian tribes
on its borders. Cyril and Methodius, faithful
missionaries, gave the Bible to the Moravians in their own
tongue. In the seventh century, John of Damascus compiled from
the Greek Fathers a celebrated treatise on theology. But the period of
original thought in theology, as elsewhere, had passed by. This work
of the Damascene was made up chiefly of excerpts from the Fathers
before him. In earlier days the church in the East had been served by
erudite theologians of great talents and of great excellence, such as
Basil the Great (328-379), Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of
Nazianzum (326-390); all of whom were liberal-minded men,
strenuous defenders of orthodox doctrine, and yet not unfriendly to
philosophical study. Of even wider fame was John Chrysostom
(347-407), a preacher of captivating eloquence and of an earnest
Christian spirit, whose censure of the vices of the Byzantine court
provoked the wrath of the Empress Eudoxia, and twice drove him
into banishment. In the declining days of the empire, literary effort
was mainly confined to compilations and comments. Eusebius, in
the fourth century, had written a History of the Church, and a
Chronicle, or General History; and, a century later (about
432), Zosimus composed a History in a spirit of
antipathy to Christianity and of sympathy with the old religion. To
Procopius (who died about 565) we owe an interesting history of
the times of Justinian. After the seventh century, all traces
of life and spirit vanish from the pages of the Byzantine
historians. In mathematics and astronomy, in architecture and
mechanics, the Byzantine Greeks were the teachers of the Arabians and
of the new peoples of the West. The Byzantine style of architecture
was of a distinct type, and was widely diffused.
THE SLAVONIC TRIBES.—In the sixth century the Slavonian tribes
come into view. The Avars stirred up such a commotion among
those tribes as the Huns had created among the Germans. The
Slaves were driven to the northwest, where later they
came into relations with Germany; and to the southwest, where,
as conquerors and as learners, they stood, in some degree, in relation
to the Eastern Empire, in the same position as that of the Germans in
reference to the Western. North and East of the Adriatic arose
Slavonian States, as Servia, Croatia, Carinthia. Istria and
Dalmatia, except the cities on the coast, became Slavonic. The
Slaves displaced the old Illyrian race. In the seventh and
eighth centuries, Macedonia and Greece were largely
occupied by Slavonians. The Bulgarians were a Turanian people,
who mixed with the Slavonians, and adopted their language. In 895 the
Magyars, a Turanian people, crowded into Dacia and
Pannonia; and thus the Bulgarians were confined to the
lands south of the Danube. The Magyars formed the kingdom of
Hungary. The Slavonian Russians were cut off from the
Southern tribes of the same race.
CHAPTER IV. MOHAMMEDANISM AND THE ARABIC CONQUESTS.
CONDITION OF ARABIA.—In the sixth century the influence of the Greek
and of the Persian Empires, especially of the Persian, was prevalent
in Arabia. It was then inhabited mostly by tribes either distinct or
loosely bound together, and contained no independent state of any
considerable importance. The Arabs of that day had "all the virtues
and vices of the half-savage state, its revenge and its rapacity, its
hospitality and its bounty." In the Hejaz district—situated
between fertile and more civilized Yemen, or Arabia Felix, in
the south-west of the peninsula and the Sinaitic region,—and in
Nejd to the east of Hejaz, which were the two districts in
which Islam and the Arabian Empire took their rise, dwelt tribes whose
common sanctuary was the Kaaba at Mecca, in the wall of
which was the quadrangular black stone kissed by all devotees, and
supposed to have been received from the angel Gabriel. The religion of
the Arabs was polytheism in many different forms, in which
idol-worship was prominent; but all agreed in acknowledging one
supreme God, Allah, in whose name solemn oaths were taken. Once
in the year the tribes gathered in Mecca for their devotions; and a
great fair in the vicinity, attended by a poetical contest, made the
city prosperous. The town was made up of separate Septs, or
patriarchal families, each under its own head, of which septs the
Omayyads were of principal importance, and had charge of the
Kaaba. Mohammed belonged to the Hashimites,
another and poorer branch of the leading tribe of Koreish. The
Koreishites, by their trading-journeys to Syria, had acquired
more culture then others, whether Bedouins, or residents of
Medina. At the time when Mohammed was born, which was
probably in 572, the religion of the Arabs had sunk into idolatry or
indifference. There were three hundred and sixty images in the
Kaaba. But there were some who were called hanifs, who were
serious and earnest, and turned away from idolatrous worship. Besides
the Sabian religion of the Persian sun-worshipers, the leading
tenets and rites of Christianity and of Judaism, both in the
degenerate types which they assumed on the Syrian borders, were not
unfamiliar to Arabs dwelling in the caravan routes on the borders of
the Red Sea.
CAREER OF MOHAMMED.—Mohammed was early left an orphan under
the care of his uncle Abu Talib. In his youth he tended sheep,
and gathered wild berries in the desert. In his twenty-fifth year he
became the commercial agent of a wealthy widow, Khadija, made
journeys for her into Palestine and Syria,—where he may have received
religious knowledge and impressions from Christian monks and Jewish
rabbis,—and, after a time, married her. He is described as having a
commanding presence, with piercing eyes, fluent in speech, and with
pleasing ways. Eventually he came into close contact with the
hanifs. He followed the custom of retiring for meditation and
prayer to the lonely and desolate Mount Hira. A vivid sense of
the being of one Almighty God and of his own responsibility to God,
entered into his soul. A tendency to hysteria in the East a disease of
men as well as of women—and to epilepsy helps to account for
extraordinary states of body and mind of which he was the subject. At
first he ascribed his strange ecstasies, or hallucinations, to evil
spirits, especially on the occasion when an angel directed him to
begin the work of prophesying. But he was persuaded by Khadija
that their source was from above. He became convinced that he was a
prophet inspired with a holy truth and charged with a sacred
commission. His wife was his first convert. His faith he called
Islam, which signifies "resignation to the divine will." His
cousin Ali, his friend Abubekr, and a few others,
believed in him. There is no doubt that the materials of Mohammed's
creed were drawn from Jewish and Christian sources: Abraham was
the hanif, whose pure monotheism he claimed to re-assert; but
the animating spirit was from within. The sum of his doctrine was,
that there is only one God, and that Mohammed is the apostle of God.
AFTER THE HEGIRA.—The Koreishites, the rulers and the elders,
persecuted him. They flung out the reproach, that his adherents were
from the poor or from the rank of slaves. This provoked him to
denounce them, and to threaten them with the Divine judgment and with
perdition. He lost his uncle in 619: his wife had died before. He had
found sympathy with his claims from pious men from Medina. They
offered him an asylum. Thither he went in 622, the date of his
Hijira, or flight from Mecca, from which the Mohammedan
calendar is reckoned. At Medina he won influence: he was frequently
resorted to as an adviser, and as a judge to settle disputes. His
activity in this direction was beneficent. His injunctions respecting
the rights of property, and the protection due to women, were, in the
main, discreet and wholesome. Naturally and speedily he became a
political leader as well as a religious reformer. This new course on
which he entered made a breach between him and the Jews, whom
he had hoped to conciliate. He drew off from fellowship with them,
made Friday the principal day of public worship, and Mecca its
principal seat. For the Jewish fast he substituted the month of
Ramadan. His plan was to cement together the Arab tribes,
superseding the old tie of blood by the new bond of fellowship in
adherence to him. The project of a holy war to conquer and to crush
the idolaters, and to establish his own authority, was the means to
this end. Mecca was the first object of assault. He attacked
and plundered a Meccan caravan in 623. The next year he defeated the
Koreishites in the battle of Bedr. In the battle of
Ohod (625) his followers were worsted. Other conflicts ensued,
with attacks on the Jews in the intervals, until, in 630, he
entered Mecca at the head of ten thousand men, and destroyed
all the idols. This event secured the adhesion of the Arabian tribes,
together with the chiefs of Yemen and of the other more
civilized districts. Hearing that the Emperor Heraclius was
proposing to attack him, he went forth to meet him, but found that the
rumor was false. He was preparing a new expedition against the
Greeks when he died, in 632.
CHARACTER OF MOHAMMED.—From the time of the flight of Mohammed to
Medina, the prophet turned more and more into the politician. Under
the circumstances, this was, perhaps, an almost inevitable change. But
one consequence was the bringing out of his natural vindictiveness,
and the transformation of the enthusiast into the fanatic. Beginning
as the prophet of Arabia, he came to think that he was the prophet of
the whole world. There was a call to a wider warfare against
idolatry. A crusade, partly political and partly religious, involved a
mixture of craft and cruelty which exhibit his character in a new
light. Yet it is probable that he always sincerely felt that his work
in general was one to which he was called of God. Even the prosaic
regulations and "orders of the day," which are placed in the
Koran, if not the reproduction, in cataleptic visions, of his
previous thoughts, may have been regarded by him as having a divine
sanction. The extent of possible self-deception in so extraordinary a
combination of qualities, it is not easy to define. His conduct was,
for the most part, on a level with his precepts. There was one
exception; he allowed not more than four wives to a disciple: he
himself, at one time, had eleven. While Khadija lived he was
wedded to her alone.
THE KORAN.—The Koran is regarded as the word of God by a hundred
millions of disciples. It is very unequal in style. In parts it is
vigorous, and here and there imaginative, but generally its tone is
prosaic. Its narrative portions are chiefly about scriptural persons,
especially those of the Old Testament. Mohammed's acquaintance with
these must have been indirect, from rabbinical and apocryphal
sources. Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and
Christ are acknowledged as prophets. The deity of Christ and
the doctrine of the Trinity are repudiated. The miracles of Jesus are
acknowledged. Mohammed does not claim for himself miraculous
power. Predestination is taught, but this became a conspicuous tenet
of Moslems after the death of the founder. The immortality of the soul
is admitted, the pains of hell are threatened to the wicked and to
"infidels;" and a sensual paradise is promised to the faithful,
although it is declared that higher spiritual joys are the lot of the
most favored. The faith of Mohammed was, in substance, Judaism, the
religion of the Old Testament; power being set before holiness,
however, in the conception of God, and the supernatural mission of
Mohammed substituted for the future Messianic reign of
righteousness and peace, and coupled with the emphatic proclamation of
the last judgment. The law in the Koran is a civil as well as a moral
code. Notwithstanding his countenance of sensuality by his own
practice, as well as by his legalizing of polygamy, and his notion of
paradise, Mohammed elevated the condition of woman among the
Arabs. Before there was unbridled profligacy: now there was a
regulated polygamy. Severe prohibitions are uttered against thieving,
usury, fraud, false witness; and alms-giving is emphatically
enjoined. Strong drink and gambling were prohibited.
The gem of the Koran is "The Lord's Prayer of the Moslems:" "In the
name of God, the compassionate Compassioner, the Sovereign of the day
of judgment. Thee do we worship, and of Thee do we beg
assistance. Direct us in the right way; in the way of those to whom
Thou hast been gracious, in whom there is no wrath, and who go not
astray."
THE ARABIC CONQUESTS: SYRIA, PERSIA, EGYPT.—Mohammed made no
provision for the succession. The Caliphs, or "successors,"
combined in themselves civil, military and religious authority. They
united the functions of emperor and pope. Ali, the husband of
Fatima, Mohammed's favorite daughter, had hoped to succeed
him. But, by the older companions of the prophet, Abubekr,
Mohammed's father-in-law was appointed. The Shiites were
supporters of Ali, while the Sunnites, who adhered to "the
traditions of the elders," were against him. These two parties have
continued until the present day; the Persians being
Shiites, and the Turks, Sunnites. Mohammed, before he
died, was inflamed with the spirit of conquest. Full of the fire of
fanaticism, mingled with a thirst for dominion and plunder, the
Arabians rapidly extended their sway. These warriors, to their credit
be it said, if terrible in attack, were mild in victory. Their two
principal adversaries were the Eastern Empire and
Persia. Mohammedanism snatched from the empire those provinces
in which the Greek civilization had not taken deep root, and it made
its way into Europe. It conquered Persia, and became the
principal religion of those Asiatic nations with which history mainly
has to do. Mohammed had made a difference in his injunctions between
heathen, apostates, and schismatics, all of whom were to embrace Islam
or to perish, and Jews and Christians, to both of whom was given the
choice of the Koran, tribute, or death. They must buy the right to
exercise their religion, if they refused to say that "Allah is God,
and Mohammed is His prophet." Omar (634-644), the next caliph
after Abubekr, and a leader distinguished alike for his
military energy and his simplicity of manners and life, first brought
all Arabia, which was impelled as much by a craving for booty as by
religious zeal, into a cordial union under his banner. Then he carried
the war beyond the Arabian borders. Palestine and Syria
were wrested from the Greek Empire; the old cities of Jerusalem,
Antioch, and Damascus fell into the hands of the impetuous
Saracens. A mosque was erected on the site of Solomon's Temple. The
Persian Empire was invaded, and, after a series of sanguinary
battles, especially the battle of Cadesia (636), followed by
the battle of Nehavend (641), was destroyed. Ctesiphon,
with all its riches, was captured, and Persepolis was
sacked. The last king of the line of Sassanids, Yezdegerd
III., having lived for many years as a fugitive, perished by the
hand of an assassin (652). Meantime Egypt had submitted to the
irresistible invaders under Amr, who was aided by the Christian
sect of the Copts, out of hostility to the Greek Orthodox
Church. After a siege of fourteen months, Alexandria was taken;
but it is probably not true that the library was burned by
Omar's order. In the disorders of the times, the great
collections of books had probably, for the most part, been dispersed
and destroyed. Six friends of Mohammed, selected by Omar, chose
Othman (644-656) for his successor, who stirred up enmity by
his pride and avarice. Under him the Christian Berbers in
Africa were won over to the faith of Islam, and paved the way for its
further advance.
THE OMAYYADS: CONQUEST OF AFRICA AND SPAIN.—Othman was
assassinated by three fanatics, and Ali was then raised to the
caliphate; but Muawiyah, representing the family of the
Omayyads, made himself the head of an opposing party, and,
after the assassination of Ali, became sole caliph (661). He
removed the seat of the caliphate to Damascus. He carried the
Arabian conquests as far as the Indus and Bokhara. He
created a fleet on the Mediterranean, under an "Admiral," that is, a
commander on the sea. In seven successive years he menaced
Constantinople with his navy. At a later time, in 717, under the
caliph Soliman, another great attempt was made on the capital
of the Greek Empire. With an army of a hundred and twenty thousand
men, he traversed Asia Minor and the Hellespont, and was supported in
his attack by a fleet of eighteen hundred sail. But the energetic
defense, which was aided by the use of "the Greek fire,"—an
artificial compound which exploded and burned with an unquenchable
flame,—caused the grand expedition to fail; and the Eastern Empire
had another long lease of life. The successors of Muawiyah
accomplished the subjugation of Africa. They were invited by the
native inhabitants, who groaned under the burdens of taxation laid on
them by the Greek emperors. About A.D. 700 the Arab governor,
Musa, completed the conquest of the African dominion of the
Greeks as far as the Atlantic. The amalgamation of the Berbers
with the other inhabitants of that region, and with the Arabs,
resulted in the race called Moors. At this time the Spanish
Visigothic kingdom, which had become Catholic (586-601), was much
enfeebled, and a prey to discord. Under Tarik—from whom
Gibraltar, or the mountain of Tarik near which he
landed, is named—the Arabs crossed into Spain, and for the first time
found themselves face to face with the barbarians of the North. In the
great battle of Xeres de la Frontera, near the
Guadalquivir, in 711, which lasted for three days, the fate of
the Visigothic kingdom was decided. Eight years were occupied in
conquering Spain. In 720 the Saracens occupied Septimania north
of the Pyrenees, a dependency of the Gothic kingdom. Gaul now lay open
before them. The Mohammedan power threatened to encircle Christendom,
and to destroy the Church and Christianity itself. In the plains
between Tours and Poitiers, the Saracens were met by the
Austrasian Franks under Charles Martel (732). The impetuous
charges of the Saracen cavalry were met and beaten back by the
infantry of the Franks, which confronted them like an iron
wall. The Mohammedan defeat saved Christian Europe from being trampled
under foot by the Mussulman; it saved the Christian people of the
Aryan nations from being subjugated by the Semitic
disciples of the Koran. At the same time that Spain was overrun, the
Turkish lands on the east of the Caspian were subdued. The old
antipathy between the Iranians and Turanians, the Schiite Persians and
the Sunnite Turks, was afterwards carried into Europe by the Ottoman
Moslems.
THE ABBASSIDES: BAGDAD.—Misgovernment embittered the faithful against
the rule of the Omayyads in Damascus, although Syria had
become a source of higher culture for the Arabians: there they became
acquainted with Greek learning. The adherents of Ali found
vigorous champions in the Abbassides, who, as
Hashimites, laid claim to the caliphate. One of them, Abul
Abbas, was made caliph by the soldiers in 750. The fierce cruelty
of his party against the Omayyads led to the murder of all of
them except Abderrahman, who fled to Africa, and, in 755,
founded an independent caliphate at Cordova. The
Abbassides attached themselves to the Sunnite
creed. Under Almansor, the brother and successor of Abbas,
Bagdad, a city founded by Almansor (754-775) on the banks
of the Tigris, was made the seat of the caliphate, and so continued
until the great Mongolian invasion in 1258. Bagdad was built on the
west bank of the Tigris, but, by means of bridges, stretched over to
the other shore. It was protected by strong, double walls. It was not
only the proud capital of the caliphate: it was, besides, the great
market for the trade of the East, the meeting-place of many nations,
where caravans from China and Thibet, from India, and from Ferghana in
the modern Turkestan, met throngs of merchants from Armenia and
Constantinople, from Egypt and Arabia. There trading-fleets gathered
which carried the products of the North and West down the great rivers
to the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Bagdad was to the
caliphs what Byzantium was to Constantine, or Alexandria
to the Ptolemies. It became the grandest city in the world. Canals to
the number of six hundred ran through it, and a hundred and five
bridges bound its two parts together. It was furnished with many
thousand mosques and as many baths. The palace of the caliphs
comprised in itself all the splendor which Asiatic taste and
extravagance could collect and combine in one edifice.
THE EASTERN CALIPHATE.—Deprived of the western extremity of their
empire, the Abbassides still ruled over Asia and
Africa. In their luxurious and splendid court, the caliphs,
served by a vast retinue of officers with the Vizier at their
head, copied the magnificence of the ancient Persians. The most famous
of the caliphs of Bagdad is Harun-al-Rashid, or "Aaron the
Just" (786-809). His name is familiar even to children as the
wonderful hero of the "Arabian Nights." His reign, like that of
Solomon in ancient Judæa, was considered in after times the
golden age of the caliph dominion. As in the case of
Charlemagne, poetry and romance invested his character and
reign with all that can give glory and honor to a king and a
sage. Brilliant pictures were drawn of the boundless wealth and luxury
of his court, and of his admirable piety and wisdom. About him there
was assembled a host of jurists, linguists, and poets. Three hundred
scholars traveled at his expense through different lands. Righteous
judgments were ascribed to him, and oracular sayings. He was made the
ideal ruler of Oriental fancy. His real character fell much below the
later popular conception. He behaved like an Eastern despot towards
all his kindred who stood in his way. The Persian family of
Barmecides he exterminated, when his passionate attachment to
one of them turned to hatred on account of an obscure affair connected
with the harem. Stories told by Western chroniclers of his relations
with Charlemagne require to be sifted. The Greek emperor
Nicephorus, who had rashly defied him, he addressed as the
"Roman dog." Nine times Harun invaded the Greek Empire, left
its provinces wasted as by a hurricane, and extorted from it a tribute
which he obliged the emperors, who repented of their daring, to pay in
coin stamped with his image. His best distinction is in the liberal
patronage which he, no doubt, extended to learning. In this he was
imitated by his son Al Mamun (813-833), who founded numerous
schools, and expended vast sums in behalf of science and letters. The
caliphate was weakened by the introduction of the Turks,
somewhat as the Roman Empire fared from its relations with the
Germans. Motasem (833-842), the eighth of the Abbassides,
brought in a Turkish guard of forty thousand slaves, purchased in
Tartary. These soldiers, instead of remaining servants, became
lawless masters, and disposed of the throne as the prætorians at Rome
had done. The palace of the caliphs was filled with
violence. Revolution and anarchy, kept up during two centuries, broke
the caliphate into fragments. Conspiracies and insurrections were the
order of the day. Africa had detached itself in the time of
Harun-al-Rashid. In Asia various independent dynasties
arose, formed mostly by Turkish governors of provinces.
THE TURKISH EMIRS.—In the eleventh century, the Seljukian
Turks despoiled the Arabs of their sovereignty in the East. The
caliph at Bagdad gave up all his temporal power to Togrul
Bey (1058), and retained simply the spiritual headship over
orthodox Mussulmans. To the Turk who bore the title Emir al
Omra, was given the military command. He was what the Mayor of the
Palace had been among the Franks. In 1072 his son, Malek Shah,
made Ispahan his capital, and governed Asia from China to the
vicinity of Constantinople.
THE FATIMITE CALIPHATE.—In the ninth and tenth centuries the
Aglabites (800-909), whose capital was Cairoan (in
Tunis), were dominant in the Western Mediterranean, established
themselves, in their marauding expeditions, in Corsica,
Sardinia, and Sicily, and several times attacked Italy. In
909 they, with the Edrisites, adherents of Ali, in
Fez, formed, under a Fatimite chief, Moez, with Egypt,
the African Caliphate, the seat of which was at Cairo
(968). The Fatimite caliphs extended their power over Syria. The most
famous of the caliphs of Cairo was Hakem (996-1020), a
monster of cruelty, who claimed to be the incarnation of Deity. These
caliphs claimed to be the descendants of Ali and of
Fatima. Their dynasty was extinguished by Saladin in
1171.
THE CALIPHS OF CORDOVA.—In Spain the caliphs of Cordova
allowed to the Christians freedom of worship and their own laws and
judges. The mingling of the conquerors with the conquered gave rise to
a mixed Mozarabic population. The Franks conquered the
country as far as the Ebro (812). Under Mohammed
I. (852), the Saracen governors of the provinces sought to make
themselves independent; but the most brilliant period of the caliphate
of Cordova followed, under Abderrahman III. (912-961). In the
eleventh century there was anarchy, produced by the African guard of
the caliphs, which played a part like that of the Turkish guard at
Bagdad, and by reason of the rebellion of the governors. In
1031 the last descendant of the Omayyads was deposed, and in
1060 the very title of caliph vanished. The caliphate gave place to
numerous petty Moslem kingdoms. The African Mussulmans came to their
help, and thus gave the name of Moors to the Spanish
Mohammedans. Their language and culture, however, remained Arabic. The
Arabian conquests had moved like a deluge to the Indus, to the
borders of Asia Minor, and to the Pyrenees. In Syria
they were not generally resisted by the people. Egypt, for the same
reason, was an easy conquest. It took the Moslems sixty years to
conquer Africa. In three years nearly all Spain was theirs; and
it was not until seven hundred years after this time that they were
utterly driven out of that country.
THE MOSLEM GOVERNMENT—The Moslem civilization rested on the
Koran. Grammar, lexicography, theology, and law stood connected at
first with the study and understanding of the Sacred Book. The
Caliph was the fountain of authority. There was a fixed system
of taxation, the poll-tax and land-tax being imposed only on
non-Moslem subjects. All Moslems received a yearly pension, a definite
sum determined by their rank. The empire was divided into provinces,
each governed by a Prefect, who was a petty sovereign, subject
only to the Caliph. The Generals were appointed by the
caliph, by the prefects, or by the Vizier, who was the prime
minister. The Judges (cadis) were appointed by the same
officers. There was a court of appeal over which the caliph
presided. There were inspectors of the markets, who were also censors
of morals. The Imam had for his function to recite the public
prayers in the mosque. The leader of the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca
was an officer of the highest dignity.
THEOLOGY: LAW: LITERATURE.—The Mohammedans entered into discussions
of theology, which gave rise to differences, and to schools and
sects. The nature of the Deity, predestination, the future life, were
subjects of profound and subtle inquiry. More than once, pantheistic
doctrine was broached by speculative minds, such as Avicenna
and Averrhoes. In Persia, Súfism, a form of mysticism,
made great progress. It extolled the unselfish love of God, and a
contemplative and ascetic life. Law was studied; and on the
basis of the Koran, and of reasonings upon it, systems of
jurisprudence were created. Science and Literature kept
pace with legal studies. Poetry flourished through the whole
period of the Eastern caliphate. There were, also, Persian poets who
hold an important place in the history of literature, of whom
Firdousi (about 940 to 1020) and Saadi (who died in
1291) are the most eminent. Under the Abbassides in Syria,
through Christian scholars and by translations, the Arabians became
acquainted with the Greek authors. They cultivated geography. The
Moslems were students of astronomy, and carried the study of
mathematics, which they learned from the Greeks and Hindus, very
far. But they apparently felt no interest in the poets, orators, and
historians of antiquity. In the study of Aristotle, and in
metaphysical philosophy, they were proficients. Medicine, also, they
cultivated with success. They delved in Alchemy in the search
for the transmutation of metals.
COMMERCE AND THE ARTS.—The Moslems engaged actively in commerce. They
acquired much skill in various branches of mechanical art. The weapons
of Damascus and of Toledo, the silks of Granada,
the saddles of Cordova, the muslins, silks, and carpets of the
Moslem dominions in the East, were highly prized in Christian
countries. They manufactured paper. Forbidden to represent the human
form in painting and sculpture, their distinction in the fine arts is
confined to architecture. Peculiar to them is the Arabesque
ornamentation found in their edifices: the idea of the arch was
borrowed from the Byzantine style. One of their most famous monuments
is the mosque at Cordova. The ruins of the Alhambra, in
Spain, a palace and a fortress, illustrate the richness and elegance
of the Saracenic style of building.
THE ARABIAN MIND.—Neither in architecture, nor in any other
department, were the Arabs in a marked degree original. They invented
nothing. They were quick to learn, and to assimilate what they
learned. They were apt interpreters and critics, but they produced no
works marked by creative genius. Many of the scholars at the court of
the caliphs were Christians and Jews. Yet Bagdad, Samarcand, Cairo,
Grenada, Cordova, were centers of intellectual activity and of
learning when the nations of Western Europe had not escaped from the
barbarism resulting from the Teutonic invasions.
LITERATURE.—Lives of Mohammed by MUIR, SPRENGER (German), Irving:
Encycl. Brit., Art. Mohammedanism; Kuenen, National
Religions and Universal Religions; Nöldeke,
Gesch. d. Quorans (1860); Muir, The Corân (1878);
R. B. Smith, Mohammed and Mohammedanism (1875); Stobart,
Islam and its Founder; Ockley, History of the Saracens
(sixth edition, 1857); FREEMAN, History and Conquests of the
Saracens (1870).
THE CARLOVINGIAN HOUSE
PIPIN of Heristal, d. 714.
|
+—Charles Martel, d. 741.
|
+—PIPIN the Short, king 752-768.
|
+—CHARLEMANGE, 768-814 (emperor 800).
| |
| +—Pipin, King of Italy, d. 810.
| | |
| | +—BERNARD, d. 818.
| |
| +—Charles, King of Franconia.
| |
| +—LOUIS the Pious, 814-840.
| |
| | LOTHARINGIA
| |
| +—LOTHAR I, 843-855.
| | |
| | +—LOUIS II, 855-875
| | | |
| | | +—Hermingarde, m.
| | | BOSO I, King of Provence, 879-887
| | | |
| | | +—LOUIS, 887-905 (emperor 901) m. Eadgifu,
| | | daughter of Edward the Elder
| | |
| | +—Lothar II, d. 869.
| | |
| | +—Charles, d. 863
| |
| | GERMANY
| |
| +—LOUIS the German, 843-876.
| | |
| | +—CARLOMAN, d. 880.
| | | |
| | | +—ARNULF, King of Germany, 887-899 (emperor 896).
| | | |
| | | +—LOUIS the Child, 900-911.
| | |
| | +—LOUIS the Younger. d 880.
| | |
| | +—CHARLES the Fat (emperor 881-887), d. 888.
| |
| | FRANCE
| |
| +—CHARLES the Bald, 843-877 (emperor 875).
| |
| +—LOUIS II, 877-879.
| |
| +—LOUIS III, 879-882
| |
| +—Carloman, 879-884
| |
| +—CHARLES the Simple, m. Eadgifu,
| daughter of Edward the Elder
| |
| +—LOUIS IV (D'Outremer), 936-954.
| |
| +—Matilda, m. CONRAD the Peaceful.
| | |
| | +—RUDOLPH III, 993-1032
| |
| +—LOTHAR, 954-986.
| | |
| | +—LOUIS V, 986-987.
| |
| +—Charles, Duke of Lower Lorraine, d. 994.
|
+—Carloman, 768-771.
RIVAL KINGS OF FRANCE NOT OF THE CARLOVINGIAN LINE.
Robert the Strong, d. 866.
|
+—EUDES, king 887-893.
|
+—ROBERT, king 922-923.
|
+—Emma, m. RUDOLPH of Burgundy; king 923-926.
|
+—Hugh the Great (father of Hugh Capet).
PERIOD II. FROM THE CARLOVINGIAN LINE OF FRANK KINGS TO THE
ROMANO-GERMANIC EMPIRE. (A.D. 751-962.)
CHAPTER I. THE CARLOVINGIAN EMPIRE TO THE DEATH OF CHARLEMAGNE
(A.D. 814).
PIPIN THE SHORT.—The great event of the eighth century was the
organization and spread of the dominion of the Franks, and the
transfer to them of the Roman Empire of the West. Three Frank
princes—Charles Martel, Pipin the Short, and
Charlemagne, or Karl the Great—were the main
instruments in bringing in this new epoch in European history. They
followed a similar course, as regards the wars which they undertook,
and their general policy. Charles Martel, the conqueror of the
Saracens at Poitiers, rendered great services to the Church;
but he provoked the lasting displeasure of the ecclesiastics by his
seizures of church property. He rewarded his soldiers with
archbishoprics. Pipin, however, was earnestly supported by the
clergy. He had the confidence and favor of the Franks, and in 751,
with the concurrence of Pope Zacharias, deposed Childeric
III., and assumed the title of king. The long hair of
Childeric, the badge of the Frank kings, was shorn, and he was
placed in a monastery. In 752 Pipin was anointed and crowned at
Soissons by Boniface, the bishop of Mentz, who
exerted himself to restore order and discipline in the Frank Church,
which had fallen into disorder in the times of Charles Martel.
PIPIN IN ITALY.—The controversy with the Greeks about the use of
images had alienated the popes from the Eastern Empire. The
encroachments of the Lombards threatened Rome itself, and were a
constant menace to the independence of its bishops. Pope Stephen
III. resorted to Pipin for help against these aggressive
neighbors; and, in 754, Stephen solemnly repeated, in the
cathedral of St. Denis, the ceremony of his coronation. The
Carlovingian usurpation was thus hallowed in the eyes of the people by
the sanction of the Church. The alliance between the Papacy and the
Franks, so essential to both, was cemented. Pipin crossed the Alps in
754, and humbled Aistulf, the Lombard king; but, as Aistulf
still kept up his hostility to the Pope, Pipin once more led his
forces into Italy, and compelled him to become tributary to the Frank
kingdom, and to cede to him the territory which he had won from the
Greek Empire,—the exarchate of Ravenna and the
Pentapolis, or the lands and cities between the Apennines and
the Adriatic, from Ferrara to Ancona. This territory the
Frank king formally presented to St. Peter. Thus there was founded the
temporal kingdom of the popes in Italy. Pipin was called
Patricius of Rome, which made him its virtual sovereign,
although the office and title implied the continued supremacy of the
Eastern Empire. He united under him all the conquests which had been
made by Clovis and his successors. His sway extended over
Aquitaine and as far as the Pyrenees. It was the rule of the
Teutonic North over the more Latin South, which had no
liking for the Frank sovereignty.
CHARLEMAGNE: THE SAXONS AND SARACENS.—Pipin died in 768. By
the death of his younger son, Carloman, his older son, Charles,
in 771 became the sole king of the Franks. Charlemagne is more
properly designated Karl the Great, for he was a German in
blood and speech, and in all his ways. He stands in the foremost rank
of conquerors and rulers. His prodigious energy and activity as a
warrior may be judged by the number of his campaigns, in which he was
uniformly successful. The eastern frontier of his dominions was
threatened by the Saxons, the Danes, the Slaves,
the Bavarians, the Avars. He made eighteen expeditions
against the Saxons, three against the Danes, one against the
Bavarians, four against the Slaves, four against the Avars. Adding to
these his campaigns against the Saracens, Lombards, and other peoples,
the number of his military expeditions is not less than
fifty-three. In all but two of his marches against the Saxons,
however, he accomplished his purpose without a battle. That he was
ambitious of conquest and of fame, is evident. That he had the rough
ways of his German ancestors, and was unsparing in war, is equally
certain. Yet he was not less eminent in wisdom than in vigor; and his
reign, on the whole, was righteous as well as glorious. The two most
formidable enemies of Charlemagne were the Saxons and the
Saracens. The Saxon war "was checkered by grave disasters, and
pursued with undismayed and unrelenting determination, in which he
spared neither himself nor others. It lasted continuously—with its
stubborn and ever-recurring resistance, its cruel devastations, its
winter campaigns, its merciless acts of vengeance—as the effort which
called forth all Charles's energy for thirty-two years" (772-804). The
Saxons were heathen. The conquest of them was the more difficult
because it involved the forced introduction of Christianity in the
room of their old religion. More than once, when they seemed to be
subdued, they broke out in passionate and united revolt. Their
fiercest leader in insurrection was Witikind. A last and
terrible uprising, in consequence of the slaughter of forty-five
hundred Saxons on the Aller as a punishment for breach of
treaty, was put down in 785, when Witikind submitted, and
consented to receive Christian baptism. During the progress of the
Saxon war, at the call of the Arab governor of Saragossa for
aid against the caliph Abderrahman, Charles marched into Spain,
and conquered Saragossa and the whole land as far as the
Ebro. On his return, in the valley of Ronceveaux, the
Frank rear guard was surprised and destroyed by the
Basques. There fell the Frank hero Roland, whose gallant
deeds were a favorite subject of mediæval romances. The duchy of
Bavaria was abolished after a second revolt of its duke,
Tassilo (788). One of the most brilliant of Charlemagne's wars
was that against the Hunnic Avars (791). Their land between the
Ems and Raab he annexed to his empire. Bavarian
colonists were planted in it. Enormous treasures which they had
gathered, in their incursions, from all Europe, were captured, with
their "Ring," or palace-camp. The Slavonic tribes were kept in
awe. Brittany was subjugated in 811. In the closing years of
Charles's reign, the Danes became more and more aggressive and
formidable. He visited the northern coasts, made Boulogne and
Ghent his harbors and arsenals, and built fleets for defense
against the audacious invaders.
CHARLEMAGNE IN ITALY.—Some of the most memorable incidents in
Charlemagne's career are connected with Italy. While he was busy in
the Saxon war, he had been summoned to protect Pope Hadrian
I. (772-795) from the attack of the Lombards. To please his
mother, Charles had married, but he had afterwards divorced,
the daughter of the Lombard king Desiderius. She was the first
in the series of Charlemagne's wives, who, it is said, were nine in
number. By the divorce he incurred the resentment of Desiderius, who
required the Pope to anoint the sons of Carloman as kings of
the Franks. In 772 Charlemagne crossed the Alps by the Mont Cenis and
the St. Bernard, captured Pavia, and shut up Desiderius in a
Frank monastery. The king of the Franks became king of the
Lombards, and lord of all Italy, except the Venetian
Islands and the southern extremity of Calabria, which
remained subject to the Greeks. The German king and the Pope were now,
in point of fact, dominant in the West. A woman, Irene, who had
put out the eyes of her son that she herself might reign, sat on the
throne at Constantinople. This was a fair pretext for throwing off the
Byzantine rule, which afforded no protection to Italians. Once more
Charles visited Italy, to restore to the papal chair Leo
III., who had been expelled by an adverse party, and, at Charles's
camp at Paderborn, had implored his assistance. On Christmas
Day in the year 800, during the celebration of mass in the old
Basilica of St. Peter, Leo III. advanced to Charlemagne,
and placed a crown on his head, saluting him, amid the acclamations of
the people, as Roman emperor.
MEANING OF CHARLES'S CORONATION.—The coronation of Charlemagne made
him the successor of Augustus and of Constantine. It was not imagined
that the empire had ever ceased to be. The Byzantine emperors had been
acknowledged in form as the rulers of the West: not even now was it
conceived that the empire was divided. In the imagination and feeling
of men, the creation of the Caesars remained an indivisible unity. The
new emperor in the West could therefore only be regarded as a rival
and usurper by the Byzantine rulers; but Charlemagne professed a
friendly feeling, and addressed them as his brothers,—as if they and
he were exercising a joint sovereignty. In point of fact, there had
come to be a new center of wide-spread dominion in Western Europe. The
diversity in beliefs and rites between Roman Christianity and that of
the Greeks had been growing. The popes and Charlemagne were united by
mutual sympathy and common interests. The assumption by him of the
imperial title at their instance, and by the call of the Roman people,
was the natural issue of all the circumstances.
CHARLES'S SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT.—Charlemagne showed himself a
statesman bent on organization and social improvement. There was a
system of local officers. The border districts of the kingdom were
made into Marks, under Margraves or Marquesses,
for defense against the outlying tribes. One of them, to the east of
Bavaria, was afterwards called Austria. Dukes governed
provinces, some of which afterwards became kingdoms. Their power the
emperor tried to reduce. The empire was divided into districts, in
each of which a Count (Graf) ruled, with inferior
officers, either territorial or in cities. Bishops had large
domains, and great privileges and immunities. The officers held their
places at the king's pleasure: they became possessed of landed
estates, and the tendency was, for the offices to become hereditary.
The old German word Graf is of uncertain derivation, but means
the same as count (from the Latin comes). Mark is
a word found in all the Teutonic languages. From the signification of
boundary, it came to be applied, like its synonym march,
to a frontier district. A margrave (Mark-Graf) was a
mark-count, or an officer ruling for the king in such a
district. A viscount (vicecomes) was an officer
subordinate to a count. Pfalz, meaning originally
palace (from the Latin palatium), was the term for any
one of the king's estates. The palsgrave (Pfalz-Graf)
was first his representative in charge of one of these domains. The
stallgrave (Stall-Graf) corresponded to the
constable (comes stabuli) in English and French. It
signifies the officer in charge of the king's stables, the
groom. He had a military command. A later designation of the same
office is marshal (from two old German words, one of which
means a horse, as seen in our word mare, having the same
etymology, and the other means a servant).
Imperial deputies, or missi, lay and ecclesiastical together,
visited all parts of the kingdom to examine and report as to their
condition, to hold courts, and to redress wrongs. There were appeals
from them to the imperial tribunal, over which the Palsgrave
presided. Twice in the year great Assemblies were held of the
chiefs and people, to give advice as to the framing of laws. The
enactments of these assemblies are collected in the
Capitularies of the Frank kings. In the Church, Charlemagne
tried to secure order, which had sadly fallen away, and had given
place to confusion and worldliness. He himself exercised high
ecclesiastical prerogatives, especially after he became emperor.
LEARNING AND CULTURE.—One of the chief distinctions of Charlemagne is
the encouragement which he gave to learning. In his own palace at
Aachen (Aix), he collected scholars from different
quarters. Of these the most eminent is Alcuin, from the school
of York in England. He was familiar with many of the Latin writers,
and while at the head of the school in the palace, and later, when
abbot of St. Martin in Tours, exerted a strong influence in
promoting study. Charlemagne himself spoke Latin with facility,
but not until late in life did he try to learn to write. It was his
custom to be read to while he sat at meals. Augustine's City of
God was one of the books of which he was fond. In the great sees
and monasteries, schools were founded, the benefits of which were very
soon felt.
CHARLES'S PERSONAL TRAITS.—Charlemagne was seven feet in height, and
of noble presence. His eyes were large and animated, and his voice
clear, but not so strong as his frame would have led one to
expect. His bearing was manly and dignified. He was exceedingly fond
of riding, hunting, and of swimming. Eginhard, his friend and
biographer, says of him, "In all his undertakings and enterprises,
there was nothing he shrank from because of the toil, and nothing that
he feared because of the danger." He died, at the age of seventy, on
Jan. 28, 814. He had built at Aix la Chapelle a stately church,
the columns and marbles of which were brought from Ravenna and
Rome. Beneath its floor, under the dome, was his tomb. There he was
placed in a sitting posture, in his royal robes, with the crown on his
head, and his horn, sword, and book of the Gospels on his knee. In
this posture his majestic figure was found when his tomb was opened by
Otto III., near the end of the tenth century. The marble chair
in which the dead monarch sat is still in the cathedral at Aix:
the other relics are at Vienna. The splendor of Charlemagne's
reign made it a favorite theme of romance among the poets of Italy: a
mass of poetic legends gathered about it.
EXTENT OF THE EMPIRE.—Charlemagne's empire comprised all Gaul, and
Spain to the Ebro, all that was then Germany, and the greater part of
Italy. Slavonic nations along the Elbe were his allies. Pannonia,
Dacia, Istria, Liburnia, Dalmatia,—except the sea-coast towns, which
were held by the Greeks,—were subject to him. He had numerous other
allies and friends. Even Harunal-Rashid, the famous Caliph of
Bagdad, held him in high honor. Among the most valued presents which
were said to have come from the Caliph were an elephant, and a curious
water-clock, which was so made, that, at the end of the hours, twelve
horsemen came out of twelve windows, and closed up twelve other
windows. This gift filled the inmates of the palace at Aix with
wonder.
CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE.—The number of free Franks diminished under
Charlemagne. They were thinned out in the wars, or sunk into
vassalage. The warnings and rebukes in the Capitularies, or body of
laws, show that the upper clergy were often sensual and greedy of
gain. The bishops would often lead in person their contingent of
troops, until they were forbidden to do so by law. Nine-tenths of the
population of Gaul were slaves. Charlemagne made Alcuin the
present of an estate on which there were twenty thousand
slaves. Especially in times of scarcity, as in 805 and 806, their lot
was a miserable one. At such times, they fled in crowds to the
monasteries. The social state was that of feudalism "in all but the
development of that independence in the greater lords, which was
delayed by the strength of Karl, but fostered, at the same time, by
his wars and his policy towards the higher clergy."
CONVERSION OF GERMANY: BONIFACE.—The most active missionaries in the
seventh and eighth centuries were, from the British islands. At first
they were from Ireland and Scotland. Columban, who died in 615,
and his pupil Gallus, labored, not without success, among the
Alemanni. Gallus established himself as a hermit near Lake
Constance. He founded the Abbey of St. Gall. The Saxon
missionaries from England were still more effective. The most eminent
of these was Winfrid, who received from Rome the name of
Bonifacius (680-755). He converted the Hessians, and
founded monasteries, among them the great monastery of
Fulda. There his disciple, Sturm, "through a long series
of years, directed the energies of four thousand monks, by whose
unsparing labors the wilderness was gradually reclaimed, and brought
into a state of cultivation." Boniface had proved the impotence
of the heathen gods by felling with the axe an aged oak at
Geismar, which was held sacred by their worshipers. Among the
Thuringians, Bavarians, and other tribes, he extirpated
paganism by peaceful means. He organized the German Church under the
guidance of the popes, and, in 743, was made archbishop of
Meniz, and primate. But his Christian ardor moved him to carry
the gospel in person to the savage Frisians, by whom he was
slain. He thus crowned his long career with martyrdom.
CONVERSION OF THE SCANDINAVIANS.—The apostle of the Scandinavians was
Ansgar (801-865). The archbishopric of Hamburg was
founded for him by Louis the Pious, with the papal consent;
but, as Hamburg was soon plundered by pirates, he became bishop of
Bremen (849). In that region he preached with success. Two
visits he made to Sweden, the first with little permanent
result; but, at the second visit (855), the new faith was tolerated,
and took root. The triumph of the religion of the cross, which
Ansgar had planted in Denmark, was secured there when
Canute became king of England. The first Christian king in
Sweden was Olaf Schooskonig (1008). In Norway,
Christianity was much resisted; but when Olaf the Thick, who
was a devoted adherent of the Christian faith, had perished in battle
(1033), his people, who held him in honor, fell in with the church
arrangements which he had ordained; and he became St. Olaf, the
patron saint of Norway.
THE BENEDICTINES.—Benedict, born at Nursia, in
Umbria, in 480, the founder of the monastery of Monte
Cassino, north-west of Naples, was the most influential agent in
organizing monasticism in Western Europe. He was too wise to adopt the
extreme asceticism that had often prevailed in the East, and his
judicious regulations combined manual labor with study and devotion.
They not only came to be the law for the multitude of monasteries of
his own order, but also served as the general pattern, on the basis of
which numerous other orders in later times were constituted. His
societies of monks were at first made up of laics, but afterwards of
priests. The three vows of the monk were chastity, including
abstinence from marriage; poverty, or the renunciation of
personal possessions; and obedience to superiors. The
Benedictine cloisters long continued to be asylums for the distressed,
schools of education for the clergy, and teachers of agriculture and
the useful arts to the people in the regions where they were
planted. Their abbots rose to great dignity and influence, and stood
on a level with the highest ecclesiastics.
CHAPTER II. DISSOLUTION OP CHARLEMAGNE'S EMPIRE: RISE OF THE KINGDOMS
OF FRANCE, GERMANY, AND ITALY.
DIVISIONS IN THE EMPIRE.—The influence of Charlemagne was
permanent; not so his empire. It had one religion and one government,
but it was discordant in language and in laws. The Gallo-Romans and
the Italians spoke the Romance language, with variations of
dialect. The Germans used the Teutonic tongue. Charlemagne left to the
Lombards, to the Saxons, and to other peoples, their own special
laws. The great bond of unity had been the force of his own character
and the vigor of his administration. His death was, therefore, the
signal for confusion and division. The tendency to dismemberment was
aided by the ambition of the princes of the imperial family. The
Austrasian Franks, to whom Charlemagne belonged, craved
unity. The Gallo-Romans in the West, the Teutons in the
East, aspired after independence.
Louis the Pious (814-840), Charlemagne's youngest son,—who, in
consequence of the death of his elder brothers, was the sole successor
of his father,—lacked the energy requisite for so difficult a
place. He was better adapted to a cloister than to a throne. He had
been crowned at Aix before his father's death; but he consented
to be crowned anew by Pope Stephen IV. at Rheims, in
816. His troubles began with a premature division of his states
between his sons, Lothar, Pipin, and Louis. His
nephew, Bernhard, who was to reign in Italy in subordination to
his uncle, rebelled, but was captured and killed (818). In order to
provide for his son Charles the Bald, whose mother
Judith he had married for his second wife, he made a new
division in 829. The elder sons at once revolted against their father,
and Judith and her son were shut up in a cloister
(830). Louis the son repented, the Saxons and East Franks
supported the emperor, and he was restored. In 833 he took away
Aquitaine from Pipin, and gave it to Charles. The
rebellious sons again rose up against him. In company with Pope
Gregory IV., who joined them, they took their father prisoner
on the plains of Alsace, his troops having deserted him. The place was
long known as the "Field of Lies." He was compelled by the bishops to
confess his sins in the cathedral at Soissons, reading the list
aloud. Once more Louis was released, and forgave his sons; but
partition after partition of territory, with continued discord,
followed until his death. The quarrels of his surviving sons,
Lothar, Louis the German, and Charles the Bald,
brought on, in 841, the great battle of Fontenailles. The
contest was occasioned by the ambition of Lothar, the eldest,
who claimed for himself the whole imperial inheritance. There was
great carnage, and Lothar was defeated. The bishops present saw
in the result a verdict of God in favor of his two adversaries. The
result was the Treaty of Verdun for the division of the empire.
TERMS OF THE TREATY OF VERDUN.—Louis the German took the
Eastern and German Franks, and Charles the Bald the Western and
Latinized Franks. Lothar, who retained the imperial title,
received the middle portion of the Frank territory, including Italy
and a long, narrow strip of territory between the dominions of his
brothers, and extending to the North Sea. This land took later the
name of Lotharingia, or Lorraine. It always had the
character of a border-land. While Louis's share comprised only
German-speaking peoples, Charles's kingdom was made up almost
exclusively of Gallo-Roman inhabitants; while under Lothar the
two races were mingled. This division marks the birth of the
German and French nations as such. The German-speaking
peoples in the East, who were affiliated in language, customs, and
spirit, more and more grew together into a nation. In like manner, the
subjects of the Western kingdom more and more were resolved into a
Franco-Roman nationality. Lothar ruled at Aix-la-Chapelle, and
was styled emperor; but each of the other kingdoms was independent,
and the empire of Charlemagne was dissolved. Only for a short time,
under Charles the Fat (881-887), nearly the whole monarchy of
Charlemagne was united under one scepter. When he was deposed it was
again broken in pieces; and four distinct kingdoms emerged,—those of
the Eastern and Western Franks, "the forerunners of Germany and
France," and the kingdoms of Italy and of Burgundy, in South-eastern
Gaul, which were sometimes united and sometimes
separate. Lotharingia was attached now to the Eastern and now
to the Western Frank kingdom. In theory there was not a severance, but
a sharing, of the common possession which had been the object of
contention.
EASTERN CARLOVINGIANS.—Charles the Fat was a weak and sluggish
prince. He offered no effectual resistance to the destructive ravages
of the Normans, or Scandinavian Northmen. He was deposed in 887, and
died in the following year on an island in the Lake of Constance. His
successor, the grandson of Louis the German, Arnulf,
duke of Carinthia, became king of the Germans, (887-899) and emperor;
and, after his short reign, the line of Louis died out in Louis the
Child, the weak son of Arnulf (900-911). The house of
Charlemagne survived only among the Western Franks.
During the reign of Louis the Child, Hatto (I.), archbishop of
Mentz and primate of Germany, was regent and guardian of the
king. He was a bold defender of the unity of the empire. He was
charged, truly or falsely, with taking the life of Adalbert, a
Frank nobleman whom he had enticed into his castle. There was a
popular tradition that the devil seized Hatto's corpse, and threw it
into the crater of Mount Ætna. The mistake is often made of connecting
the popular legend of the "Mouse-tower" at Bingen on the Rhine,
with him. It was told of a later Hatto (Hatto II.), who was
likewise archbishop of Mentz (968). He was charged with
shutting up the poor in a barn, in a time of famine, and of burning
them there. As the story runs, he called them "rats who ate the corn."
Numberless mice swam to the tower which he had built in the midst of
the stream, and devoured him. Southey has put the tale into a
ballad,—"God's Judgment on a Wicked Bishop."
KINGDOM OF FRANCE.—In 841 Rouen fell into the hands of the
Normans, and Paris lay open to their attacks. In 861 Charles
the Bald invested a brave soldier, Robert the Strong, whose
descent is not known, with the county of Paris, that he might resist
the invaders. He held the country between the Seine and the Loire,
under the name of the Duchy of France. The other
Francia, east of the Rhine, continued to be an important part
of Germany, the district called Franconia. Robert was the
greatgrandfather of Hugh Capet, the founder of the kingdom of
France. Under the imbecile Charles the Fat, the
audacious Northmen (885-886) laid siege to Paris. It was
Odo, or Eudes, count of Paris, who led the citizens in
their heroic and successful resistance. Him the nobles of France chose
to be their king. His family were called "Dukes of the French." Their
duchy—Western or Latin Francia—was the strongest state
north of the Loire. The feudal lords were growing mightier, and the
imperial or royal power was becoming weaker. After Odo of Paris
was elected to the Western kingdom, there followed a period of about a
hundred years during which there was a king sometimes from his house
and sometimes from the family of the Carlovingians. The latter still
spoke German, and, when they had the power, reigned at Laon in
the northeastern corner of the kingdom. Odo ruled from 888
until 898. He had to leave the southern part of France
independent. During the last five years of his life he was obliged to
contend with Charles the Simple (893-929), who was elected king
by the Carlovingian party of the north. The most noted of the
Carlovingian kings at Laon was Louis "from beyond seas"
(936-954), Charles's son, who had been carried to England for
safety. His reign was a constant struggle with Hugh the Great,
duke of the French, the nephew of King Odo. Hugh would not
accept the crown himself. On the death of Louis V. (986-987),
the direct line of Charlemagne became extinct. The only Carlovingian
heir was his uncle, Charles, duke of Lorraine. His claim
the barons would not recognize, but elected Hugh Capet, duke of
France, to be king, who, on the 1st (or the 3d) of July, 987, was
solemnly crowned in the cathedral of Noyon, by the archbishop of
Rheims. Just at this juncture, when the contest was between the dukes
of the French and Charles of Lorraine, the Carlovingian
claimant to the sovereignty, the adhesion and support of Duke
Richard of Normandy (943-996) was of decisive effect. The
Normans had been on the side of Laon; now they turned the scale
in favor of the elevation of the Duke of France. The German party at
Laon could not withstand the combined power of Rouen and
Paris. Thus with Hugh Capet, the founder of the Capetian
line, the kingdom of France began, having Paris for its
capital; and the name of France came gradually to be applied to
the greater part of Gaul. But when Hugh Capet became king, the
great feudal states were almost independent of the royal
control. Eight were above the rest in power and extent. "The counts of
Flanders, Champagne, and Vermandois, and the
dukes of Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, and
Aquitaine, regarded themselves as the new king's peers or
equals." Lorraine, Arles, and Franche
Comté—parts of modern France—"held of the emperor, and were, in
fact, German." Hugh Capet's dukedom was divided by the
Seine. He was lay abbot of St. Denis, the most important church in
France.
THE GERMAN KINGDOM.—With the death of Louis the Child (911)
the German branch of the Carlovingian line was extinguished. The
Germans had to choose a king from another family. Germany, like
France, was now composed of great fiefs. But there were two parties,
differing from one another in their character and manners. The one
consisted of the older Alemannic and Austrasian unions, where the
traces of Roman influence continued, where the large cities were
situated, and the principal sees. Here were formed the duchies of
Swabia and Bavaria, and Franconia (Austrasian
France). To the other, consisting chiefly of the duchy of
Saxony, were attached Thuringia and a part of
Frisia. In France the royal power, at the start, was so weak,
that, not being dreaded, it was suffered to grow. In Germany the royal
power was so strong that there was a constant effort to reduce
it. Hence in France the result was centralization; in Germany the
tendency was to division. In France the long continuance of the family
of Hugh Capet made the monarchy hereditary. In Germany
the frequent changes of dynasty helped to make it elective.
CONRAD I.—When Louis died, Conrad of Franconia (911-918) was
chosen king by the clerical and secular nobles of the five duchies, in
which the counts elevated themselves to the rank of dukes,—Franconia,
Saxony, Lorraine, Swabia, and Bavaria. Germany thus became an elective
kingdom; but since, as a rule, the sovereignty was continued in one
family, the electoral principle was qualified by an hereditary
element. Conrad began the struggle against the great
feudatories, which went on through the Middle Ages. The dukes always
chafed under the rule of a king; yet, for the glory of the nation and
for their own safety against attacks from abroad, they were anxious to
preserve it from extinction. The Hungarians, to whom Louis
the Child had consented to pay tribute, renewed their
incursions. They marched in force as far as
Bremen. Conrad had wished to reduce the power of Saxony,
and to detach from it Thuringia. He was constantly at war with his own
subjects. Yet on his death-bed he showed his disinterested regard to
the interests of the kingdom. He called to him his brother
Eberhard, and charged him to carry his crown and crown jewels
to his enemy Henry, duke of the Saxons, who was most capable of
defending the country against the Hungarian invaders.
ITALY.—After the empire of Charles the Fat was broken up, a
strong anti-German feeling was manifest in Italy. The people wanted
the king of Italy, and, if possible, the emperor of the Romans, to be
of their own nation. But they could not agree: there was a violent
contest between the supporters of Berengar of Friuli and the
supporters of Guido of Spoleto. Arnulf came twice into
Italy to quell the disturbance, and on his second visit, in 896, was
crowned emperor. Civil war soon broke out again. Within twenty years
the crown had been given to five different aspirants. They were
Germans, or were Italians only in name. Berengar I. (888-924)
was crowned emperor by the Pope, but had to fight against a
competitor, Rudolph, king of Burgundy, whom the turbulent
nobles set up in his place. Berengar was finally defeated and
assassinated. His grandson, Berengar II. (of Ivrea) (950-961),
had to fly to Germany (943) to escape a competitor for the throne,
Hugh, count of Provence, brother of Ermengarde,
Berengar's step-mother, to whom she had given the crown. His relations
with Otto I. (the Great) led to very important consequences, to
be narrated hereafter.
STATE OF LEARNING IN THE TENTH CENTURY.—Under Charles the Bald, there
were not wanting signs of intellectual activity. John Scotus
Erigena,—or John Scot, Erinborn,—who was at the head of his
palace-school, was an acute philosopher, who, in his speculations in
the vein of New Platonism, tended to pantheistic doctrine. His
opinions were condemned at the instance of Hincmar, the eminent
archbishop of Rheims. But after the deposition of Charles the
Fat (887), there followed a period of darkness throughout the
West. The universal political disorder was enough to account for this
prevalent ignorance. But, in addition, the Latin language ceased to be
spoken by the people, while the new vernacular tongues were not
reduced to writing. Latin could only be learned in the schools; and
these fell more and more into decay, in the confusion of the
times. The mental stimulus which the study of the Latin had
communicated, there was nothing, as yet, in the new languages to
replace.
THE PAPACY IN THE NINTH AND TENTH CENTURIES.—While Italy was under
the rule of Justinian and his successors, the popes were
subject to the tyranny of the Eastern emperors. After the Lombard
conquest, their position, difficult as it was on account of the small
protection afforded them from Constantinople, was favorable to the
growth of their influence and authority. By their connection with
Pipin and Charlemagne, they were recognized as having a
spiritual headship, the counterpart of the secular supremacy of the
emperor. The election of the Pope was to be sanctioned by the emperor,
and that of the emperor by the Pope. But Charlemagne was
supreme ruler over all classes and persons in Italy, as in his own
immediate dominions. In the disorder that ensued upon his death, the
imperial authority in all directions was reduced. The Frank bishops
were frequently appealed to as umpires among the contending
Carolingian princes. The growth of the power of the great bishops
carried in it the exaltation of the highest bishop of all, the Roman
pontiff. A pallium, or mantle, was sent by the Pope to all
archbishops on their accession, and was considered to be a badge of
the papal authority. In the earlier part of the ninth century, there
appeared what are called the pseudo-Isidorian decretals,
consisting of forged ecclesiastical documents purporting to belong to
the early Christian centuries, which afforded a sanction to the
highest claims of the chief rulers of the Church. These are
universally known to be an invention; but, in that uncritical day,
this was not suspected. They contained not much in behalf of
hierarchical claims which had not, at one time or another, been
actually asserted and maintained. In the spirit of the decretals Pope
Nicholas I. (858-867) acted, when this energetic pontiff
overruled the iniquitous decision of two German synods, and obliged
Lothar, king of Lotharingia, to take back his lawful wife,
Theutberga, whom he had divorced out of regard to a mistress,
Waldrada. In the tenth century (904-962), when Italy, in the
absence of imperial restraint, was torn by violent factions, the
Papacy was for half a century disposed of by the Tuscan party,
and especially by two depraved women belonging to it, Theodora,
and her daughter Maria (or Marozia). The scandals
belonging to this dismal period in the history of the papal
institution are to be ascribed to the anarchy prevailing in Italy, and
to the vileness of the individuals who usurped power at Rome.
CHAPTER III. INVASIONS OF THE NORTHMEN AND OTHERS: THE FEUDAL SYSTEM.
INCURSIONS OF THE NORTHMEN.—The Scandinavians, or
Northmen, were a Teutonic people, by whom were gradually formed
the kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and
Sweden. Their incursions, prior to Charlemagne, were
towards the Rhine, but at length assumed more the character of
piracy. They coasted along the shores in their little fleets, and lay
in wait for their enemies in creeks and bays; whence they were called
vikings, or children of the bays. By degrees they ventured out
farther on the sea, and became bolder in their depredations. They sent
their light vessels along the rivers of France, and established
themselves in bands of five or six hundred at convenient stations,
whence they sallied out to plunder the neighboring cities and country
places. They did not cause, but they hastened, the fall
of the Frank Empire. In 841 they burned Rouen; in 843 they
plundered Nantes, Saintes, and
Bordeaux. Hastings, a famous leader of these hardy
sea-robbers, sailed along the coast of the Spanish peninsula, took
Lisbon and pillaged it, and burned Seville. Making a
descent upon Tuscany, he captured, by stratagem, and plundered
the city of Luna, which he at first mistook for Rome. In 853
the daring rovers captured Tours, and burned the Abbey of
St. Martin; and, three years later, they appeared at
Orleans. In 857 they burned the churches of Paris, and
carried away as captive the abbot of St. Denis. As pagans they had no
scruple about attacking churches and abbeys, to which fugitives
resorted for safety and for the hiding of their treasures. Robert
the Strong fell in fighting these marauders (866). Their
devastations continued down to the year 911, in the reign of
Charles the Simple; then the same arrangement was made which
the Romans had adopted in relation to the Germanic invaders. By the
advice of his nobles, Charles decided to abandon to the
Northmen, territory where they could settle, and which they could
cultivate as their own. Rolf, or Rollo, one of their most
formidable chiefs, accepted the offer; and the Northmen established
themselves (911) in the district known afterwards as
Normandy. Rollo received baptism, wore the title of
duke, and thus became the liege of King Charles, who reigned at
Laon, and whom he loyally served. Later the Normans joined
hands with ducal France, and helped Paris to throw off
its dependence on royal France and the house of Charlemagne
which had ruled at Laon. It was by Norman help that the duchy
of France was raised to the rank of a kingdom, and Hugh Capet,
in the room of being a vassal of kings of German lineage, became the
founder of French sovereigns. Under the Normans, tillage flourished;
and the feudal system was established with greater regularity than
elsewhere.
THE DANES IN ENGLAND.—When, in 827, Egbert, the king of
Wessex, united all the Saxons in England under his rule, the
Danish attacks had already begun. In his later years these ravages
increased. Alfred (871-901) was reduced to such straits in 878,
that, with a few followers, he hid himself among the swamps and woods
of Somersetshire. It was then, according to the legend, that he was
scolded by the woman, who, not knowing him, had set him to watch her
cakes, but found that he, absorbed in other thoughts, had allowed them
to burn. Later, Alfred gained advantages over the Danes; but,
in the treaty that was made with them, they received, as vassals of
the West Saxon king, East Anglia, and part of Essex and
Mercia. Already they had a lodgment in Northumberland,
so that the larger part of England had fallen into Danish hands. The
names of towns ending in by, as Whitby, are of Danish
origin. Alfred compiled a body of laws called dooms,
founded monasteries, and fostered learning. He himself translated many
books from the Latin. His bravery in conflict with the Danes enabled
him to spend his last years in quiet. Athelstan, the grandson
of Alfred (925-940), was victorious over the Danes, and over
the Scotch and Welsh of the North. Under Edgar (959-975), the
power of England was at its height. He kept up a strong fleet; but, in
the time of Aethelred II. (the Unready), the Danish invasions
were renewed. He and his bad advisers adopted the practice of buying
off the invaders at a large price. In 994 Swegen invaded the
country. He had been baptized, but had gone back to heathenism. In
1013 England was completely conquered by him. Aethelred fled to
Duke Richard the Good of Normandy.
CANUTE.—The son of Aethelred, Edmund, surnamed
Ironside, after the death of Swegen, kept up the war
with his son Cnut, or Canute. After fighting six pitched
battles with him, Edmund consented to divide the kingdom with
him; but in the same year (1016) the English king died. Canute
(1017-1035) now became king of all England. He had professed
Christianity, and unexpectedly proved himself, after his accession, to
be a good ruler. One of the legends about him is, that he once had a
seat placed for himself by the seashore, and ordered the rising tide
not to dare to wet his feet. Not being obeyed by the dashing waves, he
said, "Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings,
for there is none worthy of the name but He whom heaven, earth, and
sea obey by eternal laws." After that he never wore his crown, but
left it on the image of Jesus on the cross. Canute inherited
the crown of Denmark, and won Norway and part of
Sweden; so that he was the most powerful prince of his
time. His sons, however, did not rule well; and in 1042 the English
chose for king one of their own people, Edward, called the
Confessor, the son of Aethelred. In the time of Canute, the
power of the Danes, and of the Northmen generally, was at its
height. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and England were ruled by them; and
Scandinavian princes by descent governed in Normandy and in
Russia. Although a most vigorous race, the Northmen showed a wonderful
facility in adopting the language and manners of the people among whom
they settled. The effect of their migrations was to diminish the
strength and importance of their native countries which they had left.
OTHER SETTLEMENTS OF NORTHMEN.—The Northmen made many other voyages
which have not yet been mentioned. As early as 852 there was a
Scandinavian king in Dublin. They early conquered the
Shetland Isles, the Orkneys, and the Hebrides. On
the northern coast of Scotland, they founded the kingdom of
Caithness, which they held to the end of the twelfth
century. Iceland was discovered by the Northmen, and was
settled by them in 874. About the same time Greenland was
discovered, and towards the end of the tenth century a colony was
planted there. This led to the discovery of the mainland of America,
and to the occupation, for a time, of Vinland, which is
supposed to have been the coast of New England. In Russia,
where the Northmen were called Varangians, Rurik, one of
their leaders, occupied Novgorod in 862, and founded a line of
sovereigns, which continued until 1598.
INCURSIONS OF SARACENS.—The Saracens were marauders in Italy,
as the Northmen were in France. From Cairoan (in Tunis), as we
have seen, they sent out their piratical fleets, which ravaged Malta,
Sicily, and other islands of the Mediterranean. These corsairs,
checked for the moment by the fleets of Charlemagne, afterwards began
anew their conquests. From Sicily, of which they made themselves
masters in 831, they passed over to the Italian mainland. Among their
deeds are included the burning of Ostia, Civita Vecchia,
and the wealthy abbey of Monte Cassino, They landed on the
shores of Provence, established a military colony there, pillaged
Arles and Marseilles, and continued their depredations
in Southern France and Switzerland.
INCURSIONS OF HUNGARIANS.—The Magyars, called by the Greeks
Hungarians, a warlike people of the Turanian group of nations,
crossed the Carpathian Mountains about 889. They overran the whole of
Hungary and Transylvania. In 900, in the course of their predatory
invasions, they penetrated into Bavaria, and the king of Germany paid
them tribute. They carried their incursions into Lombardy and into
Southern Italy. They even crossed the Rhine, and devastated Alsace,
Lorraine, and Burgundy. Such terror did they excite that their name
remained in France a synonym of detestable ferocity.
CHARACTER OF THE LATER INVASIONS.—The incursions in the ninth century
differed from the great Germanic invasions which had subverted the
Roman Empire. The Northmen and the Saracens moved in small bands,
whose main object was plunder, and not either permanent conquest, or,
as was the aim of the Arabians, the spread of a religion by the
sword. The Hungarians alone established themselves in the
valley of the Theiss and the Danube, after the manner of the Franks,
the Burgundians, and the Goths; and there they remained. The great
effect of the last invasion was to accelerate the breaking up of
political unity, and the introduction of feudal organization, or the
preponderance of local rule as opposed to centralized power.
THE NORTHMEN IN ENGLAND AND ITALY.
Later than the events narrated above, there were two great
achievements of the Northmen, which it is most convenient to describe
here, although they occurred in the eleventh century. They are the
conquest of England, and the founding of the kingdom of Naples and
Sicily.
I. THE NORMAN CONQUEST OF ENGLAND.
The NORMAN INVASION.—The duchy of Normandy had become very strong and
prosperous, and, under the French-speaking Northmen, or Normans, had
grown to be one of the principal states in Western
Europe. Edward, king of England, surnamed the Confessor,
or Saint (1042-1066) had been brought up in Normandy, and favored his
own Norman friends by lavish gifts of honors and offices. The party
opposed to the foreigners was led by Godwin, earl of the West
Saxons. After being once banished, he returned in arms; and Norman
knights and priests were glad to escape from the country. Edward's
wife was Edith, daughter of Godwin. They had no children; and
on his death-bed he recommended that Earl Harold, the son of
Godwin, should be his successor. The Normans claimed that he had
promised that their duke, William, should reign after him. It
was said that Harold himself, on a visit to William, had,
either willingly or unwillingly, sworn to give him his
support. Edward, who was devout in his ways, though a negligent
ruler, was buried in the monastery called Westminster, which he had
built, and which was the precursor of the magnificent church bearing
the same name that was built afterwards by King Henry
III. Harold was now crowned. Duke William, full of
wrath, appealed to the sword; and, under the influence of the
archdeacon Hildebrand, Pope Alexander II. took his side,
and sanctioned his enterprise of conquest. At the same time the north
of England was invaded by the king of the Norwegians, a man of
gigantic stature, named Hardrada. The Norman invaders landed
without resistance on the shore of Sussex, on the 28th of
September, 1066, and occupied Hastings. Harold encamped
on the heights of Senlac. On the 14th of October the great
battle took place in which the Normans were completely victorious. The
English stood on a hill in a compact mass, with their shields in front
and a palisade before them. They repulsed the Norman charges. But the
Normans pretended to retreat. This moved the Saxons to break their
array in order to pursue. The Normans then turned back, and rushed
through the palisade in a fierce onset. An arrow pierced the eye of
Harold, and he was cut to pieces by four French knights. The
Norman duke, William the Conqueror, was crowned king on
Christmas Day; but it was four years before he overcame all
resistance, and got full control over the country. The largest estates
and principal offices in England he allotted to Normans and other
foreigners. The crown of William was handed down to his
descendants, and gradually the conquerors and the conquered became
mingled together as one people.
EFFECT OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST.
CHARACTER OF THE SAXONS.—The Saxons at the time of the Conquest were
a strong and hardy race, hospitable, and fond of good cheer, which was
apt to run into gluttony and revels. Their dwellings were poor,
compared with those of the better class of Normans. They were
enthusiastic in out-door sports, such as wrestling and hunting. They
fought on foot, armed with the shield and axe. The common soldier,
however, often had no better weapon than a fork or a sharpened
stick. The ordeals in vogue, as a test of guilt and innocence when one
was accused of a crime, were, plunging the arm into boiling water, or
holding a hot iron in the hand for three paces. London was fast
growing to be the chief town, and eclipsing Winchester, the old
Saxon capital. A king like Alfred, and scholars like
Bede and Alcuin, not to speak of old chronicles and
ballads, show that literature was valued; but the Danish invasions in
Northumberland, where schools and letters had flourished, did
much to blight the beginnings of literary progress.
THE NORMAN SPIRIT AND INFLUENCE.—The tapestry at Bayeux
represents in a series of pictures the course of the Norman conquest.
There we see the costume of the combatants. The Norman gentlemen were
mounted, and fought with lance and sword. Of their bravery and
military skill, their success affords abundant proof. Although the
Normans were victors and masters in England, not only was the conquest
gradual, but the result of it was the amalgamation of the one people
with the other. The very title of conqueror, attached to
William, was a legal term (conquaestor), and meant
purchaser or acquirer. There was an observance of legal
forms in the establishment and administration of his government. The
folkland, or the public land, was appropriated by him, and
became crown-land. So all the land of the English was considered to be
forfeited, and estates were given out liberally to Norman
gentlemen. The nobility became mainly Norman, and the same was true of
the ecclesiastics and other great officers. All the land was held as a
grant from the king. In 1085 the making of Domesday was
decreed, which was a complete statistical survey of all the estates
and property in England. The object was to furnish a basis for
taxation. The Domesday Book is one of the most curious and
valuable monuments of English history. Among the changes in law made
by William was the introduction of the Norman wager of battle, or the
duel, by the side of the Saxon methods of ordeal described above. In
most of the changes, there was not so much an uprooting as a great
transformation of former rules and customs.
ENGLAND AND THE CONTINENT.—One of the most important results of the
Norman Conquest was the bringing of England into much more intimate
relations with the continent. The horizon of English thought and life
was widened. One incidental consequence was the closer connection of
the English Church with the Papacy. Foreign ecclesiastics, some of
them men of eminence and of learning, were brought in. It was this
connection with the continent that led England to take so important a
part in the Crusades.
THEN NORMAN GOVERNMENT.—As regards feudalism, one vital feature of
it—the holding of land by a military tenure, or on condition of
military service—was reduced to a system by the conquest. But
William took care not to be overshadowed or endangered by his
great vassals. He levied taxes on all, and maintained the place of
lord of all his subjects. He was king of the English, and sovereign
lord of the Norman nobles. He summoned to the Witan, or Great
Assembly, those whom he chose to call. This summons, and the right to
receive it, became the foundation of the Peerage. Out of the
old Saxon Witan, there grew in this way the House of
Lords. The lower orders, when summoned at all, were summoned in a
mass; afterwards we shall find that they were called by
representatives; and, in—the end, when the privilege of appearing in
this way was converted into a right, the House of Commons came
into being. In like manner, the King's Court gradually came to
be, in the room of the Assembly itself, a judicial and governing
Committee of the Assembly. From this body of the king's immediate
counselors emerged in time the Privy Council and the Courts
of Law. Out of the Privy Council grew, in modern times, the
Cabinet, composed of what are really "those privy councilors
who are specially summoned." Committees of the National Assembly, in
the course of English history, acquired "separate being and separate
powers, as the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of the
government." Thus the English Constitution is the product of a steady
growth.
MINGLING OF BLOOD AND LANGUAGES.—A multitude of Normans emigrated
into England, especially to London. The Normans became
Englishmen, as a natural consequence. But they affected the spirit and
manners of the people by whom they were absorbed. By opening avenues
for French influence, chivalry, with its peculiar ideas and
ways, was brought into England. But it must never be forgotten that
the Normans were kinsfolk of the Saxons. Both conquerors and
conquered were Teutons. The conquest was very different, in this
particular, from what the conquest of Germany by France, or of France
by Germany, would be. The French language which the Normans spoke had
been acquired by them in their adopted home across the channel. To
this source the Latin element, or words of Latin etymology, in
our English tongue is mainly due. The loss of the old Saxon
inflections is another marked change; but this is not due, to so large
an extent, solely to the influence of Norman speech. But the English
language continued to be essentially Teutonic in its structure. For a
long time the two tongues lived side by side. At the end of the
twelfth century, if French was the language of polite intercourse,
English was the language of common conversation and of popular
writings. Learned men spoke, or could speak, and they wrote, in Latin.
NORMAN BUILDINGS.—The Normans built the cathedrals and castles. Down
to the eleventh century, the Romanesque, or "round-arched"
architecture, derived from Italy, had been the one prevalent style in
Western Europe. In the modification of it, called the Norman
style, we find the round arch associated with massive piers and narrow
windows. Durham cathedral is an example of the Norman
Romanesque type of building. The Norman conquerors covered England
with castles, of which the White Tower of London, built by
William, is a noted specimen. Sometimes they were square, and
sometimes polygonal; but, except in the palaces of the kings, they
afforded little room for artistic beauty of form or decoration. They
were erected as fortresses, and were regarded by the people with
execration as strongholds of oppression.
II. THE NORMANS IN ITALY AND SICILY.
THE NORMAN KINGDOM OF NAPLES AND SICILY.—Early in the eleventh
century, knights from Normandy wandered into Southern Italy, and gave
their aid to different states in battle against the Greeks and
Saracens. In 1027 the ruler of Naples gave them a fertile district,
where they built the city of Aversa. By the reports of their
victories and good fortune, troops of pilgrims and warriors were
attracted to join them. The valiant sons of the old count,
Tancred of Hauteville, were among the number. They
supported the Greek viceroy in an attack on the Arabs in Sicily; but,
on his failing duly to reward them, they turned against him, and
conquered Apulia for themselves. Under Robert Guiscard
(1057-1085), they made themselves masters of all Southern Italy. They
had already defeated Pope Leo IX. at Civitella, and received
from him as fiefs their present and anticipated conquests in Apulia,
Calabria, and Sicily. Twelve years after, Robert, with the help
of his brother Roger, wrested Sicily, with its capital,
Palermo, from the Saracens, who were divided among themselves
(1072). The seaports of Otranto and Bari were also taken
by Robert. He even entered on the grand scheme of conquering
the Byzantine Empire, but his death frustrated this endeavor. His
nephew Roger II. (1130-1154) took the remaining possessions of
the Greeks in Southern Italy and Sicily, united them in the kingdom of
Naples and Sicily, and received from the Pope the title of king. In
this kingdom the feudal system was established, and trade and industry
flourished. In culture and prosperity it surpassed all the other
Italian communities. At Salerno was a famous school of medicine
and natural science; at Amalfi and Naples were schools
of law. But the Norman nobility was corrupted and enervated by the
luxury of the South, and by the influence of Mohammedan customs, and
modes of thought. During fifty-six years Roger and his two
successors, William the Bad (1154-1166) and William the
Good (1166-1189), ruled this flourishing kingdom, which then fell
by inheritance to the Hohenstaufen German princes. On the
mainland and in Sicily, numerous stately buildings and ruined castles
and towers point back to the romantic period of Norman rule.
NORMAN TRAITS.—It is a remarkable fact, that the Normans, although so
distinguished as rovers and conquerors, have vanished from the face of
the earth. They were lost in the kingdoms which they founded. They
adopted the languages of the nations which they subdued. But while in
England they were merged in the English, and modified the national
character, this effect was not produced in Italy and Sicily. In Sicily
they found Greek-speaking Christians and Arabic-speaking Mussulmans;
and Italians came into the island in the track of the conquerors. The
Normans did not find there a nation as in England; and they created
not a nation, but a kingdom of a composite sort, beneficent while it
lasted, but leaving no permanent traces behind. "The Normans in
Sicily," says Mr. Freeman, "so far as they did not die out, were
merged, not in a Sicilian nation, for that did not exist, but in the
common mass of settlers of Latin speech and rite, as distinguished
from the older inhabitants, Greek and Saracen." Independent,
enterprising, impatient of restraint, gifted with a rare imitative
power which imparted a peculiar tinge and a peculiar grace to whatever
they adopted from others, they lacked originality, and the power to
maintain their own distinctive type of character and of speech.
Mr. Freeman has eloquently described the spread of the Normans, "the
Saracens of Christendom," in all corners of the world. They fought in
the East against the Turks. "North, south, east, the Norman lances
were lifted." The Norman "ransacked Europe for scholars, poets,
theologians, and artists. At Rouen, at Palermo, and at Winchester he
welcomed merit in men of every race and every language." "And yet that
race, as a race, has vanished." "The Scottish Brace or the Irish
Geraldine passed from Scandinavia to Gaul, from Gaul to England, from
England to his own portion of our islands; but at each migration, he
ceased to be Scandinavian, French, or English: his patriotism was in
each case transferred to his new country, and his historic being
belongs to his last acquired home." Norman blood was in the veins of
the Crusaders who first stood on the battlements of Jerusalem, and of
the great German emperor, Frederic II.
THE NORMANS.
TANCRED OF HAUTEVILLE.
|
+—Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia, d. 1085.
|
| SICILY
|
+—ROGER, the Great Count, d. 1101
|
+—Roger (of Apulia, 1127; king, 1130), 1101-1154.
|
+—WILLIAM I the Bad, 1154-1166,
| m. Margaret, daughter of Garcia IV of Navarre.
| |
| +—WILLIAM II the Good, 1166-1189,
| m. Joanna, daughter of Henry II of England.
|
+—CONSTANCE (d. 1198),
m. Emperor Henry VI.
THE FEUDAL SYSTEM.
ORIGIN OF FEUDALISM.—When the Franks conquered Gaul, they divided the
land among themselves. This estate each free German held as
allodial property, or as a free-hold. The king took the
largest share. His palaces were dwellings connected with large farms
or hunting-grounds, and he went with his courtiers from one to
another. To his personal followers and officers he allotted
lands. These benefices, it seems, were granted at first with
the understanding that he might resume them at will. As holders of
them, the recipients owed to him personal support. Other chiefs, and
land-owners of a minor grade, took the same course. This was the germ
of feudalism. More and more it grew to be the characteristic
method of living and of government in Western Europe after the fall of
Charlemagne's empire. The inheritors of his dominion were not the
kings of France, of Germany, or of Italy, but the numerous feudal
lords. Against the invasions of the Norman, Saracen, and Hungarian
plunderers, the kings and the counts proved themselves incapable of
defending territory or people. Meantime, the principle of
heredity—the principle that benefices should go down from father to
son, or to the next heir—had gained a firm footing. Another fact was
that the royal offices became hereditary, and were transmitted to the
heirs of allodial property. Thus the exercise of government and the
possession of land were linked together. In times of danger, small
proprietors more and more put themselves under the protection of the
richer and stronger: that is, allodial property became
feudal. This custom had begun long before, in the decadence of
the Roman empire, when not only poor freemen, but also men of moderate
means, ruined by taxation, put themselves under the protection of the
great, and settled on their lands. They became thus colons
(coloni). In the later times of disorder of which we are now
speaking, farmhouses in the country gave place to fortified
castles on hill-tops or other defensible sites, about which
clustered in villages the dependents of the lord, who tilled his land,
fought for him, and, in turn, were protected by him.
THE SUBSTANCE OF FEUDALISM.—"Feudality recognizes two principles, the
land and the sword, riches and force,—two principles on which every
thing depends, to which every thing is related, and which are united
and identified with one another; since it is necessary to possess land
in order to have the right to use the sword in one's own name (that is
to say, to have the right of private war), and since the possession of
land imposes the duty of drawing the sword for the suzerain, and in
the name of the suzerain of whom the land is held." Feudalism is a
social system in which there is a kind of hierarchy of lands in
the hands of warriors, who hold of one another in a gradation. There
is a chain reaching up from the tower of the simple gentleman to the
royal chateau, or castle. In this social organization, there
are the two grand classes of the seigneurs and the
serfs; but the seigneur, even if he be a king, may also
hold fiefs as a vassal.
SUZERAIN AND VASSAL.—The suzerain and the vassal, or
liege, were bound together by reciprocal obligations. The
vassal owed (1) military service on the demand of the lord; (2) such
aid as the suzerain called for in the administration of justice within
his jurisdiction; (3) other aids, such as, when he was a prisoner, to
pay the ransom for his release; and pecuniary contributions when he
armed his eldest son, and when he married his eldest daughter. These
were legal or required aids. They took the place of taxation in
modern states. There were other things that the vassal was expected to
do which were gracious or voluntary. If the liege died
without heirs, or forfeited the fief by a violation of the conditions
on which it was held, it reverted to the lord. The liege was
invested with the fief. He knelt before the suzerain, put his
hands within the hands of the suzerain, and took an oath to be his
man. This was homage,—from homo in the Latin,
and homme in French, signifying man. The suzerain might
at any time require its renewal. Under the feudal system, every thing
was turned into a fief. The right to hunt in a forest, or to fish in a
river, or to have an escort on the roads, might be granted as a fief,
on the condition of loyalty, and of the homage just described.
PRIVATE WAR.—The vassal had the right to be tried by his peers; that
is, by vassals on the same level as himself. He might, if treated with
injustice, go to the superior: he might appeal to the suzerain of his
immediate lord. But suzerains preferred to take justice into their own
hands. Hence the custom of private war prevailed, and of
judicial combats, or duels, so common in the middle ages.
ENTANGLEMENTS OF FEUDALISM.—Many suzerains were mutually vassals,
each holding certain lands of the other. The same baron often held
lands of different suzerains, who might be at war with each other, so
that each required his service. The sovereign prince might be bound to
do homage to a petty feudal lord on account of lands which the prince
had inherited or otherwise acquired. The power of the suzerain
depended on a variety of circumstances. The king might be weak, since
feudalism grew out of the overthrow of royal power. The king of
France, with the exception of titular prerogatives and some
rights with regard to churches, which were often disputed, had no
means of attack or defense beyond what the duchy of France
furnished him. Yet logically and by a natural tendency, the king was
the supreme suzerain. "Feudalism carried hid in its bosom the arms by
which it was one day to be struck down."
ECCLESIASTICAL FEUDALISM.—The clergy were included in the feudal
system. The bishop was often made the count, and, as such, was
the suzerain of all the nobles in his diocese. Cities were often under
the suzerainty of bishops. Besides their tithes, the clergy had
immense landed possessions. The abbots and bishops often availed
themselves of the protection of powerful vassals, of whom they were
the suzerains. On the other hand, bishops, who were also themselves
dukes or counts, sometimes did homage for their
temporalities to lay suzerains, especially to the king. In
France and in England, in the middle ages, the feudal
clergy possessed a fifth of all the land; in Germany, a
third. The church, through bequests of the dying and donations from
the living, constantly increased its possessions. It might be
despoiled, but it could defend itself by the terrible weapon of
excommunication.
SERFS AND VILLAINS.—In the eleventh century Europe was thus covered
with a multitude of petty sovereigns. Below the body of rulers, or the
holders of fiefs, was the mass of the people. These were the
serfs,—the tillers of the ground, who enjoyed some of the
privileges of freemen, and who, since they were attached to the
seigneurie, could not be sold as slaves. The villains
were a grade above the serfs. The term (from villæ) originally
meant villagers. They paid rent for the land which the
proprietor allowed them to till; but they were subject, like the
serfs, to the will of the suzerain; and the constant tendency was for
them to sink into the inferior condition. Slavery, as
distinguished from serfdom, gradually passed away under the
emancipating spirit fostered by Christianity and the Church.
THE INHERITANCE OF FIEFS.—At first the Salic principle, which
excluded females from inheriting fiefs, prevailed. But that gave way,
and daughters were preferred in law to collateral male relatives. When
a female inherited, the fief was occupied by the suzerain up to the
time of her marriage. It never ceased to be under the protection of
the sword. In France, the right of primogeniture was
established, but with important qualifications, which varied in
different portions of the country. The eldest, however, always had the
largest portion. In Germany, the tendency to the division of
fiefs was more prevalent. Among the Normans in England,
and under their influence in Palestine, the law of inheritance
by the eldest was established in its full rigor.
SPIRIT OF FEUDALISM.—Feudalism had more vitality than the system of
absorbing all the land by a few great proprietors, which existed in
the period of the decline of the Roman Empire. Individuality, courage,
the proud sense of belonging to an aristocratic order, were widely
diffused among the numerous feudal landowners. The feeling of loyalty
among them was a great advance upon the blind subjection of the slave
to his master. But the weight of feudalism was heavy on the lower
strata of society. The lord was an autocrat, whose will there was
neither the power nor the right to resist, and who could lay hold of
as much of the labor and the earnings of the subject as he might
choose to exact. The petty suzerain, because his needs were greater,
was often more oppressive than the prince. The serf could not change
his abode, he could not marry, he could not bequeath his goods,
without the permission of his lord.
THE SAXON, FRANCONIAN, AND HOHENSTAUFEN IMPERIAL HOUSES.
HENRY I [1] 918-936.
|
+—OTTO I, 936-973, Emperor, 962, m.
| 1, Eadgyth, d. of Edward the Elder;
| |
| +—Liutgarde.
|
| 2, Adelheid, [2] d. of Rudolph II, King of Burgundy.
| |
| +—OTTO II, 973-983, m.
| Theophania, daughter of Romanus II, Eastern Emperor.
| |
| +—OTTO III, 983-1002.
|
+—Henry the Wrangler, Duke of Bavaria.
|
+—Henry the Wrangler.
|
+—(St.) HENRY II, 1002-1024, m. Cunigunda of Luxemburg.
CONRAD I, [1] 911-918.
|
+—C. Werner (?) m. daughter.
|
+—Conrad the Red, (killed at the Lechfeld, 955) m.
Liutgarde, daughter of Eadgyth and Otto I.
|
+—Otto.
|
+—Henry.
|
+—CONRAD II, the Salic, 1024-1039, m.
Gisela, d. of Hermann II, Duke of Swabia.
|
+—HENRY III, 1039-1056, m.
1, Gunhilda, daughter of Cnut;
2, Agnes, daughter of William, Count of Poitiers.
|
+—HENRY IV, 1056-1106, m.
1, Bertha, daughter of Otto, Marquis of Susa;
|
+—HENRY V, 1106-1125, m.
| Matilda, d. of Henry I of England.
|
+—Agnes, m.
1, Frederick of Hohenstaufen,
Duke of Swabia, 1080-1105;
|
+—Frederick the One-eyed,
Duke of Swabia, d. 1147, m.
1, Judith, daughter of Henry the Black.
|
+—FREDERICK I, Barbarossa, 1152-1190.
| |
| +—HENRY VI, 1190-1197, m.
| | Constance of Sicily, d. 1198.
| | |
| | +—FREDERICK II, 1214-1250, m.
| | 1, Constance, d. of
| | Alfonso II of Aragon;
| | |
| | +—CONRAD IV, 1250-1254, m.
| | | Elizabeth, daughter of
| | | Otto II of Bavaria.
| | | |
| | | +—Conradin, d. 1268.
| | |
| | +—Manfred,[5] d. 1266.
| |
| | 2, Iolande de Brienne;
| |
| | 3, Isabella, d. of
| | John of England.
| |
| +—PHILIP, 1198-1208, m.
| Irene, d. of Isaac II,
| Angelus, Eastern Emperor.
| |
| +—Beatrix, m.
| OTTO IV,[4] 1208-1214,
| d. 1218.
|
+—CONRAD III,[3] 1137-1152.
2, Leopold III, Marquis of Austria,
d. 1136.
2, Adelaide, a Russian princess.
1 Conrad I and Henry I seem to have been related. By one account their
mothers were the daughters of Emperor Arnulf.
2 Widow of Lothar, King of Italy.
3 Elected 1127 in opposition to Lotharl accepted as his successor.
4 Elected in opposition to Philip; accepted as his successor, 1208;
ruined by battle of Bouvines.
5 King of Naples and Sicily after Conrad IV; killed in battle at
Benevento against Charles of Anjou. Manfred's mother was Bianca Langia,
daughter of a Lombard noble.
PERIOD III. FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ROMANO-GERMANIC EMPIRE TO
THE END OF THE CRUSADES. (A.D. 962-1270.)
CHAPTER I. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE: PREDOMINANCE OF THE EMPIRE:
TO THE CRUSADES, A.D. 1096.
I. KINGS AND EMPERORS OF THE SAXON HOUSE (918-1024).
HENRY THE FOWLER (918-936).—The envoys who carried to Duke Henry of
Saxony the announcement of his election as king of Germany are said
to have found him in the Hartz Mountains with a falcon on his wrist:
hence he was called Henry the Fowler. He is a great figure in
mediæval history, and did much to make Germany a nation. He won back
Lorraine, which had broken off from the kingdom. With it the
Netherlands—Holland, Flanders, etc.—came to Germany. He united
all the five great dukedoms, and governed with wisdom and moderation. At
the end of five years, the Hungarians poured in with irresistible
force. There was no alternative but to conclude with them a truce for
nine years, during which he was to pay tribute. He set to work at once,
however, to strengthen the defenses of his kingdom. He built walled
towns and fortresses in the eastern districts of Saxony and
Thuringia, and drafted one out of nine of the men from the
population in the marches for military service. The fortresses were to
be kept stored with provisions. The oldest towns of Saxony and of
Thuringia are of this date. Then he disciplined his soldiers, and
trained them to fight, like the Hungarians, on horseback. He conquered
the Slavonian Wends who dwelt east of the Elbe and the
Saale, and established the margraviate of Meissen to repel
their attacks. His victory over the Slaves at Lenzen (929) made
the north-eastern frontiers of Germany secure. Eadgyth, the
daughter of Edward, king of England, was given in marriage to his
eldest son, Otto. Henry now felt himself strong enough to throw
off the Hungarian yoke, and answered with defiance their demand for the
annual tribute. The struggle with them was hard; but they were
completely vanquished at Merseburg in 933, and their camp taken.
Henry founded the mark of Schleswig as a defense against the
Danes. This wise and vigorous monarch laid the foundations of the
German Empire. He was not only a mighty warrior: he built up industry
and trade. He was buried at Quedlinburg in the abbey which he had
founded.
OTTO I.: THE PALSGRAVES.—Otto I. (936-973) carried forward with equal
energy the work which his father had begun. Having been chosen king by
the German princes and chiefs at Aix, he was presented to the
people in the church by the archbishop of Mentz; and they gave their
assent to the election by raising the hand. Otto had a contest before
him to maintain the unity of the kingdom. He aimed to make the office of
duke an office to be allotted by the king, and thus to sap the power of
his turbulent lieges. The dukes of Bavaria and Franconia, with Lorraine,
and with the support of Louis IV., king of France, rose in arms
against him. He subdued them; and the great duchies which had revolted
against him becoming vacant, he placed in them members of his own
family. He confirmed his authority by extending the power of the
palsgraves, or counts palatine,—royal officers who
superintended the domains of the king in the several duchies, and
dispensed justice in his name. He favored the great ecclesiastics as a
check to the aspiring lay lords. He invested the bishops and abbots with
ring and staff, and they took the oath of fealty to him.
WARS OF OTTO I—Against the Hungarians, Otto achieved a
triumph. He gained a victory over them at Augsburg in 955, in
which they were said to have lost a hundred thousand men. This put an
end to their incursions into Germany. He was likewise the victor in
conflict with Slavonians. He subdued Boleslav I. of
Bohemia, who had thrown off the German suzerainty, and obliged him to
pay a tribute. Under the pious Boleslav II., Christianity was
established there, and a bishopric founded at Prague (967). The Duke
of Poland was forced to do homage to him, and to permit the founding
of the bishopric of Posen. Against the Danish king, Harold
the Blue-toothed, he carried his arms to the sea, the northern boundary
of Jutland. He erected three new bishoprics among the Danes, and
founded the archbishopric of Magdeburg, with subordinate sees in
the valleys of the Elbe and the Oder. These achievements gave Otto great
renown in Western Europe. The kings sent ambassadors to him, and
presents came from the sovereigns at Constantinople and Cordova.
OTTO I. IN ITALY.—Otto now turned his eyes to Italy. After
Arnulf, the Carlovingian emperor, left Italy (in 896), that
country had been left to sixty years of anarchy. The demoralization and
disorder of Italy, the profligacy of the Romans and of the pontiffs,—
every thing being then subject to the riotous aristocratic factions,
—rendered unity impossible. For a time (926-945) Hugh of
Provence was called king: then followed his son Lothar
(945-950). The next Italian king, Berengar II. of Ivrea (950),
who, like his two predecessors, was an offshoot of the Carlovingian
house, tried to force Adelheid, the beautiful young widow of
Lothar, into a marriage with his son Adalbert. She (being then nineteen
years of age) escaped with great difficulty from the prison where she
was confined, took refuge in the castle of Canossa, and appealed to the
great Otto, king of the Germans, for help,—to Otto, "that model
of knightly virtue which was beginning to show itself after the fierce
brutality of the last age." He descended into Italy, married the injured
queen, and obliged Berengar to own him as suzerain
(951). Berengar proved faithless and rebellious. Once more
Otto entered Italy with an overpowering force, and was proclaimed
king of the Lombards at Pavia. Pope John XII. had proposed
to him to assume the imperial office. He was crowned, with his queen, in
St. Peter's, in 962. He had engaged to confirm the gifts of previous
emperors to the popes. When John XII. reversed his steps, allied
himself with Berengar, and tried to stir up the Greeks, and even
the Hungarians, against the emperor, Otto came down from
Lombardy, and captured Rome. He caused John to be deposed by a synod for
his crimes, and Leo VIII. to be appointed in his place
(963). But, while Otto was again absent, Leo was driven out by the
Romans, and John returned; but, soon after, he died. The Romans then
elected Benedict pope. Otto captured Rome once more, deposed him,
and restored Leo. Benedict was held in custody, and died in
Hamburg. On a third journey to Italy, in 966, Otto crushed the factions
which had so long degraded Rome and the Church. On this occasion, he
negotiated a marriage between Theophano, a Greek princess, and
his son, also named Otto. Thus he acquired the southern extremity
of Italy.
THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE.—Otto had taken Charlemagne for his
model. The "Holy Roman Empire of the German nation," the great political
institution of the middle ages, was now established. In theory it was
the union of the world-state and the world-church,—an undivided
community under Emperor and Pope, its heaven-appointed secular and
spiritual heads. As an actual political fact, it was the political union
of Germany and Italy, in one sovereignty, which was in the
hands of the German king. The junction of the two peoples was not
without its advantages to both. It was, however, fruitful of evils. The
strength of Germany was spent in endless struggles abroad, which stood
in the way of the building up of a compact kingdom at home. For Italy it
was the rule of foreigners, of which she might feel the need, but to
which she was never reconciled.
OTTO II.: OTTO III.: HENRY II.—Otto II. (973-983) was highly
gifted intellectually, but lacked his father's energy and decision.
Henry the Quarrelsome, duke of Bavaria, revolted, but was put
down, and deprived of his duchy. Otto obliged Lothar, the West
Frankish king, to give up his claim to Lotharingia, which he attempted
to seize. Otto, in 980, went to Italy, and, in the effort to conquer
Southern Italy from the Greeks and Saracens, barely escaped with his
life. This was in 982. He never returned to Germany. While Otto
III. (983-1002) was a child, his mother, Theophano, was
regent for a time in Germany, and his grandmother, Adelheid, in
Italy. One of Otto's tutors was Gerbert, an eminent scholar and
theologian. The proficiency of the young prince caused him to be styled
the "Wonder of the World." He was crowned emperor in Rome in 996, when
he was only sixteen years old. He dreamed of making Rome once more the
center of the world, for his interest was chiefly in Italy. But his
schemes were ended by his early death. At this time and afterward, there
was deep agitation manifested in Europe, owing to the general
expectation that before long the world would come to an end. On this
account pilgrims flocked to Rome. Henry II. (1002-1024), as
nearest of kin to the Saxon house, was the next emperor. Besides waging
war with his own insurgent lieges, he had to carry on a contest for
fourteen years with Bokslav, king of Poland, who had to give up
Bohemia and Meissen. He founded the bishopric of
Bamberg (1007). From this time the German kings, before their
coronation as emperors, took the title of King of the Romans.
The highest nobles were styled "Princes." The nobles lived in the
castles, which were built for strongholds, as the power of the lords
grew, and private wars became more common.
II. THE FRANCONIAN OR SALIAN EMPERORS (1024-1125).
CONRAD II.: BURGUNDY: the POLES.—At a great assembly of dukes, counts,
and prelates at Oppenheim on the Rhine, Conrad, a
Franconian nobleman (Conrad II.), was elected emperor
(1024-1039). He was in the prime of life, and went to work vigorously to
repress disorder in his kingdom. He had the support of the cities, which
were now increasing in importance. At his coronation in Rome, in 1027,
there were two kings present, Canute of England and Denmark, and
Rudolph III. of Burgundy (or Arles, as the kingdom was
called which had been formed by Rudolph II., by uniting
Burgundy with a great part of Provence). After the death
of Rudolph, who had appointed Conrad his successor, the
emperor was crowned king of Arles, which remained thus attached
to Germany. But at a later time the Romance, or non-German
portions, were absorbed by France. The Duchy of Burgundy,
a fief of the French king, was not included in the kingdom. The
Poles invaded Germany in great force. Miesko, their
leader, was repelled, and obliged to do homage for his crown, and to
give up Lusatia, which had been received by Boleslav from
Henry II. In Italy, Conrad issued an edict making the
smaller fiefs there hereditary. He seems to have designed to do away
with dukes, and to make the allegiance of all vassals to the king
immediate.
HENRY III.: THE TRUCE OF GOD.—With Henry III. (1039-1056) the
imperial power reached its height. He was for a time duke of
Bavaria, Swabia, and Franconia, as well as
emperor. In Hungary he conquered the enemies of Peter
the king, and restored him to the throne, receiving his homage as
vassal of the empire. He had great success in putting down private
war. In 1043 he proclaimed a general peace in his kingdom. He favored
the attempt to bring in the Truce of God. This originated in
Aquitaine, where the bishops, in 1041, ordered that no private
feuds should be prosecuted between the sunset of Wednesday and the
sunrise of Monday, the period covered by the most sacred events in the
life of Jesus. This "truce," which was afterwards extended to embrace
certain other holy seasons and festivals, spread from land to land. It
shows the influence of Christianity in those dark and troublous
times. Although it was imperfectly carried out, it was most beneficent
in its influence, and specially welcome to the classes not capable of
defending themselves against violence.
SYNOD OF SUTRI.—In 1046 Henry was called into Italy by the
well-disposed of all parties, to put an end to the reign of vice and
disorder at Rome. He caused the three rival popes to be deposed by a
synod at Sutri, and a German prelate, Suidger, bishop of
Bamberg, to be appointed under the name of Clement II.,
by whom he was crowned emperor. After Clement died, Henry raised to
the Papacy three German popes in succession. While in the full
exercise of his great authority, and when he was not quite forty years
of age, he died.
HENRY IV.: HIS CONTESTS IN GERMANY.—Henry IV. (1056-1106), at
his father's death, was but six years old. He had been crowned king at
the age of four. Agnes of Poitou, his mother, the regent, had
no ability to curb the princes, who were now released from restraint,
and eager for independence. By a bold stratagem, an ambitious prelate,
Hanno, archbishop of Cologne, carried off the young king, and
assumed the guardianship over him. He had a rival in the person of
Adalbert, archbishop of Bremen, whom Henry liked best, as being
more indulgent and complaisant, and who at length became his chosen
guide. But in 1066 the princes caused Adalbert to be banished
from court. They obliged Henry to marry Bertha, the
daughter of the margrave of Turin, to whom he had been betrothed by
his father. The union was repugnant to him, and he sought a divorce;
although her patience eventually won the victory, and she became a
cherished wife. Henry, arrived at man's estate, was involved in
a contest with three of the great dukes. It was evident that he meant
to tread in the footsteps of his father, and to reduce the princes to
submission. Hostility arose, especially between the young king and the
Saxons, who did not relish the transfer of the imperial office
to the Franconian line. The passionate and wilful disposition
of Henry, and his sensual propensities, were his worst
enemies. The strongholds which he erected among the Saxons, in
themselves a menace, were made haunts of his boon companions and
comrades in the chase. The extortion and depredations to which the
Saxons were a prey provoked a great insurrection, which at first
prevailed; but the excesses of the elated insurgents—as seen, for
example, in the plundering and burning of churches—caused a
reaction. Henry suppressed the revolt, and dealt with the Saxons with
the utmost harshness, treating their dukedom as conquered
territory. The Saxon chiefs were now in durance: his enemies on every
side had willingly yielded, or were prostrate. The hour seemed to have
come for Henry to exercise that sovereignty as Roman emperor over
Church and State which his father had wielded; but he found himself
confronted by a new and powerful antagonist in the celebrated Pope
Hilde-brand, or Gregory VII. (1073-1085).
HILDEBRAND: INVESTITURES.—The state of affairs in the Roman Church
had called into existence a party of reform, the life and soul of
which was Hildebrand. He was the son of a carpenter of
Soano, a small town in Tuscany, and was born in 1018. He was
educated in a monastery in Rome, and spent some time in France, in the
great monastery of Cluny. He became the influential adviser of
the popes who immediately preceded him. The great aim of Hildebrand
and of his supporters—one of the most prominent of whom was the
zealous Peter Damiani, bishop of Ostia—was to abolish
simony and the marriage of priests. By simony was
meant the purchase and sale of benefices, which had come to prevail in
the different countries. The old church laws requiring celibacy
had been disregarded, and great numbers of the inferior clergy were
living with their wives. In Hildebrand's view, there could be no
purity and no just discipline in the Church without a strict
enforcement of the neglected rule. The priests must put away their
wives. Connected with these reforms was the broader design of wholly
emancipating the Church from the control of the secular power, and of
subordinating the State to the Church. For this end there must be an
abolition of investiture by lay hands. This demand it was that
kindled a prolonged and terrible controversy between the emperors and
the popes. The great ecclesiastics had temporal estates and a temporal
jurisdiction, which placed them in a feudal relation, and made them
powerful subjects. It was the custom of the kings to invest them with
these temporalities by giving to them the ring and the staff. This
enabled the kings to keep out of the benefices persons not acceptable
to them, who might be elected by the clergy. On the other hand, it was
complained that this custom put the bishops and other high
ecclesiastics into a relation of dependence on the lay authority; and,
moreover, that, the ring and staff being badges of a
spiritual function, it was sacrilegious for a layman to bestow them.
CONTEST OF HILDEBRAND AND HENRY IV.—In the period of lawlessness at
Rome, Hildebrand had welcomed the intervention of Henry III.,
and even of Henry IV., at the beginning of his reign. But this
he regarded as only a provisional remedy made necessary by a desperate
disorder. On acceding to the Papacy, he began to put in force his
leading ideas. The attempt to abolish the marriage of priests was
resisted, and stirred up great commotion in all the countries. The
legates of the Pope set themselves to stem the tide of opposition by
inveighing, in addresses to the common people, against the married
clergy, as unfit to minister at the altar. By this means, a popular
party in favor of the reform was created. In 1075, in a synod at
Rome, Hildebrand pronounced the ban against five councilors of
Henry IV. for simony. At the same time he threatened
Philip of France with a similar penalty. He forbade princes to
invest with any spiritual office. To oaths of allegiance he did not
object, but to any investiture of a spiritual kind. Gregory selected
Henry IV. as the antagonist with whom to fight out the
battle. Henry's ecclesiastical appointments were not simoniacal in
fact, although they violated the papal decrees against simony. His
real offense was his determination to make the appointments himself.
Moreover, in 1075, he ventured to name Germans to the sees of Ferno
and Spoleto. Unfortunately he was weakened by the disaffection of the
German princes, and, most of all, of the Saxons. The fire of
rebellion in Saxony had not been quenched: it was still
smouldering. Gregory summoned Henry to Rome to answer to
the charges made against him. In three German synods held in 1076, the
incensed emperor caused empty accusations to be brought against the
Pope, and a declaration to be passed deposing him. He sent to the
pontiff a letter filled with denunciation, and addressed "to the false
monk, Hildebrand." Gregory issued decrees excommunicating
Henry, deposing him, and declaring his subjects free from their
obligation of allegiance. It was the received doctrine, that a heretic
or a heathen could not reign over Christian people. The discontented
German princes took sides with Gregory. In an assembly at
Tribur in 1076, they invited the Pope to come to
Augsburg, and to judge in the case of Henry: he was to
live as a private man; and, if he remained excommunicate for a year,
he was to cease to be king altogether.
HUMILIATION OF HENRY IV.—Henry was now as anxious for
reconciliation with the Pope as before he had been bold in his
defiance. In the midst of winter, with his wife and child and a few
attendants, he crossed the Mt. Cenis pass, undergoing extreme
difficulty and hardship, and presented himself as a penitent before
Gregory, who had arrived, on his way to Augsburg, at the
strongly fortified castle of Canossa. The Pope kept him waiting
long, it is said, barefoot and bareheaded in the court-yard of the
castle. Finally he was admitted and absolved, but only on the
condition that Gregory was to adjust the matters in dispute
between the emperor and his subjects.
CONTINUED CONFLICT.—When Henry found that his imperial rights were
still withheld, his fiery spirit rebounded from this depth of
humiliation. The Lombards, with whom Gregory was unpopular,
joined him. A majority of the German princes, adhering to the Pope, in
1077 elected Rudolph, duke of Swabia, emperor. The Pope took up
his cause, and in 1080 once more excommunicated and deposed
Henry. The emperor proclaimed anew, through synods, the Pope's
deposition, and things were back in the former state. The emperor's
party appointed a counter-pope, Guibert, archbishop of Ravenna,
under the name of Clement III. Rudolph was killed in
battle (1080). Henry's power now vastly increased. He invaded
Italy (1081), and laid waste the territory of Matilda, countess
of Tuscany, a fast friend of Gregory. In 1084 he captured
Rome. The Pope had found a defender in Robert Guiscard, the
Norman duke of Lower Italy, whom he had excommunicated, but whom (in
1080) he forgave, and took into his service. Robert released
Gregory, who had been besieged in the Castle of
St. Angelo. Hildebrand died at Salerno, May 25, 1085. When near
his end he uttered the words which are inscribed on his tomb: "I have
loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore do I die in exile."
Of the rectitude of his intentions, there is no room for doubt,
whatever view is taken of the expediency of his measures. He united
with an unbending will the power of accommodating himself to
circumstances, as is witnessed in his treatment of Robert
Guiscard, and in his forbearance towards William the
Conqueror, king of England, with whom he did not wish to break.
Of this great pontiff, Sir James Stephen says: "He found the Papacy
dependent on the empire: he sustained it by alliances almost
commensurate with the Italian peninsula. He found the Papacy electoral
by the Roman people and clergy: he left it electoral by a college of
papal nomination. He found the emperor the virtual patron of the holy
see: he wrested that power from his hands. He found the secular clergy
the allies and dependants of the secular power: he converted them into
the inalienable auxiliaries of his own. He found the higher
ecclesiastics in servitude to the temporal sovereigns: he delivered
them from that yoke to subjugate them to the Roman tiara. He found the
patronage of the Church the mere desecrated spoil and merchandise of
princes: he reduced it within the dominion of the supreme pontiff. He
is celebrated as the reformer of the impure and profane abuses of his
age: he is more justly entitled to the praise of having left the
impress of his own gigantic character on the history of all the ages
which have succeeded him."
LAST DAYS OF HENRY IV.—In 1085 Henry IV. returned to Germany, having
been crowned emperor by his Pope, Clement III. The Saxons
were tired of strife; and, on the assurance that their ancient
privileges should be restored, they were pacified. Hermann of
Luxemburg, whom they had recognized as their king, had resigned the
crown (1088). The last days of Henry were clouded by the
rebellion of his sons, first of Conrad (1093), and then of
Henry (1104), who was supported by the Pope, Paschal
II. The emperor was taken prisoner, and obliged to sign his own
abdication at Ingelheim in 1105. The duke of Lotharingia and
others came to his support, and a civil war was threatened; but
Henry died at Lüttich in 1106. His body was placed in a
stone coffin, where it lay in an unconsecrated chapel, at Spires,
until the removal of the excommunication (1111).
CONCORDAT OF WORMS.—Henry V. (1106-1125) was not in the least
disposed to yield up the right of investiture. Hence he was soon
engaged in a controversy with Paschal II. Henry went to Rome
with an army in 1110, and obliged the Pope to crown him emperor, and
to concede to him the right in question. When he went back to Germany,
the Pope revoked the concession, and excommunicated him. The German
princes, as might be expected, sided with the pontiff. The conflict in
Germany went on. The emperor's authority, which was established in the
South by means of his powerful supporters, was not secured in the
North; but, during the last three years of his life, he was at peace
with the Church. By the Concordat of Worms in 1122, it was
agreed that investiture should take place in the presence of the
emperor or of his deputies; that the emperor should first
invest with the scepter, and then consecration should take place by
the Church, with the bestowal of the ring and the
staff. All holders of secular benefices were to perform feudal
obligations.
LOTHAR OF SAXONY.—The princes over whom Henry V. had exercised a
severe control opposed the elevation of Frederick of
Hohenstaufen, the son of his sister Agnes. At a brilliant
assembly at Mentz, Lothar of Saxony was chosen emperor
(1125-1137). He allowed all the Pope's claims, and was crowned at Rome
by Innocent II., accepting the allodial possessions of Matilda
of Tuscany, as a fief from the pontiff. He carried on a war with the
Hohenstaufen princes, Frederick of Swabia, and his brother
Conrad, who finally yielded. Lothar was helped in the
conflict by Henry the Proud, the duke of Bavaria, who also
became duke of Saxony. Germany under Lothar extended its
influence in the north and east.
CULTURE IN THE ELEVENTH CENTURY.—The tenth century, owing to causes
which have been explained, was a dark age. In the eleventh century
circumstances were more favorable for culture. Under the Saxon
emperors, intercourse was renewed with the Greek Empire. There was
some intercourse with the Arabs in Spain, among whom several of the
sciences were cultivated, especially mathematics, astronomy, and
medicine (p. 232). The study of the Roman law was revived in the
Lombard cities, and this had a disciplinary value. The restoration of
order in the Church, after the synod of Sutri (1046), had
likewise a wholesome influence in respect to culture. There were
several schools of high repute in France, especially those at
Rheims, Chartres, Tours, and in the monastery of Bec, in
Normandy, where Lanfranc, an Italian by birth, a man of wisdom
and piety, was the abbot.
CHAPTER II. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE: PREDOMINANCE OF THE CHURCH: TO
THE END OF THE CRUSADES, A.D. 1270.
THE TWO RELIGIONS.—The Crusades were a new chapter in the long
warfare of Christendom with Mohammedanism. "In the Middle Ages, there
were two worlds utterly distinct,—that of the Gospel and that of the
Koran." In Europe, with the exception of Spain, the Gospel had sway;
from the Pyrenees to the mouths of the Ganges, the Koran. The border
contests between the two hostile parties on the eastern and western
frontiers of Christendom were now to give place to conflict on a
larger scale during centuries of invasion and war.
STATE OF THE GREEK EMPIRE.—The Greek Christian Empire lay between the
Christian peoples of the West and the dominion of the Arabs. That
empire lived on, a spiritless body. After Justinian, there is
an endless recurrence of wars with the Arabs, and with the barbarians
on the North, and of theological disputes, either within the empire
itself, or with the Church of the West. The Greeks complained that a
phrase teaching the procession of the Spirit from the Son had been
added in the West to the Nicene Creed. The Latins complained of the
use of leavened bread in the sacrament, of the marriage of priests,
and of some other Greek peculiarities. The separation of the two
churches was consummated when, in 1054, the legate of the Pope laid on
the altar of St. Sophia, at Constantinople, an anathema against
"the seven mortal heresies" of the Greeks.
ATTACKS OF RUSSIANS AND BULGARIANS.—Left to itself, the empire showed
some energy in repelling the attacks of the Russians and Bulgarians. A
number of capable rulers arose. The Russians, of the same race of
Northmen who had ravaged Western Europe, kept up their assaults until
their chief, Vladimir, made peace, accepted Christianity, and
married the sister of the emperor, Basil II. (988). The empire between
988 and 1014 was invaded twenty-six times by King Samuel of
Bulgaria. But the Bulgarian kingdom was overthrown, in 1019, by
Basil II. In the twelfth century it regained its independence.
THE GREEK EMPERORS.—In the ninth century the Greeks made head against
the Arabs, especially by means of their navy. In the tenth century
John I. (Zimisces) crossed the Euphrates, and created
alarm in Bagdad. The tenacity of life in the Greek Empire was
surprising in view of the languishing sort of existence that it
led. After Heraclius, there were three dynasties, the last of
which, the Macedonian (867-1056), produced three remarkable
men, Nicephorus Phocas, Zimisces, and Basil
II. But the dynasty of Comneni, which, in the person of
Isaac I., ascended the throne in 1057, had to combat a new and
vigorous enemy, the Turks, who had now made themselves masters
of Asia. One of this line of emperors, Alexius I., appealed to
the Germans for help. This had some influence in giving rise to the
first of the Crusades. In these conflicts the Latins bore the
brunt. The exhausted Greek Empire played a minor part.
CONQUESTS OF THE TURKS.—The Mussulman dominion of the Arabs
had become enfeebled. The Ommiad dynasty at Cordova had
disappeared under the assaults of Christians, and of the Moors
of Africa. The Fatimite caliphs were confined to Egypt. The
rule of the Abassids of Bagdad had been well-nigh demolished by
the Seljukian Turks in 1058. They founded in the eleventh century an
extensive empire. The sultan, Alp Arslan, took the emperor,
Romanus IV. Diogenes, prisoner (1071), and conquered
Armenia. Malek Shah invaded Syria, Palestine, Jerusalem,
and carried his arms as far as Egypt, while a member of the Turkish
family of Seljuk wrested Asia Minor from the Greeks, and
established the kingdom of Iconium, which was called
Roum, extending from Mount Taurus to the Bosphorus. After the
death of Malek Shah, there were three distinct sultanates,
Persia, Syria, and Kerman,—the last being on the
shores of the Indian Ocean.
THE PILGRIMS TO JERUSALEM.—The immediate occasion of the Crusades was
the hard treatment of the Christian pilgrims who visited the sepulcher
of Christ in Jerusalem. There the Empress Helena, the mother of
Constantine, had erected a stately church. Pilgrimages—which had
become more and more a custom since the fourth century—naturally
tended to the sacred places in Palestine. Especially was this the case
in the eleventh century, when piety had been quickened by the
Cluny movement. In 1064 a great pilgrimage, in which seven
thousand persons, priests and laity, of all nations, were included,
under Siegfried, archbishop of Mentz, made its way
through Hungary to Syria. Not more than a third of them lived to
return. The reports of returning pilgrims were listened to with
absorbing interest, as they told of the spots to which the imagination
of the people was constantly directed. What indignation then was
kindled by the pathetic narrative of the insults and blows which they
had endured from the infidels who profaned the holy places with their
hateful domination! In the ninth century, under caliphs of the temper
of Haroun Al-Raschid, Christians had been well treated. About
the middle of the tenth century the Fatimite caliphs of Egypt were the
rulers at Jerusalem. Hakem was fierce in his persecution, but
his successors were more tolerant. When the Seljukian Turks got
control there, the harassed pilgrims had constant occasion to complain
of insult and inhumanity.
THE CALL OF THE GREEKS.—The Greek emperor, Alexius Comnenus,
threatened by the Mussulmans on the opposite bank of the Bosphorus,
sent his call for succor to all Christian courts. Two popes,
Sylvester II. and Gregory VII., had in vain exhorted the
princes to rise in their might, to do away with the wrong and the
shame which the disciples of Jesus were suffering at the hands of his
enemies.
MOTIVES TO THE CRUSADES.—After this, only a spark was needed to
kindle in the Western nations a flame of enthusiasm. The summons to a
crusade appealed to the two most powerful sentiments then
prevalent,—the sentiment of religion and that of
chivalry. The response made by faith and reverence was
reinforced by that thirst for a martial career and for knightly
exploits which burned as a passion in the hearts of men. The peoples
in the countries formed by the Germanic conquests were full of vigor
and life. Outside of the Church, there was no employment to attract
aspiring youth but the employment of a soldier. Western Europe was
covered with a net-work of petty sovereignties. Feudal conflicts,
while they were a discipline of strength and valor, were a narrow
field for all this pent-up energy. There was a latent yearning for a
wider horizon, a broader theater of action. Thus the Crusades
profoundly interested all classes. The Church and the clergy, the
lower orders, the women and the children, shared to the full in the
religious enthusiasm, which, in the case of princes and nobles, took
the form of an intense desire to engage personally in the holy war, in
order to crush the infidels, and at the same time to signalize
themselves by gallant feats of arms. There was no surer road to
salvation. There was, moreover, a hope, of which all in distressed
circumstances partook, of improving their temporal lot.
THE COUNCIL OF CLERMONT.—The prime author of the first Crusade was
Pope Urban II. He authorized an enthusiast, Peter the
Hermit, of Amiens, to travel on an ass through Italy and Southern
France, and to stir up the people to the great undertaking of
delivering the Holy Sepulcher. With an emaciated countenance and
flashing eye, his head bare, and feet naked, and wearing a coarse
garment bound with a girdle of cords, he told his burning tale of the
inflictions endured by the pilgrims. At the great council of
Clermont, in 1095, where a throng of bishops and nobles, and a
multitude of common people who spoke the Romanic tongue, were
assembled, Urban himself addressed the assembly in a strain of
impassioned fervor. He called upon everyone to deny himself, and take
up his cross, that he might win Christ. Whoever would enlist in the
war was to have a complete remission of penances,—a "plenary
indulgence." The answer was thundered forth, "God wills it."
Thousands knelt, and begged to be enrolled in the sacred bands. The
red cross of cloth or silk, fastened to the right shoulder, was the
badge of all who took up arms. Hence they were called crusaders
(from an old French word derived from crucem, Lat. acc. of
crux, a cross).
THE UNDISCIPLINED BANDS.—The farmer left his plow, and the shepherd
his flock. Both sexes and all ages were inspired with a common
passion. Before a military organization could be made, a disorderly
host, poorly armed and ill-provided, led by Peter the Hermit
and Walter the Penniless, a French knight, started for
Constantinople by way of Germany and Hungary. They were obliged to
separate; and, of two hundred thousand, it is said that only seven
thousand reached that capital. These perished in Asia Minor. They left
their bones on the plain of Nicoea, where they were found by
the next crusading expedition.
FIRST CRUSADE (1096-1099).—"The Crusades were primarily a Gaulish
movement:" in French-speaking lands, the fire of chivalric devotion
was most intense. The first regular army of soldiers of the cross
departed by different routes under separate chiefs. First of these was
Godfrey of Bouillon, duke of Lower Lorraine, the bravest and
noblest of them all. With him were his brothers, Baldwin, and
Eustace, count of Boulogne. Prominent among the other chiefs
were Hugh, count of Vermandois; Robert, duke of
Normandy, who had pawned his duchy to his brother, William II.,
the king of England; Robert, count of Flanders; Raymond,
count of Toulouse; Bohemond of Tarentum, son of Robert
Guiscard; and Tancred, Robert Guiscard's nephew. The Spaniards
were taken up with their own crusade against the Moors. In consequence
of the late absorbing struggles between emperors and popes, the
Germans and Italians did not now embark in the enterprise. The
relation of the Norman dynasty in England to the conquered Saxons
prevented the first crusading host from receiving substantial aid from
that country. The leaders of the army finally consented to become the
feudal dependents of the emperor Alexius while they should be
within his borders, and to restore to him such of their conquests as
had been lately wrested by the Turks from the Eastern
Empire. Alexius was more alarmed than gratified on seeing the
swarm of warriors which he had brought into his land. After a siege of
seven weeks, Nicea was surrendered, not, however, into the
hands of the European soldiers who had conducted the siege, but to the
shrewd Alexius. At Doryleum, in a desperate battle the
Turks were defeated; but, on their march eastward, they wasted the
lands which they left behind them. The crusaders suffered severely
from disease consequent on the heat. A private quarrel broke out
between Tancred and Baldwin. Baldwin, invited to
Edessa by the Greek or Armenian ruler, founded there a Latin
principality. After besieging Antioch for several months, by
the treachery of a renegade Christian, Bohemond, with a few
followers, was admitted into the city. The Christians slew ten
thousand of its defenders; but, three days after, Antioch was
shut in by a great army of Turks under the sultan Kerboga. The
crusaders were stimulated by the supposed discovery of the "holy
lance," or the steel head of the spear which had pierced the side of
Jesus. The Turks were vanquished, and the citadel of Antioch was
possessed by Bohemond. The wrangling chieftains were now
compelled by the army to set out for Jerusalem. When they reached the
heights where they first caught a glimpse of the holy city, the
crusaders fell on their knees, and with tears of joy broke out in
hymns of praise to God. But, not accustomed to siege operations, and
destitute of the machines and ladders requisite for the purpose, they
found themselves balked in the first attempts to capture the city. Yet
after thirty days, their needs having been meantime in a measure
supplied, Jerusalem was taken by storm (July 15, 1099). The
infuriated conquerors gave the rein to their vindictive passions. Ten
thousand Saracens were slaughtered. The Jews were burned in the
synagogues, to which they had fled. When the thirst for blood and for
plunder was sated, feelings of penitence and humility took possession
of the victors. The leaders, casting aside their arms, with bared
heads and barefoot, entered into the church of the Holy Sepulcher, and
on their bended knees thanked God for their success. After debate, the
princes united in choosing Godfrey of Bouillon as ruler of the
city. He would not wear a royal crown in the place where the Saviour
of the world had worn on his bleeding forehead a crown of thorns. He
designated himself Protector of the Holy Sepulcher. Shortly after, at
Ascalon, he won a great victory against the vastly superior
forces of the Egyptian sultan. Godfrey died the next year (1100), and
was succeeded by his brother Baldwin, who first took the title
of King of Jerusalem. The force of the Moslems, and the almost
incessant strife and division among the crusaders themselves, made the
kingdom hard to defend.
THE NEW KINGDOM.—Venice, Genoa, and Pisa had the most to do with the
defense and enlargement of the new kingdom. It was organized according
to the method of feudalism. It continued until the capture of
Jerusalem by Saladin in 1187.
THE MILITARY ORDERS.—The principal supporters of the new kingdom at
Jerusalem were the orders of knights, in which were united the spirit
of chivalry and the spirit of monasticism. To the monastic vows of
chastity, poverty, and obedience, they added a fourth vow, which bound
them to fight the infidels, and to protect the pilgrims. These
military orders acquired great privileges and great wealth. Each of
them had its own peculiar apparel, stamped with a cross. The two
principal orders were the Knights of St. John, or the
Hospitallers, and the Knights Templar. The Hospitallers
grew out of a hospital established in the eleventh century near the
Holy Sepulcher, for the care of sick or wounded pilgrims. The order,
when fully constituted, contained three classes of members,—knights,
who were all of noble birth, priests and chaplains, and serving
brothers. After the loss of the Holy Land, the island of Rhodes
was given up to them. This they held until 1522, when they were driven
out by the Turks, and received from the emperor, Charles V.,
the island of Malta. The Templars gained high renown for their
valor, and, by presents and legacies, acquired immense wealth. After
the loss of their possessions in Palestine, most of their members took
up their abode in Cyprus: from there many of them went to
France. Not a few of them became addicted to violent and profligate
ways. They were charged, whether truly or falsely, with unbelief, and
Oriental superstitions caught up in the East from their enemies. These
accusations, coupled with a desire to get their property, led to their
suppression by Philip V. in the beginning of the fourteenth
century. A third order was that of Teutonic Knights, founded at
Jerusalem about 1128. In the next century they subjugated the heathen
Wends in Prussia (1226-1283).
WELFS AND WAIBLINGS.—The emperor Lothar died on a journey back
from Italy in 1137. Henry the Proud, of the house of
Welf, to whom he had given the imperial insignia, hoped to be
his successor, and hesitated to recognize Conrad
III. (1137-1152) of the house of Hohenstaufen, who was
chosen. Conrad required him to give up Saxony, for the reason
that one prince could not govern two duchies. When he refused,
Bavaria, also, was taken from him, and given to Leopold,
margrave of Austria. This led to war, in which the king, as usual, was
strongly supported by the cities. Henry the Proud left a young son,
known later as Henry the Lion. Count Welf, the brother
of Henry the Proud, kept up the war in Bavaria. He was besieged in
Weinsberg. During the siege, it is said that his followers
shouted "Welf" as a war-cry, while the besiegers shouted
"Waiblings,"—Waiblingen being the birthplace of
Frederick, duke of Swabia, brother of Conrad. These names,
corrupted into Guelphs and Ghibellines by the Italians,
were afterwards attached to the two great parties,—the supporters,
respectively, of the popes and the emperors. Henry the Lion
afterwards received Saxony; and the mark of Brandenburg
was given in lieu of it to Albert the Bear.
Welf I. was a powerful nobleman, who received from Henry
IV. the fief of Bavaria. When Henry V died, the
natural heirs of the extinct Franconian line were his nephews,
Frederick of Hohenstaufen, duke of Swabia, and
Conrad. But the Saxons supported the wealthy Lothar, who
was chosen emperor, and won over to his side Henry the Proud,
grandson of Welf I., to whom Lothar gave his daughter in
marriage, and gave, also, the dukedom of Saxony, in addition to
his dukedom of Bavaria. In these events lay the roots of the
long rivalship between the Welfs and the
Hohenstaufens. Henry the Lion, as stated above, was the
son of Henry the Proud.
GENEALOGY OF THE WELFS.
WELF, Duke of Bavaria, 1070-1101.
|
+—HENRY the Black, Duke of Bavaria, 1120-1126.
|
+—Judith, m. to Frederic, Duke of Swabia (d. 1147),
| the son of Agnes, who was the daughter of HENRY IV. FREDERIC I
| (Barbarossa) was the son of Judith, and this Frederic of Swabia.
| The Swabian dukes were called Hohenstaufens, from a
| castle on Mount Staufen in Wurtemberg.
|
+—HENRY the Proud,
Duke of Bavaria 1126, of Saxony 1137; deprived, 1138.
|
+—HENRY the Lion, m.
Matilda, daughter of Henry II of England.
|
+—HENRY the Young, d. 1227.
|
+—OTTO IV, d. 1218.
SECOND CRUSADE (1147-1149).—The preacher of the second Crusade was
St. Bernard, whose saintly life and moving eloquence produced a
great effect. Louis VII. of France and Conrad III. were
the leaders. The expedition was attended by a series of calamities. The
design of recapturing Edessa from Noureddin, the sultan of
Aleppo, was given up. The siege of Damascus failed
(1148). Conrad returned home with broken health. Soon after,
Damascus fell into the hands of Noureddin, who was a brave and
upright leader. Through one of his lieutenants, he conquered
Egypt. After his death, Saladin, who sprung from one of the
tribes of Kurds, and was in his service, rose to power there, and
set aside the Fatimite caliphate (1171). He was not less renowned for
his culture and magnanimity than for his valor. Saladin united
under his scepter all the lands from Cairo to Aleppo. In the battle at
Ramla, not far from Ascalon (1178), the crusaders gained their
last notable victory over this antagonist, which served to prolong for
some years the existence of the kingdom of Jerusalem. Afterwards victory
was on his side: the crusaders were overthrown in the fatal battle of
Tiberias, and Jerusalem was taken by him (1187). Thus the
Latin kingdom fell. The Saracen conqueror was much more humane after
success than the Christian warriors had been in like circumstances.
FREDERICK BARBAROSSA.—Frederick I.—Barbarossa, or Redbeard, he
was called in Italy—(1152-1190) was one of the grand figures of the
Middle Ages. He was thirty-one years of age at his election as emperor,
and had already been with the crusaders to the Holy Land. In him great
strength of understanding and a capacity for large undertakings were
combined with a taste for letters and art. His aim was to bring back to
the empire the strength and dignity which had belonged to it under the
Saxon and Franconian emperors. The rulers of Bohemia and
Poland he obliged to swear fealty as vassals. He put down private
war, and restored order in Germany. The palatinate on the Rhine,
formerly a part of Franconia, he gave to his half-brother Conrad,
who founded Heidelberg (1155).
STRUGGLE WITH THE LOMABARD CITIES.—The principal conflict of Frederick
I. was in Italy, where he endeavored to restore the imperial supremacy
over the Lombard cities, which had grown prosperous and freedom-loving,
and were bent on managing their own municipal affairs. They had thrown
off the rule of bishops and counts. The burghers of Milan, the
principal town, had obliged the neighboring nobles and cities to form a
league with them. The smaller cities, as Como and Lodi,
preferred the emperor's control to being subject to Milan. Pavia
clung to the empire. But most of the cities prized their independence
and republican administration. The Pope and the emperor were soon at
variance, and the cities naturally looked to the pontiff for sympathy
and leadership. In 1158 Frederick again crossed the Alps, bent on
establishing the imperial jurisdiction as it had stood in the days of
Charlemagne. The study of the Roman law was now pursued with enthusiasm
at Bologna and Padua. At a great assembly in the
Roncalian Fields, Frederick caused the prerogatives of the empire
to be defined according to the terms of the civil law. The emperor was
proclaimed as "lord of the world,"—dominus mundi. In the room of
the consuls, a Podesta was appointed as the chief officer in each
city, to represent his authority. Milan, which had submitted,
revolted, but, after a siege of two years, was forced to surrender, and
was destroyed, at the emperor's command, by the inhabitants of the
neighboring cities (1162). In 1159 Alexander III. was elected
Pope by a majority of the cardinals. Victor IV. was chosen by the
imperial party, and was recognized at a council convened by
Frederick at Pavia. On the death of Victor, another
anti-pope, Paschal III., was elected in his place; and, on the
fourth visit of Frederick to Italy (1166-1168), he conducted Paschal to
Rome. In 1167 the cities of Northern Italy, which maintained their cause
with invincible spirit, united in the Lombard League. They built
the strongly fortified place, Alessandria,—named after the
Pope,—and took possession of the passes of the Alps. The emperor, whose
army was nearly destroyed by a pestilence at Rome, escaped, with no
little difficulty and danger, to Germany.
FREDERICK I. AND POPE ALEXANDER III.—For nearly seven years Frederick
remained in Germany. He put an end to a violent feud which had been
raging between Henry the Lion and his enemies (1168). In 1174 he
was ready to resume his great Italian enterprise. But he did not succeed
in taking Alessandria. All his efforts to induce Henry the
Lion to come to his support failed. He was consequently defeated in
the battle of Legnano (1176). The extraordinary abilities and
indefatigable energy of the great emperor had been exerted in the vain
effort, as he himself now perceived it to be, to break down the
resistance of a free people to a system which they felt to be an
obsolete despotism. A reconciliation took place at Venice in 1177
between Pope Alexander III. and Frederick, in which the latter
virtually gave up the plan which he had so long struggled to realize. It
was a day of triumph for the Papacy. At Constance, in 1183, a
treaty was made with the Lombard cities, in which their self-government
was substantially conceded, with the right to fortify themselves, and to
levy armies, and to extend the bounds of their confederacy. The
overlordship of the emperor was recognized. There was to be an imperial
judge in each town, to whom appeals in the most important causes might
be made. The "regalian rights" to forage, food, and
lodging for the emperor's army, when within their territory, were
reduced to a definite form. The cities grew stronger from their newly
gained freedom; yet the loss of imperial restraint was, on some
occasions, an evil.
FREDERICK IN GERMANY.—After his return to Germany, Frederick deprived
Henry the Lion of his lands; and when Henry craved his
forgiveness at the Diet of Erfurt in 1181, he was allowed to retain
Brunswick and Lüneburg. He was to live for three years,
with his wife and child, at the court of his father-in-law, Henry
II., king of England. His son William, born there, is the
ancestor of the present royal family in England. In 1184 the emperor,
in honor of his sons, King Henry, and Frederick, duke of
Swabia, who were of age to become knights, celebrated at Mentz
a magnificent festival, where a great throng of attendants was
gathered from far and near. In a last and peaceful visit to Italy, his
son Henry was married to Constance, the daughter of
Roger II., and the heiress of the Norman kingdom of Lower Italy
and Sicily.
THIRD CRUSADE (1189-1192).—The old emperor now undertook another
Crusade (1189), in which he was supported by Philip
II. (Philip Augustus), king of France, and Richard
the Lion-Hearted (Cæur-de-Lion), king of England, but of French
descent. Having spent the winter at Adrianople, Frederick
crossed into Asia Minor, and conquered Iconium. In his advance
he showed a military skill and a valor which made the expedition a
memorable one; but at the river Calycadnus in Cilicia, either
while bathing or attempting to cross on horseback, the old warrior was
swept away by the stream, and drowned (1190). His son Frederick
died during the siege of Acre. Richard and Philip
quarreled, before and after reaching Acre, which surrendered in
1191. Philip returned to France. Richard, with all his
valor, was twice compelled to turn back from Jerusalem. Nothing was
accomplished except the establishment of a truce with Saladin,
by which a strip of land on the coast, from Joppa to
Acre, was given to the Christians, and pilgrimages to the holy
places were allowed. Richard was distinguished both for his
deeds of arms and for his cruelty. On his return, he was kept as a
prisoner by Leopold, duke of Austria, by the direction of the
emperor, Henry VI., for thirteen months, and released on the
payment of a ransom, and rendering homage. He was charged with
treading the German banner in the filth at Acre. His alliance with the
Welfs in Germany is enough to explain the hostility felt
towards him by the imperial party.
HENRY VI.: POPE INNOCENT III.—Henry VI. (1190-1197) had the prudence
and vigor of his father, but lacked his magnanimity. He was hard and
stern in his temper. Twice he visited Italy to conquer the kingdom of
the Two Sicilies, the inheritance of his wife. He waged a new war with
Henry the Lion (1192-1194), which ended in a marriage of
Agnes, the emperor's cousin, with Henry, the son of
Henry. It was a project of the emperor to convert Germany and Italy,
with Sicily, into a hereditary monarchy; but the princes would not
consent. He aspired to incorporate the Eastern Empire in the same
dominion. While engaged in strife with the aged Pope, Coelestin
II., respecting the Tuscan lands of Matilda, which she had
bequeathed to the Church, the emperor suddenly died. His son
Frederick was a boy only three years old. On the death of
Coelestin II., early in 1198, Innocent III., the ablest
and most powerful of all the popes, acceded to the pontifical
chair. Innocent was a statesman of unsurpassed sagacity and energy. He
was imbued with the highest idea of the pontifical dignity. He made
his authority felt and feared in all parts of Christendom. He exacted
submission from all rulers, civil and ecclesiastical. The Empress
Constance, in order to secure Italy for Frederick,
accepted the papal investment on conditions dictated by the
Pope. After her death Innocent ruled Italy in the character of
guardian of her son. He dislodged the imperial vassals from the Tuscan
territory of Matilda, and thus became a second founder of the
papal state.
FOURTH CRUSADE (1202-1204).—Under the auspices of Innocent
III., a Crusade was undertaken by French barons, with whom were
associated Baldwin, count of Flanders, and Boniface,
marquis of Montferrat. Arrived at Venice, the crusaders were
not able to furnish to the Venetians the sum agreed to be paid for
their transportation. The Venetians, whose devotion was strongly
tempered with the mercantile spirit, under the old doge, Henry
Dandolo, greatly to the displeasure of the Pope, persuaded them to
assist in the capture of Zara, which the king of Hungary had
wrested from Venice. Then, at the call of Alexius, son of the
Eastern emperor, Isaac Angelus, they went with the Venetian
fleet to Constantinople, and restored these princes to the throne. The
result of the contentions that followed with the Greeks was the
pillage of Constantinople, and the establishment of the Latin
Empire under Baldwin. Principalities were carved out for
different chiefs; the Venetians taking several Greek coast towns, and
afterwards Candia (Crete). The patriarch of Constantinople had
to take his pallium from Rome. The Latin service was established in
the churches. There was no real union between the Greeks and the
invaders, but constant strife, until, in 1261, Michael
Paloeologus, the head of a Greek empire which had been established
at Nicoea, put an end to the Latin kingdom.
CHILDREN'S CRUSADE.—The failure of the stupendous undertakings for
the conquest of the infidels was attributed to the wicked wrangles,
and still more to the vicious lives, of the crusaders, whose defeat
was regarded as indicative of the frown of Heaven on their evil
courses. This feeling gave occasion to the Children's Crusade, in
1212. Many thousands of French and German boys made their way, in two
distinct expeditions, to Marseilles and the seaports of Italy,
in order to be conveyed thence to the Holy Land. But few returned:
nearly all perished by the way, or were seized, and carried off to
slave-markets. The enterprise grew out of a wild construction of the
injunction of Jesus to let little children come to him.
OTTO IV.: CIVIL WAR IN GERMANY.—Frederick had been elected king; but,
on the death of his father, his claims were disregarded. The
Hohenstaufens chose Philip, brother of Henry VI.: the
Welfs appointed Otto, the second son of Henry the
Lion. Innocent claimed the right, not to appoint the emperor, but
to decide between the rival claimants. He decided, in 1201, in favor
of Otto IV. (1198-1214). Philip's party, however, seemed
likely to succeed; but, in 1208, he was murdered. Otto, having
made large promises of submission to the Pope's requirements, was
crowned emperor, and universally acknowledged. When he failed to
fulfill his pledges, and began to assert the old imperial prerogatives
in Italy, he was excommunicated and deposed by Innocent (1210).
FREDERICK (II.) MADE KING.—Innocent was now led to take up the cause
of young Frederick (1212). The latter won Germany over to his
side, and received the German crown at Aix-la-Chapelle in
1215. Otto was restricted to his ancestral territory in
Brunswick.
CHARACTER OF FREDERICK II. (1214-1250).—Frederick II., on
account of his extraordinary natural gifts and his accomplishments,
was called the wonder of the world. He knew several languages,
and, in intercourse with the Saracens_ in Sicily, had acquired a
familiarity with the sciences. In many of his ideas of government he
was in advance of his time. But his reign was largely spent in a
contest with the Lombard cities and with the popes. He is styled by an
eminent modern historian, "the gay, the brave, the wise, the
relentless, and the godless Frederick." He was often charged with
skepticism in relation to the doctrines of the Church. The main ground
of this imputation seems to have been a temper of mind at variance
with the habit of the age,—a very moderate degree of reverence for
ecclesiastical authority, and the absence of the usual antipathy to
heresy and religious dissent.
FIFTH CRUSADE (1228-1229).—Having caused his son Henry to be
elected king of Rome, Frederick, in 1220, left Germany for
fifteen years. It was the policy of the popes to keep the Sicilian
crown from being united with the empire, and the emperor from gaining
the supremacy in Lombardy. Frederick, at his coronation at
Aix, and afterwards, had engaged to undertake a crusade. But he
had postponed it from time to time. Pope Honorius III. had
patiently borne with this delay. But when Frederick, in 1227, was
about to start, and was prevented, as he professed, by the contagious
disease in his army, from which he himself was suffering, Gregory
IX., the next pope, placed him under the ban of the
Church. Nevertheless, the emperor, in the following year, embarked on
his crusade. His vigor as a soldier, and, still more, his tact in
conciliating the Saracens, enabled him to get possession of
Jerusalem. No bishop would crown an excommunicate, and he had
to put the crown on his own head. That he left a mosque unmolested was
a fresh ground of reproach. He negotiated an armistice with the
sultan, Kameel (El Kámil), who ceded Nazareth and a
strip of territory reaching to the coast, together with
Sidon. Fifteen years later (in 1244) Jerusalem was
finally lost by the Christians.
CONTEST OF FREDERICK WITH THE POPES.—On his return to Italy,
Frederick drove the papal troops out of Apulia. In a personal
interview with Gregory IX. at San Germane, a treaty was
made between them, the ban was removed, and the treaty of Frederick
with the Sultan was sanctioned by the Pope. Frederick now displayed
his talent for organization in all parts of his empire. His
constitution for the Sicilian kingdom, based on the ruins of the old
feudalism, is tinged with the modern political spirit. His court,
wherever he sojourned, mingled an almost Oriental luxury and splendor
with the attractions of poetry and song. A sore trial was the revolt
of his son Henry (1234), whom he conquered, and confined in a
prison, where he died in 1242. The efforts of Frederick to enforce the
imperial supremacy over the Lombard cities were met with the same
stubborn resistance from the Guelfs which his grandfather had
encountered. In 1237 he gained a brilliant victory over them at
Cortenuova. But the hard terms on which Frederick insisted, in
connection with other transactions offensive to the Pope, called out
another excommunication from Gregory IX. (1239). The Genoese
fleet, which was conveying ecclesiastics to a council called by the
Pope at Rome, was captured by direction of Frederick; and the
prelates were thrown into prison. Pope Innocent IV. (1243-1254)
fled to Lyons, and there published anew the ban against the
emperor, declared him deposed, and summoned the Germans to elect
another emperor in his place. The ecclesiastical princes in Germany
chose Henry Raspe (1246-1247), landgrave of Thuringia, who was
defeated by Conrad, Henry's son. The next emperor thus chosen,
William of Holland (1247), made no headway in Germany. During
this period of civil war, many German cities gained their freedom from
episcopal rule, attained to great privileges, and came into an
immediate relation to the emperor. A fearful war raged in Italy
between the Guelfs and Ghibellines, in the midst of
which Frederick died, in the fifty-sixth year of his age. Had
he been as conscientious and as capable of curbing his passions and
appetites as he was highly endowed in other respects, he might have
been a model ruler. As it was; although his career was splendid, his
private life, as well as his public conduct, was stained with flagrant
faults.
THE SICILIAN KINGDOM.—The kingdom of the Two Sicilies was bravely
defended by Manfred, son of Frederick II, in behalf of young
Conradin, the son of the new emperor, Conrad IV. The
Pope gave the crown to Charles of Anjou, brother of Louis
IX. of France. Charles, after the fall of Manfred at
Beneventum (1266), gained the kingdom. Conradin went to
Italy, but was defeated and captured in 1268, and was executed at
Naples. Such was the tragic end of the last of the
Hohenstaufens. The unbearable tyranny of the French led to a
conspiracy called the Sicilian Vespers (1282); and, at Easter
Monday, at vesper time, the rising took place. All the French in
Sicily were massacred. Peter of Aragon, who had married the
daughter of Manfred, became king of Sicily. The dominion of
Charles of Anjou was restricted to Naples.
SPAIN.—The Spaniards had a crusade to carry forward in their own
land, which lasted for eight hundred years. In the tenth and eleventh
centuries, especially under Abderrahman III. (912-961), the
Moorish civilization was most brilliant. In Cordova, there were
six hundred mosques. There were said to be seventeen universities and
seventy large libraries in Spain. The caliph's fleets were dominant in
the Mediterranean. He was mild in his policy towards Jews and
Christians. In the eleventh century the caliphs gave themselves up to
luxury, and the control of their forces was in the hands of the
viziers. Of these, Almanzor, the general of Hakem II
(976-1013), was the most famous. He took the city of Leon, and
plundered the church of St. James of Compostella, the patron saint of
Spain. After this time the caliphate of Cordova broke up into
numerous kingdoms. The Christian Visigoths in the north-west
had built up the little kingdom of Oviedo, which later took the
name of Leon. The rest of Christian Spain was united under
Sancho the Great (970-1035). To one of his sons, Ferdinand
I, he left Castile, to which Leon and the
Asturias were united; to another, Aragon; and, to a
third, Navarre and Biscay. It was under Ferdinand
that the exploits of the Spanish hero, the Cid (Rodrigo
Diaz of Bivar), in conflict with the infidels, began. The complete
conquest of the Moors was prevented by the strife of the Christian
kingdoms with one another. Under Alfonso VI (1072-1109), they
were all once more united.
GREAT DEFEAT OF THE MOORS.—The invasion of the Almoravids,
invited over from Africa by the Mussulman princes (1086), checked the
progress of the Christian conquest. These allies of the Arabs built up
a kingdom for themselves, reconquered Valencia, and taxed to
the utmost the power of the Christians to resist their progress. New
sects of fanatical Moslems, the Almohads, having conquered
Morocco, passed over into Spain. The Mohammedans were thus at war
among themselves, and were divided into three parties. Military orders
were established in Spain; and the kings of Castile,
Leon, and Navarre, aided by sixty thousand crusaders
from Germany, France, and Italy, defeated Mohammed, the chief
of the Almohads, with great slaughter, in a decisive battle near
Tolosa (1212). The Spanish crusade built up the little kingdom of
Portugal, and the states of Castile and of
Aragon. They were destined to play an important part in the
history of commerce and discovery. The Spanish character owed some of
its marked traits to this prolonged struggle with the Moslems.
THE MONGOLIAN INVASIONS.—At the beginning of the thirteenth century,
Genghis Khan, the leader of Mongolian hordes which roamed over
the Asiatic plateau between China and Siberia, conquered China, and
overthrew the ruling dynasty. He subdued Hindustan and the
empire of the Chowares, which had been founded by a
Seljukian slave, and spread his power from the Caspian Sea
through Persia to India (1218). Bokhara and Samarcand
were among the populous cities which were burned with all their
treasures by these ruthless invaders. Libraries were converted into
stalls for the horses of the brutal conquerors. The sons and
successors of Genghis Khan swept over the countries north of
the Black Sea, captured Moscow and Kiev, burned
Cracow, and pursued their murderous and devastating path over
Poland and Hungary, At the battle of Wahlstatt
(1241), the Germans under Henry the Pious, duke of Liegnitz,
were defeated. The victories of the Tartars were frightful
massacres. It was a custom of the Mongols to cut off an ear of the
slaughtered enemy. It was said that at Liegnitz these trophies filled
nine sacks. The Mongol hosts retired from Europe. They attacked the
caliphate of Bagdad, a city which they took by storm, and
plundered for forty days. They destroyed the dynasty of the
Abassids. They marched into Syria, stormed and sacked
Aleppo, and captured Damascus. For a time the central
point of the Tartar conquests was the city or camping-ground of
Karakorum in Central Asia. After a few generations their empire
was broken in pieces. The "Golden Horde," which they had planted in
Russia, on the east of the Volga, remained there for two
centuries. Bagdad was held by the Mongols until 1400, when it
was conquered, and kept for a short time, by Tamerlane.
The religion of the Tartars was either Lamaism—a corrupted
form of Buddhistic belief and worship,—or Mohammedanism. In
China and Mongolia they were Lamaists: elsewhere they generally
adopted the faith of Islam. Their original religion was
Shamaism, a worship of spirits, akin to fetichism. The later
Mongol sovereigns, especially Kublai Khan, were ready to
promote peaceful intercourse with Europe. It was at this time that
Marco Polo resided at their court.
SIXTH CRUSADE (1248-1254): SEVENTH CRUSADE (1270).-Two additional
Crusades were undertaken under the leadership of that upright and
devout king, Louis IX. of France. The first (1248-1254)
resulted in the taking of Damietta in Egypt (1249); but the
next year Louis, with his whole army, was captured, and
obtained his release after much delay, by the surrender of his
conquests, and in return for a large ransom. Not disheartened by this
failure, the pious monarch, in 1270, sailed to Tunis, where he
and most of his army perished from sickness. In 1291 Acre, the
last town held by the Christians, was taken by the Egyptian
Mamelukes; and the Crusades came to an end.
EFFECTS OF THE CRUSADES.—The Crusades were a spontaneous movement of
Christian Europe. It was a great tide, which bore away all classes of
people. It lends to the Middle Ages an ideal and heroic character. An
overpowering sentiment, submerging calculation and self-interest,
swept over society. There was infinite suffering: countless lives were
the forfeit. The results, however, were beneficent, 1. It is true that
the conquests made in the East were all surrendered. The holy places
were given up. Yet the Turks had received a check which was a
protection to Europe during the period when its monarchies were
forming, and were gaining the force to encounter them anew, and repel
their dangerous aggressions. 2. The Feudal System in Europe was
smitten with a mortal blow. Smaller fiefs, either by sale or by the
death of the holders, were swallowed up in the larger. The anarchical
spirit was counteracted. Political unity was promoted. 3. There
was a lessening of the social distance between suzerain and
serf. They fought side by side, and aided one another in common
perils. The consequence was an increase of sympathy. 4. There was
an expansion of knowledge. There was a widening of geographical
knowledge. An acquaintance was gained with other peoples and
countries. To the more civilized Saracens, the crusaders seemed brutal
and barbarous. The crusaders in turn were impressed with the superior
advancement and elegance of the Saracens. It was not the lord only who
beheld distant lands: the serf was taken from the soil to which he had
been tied. He drew stimulus and information from sojourning under
other skies. 5. A great impulse was given to trade and commerce. An
acquaintance was gained with new products, natural and artificial. New
wants were created. 6. The cities advanced in strength and wealth.
Important social consequences resulted from their growth.
WHY THE CRUSADES TERMINATED.—After the thirteenth century it was
impossible to rekindle the crusading enthusiasm. The fire had burned
out. It seemed as if the idea had exhausted itself in action. This
effect was due, (1) to the absence of novelty in such undertakings; (2)
to the long experience of the hardships belonging to them, which tended
to dampen the romantic zeal that had formed a part of the motive; (3) to
the disappointments following upon the practical failure of so
prodigious and costly exertions; (4) to an altered condition of public
feeling of a more general character. Antipathy to the infidel, the more
exclusive sway of religious sentiment, were giving way to a mingling of
secular aims and interests. There were new and wider fields of activity
at home. The mood of men's minds was no longer the same.
LUXURIES INTRODUCED BY THE CRUSADES.—The effect of the Crusades in
bringing in new comforts and luxuries, and in thus altering the style
of living, was remarkable. At the very outset, a great deal of money,
obtained by the sale or pawning of estates, was spent in the outfit of
the hundred thousand nobles, who, at the beginning, took the
cross. Costly furs, embroidered cushions, curtains of purple dye,
pavilions worked with gold, banners of purple or of cloth-of-gold,
showy costumes, and shining armor,—such was the splendor that met the
eyes of thousands who had never before beheld such a spectacle. The
journey to the East brought under the observation of the crusaders,
arts and fashions to which they had been strangers, They saw the
gilded domes and marble palaces of Constantinople, and the
treasures of ancient art which had been gathered within the walls of
that ancient capital. Antioch, with all its wealth, fell into
their hands. Later, the merchants of both religions followed in the
wake of the armies, and met one another. The superb fabrics of the
East were carried to the West by routes which now became safe and
familiar. The precious ores and tissues of Damascus, and the
beautiful glassware of Tyre, were conveyed to Venice,
and thence to places more distant. Silk stuffs of exquisite beauty
were brought from Mosul and Alexandria. The elegance of
the East, with its rich fabrics, its jewels and pearls, was so
enchanting that an enthusiastic crusader termed it "the vestibule of
Paradise." It was not the nobles alone in the West who acquired these
attractive products of skill and industry. The cities shared in
them. Even the lower classes partook of the change in the way of
living.
LIFE IN THE CASTLE.—Even in the earlier days of feudalism, the
seclusion of the castle was not without an influence in promoting
domestic intercourse and affection. A new sentiment respecting woman
sprang up in the Middle Ages, and was fostered by the honor which the
New Testament and the teaching of the Church rendered to saintly
women. A spirit of gallantry and devotion to woman, partly natural to
the Germanic race, and partly arising from causes like that just
named, sprang up in the midst of prevailing ignorance and perpetual
strife. In the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries life in
the castle is found to be very much improved. In the eleventh century
it lacked comfort, to say nothing of luxury. The lights were torches
of dry wood: even candles were not in general use. Houses in France,
England, and Germany commonly had thatched roofs. They were made of
logs covered with a sort of clay or mud. They were built with low and
narrow doors, and with small windows which admitted but little
light. In the middle of the smoky hall was a large, round
fireplace. There was no chimney, but only a funnel, which pierced the
ceiling. The seats were benches and stools. The feet of the family and
guests were kept warm by hay spread beneath them. In the later period
the substitution of dry rushes and straw was thought to be a marvelous
gain. Beds of straw were introduced into all the apartments of nobles,
and even of kings. To sleep on a straw couch was deemed a regal
luxury. One consequence of the Crusades was to introduce carpets and
hangings into the dwellings of the great. Improved timepieces took
the place of the water-clocks, which were a wonder in the days of
Charlemagne. In the twelfth century the castle begins to look less
like a dungeon. Within and without, it ceases to wear so exclusively
the aspect of a fortress. The furniture has more beauty. In the great
hall are the large tables attached to the floor, the sideboards, the
cupboards, the stately chair of the lord, the couch with its canopy,
the chests for the wearing-apparel, the armor on the walls. In the
thirteenth century France was covered with chateaux, which, in the
case of princes and nobles of highest rank, had their spacious courts,
their stables, their lodgings for the servants. All these were within
the precincts of the palace. In the great hall were held the
assemblies of vassals, banquets, judicial trials. In the wealthiest
mansions, there was a main saloon on the floor above, reached by a
spiral stairway, and serving also for the principal bed-chamber. There
the stone floor gave place to marble of varied colors. Mosaics and
other ornaments were introduced. Sculptures, carvings, and mural
paintings decorated the apartments. Glass mirrors, imported by way of
Venice, began to supersede the mirrors of polished metal. Larger
windows, of painted glass, became common among the rich, in the room
of the small pieces of glass, or of alabaster, which had before served
to let in a few rays of light. Tallow candles came into vogue. Lamps
were not unknown. On great occasions, lanterns and wax candles were
used for a festive illumination. Chimneys were in use, and about the
vast fire-place the family group could gather. The hospitality of the
castle was often bountiful. The chase, the favorite amusement, gave
life and animation to the scene, and prepared the inmates for the
feast that followed. Minstrels enlivened the social gathering. Troops
of mountebanks and buffoons furnished amusement, and were sometimes
lavishly rewarded. There were singers and buffoons who were attached
permanently to the household. There were others who traveled from
place to place, and were even organized into corporations or
guilds. The fool, or jester, to whom a large license was
allowed, was long deemed a necessary adjunct of the
castle-hall. Carriages were little used; rank was indicated by the
accouterments of the war-horse or of the palfrey. From the twelfth
century onward, the improvement in the comforts of living was not
confined to the nobles and to rich burghers in cities. It was shared
by the rural classes, notwithstanding the miseries—such as
insecurity, and dangers of famine—that belonged to their condition.
POVERTY AND DISEASE.—A French writer on the history of luxury,
speaking of France in this period, says, "In the cities, we meet at
once luxury, certain beginnings of prosperity, and frightful
misery. Beggary exists in a form the most hideous: there is
an organization of it with grades, and a sort of hierarchy. In the
face of sumptuous costumes, of chateaux better adorned, of the
nascent wealth of industry, France included more than two thousand
lepers, and knew not how to treat maladies born of the most
imperfect hygiene and the most sordid filth. Such were the
extremes. The course of general progress went forward between them."
The condition of the poorest class in England was no better. "The
absence of vegetable food for the greater part of the year, the
personal dirt of the people, the sleeping at night in the clothes
worn in the day, and other causes, made skin-diseases frightfully
common. At the outskirts of every town in England, there were
crawling about emaciated creatures covered with loathsome sores,
living Heaven knows how. They were called by the common name of
lepers; and probably the leprosy, strictly so called, was awfully
common." Such being the life of the poor in villages, and in the
absence of drainage and other modern safeguards of health, in large
towns, it is no wonder that in the Middle Ages there were terrible
pestilences, and that the average length of life was much less than
at present.
ORIGIN AND NATURE OF CHIVALRY.—It was in the period of the crusades
that the mediaeval institution of chivalry was ennobled by receiving a
religious consecration. Chivalry is a comprehensive term, denoting a
system of ideas and customs that prevailed in the middle ages. In the
western kingdoms of Europe there was gradually formed a distinct class
of warriors of superior rank, who fought on horseback, and were
recognized as knights by a ceremony of equipment with
arms. Among the customs of the ancient Germans, which are noticed by
Tacitus, and in which may be discovered the germs of chivalry, are the
remarkable deference paid to women, attendance of the aspiring youth
on a military superior,—out of which vassalship arose,—and the
formal receiving of arms on reaching manhood. At the outset,
knighthood was linked to feudal service: the knights were
landholders. In the age of Charlemagne, the warriors on horseback—the
caballarii—were the precursors, both in name and function, of
the chevaliers of later times. The word knight, meaning
a youth or servant, and then a military attendant, came to be a term
of equivalent meaning. The necessary connection of knighthood with the
possession of fiefs was broken in the thirteenth century, through
changes in the circumstances of warfare. Knighthood became independent
of feudalism. It was a personal distinction, frequently bestowed as a
reward for brave deeds, and often conferred with elaborate ceremonies,
partly of a religious character. When the boy of gentle birth passed
from under the care of females, he first served as a page or
valet at the court of a prince or the castle of a rich noble. Having
been thus trained in habits of courtesy and obedience, he was
advanced, not earlier than the age of fourteen, to the rank of
squire, and instructed in horsemanship and in the use of
weapons. He followed his master to the tournament and in battle, until
finally he was himself dubbed a knight, was clothed in armor of
steel, and took on him all the obligations and privileges of his
order. The introduction of hereditary surnames and of armorial
bearings served to distinguish the members of this order. He who was a
knight in one place was a knight everywhere.
There were different classes of knights. The "bachelor," who bore a
forked pennon, was below the "knight-banneret," who alone had the right
to carry the square banner. The banneret was required to have a certain
estate, and to be able to bring into the field a certain number of
lances, i.e., inferior knights with their men-at-arms and
foot-soldiers. Each knight was accompanied by his squire and personal
attendants. Not seldom two knights joined together in a brotherhood in
arms, pledging themselves to sustain each other in every peril.
THE VIRTUES OF KNIGHTHOOD.—There were characteristic obligations of
knighthood. One was loyalty, which included a strict fidelity
to all pledges, embracing promises made to an enemy. Another knightly
virtue was courtesy, which was exercised even towards a
foe. The spirit of gallantry, inspiring devotion to woman,
especially the chosen object of love, and protection to womanly
weakness, was always a cardinal trait of the chivalric
temper. Courage, which delighted in daring exploits, and sought
fields for the exercise of personal prowess, was an indispensable
quality of the knights. The ideal of chivalry was honor rather
than benevolence. The influence of chivalry in refining manners was
very great; but, especially in its period of decline, it allowed or
brought in much cruelty and profligacy. Its distinctive spirit could
find room for exercise only amid conflict and bloodshed, which it
naturally tended to promote.
CEREMONIES OF INVESTITURE.—When the knight was created according to
the complete form, he entered into a bath on the evening previous, was
instructed by old knights in "the order and feats" of chivalry, was
then clad in white and russet, like a hermit, passed the night in the
chapel in "orisons and prayers," and at daybreak confessed to the
priest, and received the sacrament. He then returned to his
chamber. At the appointed hour he was conducted to the hall, where he
received the spurs and was girded with the sword by the prince or
other lord who was to confer the distinction, by whom he was smitten
on the shoulder and charged to be "a good knight." Thence he was
escorted to the chapel, where he swore on the altar to defend the
church, and his sword was consecrated.
JUDICIAL COMBATS.—The disposition to resort to single combats as a
judicial test of guilt or innocence was stimulated by the development
of chivalry. There were other ordeals long in vogue, by which it was
thought that Heaven would interpose miraculously to shield, and thus
to vindicate, the innocent, and to expose the criminal. Such were the
plunging of the hand into boiling water, the contact of the flesh with
red-hot iron or with fire, the lot, the oath taken on holy relics, the
reception of the Eucharist, which would choke the perjurer, and send
his soul to perdition. The ordeals were regulated and managed by the
clergy. Among the German, and also the Celtic tribes, there are traces
of the duel between combatants, for purposes of divination, or of
determining on which side in a controversy the right lay. The judicial
combat in mediaeval Europe became general. Champions, in cases where
the rights of women were in debate, and in other instances where the
wager of battle between the direct antagonists in a dispute was
impracticable, were selected, or volunteered, to try the issue in an
armed conflict. Sometimes professional champions, hired for the
occasion, were employed. The custom of judicial combats by degrees
declined. The municipalities and the spirit of commerce were averse to
it. It was opposed by the Emperor Frederic II. and by Louis IX. of
France. The influence of the Roman law helped to undermine it; but the
opposition of the Church was the most effectual agency in doing away
with it. The modern duel, which survived the judicial combat, is a
relic of the ancient custom of avenging private injuries, and of
proving the courage of the combatants between whom a quarrel had
arisen. In the opening of Shakespeare's play of Richard II., in the
quarrel of Mowbray and Bolingbroke, the idea of the judicial combat
mingles with the motives and feelings characteristic of the duel when
stripped of its religious aspect.
FRANCE.—DESCENDANTS OF HUGH CAPET
HUGH THE GREAT (d. 956), m.
3, Hedwiga, daughter of Henry I of Germany.
|
+—HUGH CAPET, 987-996.
|
+—ROBERT, 996-1031.
|
+—HENRY I,1031-1060.
|
+—PHILIP I, 1060-1108, m.
Bertha, daughter of Florence I, Count of Holland.
|
+—LOUIS VI, 1108-1137.
|
+—LOUIS VII, 1137-1180,
m. 3, Alice, daughter of Theobold II,
Count of Champagne.
|
+—PHILIP II (Augustus), 1180-1223,
m. 1, Isabella, daughter of Baldwin V,
Count of Hainault.
|
+—LOUIS VIII, 1223-1226,
m. Blanche, daughter
of Alfonso IX of Castile.
|
+—(St.) Louis IX, 1226-1270,
m. Margaret, daughter of
Raimond Berengar IV, Count of Provence.
|
+—2, PHILIP III, 1270-1285,
| m. 1, Isabella, daughter
| of James I of Aragon.
| |
| +—PHILIP IV, 1285-1314,
| | m. Jeanne,
| | heiress of Champagne and Navarre.
| | |
| | +—LOUIS X, 1314-1316.
| | |
| | +—PHILIP V, 1316-1322.
| | |
| | +—CHARLES IV, 1322-1328.
| |
| +—Charles, Count of Valois (d.
| 1325), founder of the house of
| Valois, m. Margaret, daughter
| of Charles II of Naples.
| |
| +—PHILIP VI, succeeded 1328.
|
+—Robert, Count of Clermont,
founder of the house of Bourbon.
ENGLAND.—FROM THE CONQUEST TO EDWARD I.
WILLIAM I, 1066-1087, m.
Matilda, daughter of Baldwin V of Flanders
|
+—WILLIAM II (Rufus), 1087-1100.
|
| (Malcolm Canmore m. St. Margaret)
| |
| +—Mary m. Eustace, Count of Boulogne
| |
| +—Maud
| |
| +—Matilda.
| m.
+—HENRY I, 1100-1135
| |
| +—MATILDA (d. 1167) m.
| 1, Emperor Henry V;
| 2, Geoffrey Plantagenet,
| Count of Anjou
| |
| +—HENRY II, 1154-1189 m.
| Eleanor of Aquitaine, etc.,
| wife of Louis VII of France.
| |
| +—3, RICHARD I, 1189-1199.
| |
| +—5, JOHN, 1199-1216, m.
| Isabella of Angouleme
| |
| +—HENRY III, 1216-1272,
| m. Eleanor, daughter of
| Raymond Berengar IV of
| Provence.
| |
| +—EDWARD I, succeeded 1272.
|
+—Adela, m. Stephen, Count of Blois.
|
+—STEPHEN, 1135-1154. m.
Maud, daughter of Malcolm Canmore and St. Margaret.
CHAPTER III. ENGLAND AND FRANCE: THE FIRST PERIOD OF THEIR RIVALSHIP
(1066-1217).
The emperors, the heads of the Holy Roman Empire, were the chief secular
rulers in the Middle Ages, and were in theory the sovereigns of
Christendom. But in the era of the Crusades, the kingdoms of England and
France began to be prominent. In them, moreover, we see beginnings of an
order of things not embraced in the mediaeval system. In France, steps
are taken towards a compact monarchy. In England, there are laid the
foundations of free representative government.
CONNECTION OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE.—For a long time the fortunes of
England and of France are linked together. The kings of the French, with
their capital at Paris, had been often obliged to contend with
their powerful liegemen, the dukes of Normandy, at Rouen. When
the Norman duke became king of England, he had an independent dominion
added to the great fief on the other side of the channel. It sometimes
looked as if England and France would be united under one sovereignty,
so close did their relations become.
DEATH OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.—It was while William the
Conqueror, angry with the king of the French, was burning
Mantes, in the border-land between Normandy and France, that, by
the stumbling of his horse in the ashes, he was thrown forward upon the
iron pommel of his saddle, and received the hurt which ended, in the
next month, in his death (Sept., 1087). On his death-bed he was smitten
with remorse for his unjust conquest of England, and for his bloody
deeds there. He would not dare to appoint a successor: it belonged, he
said, to the Almighty to do that; but he hoped that his son
William might succeed him. The burial service at Caen, in
the church which he had built, was interrupted by Ascelin, a
knight, who raised his voice to protest against the interment, for the
reason that the duke had wrongfully seized from his father the ground on
which the church stood. The family of William made a settlement with
Ascelin on the spot by paying a sum of money, and the service
proceeded. The whole ground was afterwards paid for. William had left
money for the rebuilding of the churches which he had burned at
Mantes. He gave his treasures to the poor and to the churches in
his dominions. These circumstances illustrate in a striking way how, in
the Middle Ages, ruthless violence was mingled with power of conscience
and a sense of righteous obligation.
WILLIAM RUFUS.—William the Conqueror was succeeded by his son,
William Rufus (1087-1100), who was as able a man as his
father. He promised to be liberal, and to lay no unjust taxes; but he
proved to be—especially after the death of the good Lanfranc,
the archbishop of Canterbury—a vicious and irreligious king. The Norman
nobles would have preferred to have his brother Robert, who was
duke of Normandy, for their king; but the English stood by William. He
left bishoprics and abbacies vacant that he might seize the
revenues. One of his good deeds was the appointment of the holy and
learned Anselm to succeed Lanfranc; but he quarreled with
Anselm, who withdrew from the kingdom. Normandy, which he had
tried to wrest from his elder brother Robert, was mortgaged to
him by the latter, in order that he might set out upon the first
Crusade. That duchy came thus into the king's possession. William, while
hunting in the New Forest, was killed, if not accidentally, then either,
as it was charged, by Walter Tyrrel, one of the party, or by some
one who had been robbed of his home when the New Forest was made. He was
found in the agonies of death, pierced by an arrow shot from a
cross-bow.
HENRY I. OF ENGLAND (1100-1135): LOUIS VI. (the FAT) OF FRANCE
(1108-1137): LOUIS VII. (1137-1180).—Henry was the youngest son
of the Conqueror. His wife was English, and was a great-granddaughter of
Edmund Ironside. Her name was Edith, but she assumed the Norman name of
Matilda. Her mother Margaret, wife of Malcolm of Scotland, was of
the stock of the West Saxon kings. Thus the blood of Alfred, as well as
of William the Conqueror, flowed in the veins of the later English
kings. In the absence of his older brother Robert, who was in
Jerusalem, he took the crown, and put forth a Charter of
Liberties, promising the Church to respect its rights, and giving
privileges to his vassals which they in turn were to extend to their own
vassals. Robert came back from the Holy Land, and tried to wrest England
from his brother. He failed in the attempt. After this, Henry got
possession of Normandy by the victory of Tinchebrai in 1106, and
kept Robert a prisoner in Cardiff Castle until his death (1135).
Louis the Fat, king of France, espoused the cause of William
of Clito, son of Robert, but was beaten in 1119 at
Brenneville. Peace was made between the two kings; but in 1124
Henry of England combined with his son-in-law, Henry V. of
Germany, for the invasion of France. Louis called upon his
vassals, who gathered in such force that the emperor abandoned the
scheme. Louis then undertook to chastise those great vassals who
had not responded to his summons. William, the duke of Aquitane,
seeing the power of the suzerain, came into his camp, and offered him
his homage. Louis inflicted a brutal punishment in Flanders, where the
count, Charles the Good, had been assassinated in 1127, and which
had failed to furnish its contingent in 1124. He obliged the Flemish
lords to elect as their count, William Clito, whose rule,
however, they presently cast off. Louis the Fat united his son
Louis in marriage with Eleanor, the only daughter of
William (X.), the duke of Aquitaine, and thus paved the way for a
direct control over the South. The duchy of Aquitaine included
Gascony and other districts, and the suzerainty over Auvergne,
Périgord, etc. Louis the VII. (1137-1180) was not able to
preserve the dominion, extending from the north to the south of France,
which he inherited. He plunged into a dispute with Pope Innocent
II. in relation to the church of Bourges, where he claimed
the right to name the archbishop. St. Bernard took the side of
the Pope. Suger, abbot of St. Denis, an able minister, the
counselor of the last king, supported Louis. The king attacked
the lands of Theobald of Champagne, who sided with the Pope, and
in his wrath burned the parish church of Vitry, with hundreds of
poor people who had taken refuge in it. His own remorse and the
excommunication of the Pope moved him to do penance by departing on a
Crusade. Suger, not liking the risk which the monarchy incurred
through the absence of the king, opposed the project. St.
Bernard encouraged it. The Crusade failed of any important result;
but it helped to infuse a national spirit into the French soldiers, who
fought side by side with the army of the emperor, Conrad III. On
his return, on the alleged ground that Eleanor was too near of
kin, he divorced her, and rendered back her dowry (1152).
LOUIS VII. OF FRANCE (1137-1180): STEPHEN (1135-1154) AND HENRY II. of
ENGLAND (1154-1189).—The king of England, Henry I., after the
death of his son by shipwreck, declared his daughter Matilda
his heir. She was the widow of Henry V., the emperor of
Germany. In 1127 she married Geoffrey, count of Anjou, surnamed
Plantagenet on account of his habit of wearing a sprig of broom
(genet) in his bonnet. Henry left Matilda, whom he called the
"Empress," under the charge of his nephew, Stephen of Blois,
who got himself elected king by the barons or great landowners,—as
there was no law regulating the succession of the crown,—and was
crowned at Westminster. They had sworn, however, to support
Matilda. Her uncle David, king of Scots, took up her cause; but
the Scots were defeated at the Battle of the Standard in
1138. England was thrown into utter disorder by these circumstances:
some of the barons fought on one side, and some on the other. There
were thieves along the highways, and the barons in their castles were
no better than the thieves. The empress landed in England in 1139, to
recover her rights. In the civil war that ensued, Stephen was
taken prisoner (1141); but Matilda, whose imperious temper made
her unpopular in London, was driven out of the city. Stephen
was released in exchange for the Earl of
Gloucester. Matilda was at one time in great peril, but
contrived to escape in a winter night from Oxford Castle (1142). In
1153 peace was made, by which Stephen was to retain the kingdom, but
was to be succeeded by Matilda's eldest son.
CRUELTY OF THE NOBLES.—In the time of Stephen and Matilda, the barons,
released from the strong hand of his predecessor, were guilty of
atrocities which made the people mourn the loss of Henry.
"They built strong castles, and filled them with armed men. From these
they rode out as robbers, as a wild beast goes forth from its den. 'They
fought among themselves with deadly hatred, they spoiled the fairest
lands with fire and rapine; in what had been the most fertile of
counties they destroyed almost all the provision of bread.' Whatever
money or valuable goods they found, they carried off. They burnt houses
and sacked towns, If they suspected any one of concealing his wealth,
they carried him off to their castle; and there they tortured him, to
make him confess where his money was. 'They hanged up men by their feet,
and smoked them with foul smoke. Some were hanged up by their thumbs,
others by the head, and burning things were hung on to their feet. They
put knotted strings about men's heads, and twisted them till they went
to the brain. They put men into prisons where adders and snakes and
toads were crawling, and so they tormented them. Some they put into a
chest short and narrow, and not deep, and that had sharp stones within,
and forced men therein so that they broke all their limbs. In many of
the castles were hateful and grim things called rachenteges,
which two or three men had enough to do to carry. It was thus made: it
was fastened to a beam, and had a sharp iron to go about a man's neck
and throat, so that he might noways sit or lie or sleep; but he bore all
the iron. Many thousands they starved with hunger.' The unhappy
sufferers had no one to help them. Stephen and Matilda were too busy
with their own quarrel to do justice to their subjects. Poor men cried
to Heaven, but they got no answer. 'Men said openly that Christ and his
saints were asleep.'"
DOMINIONS OF HENRY II.—Henry, the son of the empress and of
Count Geoffrey of Anjou, was the first of the Angevin
kings of England. They had Saxon blood in their veins, but were
neither Norman nor Saxon, except in the female line. It was
eighty-eight years since the Conquest; and, although the higher
classes talked French, almost every one of their number was of mixed
descent. The line between Saxon and Norman was becoming effaced. A
vassal of the king of France, Henry held so many fiefs that he was
stronger than the king himself, and all the other crown vassals taken
together. From his father he had Anjou; from his mother,
Normandy and Maine; the county of Poitou and the
duchy of Aquitaine he received by Eleanor, the divorced
wife of Louis VII., whom he married. Later, by marrying one of his
sons to the heiress of Brittany, that district, the nominal
fief of Normandy, came practically under his dominion. He was a
strong-willed man, who reduced the barons to subjection, and pulled
down the castles which had been built without the king's leave. It
might seem probable that the possessor of so great power would absorb
the little monarchy of France. But this was prevented by
long-continued discord in England,—discord in the royal family,
between the king and the clergy, and, later, between the king and the
barons. On the Continent, the king of England required a great and
united force to break the feudal bonds which grew stronger between the
king of France and the French provinces of England. We shall soon see
how France enlarged her territory, and how the English dominion on the
Continent was greatly reduced.
REFORMS OF HENRY.—In order to control the barons, he arranged with them
to pay money in lieu of military service. In this way they were
weakened. At the same time, he encouraged the small landowners to
exercise themselves in arms, which would prepare them for self-defense
and to assist the king. Moreover, he sent judges through the land to
hear causes. They were to ask a certain number of men in the county as
to the merits of the cases coming before them. These men took an oath to
tell the truth. They gradually adopted the custom of hearing the
evidence of others before giving to the judges their
verdict,—that is, their declaration of the truth (from vere
dictum). Out of this custom grew the jury system.
BECKET: CONSTITUTIONS OF CLARENDON.—The Conqueror had granted to
ecclesiastical courts the privilege of trying cases in which the
clergy were concerned. On this privilege the clergy had been disposed
to insist ever since the fall of the Roman Empire. Under Stephen the
energetic restraint exercised upon them was removed. In the early
years of the reign of Henry II., there were great disorders among the
Norman clergy, and crimes were of frequent occurrence. These were
often punished more lightly than the same offenses when committed by a
layman, as church courts could not inflict capital punishment. Henry
undertook to bring the clergy under the jurisdiction of the ordinary
courts. In this attempt he was resisted by Thomas à Becket, who
had been his chancelor, and whom he raised to the archbishopric of
Canterbury (1162), in the full expectation of having his support. He
had been gay and extravagant in his ways, and zealous in behalf of
whatever the king wished. But the brilliant chancelor became a strict
and austere prelate, the champion of the clergy, with a will as
inflexible as that of Henry. The only bishop that voted against him at
his election, remarked that "the king had worked a miracle in having
that day turned a layman into an archbishop, and a soldier into a
saint." In this controversy, the clergy had reason to fear that Henry,
if he got the power, would use it to punish and plunder the
innocent. At a great council of prelates and barons, the
Constitutions of Clarendon were adopted (1164), which went far
towards the subjecting of the ecclesiastics, as to their appointment
and conduct, to the royal will.
Becket, with the other prelates, swore to observe these
statutes; but he repented of the act, was absolved by the Pope from
his oath, and fled to France. Later a reconciliation took place
between him and the king. Becket returned to England, but with a
temper unaltered. A hasty expression of Henry, uttered in wrath, and
indicating a desire to be rid of him, was taken up by four knights,
who attacked the archbishop, and slew him, near the great altar in the
cathedral at Canterbury (Dec. 29, 1170). The higher nobles welcomed
the occasion to revolt. Henry was regarded as the instigator of
the bloody deed, and was moved to make important concessions to the
Pope, Alexander III. His life was darkened by quarrels with his
sons. In 1173 the kings of France and Scotland, and many nobles of
Normandy and England, joined hands with them. Henry, afflicted with
remorse, did penance, allowing himself to be scourged by the monks at
the tomb of Becket, or "St. Thomas,"—for he was canonized. The people
rallied to him, and the nobles were defeated. The rebellion came to an
end. The king of Scotland became more completely the vassal of
England. In another rebellion the king's sons rebelled against him: in
1189 John, the youngest of them, joined with his brother
Richard. Then Henry's heart was broken, and he died.
CONQUEST OF IRELAND.—In the first year of Henry's reign, he was
authorized by Pope Hadrian IV. to invade Ireland. In 1169
Dermot of Leinster, a fugitive Irish king, undertook to enlist
adventurers for this service. He was aided by Richard of Clare,
earl of Pembroke, called Strongbow, and others. They were
successful; and in 1171 Henry crossed over to Ireland, and was
acknowledged as sovereign by all the chiefs of the South. A synod
brought the Irish Church into subjection to the see of Canterbury. But
there was constant warfare, and the North and East of the island were
not subdued. The whole country was not conquered until
Elizabeth's time, four centuries later.
WEAKENING OF GREAT VASSALS IN FRANCE.—The weakening of Henry's
power was the salvation of Louis VII., who had more the spirit
of a monk than of an active and resolute monarch. At his death a new
epoch is seen to begin. The dominion of the great vassals declines,
and the truly monarchical period commences. It was the change which
ended in making the king the sole judge, legislator, and executive of
the country. Louis the Fat, Philip Augustus, and St. Louis
(Louis IX.) are the early forerunners of Louis XIV., under
whom the absolute monarchy was made complete.
PHILIP AUGUSTUS OF FRANCE (1180-1223): RICHARD THE LIONHEARTED OF
ENGLAND (1189-1199).—Philip Augustus was the last king of
France to be crowned before his accession. The custom had helped to
give stability to the regal system. Now it was no longer
needful. Philip was only fifteen years old when he began to reign
alone. For forty-three years he labored with shrewdness and
perseverance, and with few scruples as to the means employed, to build
up the kingly authority. His first act was a violent attack on the
Jews, whom he despoiled and banished. This was counted an act
of piety. He acquired Vermandois, Valois, and Amiens;
refusing to render homage to the Bishop of Amiens, who claimed to be
its suzerain. During the life of Henry II., Philip had allied
himself closely with his son Richard (the Lion-hearted), who
succeeded his father. Richard was passionate and quarrelsome,
yet generous. He was troubadour as well as king. After his coronation
(1189), the two kings made ready for a Crusade together. To raise
money, Richard sold earldoms and crown lands, and exclaimed
that he would sell London if he could find a buyer. The two kings set
out together in 1190. They soon quarreled. Philip came home
first, and, while Richard was a prisoner in Austria, did his
best to profit by his misfortunes, and to weaken the English reigning
house. In the absence of Richard, John, his ambitious and
unfaithful brother, was made regent by the lords and the London
citizens. As nothing was heard of the king, John claimed the
crown. Hearing of the release of Richard, Philip wrote to
John (1194), "Take care of yourself, for the devil is let
loose." Richard made war on Philip in Normandy, but Pope
Innocent III. obliged the two kings to make a truce for five
years (1199). Two months after, Richard was mortally wounded while
besieging a castle near Limoges, where it was said that a
treasure had been found, which he as the suzerain claimed. He had
never visited England but twice; and, although he always had the fame
of a hero, the country had no real cause to regret his death.
JOHN OF ENGLAND (1199-1216).—John (surnamed Sansterre, or
Lackland, a name given to the younger sons, whose fathers had
died before they were old enough to hold fiefs) was chosen
king. Anjou, Poitou, and Touraine desired to have for their duke young
Arthur, duke of Brittany, the son of Geoffrey, John's
elder brother. Philip Augustus took up the cause of Arthur, but
deserted him when he had gained for himself what he wished. When
Philip wished to reopen the war he took advantage of a complaint from
one of John's vassals, Hugh of Lusignan, whose affianced bride John
had stolen away. As suzerain Philip summoned John to answer at Paris,
and when he did not appear the court declared his fiefs forfeited. It
was in this war that Arthur was captured by his uncle and was
murdered. This crime served only to strengthen Philip's cause. He
seized on Normandy, which thenceforward was French, and
Brittany, which became an immediate fief of the king (1204). He
took the other possessions of England in Northern Gaul. There were
left to the English the duchy of Aquitaine, with Gascony
and the Channel Islands. The lands south of the Loire John had
inherited from his mother.
TYRANNY OF JOHN.—John robbed his subjects, high and low, under the
name of taxation. Not content with forcing money out of the Jews, one
of whom he was said to have coerced by pulling out a tooth every day,
he treated rich land-owners with hardly less cruelty. He had not, like
Henry II., the support of the people, and added to his
unpopularity by hiring soldiers from abroad to help him in his
oppression.
JOHN'S QUARREL WITH THE POPE: MAGNA CHARTA.—As rash as he was
tyrannical, John engaged in a quarrel with Pope Innocent III.
The monks of Canterbury appointed as archbishop, not the king's
treasurer, whom he bade them choose, but another. The Pope neither
heeded the king nor confirmed their choice, but made them elect a
religious and learned Englishman, Stephen Langton. John,
in a rage, drove the monks out of Canterbury, and refused to recognize
the election. The Pope excommunicated him, and laid England under an
interdict; that is, he forbade services in the churches, and
sacraments except for infants and the dying; marriages were to take
place in the church porch, and the dead were to be buried without
prayer and in unconsecrated ground. As John paid no regard to
this measure of coercion, Innocent declared him deposed, and
charged the king of France to carry the sentence into effect
(1213). Resisted at home, and threatened from abroad, John now
made an abject submission, laying his crown at the feet of
Pandulph, the Pope's legate. He made himself the vassal of the
Pope, receiving back from him the kingdoms of England and Ireland,
which he had delivered to Innocent, and engaging that a yearly
rent should be paid to Rome by the king of England and his
heirs. Philip had to give up his plan of invading
England. John's tyranny and licentiousness had become
intolerable. Langton, a man of large views, and the English
Church, united with the barons in extorting from him, in the meadow of
Runnymede,—an island in the Thames, near Windsor,—the
Magna Charta, the foundation of English constitutional
liberty. It secured two great principles: first, that the king
could take the money of his subjects only when it was voted to him for
public objects; and secondly, that he could not punish or
imprison them at his will, but could only punish them after
conviction, according to law, by their countrymen.
The Great Charter is based on the charter of Henry I. It precisely
defines and secures old customs, 1. It recognizes the rights of the
Church. 2. It secures person and property from seizure and
spoliation without the judgment of peers or the law of the land.
3. There are regulations for courts of law. 4. Exactions by the lord
are limited to the three customary feudal aids. The benefits granted
to the vassal are to be extended to the lower tenants. 5, How the
Great Council is to be composed, and how convened, is
defined. 6. The "liberties and free customs" of London and of other
towns are secured. 7. Protection is given against certain oppressive
exactions of the Crown. 8. The safety of merchants against exactions
in coming into England, and in going out, and in traveling through
it, is guaranteed. 9. There is some provision in favor of the
villain.
WAR WITH FRANCE.—John joined in a great coalition against
Philip Augustus. He was to attack France in the south-west;
while the emperor, Otto IV., and the counts of Flanders and
Boulogne, with all the princes of the Low Countries, were to make
their attack on the north. It was a war of the feudal aristocracy
against the king of the French. At the great battle of Bouvines
(1214) the French were victorious. The success, in the glory of which
the communes shared, added no territory to France; but it awakened a
national spirit. John was beaten in Poitou, and went
home.
DEPOSITION OF JOHN.—In England, John found that all his
exertions against the Charter, even with the aid of Rome, were
unavailing. In a spirit of vengeance, he brought in mercenary
freebooters, and marched into Scotland, robbing and burning as he
went. Every morning he burned the house in which he had lodged for the
night. At length the English barons offered the crown to Louis,
the eldest son of Philip Augustus; but John died in 1216,
and Louis found himself deserted. He had shown a disposition to
give lands to the French.
THE ALBIGENSIAN WAR.—The war against the Albigenses began in
the reign of Philip; but he pleaded that his hands were full,
and left it to be waged by the nobles. That sect had its seat in the
south of France, and derived its name from the city of Albi. It
held certain heterodox tenets, and rejected the authority of the
priesthood. In 1208, under Innocent III., a crusade was preached
against Raymond VI., count of Toulouse, in whose territory most
of them were found. This was first conducted by Simon de
Montfort, and then by Philip's son, Louis VIII., the county
of Toulouse being a fief of France. The result of the desolating
conflict was, that part of the count's fiefs were in 1229 transferred
to the crown, and the country itself in 1270. In that year, at the
council of Toulouse, the Inquisition, a special ecclesiastical
tribunal, was organized to complete the extermination of the
Albigensians who had escaped the sword. The advantages resulting
from the crushing of the sovereignties of the south were sure to come
to the French monarchy. But Philip left it to the nobles and to
his successors to win the enticing prize.
The first period of rivalry between England and France ends with
John and Philip Augustus. For one hundred and twenty
years, each country pursues its course separately. Monarchy grows
stronger in France: constitutional government advances in England.
LOUIS IX. OF FRANCE (1226-1270).—In Louis IX. (St. Louis)
France had a king so noble and just that the monarchy was sanctified in
the eyes of the people. At his accession he was but eleven years old,
and with his mother, Blanche of Castile, had to encounter for
sixteen years a combination of great barons determined to uphold
feudalism. Most of them staid away from his coronation. When the young
king and his mother approached Paris, they found the way barred;
but it was opened by the devoted burghers, who came forth with arms in
their hands to bring them in. The magistrates of the communes swore to
defend the king and his friends (1228). They were supported by the
Papacy. In 1231 the war ended in a way favorable to royalty. The treaty
of 1229 with Raymond VII., count of Toulouse, led to the
gradual absorption of the South. Theobald of Champagne
became king of Navarre, and sold to the crown Chartres
and other valuable fiefs. In the earlier period of his reign Louis was
guided by his wise, even if imperious, mother, who held the regency.
ENGLAND AND FRANCE.—In 1243 Louis defeated Henry III. of
England, who had come over to help the count of La Marche and
other rebellious nobles. In 1245 Charles of Anjou, the king's
brother, married Beatrice, through whom Provence passed
to the house of Anjou. The king's long absence (1248-1254), during the
sixth Crusade, had no other result but to show to all that he combined
in himself the qualities of a hero and of a saint. After his return,
his government was wise and just, and marked by sympathy with his
people. In 1259 he made a treaty with Henry III., yielding to
him the Limousin, Périgord, and parts of Saintonge, for
which Henry relinquished all claims on the rest of France. Louis
fostered learning. The University of Paris flourished under his
care. In his reign Robert of Sorbon (1252) founded the
Sorbonne, the famous college for ecclesiastics which bears his
name.
CIVIL POLICY OF LOUIS.—In his civil policy Louis availed
himself of the Roman law to undermine feudal privileges. The legists
enlarged the number of cases reserved for the king himself to
adjudicate. He established new courts of justice, higher than the
feudal courts, and the right of final appeal to himself. He made the
king's "Parliament" a great judicial body. He abolished in his domains
the judicial combat, or duel,—the old German method of
deciding between the accused and the accuser. He liberated many
serfs. But, mild as he was, he had no mercy for Jews and heretics. In
his intercourse with other nations, he blended firmness and courage
with a fair and unselfish spirit. He refused to comply with the
request of the Pope to take up arms against the emperor, Frederic
II.; but he threatened to make war upon him if he did not release
the prelates whom he had captured on their way to Rome. The "Pragmatic
Sanction" of St. Louis is of doubtful genuineness. It is an assertion
of the liberties of the Gallican Church. With loyalty to the Holy See,
and an exalted piety, Louis defended the rights of all, and did not
allow the clergy to attain to an unjust control. Voltaire said
of him, "It is not given to man to carry virtue to a higher point." He
stands in the scale of merit on a level with Alfred of England.
PARLIAMENTS IN FRANCE.—The word parliament in French history
has a very different meaning from that which it bears when applied to
the English institution of the same name. There were thirteen
parliaments in France, each having a jurisdiction of its own. They
were established at different times. Of these the Parliament of Paris
was the oldest and by far the most important. The king and other
suzerains administered justice, each in his own domain. The Parliament
of Paris was originally a portion of the king's council that was set
apart to hear causes among the fiefs. It considered all appeals and
judicial questions. But in the reign of Louis IX.,
commissioners, or baillis, of the king, held provincial courts
of appeal in his name. The great suzerains established, each in his
own fief, like tribunals, but of more restricted authority. Louis
IX. made it optional with the vassal to be tried by his immediate
suzerain, or in the king's courts, which were subordinate to his
council. As time went on, the authority of the royal tribunals
increased, as that of the feudal courts grew weaker. In the Parliament
of Paris, a corps of legists who understood the Roman law were
admitted with the lords, knights, and prelates. More and more these
"counsellors" were left to themselves. Later there was a division into
Chambers, of which the Grand Chamber for the final
hearing and decision of appeals was of principal importance. Philip
the Fair (1303) gave a more complete organization to
Parliament. He provided that it should hold two annual sittings at
Paris. Thus there grew up a judicial aristocracy. After 1368 the
members were appointed for life. At length, under Henry IV.,
the seats in Parliament became hereditary. The great magistrates thus
constituted wore robes of ermine, or of scarlet adorned with
velvet. The Palace of Justice (Palais de Justice), on an
island in the Seine, was given to Parliament for its sessions by
Charles V. In its hall scenes of tragic interest, including, in
modern times, the condemnation of Marie Antoinette and of
Robespierre, have taken place. The crown was represented by a
great officer, a public prosecutor or attorney-general (procureur
général). He and his assistants were termed the "king's people"
(gens du roi). They had the privilege of speaking with their
hats on. It was an ancient custom to enroll the royal ordinances in
the parliamentary records. Gradually it came to be considered that no
statute or decree had the force of law unless it was entered on the
registers of Parliament. Great conflicts occurred with the kings when
Parliament refused "to register" their edicts or treaties. Then the
king would hold "a bed of justice,"—so called from the cushions of
the seat where he sat in the hall of Parliament, whither he came in
person to command them to register the obnoxious enactment. This royal
intervention could not be resisted: commonly the enrollment would be
made, but sometimes under a protest. Each of the local parliaments
claimed to be supreme in its own province: they were held to
constitute together one institution, and all the judges were on a
level. Attempts at political interference by Parliaments, the kings
resisted. At the French Revolution in 1790, the Parliaments were
finally abolished.
HENRY III. (1216-1272).—John's eldest son, Henry, when he was
crowned by the royalists, was only nine years old. For a short time he
had a wise guardian in William, Earl of Pembroke. In two
battles, one on the land and one on the sea, Louis VIII.
(1223-1226), son of Philip Augustus of France, was defeated. He
made peace, and returned to France. Henry married Eleanor, the
daughter of Raymond, count of Provence,—a beautiful and
accomplished woman, but she was unpopular in England. The king, as
well as his wife, lavished offices, honors, and lands upon
foreigners. He was a weak prince, and unwisely accepted for his second
son, Edmund, the crown of the Two Sicilies, which could
be won only at the expense of England. This measure induced the barons
to compel Henry to a measure equivalent to the placing of authority in
the hands of a council. This brought on a war between the king and the
barons. The latter were led by Simon de Montfort (the second of
the name), who had inherited the earldom of Leicester through his
mother. Through him PARLIAMENT assumed the form which it has since
retained. The greater barons, the lords or peers, with the bishops and
principal abbots, came together in person, and grew into the House of
Lords. The freeholders of each county had sent some of the knights to
represent them. The attendance of these knights now began to be
regular; but besides the two knights from each county, who were like
the county members of our own time, Simon caused each
city and borough to send two of their citizens, or
burgesses. Thus the House of Commons arose. Simon
defeated Henry at Lewes (1264): but the barons flocked
to the standard of Prince Edward, who escaped from custody; and
Simon was defeated and slain at the battle of Evesham in
1265. Henry was restored to power. He died in 1272, and was
buried in Westminster Abbey, which he had begun to
rebuild. Under Henry, the Great Charter, with some alterations,
was three times confirmed. A Charter of the Forest was added,
providing that no man should lose life or limb for taking the king's
game. Cruel laws for the protection of game in the forests or
uncultivated lands had been a standing grievance from the days of the
Norman Conquest. The confirming of the Great Charter in 1225
was made the condition of a grant of money from the National Council
to the king. When the bishops, in 1236, desired to have the laws of
inheritance conformed to the rules of the Church, the barons made the
laconic answer, "We will not change the laws of England" (Nolumus
leges Anglice mutare).
CHAPTER IV. RISE OF THE BURGHER CLASS: SOCIETY IN THE ERA OF THE
CRUSADES.
RISE OF THE CITIES.—Under feudalism, only two classes present
themselves to view,—the nobility and the clergy on the one hand, and
the serfs on the other. This was the character of society in the ninth
century. In the tenth century we see the beginnings of an intermediate
class, the germ of "the third estate." This change appears in the
cities, where the burghers begin to increase in intelligence,
and to manifest a spirit of independence. From this time, for several
centuries, their power and privileges continued to grow.
GROWTH OF THE CITIES.—The same need of defense that led to the
building of towers and castles in the country drove men within the
walls of towns. Industry and trade developed intelligence, and
produced wealth. But burghers under the feudal rule were
obliged to pay heavy tolls and taxes. For example, for protection on a
journey through any patch of territory, they were required to make a
payment. Besides the regular exactions, they were exposed to most
vexatious depredations of a lawless kind. As they advanced in thrift
and wealth, communities that were made up largely of artisans and
tradesmen armed themselves for their own defense. From self-defense
they proceeded farther, and extorted exemptions and privileges from
the suzerain, the effect of which was to give them a high
though limited degree of self-government.
ORIGIN OF MUNICIPAL FREEDOM.—It has been supposed that municipal
government in the Middle Ages was a revival of old Roman rights and
customs, and thus an heirloom from antiquity. The cities—those on the
Rhine and in Gaul, for example—were of Roman origin. But the view of
scholars at present is, that municipal liberty, such as existed in the
Middle Ages, was a native product of the Germanic peoples. The cities
were incorporated into the feudal system. They were subject to a lay
lord or to a bishop. In Italy, however, they struggled after a
more complete republican system.
CITIES AND SUZERAINS.—In the conflicts which were waged by the cities,
they were sometimes helped by the suzerain against the king, and
sometimes by the king against the nearer suzerain. In England
the cities were apt to ally themselves with the nobility against the
king: in Germany and France the reverse was the fact. But
in Germany the cities which came into an immediate relation to
the sovereign were less closely dependent on him than were the cities
in France on the French king.
TWO CLASSES OF CITIES.—Not only did the cities wrest from the lords a
large measure of freedom: it was often freely conceded to them. Nobles,
in order to bring together artisans, and to build up a community in
their own neighborhood, granted extraordinary
privileges. Charters were given to cities by the king.
Communities thus formed differed from the other class of cities in not
having the same privilege of administering justice within their limits.
GERMAN CITIES.—The cities in Germany increased in number on the fall
of the Hohenstaufen family. They made the inclosure of their walls a
place of refuge, as the nobles did the vicinity of their castles. They
eventually gained admittance to the Diets of the empire. They
formed leagues among themselves, which, however, did not become
political bodies, any more than the Italian leagues.
THE ROMAN LAW.—The revised study of the Roman law brought in a code at
variance with feudal principles. The middle class, that was growing up
in the great commercial cities, availed themselves, as far as they
could, of its principles in regard to the inheritance of property. The
legists helped in a thousand ways to emancipate them from the
yoke of feudal traditions.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.—The cities themselves often had vassals, and
became suzerains. Government rested in the hands of the
magistrates. They were chosen by the general assembly of the
inhabitants, who were called together by the tolling of the bell. The
magistrates governed without much restraint until another election,
unless there were popular outbreaks, "which were at this time," as
Guizot remarks, "the great guarantee for good government." Where the
courage and spirit of burghers were displayed was in the maintenance of
their own privileges, or purely in self-defense. In all other relations
they showed the utmost humility; and in the twelfth century, when their
emancipation is commonly dated, they did not pretend to interfere in
the government of the country.
TRAVELERS AND TRADE.—The East, especially India, was
conceived of as a region of boundless riches; but commerce with the
East was hindered by a thousand difficulties and dangers. Curiosity led
travelers to penetrate into the countries of Asia. Among them the
Polo family of Venice, of whom Marco was the most famous,
were specially distinguished. Marco Polo lived in China, with
his father and his uncle, twenty-six years. After his return, and
during his captivity at Genoa, he wrote the celebrated accounts
of his travels. He died about 1324. Sir John Mandeville also
wrote of his travels, but most of his descriptions were taken from the
work of Friar Odoric, of Pordenone, who had visited the Far
East. Merchants did not venture so far as did bold explorers of a
scientific turn. Commerce in the Middle Ages was mainly in two
districts,—the borders of the North Sea and of the Baltic, and the
countries upon the Mediterranean. Trade in the cities on the African
coast, in the tenth and eleventh centuries, was flourishing; and the
Arabs of Spain were industrious and rich. Arles, Marseilles, Nice,
Genoa, Florence, Amalfi, Venice, vied with one another in traffic
with the East. Intermediate between Venice and Genoa, and the north of
Europe, were flourishing marts, among which Strasburg and other
cities on the Rhine—Augsburg, Ulm, Ratisbon, Vienna, and
Nuremberg—were among the most prominent. Through these cities
flowed the currents of trade from the North to the South, and from the
South to the North.
THE HANSEATIC LEAGUE.—To protect themselves against the feudal lords
and against pirates, the cities of Northern Germany formed (about
1241) the Hanseatic League, which, at the height of its power,
included eighty-five cities, besides many other cities more or less
closely affiliated with it. This league was dominant, as regards trade
and commerce, in the north of Europe, and united under it the cities
on the Baltic and the Rhine, as well as the large cities of
Flanders. Its merchants had control of the fisheries, the mines, the
agriculture, and manufactures of Germany. Lübeck, Cologne,
Brunswick, and Dantzic were its principal
places. Lübeck was its chief center. In all the principal towns
on the highways of commerce, the flag of the Hansa floated over
its counting-houses. Wherever the influence of the league reached, its
regulations were in force. It almost succeeded in monopolizing the
trade of Europe north of Italy.
FLANDERS: ENGLAND: FRANCE.—The numerous cities of Flanders—of which
Ghent, Ypres, and Bruges were best known—became hives
of industry and of thrift. Ghent, at the end of the thirteenth
century, surpassed Paris in riches and power. In the latter
part of the fourteenth century, the number of its fighting men was
estimated at eighty thousand. The development of Holland was
more slow. Amsterdam was constituted a town in the middle of
the thirteenth century. England began to exchange products with
Spain. It sent its sheep, and brought back the horses of the
Arabians. The cities of France—Rouen, Orleans, Rheims, Lyons,
Marseilles, etc.—were alive with manufactures and trade. In the
twelfth century the yearly fairs at Troyes, St. Denis, and
Beaucaire were famous all over Europe.
NEW INDUSTRIES.—It has been already stated that the crusaders brought
back to Europe the knowledge as well as the products of various
branches of industry. Such were the cloths of Damascus, the glass of
Tyre, the use of windmills, of linen, and of silk, the plum-trees of
Damascus, the sugar-cane, the mulberry-tree. Cotton stuffs came into
use at this time. Paper made from cotton was used by the Saracens in
Spain in the eighth century. Paper was made from linen at a somewhat
later date. In France and Germany it was first manufactured early in
the fourteenth century.
THE JEWS.—The Jews in the Middle Ages were often treated with extreme
harshness. An outburst of the crusading spirit was frequently attended
with cruel assaults upon them. As Christians would not take interest,
money-lending was a business mainly left to the Hebrews. By them, bills
of exchange were first employed.
OBSTACLES TO TRADE.—The great obstacle to commerce was the insecurity
of travel. Whenever a shipwreck took place, whatever was cast upon the
shore was seized by the neighboring lord. A noble at Leon, in
Brittany, pointing out a rock on which many vessels had been wrecked,
said, "I have a rock there more precious than the diamonds on the crown
of a king." It was long before property on the sea was respected, even
in the same degree as property on the land. Not even at the present day
has this point been reached. The infinite diversity of coins was
another embarrassment to trade. In every fief, one had to exchange his
money, always at a loss. Louis IX. ordained that the money of
eighty lords, who had the right to coin, should be current only in
their own territories, while the coinage of the king should be received
everywhere.
GUILDS.—A very important feature of mediæval society was the
guilds. Societies more or less resembling these existed among
the Romans, and were called collegia,—some being for
good fellowship or for religious rites, and others being
trade-corporations. There were, also, similar fraternities among the
Greeks in the second and third centuries B.C. In the Middle
Ages, there were two general classes of guilds: First, there
were the peace-guilds, for mutual protection against thieves,
etc., and for mutual aid in sickness, old age, or impoverishment from
other causes. They were numerous in England, and spread over the
Continent. Secondly, there were the trade-guilds, which
embraced the guilds-merchant, and the craft-guilds. The
latter were associations of workmen, for maintaining the customs of
their craft, each with a master, or alderman, and other
officers. They had their provisions for mutual help for themselves and
for their widows and orphans, and they had their religious
observances. Each had its patron saint, its festivals, its
treasury. They kept in their hands the monopoly of the branch of
industry which belonged to them. They had their rules in respect to
apprenticeship, etc. Almost all professions and occupations were fenced
in by guilds.
MONASTICISM.—Society in the Middle Ages presented striking and
picturesque contrasts. This was nowhere more apparent than in the
sphere of religion. Along with the passion for war and the consequent
reign of violence, there was a parallel self-consecration to a life of
peace and devotion. With the strongest relish for pageantry and for a
brilliant ceremonial in social life and in worship, there was
associated a yearning for an ascetic course under the monastic vows. As
existing orders grew rich, and gave up the rigid discipline of earlier
days, new orders were formed by men of deeper religious earnestness. In
the eleventh century, there arose, among other orders, the
Carthusian and Cistercian; in the twelfth century, the
Premonstrants and the Carmelites, and the order of
Trinitarians for the liberation of Christian captives taken by
the Moslems. The older orders, especially that of the
Benedictines in its different branches, became very wealthy and
powerful. The Cistercian Order, under its second founder,
St. Bernard (who died in 1153), spread with wonderful rapidity.
THE MENDICANT ORDERS.—In the thirteenth century, when the papal
authority was at its height, the mendicant orders arose. The order of
St. Francis was fully established in 1223, and the order of
St. Dominic in 1216. They combined with monastic vows the
utmost activity in preaching and in other clerical work. These orders
attracted young men of talents and of a devout spirit in large
numbers. The mendicant friars were frequently in conflict with the
secular clergy,—the ordinary priesthood,—and with the other
orders. But they gained a vast influence, and were devotedly loyal to
the popes. It must not be supposed that the monastic orders generally
were made up of the weak or the disappointed who sought in cloisters a
quiet asylum. Disgust with the world, from whatever cause, led many to
become members of them; but they were largely composed of vigorous
minds, which, of their own free choice, took on them the monastic
vows.
THE RISE OF THE UNIVERSITIES.—The Crusades were accompanied by a
signal revival of intellectual activity. One of the most important
events of the thirteenth century was the rise of the universities. The
schools connected with the abbeys and the cathedrals in France began to
improve in the eleventh century, partly from an impulse caught by
individuals from the Arabic schools in Spain. After the scholastic
theology was introduced, teachers in this branch began to give
instruction near those schools in Paris. Numerous pupils gathered
around noted lecturers. An organization followed which was called a
university,—a sort of guild,—made up of four
faculties,—theology, canon law, medicine, and the arts. The arts
included the three studies (trivium) of grammar, rhetoric, and
philosophy, with four additional branches (the
quadrivium),—arithmetic, geometry, music,
astronomy. Paris became the mother of many other
universities. Next to Paris, Oxford was famous as a seat of
education. Of all the universities, Bologna in Italy was most
renowned as a school for the study of the civil law.
SCHOLASTIC THEOLOGY.—The scholastic theology dates from the middle of
the eleventh century. It was the work of numerous teachers, many of
them of unsurpassed acuteness, who, at a time when learning and
scholarship were at a low ebb, made it their aim to systemize,
elucidate, and prove on philosophical grounds, the doctrines of the
Church. Aristotle was the author whose philosophical writings
were most authoritative with the schoolmen. In theology,
Augustine was the most revered master.
The main question in philosophy which the schoolmen debated was that of
Nominalism and Realism. The question was, whether a
general term, as man, stands for a real being designated by it
(as man, in the example given, for humanity), or is
simply the name of divers distinct individuals.
THE LEADING SCHOOLMEN.—In the eleventh century Anselm of
Canterbury was a noble example of the scholastic spirit. In the
thirteenth century Abelard was a bold and brilliant teacher, but
with less depth and discretion. He, like other eminent schoolmen,
attracted multitudes of pupils. The thirteenth century was the golden
age of scholasticism. Then flourished Albert the Great,
Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventura, and others very influential in
their day. There were two schools of opinion,—that of the
Thomists, the adherents of Aquinas, the great theologian
of the Dominican order; and that of the Scotists, the
adherents of Duns Scotus, a great light of the
Franciscans. They differed on various theological points not
involved in the common faith.
The discussions of the schoolmen were often carried into distinctions
bewildering from their subtlety. There were individuals who were more
disposed to the inductive method of investigation, and who gave
attention to natural as well as metaphysical science. Perhaps
the most eminent of these is Roger Bacon. He was an Englishman,
was born in 1219, and died about 1294. He was imprisoned for a time on
account of the jealousy with which studies in natural science and new
discoveries in that branch were regarded by reason of their imagined
conflict with religion. Astrology was cultivated by the Moors
in Spain in connection with astronomy. It spread among the Christian
nations. Alchemy, the search for the transmutation of metals,
had its curious votaries. But such pursuits were popularly identified
with diabolic agency.
THE VERNACULAR LITERATURES: THE TROUBADOURS.—Intellectual activity
was for a long time exclusively confined to theology. The earliest
literature of a secular cast in France belongs to the tenth and
eleventh centuries, and to the dialect of Provence. The study
of this language, and the poetry composed in it, became the recreation
of knights and noble ladies. Thousands of poets, who were called
Troubadours (from trobar, to find or invent), appeared
almost simultaneously, and became well known in Spain and in
Italy as well as in France. At the same time the period
of chivalry began. The theme of their tender and passionate poems was
love. They indulged in a license which was not offensive, owing to the
laxity of manners and morals in Southern France at that day, but would
be intolerable in a different state of society. Kings, as well as
barons and knights, adopted the Provençal language, and figured as
troubadours. In connection with jousts and tournaments, there would be
a contest for poetical honors. The "Court of Love," made up of gentle
ladies, with the lady of the castle at their head, gave the
verdict. Besides the songs of love, another class of Provençal poems
treated of war or politics, or were of a satirical cast. From the
Moors of Spain, rhyme, which belonged to Arabian poetry,
was introduced, and spread thence over Europe. After the thirteenth
century the troubadours were heard of no more, and the Provençal
tongue became a mere dialect.
THE NORMAN WRITERS.—The first writers and poets in the French
language proper appeared in Normandy. They called themselves
Trouvères. They were the troubadours of the North. They
composed romances of chivalry, and Fabliaux, or amusing
tales. They sang in a more warlike and virile strain than the poets of
the South. Their first romances were written late in the twelfth
century. About that time Villehardouin wrote in French a
history of the conquest of Constantinople. From the poem entitled
"Alexander," the name of Alexandrine verse came to be applied to the
measure in which it was written. A favorite theme of the romances of
chivalry was the mythical exploits of Arthur, the last Celtic
king of Britain, and of the knights of the Round Table. Another
class of romances of chivalry related to the court of
Charlemagne. The Fabliaux in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries were largely composed of tales of ludicrous adventures.
GERMAN, ENGLISH, AND SPANISH WRITERS.—In Germany, in the age
of the Hohenstaufens, the poets called Minnesingers
abounded. They were conspicuous at the splendid tournaments and
festivals. In the thirteenth century numerous lays of love, satirical
fables, and metrical romances were composed or translated. Of the
Round Table legends, that of the San Graal (the holy
vessel) was the most popular. It treated of the search for the
precious blood of Christ, which was said to have been brought in a cup
or charger into Northern Europe by Joseph of Arimathea. During
this period the old ballads were thrown into an epic form; among them,
the Nibelungenlied, the Iliad of Germany. The religious faith
and loyalty of the Spanish character, the fruit of their long
contest with the Moors, are reflected in the poem of the Cid,
which was composed about the year 1200. It is one of the oldest epics
in the Romance languages. In England during this period, we
have the chronicles kept in the monasteries. Among their authors are
William of Malmesbury, Geoffrey of Monmouth, and Matthew
Paris, a Benedictine monk of St. Albans.
DANTE.—Dante, the chief poet of Italy, and the father of its
vernacular literature, was born in Florence in 1265. The
Divine Comedy is universally regarded as one of the greatest
products of poetical genius.
The family of Alighieri, to which Dante belonged, was
noble, but not of the highest rank. He was placed under the best
masters, and became not only an accomplished student of Virgil and
other Latin poets, but also an adept in theology and in various
other branches of knowledge. His training was the best that the time
afforded. His family belonged to the anti-imperial party of
Guelfs. The spirit of faction raged at
Florence. Dante was attached to the party of "Whites"
(Bianchi), and, having held the high office of prior
in Florence, was banished, with many others, when the "Blacks"
(Neri) got the upper hand (1302). Until his death, nineteen
years later, he wandered from place to place in Italy as an
exile. Circumstances, especially the distracted condition of the
country, led him to ally himself with the Ghibellines, and to
favor the imperial cause. All that he saw and suffered until he
breathed his last, away from his native city, at Ravenna,
combined to stir within him the thoughts and passions which find
expression in his verse.
No poet before Dante ever equaled him in depth of thought and
feeling. His principal work is divided into three parts. It
is an allegorical vision of hell, purgatory, and heaven. Through the
first two of these regions, the poet is conducted by
Virgil. In the third, Beatrice is his guide. When he
was a boy of nine years of age, he had met, at a May-day festival,
Beatrice, who was of the same age; and thenceforward he
cherished towards her a pure and romantic affection. Before his
twenty-fifth year she died; but, after her death, his thoughts dwelt
upon her with a refined but not less passionate regard. She is his
imaginary guide through the abodes of the blest. His Young
Life (Vita Nuova) gives the history of his love. The
"Divine Comedy"—so called because the author would modestly
place it below the rank of tragedy,—besides the lofty genius which
it exhibits, besides the matchless force and beauty of its diction,
sums up, so to speak, what is best and most characteristic in the
whole intellectual and religious life of the Middle Ages. Thomas
Aquinas was Dante's authority in theology· The scholastic
system taught by the Church is brought to view in his pictures of
the supernatural world, and in the comments connected with them.
PAINTING.—After the Lombard conquest of Italy, art branched off into
two schools. The one was the Byzantine, and the other the Late Roman.
In the Byzantine paintings, the human figures are stiff, and
conventional forms prevail. The Byzantine school conceived of
Jesus as without beauty of person,—literally "without form or
comeliness." The Romans had a directly opposite conception. Byzantine
taste had a strong influence in Italy, especially at
Venice. This is seen in the mosaics of St. Mark's
Cathedral. The first painter to break loose from Byzantine influence,
and to introduce a more free style which flourished under the
patronage of the Church, was Cimabue (1240-1302), who is
generally considered the founder of modern Italian painting. The first
steps were now taken towards a direct observation and imitation of
nature. The artist is no longer a slavish copyist of
others. "Cimabue" says M. Taine, "already belongs to the
new order of things; for he invents and expresses." But Cimabue
was far outdone by Giotto (1276-1337), who cast off wholly the
Byzantine fetters, studied nature earnestly, and abjured that which is
false and artificial. Notwithstanding his technical defects, his
force, and "his feeling for grace of action and harmony of color,"
were such as to make him, even more than Cimabue, "the founder
of the true ideal style of Christian art, and the restorer of
portraiture." "His, above all, was a varied, fertile, facile, and
richly creative nature." The contemporary of Dante, his
portrait of the poet has been discovered in recent times on a wall in
the Podesta at Florence. "He stands at the head of the school of
allegorical painting, as the latter of that of poetry." The most
famous pupil of Giotto was Taddeo Gaddi (about
1300-1367).
SCULPTURE.—In the thirteenth century, the era of the revival of art
in Italy, a new school of sculpture arose under the auspices
especially of two artists, Niccolo of Pisa and his son
Giovanni. They brought to their art the same spirit which
belonged to Giotto in painting and to Dante in
poetry. The same courage that moved the great poet to write in his own
vernacular tongue, instead of in Latin, emboldened the artists to look
away from the received standards, and to follow nature. In the same
period a new and improved style of sculpture appears in other
countries, especially in the Gothic cathedrals of Germany and France.
ARCHITECTURE.—The earliest Christian churches were copies of the Roman
basilica,—a civil building oblong in shape, sometimes with and
sometimes without rows of columns dividing the nave from the aisles: at
one end, there was usually a semicircular apse. Most of the
churches of the eleventh and twelfth centuries were built after this
style. Then changes were introduced, which in some measure paved the
way for the Gothic, the peculiar type of mediæval
architecture. The essential characteristic of this style is the pointed
arch. This may have been introduced by the returning crusaders from
buildings which they had observed in the East. Its use and development
in the churches and other edifices of Europe in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries were without previous example. The Gothic style
was carried to its perfection in France, and spread over England and
Germany. The cathedrals erected in this form are still the noblest and
most attractive buildings to be seen in the old European towns.
The cathedral in Rheimes was commenced in 1211: the choir was
dedicated in 1241, and the edifice was completed in 1430. The cathedral
of Amiens was begun in 1220; that of Chartres was begun
about 1020, and was dedicated in 1260; that of Salisbury was
begun in 1220; that of Cologne, in 1248; the cathedral of
Strasburg was only half finished in 1318, when the architect,
Erwin of Steinbach, died; that of Notre Dame in Paris was
begun in 1163; that of Toledo, in 1258. These noble buildings
were built gradually: centuries passed before the completion of
them. Several of them to this day remain unfinished.
FRANCE.—THE HOUSE OF VALOIS.
PHILIP VI, 1328-1350, m.
Jeanne, daughter of Robert II, Duke of Burgundy.
|
+—JOHN, 1350-1364, m.
Bona, daughter of John, King of Bohemia.
|
+—CHARLES V, 1364-1380, m.
Jeanne, daughter of Peter I, Duke of Bourbon.
|
+—CHARLES VI, 1380-1422, m.
| Isabella, daughter of Stephen, Duke of Bavaria.
| |
| +—CHARLES VII, 1422-1461,
| m. Mary, daughter
| of Louis II of Anjou.
| |
| +—LOUIS XI, 1461-1483,
| m. (2), Charlotte,
| daughter of Louis,
| Duke of Savoy.
| |
| +—3, CHARLES VIII, 1483-1498,
| m. Anne of Bretagne.
|
+—Louis, Duke of Orleans (d. 1407) m.
Valentina, daughter of Gian Galeazzi, Duke of Milan.
|
+—Charles, Duke of Orleans (d. 1467),
| m. Mary of Cleves.
| |
| +—2, Anne of Bretagne,
| m. LOUIS XII, 1498-1515.
| |
| +—Claude, m. FRANCIS I, 1515-1547.
|
+—John, Count of Angoulême (d. 1467).
|
+—Charles, count (d. 1496),
m. Louisa, daughter
of Philip II, Duke of Savoy.
|
+—FRANCIS I, 1515-1547.
| |
| +—HENRY II. 1547-1559, m..
| Catherine de' Medici, d.. 1589.
| |
| +—FRANCIS II, 1559-1560, m.
| | Mary, Queen of Scots.
| |
| +—CHARLES IX, 1560-1574,
| | m. Elizabeth, daughter of
| | Emperor Maximilian II.
| |
| +—HENRY III. 1574-1589, m.
| | Louis, daughter of Nicholas,
| | Duke of Mercoeur.
| |
| +—Margaret,
| m.
| +—HENRY IV, succeeded 1589.
| |
| +—Jeanne, m. Anthony of Bourbon.
| |
+—MARGARET, m. (2), HENRY II OF NAVARRE.
ENGLAND.—DESCENDANTS OF EDWARD I
EDWARD I, 1272-1307, m..
1, Eleanor, daughter of Ferdinand III of Castile;
|
|
+—4, EDWARD II, 1307-1327, m..
Isabel, daughter of Philip IV of France.
|
+—EDWARD III, 1327-1377, m.
Philippa, daughter of William III of Hainault.
|
+—Edward, the Black Prince,
| m. Joan of Kent.
| |
| +—RICHARD II, 1377-1399, m.
| Anne, daughter of Emperor Charles IV.
|
+—Lionel, Duke of Clarence.
| |
| +—Philippa, m. Edmund Mortimer.
| |
| +—Roger Mortimer.
| |
| +—Edmund Mortimer.
| |
| +—Anne Mortimer, m.
| Richard, Earl of Cambridge.
| |
| +—Richard, Duke of York.
| |
| +—EDWARD IV, 1461-1483.
| | |
| | +—EDWARD V (d. 1483).
| |
| +—RICHARD III, 1483-1485.
|
+—John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.
| |
| +—HENRY IV, 1399-1413.
| |
| +—HENRY V, 1413-1422.
| |
| +—HENRY VI, 1422-1461.
|
+—Edmund, Duke of York.
|
+—Richard, Earl of Cambridge m.
Anne Mortimer (wh. see).
2, Margaret, daughter of Philip III of France.
PERIOD IV. FROM THE END OF THE CRUSADES TO THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
(A.D. 1270-1453.)
THE DECLINE OP ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITY: THE GROWTH OF THE NATIONAL
SPIRIT AND OF MONARCHY.
CHARACTER OF THE NEW ERA.—The Church was supreme in the era of the
Crusades. These had been great movements of a society of which the Pope
was the head,—movements in which the pontiffs were the natural
leaders. We come now to an era when the predominance of the Church
declines, and the Papacy loses ground. Mingled with religion, there is
diffused a more secular spirit. The nations grow to be more distinct
from one another. Political relations come to be paramount. The
national spirit grows strong,—too strong for outside ecclesiastical
control. Within each nation the laity is inclined to put limits to the
power and privileges of the clergy. In several of the countries,
monarchy in the modern European form gets a firm foothold. The
enfranchisement of the towns, the rise of commerce, the influence
gained by the legists and by the Roman law, of which they were the
expounders, had betokened the dawn of a new era. The development of the
national languages and literatures signified its coming. Germany and
the Holy Roman Empire no longer absorb attention. What is taking place
in France and England is, to say the least, of equal moment.
CHAPTER I. ENGLAND AND FRANCE: SECOND PERIOD OP RIVALSHIP: THE HUNDRED
YEARS' WAR (A.D. 1339-1453).
PHILIP III. OF FRANCE (1270-1285).—In France royalty made a steady
progress down to the long War of a Hundred Years. Philip
III. (1270-1285) married his son to the heiress of
Navarre. His sway extended to the Pyrenees. He failed in an
expedition against Peter, king of Aragon, who had
supported the Sicilians against Charles of Anjou; but the time
for foreign conquests had not come.
PHILIP IV. OF FRANCE (1285-1314): WAR WITH EDWARD I. OF ENGLAND.—
Philip IV. (the Fair) has been styled the "King of the Legists."
He surrounded himself with lawyers, who furnished him, from their
storehouse of Roman legislation, weapons with which to face baron and
pope. In 1292 conflicts broke out between English and French
sailors. Philip, in his character as suzerain, undertook to take
peaceful possession of Guienne, but was prevented by the English
garrisons. Thereupon he summoned Edward I. of England, as the
holder of the fiefs, before his court. Edward sent his brother
as a deputy, but the French king declared that the fiefs were forfeited
in consequence of his not appearing in person.
In the war that resulted (1294-1297), each party had his natural
allies. Philip had for his allies the Welsh and the Scots,
while Edward was supported by the Count of Flanders and by
Adolphus of Nassau, king of the Romans. In Scotland, William
Wallace withstood Edward. Philip was successful in
Flanders and in Guienne. Edward, who was kept in
England by his war with the Scots, secured a truce through the
mediation of Pope Boniface VIII. Philip then took possession of
Flanders, with the exception of Ghent. Flanders was at that
time the richest country in Europe. Its cities were numerous, and the
whole land was populous and industrious. From England it received the
wool used in its thriving manufactures. To England its people were
attached. Philip loaded the Flemish people with imposts. They rose in
revolt, and Robert d'Artois, Philip's brother, met with a
disastrous defeat in a battle with the Flemish troops at
Courtrai, in 1302. The Flemish burghers proved themselves too
strong for the royal troops. Flanders was restored to its count, four
towns being retained by France.
CONFLICT OF PHILIP IV. AND BONIFACE VIII.—The expenses of
Philip, in the support of his army and for other purposes, were
enormous. The old feudal revenues were wholly insufficient for the new
methods of government. To supply himself with money, he not only
levied onerous taxes on his subjects, and practiced ingenious
extortion upon the Jews, but he resorted again and again to the device
of debasing the coin. His resolution to tax the property of the Church
brought him into a controversy, momentous in its results, with Pope
Boniface VIII.
Boniface's idea of papal prerogative was fully as exalted as
that formerly held by Hildebrand and Innocent III. But
he had less prudence and self-restraint, and the temper of the times
was now altered. If Philip was sustained by the Roman law and its
interpreters, whose counsels he gladly followed, Boniface, on
the other hand, could lean upon the system of ecclesiastical or canon
law, which had long been growing up in Europe, and of which the
Canonists were the professional expounders. The vast wealth of
the clergy had led to enactments for keeping it within bounds, like
the statute of mortmain in England (1279) forbidding the giving
of land to religious bodies without license from the king. The word
mortmain meant dead hand, and was applied to possessors
of land, especially ecclesiastical corporations, that could not
alienate it. The jurisdiction of ecclesiastical courts, which kings,
because they happened to have a less liking for feudal law, had often
favored, had now come to be another great matter of contention. In
1296 Boniface VIII., in the bull clericis laicos,—so
named, like other papal edicts, from the opening words,—forbade the
imposition of extraordinary taxes upon the clergy without the consent
of the Holy See. Philip responded by forbidding foreigners to
sojourn in France, which was equivalent to driving out of the country
the Roman priests and those who brought in the obnoxious bull. At the
same time he forbade money to be carried out of France. This last
prohibition cut off contributions to Rome. The king asserted the
importance of the laity in the Church, as well as of the clergy, and
the right of the king of France to take charge of his own realm. There
was a seeming reconciliation for a time, through concessions on the
side of the Pope; but the strife broke out afresh in
1301. Philip arrested Bernard Saisset, a bold legate of
the Pope. Boniface poured forth a stream of complaints against
Philip (1301), and went so far as to summon the French clergy
to a council at Rome for the settlement of all disorders in
France. The king then appealed to the French nation. On the 10th of
April, 1302, he assembled in the Church of Notre Dame, at
Paris, a body which, for the first time, contained the deputies of the
universities and of the towns, and for this reason is considered to
have been the first meeting of the States General, The clergy,
the barons, the burghers, sided cordially with the king. The Pope then
published the famous bull, Unam Sanctam, in which the
subjection of the temporal power to the spiritual is proclaimed with
the strongest emphasis. Boniface then excommunicated Philip, and was
preparing to depose him, and to hand over his kingdom to the emperor,
Albert I.
DEATH OF BONIFACE VIII.—Meantime Philip had assembled anew the
States General (1303). The legists lent their counsel and active
support. It was proposed to the king to convoke a general council of
the Church, and to summon the Pope before it. William of
Nogaret, a great lawyer in the service of Philip, was directed to
lodge with Boniface this appeal to a council, and to publish it at
Rome. With Sciarra Colonna, between whose family and the
Pope there was a mortal feud, Nogaret, attended also by several
hundred hired soldiers, entered Anagni, where Boniface
was then staying. The two messengers heaped upon him the severest
reproaches, and Colonna is said to have struck the old pontiff
in the face with his mailed hand. The French were driven out of the
town by the people; but from the indignities which he had suffered,
and the anger and shame consequent upon them, Boniface shortly
afterwards died.
THE "BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY" (1309-1379).—From the date of the events
just narrated, the pontifical authority sank, and the secular
authority of sovereigns and nations was in the ascendant. After the
short pontificate of Benedict XL, who did what he could to
reconcile the ancient but estranged allies, France and the Papacy, a
French prelate, the Archbishop of Bordeaux, was made pope under the
name of Clement V., he having previously engaged to comply with
the wishes of Philip. While the Papacy continued subordinate to the
French king, its moral influence in other parts of Christendom was of
necessity reduced. Clement V, was crowned at Lyons in
1305, and in 1309 established himself at Avignon, a possession
of the Holy See on the borders of France. After him there followed at
Avignon seven popes who were subject to French influence
(1309-1376). It is the period in the annals of the Papacy which is
called the "Babylonian captivity." Philip remained
implacable. He was determined to secure the condemnation of
Boniface VIII., even after his death. Clement V. had no
alternative but to summon a council, which was held at Vienne
in 1311, when Boniface was declared to have been orthodox, at the same
time that Philip was shielded from ecclesiastical censure or reproach.
SUPPRESSION OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS.—One of the demands which
Philip had made of Clement V., and a demand which the
council had to grant, was the condemnation of the order of Knights
Templars, whose vast wealth Philip coveted. On the 13th of October,
1307, the Templars were arrested overall France,—an act which evinces
both the power of Philip, and his injustice. They were charged with
secret immoralities, and with practices involving impiety. Provincial
councils were called together to decree the judgment preordained by the
king. The Templars were examined under torture, and many of them were
burned at the stake. A large number of those who were put to death
revoked the confessions which had been extorted from them by bodily
suffering. Individuals may have been guilty of some of the charges, but
there is no warrant for such a verdict against the entire order. The
order was abolished by Clement V.
LAW STUDIES: MERCENARY TROOPS.—During the reign of Philip the Fair, it
was ordained that Parliament should sit twice every year at Paris
(1303). A university for the study of law was founded at
Orleans. The king needed soldiers as well as lawyers. Mercenary
troops were beginning to take the place of feudal bands. Philip brought
the Genoese galleys against the ships of Flanders.
THE THREE SONS OF PHILIP: THE "SALIC LAW."—Three sons of Philip
reigned after him. Louis X. (1314-1316) was induced to take
part in an aristocratic reaction, in behalf of "the good old customs,"
against the legists; but he continued to emancipate the serfs. He was
not succeeded by his daughter, but by his brother. This precedent was
soon transformed into the "Salic law" that only heirs in the male line
could succeed to the throne. The rule was really the result of the
"genealogical accident" that for three hundred and forty-one years, or
since the election of Hugh Capet, every French king had been succeeded
by his son. In several cases the son had been crowned in the lifetime
of the father. Thus the principle of heredity, and of heredity in the
male line, had taken root.
Under Philip V. and his successor, Charles IV.
(1322-1328), there was cruel persecution of the Jews, and many people
suffered death on the charge of sorcery.
EDWARD I. OF ENGLAND (1272-1307): CONQUEST OF WALES: WILLIAM
WALLACE.—Edward, who was in the Holy Land when his father
died, was a gallant knight and an able ruler,—"the most brilliant
monarch of the fourteenth century." Llywelyn, prince of Wales,
having refused to render the oath due from a vassal, was forced to
yield. When a rebellion broke out several years later, Wales was
conquered, and the leader of the rebellion was executed (1283). Thus
Wales was joined to England; and the king gave to his son the title of
"Prince of Wales," which the eldest son of the sovereign of England
has since worn. Edward was for many years at war with Scotland,
which now included the Gaelic-speaking people of the Highlands, and
the English-speaking people of the Lowlands. The king of England had
some claim to be their suzerain, a claim which the Scots were slow to
acknowledge. The old line of Scottish princes of the Celtic race died
out. Alexander III. fell with his horse over a cliff on the coast of
Fife. Two competitors for the throne arose, both of them of Norman
descent,—John Baliol and Robert Bruce. The Scots made
Edward an umpire, to decide which of them should reign. He
decided for Baliol (1292), stipulating that the suzerainty
should rest with himself. When he called upon Baliol to aid him
against France, the latter renounced his allegiance, and declared
war. He was conquered at Dunbar (1296), and made prisoner. The
strongholds in Scotland fell into the hands of the English. The
country appeared to be subjugated, but the Scots were ill-treated by
the English. William Wallace put himself at the head of a band
of followers, defeated them near Stirling in 1292, and kept up
the contest for several years with heroic energy. At length
Edward, through the skill acquired by the English in the use of
the bow, was the victor at Falkirk in 1298. Wallace,
having been betrayed into his hands, was brutally executed in London
(1305).
Edward carried off from Scone the stone on which the Scottish kings
had always been crowned. It is now in Westminster Abbey, under the
coronation chair of the sovereign of Great Britain. There was a
legend, that on this same stone the patriarch Jacob laid his head
when he beheld angels ascending and descending at Bethel. Where that
stone was, it was believed that Scottish kings would reign. This was
held to be verified when English kings of Scottish descent inherited
the crown.
ROBERT BRUCE.—The struggle for Scottish independence was taken up by
Robert Bruce, grandson of the Bruce who had claimed the
crown. His plan to gain the throne was disclosed by John Comyn,
nephew of Baliol: this Comyn young Bruce stabbed in a
church at Dumfries. He was then crowned king at Scone, and summoned
the Scots to his standard. The English king sent his son Edward
to conquer him; but the king himself, before he could reach Scotland,
died.
PARLIAMENT: THE JEWS.—Under Edward, the form of government by king,
lords, and commons was firmly established. Parliament met in two
distinct houses. Against his inclination he swore to the "Confirmation
of the Charters," by which he engaged not to impose taxes without the
consent of Parliament. The statute of mortmain has been
referred to already. The clergy paid their taxes to the king when they
found, that, unless they did so, the judges would not protect
them. Edward had protected the Jews, who, in England as
elsewhere, were often falsely accused of horrible crimes, and against
whom there existed, on account of their religion, a violent
prejudice. At length he yielded to the popular hatred, and banished
them from the kingdom, permitting them, however, to take with them
their property.
Edward II. (1307-1327).—Edward II., a weak and despicable
sovereign, cared for nothing but pleasure.
He was under the influence of the son of a Gascon gentleman, Peter
of Gaveston, whom, contrary to the injunction of his father, he
recalled from banishment. Gaveston was made regent while the
king was in France, whither he went, in 1308, to marry Isabel,
daughter of Philip the Fair. After his return, the disgust of
the barons at the conduct of Gaveston, and at the courses into
which Edward was led by him, was such, that in 1310 they forced
the king to give the government for a year to a committee of peers, by
whom Gaveston was once more banished. When he came back, he was
captured by the barons, and beheaded in 1312.
BRUCE: BANNOCKBURN: DEPOSITION OF EDWARD II.—After various successes,
Robert Bruce laid siege to Stirling in 1314. This led to
a temporary reconciliation between the king and the
barons. Edward set out for Scotland with an army of a hundred
thousand men. A great battle took place at Bannockburn, where
Bruce, with a greatly inferior force of foot-soldiers, totally
defeated the English. He had dug pits in front of his army, which he
had covered with turf resting on sticks. The effect was to throw the
English cavalry into confusion. Against the Despencers, father
and son, the next favorites of Edward, the barons were not at first
successful; but in 1326 Edward's queen, Isabel, who had joined
his enemies, returned from France with young Edward, Prince of
Wales, and at the head of foreign soldiers and exiles. The barons
joined her: the Despencers were taken and executed. The king
was driven to resign the crown. He was carried from one castle to
another, and finally was secretly murdered at Berkeley Castle, by
Roger Mortimer, in whose custody he had been placed.
On the suppression of the Knights Templars by Pope Clement
V., their property in England was confiscated. The Temple,
which was their abode in London, became afterwards the possession of
two societies of lawyers, the Inner and Middle Temple.
THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR:
PERIOD I. (TO THE PEACE OF BRÉTIGNY. 1360).
ORIGIN OF THE WAR: EDWARD III. OF ENGLAND (1327-1377).—England and
France entered on one of the longest wars of which there is any record
in history. It lasted, with only a few short periods of intermission,
for a hundred years. At the outset, there were two main causes of
strife. First, the king of France naturally coveted the English
territory around Bordeaux,—Guienne, whose people were
French. Secondly, the English would not allow Flanders
—whose manufacturing towns, as Ghent and Bruges, were the best
customers for their wool—to pass under French control. Independently
of these grounds of dispute, Edward III. laid claim to the
French crown, for the reason that his mother was the sister of the last
king, while Philip VI. (1328-1350), then reigning, was only his
cousin. The French stood by the "Salic law," but a much stronger
feeling was their determination not to be ruled by an Englishman.
Edward III. claimed the throne of France in right of his mother,
Isabel, the daughter of Philip IV. The peers and barons
of France, on the whole, for political reasons, decided that the crown
should be given to Philip (VI.). his nephew, of the house of
Valois, a younger line of the Capets. Edward rendered to
him, in 1328, feudal homage for the duchy of Guienne, but took
the first favorable occasion to re-assert his claim to the
throne. Robert II., Count of Artois, was obliged to fly from
France on a charge of having poisoned his aunt and her daughters, as a
part of his unsuccessful attempt to get possession of the fiefs left to
them by his grandsire. He went over to England from Brussels,
and stirred up the young English king to attack Philip
(1334). David Bruce, whom Edward sought to drive out of
Scotland, received aid from France. Philip ordered Louis, Count
of Flanders, between whom and the burghers there was no affection, to
expel the English from his states. James Van Arteveld, a brewer
of Ghent, convinced the people that it was better to get rid of
the count, and ally themselves with the English. Edward even
then hesitated about entering into the conflict, but the demands and
measures of Philip showed that he was bent on war. The princes
in the neighborhood of Flanders, and the emperor Louis V., to
whom the Pope at Avignon was hostile, declared on the side of
Edward.
The following tables (in part repeated, in a modified form, from
previous tables, and here connected) will illustrate the narrative:—
THE HOUSE OF VALOIS.
CHARLES, Count of Valois (d. 1325),
younger son of PHILIP III, KING OF FRANCE. (See below.)
|
+—PHILIP VI, 1328-1350.
|
+—JOHN the Good, 1350-1364.
|
+—CHARLES V the Wise, 1364-1380.
| |
| +—CHARLES VI, 1380-1422.
| | |
| | +—CHARLES VII, 1422-1461.
| | |
| | +—LOUIS XI, 1461-1483.
| | |
| | +—CHARLES VIII, 1483-1498.
| | |
| | +—Jeanne,
| | m
| | +—Duke of Orleans, afterwards LOUIS XII, 1498-1515.
| | |
| | +—Charles, Duke of Orleans, (d. 1467)
| | |
| +—Louis, Duke of Orleans (assassinated 1407),
| founder of the House of Valois-Orleans.
|
+—Louis, Duke of Anjou, founder
| of the second Royal House of Naples.
|
+—John, Duke of Berry.
|
+—Philip, Duke of Burgundy
(d. 1404).
* * * * *
PHILIP III, 1270-1285.
|
+—PHILIP IV, 1285-1314.
| |
| +—Isabel, m. Edward II of England
| | |
| | +—Edward II of England.
| | |
| | +—Edward III of England.
| |
| +—PHILIP V, 1316-1322.
| |
| +—CHARLES IV, 1322-1328.
|
+—Charles, Count of Valois (d. 1325), m.
(1), Margaret of Naples.
|
+—PHILIP VI, 1328-1350.
EARLY EVENTS OF THE WAR.—Hostilities began in 1337. Edward
entered France, and then for the first time publicly set up his claim
to be king of France, quartering the lilies on his shield; and he was
accepted by the Flemish as their suzerain. The first battle was on the
sea near Fort Sluys (1340), where Edward won a victory,
and thirty thousand Frenchmen were slain or drowned. This established
the supremacy of the English on the water. The fleet of the French was
made up of hired Castilian and Genoese vessels. In 1341 the conflict
was renewed on account of a disputed succession in Brittany, in which
the "Salic law" was this time on the English side.
Jane of Penthievre was supported by Philip; while Jane
of Montfort, an intrepid woman who was protected by Edward,
contended for the rights of her husband. This war, consisting of the
sieges of fortresses and towns, was kept up for twenty-four years.
BATTLE OF CRÉCY: CALAIS: BRITTANY.—In 1346 the Earl of Derby
made an attack in the south of France, while Edward, with his
young son Edward, the Prince of Wales, landed in Normandy,
which he devastated. King Edward advanced to the neighborhood
of Paris; but the want of provisions caused him to change his course,
and to march in the direction of Flanders. His situation now became
perilous. He was followed by Philip at the head of a powerful
army; and, had there been more energy and promptitude on the side of
the French, the English forces might have been
destroyed. Edward was barely able, by taking advantage of a
ford at low tide, to cross the Somme, and to take up an advantageous
position at Crécy. There he was attacked with imprudent haste
by the army of the French. The chivalry of France went down before the
solid array of English archers, and Edward gained an
overwhelming victory. Philip's brother Charles, count of
Alençon, fell, with numerous other princes and nobles, and thirty
thousand soldiers (1346). In the battle, the English king's eldest son
—Edward, the Black Prince as he was called from the color of
his armor—was hard pressed; but the father would send no aid, saying,
"Let the boy win his spurs." It was the custom to give the spurs to
the full-fledged knight. After a siege, Calais, the port so
important to the English, was captured by them. The deputies of the
citizens, almost starved, came out with cords in their hands, to
signify their willingness to be hanged. The French were driven out,
and Calais was an English town for more than two centuries. France was
defeated on all sides. The Scots, too, were vanquished; and David
Bruce was made prisoner (1346). In Brittany the French
party was prostrate. A truce between the kings was concluded for ten
months.
THE "BLACK DEATH."—In the midst of these calamities, the fearful
pestilence swept over France, called the "Black Death." It came from
Egypt, possibly from farther east. In Florence three-fifths of the
inhabitants perished by it. From Italy it passed over to Provence, and
thence moved northward to Paris, spreading destruction in its path. It
reached England, and there it is thought by some that one-half of the
population perished (1348-1349).
ENGLISH AND FRENCH ARMIES.—At this time, when the power of France was
so reduced, the king acquired Montpellier from James of
Aragon, and the Dauphiné of Vienne by purchase from the
last Dauphin, Humbert II., who entered a
monastery. Dauphin became the title of the heir of the French
crown. It was constantly evident how deep a root the royal power had
struck into the soil of France. At times, when the kingdom was almost
gone, the kingship survived. But, unhappily, there was no union of
orders and classes. Chivalry looked with disdain upon the common
people. The poor Genoese archers who had fought with the French at
Crécy, and whose bow-strings were wet by a shower, were
despised by the gentlemen on horseback. In the French armies, there
was no effective force but the cavalry, and there was a fatal lack of
subordination and discipline. In England, on the contrary, under kings
with more control over the feudal aristocracy, and from the
combination of lords and common people in resistance to kings, the
English armies had acquired union and discipline. The bow in the hands
of the English yeoman was a most effective weapon. The English
infantry were more than a match for the brave and impetuous cavaliers
of France. At Crécy the entire English force fought on
foot. Cannon were just beginning to come into use. This brought a new
advantage to the foot-soldier. But it seems probable that cannon were
employed at Crécy.
BATTLE OF POITIERS: INSURRECTION IN PARIS.—Philip left his
crown to his son, John (II.) of Normandy, called "the Good"
(1350-1364); but the epithet (le Bon) signifies not the morally
worthy, but rather, the prodigal, gay and extravagant. He was a
passionate, rash, and cruel king. His relations with Charles
"the Bad," king of Navarre,—who, however, was the better man
of the two,—brought disasters upon France. This Charles II. of
Navarre (1349-1387) was the grandson, on his mother's side, of
Louis X. of France. John had withheld from him promised
fiefs. Later he had thrown him into prison. Philip of Navarre,
the brother of Charles, helped the English against John
in Normandy. Meanwhile the Prince of Wales (the Black Prince) ravaged
the provinces near Guienne. The national spirit in France was roused
by the peril. The States General granted large supplies of men
and money, but only on the condition that the treasure should be
dispensed under their superintendence, and that they should be
assembled every year. The army of the Black Prince was small, and he
advanced so far that he was in imminent danger; but the attack on him
at Poitiers (1356), by the vastly superior force of King
John, was made with so much impetuosity and so little prudence
that the French, as at Crecy, were completely defeated. Their
cavalry charged up a lane, not knowing that the English archers were
behind the hedges on either side. Their dead to the number of eleven
thousand lay on the field. The king, and with him a large part of the
nobility, were taken prisoners. John was taken to England
(1357). From the moment of his capture he was treated with the utmost
courtesy. The French peasantry, however, suffered greatly; and in
France the name of Englishman for centuries afterwards was held in
abhorrence.
INSURRECTION IN PARIS.—The incapacity of the nobles to save the
kingdom called out the energies of the class counted as plebeian,—the
middle class between the nobles and serfs. It was not without
competent leaders, chief of whom were Robert le Coq, bishop of
Laon, and councilor of Parliament; and Etienne Marcel,
an able man, provost of the traders, or head of the municipality of
Paris. The States General at Paris, at the instigation of such
as these, required of the Dauphin the punishment of the
principal officers of the king, the release of the King of Navarre,
and the establishment of a council made up from the three orders, for
the direction of all the important affairs of government. The States
General, representing the South, at Toulouse voted a levy of
men and means without conditions; but the Dauphin Charles was
obliged, at the next meeting of the States General of Paris (1357), to
yield to these and other additional demands. The king, however, a
prisoner in England, at the Dauphin's request refused to ratify the
compact. The agitators at Paris set the King of Navarre free, and
urged him to assert his right to the throne. Marcel and the
Parisian multitude wore the party-colored hood of red and blue, the
civic colors of Paris. They killed two of the Dauphin's confidential
advisers, the marshals of Champagne and Normandy. A reaction set in
against Marcel, and in favor of the royal cause. A civil war
was the result.
REVOLT OF THE JACQUERIE.—At this time, there burst forth an
insurrection, called the Jacquerie, of the peasants of the
provinces,—Jacques Bonhomme being a familiar nickname of the
peasantry. It was attended with frightful cruelties: many of the
feudal chateaux were destroyed, and all of their inmates killed. The
land was given over to anarchy and bloodshed. Marcel made
different attempts to effect a combination with Charles of
Navarre; but the revolutionary leader was assassinated, and the
Dauphin Charles, having destroyed opposition in Paris,
made peace with the King of Navarre, who had kept up in the provinces
the warfare against him. The movement of Marcel, with whatever
crimes and errors belonged to it, was "a brave and loyal effort to
stem anarchy, and to restore good government." By its failure, the
hope of a free parliamentary government in France was dashed in
pieces.
TREATY OF BRÉTIGNY (1360).—The captive king, John, made a
treaty with Edward, by which he ceded to the English at least
one-half of his dominions. The Dauphin assembled the States
General, and repudiated the compact. Edward III., in 1359,
again invaded France with an immense force. But Charles
prudently avoided a general engagement, and Edward found it
difficult to get food for his troops. He concluded with France, in
1360, the treaty of Brétigny, by which the whole province of
Aquitaine, with several other lordships, was ceded to
Edward, clear of all feudal obligations. Edward, in
turn, renounced his claim to the French crown, as well as to
Normandy, and to all other former possessions of the
Plantagenets north of the Loire. The King was to be set at liberty on
the payment of the first installment of his ransom.
THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR:
PERIOD II. (TO THE PEACE OF TROYES, 1420).
DUCHY OF BURGUNDY.—There was an opportunity to repair a part of these
losses. In 1361 the ducal house of Burgundy became extinct, and
the fief reverted to the crown. But John gave it to his son,
Philip the Bold, who became the founder of the Burgundian branch
of the house of Valois. Philip married the heiress of
Flanders, and thus founded the power of the house of Burgundy in
the Netherlands.
DU GUESCLIN: CONTEST IN SPAIN.—The provinces of France were overrun
and plundered by soldiers of both parties, under the names of
routiers (men of the road) and great companies. King
John returned to England, because one of his sons, left as a
hostage, had fled. There his captivity was made pleasant to him, but he
died soon after.
Charles V., or Charles the Wise (1364-1380), undertook to
restore prosperity to the French kingdom. He reformed the coin, the
debasement of which was a dire grievance to the burghers. Against the
free lances in the service of Charles of Navarre, the king sent
bands of mercenary soldiers under Du Guesclin, a valiant
gentleman of Brittany, who became one of the principal heroes of the
time. The war lasted for a year, and the King of Navarre made peace. In
Brittany, Du Guesclin was taken prisoner by the English party
and the adventurers who fought with them. The king secured his release
by paying his ransom; and he led the companies into Spain to help the
cause of Henry of Transtamare, who had a dispute for the throne
of Castile with Peter the Cruel. The Black Prince
supported Peter, and, for a time, with success. In 1369
Henry was established on the throne, and with him the French
party. The principal benefit of this Spanish contest was the
deliverance of France from the companies of freebooters.
ADVANTAGES GAINED BY THE FRENCH.—King Charles reformed the
internal administration of his kingdom, and at length felt himself
ready to begin again the conflict with England. Edward III. was
old. The Black Prince was ill and gloomy, and his Aquitanian subjects
disliked the supercilious ways of the English. Charles declared
war (1369). The English landed at Calais. But the cities were
defended by their strong walls; and the French army, under the Duke
of Burgundy, in pursuance of the settled policy of the king,
refused to meet the enemy in a pitched battle. The next year (1370)
they appeared again, and once more, in 1373, both times with the same
result. The Duke of Anjou reconquered the larger part of
Aquitaine. Du Guesclin was made constable of the French
army, and thus placed above the nobles by birth. The English fleet was
destroyed by the Castilian vessels before Rochelle (1372). Du
Guesclin drove the Duke of Montfort, who was protected by
the English, out of Brittany. In 1375 a truce was made, which continued
until the death of Edward III. (1377). Then Charles renewed the
war, and was successful on every side. Most of the English possessions
in France were won back. The last exploit of the Black Prince had been
the sacking of Limoges (1370). After this cruel proceeding,
broken in health, he returned to England.
STATE OF ENGLAND.—The Black Prince, after his return, when his father
was old and feeble, did much to save the country from misrule, so that
his death was deplored. The Parliament at this time was called "the
Good." It turned out of office friends of John of Gaunt,—or of
Ghent (the place where he was born),—the third son of Edward. They
were unworthy men, whom John had caused to be appointed. At this time
occurred the first instance of impeachment of the king's ministers by
the Commons. When the Black Prince died, his brother regained the chief
power, and his influence was mischievous. During Edward's reign,
Flemish weavers were brought over to England, and the manufacture of
fine woolen cloths was thus introduced.
JOHN WICKLIFFE.—In this reign the English showed a strong disposition
to curtail the power of the popes in England. When Pope Urban
V., in 1366, called for the payment of the arrears of King
John's tribute, Parliament refused to grant it, on the ground
that no one had the right to subject the kingdom to a foreigner. It was
in the reign of Edward III. that John Wickliffe became
prominent. He took the side of the secular or the parish clergy in
their conflict with the mendicant orders,—"the Begging Friars," as
they were styled. He also advocated the cause of the king against the
demands of the Pope. He contended that the clergy had too much wealth
and power. He adopted doctrines, at that time new, which were not
behind the later Protestant, or even Puritan, opinions. He translated
the Bible into English. He was protected by Edward III. and by
powerful nobles, and he died in peace in his parish at
Lutterworth, in 1384; but, after his death, his bones were taken
up, and burned. His followers bore the nickname of Lollards,
which is probably derived from a word that means to sing, and
thus was equivalent to psalm-singers.
RICHARD II. (1377-1399): THE PEASANT INSURRECTION: DEPOSITION OF
RICHARD.—Richard, the young son of the Black Prince, had an
unhappy reign. At first he was ruled by his uncles, especially by
John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. Four years after his
accession, a great insurrection of the peasants broke out, from
discontent under the yoke of villanage, and the pressure of taxes. The
first leader in Essex was a priest, who took the name of Jack
Straw. In the previous reign, the poor had found reason to complain
bitterly of the landlords; but their lot was now even harder. When the
insurgents reached Blackheath, they numbered a hundred thousand
men. There a priest named John Ball harangued them on the
equality of rights, from the text,—
When Adam delved, and Eve span,
Who was then a gentleman?
Young Richard managed them with so much tact, and gave them such fair
promises, that they dispersed. One of their most fierce leaders,
Wat Tyler, whose daughter had been insulted by a tax-gatherer,
was stabbed during a parley which he was holding with the king.
There was a Gloucester party—a party led by his youngest uncle,
the Duke of Gloucester—which gave Richard much trouble; but he
became strong enough to send the duke to Calais, where, it was
thought, he was put to death. In 1398 he banished two noblemen who had
given him, at a former day, dire offense. One of them was Thomas
Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk; the other was Henry of
Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford, afterwards called Duke of
Lancaster, son of John of Gaunt. When John of Gaunt died,
Richard seized his lands. In 1399, when Richard was in Ireland,
Bolingbroke landed, with a few men-at-arms and with Archbishop
Arundel; and, being joined by the great family of Percy
in the North, he obliged Richard to resign the crown. He was
deposed by Parliament for misgovernment. Not long after, he was
murdered. Lancaster was made king under the name of Henry
IV. It was under Richard that the statute of
præmunire (of 1353) was renewed, and severe penalties were
imposed on all who should procure excommunications or sentences against
the king or the realm.
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.—In the course of the reign of
Edward III., the French language, which had come in with the
Normans, ceased to be the speech of fashion; and the English, as
altered by the loss of inflections and by the introduction of foreign
words, came into general use. The English ceased to speak the language
of those who were now held to be national enemies. In 1362 the use of
English was established in the courts of law. The Old English
ceased to be written or spoken correctly. The Latin still
continued to be familiar to the clergy and to the learned. William
Langland wrote a poem entitled the Vision of Piers Plowman
(1362). Pierce the Plowman's Crede is a poem by another
author. The two principal poets are Chaucer and Gower,
both of whom wrote the new English in use at the court. Chaucer's great
poem, the Canterbury Tales, is the latest and most remarkable of
his works.
HENRY IV. (1399-1413): TWO REBELLIONS: THE LOLLARDS.-By right of birth,
the crown would have fallen to Roger Mortimer, Earl of March,
the grandson of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, Lionel having been a
son of Edward III., older than John of Gaunt. But there was no law
compelling Parliament to give the throne to the nearest of kin. So it
fell to the house of Lancaster.
Henry had to confront two rebellions. One was that of the Welsh,
under Owen Glendower, which he long tried to put down, and which
was gradually overcome by Henry, Prince of Wales, the story of
whose wild courses in his youth was perhaps exaggerated. The other
rebellion was that of the powerful Northumberland family of the
Percys, undertaken in behalf of Richard if he was
alive,—for it was disputed whether or not he had really died,—and if
not alive, in behalf of the Earl of March. The Percys
joined Glendower. They were beaten in a bloody battle near
Shrewsbury, in 1403, where Northumberland's son "Hotspur"
(Harry Percy) was slain. While praying at the shrine of
St. Edward in Westminster, the king was seized with a fit, and died in
the "Jerusalem Chamber" of the Abbot. Under Henry the
proceedings against heretics were sharpened; but the Commons at length,
from their jealousy of the clergy, sought, although in vain, a
mitigation of the statute. In the next reign, the Lollards, who were
numerous, had a leader in Sir John Oldcastle, called Lord
Cobham, who once escaped from the Tower, but was captured, after
some years, and put to death as a traitor and heretic. Whether he aimed
at a Lollard revolution or not, is uncertain. The Lollards were
persecuted, not only as heretics, but also as desiring to free the
serfs from their bondage to the landlords.
THE BURGUNDIANS AND ARMAGNACS.—In the last days of Charles V.
of France, he tried in vain to absorb Brittany. Flanders
and Languedoc revolted against him. The aspect of public affairs
was clouded when Charles VI. (1380-1422), who was not twelve
years old, became the successor to the throne. His uncles, the Dukes of
Anjou, Berri, and Burgundy, contended for the
regency. Their quarrels distracted the kingdom. A contest arose with
the Flemish cities under the leadership of Philip Van Artevelde;
but they were defeated by the French nobles at Roosebeke, and
Arterielde was slain. This victory of the nobles over the cities
was followed by the repression of the municipal leaders and lawyers in
France. Two factions sprang up,—the Burgundians and the
Armagnacs.
Margaret, the wife of the Duke of Burgundy, received Flanders by
inheritance, on the death of her father the Count (1384). The king was
beginning to free himself from the control of the factions when he
suddenly went mad. Thenceforth there was a struggle in France for
supremacy between the adherents of the dukes of Burgundy and the
adherents of the house of Orleans. The latter came to be called
Armagnacs (1410), after the Count d'Armagnac, the
father-in-law of Charles, Duke of Orleans. The strength of the
Burgundians was in the North and in the cities. They
adhered to Urban VI., the pope at Rome, in opposition to the
Avignon pope, Clement VII.; for these were the days of the papal
schism. They were also friends of the house of Lancaster in
England,—of Henry IV. and Henry V. The strength of the
Armagnacs was in the South. At the outset, it was a party
of the court and of the nobles: later it became a national
party. Louis, Duke of Orleans, was treacherously assassinated by
a partisan of the Burgundians (1407). This act fomented the strife.
BATTLE OF AGINCOURT: TREATY OF TROYES (1420).—It was in 1392 that the
king partially lost his reason. For the rest of his life, except at
rare intervals, he was either imbecile or frenzied. By the division of
counsels and a series of fatalities, gigantic preparations for the
invasion of England had come to naught (1386-1388). Henry V. of
England (1413-1422) concluded that the best way to divert his
nobles from schemes of rebellion was to make war across the
Channel. Accordingly he demanded his "inheritance" according to the
treaty of Brétigny, together with Normandy. On the
refusal of this demand, he renewed the claim of his greatgrandfather to
the crown of France, although he was not the eldest descendant of
Edward III. Henry invaded France at the head of fifty
thousand men. By his artillery and mines he took Harfleur, but
not until after a terrible siege in which thousands of his troops
perished by sickness. On his way towards Calais, with not more
than nine thousand men, he found his way barred at Agincourt by
the Armagnac forces, more than fifty thousand in number, comprising the
chivalry of France (1415). In the great battle that ensued, the horses
of the French floundered in the mud, and horse and rider were destroyed
by the English bowmen. The French suffered another defeat like the
defeats of Crécy and Poitiers. They lost eleven thousand
men, and among them some of the noblest men in France. France was
falling to pieces. Rouen was besieged by Henry, and compelled by
starvation to surrender (1419). The fury of factions continued to
rage. There were dreadful massacres by the mob in Paris. The Duke of
Burgundy, John the Fearless (Jean sans Peur), was murdered
in 1419 by the opposite faction. The young Duke Philip, and even
the Queen of France, Isabella, were now found on the
Anglo-Burgundian side. By the Treaty of Troyes, in 1420,
Catherine, the daughter of Charles VI., was given in
marriage to Henry V., and he was made the heir of the crown of
France when the insane king, Charles VI., should
die. Henry was made regent of France. The whole country north of
the Loire was in his hands. The Dauphin Charles retired
to the provinces beyond that river.
THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR:
PERIOD III. (TO THE END, 1463).
FRANCE IN 1422.—Both Henry and Charles VI. died in 1422.
The Duke of Bedford was made regent in France, ruling in the name of
his infant nephew (Henry VI.). Charles VII. (1422-1461)
was proclaimed king by the Armagnacs south of the Loire. His
situation was desperate, but he represented the national cause.
Bedford laid siege to Orleans, the last bulwark of the
royal party. The English were weakened, however, by the withdrawal of
the Duke of Burgundy and his forces.
JOAN OF ARC.—When the national cause was at this low point, Providence
raised up a deliverer in the person of a pure, simple-hearted, and
pious maiden of Domrémy in Lorraine, seventeen years of
age, Jeanne Dare by name (the name Joan of Arc being
merely a mistake in orthography). The tales of suffering that she had
heard deeply moved her. She felt herself called of Heaven to liberate
France. She fancied that angels' voices bade her undertake this holy
mission. Her own undoubting faith aroused faith in others. Commissioned
by the king, she mounted a horse, and, with a banner in her hand,
joined the French soldiers, whom she inspired with fresh courage. They
forced the English to give up the siege of Orleans, and to march
away. Other defeats of the English followed. The Maid of Orleans took
Charles to Rheims, and stood by him at his
coronation. The English and Burgundians rallied their strength. Joan
of Arc was ill supported, and was made prisoner at Compèigne by the
Burgundians. They delivered her to the English. She was subjected to
grievous indignities, was condemned as a witch, and finally burned as a
relapsed heretic at Rouen (1431). The last word she uttered was
"Jesus." Her character was without a taint. In her soul, the spirit of
religion and of patriotism burned with a pure flame. A heroine and a
saint combined, she died "a victim to the ingratitude of her friends,
and the brutality of her foes."
THE ENGLISH DRIVEN OUT—In 1435 the Duke of Burgundy was
reconciled to Charles VII., and joined the cause of France. The
generals of Charles gained possession of one after another of the
provinces. During a truce of two years, Henry VI. of England
(1422-1461) married Margaret of Anjou, the daughter of King
René. Henry was of a gentle temper, but lacked prudence
and vigor. The king of France and the dauphin began the organization of
a standing army, which greatly increased the military strength of the
country (1439). In 1449 the war with England was renewed. With the
defeat of the English, and the death of their commander, Talbot,
in 1453, the contest of a century came to an end. All that England
retained across the Channel was Calais with Havre and
Guines Castle. France was desolated by all this fruitless
strife. Some of the most fertile portions of its territory were
reduced to a desert, "given up to wolves, and traversed only by the
robber and the free-lance."
REBELLION of "JACK CADE."—The peasants in England were now free from
serfdom. Under Henry VI. occurred a formidable insurrection of
the men of Kent, who marched to London led by John Cade, who
called himself John Mortimer. They complained of bad government
and extortionate taxes. One main cause of the rising was the successes
of the French. The condition of the laboring class had much
improved. The insurgents were defeated by the citizens, and their
leader was slain. In this reign began the long "Wars of the Roses," or
the contest of the houses of York and Lancaster for the
throne.
MILAN.—THE VISCONTI AND SFORZA.
Matteo I, VISCONTI (nephew of Archbishop Otto),
Lord of Milan, 1295-1332.
|
+—Stefano (d. 1327).
|
+—Matteo II,[1] 1354-1355.
|
+—Bernabo,[1] 1354-1385.
| |
| +—Catharine,
| m. (2),
| +—GIAN GALEAZZO, 1378-1402 (first duke, 1396).
| | |
| | +—GIOVANNI MARIA, 1402-1412.
| | |
| | +—FILIPPO MARIA, 1412-1447.
| | | |
| | | +—Bianca Maria.
| | | m.
| | | +—FRANCESCO SFORZA, 1450-1466
| | | | |
| | | | +—GALEAZZO MARIA, 1466-1476, m.
| | | | | Bona, daughter of Louis, Duke of Savoy.
| | | | | |
| | | | | +—GIAN GALEAZZO, 1476-1494.
| | | | |
| | | | +—LUDOVICO Il Moro, 1494-1500, 3, (d. 1510)
| | | | m. Beatrice d'Este.
| | | | |
| | | | +—MASSAMILLANO,[4] 1512-1515 (d. 1530)
| | | | |
| | | | +—FRANCESCO MARIA, [4], 1521-1535. m.
| | | | Christina, daughter of Christian II of Denmark (1)
| | | |
| | | Jacopo (Muzio) Attendolo di Cotignola, called Sforza.
| | |
| | +—Valentina, [2] m.
| | Louis, Duke of Orleans.
| | |
| | +—Charles, Duke of Orleans.
| | |
| | +—LOUIS XII of France,
| | Duke of Milan 1500-1512.
| |
+—Galeazzo II,[1] 1354-1378.
1 The Milanese territory was divided between the three brothers, and
united on the death of Bernabo.
2 Hence the French claim to Milan.
3 Louis XII of France took Ludovico prisoner, and held Milan
1500-1512.
4 Puppet dukes. Milan being, in fact, the subject of contention
between France and the Hapsburgs.
[Abridged from George's Genealogical Tables.]
THE THREE NORTHERN KINGDOMS BEFORE THE UNION OF CALMAR.
[D. means King of Denmark; N., King of Norway; S., King of Sweden.]
HACO IV, N. (d. 1263).
|
+—MAGNUS VI, N., 1263-1281.
|
+—ERIC II, N., 1281-1299.
|
+—HACO V, N., 1299-1320.
|
| MAGNUS I, S., 1279-1290.
| |
| +—BERGER, S., 1290-1320 (deposed; d. 1326)
| | m.
| | +—Martha.
| | |
| | +—CHRISTOPHER II, D., 1320-1340.
| | | |
| | | +—WALDEMAR III, D., 1346-1375.
| | | |
| | | +—Margaret,[2] D. N., 1387, S., 1388 (d. 1412).
| | | m. HACO VI, N. (d. 1380)
| | | |
| | | +—OLAF VI, D. 1376, N. 1380 (d. 1387).
| | |
| | +—ERIC VI, D., 1286-1320.
| | |
| | ERIC V, D., 1250-1286.
| |
| +—Eric.
| m.
+—Ingeburga
|
+—Magnus VII (II), N. S., 1320-1365 (deposed).
|
+—Euphemia. m. Albert, Duke of Mecklenburg,
| |
| +—Albert,[1] S., 1365-1388 (deposed).
| |
| +—Henry, m. Ingeburga, daughter of Waldemar III, D.
| |
| +—Mary, m. Wratislas of Pomerania.
| |
| +—ERIC, D. N. S., 1412-1439
| | (deposed; d. 1459).
| |
| +—Catharine, m. John, son of Emperor Robert.
| |
| +—CHRISTOPHER, D. N. S. (d. 1448).
| m. (1)
| Dorothea, daughter of John Alchymista,
| Margrave of Brandenburg
| m. (2)
| CHRISTIAN I,[3] D. N. S.
|
+—HACO VI, N. (d. 1380)
1 Elected to Sweden in opposition to Haco VI; deposed by Margaret.
2 Having united all three kingdoms in her own person, framed formal
Union of Calmar, 1397.
3 Elected king on death of Christopher, whose widow he married; said
to be descended from Eric V of Denmark.
[Abridged from George's Genealogical Tables.]
CHAPTER II. GERMANY: ITALY: SPAIN: THE SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRIES: POLAND
AND RUSSIA: HUNGARY: OTTOMAN TURKS: THE GREEK EMPIRE.
I. GERMANY.
THE GREAT INTERREGNUM.—After the death of Frederick
II. (1250), Germany and Italy, the two countries over which the
imperial authority extended, were left free from its
control. Italy was abandoned to itself, and thus to internal
division. The case of Germany was analogous. During the "great
interregnum," lasting for twenty-three years, the German cities, by
their industry and trade, grew strong, as did the burghers in France,
and in the towns in England, in this period. But in Germany the feudal
control was less relaxed. This interval was a period of anarchy and
trouble. William of Holland wore the title of emperor until
1256. Then the electors were bribed, and Alfonso X. of
Castile, great-grandson of Frederick Barbarossa, and Richard,
Earl of Cornwall, younger son of King John of England, were chosen
by the several factions; but their power was nominal. The four
electors on the Rhine, and the dukes and counts, divided among
themselves the imperial domains. The dismemberment of the duchies of
Swabia and Franconia (1268), and at an earlier day
(1180) of Saxony, created a multitude of petty sovereignties.
The great vassals of the empire, the kings of Denmark, of
Poland, of Hungary, etc., broke away from its
suzerainty. There was a reign of violence. The barons sallied out of
their strongholds to rob merchants and travelers. The princes, and the
nobles in immediate relation to the empire, governed, each in his own
territory, as they pleased. New means of protection were created, as
the League of the Rhine, comprising sixty cities and the three
Rhenish archbishops, and having its own assemblies; and the
Hanseatic League, which has been described (p. 303). Moreover,
corporations of merchants and artisans were established in the
cities. In the North, where the Crusades, and war with the
Slaves, had thinned the population, colonies of Flemings,
Hollanders, and Frisians came in to cultivate the soil. During the
long-continued disturbances after the death of Frederick II.,
the desire of local independence undermined monarchy. The empire never
regained the vigor of which it was robbed by the interregnum.
HOUSE OF HAPSBURG.—Rudolph, Count of Hapsburg (1273-1291), was
elected emperor for the reason, that, while he was a brave man, he was
not powerful enough to be feared by the aristocracy. He wisely made no
attempt to govern in Italy. He was supported by the Church, to which
he was submissive. He devoted himself to the task of putting down
disorders in Germany. Against Ottocar II., king of Bohemia, who
now held also Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, and who
refused to acknowledge Rudolph, the emperor twice made war
successfully. In a fierce battle at the Marchfield, in 1278,
Ottocar was slain. Austria, Styria, and
Carniola fell into the hands of the emperor. They were given as
fiefs to Rudolph's son Albert; and Carinthia to Albert's
son-in-law, the Count of Tyrol. This was the foundation of the
power of the house of Hapsburg. Rudolph strove with partial
success to recover the crown lands, and did what he could to put a
stop to private war and to robbery. Numerous strongholds of robbers he
razed to the ground. His practical abandonment of Italy, his partial
restoration of order in Germany, and his service to the house of
Hapsburg, are the principal features of Rudolph's reign.
HENRY VII. (1308-1313): ITALY.—Adolphus of Nassau (1292-1298) was
hired by Edward I. to declare war against France. His doings in
Thuringia. which he tried to buy from the Landgrave Albert, led
the electors to dethrone him, and to choose Albert
I. (1298-1308), Duke of Austria, son of Rudolph. His nephew
John, whom he tried to keep out of his inheritance, murdered
him. Henry VII. (1308-1313), who was Count of Luxemburg,
the next emperor, did little more than build up his family by marrying
his son John to the granddaughter of King Ottocar.
John was thus made king of Bohemia. In these times, when the
emperors were weak, they were anxious to strengthen and enrich their
own houses. Henry went to Italy to try his fortunes beyond the
Alps. He was crowned in Pavia king of Italy, and in Rome emperor
(1312). But the rival parties quickly rose up against him: he was
excommunicated by Clement V., an ally of France, and died—it
was charged, by poison mixed in the sacramental cup—in 1313. He was a
man of pure and noble character, but the time had passed for Italy to
be governed by a German sovereign.
CIVIL WAR: ELECTORS AT RENSE.—One party of the electors chose
Frederick of Austria (1314-1330), and the other Louis of
Bavaria (1314-1347). A terrible civil war, lasting for ten years,
was the consequence. In a great battle near Mühldorf, the
Austrians were defeated, and Frederick was
captured. Louis had now to encounter the hostility of Pope
John XXII. (at Avignon), who wished to give the imperial crown
to Philip the Fair of France. Louis maintained that he
received the throne, not from the popes, but from the electors. He was
excommunicated by John, who refused to sanction the agreement of
Louis and of Frederick, now set at liberty, to exercise a joint
sovereignty. Louis was in Italy from 1327 to 1330, where he was
crowned emperor by a pope of his own creation. All efforts of Louis to
make peace with Pope John and his successor, Benedict
XII., were foiled by the opposition of France. The strife which had
been occasioned in Germany by this interference from abroad created
such disaffection among the Germans, that the electors met at
Rense, in 1338, and declared that the elected king of the
Germans received his authority from the choice of the electoral princes
exclusively, and was Roman emperor even without being crowned by a
pope.
DEPOSITION OF LOUIS OF BAVARIA.—The imprudence of Louis in
aggrandizing his family, and his assumption of an acknowledged papal
right in dissolving the marriage of the heiress of Tyrol with a son of
King John of Bohemia, turned the electors against him. In 1346
Pope Clement VI. declared him deposed. The electors chose in his
place Charles, the Margrave of Moravia, the son of King
John of Bohemia. Louis did not give up his title, but he
died soon after.
CHARLES IV. (1347-1378).—Charles IV. visited Italy, and was
crowned emperor (1355); but, according to a promise made to the Pope,
he tarried in Rome only a part of one day. He was crowned king of
Burgundy at Arles (1365). In Italy "he sold what was left of the
rights of the empire, sometimes to cities, sometimes to tyrants." His
principal care was for building up his own hereditary dominion, which
he so enlarged that it extended, at his death, from the Baltic almost
to the Danube. He fortified and adorned Prague, and established
there, in 1348, the first German university.
THE GOLDEN BULL.—The great service of Charles IV. to Germany
was in the grant of the charter called the Golden Bull
(1356). This expressly conferred the right of electing the emperor on
the SEVEN ELECTORS, who had, in fact, long exercised it. These were the
archbishops of Mentz, of Trier, and of Cologne, and the four secular
princes, the King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the Duke
of Saxony, and the Margrave of Brandenburg. The electoral states were
made indivisible and inalienable, and hereditary in the male line. The
electors were to be sovereign within their respective territories, and
their persons were declared sacred.
THE BLACK DEATH.—Germany, like the other countries, was terribly
afflicted during the reign of Charles by the destructive pestilence
that swept over the most of Europe (p. 319). One effect was an
outbreaking of religious fervor. At this time the movement of the
"Flagellants," which started in the thirteenth century, reached its
height in Germany and elsewhere. They scourged and lacerated themselves
for their sins, marching in processions, and inflicting their blows to
the sound of music. Another result of the plague was a savage
persecution of the Jews, who were falsely suspected of poisoning
wells. Many thousands of them were tortured and killed.
ANARCHY IN GERMANY.—The son of Charles IV. (1378-1400),
Wenceslaus, or Wenzel, was a coarse and cruel king. Under
him the old disorders of the Interregnum sprang up anew. The
towns had to defend themselves against the robber barons, and formed
confederacies for this purpose. Private war raged all over Germany.
ACCESSION OF SIGISMUND.—Wenceslaus was deposed by the electors
in 1400. But Rupert, the Count Palatine, his successor
(1400-1410), was able to accomplish little, in consequence of the
strife of parties. Sigismund (1410-1437), brother of
Wenceslaus, margrave of Brandenburg, and, in right of his wife,
king of Hungary, was chosen emperor, first by a part, and then by all,
of the electors. The most important events of this period were the
Council of Constance (1414-1418) and the war with the
Hussites.
JOHN HUSS.—The principal end for which the Council of Constance was
called was the healing of the schism in the Church,—in consequence of
which there were three rival popes,—and the securing of
ecclesiastical reforms. But at this council John Huss, an
eminent Bohemian preacher, was tried for heresy. The doctrines of
Wickliffe had penetrated into Bohemia; and a strong
party, of which Huss was the principal leader, had sprung up in favor
of innovations, doctrinal and practical, one of which was the giving
of the cup in the sacrament to the laity. Huss made a great
stir by his attack upon abuses in the Church. Under a safe-conduct
from Sigismund, he journeyed to Constance. There he was
tried, condemned as a heretic, and burnt at the stake
(1415). Jerome of Prague, another reformer, was dealt with in
the same way by the council (1416).
HUSSITE WAR.—The indignation of the followers of Huss was such
that a great revolt broke out in Bohemia. The leader was a brave man,
Ziska. The imperial troops, after the coronation of
Sigismund as king of Bohemia, were defeated, and driven out. The
Hussite soldiers ravaged the neighboring countries. The council of
Basel (1431-1449) concluded a treaty with the more moderate
portion of the Hussites, in which concessions were made to them. The
Taborites, the more fanatical portion, were at length defeated
and crushed.
SWITZERLAND.—Switzerland, originally a part of the kingdom of
Arles, had been ceded, with this kingdom, to the German Empire
in 1033. Within it, was established a lay and ecclesiastical
feudalism. In the twelfth century the cities—Zürich,
Basel, Berne, and Freiburg—began to be centers of
trade, and gained municipal privileges. The three mountain
cantons—Uri, Schweitz, and Unterwalden—cherished
the spirit of freedom. The counts of Hapsburg, after the
beginning of the thirteenth century, exercised a certain indefinite
jurisdiction in the land. They endeavored to transform this into an
actual sovereignty. Two of the cantons received charters placing them
in an immediate relation to the empire. After the death of Rudolph
I., the three cantons above named united in a league. Out of this
the Swiss Confederacy gradually grew up. There were struggles to
cast off foreign control; but the story of William Tell, and
other legends of the sort, are certainly fabulous. Albert of
Austria left to his successor in the duchy the task of subduing the
rebellion. The Austrians were completely defeated at Morgarten,
"the Marathon of Switzerland" (1315). The Swiss Confederacy was
enlarged by the addition of Lucerne (1332), Zürich and
Glarus (1351), Zug (1352), and of the city of
Berne in 1353. The battle of Sempach (1386) brought
another great defeat upon the Austrians. There, if we may believe an
ancient song, a Swiss hero, Arnold of Winkelried, grasped as
many of the spear-points as he could reach, as a sheaf in his arms, and
devoted himself to death, opening thus a path in which his followers
rushed to victory. Once more the Swiss triumphed at Näfels
(1388). From that time they were left to the enjoyment of their
freedom.
II. ITALY.
GUELFS AND GHIBELLINES: FREEDOM IN THE CITIES.—The inveterate foes of
Italy were foreign interference and domestic faction. After the death
of Frederick II., the war of the popes against his successors
lasted for seventeen years. After the defeat of Manfred (1266),
Conradin, the last of the Hohenstaufens, died on the scaffold
at Naples. Charles of Anjou lost Sicily through the rebellion
of the Sicilian Vespers (1282); and dominion in that island, separated
from Naples, passed to the house of Aragon. The papal states, after
the election of Rudolph of Hapsburg, became a distinct
sovereignty of the pontiffs. The bitter strife of the Guelfs
and Ghibellines went on in the Italian cities. The Genoese, who
were Guelfic, defeated the Pisans in 1284; and "Pisa, which had
ruined Amalfi, was now ruined by Genoa." Florence, which
was Guelfic, grew in strength. Genoa and Venice became
rivals in the contest for the control of the Mediterranean. In
Florence, new factions, the Neri and Bianchi
(Blacks and Whites), appeared; the Neri being violent Guelfs,
and the Bianchi being at first moderate Guelfs and then
Ghibellines. Pope Boniface VIII. invited into Italy Charles
of Valois. He was admitted to Florence (1301), and gave the
supremacy there to the Guelfic side. The coming of the Emperor
Henry VII. into Italy (1310) was marked by a temporary, but the
last, revival of imperial feeling. The connection of the popes with
the French houses of Anjou and Valois led to the
"Babylonian Exile" at Avignon, during which Italy was
comparatively free, both from imperial and papal control. During the
period of the civil wars, while there was nominally a conflict between
the party of the pope and the party of the emperor, the Guelfs
were devoted to the destruction of feudalism, and to the building-up
of commerce and republican institutions; while the Ghibellines,
dreading anarchy, resisted the incoming of the new order of things. It
was in this period that Dante produced his immortal poem, which
sprang out of the midst of the contest of Guelf and Ghibelline
(p. 307). Dante was himself a Ghibelline and an imperialist. In the
course of these conflicts, the plebeian class, before without power,
is advanced. Older families of nobility die out, or are reduced in
influence. New families rise to prominence and power. The burghers
band together in arts or guilds; and out of these, in their corporate
character, the governments of the cities are formed. "Ancients," and
"priors," the heads of the "arts," supersede the consuls. The
"podesta" is more and more limited to a judicial function. In some of
the Guelf cities, there is "a gonfalonier of justice," to curb
the nobility. In Florence, there were also twenty subordinate
gonfaloniers.
The final triumph of Guelfs and of republicanism in Florence was in
1253. The body of the citizens established their sovereignty. When, in
1266, citizenship was confined to those who were enrolled in the
guilds, the nobles, or Grandi, were wholly excluded from the
government. This led them to drop their titles and dignities in order
to enroll themselves in these industrial societies. The feuds of
factions, especially of the "Whites" and "Blacks," sprang up next. In
the latter part of the fourteenth century, strife arose between the
"Lesser Arts," or craftsmen whose trades were subordinate to the
"Greater Arts," and these last. The mob in Florence drove the
"Signory," or chief magistrates, out of the public palace. This was the
"Tumult of the Ciompi,"—Ciompi signifying wool-carders, who
gave their name to the whole faction. Afterwards, of their own accord,
they gave back the government to the priors of the Greater Arts. The
effect of these disturbances was to reduce all classes to a level. The
way was open for families, like the Albizzi and Medici,
to build up a virtual control by wealth and personal qualities.
THE GENERALS IN THE CITIES.—In the cities, there were "captains of the
people," who carried on war,—leaders of the Guelfs or Ghibellines, as
either might be uppermost. They were persons who were skilled in arms:
these were often nobles who had been merged in the body of citizens. In
this way, there arose in the cities of Northern Italy ruling houses or
dynasties; as the Della Scala in Verona, the Polenta at
Ravenna, etc. In Tuscany, where the commercial power of
Florence was so great, the communes as yet kept themselves free
from hereditary rulers; yet, from time to time, their liberties were
exposed to attack from successful generals.
THE TYRANTS.—At the beginning of the fourteenth century, as the fury
of the civil wars declined, the cities were left more and more under
the rule of masters called "tyrants." Tyranny, as of old, was a term
for absolute authority, however it might be wielded. The visits of the
emperors Henry VII., and Louis IV. of Bavaria, and of
John of Bohemia, son of Henry VII., had no important political
effect, except to bring increased power to the Ghibelline
despots. Thus, after the interference of Louis IV. (1327), the
Visconti established their power in Milan. But the changes in
Italy after this epoch gave to the Ghibellines no permanent advantage
over their adversaries. The leader of the Guelfs for a long time was
Robert, king of Naples (1309-1343).
THE CLASSES OF DESPOTS.—The methods by which the Emperor Frederic
II. governed in Italy, and which he had partly learned from the
Saracens in Sicily, furnished an example which the Italian despots
followed later. He was imitated in his system of taxation, in his
creation of monopolies, in the luxury and magnificence of his court,
and in his patronage of polite culture. His vicar in the North of
Italy, Ezzelino da Romano (1194-1259), who was captain, in the
Ghibelline interest, in Verona, Padua, and other
cities, was guilty of massacres and all sorts of cruelties, the story
of which exercised a horrible fascination over others who came
after. At last he was 'hunted down' by Venice and a league of cities,
and captured; but he refused to take food, tore his bandages from his
wounds, and died under the ban of the Church. The despots of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries have been divided by
Mr. Symonds into six classes. The first class had a
certain hereditary right from the previous exercise of lordship, as
the house of Este in Ferrara. The second class, as the
Visconti family in Milan, had been vicars of the empire. The
third class were captains, or podestas, chosen by the burghers
to their office, but abusing it to enslave the cities. Most of the
tyrants of Lombardy got their power in this way. The fourth
class is made up of the Condottieri, like Francesco
Sforza at Milan. The fifth class includes the nephews or
sons of popes, and is of later origin, like the Borgia of
Romagna. Their governments had less stability. The sixth class
is that of eminent citizens, like the Medici at Florence and
the Bentivogli of Bologna. These acquired undue authority by
wealth, sometimes by personal qualities and noble descent. Among
those who are called "despots" were individuals of worth, moderation,
and culture. The records of many of them are filled with tragic
scenes of violence and crime. To maintain their hated rule, they were
impelled to the practice of barbarities hardly ever surpassed. (J.
A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, vol. i. chap, ii.)
CONDOTTIERI.—With the end of the civil wars, there appear "the
companies of adventure," or mercenary troops. The burghers, having put
down the nobility and achieved their independence, lay aside their
arms. They are busy in manufactures and trade. The despots and the
republics prefer to hire foreign adventurers, the "free companies," who
were a curse to Italy. Their occupation, which was a profitable one,
was taken up by natives. These were the condottieri. Their
leaders introduced cavalry and more skillful methods of fighting. But
the battles were bloodless games of strategy, and military energy
declined. At the same time intrigue and state-craft were the
instruments of political aggrandizement. One of these new leaders was
Sforza Attendolo, whose son became Duke of Milan.
FIVE STATES IN ITALY.—In the middle of the fifteenth century, we find,
as the political result of the changes of the preceding century and a
half, five principal communities in Italy. These powers are the kingdom
of Naples, the duchy of Milan, the republic of
Florence, the republic of Venice, and the principality
of the Pope. A brief sketch will be given of each of these states
down to 1447, when Nicholas V. reëstablished the papacy in its
strength at Rome, after the exile at Avignon (1305), and the
ecclesiastical convulsions that followed it.
LOWER ITALY.—Robert the Wise (of Anjou) (1309-1343), the
successor of Charles II. of Naples and the champion of the
Guelfs, could not extend his power over Sicily, where Frederick
II. (1296-1337), the son of Peter of Aragon,
reigned. Robert's granddaughter, Joan I., after a career of
crime and misfortune, was strangled in prison by Charles
Durazzo, the last male descendant of the house of Anjou in Lower
Italy (1382), who seized on the government. Joan II., the last
heir of Durazzo (1414-1435), first adopted Alfonso V. of
Aragon, and then Louis III. of Anjou and his
brother Rene. Alfonso, who inherited the crown of
Sicily, united both kingdoms (1435), after a war with Rene and
the Visconti of Milan. By this contest, Italy was divided into
two parties, composed of the respective adherents of the houses of
Anjou and Aragon, The rights of Rene were to
revert later to the crown of France, and to serve as a ground for new
wars. For twenty-three years Alfonso reigned wisely and
prosperously in Southern Italy. He was a patron of letters, and
promoted peace among the Italian states.
THE MILANESE: SFORZA.—Another great power was growing up in the
North. The greatness of the Visconti family dates from
John, Archbishop of Milan, who reigned there, and died
in 1354. Gian Galeazzo Visconti became sole master of Milan in
1385, and extended his dominion over Lombardy. He bought of the
Emperor Wenceslaus the ducal title. Twenty-six cities, with
their territories, were subject to him. But at Galeazzo's
death, his state fell to pieces. The condottieri, whom he had
kept under, broke loose from control; and in 1450, one of them,
Francesco Sforza, with the help of the Venetians, seized on the
supreme power, which his family continued to hold for fifty years.
VENICE.—Venice, in the fourteenth century, was as strong as
any Italian state. Its constitution was of gradual growth. The
doge, elected by the people, divided power in 1032 with a
senate; and in 1172 the Grand Council was
organized. This council by degrees absorbed the powers of government,
which thus became an aristocracy. In 1297 the Senate became hereditary
in a few families. In 1311 the powerful Council of Ten was
constituted. For a long period Venice was not ambitious of power in
Italy, but was satisfied with her commerce with the East. Her contest
with Genoa began in 1352, and lasted for thirty years. In the
war of Chioggia,—so called from a town twenty-five miles south
of Venice,—the Venetians were defeated by Luciano Doria in a
sea-fight on the Adriatic. He blockaded Venice; but Doria, in
turn, was blockaded in Chioggia by the Venetians, and forced to
surrender. After reducing the naval power of Genoa, they added
Verona, Vicenza, and Padua to their territories
(1410). Under Francesco Foscari, who was doge from 1423 to
1457, Venice took an active part in Italian affairs.
FLORENCE: THE MEDICI.—In Florence, the Medici family gained an
influence which gave them a practical control of the government. In
1378 Salvestro de Medici signalized himself by a successful
resistance to an oligarchical faction composed partly of the old
nobility. The brilliant period in the history of Florence begins with
this triumph of the democracy. Pisa was bought from the Duke of
Milan, and forced to submit to Florentine rule (1406). John de
Medici, a very successful merchant, was twice chosen gonfalonier
(1421). His son Cosmo I., who was born in 1389, was also a
merchant, possessed of great wealth. He attained to the leading
offices in the state, having overcome the Albizzi family, at
whose instigation he was for a while banished. Cosmo ruled
under the republican forms, but with not less authority on that
account. He was distinguished for his patronage of art and letters. By
his varied services to Florence, he earned the title of "Father of his
Country," which was given him by a public decree.
THE ROMAN PRINCIPALITY: RIENZI.—After the popes took up their abode in
Avignon, in the first half of the fourteenth century, Rome was
distracted by the feuds of leading families who built for themselves
strongholds in the city. In 1347 the Romans, fired by the enthusiast
Rienzi, who sought to restore the old Roman liberty, undertook
to set up a government after the ancient model. Rienzi was
chosen tribune. He found much favor in other cities of
Italy. But his head was turned by the seeming realization of his
dreams. He was driven out of Italy by the cardinals and the nobles. He
returned afterwards, sent by Pope Innocent VI., to aid in
winning back Rome to subjection to the Holy See. But his power was
gone. He disgusted the people with his pomps and shows, and, while
trying to escape in disguise, was put to death (1354). Cardinal
Albornoz succeeded in reuniting the dissevered parts of the
papal kingdom. But in the period of the Schism (1378-1417), in
the cities old dynasties were revived, and new ones arose; towns and
territories were ceded to nobles as fiefs; and a degree of freedom
almost amounting to independence was conceded to old republics, as
Rome, Perugia, and Bologna. It was the work of
Pope Nicholas V. and his successors (from 1477) to regain and
cement anew the fragments of the papal principality.
LITERATURE AND ART.—In this period, in the midst of political
agitation in Italy, there was a brilliant development in the
departments of literature and art. The major part of Dante's
life (1265-1321) falls within the thirteenth century. Petrarch
(1304-1374), Boccaccio (1313-1375), a master in Italian prose,
and Dante, are the founders of Italian literature. They are
followed by an era of study and culture, rather than of original
production. In the arts, Venice and Pisa first became
eminent. The church of St. Mark was built at Venice, in the
Byzantine style, in 1071. At about the same time the famous cathedral
at Pisa was begun; which was followed, in the twelfth century,
by the Baptistery and the Leaning Tower. The Campo
Santo, or cemetery, was built in 1278. In the thirteenth century,
when architectural industry was so active, numerous high brick towers
were built in Florence for purposes of defense. Some of them remain "to
recall the bloody feuds of the irreconcilable factions of the
nobility. In these conflicts, the strife was carried on from tower to
tower, from house to house: streets were barricaded with heavy chains,
and homes made desolate with fire and sword." Churches and great public
buildings were constructed in this period. At the end of the thirteenth
century the church of Santa Croce was built at Florence; and in
the century following, Brunelleschi, the reviver of classical
art in Italy, placed the great cupola on the Cathedral. The Gothic
cathedral of Milan, with its wilderness of statues, was begun in
1346. Cimabue, who died about 1302, and Giotto, who died
about 1337, laid the foundations of the modern Italian schools of
painting.
TRADE AND COMMERCE.—The seaports, Venice and Genoa, were centers of a
flourishing commerce, extending to the far East and to the coasts of
Spain and France. The interior cities—Milan with its two
hundred thousand inhabitants, Verona, Florence—were centers of
manufactures and of trade. The Italians were the first bankers
in Europe. The bank of Venice was established in 1171, and the
bank of Genoa, although it was projected earlier, was founded in
1407. The financial dealings of Italian merchants spread over all
Europe.
MORALITY.—The one thing lacking in Italy was a broader spirit of
patriotism and a higher tone of morality. Advance in civilization was
attended with corruption of morals.
III. SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY.—Resistance to the Arabs in Spain began in the
northern mountainous region of Cantabria and Asturia,
which even the West Goths had not wholly subdued, although
Asturia was called Gothia. Asturia, a Christian
principality (732), expanded into the kingdom called Leon (916),
of which Castile was an eastern county. East of Leon, there grew
up the kingdom of Navarre, mostly on the southern, but partly on
the northern side of the Pyrenees. On the death of Sancho the
Great, it was broken up (1035). At about the same time the Ommiad
caliphate was broken up into small kingdoms (1031). After the death of
Sancho, or early in the eleventh century, we find in Northern
Spain, beginning on the west and moving eastward, the kingdom of
Leon, the beginnings of the kingdom of Castile, the
reduced kingdom of Navarre, the beginnings of the kingdom of
Aragon, and, between Aragon and the Mediterranean, Christian
states which had been comprised in the Spanish March over which
the Franks had ruled. The two states which were destined to attain to
the chief importance were Castile and Aragon. Of these,
Castile was eventually to be to Spain what France was to all
Gaul. Ultimately the union of Castile and Aragon gave
rise to the great Spanish monarchy of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries. The four kingdoms of Leon, Castile, Aragon, and
Navarre, after the death of Sancho, as time went on, were
joined and disjoined among themselves in many different
ways. Castile and Leon were finally united in
1230. Portugal, lying on the ocean, was partly recovered from
the Arabs towards the close of the eleventh century, and was a county
of Leon and Castile until, in 1139, it became a
kingdom. From this time Castile, Aragon, and Portugal
were the three antagonists of Moslem rule. Each of these kingdoms
advanced. Portugal spread especially along the Atlantic coast;
Aragon, along the coast of the Mediterranean; Castile,
the principal power, spread in the interior, and included by far the
greater part of what is now Spain. In the latter part of the thirteenth
century the Moslems were confined to the kingdom of Granada in
the South, which was conquered by Castile and Aragon
(1492), whose sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella, were
united in marriage. Their kingdoms were united in 1516. In the
latter part of the Middle Ages, Aragon, from its situation on
the eastern coast, played an important part in the politics of
Europe. Castile and Portugal led the way in maritime
exploration.
THE MOORS.—It has been already related (p. 282), that, after the fall
of the Ommiad caliphate, African Mohammedans came over to the help of
their Spanish brethren. These Moors did not supplant the Arabic
speech or culture. The two principal invasions of the Moors were the
invasion by the Almoravides (1086-110), and that by the
Almohades (1146).
ARAGON: NAVARRE.—The kingdoms of Aragon and Castile
existed for centuries side by side. Aragon sought to extend its
conquests along the eastern coast; Castile, to enlarge itself
toward the south. James I., or James the Conqueror (1213-1276),
joined the Moslem state of Valencia, by conquest, to his
kingdom of Aragon, to which Catalonia had already been
added. The union of these peoples developed a national character of a
definite type. In its pride of birth and of blood, its tenacious
clinging to traditional rights, and in its esteem of military prowess
before intellectual culture, it resembled the old Spartan
temper. Peter III.,(1276-1285), the son of James I.,
united with the three states Sicily, which, though it became a
separate kingdom, gave to the house of Aragon its influence in
Southern Italy. Nearly the whole of the fourteenth century was
taken up by Aragon in the acquisition of Sardinia, which the
Pope had ceded, and in the endless wars, connected with this matter,
which it waged with the Genoese. In 1410 the ruling house of
Barcelona became extinct. In the revolutions that followed,
Navarre and Aragon were united under John II.,
second son of Ferdinand I., king of Aragon. John, by his
marriage with Blanche of Navarre, shared her father's throne
with her after his death. He was guilty of the crime of poisoning his
own son Don Carlos, Prince of Vianne. John was the father of
Ferdinand "the Catholic," under whose scepter the kingdoms of
Aragon, Castile, and Navarre were brought together.
CASTILE.—Ferdinand III. (St. Ferdinand) (1214-1252), in
warfare with the Moors extended the kingdom of Castile and
Leon over Cordova, Seville, and Cadiz. His son
Alfonso X., or Alfonso the Wise (1252-1284), cultivated
astronomy and astrology, was fond of music and poetry, enlarged the
University of Salamanca, gave a code of laws to his kingdom, and
caused historical books to be written; but he wasted his treasures in
pomp and luxury, and in ambitious designs upon the German imperial
crown. He allowed the Merinides, new swarms of African
Saracens, to spread in the South of Spain. Alfonso XI.
(1312-1350), after a stormy contest with the nobles during his
minority, distinguished himself by the victory of Tarifa over
the Moors (1340), and the taking of the city of Algeciras
(1344). His enemies respected him; and when he died of the plague, in
his camp before Gibraltar, the king of Granada went into
mourning (1350). The reign of Peter the Cruel (1350-1369) was
filled up with perfidies and crimes. The league of the nobles against
him only incited him to fresh barbarities. He committed the most
atrocious murders, sometimes with his own hand. Protected by the
Black Prince, he was at first victorious against Henry of
Transtamare his rival; and Du Guesclin was defeated in the battle
of Najara in 1367. Afterwards Peter was obliged to
surrender, and was killed by the dagger of Henry in a personal
encounter. The power of the nobility in Castile had so
increased during the civil troubles that Henry III. (1390-1406)
had to sell his cloak to procure for himself a dinner. Roused by this
humiliation to assert his authority, he succeeded with the help of the
Cortes in humbling the nobility; but John
II. (1406-1454) was compelled by the most powerful lords, after a
protracted contest, to strike off the head of an unworthy favorite,
Alvaro de Luna, under whose despotic control he had placed the
government (1454). There was a worse state of anarchy under Henry
IV., John's successor (1454-1474).
CONSTITUTIONS OF ARAGON AND CASTILE.—The political institutions of
Aragon and Castile are specially worthy of note. The
kings of Aragon were very much restricted in their authority by
the Cortes, or general assembly, composed of the higher and
lower classes of nobles, the clergy, and the cities, which by their
trade and manufactures had risen to wealth and power. With the
Cortes was lodged the right to make laws and to lay taxes. At
Saragassa in 1287, it was likewise ordained that they should
enjoy certain important privileges. The concurrence of the
estates was to be required in the choice of the king's
counselors; and in case the king without the warrant of a
judgment of the highest judicial officer, the justiciary, and
of the estates, should adjudge to punishment any member of the body,
they should have the right to elect another king. These "privileges"
were lost under Peter IV. (1336-1387), but the old rights were
confirmed. To the justiciary was given the power to determine
all conflicts of the estates with the king or with one another. His
influence increased as time went on. He was the first magistrate in
the kingdom.
In Castile, as early as 1169 the deputies of the cities were
admitted into the Cortes. We find the cities, at the end of the
thirteenth century, forming a confederation, called a "fraternity,"
against the nobles. Their deputies at that time had more power in the
assemblies than the nobles and clergy. But the power of the nobles
increased, especially from the accession of Henry of
Transtamare. In the overthrow of Alvaro de Luna, their
triumph was complete: they proved themselves to be stronger than the
king.
THE CASTILIANS.—The Spanish Mohammedans were superior in refinement
to their Christian adversaries. The latter learned much from their
enemies, without losing the patriotic and religious ardor which was
fostered by the popular minstrelsy, and by the romantic exploits and
encounters with the "infidels." The result was the peculiar spirit of
Castilian chivalry. The early development of popular government in
Castile increased the feeling of personal
independence. Outside of Italy, no cities of Europe in the Middle
Ages were so rich and flourishing as the cities of Castile,
Materials of commerce were afforded by the famous breed of sheep, and
by the products of the soil and of manufactures. The nobles gained
great wealth, and had vast estates in the country. They held court as
petty sovereigns: Alvaro de Luna had twenty thousand
vassals. They were inured to war, they were haughty and overbearing,
and complaints of their oppressions were frequent on the part of the
lower orders. The Castilian ecclesiastics were often lax in their
morals. The higher prelates were possessed of great riches and
authority. In the beginning of the fifteenth century the people in
Castile had more power, compared with the power of the
sovereign, than in any other European country. But the representation
of the commons was exclusively from the cities, and not, as in
England, largely from the landed proprietors.
THE ARAGONESE.—The extraordinary authority exercised by the
justiciary, or justice, of Aragon was perhaps the most
remarkable feature of its constitution. Dwelling on the ocean, the
Aragonese built up a naval power. Barcelona, after its union
with Aragon, was the seat of a flourishing commerce, and framed the
first written code of maritime law now extant. Its municipal officers
were merchants and mechanics. Membership in the guilds was sought by
nobles, as rendering them eligible to the magistracy. The burghers
became proud and independent. The Catalans did not hesitate to assert
their rights against encroachments of the kings. In 1430 the
University of Barcelona was founded. "After the genuine race of
troubadours had passed away," says Mr. Prescott, "the Provencal or
Limousin verse was carried to its highest excellence by the poets of
Valencia" (Prescott's History of the Reign of Ferdinand and
Isabella, Introduction).
PORTUGAL: COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION.—About 1095 Alfonso VI., king
of Castile and Leon, gave the territory between the
Minho and the Douro to his son-in-law, Henry of
Burgundy, who assumed the title of Count of Portugal. His son and
successor, Alfonso I., who defeated the Moors at Ourique
in 1139, was hailed as king by his army, and later was confirmed in the
title by the Pope (1185). He was acknowledged as independent by the
king of Castile. In a diet at Laimego, he gave an excellent
constitution and body of laws to his people (1143). Soon after, he
conquered Lisbon, and made it his capital. His son, Sancho
I. (1185-1211), was distinguished both for his victories over the
Moors and for his encouragement of tillage and of farm-laborers. Until
we reach the fifteenth century, Portuguese history is occupied with
wars with the Moors and the Castilians, contests of the kings with the
nobles, and struggles between rival aspirants for the throne, and
between the sovereigns on the one hand and the clergy and the popes on
the other. Under Dionysius III. (1279-1325) there began a new
era, in which the Portuguese became eminent for industry and learning,
and in commerce and navigation. He founded the University of
Lisbon. Alfonso IV. (1325-1357) continued on the same path. But
he caused Ines de Castro, who had been secretly married to his
son, to be murdered (1354); a crime which the son, Peter
I. (1357-1367), after his accession, avenged by causing the hearts
of the murderers to be torn out. John I. (1385-1433) repelled a
great invasion of the Castilians, in a battle near Lisbon, and became
at first regent and then king. He was the founder of a new family. By
him Ceuta in Africa was captured from the Moors. Madeira
was discovered (1419), and by the burning of the forests was prepared
for the cultivation of sugar-cane and the vine. In 1432 the Portuguese
occupied the Azores. A most active interest in voyages of
discovery was taken by Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460),
fourth son of King John I. and of Philippa, daughter of
John of Gaunt.
IV. THE SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRIES.
THE BALTIC LANDS.—There are three divisions of Europe which neither
Charlemagne's Empire nor the Eastern Empire included. The first is
Spain, which had been comprised in the old Roman Empire. The
second is Great Britain and the adjacent islands. Only a
portion of Britain was held as a province by old Rome. The third is
the two Scandinavian peninsulas,—Denmark, and Norway and
Sweden, with the Slavonic lands to the east and south, which
may be said to have had a common relation to the Baltic. The
Scandinavians had their period of foreign conquest and
settlement, but their settlements abroad remained in no connection
with the countries whence they came. Sweden was cut off from
the ocean. "The history of Sweden"—as Mr. Freeman, to whom we owe a
lucid exposition of this subject, has pointed out—"mainly consists in
the growth and the loss of her dominion in the Baltic lands out of her
own peninsula. It is only in quite modern times that the union of the
crowns, though not of the kingdoms, of Sweden and Norway, has created
a power wholly peninsular and equally Baltic and oceanic." The Germans
and Scandinavians spread their dominion over the Aryan and non-Aryan
tribes on the south and east of the Baltic. Finland, inhabited
by a Turanian or Scythic people whose language is akin to that of the
Hungarians, was long under Swedish dominion. Now Finland and the east
of the Baltic are in Russia, while the southern and south-eastern
shore of the Baltic is German. Russia, in modern days, having
no oceanic character like Great Britain and Spain, has expanded her
dominion westward to the Baltic, but mainly to the east over Central
Asia. She has built up a continental, instead of a maritime and
colonial, empire.
CONVERSION OF SCANDINAVIA.—In the earlier part of the Middle Ages,
the two Scandinavian peninsulas are known only through the piratical
expeditions which they send forth upon the two adjacent seas. By the
way of the North Sea, the Northmen reached France, England, Greenland,
and America; by the way of the Baltic, Russia. The conversion of
Denmark to Christianity was completed in the eleventh century,
under Canute; that of Norway in the tenth, and of Sweden in the
eleventh. After the foreign settlements were made, and with the
introduction of the gospel, piracy ceased, and civilization began
(p. 239).
DENMARK.—After Canute VI. (1182), Waldemar II., the
Victorious, was the prominent personage in Danish history. He
conquered Holstein and Pomerania,—in fact, every thing
north of the Elbe and the Elde. In 1219 he overran Esthonia, in
a crusade for the forcible conversion of the pagans, when the Danish
standard, the Dannebrog,—a white cross on a blood-red
field,—began to be used. On his return, he was treacherously
captured, and with his son was kept in prison in Mecklenburg for three
years, by Henry, Count of Schwerin. Waldemar was
defeated in 1227, in the war undertaken to recover the conquests which
he had given up as the price of his release. He was the author of a
code of laws.
UNION OF CROWNS.—Waldemar III. (1340-1375) regained the
conquests of Waldemar II. This brought on a general war, in which the
Hanseatic League, as well as Sweden, were among his antagonists
(1363). Denmark, having control of the entrance to the Baltic, and
exacting tolls of vessels, was a second time involved in war with that
great mercantile confederacy and its allies, and was worsted in the
conflict (1372). Waldemar's second daughter, Margaret, married
Hakon VI., King of Norway. Hakon's son Olaf was a child
at his father's death, and the regency was held by his
mother. Olaf (1376-1387) was elected by the Estates king of
Denmark. His mother, now regent in both countries, became queen
in both after Olaf's death. In 1388 Margaret accepted the crown
of Sweden; the Swedes having revolted against the king, Albert,
who was defeated and captured at Falkoeping (1389).
SWEDEN.—War existed for centuries between the Swedes and the
Goths, the inhabitants of the southern part of the peninsula.
Each race contended for supremacy. Political union began with
Waldemar (1250-1275), son of Birger Jarl (Earl Birger).
Stockholm was founded in 1255. Private wars and judicial combats were
suppressed, commerce was encouraged, and the condition of women
improved. Large duchies were established, afterwards a source of
discord. Magnus I. (1279-1290) was surnamed Ladulas, or
Barnlock, for protecting the granaries of the peasants from the
rapacious nobles. His reign was succeeded by war between his sons. As
the result of a popular revolt in 1319, Magnus Smek, an infant,
became king, and during the regency succeeded, by right of his mother,
to the crown of Norway, where he (1350) placed on the throne his
son Hakon. But when Magnus attempted to rule without the
senate, he was deposed, and Albert of Mecklenburg was
elected king (1365). But the nobles were supreme: in 1388 they deposed
Albert, and gave the crown to Margaret of Norway and
Denmark. Albert was held a prisoner for six years, and then
renounced his claim to the throne.
NORWAY.—Magnus III. (1095-1103), called from his Scottish dress
Barefoot, united the Hebrides and Orcades into a
kingdom for his son Sigurd, and invaded Iceland, where he
died. Sigurd inherited the spirit of Harold Fairhair
(860-about 933), through whom Norway had been made a united kingdom. He
made a voyage to Jerusalem through the Mediterranean, and was a
renowned crusader. After his death (1130), there were fierce contests
for the throne, the more fierce as illegitimate sons had the same right
in law as those born in wedlock. In 1152 a papal legate established a
hierarchy in Norway, which interfered in the struggle. Conflicts arose
between the clerical party and the national party, in which the latter
at length gained the day. Under Hakon VI., Iceland was
conquered (1260). Magnus VI. (1263-1280) brought in an era of
quiet, without stifling popular freedom. The cities engaged actively in
manufactures and commerce. Magnus strengthened and organized the
military and naval force. By him the Hebrides were ceded to
Scotland. Under Eric (1280-1299), called Priest-hater,
there was a struggle to curb the power of the clergy and nobles, in
which the king was aided by the peasants. He was worsted in the
conflict with the Hanse towns, and compelled to join their League. The
accession of Magnus Smek, the son of his daughter, to the throne
of Norway (1319), led eventually to the Union of Calmar
(1397), in which Sweden, Norway, and Denmark were brought together.
"The situation of Norway, during the Middle Ages, might be shortly
described as an absolute monarchy resting almost directly on one of the
most democratic states of society in Europe." The greater families, by
the partition of their estates, became a part of the class of small
land-owners. Between them and the king there was no intermediate class.
AFTER THE UNION OF CALMAR.—After the death of Margaret, who
governed the united kingdoms after the union, Eric XIII. of
Pomerania succeeded. The union was shaken by the revolt of
Schleswig and of Holstein, and was dissolved on the death
of Christopher of Bavaria (1448), who had been chosen king. The
Swedes broke off, and made Charles Canutson king, under the name
of Charles VIII. Denmark and Norway remained
united; and under Christian I. of the house of Oldenburg,
whom they made king, Schleswig and Holstein were again
attached to Denmark (1459).
V. POLAND AND RUSSIA.
THE SLAVONIC TRIBES.—The settlement of the Hungarians (Magyars)
in Europe had the effect to divide the Slavonic tribes into three
general groups. The northern Slaves were separated from the
Slaves south of the Danube,—the inhabitants of Servia, Croatia,
Dalmatia, etc. The north-western Slaves bordered on the Western
Empire. The states of Bohemia and Poland grew up among
them. On the east of this group of Slaves were the Russians. Both
Poland and Russia became independent kingdoms. In the
course of history, a part of the north Slavonic lands, those
which are represented by Mecklenburg, Pomerania, Brandenburg, and
Saxony, were Germanized. Lands in the south-west, as Bohemia and
Moravia, remained predominantly Slavonic in speech. A central
region formed the kingdom of Poland. On the east were the Slavonic
tribes which were the nucleus of modern Russia.
LITHUANIANS AND PRUSSIANS.—Both Poland and Russia were
originally cut off from the Baltic by other races. Such were the
non-Aryan Fins in Esthonia (Esthland) and Livonia
(Livland). Such, also, were the Aryans of the Lettic branch, of
whom the Lithuanians and the Prussians were the principal
divisions. The Lithuanians formed at one time a strong state.
The Prussians finally gave their name to the Teutonic kingdom in
which they were absorbed.
THE POLES.—The Poles derive their name from a word meaning
plains. They were inhabitants of the plains. They were the
strongest of a group of tribes dwelling between the Oder and the
Vistula, and holding the coast between their mouths. Between them and
the sea, on the east of the Vistula, were the Prussians.
POLAND: ITS CONSTITUTION.—In the tenth century the Lechs, or
Poles, on the Vistula, had acquired considerable power, and had
a center at Gnesen, which remained the metropolis of
Poland. There are legends of a first duke, Piast by name. A
dynasty which bore his name continued in Poland until 1370; in Silesia,
until 1675. Miecislas I. was converted to Christianity by his
wife, a Bohemian princess. He did homage to the Emperor Otto I.
(978). Boleslav I. (992) aspired to the regal dignity, and had
himself crowned as king by his bishops. Gregory
VII. excommunicated him, deprived him of the title of king, and
laid Poland under an interdict. Boleslav III., the Victorious
(1102-1138), subdued the Pomeranians, and compelled them to
receive Christianity. He divided his kingdom among his four
sons. Silesia became an independent duchy. A long crusade was
carried on against the Prussians, a heathen people, who attacked
the Poles, by the "Brethren of the soldiers of Christ," and the
"Teutonic knights," two orders which were united (about 1226). The
Teutonic knights at length became the enemies of the Poles. The savage
Lithuanians assailed them on the north. From the anarchy that
reigned, Poland was rescued by Casimir III., the Great
(1333-1370), who defeated the Russians, and carried his eastern
boundary as far as the Dnieper. Prior to this time, Poland was
an important kingdom. Casimir framed a code of written laws for his
people, and gave an impulse to commerce. But in order to secure the
election of his nephew, Louis king of Hungary (1370-1382), he
had to increase the powers and privileges of the nobles. The accession
of Louis terminated the long rivalry of Poland and Hungary. He,
like Casimir, died without children. The nobles made
Jagellon, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, his successor
(1386), who took the name of Vladislav II. Under a series of
conquering princes, Lithuania had extended its dominion over the
neighboring Russian lands, and become a strong state. Vladislav
was chosen on the condition that he should espouse the daughter of the
last king, and, with his nation, embrace Christianity. This event
doubled the territory of Poland. The Teutonic Knights, who ruled
from the Oder to the Gulf of Finland, were now overcome. The treaty of
Thorn (1466) confined their dominion to Eastern
Prussia. The misfortune of Poland was its political
constitution. Although the monarchy was not yet completely elective,
but hereditary in the house of Jagellon, the election of every
king had to be sanctioned by the nobles. They alone took part in the
diet, and held the offices and honors. There was no burgher class, no
"third estate." Every man who owned and was able to equip a horse was
counted as a noble. The burden of taxation fell on the peasants.
NATURAL FEATURES OF RUSSIA.—Russia in Europe comprises at present more
than half the territory of that entire continent. Yet it has but a
small share of seaboard, and of this a large part is frozen in
winter. The surface of Russia is of a piece with the boundless plateaus
of Northern and Central Asia. It has been defined as the "Europe of
plains, in opposition to the Europe of mountains." The mountains of
Russia are chiefly on its boundaries. It is a country subject to
extremes of heat and cold. From the scarcity of stone, all buildings
were formerly of wood, and hence its towns were all combustible. The
rivers of Russia have been of immense importance in its history. "The
whole history of this country is the history of its three great rivers,
and is divided into three periods,—that of the Dnieper with
Kiev, that of the Volga with Moscow, and that of
the Neva with Novgorod in the eighth century, and
St. Petersburg in the eighteenth."
RUSSIANS AND POLES.—The Russian Slaves in the ninth century occupied
but a small part of what is now Russia. There was probably little
difference then between them and the Poles; but the one people were
molded by the Greek Church and Greek civilization, the other by the
Latin Church and by the collective influences of Western Europe.
RUSSIAN HISTORY.—The Northmen under Rurik had founded their
dominion in Russia. Novgorod was their center. Thence they
pushed their conquests to the south. Their descendants made
Kiev, on the Dnieper, their capital. In Russia, as elsewhere,
the Scandinavians quickly blended with their native subjects. Under
Vladimir I. (980-1015), who was converted to Greek
Christianity, with his people, and Iaroslaf I. (1019-1051),
they attained to considerable power; but the custom of the sovereigns
to divide their dominions among their sons, broke up their territory
into a multitude of petty principalities. The result was a monotonous
series of fierce contests, without any substantial result. In the
midst of the bloody and profitless civil wars occurred the great
invasion of the Mongols, who destroyed the principality of
Kiev, and made that of Vladimir tributary. For two
centuries the Russians continued under the yoke of the "Golden Horde,"
which the Mongols established on the Volga. They were obliged to pay
tribute, and the Russian princes at their accession had to swear
fealty to the khan on the banks of the river Amoor. At
the time of the Mongol conquest, Novgorod was the center of
Russian dominion. Towards the end of the thirteenth century,
Moscow became a new center of Russian power. From Moscow
comes the name Muscovy. "Muscovy was to Russia what France in
the older sense was to the whole land which came to bear that name."
In the fourteenth century, while Lithuania and Poland
were absorbing by conquest the territories of earlier or
Western Russia, the Duchy of Moscow was building up a
new Russia in the East, out of which grew the Russia of
to-day. Ivan I., regarded as the founder of the Russian
monarchy, made Moscow his capital in 1328. Most of the other princes
were subject to him. Demetrius (or Dimtri) I. gained two
great victories over the Mongol horde (1378 and 1380); but in 1382
they burned Moscow, and slew twenty-four thousand of its
inhabitants. It was not until the reign of Ivan III., Ivan the
Great (1462-1505), that Novgorod submitted to Moscow,
and Russia was wholly delivered from the control and influence of the
Mongols.
VI. HUNGARY.
THE ARPAD DYNASTY.—The chiefs of the Turanian Magyars, about
889, elected Arpad as successor of the leader under whom they
had crossed the Carpathian Mountains. They overran Hungary and
Transylvania, and terrified Europe by their invasions (p. 249). After
their defeats by the emperors Henry I. and Otto the
Great (p. 261), they confined themselves to their own country. The
first king, Stephen,—St. Stephen,—was crowned, with the
consent of Pope Sylvester II., in the year 1000. He divided the
land into counties, organized the Church, and founded convents and
schools. He conferred on the bishops high offices. He established a
national council, composed of the lords temporal and spiritual, and of
the knights, out of which sprung the diets. Ladislaus
I. conquered Croatia (1089), and a part of the "Red
Russian" land of Galicia (1093). Coloman, "the Learned," a
brave and able man, annexed Dalmatia, which he wrested from the
Venetians (1102). In the reign of Andrew II. (1205-1235), the
"Golden Bull" was extorted by the nobles, which conferred on them
extraordinary rights and privileges, including exemption from arrest
prior to trial and conviction, and the control of the diet over
appointments to office. It even authorized armed resistance on their
part to tyrannical measures of the king,—a right that was not
abrogated until 1687. Hungary was devastated by the great Tartar
invasion (1241-42) (p. 283). The kings of Hungary supported the cause
of Rudolph of Austria against Ottocar of Bohemia
(p. 332).
INVASIONS OF THE TURKS.—The last king of the Arpad dynasty
died in 1301. There was a division of parties in the choice of a
successor. Pope Boniface VIII. and the clergy supported the
claims of Count Charles Robert of Anjou, who was related to the
former reigning family. Under the son of Charles Robert, Louis,
who also succeeded Casimir III. as king of Poland (1370),
Hungary became a very powerful state. Galicia was regained,
Moldavia and Bulgaria were conquered. After the death of
Louis, his daughter Maria reigned from 1386 conjointly
with Sigismund, afterwards emperor, and king of Bohemia. He
established his supremacy over Bosnia. From this time the
invasions of the Turks begin. There had been a party in favor
of raising to the throne Vladislaus, king of Poland; and after
the death of Sigismund's successor, Albert II. of Austria
(1437), and the death of the queen, he gained the crown (1442). He was
slain at Varna, in the great battle in which the Hungarians
were vanquished by the Turks (1444). John Hunyady, who had
several times defeated the Turks, and who escaped on the field of
Varna, was made for the time "governor;" but on the release of the son
of Albert, Ladislaus Posthumus, who had been kept from the
throne by the Emperor Frederick III., he was recognized as king
(1452). Hun-yady was made general-in-chief. Frederick
had also retained in his hands the crown, which had been intrusted to
his care, and which Hungarians have always regarded with extreme
veneration. A little later, great advantages were gained over the
Turks, to be lost again in the sixteenth century.
VII. THE OTTOMAN TURKS.
OSMAN: MURAD I.—Towards the end of the thirteenth century, the
Osman (or Ottoman) Turks, warlike nomad hordes,
in order to escape from the Mongols, moved from the region east
of the Caspian Sea, and conquered in Asia Minor the remnant of the
kingdom of the Seljukians (p. 270). Impelled by fanaticism and the
desire of booty, Ottoman (or Osman), their leader,
advanced into Bithynia, and took Pruse, or
Broussa, one of the most important cities of Asia Minor. The
Greeks, with their Catalonian auxiliaries, were not able to dislodge
him from his new possession. The Byzantine court was disabled from
making an energetic effort for this end, by the partisan rancor, and
mingled lethargy and cruelty, which characterized the old age of the
Greek Empire. Nicomedia, Nicoea, and Ilium were
conquered by the Sultan (or Padishah). Murad
I. (1361-1389) founded the corps of janizaries, composed of
select Christian youth chosen from the captives for their beauty and
vigor. These became the most effective soldiers,—sometimes dangerous,
however, to the sultans themselves. Adrianople was taken by
Murad, and made the seat of his authority. The Christian
principalities of Thrace, and the ancient but depopulated
cities founded by the Greeks and Romans, were overrun. The Servians
and Bulgarians made a stand against the fierce Ottoman warriors, but
were beaten in the battle of Kosovo, where _Murad_was
slain.
BAJAZET.—Bajazet, the son and successor of Murad, outdid
his predecessor in his martial prowess. He conquered Macedonia
and Thessaly, and Greece to the southern end of
Peloponnesus. The Emperor Sigismund and John of Burgundy,
with one hundred thousand men, were utterly defeated in the sanguinary
battle of Nicopolis (1396). Sigismund escaped by sea; the
French counts and knights had to be redeemed from captivity with a
large ransom; and ten thousand prisoners of lower rank were slaughtered
by Bajazet. Bosnia was now in the hands of the
victor. Constantinople had to pay tribute, and seemed likely to
become his prey, when a temporary respite was obtained for it by the
coming of a host even more powerful than that of Bajazet.
MONGOLIAN INVASION.—Timur, or Tamerlane, a descendant of
Genghis Khan (p. 283), revived the fallen Tartar kingdom. At the
head of his wandering Tartars, which grew into an army, he left
Samarcand, where he had caused himself to be proclaimed
sovereign, and, in a rapid career of conquest, made himself master of
the countries from the Wall of China to the Mediterranean, and from the
boundaries of Egypt to Moscow. Everywhere his path was marked with
blood and with the ruins of the places which he destroyed. At
Ispahan, in Persia, seventy thousand persons were killed. At
Delhi, one hundred thousand captives were slain, that his
relative, the "Great Mogul," might reign in security. It was his
delight to pile up at the gates of cities pyramids of twenty or thirty
thousand heads. Later (1401), at Bagdad, he erected such a
pyramid of ninety thousand heads. He gained a great victory over the
"Golden Horde" in Russia (p. 283), conquered the unsubdued parts
of Persia, entered Bagdad, Bassorah, and
Mosul, vanquished the khan of Kaptchak, and penetrated
Russia in his devastating progress, as far as Moscow
(1396). Then followed the conquest of Hindustan.
TAMERLANE AND BAJAZET.—The two powerful monarchs, Tamerlane
and Bajazet, now measured their strength in combat with one
another. Trembling ambassadors of the Greek emperor, and of certain
Seljukian princes, had waited on Tamerlane in Gengia at
the foot of the Caucasus. On the 16th of June, 1402, the two
armies—four hundred thousand Turks, and eight hundred thousand
Mongols, if one may credit the reports—met at Ancyra. The
Ottomans were defeated, and Bajazet was taken prisoner. Led
into the presence of Tamerlane, he found the Mongol quietly
playing chess with his son. Asia Minor submitted to the conqueror, who
penetrated as far as Smyrna. An old man, he was looking towards
China as another field for invasion, when he died
(1405). Bajazet died soon after his defeat.
TURKISH CONQUESTS: THE GREEKS AND LATINS.—The grandson of
Bajazet, Murad II. (1421-1451), took up anew his
projects of conquest. The empire of Tamerlane quickly fell to
pieces. His course had been like that of a hurricane, terrible in its
work of destruction, but soon at an end. The Byzantine dominion was
soon confined to Constantinople and small districts
adjacent. On all sides the Ottoman power was supreme. The Greek
emperor, John VII. (Palaeologus), now endeavored, in
imitation of previous attempts, to bring about a union of the Greek
and Latin churches, and thus remove a principal obstacle to the
obtaining of military help from the West. He went to Italy, attended
by the patriarch and many bishops. After long debates and conferences
on the abstruse points of doctrinal difference, a verbal agreement was
reached between the two parties (1439). But the result was received
with so much disfavor and indignation in Constantinople, that the
effort to bring the sundered churches together came to naught. The
Pope, however, stirred up the Christian princes to engage in war
against the Turk. The defeat of Vladislav, king of Hungary, and
of Hunyady, at Varna (1444), caused by the rash onset of
the king upon the janizaries, was succeeded by another Turkish victory
at Kosovo, four years later.
FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE.—Murad II. was succeeded by his
ambitious and unmerciful son, Mohammed II. (1451-1481), who
determined that Constantinople should be his capital. The city
had seven thousand defenders, comprising two thousand Genoese and
Venetians, who were commanded by an able man, the Genoese
Justiniani. The Emperor Constantine XII. worshiped
according to the Roman rites; while his court observed the Greek forms,
and spurned a union with the hated Latin Christians, whose help the
emperor was to the end anxious to obtain. The city was stoutly defended
for fifty-three days; and when it could be held no longer against the
furious assault of the Turks, the gallant Constantine, casting
aside his golden armor, fell, bravely fighting with the defenders on
the ramparts (May 29, 1453). Constantinople became the capital of the
Turks. The crescent supplanted the cross, and the Church of
St. Sophia was turned into a mosque.
TURKISH GOVERNMENT.—The Sultan, or padischah, among the
Turks is absolute master, and proprietor of the soil. There is no order
of nobles, and there are no higher classes except the priests
(imams) and the religious orders (dervishes). In the
seraglio of the Sultan, with its palaces and gardens, the harem is
separated from the other apartments. The grand vizier presides
over the council of ministers (divan). The provinces are
governed by pashas with large powers. Beneath them is a
gradation of inferior rulers in the subdivisions of the provinces. The
mufti with his subordinate associates is a high authority on
questions of religion and law.
TURKISH LITERATURE.—The literature of the Ottoman Turks is in merit
below the literature of other Mohammedan peoples. It lacks
originality, being based on Persian and partly on Arabic
models.
CHANGES IN THE MIDDLE AGES.—We have seen great changes gradually
taking place in the Middle Ages. One is the centralizing of
political authority by the subjection of the local rulers, or
lords, to the will of the king. Another is the enfranchisement of
the serfs, and the growing power and self-respect of a middle
class. The invention of gunpowder took away the superiority of the
mail-clad and mounted warrior. The peasant on the battle-field was a
match for the knight.
CLERGYY AND LAITY.—There was a change from the time when the
clergy were the sole possessors of knowledge, and the exclusive
guides of opinion. In the lay part of society, there was an
awaking of intellectual activity and a spirit of self-assertion.
A brief sketch of important ecclesiastical changes, some of which have
been adverted to, will be here in place.
POPES IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.—From Gregory VII. to
Boniface VIII., or from near the end of the eleventh to the
beginning of the fourteenth century, the highest authority was claimed
and exercised by the popes. Frederick Barbarossa, the greatest
of the German emperors, held the stirrup of Hadrian IV., and
humbled himself before Alexander III. Innocent
III. compared the authority of popes, in contrast with that
of kings, to the sun in relation to the moon. He excommunicated
Philip Augustus of France, John of England, and other
monarchs. He claimed the right to refuse to crown the emperor if he
should judge him not worthy of the imperial office. The papacy
continued to exert these lofty prerogatives until Boniface
VIII. He asserted that "the two swords," the symbols of both
secular and spiritual rule, were given to St. Peter and to his
successors: the temporal authority must therefore be subject to the
spiritual. The body of canon law was framed in accordance with
these views. It embraced the right of the Pope to depose kings and
princes. To the sovereign pontiff was accorded the right to dispense
from Church laws. With the growth of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the
different countries, the Pope, as the supreme tribunal in all matters
affecting the clergy and covered by the canon law, gained a vast
increase of judicial prerogatives.
THE BABYLONIAN EXILE: THE GREAT SCHISM.—During the residence of the
popes at Avignon, there was great complaint on account of the
dependence of the papacy on France, as well as on account of the heavy
taxes levied for the support of the pontifical court, and of the
immorality which at times prevailed in it. Gregory XI., to the
joy of all good men, returned to Rome (1376). But at his death, two
years later, a majority of the cardinals elected an Italian, Urban
VI., in his place. The adherents of the French party made a
protest, and chose the Cardinal of Geneva, under the name of
Clement VII. England, Germany, Hungary, Bohemia, Holland, and
almost all Italy, acknowledged Urban. France, Spain, Scotland,
Savoy, and Lorraine obeyed Clement. This great schism of the
West created sorrow and alarm among well-disposed Christian people. It
tended strongly to diminish the reverence felt for the papal office,
and to weaken its influence.
THE REFORMING COUNCILS.—The first important effort to terminate the
division was made by the University of Paris. Its rector,
Nicolas de Clemangis, was prominent in the
movement. Gerson and other eminent scholars and ecclesiastics
took part in it. Three great councils were held; the first at
Pisa (1409), the second at Constance (1414), and the
third at Basle (1431). At these assemblies, the French
theologians proceeded upon the "Gallican theory" of the constitution of
the Church, according to which supreme authority was held to reside in
a general council,—not in the Pope, but in the collective
episcopate. At the Council of Constance, where it is a
significant fact that the votes were taken by nations, there were
gathered not only a throng of prelates and inferior clergy, but also
the Emperor Sigismund, and a multitude of princes, nobles, and
spectators of every rank. "The whole world," it was said, "was there."
Three popes, each of whom claimed to be legitimate, were deposed; and
under the auspices of the council, which affirmed its own sovereign
authority, another pope, Martin V., was elected in the room of
them. The results of the two councils of Pisa and Constance, as regards
the reformation of the Church "in head and members," disappointed the
hopes of those who were disaffected with the existing state of
things. The Council of Basle exhibited the same spirit as that
of Constance, and passed various measures in the interest of
national churches, for the restriction of papal prerogatives, and for
practical reforms. The council, however, broke into two parts; and the
hopes connected with it were likewise, to a great extent,
frustrated. In 1438 the French synod of Bourges issued "the
Pragmatic Sanction," containing a strong assertion of the rights and
immunities of national churches,—a document which gave occasion to
much controversy down to its repeal under King Francis I.
Had it been practicable for good men in the fifteenth century to
unite in wholesome measures for promoting the purity and unity of the
Church, the religious revolutions of the sixteenth might have
been postponed, if not avoided.
CHAPTER III. THE COUNTRIES OF EASTERN ASIA.
I. CHINA.
THE TANG DYNASTY (618-907).—The confusion in China, after the
establishment of the three kingdoms, was brought to an end by the
Sui dynasty, which, however, was of short duration. Between the
Hans and the new epoch beginning with the T'angs,
diplomatic intercourse was begun with Japan; Christianity was
introduced by the Nestorians; a new impulse was given to the spread of
Buddhism; the first traces of the art of printing are found;
and the Yang-tse and the Yellow Rivers were connected by a canal.
EVENTS IN THIS PERIOD.—Under the T'angs, the empire was united,
peaceful, and prosperous. One of the most remarkable occurrences was
the usurpation (649) and successful reign of a woman, the Empress
Wu. Her policy was wise, and her generals were victorious. The
Emperor Hiuen Tsung had a long reign (713-756), and was an
ardent patron of literature, but in his later years fell into immoral
ways, as was seen in the character of the poems written under his
patronage. Under this dynasty, there were productions in poetry of an
excellence never surpassed in China. Buddhism, although resisted by the
Confucianists and Taouists, gained ground. A bone of Buddha was
brought into China with great pomp and ceremony. Early in the reign of
the T'angs, Mohammedanism first appeared in China. In the
transition period before the accession of the next dynasty (900-960),
the art of printing came more into use. The practice of cramping
women's feet is said by some to have originated at this time.
THE SUNG DYNASTY (960-1280).—In the early part of this era, China was
prosperous. But the Tartars began their invasions; and it was
finally agreed that one of their tribes, which had helped to drive out
another, should retain its conquests in the North. These Tartar
conquerors, the Kins, were invaded by the Mongol Tartars under
Genghis Khan (1213). After a long struggle, both the Kins
and the Sungs were conquered by the Mongols, and the
empire of Kublai Khan (1259-1294), the ruler of nearly all Asia
except Hindustan and Arabia, was established. Under the Sungs, a
system of military drill for all the citizens was ordained. Literature
flourished; Buddhism and Taouism concluded to live in peace with one
another; and the system of competitive examinations and literary
degrees was more fully developed. After the complete conquest of China,
the dominion of Kublai Khan lasted for about a century. The
celebrated Venetian traveler, Marco Polo, visited his court. In
this period, mathematics was more studied, and romances were first
written. Three out of the "Four Wonderful Books," which are leading
novels, were then composed. The Grand Canal was finished by Kublai
Khan, and thus Peking was connected with Southern China. His
great naval expedition against Japan failed.
THE MING DYNASTY (1368-1650).—Hung-wu, the son of a Chinese
laborer, shook off the Mongol yoke, and founded a new dynasty with its
capital at Nanking; whence it was afterwards transferred by the
third emperor, Yung-lo (1403-1425), to Peking. He
conquered and annexed Cochin China and Tonquin, and even
portions of Tartary. The Tartars continued their attack; and in 1450
Ching-tung, the emperor, was taken prisoner, and held until he
was released in consequence of a Chinese victory.
II. JAPAN.
CHANGES IN GOVERNMENT.—In the seventh century A.D., there began
changes in Japan which resulted in a dual government, and eventually in
a feudal system which continued until recent times. The Mikados
retired from personal contact with their subjects; and the power by
degrees fell into the hands of the families related to the Mikado, and
combined into clans. Military control was exercised by the generals
(Shoguns), and towards the end of the eighth century devolved on
the two rival clans of Gen and Hei, or Taira and
Minamoto. About the same time (770-780) the agricultural
class became distinct from the military, and were compelled to
labor hard for their support. One family, the Fujiwara, by
degrees absorbed the civil offices. They gradually sank into
luxury. From the middle to the end of the twelfth century, there was
terrible civil war between the Taira clan and the
Minamoto clan, in which the former were destroyed. The military
power passed from one family to another; but a main fact is that the
Shoguns acquired such a control as the "mayors of the palace"
had possessed among the Franks. The Mikados lost all real power,
and the Shoguns or Tycoons had the actual government in
their hands. In recent times (1868) a revolution occurred which
restored to the Mikado the power which had belonged to him in the
ancient times, before the changes just related took place.
CIVIL WAR: FEUDALISM.—The final struggle of the two clans, the
Hei or Taira, and the Gen or Minamoto, was
in the naval battle of Dannoura, in 1185, which was followed by
the extermination of the Taira. Yoritomo, the victor, was
known as the Shogun after 1192. The supremacy of his clan gave way in
1219 to that of their adherents, the Hôjô family, who ruled the
Shogun and the emperor both. The invasion of the Mongol Tartars failed,
their great fleet being destroyed by a typhoon (1281). The Hôjô
rule terminated, after a period of anarchy and civil war, in 1333. The
"war of the chrysanthemums"—so called from the imperial emblem, the
chrysanthemum—was between two rival Mikados, one in the North, and the
other in the South (1336-1392). There ensued a period of confusion and
internal war, lasting for nearly two centuries. Gradually there was
developed a system of feudalism, in which the daimios, or lords
of larger or smaller principalities, owned a dependence, either close
or more loose, on the Shogun. But feudalism was not fully
established until the days of the Tokugama dynasty, early in the
seventeenth century.
III. INDIA.
MOHAMMEDAN STATES.—During the Middle Ages, India was invaded by a
succession of Mohammedan conquerors. The first invasions were in the
seventh and the early part of the eighth centuries. A temporary
lodgment was effected in the province of Sind, on the
north-west, in 711; but the Moslems were driven out by the Hindus in
750. The next invader was the Afghan sultan, Mahmud of
Ghazim, a Turk, who is said to have led his armies seventeen times
into India. From his time the Punjab, except for a brief
interval, has been a Mohammedan province. The last of his line of
rulers, Bahram, was conquered by the Afghan Allah-ud-din
of Ghor (1152). Bahram's son fled to Lahore, but the
Ghoride dynasty soon absorbed his dominion. One of the Ghoride
rulers, Mohammed Ghori, the Shahab-ud-din of the
Mohammedan writers, spread his dominion so that it reached from the
Indus to the Brahmaputra. After his death, Kutab-ud-din, who
had been a Turkish slave, became the founder of the "slave" dynasty
(1206-1290), whose capital was Delhi. Allah-ud-din, by
whom he was assassinated (1294), had a brilliant reign of twenty
years, and conquered Deccan and Guzerat. Of the
Togluk dynasty, which gained the throne in 1321, Mohammed
Togluk (1325-1351) is said to have had the "reputation of one of
the most accomplished princes and most furious tyrants that ever
adorned or disgraced human nature." Desiring to remove the seat of
empire to the Deccan, he compelled the inhabitants of
Delhi to leave their old home, and to make the journey of seven
hundred miles.
TAMERLANE.—Revolts in India made the triumph of Timour
(Tamerlane) easy (1398). The Mongol leader sacked Delhi, and
made a full display of his unrivaled ferocity. A half century of
anarchy followed this invasion.
LITERATURE.—On Mediaeval History: The General Subject. (See list of
works on Universal History, p. 16.) GIBBON'S Decline and Fall,
etc.; "THE STUDENTS' GIBBON" (Smith, 1 vol.); FREEMAN, General
Sketch of European History, and Historical Geography of
Europe; DURUY, Histoire du Moyen Age, etc. (11th edition,
1882); Hallam. View of the State of Europe during the Middle
Ages; Lavisse et Rambaud, Histoire Generale
(vols. i.-iii.); Cunningham, Western Civilization (vol. ii);
Lavisse, Political History of Europe; Dunham, History of
Europe during the Middle Ages (4 vols.); BRYCE, The Holy Roman
Empire; Putz and Arnold, Mediaeval History; E. A. FREEMAN,
Historical Essays (series 1 and 3).
Works on Church History. The Church Histories of GIESELER, NEANDER;
MILMAN, History of Latin Christianity; ALZOG [a Roman
Catholic], Manual, etc. (3 vols. 1874-78); Hardwick (vol. i.,
Middle Ages); Students' History of the Church;
STANLEY'S Eastern Church; Fisher, History of the Christian
Church.
On Portions of the Mediaeval Period. Froissart, Chronicles,
etc.; CURTEIS, History of the Roman Empire [395-800];
R. W. CHURCH, The Beginning of the Middle Ages; A. Thierry,
Histoire d'Attila, etc., St. Jerome, etc., St. Jean
Chrysostome, etc.; Church, Life of Anselm; MORISON,
Life and Times of St. Bernard; Gfrörer, Pabst Gregorius
VII. u. sein Zeitalter (1859); Bury, The Later Roman
Empire (2 vols.); Oman, The Dark Ages (476-918); TOUT,
The Empire and the Papacy (918-1272); Emerton, Mediaeval
Europe (800-1300); Pears, The Fall of Constantinople;
Sergeant, The Franks; MULLINGER, The Schools of Charles the
Great, and the Restoration of Education in the 9th Century
(1877); MONTALEMBERT, The Monks of the West (7 vols.);
Sartorius, Gesch. des hanseatischen Bundes (3 vols.); Mombert,
Charlemagne; Sabatier, Life of Francis of Assisi;
Hasse, Leben Anselm; West, Alcuin; Hodgkin,
Theodoric the Goth.
General Character of the Period. ROBERTSON, A View of the Progress
of Society in Europe from the Subversion of the Roman Empire,
etc. (Introduction to the History of Charles V.); Kingsley, C.,
The Roman and the Teuton: a Series of Lectures, etc.;
SULLIVAN, Historical Causes and Effects; from the Fall of the
Roman Empire A.D. 476 to 1517; Ozanam, A. F., History of
Civilization in the Fifth Century; LAURENT, Études,
etc. (vol vii.); Sir James Stephen, Ecclesiastical Essays;
Adams, Civilization during the Middle Ages. Scott's
novels,—Ivanhoe, The Talisman, Anne of Geierstein: they are
historically much less correct pictures than his romances which
relate to Scotland.
Particular Aspects of the Period. SAVIGNY, Gesch. d. römischen
Rechts im Mittelalter (7 vols.); Sismondi, Literature in the
South of Europe; Hallam, Introduction to the Study of
Literature, etc.; Geffchen, Church and State (2 vols.);
GUIZOT, History of the Origin of Representative Government in
Europe; Hecker, Epidemics of the Middle Ages;
J. E. THOROLD ROGERS, A History of Agriculture and Prices in
England [1259-1793] (4 vols., 1866); Amos, Roman Civil
Law; Jenks, Law and Politics in the Middle Ages; Gross,
The Guild Merchant; Oman, Art of War; VIOLLET-LE-DUC,
Annals of a Fortress; H. C. Lea, History of Sacerdotal
Celibacy, History of the Inquisition (3 vols.), and
Superstition and Force; LACROIX, Works on the Middle
Ages, richly illustrated (5 vols., London, 1880); Gautier,
Chivalry; Cornish, Chivalry; BULFINCH, Age of
Chivalry, or Legends of King Arthur; Legends of Charlemagne, or
Romance of the Middle Ages (2 vols.); COX AND JONES, Popular
Romances of the Middle Ages; NASSE, On the Agricultural
Community of the Middle Ages (1871); Roth,
Gesch. d. Beneficialwesens, etc.; Secretan, Essai sur la
Feodalité; Smith, T., English Guilds (1870); WILDA, Das
Gildenwesen im Mittelalter (1831); Seignobos, The Feudal
Regime.
Works on the Crusades. G. W. COX, The Crusades (1878); also,
art. Crusades in the Encycl. Brit.; Michaud, History
of the Crusades (3 vols.); VON SYBEL, The History and
Literature of the Crusades; Mills, A History of the
Crusades, etc. (2 vols.); Heeren, in Vermischte historische
Schriften (3 vols.); Procter's History of the Crusades;
Gray's Children's Crusade; Archer and Kingsford, The
Crusades.
For works on Mohammedanism and the Arabic kingdom, see p. 232.
The works here mentioned respecting the several countries either
relate to their entire history, or to their history prior to the
close of the Middle Ages.
I. ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.—GREEN'S History of the English
People (4 vols.), and Short History of England (1 vol.);
the "STUDENTS' HUME"; the histories of BRIGHT, Knight, LINGARD,
Hume, GUIZOT, Traill, Social England (6 vols., two editions);
GAIRDNER, Outline, etc.; Turner's History of the
Anglo-Saxons; Palgrave's Rise and Progress of the English
Commonwealth; Palgrave's History of Normandy and of
England; FREEMAN'S History of the Norman Conquest (6
vols.), and History of William Rufus; Green, The Making of
England, and The Conquest of England; Ramsay,
Foundations of England, Angevin Empire, Lancaster and York;
STUBBS, The Early Plantagenets; LONGMAN'S History of
Edward III.; Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and
Commerce; Cheyney, Industrial and Social History of
England; Seebohm, English Village Community; Life of
Wickliffe, by LECHLER, by LOSERTH, by WILSON, by Trevelyan.
Kemble's The Saxons in England; STUBBS'S Constitutional
History of England in its Origin and Development (3 vols.);
STUBBS'S Select Charters; CREASY'S Rise and Progress of
the English Constitution; THOMPSON'S Essay on Magna
Charta; Bisset, History of the Struggle for Parliamentary
Government in England (1877); TASWELL-LANGMEAD'S English
Constitutional History, etc.; FREEMAN'S Growth of the English
Constitution, etc.; Bagehot, The English Constitution;
Macy, The English Constitution.
SCOTLAND.—P. H. Brown, History of Scotland (2 vols.); Miss
Macarthur, History of Scotland (1 vol.); E. M. Robertson,
Scotland under her Early Kings (2 vols.).
IRELAND.—C. G. Walpole, The Kingdom of Ireland; Morris,
Ireland.
II. FRANCE.—General histories by Crowe (5 vols.); DURUY (2 vols.);
GUIZOT (to 1789, 5 vols.; 1789-1848, 3 vols.); and Outlines of
the History of France (1 vol.); Bonnechose (to 1848); JERVIS
(Hassall edition); MARTIN (17 vols.); KITCHIN, LACOMBE, MICHELET (17
vols.); Lavisse, Histoire de France; Adams, Growth of the
French Nation; Grant, The French Monarchy; Wallon's
St. Louis et son Temps (2 vols.); Sismondi, The French
under the Carlovingians (1 vol.), France under the Feudal
System (1 vol.); BARANTE'S Histoire des Ducs de Bourgogne de
la Maison de Valois, 1364-1477; WALLON'S Jeanne d'Arc (2
vols.); Lowell's Joan of Arc; Jameson's Life and Times of
Du Guesclin.
COULANGES' Histoire des Institutions politiques de l'Ancienne
France (1877); Viollet, Institutions politiques de la
France (3 vols.); Luchaire, Manuel des Institutions
Françaises; Esmein, Histoire du Droit Français; GUIZOT'S
History of Civilization in France (3 vols.), and Essai sur
l'Histoire de France; THIERRY'S The Formation and Progress of
the Third Estate in France; Sir James Stephens's Lectures on
the History of France.
III. GERMANY.—Henderson, A Short History of Germany (2
vols.); Histories by C. T. LEWIS (founded on D. Müller), Kohlrausch;
Kaufman, Deutsche Geschichte; Lamprecht, Deutsche
Geschichte (6 vols.); Schröder, Lehrbuch der
d. Rechtsgeschichte; Richter, Annalen.
GEISEBRECHT'S Geschichte d. deutschen Kaiserzeit (4 vols.);
VON RAUMER'S Geschichte der Hohenstaufen und ihrer Zeit (6
vols.).
Coxe's History of the House of Austria; KRONES'S Handbuch
d. Geschichte Osterreichs (3 vols.); Marlath's Geschichte
Osterreichs.
ARNOLD, Ansiedelungun und Wanderungen deutscher Stämme
(1875); also, Deutsche Urzeit (1879); Ozanam, Les Germains
avant le Christianisme (1872); SOHM, Die altdeutsche Reichs
und Gerichtsverfassung; MAURER'S histories of German local
institutions (the Marks, the Villages, the Cities); WAITZ,
Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte (8 vols.), Wirth, Die
Geschichte der Deutschen (1853); SUGENHEIM, Geschichte
d. deutschen Volkes und seiner Kultur, etc.
IV. ITALY.—Cantu, Histoire des Italiens (12 vols., 1859);
HUNT'S History of Italy (in Freeman's Series); Butt's
History of Italy (2 vols.); LEO'S Geschichte von
Italien (5 vols.); SISMONDI'S Histoire des Republiques
Italiennes du Moyen Age (10 vols.); SPALDING'S Italy and the
Italians; Boscoe and Morell, Compendium of Italian
History.
Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders (2 vols.); TESTA, History
of the War of Frederic I. against the Communes of Lombardy;
HEYD, Geschichte des Levantehandels im Mittelalter (2 vols.);
C. HEGEL, Gesckichte der Städteverfassung von Italien, etc.
Daru, Histoire de la Republique de Venise (9 vols.); BROWN,
Venice: an Historical Sketch; Ranke, Zur Venitianer
Geschichte; Machiavelli's History of Florence; Napier's
Florentine History (6 vols.); PERRENS, Histoire de
Florence (4 vols.); REUMONT'S Lorenzo the Magnificent (2
vols.); Roscoe's Life of Lorenzo de' Medici; TROLLOPE'S
History of Florence; Campbell's Life of Petrarch;
GREGOROVIUS' History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages
(8 v., from fifth to sixteenth century); Gallenga, History of
Piedmont (3 vols.); Amari, History of the War of the Sicilian
Vespers (3 vols.); Malleson, Studies from Genoese History
(1 vol.); Oliphant, Makers of Florence, etc.; SYMONDS,
Sketches and Studies in Southern Europe; TAINE, Florence
and Venice, and Rome and Naples; Freeman, Historical
and Architectural Studies (chiefly Italian, 1 vol.).
V. RUSSIA.—Bell's History of Russia (3 vols.); Howorth's
History of the Mongols; KARAMSIN, Histoire de l'Empire de
Russie (11 vols.); Histories of Russia, by Kelly, Lamartine,
Levesque; RAMBAUD, History of Russia (2 vols., 1879);
RALSTON, Early Russian History.
VI. POLAND.—Histories of Poland, by DUNHAM (12mo), Fletcher,
JOACHIM (2 vols.), RÖPELL AND CARO.
VII. SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.—Lembke und Schäfer, Geschichte von
Spanien (3 vols.); MARIANA, The General History of Spain;
DUNHAM, History of Spain and Portugal; CRAWFORD, Portugal,
Old and New; Burke, History of Spain (2 vols.); Stevens's
Portugal; TICKNOR'S History of Spanish Literature (3
vols.); Prescott's History of the Reign of Ferdinand and
Isabella (introductory chapter).
VIII. SWITZERLAND.—History of Switzerland, in LARDNER'S CYCLOPEDIA
(1832); Histories of Switzerland, by MORIN (5 vols.); J. Müller;
Zschokke; Rochholz, Tell und Gessler in Sage und Geschichte
(1877).
IX. SCANDINAVIA.—DUNHAM'S History of Denmark, Sweden, and
Norway (3 vols.); Dahlmann's Geschichte von Danemark bis zur
Reformation (with Norway and Iceland, 3 vols.); Histories of
Sweden, by Fryxell, GEIJER AND CARLSON (5 vols.); Laing's History
of Norway; MALLET'S Northern Antiquities; MAURER'S
History of Iceland; RINK'S Danish Greenland; Sinding's
Scandinavia; WHEATON'S History of the Northmen;
Worsaac's Danes and Northmen in Great Britain.
X. OTTOMAN TURKS.—HAMMER-PURGSTALL'S Geschichte des osmanischen
Reiches (10 vols.); CREASY'S History of the Ottoman Turks;
FREEMAN, The Ottoman Power in Europe (1877); ZINKEISEN,
Geschichte d. osmanisch. Reiches in Europa (7 vols.).
XI. CHINA, JAPAN, AND INDIA.—(See lists on pp. 25, 32.) Dickson,
Japan, etc. (vol. i., 1869); Griffis, The Micado's
Empire (1876).
XII. BIBLIOGRAPHIES.—In addition to Adams, Manual;
Sonnenschein, The Best Books and A Reader's Guide;
Gross, Sources and Literature of English History (to 1485);
Gardiner and Mullinger, English History for Students; Monod,
Bibliographie de l'Histoire de France; Dahlmann-Waitz,
Quellenkunde, der Deutschen Geschichte; lists in Lavisse et
Rambaud, Histoire Générale.
PART III. MODERN HISTORY.
FROM THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE (1453) TO THE PRESENT TIME.
INTRODUCTION.
Modern history as a whole, in contrast with mediæval, is marked by
several plainly defined characteristics. They are such as appear,
however, in a less developed form, in the latter part of the Middle
Ages.
1. In the recent centuries, there has been an increased tendency to
consolidate smaller states into larger kingdoms.
2. There has been a gradual secularizing of politics.
Governments have more and more cast off ecclesiastical control.
3. As another side of this last movement, political unity in
Europe has superseded ecclesiastical unity. The bond of union
among nations, in the room of being membership in one great
ecclesiastical commonwealth, became political: it came to be membership
in a loosely defined confederacy of nations, held together
by treaties or by a tacit agreement in certain accepted rules of
public law and outlines of policy.
4. In this system, one main principle is the balance of power.
This means that any one state may be prevented from enlarging its
bounds to such an extent as to endanger its neighbors. We have seen the
action of such a principle among the ancient states of Greece. Even in
the Middle Ages, as regards Italy, the popes endeavored to keep up an
equilibrium. They supported the Norman kingdom in Southern
Italy, or the Lombard leagues in the North, as a counterpoise to
the German emperors. In the sixteenth century, there were formed
combinations to check the power of Charles V., king of Spain and
emperor of Germany, and afterwards to restrain his successor on the
Spanish throne, Philip II. In the seventeenth century, there
were like combinations against Louis XIV. of France, and, over a
century later, against the first Napoleon.
5. The vast influence and control of Europe, by discovery,
colonization, and commerce, in other quarters of the globe, is a
striking feature of modern times.
6. With the increase of commerce and the growing power of the
middle classes, there has arisen the "industrial age."
Interests connected with production and trade, and with the material
side of civilization, have come into great prominence.
7. Both the pursuits of men, and culture, have become far more
diversified than was the case in the Middle Ages.
8. The influence of Christianity in its ethical relations—as an
instrument of political and social reform, and a motive to
philanthropy—has become more active and conspicuous.
PERIOD I. FROM THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE TO THE REFORMATION
(1453-1517):
THE CONSOLIDATION OF MONARCHY: INVENTION AND DISCOVERY: THE
RENAISSANCE.
CHARACTER OF THIS PERIOD.—In this period monarchy, especially in
France, England, and Spain, acquires new strength and extension. The
period includes the reigns of three kings who did much to help forward
this change: Louis XI. of France, Henry VII. of England,
and Ferdinand the Catholic of Spain. The Italian wars begin
with the French invasion of Italy: the rivalship of the kingdoms, and
the struggles pertaining to the balance of power, are thus
initiated. In this period fall new inventions which have
altered the character of civilization, and great geographical
discoveries, of which the discovery of the New World is the
chief. It is the epoch, moreover, of the Renaissance, or the
re-awakening of learning and art. There is a new era in culture. All
these movements and changes foretoken greater revolutions in the age
that was to follow.
CHAPTER I. FRANCE: ENGLAND: SPAIN: GERMANY: ITALY: THE OTTOMAN TURKS:
RUSSIA: THE INVASIONS OF ITALY.
I. FRANCE.
CHARLES VII. AND THE NOBLES.—The result of the hundred-years' war was
the acquisition of Aquitaine by the French crown. Aquitaine was
incorporated in France. Southern Gaul and Northern Gaul were now
one. During the last years of Charles VII., his kingdom was
comparatively peaceful. Its prosperity revived. A new sort of feudalism
had sprung up in the room of the old noblesse, whose power had been
crushed. The new nobility was made up of relatives of the royal family,
as the Dukes of Burgundy, Berry, Bourbon, and the house of
Anjou. On the east of France was Burgundy, which had
expanded into a great European power. "The duchy of Burgundy,
with the county of Charolois, and the counties of Flanders and Artois,
were joined under a common ruler with endless imperial fiefs in the Low
Countries, and with the imperial county of Burgundy." The
Burgundian boundary was on the south of the Somme, and little more than
fifty miles north of Paris. The Burgundian dukes were constantly
striving to bring it still nearer. On the east and south, the house of
Anjou held the duchy of Bar and Provence, besides
other possessions. On the south, too, was the province of
Dauphiny; and on the west the strong, half-independent duchy of
Brétagne, or Brittany. Charles had a standing
quarrel with his son Louis, who early showed his power to
inspire dread, but gave no signs of the policy which he triumphantly
pursued, after he became king, of putting down feudal
insubordination. His young wife Margaret, daughter of James
I. of Scotland, was twelve years old when he, a boy of thirteen,
was married to her. He aroused such terror and aversion in her mind
that she died at twenty-one of a broken heart. Louis—to whom,
much to his disgust, Dauphiny instead of Normandy was given to
rule—abetted the great lords in their resistance to his father's
authority; and, when threatened with coercion, fled to Brussels,
to the court of his father's cousin, Philip of Burgundy, where
he was kindly entertained. Charles VII., who knew the traits of
his son, said, "As for my cousin of Burgundy, he harbors a fox that
will one day eat up his chickens." Even then the relations of
Louis and Charles, Count of Charolois, the heir of
Burgundy, were cool and unsympathetic. The king occupied
Dauphiny, and in 1457 it was fully incorporated in France. The
rulers of France and Burgundy, taken up with their own schemes of
territorial gain, turned a deaf ear to the calls of Pope Pius
II. for a crusade against the Turks. It has been said that most of
the kings of the house of Valois were either bad or mad. The
indolent and heartless Charles VII. would seem to have been
both. In his last days he suspected that the Dauphin's plots were aided
by persons about himself, and that his food was poisoned. He refused to
eat, and died in 1461.
CHARACTER OF LOUIS XI.—Louis XI. (1461-1483) showed himself a
master of "statecraft," or the cunning, diplomatic management which
pursued its ends stealthily, held no engagements sacred, and was
deterred by no scruples of conscience from whatever perfidy was
thought requisite to attain the objects in view. Louis was one
of the earliest examples of the kingcraft which in the
succeeding age was deemed a gift to be coveted by princes. It was an
art in which the Italians were masters; and its secrets were set
forth, somewhat later than the time of Louis, in "The Prince"
of Machiavelli, a work in which that eminent statesman and
historian describes the means by which despots may entrap and crush
their enemies. Whether he meant to afford aid to tyrants, or aid to
their subjects through an exposure of the tricks of their rulers, the
"Machiavellian" spirit designates the policy of intrigue that
prevailed all through the sixteenth century, and infected even some of
the best of the public men of that age. Louis was mean-looking,
shabby in his dress, with a cunning aspect; in his whole deportment
and character, in sharp contrast with the chivalrous princes,
Philip and Charles of Burgundy. If he was vindictive, he
was perhaps not more cruel than others; but he was ungenial, regarding
men as his tools. He took pleasure in the society of his provosts or
hangmen,—Tristan l'Hermite and Olivier le Daim. He
often ordered men to execution without so much as the form of a
trial. There was in him a vein of superstition. He was punctilious in
his devotions. He would not swear a false oath over the cross of
St. Loup of Angers, because he thought that death would be the
penalty. He did not quail before an enemy in battle; yet such was his
alarm at the prospect of death, that he collected about him relics and
charms, magicians and hermits, to help him prolong his days.
STRIFE WITH THE NOBLES.—The first years of Louis's reign
(1461-1467) were passed in a struggle with the great lords whom he was
determined to subdue. At the beginning his measures for this end were
imprudent. They combined against him in the League of the Public
Weal in 1464. Their force was so great that he stood in imminent
peril. He counted on the support of Paris, and was trying to
reach that city when the hostile armies encountered one another at
Montlhéry (1465). It was an absurd battle, where at night both parties
thought themselves beaten. The king secured his place of refuge. He
deemed it prudent to make peace on the terms demanded by the Count
of Charolois, and the other nobles. This treaty of Conflans
(1465) he caused the Parliament of Paris to refuse to ratify or
register. He had trusted to his ability to regain what he might
surrender. The strife between the Duke of Brittany and the
king's brother Charles, now made Duke of Normandy,
enabled Louis soon to recover Normandy.
CHARLES THE BOLD, AND LOUIS.—The death of Philip made his son,
Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. Charles was in the prime of
life, of a chivalrous temper, courteous and polished, fond of reading
and music, as well as of knightly sports, and with his head full of
dreams of ambition. With certain noble qualities, his pride was
excessive, his temper not only hot but obstinate, and, as he grew
older, he became more overbearing and cruel. He was the most powerful
prince in Europe. The most of his lands were German. In the early part
of his reign he pursued the same scheme as that which was at the root
of the League of the Public Weal. He aimed to hem in
Louis, and to build up his own power in the direction of
France. He allied himself, in 1466, with the House of York,
then uppermost in England. An English force was sent to
Calais in 1467. Threatened by this coalition of adversaries,
Louis hastened to attack Brittany, and forced its duke
to conclude a separate peace. Trusting too much to his powers of
negotiation, and yielding to the treacherous advice of Cardinal
Balue, one of his chief counselors, the king determined to go
in person to confer with Charles of Burgundy. He soon learned
that his safe-conduct was of little value. At Peronne, he found
himself in the midst of enemies, and in reality a prisoner. While
there, Liège was in revolt, as Charles ascertained, at
the king's instigation. The wrathful duke could be appeased only by
agreeing to every thing that he required. Louis had to undergo
the humiliation of attending Charles and his army, and of
basely taking part in the vengeance inflicted on the city which he had
himself stirred up to revolt. He was glad to escape with his
life. After his return, he ordered Balue to be put in an iron
cage, where he was kept for ten years,—a mode of punishment of
Balue's own invention. Louis repudiated the treaty of Peronne,
under the advice of a body of Notables, all of whom he had
nominated and summoned. A new league was organized against him; but
the king by his wariness, and by his promptitude in attacking
Brittany, gained advantages, so that a truce was concluded with
the Burgundian duke in 1472. Philip de Commines, at that
time a companion and counselor of Charles, left his service for
that of Louis. To his Memoirs we owe most instructive
and interesting details respecting these princes, and the manners and
occurrences of the time.
CHARLES THE BOLD, AND THE SWISS.—From this time Charles turned
his attention eastward, and devoted himself to building up a
great principality on the Rhine, which might open the way for
his succession to the empire. It seemed to be his plan to bring
together the old kingdom of Lotharingia and that of the
Burgundies. He found no sympathy in his schemes from the
emperor Frederick III. The great barrier in Charles's way was
the freedom-loving spirit of the inhabitants of the Swiss
mountains. Availing himself of a plausible pretext, he endeavored to
get possession of Cologne by first laying siege to
Neuss, which lies below it. Wasting his strength in the
unsuccessful attempt to capture this place, he failed to make a
junction of his forces with the English troops who landed in
France under his ally, King Edward IV. The English king
was persuaded to make a truce with France by the wily Louis,
who was constantly on the watch for any mistakes or mishaps of his
impetuous Burgundian adversary. The cruelty of Charles to the
Swiss inhabitants of Granson, who had surrendered, brought upon
him an attack of their exasperated countrymen near that place
(1476). The Burgundians were routed; and the duke's camp, with
all its treasures, including his sword, the plate of his chapel, and
precious stones of inestimable value, fell into the hands of the hardy
mountaineers, who knew nothing of the worth of these things. The next
year the Duke once more flung his reckless valor against the strength
of the Swiss infantry, and barely escaped from an utter defeat at
Morat. Made desperate by misfortune, he risked another battle
near Nanci, in 1477, at the head of an inferior force, composed
partly of treacherous mercenaries, and was vanquished and slain. He
had intended to make Nanci his capital; but his body was found
near by in a swamp, stripped of its clothing, frozen, and covered with
wounds.
EXTENSION OF FRANCE.—Louis XI could hardly stifle expressions
of joy at the news of the death of his hated and formidable
rival. While Charles had been busy in Germany, Louis had
taken the opportunity to put down, one by one, the great nobles who had
shown themselves ill-affected. He secured to France Roussillon
and the northern slopes of the Pyrenees. It was now his purpose to lay
hold of as many as possible of the possessions of the late
duke. Mary, the daughter of Charles the Bold, the heiress
of Burgundy, gave her hand in marriage to Maximilian of
Austria, an event which carried after it the most important
consequences. The result of the conflicts of Louis and
Maximilian was the Peace of Arras (1482), which left in
the hands of France the towns on the Somme, and the great
Burgundian duchy. For a time Maximilian, as holder of the
French fiefs of Flanders and Artois, was a vassal of the French
king. On the death of King René, in 1480, and the extinction of
the house of Anjou, Louis annexed the three great districts of
Anjou, Maine, and Provence, the last of which was a fief
of the empire.
LAST DAYS OF LOUIS XI.—In his last days, old King Louis, in
wretched health, tortured with the fear of death, and in constant dread
of plots to destroy him, shut himself up in the castle of
Plessis-les-Tours, which he strongly fortified, and manned with
guards who were instructed to shoot all who approached without
leave. He kept up his activity in management, and in truth devised
schemes for the advantage of his realm. His selfish and malignant
temper brought to him one unexpected joy from the sudden death of
Mary of Burgundy (1482), from which, however, France did not
reap the advantages which he expected. He died in 1483, at the age of
sixty-one. He, more than any other, was the founder of the French
monarchy in the later form. He centralized the administration of the
government. He fought against feudalism, old and new. He strengthened,
however, local authority where it did not interfere with the power of
the king. In matters of internal government he was often just and wise.
CHARLES VIII. (1483-1496): ANNE OF BEAUJEU.—Charles VIII. at
the death of his father was only fourteen years old. But in his older
sister, Anne of Beaujeu, the wife of Peter of Bourbon, he
had an energetic guide who for ten years virtually managed public
affairs. She proved too strong for the opposition of the royal princes,
of the nobility, and of the States General. The nobles turned for
support to Richard III. of England. Anne strengthened
with men and money Henry of Richmond, the rival and conqueror of
Richard. The Duke of Brittany, with his allies, the Duke of Orleans,
the Prince of Orange, and others, was defeated in a hardly contested
battle in 1488, which was followed by a treaty advantageous to
France. The crowning achievement of Anne of Beaujeu was the
marriage of Anne of Brittany to Charles VIII. This was
accomplished although she had already been married by proxy to
Maximilian, while Charles was pledged to marry
Margaret, the emperor's daughter. If Anne of Brittany
should outlive Charles, she engaged to marry his successor. This
second marriage actually took place: she became the wife of Louis
XII. Brittany was thus incorporated in France. The Italian
expeditions, the great events in the reign of Charles VIII.,
will be related hereafter.
II. ENGLAND.
WAR OF THE ROSES: THE HOUSE OF YORK.—The crown in England had come to
be considered as the property of a family, to which the legitimate
heir had a sacred claim. The Wars of the Roses (1455-1485) grew out of
family rivalries. It was a fight among nobles. But other reasons were
not without influence. The party of York (whose badge was the
white rose) was the popular party, which had its strength in Kent and
in the trading cities. It went for reform of government. The party of
Lancaster (whose badge was the red rose) was the more
conservative party, having its strength among the barons of the
North. Richard, Duke of York, thought that he had a better
claim to the English crown than Henry VI., because his
ancestor, Lionel, was an older son of Edward III. than
John of Gaunt, the ancestor of Henry. The king was
insane at times, and Richard was made Protector or Regent of
Parliament. But Henry, becoming better, drove him from his
presence. He organized an insurrection, but was defeated in a battle
at Wakefield by the troops of the strong-hearted queen. He was
crowned with a wreath of grass, and then beheaded. His brave son,
Rutland, was killed as he fled. But Richard's eldest son,
Edward—Edward IV. (1461-1483)—supported by the powerful Earl
of Warwick, "the king-maker," defeated the queen at
Towton, took possession of the throne, and imprisoned Henry
VI., who had fallen into imbecility. Edward was popular because he
kept order. But the favors which he lavished on the Woodvilles,
relatives of his Lancastrian wife Elizabeth, enabled the
opposing party, to which Warwick deserted, to get the upper
hand (1470); and Edward fled to Holland. But he soon returned,
and won the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury
(1471). Henry VI. was secretly murdered in the Tower. The house
of York was now in the ascendant. A quarrel between the king
and his ambitious brother Clarence, who had married
Warwick's daughter, led to the trial and condemnation of
Clarence, who was put to death in the Tower. It was during the
reign of Edward IV. that Caxton set up the first
printing-press in England. After Edward his brother reigned,
Richard III. (1483-1485), a brave but merciless man, who made
his way to the throne by the death of the two young princes
Edward and Richard, whose murder in the Tower he is with
good reason supposed to have procured. He had pretended that Edward
IV. had never been lawfully married to their mother. Henry
Tudor, Earl of Richmond, descended by his mother from John
of Gaunt, aided by France, landed in Wales, and won a victory at
Bosworth over the adherents of the white rose,—a victory which
gave him a kingdom and a crown. Thus the house of Lancaster in
the person of Henry VII. (1485-1509), gained the throne. He
married Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Edward IV.,
and so the two hostile houses were united. He was the first of the
TUDOR kings.
CHARACTER OF THE CIVIL WARS.—The Wars of the Roses are, in certain
respects, peculiar. They extended over a long period, but did not
include more than three years of actual fighting. The battles were
fierce, and the combatants unsparing in the treatment of their
foes. Yet the population of the country did not diminish. Business and
the administration of justice went on as usual. Trade began to be held
in high esteem, and traders to amass wealth. The number of journeymen
and day-laborers increased, and there was a disposition to break
through the guild laws.
EFFECTS OF THE CIVIL WARS.—The most striking result of the civil wars
was the strengthening of the power of the king. Not more than thirty
of the old nobles survived. Laws were made forbidding the nobles to
keep armed "retainers;" and against "maintenance," or
the custom of nobles to promise to support, in their quarrels or
law-cases, men who adhered to them. The court of the Star
Chamber was set up to prevent these abuses. It was turned into an
instrument of tyranny in the hands of the kings. Henry VII.
extorted from the rich, "benevolences," or gifts solicited by
the king, which the law authorized him to collect as a tax. He
contrived to get money in such ways, and thus to carry forward the
government without Parliament, which met only once during the last
thirteen years of his reign. Royal power, in relation to the nobles,
was further exalted by the introduction of cannon into warfare, which
only the king possessed. Two pretenders to the throne, Lambert
Simnel (1487), and Perkin Warbeck (1492), were raised up;
but the efforts made to dethrone Henry proved abortive. He kept
watch over his enemies at home and abroad, and punished all resistance
to his authority. Circumstances enabled the founder of the
Tudor line to exalt the power of the king over the heads of
both the nobles and the commons.
III. SPAIN.
FERDINAND OF ARAGON (1479-15l6).—The union of Aragon and
Castile, by the marriage of Ferdinand and
Isabella (1474-1504), was nominal, as each sovereign reigned
independently in his own dominion. But both sovereigns were bent on
the same end,—that of subjecting the powerful grandees and feudal
lords to their authority. In this policy they found efficient helpers
in the shrewd and loyal counselor Mendoza, Cardinal and
Archbishop of Toledo, and in Ximenes, who combined the
qualities of a prelate of strict orthodoxy with those of a profound
and energetic statesman. To bring both nobles and clergy into
subservience to the crown, was their great aim; and for this end the
sagacious Ferdinand procured from the Pope the privilege of
filling the bishoprics and the grand masterships of the military
orders. He deprived the nobles of their judicial functions,
which he committed to impartial and severe tribunals of his own
creation. He re-organized and strengthened the Holy Hermanadad,
or militia of the cities, and thus had at his service against the
grandees a standing military force. He used the nobles and the cities
to keep one another in check. Over both stood the
Inquisition,—a tribunal established against the Moors
and the Jews who had made an outward profession of
Christianity, but which under Torquemada, who had been
confessor of the queen, became a terror to all Spain. The king had the
power to name the Grand Inquisitor and all the judges; and he
thus acquired in this institution not only a fearful weapon against
heretics of every description, but also a political instrument for the
subjugation of the nobles and the clergy. By this alliance of the
throne and the altar, the despotic power of Ferdinand had the
firmest prop.
CONQUEST OF GRANADA.—After a ten-years' bloody war, the Moorish
kingdom of Granada was conquered. The capital, with the famous
castle of Alhambra, was captured (1492). The dethroned Moorish
king, Boabdil, robbed of his possessions, sailed to Africa,
where he fell in battle. By the terms of their surrender, the Moors
were to have the free exercise of their religion. But the promise was
not kept. Choice was given to the Moslems to become Christians, or to
emigrate. Many left to wage war elsewhere against their Spanish
persecutors, either as corsairs in Africa, or as bands of robbers in
Sierra Nevada. The professed converts were goaded by cruel
treatment into repeated insurrections. It was a fierce war of races and
religions. The frightful sufferings of the Moors, under the pressure of
this double fanaticism, form a long and gloomy chapter of Spanish
history. The dismal tale continues until the cruel expulsion from the
kingdom of nearly a million of this unhappy people by Philip
III., in 1609.
FERDINAND, REGENT OF CASTILE.—Most of the children of
Ferdinand and Isabella died young. Their daughter
Joanna married Philip of Burgundy, son of
Maximilian and Mary; but he died in 1506, at the age of
twenty-eight. They had been recognized as the rulers of
Castile. But the mind of Joanna, who had always been
eccentric, became disordered, so that the government devolved on
Ferdinand, her father. He placed her in the castle at
Tordesillas, where the remainder of her life, which continued
forty-seven years longer, was spent. Ferdinand was, in form,
constituted by the Cortes (1510), regent of the kingdom in the
name of his daughter, and as guardian of her son (Charles).
Ferdinand administered the government with wisdom and
moderation. As there were no children by his second marriage with
Germaine de Foix, niece of Louis XII. of France, the
succession of Joanna's son remained secure. Ferdinand availed
himself of the disturbances in France to annex to Castile the
portion of Navarre lying on the south of the Pyrenees.
IV. GERMANY AND THE EMPIRE.
FREDERICK III. (1440-1493).—While England, France, and
Spain were organizing monarchy, Italy and Germany
kept up the anarchical condition of the Middle Ages. Hence these
countries, first Italy and then Germany, became enticing
fields of conquest for other nations. Frederick III. was the
last emperor crowned at Rome (1452), and only one other emperor after
him was crowned by the Pope. Frederick reigned longer than any other
German king before or after him. He lacked energy, neglected the
empire, and busied himself in enlarging his Austrian domains, which he
erected into an archduchy (1453). When he sought to interfere
with the German princes, they set him at defiance. He did little more
than remain an indolent spectator of the conflict in which the Swiss
overthrew Charles the Bold. The great danger to Europe was now
from the Turks. Christendom was defended by the Poles and the
Hungarians. Frederick left the Hungarians, under the gallant
John Hunyady, without his help, to drive them, in 1456, from
Belgrade. He tried to obtain the Bohemian and Hungarian crowns;
but Podiebrad, a Utraquist nobleman, was made king of Bohemia,
and Matthias Corvinus succeeded Hunyady, his father, on
the throne of Hungary. By the death of Albert, the brother of
Frederick, to whom the emperor had been compelled to give up
Vienna, he became master of all the Austrian lands except
Tyrol. He was bent on getting the Hungarian crown; but Vienna
was taken by Matthias, in 1485, and the emperor had to fly for
his life. A great confederation, composed of princes, nobles, and
cities, was made in Swabia, for repressing private war, and did much
good in South Germany. The western part of Prussia was taken
from the Teutonic Knights by the Peace of Thorn, in 1466, and
annexed to Poland by Casimir IV.
Maximilian I. (1493-15l9).—Maximilian I. was a restless
prince, eager for adventure. Although not crowned, he was authorized
by Pope Julius II. to style himself "Emperor Elect." In his
reign, efforts, only in part successful, were made to secure peace and
order in Germany. At the Diet of Worms in 1495, a perpetual
public peace, or prohibition of private feuds, was proclaimed;
and a court called the Imperial Chamber, the judges of which,
except the president, were appointed by the states, was constituted to
adjust controversies among them. The benefits of this arrangement were
partly defeated by the Aulic Council, an Austrian tribunal
established by Maximilian for his own domains, but which
interfered in matters properly belonging to the
Chamber. Germany was also divided into circles, or
districts, for governmental purposes. In 1499 Maximilian
endeavored, without success, to coerce the Swiss League into
submission to the Imperial Chamber, and to punish it for helping the
French in their Italian invasion. Although he was brave, cultured, and
eloquent, he lacked perseverance, and not a few of his numerous
projects failed. The most fortunate event in his life, as regards the
aggrandizement of his house, was his marriage to Mary of
Burgundy (1477). His grandson Ferdinand married the sister
of Louis II., the last king of Bohemia of the Polish
line, who was also king of Hungary; and by the election of
Ferdinand to be his successor (1526), both these countries were
added to the vast possessions of the Austrian family. To Maximilian's
doings in Italy, we shall soon refer.
GERMAN CITIES.—From the middle of the thirteenth century there was a
rapid growth of German cities, and an advance of the
trading-classes. The cities gained a large measure of self-government,
and were prosperous little republics. They were centers of commerce
and wealth, and often exercised power much beyond their own precincts,
which were well defended by ditches, walls, and towers. The old Gothic
town-halls in Aix, Nuremburg, Cologne, etc., are monuments of
municipal thrift and dignity. Their churches and convents grew rich,
and schools with numerous pupils were connected with them. Dwellings
became more comfortable and attractive. All branches of art and
manufacture flourished. The city nobles and the guilds had their
banquets. In the church festivals all the people took part. The German
cities, such as Mayence, Worms, Strasburg, Lübeck, Augsburg,
excited the admiration even of Italian visitors.
THE MEDICI.
Giovanni d' Medici, d. 1429.
|
+—COSMO ("Father of his Country"), d. 1464.
| |
| +—PIERO, d. 1469.
| |
| +—LORENZO (the Magnificent), d. 1492.
| | |
| | +—Maddelena.
| | |
| | +—PIERO d. 1503
| | | |
| | | +—LORENZO II, Duke of Urbino, d. 1510.
| | | |
| | | +—Catharine, m. Henry II of France.
| | | |
| | | +—ALESSANDRO, First Duke of Florence, 1531-1537.
| | |
| | +—GIOVANNI (Pope Leo X), d. 1521.
| | |
| | +—GIULIANO, Duke of Nemours, d. 1516.
| | |
| | +—Ippolito (Cardinal), d. 1535.
| |
| +—GIULIANO, killed by Pozzi 1478.
| |
| +—Giulio (Pope Clement VII), d. 1534.
|
+—LORENZO, d. 1440.
|
+—Piero Francesco, d. 1474.
|
+—Giuliano, d. 1498.
|
+—Giovanni (the Invincible), d. 1526.
|
+—COSIMO I, First Grand Duke of Tuscany, 1537-1574.
|
+—FRANCESCO, 1574-1587, m. Joanna,
| daughter of Emperor Ferdinand I.
| |
| +—Mary m. Henry IV of France.
|
+—FERDINAND I, 1587-1600, m. Christina,
daughter of Charles II of Lorraine.
|
+—COSIMO II, 1609-1621, m. Mary Magdalen,
sister of Emperor Ferdinand II.
|
+—FERDINAND II, 1621-1670.
|
+—COSIMO III, 1670-1723.
|
+—JOHN GASTON, 1723-1737.
V. ITALY.
CONDITION OF ITALY.—Italy, at the epoch of the French invasions, was
the most prosperous as well as the most enlightened and civilized
country in Europe. Its opulent and splendid cities were the admiration
of all visitors from the less favored countries of the North. But
national unity was wanting. The country was made up of discordant
states. Venice was ambitious of conquest; and the pontiffs in
this period, to the grief of all true friends of religion, were
absorbed in Italian politics, being eager to carve out principalities
for their relatives. Italy was exposed to two perils. On the
one hand, it was menaced by the Ottoman Turks; not to speak of the
kings of France and Spain, who were rival aspirants for control in the
Italian peninsula. On the other hand, voyages of discovery were
threatening to open new highways of commerce to supersede the old
routes of traffic through its maritime cities.
MILAN.—The fall of Constantinople produced a momentary union in
Italy. At Lodi, in 1454, the principal states took an oath of
perpetual concord,—Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan; Cosmo de
Medici, to whom Florence had given the name of "Father of his
Country;" Alfonso V. the Magnanimous, king of Naples and Sicily;
the Popes Calixtus III. and Pius II. (1458-1464). But
conflicts soon arose among them. An abortive attempt was made by
John of Calabria to deprive Ferdinand of Naples of his
inheritance (1462). In 1478 there was a coalition against Florence; in
1482, a coalition against Venice. The Turks made the best use of these
quarrels, and captured Otranto (1480), killing or enslaving
twelve thousand Christians. The idea of the ancients that
tyrannicide is a virtue, whether the master be good or bad, was
caught up, and gave rise to conspiracies. At Milan, in 1476, the cruel
Duke Galeazzo Maria was assassinated by three young men, near
the Church of St. Stephen. Giovanni Galeazzo, his son, a minor,
married a daughter of the king of Naples. But his uncle, Ludovico il
Moro, had seized on power, and ruled in the name of Giovanni
(1480). He imprisoned Giovanni and his young wife; and being
threatened by the king of Naples, who had for an ally Peter de
Medici, he formed an alliance with the Pope and the Venetians; and,
not confiding in them, he invited Charles VIII. of France to
invade the kingdom of Naples. Genoa fell under the yoke of
Ludovico, who was invested with it by Charles VIII. as a
fief of France.
VENICE.—Venice, which up to the fall of Constantinople had
been the strongest of the Italian states, forgot its duties and its
dangers in relation to the Turks, in order to aggrandize itself in
Italy. It could not avoid war with them, which broke out in 1464. The
Turks took Negropont and Scutari, passed the
Piave, and the fires kindled by their troops could be seen from
Venice. The city made a shameful treaty with them, paying them a large
sum (1479). But four years after, it conquered Cyprus, which it
did not scruple to demand the privilege of holding as a fief of the
Sultan of Egypt. The great power of Venice at this time was a cause of
alarm to all the other states; but their first combination against it
in 1482, in defense of the Duke of Ferrara, was of no effect. In 1454
the government of Venice was placed practically in the hands of three
"inquisitors", who exercised despotic power under the old
forms, and, by such means as secret trials and executions, maintained
internal order and quiet at the cost of liberty. Its soldiers were
condottieri, under foreign leaders, whom it watched with the
utmost jealousy.
FLORENCE.—Cosmo de Medici had continued to be a man of the
people. But the members of his family who followed him, while they
copied his munificence and public spirit, behaved more as
princes. Against Peter I. plots were formed by the nobles, but
were baffled (1465). Jerome Riario, a nephew of Pope Sixtus
IV., strove with papal help to conquer for himself a principality
in the Romagna. The Florentines protested against it as a breach
of the treaty of Lodi. Hence Riario took part in the
conspiracy of the Pazzi against the lives of Lorenzo and
Julian, sons of Cosmo. They were attacked in the cathedral of
Florence by the assassins, during the celebration of mass;
Julian was killed, but Lorenzo escaped. The Archbishop of
Pisa, one of the accomplices, was hung from his palace window in his
pontifical robes. The Pope excommunicated the Medici, and all the
Italian states plunged into war. The capture of Otranto at this
time by the Turks frightened the princes. Lorenzo de Medici
repaired in person to Naples to negotiate with Ferdinand,
the Pope's ally, and peace was concluded. Lorenzo earned the
name of "The Magnificent" by his lavish patronage of literature and
art.
SAVONAROLA.—Against the rule of Lorenzo, one voice was raised,
that of the Dominican monk Jerome Savonarola, a preacher of
fervid eloquence, who aimed in his harangues, not only to move
individuals to repentance, but to bring about a thorough amendment of
public morals, and a political reform in the direction of liberty. In
his discourses, however, he lashed the ecclesiastical corruptions of
the time, not sparing those highest in power. There were two parties,
that of the young nobles,—the arribiati, or "enraged;" and that
of the people,—the frateschi, or friends of the
monks. Savonarola proclaimed that a great punishment was
impending over Italy. He predicted the invasion from north of the Alps.
FLORENCE IN THE AGE OF LORENZO.—Florence in the time of
Lorenzo presented striking points of resemblance to
Athens in its most flourishing days. In some respects, the two
communities were quite unlike. Florence was not a conquering
power, and had no extensive dominion. Civil and military life were
distinct from one another: the Italian had come to rely more upon
diplomacy than upon arms, and his wealth and mercantile connections
made him anxious to avoid war. In Florence, moreover, trade and the
mechanic arts were in high repute; industry was widely diffused, and
was held in honor. But in equality and pride of citizenship, in
versatility of talent and intellectual activity, in artistic genius and
in appreciation of the products of art, in refinement of manners,
cheerfulness of temper, and a joyous social life, the
Florentines in the fifteenth century compare well with the
Athenians in the age of Pericles. In Florence, the
burgess or citizen had attained to the standing to which in other
countries he only aspired. Nobility of blood was counted as of some
worth; but where there was not wealth or intellect with it, it was held
in comparatively low esteem. Prosperous merchants, men of genius and
education, and skillful artisans were on a level with the best. Men of
noble extraction engaged in business. The commonwealth conferred
knighthood on the deserving, according to the practice of sovereign
princes. Persons of the highest social standing did not disdain to
labor in their shops and counting-houses. Frugal in their domestic
life, the Florentines strove to maintain habits of frugality by strict
sumptuary laws. Limits were set to indulgence in finery, food, etc. The
population of Florence somewhat exceeded one hundred thousand. In the
neighborhood of the city, there was a multitude of attractive, richly
furnished villas and country-houses. Among the industries in which the
busy population was engaged in 1472, a chronicler enumerates
eighty-three rich and splendid warehouses of the silk-merchants' guild,
thirty-three great banks, and forty-four goldsmiths' and jewellers'
shops. The houses of the rich were furnished with elegance, and
decorated with beautiful works of art. There was a great contrast
between the simplicity of ordinary domestic life, especially as regards
provisions for the table, and the splendor displayed on public
occasions, or when guests were to be hospitably entertained. The effect
of literary culture was seen in the tone of conversation. It is
remarkable that the great sculptors were all goldsmiths, and came out
of the workshop. A new generation of painters had a like practical
training. In those days, there was a union of manual skill with
imagination. The art of the goldsmith preceded and outstripped all the
others. In such a society, there was naturally a great relish for
public festivals, both sacred and secular. Everywhere in Italy the
Mysteries, or religious plays, exhibiting events of scriptural
history, were in vogue; brilliant pantomimes were enjoyed, and the
festivities of the yearly carnival were keenly relished. In the
government of Florence, the liberty of the citizens was mainly confined
to the choosing of their magistrates. Once in office, they ruled with
arbitrary power. There was no liberty of the press, nor was there
freedom of discussion in the public councils. It was a community where,
with all its cultivation and elegance, morality was at a low ebb.
Lorenzo himself, although "he had all the qualities of poet and
statesman, connoisseur and patron of learning, citizen and prince,"
nevertheless "could not keep himself from the epicureanism of the
time," and was infected with its weaknesses and vices. "These joyous
and refined civilizations," writes M. Taine, "based on a worship
of pleasure and intellectuality,—Greece of the fourth century,
Provence of the twelfth, and Italy of the sixteenth,—were not
enduring. Man in these lacks some checks. After sudden outbursts of
genius and creativeness, he wanders away in the direction of license
and egotism; the degenerate artist and thinker makes room for the
sophist and the dilettant."
THE POPES.—The Popes, Nicholas V. (1447-1455), a protector of
scholars and a cultivated man, and Pius II. (1458-1464),
THE OTTOMAN SULTANS.
OTHMAN, 1307-1325.
|
+—ORCHAN, 1325-1359.
| |
| +—AMURATH I, 1359-1389.
| |
| +—BAJEZET I, 1389-1402.
| |
| +—Soliman, 1402-1410.
| |
| +—Musa, 1410-1413.
| |
| +—Issa.
| |
| +—MOHAMMED I, 1413-1421.
| |
| +—AMURATH II, 1421-1451.
| |
| +—MOHAMMED II, 1451-1481.
| |
| +—BAJEZET II, 1481-1512.
| | |
| | +—SELIM I, 1512-1520.
| | |
| | +—SOLIMAN I, 1520-1566.
| | |
| | +—SELIM II, 1566-1574.
| | |
| | +—AMURATH III, 1574-1595.
| | |
| | +—MOHAMMED III, 1595-1603.
| | |
| | +—ACHMET I, 1603-1617.
| | | |
| | | +—OTHMAN II, 1618-1622.
| | | |
| | | +—AMURATH IV, 1623-1640.
| | | |
| | | +—IBRAHIM, 1640-1649, deposed.
| | | |
| | | +—MOHAMMED IV,
| | | | 1649-1687, deposed.
| | | | |
| | | | +—MUSTAPHA II,
| | | | | 1695-1703, deposed.
| | | | | |
| | | | | +—MAHMOUD I,
| | | | | | 1730-1754.
| | | | | |
| | | | | +—OTHMAN III,
| | | | | 1754-1757.
| | | | |
| | | | +—ACHMET III,
| | | | 1703-1730, deposed.
| | | | |
| | | | +—MUSTAPHA III,
| | | | | 1757-1774.
| | | | | |
| | | | | +—SELIM III,
| | | | | 1789-1807,
| | | | | deposed.
| | | | |
| | | | +—ABUL HAMID I,
| | | | 1774-1789.
| | | | |
| | | | +—MUSTAPHA IV,
| | | | | 1807-1808,
| | | | | deposed.
| | | | |
| | | | +—MAHMOUD II,
| | | | 1808-1839.
| | | | |
| | | | +—ABDUL MEDJID,
| | | | | 1839-1861.
| | | | | |
| | | | | +—MURAD V
| | | | | | (June 4,
| | | | | | 1876-
| | | | | | Aug. 31,
| | | | | | 1876).
| | | | | |
| | | | | +—ABDUL
| | | | | HAMID II
| | | | | (Aug. 31,
| | | | | 1876—).
| | | | |
| | | | +—ABDUL AZIZ,
| | | | 1861-1876.
| | | |
| | | +—SOLIMAN II,
| | | | 1687-1691.
| | | |
| | | +—ACHMET II,
| | | 1691-1695.
| | |
| | +—MUSTAPHA I,
| | 1617-1618, 1622-1623.
| +—Djem.
|
+—Alaeddin.
[Mainly from George's Genealogical Tables.]
zealously but in vain exhorted to crusades against the Turk. Paul
II. (1464-1471) pursued the same course; but after him, for a
half-century, there ensued the deplorable era when the pontiffs were
more busied with other interests than with those pertaining to the weal
of Christianity. The pontificates of Sixtus IV. (1471-1484),
Innocent VIII. (1484-1492), and especially of Alexander
VI. (1492-1503), the second pope of the Borgia family,
present a lamentable picture of worldly schemes and of "nepotism," as
the projects for the temporal advancement of their relatives were
termed. The Roman principality was the prey of petty tyrants, and the
theater of wars, and of assassinations perpetrated by the knife or with
poison. Alexander VI. succeeded in subduing or destroying all
these petty lords. He was seconded in these endeavors by his son
Cæsar Borgia, brave, accomplished, and fascinating, but a
monster of treachery and cruelty. No deed was savage or base enough to
cost him any remorse. Hardly had he acquired the Romagna, when
Pope Alexander died. Although his death was due to Roman fever,
legend speedily ascribed it to poison. His son was betrayed, was
imprisoned for a time by Ferdinand the Catholic, and, while he
was in the service of the King of Navarre, was slain before the castle
of Viana.
NAPLES.—In Naples, Ferdinand I., who was established on his
throne by the defeat of his competitors in 1462, provoked a revolt of
his barons by his tyranny, invited them to a festival to celebrate a
reconciliation with them, and caused them to be seized at the table,
and then to be put to death. He treated the people with equal injustice
and cruelty. He allowed the Turks to take Otranto (1480), and
the Venetians to take Gallipoli and Policastro (1484).
WEAKNESS OF ITALY.—Italy, at the close of the fifteenth century, with
all its proficiency in art and letters, and its superiority in the
comforts and elegances of life, was a prey to anarchy. This was
especially true after the death of Lorenzo de Medici. Diplomacy
had become a school of fraud. Battles had come to be, in general,
bloodless; but either perfidy, or prison and the dagger, were the
familiar instruments of warfare. The country from its beauty, its
wealth, and its factious state, was an alluring prize to foreign
invaders.
VI. THE OTTOMAN TURKS.
THEIR CONQUESTS.—The empire of Mohammed II. (1451-1481)
extended from the walls of Belgrade, on the Danube, to the
middle of Asia Minor. To the east was the Seljukian principality of
Caramania in the center of Asia Minor, and, when that was
finally overthrown (1486), Persia, whose hostility was inflamed
by differences of sect. The conquest of the Greek Empire was achieved
by Mohammed. Matthias Corvinus (1458-1493), the successor
of Hunyady, was the greatest of the kings of Hungary, and
defended the line of the Danube against the Turkish assaults. For
twenty-three years Scanderbeg, the intrepid Prince of
Albania, repulsed all the attacks of the Moslems. It was not
until ten years after his death (1467) that his principal stronghold
was surrendered to the invaders. The attacks on the Venetians have
already been mentioned, as well as the capture of
Otranto. Bajazet II. was more inclined to study than to
war: his brother Djem, who tried to supplant him, passed as a
prisoner into the hands of Pope Alexander VI. An annual tribute
was paid by the Sultan for keeping him from coming back to Turkey; and
when, at last, he was released, rumor declared that he had been
poisoned. Selim I. (1512-1520) entered anew on the path of
conquest. He defeated the Persians, and made the Tigris his
eastern boundary. He annexed to his empire Mesopotamia,
Syria, and Egypt. The Sultan now became the commander of
the faithful, the inheritor of the prophetic as well as military
leadership. The conquest of Alexandria by Selim (1517)
inflicted a mortal blow on the commerce of Venice, by
intercepting its communication with the Orient. The despotic domination
of Selim stretched from the Danube to the Euphrates, and from
the Adriatic to the cataracts of the Nile. Such was the empire which
the Ottoman conqueror handed down to his son, Soliman I. the
Magnificent (1520-1566). Mohammed II. and Selim were the
two conquerors by whom the Ottoman Empire was built up. Each of them
combined with an iron will and revolting cruelty a taste for science
and poetry, and the genius of a ruler. They take rank among the most
eminent tyrants in Asiatic history. While they were spreading their
dominion far and wide, the popes and the sovereigns of the West did
nothing more effectual than to debate upon the means of confronting so
great a danger.
RUSSIA.
IVAN III, Vassilievitch, 1462-1505, m.
Sophia, daughter of Thomas Palaeologus,
brother of Emperor Constantine XIII.
|
+—BASIL IV, 1505-1533.
|
+—IVAN IV,[1] 1533-1584,
| m.
| +—Anastasia
| |
| | HOUSE OF ROMANOFF
| |
| +—Nicetas.
| |
| +—Mary [4] (Marta the Nun), m.
| Theodore (Philaret the Metropolitan).
| |
| +—MICHAEL, 1613-1645.
| |
| +—ALEXIS, 1645-1676.
| |
| +—THEODORE, 1676-1682.
| |
| +—IVAN V, 1682-1689, resigned; d. 1696.
| | |
| | +—ANNA, 1730-1740.
| | |
| | +—Catharine m. Charles Leopold,
| | Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
| | |
| | +—Anna, m. Antony Ulric, son of
| | Ferdinand Albert II,
| | of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel.
| | |
| | +—IVAN VI, 1740-1741, deposed.
| |
| +—PETER I (the Great) 1689-1725, m.
| (1), Eudocia;
| |
| +—Alexis, executed 1718. m.
| Charlotte, d. of Lewis Rudolph,
| Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel
| |
| +—PETER II, 1727-1730.
|
| (2), CATHARINE I, 1725-1727.
| |
| +—Anna, d. 1738, m.
| | Charles Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp.
| | |
| | +—PETER III, January-July, 1762
| | (deposed, and died soon after) m.
| | CATHERINE II of Anhalt, 1762-1796.
| | |
| | +—PAUL, 1796-1801.
| | |
| | +—ALEXANDER I, 1801-1825.
| | |
| | +—NICHOLAS, 1825-1855, m.
| | Charlotte, daughter of Frederick
| | William III of Prussia.
| | |
| | +—ALEXANDER II, 1855-1881, m.
| | Mary of Hesse Darmstadt.
| | |
| | +—ALEXANDER III, 1881- m.
| | Mary (Dagmar), daughter
| | of Christian IX of Denmark
| |
| +—ELIZABETH, 1741-1762.
|
+—THEODORE, 1584-1598.
m.
+—Irene,[2]
|
+—BORIS, Godounof, [3] 1598-1605.
1 First Czar.
2 Declined the crown on Theodore's death, which was seized by her
brother.
3 Succeeded by an imposter pretending to be Demetrius, son of Ivan
IV, who reigned for one year; then Basil V, 1606-1610; then chaos
until 1613.
4 Said to be a descendent of the old royal house.
[Mainly from George's Genealogical Tables.]
VII. RUSSIA.
RUSSIA: IVAN III.—For two centuries Russia paid tribute to the Tartar
conquerors in the South, the "Golden Horde" (p. 283). The liberator of
his people from this yoke was Ivan III.,—Ivan the
Great,—(1462-1505). In the period when the nations of the West were
becoming organized, Russia escaped from its servitude, and made
some beginnings of intellectual progress. Ivan was a cold and
calculating man, who preferred to negotiate rather than to fight; but
he inflicted savage punishments, and even "his glance caused women to
faint." He was able to subdue the rich trading-city of Novgorod
(1478), which had been connected with the Hanseatic League, and where a
party endeavored to bring to pass a union with Poland. He
conquered unknown frozen districts in the North, and smaller
princedoms, including Tver, in the interior. The empire of the
Horde was so broken up that Ivan achieved an almost
bloodless triumph, which made Russia free. In wars with
Lithuania, Western Russia was reconquered up to the
Soja. Ivan married Sophia Palæologus, a niece of
the last Christian emperor of the East. She taught him "to penetrate
the secret of autocracy." Numerous Greek emigrants of different arts
and professions came to Moscow. Ivan took for the new arms of
Russia the two-headed eagle of the Byzantine Cæsars, and thenceforward
Russia looked on herself as the heir of the Eastern Empire. The Russian
metropolitan, called afterwards Patriarch, was now elected by
Russian bishops. Moscow became "the metropolis of orthodoxy,"
and as such the protector of Greek Christians in the East. Ivan
laid out in the city the fortified inclosure styled the
Kremlin. He brought into the country German and Italian
mechanics. It was he who founded the greatness of Russia. Vassali
Ivanovitch (1505-1533), his son, continued the struggle with
Lithuania, and acquired Smolensk (1514). He exchanged
embassies with most of the sovereigns of the West.
IVAN IV. (1533-1584).—Ivan IV., Ivan the Terrible, first took
the title of Czar, since attached to "the Autocrat of all the
Russias." It was the name that was given, in the Slavonian books which
he read, to the ancient kings and emperors of the East and of
Rome. Moscow was now to be a third Rome, the successor of
Constantinople. Ivan conquered the Tartar principalities
of Kazan and Astrakhan in the South, and extended his
dominion to the Caucasus. The Volga, through its entire course,
was now a Russian river. He brought German mechanics into Russia,
established printing-presses, and made a commercial treaty with Queen
Elizabeth, whom he invited to an alliance against Poland
and Sweden. It was in this reign (1581-1582) that a brigand
chief, Irmak by name (a Cossack, in the service of the Czar),
crossed the Urals with a few hundred followers, and made the
conquest of the vast region of Siberia, then under the dominion
of the Tartars. Ivan sent thither bishops and priests. He had to
cede Livonia to the Swedes, who, with their allies were
too strong to be overcome. In Russia, he put down the
aristocracy, and crushed all resistance to his personal rule. Whatever
tyranny and cruelty this result cost, it prevented Russia from
becoming an anarchic kingdom like Poland. Ivan, by forming the
national guard of streltsi or strelitz, laid the
foundation of a standing army. In his personal conduct, brutal and
sensual practices alternated with exercises of piety. In a fit of
wrath, he struck his son Ivan a fatal blow, and in consequence
was overwhelmed with sorrow. After a short reign of his second son,
Feodor (1584-1598), who was weak in mind and body, the throne
was usurped by one of the aristocracy, the able and ambitious regent,
Boris Godounof (1598-1605).
THE COSSACKS.—These were brought into subjection by Ivan IV.
and his successors. They were robber hordes of mixed origin, partly
Tartar and partly Russian. Their abodes were near the rapids of the
Dnieper, and on the Don, and at the foot of the
Caucasus. They were fierce warriors, and did a great service to
Russia in subduing the wild nomad tribes on the north and east of the
regions where the Cossacks dwelt.
TIMES OF TROUBLE.—After the death of Boris Godounof, two
pretenders, one after the other, each assuming to be Demetrius,
the younger son of Ivan,—a son who had been put to death,—
seized on power. This was rendered possible by the mutual strife of
Russian factions, and by the help afforded to the impostors by the
Poles. Sigismund III., king of Poland, openly espoused
the cause of the second Demetrius. Moscow was forced to
surrender (1610); and the czar whom the nobles had enthroned, Basil
V., died in a Polish prison. These events gave rise to a lasting
enmity between the two Slavonic nations. In 1611 the Poles were
driven out by a national rising, which led to the elevation to the
throne of Michael Romanoff (1613-1645), the founder of the
present dynasty of czars. Peace was concluded with Gustavus
Adolphus of Sweden, and with the Poles. Commercial treaties were
made with foreign nations. In Russia there was a great increase of
internal prosperity.
SERFDOM IN RUSSIA.—The lower classes in Russia consisted of three
divisions: 1. Slaves, captives taken in war, who were bought and
sold. 2. The inscribed peasants, who were attached to the soil
and became serfs. They belonged to the commune, or
village, which held the land, and as a unit paid to the lord his
dues. They made up the bulk of the rural population. The peasant was
an arbitrary master, a little czar in his own family. 3. The free
laborers, who could change their masters, but who soon fell into the
rank of serfs. While the higher classes in Russia advanced, the
condition of the rustics for several centuries continued to grow
worse.
RUSSIAN SOCIETY.—The great nobles kept in their castles a host of
servants. These were slaves, subject to the caprices of their
master. Russian women were kept in seclusion. There was an Asiatic
stamp imprinted on civil and social life. "Thanks to the general
ignorance, there was no intellectual life in Russia: thanks to the
seclusion of women, there was no society." By degrees intercourse with
Western Europe was destined to soften, in some particulars, the harsh
outlines of this picture.
VIII. FRENCH INVASIONS OF ITALY.
EFFECT OF ABSOLUTE MONARCHY.—The establishment of absolute monarchy in
Western Europe placed the resources of the nations at the service of
their respective kings. The desire of national aggrandizement led to
great European wars, which took the place of the feudal conflicts of a
former day. These wars began with the invasion of Italy by
Charles VIII., king of France.
MOTIVES OF THE INVASION.—To this unwise enterprise Charles
VIII. was impelled by a romantic dream of conquest, which was not
to be limited to the Italian peninsula. He intended to attack the
Turks afterward, and to establish once more, under his
protection, a Latin kingdom at Jerusalem. His counselors could not
dissuade him from the hazardous undertaking. In order to set his hands
free, he made treaties that were disadvantageous to France with
Henry VII., Maximilian, and Ferdinand the
Catholic. He was invited to cross the Alps by Ludovico il Moro
(p. 374), by the Neapolitan barons, by all the enemies of Pope
Alexander VI. The special ground of the invasion was the claim of
the French king, through the house of Anjou, to the throne of
Naples. In 1494 Charles crossed the Alps with a large army, and,
with the support of Ludovico, advanced from Milan,
through Florence and Rome to Naples. When he was
crowned he wore the imperial insignia as if pretending to the Empire of
the East also. The rapid progress of the French power alarmed the Pope
and the other princes, including Ludovico himself, who was
afraid that the king might cast a covetous eye on his own
principality. A formidable league was formed against Charles,
including, besides the Italian princes, Ferdinand,
Maximilian, and Henry VII. of England. It was the first
European combination against France. Charles left eleven
thousand men under Gilbert de Montpensier, at Naples; and
after being exposed to much peril, although he won a victory at
Fornovo (1495), he made his way back to France. Ferdinand
II., aided by Spanish troops, expelled the French from Naples; and
the remnant of their garrisons, after the death of Montpensier, was led
back to France. The conquests of Charles were lost as speedily as they
were gained. His great expedition proved a failure.
DEATH OF SAVONAROLA.—Civil strife continued in the Italian
states. Savonarola had been excommunicated by Alexander VI. The
combination of parties against him was too strong to be overcome by
his supporters, and he was put to death in 1498.
LOUIS XII. (1498-1515): HIS FIRST ITALIAN WAR.—On the death of
Charles VIII., who left no male children, the crown reverted to
his nearest relative, Louis of Orleans. He entered once more on
the aggressive enterprise begun by his predecessor. He laid claim not
only to the rights of Charles VIII. at Naples, but also claimed
Milan through his grandmother Valentine Visconti. In
alliance with Venice, and with Florence to which he
promised Pisa, then in revolt against the detested Florentine
supremacy, and with the support of Cæsar Borgia, he entered
Italy, and defeated Ludovico il Moro at Novara
(1500). Ludovico had before been driven out of Milan by the
French, but had regained the city. He was imprisoned in France; and on
his release twelve years afterward, he died from joy. Louis
bargained with Ferdinand the Catholic to divide with him the
Neapolitan kingdom. Ferdinand, the king of Naples, was thus
dethroned. But Ferdinand of Spain was as treacherous in
his dealing with Louis as he had been in relation to his
Neapolitan namesake; and the kingdom fell into the hands of Gonsalvo
de Cordova, the Spanish general.
THE SECOND ITALIAN WAR OF LOUIS.—Anxious for revenge, Louis
sent two armies over the Pyrenees, which failed of success, and a third
army into Italy under La Trémoille, which was defeated by
Gonsalvo, notwithstanding the gallantry of Bayard, the
pattern of chivalry, the French knight "without fear and without
reproach."
THE THIRD ITALIAN WAR OF LOUIS.—The third Italian war of Louis
began in 1507, and lasted eight years. It includes the history of the
League of Cambray, and also of the anti-French League
subsequently formed. France was barely saved from great calamities in
consequence of foolish treaties, three in number, made at Blois
in 1504. The party of the queen, Anne of Brittany, secured the
betrothal of Claude, the child of Louis XII., to
Charles of Austria, afterwards Charles V., the son of
Philip, with the promise of Burgundy and Brittany as her
dowry. The arrangement was repudiated by the estates of France
(1506). Claude was betrothed to Francis of Angoulême, the
king's nearest male relative, and the heir of the French crown. On the
marriage of Ferdinand to Germaine of Foix, Louis
agreed to give up his claims on Naples. The sufferings of Italy
had redounded to the advantage of Venice. Among her other gains,
she had annexed certain towns in the Romagna which fell into
anarchy at the expulsion of Cæsar Borgia. The energetic Pope,
Julius II., organized a combination, the celebrated League of
Cambray (1508), between himself, the Emperor Maximilian, the
kings of France and of Aragon: its object was the humbling of
Venice, and the division of her mainland possessions among the
partners in the League.
ENGLAND.—THE TUDORS AND STUARTS.
HENRY VII, 1485-1509, m. Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV.
|
+—Margaret, m. James IV of Scotland.
| |
| +—James V.
| |
| +—Mary, Queen of Scots.
| |
| +—JAMES I, 1603-1625, m.
| Anne, daughter of Frederick II of Denmark.
| |
| +—3, CHARLES I, 1625-1649, m.
| | Henrietta Maria, daughter of Henry IV of France.
| | |
| | +—CHARLES II, 1660-1685, m.
| | | Catharine, daughter of John IV of Portugal.
| | |
| | +—Mary, m. William II, Prince of Orange.
| | | |
| | | +—WILLIAM III, 1688-1702.
| | | m.
| | | +—MARY, d. 1694
| | | |
| | +—JAMES II, 1685-1688 (deposed, d. 1701),
| | m. Anne Hyde, daughter of Earl of Clarendon.
| | |
| | +—ANNE, 1702-1714, m.
| | George, son of Frederick III of Denmark.
| |
| +—2, Elizabeth, m. Frederick V, Elector Palatine.
| |
| +—Sophia, m. Ernest Augustus,
| Elector of Hanover.
| |
| +—GEORGE I, succeeded 1714.
|
+—HENRY VIII, 1509-1547, m.,
| 1. Catharine, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella;
| 2, Anne Boleyn;
| 3. Jane Seymour;
| 4. Anne, sister of William, Duke of Cleves;
| 5. Catharine Howard;
| 6. Catharine Parr.
| |
| +—3, EDWARD VI, 1547-1553.
| |
| +—1, MARY, 1553-1558, m. Philip II of Spain.
| |
| +—2, ELIZABETH, 1558-1603.
|
+—Mary, m.
1, Louis XII of France;
2, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk.
|
+—Frances, m. Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk.
|
+—Jane (m. Guilford Dudley), executed 1554.
A fine army of Louis, composed of French, Lombards, and Swiss,
crossed the Adda, and routed the Venetians, who abandoned all
their towns outside of Venice. Each of the other confederate powers now
seized the places which it desired. France, mistress of Milan,
was at the height of her power. The Venetians, however, retook
Padua from the emperor. The Pope made peace with them, and,
fired with the spirit of Italian patriotism, organized a new league for
the expulsion of the French—"the barbarians," as he called them—from
the country. Old man as he was, he took the field himself in the dead
of winter. He was defeated, and went to Rome. Louis convoked a
council at Pisa, which was to depose Julius. A Holy
League was formed between the Pope, Venice, Ferdinand of
Aragon, and Henry VIII. of England. The arms of the French under
Gaston of Foix, the young duke of Nemours, were for a while
successful. Ravenna was in their hands. But Gaston fell
at the moment of victory. The Swiss came down, and established
Maximilian Sforza at Milan. Leo X., of the house of
Medici, and hostile to France, was chosen Pope (1513). The
French troops were defeated by the Swiss near Novara, and driven
beyond the Alps. France was attacked on the north by the English, with
Maximilian, who had joined the League in 1513: and Bayard
was taken captive. James IV. of Scotland, who had made a
diversion in favor of France, was beaten and slain at Flodden
Field (1513). The eastern borders of France were attacked by the
Swiss Leagues, who, aided by Austrians, penetrated as far
as Dijon. They were bought off by La Trémoille the French
commander, by a large payment of money, and by still more lavish
promises. France concluded peace with the Pope, the emperor, and the
king of Aragon (1514), and in the next year with Henry VIII.,
whose sister, Mary, Louis XII. married, a few months after the
death of Anne of Brittany. He abandoned his pretensions to the
Milanese, in favor of his younger daughter Renée, the wife of
Hercules II., the duke of Ferrara. Louis died (1515),
shortly after his marriage. The policy of the belligerent pontiff,
Julius II., had triumphed. The French were expelled from Italy,
but the Spaniards were left all the stronger.
The events just narrated bring us into the midst of the struggles and
ambitions of ruling houses, diplomatic intercourse among states, and
international wars. These are distinguishing features of modern times.
CHAPTER II. INVENTION AND DISCOVERY: THE RENAISSANCE.
We have glanced at the new life of Europe in its political
manifestations. We have now to view this new life in other relations:
we have to inquire how it acted as a stimulus to intellectual
effort in different directions.
The term Renaissance is frequently applied at present not only
to the "new birth" of art and letters, but to all the characteristics,
taken together, of the period of transition from the Middle Ages to
modern life. The transformation in the structure and policy of states,
the passion for discovery, the dawn of a more scientific method of
observing man and nature, the movement towards more freedom of
intellect and of conscience, are part and parcel of one comprehensive
change,—a change which even now has not reached its goal. It was not
so much "the arts and the inventions, the knowledge and the books,
which suddenly became vital at the time of the Renaissance," that
created the new epoch: it was "the intellectual energy, the spontaneous
outburst of intelligence, which enabled mankind at that moment to make
use of them."
INVENTIONS: GUNPOWDER.—In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
there were brought into practical use several inventions most important
in their results to civilization. Of these the principal were
gunpowder, the mariner's compass, and printing by
movable types. Gunpowder was not first made by Schwartz,
a monk of Freiburg, as has often been asserted. We have notices,
more or less obscure, of the use of an explosive material resembling
it, among the Chinese, among the Indians in the East as
early as Alexander the Great, and among the Arabs. It was
first brought into use in firearms in the middle of the fourteenth
century. The effect was to make infantry an effective force, and to
equalize combatants, since a peasant could handle a gun as well as a
knight. Another consequence has been to mitigate the brutalizing
influence of war on the soldiery, by making it less a hand-to-hand
encounter, an encounter with swords and spears, attended with
bloodshed, and kindling personal animosity; and by rendering it
possible to hold in custody large numbers of captives, whose lives,
therefore, can be spared.
THE COMPASS.—The properties of the magnetic needle were not first
applied to navigation, as has been thought, by Flavio Gioja, but
long before his time, as early as the twelfth century, the compass came
into general use. Navigation was no longer confined to the
Mediterranean and to maritime coasts. The sailor could push out into
the ocean without losing himself on its boundless waste.
PRINTING.—Printing, which had been done to some extent by wooden
blocks, was probably first done with movable types (about 1450) by
John Gutenberg, who was born at Meniz, but who lived long
at Strasburg. He was furnished with capital by an associate,
Faust, and worked in company with a skillful copyist of
manuscripts, Schöffer. Gutenberg brought the art to such
perfection, that in 1456 a complete Latin Bible was printed. Within a
short time, printing-presses were set up in all the principal cities of
Germany and Italy. As an essential concomitant, linen and
cotton paper came into vogue in the room of the costly
parchment. Books were no longer confined to the rich. Despite the
censorship of the press, thought traveled from city to city and from
land to land. It was a sign of a new era, that Maximilian in
Germany and Louis XI. in France founded a postal system.
NEW ROUTE TO INDIA.—The discovery by the Portuguese of the
islands of Porto Santo and Madeira (1419-1420), of the
Canary Islands and of the Azores, was followed by their
discovery of the coast of Upper Guinea, with its gold-dust,
ivory, and gums (1445). The Pope, to whom was accorded the right to
dispose of the heathen and of newly discovered lands, granted to the
Portuguese the possession of these regions, and of whatever discoveries
they should make as far as India. From Lower Guinea (Congo),
Bartholomew Diaz reached the southern point of Africa (1486),
which King John II. named the Cape of Good Hope. Then,
under Emanuel the Great (1495-1521), Vasco da Gama found
the way to East India, round the Cape, by sailing over the
Indian Ocean to the coast of Malabar, and into the harbor of
Calicut (1498). The Portuguese encountered the resistance of the
Mohammedans to their settlement; but by their valor and persistency,
especially by the agency of their leaders Almeida and the brave
Albuquerque, their trading-posts were established on the coast.
DISCOVERY OF AMERICA.—The grand achievement in maritime exploration in
this age was the discovery of America by Christopher
Columbus, a native of Genoa. The conviction that India could
be reached by sailing in a westerly direction took possession of his
mind. Having sought in vain for the patronage of John II. of
Portugal, and having sent his brother Bartholomew to apply for
aid from Henry VII. of England, he was at length furnished with
three ships by Queen Isabella of Castile, to whom Granada had
just submitted (1492). Columbus was to have the station of grand
admiral and viceroy over the lands to be discovered, with a tenth part
of the incomes to be drawn from them, and the rank of a nobleman for
himself and his posterity. The story of an open mutiny on his vessels
does not rest on sufficient proof: that there were alarm and discontent
among the sailors, may well be believed. On the 11th of October,
Columbus thought that he discovered a light in the distance. At
two o'clock in the morning of Oct. 12, a sailor on the Pinta
espied the dim outline of the beach, and shouted, "Land, land!" It was
an island called Guanahani, named by Columbus, in honor of
Jesus, San Salvador. Its beauty and productiveness excited
admiration; but neither here nor on the large islands of Cuba
(or Juana) and Hayti (Hispaniola), which were
discovered soon after, were there found the gold and precious stones
which the navigators and their patrons at home so eagerly
desired. Columbus built a fort on the island of
Hispaniola, and founded a colony. The name of West Indies
was applied to the new lands. Columbus lived and died in the
belief that the region which he discovered belonged to India. Of an
intermediate continent, and of an ocean beyond it, he did not
dream. The Pope granted to Ferdinand and Isabella all the
newly discovered regions of America, from a line stretching one hundred
leagues west of the Azores. Afterwards Ferdinand allowed
to the king of Portugal that the line should run three hundred and
seventy, instead of one hundred, leagues west of these islands. In two
subsequent voyages (1493-1496, 1498-1500), Columbus discovered
Jamaica and the Little Antilles, the Caribbean
Islands, and finally the mainland at the mouths of the Orinoco
(1498). In 1497 John Cabot, a Venetian captain living in
England, while in quest of a north-west passage to India, touched at
Cape Breton, and followed the coast of North America
southward for a distance of nine hundred miles. Shortly after,
Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine, employed first by Spain
and then by Portugal, explored in several voyages the coast of
South America. The circumstance that his full descriptions were
published (1504) caused the name of America, first at the
suggestion of the printer, to be attached to the new world.
LATER VOYAGES OF COLUMBUS.—On his return from his first voyage,
Columbus was received with distinguished honors by the Spanish
sovereigns. But he suffered from plots caused by envy, both on the
islands and at court. Once he was sent home in fetters by
Bobadilla, a commissioner appointed by Ferdinand. He was
exonerated from blame, but the promises which had been made to him were
not fulfilled. A fourth voyage was not attended by the success in
discovery which he had hoped for, and the last two years of his life
were weary and sad. Isabella had died; and in 1506 the great
explorer, who with all his other virtues combined a sincere piety,
followed her to the tomb.
THE PACIFIC.—The spirit of adventure, the hunger for wealth and
especially for the precious metals, and zeal for the conversion of the
heathen, were the motives which combined in different proportions to
set on foot exploring and conquering expeditions to the unknown regions
of the West. The exploration of the North-American coast, begun
by John Cabot (perhaps also by his son), and the Portuguese
Cortereal (1501), continued from Labrador to
Florida. In 1513 Balboa, a Spaniard at Darien,
fought his way to a height on the Isthmus of Panama, whence he
descried the Pacific Ocean. Descending to the shore, and riding
into the water up to his thighs, in the name of the king he took
possession of the sea. In 1520 Magellan, a Portuguese captain,
sailed round the southern cape of America, and over the ocean to
which he gave the name of Pacific. He made his way to the
East Indies, but was killed on one of the Philippine
Islands, leaving it to his companions to finish the voyage around
the globe. A little later the Spaniards added first Mexico, and
then Peru, to their dominions.
CONQUEST OF MEXICO.—The Spanish conqueror of Mexico, the land of the
Aztecs, was Hernando Cortes (1485-1547). The principal
king in that country was Montezuma, whose empire was extensive,
with numerous cities, and with no inconsiderable advancement in arts
and industry. From Santiago, in 1519, Cortes conducted an
expedition composed of seven hundred Spaniards, founded Vera
Cruz, where he left a small garrison, subdued the tribe of
Tlascalans who joined him, and was received by Montezuma
into the city of Mexico. Cortes made him a prisoner in
his own palace, and seized his capital. The firearms and the horses of
the Spaniards struck the natives with dismay. Nevertheless, they made a
stout resistance. To add to the difficulties of the shrewd and valiant
leader, a Spanish force was sent from the West Indies, under
Narvaez, to supplant him. This force he defeated, and captured
their chief. In 1520 Cortes gained over the Mexicans, at
Otumba, a victory which was decisive in its consequences. The
city of Mexico was recaptured (1521); for Montezuma had
been slain by his own people, and the Spaniards driven
out. Guatimozin, the new king, was taken prisoner and put to
death, and the country was subdued. Cortes put an end to the
horrid religious rites of the Mexicans, which included human
sacrifices. Becoming an object of jealousy and dread at home, he was
recalled (1528). Afterwards he visited the peninsula of
California, and ruled for a time in Mexico, but with
diminished authority.
CONQUEST OF PERU.—The conquest of Peru was effected by
Francisco Pizarro, and Almagro, both illiterate
adventurers, equally daring with Cortes, but more cruel and
unscrupulous. The Peruvians were of a mild character,
prosperous, and not uncivilized, and without the savage religious
system of the Mexicans. They had their walled cities and their spacious
temples. The empire of the Incas, as the rulers were called, was
distracted by a civil war between two brothers, who shared the
kingdom. Pizarro captured one of them, Atahualpa, and
basely put him to death after he had provided the ransom agreed upon,
amounting to more than $17,500,000 in gold (1533). Pizarro
founded Lima, near the sea-coast (1535). Almagro and
Pizarro fell out with each other, and the former was defeated
and beheaded. The land and its inhabitants were allotted among the
conquerors as the spoils of victory. The horrible oppression of the
people excited insurrections. At length Charles V. sent out
Pedro de la Gasca as viceroy (1541), at a time when Gonzalo
Pizarro, the last of the family, held sway. Gonzalo perished
on the gallows. Gasca reduced the government to an orderly
system.
THE AMAZON.—Orellena, an officer of Pizarro, in 1541
first descended the river Amazon to the Atlantic. His fabulous
descriptions of an imaginary El Dorado, whose capital with its
dazzling treasures he pretended to have seen, inflamed other explorers,
and prompted to new enterprises. The cupidity of the Spaniards, and
their eagerness for knightly warfare, made the New World, with its
floral beauty and mineral riches, a most enticing field for
adventure. To devout missionaries, to the monastic orders especially,
the new regions were not less inviting. They followed in the wake of
the Spanish conquerors and viceroys.
REVIVAL OF LEARNING.—The stirring period of invention and of maritime
discovery was also the period of "the revival of learning." Italy was
the main center and source of this intellectual movement, which
gradually spread over the other countries of Western Europe. There was
a thirst for a wider range of study and of culture than the
predominantly theological writings and training of the Middle Ages
afforded. The minds of men turned for stimulus and nutriment to the
ancient classical authors. Petrarch, the Italian poet
(1304-1374), did much to foster this new spirit. In the fifteenth
century the more active intercourse with the Greek Church, and the
efforts at union with it, helped to bring into Italy learned Greeks,
like Chrysoloras and Bessarion, and numerous manuscripts
of Greek authors. The fall of Constantinople increased this
influx of Greek learning. The new studies were fostered by the Italian
princes, who vied with one another in their zeal for collecting the
precious literary treasures of antiquity, and in the liberal patronage
of the students of classical literature. The manuscripts of the Latin
writers, preserved in the monasteries of the West, were likewise
eagerly sought for. The most eminent of the patrons of learning were
the Medici of Florence. Cosmo founded a library and a
Platonic academy. All the writings of Plato were translated by
one of that philosopher's admiring disciples, Marsilius
Ficinus. Dictionaries and grammars, versions and commentaries, for
instruction in classical learning, were multiplied. These, with the
ancient poets, philosophers, and orators themselves, were diffused far
and wide by means of the new art of printing, and from presses, of
which the Aldine—that of Aldus Minutius—at
Venice was the most famous. "By the side of the Church, which
had hitherto held the countries of the West together (though it was
unable to do so much longer) there arose a new spiritual influence,
which, spreading itself abroad from Italy, became the breath of life
for all the more instructed minds in Europe."
CONTEST OF THE NEW AND THE OLD CULTURE.—In Germany, the new learning
gained a firm foothold. But there, as elsewhere, the Humanists,
as its devotees were called, had a battle to fight with the votaries
of the mediæval type of culture, who, largely on theological grounds,
objected to the new culture, and were stigmatized as "obscurantists."
In Italy, the study of the ancient heathen writers had engendered, or
at least been accompanied by, much religious skepticism and
indifference. This, however, was not the case in Germany. But the
champions of the scholastic method and system, in which logic and
divinity, as handled by the schoolmen, were the principal thing, were
strenuously averse to the linguistic and literary studies which
threatened to supplant them. The advocates of the new studies derided
the lack of learning, the barbarous style, and fine-spun distinctions
of the schoolmen, who had once been the intellectual masters. The
disciples of Aristotle and of the schoolmen still had a strong
hold in Paris, Cologne, and other universities. But
certain universities, like Tübingen and Heidelberg, let
in the humanistic studies. In 1502 Frederick, the elector of
Saxony, founded a university at Wittenberg, in which from the
outset they were prominent. In England, the cause of learning
found ardent encouragement, and had able representatives in such men
as Colet, dean of St. Paul's, who founded St. Paul's School at
his own expense; and in Thomas More, the author of
Utopia, afterwards lord chancelor under Henry VIII.
REUCHLIN: ULRICH VON HUTTEN.—A leader of humanism in Germany was
John Reuchlin (1455-1522), an erudite scholar, who studied Greek
at Paris and Basel, mingled with Politian, Pica de
Mirandola, and other famous scholars at Florence, and wrote
a Hebrew as well as a Greek grammar. This distinguished humanist became
involved in a controversy with the Dominicans of Cologne,
who wished to burn all the Hebrew literature except the Old
Testament. The Humanists all rallied in support of their chief, to whom
heresy was imputed, and their success in this wide-spread conflict
helped forward their cause. Ulrich von Hutten, one of the young
knights who belonged to the literary school, and others of the same
class, made effective use, against their illiterate antagonists, of the
weapons of satire and ridicule.
ERASMUS.—The prince of the Humanists was Desiderius Erasmus
(1467-1536). No literary man has ever enjoyed a wider fame during his
own lifetime. He was not less resplendent for his wit than for his
learning. Latin was then the vehicle of intercourse among the
educated. In that tongue the books of Erasmus were written, and
they were eagerly read in all the civilized countries. He studied
theology in Paris; lived for a number of years in
England, where, in company with More and Colet, he
fostered the new studies; and finally took up his abode at
Basel. In early youth, against his will, he had been for a while
an inmate of a cloister. The idleness, ignorance, self-indulgence, and
artificial austerities, which frequently belonged to the degenerate
monasticism of the day, furnished him with engaging themes of
satire. But in his Praise of Folly, and in his
Colloquies, the two most diverting of his productions, he lashes
the foibles and sins of many other classes, among whom kings and popes
are not spared. By such works as his editions of the Church Fathers,
and his edition of the Greek Testament, as well as by his multifarious
correspondence, he exerted a powerful influence in behalf of
culture. If he incurred the hostility of the conservative Churchmen, he
still adhered to the Roman communion, and won unbounded applause from
the advocates of liberal studies and of practical religious reforms.
LITERATURE IN ITALY.—The first effect of the revival of letters in
Italy was to check original production in literature. The charm of the
ancient authors who were brought out of their tombs, the belles-lettres
studies, and the criticism awakened by them, naturally had this effect
for a time. Italy had two great authors in the vernacular, the poet
Ariosto (1474-1533), and Machiavelli: it had, besides,
one famous historian, Guicciardini (1482-1540).
RENAISSANCE OF ART.—This period was not simply an era of grand
exploration and discovery, and of the new birth of letters: it was the
brilliant dawn of a new era in art. Sculpture and painting broke loose
from their subordination to Church architecture. Painting, especially,
attained to a far richer development.
ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE.—In architecture and sculpture, the
influence of the antique styles was potent. Under the auspices of
Brunelleschi (1377-1446), the Pitti Palace and other
edifices of a like kind had been erected at Florence. At
Rome, Bramante (who died in 1515), and, in particular,
Michael Angelo (1475-1564), who was a master in the three arts
of painting, sculpture, and architecture, and a poet as well, were most
influential. The great Florentine artist Ghiberti (1378-1455),
in the bronze gates of the Baptistery, exhibited the perfection of
bas-relief. The highest power of Michael Angelo, as a sculptor,
is seen in his statue of Moses at Rome, and in the sepulchers of Julian
and Lorenzo de Medici at Florence. A student of his works,
Cellini (1500-1571) is one of the men of genius of that day,
who, like his master, was eminently successful in different branches of
art. In the same period, there were sculptors of high talent in
Germany, especially at Nuremberg, where Adam Kraft
(1429-1507), and Peter Vischer (1435-1529), whose skill is seen
in the bronze tomb of Sebaldus, in the church of that saint, are
the most eminent. After the death of Michael Angelo, in Italy
there was a decline in the style of sculpture, which became less noble
and more affected.
PAINTING IN ITALY.—The ancients had less influence on the schools of
painting than on sculpture. In painting, as we have seen, Giotto
(1266-1337), a contemporary of the poet Dante, and
Cimabue (who died about 1302), had led the way. The art of
perspective was mastered; and real life, more or less idealized, was
the subject of delineation. In Italy, there arose various distinct
styles or schools. The Florentine school reached its height of
attainment in the majestic works of Michael Angelo, the frescos
of the Sistine Chapel at Rome. The Roman school is best seen in
the stanzas of the Vatican, by Raphael (1483-1520), and
in the ideal harmony and beauty of his Madonnas. Prior to Michael
Angelo and Raphael, there was the symbolic religious art of the
Umbrian painters. Of these, the chief was Fra Angelico
(1387-1455), the devout monk who transferred to the canvas the
tenderness and fervor of his own gentle spirit. The Venetian
school, with its richness of color, has left splendid examples of its
power in the portraits of Titian (1477-1576), the works of
Paul Veronese (who died in 1588), and the more passionate
products of the pencil of Tintoretto (who died in 1594). The
Lombard school has for its representatives the older
contemporary of Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519),
who combines perfection of outward form with deep spirituality, and by
whom The Last Supper was painted on the wall of the cloister at
Milan; and Correggio (1494-1534), whose play of tender
sensibility, and skill in the contrasts of light and shade in color,
are exhibited in The Night, or Worship of the Magi (at
Dresden), and in his frescos at Parma. The school of
Bologna, founded by the three Caracci, numbers in its
ranks Guido Rent (1575-1642), gifted with imagination and
sensibility, and Salvator Rosa (1615-1673), who depicted the
more wild and somber aspects of nature and of life.
MICHAEL ANGELO AND RAPHAEL.—The two foremost names in the history of
Italian art are Michael Angelo and Raphael. "If there is
one man who is a more striking representative of the Renaissance than
any of his contemporaries, it is Michael Angelo. In him character is
on a par with genius. His life of almost a century, and marvelously
active, is spotless. As an artist, we can not believe that he can be
surpassed. He unites in his wondrous individuality the two master
faculties, which are, so to speak, the poles of human nature, whose
combination in the same individual creates the sovereign greatness of
the Tuscan school,—invention and judgment,—a vast and fiery
imagination, directed by a method precise, firm, and safe." Raphael
lacks the grandeur and the many-sided capacity of the great master by
whom he was much influenced. Raphael "had a nature which converted
every thing to beauty." He produced in a short life an astonishing
number of works of unequal merit; but to all of them he imparted a
peculiar charm, derived from "an instinct for beauty, which was his
true genius."
PAINTING IN THE NETHERLANDS.—In the Netherlands, a school of painting
arose under the brothers Van Eyck (1366-1426, 1386-1440). One
of them, John, was the first artist to paint in oil. At a later
day, a class of painters, of whom Rubens (1577-1640) is the
most distinguished, followed more the track of the ancients and of the
Italian school. These belonged to Flanders and Brabant;
while in Holland a school sprang up of a more original and
independent cast, in which genius of the highest order was manifested
in the person of Rembrandt (1607-1669), its most eminent
master.
PAINTING IN GERMANY AND FRANCE.—In Germany, a school marked by
peculiarities of its own was represented by Hans Holbein (who
died in 1543), and by Albert Dürer the Nuremberg artist
(1471-1528). In Spain, Murillo (1617-1682) combined inspiration
with technical skill, and stands on a level with the renowned
Italians. Velasquez (1599-1660), an artist of extraordinary
power, is most distinguished for his portraits. The French artists
mostly followed the Italian styles. Claude Lorraine (1600-1682)
was the painter of landscapes that are luminous in sunlight and
atmosphere. In England, the humorous Hogarth (1697-1764) was
much later.
MUSIC.—Music shared in the prosperity of the sister arts. The
interest awakened in its improvement paved the way in Italy for
Palestrina (1514-1594), whose genius and labors constitute an
epoch. In Germany, Luther became one of the most efficient
promoters of musical culture in connection with public worship. The
great German composers, Bach (1685-1750) and Händel
(1685-1759), belong to a subsequent period: they are, however, in some
degree the fruit of seed sown earlier.
LITERATURE.—For works on general history, see p. 16. For general
histories of particular countries, see p. 359.
On Modern Times. Dyer's History of Modern Europe; Duruy's
History of Modern Times [1453-1789]; Lavisse et Rambaud,
Histoire Générale, Vol. IV.; The Cambridge Modern
History, Vol. I.: The Renaissance; Heeren, Political
System of Europe; Historical Treatises (1 vol.); Heeren
u. Ukert, Geschichte der europäisch. Staaten (76 vols. 1829
75); T. ARNOLD'S Lectures on Modern History; Michelet's
Modern History (1 vol.), Yonge's Three Centuries of Modern
History.
On the Age of the Renaissance. Symonds's Renaissance in Italy
(5 vols.); BURCKHARDT'S The Civilization of the Period of the
Renaissance in Italy (2 vols.); REUMONT'S Lorenzo de'
Medici (2 vols); Roscoe's Life of Lorenzo de' Medici;
VILLARI'S Machiavelli and his Times; Machiavelli, History
of Florence; Oliphant, Makers of Florence: Dante', Giotto,
Savonarola, and their city (1 vol.); Voigt, Die
Wiederbelebung des classischen alterthums (1859); Lanzi,
History of Painting (3 vols.); Vasari, Lives of Painters,
Sculptors, and Architects; Crowe and Cavalcasselle, History
of Painting in North Italy [1300-1500] (2 vols., 1871); Crowe,
Handbook of Painting: the German, Flemish and Dutch Schools
(2 parts, 1874); Eastlake, Handbook of Painting, the Italian
Schools (based on Kugler, 2 parts, 1874); Crowe and
Cavalcasselle, Life of Titian (2 vols.); Illustrated
Biographies of the Great Artists (14 vols.); Mrs. Jameson,
Lives of Italian Painters; Grimm, Life of Michael
Angelo (2 vols.); Crowe and Cavalcasselle, Life and Works of
Raphael; Fergusson, History of Modern Styles of
Architecture; RUGE'S Geschichte d. Zeitalters
d. Entdeckungen (1 vol. in Oncken's Series); GEIGER'S
Renaissance und Humanismus in Italien und Deutschland (1
vol. in Oncken's Series); Lives of Erasmus, by Le Clerc, Jortin,
Knight, Burigny (2 vols.), Froude, Emerton, Drummond (2 vols.);
Lives of Columbus, by Irving, Major (1847), Harrisse (1884), Markham
(1892), Winsor; PRESCOTT'S History of Ferdinand and Isabella,
History of the Conquest of Mexico, and History of the
Conquest of Peru; Robertson, History of America; Beazly,
Dawn of Modern Geography (2 vols.); Fiske, Discovery of
America (2 vols.); Payne, America (2 vols.); Scebohm's
Oxford Reformers; Robinson and Rolfe, Petrarch;
Creighton, History of the Papacy during the Reformation
(Vols. I.-IV.); Pastor, History of the Popes from the Close of
the Middle Ages (3 vols.); Janssen, History of the German
People at the Close of the Middle Ages (8 vols.); Whitcomb,
Source Books of the Italian and German Renaissance; Grant,
The French Monarchy (2 vols.); Johnson, European History
in the Sixteenth Century.
PERIOD II. THE ERA OF THE REFORMATION. (1517-1648)
INTRODUCTION.
The general stir in men's minds, as indicated in the revival of
learning and in remarkable inventions and discoveries, was equally
manifest in great debates and changes in religion. One important
element and fruit of the Renaissance is here seen. At the
beginning of the sixteenth century, the nations of Western Europe were
all united in one Church, of which the Pope was the acknowledged
head. There were differences as to the extent of his proper authority;
sects had sprung up at different times; and there had arisen leaders,
like Wickliffe and Huss, at war with the prevailing
system. Ecclesiastical sedition, however, had been mostly quelled. Yet
there existed a great amount of outspoken and latent discontent. First,
complaints were loud against maladministration in Church affairs. There
were extortions and other abuses that excited disaffection. Secondly,
the authority exercised by the Pope was charged with being inconsistent
with the rights of civil rulers and of national churches. Thirdly,
disputes sprang up, both in regard to various practices deemed
objectionable, like prayers for the dead, and the invocation of saints,
and also concerning important doctrines, like the doctrine of the
mass or the Lord's Supper, and the part that belongs to faith in
the Christian method of salvation. Out of this ferment arose what is
called the Protestant Reformation. The Teutonic nations
generally broke off from the Church of Rome, and renounced their
allegiance to the Pope. The Latin or Romanic nations, for
the most part, still adhered to him. As the common idea was that there
should be uniformity of belief and worship in a state, civil wars arose
on the question which form of belief should dominate. Germany
was desolated for thirty years by a terrible struggle. Yet, in all the
conflicts between kingdoms and states in this period, it was plain that
political motives, or the desire of national aggrandizement, were
commonly strong enough to override religious differences.
When there was some great interest of a political or dynastic sort at
stake, those that differed in religion most widely would frequently
assist one another. It is in this period that we see Spain,
under Charles V. and Philip II., reach the acme of its
power, and then sink into comparative weakness.
CHAPTER I. THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY, TO THE TREATY OF NUREMBERG
(1517-1532).
BEGINNING OF THE REFORMATION.—The Reformation began in
Germany, where there was a great deal of discontent with the
way in which the Church was governed and managed, and on account of
the large amounts of money carried out of the country on various
grounds for ecclesiastical uses at Rome. The leader of the movement,
Martin Luther, was the son of a poor miner, and was born at
Eisleben in 1483. He was an Augustinian monk, and had been made
professor of theology, and preacher at Wittenberg, by the
Elector of Saxony, Frederick the Wise (1508). Luther was a man
of extraordinary intellectual powers, and a hard student, of a genial
and joyous nature, yet not without a deep vein of reflection, tending
even to melancholy. He had a strong will, and was vigorous and
vehement in controversy. He had been afflicted with profound religious
anxieties; but in the study of St. Paul and St. Augustine, and after
much inward wrestling, he emerged from them into a state of mental
peace. The immediate occasion of disturbance, the spark that kindled
the flame, was the sale of indulgences in Saxony by a Dominican
monk named Tetzel. Indulgences were the remission, total or
partial, of penances, and, in theory, always presupposed
repentance; but, as the business was managed in Germany at that time,
it amounted in the popular apprehension to a sale of absolution from
guilt, or to the ransom of deceased friends from purgatory for
money. These gross abuses were painful to sincere friends of
religion. In 1517 Luther posted on the door of the church at
Wittenberg his celebrated ninety-five theses. It was customary
in those days for public debates to take place in universities, where,
as in jousts and tournaments among knights, scholars offered to defend
propositions in theology and philosophy against all comers. Such were
the "theses" of Luther on indulgences. The public mind was in such a
state that a great commotion was kindled by them. Conflict spread; and
the name of Luther became famous as a stanch antagonist of
ecclesiastical abuses, and a fearless champion of reform. The
Elector, a religious man, calm and cautious in his temper, was
friendly to Luther, often sought to curb him, but stretched
over him the shield of his protection.
LUTHER AND LEO X.—Pope Leo X; was of the house of
Medici, the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. He had been
made nominally a cardinal at the age of thirteen, and had advanced to
the highest station in the Church. He was much absorbed in matters
pertaining to learning and art, and in political affairs, and at first
looked upon this Saxon disturbance as a mere squabble of monks. He
attempted ineffectually to bring Luther to submission and
quietness, first through his legate Cajetan, a scholarly
Italian, who met him at Augsburg (1518), and then by a second
messenger, Miltitz (1519), a Saxon by birth. A turning-point in
Luther's course was a public disputation at Leipsic,
before Duke George; for ducal Saxony was hostile to
him. With Luther, on that occasion, was Philip Melanchthon, the
young professor of Greek at Wittenberg, who was a great scholar,
and a man of mild and amiable spirit. He became a very effective and
noted auxiliary of the reformer, and acquired the honorary title of
"preceptor of Germany." In the Leipsic debate, when Luther was opposed
by the Catholic champion Eck, and by others, his own views in
opposition to the papacy became more distinct and decided. He soon
disputed the right of the Pope to make laws, to canonize, etc., denied
the doctrine of purgatory, and avowed his sympathy with Huss. He
issued a stirring Address to the Christian Nobles of the German
Nation. In 1520 he was excommunicated by the Pope, but the elector
paid no regard to the papal bull. Luther himself went so far as
publicly to burn it at the gates of the town, in the presence of an
assembly of students and others gathered to witness the scene. Both
parties had now taken the extreme step: there was now open war between
them. Jurists, who were aggrieved by the interference of
ecclesiastical with civil courts, supported Luther. So the
Humanists who had defended Reuch-lin, among whom were the
youthful literary class of which Ulrich von Hutten was one,
became his allies. Many among the inferior clergy and the monastic
orders sympathized with him.
CONDITION OF GERMANY.—It was now for the Empire to decide
between Luther and the Pope. The efforts to create a
better political system under Maximilian had proved in the main
abortive. There was strife between the princes and the knights, as well
as between princes and bishops. The cities complained bitterly of
oppressive taxation and of lawless depredations. There was widespread
disaffection, threatening open revolt, among the peasants.
Maximilian had been thwarted politically by the popes. At first
he was glad to hear of Luther's rebellion. He said to
Frederick the Wise, "Let the Wittenberg monk be taken good care
of: we may some day want him." In the latter part of his reign his
interests drew him nearer to Rome.
ELECTION OF CHARLES V.—On the death of Maximilian (1519), as
the Elector Frederick would not take the imperial crown, there
were two rival candidates,—Francis I., the king of France, and
Charles I., of Spain, the grandson of Maximilian.
Francis was a gallant and showy personage, but it was feared
that he would be despotic; and the electors made choice of
Charles. The extent of Charles's hereditary dominions in
Germany, and the greatness of his power, would make him, it was
thought, the best defender of the empire against the Turks. The
electors, at his choice, bound him in a "capitulation" to respect the
authority of the Diet, and not to bring foreign troops into the
country. Charles was the inheritor of Austria and the
Low Countries, the crowns of Castile and Aragon,
of Navarre, of Naples and Sicily, together with
the territories of Spain in the New World; and now he was at the
head of the Holy Roman Empire. The concentration of so much power in a
single hand could not but provoke alarm in all other potentates. The
great rival of Charles was Francis I., and the main prize
in the contest was dominion in Italy. Charles was a sagacious prince;
from his Spanish education, strongly attached to the Roman-Catholic
system, and, in virtue of the imperial office, the protector of the
Church. Yet with him political considerations, during most of his life,
were uppermost. He made the mistake of not appreciating the strength
that lay in the convictions at the root of the Protestant movement. He
over-estimated the power of political combinations.
DIET OF WORMS.—Charles V. first came into Germany in 1521, and
met the Diet of the empire at Worms. There Luther
appeared under the protection of a safe-conduct. He manifested his
wonted courage; and in the presence of the emperor, and of the august
assembly, he refused to retract his opinions, planting himself on the
authority of the Scriptures, and declining to submit to the verdicts of
Pope or council. After he had left Worms, a sentence of outlawry
was passed against him. Charles at that moment was bent on the
re-conquest of Milan, which the French had taken; and the Pope
was friendly to his undertaking, although Leo X. had been
opposed to Charles's election.
FRANCIS I.—Francis I. (1515-1547) aimed to complete the work
begun by his predecessors, and to make the French monarchy absolute. By
a concordat with the Pope (1516), the choice of bishops and
abbots was given into the king's hand, while the Pope was to receive
the annates, or the first year's revenue of all such
benefices. Francis continued the practice of selling judicial
places begun under Louis XII.. He was bent on maintaining the
unity of France, and, as a condition, the Catholic system. But he was
always ready to help the Protestants in Germany when he could
thereby weaken Charles. For the same end, he was even ready to
join hands with the Turk.
RIVALRY OF CHARLES AND FRANCIS.—Charles claimed the old imperial
territories of Milan and Genoa. He claimed, also, a
portion of Southern France,—the duchy of Burgundy, which he did
not allow that Louis XI. had the right to
confiscate. Francis claimed Naples in virtue of the
rights of the house of Anjou; also Spanish Navarre, which
Ferdinand of Aragon had seized, and the suzerainty of
Flanders and Artois. He had gained a brilliant victory
over the Swiss at the battle of Marignano, in 1515, and
reconquered Milan. He concluded a treaty of peace with the
Swiss,—the treaty of Freiburg (1516), which gave to the
king, in return for a yearly pension, the liberty to levy troops in
Switzerland. This treaty continued until the French Revolution.
FIRST WAR OF CHARLES AND FRANCIS (1521-1526).—Hostilities between
Francis and Charles commenced in Italy in
1521. The French were driven from Milan in 1522, which was again
placed in the hands of Francesco Sforza; and the emperor was
soon master of all Northern Italy. England and the Pope
sided with Charles; and on the death of Leo X., a former
tutor of the emperor was made his successor, under the name Adrian
VI. (1522). The most eminent and the richest man in France, next to
the king, Charles of Bourbon, constable of the kingdom, joined
the enemies of Francis. He complained of grievances consequent
on the enmity of Louisa of Savoy, the mother of the king, and
attempted, with the aid of the emperor and Henry VIII., to
create a kingdom for himself in South-eastern France. But the national
spirit in France was too strong for such a scheme of dismemberment and
foreign conquest to succeed, and all that Charles gained in the
end was one brave general. In the winter of 1524-25 Francis
crossed the Alps at the head of a brilliant army, and recaptured
Milan; but he was defeated and taken prisoner at Pavia,
and the French army was almost destroyed. Charles was able to
dictate terms to his captive. It was stipulated in the Peace of
Madrid (1526), that Francis should renounce all claim to
Milan, Genoa, and Naples, and to the suzerainty of
Flanders and Artois, cede the duchy of Burgundy,
and deliver his sons as hostages, terms which could not be fulfilled.
LUTHER AT THE WARTBURG.—We have now to glance at the events in
Germany during the absence of Charles V. Luther, although
under the ban of the empire, was in no immediate peril while he staid
in Saxony. The elector, however, thought it prudent to place him
in the castle of the Wartburg, where he could have a safe and
quiet asylum. There he began his translation of the Bible, which, apart
from its religious influence, from the vigor and racy quality of its
style made an epoch in the literary history of the German people. It
was a work of great labor. "The language used by Luther in both the Old
and New Testaments did not exist before in so pure, powerful, and
genuine a form." While Luther was engaged in this work, a
radical movement broke out at Wittenberg, of which
Carlstadt, one of his supporters, was the principal leader. He
was for carrying changes in worship to such an extreme, and for
introducing them so abruptly, that the greatest disorder was
threatened. Against the wish of the elector, Luther left his
retreat, and by his discourses and personal presence quieted the
disturbance.
PROGRESS AND REACTION.—No attempt was made to carry out the
Worms decree. The reason was that the influential classes were
so much in sympathy with Luther's cause. The Imperial
Chamber, which ruled in the emperor's absence, would do nothing
against him. Its committee refused to carry out the decree; and a list
of "one hundred grievances" was sent to Pope Adrian VI., of
which the German nation had reason to complain (1523). Events, however,
soon occurred that were unfavorable in their effect on the Lutheran
movement. The knights banded together in large numbers, under Franz
van Sickingen, and tried by force of arms to reduce the power of
the princes. Luther showed no favor to their plans and doings;
but, as their leaders had applauded him, a reaction against
innovations, including changes in doctrine, was the natural
consequence. Pope Adrian VI. was earnestly desirous of practical
reforms; but his successor, Clement VII. (1523-1534), was of the
house of Medici, and a man of the world, like Leo X. An
alliance was made by the Catholic princes and bishops of South Germany
at Ratisbon in 1524, to do away with certain abuses, but to
prevent the spread of the new doctrine.
THE PEASANTS' WAR.—In 1524 a great revolt of the peasants broke
out, and the next year it became general. They were groaning under
intolerable burdens of taxation, and other forms of oppression. They
demanded liberty in church affairs, and for the preaching of the new
doctrine, and release from feudal tyranny. Luther felt and said
that they were wronged grievously; but when they took up arms, he, and
with him the great middle class which he led, took sides strongly
against them. The revolt was put down, and its authors inhumanly
punished. For a time the peasants had wonderful
success. Napoleon wondered that Charles V. did not seize
the occasion to make Germany a united empire. Then seemed to be a time
when the princes could have been stripped of their power. One of the
foremost leaders of the rebellion was Thomas Münzer. On the
defeat of the peasants, he was captured and beheaded.
SECOND WAR BETWEEN CHARLES AND FRANCIS (1527-1529).—In the Peace of
Madrid, Charles and Francis had agreed to proceed against
the Turks and against the heretics. But, after the release of
Francis, he repudiated the concessions before mentioned (p.
400), which were made, he alleged, under coercion; and with Clement
VII. he formed a conspiracy against the emperor. The Diet of
Spires, in 1526, decided to leave each of the component parts of
the empire, until the meeting of a general council, to decide for
itself as to the course to be taken in the matter of religion and in
respect to the edict of Worms. In 1527 a German army, largely
composed of Lutherans, led by Constable Bourbon and George
Frundsberg, stormed and captured Rome. The Pope made an
alliance with Henry VIII. A French army under Lautrec
appeared at Naples, but it was so weakened by a fearful
pestilence that it was easily destroyed. The Pope concluded
peace with Charles in 1529. The emperor promised to exterminate
heresy. In the Peace of Cambray, Francis renounced his
claims on Italy, Flanders, and Artois: Charles
engaged for the present not to press his claims upon Burgundy,
and set free the French princes.
TO THE PEACE OF NUREMBERG (1532).—The Diet of Spires in 1529
reversed the policy of tacit toleration. It passed an edict forbidding
the progress of the Reformation in the states which had not accepted
it, and allowing in the reformed states full liberty of worship to the
adherents of the old confession. The protest by the Lutheran princes
and cities, against the decree of the Diet, gave the name of
Protestants to their party. The successful defense of
Vienna against an immense army of the Turks under Soliman
delivered Charles for the moment from anxiety in that quarter. A
theological controversy between the Lutheran and the
Swiss reformers, on the Lord's Supper, made a division of
feeling between them. A conference of the two parties at
Marburg, in which Luther and Melanchthon met
Zwingli and his associates, brought no agreement. Every thing
was propitious for an effort at coercion; and this was resolved upon at
the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, where the emperor was present in
person, and where Melanchthon presented the celebrated
Protestant Confession of Faith. The threats against the
Protestant princes induced them to form the League of Smalcald
for mutual defense. But it was found impracticable to carry out the
measures of repression against the Lutherans. Bavaria was
jealous of the house of Hapsburg, and opposed to the plan of the
emperor to make his brother, Ferdinand of Austria, his
successor. The Turks under Soliman were
threatening. France and Denmark were ready to help the
Protestants. Accordingly the Peace of Nuremberg was concluded in
1532, in which religious affairs were to be left as they were, and both
parties were to combine against the common enemy of Christendom.
CHAPTER II. THE REFORMATION IN TEUTONIC COUNTRIES: SWITZERLAND,
DENMARK, SWEDEN, ENGLAND.
THE SWISS REFORMATION: ZWINGLI.—The founder of Protestantism in
Switzerland was Ulrich Zwingli. He was born in 1484. His father
was the leading man in a mountain village. The son, at Vienna
and at Basel, became a proficient in the humanist studies. He
read the Greek authors and the Bible in the original. A curate first at
Glarus, and then at Einsiedeln, he became pastor at
Zurich. As early as 1518 he preached against the sale of
indulgences. He was a scholarly man, bluff and kindly in his ways, and
an impressive orator. The Swiss were corrupted by their employment as
mercenary soldiers, hired by France, by the Pope, or by the emperor. Of
the demoralizing influence of this practice, Zwingli became
deeply convinced; and his exertions as a Church reformer were mingled
with a patriotic zeal for the moral and political regeneration of
Switzerland. Mainly by his influence, Zurich separated from the
jurisdiction of the bishop of Constance, and became Protestant in
1524. The example of Zurich was followed by Berne (1528)
and by Basel (1529). Zwingli agreed with Luther on
the two main points of the sole authority of the Scriptures, and the
doctrine of salvation by faith alone; but on the sacrament of
the Lord's Supper he went farther in his dissent from the Church
of Rome. This made Luther and his followers stand aloof when cordial
fellowship was proposed between the two parties.
CIVIL STRIFE: DEATH OF ZWINGLI.—The aim of Zwingli was to
establish a republican constitution in the several cantons, and also in
the confederation as a body, where the five Forest Cantons had an undue
share of power. These adhered to the old Church. In Berne the
oligarchic party was supplanted by the republican, reforming party,—an
event of decisive importance. As the irritation increased between the
Forest Cantons and the cities, the former entered into a league with
Ferdinand of Austria, and the cities leaned for support on the
German states in sympathy with their opinions. A treaty was made
(1529), but each side accused the other of breaking it. At length war
began: Berne failed to come to the help of Zurich. Each
city wished to be the metropolis of the reformed confederation. The
forces of Zurich were vanquished at Cappel, where
Zwingli himself, who was on the field in the capacity of a
chaplain, was slain (1531). By the peace of Cappel in 1531,
Protestantism was not coerced, but a check was put upon its
progress. Neither party was strong enough to subdue the other.
PROTESTANTISM IN SCANDINAVIA.—In the Scandinavian countries,
monarchical power was built up by means of the Reformation. The union
of Calmar (1397) under Queen Margaret, between
Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, had been a dynastic
union. The several peoples were not united in feeling. The sovereign,
moreover, had his power limited by a strong feudal nobility, and by a
rich Church impatient of control. First the Church was overcome by
means of Protestantism, and then the nobles.
THE REFORMATION IN DENMARK—On the accession of Christian I. of
Oldenburg (1448-1481), the duchies of Holstein and
Schleswig became connected with Denmark in a personal union. His
grandson, Christian II. (1513-1523), did not rule the duchies,
which were governed by Frederic I., who afterwards succeeded
Christian II. as king of Denmark. Christian II. was bent
on putting down the aristocracy, lay and clerical, but lacked the moral
qualities necessary to success in so difficult a task. He at first
favored Protestantism from political motives. He hoped to bring the
Swedes into subjection by the aid of the Danes, and then
to subdue the Danish nobility. In Sweden the nobles practically
ruled; and the regency was in the hands of the Stures, who
befriended the common people, and were opposed by the other nobles and
the clergy. Christian made use of these divisions, and of the
help of German and French troops, to get possession of Stockholm
(1520). He took the Catholic side. But his perfidy, and the massacre of
eminent Swedes,—known as the Massacre of Stockholm,—excited an
inextinguishable hatred against Denmark. The Danish nobles
feared the same sort of treatment. The king's attempts at reform
offended them without pleasing the peasants, and a revolution took
place which dethroned him. Duke Frederic of Schleswig was
made king (1523): the duchies and Denmark were again
together. Frederic swore not to introduce the Reformation, nor
to attack Catholicism. But he was an ardent Lutheran. The new doctrine
had come into the land, and was spreading. The nobles, who coveted the
possessions of the Church, espoused it. At the Diet of Odensee,
in 1527, toleration was granted to Lutheranism. On Frederic's
death, in 1533, an effort of the bishops to restore the exclusive
domination of the old system of religion was defeated. Christian
III. was made king; and at a Diet at Copenhagen in 1536, the
Reformation was legalized, and the Lutheran system, with bishops or
superintendents, was established.
THE REFORMATION IN SWEDEN.—After the massacre of Stockholm,
Denmark was detested by the Swedes. A great political revolution
occurred, which involved also a religious revolution. The author of the
change, and the real founder of the Swedish monarchy, was Gustavus
Vasa, a young Swede of noble family, who had been held as a captive
in Copenhagen, but had escaped and returned to his country. He
was of imposing presence, prudent yet daring, and with a natural gift
of eloquence. Amid great dangers and sufferings, such as tradition
ascribed to King Alfred of England, he succeeded, at the head of
a force gathered to him in the province of Dâlecarlia, in gaining the
most important places in the country, and was proclaimed king in
1523. He was not deeply interested in the religious controversy,
although he favored Lutheranism; but he made it his steady aim to break
down the clerical aristocracy, to weaken the nobles, and to organize a
strong and prosperous monarchy. He proceeded carefully: but the
peasants, who had been his warmest supporters, were strongly attached
to the old Church; and the opposition to his measures from all quarters
was such that at the Diet of Westeräs, in 1527, he took the bold
step of offering to lay down the crown. At this Diet he had assembled
representatives of the citizens and peasants, as well as the clergy and
nobles. He proposed to pay an enormous debt which was due to
Lübeck, by using the colossal wealth of the Church for this
purpose, and to shake off the monopoly of trade which the Hanse towns
enjoyed. Finding himself withstood, he renounced the throne. The
distraction and tumults which followed his act of relinquishing the
crown were such that a great party of the nobles joined him. Three days
after his abdication, he was recalled to the throne: the clergy
submitted abjectly, and the Church was no longer a power in the state,
or possessed of wealth. Trade was released from its bondage to
Lübeck and the other towns; commerce was opened with foreign
countries; and a market was provided for iron, the main product
of the country. The nobles were held in subjection. The Lutheran
doctrine made very rapid progress, and became dominant.
ENGLAND: HENRY VIII. AND LUTHER.—In England, as in France, there were
earnest desires for church reform, partly aroused by such
serious-minded humanists as Colet, More, and
Erasmus. Even Cardinal Wolsey sympathized with this
movement, and intended to endow colleges and bishoprics out of the
confiscated wealth of the more useless monasteries. What might have
been a slow development of religious thought was transformed by the
requirements of the king's own policy. Of all the Tudor princes
none had a more obstinate and tyrannical will than Henry
VIII. The advantages derived from the effect of the civil wars,
which had reduced the strength and numbers of the nobility, and the
natural English jealousy, always shown, of foreign and papal supremacy,
enabled Henry to break off the connection of England with
Rome; while, at the same time, he resisted Protestantism and
persecuted its adherents. Proud of his theological acquirements, he
appeared, in 1522, as an author against Luther, in a book in
defense of the Seven Sacraments, for which he received from the
Pope the title of Defender of the Faith. The vituperative
character of Luther's answer confirmed him in his hatred of the new
doctrine. "When God," said the blunt Saxon reformer, "wants a fool, he
turns a king into a theological writer."
THE DIVORCE QUESTION.—What made the breach between Henry
VIII. and the papacy was the question of the king's divorce. He had
been married in his twelfth year to Catherine of Aragon, the
aunt of Charles V. and the widow of Henry's deceased brother
Arthur (who had been married to her in 1501, when he was fifteen
years old, and had died the next year). A dispensation permitting the
marriage of Henry had been granted by Pope Julius II. How far
Henry's passion for Anne Boleyn, whom he desired to wed,
was at the root of his scruples respecting the validity of his
marriage, it may not be easy to decide. His application to Clement
VII. for a separation reached the Pope after the Peace of
Madrid, when there was a desire to lessen the power of the
emperor. Cardinal Wolsey, the favorite counselor of
Henry, who himself aspired to the papal office, was obliged to
help on the cause of his imperious master. But whatever disposition
there was at Rome to gratify Henry, there was no
inclination to hurry the proceedings. There were long delays in
England, whither a papal legate, Campeggio, had been sent to
investigate and determine the cause. In 1529 the legates decided that
the case must be determined at Rome. This the queen had before demanded
in vain. Aside from other objections to the divorce, Clement
VII. was now at peace with Charles V., whom it was
undesirable to offend. The incensed king took the matter into his own
hands. Wolsey, having been one of the legates, was deprived of
all his dignities: he was charged with treason, his strength melted
away on his fall from the heights of power, and he died a
broken-spirited man.
SEPARATION OF ENGLAND FROM ROME.—Henry now gave free rein to
the spirit of opposition in Parliament to Rome. He took for his
principal minister, who became vicegerent in ecclesiastical affairs,
Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell, unlike Wolsey, was
hostile to the temporal power of Rome. He made Thomas Cranmer
Archbishop of Canterbury, who was inclined toward Protestant views,
but, though sincere in his beliefs, was a man of pliant temper,
indisposed to resist the king's will, preferring to bow to a storm, and
to wait for it to pass by. By Cranmer the divorce was decreed,
but this was after the marriage with Anne Boleyn had taken
place. Henry was excommunicated by the Pope. Acts of Parliament
abolished the Pope's, and established the king's, supremacy in the
Church of England. In 1536 the cloisters were abolished. Their property
was confiscated, and fell to a large extent into the hands of the
nobles and the gentry. This measure bound them to the policy of the
sovereign. The mitered abbots were expelled from the House of Lords,
which left the preponderance of power with the lay nobles. The
hierarchy bowed to the will of the king.
THE TWO PARTIES.—There were two parties in England among the upholders
of the king's supremacy. There were the Protestants by conviction, who
were for spreading the new doctrine. This had already taken root and
spread in the universities, and in some other places in the
country. The new literary culture had paved the way for it. In the
North, there were still left many Lollards, disciples of
Wickliffe. Cromwell, Cranmer, and one of the bishops,
Latimer, were prominent leaders of this party. Against them were
the adherents of the Catholic theology, such as Gardiner,
Tunstal of Durham, and other bishops. At first the king inclined
towards the first of these two parties. One of his most important acts
was the ordering of a translation of the Bible into English, a copy of
which was to be placed in every church. But a popular rebellion in 1536
was followed by a change of ecclesiastical policy. The Six
Articles were passed, asserting the Roman Catholic doctrines, and
punishing those who denied transubstantiation with death. The queen,
Anne Boleyn, who was an adherent of the Protestant side, was
executed on the charge of infidelity to her marriage vows (1536). A few
years later Cromwell was sent to the scaffold because the king
no longer approved of his policy and, seeing how unpopular he had
become, used him as a scapegoat (1540). Lutheran bishops were thrown
into the Tower: Cranmer alone was shielded by the king's
personal favor, and by his own prudence. This system of a national
church, of which the king, and not the Pope, was the head, where the
doctrine was Roman Catholic, and the great ecclesiastical officers were
appointed, like civil officers, by the monarch, was the creation of
Henry VIII. His strong will was able to keep down the
conflicting parties. Despite his sensuality and cruelty, he was a
popular sovereign. One of his principal crimes was the execution of
Sir Thomas More for refusing to take the oath of supremacy
because this contained an affirmation of the invalidity of the king's
marriage with Catherine. More was one of the noblest men
in England, a man who combined vigor with gentleness. He was willing to
swear that the children of Anne were lawful heirs to the throne,
because Parliament, he believed, could regulate the succession; but
this did not satisfy the tyrannical monarch. In the latter portion of
his reign he grew more suspicious, willful, and cruel.
CHAPTER III. THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY, FROM THE PEACE OF NUREMBERG
TO THE PEACE OF AUGSBURG (1532-1555).
THE PARTIES IN GERMANY, 1532-1542.—For ten years after the Peace of
Nuremberg, the Protestants in Germany were left unmolested. The
menacing attitude of the Turks, and the occupations of the
emperor in Italy and in other lands, rendered it impossible to
interfere with them. Philip, the Landgrave of Hesse, a
chivalrous Protestant prince, led the way in the armed restoration of
Duke Ulrich of Würtemberg, who had been driven out of his
dominion. Thus a Protestant prince was established in the heart of
Southern Germany (1534). In Westphalia, a fanatical branch of
the Anabaptist sect at Münster, with whom the Lutherans did not
sympathize, was broken up by the neighboring Catholic princes. The
overthrow of the power of Lübeck and of the Hanseatic League
did not check the advance of Lutheranism. It continued to make great
progress in different directions. The Smalcald League was
extended. A league of the Catholic states was formed at
Nuremberg in 1538. During three years (1538-1541) efforts were
made by the emperor to secure peace and union. Of these the Conference
and Diet of Ratisbon in 1541 is the most remarkable. The
Protestants and Catholics could not agree upon statements of doctrine;
but the necessity of getting Protestant help against the Turks
compelled Charles to sanction the Peace of Nuremberg,
and to make to the Lutherans other important concessions. This
arrangement the emperor regarded as only a temporary truce. Among the
conquests of Protestantism after the Peace of Nuremberg, and
prior to 1544, were Brandenburg and Ducal Saxony, whose
rulers adopted the new doctrine. It was spreading in Austria,
in Bavaria, and in other states. Duke Henry of Brunswick
fell into conflict with the Smalcaldic League, and was conquered, so
that his principality became Protestant. Even the ecclesiastical
elector of Cologne was taking steps towards joining the
Protestant side. This would have given to the Lutherans a majority in
the electoral college. The bishoprics with temporal power were
numerous in Germany. If they were secularized, the old religious
system would be deprived of a principal support.
THE SMALCALDIC WAR.—Charles V. was now secretly resolved to
coerce the Protestants in Germany, and silently made his preparations
for war. Before hostilities commenced, Luther died (1546). The
emperor concluded the Peace of Crespy, after a fourth war with
Francis I. It was a part of the agreement, that they should act
jointly against the heretics. But as Francis in the last two
wars against the emperor (1536-1538, 1542-1544) had taken for allies
the Turks under Soliman, it could not be predicted how long he
would abide by his engagements. For the present, Charles was
safe in this quarter. He now took pains to shut the eyes of the
Protestant princes to their danger. The Smalcaldic League was
over-confident of its strength. Its members were discordant among
themselves. Of the two chief leaders, the elector of Saxony, John
Frederic, was a slow and unskillful general; and Philip,
the Landgrave of Hesse, a brave and capable soldier, could not take
command over an elector. Above all, Maurice, the Duke of
Saxony, was in the midst of a quarrel with his relative, the elector,
and coveted a part of his territories. Maurice was an able and
adroit man, a Protestant, but without the earnest religious
convictions that belonged to the electors and to that generation of
princes which was passing away. Maurice was won by the emperor,
through promises of enrichment and favor, and pledges not to interfere
with religion in his principality. Charles might have been
prevented from bringing in foreign troops from the Netherlands and
from Italy, but the military conduct of the elector was feeble and
indecisive. He was defeated and captured in 1547 at Mühlberg,
and the surrender of the Landgrave Philip soon followed. The
Protestant cause was prostrate. The clever Maurice had his
reward: the electoral office was transferred to him; he obtained a
goodly portion of the elector's territory.
THE RESULT: THE INTERIM.—Charles was victorious, and
apparently master of Germany. The country was occupied by his forces
as far north as the Elbe. He was engaged in the work of pacification
and of confirming his authority. In 1548 he issued the Interim of
Augsburg, in which concessions were made to both parties, which
proved satisfactory to neither. Skillful as the emperor was in
diplomacy, he always showed weakness in dealing with the religious
question. He proceeded to force the new measure on the refractory
cities in the South. In the North it had little effect. Maurice
modified it in his own dominion. When Charles seemed to himself
to be on the eve of a complete triumph, he was deserted by the allies
on whom he counted,—Rome, France, and the princes,
especially Maurice.
BREACH OF CHARLES WITH ROME.—The emperor's assuming to regulate the
affairs of religion was regarded with disfavor at Rome. There had been
a constant call for a general council to adjust the religious
controversies. Rome, from fear of imperial influence, and for other
reasons, had opposed the measure. At length, in 1545, the famous
Council of Trent assembled. The emperor wanted that body to
begin with measures for the reformation of abuses. He looked for
co-operation in his scheme for uniting the parties in Germany. But the
council took another path: it began with anathemas against the
heretical doctrines. Charles found himself at variance with the policy
of Rome, at the moment when he was trying to bring Germany to
submission.
DISAFFECTION OF MAURICE.—The emperor's course in Germany produced
general alarm. He separated the Netherlands from the
jurisdiction of the empire, but settled the succession in the
government in the house of Hapsburg. He drove the Diet into
other measures which looked towards the acquiring of military
supremacy for himself in Germany. He violated his pledges respecting
the two captive princes. Philip of Hesse, the father-in-law of
Maurice, he treated with great severity and indignity. Threats
were thrown out by the counselors of Charles against the other
princes, and even against Maurice, who complained of the
treatment of Philip, and was sore under the load of
unpopularity that rested on him on account of his warfare against his
co-religionists, by whom he was considered another Judas.
THE PEACE OF AUGSBURG.—Maurice laid his plans with secrecy and
with masterly skill. He secured the coöperation of other German
princes. He concluded an alliance with Henry II. of France. He
arranged with Magdeburg, which he had been besieging, to make
it a place of refuge if there should be need of an asylum. When all
was ready, without having excited any suspicion on the part of
Charles, he suddenly took the field, marched southward with an
army that increased as he advanced, crossed the Alps, and forced the
emperor, tormented with the gout, to fly hastily from Innsbruck
(1552). The captive princes were released. It was decided that Germany
was not to be ruled by Spanish soldiery. The dream of imperial
domination vanished. The Protestants were promised by Ferdinand
of Austria, in the name of his brother, toleration, and equality of
rights. At the Diet of Augsburg in 1555, the Religious
Peace was concluded. Every prince was to be allowed to choose
between the Catholic religion and the Augsburg Confession, and the
religion of the prince was to be that of the land over which he
reigned: that is, each government was to choose the creed for its
subjects. Ferdinand put in the "ecclesiastical reservation," which
provided that if the head of an ecclesiastical state should become a
Lutheran, he should resign his benefice. He also declared that the
Lutheran subjects of ecclesiastical princes were not to be
disturbed. The "reservation" was to please the Catholics: the
additional provision was to meet the wishes of the
Protestants. Neither stood on the same basis as the other part of the
treaty.
From Maurice the electoral dignity descended in the Albertine
line of Saxon princes. The Ernestine line retained Weimar,
Gotha, etc.
CHAPTER IV. CALVINISM IN GENEVA: BEGINNING OF THE CATHOLIC
COUNTER-REFORMATION.
CALVIN.—Second in reputation to Luther only, among the founders of
Protestantism, is John Calvin. He was a Frenchman, born in 1509,
and was consequently a child when the Saxon Reformation began. He was
keen and logical in his mental habit, with a great organizing capacity,
naturally of a retiring temper, yet fearless, and endued with
extraordinary intensity and firmness of will. A more finished scholar
than Luther, he lacked his geniality and tenderness, and his
imaginative power. Calvin first studied for the priesthood at
Paris; but when his father determined to make him a jurist, he
studied law at Orleans and Bourges. Espousing the
Protestant doctrines, he was obliged to fly from Paris, and,
when still young, published his Institutes of the Christian
Religion, in which he expounded the Protestant creed in a
systematic although fervid way. In his type of theology, he laid much
stress on the sovereignty of God, and predestination; and taught a view
of the Lord's Supper not so far from that of the old Church as the
doctrine of Zwingli, but farther removed from it than was the
doctrine of Luther.
THE GENEVAN GOVERNMENT.—In 1536, reluctantly yielding to the
exhortations of Farel, a French preacher of the Protestant
doctrine at Geneva, Calvin established himself in that
city. Geneva was a fragment of the old kingdom of
Burgundy. The dukes of Savoy claimed a temporal authority
in the city, which was subject to its bishop. The authority of the
dukes was overthrown by a revolution, and power passed from the bishop
into the hands of the people (1533). The change was effected with the
aid of Berne and Freiburg. There had been two parties in
Geneva,—the party of the "Confederates," who were for striking
hands with the Swiss, and the party of the "Mamelukes," adherents of
the dukes. The civil was followed by an ecclesiastical
revolution. Protestantism, with the aid of Berne, was legally
established (1535). Geneva was a prosperous, gay, and dissolute
city. Farel, a popular orator of striking power, unsparing in
denunciation, found the people impatient of the restraints that the new
religious system which they had adopted laid upon them. The regulations
as to doctrine, worship, and discipline, which Calvin and his
associates proceeded to introduce, were so distasteful, that the
preachers were expelled by the Council and by the Assembly of
Citizens from the place. After he had been absent three years,
Calvin, in consequence of the increase of disorder and vice, and the
distraction occasioned by contending factions, was recalled, and
remained in Geneva until his death. He became the virtual lawgiver of
the city. He framed a system of ecclesiastical and civil government. It
was an ecclesiastical state, in which orthodoxy of belief, and purity
of conduct, were not only inculcated by systematic teaching, but
enforced by stringent enactments. Offenses comparatively trivial were
punished by strict and severe penalties. To the system of church
discipline, stretching over the life of every individual, and carried
out by the civil magistrates in alliance with the pastors, there was
much opposition, which led to outbreakings of violent resistance. But
the supporters of Calvin were reinforced by numerous Protestant
refugees from France. The improvement of the city in morals and
in public order was signal. In the end, Calvin, who was as firm
as a rock, triumphed over all opposition. Geneva became a place
of resort for exiles and students from various countries. By his
writings and correspondence, Calvin's influence spread far and wide. In
the affairs of the French Protestants, in particular, his influence was
predominant.
SERVETUS.—The Reformers were not, any more than their adversaries,
advocates of liberty in religious beliefs and professions. A
melancholy example of the prevailing idea, that it was the duty of the
civil authority to inflict penalties upon heresy, is the case of
Michael Servetus. A Spaniard by birth, with a remarkable
aptitude for natural science and medicine, adventurous and fickle, he
had published books in which doctrines received by both the great
divisions of the Church, especially the doctrine of the Trinity, were
assailed. He escaped out of the hands of the Catholics, and came to
Geneva. There he was tried for heresy and blasphemy, and was
burned at the stake (1553). This was at a time when Calvin was in the
midst of his contest with the "Libertines," the party actuated by
hostility to him. They appear to have stood behind Servetus in
his defiant attitude towards the Genevan authorities.
INFLUENCE OF CALVINISM.—The personal influence of Calvin was
directly exerted upon the more cultured and educated. His religious
system has wielded a great power, not only on this class, but also over
the common people in different countries. Calvinism was never awed by
monarchical authority. Like the Church of Rome, it always refused to
subordinate the Church and religion to the civil power. It numbered
among its votaries many men of dauntless courage and of unbending
fidelity to their principles.
THE CATHOLIC REACTION.—The first effectual resistance to the spread
of Protestant opinions was made in Italy. In that country,
there was opposition to the papacy from those who saw in it an
instrument of political disunion, and also from some who were
aggrieved by ecclesiastical abuses. The prevailing feeling, however,
was that of pride in the papacy, which, in other countries, was
attacked as an Italian institution. The humanist learning had done
much to undermine belief in the old religious system. In the train of
the new studies, came much indifference and infidelity. The books of
the Protestant leaders, however, were widely circulated. There were
not a few sincere converts to the new doctrine in the cities; but they
were chiefly confined to the educated class, and to persons in high
station. It took no root among the common people. After the time of
the Medici popes, a new spirit of faith and devotion awoke in circles
earnestly devoted to the papacy and to the Church. There was at Rome
an "Oratory of Divine Love,"—a group of persons who met together for
mutual edification. In this class were some, like Contarini,
afterwards a cardinal, who were not wholly without sympathy with the
Lutheran doctrine as to faith and justification; but out of the same
class came others who led in the great Catholic Reaction,
which, while it aimed at a rigid reform in morals, was inflexibly
hostile to all innovations in doctrine, and was bent on regaining for
the Church the ground that had been lost.
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT: CARAFFA.—The Council of Trent was governed in
its conclusions by this Catholic reactionary and reforming party. It
allowed no curtailing of the prerogatives of the Pope. On points of
doctrine in dispute within the pale of the Church, it adopted formulas
which the different schools might accept. Practical reforms, for
example in respect to the education of the clergy, were adopted; but
dogma and teaching were to remain unaltered. Cardinal Caraffa,
the most energetic mover in the Catholic reform and restoration, became
Pope, under the name of Paul IV. (1555-1559).
THE ORDER OF JESUS.—The Council of Trent, by providing a clear
definition of doctrine, cemented unity, and was the first great bulwark
raised against Protestantism. Another means of defense, and of attack
as well, was provided in new orders, especially the order of
Jesuits. This was founded by Ignatius Loyola, a Spanish
soldier of noble birth, who mingled with the spirit of chivalry a
strong devotional sentiment. It was the temper of mediæval knighthood,
which still lingered in Spain. Wounded at the siege of
Pampeluna, and disabled from war, he had visions of a spiritual
knighthood; out of which grew the Society of Jesus, which was
sanctioned by Pope Paul III. in 1540. Its members took the
monastic vows. They went through a rigorous spiritual drill. They were
bound to unquestioning obedience to the Pope. The organization was
strict, like that of an army; each province having a provincial at its
head, with a general over all. To him all the members were absolutely
subject. All other ties were renounced: to serve the Church and the
order, was the one supreme obligation.
INFLUENCE OF THE JESUITS.—The influence of the Jesuit order was
manifold. It was active in preaching, and in hearing confessions. It
made the education of youth a great part of its business. Its members
found their way into high stations in Church and State: they were in
the cabinets of princes. From the beginning, they showed an ardent zeal
in missionary labors among the heathen in distant lands, and for the
reconquest of countries won by the Protestants.
THE INQUISITION.—Under the auspices of Cardinal Caraffa (Paul
IV.), the Inquisition was introduced into Italy (1542), and exerted
the utmost vigilance and severity in crushing out the new faith. One of
its instruments was the censorship of the press. So thorough was this
work, that of the little book on the Benefits of Christ's Death,
which had an immense circulation, it has been possible in recent years
to find but two or three copies. The "Index" of prohibited books was
established. The result of these measures was, that Protestantism was
suppressed in Italy, and the type of Catholicism that was partially
sympathetic with certain doctrinal features of the Saxon Reform
likewise vanished.
CHAPTER V. PHILIP II., AND THE BEVOLT OF THE NETHERLANDS.
CHARACTER OF PHILIP II.—In 1555 Charles V., enfeebled by his lifelong
enemy, the gout, resigned his crowns, and devolved on his son,
Philip II., the government of the Netherlands, together
with the rest of his dominions in Spain, Italy, and
America. The closing part of his life, the emperor passed in the
secluded convent of Yuste, in Spain, where, notwithstanding the
time spent by him in religious exercises, and in his favorite diversion
of experimenting with clocks and watches, he remained an attentive
observer of public affairs. Political and religious absolutism was the
main article in Philip's creed. He was more thoroughly a
Spaniard in his tone and temper than his father, who was born in the
Netherlands, and always loved the people there, as he was loved by
them. Philip was cold and forbidding in his manners. He was
shy, as well as haughty, in his deportment to those who approached
him. To re-establish everywhere the old religion by the unrelenting
exercise of force, was his fixed purpose. Only one thing did he value
more; and that was his own power, which he would not suffer Church or
clergy to curb or invade. He had few ideas, but was an adept in
concealment and treachery. A man of untiring industry, he was a plodder
without insight. He lived to see the vast strength which fell to him as
a legacy slip out of his hands, and to see Spain sink to a condition of
comparative weakness. Charles V. had consolidated his dominion
in that country by putting down democratic insurrections. This he had
done by military force and the arm of the Inquisition. What
Charles had left undone in this line, Philip completed. He
quelled the resistance of the Aragonese, and reduced them to
submission. Spain swarmed with civil and ecclesiastical officials. The
new religious doctrine, which assumed the same type as in Italy, was
stifled. The monarch displayed his zeal by personal attendance at the
autos da fe, the great public ceremonials for the execution of
heretics, where the victims of his intolerance perished. A system of
brutal military administration was adopted in the colonies.
STATE OF THE LOW COUNTRIES.—Philip undertook to treat the
Netherlands as a Spanish province, and to break down the spirit
of local independence. The people of the Low Countries were
industrious, intelligent, prosperous, spirited. Each of the
seventeen provinces had its own constitution. In the North, it
was more democratic; in Flanders and Brabant, there was a
landed aristocracy. In all parts of the country, there were local
privileges and cherished rights. The population numbered three
millions. Antwerp, with its hundred thousand inhabitants, had
more trade than any other European city. The Reformation, first in the
Lutheran but later in the Calvinistic form, had numerous adherents in
the Netherlands, whom severe edicts of Charles V., under
which large numbers were put to death, did not extirpate.
TYRANNY OF PHILIP.—Philip did not select for his regent in the
Netherlands one of the aristocracy of the country. Of this
class was Count Egmont, a nobleman of brilliant courage and
attractive manners. William, Prince of Orange, united
with far more self-control the sagacity of a statesman. He was
destined to be the formidable antagonist of Spanish tyranny, and the
liberator of Holland. Philip passed by the nobles, whom he
distrusted and disliked, and appointed as regent the illegitimate
daughter of Charles V., Margaret of Parma (1559-1567);
placing at her side, as her principal adviser, the astute
Granvelle, the Bishop of Arras, one of his devoted servants,
who was made cardinal in 1561. Three nobles, William of Orange,
and the Counts Egmont and Horn, were in the council. The
power was in Granvelle's hands. There was soon a breach between
him and the nobles. Two measures of Philip created
disaffection. He was slow in withdrawing the hated Spanish soldiers;
he increased the number of bishops, a cherished scheme of Charles
V. Moreover, he renewed and proceeded to enforce edicts, embracing
minute provisions of a most rigorous character, against the property
and lives of the Protestants, although the Inquisition had lost public
favor. The terror and indignation of the people found expression
through the nobles. They left the council. At length Granvelle
had to be withdrawn from the country (1564). Egmont went to
Spain to procure a mitigation of the king's policy, but found on his
return that he had been duped by false promises. The young nobility
formed an agreement called the Compromise, to withstand the
king's system, at first by legal means (1566). They were
contemptuously called "beggars" by the regent, and themselves adopted
the name. The king professed a willingness to make some concessions:
he was only gaining time for measures of a different sort. In the same
year a storm of iconoclasm burst out: the Calvinists made reprisals
for what they had suffered; they vented their zeal against what they
called "idolatry," by sacking the churches, and by destroying
paintings and images, and other symbols and implements of
worship. Orange penetrated the designs of Philip, and
retired to Nassau. Egmont, more credulous and confiding,
remained.
ALVA'S RULE.—Philip now sent into the Netherlands the Duke
of Alva, an officer of considerable military capacity, cold,
arrogant, and merciless in his temper. His force consisted of ten
thousand men. A tribunal was erected by him, called the "Council of
Blood." Egmont and Horn were executed at Brussels
(1568). Great numbers of executions of men and women, of all ranks,
who were accused of some sort of insubordination, or some manifestation
of heresy, followed. William of Orange was active in devising
means of deliverance. The first marked success was the capture of
Briel by the "sea-beggars," inhabitants of the coasts of
Holland and Zealand, under their admiral, William de
la Mark. The barbarities and extortion of Alva by degrees aroused
universal and intense hatred. Holland and Zealand threw
off Alva's rule, and made William their stadtholder. The nominal
connection with Spain was still kept up. The massacre of
St. Bartholomew (1572) cut off William from the help which he
expected from the French. It was felt, however, that Alva had
failed in his attempt to subjugate the people, and he was withdrawn
from the country by Philip (1573).
THE UTRECHT UNION.—From the capture of Briel may be dated the
beginning of the long and arduous struggle which resulted in the
building-up of the Dutch Republic of the United Provinces, and
the ultimate prostration of the power of Spain. The hero of the
struggle was William of Orange. The successor of Alva,
Requesens, was really more dangerous than Alva, because
he was more magnanimous, and therefore excited less antagonism. In 1574
occurred the memorable siege of Leyden by the Spanish
forces. That city, when reduced to the last extremity, was saved by
letting in the sea and by inundating the neighboring plains, which
compelled the Spaniards to flee in dismay. As a memorial of the heroic
defense of the place, the University of Leyden was founded. A new
Protestant state was growing up in the North, under the guidance of
William. In the South, where Catholicism prevailed,
Requesens was more successful. But when he died, in 1576, a
frightful revolt of his soldiers, who were loosed from restraint, in
the cities, moved all Netherlands to unite, in the Pacification of
Ghent, against the Spanish dominion. Don John of Austria, a
brilliant and manly soldier, who had defeated the Turks at
Lepanto, was the next regent (1576-1578). He made large
concessions: these were welcome in the South, and weakened the
Union. Alexander of Parma (1578, 1579), his successor, was the
ablest general of the time. The Catholic South was at variance with the
Protestant North. In 1579, there was formed between the seven provinces
in the North the Utrecht Union, the germ of the Dutch
Republic. Philip proclaimed William an outlaw, and set a
price on his head. After six ineffectual attempts at assassination,
this heroic leader, the idol of his countrymen, was fatally shot, in
his own house (1584). His work as a deliverer of his people was mainly
accomplished. When the Utrecht Union was formed, the greater part of
the Catholic provinces in the South entered into an arrangement with
Parma. Brabant and Flanders were recovered to
Spain. The attention of Philip had to be mainly given to the
affairs of France and England during the remainder of his
life.
CHAPTER VI. THE CIVIL WARS IN FRANCE, TO THE DEATH OF HENRY IV. (1610).
FRANCIS I.: HENRY II.—In France, the old faith had strong support in
the Sorbonne, the influential theological faculty of the
University of Paris, and in the Parliament. The new culture, the
influx of Italian scholars and Italian influences, produced a party
averse to the former style of education, and, to some extent,
unfriendly to the old opinions. The Lutheran doctrines were first
introduced; but it was Calvinism which prevailed among the
French converts to Protestantism, and acquired a strong hold in the
middle and higher classes, although the preponderance of numbers in
the country was always on the Catholic side. Francis I. was a
friend of the new learning. His sister Margaret, Queen of
Navarre, who was of a mystical turn, was favorably inclined to
the new doctrines, and befriended preachers who were of the same
spirit. The king did the same until after the battle of Pavia,
when he helped on the persecution of them; for his conduct was
governed by the interest of the hour, and by political motives. It was
doubtful what course he would finally take amid the conflict of
parties; but his motto was, "One king, one code, one creed." He would
put down the new doctrine at home, and sustain it by force, if
expedient, abroad. Henry II., who acceded to the throne in
1547, unlike his father had no personal sympathy with
Protestantism. The Huguenots, as the Calvinists were called,
were led to the stake, and their books burned. Yet in 1558 they had
two thousand places of worship in France: they soon held a general
synod at Paris, and organized themselves (1559). That same
year, when, in the Peace of Cateau-Cambresis, Henry had given
up all his conquests except the three bishoprics of Metz, Toul
and Verdun, and Calais, he suddenly died from a wound in
the eye, accidentally inflicted in a tilt.
CATHERINE DE MEDICI: THE TWO PARTIES.—The widow of Henry II. was
Catherine de Medici, to whom he had been married from political
considerations. She was a woman of talents, full of ambition which had
hitherto found no field for its exercise, trained from infancy in an
atmosphere of deceit, and void of moral principle. Her aim was to rule
by keeping up an ascendency over her sons, and by holding in check
whatever party threatened to be dominant. For this end she did not
scruple to accustom her children to debauchery, and to resort to
whatever other means, however false and however cruel, to effect her
purposes. She proved to be the curse of the house of Valois,
and the evil genius of France. Francis II. was a boy of
sixteen, and legally of age; but his mother expected to manage the
government. She was thwarted by the control over him exercised by the
family of Guise, sons of Claude of Guise, a wealthy and
prominent nobleman of Lorraine, who had distinguished himself
at Marignano, and in later contests against Charles
V. Francis, the Duke of Guise, had defended Metz,
and had taken Calais. Charles, the Cardinal of Lorraine, was
the king's confessor. Their sister had married James V. of
Scotland. Her daughter, Mary Stuart, a charming young girl, was
married to Francis II., who was infirm in mind and body, and
easily managed by his wife and her uncles. The great nobles of France,
especially the Bourbons, sprung in a collateral line from
Louis IX., Montmorency, and his three nephews, among them a man
of extraordinary ability and worth, the Admiral Coligny, looked
on the Guises as upstarts. The Bourbons and the nobles
allied to them were, some from sincere conviction and some from
policy, adherents of Calvinism. Thus the Protestants in France
became a political party, as well as a religious body, and a party
with anti-monarchical tendencies. Anthony of Bourbon, a weak
and vacillating person, had married Jeanne d'Albret, the
heiress of Béarn and Navarre, a heroic woman and an
earnest Protestant, the mother of Henry IV. His brother
Louis, Prince of Condé, a brave, impetuous soldier, whose wife,
the niece of the Grand Constable Montmorency, was a strict
Protestant, joined that side.
CONSPIRACY OF AMBOISE.—La Rénaudie, a Protestant nobleman who
was determined to avenge the execution of a brother, contrived the
Conspiracy of Amboise (1560) in order to dispossess the Guises of
their power by force. The plan was discovered, and a savage revenge
was taken upon the conspirators. A great number of innocent persons,
who had no share in the plot, were put to death. The Estates were
summoned to Orleans, and the occasion was to be seized for
extirpating heresy throughout the kingdom. Condé was under
arrest, and charged with high treason. Just then, on Dec. 5, 1560, the
young king died.
CHARLES IX.: EDICT OF ST. GERMAIN.—The coveted opportunity of the
queen-mother had come. Charles IX. (1560-1574) was only ten
years old. She assumed the practical guardianship over him, and with
it a virtual regency. The plan of the Guises had failed, and
they had to give way. There were now two parties in the council. The
States-general were called together in 1561, and a great religious
colloquy was held before a brilliant concourse at Poissy, where
Theodore Beza, an eloquent and polished scholar and a man of
high birth, pleaded the cause of the Calvinists. In 1562 the Edict
of January was issued, which gave up the policy that had been
pursued for forty years, of extirpating religious dissent. A very
restricted toleration was given to Protestants: they could hold their
meetings outside of the walls of cities, unarmed, and in the
daytime. Calvin and his followers expected the largest results
from this measure of liberty. Catherine wished for peace,
without a rupture with the Pope and Philip II.
CIVIL WAR.—It was impossible to prevent outbreakings of violence
against the hated dissenters. The Guises and their associates
were resolved not to allow toleration. The event that occasioned war
was the massacre of Vassy. On the 1st of March, 1562, the
soldiers of the Duke of Guise, who was passing through the town,
attacked some Huguenots who were worshiping in a barn at the village of
Vassy. A large number were slain, and some houses plundered, in
spite of the Duke's efforts to check his troops. The civil wars, so
begun, closed only with the accession of Henry IV. to the
throne. France was a prey to religious and political fanaticism. Other
nations mingled in the frightful contest, and the country was well-nigh
robbed of its independence. At first, there was petty warfare at
Paris, Sens, and other places. The Huguenots destroyed
altars and censers, monuments of art and sepulchers, which, as they
thought, ministered to idolatry. Rouen was captured by the Catholics
and sacked. At Dreux (1562) the Protestants were defeated; but
in 1563 Guise, the leader of their adversaries, was assassinated
by a Huguenot nobleman. The charge that Coligny had a part in
the deed was false; but he was considered responsible for it, and
vengeance was kept in store by the family of the slain chief. The
Edict of Amboise (1563) was favorable to the Protestant nobles,
but less favorable to the smaller gentry and to the
towns. Paris, from which Calvinist worship was excluded, became
more and more a stronghold of the Catholic party. Another war ended in
the Peace of Longjumeau (1568), which was essentially the same
as the Edict of Amboise. Philip II. and the Duke of Alva
spared no effort to induce France to set about the extermination of the
heretics. In the third war, the Huguenots were beaten at
Jarnac, where Condé fell, leaving his name to his son
Henry, a youth of seventeen (1569). The same year they were
defeated again at Moncontour. La Rochelle was a place of
safety to the Protestants, who were strong in the wise leadership of
Coligny. There the Queen of Navarre held her court. Thence the
Huguenot cavalry with the young princes Condé, and Henry of
Navarre, her son, sallied forth and traversed France.
ENGLAND OR SPAIN.—The ambition of Philip alarmed the French.
His complex schemes, if carried out, would involve the reduction of
their country under Spanish control. He wanted to liberate
Mary, Queen of Scots, then a prisoner of Elizabeth, to
marry her to his half-brother, Don John, and to marry his
sister to Charles IX. The court, in 1570, agreed to the
Peace of St. Germain, which, for the security of the Huguenots,
placed four fortified towns in their possession. Thus France became a
kingdom divided against itself. England, as well as France,
looked with alarm upon the ambitious projects of Philip II.,
who was now in union with Venice and with the Pope, and
had beaten the Turks at Lepanto. It was proposed to
marry the brother of Charles IX., the Duke of Anjou, to Queen
Elizabeth; and when this negotiation was broken off, it was
proposed that the Duke of Alençon, a younger brother, should
marry her. Catherine de Medici fell in with this anti-Spanish
policy. It was agreed that her youngest daughter, Margaret of
Valois, should become the wife of Henry of Navarre. The
policy favored by the Huguenots was in the ascendant. Their leaders
were invited to Paris to be present at the
nuptials. Coligny came, with Henry of Navarre,
Condé, and a large number of their adherents. There was no
place where the animosity against them was so rancorous.
THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW.—The massacre of St. Bartholomew was
devised by Catherine de Medici, who brought to her aid the
Duchess of Nemours, widow of Francis of Guise and mother
of Henry of Guise, Anjou (afterwards Henry III.),
and Italian counselors who were no strangers to plots of
assassination. The motive of the queen-mother was her dread of the
ascendency which she saw that Coligny was gaining over the
morbid mind of the king, in whom the Huguenot veteran had inspired
esteem, and had stirred up a desire to enter into the proposed war
against Philip II. in the Netherlands. On the 22d of
August (1572), a shot was fired at Coligny, from a window of a
house, by an adherent of the Guises. He was wounded, but not
killed. Charles was incensed. At a visit made to the wounded
chief, the king was warned by him, as Catherine quickly learned,
against her pernicious influence in the government. Thereupon she
arranged with her confederates for a general slaughter of the
Huguenots, and almost coerced the half-frantic and irresolute king to
acquiesce in the plan. Perhaps, in gathering them into the city, she
had foreseen the possible expediency of a change of policy, and that
such a crime as she now undertook to perpetrate might be found
desirable. In the night of the 24th of August, at a concerted signal,
the fanatical enemies of the Huguenots were let loose, and fell upon
their victims. Several thousands, including Coligny, were
murdered. Couriers were sent through the country, and like bloody
scenes were enacted in many other cities and towns. Navarre and
Condé, to save their lives, professed conformity to the
Catholic Church. If these atrocious events excited joy in the mind of
Philip II., and of the numerous intolerant party of which he
was the head, they were regarded with horror and execration elsewhere,
among the Catholic as well as the Protestant nations.
THE POLITIQUES: THE LEAGUE: HENRY III.—The queen-mother did not even
now forsake her general policy. She stood aloof from the combinations
of Philip. A new party, the Politiques, or liberal
Catholics, in favor of toleration, arose. Henry III. (1574-1589)
was incompetent to govern a country torn by factions, with an exhausted
treasury, and a people groaning under the burdens of taxation. By his
double dealing he lost the confidence of both the religious parties. In
May, 1576, he agreed to allow the religious freedom which the
Huguenots and Politiques demanded. But he had to reckon
with the Catholic League which was organized under Henry of
Guise. In 1584 Henry of Navarre was left the next heir to
the throne. The League, with Spain and Rome,
resolved that he should not reign. Together with Condé, he was
excommunicated. In the war of he "three Henrys," he was supported by
England, and by troops from Germany and Switzerland. Henry III.,
finding that Henry of Guise was virtual master, and that the
States-general at Blois (1588) reduced the royal power to the
lowest point, caused Guise and his brother, the Cardinal of
Lorraine, to be assassinated. Excommunicated, and detested by the
adherents of the League, the king took refuge in the camp of Henry
of Navarre, where he was killed by a fanatical priest (1589).
ABJURATION AND ACCESSION OF HENRY IV.—The Duke of Mayenne,
brother of the slain Guises, was at the head of the government
provisionally established by the League. Philip II. was
intriguing to bring the Catholic nations under his sway. There was
discord in the League, from the jealousy of Philip on the part
of Mayenne. Henry, a dashing soldier, gained a brilliant
victory at Ivry in 1590. The grand obstacle in his way to the
throne was his adhesion to Protestantism. A Calvinist by birth and
education, but without profound religious convictions, a gallant and
sagacious man, but loose in his morals, he yielded, for the sake of
giving peace to France, to the persuasions addressed to him, and, from
motives of expediency, conformed to the Catholic Church. The nation
was now easily won to his cause.
REIGN OF HENRY IV.—When Henry IV. gained his throne, the
country was in a most wretched condition. In the desolating wars,
population had fallen off. Everywhere there were poverty and
lawlessness. Yet war with Spain was inevitable. In this war,
Henry was the victor; and the Peace of Vervins restored
the Spanish conquests, and the conquests made by Savoy, to France
(1598). The idea of Henry's foreign policy, which was that of
weakening the power of Spain and of the house of Hapsburg, was
afterwards taken up by a powerful statesman, Richelieu, and
fully realized. In the Edict of Nantes (1598), the king secured
to the Huguenots the measure of religious liberty for which they had
contended. Fortified cities were still left in their hands. Security
was obtained by the Calvinists, but they became a defensive party with
no prospect of further progress. Order and prosperity were restored to
the kingdom. In all his measures, the king was largely guided by a
most competent minister, Sully. But the useful reign of
Henry IV. was cut short by the dagger of an assassin,
Ravaillac (1610). For fifteen years confusion prevailed in
France, and a contest of factions, until Richelieu took up the
threads of policy which had fallen from Henry's hand.
CHAPTER VII. THE THIRTY-YEARS' WAR, TO THE PEACE OP WESTPHALIA
(1618-1648).
ORIGIN OF THE WAR.—In Germany, more than in any other country,
the Reformation had sprung from the hearts of the people. Its progress
would have been far greater had it not been retarded by political
obstacles, and by divisions among Protestants themselves. Germany, to
be sure, was not disunited by the Reformation: it was disunited
before. But now strong states existed on its borders,—France,
even Denmark and Sweden,—which might profit by its
internal conflicts. The Peace of Augsburg, unsatisfactory as it
was to both parties, availed to prevent open strife as long as
Ferdinand I. (1556-1564) and Maximilian II. (1564-1576)
held the imperial office. The latter, especially, favored toleration,
and did not sympathize with the fanaticism of the Spanish branch of his
family. He condemned the cruelties of Alva and the massacre of
St. Bartholomew. With the accession of Rudolph II., a change
took place. He had been brought up in Spain. The Catholic
counter-reformation was now making its advance. The order of the
_Jesuits _was putting forth great and successful exertions to win
back lost ground. There were out-breakings of violence between the two
religious parties. A Catholic procession was insulted in
Donauwörth, a free city of the empire. The city was put under
the ban by the emperor; the Bavarian Duke marched against it, and
incorporated it in his own territory (1607). On both sides, complaints
were made of the infraction of the Peace of Augsburg. The Donauwörth
affair led to the formation of the Evangelical Union, a league
into which, however, all the Protestant states did not enter. The
Catholic League, under the Leadership of Maximilian of Bavaria,
was firmly knit together and full of energy.
FIRST STAGE IN THE WAR (to 1629).
THE BOHEMIAN STRUGGLE.—The Bohemians revolted against
Ferdinand II. in 1618, when their religious liberties were
violated, and shortly after (1619) refused to acknowledge him as their
king. He was a narrow and fanatical, though not by nature a cruel,
ruler. He gave himself up to the control of the Catholic League. The
two branches of the Hapsburg family—the Austrian and
Spanish—were now in full accord with each other. The Bohemians
gave their crown to Frederick V., the Elector Palatine, the
son-in-law of James I. of England. Bohemia was invaded by
Ferdinand, aided by the League, and abandoned to fire and
sword. The terrible scenes of the Hussite struggle were re-enacted. In
the protracted wars that ensued, it was estimated that the Bohemian
population was reduced from about four millions to between seven and
eight hundred thousand! The Palatinate was conquered and
devastated. The electoral dignity was transferred to the Duke of
Bavaria. At last, in 1625, England, Holland, and
Denmark intervened in behalf of the fugitive Elector
Palatine. Christian IV. of Denmark was defeated, and the
intervention failed. The power gained by Maximilian, the Bavarian Duke,
made his interests separate, in important particulars, from those of
Ferdinand. Ferdinand was able to release himself from the
virtual control of Maximilian and the League, through
Wallenstein, a general of extraordinary ability. He was a
Bohemian noble, proud, ambitious, and wealthy. He raised an army, and
made it support itself by pillage. The unspeakable miseries of Germany,
in this prolonged struggle, were due largely to the composition of the
armies, which were made up of hirelings of different nations, whose
trade was war, and who were let loose on an unprotected
population. Captured cities were given up to the unbridled passions of
a fierce and greedy soldiery. Germany, traversed for a whole generation
by these organized bands of marauders, was in many places reduced
almost to a desert.
EDICT OF RESTITUTION.—Victory attended the arms of Wallenstein,
and of Tilly, a brutal commander, the general of the League. The
territory of the Dukes of Mecklenburg was given to
Wallenstein as a reward (1629). He was anxious to conquer the
German towns on the Baltic. Stralsund offered a stubborn
resistance, which he could not overcome. The League moved
Ferdinand to the adoption of the Edict of Restitution
(1629), which put far off the hope of peace. This edict enforced the
parts of the Peace of Augsburg which were odious to the
Protestants, especially the Ecclesiastical Reservation (p. 410),
and abrogated the provisions of an opposite tenor. It was evident that
the real aim was the entire extinction of Protestantism. The League,
moreover, induced the emperor to remove Wallenstein, of whom
they were jealous. The effect of these measures was to rouse the most
lukewarm of the Protestant princes, including the electors of
Brandenburg and Saxony, to a sense of the common
danger. It was plain that Wallenstein was a sacrifice to the
League, and to the ambition of Maximilian of Bavaria.
SECOND STAGE IN THE WAR (1629-1632).
In the second act of this long drama, Gustavus Adolphus of
Sweden is the hero. His reign is marked by the rise of his country to
the height of its power.
EVENTS IN SWEDEN: CAREER OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS.—Gustavus Vasa
made the mistake of undertaking to divide power among his four
sons. There was a vein of eccentricity, amounting sometimes to
insanity, in the family. Eric XIV. was hasty and jealous,
imprisoned his brother John, and committed reckless crimes. In
1569 he was himself confined, and nine years after was secretly put to
death. John and another brother, Charles of Südermanland,
now reigned together. John was favorable to the Roman-Catholic
Church, and offended his Protestant subjects by efforts at union and
compromise. Moreover, he unwisely made concessions to the nobles, and
increased the burdens of the peasants. Finally, he wanted to make his
son Sigismund king of Poland, a country which, from its
anarchical constitution, was on the road to ruin. Poland was a
Catholic land; and, in order to get the crown, Sigismund avowed
himself a Catholic. Charles, a strict Lutheran, drew to his side
all who were hostile to John's spirit and policy. On the death
of the latter (1592), Duke Charles came into collision with
Sigismund and with the nobles, whose power depended on his
concessions; and he gained the victory over them (1598). In 1604 the
Diet gave him the crown, which he wore for seven years. He had to
contend against faction, and to withstand the attacks of Denmark
and of Russia. In the midst of these troubles he died, and was
succeeded by his son Gustavus Adolphus, then less than eighteen
years of age (1611-1632). He was a well-educated prince, early familiar
with war, a devoted patriot, and, although tolerant in his temper, was
a sincere Protestant, after the type of the old Saxon electors. For
eighteen years after his accession, it had been his aim to control the
Baltic. This had brought him into conflict with Denmark,
Poland, and Russia. His interposition in the German war,
a step which was full of peril to himself, was regarded by
Brandenburg and Saxony with jealousy and repugnance. But
when the savage troops of Tilly (1631) sacked and burned
Magdeburg, the neutral party was driven to side with
Sweden. Gustavus defeated Tilly, and the advance
of his army in the South of Germany prostrated the power of the
League. The princes regarded the Swedish king with suspicion: the
cities regarded him with cordiality. Whether along with his sagacious
and just intentions he connected his own elevation to the rank of King
of Rome, and emperor, must be left uncertain. Ferdinand was
obliged to call back Wallenstein. The battle of Lützen,
in 1632, was a great defeat of Wallenstein, and a grand victory
for the Swedes; but it cost them the life of their king.
FRANCE.—THE BOURBON KINGS.
HENRY IV, 1589-1610, (2), m.
Mary, daughter of Francis, Grand Duke of Tuscany
|
+—LOUIS XIII, 1610-1643, m.
| Anne, daughter of Philip III of Spain.
| |
| +—LOUIS XIV, 1643-1715, m. Maria Theresa,
| | daughter of Philip IV of Spain.
| | |
| | +—Louis, Dauphin, d. 1711, m. Maria Anna,
| | | daughter of Ferdinand Maria, Elector of Bavaria.
| | | |
| | | +—Louis, Duke of Burgundy, d. 1712, m.
| | | Mary Adelaide, daughter of Victor Amadeus II of Savoy.
| | | |
| | | +—LOUIS XV, 1715-1774, m.
| | | Mary, daughter of Stanislas Leczinsky, King of Poland.
| | | |
| | | +—Louis, Dauphin, d. 1765, m
| | | Maria Josepha, daughter of Frederick Augustus II
| | | of Poland and Saxony.
| | | |
| | | +—LOUIS XVI, 1774-1792 (deposed, executed 1793),
| | | | m. Marie Antoinette, daughter of
| | | | Emperor Francis I.
| | | |
| | | +—Louis, Count of Provence (LOUIS XVIII),
| | | | 1814-1824.
| | | |
| | | +—Charles, Count of Artois (CHARLES X), 1824-1830
| | | (deposed),m Maria Theresa, daughter
| | | of Victor Amadeus III of Savoy.
| | |
| | +—Francoise (Mademoiselle de Blois),
| | m.
| | +—Philip, regent, _d._1723.
| | | |
| | | +—Louis, d. 1752.
| | | |
| | | +—Louis Philippe, d. 1785.
| | | |
| | | +—Louis Philippe (Egalite), executed 1793.
| | | |
| | | +—LOUIS PHILIPPE, 1830-1848 (deposed), m.
| | | Maria Amelia, daughter of
| | | Ferdinand I of Two Sicilies.
| | |
| | (2), Elizabeth, daughter of Charles Lewis, Elector Palatine.
| | (1), Henrietta Maria.
| +—Philip, m.
|
+—Henrietta Maria m. Charles I of England.
THIRD STAGE IN THE WAR (1632-1648).
FRANCE AFTER HENRY IV.—After the death of Gustavus, in the new
phase of the war, the influence of Richelieu, the great
minister of France, becomes more and more dominant. Germany was in the
end doomed to eat the bitter fruits of civil war, such as spring from
foreign interference, even when it comes in the form of help. Henry
IV. had died when he was on the point of directing the power of
France, as of old, against the house of Hapsburg. The country now fell
back for a series of years to a state akin to that under the kings who
preceded him, although it was saved from a long civil war. Louis
XIII. (1610-1643) was a child; and the queen, Mary de
Medici, who was the regent, an Italian woman, with no earnest
principles, deprived of the counsels of Sully, lavished the
resources of the crown upon nobles, who were greedy of place and
pelf. At the assembly of the States-general in 1614, nobles, clergy,
and the third estate were loud in reciprocal accusations. The queen
fell under the influence of the Concinis, an Italian
waiting-maid and her husband, the latter of whom she made a marquis
and a marshal of France. She leagued herself in various ways with
Spain. As the king grew older, a party rallied about him, and
the marshal was assassinated (1617). From that time Louis was
under the influence of a favorite, the Duke de Luynes, a native
Frenchman, with whom the nobles were in sympathy. The duke died in
1621. Then Richelieu, Bishop of Lucon (made a cardinal in
1622), a statesman of extraordinary genius, began his active career in
politics, and after 1624 guided the policy of France, as a sort of
Mayor of the Palace. Louis XIII. was not personally fond of
him, but felt the need of him. Richelieu's aim, as regards the
government of France, was to consolidate the monarchy by bringing the
aristocracy into subjection to the king. Under him began the process
of centralization, the system of officers appointed and paid by the
government, which was fully developed after the great revolution. He
accomplished the overthrow of the Huguenots as a political
organization, a state within the state. In 1628 Rochelle, the
last of their towns, fell into his hands. He was determined to make
the civil authority supreme. He resisted interference with its rights
on the part of the Church. The nobles were reduced to obedience by the
infliction of severe punishments. The common people were kept
under. But the domestic government of Richelieu made it
possible for the selfish and ruinous policy of Louis XIV. to
arise. The key of his foreign policy was hostility to Austria
and Spain, to both branches of the Hapsburgs. Before he took
active measures against them, he had to procure quiet in France, and
to provide himself with money and troops.
INTERVENTION OF RICHELIEU.—The pretext of Richelieu for taking
part in the German war was the alleged ambitious aim of the
Hapsburgs to destroy the independence of other nations. He
helped Gustavus with money; but the Swedish king would neither
allow him to take territory, nor to dictate the method of prosecuting
the contest. It was agreed that the Catholic religion as such should
not be attacked. Oxenstiern, the Swedish chancelor, in the
Heilbronn Treaty (1633) adhered to the same policy.
DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN.—Wallenstein had now become dangerous to
the emperor. He negotiated with the Protestants, the Swedes, and the
French, possibly to confront the emperor with the accomplished fact of
peace and to claim as a reward the Palatinate or the Kingdom
of Bohemia. Deprived of his command and declared a traitor, he was
assassinated by some of his officers (1634).
END OF THE WAR.—The imperial victory of Nordlingen (1634) made
the active assistance of France necessary. But it was not until the
death of Bernard of Weimar, the foremost general of the Germans
(1639), that Richelieu found himself at the goal of his
efforts. The armies opposed to the emperor were now under the control
of the French. The character of the war had changed. Protestant states
were fighting on the imperial side: the old theological issues were
largely forgotten. Yet the Court of Vienna still clung to the Edict of
Restitution (p. 424) for eight long years, during which the confused,
frightful warfare was kept up. At last the military reverses of the
emperor, Ferdinand III. (1637-1657), who, unlike his father,
was not indisposed to peace, wrung from him a consent to the necessary
conditions.
EFFECTS OF THE WAR.—The barbarities of this long war are
indescribable. The unarmed people were treated with brutal
ferocity. The population of Germany is said to have diminished in
thirty years from twenty to fifty per cent. The population of one city,
Augsburg, fell from eighty to eighteen thousand. There were four
hundred thousand people in Würtemberg: in 1641 only forty-eight
thousand were left. In fertile districts, the destruction of the crops
had caused great numbers to perish by famine. It is only in recent
years that the number of horned cattle in Germany has come to equal
what it was in 1618. Cities, villages, castles, and dwellings
innumerable, had been burned to the ground.
THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA.—The Peace of Westphalia, concluded in 1648,
was a great European settlement. It was agreed, that in Germany,
whatever might be the faith of the prince, the religion of each state
was to be Catholic or Protestant, according to its position in 1624,
which was fixed upon as the "normal year." In the imperial
administration, the two religions were to be substantially
equal. Religious freedom and civil equality were extended to the
Calvinists. The empire was reduced to a shadow by giving to the
Diet the power to decide in all important matters, and by the
permission given to its members to make alliances with one another and
with foreign powers, with the futile proviso that no prejudice should
come thereby to the empire or the emperor. The independence of
Holland and Switzerland was acknowledged. Sweden
obtained the territory about the Baltic, in addition to other important
places, and became a member of the German Diet. Among the acquisitions
of France were the three bishoprics, Metz, Toul,
and Verdun, and the landgraviate of Upper and Lower
Alsace. Thus France gained access to the
Rhine. Sweden and France, by becoming guarantors of the
peace, obtained the right to interfere in the internal affairs of
Germany.
CONSEQUENCES OF THE TREATY.—By this treaty, what was left of central
authority in Germany was destroyed: the empire existed only in name;
the mediæval union of empire and papacy was at an end. Valuable German
territories were given up to ambitious neighbors. France had
extended her bounds, and disciplined her troops. Sweden had
gained what Gustavus had coveted, and, for the time, was a
power of the first class. Spain and Austria were both
disabled, and reduced in rank.
CHAPTER VIII. SECOND STAGE OF THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND: TO THE DEATH
OF ELIZABETH (1547-1603).
REIGN OF EDWARD VI. (1547-1553).—Henry VIII., with Parliament,
had determined the order of succession, giving precedence to
Edward, his son by Jane Seymour, over the two princesses,
Mary, the daughter of Catherine, and Elizabeth,
the daughter of Anne Boleyn. Edward VI., who was but ten
years old at his accession, was weak in body, but was a most remarkable
instance of intellectual precocity. The government now espoused the
Protestant side. Somerset, the king's uncle, was at the head of
the regency. The Six Articles (p. 407) were repealed. Protestant
theologians from the Continent were taken into the counsels of the
English prelates, Cranmer and Ridley. Under the
leadership of Cranmer, the Book of Common Prayer was framed, and
the Articles, or creed, composed. The clergy were allowed to
marry. The Anglican Protestant Church was fully organized, but the
progress in the Protestant direction was rather too rapid for the sense
of the nation. Somerset, who was fertile in schemes and a good
soldier, invaded Scotland in order to enforce the fulfilling of the
treaty which had promised the young Princess Mary of Scotland to
Edward in marriage. He defeated the Scots at Pinkie, near
Edinburgh; but the project as to the marriage failed. Mary was
sent by the Scots to France, there to become the wife of Francis
II. Land belonging to the Church was seized by Somerset to
make room for Somerset House. A Catholic rebellion in Cornwall
and Devonshire, provoked by the Protector's course, was suppressed with
difficulty. The opposition to him on various grounds, which was led by
the Duke of Northumberland, finally brought the Protector to the
scaffold. But Northumberland proved to be less worthy to hold
the protectorate than he, and labored to aggrandize his relatives. He
was one of the nobles who made use of Protestantism as a means of
enriching themselves. He persuaded the young king, when he was near his
end, to settle the crown, contrary to what Parliament had determined,
on Lady Jane Grey, Northumberland's daughter-in-law, a
descendant of Henry's sister.
THE REIGN OF MARY.—Notwithstanding the Protector's selfish scheme,
Mary succeeded to the throne without serious difficulty.
Northumberland was beheaded as a traitor. An insurrection under
Wyat was put down, and led to the execution of the unfortunate
and innocent Lady Jane Grey. From her birth and all the
circumstances of her life, Mary was in cordial sympathy with
the Church of Rome and with Spain. She proceeded as rapidly as her
more prudent advisers, including her kinsman Philip II., would
allow, to restore the Catholic system. The married clergy were
excluded from their places, and the Prayer-Book was abolished. The
point where Parliament showed most hesitation was in reference to the
royal supremacy. The nobles were afraid of losing their fields and
houses, which had belonged to the Church. It was stipulated that the
abbey lands, which were now held by the nobles and gentry as well as
by the crown, should not be given up. Personally, Mary was
inclined to any measure which obligation to the Catholic religion
might dictate. Contrary to the general wish of her subjects, she
married Philip II. Rigorous measures of repression were adopted
against the Protestants. A large number of persons, eminent for
talents and learning, were put to death on the charge of heresy. Among
them were the three bishops, Cranmer, Ridley, and
Latimer, who were burned at the stake at Oxford
(1556). Gardiner, Bonner, and the rigid advocates of
persecution, had full sway. These severe measures were not popular;
and, although the queen was not in her natural temper cruel, they have
given her the name of the "Bloody Mary." Each party used coercion when
it had the upper hand. A great number of the Protestant clergy fled to
the Continent. Mary sided with Spain against France, and,
greatly to the disgust of the English, lost Calais (1558). Pope
Paul IV. was disposed to press upon England the extreme demands
of the Catholic Reaction. He was, moreover, hostile to the
Spanish-Austrian house. There was great fear respecting the
confiscated Church property: her own share in it, the queen persuaded
Parliament to allow her to surrender. Cardinal Pole, a moderate
man, no longer guided her policy. He was deprived of the office of
papal legate. General discontent prevailed in the kingdom. The queen
herself was dispirited, and her life ended in anxiety and sorrow.
CHARACTER OF ELIZABETH (1558-1603).—The nation welcomed Elizabeth to
the throne. Her will was as imperious as that of her father. Her
character was not without marked faults and foibles. She was vain,
unwisely parsimonious, petulant, and overbearing, and evinced that want
of truthfulness which was too common among rulers and statesmen at that
period. But she had regal virtues,—high courage, devotion to the
public good, for which she had the strength to sacrifice personal
inclinations, together with the wisdom to choose astute counselors and
to adhere to them. Her title to the throne was disputed. She had to
contend against powerful and subtle adversaries. Her defense lay in the
mutual jealousy of France and Spain, and in the determination of
Englishmen not to be ruled by foreigners. Her reign was long and
glorious.
HER RELIGIOUS POSITION.—In her doctrine, Elizabeth was a
moderate Lutheran, not bitterly averse to the Church of Rome, but, in
accordance with the prevalent English feeling which Henry
VIII. represented, clinging to the royal supremacy. The Protestant
system, with the Prayer-Book, and the hierarchy dependent on the
sovereign, was now restored.
PROTESTANTISM IN SCOTLAND.—In case Elizabeth's claim to the
crown were overthrown, the next heir would be Mary, Queen of
Scots. Her grandmother was the eldest sister of Henry VIII. Her
claim to the English crown was a standing menace to Elizabeth.
When Mary's father, James V., died (1542), she was only
a few days old. Her mother, Mary of Guise, became regent. The
Reformation had then begun to gain adherents in Scotland. On the
accession of Elizabeth, at a time when the religious wars in
France were about to begin, the Scottish regent undertook repressive
measures of increased rigor. The principal agent in turning Scotland
to the Protestant side was John Knox, an intrepid preacher,
honest, and rough in his ways, deeply imbued with the spirit of
Calvinism, and free from every vestige of superstitious deference for
human potentates. He returned from the Continent in 1555. Many of the
turbulent nobles, partly from conviction and partly from covetousness,
adopted the new opinions. More and more, however, Knox gained a
hold upon the common people. His preaching was effective: one of its
natural consequences was an outburst of iconoclasm. Even Philip
II. was willing to have the nobles helped in the contest with the
regent, Scotland being the ally of France. The queen-regent
died in 1560. The Presbyterians now had full control, and Calvinistic
Protestantism was legally established as the religion of the country.
THE QUEEN OF SCOTS.—Such was the situation when Mary, the
young widow of Francis II., came back to Scotland to assume her
crown. A zealous Catholic, she undertook to rule a turbulent people
among whom the most austere type of Protestantism was the legal and
cherished faith. She had personal charms which Elizabeth
lacked, but as a sovereign she was wanting in the public virtue which
belonged to her rival. Mary was quick-witted and full of
energy; but she had been brought up in the court of Catherine de
Medici, in an atmosphere of duplicity and lax morals. She had the
vices of the Stuarts,—an extravagant idea of the sacred
prerogatives of kings, a disregard of popular rights, a willingness to
break engagements. Her levity, even if it had been kept within bounds,
would have been offensive to her Calvinistic subjects. She had at
heart the restoration of the Catholic system. In Knox she found
a vigilant and fearless antagonist, with so much support among the
nobles and the common people that her attempts at coercion, like her
blandishments, proved powerless. Contrary to the wishes and plans of
Elizabeth, she married Darnley, a Scottish nobleman
(1565), whom, not without reason, she soon learned to despise. Her
half-brother Murray, a very able man, and the other Protestant
nobles, had been opposed to the match. She allowed herself an
innocent, but unseemly, intimacy with an Italian musician,
Rizzio. With the connivance of her husband, he was dragged out
of her supper-room at Holyrood, and brutally murdered by
Ruthven and other conspirators. In 1567, the house in which
Darnley was sleeping, close by Edinburgh, was blown up with gunpowder,
and he was killed. Whether Mary was privy to the murder, or
not, is a point still in dispute. Certain it is that she gave her hand
in marriage to Bothwell, the prime author of the crime. A
revolt of her subjects followed. She was compelled to abdicate:
Murray was made regent, and her infant son, James VI.,
was crowned at Stirling (1567). Escaping from confinement at
Lochleven, she was defeated at Langside, and obliged to
fly to England for protection.
EXECUTION OF MARY.—Elizabeth had no liking for the new religious
system in Scotland. She hated the necessity of aiding rebels against
their sovereign. But there was no alternative. In 1569 the defeat of
the Huguenots in France was followed by a Catholic rebellion in the
North of England. Elizabeth was excommunicated by Pope Pius
V. There was a determination to dethrone her, and to hand over her
crown to Mary. The drift of events was towards a conflict of England
with Spain. The Duke of Norfolk, a leader in conspiracy
and rebellion, who acted in concert with Philip and with
Mary, was brought to the scaffold (1572). Elizabeth
secretly aided the revolted subjects of Philip in the
Netherlands, as Philip encouraged the malcontents in England
and Ireland. The Queen of Scots was the center of the hopes of the
enemies of England and of Elizabeth. When her complicity in the
conspiracy of Babington, which involved a Spanish invasion and
the dethronement and death of Elizabeth, was proved, Mary,
after having been a captive for nineteen years, was condemned to
death, and executed (1587) at Fotheringay Castle.
THE SPANISH ARMADA.—In 1585 Elizabeth openly sent troops to the
Netherlands under the command of her favorite, Leicester. The
contest with Spain was kept up on the sea by bold English mariners,
who captured the Spanish treasure-ships, and harassed the Spanish
colonies. It was a period of maritime adventure, when men like
Frobisher, Hawkins, and Raleigh made themselves
famous, and when Sir Francis Drake sailed around the world. In
the course of this voyage, Drake had seized from the Spanish vessels,
and from the settlements on the coast of Peru and Chili, a vast amount
of silver and gold. When it was known that Philip was preparing
to invade England, Drake sailed into the harbor of Cadiz, and
destroyed the ships and stores there (1587). He burned every Spanish
vessel that he could find. He boasted on his return that he had
"singed the king of Spain's beard." Philip made ready a mighty
naval expedition, the "Invincible Armada," for the conquest of
England. The fame of it resounded through Europe. A Spanish force in
the Netherlands, under Parma, was to coöperate with it. In
England, there were preparations to meet the attack. Catholics
and Protestants were united for the defense of the kingdom. At
Tilbury, Queen Elizabeth reviewed her troops on
horseback, saying to them in a spirited speech, "I know I have the
body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach
of a king, and of a king of England too." The tempest, aiding the
valor of the English seamen, dispersed the great fleet. No landing was
effected, and the grand enterprise proved a complete failure. Only
fifty-four out of the one hundred and fifty vessels succeeded in
making their way back to Spain.
MONOPOLIES.—The queen knew how to yield to the people when she saw
that they were determined upon a measure. This she did near the close
of her reign, when the Commons called upon her to put an end to the
monopolies which she had been in the habit of granting to individuals
whom she specially liked.
THE EARL OF ESSEX.—The queen had her personal favorites. Among them,
Robert Dudley, whom she made the Earl of Leicester, was the one
of whom she was most fond. She esteemed him much above his merits.
Another of her favorites was the young Earl of Essex, who was
vain and ambitious. He went in 1596 with Lord Howard in an
expedition which took and plundered Cadiz. Then he was sent to
Ireland in command of an army. He failed, and came back to England
without leave. He made a foolish attempt at insurrection, was tried
for treason, and convicted; and Elizabeth reluctantly signed the
warrant for his execution (1601).
CONQUEST OF IRELAND.—After the return of Essex from Ireland,
where he had done nothing well, Lord Mountjoy was sent to
conquer Tyrone, the Desmonds, and other Irish chiefs. It
was a long and fierce contest. He succeeded in subduing the country;
but the effect of his conquest was a terrible famine in the North,
where the food had been destroyed. At the end of Elizabeth's reign,
all Ireland was subject to England.
THE PURITANS.—Uniformity in the forms of religious worship was
ordained by law in England, and the queen was bent on enforcing it. A
Court of High Commission was established to punish heresy and
nonconformity. This policy early brought on a conflict, not only with
the Roman Catholics, but also with the large and growing class of
Protestants who were called "Puritans." These wished to carry the
Reformation farther than it had been carried by the Tudors in England,
and to make the English Church more like the Calvinistic churches in
Scotland and on the Continent. They disliked surplices and other
vestments worn by the clergy, which they pronounced "badges of
popery," the sign of the cross used in baptism, and like customs
retained in the Church as established by law. Many of them became
opposed to the whole prelatical organization. They did not admit the
supremacy of the sovereign, as Elizabeth claimed it, in things
having to do with the Church and religion. Many of the Puritans
conformed to the existing system of Church government and worship, but
under a protest and with the hope of seeing it changed. Others were
nonconformists; that is, they did not formally break off from
the English Church, but avoided taking part in the forms of worship of
which they disapproved. This class was numerous. A third and smaller
class, the "Independents," separated from the Established Church, and
disbelieved in national churches, or a national organization of
religion, altogether. They formed religious societies of their
own. Thus English Protestants were divided among themselves. Upon both
Puritans and Roman Catholics—upon the latter, partly on political
grounds—severe penalties were inflicted. Churchman and Puritan, while
they agreed substantially in theology, stood at variance in regard to
Church government and modes of worship.
CHAPTER IX. THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION AND THE COMMONWEALTH (1603-1658).
JAMES I.—James VI. of Scotland, and I. of England, was
the son of Mary Stuart and Darnley. Scotland and England
were now united under one king. He was not wanting in acquirements,
and plumed himself on his knowledge of theology. A conceited pedant,
he was impatient of dissent from his opinions. In Scotland, among
insubordinate nobles and the ministers of the Kirk,—who on one
occasion went so far as to pull his sleeve when they addressed to him
their rebukes,—he had hardly tasted the sweets of regal power. The
deference with which the English clergy treated him deepened his
attachment to their Church. He had high notions of the divine right of
kings. "No bishop, no king," was his favorite maxim. Early, in the
Hampton Court Conference between the bishops and the Puritans,
over which James presided, he showed his antipathy to the Puritans. It
may be here stated, that a suggestion there made led to the making of
the Authorized Version of the Bible, for which previous translations,
especially the translation of Tyndale, furnished the basis. The
king's severity to the Catholics was the occasion of the "Gunpowder
Plot," a project that failed, for blowing up the Parliament House by
means of powder placed under it, to which one Guy Fawkes was to
apply the match (1605).
IRELAND.—The Earl of Tyrone, an Irish chief, fell into a
dispute with the English authorities, and, with another Irish earl,
fled to Spain. The best of their lands in Ulster were given to
English and Scotch colonists. Only what was left of the land was
granted to the Irish, many of whom were dispossessed of their
homes. The Ulster colonies were industrious and prosperous; but among
the natives, seeds of lasting enmity were sown by this injustice.
JAMES'S FOREIGN POLICY.—The nation became imbittered against the
king. One grievance was the sale not only of patents of nobility, but
also of monopolies to companies or individuals. This was a continuance
of an old abuse. The trial and conviction of Lord Bacon, the
Lord Chancelor, who was impeached on the charge of receiving presents
which were intended to influence his decisions as a judge, was one
evidence of the corruption of the times, and of the displeasure
occasioned by it. Instead of aiding his son-in-law, Frederick
V., the Elector Palatine, whose dominions had been seized by a
Spanish army sent to aid his enemies, James busied himself with
schemes for marrying his son Charles to the Infanta, or
Princess, Maria of Spain, the sister of Philip IV. As a
part of his truckling to Spain, he caused Sir Walter Raleigh to
be executed. Raleigh, who had no love for Spain, had long been
kept in the Tower on the charge of treason; but the king, who wanted
gold, had permitted him to go on a voyage to South America to seek for
it. There, without his fault, some of his men had a collision with the
Spaniards, up the Orinoco. Not having procured any treasure, he
was disposed to attack Spanish ships; but the captains with him would
not consent. On his return to England, he was again thrown into
prison, and brought to the block. At length the marriage treaty with
Spain, to the joy of the nation, was broken off. Charles, it
was agreed, should marry Henrietta Maria, the sister of
Louis XIII., the king of France. The king came to a better
understanding with Parliament, which had constantly opposed his policy
and withstood his arrogant assumption of absolute authority.
CHARLES I. (1625-1649).—Charles I. in dignity of person far
excelled his father. He had more skill and more courage; but he had
the same theory of arbitrary government, and acted as if insincerity
and the breaking of promises were excusable in defense of it. His
strife with Parliament began at once. They would not grant supplies of
money without a redress of grievances and the removal of
Buckingham, the king's favorite. War had begun with Spain
before the close of the last reign. An expedition was now sent to
Cadiz, but it accomplished nothing. Buckingham was impeached; but
before the trial ended, the king dissolved Parliament. A year later he
went to war with France. He was then obliged (1628) to grant to his
third Parliament their Petition of Right, which condemned his
recent illegal doings,—arbitrary taxes and imprisonment, the
billeting of soldiers on householders, proceedings of martial law. A
few months later Buckingham was assassinated by one John Felton
at Portsmouth. Certain taxes called tonnage and
poundage, Charles continued to levy by his own
authority. A patriotic leader and a prominent speaker in the House of
Commons was Sir John Eliot. The king dissolved Parliament
(1629), and sent Eliot and two other members of the House to
prison. No other Parliament was summoned for eleven years. The king
aimed to establish an absolute system of rule such as Richelieu
had built up in France. Two ministers were employed by him in
furthering this policy. One was a layman, Wentworth, Earl of
Strafford, who exercised almost unlimited power in the northern
counties. The other was William Laud, Bishop of London and then
Archbishop of Canterbury (1633), who undertook to force the Puritans
to conform to all the observances of the Church. Two courts—the
High Commission, before which the clergy were brought; and the
Star Chamber, which was made up from the king's council—were
the instruments for carrying out this tyranny. Grievous and shameful
punishments were inflicted on the victims of it.
JOHN HAMPDEN.—There was need of a fleet. Charles, without asking any
grant from Parliament, undertook to levy a tax called "ship-money" in
every shire. John Hampden, a country gentleman, refused to pay
it. The judges gave a verdict against him, but he won great applause
from patriotic Englishmen.
BEGINNING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT.—In 1637 Charles embarked in the
foolish enterprise of endeavoring to force the English liturgy upon
Scotland. This called out the Solemn League and Covenant of the
Scots for the defense of Presbyterianism. For eleven years the king
had governed without a Parliament, but he needed money. The "Short
Parliament" was assembled; but, as it refused to obey the king, it was
quickly dissolved. The invasion of the Scots in 1640 made it necessary
for Charles to assemble that body known as the Long Parliament,
one of the most memorable of all legislative
assemblies. Strafford and Laud were
impeached. Strafford, by a bill of attainder passed by both
Houses, was condemned and executed (1641). It was enacted that the
present Parliament should not be dissolved or prorogued without its
own consent,—an act which Charles reluctantly sanctioned. The Star
Chamber and High Commission Courts were abolished. A great Irish
insurrection broke out in Ulster. It has already been related
how Henry VIII. established in Ireland his ecclesiastical
system; how, during Elizabeth's reign, there was fierce and
incessant war with the Desmonds, and other Anglo-Irish
families, who resisted Protestantism; and how James I., robbing
many Irish of their lands, planted in Ulster numerous English
and Scotch Protestant settlers. These were now massacred in great
numbers by the Irish, who almost succeeded in seizing
Dublin. Parliament would not trust Charles with an army
to use in Ireland, fearing that the troops would be used by him to
defend his arbitrary government at home. The king came to the House of
Commons with a body of armed men, and made an abortive attempt to
seize five members on the charge of resisting his authority, among
whom were John Hampden, and John Pym, who was one of the
most influential orators on the popular side. A bill was passed
excluding the bishops from the House of Lords, where a majority were
for the king. To this Charles consented, but he refused to allow
Parliament to control the militia.
The CIVIL WAR: SUCCESS OF CROMWELL.—In July, 1642, Parliament
appointed a Committee of Public Safety, and called out the
militia. Soon Charles raised the royal standard at
Nottingham. In the civil war, on one side were the Royalists,
who were familiarly styled cavaliers (that is, horsemen,
or gentlemen), and on the other were the Parliamentarians, who were
nicknamed Roundheads, for the reason that the Puritans did not
follow the fashion of allowing their hair to fall in tresses on the
shoulders.
The Earl of Essex, the Parliamentary general, fought an
indecisive battle with the king at Edgehill. Charles
then made Oxford his headquarters. Early in the war, two men of
spotless character fell,—Hampden, on the popular side (1643),
and Lord Falkland (1643), who, not without hesitation, had
joined the Royalists. The cavalry of Charles, under a gallant but rash
leader, Prince Rupert, son of the Electress Palatine,
and grandson of James I., was specially
effective. Charles made peace with the Irish insurgents in
order to get their help in fighting Parliament. Parliament united with
the Scots in the Solemn League and Covenant, by which there was
to be uniformity in religion in England, Ireland, and Scotland.
PRESBYTERIANS AND INDEPENDENTS.—Presbyterianism was now made
the legal system; and about two thousand beneficed clergymen in
England, who refused to subscribe to the Covenant, were deprived of
their livings. The Westminster Assembly met in 1643, and
organized a church system without bishops and without the liturgy. But
Parliament did not give up its own supremacy in ecclesiastical
affairs. There was no "General Assembly" to rule the Church, as in
Scotland. Another party, the Independents, were gaining
strength, and by degrees getting control in the army. Of their number
was Oliver Cromwell, a gentleman of Huntingdonshire, who had
been a member of the House of Commons, where he spoke for the first
time in 1629.
CROMWELL: NASEBY.—By many of his adversaries, and by numerous writers
since that day, Cromwell has been considered a hypocrite in
religion, actuated by personal ambition. The Puritan poet, John
Milton, who became his secretary after he acquired supreme power,
gives to him the warmest praise for integrity and piety, as well as
for genius and valor. Of his religious earnestness after the Puritan
type, and of his sincere patriotism, there is at present much less
doubt. As to the transcendent ability and sagacity that lay beneath a
rugged exterior, there has never been any question. He raised and
trained a regiment of Puritan troops, called the "Ironsides,"
who were well-nigh invincible in battle, but whose camp was a
"conventicle" for prayer and praise. With their help, the Royalists
were defeated at Marston Moor (1644). The army was now modeled
anew by the Independents. The Self-denying Ordinance excluded
members of Parliament from military command. Cromwell was made
an exception. He came to the front, with no other general except
Fairfax, who had replaced Essex, above him. Laud
was condemned for high treason by an ordinance of Parliament, and
beheaded (1645). The Royalist army experienced a crushing defeat at
Naseby in June of the same year.
TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF CHARLES.—Charles surrendered to the army of
the Scots before Newark (1646); and by them he was delivered
for a ransom, in the form of an indemnity for war expenses, to their
English allies. The king hoped much from the growing discord between
the Presbyterians, who favored an accommodation with him if
they could preserve their ecclesiastical system; and the
Independents, who controlled the army, and were in favor of
toleration, and of obtaining more guaranties of liberty against regal
usurpation. In June, 1647, the army took the king out of the hands of
Parliament, into their own custody. He negotiated with all parties,
and was trusted by none. In 1648 he agreed, in a secret treaty with
the Scots, to restore Presbyterianism. There were Royalist risings in
different parts of England, which Cromwell suppressed. He
defeated at Preston Pans a Scotch army, led into England by the
Duke of Hamilton to help Charles. Cromwell's army were
now determined to baffle the plans of the Parliamentary
majority. Col. Pride, with a regiment of foot, excluded from
the House of Commons about a hundred members. This measure, dictated
by a council of officers, was called Pride's Purge. The Commons
closed the House of Lords, and constituted a High Court of
Justice for the trial of the king. He refused to acknowledge the
tribunal, and behaved with calmness and dignity to the end. He was
condemned, and beheaded on a scaffold before his own palace at
Whitehall, Jan. 30, 1649. By one party he was execrated as a
tyrant, whose life was a constant danger to freedom. By the other
party he was revered as a martyr. His two eldest sons were
Charles, born in 1630, and James, born in 1633.
THE COMMONWEALTH.—The monarchy was now abolished; and England was a
free commonwealth, governed by the House of Commons. A council of
state, under the presidency of Bradshaw, who had presided at
the trial of the king, was appointed to carry on the government. In
Ireland, a rebellion in behalf of young Charles, son of the late king,
was organized by Butler, Marquis of Ormond (1649). In nine
months Cromwell subdued it, treating the insurgents with
unsparing severity. There was a savage massacre of the garrisons at
Drogheda and Wexford. The massacre at Drogheda
was by his orders. Soldiers of Parliament were settled in
Munster, Leinster, and Ulster. The country was
reduced to complete subjection. In 1650 Charles landed in
Scotland, subscribed to the Covenant, and was proclaimed
king. Cromwell fought the Scots at Dunbar, and totally routed
them. Returning to England, he overtook Charles and his army at
Worcester, and defeated them (1651). Cromwell called this
victory "a crowning mercy." Charles escaped in disguise, and,
after strange perils and adventures, landed in Normandy.
WAR WITH HOLLAND.—England, under its new government, engaged in a
contest for dominion on the sea. The new order of things, contrary to
the expectation of Cromwell, was regarded with hostility in
Holland, where the Orange family were in power. In 1651
the English Navigation Act, requiring all goods from abroad to
be brought in, either in English ships, or in ships of the countries
on the Continent in which the imported wares were produced, struck a
heavy blow at Dutch commerce. War followed, in which the great Dutch
admirals, Van Tromp, De Ruyter, De Witt, found
more than a match in the English commander, Blake. The terms of
peace were dictated by Cromwell, and Holland had to attach
itself to his policy (1654).
THE LORD PROTECTOR.—There was a growing discord between the unworthy
remnant of the Parliament—now called the "Rump Parliament"—and the
army. In 1653 Cromwell used his military force to dissolve the
assembly. By the "Little Parliament" which he called together, he was
constituted Lord Protector, with a Council of State
composed of twenty-five members. Later he declined the title of king,
out of respect to the feelings and prejudices of his party. But he
reigned in state, and exercised regal functions. His attempts to
restore the old forms of parliamentary government, in an orderly form,
with two houses, were baffled by difficulties beyond control. He
insisted on a large degree of toleration, so long as "religion was not
made a pretense for arms and blood."
CROMWELL'S GOVERNMENT.—Under the Protector, England once more took
the proud and commanding place in Europe which she had not held since
the death of Elizabeth. Cromwell made his power to be
everywhere respected. Blake chastised the pirates of the
Barbary States, and punished the Duke of Tuscany for attacks on
English commerce. In 1655 Jamaica was wrested from
Spain; and, two years after, Blake burned the Spanish
treasure-ships in the harbor of Santa Cruz, in
Teneriffe. Cromwell efficiently protected the adherents of the
Protestant faith in Piedmont, and wherever they were subjected
to persecution. In the last year of his life, in conjunction with the
French, he took Dunkirk from the Spaniards.
POWER OF CROMWELL.—Cromwell's power was not diminished in his closing
years. Macaulay, who pronounces him the greatest prince that
ever ruled England, says of him, "It is certain that he was to the
last honored by his soldiers, obeyed by the whole population of the
British Isles, and dreaded by all foreign powers; that he was laid
among the ancient sovereigns of England with funeral pomp such as
England had never before seen; and that he was succeeded by his son,
Richard as quietly as any king had ever been succeeded by any Prince
of Wales." (1658).
The talents of Cromwell, and the vigor of his administration, deeply
impressed those who heartily disliked him. A strong illustration of
this fact is presented in the character of the Protector as depicted by
Lord Clarendon, in the History of the Great Rebellion;
and by the poet Cowley in his essay or Discourse.
CHAPTER X. COLONIZATION IN AMERICA: ASIATIC NATIONS; CULTURE AND
LITERATURE (1517-1648).
COLONIZATION IN AMERICA.
The European nations kept up their religious and political rivalship in
exploring and colonizing the New World.
FRENCH EXPLORERS.—The French and English sent their fishermen to the
coasts of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. French fishermen
from Breton gave its name to Cape Breton. Francis
I. sent out Verrazano, an Italian sailor, who is thought to
have cruised along the coast of North America from Cape Fear northward
(1524). Later, Jacques Cartier explored the St. Lawrence
as far as the site of Montreal (1535); other expeditions
followed, and thus was founded the claim of the French to that region.
SPANISH EXPLORERS.—The Spaniards brought negroes from the coast of
Africa to the West Indies, to take the place of the Indians; and thus
the slave-trade and negro slavery were established. They
gave the name of Florida to a vast region stretching from the
Atlantic to Mexico, and from the Gulf of Mexico to an undefined limit
in the North. From Tampa Bay, in what we now call
Florida, they sent into this unexplored region an expedition
under Narvaez (1528); and afterwards, on the same track, another
party led by Hernando de Soto (1539), which made its way to the
Mississippi near the present site of Vicksburg. Tempted
by tales of rich cities, Coronado led an army to the conquest of
the pueblos of the south-west. He penetrated as far as the boundary of
the present Nebraska.
CONTEST IN FLORIDA.—The great Huguenot leader, Coligny, made
three attempts to found Huguenot settlements in America. He wanted to
provide for them an asylum, and to extend the power of France. One
company went to Brazil, and failed; a second perished at Port
Royal in Florida; a third (1564) built Fort Caroline
on the shores of the St. John. This last company was mercilessly
slaughtered by Menendez, the leader of a Spanish expedition
which founded St. Augustine (1565), the oldest town in the
United States. The act was avenged by the massacre of the Spanish
settlers at Fort Caroline, by Dominique de Gourgues and
the French company that came over with him.
ENGLISH VOYAGES.—The English, full of zeal for maritime discovery,
tried to find a north-west passage to Asia. This was attempted by
Martin Frobisher, a sea-captain, from whom Frobisher's
Strait takes its name. After him followed John Davis, who
gave his name also to a strait. As the English grew stronger and bolder
on the water, they ceased to avoid a contest with Spain. In 1577 Sir
Francis Drake set out from the harbor of Plymouth on his
voyage around the globe. The defeat of the Spanish Armada occurred in
1588; and after that the English felt themselves to be stronger than
their old adversary.
GILBERT AND RALEIGH.—Sir Humphrey Gilbert, in 1583, took
possession of Newfoundland in the name of the queen of England.
Walter Raleigh, his half-brother, on his voyage in 1584,
visited Roanoke Island, and named the whole country between the
French and the Spanish possessions, Virginia, in honor of "the
Virgin Queen," Elizabeth. A colony which he sent out to
Roanoke (1585) failed, and a second settlement had no better
result. Bartholomew Gosnold landed on Cape Cod, and
cruised along the neighboring coast (1602).
THE FRENCH IN CANADA.—In 1603 Champlain, a French gentleman,
sailed to Canada, whither the fur-trade enticed explorers. A
few years later he founded Quebec (1608), and explored the
country as far as Lake Huron. The Jesuit missionaries commenced
their efforts to convert the Indian tribes, in which they evinced an
almost unparalleled fortitude and perseverance. The Huron and
Algonquin Indians helped Champlain gain a victory over
the hostile and warlike Iroquois, who afterwards hated the
French. The French occupants of the country of the St. Lawrence
devoted themselves too exclusively to trading, and too little to the
tilling of the ground and to the forming of a community.
THE DUTCH SETTLEMENTS.—The Dutch were as eager as the other maritime
powers to find a passage to India. In 1609 an English captain in their
service, Henry Hudson, balked in this endeavor, sailed up the
river now called by his name. The next year, being in the service of
an English company, he discovered Hudson's
Bay. Amsterdam traders established themselves on the island
of Manhattan (an Indian name); which led to the formation of
the New Netherlands Company, by whom a fort (Orange) was built
at the place afterwards called Albany (1615). The West India
Company followed (1621), with authority over New Netherlands,
as the country was called. The powerful land-owners were styled
patroons. Their territory reached to Delaware Bay; and they had
a trading-post on the Connecticut, on the site of the present city of
Hartford.
In 1637 the Swedes made a settlement at the mouth of the Delaware
River, but in 1655 they were subdued by the Dutch.
SETTLEMENT OF VIRGINIA.—The Virginia Company, divided into two
branches,—the London Company, having control in the South, and
the Plymouth Company, having control in the North,—received its
patent of privileges from James I. (1606). A settlement by the
Plymouth Company on the Kennebec River (1607)—the
Popham Colony—was given up. In 1607 Jamestown in
Virginia, as the name Virginia is now applied, was settled. A
majority of the first colonists were gentlemen not wonted to labor. The
military leader was Capt. John Smith, whose life, according to
his own account, was spared by Powhatan, an Indian
chief. Powhatan's daughter Pocahontas married Rolfe, an
Englishman. The Jamestown colony seemed likely to become extinct, when,
in 1610, Lord Delaware arrived with fresh supplies and
colonists. He was the first of a series of governors who ruled with
almost unlimited authority. But the colony grew to be more independent,
and in sympathy with the popular party in England. In 1619 the House
of Burgesses first met, which brought in government by the people.
At this time negroes began to be imported from Africa, and sold
as slaves.
THE PILGRIM SETTLEMENT.—The first permanent settlement in New
England was made at Plymouth in 1620, by a company of
English Christians, who landed from the "Mayflower." They were Puritans
of that class called "Independents," who had separated from the English
Church, and did not believe in any national church organization. The
emigrants left Leyden, in Holland, where they had lived for some
time in exile, and where the remainder of their congregation remained
under the guidance of a learned and able pastor, John
Robinson. In the harbor of Provincetown, they agreed to a
compact of government. Their civil polity was republican; their church
polity was Congregational. They endured with heroic and pious
fortitude the severities of the first winter, when half of their number
died. Their military leader was Capt. Miles Standish. In their
dealings with the Indians, they were equally just and brave.
SETTLEMENT OF MASSACHUSETTS.—Somewhat different in its origin and
character from the "Pilgrim" settlement at Plymouth, was the
other Puritan settlement of Massachusetts. The emigrants to
Massachusetts were not separatists from the Church of England, but more
conservative Puritans who desired, however, many ecclesiastical changes
which they could not obtain at home. Both classes of settlers,
transferred to New England, found no difficulty in agreeing in
religious matters; for when left free, they desired about the same
things. But at Plymouth there was more toleration for religious
dissent than in the later colony. In 1629 certain London merchants
formed a corporation called "the Governor and Company of the
Massachusetts Bay in New England," and received a charter directly from
Charles I. They sent out John Endicott to be governor of
a settlement already formed at Salem. Charles had
dissolved Parliament, and was beginning the experiment of
absolutism. The new company was strengthened by the accession of a
large number of Puritan gentlemen who were anxious to emigrate. They
resolved to transfer the company and its government to the shores of
America. John Winthrop was chosen governor, and in 1630 landed
at Charlestown with a large body of settlers. Winthrop
and his associates soon removed to the peninsula of Boston. The
new colony was well provided with artisans. Soon ships began to be
built. In 1636 a college, named in 1639, in honor of a benefactor,
Harvard, was founded at Cambridge. At first all the
voters met together to choose their rulers and frame their laws. As the
towns increased in number, a General Court, or legislative
assembly, was established by the colony, in which each town was
represented. Each town had its church, and only church-members
voted. The General Court superintended the affairs of both town
and church. The political troubles in England stimulated
emigration. Within ten years, about twenty thousand Englishmen, mainly
Puritans, crossed the Atlantic, and took up their abode in New
England. In the ecclesiastical system each church was self-governing,
except as the General Court was over all. There were no bishops,
and the liturgy was dispensed with in worship.
SETTLEMENT OF CONNECTICUT.—After the Dutch had built a trading-post on
the site of Hartford, people from Plymouth formed a
settlement at Windsor, on the Connecticut, six miles above. From
Boston and its neighborhood, there was a migration which settled
Hartford. In 1637 the three towns of Windsor,
Wethersfield, and Hartford became the distinct colony of
Connecticut. A colony led by the younger John Winthrop,
under a patent given to Lord Say and Sele and Lord Brook,
drove away the Dutch from the mouth of the Connecticut, and settled
Saybrook (1635). This colony was afterwards united with the
Connecticut colony. A third colony was established at New Haven
(1638), which had an independent existence until 1662.
SETTLEMENT OF RHODE ISLAND, OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, AND OF MAINE.—Roger
Williams, a minister who was not allowed to live in
Massachusetts, on account of his differences with the
magistrates, was the founder of Rhode Island (1636). He held
that the State should leave matters of religious opinion and worship
to the conscience of the individual, and confine government to secular
concerns. This was not the view of the Puritans generally; and the
incoming of dissenters from their religious and political system made
them afraid that the colony would be broken up, or fall into
disorder. Williams, in most of his qualities a noble man,
obtained a patent for his government, which was framed in accordance
with his liberal ideas. On lands granted by the Plymouth Company to
Sir Ferdinando Gorges, settlements were made in New
Hampshire and in Maine (1623). A line between the two was
drawn in 1631; Gorges taking the territory on the east of the
Piscataqua River, and Capt. John Mason taking the
remainder.
VIRGINIA.—After 1624 the king appointed the governor in Virginia,
which, however, had its own assembly. The colony grew rapidly, its
chief export being tobacco. The people lived on their estates or
plantations, employing indented servants and negro slaves.
MARYLAND.—Maryland was founded by George Calvert, Lord
Baltimore, a Roman Catholic, to whom Charles I. granted a
charter (1632). The first settlement was made by Calvert's sons, after
his death. They planted a colony near the mouth of the Potomac. The
Calverts sent out both Puritans and Roman Catholics, and
secured the safety of the adherents of their own faith by the grant of
toleration to the Protestants. Under Cromwell, a Puritan
governor was appointed by Lord Baltimore (1649). There were
boundary disputes with Virginia; and Clayborne, a Puritan and a
Virginian, at one time got control of the government, which the
Calverts regained under Charles II. (1660).
NEW ENGLAND: NEW YORK.—During the war between king and Parliament in
England, the Puritan colonies were in sympathy with the popular party,
but were cautious in their avowals. They took great pains to prevent
the king, and later the Parliament under the Commonwealth, from taking
away their self-government. The English navigation acts, which forbade
them to use foreign ships for their trade and forced them to send
nearly all their products to English ports, were a grievance to
them. The rivalries of the English and the Dutch gave
the colonists a chance to expel the Dutch from
Connecticut. Charles II. at length conquered New
Netherland, and ceded this territory to his brother, the Duke of
York, afterwards James II. New Amsterdam became New
York, and Fort Orange became Albany. In 1674 the
country was formally ceded to England by Holland.
THE INDIANS.—When America was discovered, Mexico, Central
America, and Peru were empires, to a considerable degree
civilized. Relics taken from the mounds of the Ohio and Mississippi
valleys indicate, also, that races somewhat advanced in culture had
once dwelt in those regions. The most of both continents was inhabited
by very numerous tribes of Indians, who were savages, with the
ordinary virtues and vices of savage life. They were brave and patient,
but indolent, treacherous, and implacable. There was an immense variety
of dialects among them, yet there are traces of a common original unity
of language. The tribes had no fixed boundaries, but roamed over
extensive hunting-grounds. The Iroquois, or the Six Nations,
occupied central New York from the Hudson to the Genesee. The
Algonquins were spread over nearly all the rest of the country
on the east of the Mississippi River, and north of North
Carolina. The Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws
were in the South.
THE WHITES AND THE RED MEN.—It was fortunate for the settlers of New
England, that, before their arrival, the Indians had been much reduced
in numbers by pestilence. Sometimes they were treated wisely and
humanely, and efforts were made by noble men like John Eliot
(1604-1690), who has been called "the Apostle to the Indians," to
teach and civilize them. But this spirit was not always shown by the
whites, and wrongs done by an individual are avenged by savages upon
his race. The first important conflict between the English and the
Indians was the Pequot War (1636), when the English, helped by
the Narragansetts, who were under the influence of Roger
Williams, crushed the Pequots, who were a dangerous
tribe. A league between the New-England colonies, for mutual counsel
and aid, followed (1643). Into this league, Massachusetts would
not allow Rhode Island, whose constitution was disliked, to be
admitted. There were to be two commissioners to represent each colony
in common meetings.
SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY, LITERATURE.
ASTRONOMY.—In this period wonderful progress was made in astronomy.
Copernicus, a German or Polish priest (1473-1543), detected the
error of the Ptolemaic system, which made not the sun, but the earth,
the center of the solar system. Thus a revolution was made in that
science. Tycho Brahe, a Danish astronomer (1546-1601), was a
most accurate and indefatigable observer, although he did not adopt
the Copernican theory. His pupil Kepler (1571-1630) discovered
those great principles respecting the orbits and motions of the
planets, which are called the "Laws of Kepler." Galileo
(1564-1642), the Italian scientist, in addition to important
discoveries in mechanics, with the telescopes, which his ingenuity had
constructed, discerned the moons of Jupiter, and made other striking
discoveries in the heavens. In promulgating the Copernican doctrine,
he incurred the displeasure of ecclesiastics, and was driven by the
Inquisition to renounce his opinion. It was reserved for Sir Isaac
Newton (1643-1727) to discover the law of gravitation.
JURISPRUDENCE.—In jurisprudence, the Roman law was more and more
studied in universities. In political science, Bodin, a learned
Frenchman (1530-1596), wrote a work on the State, advocating a strong
monarchy. In the Netherlands, Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), a great
jurist and scholar, was one of the principal founders of the science
of International Law. An eminent expounder of natural and
international law in Germany was Pufendorf (1632-1694).
HISTORICAL WRITINGS.—In history, Sleidan, a German (1506-1556),
and later a learned statesman, Seckendorf (1626-1692), wrote
histories of the Reformation. De Thou, a Frenchman (1553-1617),
wrote a valuable history of his own times. Grotius described the
war for independence in the Netherlands. Church history, on the
Protestant side, was written by a company of authors called the
Magdeburg Centuriators; and on the Catholic side, in the Annals
of Baronius (who died in 1607). In the Tower of London, Sir
Walter Raleigh employed himself in writing a History of the World,
remarkable, if not for its researches, for passages of noble
eloquence. In Italy, historians followed in the path opened by
Machiavelli, through his Discourses on Livy and his
Florentine History. Davila (1576-1631) composed a
narrative of the Civil Wars in France, and the Cardinal
Bentivoglio wrote the history of the Civil War in the
Netherlands. Sarpi, a keen Venetian, of much independence of
thought, related the history of the Council of Trent, which was
followed by a history of the same Council by the more orthodox
Pallavicini. In Spain, there was at least one historian of
superior value, Mariana, who composed a history of his own
country.
MEDICINE.—Medicine felt the benefit of the revival of
learning. Hippocrates and Galen were studied, and were
translated into Latin. Paracelsus, a German physician
(1493-1541), besides broaching various theories more or less visionary,
advanced the science on the chemical side, introducing certain mineral
remedies. Vesalius, a native of Brussels (1514-1564), who
became chief physician of Charles V. and Philip II.,
dissected the human body, and produced the first comprehensive and
systematic view of anatomy. In the sixteenth century clinical
instruction was introduced into hospitals. Harvey, an English
physician (1578-1657), discovered the circulation of the blood. In the
seventeenth century activity in medical study was shown by the rise of
various discordant systems.
PHILOSOPHY.—In philosophy, Aristotle continued to be the
master in the most conservative schools, where the old ways of
thinking were cherished. His ethical doctrines were especially
attacked by Luther. Giordano Bruno, an Italian, not
without genius, promulgated a theory of pantheism, which identified
the Deity with the world. He wandered from land to land, was a
vehement assailant of received religious views, and was burned at the
stake at Rome (1600). In some gifted minds, the conflict of
doctrinal systems, and the influence of the Renaissance, engendered
skepticism. Montaigne (1533-1592), the genial essayist on men
and manners, the Plutarch of France, is an example of this class. The
opposition to Aristotle and to the schoolmen found a great
leader in the English philosopher, Francis Bacon
(1561-1626). The influence of Lord Bacon was more in
stimulating to the use of the inductive method, the method of
observation, than in any special value belonging to the rules laid
down for it. He pointed out the path of fruitful investigation.
Hobbes (1588-1679), an English writer, propounded, in his
Leviathan (1651) and in other writings, his theory of the
absolute authority of the king, and the related doctrine that right is
founded on the necessity of "a common power," if the desires are to be
gratified, and if endless destructive contention is to be
avoided. From the epoch of Bacon, the natural and physical sciences
acquire a new importance. In metaphysical science, the modern epoch
dates from Descartes (1596-1650), born in France, who insisted
that philosophy must assume nothing, but must start with the
proposition, "I think, therefore I am." Before, philosophy had been
"the handmaid of theology." It had taken for granted a body of
beliefs respecting God, man, and the world. Descartes was a
theist. Spinoza (1632-1677), of Jewish extraction, born in
Holland, is the founder of modern pantheism. He taught that
there is but one substance; that God and the world—the totality of
things—are the manifestation of one impersonal being.
LITERATURE IN ITALY.—In Italy, among many authors in different
departments of poetry, Tasso (1544-1595), the author of the
epic Jerusalem Delivered, is the most eminent. In it, the
classic and the romantic styles are combined; the spirit of the Middle
Ages blends with the unity and harmony of Homer and Virgil. In the
seventeenth century, under the hard Spanish rule, the literary spirit
in Italy was chilled.
LITERATURE IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.—In Spain, it was poetry and the
drama that chiefly flourished. Other sorts of literary activity were
stifled with the extinction of liberty. Lope de Vega
(1562-1635), one of the most facile and marvelous of all poets, the
author of twenty-two hundred dramas,—was the precursor of a
school. After him came Calderon (1600-1681), who carried the
Spanish drama to its perfection. Early in the seventeenth century
Cervantes published the classic tale of Don Quixote, "to
render abhorred of men the false and absurd stories contained in books
of chivalry," an end which he accomplished. Mariana's
(1536-1623) vivid and interesting History of Spain was continued
in a less attractive style by Sandoval. Herrera
(1549-1625) composed a General History of the Indies. Other works
relating to the New World and the Spanish conquests were written. In
the production of proverbs, the Spanish mind is without a rival. Not
the least of the bad effects of the despotic system of Philip
II. was the decay of literature.
The most celebrated writer of Portugal is the poet
Camoens (1524-1579), who, in his epic the Lusiad, has
treated of the glorious events in the history of his country, giving
special prominence to the discovery by Vasco da Gama of the
passage to India.
LITERATURE IN FRANCE.—In France, with the exception of
Montaigne, it was Rabelais (1495-1553), a physician,
philosopher, and humorist, who, notwithstanding his profanity and
obscenity, was the most popular author of his day, and who well
represents the tone of the Renaissance in that country. Ronsard
(1524-1585), an imitator of the Latins and Greeks, was the favorite
poet of Mary, Queen of Scots. In the first half of the
seventeenth century the light literature of the French is ruled by
fashion, and is void of serious feeling. In this time the literary
societies of France take their rise. Madame de Rambouillet
(1588-1665), a lady of Italian birth, set the example in establishing
such reunions. She made her hotel a resort for writers and
politicians. Being an invalid, she kept her bed, which was placed in an
alcove of the salon where she received her visitors.
LITERATURE IN ENGLAND.—In England, in the age of Elizabeth,
there is a galaxy of great authors in prose and verse. The events and
debates of the Reformation, the voyages and geographical discoveries of
the period, gave a powerful quickening to thought and imagination. The
Renaissance culture, which made familiar the stories of Greek and Roman
mythology, and the romantic tales and poetry of Italy and Spain, was
potent in its effect. Some of the numerous theological writers, as
Bishop Hall (1574-1656), Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), and
Richard Hooker (1553-1600), have gained a high place in general
literature. Bacon, apart from his philosophical writings, towers
above almost all his contemporaries in the field of letters. The
chivalrous Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) wrote the pastoral
romance of Arcadia. Burton (1576-1640), the author of
The Anatomy of Melancholy, and Sir Thomas Brown, who
published (1642) the Religio Medici (the religion of a
physician) and, at a later date, the Urn Burial, are quaint and
original authors. The merit of Shakspeare (1564-1616) is so
exalted and unique that he almost eclipses even the greatest names. The
English drama did not heed what are called the classic unities of time
and place, which limit the action of a play to a brief duration and a
contracted area. Other celebrated dramatic writers are Beaumont
(1586-1615) and Fletcher (1579-1625), who wrote many plays
jointly; Ben Jonson (1574-1637), and Massinger
(1584-1640). The imaginative poetry which is not dramatic, in this
period, begins with Spenser (1553-1599), whose Faërie
Queene is a poem of chivalry; and it ends with Milton
(1608-1674), the Puritan poet, imbued with the culture of the
Renaissance, whose majesty and beauty place him almost on a level, at
least in the esteem of readers of the English race, with Dante. Among
the religious poets is George Herbert (1593-1635). One of the
most famous of the lyric authors was the last of them, Cowley
(1618-1667).
LITERATURE IN GERMANY.—In Germany, the great literary product of this
period was Luther's translation of the Bible. The
immediate effect of the controversy in religion was not favorable to
the cause of letters. Attention was engrossed by theological inquiries
and discussion. But in most of the countries, in the department of
theology, preachers and writers of much ability and learning appeared
on both sides of the controversy. Biblical study and historical
researches were of necessity fostered by the exigencies of religious
debate.
ASIATIC NATIONS.
I. CHINA.
THE JESUIT MISSIONS.—The Ming dynasty continued in power in
China until 1644. About the middle of the sixteenth century the
Portuguese came to the island of Macao, and commercial relations
began between China and Europe. They brought opium into China, which
had previously been imported overland from India. In 1583 Matteo
Ricci, a Jesuit missionary, began his labors in China. He and his
associates had great success. His knowledge of the book language was
most remarkable. The concessions of the Jesuit fathers to the Chinese
in matters of ritual excited much opposition in the Church. But for
this dissension among the different Catholic orders, the Roman Catholic
faith, which had gained very numerous converts, would have spread far
more widely.
THE MANCHU CONQUEST.—There were notable literary achievements in this
period, one of which was an encyclopedia in more than twenty-two
thousand books. Four copies were made: only one, a damaged copy, now
remains. The great political event of the time was the seizure of the
throne by the Manchu Tartars (1644), who came in as auxiliaries
against a rebellion, but have worn the crown until now. The shaved head
and the long cue are customs introduced by the Tartar
conquerors. Certain privileges, and certain habits to which the natives
clung, as the mode of dress for women, and the compression of their
feet, were retained by express stipulation.
II. JAPAN.
FEUDAL SYSTEM.—In 1603 Iyéyasu, an eminent general, founded the
Tokugawa dynasty, which continued until the resignation of the
last Shôgun (or Tycoon) in 1867. The rulers of that line held their
court at Yedo, which grew into a flourishing city. The long
period of anarchy and bloodshed that had preceded, was brought to an
end. Iyéyasu laid the foundation of a feudal system which his grandson
Iyémitsu (1623-1650) completed. Japan was divided into fiefs,
each under a daimiô for its chief, who enjoyed a large degree of
independence. The people consisted of four classes:
(1) the military families, who had the right to wear two swords,
the clansmen of the great nobles; (2) the farming class; (3) the
artisans; (4) the tradesmen.
CHRISTIANITY IN JAPAN.—Christianity was preached in Japan by
Xavier, a successful Jesuit missionary, in 1583. Other Jesuit
preachers followed. A multitude of converts were made. But on account
of immoralities of Europeans, and the dread of foreign political
domination, the government engaged in a series of severe
persecutions. In 1614 an edict proscribed Christianity. A portion of
the peasants who were converts were so oppressed, that they revolted
(1637). The result was an act of terrible cruelty,—the massacre of
all Christians; so that none remained openly to profess the Christian
faith.
III. INDIA.
THE MUGHAL EMPIRE.—In the latter half of the fourteenth and in the
fifteenth centuries, the most of India was ruled by distinct
Mohammedan dynasties. The dominion of the Afghan dynasty at
Delhi was thus greatly reduced. In 1525 the Mughal
(Mogul) Empire was founded by Babar, a descendant of
Tamerlane. Babar invaded India, and defeated the Sultan of
Delhi in the battle of Paniput. The new empire was not
permanently established until his grandson Akbar (1556-1605), in
a series of conquests, spread his dominion over all India north of the
Vindhyar mountains. Not until the reign of Aurungzeb
(1658-1707), was the Deccan subdued. After 1600 the Portuguese no
longer had the monopoly of the foreign trade: the Dutch and English
became their rivals.
LITERATURE.—See lists of works on general history, p. 16; on modern
history, p. 395; on the history of particular countries, p. 359.
General Works on the Period. De Thou's History of his own
Times; ROBERTSON'S History of Charles V. (Prescott's ed.);
Von Raumer's Gesch. Europas seit d. Ende d, 15 tu Jahrk, (8
vols).; Hallam's Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the
Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries; RANKE'S series
of works on this period,—the History of the Popes, and the
Histories of Germany, France, and England; Histories of the
Reformation by D'Aubigné, Döllinger (Roman Catholic), Spalding (Roman
Catholic), Fisher, HAUSSER, Hardwick, Stebbing; Laurent, La
Reforme; Lavisse et Rambaud, Histoire Genérale (iv. and
v.); Seebohm's Era of Protestant Revolution; Works of Janssen,
Pastor, Creighton.
On the German and Swiss Reformation: Waddington's History,
etc.; Hagenhach, Vorlesungen, etc.; Lives of Luther, by
Meurer, Michelet, Beard, KÖSTLIN; Lives of Zwingh, by CHRISTOFFEL,
MORIKOFER; Lives of Calvin, by HENRY, Dyer, Kampschulte (Roman
Catholic).
Reformation in France. Works by Soldan, Von Polenz, Smiles, Browning;
BAIRD'S works on Huguenots; Perkins, France under Richelieu
and Mazarin (2 vols.); Hanotaux, Richelieu (2 vols.).
The Revolt of the Netherlands. Blok's History of the Netherlands
(3 vols.), etc.; MOTLEY'S Rise of the Dutch Republic, and
History of the United Netherlands; PRESCOTT'S History of
Philip II.; TH. JUSTE, Hist, de la Rèvol. des Pays-Bas,
etc. (2 vols).
The Reformation in England. The Histories of Macaulay. Lingard,
Froude, Burnet's History of the Reformation in
England. S. R. Gardiner's History of England (1603 to
1656); Clarendon's History of the Great Rebellion; a series of
works on this period by GUIZOT; Neal's History of the
Puritans; Gairdner, History of the English Church from Henry
VIII. to Mary; selections of documents by Prothero and by
Gardiner; Lives of Cromwell, by CARLYLE, by Forster, Gardiner,
Harrison, Firth; Strype's Lives of the Leading Reformers—Cranmer,
etc.
On the Reformation in Scotland. BURTON'S History of Scotland;
Robertson's History of Scotland; McCrie's Life of John
Knox; W. M. TAYLOR, Life of John Knox.
On the Thirty Years' War. GINDELY'S History, etc.; Gardiner,
The Thirty Years' War; Life of Gustavus Adolphus.
For more extended lists, see Adams's Manual, etc.; and
Fisher's The Reformation (Appendix). For list of works on
colonization in America, see the list at the end of Period III.
PERIOD III. FROM THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
(1648-1789)
INTRODUCTION.
CHARACTER OF THE PERIOD.—One feature of this period is the efforts
made by the nations to improve their condition, especially to increase
the thrift and to raise the standing of the middle class. An
illustration is what is called the "mercantile system" in France. Along
with this change, there is progress in the direction of greater breadth
in education and culture. In both of these movements, rulers and
peoples cooperate. Monarchical power, upheld by standing armies,
reaches its climax. The result is internal order, coupled with
tyranny. Great wars were carried on, mostly contests for succession to
thrones. The outcome was an equilibrium in the European state system,
dependent on the relations of five great powers.
FIRST SECTION OF THE PERIOD.—In the first half of the period, the East
and the West of Europe are slightly connected. In the West,
France gains the preponderance over Austria, until, by
the Spanish war of succession, England restores the balance. In
the East, Sweden is in the van, until, in the great Northern war
(1700-1721), Russia becomes predominant.
SECOND SECTION OF THE PERIOD.—In the second half of the period, the
East and the West of Europe are brought together in one state system,
in particular by the rise of the power of Prussia.
CHIEF EVENTS.—The fall of Sweden and the rise of Russia
and Prussia are political events of capital importance. The
maritime supremacy of England, with the loss by England of the
American colonies, is another leading fact. In the closing part
of the period appear the intellectual and political signs of the great
Revolution which broke out in France near the end of the
eighteenth century.
CHAPTER I. THE PREPONDERANCE OF FRANCE: FIRST PART OF THE REIGN OF
LOUIS XIV. (TO THE PEACE OF RYSWICK, 1697): THE RESTORATION OF THE
STUARTS: THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION OF 1688.
LOUIS XIV.: MAZARIN.—The great minister Richelieu died in
1642. "Abroad, though a cardinal of the Church, he arrested the
Catholic reaction, freed Northern from Southern Europe, and made
toleration possible; at home, out of the broken fragments of her
liberties and her national prosperity, he paved the way for the glory
of France." He paved the way, also, for the despotism of her kings. He
had been feared and hated by king and people, but had been obeyed by
both. A few months later Louis XIII., a sovereign without either
marked virtues or vices, followed him (1643). Louis XIV.
(1643-1715) was then only five years old; and Mazarin, the heir
of Richelieu's power, stood at the helm until his death
(1661). To this Italian statesman, ambitious of power and wealth, but
astute, and, like Richelieu, devoted to France, the queen,
Anne of Austria, willingly left the management of the
government. The rebellion of the Fronde (1648-1653) was a rising
of the nobles to throw off the yoke laid on them by
Richelieu. They were helped by the discontent of parliament and
people with the oppressive taxation. In Paris, there was a rising of
the populace, who built barricades; but the revolt was quelled. Its
leaders, Conti, the Cardinal de Retz, and the great
Condé, a famous soldier, were compelled to fly from the
country. Mazarin, who had been obliged to fly to Cologne,
returned in triumph. After that, resistance to the absolute monarch
ceased,—the monarch whose theory of government was expressed in the
assertion, "I am the State" (l'etat c'est moi). In the
Peace of the Pyrenees (1659), Spain gave in
marriage to Louis, the Infanta Maria Theresa, the
daughter of Philip IV., and ceded to France important places in
the Netherlands. Maria renounced all claims on her inheritance,
for herself and her issue, in consideration of a dowry of five hundred
thousand crowns to be paid by Spain. Shortly after, Mazarin, who
had negotiated the treaty, in full possession of his exalted authority
and the incalculable treasures which he had amassed, died.
LOUIS XIV. AND HIS OFFICERS.—Louis XIV. was now his own
master. His appetite for power was united with a relish for pomp and
splendor, which led him to make Versailles, the seat of his
court, as splendid as architectural skill and lavish expenditure could
render it, and to make France the model in art, literature, manners,
and modes of life, for all Europe. With sensual propensities he mingled
a religious or superstitious vein, so that from time to time he sought
to compound for his vices by the persecution of the Huguenots. He was
the central figure in the European life of his time. Taking care that
his own personal authority should not be in the least impaired, he made
Colbert controller-general, to whom was given charge of the
finances of the kingdom. Louvois was made the minister of
war. Colbert not only provided the money for the costly wars,
the luxurious palaces, and the gorgeous festivities of his master, but
constructed canals, fostered manufactures, and built up the French
marine. Louvois, with equal success, organized the military
forces in a way that was copied by other European states. Able
generals—Turenne, Condé, and Luxemburg—were in
command. The nobles who held the offices, military as well as civil,
vied with one another in their obsequious devotion to the "great king."
Vauban, the most skillful engineer of the age, erected
impregnable fortifications in the border towns that were seized by
conquest. In the arts of diplomacy, the French ambassadors were equally
superior. The monarch was sustained by the national pride of the
people, and by their ambition to dominate in Europe.
ATTACK ON THE NETHERLANDS.—Louis had already purchased of the
English Dunkirk,—which was shamefully sold to him by Charles
II.,—when Philip IV. of Spain died (1665). He now claimed
parts of the Netherlands as being an inheritance of his queen,
according to an old law of those provinces. He conquered the county of
Burgundy, or Franche Comté, and various places in that
country. Holland, afraid that he might push his conquests
farther, formed the Triple Alliance with England and
Sweden. In the Treaty of Aachen (Aix), Louis gave up to
the Spaniards Franche Comté, but retained the captured cities in
the Netherlands (1668), which Vauban proceeded to fortify.
ATTACK ON HOLLAND.—The next attack of Louis was upon
Holland. Holland and the Spanish Netherlands were at variance in
religion, as well as in their political systems, and rivals in trade
and industry. The first minister of the emperor, Leopold., was
in the pay of Louis. Sweden, in the minority of Charles
XI., was in the hands of the Swedish nobles. England had now joined
Louis, who, in return for help in the Netherlands, was to
furnish subsidies to assist Charles II. in establishing
Catholicism in his realm. In Holland, there was a division between the
republicans, of whom the grand pensionary, John de Witt, was the
chief, and the adherents of the house of Orange.
THE WAR: THE PEACE OF NIMWEGEN.—Louis, having first seized
Lorraine,—whose duke had allied himself to the United
Provinces,—accompanied by his famous generals, Condé, Turenne,
and Vauban, put himself at the head of an army of one hundred
and twenty thousand men, which crossed the Rhine, and advanced to the
neighborhood of the capital of Holland. The Orange party charged the
blame of the failure to defend the land on their adversaries, whom they
accused of treachery. De Witt and his brother, Cornelius,
were killed in the streets of Hague. William III., the Prince of
Orange (1672-1702), assumed power. Gröningen held out against
the French troops. Storms on the sea and on the land aided the
patriotic defenders of their country. The "Great Elector" of
Brandenburg, Frederic William, lent them help. At length the
German emperor was driven by the French aggressions to join actively in
the war, on the side of the Dutch. The English Parliament (1674) forced
Charles II. to conclude peace with them. In the battle of
Sasbach, Turenne fell (1675). Sweden took the side
of France, and invaded the elector's territory; but the elector's
victory at Fehrbellin (1675) laid the foundation of the
greatness of Prussia. William III. kept the field against
the great generals of France, and married the daughter of James,
the Duke of York, the brother of Charles II. In bringing the war
to an end, Louis, by shrewd diplomacy, settled with the United
Provinces first. By the Peace of Nimwegen (1678 and 1679),
Holland received back its whole territory; France kept most of her new
conquests in the Netherlands, with the county of Burgundy, the
city of Besançon, and some imperial towns in Alsace not
ceded in the Peace of Westphalia; the emperor lost to France
Freiburg in the Breisgau. The elector, left to shift for
himself, was forced to give back his profitable conquests to Sweden
(1679).
EFFECT OF THE WAR.—In the war with Holland, Louis had shown his
military strength, and his skill in making and breaking alliances. He
had made progress towards the goal of his ambition, which was to act as
dictator in the European family of states. To the end of the century,
France stood on the pinnacle of power and apparent prosperity.
CONDITION OF FRANCE.—Manufactures flourished to an astonishing
degree. France became a naval power with a large fleet and with all its
services better organized than those of the contemporary English
marine. Colbert finished the canal between the Mediterranean and
the Atlantic. Colonies were founded in St. Domingo,
Cayenne, Madagascar. Canada was increasing in
strength. A uniform, strict judicial system was established. Restless
nobles were cowed, and the common people thus drawn to the monarch.
THE FRENCH COURT.—In his court, the king established elaborate forms
of etiquette, and made himself almost an object of worship. The
nobility swarmed about him, and sought advancement from his
favor. Festivals and shows of all sorts—plays, ballets, banquets,
dazzling fireworks—were the costly diversion of the gay throngs of
courtiers, male and female, in that court, where sensuality was thinly
veiled by ceremonious politeness and punctilious religious
observances. Poets, artists, and scholars were liberally patronized,
and joined in the common adulation offered to the sovereign. Stately
edifices were built, great libraries gathered; academies of art and of
science, an astronomical observatory, and the botanic garden for the
promotion of the study of natural history, were founded. The palace at
Versailles, with its statues, fountains, and gardens, furnished
a pattern which all the rest of Europe aspired to copy. Every thing
there wore an artificial stamp, from the trimming of the trees to the
etiquette of the ballroom. But there was a splendor and a fascination
which caused the French fashions, the French language and literature,
with the levity and immorality which traveled in their company, to
spread in the higher circles of the other European countries.
THE GALLICAN CHURCH.—Louis XIV. desired, without any rupture
with Rome, to take to himself a power in ecclesiastical affairs like
that assumed in England by Henry VIII. Under the pontificate of
Innocent XI., the assembly of the French clergy passed four
propositions asserting the rights of the national Gallican Church, and
limiting the Pope's prerogative (1682). The king had for his
ecclesiastical champion the able and eloquent Bossuet, the
Bishop of Meaux. Subsequently, under Innocent XII.,
Louis, afraid of a schism and anxious to procure other
advantages, yielded up the four obnoxious propositions.
JANSENISM.—The controversy raised by the Jansenists was an
important event in the history of France. They took their name from
Jansenius, who had been Bishop of Ypres, an ardent
disciple of St. Augustine's theology. They strenuously opposed
the theology and moral maxims of the powerful Jesuit order. Their
leaders, St. Cyran, Pascal, Arnauld,
Nicole, and others, were called Port Royalists, from
their relation to a cloister at Port Royal, where some of them
resided. They were men of literary and philosophical genius, as well as
theologians and devotees. Blaise Pascal wrote the "Provincial
Letters," a satirical and polemical work against the Jesuit
doctrines. This has always been deemed in style a masterpiece of French
prose. His posthumous Thoughts is a profound and suggestive
fragment on the evidences of religion. In the heated controversy that
arose, the Jansenist leaders were for a more limited definition of the
Pope's authority in deciding questions of doctrine. The French court at
length took the side of the Jesuits. In 1713 the Pope's bull against
the Moral Reflections of Quesnel, a Jansenist author, was
a heavy blow at his party. Finally, the Jansenists were proscribed by
the king, and the cloister at Port Royal leveled to the ground. The
Jansenist influence made a part of the tendencies to liberalism that
led to the Revolution at the close of the century.
THE HUGUENOTS.—After Mazarin's death, the king fell under the
influence of a party hostile to the Huguenots. Louvois fostered
this feeling in him, as did Madame de Maintenon, whom he had
secretly married, and by whom he was influenced through life. As he
grew older, he sought to appease a guilty conscience by inflicting
tortures on religious dissenters. He issued edicts of the most cruel
character. He adopted the atrocious scheme of the dragonade, or
the billeting of soldiers, over whom there was no restraint, in
Huguenot families. In the course of three years, fifty thousand
families, industrious and virtuous people, had fled the country. In
1685 the Edict of Nantes, the charter of Protestant rights, was
revoked. Emigration was forbidden; yet not far from a quarter of a
million of refugees escaped, to enrich by their skill and labor the
Protestant countries where they found an asylum. Many of the refugees
were received by the Elector Frederick, and helped to build up
Berlin, then a small city of twelve thousand
inhabitants. France was not only in a degree impoverished by those who
fled, but, also, by the much larger number who remained to be harassed
and ruined by the foolish and brutal bigotry of their ruler.
The loss to France by the exile of the Huguenots was incalculable.
"Here were the thriftiest, the bravest, the most intelligent of
Frenchmen, the very flower of the race; some of their best and purest
blood, some of their fairest and most virtuous women, all their picked
artisans. In war, in diplomacy, in literature, in production of
wealth, these refugees gave what they took from France to her enemies;
for they carried with them that bitter sense of wrong which made them
henceforth foremost among those enemies, the forlorn hope of every
attack on their ancient fatherland. Large numbers of officers, and
those among the ablest, emigrated; among them pre-eminent Marshal
Schomberg, 'the best general in Europe.' The fleet especially
suffered: the best of the sailors emigrated; the ships were almost
unmanned. The seamen carried tidings of their country's madness to the
ends of the earth: as Voltaire says, 'the French were as widely
dispersed as the Jews.' Not only in industry, but in thought and
mental activity, there was a terrible loss. From this time literature
in France loses all spring and power."
In England, the Huguenot exiles quickened manufactures; in Holland,
commerce; in Brandenburg, they made a new era in agriculture. Moreover,
from this time the policy of Brandenburg was changed: the hostility to
the emperor and the house of Austria gave way. An antagonism to France
arose: "a process begun by the Great Elector, carried on by Frederick
the Great, and brought to a triumphant close in our own days, dates
from the revocation of the Edict of Nantes."
THE COST OF NATIONAL UNITY IN FRANCE.—From the beginning of the
Reformation, the problem for the nations to solve was, how to combine
religious freedom with national unity. The intolerance of
the Spanish branch of the Hapsburgs deprived them of Holland,
and broke down their power. This effort to secure uniformity of belief
was shattered. A like effort in Germany resulted in the Thirty
Years' War, and the utter loss of the national unity which it aimed to
restore. The civil wars in France, aiming at the same result,
uniformity of belief, ended in an accommodation between the parties,
secured by Henry IV. in the Edict of Nantes. There was a
partial sacrifice of national unity. This was reestablished by the
policy of Richelieu and the acts of Louis XIV., but at a
fearful cost. The loss of the Huguenot emigrants; the loss of
character, with the loss of the spirit of independence, in the nobles
of France; the full sway of a monarchical despotism,—this was the
price paid for national unity.
AGGRESSIONS OF LOUIS.—The readiness of the European states to accept
the provisions of the Nimwegen Treaty emboldened Louis to
further outrages and aggressions. Germany, split into a multitude of
sovereignties, and for the most part inactive as if a paralysis lay
upon her, was a tempting prey to the spoiler. He claimed that all the
places which had stood in a feudal relation to the places acquired by
France in the Westphalian and Nimwegen treaties, should become
dependencies of France. He constituted Reunions, or courts of
his own, to decide what these places were, and enforced their decrees
with his troops (1679). He went so far, in a time of peace, as to seize
and wrest from the German Empire the city of Strasburg, to
establish his domination there, and to introduce the Catholic worship,
in the room of the Protestant, in the minster (1681). Instead of
heeding the warning of the Prince of Orange, the empire concluded with
Louis the truce of Regensburg, by which he was suffered
to retain these conquests. He evinced his arrogance in making a quarrel
with Genoa, in bombarding the city, and in forcing the doge to
come to Versailles and beg for peace (1684).
HUNGARY AND AUSTRIA.—The Emperor Leopold was busy in the
eastern part of his dominions. The success of the Turks, who gained
possession of Lower Hungary, called out a more energetic resistance;
but a victory gained by the imperial general, Montecuculi, at
St. Gothard, on the Raab (1664), only resulted in a truce. The
Austrian government, guided by the minister, Lobkowitz, used the
opportunity to rob the Hungarians of their liberties and
rights. Political tyranny and religious persecution went hand in
hand. Protestant preachers were sold as galley-slaves. Tököly,
an Hungarian nobleman, led in a revolt, and invoked the help of the
Turks. In 1683 the Turks laid siege to Vienna, which was saved
by a great victory gained under its walls by a united German and Polish
army; the hero in the conflict being John Sobieski, king of
Poland. The German princes and Venice now united in the
prosecution of the war. The conquest of Hungary from the Turks enabled
Leopold to destroy Hungarian independence. After their defeat by
Charles of Lorraine at Mohacs (1687), the Diet of
Pressburg conferred on the male Austrian line the crown of
Hungary, and abandoned its old privilege of resisting unconstitutional
ordinances (1687). A great victory gained over the Turks by Prince
Eugene at Zenta was followed by the Peace of
Carlowitz, which gave Hungary and Transylvania to Austria, Morea
to Venice, and Azof to Russia. Tököly died in exile.
THE RESTORATION IN ENGLAND (1660).—Richard Cromwell quietly
succeeded to the Protectorate. But the officers of the army recalled
the "Rump" Parliament, the survivors of the Long Parliament. After
eight months Richard gave up his office. The "Rump" was soon in
a quarrel again with the army, and was expelled by its chief,
Lambert. Monk, the commander of the English troops in
Scotland, refused to recognize the government set up by the
officers in London. The fleet declared itself on the side of
Parliament. Lambert was forsaken, and Monk entered London
(1660). A new Parliament or Convention was convoked, which included the
Upper House. The restoration of Charles II. was now effected by
means of the combined influence of the Episcopalians and Presbyterians,
and through the agency of Monk. Charles, in his
Declaration from Breda, prior to his return, promised "liberty
to tender consciences." This and subsequent pledges were falsified: he
had the Stuart infirmity of breaking his engagements. With an easy
good-nature and complaisant manners, he was void of moral principle,
and in his conduct an open profligate. At heart he was a Roman
Catholic, and simply from motives of expediency deferred the avowal of
his belief to his death-bed. The army was disbanded. Vengeance was
taken on such of the "regicides," the judges of Charles I., as
could be caught, and on the bodies of Cromwell, Ireton,
and Bradshaw. The Cavalier party had now every thing their own
way. The Episcopal system was reestablished, and a stringent Act of
Uniformity was passed. Two thousand Presbyterian ministers were
turned out of their parishes. If there was at any time indulgence to
the nonconformists, it was only for the sake of the Roman
Catholics. John Bunyan, the author of "Pilgrim's Progress," was
kept in prison for more than twelve years. The sale of Dunkirk
to France (1662) awakened general indignation.
THE "YEAR OF WONDERS:" THE CONDUCT OF CHARLES.—The year 1665 was
marked as the year of the Great Plague in London, where the
narrow and dirty streets admitted little fresh air. It was estimated
that not less than one hundred thousand people perished. In less than a
year after the plague ceased, there occurred the Great Fire in
London (Sept., 1666), which burned for three days, and laid London in
ashes from the Tower to the Temple, and from the Thames to
Smithfield. St. Paul's, the largest cathedral in England, was consumed,
and was replaced by the present church of the same name, planned by
Sir Christopher Wren. The king showed an unexpected energy in
trying to stay the progress of the flames. But neither public
calamities, nor the sorrow and indignation of all good men, including
his most loyal and attached adherents, could check the shameless
profligacy of his palace-life. The diaries of Evelyn and of
Pepys, both of whom were familiar with the court, picture the
disgraceful depravation of morals, which was stimulated by the king's
example. But the nation was even more aggrieved by his conduct in
respect to foreign nations. In a war with Holland, arising out of
commercial rivalry, the English had the mortification of seeing the
Thames blockaded by the Dutch fleet (1667). Hyde, Earl of
Clarendon, Charles's principal adviser, whose daughter married the Duke
of York, was driven from office, and went into exile to escape a
trial. The Triple Alliance against Louis (p. 453) was gratifying
to the people; but in the Treaty of Dover (1670), Charles
engaged to declare himself a Roman Catholic as soon as he could do so
with prudence, and promised to join his cousin, Louis XIV.,
against Holland, and to aid him in his schemes; in return for which he
was to receive a large subsidy from Louis, a pension during the
war, and armed help in case of an insurrection in England.
THE "CABAL" MINISTRY.—A cabinet, as we now term it,—a small
number of persons,—had, before this reign, begun to exercise the
functions which belonged of old to the King's Council. At this time,
the cabal ministry—so called from the first letters of the
names, which together made the word—was in power. In 1672 war with
Holland was declared, and was kept up for two years.
DECLARATION OF INDULGENCE.—When Charles began this second Dutch
war, he issued orders for the suspension of the laws against the
Catholics and Dissenters. His design was to weaken the Church of
England. The anger of Parliament and of the people at this usurpation
obliged him to recall the declaration.
THE TEST ACT.—Parliament, in 1673, passed an act which shut out all
Dissenters from office. This act the king did not venture to reject;
although the effect of it was to oblige his brother James, the
Duke of York, to resign his office of lord high admiral.
DANBY'S MINISTRY.—The cabal ministry was gradually broken up; and
Shaftesbury, an able minister, went over to the other side. The
Earl of Danby became the chief minister. He was in agreement
with the House of Commons. He favored the marriage which united
Mary, the daughter of the Duke of York, to William,
Prince of Orange.
THE "POPISH PLOT" (1678).—The already exasperated nation was
infuriated by an alleged "Popish Plot" for the subverting of the
government, and for the murder of the king and of all
Protestants. Titus Oates, a perjurer, was the main
witness. Many innocent Roman Catholics were put to death. This
pretended plot led to stringent measures shutting out papists from
office. Halifax, an able man who called himself "a trimmer,"
because he did not always stay on one side or with one party, opposed
a bill that would have excluded the king's brother from the
succession, and it failed.
HABEAS CORPUS ACT.—In 1679 the Habeas Corpus Act was passed,
providing effectually against the arbitrary imprisonment of
subjects. Persons arrested must be brought to trial, or proved in open
court to be legally confined.
PARTIES: RUSSELL AND SIDNEY.—At this time the party names of
Whig and Tory came into vogue. Insurgent Presbyterians in
Scotland had been called "Whigs," a Scotch word meaning whey, or sour
milk. The nickname was now applied to Shaftesbury's adherents,
opponents of the court, who wished to exclude the Duke of York from the
throne on account of his being a Catholic. Tories, also a
nickname, the designation of the supporters of the court, meant
originally Romanist outlaws, or robbers, in the bogs of Ireland. Many
of the Whigs began to devise plans of insurrection, from hatred of
Charles's arbitrary system of government. Some of them were
disposed to put forward Monmouth, the eldest of Charles's
illegitimate sons, and a favorite of the common people. The
"Rye-House Plot" for the assassination of the king and his
brother was the occasion of the trial and execution of two eminent
patriots,—William, Lord Russell, and Algernon
Sidney, a warm advocate of republican government. Both, it is
believed, were unjustly condemned. The Duke of York assumed once more
the office of admiral. Charles, before his death, received the
sacrament from a priest of the Church of Rome (1685).
JAMES II. (1685-1688): MONMOUTH'S REBELLION.—A few months after
James's accession, the Duke of Monmouth landed in England; but his
effort to get the crown failed. His forces, mostly made up of
peasants, were defeated at Sedgemoor; and he perished on the
scaffold. Vengeance was taken upon all concerned in the revolt; and
Chief Justice Jeffreys, for his brutal conduct in the "Bloody
Assizes," in which, savage as he was, he nevertheless became rich by
the sale of pardons, was rewarded with the office of lord chancelor.
JAMES'S ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT.—James paid no heed to his promise to
defend the Church of England. Of a slow and obstinate mind, he could
not yield to the advice of moderate Roman Catholics, and of the Pope,
Innocent XI.; but set out, by such means as dispensing with the
laws, to restore the old religion, and at the same time to extinguish
civil liberty. He turned out the judges who did not please him. He
created a new Ecclesiastical Commission, for the coercion of
the clergy, with the notorious Jeffreys at its head. After
having treated with great cruelty the Protestant dissenters, he
unlawfully issued a Declaration of Indulgence (1687) in their
favor, in order to get their support for his schemes in behalf of his
own religion. He turned out the fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford,
for refusing to appoint a Catholic for their president. He sent seven
bishops to the Tower in 1688, who had signed a petition against the
order requiring a second Declaration of Indulgence to be read in the
churches. Popular sympathy was strongly with the accused, and the news
of their acquittal was received in the streets of London with shouts
of joy.
REVOLUTION OF 1688: WILLIAM AND MARY (1689-1694).—The birth of a
Prince of Wales by his second wife, Mary of Modena, increased
the disaffection of the English people. His two daughters by his first
wife—Mary and Anne—were married to Protestants;
Mary, to William, Prince of Orange and stadtholder of
Holland, and Anne to George, Prince of Denmark. By a
combination of parties hostile to the king, William was invited
to take the English throne. James was blind to the signs of the
approaching danger, and to the warnings of Louis XIV. of
France. When it was too late, he attempted in vain to disarm the
conspiracy by concessions. William landed in safety at
Torbay. He was joined by persons of rank. Lord Churchill,
afterwards the celebrated Duke of Marlborough, left the royal
force of which he had the command, and went over to him. The king's
daughter, Anne, fled to the insurgents in the
North. William was quite willing that James should leave
the kingdom, and purposely caused him to be negligently guarded by
Dutch soldiers. He fled to France, never to return. Parliament declared
the throne to be, on divers grounds, vacant, and promulgated a
Declaration of Right affirming the ancient rights and liberties
of England. It offered the crown to William and Mary, who
accepted it (1689). A few months later, the estates of Scotland
bestowed upon them the crown of that country. Presbyterianism was made
the established form of religion there. The union of the kingdoms was
consummated under their successor, Anne, when Scotland began to
be represented in the English Parliament.
THE MASSACRE OF GLENCOE.—A Highland chief, MacIan of
Glencoe, with many of his followers, was treacherously
slaughtered by order of Dalrymple, the Master of Stair, who
governed Scotland, and had obtained by misrepresentation from William
leave to extirpate that "set of thieves," as he had called them.
WILLIAM IN IRELAND.—The sovereignty of Ireland passed, with that of
England, to William and Mary. There James II.,
supported by France, made a stout resistance. It was a conflict of the
Irish Catholics, together with the descendants of the Norman-English
settlers, comprising together about a million of people, against the
English and Scottish colonists, not far from two hundred thousand in
number. The latter, with steadfast courage, sustained a siege in
Londonderry until the city was relieved by ships from
England. Many of the inhabitants had perished from hunger. The victory
of William at Boyne (1690), where Schomberg, his brave
general, a Huguenot French marshal, fell, decided the
contest. William led his troops in person through the Boyne
River, with his sword in his left hand, since his right arm was
disabled by a wound. James was a spectator of the fight at a
safe distance.
ENGLISH LIBERTY.—In William's reign, liberty in England was
fortified by the Bill of Rights, containing a series of
safeguards against regal usurpation. Papists were made ineligible to
the throne. The Toleration Act afforded to Protestant dissenters
a large measure of protection and freedom. The press was made free from
censorship (1695), and newspapers began to be published. Provision was
made for the fair trial of persons indicted for treason. The Act of
Settlement (1701) settled the crown, if there should be no heirs of
Anne or of William, upon the Princess Sophia,
Electress of Hanover, the daughter of Elizabeth of Bohemia,
and granddaughter of James I., and on her heirs, being
Protestants.
THE GRAND ALLIANCE: TO THE PEACE OF RYSWICK.—The next war which
Louis XIV. began was that of the succession in the territory of
the Palatinate, which he claimed, on the extinction of the male line of
electors, for Elizabeth Charlotte, the gifted and excellent
sister of the deceased Elector Charles, and the wife of the
Duke of Orleans, the king's brother.
The table which follows will show the nature of this claim:—
FREDERIC, V, 1610-1632, Elector and King of Bohemia, m.
Elizabeth, daughter of James I. of England.
|
+—CHARLES LEWIS, 1649-1680.
| |
| +—CHARLES, 1680-1685.
| |
| +—Elizabeth, m. Philip, Duke of Orleans, d. 1701.
|
+—Sophia, m. Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover.
|
+—George I of England.
Philip, Duke of Orleans, was the only brother of Louis
XIV. From him descended King Louis Philippe (1830-1848).
Another reason that Louis had for war was his determination to secure
the archbishopric of Cologne for the bishop of Strasburg, a candidate
of his own. In 1686 the League of Augsburg had been formed by
the emperor with Sweden, Spain, Bavaria, Saxony, and the Palatinate,
for defense against France. The Grand Alliance, in which England
and Holland were included, was now made (1689). In the year before, by
the advice of Louvois, the French had deliberately devastated
the Palatinate, demolishing buildings, and burning cities and villages
without mercy. The ruins of the Castle of Heidelberg are a
monument of this worse than vandal incursion, the pretext for which was
a desire to prevent the invasion of France. In the war the English and
Dutch fleets, under Admiral Russell, defeated the French, and
burned their ships, at the battle of La Hogue (1692). This
battle was a turning-point in naval history: "as at Lepanto," says
Ranke, where the Turks were defeated (1571), "so at La Hogue, the
mastery of the sea passed from one side to the other." But in the
Netherlands, where William III., the soul of the League,
steadfastly kept the field, after being defeated by Luxemburg;
in Italy, where the Duke of Savoy was opposed by the Marshal
Catinat; and in a naval battle between the English and French at
Lagos Bay,—the French commanders were successful. In 1695
William's troops besieged and captured the town of
Namur. At length Louis was moved by the exhaustion of his
treasury, and the stagnation of industry in France, to conclude the
Peace of Ryswick with England, Spain, and Holland (1697). The
Duke of Savoy had been detached from the alliance. Most of the
conquests on both sides were restored. William III. was
acknowledged to be king of England. In the treaty with the emperor,
France retained Strasburg. William was a man of sterling
worth, but he was a Dutchman, and was cold in his manners. The plots of
the Jacobites, as the adherents of James were called, did more than any
thing else to make him popular with his subjects.
CHAPTER II. WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION (TO THE PEACE OF UTRECHT,
1713); DECLINE OF THE POWER OF FRANCE: POWER AND MARITIME SUPREMACY OF
ENGLAND.
OCCASION OF THE WAR.—The death of Charles II. of Spain (1700)
was followed by the War of the Spanish Succession. The desire of
Louis to have his hands free in the event of Charles's
death had influenced him in making the Treaty of
Rysivick. Charles had no children. It had been agreed in
treaties, to which France was a party, that the Spanish monarchy should
not be united either to Austria or to France; and that Archduke
Charles, second son of the Emperor Leopold I., should
have Spain and the Indies. But Charles II. of Spain left a will
making Louis's second grandson, Philip Duke of Anjou, the heir
of all his dominions, with the condition annexed that the crowns of
France and Spain should not be united. Instigated by dynastic ambition,
Louis made up his mind to break the previous agreements, and
seize the inheritance for Philip. Philip V. thus became king of
Spain. On the death of James II. (1701), Louis recognized
his son James, called "the Pretender," as king of Great
Britain. This act, as a violation of the Treaty of Ryswick, and as an
arrogant intermeddling on the part of a foreign ruler, excited the
wrath of the English people, and inclined them to war. The Grand
Alliance against France (1701) included the Empire, England,
Holland, Brandenburg (or Prussia), and afterwards Portugal and Savoy
(1703). France was supported by the electors of Bavaria and Cologne,
and at first by Savoy. William III. died in 1702, and was
succeeded by Anne, the sister of his deceased wife, and the
second daughter of James II.
The following table will help to make clear the several claims to the
Spanish succession:—
Philip III, King of Spain, 1598-1621.
|
+—Maria Anna, m. Emperor Ferdinand III.
| |
| +—Leopold I, m. (3) Eleanor, daughter of Elector Palatine.
| | |
| | +—Joseph I, d. 1711.
| | |
| | +—Charles VI.[2]
| |
| +—Anna Maria
| m.
+—PHILIP IV (1621-1665)
| |
| +—CHARLES II, 1665-1700.
| |
| +—Margaret Theresa m. Leopold I
| | |
| | +—Maria Antonia m. Maximilian of Bavaria
| | |
| | +—Joseph Ferdinand, [1] Electoral Prince of Bavaria.
| |
| +—(1) Maria Theresa.
| m.
| +—Louis XIV
| | |
| | +—Louis, the Dauphin.
| | |
| | +—Philip of Anjou [2] (PHILIP V of Spain), d. 1746.
| |
+—Anne. m. Louis XIII of France
1 Recognized as heir of Charles II of Spain until his death.
2 Rival claimants for the Spanish crown after Charles II, the elder
brother of each having resigned his pretensions.
EVENTS OF THE WAR.—In this war, there were displayed the military
talents of two great generals,—the Duke of Marlborough and
Prince Eugene of Savoy. Marlborough had two glaring
faults, He was avaricious, and, like other prominent public men in
England at that day, was double-faced. After deserting the service of
James for that of William, he still kept up at times a
correspondence with the exiled house. He was a man of stately and
winning presence, a careful commander, in battle cool and
self-possessed. At the council board, he had the art of quietly
composing differences by winning all to an adhesion to his own views.
It is said of him, that he "never committed a rash act, and never
missed an opportunity for striking an effective blow." Eugene,
on his father's side, sprang from the house of Savoy. His mother was a
niece of Mazarin. He was brought up at the court of Louis
XIV.; but when the king repeatedly refused him a commission in the
army, he entered the service of Austria, was employed in campaigns
against the Turks, and rose to the highest distinction. Flattering
offers from Louis XIV. he indignantly rejected. His career as a
soldier was long and brilliant. The personal sympathy of Eugene
and Marlborough with each other was one important cause of their
success. Eugene was first sent to Italy. There he drove
Catinat, the French general, back on Milan, and captured
his successor in command, Villeroi (1702). After a drawn battle
between Eugene and Vendome (1702), a commander of much
more skill than his predecessor, the French had the advantage in
Italy. In 1703, Eugene came to Germany, and Marlborough
invaded the Spanish Netherlands. In 1704 Marlborough carried out the
plan of a grand campaign which he had devised. He crossed the Rhine at
Cologne, moved southward, captured Donauwörth, and drove the
Bavarians across the Danube. The united forces of Marlborough
and Eugene defeated the French and Bavarian armies at
Blenheim (or Hochstädt), on the left bank of the river,
with great slaughter. There were captured fifteen thousand French
soldiers, with their general Tallard. This victory raised
Marlborough's reputation, already great on account of his
masterly conduct of his army, to the highest point. He was made a duke
by Queen Anne, and a prince of the Empire by Leopold. In
Spain, the English captured Gibraltar. Charles of Austria
(who had assumed the title of Charles III. of Spain) conquered
Madrid (1706), but held it for only a short time. The country generally
favored Philip; the arms of Vendome were triumphant; and
Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia had to submit to
Castilian laws as the penalty of their adhesion to the Austrian
cause. In 1706 Marlborough vanquished Villeroi at
Ramillies, a village in the Netherlands, in a great battle in
which the French army was routed, and their banners and war material
captured. The Netherlands submitted to Austria. At Turin,
Eugene gained a victory over an army of eighty thousand men; and
the fame of this modest and unpretending, but brave and skillful leader
was now on a level with that of the English general. Lombardy submitted
to Charles III., and the French were excluded from
Italy. Another victory of the two commanders at Oudenarde (1708)
over Vendome and the Duke of Burgundy, broke down the
hopes of Louis, and moved him to offer the largest concessions,
which embraced the giving up of Strasburg and of
Spain. But the allies, flushed with success, went so far as to
demand that he should aid in driving his grandson out of Spain. This
roused France, as well as Louis himself, to another grand
effort. At Malplaquet, in a bloody conflict, the French were
again defeated by Marlborough and Eugene.
TO THE PEACE OF UTRECHT.—Circumstances now favored the vanquished and
humbled king of France. The Whig ministry in England, which the
victories of Marlborough had kept in office, fell from power
(1710); and its enemies, and the enemies of Marlborough, were
anxious to weaken him. Anne dismissed from her service the
Duchess of Marlborough, a haughty woman of a violent
temper. Harley, Earl of Oxford, and St. John, afterwards
Viscount Bolingbroke, became the queen's principal ministers.
They wished to end the war. The Emperor Joseph (1705-1711), who
had succeeded Leopold I., died; so that Charles, if he
had acquired Spain, would have restored the vast monarchy of
Charles V., and brought in a new source of jealousy and
alarm. Negotiations for peace began. Marlborough, who had been
guilty of traitorous conduct, was removed from his command, and
deprived of all his offices (1712). In 1713 the Peace of Utrecht
was concluded between England and France, in which Holland, Prussia,
Savoy, and Portugal soon joined. It was followed by the Peace of
Rastadt and Baden with the emperor (1714). Spain and
Spanish America were left to Philip V., the Bourbon king, with
the proviso that the crowns of France and Spain should never be
united. France ceded to England Newfoundland, Nova
Scotia, and the Hudson Bay Territory. Spain ceded to England
Gibraltar and Minorca. The Elector of Brandenburg
was recognized as King of Prussia. Savoy received the island of
Sicily, which was exchanged seven years later for
Sardinia, and for the title of king for the duke. Holland gained
certain "barrier" fortresses on its border. Austria received the
appanages of the Spanish monarchy,—the Spanish Netherlands,
Naples, Sardinia, and Milan, but not
Sicily. The emperor did not recognize the Bourbons in Spain.
LAST DAYS OF LOUIS XIV.—In the next year after the peace, Louis
XIV. died. Within two years (1710-1712) he had lost his son, his
grandson the Duke of Burgundy (whom the pious Fenélon had
trained), his wife, and his eldest great-grandson, and, two years later
(1714), his third grandson, the Duke of Berry. He left France
overwhelmed with debt, its resources exhausted, its credit gone, its
maritime power prostrate; a land covered with poverty and
wretchedness. This was the reward of lawless pride and ambition in a
monarch who owed his strength, however, to the sympathy and
subservience of the nation.
LAW'S BANK.—During the minority of Louis XV. (1715-1774)
Philip, Duke of Orleans, was regent, a man of extraordinary
talents, but addicted to shameful debauchery. The opportunity for
effective reform was neglected. The most influential minister was
Cardinal Dubois, likewise a man of unprincipled character. The
state was really bankrupt, when a Scottish adventurer and gambler,
John Law, possessed of unusual financial talents, but infected
with the economical errors of the time, offered to rescue the national
finances by means of a bank, which he was allowed to found, the
notes of which were to serve as currency. Almost all the coined money
flowed into its coffers; its notes went everywhere in the kingdom, and
were taken for government dues; it combined with its business "the
Mississippi scheme," or the control of the trade, and almost the
sovereignty, in the Mississippi region; it absorbed the
privileges of the different companies for trading with the East;
finally it took charge of the national mint and the issue of coin, and
of the taxation of the kingdom, and it assumed the national debt. The
temporary success of the gigantic financial scheme turned the heads of
the people, and a fever of speculation ran through all ranks. The
crash came, the shares in the bank sunk in value, the notes
depreciated; and, in the wrath which ensued upon the general
bankruptcy, Law, who had been honored and courted by the high
and the low, fled from the kingdom. He died in poverty at
Venice. The state alone was a gainer by having escaped from a
great part of its indebtedness.
ITALY.—Before the middle of the eighteenth century, the Spanish
Bourbons again had possession of Naples and Sicily,
besides other smaller Italian states. Austria, besides holding
Milan, was the virtual ruler of Tuscany.
SPAIN IN ITALY.—Philip V. was afflicted with a mental
derangement peculiar to his family. The government was managed by the
ambitious queen, Elizabeth of Parma, and the intriguing Italian,
Alberoni, the minister in whom she confided. He sought to get
back the Italian states lost by the Peace of Utrecht. But
Sardinia and Sicily were restored when he was overthrown,
through the fear excited by the Quadruple Alliance of France,
England, Austria, and Holland (1718). Later, the queen succeeded in
obtaining the kingdom of Naples and Sicily for her oldest
son, Don Carlos, under the name of Charles III. Parma,
Piacenza, and Guastalla, she gained for her second son,
Philip (1735). When Charles succeeded to the Spanish
throne (1759-1788), he left Naples and Sicily to his
third son, Ferdinand.
AUSTRIA IN ITALY.—The house of Savoy steadily advanced in power. By
the Peace of Ryswick, Victor Amadeus II. (1675-1730), secured
important places previously gained. He became "King of Sardinia"
(1720). By him the University of Turin was founded, and the
administration of justice much improved. His next two successors
carried forward this good work. Venice lost Morea to the
Turks, but retained Corfu and her conquests in Dalmatia
(1718). Liberty was gone, and there was decay and conscious weakness in
the once powerful republic. Genoa was coveted by Savoy, Austria,
and France. The consequent struggles are the material of Genoese
history for a long period. Corsica was oppressed, and
Genoa called on France to lend help in suppressing its revolt
(1736). The Corsicans especially, under Paoli, defended
themselves with such energy that France found its work of subjugation
hard and slow (1755). The island was ceded to France by
Genoa(1768). Milan, with Mantua, was Austrian, after the Peace
of Utrecht (1713). Tuscany under Ferdinand
II. (1628-1670) bestowed its treasure on Austria and Spain, and
fell under the sway of ecclesiastics. Under Cosmo
III. (1670-1723), the process of decline went on. After the death
of the last of the Medici, John Gasto (1737), Tuscany was
practically under the power of Austria, notwithstanding the stipulation
that both states should not have the same ruler. It was governed by
Francis Stephen (1738-1765), Duke of Lorraine, husband of the
Empress Maria Theresa; and, when he became emperor (Francis
I.), by his second son, Leopold (1765-1790). At Rome, Pope
Innocent XI. (1676-1689) had many conflicts with Louis
XVI. which came to an end under the well-meaning Innocent
XII. (1691-1700). Contests arose on the part of Rome against the
Bourbon courts respecting the Jesuit order, and with the forces adverse
to the Church and the Papacy, in the closing part of the eighteenth
century. In 1735, the Emperor Charles VI. allowed that Naples
and Sicily should be handed over, as a kingdom, to Don Carlos,
the son of the Spanish Bourbon king, under the name of Charles
III., by whom it was granted to his son Ferdinand
IV. (1759).
CLOSE OF ANNE'S REIGN.—Anne's husband, Prince George of
Denmark, had no influence, and deserved none. One of the important
events of her reign was the Union of England and Scotland in 1707
(p. 461). After the Tories came into power, the two leaders,
Oxford and Bolingbroke, were rivals. An angry dispute
between them hastened the queen's death (1714). One of the Tory
measures, prompted by hostility to Dissenters, was a law forbidding any
one to keep a school without a license from a bishop.
GEORGE I, 1714-1727, m. Sophia Dorothea of Zell.
|
+—GEORGE II, 1727-1760, m. Caroline,
daughter of John Frederick, Margrave of Anspach.
|
+—Frederick, Prince of Wales, d. 1751, m.
Augusta of Saxe Gotha.
|
+—Augusta m.
| Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick.
| |
| +—Caroline
| m.
| +—GEORGE IV, 1820-1830.
| |
+—GEORGE III, 1760-1820, m.
Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
|
+—WILLIAM IV, 1830-1837.
|
+—Edward, Duke of Kent, d. 1820, m.
Victoria of Saxe Coburg.
|
+—VICTORIA, succeeded 1837, m.
Albert of Saxe Coburg.
REIGN OF GEORGE I.—George I., the first king of the house of
Hanover, could not speak English. His private life was immoral.
His first ministers were Whigs. Bolingbroke and Oxford
were impeached, and fled the country. The "Pretender," James
Edward (son of James II.), with the aid of Tory partisans,
endeavored to recover the English crown. His standard was raised in the
Highlands and in North England (1715), but this Jacobite rebellion was
crushed. After the rebellion of 1715, a law was passed, which is still
in force, allowing a Parliament to continue for the term of seven
years. A second conspiracy in 1717 had the same fate. England had an
experience analogous to that of France with Law, with the
South Sea Company, which had a monopoly of trade with the
Spanish coasts of South America. A rage for speculation was followed by
a panic. The estates of the directors of the company were confiscated
by Parliament for the benefit of the losers. Robert Walpole was
made first minister, a place which he held under George I. and
George II. for twenty-one years. William and Anne
had attended the meetings of the Cabinet. George I., who could
not speak English, staid away. From this time, one of the ministers was
called the "prime minister."
THE REIGN OF GEORGE II.—George II. was systematic in his ways, frugal,
willful, and fond of war. In his private life, he followed the evil
ways of his father. Walpole's influence was predominant. The
clever Queen Caroline lent him her support. Walpole reluctantly
entered into war with Spain (1739), on account of the measures
adopted by that power to prevent English ships from carrying goods, in
violation of the treaty of Utrecht, to her South American
colonies. The principal success of England was the taking of Porto
Bello by Admiral Vernon.
When the war was declared, the people expressed their joy by the
ringing of bells. "They are ringing the bells now," said
Walpole: "they will be wringing their hands soon." The blame for
the want of better success in the war was laid on the prime minister,
and he was driven to resign. Then followed the ministry of the
Pelhams, Henry Pelham and the Duke of Newcastle, who, like
Walpole, managed Parliament by bribing the members through the gift of
offices.
In the war of the Austrian succession (1740), England took part with
Austria, and the king in person fought in Germany. In 1745 Prince
Charles Edward Stuart, the young Pretender (whose father,
the old Pretender, styled himself James III.), landed in the
Highlands. The Highlanders defeated the English at Preston
Pans, near Edinburgh. The Pretender marched into England as far as
Derby, at the head of the Jacobite force, but had to turn back and
retreat to Scotland. The contest was decided by the victory of the
English under the Duke of Cumberland, at Culloden (1746), which
was attended by an atrocious slaughter of the wounded. Culloden
was the last battle fought in behalf of the Stuarts. Nearly eighty
Jacobite conspirators, one of whom was an octogenarian, Lord
Lovat, were executed as traitors. These Jacobites were the last
persons who were beheaded in England. The Pretender wandered in the
Highlands and Western Islands for five months, under different
disguises. He was concealed and aided by a Scottish lady, Flora
Macdonald. Then he escaped to the Continent, where he led a
miserable and dissipated life, and died in 1788. His brother Henry,
Cardinal York, the last of the Stuarts in the male line, died in 1807.
CHAPTER III. THE GREAT NORTHERN WAR: THE FALL OP SWEDEN: GROWTH OF
THE POWER OF RUSSIA.
SWEDEN.—The eventful epoch in the history of Sweden, in this period,
is the reign of Charles XII. (1697-1718). At his accession, when he was
only sixteen years old, Sweden ruled the Baltic. Its army was strong
and well disciplined. What is now St. Petersburg was a patch of swampy
ground in Swedish territory, where a few fishermen lived in their
huts. The youth of Charles was prophetic of his career. In doors, he
read the exploits of Alexander the Great; out of doors, gymnastic
sports and the hunting of the bear were his favorite diversions. He
became an adventurous warrior after, the type of Alexander. His
rashness and obstinacy occasioned at last the downfall of his
country. Three great powers, Russia, Poland, and Denmark,
with the support of Patkul, a disaffected Livonian subject of
Sweden, joined in an attack on the youthful monarch
(1699). Patkul, who was a patriot, unable to secure the rights
of Livonia, and condemned as a rebel, had entered the service of the
Elector Augustus of Saxony, who was king of Poland. There were
territories belonging to Sweden which each of the confederates
coveted. Frederick IV. of Denmark expected to incorporate Sweden
itself in his dominions.
RUSSIA: PETER THE GREAT.—The first ruler of the house of Romanoff,
which has raised Russia to its present rank, was Michael
(1613-1645). Under Alexis, his son (1645-1676), important
conquests were made from the Poles, and the Cossacks
acknowledged the sovereignty of the Czar. The principal founder of
Russian civilization was Peter the Great (1682-1725). Through
the machinations of his half-sister Sophia, who contrived to get
the armed aid of the streltzi,—the native militia,—he had to share
the throne with a half-brother, Ivan, who was older than
himself, and lived until 1696. Sophia pushed aside Peter's
mother, and grasped the reins of power. Peter learned Latin, German,
and Dutch, and acquired much knowledge of various sorts. As he grew
older, his life was in danger; but at the age of seventeen, he was able
to crush his enemies (1689). Sophia, who was at their head, he
shut up in a monastery for the remainder of her days. From
Lefort, a Swiss, and other foreigners, Peter derived information
about foreign lands, and was led to visit them in order to instruct
himself, and to introduce into his own country the arts and inventions
of civilized peoples. He invited into Russia artisans, seamen, and
officers from abroad. He traveled through _Germany _and _Holland
_to England, and with his own hands worked at ship-building
at the dock-yards of Zaandam (near Amsterdam) and
Deptford. On his way to Venice, he was called home by a revolt
of the streltzi, which he put down. He was unsparing in his vengeance,
and, despite his veneer of culture, never got rid of his innate
barbarism. _Azoff _he conquered, and it was ceded to him by the
Turks in the Peace of Carlowitz (1699). Then his ambitious
thoughts turned to the Baltic, for he was bent on making Russia a naval
power. He formed a secret alliance with Denmark and Poland against
Sweden.
CONDITION OF POLAND.—In 1697 _Frederick Augustus _II.,—Augustus
the Strong,—Duke of Saxony, was elected king of Poland: he
became a Roman Catholic that he might get the crown. But the Polish
nobles took care to increase their power, which was already far too
great to be compatible with unity or order. Under the anarchical but
despotic nobility and higher clergy, stood the serfs, embracing
nine-tenths of the whole population, who were without protection
against the greed and tyranny of their lords.
EVENTS OF THE NORTHERN WAR.—The _Danes _first attacked the
territory of Holstein Gottorp, whose duke had married the sister
of Charles XII. William III. of England supported Sweden.
The Anglo-Dutch fleet came to Charles's assistance. He landed his
troops in Zealand. The Danes gave up their alliance, and sued
for peace. Europe was now astonished to discover that the Swedish king
was an antagonist to be feared. In the field he shared the hardships of
the common soldier, and was as brave as a lion. _Charles _now
attacked the Russian army before Narva, in Livonia. With the
Swedish infantry he stormed the camp of the Russians, and routed their
army, which was much larger in numbers than his own (1700). He then
raised the siege of Riga, which the Poles and Saxons were
besieging, having first defeated their troops on the
Dwina. These brilliant successes might have enabled _Charles
_to conclude peace on very advantageous terms. But he lacked
moderation. He was as passionate in his public conduct as _Peter the
Great _was in his private life. He was resolved to dethrone
_Augustus _in Poland. After the battle of Clissau (1703),
he occupied that country, and made the Diet give the crown to
Stanislas Lesczinski, the Palatine of Posen. To prevent Russia
and Saxony from uniting against the new king, Charles carried
the war into Saxony, and forced Augustus, in the Peace of
Altranstädt, to renounce his claim to the Polish crown, and to
surrender Patkul, the rebel, who had become a subject of Russia,
whom he put to death with circumstances of cruelty. In 1703
Peter laid the foundations of the new city of
St. Petersburg. But, a few years later, Russia was invaded by
Charles, who in 1708 almost captured the Czar at Grodno,
defeated his army near Smolensk, and was expected to advance to
Moscow. But the imprudent Swede turned southward into the
district of the Ukraine, there to be joined by Mazeppa,
the "hetman" of the Cossacks, who led them in revolt against
Peter. Mazeppa was able, however, to bring him but few auxiliaries. The
harshness of the winter, and other untoward events, weakened the
Swedish force. The battle of Pultowa (1709) was a great victory
for the Czar. Charles escaped with difficulty to Turkey. There he
remained for three years, supported with his retinue, at Bender,
by the Sultan. His object was to bring about a war between the Sultan
and the Czar. He so far succeeded that Peter, when surrounded on
the Pruth by Turkish troops, was rescued only by the courage and
energy of Catherine, the mistress whom he afterwards
married. Charles was finally obliged to leave Turkey, after
being exposed to imminent peril in an attack by the janizaries, who
seized his camp and took him captive. With a few attendants, riding by
day and sleeping in a cart or carriage by night, he journeyed back to
Sweden, and arrived at Stralsund (1714). The hostile allies,
together with Hanover and Prussia, were once more in
array against him. Baron van Görtz, a German, became his
principal adviser. He negotiated a peace with Peter, of whom the
other allies were beginning to be jealous. Charles's plan was to
invade Norway, then to land in Scotland, and, with the help of Spain
and of the Jacobites, to restore the Stuarts to the English
throne. While besieging Friedrichshall, a fortress in Norway, he
exposed himself near the trenches, and was killed by a bullet
(1718). It was long a question whether the fatal shot was fired from
the enemy or by an assassin. Not until 1859 was it settled, by an
examination of the skull, that the gun was discharged from the
fortress.
RESULTS OF THE WAR—One result of the Northern war was the execution of
Görtz, to whom the Swedish aristocracy were inimical, and a
reduction of the king's authority. Hanover received
Bremen and Verden; Prussia, the largest part of
Pomerania; Sweden gave up its freedom from custom duties
in the Sound. Augustus was recognized as king of
Poland. Russia, by the Peace of Nystadt (1721),
obtained Livonia, Esthonia, Ingermannland, and a part of
Carelia, but restored Finland. Sweden no longer
had a place among the great powers. The place that Sweden had held was
now taken by Russia.
CHANGES IN RUSSIA.—The Czar, Peter, took the title of emperor.
He transferred the capital from Moscow to St. Petersburg.
By constructing canals, roads, and harbors, he promoted trade and
commerce. By fostering manufactures and the mechanic arts, and by
opening the mines, he increased the wealth of the country. He altered
the method of government, making the ukases, or edicts, emanate
from the sole will of the emperor. He abolished the dignity of
Patriarch, making the Holy Synod, of which the Czar is
president, the supreme ecclesiastical authority. Peter made a
second journey through Germany, Holland, and France (1716). His son
Alexis, who allied himself with a reactionary party that aimed
to reverse the Czar's policy, he finally caused to be tried for
treason. He was condemned, but died either from the bodily torture
inflicted on him to extort confession, or, as many have believed, by
poison, or other means, used by the direction of his father. His
friends, after being barbarously tortured, were put to death.
Great as was the work of Peter, "he brought Russia prematurely
into the circle of European politics. The result has been to turn the
rulers of Russia away from home affairs, and the regular development of
internal institutions, to foreign politics and the creation of a great
military power." In his last years, the frugality of his own way of
living in his new capital was in striking contrast with the splendor
with which his queen, Catherine, preferred to surround
herself. He died at the age of fifty-three, in consequence of plunging
into icy water to save a boat in distress.
The document called "The Testament of Peter the Great," which
explains what has to be done in order that Russia may conquer all
Europe, is not genuine. It is first heard of in 1812, in a book
published by Lesur, probably by direction of Napoleon
I. "Lesur's book," says Mr. E. Schuyler, "was merely a
pamphlet to justify the invasion of Russia by Napoleon." (Schuyler's
Life of Peter the Great, vol. ii, p. 512.)
CHAPTER IV. WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION; GROWTH OP THE POWER OF
PRUSSIA: THE DESTRUCTION OF POLAND.
THE PRAGMATIC SANCTION.—On the death of Augustus II., there
were two competitors for the Polish crown,—his son, Augustus
III. of Saxony, and Stanislaus Lesczinski whom France
supported. After a contest, by the consent of the Emperor Charles
VI., Lesczinski, whose daughter had married Louis
XV., obtained the duchy of Lorraine, which thus became a
possession of France (1735). In return, the emperor's son-in-law,
Francis Stephen (afterwards Francis I.), was to have
Tuscany; and France, in connection with the other powers,
assented to the Pragmatic Sanction, according to which the
hereditary possessions of Austria were to descend intact in the female
line. It was expected that the empire would pass along with them.
PRUSSIA: FREDERICK WILLIAM I.—In 1611 the duchy of Prussia and
the mark or electorate of Brandenburg were joined together. The
duchy was then a fief of Poland. But under the Great Elector,
Frederick William (1640-1688), this relation of the duchy to
Poland ended. By him the military strength of the electorate was
increased. Frederick, his son (1688-1713), with the emperor's
license, took the title of King of Prussia (Frederick I.). He
built up the city of Berlin, and encouraged art and
learning. King Frederick William I. (1713-1740), unlike his
predecessor, was exceedingly frugal in his court. He was upright and
just in his principles, but extremely rough in his ways, and governed
his own household, as well as his subjects generally, with a Spartan
rigor. Individuals whom he met in the street, whose conduct or dress
he thought unbecoming, he did not hesitate to scold, and he even used
his cane to chastise them on the spot. He cared nothing for
literature: artists and players were his abomination. He favored
industry, and was a friend of the working-class. Every thing was done
with despotic energy. He disciplined the military force of Prussia,
and gathered at Potsdam a regiment of tall guards, made up of
men of gigantic height, who were brought together from all
quarters. He left to his son, Frederick II. (1740-1786), a
strong army and a full treasury.
CHARACTER OF FREDERICK THE GREAT.—Young Frederick had no
sympathy with his father's austere ways. The strict system of training
arranged for him, in which he was cut off from Latin and from other
studies for which he had a taste, his time all parceled out, and a
succession of tasks rigorously ordained for him, he found a yoke too
heavy to bear. Once he attempted to escape to the court of his uncle,
George II. of England; but the scheme was discovered, and the
incensed father was strongly inclined to execute the decree of a
court-martial, which pronounced him worthy of death. Frederick,
from the window of the place where he was confined, saw Katte,
his favorite tutor, who had helped him in his attempt at flight, led to
the scaffold, where he was hanged. In the later years of the old king,
the relations of father and son were improved. The prince had for his
abode the little town of Rheinsberg, where he could indulge,
with a circle of congenial friends, in the studies and amusements to
which he was partial. He grew up with a strong predilection for French
literature, and for the French habits and fashions—free-thinking in
religion included—which were now spreading over Europe. On his
accession to the throne, Frederick broke up the Potsdam regiment
of giants, and called back to Halle the philosopher Wolf, whom
his father had banished. Frederick was visited by
Voltaire, who at a later day took up his abode for a time with
him in Berlin. But the king was fond of banter, and the foibles
of each of these companions were a target for the unsparing wit of the
other; so that eventually they parted company with mutual
disgust. Later they resumed their correspondence, and never wholly lost
their intellectual sympathy with each other. As a soldier,
Frederick had not the military genius of the greatest
captains. He applied superior talents to the discharge of the duties of
a king, and to the business of war. He was cool, knew how to profit by
his errors and to repair his losses, and to press forward in the
darkest hour. Napoleon said of him that "he was great, especially at
critical moments."
WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCESSION—-Charles VI. was succeeded, in
1740, by his daughter Maria Theresa, who united in her character
many of the finest qualities of a woman and of a sovereign.
Notwithstanding the pragmatic sanction by which all the Austrian
lands were to be hers, different princes deemed the occasion favorable
for seizing on the whole, or on portions, of her inheritance.
Charles, elector of Bavaria, claimed to be the lawful heir, and
was aided by France, which was afraid of losing Lorraine if
Maria Theresa's husband, Francis Stephen, should become
emperor. Augustus III. of Poland was a participant in the
plot. Frederick II. of Prussia claimed Silesia, and,
after defeating the Austrians at Molwitz (1741), seized the
greater part of that district. Soon after, the French and Bavarians
overran Austria. The Bavarian elector was chosen emperor. Even the
elector of Hanover (George II. of England) engaged not to assist
the empress.
The claims to Austria were as follows:—
Augustus III., king of Saxony, and Charles Albert,
elector of Bavaria, had married daughters of the Emperor Joseph
I. (the brother and predecessor of Charles VI.). The wife
of Charles Albert was the younger daughter; but he
appealed to an alleged provision in the will of the Emperor
Ferdinand I., according to which the posterity of his
daughter Anna (who married a Bavarian duke) was to inherit
the duchy of Austria and Bohemia, in case his male
descendants should die out. It was not to the male
descendants, but to the legitimate descendants, however, that
the will referred. The Bourbons in France and Spain seized
the occasion to regain the possessions of Spain lost in the Peace of
Utrecht (p. 466). Francis Stephen, the husband of Maria
Theresa, it was feared, might seek to get back Lorraine from
France (p. 474). Spain was anxious to recover Milan. Philip
V. of Spain claimed the Austrian possessions on the basis of
certain stipulations of Charles V. and Philip III. in
the cession of them. To weaken the Austrian house in Germany, was an
aim of France. The courts of France and Spain were ready, on all
these grounds, to support Charles of Bavaria. They were
ready, also, to support Frederick II. in legal claims which
he set up to a portion of Silesia. The empress rejected the offer of
Frederick to defend Austria if she would give up this
territory.
SPIRIT OF THE EMPRESS: CESSION OF SILESIA.—Maria Theresa
proved herself a Minerva. She threw herself for support on her
Hungarian subjects, who responded with loyal enthusiasm to her appeal
made at the Diet of Presburg. Her forces drove the Bavarian and
French troops before them in Austria, entered Bavaria, and captured
Munich. Reluctantly the queen, in the Peace of Breslau
(1742), ceded Silesia to Frederick, in order to lessen
the number of her antagonists. She was crowned (1743) in Prague,
and at length gained an ally in George II. of England. The
"Pragmatic Army," as it was called, defeated the French under Marshal
Noailles at Dettingen. Sardinia and Saxony
joined the Austrian alliance.
TO THE PEACE OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.—These events widened the dimensions
of the contest. France declared war directly against England and
Austria. Frederick II. of Prussia was now the ally of France,
and began the second Silesian war. He took Prague, but,
being deserted by the French, was driven back into Saxony. The
son of Charles Albert of Bavaria, Maximilian Joseph, made
peace with Austria,—the Peace of Füssen,—promising to give his
vote to Francis, the husband of Maria Theresa, for the
office of emperor. Francis (1745-1765) was crowned at Frankfort.
Victories in Saxony on the side of Frederick led to the
Treaty of Dresden, which left Silesia in his hands
(1745). The most of the English army went back to England to fight the
Pretender. The war went on in the Netherlands and in Italy, and between
France and England; the English being victors on the sea under
Anson (1747), while the French were generally successful on the
land. The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) provided for a
reciprocal restoration of all conquests: Silesia was given to
Prussia, and the Pragmatic Sanction was sustained in
Austria.
ALLIANCE AGAINST FREDERICK.—Frederick the Great used the next
eight years in doing what he could to encourage industry and to
increase the prosperity and resources of Prussia, at the same time
that he strengthened his military force. Prussia had evinced so much
power in the late conflicts as to be an object of envy and
apprehension. Maria Theresa was anxious to recover
Silesia. Frederick had a foe in Elizabeth,
empress of Russia, whose personal vices he made a subject of sarcastic
remark, and who, besides, coveted Prussian provinces on the Baltic. An
alliance was formed between Russia and Austria. This was
joined by Saxony, and by France; since Louis XV.
had become alarmed by the calculating selfishness of
Frederick's policy, and was induced to depart from the French
traditional policy, and to unite with Austria. The only ally of
Frederick was _George II. _of England, which was then
engaged in a contest with France respecting the American colonies
(1756).
THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR.—Thus arose the Seven Years' War.
Frederick, secretly informed of the plans of his enemies,
anticipated their action by invading Saxony and capturing Dresden
(1756). At Lobositz he defeated the Austrians: he soon took
eighteen thousand Saxon troops. He had now to encounter the military
strength of the various nations opposed to him. With the bulk of his
forces he marched into Bohemia, and gained a great but costly victory
at Prague (1757). For the next six months, successes and
reverses alternated; but before the end of the year (1757)
Frederick won two of his most famous triumphs,—one at
Rossbach, over the French and the Imperialists; and the other
over the Austrians, at Leuthen. Frederick was now
admired as a hero in England, and was furnished by the elder
William Pitt, who had succeeded Newcastle, with money
and troops. In 1758 the Prussians vanquished the Russians at
Zorndorf, but were, in turn, soon defeated by the Austrians at
Hochkirch Of the numerous battles in this prolonged war, in
which the military talents of Frederick were so strikingly
shown, it is possible to refer only to a few of the most important. He
was defeated by the united Austrians and Russians at
Kunersdorf; and so completely that he was for the moment thrown
into despair, and wrote to his minister Finkenstein, "All is
lost." In 1760 Berlin was held for a few days by the Russians,
but Frederick soon defeated the Austrians once more at
Torgau. In 1761, however, his situation was in the highest
degree perilous. His resources were apparently exhausted. Spain
joined the ranks of his enemies. He faced them all with determined
resolution, but he confessed in his private letters that his hopes
were gone.
END OF THE WAR.—At this time there was a turn of events in his
favor. In Russia, Peter III., who succeeded Elizabeth,
was an admirer of Frederick,—so much so that he wore a Prussian
uniform,—and hastened to conclude a peace and alliance with him
(1762). Peter was soon dethroned and killed by Russian nobles;
and his queen· and successor, Catherine II., recalled the troops
sent to Frederick's aid. Nevertheless, they helped him to a
victory over the Austrians, under the command of Daun, at
Burkersdorf (1762). Austria, too, was exhausted and ready for
peace. The negotiations between England and France, which ended in the
Peace of Paris (1763), made it certain that the French armies
would evacuate Germany. Prussia and Austria agreed to the
Peace of Hubertsburg, by which Prussia retained Silesia,
and promised her vote for the Archduke Joseph, son of Maria
Theresa, as king of Rome and successor to the empire (1763).
POSITION OF PRUSSIA.—Joseph II. succeeded his father as emperor
in 1765, and was associated by his mother, Maria Theresa, in the
government of her hereditary dominions. From the conclusion of the
Seven Years' War, Prussia took her place as one of the five
great powers of Europe.
THE BRITISH INDIAN EMPIRE.—It was during this period that the empire
of the British in India grew up out of the mercantile
settlements of a trading corporation, the East India
Company. The result was effected after a severe struggle with the
French. After the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Mughal
empire at Delhi declined. Insubordinate native princes
admitted only a nominal control over them. The effect of successive
Mahratta and Afghan invasions was such, that when England
and France went to war in Europe, in 1745, India was broken up
into different sovereignties, to say nothing of the great number of
petty chieftains who were practically
independent. Pondicherry was the chief French settlement. For a
time it seemed that in the struggle for control France, under the
masterly guidance of Dupleix, must triumph. In 1756
Calcutta was taken from the English by the Nabob of
Bengal, and many Englishmen died in the close room of the military
prison in which they were shut up,—"the Black Hole." In 1757
Clive defeated a great army of the natives, with whom were a few
French, in the decisive battle of Plassey. He had previously
shown his indomitable courage in the seizure of Arcot, and in
its defense against a host of besiegers. The victory at Plassey
secured the British supremacy, which gradually extended itself over the
country. The various local sovereignties became like Roman
provinces. On the death of Clive, Warren Hastings was
made governor-general (1772). After his recall, he was impeached
(1788), on charges of cruelty and oppression in India, and his trial by
the House of Lords did not end until seven years after it began. He was
then acquitted. Among the conductors of the impeachment on the part of
the House of Commons, were the celebrated orators Edmund Burke
and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. In 1784 the power of the
East-India Company had been restricted by the establishment of the
Board of Control. Up to that time the Indian Empire, made up of
dependent and subject states, had been governed by the sole authority
of the company.
CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA.—Catherine II. (1762-1796) in her
private life was notoriously dissolute. If she did not connive at the
assassination of her husband, Peter III., she heaped gifts upon
his murderers. In her policy, she aimed to strengthen Russia,
especially towards the sea. This occasioned successful conflicts with
the Turks.
THE PARTITION OF POLAND.—At first inimical to Frederick the Great,
Catherine afterwards made an alliance with him. She compelled the
election of one of her lovers, Poniatowski, to the throne of
Poland. Poland was mainly Catholic; and the Confederation
of Bar (1768), made by the Poles to prevent the toleration of
Greek Christians and Protestants, was defeated by a Russian army, and
broken up. The Turks were worsted in the war which they made in defense
of the confederacy. As one result, Russia gained a firm footing on the
north coasts of the Black Sea (1774). The "free veto," oppression of
the peasantry, their distress, and the general want of union and public
spirit, had reduced Poland to a miserable condition. Catherine,
however, favored no reforms there looking to an improvement in the
constitution. She preferred to prolong the anarchy and confusion. She
wished to make the death of Poland in part a suicide. At length she
invited Prussia and Austria to take part with her in the
first seizure and partition of Polish territory (1772). Each took
certain provinces. In 1793 the second, and in 1795 the final partition
of Poland, was made by its three neighbors. The capture of
Warsaw, and the defeat of the national rising under
Kosciusko, obliterated that ancient kingdom from the map of
Europe. It should be said that a large part of the territory that
Russia acquired had once been Russian, and was inhabited by Greek
Christians. By the division of Poland, Russia was brought into close
contact with the Western powers. The Crimea was incorporated
with Russia in 1783. After a second war, provoked by her, with the
Turks, who now had the Austrians to help them, the Russian boundaries
through the Treaty of Jassy (1792) were carried to the
Dniester.
CHAPTER V. CONTEST OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE IN AMERICA: WAR OF AMERICAN
INDEPENDENCE: THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.
In this period the United States of America achieved their
independence, and began their existence as a distinct nation.
THE ENGLISH COLONIES.—The English colonies south of Canada had become
thirteen in number. In the southern part of what was called Carolina,
Charleston was settled in 1680. More than a century before
(1562), a band of Huguenots under Ribault had entered the harbor
of Port Royal, and given this name to it, and had built a fort
on the river May, which they called Charlesfort—the
Carolina—in honor of King Charles IX. of France. In 1663
the territory thus called, south of Virginia, was granted to the
Earl of Clarendon. In it were two distinct settlements in the
northern part. The English philosopher John Locke drew up a
constitution for Carolina, never accepted by the freemen. The
rights of the proprietors were purchased by George II.; and the
region was divided (1729) into two royal provinces, North and
South Carolina, each province having a governor appointed by the
king, and an assembly elected by the people. Besides the English,
Huguenots and emigrants from the North of Ireland, as well as from
Scotland, planted themselves in South Carolina. Georgia was
settled by James Oglethorpe, who made his settlement at
Savannah. He had a charter from George II., in whose
honor the region was named (1732). Soon the "trustees" gave up their
charter, and the government was shaped like that of the other colonies
(1752). John Wesley, afterwards the founder of Methodism,
sojourned for a time in Georgia. The settlement of New Jersey
was first made by members of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, sent
over by William Penn, the son of an English admiral, and
familiar at court. The Quakers gave up the government to the crown, and
from 1702 to 1738 it formed one province with New
York. Pennsylvania was granted to Penn himself, by
the king, in discharge of a claim against the crown. Penn
procured also a title to Delaware. He sent out emigrants in
1681, and the next year came himself. By him Philadelphia was
founded. He dealt kindly with all the settlers, and made a treaty of
peace and amity with the Indians. The government organized by
Penn was just and liberal. In 1703 the inhabitants of
Delaware began to have a governing assembly of their own.
THE FRENCH COLONIES.—Among the French explorers in America,
La Salle is one of the most famous. Having traversed the region
of the upper lakes, he reached the Mississippi, and floated in his
boats down to its mouth (1682). The region of the great river and of
its tributaries, he named Louisiana, in honor of his king,
Louis XIV. This name was applied to the whole region from the
Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains. On his return, La Salle
built Fort St. Louis. Afterwards (1684) he took part in an
expedition from France which had for its purpose the building of a fort
at the mouth of the Mississippi, but which was so wrongly guided
as to land on the coast of Texas. La Salle himself
perished, while seeking to find his way to Canada. But a French
settlement was made near the mouth of the river (1699), and a
connection established by a series of forts with Canada.
On the principle that the country belonged to the explorer, Spain
claimed all the southern part of North America from the Atlantic to the
Pacific. The French claim stretched from the coast of Nova
Scotia westward to the Great Lakes, and embraced the valley of the
Mississippi to its mouth. England claimed the country from
Labrador as far south as Florida, and westward to the
Pacific. This region included within it the claims of the Dutch,
founded on the discoveries of Henry Hudson.
War between England and France, whenever it occurred, was attended
with conflicts between the English and the French settlements in
America. The Indians were most of them on the side of the French. But
the fierce Iroquois in central New York, who wished to
monopolize the fur-trade, were hostile to them. A massacre perpetrated
by these at La Chine, near Montreal (1689), provoked a
murderous attack of French and Indians upon the settlement at
Schenectady, the most northern post of the English. This was an
incident of King William's War (1689). In Queen Anne's
War (1702-1713) Deerfield in Massachusetts was captured and
destroyed by French and Indians (1704). By an expedition fitted out in
Massachusetts, and commanded by Sir William Phipps, Port Royal
in Nova Scotia was captured (1710). The colonies incurred great
expense in fitting out expeditions (1709 and 1711) against Canada,
which were abandoned. The contest between France and England for
supremacy in America was further continued in a series of conflicts
lasting from 1744 for nearly twenty years. An early event of much
consequence in the contest known as King George's War,—a part
of the war of the Austrian succession (p. 476),—was the capture of
Louisburg, an important fortified place on Cape Breton, by an
expedition from Boston (1745). The colonists, who were with reason
proud of their achievement, had the mortification to see this place
restored to the French in the treaty of peace (1748). In these
contests the French had the help of their Indian allies, who fell upon
defenseless villages. The English were sometimes aided by the
Iroquois. The English founded Halifax (1749).
THE "OLD FRENCH WAR" (1756-1763).—The "Old French and Indian War" in
America was a part of the Seven Years' War in Europe. A British
officer, Gen. Braddock, led a force which departed from Fort
Cumberland in Maryland, against Fort Du Quesne at the junction
of the Monongahela and Alleghany Rivers. Disregarding the advice of
George Washington, who was on his staff, he allowed himself to
be surprised by the Indians and the French, and was mortally
wounded. The remains of his army were led by Washington, whose
courage and presence of mind had been conspicuous, to Philadelphia
(1755). Prior to the expedition, Washington had made a perilous
journey as envoy, to demand of the French commander his reasons for
invading the Ohio valley. The English held Nova Scotia, and expelled
from their homes the French Acadians, seven thousand in number,
in a way that involved severe hardships, including the separation of
families (1755). They were carried off in ships, and scattered among
the colonies along the Atlantic shore. The English also took the forts
in Acadia. There were two battles near Lake George
(1755), in the first of which the French were victors, but in the
second they were routed. Montcalm, the French commander,
captured the English fort near Oswego, from which an expedition
was to have been sent against the French fort at Niagara
(1756). In 1757 he took Fort William Henry on Lake George.
THE CAMPAIGNS OF 1758 AND 1759.—The English were dissatisfied at their
want of success on the Continent and in America. But they had
advantages for prosecuting the conflict. The French, who had been
successful at the outset, had to bring their troops and supplies from
Europe. They were, to be sure, disciplined troops; but the English had
the substantial strength which was derived from the prosperous
agriculture, and still more from the brave and self-respecting spirit,
of their American colonies. The elder William Pitt, afterwards
Earl of Chatham, again entered the cabinet, and began to manage
the contest (1757). The French held posts at important points,—Fort
Du Quesne, where Pittsburg now stands, for the defense of
the West; Crown Point and Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain,
guarding the approach to Canada; Niagara, near the Great Lakes
and the region of the fur-trade; and Louisburg, on the coast of
Nova Scotia, which protected the fisheries, and was a menace to New
England. To seize these posts, and to break down the French power in
America, was now the aim of the English. In 1758 an expedition of
Gen. Abercrombie, at the head of sixteen thousand men, against
Crown Point and Ticonderoga, was repulsed; Lord Howe was killed, and
the army retreated. Louisburg, to the joy of the colonies, was
captured anew by Lord Amherst (1758). Fort Du Quesne was
taken (1758), and named Fort Pitt; Fort Frontenac on Lake
Ontario was destroyed. The object of the campaign of 1759 was the
conquest of Canada. Fort Niagara was captured by Sir William
Johnston (1759). Ticonderoga and Crown Point were
taken, and the French driven into Canada. Then came the great
expedition under Major-Gen, Wolfe, a most worthy and
high-spirited young officer, which left Louisburg for the
capture of Quebec, "the Gibraltar of America." The attempt of
Wolfe to storm the heights in front of the city, which were
defended by the army of Montcalm, failed of success. From a
point far up the river, he embarked a portion of his troops in the
night, and, silently descending the stream, climbed the heights in the
rear of the city, and intrenched himself on the "Plains of Abraham."
In the battle which took place in the morning, both commanders,
Wolfe and Montcalm, were mortally wounded. Wolfe
lived just long enough to be assured of victory; Montcalm died
the next day. Five days after the battle the town surrendered (1759).
An incident connected with Wolfe's approach by night to Quebec is thus
given by Mr. Parkman: "For full two hours the procession of
boats, borne on the current, steered silently down the
St. Lawrence. The stars were visible, but the night was moonless and
sufficiently dark. The general was in one of the foremost boats; and
near him was a young midshipman, John Robison, afterwards professor of
natural philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. He used to tell in
his later life how Wolfe, with a low voice, repeated Gray's Elegy in
a Country Churchyard to the officers about him. Among the rest, was
the verse which his fate was soon to illustrate,—
'The paths of glory lead but to the grave.'
"'Gentlemen,' he said, as his recital ended, 'I would rather have
written those lines than take Quebec.' None were there to tell him
that the hero is greater than the poet." (Montcalm and Wolfe,
p. 287.)
In the following year Montreal and all Canada were in
the hands of the English. The English colonies were safe. It was
decided that English, not French, should be spoken in aftertimes on
the banks of the Ohio. In the Peace of Paris (1763), France
kept Louisiana, but had already ceded it to Spain (1762).
CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC.—The Indians in the West were dissatisfied with
the transference of Canada and the region of the Lakes to
England. Pontiac, chief of the Ottawas, combined a large
number of tribes, and kindled a war against the English, which spread
from the Mississippi to Canada (1763). He captured eight forts, but
failed to take Detroit and Fort Pitt. Three years passed before the
Indians were completely beaten, and a treaty of peace concluded with
their leader (1766).
STATE OF THE COLONIES: POPULATION.—At the close of the French war, the
population of the thirteen colonies probably exceeded two millions, of
whom not far from one fourth were negro slaves. The number of slaves in
New England was small. They were proportionately much more numerous in
New York, but they were found principally in the Southern colonies.
Quakers were always averse to slavery. The slave-trade was still kept
up. Newport in Rhode Island was one of the ports where slave-ships
frequently discharged their cargoes.
GOVERNMENT.—The forms of government in the different colonies
varied. All of them had their own legislative assemblies, and regarded
them as essential to their freedom. Under Charles II., the
charter which secured to Massachusetts its civil rights was annulled
(1684). Under James II., the attempt was made to revoke all the
New England charters. Sir Edmund Andros was appointed governor
of New England, and by him the new system began to be enforced. The
revolution of 1688 restored to the colonies their privileges; but
Massachusetts (with which Plymouth was now united), under its new
charter (1691), no longer elected its governor. Prior to the
Revolution, there were three forms of government among the
colonies. Proprietary governments (that is, government by owners or
proprietors) still remained in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. In
these the king appointed no officers except in the customs and
admiralty courts. In Rhode Island and Connecticut, which like
Massachusetts retained their charters, the governors were chosen by the
people. New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, North and South
Carolina, had royal or provincial governments: the governor and council
were appointed by the king.
OCCUPATIONS.—The chief occupation of the colonists was agriculture. In
the North, wheat and corn were raised. From Virginia and Maryland,
great crops of tobacco were exported from the plantations, in English
ships which came up the Potomac and the James. Rice was cultivated in
the Carolinas. Indigo was also raised. Cotton was grown in the
South. Labor in the fields in the Southern colonies was performed by
the negroes. Building of ships was a profitable occupation on the coast
of New England. The cod and other fisheries also gave employment to
many, and proved a school for the training of seamen. The colonists
were industrious and prosperous, but generally frugal and plain in
their style of living.
EDUCATION AND RELIGION.—Common schools were early established by law
in New England, and by the Dutch in New York. As Mr. Bancroft
well observes, "He that will understand the political character of New
England in the eighteenth century must study the constitution of its
towns, its congregations, its schools, and its militia." Harvard
College was founded in 1636; William and Mary, in 1693; Yale, in
1700. Eighteen years after the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, a
printing-press was set up at Cambridge. In 1704 the first American
newspaper, "The Boston News Letter," was established. In the Puritan
colonies, the minds of the people were quickened intellectually as well
as religiously, by the character of the pulpit discourses. Theology was
an absorbing theme of inquiry and discussion. In the town-meetings,
especially in the closing part of the colonial period, political
affairs became a subject of earnest debate. In all the colonies, the
representative assemblies furnished a practical training in political
life. In the Eastern colonies, the people were mostly
Congregationalists and Calvinists: Presbyterians were numerous in the
Middle States. In Virginia the Episcopal Church was supported by
legislative authority; and it was favored, though not established by
law, in New York. In Pennsylvania, while there was freedom in religion,
the Quakers "still swayed legislation and public opinion."
Philadelphia, with its population of thirty thousand, was the largest
city in America, and was held in high esteem for its intelligence and
refinement.
COMPLAINTS OF THE COLONIES.—The colonists all acknowledged the
authority of king and parliament, but they felt that they had brought
with them across the ocean the rights of Englishmen. One thing that was
more and more complained of was the laws compelling the colonies to
trade with the "mother country" exclusively, and the enactments laying
restraint on their manufactures. In the conflicts with the Indians from
time to time, the necessity had arisen for leagues; and, more than
once, congresses of delegates had met. One of these was held at Albany
in 1754, where Benjamin Franklin was present. In the Old French
War, there had been a call for concert of action, and a deepening of
the sense of common interests and of being really one people.
NEW GROUNDS OF DISAFFECTION.—The colonies had taxed themselves in the
French War; but the condition of the finances in England at the close
of it inspired the wish there to enforce the laws of trade more rigidly
in America, and to levy additional taxes upon the provinces. These
English laws were so odious that they were often evaded. The writs
of assistance in Massachusetts authorized custom-house officers to
search houses for smuggled goods (1761). In the legal resistance to
this measure, a sentence was uttered by a Boston patriot, James
Otis, which became a watchword. "Taxation," he said, "without
representation is tyranny." Taxation, it was contended, must be
ordained by the local colonial assemblies in which the tax-payers are
represented. But the Stamp Act (1765), requiring for legal and
other documents the use of stamped paper, was a form of taxation. It
excited indignation in all the colonies, especially in Virginia and in
New England. In all the measures of resistance, Virginia and
Massachusetts were foremost. Patrick Henry, an
impassioned, patriotic orator, in the Virginia Legislature, was very
bold in denouncing the obnoxious Act, and the alleged right to tax the
colonies which it implied. This right was denied in a Congress
where nine colonies were represented, which met in New York in
1765. They called for the repeal of the Stamp Act, and declared against
the importation of English goods until the repeal should be
granted. William Pitt, in the House of Commons, eulogized the
spirit of the colonies. The Stamp Act was repealed. The discussions
which it had provoked in America had awakened the whole people, and
made them watchful against this sort of aggression. Political topics
engrossed attention. When Parliament ordered that the colonies should
support the troops quartered on them, and that the royal officers
should have fixed salaries, to be obtained, not by the voluntary grants
of colonial legislatures, but by the levy of new duties, there was a
renewed outburst of disaffection, especially in New York and
Boston (1768). By way of response to a petition that was sent to
the king against these Acts of Parliament, four regiments of troops
were sent to Boston. Their presence was a bitter grievance. In
one case, there was bloodshed in a broil in the street between the
populace and the soldiers, which was called "The Boston Massacre"
(1770). An influential leader of the popular party in Boston was the
stanch Puritan patriot, Samuel Adams.
PROGRESS OF THE CONTROVERSY.—After the other taxes were repealed, the
tax on tea remained in force. A mob of young men, disguised as Indians,
went on board three vessels in Boston Harbor, and threw overboard their
freight of tea (1773). Before, there had been outbreakings of popular
wrath against the stamp-officers. Their houses had been sometimes
attacked: they had been burnt in effigy, and in some cases driven to
resign. In general, however, the methods of resistance had been legal
and orderly. When the news of the destruction of the tea reached
England, Parliament retaliated by passing the Boston Port Bill
(1774), which closed that port to the exportation or importation of
goods, except food or fuel. The courts, moreover, were given the power
to send persons charged with high crimes to England, or to another
colony, for trial. To crown all, General Gage, the commander of
the British troops, was made Governor of Massachusetts.
THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.—In order to produce concert of action,
committees of correspondence between the several colonies were
established. The First Continental Congress, composed of delegates from
the colonies, was convened in Philadelphia (1774). The remedies to
which they resorted were, addresses to the king and to the people of
Great Britain; an appeal for support to Canada; and a resolve not to
trade with Great Britain until there should be a redress of grievances.
CONCORD AND BUNKER HILL.—The Legislature in Massachusetts, which
Gage would not recognize, formed itself into the "Provincial
Congress." The first collision took place at Concord (April 19,
1775), where a detachment of British troops was sent to destroy the
military stores gathered by this body. On Lexington Green, the
British troops fired on the militia, and killed seven men. Arriving at
Concord, they encountered resistance. There the first shot was
fired by America in the momentous struggle,—"the shot heard round the
world." A number were killed on both sides, and the attacking force was
harassed all the way on its return to Boston. The people everywhere
rose in arms. Men flocked from their farms and workshops to the camp
which was formed near Boston. Israel Putnam, who had been an
officer in the French War, left his plow in the field at his home in
Connecticut, and rode to that place, a distance of sixty-eight miles,
in one day. Stark from New Hampshire, and Greene from
Rhode Island, soon arrived.
THE SECOND CONTINENTAL CONGRESS, in session at Philadelphia,
assumed control of military operations in all the colonies. At the
suggestion first made by John Adams of Massachusetts, Colonel
George Washington of Virginia was unanimously appointed
commander-in-chief. His mingled courage and prudence, his lofty and
unselfish patriotism, his admirable sobriety of judgment, and his rare
power of self-control, connected as it was with a not less rare power
of command, and with a firmness which no disaster could shake, made him
one of the noblest of men. Before he reached Cambridge, where he
assumed command of the gathering forces (July 3, 1775), he received the
news of the battle of Bunker Hill, in which the provincial
soldiers, under Putnam and Prescott, made a stand against
the "regulars," as the British troops were called, and retreated only
on the third assault, and when their ammunition had given
out. Dr. Joseph Warren, a leading Boston patriot, was slain in
the battle. Before this time, Fort Ticonderoga had been captured
by Ethan Allen, and cannon been sent from it to aid in the siege
of Boston (1775). But an attack on Quebec by Arnold and
Montgomery, who entered Canada by different routes, failed of
its object. Before British reinforcements arrived, the American troops
abandoned Canada. In the attack on Quebec, Montgomery fell, and
Arnold was severely wounded (Dec. 31, 1775).
INDEPENDENCE.—Only a brief sketch can here be given of the seven
years' struggle of the United Colonies. On the 4th of July, 1776, the
Declaration of Independence, drawn up in the main by Thomas
Jefferson, and of which John Adams was the most eloquent
advocate on the floor of Congress, passed that body. It was signed by
the President, John Hancock, and fifty-five members. The
colonies easily converted themselves into States, nearly all of them
framing new constitutions. Thirteen Articles of Confederation
made them into a league, under the name of the United States of
America, each State retaining its sovereignty (1777). Franklin,
an old man, and respected in Europe as well as at home for his
scientific attainments as well as for his sturdy sagacity, went to
France as their envoy. Among the soldiers who came from Europe to join
the Americans were La Fayette,—a young French nobleman, who was
inspired with a zeal for liberty, and was not without a thirst for
fame, which, however, he desired to merit,—and Steuben, an
officer trained under Frederick the Great. In Parliament, the
Whig orators spoke out manfully for the American cause. The king hired
German troops for the subjugation of its defenders.
THE EVENTS OF THE WAR.—The maneuvers of Washington forced
Gage to evacuate Boston. The American general then
undertook the defense of New York. The British forces, to the number
of thirty thousand, under Gen. Howe, and Admiral Howe
his brother, were collected on Staten Island. The Americans were
defeated in a battle on Long Island (Aug. 27, 1776), and could not
hold the city. It remained in the hands of the British to the end of
the war. Washington withdrew his troops to White Plains.
Fort Washington and Fort Lee were lost. The American
commander, followed by Lord Cornwallis, retreated slowly
through New Jersey (1776). These were serious reverses. By bold and
successful attacks at Trenton and Princeton, the
depressed spirits of the army and the country were revived. In the
spring of 1777 Howe sought to capture Philadelphia, and
landed his forces at the head of Chesapeake Bay. The Americans were
defeated at Brandywine (Sept. 10); and Philadelphia, which had
been the seat of Congress, was, like New York, in the possession of
the British. Their policy was to isolate New England. To this end,
Gen. Burgoyne, with a large army of French and Indians, came
down from the north of Lake Champlain. A detachment of his forces was
defeated by Stark at Bennington. Burgoyne himself
was obliged to surrender, with six thousand men, to Gates, at
Saratoga (Oct. 17). This event made its due impression
abroad. France recognized the independence of the United
States, and entered into an alliance with them. This alliance was a
turning-point in the struggle. Washington's army, ill-clad and
ill-fed, suffered terribly in the winter of 1777-78 at Valley
Forge; but he shared in their rough fare, and their discipline was
much improved by the drill which they received there from
Steuben. Sir Henry Clinton left Philadelphia in order
that the British forces might be concentrated in New York. He was
overtaken by Washington, and the battle of Monmouth took place,
which was, on the whole, a success for the Americans. The design of
the British to separate New England from the rest of the States had
failed. Washington was again at White Plains. They now
began operations in the Southern States. Among the occurrences in this
period of the war were the massacre of the settlements in the valley
of the Wyoming, in Pennsylvania, by the Indian auxiliaries of
the British; the surrender of Savannah, and with it Georgia and
Charleston, by the Americans; the gallant storming of Stony
Point, on the Hudson, by Wayne (July 15, 1779), and a
brilliant naval victory of Paul Jones in a desperate engagement
with two British frigates near the north-eastern coast of England
(Sept. 1779). The American "partisan leaders," Marion, Sumter, and
Pickens, carried forward an irregular but harassing warfare in South
Carolina. At Camden, Gates was defeated by Cornwallis;
and Baron de Kalb, a brave French officer, of German
extraction, in the American service, fell (Aug. 16, 1780). In this
year (1780) Benedict Arnold's treason was detected; and Major
André, a British officer through whom Arnold had made
arrangements for giving up the fortress of West Point to the
enemy, was taken captive, and executed as a spy. In the next year
Gen. Nathanael Greene conducted military operations in
Georgia and the Carolinas with much skill, and succeeded
in pressing the army of Lord Cornwallis into the peninsula
formed by the York and James Rivers in Virginia. Thither the French
fleet sailed under Count De Grasse; and Washington, by
forced marches, was enabled to join with the French in surrounding the
British works at Yorktown. On the day when Clinton left
New York, at the head of his forces, to unite with Cornwallis,
that officer surrendered, with his entire army of seven thousand men,
to Washington (1781). This blow was fatal to the British
cause. The independence of the United States was recognized by
Holland, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, and Russia (1782). The war had been
prolonged by the personal obstinacy of George III., against the
wishes of his minister, Lord North. The surrender of
Cornwallis made it plain that further effort to conquer America
was hopeless. Spain and Holland had joined hands with France, but
Rodney had won a great naval victory over De Grasse
(April 12, 1782). By the treaty of peace, signed at Paris and
Versailles (1783), England recognized the independence of her
former colonies.
AMERICA AT THE CLOSE OF THE WAR.—The Congress during the war had
issued paper money to the amount of twenty millions of dollars. It had
no power to lay taxes, or to compel the States to pay their several
portions of the public indebtedness. The States themselves were poor,
and largely in debt. They surrendered, however, their unoccupied
public lands to the United States. In 1787 Congress made one territory
of the district north-west of the Ohio River, which Virginia had
ceded, and by an ordinance excluded slavery from it for ever.
THE CONSTITUTION.—The lack of one system of law for the different
States in reference to duties on imports, and on various other matters
of common concern, and disorders springing up in different places,
inspired an anxious desire for a stronger central government. A
convention, over which Washington presided, met in
Philadelphia in 1787, and formed the new Constitution.
Hamilton of New York and Madison of Virginia were leading
members. There was much opposition to the new plan of government which
they agreed upon, but it was finally adopted by all the States. It
supplied the defects of the old confederation by uniting
national with federal elements. To the Senate, made up of
two delegates from each State, it added a House of
Representatives, where the number of members from each State was
made proportionate to the population. It put the general government,
within the limit of its defined functions, into a direct
relation to the citizens, and gave to it judicial and executive
departments to carry out and enforce its legislation. It committed to
the central authority the management of foreign affairs, and various
other powers necessary for the preservation of peace and unity in the
land, and for the securing of the common weal of the whole
country. Washington was unanimously chosen as the first
president of the Republic, and John Adams was chosen
vice-president. The first Congress met in New York in April,
1789, although the day appointed was March 4.
CHAPTER VI. LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND RELIGION.
LITERATURE.
I. FRANCE.
POETRY AND THE DRAMA.—The literature of France in the age of Louis
XIV. was classical in its spirit. The ancient Greek and Roman
writers were admired and imitated. The Renaissance was now to run its
course. The French Academy, founded by Richelieu, undertook to
regulate and improve the French language. Measure, finish, elegance,
were demanded by the reigning taste, in all literary
productions. Corneille (1606-1684), the father of French
tragedy, was the most virile of the French dramatists. Racine
(1639-1699), who followed, if less grand, was more pathetic. We find,
however, in writers of genius,—even in the great preachers, as
Bourdaloue and Massillon, who formed a type of pulpit
eloquence peculiar to France,—a tendency to what seems now a stilted
style. The master in comedy was Molière (1622-1673), an actor,
as well as an author of inimitable humor. One of the most popular of
French authors has been La Fontaine (1621-1695), whose fables
have charmed multitudes by their smooth versification, as well as by
their contents. Boileau (1636-1711), the Horace of France,
prescribed, as a lawgiver, rules upon the "Art of Poetry," and himself
wrote satires and other poems of high merit.
PROSE LITERATURE.—Bossuet (1627-1704) was an eloquent preacher
and historical writer, and an expert theological polemic of the liberal
Catholic school. Of a very different tone is Rochefoucauld,
whose Maxims, expressed in pithy language, seek to trace all
virtuous action to self-seeking. The French fondness for epigram—for
terse, paradoxical statement—is exemplified even in the best writers,
as, for example, Blaise Pascal. La Bruyère (1645-1696), a
genial philosopher, wrote in a most attractive style a work entitled
The Characters of Our Age. The metaphysician Malebranche
(1638-1715) taught that we know through our spiritual union with God,
or that we see all things in God. A disciple of Des Cartes, he
did not strictly follow his master. Fénelon (1651-1715),
illustrious for his piety as well as for his versatile authorship,
wrote on religious topics and on education. Of all his writings, his
Telemachus, composed for the young Duke of Burgundy, his pupil,
has been the most read. The letters of Madame de Sévigné,
addressed to her daughter, and not meant for publication, present most
graphic descriptions of the characters and occurrences of the day.
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.—When we cross the limit of the eighteenth
century, we meet with growing signs of skepticism in religion, and of
innovation in political thought. Criticism of the past, of traditional
creeds and established institutions, is spreading. The Historical
and Critical Dictionary of Bayle, a storehouse of chronicle and
anecdote, is leavened with the spirit of doubt. Three great writers
deserve special attention. Montesquieu (1689-1755) satirized all
dogma in his Persian Letters. His celebrated work on the
Spirit of Laws is just and humane in its tone, and full of
original and inspiring views on history and government. He is one of
the founders of modern political science. Voltaire (1694-1778),
the most popular of all the writers of his age, was the incarnation of
its critical and skeptical spirit, the highest example of its wit as of
its levity, and of the artificial character of its literary ideals. He
was play-writer, poet, historian, critic, and brilliant converser, all
in one. In religion, a scoffer not only at superstition, but at all
beliefs and rites which imply revelation, he still clung to the belief
in a personal God. His creed was deism, Jean Jacques Rousseau
(1712-1778) was, like Voltaire, a deist in his creed; but in
religion, as in all his mental action, there was a vein of
sentiment. By the fascination of his style, he was able, in his various
writings, including his autobiographical Confessions, to
interest profoundly multitudes of readers of both sexes, and even to
move them to sympathy with himself in a career which deserves not less
abhorrence than commiseration. He was, perhaps, the first author to
evoke in others a genuine relish, which he felt himself, for the wild
scenery of nature. In his Social Contract he maintained that
government grows out of a contract of individuals with one another, all
of whom in the state of nature are free and independent. He carried to
a great extreme an idea which in England had been held by
Hooker, and more explicitly expounded by Locke. His
doctrine furnished a theory for the political revolution in France. The
"Encyclopædists" went much beyond Voltaire and
Rousseau. D'Alembert, Helvetius, Holbach,
advocated atheism and materialism. Condillac (1715-1780) sought
to reduce this species of infidelity to an exact philosophical system
by tracing even conscience to sensation and self-interest. All
religious sentiment was condemned as morbid illusion.
II. GERMANY.
In Germany, the great name in philosophy is that of Leibnitz
(1646-1716), a rival of Newton in mathematics and natural
science, and an eminent thinker in metaphysics, theology, and in
jurisprudence. In intellect and in variety of attainments, he is almost
the peer of Aristotle. Wolf (1679-1754) his disciple,
systemized and modified his philosophical views. Klopstock
(1724-1803), the author of Messiah, written somewhat after the
manner of the Paradise Lost of Milton, excelled the other
German poets of his day. Frederick the Great treated with
disrespect the native literary products of his country. Yet a new era
in German letters and criticism was opened by Lessing
(1729-1781), a poet, and a critic of admirable insight, whose influence
in this direction in Germany has been likened in its power to that of
Luther in religion.
III. ITALY.
In the eighteenth century, there was a new revival of literature in
Italy. Vico (1668-1744) almost made an epoch in the scientific
treatment of history and mythology; in political economy and in
archeology, there were numerous explorers; Florence became once more a
seat of learning. Beccaria (1738-1794) by his writings
introduced more humane views in criminal jurisprudence. Volta
(1745-1827), an electrician, constructed the instrument called the
voltaic pile. Metastasio (1698-1782) fostered the melodrama, or
Italian opera, by his dramatic writings. Goldoni (1707-1793), a
Venetian, was the most eminent writer of comedies. Tragedy reached its
acme in the works of Alfieri (1749-1803), the founder of a new
school.
IV. ENGLAND.
In England, after the Restoration, the influence of French standards
in literature is obvious. The drama declined, partly from the earlier
antagonism of the Puritans, and partly from the rage for indecency
which infected the dramatic writers,—even those of much ability, as
Congreve,—and defiled the stage. The Pilgrim's Progress
of Bunyan (1628-88) is written in a plain, unaffected style,
and is the most popular work of that age. In sharp contrast with
Bunyan is Butler's Hudibras, a witty satire, in doggerel
verse, upon Puritanism. The principal writer, prior to Queen
Anne, is Dryden (1631-1700). We have passed now from the
Romantic school of poetry, in which Shakspeare is the most
exalted name, to the Classical school. In the age of Queen
Anne, Pope (1688-1744), with his vigor, without
elevation, of thought, his smooth versification and bright wit, is the
principal figure. The same period produced the labored novels of
Richardson (1689-1761), and the vigorous and lifelike fictions
of Fielding (1707-1754), which are, unhappily, disfigured by
coarse and licentious passages. In the early part of the century,
Addison (1672-1719) and Steele (1672-1729) were the most
distinguished essayists. In them, as in the novels of Defoe
(1661-1731), the author of Robinson Crusoe, and in the prose
writings of Swift (1667-1745), the richness and idiomatic force
of the English tongue are seen; while in Samuel Johnson, the
literary dictator in the latter part of the century, the author of the
English Dictionary, of The Rambler, the Lives of the
Poets, and Rasselas, we have a striking and contagious
example of a stately, sounding, Latinized diction. In pleasing
contrast, as regards style, which charms from its simplicity, are the
writings of Goldsmith (1728-74). In poetry, Gray
(1716-71), the author of the Elegy in a Country Churchyard, and
Collins (1721-59), wrote little, but wrote well. The
triumvirate of great English historians of the century are
Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon. Gibbon's Decline
and Fall of the Roman Empire is a monument of masterly ability and
of vast research; a work, however, marred by a want of naturalness in
style, and, still more, by a lack of religious faith and reverence,
and by impurity of tone and allusion. Hume's style is one of
his chief claims to esteem as an historian; for he was indolent in his
researches, and prejudiced in his views. He merited distinction
chiefly as an economist and a metaphysician.
PHILOSOPHY.—In English philosophy, there are several writers of
extraordinary talents and influence. John Locke (1632-1704), an
upright man and a lover of freedom, wrote the celebrated Essay on
the Understanding, besides other important works in political
science and theology. He traced all our knowledge to two sources,
sensation and reflection, ultimately to the first of
these. Berkeley (1685-1753) advocated with rare genius an ideal
theory of matter, and defended theism. Hume (1711-76) indirectly
gave rise to much of the later philosophy, by his acute speculations in
behalf of skepticism as to the reality of human knowledge and the
foundation of accepted beliefs. Reid (1710-96) rescued
philosophy from the attacks of Hume by the doctrine of "common
sense," and thus founded the Scottish school of metaphysicians. Among
the numerous authors who cultivated both philosophy and theology,
particular distinction belongs to Dr. Samuel Clarke (1675-1729),
and to Bishop Joseph Butler (1692-1752) who wrote briefly, but
with marked power, on the nature of conscience, and on the
Analogy between religion and what we know of the constitution
and course of nature.
NEWTON: ADAM SMITH.—Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), the
discoverer of the law of gravitation, made, through his
Principia, one of the most important contributions ever made to
the advancement of physical science. In 1776 Adam Smith, a
Scotchman, who had previously written on metaphysics and politics,
published his treatise on The Wealth of Nations, the first
complete system of political economy. He showed that money is not
wealth, but simply one product serving as a means of exchange. He made
it clear, that, for one nation to gain in trade, it is not requisite
that another should lose. Much light was thrown on political economy by
essays of Hume.
V. AMERICA.
The most notable American writers before the War of Independence were
Jonathan Edwards (1703-58), a great metaphysical genius, and the
founder of a school in theology; and Benjamin Franklin
(1706-90), whose writings, in excellent English, related mainly to
ethical and economical topics. As the Revolution approached, there
sprung up authors of ability on the political questions of the
day. The Federalist, written after the war, by Hamilton,
Madison, and Jay, in favor of the proposed Constitution, is
a work of high merit, as regards both matter and style.
NATURAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE.
The inductive method, or the "Baconian" method of observation and
experiment, began to bear rich fruits. Sir Isaac Newton
(1642-1727) not only discovered the law of gravitation: other
discoveries by him in mechanics and optics were of great moment in the
progress of those sciences. Fluxions, or the differential calculus, was
discovered independently by both Newton and
Leibnitz. Euler, a Swiss mathematician of the highest
ability (1707-1783), contributed essentially to the advancement of
mechanics. Napier invented logarithms, to shorten mathematical
calculations. Huygens, a Dutch philosopher (1629-1695), invented
the pendulum clock. Gregory (1638-1675) invented the reflecting
telescope, Halley, an English astronomer (1656-1742), gave his
name to a comet whose return he predicted. Guericke invented
(1680), and Robert Boyle (1627-1691) perfected, the
air-pump. Boyle was active in founding the Royal Society
(1660). Volta, by the invention of the pile called by his name,
and Franklin, signally advanced the study of electricity. In the
history of zoölogy, Buffon is a great name, as is that of
Lavoisier in chemistry. Linnaeus, a Swede, born in the
same year with Buffon (1707), attained to the highest distinction by
reducing botany to a system. The lives of the eminent astronomers
Lagrange (1736-1813), Laplace (1749-1827), and Sir
William Herschel (1738-1822), outlasted the eighteenth century.
The radical improvement of the steam-engine by James Watt, a
Scotchman (1736-1819),—who obtained his first patent in 1769,—and the
invention of the spinning-jenny by Richard Arkwright
(1732-1792), are indicative of a new era of progress in the application
of science to practical arts and uses.
RELIGION AND THEOLOGY.
ENGLISH DEISM.—The religious debates and the religious wars of the
seventeenth century were followed by much indifference and disbelief in
the eighteenth. Weariness with sectarian struggles, and revolt against
the yoke of creeds, were pushed to the extreme of a denial of revealed
religion,—finally, in France, to a denial of the truths of natural
religion also. In England, there appeared a school of deistical
writers, beginning earlier with Lord Herbert of Cherbury
(1581-1648), and continued through Tindal, Morgan,
Bolingbroke, Shaftesbury, Collins, and others. On
the other side, Butler, Lardner (1684-1768),
Bentley, the best of England's classical scholars and critics
(1662-1742), and, later, Paley (1743-1805), were among the
authors who defended the divine origin of Christianity on rational and
historical grounds. Of these writers, Butler was the most
profound, Lardner and Bentley the most learned, and
Paley the most lucid.
THE "QUAKERS."—During this period, the Society of Friends, "Quakers,"
was founded in England by George Fox (1624-1691), who in 1647,
impelled by what he considered a divine call, began the life of an
itinerant preacher. He and his followers were subjected frequently to
cruel persecution, both in England and America. In exceptional cases,
they fell into extravagances of enthusiasm, interrupted public worship,
walked in the streets clothed in sackcloth, or in some instances
naked. They condemned war, practiced non-resistance, objected to oaths
and to a paid ministry, and set an example of the utmost plainness and
simplicity in speech and dress. Among their many converts were
William Penn, and their able and learned theologian, Robert
Barclay (1648-1690). The Friends, by their Christian forbearance
and patience, their purity of conduct and their philanthropy, and their
tranquil piety, gradually won the respect of the other religious
bodies, who were at first offended by their novel tenets and manners,
and by the occasional occurrence of revolting manifestations of a
half-insane enthusiasm.
METHODISM.—Of the religious movements in Protestant countries,
Methodism is the most noteworthy. This movement was originated by a
little group of students at Oxford, of whom John Wesley, his
brother Charles, and George Whitefield were the chief. Of
these, John Wesley (1703-1791) united with intellectual ability
and cultivation, and religious fervor, a remarkable organizing
capacity. Whitefield was an orator in the pulpit, of unrivaled
eloquence. He was a Calvinist in his theology, and separated from
Wesley on account of Wesley's Arminian views. They were
nicknamed "Methodists," from their strictness of life in the
University, and their systematic ways. Wesley and his associates
preached to the common people in England, including the poor colliers
and miners, with untiring ardor and surprising effect. Their converts
were very numerous, and were formed into societies under a definite
polity and discipline. The Wesleyan movement was much opposed in the
Church of England by those who stood in dread of enthusiasm. By
ordaining lay preachers and superintendents for America, and by putting
its chapels under the protection of the Toleration Act,—measures which
Wesley deemed necessary,—Methodism became separate from the
Anglican Established Church. As a distinct body, it gained a. multitude
of adherents in England and America.
MORAVIANISM.—In 1722 a company of persecuted Moravian Christians was
received by Count Zinzendorf (1700-1760) on his estate, situated
on the borders of Bohemia. They founded a town called
Herrnkut. Zinzendorf became their bishop. The new
community was distinguished for sincere piety and for missionary
zeal. They did not in the least antagonize the Lutheran churches, yet
had an organization of their own. Some of them settled in America. The
Moravians never became a very numerous body; but their influence in
promoting spiritual religion and education, and in carrying
Christianity to the heathen, has been more potent than that of many
larger bodies of Christians. It was specially wholesome in Germany, at
a time when, under the auspices of Frederick the Great, the
French type of unbelief prevailed in the higher classes of society.
PIETISM.—Prior to Zinzendorf, Spener (1635-1705), a man
of devout feeling, had given rise to the "Pietists," as the promoters
of a warmer type of religious experience than was approved by the
current opinion were derisively named.
SWEDENBORG.—Swedenborg (1688-1772), a Swedish noble, a
mathematician and naturalist of large attainments, communicated, in
copious writings, what he sincerely professed to consider special
revelations made to him respecting God, the unseen world, and the sense
of the Scriptures. His adherents are called "The New Church," or
Swedenborgians.
THE JESUIT ORDER.—Under the influences that had sway in the eighteenth
century, the authority of the popes sank in the Catholic countries. The
spirit of innovation was rife. One of the remarkable incidents of the
time, characteristic of its tendency, was the conflict of Portugal and
the Bourbon courts of France and Spain, with the Society of
Jesuits. The Jesuits had secretly established, unobserved, a state
under their own exclusive control in Paraguay, a part of which,
by a treaty of Portugal with Spain, fell to Portugal. Other charges,
some relating to interference in political affairs, and some to other
and different grounds of complaint, led to the expulsion of the order
from all Portuguese territory (1757); and soon after, it was suppressed
in France and in Spain, and in several of the Italian states. The
Jesuit order was formally abolished by Pope Clement XIV. in
1773, to be again restored by papal authority in 1814.
ESSAYS AT POLITICAL REFORM.
RUSSIA: GERMANY.—The minds of men were unsettled, not only by the
prevalent tone of literature and speculation, but by governmental
changes and reforms. The disposition was to introduce French methods of
administration. Catherine II. of Russia (1762-1796) tried the
experiment of various judicial and educational reforms. Frederick
the Great, with more wisdom and consistency, introduced many
changes for the benefit of the industrial class. The most sweeping
reforms were undertaken by the Emperor Joseph II. (1780-1790),
after the death of his mother, Maria Theresa. His measures for
the reduction of the power of the clergy and of the nobility, the
closing of monasteries, and the weakening of the connection of the
Austrian Church with Rome, were of a very radical character. He himself
finally became convinced that they were too radical to be completely
realized, in the existing state of opinion among his subjects. Two of
his reforms—the abolition of serfdom, and the edict of religious
toleration—remained in force. The other changes did not survive
him. The attempts to impose his reforms in the Austrian Netherlands
provoked an insurrection. Leopold II. (1790-1792),
Joseph's successor, suppressed the Belgian revolt, but repealed
the ordinances of his brother which had occasioned it.
TUSCANY.—In Tuscany, the brother of Joseph II., Leopold, prior
to his becoming emperor, undertook likewise a great plan of
ecclesiastical reform in the same line as that of Joseph (1786);
but there the opposition of the bishops prevented him from practically
carrying out his scheme.
PORTUGAL.—In Portugal, the house of Braganza had ascended the
throne in 1640. Joseph Emanuel (1750-1777) left the management
of the government to his minister, Pombal. His measures were
contrived to weaken the power of the nobles and the clergy. By him the
warfare against the Jesuits was carried forward. The fall of
Pombal, which followed the death of the king, led to the
abolition of all his reforms, which had the same fate as those
undertaken later in Austria by Joseph II.
LITERATURE.—See the lists of works on pp. 16, 395, 450, and Adams's
Manual of Historical Literature; SCHLOSSER'S History of the
Eighteenth Century (8 vols,); NOORDEN'S Europaische Gesch. im
18tn. Jahr.: Der Spanische Erbfolgekrieg (2 vols.); Lord John
Wakeman, European History, 1598-1715; Hassall, European
History, 1715-1789; Perlcins, Regency and Louis XV,
(3 vols.); St. Simon, The Memoirs of the Reign of Louis XIV. and
the Regency [an abridgment, 3 vols.]; Voltaire, Age of Louis
XIV.; PHILIPPSON (in Oncken's Series), Das Zeitalter Ludwigs
d. Vierzehten; A. de Broglie, Louis XV: The King's Secret
Correspondence with his Agents, etc. (2 vols.); A. Thiers, The
Mississippi Bubble; Morley's Life of Voltaire, and Life
of Rousseau.
A. v, Arneth, Geschichte Maria Theresas (10 vols., 1863-79):
DUNCKER, Aus der Zeit Friedrichs d. Grossen, etc.; RANKE,
Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg, and History of Prussia during
the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (3 vols); CARLYLE'S
History of Frederick the Second (6 vols.); Tuttle, History
of Prussia (4 vols.); Von Raumer, Frederick the Second and his
Times; A. de Broglie, Frederick the Great and Maria
Theresa (2 vols.); ONCKEN, Das Zeitalter Friedrich
d. Grossen (2 vols.).
The Diaries of PEPYS and EVELYN; R. Vaughan, Protectorate
of Oliver Cromwell; MACAULAY'S History of England from the
Accession of James II. (4 vols.); MAHON'S History of
England (1701-13), also History of England (1713 to 1783)
(7 vols.); BURTON, History of the Reign of Queen Anne;
E.E.MORRIS, The Age of Anne; Alison, Military Life of the
Duke of Marlborough; Life of Marlborough, by Gleig, by
Coxe (3 vols.); LECKY'S History of England in the Eighteenth
Century (2 vols.); Froude, The English in Ireland in the
Eighteenth Century (2 vols.); Mahan, Influence of the Sea
Power on History; Egerton, Short History of British Colonial
Policy; Seeley, The Expansion of England; Payne,
European Colonies; Lucas, Introduction to a Historical
Geography of the British Colonies; H. Walpole, Memoirs of the
Reign of George II. (3 vols.), and of George III. (4
vols.); J. G. Phillimore, History of England during the Reign of
George III.; J. Adolphus, History of England [1760 83] (3
vols.); Wraxall (1751-1831), Historical Memoirs of his own
Time (4 vols.). and Posthumous Memoirs of his own Time, (3
vols.); May, Constitutional History of England [1760-1860] (2
vols.); STOUGHTON, History of Religion in England from the Opening
of the Long Parliament to the End of the Eighteenth Century (6
vols.); TYERMAN'S Life of Wesley; SOUTHEY'S Life of
Wesley; TYERMAN'S Life of Whitefield; TYLER'S History
of American Literature; VAN LAUN, History of French
Literature (3 vols.); MORLEY'S Series of English Men of
Letters; TAINE'S History of English Literature.
Schuyler's Life of Peter the Great; Catherine II., Memoirs
written by herself; RAM-BAUD'S History of Russia.
Histories of the United States by BANCROFT, HILDRETH, McMaster,
Bryant and Howard, DOYLE, Wilson, Laboulaye, NEUMANN, Fiske,
Schouler; Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America
(8 vols.); Hart, American History told by Contemporaries (4
vols.); Macdonald, Select Charters and Select
Documents; Preston, Documents; Channing, The United
States of America (1765-1865); Higginson, Larger History of
the United States; Goldwin Smith, The United States;
LODGE'S Short History of the English Colonies in America;
PARKMAN'S Series of Histories of the French in America; Frothingham,
Rise of the Republic [to 1790]; Weeden, Economic and
Social History of New England; Palfrey's History of New
England; Sabine's American Loyalists; Bruce, Economic
History of Virginia; Trevelyan, The American Revolution
(1766-76); LOSSING, Field Book of the American Revolution;
Fiske's Old Virginia and Dutch and Quaker Colonies;
brief treatment of epochs by Fisher, Thwaites, Hart, Sloane, Walker.
Lives of Washington, by MARSHALL, SPARKS, IRVING, Weems;
Lives of John Adams, by C. F. ADAMS, by MORSE; Life of
Franklin, by himself (Bigelow's ed.), by SPARKS, by Parton;
Lives of Jefferson, by RANDALL, Parton, Morse; Tudor's
Life of James Otis; Life of Samuel Adams, by Wells, by
Hosmer; Life of Hamilton, by MORSE; Life of Madison,
by RIVES; W. Jay's Life of John Jay (2 vols.); H. Von Hoist,
Constitutional and Political History of the United States
[from 1759]; Sparks's American Biography (2 series, 25
vols.). WINSOR's Reader's Handbook of the American
Revolution (1761-83), a very useful work, gives the literature
on the subject (1880); Bancroft, History of the Formation of the
Constitution of the United States.
PERIOD IV. THE ERA OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. (1789-1815.)
INTRODUCTION.
CHARACTER OF THE REVOLUTION.—The French Revolution was a tremendous
upheaval of society, which brought with it the abolition of feudalism
and monarchy, and the securing of an equality of political rights. Its
immediate result in France was the establishment of a democratic
republic, followed by an empire resting on military power. Its
conquests, and the predominance of France, provoked an uprising of the
other European peoples in behalf of national independence. This
overthrew the French empire, and produced a temporary restoration of
the old dynasty. But the effect of the Revolution, in which the other
civilized nations largely shared, was the substitution, in the room of
the medieval state, of the modern state resting on a
broader basis of equality as regards the rights and obligations of
different classes. In the Western nations of the Continent, serfdom,
and manifold abuses, civil and ecclesiastical, were abolished.
CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION.—First among the causes of the Revolution in
France, was the hostility felt towards the privileged classes,—the
king, the nobles, and the clergy,—on account of the disabilities and
burdens which law and custom imposed on the classes beneath them. When
Charles Vll. organized a standing army, and laid direct taxes to
support it, the burghers and peasants rejoiced (p. 328). The monarchy
was thus enabled to shield them, and subdue the great nobles. Louis
XIV., as long as he was successful, was sustained by the pride and
national spirit of the country. Yet his domination over the nobility
and the Church left the higher orders in possession not only of the
offices and honors which helped to fasten them submissively to the
monarch, but also left them in the exercise of the numberless
complicated privileges of local rule and taxation,—privileges which
were the growth of ages, and which laid on the necks of the people a
yoke too heavy to be borne.
1. THE LAND: THE PEASANTS.—Nearly two-thirds of the land in France
was in the hands of the nobles and of the clergy. A great part of it
was ill cultivated by its indolent owners. The nobles preferred the
gayeties of Paris to a residence on their estates. There were many
small land-owners, but many had individually too little land to
furnish them with subsistence. The treatment of the peasant was often
such that when he "looked upon the towers of his lord's castle, the
dearest wish of his heart was to burn it down, with all its registers
of debt." There was not a large middle class of land-owners, possessed
of farms which, although small, were yet adequate to yield them a
living. The clergy, besides having the whole management of education,
held an immense amount of land, seigniorial control over thousands of
peasants, and a vast income from tithes and other sources. In some
provinces, there was a better state of things than in others; but, in
general, the rich had the enjoyments, and the poor carried the
burdens.
2. MONOPOLIES.—Manufactures and trade, although encouraged under
Colbert, were fettered by oppressive monopolies and a strict
organization of guilds.
3. CORRUPT GOVERNMENT.—The administration of government was both
arbitrary and corrupt. Places in parliament and in the army, and most
higher offices, were sold, but sold, as a rule, only to nobles. When
parliament refused to register decrees of taxation, the king held "beds
of justice,"—a method of passing laws against parliamentary protest
(p. 299). Warrants of arrest and imprisonment—lettres de
cachet—were issued by his sole authority.
4. LOSS OF RESPECT FOR ROYALTY.—Respect for the throne was lost. Under
Louis XIV., the number of salable offices was incredibly
multiplied. In his last days, "in many towns the trade in timber, wine,
and spirits was taken out of private hands; nay, even the poor earnings
of those who towed boats on the rivers, of porters and funeral mutes,
were made a monopoly, and secured to certain families exclusively, in
consideration of a large premium." "Famine prevailed in every
province. The bark of trees was the daily food of hundreds of
thousands." The debauchery of Louis XV., and his feeble foreign
policy, tended to dissipate what reverence for royalty was left.
5. ABORTIVE ESSAYS AT REFORM.—The efforts at political and social
reform in France and in other countries, emanating from sovereigns
after the great wars, produced a restless feeling without effecting
their purpose of social reorganization.
6. POLITICAL SPECULATION.—The current of thought was in a
revolutionary direction. Traditional beliefs in religion were boldly
questioned. Political speculation was rife. Montesquieu had
drawn attention to the liberty secured by the English constitution.
Voltaire had dwelt on human rights,—the rights of the
individual. Rousseau had expatiated on the sovereign right of
the majority.
7. EXAMPLE OF AMERICA.—Add to these agencies, the influence of the
American Revolution, and of the American Declaration of Independence,
with its proclamation of human rights, and of the foundation of
government in contract and the consent of the people.
8. THE IMMEDIATE CAUSE.—The immediate cause of the Revolution was the
immense public debt, and the virtual bankruptcy of the government.
CHAPTER I. FROM THE ASSEMBLING OF THE STATES GENERAL TO THE EXECUTION
OF LOUIS XVI. (1789-1793).
LOUIS XVI. (1774-92): THE QUEEN.—Louis XVI. differed from his
two predecessors in being morally pure, and benevolent in his feelings;
but he was of a dull mind, void of energy, and with an obstinacy of
character that did not supply the place of an enlightened firmness. He
had married (1770) Marie Antoinette, the daughter of the Empress
Maria Theresa. The vivacious young queen, as well as the
youthful king, at first charmed the people. But her disregard of court
etiquette, and her gay, impulsive ways, provoked the dislike of many
high in station, and exposed her to the natural but unmerited
suspicion, on the part of the people, that she had faults worse than
mere indiscretion. A great scandal connected with a diamond
necklace, which an unprincipled woman, the Countess Lamotte,
falsely asserted that the queen desired the Cardinal de Rohan to
purchase for her, did much to make her the victim of gross defamation
(1785). Her forbearance towards unworthy favorites, and her
intermeddling in the affairs of government, in opposition to political
reforms, gradually kindled against her wide-spread disrespect and
aversion.
TO THE STATES GENERAL.—Helpless under the pressure of the heavy debt
and the deficit in revenue, the king called to his side Turgot
(1774) as controller-general of finance, a political economist and
statesman of remarkable integrity and insight. He set to work to reduce
the enormous and extravagant public expenditures, and to introduce
reforms for the purpose of increasing the public income. He proposed to
do away with internal duties on articles of commerce; to break up many
guilds; to abolish the corvée, or the hard and hateful
requirement upon the peasant to labor so many days on the land of the
lord; and to introduce a greater amount of local
self-government. These, and other wholesome reforms in the civil
service and in the army, excited the violent opposition of the nobles
and the clergy, and of the whole body of interested courtiers. The king
weakly yielded; the great minister was dismissed; and France lost its
golden opportunity to prevent infinitely greater calamities than any
which the selfish opponents of change dreaded for
themselves. Necker, a Genevan banker of far less financial
ability, was now placed at the helm (1776-1781). His remedies were not
radical; yet his movements in the direction of economy, and for giving
publicity to the financial situation of the government, provoked such
hatred in the classes affected that he had to withdraw. Calonne,
a prodigal and incapable successor, in connection with the increased
expenses of the government consequent on the American War, brought
things to such a pass that the king called together (1787) an
Assembly of Notables, not so much to get their advice as to
obtain their support for a plan of reform not unlike that of
Turgot. This necessary reform they selfishly refused to
sanction. Calonne fled to London. Necker, to the joy of
the people, who built on him vain hopes, was recalled (1788); and it
was resolved to summon the States General, who had not met since
1614. To this measure the incompetence and selfishness of the ruling
classes had inevitably led.
THE TRIUMPH OF THE THIRD ESTATE.—The States General met at
Versailles, May 5, 1789. The clergy numbered three hundred, the nobles
three hundred, and the third estate (tiers etat)—whose plain
black dress was in contrast with the more showy costume of the higher
orders—numbered six hundred. A pamphlet of Abbé Sieyés, in
answer to the question, "What is the Third Estate?" declared that is
the nation in its true sovereignty and supreme authority. A contest
arose at once on the question, whether there should be three houses,
or whether all the members should sit together. The Third Estate
insisted on the latter plan. The Parisian astronomer, Bailly,
was their president. Among the members were Sieyes, and
Mirabeau, a man of great intellect and of commanding
eloquence. They declared themselves to be the National
Assembly; and they persisted, against the king's will, in sitting
apart until, at his request, the other orders gave away and joined
them. It was resolved not to adjourn until the nation should be put in
possession of a constitution; meantime, however, that, so long as the
body should not be dissolved, money should be raised by increase of
taxation, and the interest be paid on the public debt. The attempts of
Louis to dissolve the assembly were firmly resisted by the
third estate, which was joined by Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun,
Gregoire, afterwards Bishop of Blois, and, of the nobility, by
the rich, ambitious, and unprincipled Duke of Orleans. The king
again yielded, and advised the nobles and clergy to remain.
DESTRUCTION OF THE BASTILLE: EMIGRATION OF NOBLES.—The aristocratic
party, on account of this victory of the third estate, and because
they could not trust the guard of the king, procured the substitution
for it of German and Swiss troops. The excitement caused by this
proceeding, and the news of Necker's dismissal, led to a mob of
the rough Parisian populace, who seized weapons from the workshops,
and forced the surrender of the Bastille, the grim old prison
where political offenders had been immured,—the visible monument of
ages of royal tyranny,—which they razed to the ground. The heads of
Delaunay the governor, and several of the garrison, were
carried on pikes through the streets by the frenzied crowd. The mob
wore cockades on their hats; these became the badges of the
Revolution. This first outbreaking of mob violence had at once
important effects. Necker was recalled. Lafayette was
made commander of the militia of Paris, organized as a National
Guard. The tricolor—red, white, and blue—was adopted for
the flag. Bailly became mayor of Paris. The king came to Paris,
and showed himself, with the national colors on his breast, to the
people, at the Hotel de Ville, thereby giving a tacit sanction
to what had been done. Then began the emigration of the nobles
to foreign countries: the king's brother, the Prince of Condé,
and others high in rank, left the country. The vices which the nobles
had learned to practice at home were now to be exhibited abroad. The
passions of the revolutionary party were to be inflamed by the
suspicion of a complicity of the king and court with the plots of
their absent supporters, who strove to enlist other nations in the
work of trampling down liberty in France. The emigrants had some
reason to fear. Municipal guards were formed in various towns by the
party of progress. Soon there were risings of peasantry in several
districts. Individuals in Paris—among them one of the
ministers who succeeded Necker-were massacred. Nevertheless,
the emigration was a grand error. The danger at the moment was not
great; and, whatever the peril, the evils of desertion were far more
to be deprecated.
THE NEW CONSTITUTION: ASSIGNATS.—The National Assembly, at the
instigation of Lafayette, passed a Declaration of Rights, after
the pattern of the American Declaration of Independence. On motion of
his brother-in-law, the Vicomte de Noailles, the representatives
of the nobles, in an outburst of enthusiastic self-renunciation, gave
up their feudal rights and privileges. They liberated the peasants from
their burdensome obligations: the clergy relinquished their tithes; the
sale of offices and titles was abolished; equality of taxes was
ordained; all citizens were made eligible to all stations, civil and
military. The new constitution provided for one legislative chamber, to
which should belong the right to initiate all enactments. The king's
veto only suspended the adoption of a measure for two legislative
terms. The assent of the chamber was necessary for the validity of all
foreign treaties, and for declaring war or concluding peace. The State
assumed the support of the clergy. It was a constitutional
monarchy that was framed,—such a system as La Fayette and
moderate republicans desired. The essence of republicanism was secured
under old forms. Assignats, or notes, were issued as a currency,
for which the public lands were to be the security,—a safeguard that
was ineffective.
THE MOB AT VERSAILLES.—The delay of the king to proclaim the
constitution, the call of a regiment of troops to Versailles,
imprudent speeches and songs at a court banquet, stirred up the
Parisian mob, who ascribed the scarcity of food to the absence of the
king from Paris. A countless throng, made up largely of coarse women,
went out to Versailles, intruded into the legislative chamber,
and at night (Oct. 5) made their way into the palace, over the bodies
of the guards. The royal family were rescued by La Fayette and the
National Guard. The next day they were forced to go to Paris, attended
by this wild and hungry retinue, and took up their abode in the
Tuileries. To Paris, also, the National Assembly transferred
itself. More and more, Paris gained control.
PROGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION.—The independence of the clergy, and the
judicial authority of the parliaments, were now extinguished by the
Assembly, The property of the Church was confiscated, as the salaries
of the clergy were to be paid by the State; the cloisters and monastic
orders were abolished; the clergy were to be chosen by the people;
there was to be absolute religious freedom; there was a new
organization of bishoprics; the press was to be free; France was
divided, for purposes of government, into eighty-three departments;
civil officers were to be chosen, directly or indirectly, by popular
vote; hereditary nobility, with titles and coats-of-arms, was swept
away. The equality of all citizens was ordained. There was to be
uniformity in measures, weights, and coinage. A uniform judicial
system was instituted, with jury trials in criminal cases.
THE CLERGY.—Thenceforward the clergy were divided into two
classes,—those who took the required oath to the constitution (about
one third of the whole number), and the "refractory" ones, who, in
accordance with the Pope's will, refused it.
THE CLUBS: PARIS.—While these constitutional changes were taking
place, the mass of the populace were becoming more and more excited by
vehement orators, who discoursed of human rights, and by inflammatory
journals. Clubs were organized for democratic agitation, which
were named, from the places where they met, Jacobins and
Cordeliers. The latter had for their head Danton, with
his stentorian voice, and the brilliant young journalist Camille
Desmoulins. The Jacobins aimed later at the destruction of
the old institutions. The moderate monarchists, such as Bailly
and La Fayette, then formed another club (the
Feuillants). The municipality or commune of Paris was divided
into forty-eight sections, each with an assembly which served as a
theater for demagogical harangues.
FÊTE OF THE FEDERATION.—For a time the skies appeared bright. On the
14th of July, 1790, a great Federative Commemoration, or
festival of civic fraternity, was held on the Champ de Mars in
Paris. Talleyrand at the head of three hundred priests
clad in white, with tri-color sashes, officiated at an altar in the
midst of the arena. First, La Fayette as president of the
National Guard, then the president of the Assembly, and last the king,
took an oath before the half-million of spectators to uphold the
constitution. Then the queen, partaking in the common enthusiasm, held
up the dauphin in her arms, and pledged his future obedience to the
oath. There was unbounded joy at what was supposed to be a new
millennial era of political freedom and brotherhood. The grand
festival awakened sympathy and hope in all the countries of Europe.
FLIGHT OF THE KING.—The hope of unity and political bliss, which
exalted all minds to a high pitch of emotion, proved, before long, to
be an illusive dream. The king was not ready to confirm the ordinance
respecting priests, which made them civil officers; nor was he ready
to declare the plotting emigrant nobles at Coblenz and
Worms traitors. Mirabeau, who had enlisted in behalf of
the king in a resistance to further measures for the reduction of
regal authority, and in behalf of a constitutional monarchy, in which
the legislative, judicial, and executive functions should be kept
apart, suddenly died (April 2, 1791), at the age of forty-two. His
death, caused partly by overwork of brain, and partly by dissolute
habits, deprived the conservative republicans and the court of their
ablest defender. No one like him was left to stem the current of
revolutionary passion, which threatened to burst through all
barriers. The Paris sections became more and more violent. They
hindered a proposed journey of Louis to St. Cloud. This
determined him, against the urgent wishes of the queen, to escape,
with his family, to the army of the Marquis de Bouillé, at
Montmédy. But the fugitives were stopped in their flight, at
Varennes, and brought back in custody to Paris. This unwise and
abortive proceeding of the king, coupled with his formal annulling of
all that he had done in the two years previous, had for its natural
consequence his suspension from office. An insurrection of the mob, to
put an end to the monarchy, was suppressed by La Fayette. At
the end of September, Louis swore to the revised constitution,
and was restored to the throne. The Assembly then dissolved, to give
place to another, which should complete the new political creation by
needful legislation: hence it was called
THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY (Oct. 1791-Sept. 1792).—It was composed of
seven hundred and forty-five members, mostly young men, among them a
number of eloquent orators. One-half of the body were advocates. The
National Assembly, by a kind of self-denying ordinance, had voted to
exclude themselves from membership in the new body, which thus lacked
the benefit of their knowledge and experience. In the Assembly, on the
right, were the different classes of supporters of constitutional
monarchy, the royalists, and the Feuillants (of the
school of La Fayette). On the left, were the majority, which
steadily increased in numbers, and embraced (1) the Girondists,
or moderate republicans; (2) the Mountain,—so called from their
higher seats in the hall,—comprising the most decided democrats or
radicals. Here were the leaders of the Jacobins and
Cordeliers. A few of the Girondists were for going beyond
the constitution of 1791, in the direction of a republic after the
model of the United States. They were enamored of the spirit of the
ancient commonwealths. They were fond of recurring to the Roman orators
and historians. Roland, Brissot, and Vergniaud
were among their leaders.
THE PARISIAN POPULACE.—The populace of Paris made
Pétion, a democrat, their mayor. In the Jacobin club were
Robespierre; Marat, who denounced fiercely in his
journal, "The Friend of the People," as aristocrats, all classes above
the common level, whether by birth or property, and the former
play-actor, D'Herbois. Danton, and Camille
Desmoulins, who belonged to the Cordeliers, took part in its
sessions. From this company, the Girondists separated after the
fall of the king. The red Jacobin cap came into vogue as a badge of
republicanism, and the Marseillaise as its favorite inspiring
song. Declaimers and journals were in full blast, stirring up the fears
and wrath of the people.
THE ASSEMBLY AND THE KING.—The Assembly passed penal acts against the
recusant priests,—those who refused the oath; and against the
emigrants, who were trying to stir up the powers of Europe against the
French government in its new form. These enactments were met by the
king with a veto.
WAR WITH AUSTRIA AND PRUSSIA.—The authors of the French Revolution
have been so generally objects of execration, and so terrible crimes
were actually perpetrated in the course of it, that it is only just to
note the circumstances which explain the origin of these atrocities,
and which enabled violent leaders and wild passions to usurp
control. The efforts of the constitutionalists to save the throne were
balked by the exiles and the foreign governments. Frederick William
II. of Prussia (1786-1797), and Leopold II. the emperor
(1790-1792), in the Declaration of Pilnitz (Aug. 27, 1791),
called on the other European powers to join them in aiding Louis
XVI. to establish a right sort of government. From Russia, Sweden,
Spain, and even Switzerland, there were not wanting manifestations of
hostility. The attitude of Austria had the effect to bring into
power a Girondist ministry. They wanted war as the best means of
attaining the objects which they had in view at home. On April 20,
1792, Louis was compelled to go to the Assembly, and propose a
declaration of war against Austria. "The courts of Europe had heaped up
the fuel: the Girondists applied the torch." They were not
averse to a crusade in behalf of liberty.
THE CONDITION OF GERMANY.—Germany consisted of a multitude of states,
of which Austria (which had large territories not German) and
Prussia were the chief, and were in constant rivalry. The Holy
Roman Empire kept up its name and forms. Besides smaller sovereignties,
as Saxony and Bavaria, there were two hundred and fifty petty
principalities, fifty imperial cities, and several hundred knights,
each with an insignificant domain subject to him. The empire was one
body only in theory. National feeling had died out. The Diet had little
to do, and no efficiency. Austria, which held the imperial office, and
included in its extensive dominions Milan and Southern
Netherlands, had sunk into a "gloomy and soulless despotism." The
reforms of Joseph II. produced a ferment; but after the death of
Leopold II. (1790-1792), under Francis II., a sickly and
selfish ruler, a reactionary policy, inspired by the dread of change,
had full sway. Thugut, the minister of Francis, cared
only for the acquisition of territory: the people were so many millions
"to be taxed, to be drilled, to be kept down by the police." In
Prussia, Frederick William II. (1786-1797) and his people had no
feeling so strong as that of hostility to Austria, whose influence was
predominant in the minor states. Prussia cared more for getting
additional Polish territory than for helping the French emigrants. The
Prussian people were separated by rigorous lines into three
classes,—nobles, burghers, and peasants. The nobles were poor. The
lawful occupations of each class were prescribed by law. "The mass of
the peasantry, at least in the country east of the Elbe, were serfs
attached to the soil." The offices in the army were confined to nobles,
on whose absolute obedience the king could count. Blows were inflicted
on the common soldier as if he were a slave. In some of the other
Protestant states, the character of the government had improved. In the
south and west, the serfs had been set free. In the ecclesiastical
states, including the electorates of Mentz, Trèves, and
Cologne, the prince-bishops and canons were nobles, who led a
gay and luxurious life. Nowhere were poverty and wretchedness so
general as in the lands of the knights. The political life of Germany,
notwithstanding its abundant resources, mainly from the decay of public
spirit and the want of political unity, had become stagnant and
corrupt. Germany was almost incapable of vigorous, united action.
CONFLICT OF LOUIS AND THE ASSEMBLY.—There was no real union between
Louis XVI. and the Assembly. Troops of the National Guard, to
the number of twenty thousand, from the provinces were to encamp near
Paris. This measure, as well as a decree for the banishment of
the non-juring clergy, the king refused to sanction. The Girondist
ministers laid down their office. A mob burst into the Tuileries: they
put on the king's head a Jacobin cap, but he remained calm and
steadfast in his refusal to assent to the decrees. La Fayette
came to Paris from the Northern army, to restore order; but the queen
treated him with habitual distrust, and he fell under suspicion with
the radicals. He went back to the army without effecting any thing.
IMPRISONMENT OF THE KING.—Prussia had joined its rival, Austria.
Ferdinand of Brunswick, an officer trained under Frederick
the Great, commanded the Prussian forces. He issued (July 25) a
threatening proclamation to the French people. There were three French
armies in the field, under Rochambeau, La Fayette, and
Luckner; but the fire of the Revolution had not yet entered into
the veins of the soldiers. Military reverses heightened the
revolutionary excitement in Paris. The municipal government was broken
up by Danton and his associates, with the mob of poor and
desperate partisans at their back; and its place was taken by
commissioners from the sections. An armed throng again attacked the
Tuileries. The king took refuge in the hall of the Assembly. The Swiss
guards fought bravely against the assailants, when they received an
order from him to cease firing. The result was that they were
slaughtered without mercy. The uniform composure of the king in the
most trying situations, and his conscientious feelings, were a poor
substitute for intellectual force. The Assembly voted to suspend the
exercise of his authority, to put him and his family under
surveillance, to hand over the young prince to the custody of a person
charged with his education, and to call a national convention to draw
up a constitution. The royal family were given into the hands of the
Paris commune, and lodged as prisoners, in apartments scantily
furnished, in the castle called the Temple.
MASSACRES OF SEPTEMBER.—The blundering of the royalists, their
intrigues, and the pressure of the coalition of foreign enemies, had
thrown the power into the hands of the Jacobins. The city
council, and Danton, the minister of justice, were really
supreme, although the Girondists had a share in the new
ministry. La Fayette was accused and proscribed, and fled from
the country. He was captured by the Austrians, and kept in prison at
Olmutz until 1797. The news of the advance of the allies led to
the "massacres of September," when the prisons in Paris, which had been
filled with priests and laymen arrested on charges of complicity with
the enemies of liberty, were entered by ruffians acting under influence
of Marat and the commune's "committee of surveillance," and,
after "a burlesque trial" before an armed jury, were murdered. In
Versailles, Lyons, Orleans, and other towns, there
were like massacres. The victims of these massacres numbered about two
thousand.
TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF THE KING.—The National Convention was made up
entirely of republicans. The monarchy was abolished, and France was
declared a republic. The Girondists had at first the preponderance in
numbers; but the Jacobins, led by Robespierre, Danton,
Marat, Couthon, Fouché, the Duke of Orleans
(who called himself Philip Égalité), St. Just,
Billaud-Varenne, Barère, were supported by the clubs and
the city council, and by the savage populace of the sections,—the
sans culottes. The guillotine—a machine for beheading,
which Guillotin, a physician, did not invent, but recommended
for use—was the instrument on which the fanatical revolutionists
placed most of their reliance for the extirpation of "aristocracy." The
energy of the Jacobins, aided by the general dread of a
restoration of the royalists to power, and by the fury of the Paris
populace, proved too strong for the more moderate party to
withstand. The king, designated as Louis Capet, was arraigned
before the assembly, tried, and condemned to death. There were seven
hundred and twenty-one votes: his death was decreed by a small majority
(Jan. 17, 1793). Through all the terrible scenes of the trial, the
parting with his wife and children, and the execution (Jan. 21),
Louis manifested a serene and Christian temper.
VICTORIES OF FRANCE.—Meantime, in France the war was felt, and justly,
to be a war of self-defense. The enemies were a privileged class in
alliance with foreign invaders. Volunteers flocked to the field. The
troops under Dumouriez and others had been successful. At
Valmy (Sept. 20, 1792) the allies, under Brunswick, were
defeated. The victory of Dumouriez at Jemmappes was
followed by the conquest of the Austrian Netherlands (Nov., 1792).
Savoy and Nice were annexed to France. The Scheldt
was declared free and open to commerce, and Antwerp was made an
open port.
CHAPTER II. FROM THE EXECUTION OF LOUIS XVI. TO THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE
(JAN. 21, 1793-JULY 27, 1794).
THE FIRST COALITION.-The execution of the king was the signal for the
union of the European powers against France. The intention of the
revolutionary party to propagate their system in other countries
afforded one excuse for this interference. The Convention (Nov. 19,
1792) had offered their assistance to peoples wishing to throw off the
existing governments. Another reason was the recent annexations, and
the proceedings in respect to the free navigation of the
Scheldt. The main ground and cement of the coalition was the
dread which the governments felt of revolutionary movements among their
own subjects, from their sympathy with the new institutions in France.
POLITICS IN ENGLAND.—The reason just mentioned was operative in Great
Britain. The revolution of 1688 had given power to a group of Whig
families and their retainers. To shake off this Whig control, which had
long continued, was a constant aim of George III. In William
Pitt, the younger, he found a minister capable, under the favoring
circumstances, of achieving this result. He was made prime minister in
1783, when he was only twenty-five years old. The king, in 1788, had
been attacked with insanity; and while he was thus afflicted,
George, Prince of Wales, who was unpopular on account of
his loose morals, ruled as regent. The regent affiliated with the
Whigs, but Pitt retained his office. The leader of the liberal
party was Charles James Fox, a man of noble talents and generous
instincts, but notoriously irregular in his habits. The sympathy in
England with the Revolution of 1789 was widely diffused. Edmund
Burke, however, the great philosophical statesman, who had defended
the cause of freedom in the American War, was alarmed by the events in
France, and still more by the theories of human rights propounded by
the enthusiastic friends of the Revolution. These ideas were set forth
in England, in an offensive form, in the writings of Thomas
Paine. Burke published, in 1790, his Reflections on the
French Revolution, in which he attacked as visionary the political
notions of the French school in regard to human rights, and denounced
them for their dangerous tendency. He separated from his party, and
publicly broke friendship with Fox. Pitt was personally averse
to war with France, but was driven into it by the prevailing
sentiment. The anti-revolutionary feeling excited by the news of the
death of Louis moved England to an armed interference which
involved the most important consequences to all Europe. A Tory
minister, Pitt was supported in the long struggle in Europe by a
majority of the Whigs. In the next twenty years, Great Britain, by her
military strength on the land, and much more on the sea, and in
particular by her wealth, freely poured out in subsidies to her allies
on the Continent, was a powerful, as well as the most persevering,
antagonist of France.
FALL OF THE GIRONDISTS.—The advance of the allied armies increased
the violence and strengthened the hands of the
Jacobins. Dumouriez lost a battle in Neerwinden (March
18, 1793), and fell back, through Belgium, to the French frontier. He
was in sympathy with the Girondists, and complained of the
doings of the Jacobins in Paris and in his army. Being called
to account, he went over to the Austrians. This desertion weakened the
Girondist party, and put new force into the party of
Jacobins. At the same time, news came of a royalist revolt in
the West, and of conflicts between the Jacobins and their adversaries
in the cities of the South. Danton, who understood that "audacity" was
the secret of success, procured the appointment by the convention of a
Committee of Public Safety (April 6, 1793), which was to
exercise the most frightful dictatorship known in history. A
"committee of general security" was put in charge of the police of the
whole country. The commune of Paris co-operated in the energetic
efforts of the Jacobin leaders to collect recruits and to strengthen
the military force. The three chiefs were Danton, Marat, and
Robespierre. There was a mortal struggle between the advocates
of order and the apostles of anarchy. The fate of the moderates and
Girondists was sealed by a great insurrection in Paris, and an
invasion of the Convention by an armed force. The violent party had at
their back eighty thousand National Guards, who hemmed in the
Convention. Twenty-nine Girondist leaders were placed under
arrest. Their party fell. The boldest and most reckless faction, which
had the Paris commune behind it, triumphed.
WAR OF LA VENDÉE.—Outside of Paris, in other parts of France,
there were risings against the Jacobin rule. The most formidable of
these was in the West, where the relation of the nobles to the
peasants had been kindly, and where the common people looked on the
violent proceedings at Paris with anger and disgust. Thus began the
war of La Vendée, a terrible episode of civil strife, in which
the people of that region were subdued, but not until after protracted
conflict and immense slaughter.
THE JACOBIN REVOLUTION.—Danton and the other revolutionary
leaders showed a tremendous energy in their attack on both domestic
and foreign enemies. A levy was ordered of the whole male population
capable of bearing arms. A maximum price was fixed by law for
commodities, and also for wages. The government paid its dues in
depreciated assignats at the face value. Its emissaries were in
all parts of France, stirring up the people and forming revolutionary
committees. Thus a system of revolutionary government was everywhere
established. A new constitution, of an extreme democratic type,
was offered to the acceptance of the people. This dominion of the
Jacobins, it must be observed, was a second revolution. The
Revolution of 1792 was as different from that of 1789 as was the
proposed constitution of 1793 from that of 1791. The insurrections,
except at Lyons and Toulon and in La Vendée, were
soon quelled. The Jacobin rule was identified with the cause of
patriotism in arms against foreign invasion, and with antipathy to the
restoration of Bourbon royalty and misrule. In Paris, the
revolutionary tribunal was filling the prisons with the suspected, and
sending daily its wagon-loads of victims to the guillotine.
MILITARY SUCCESSES OF FRANCE.-The achievements of the great coalition
were not at all in proportion to its apparent strength. It was
weakened by mutual jealousies and inefficient commanders. In the
South, the Spaniards and Piedmontese did not profit by their
successes. In the North and North-east, the summer of 1793 was partly
wasted by the English, Austrians, and Prussians, in long sieges and in
dissensions among themselves. Meantime the French army was growing
stronger, and more and more on fire with patriotic ardor. The Duke
of York, an incapable general, was obliged to raise the siege of
Dunkirk (Sept. 8, 1793). The forces of the coalition began to
retire from ground that they had won. At Paris, Carnot's
efficient management of military affairs gave France an advantage over
her foes. The Prussians were inactive on the Rhine; and
Jourdan, reinforced by a French detachment from that quarter,
defeated the Austrians at Wattignies. By the movements of
Hoche, the allies were driven out of Alsace. Lyons,
after a stubborn defense, was captured and savagely punished, and the
brave Vendeans were completely defeated by Kleber at
Savenay. Near the end of the year, Toulon, then in
revolt, was captured. At the siege, a young artillery officer,
Napoleon Bonaparte, first distinguished himself by pointing out
the proper spot for the planting of batteries that would drive away
the English and Spanish fleets, and by carrying out his project.
BONAPARTE.—Napoleon was born on the island of Corsica,
Aug. 15, 1769, two months after Corsica became subject to the
French. His family, on both sides, were Italians. Napoleon
himself never became so fully master of the French tongue that he did
not betray in his speech his foreign extraction. He was educated at
the military school of Brienne (1779-1784), and then went to
the military school at Paris. His principal studies were
mathematics and history. He quickly made manifest his military
talents, and seems first to have aspired to gain distinction and
power, in this line, in Corsica. His connection was at first with the
Jacobins, although he afterwards denied it. He had imbibed the
ideas of the Revolution, and saw that in the service of the leaders in
the war there was opened to him a military career. He turned against
his patriotic countryman, Paoli, when the latter sought to
separate Corsica from France, at that time under the Jacobin rule.
THE REIGN OF TERROR.—The Reign of Terror had now established itself
in France. The Committee of Public Safety wielded absolute
power. Every man, woman, and child was called upon to take part in the
defense of the country. The property of all the "emigrants" and
prisoners of state was seized. Whoever was suspected of being hostile
to the established tyranny was thrown into prison. Even to be lukewarm
in adhesion to it, was a serious offense. Summary trials were followed
by swift executions. The tenderness of youth and the venerableness of
age were no protection. Day after day, the stream of human blood
continued to flow. A new calendar was ordained: Sept. 22, 1792, was
the beginning of the year one. There was a new division of
months; in the room of the week, each tenth day was made a
holiday. The commune of Paris, followed by other cities, began
a crusade against Christianity. Fashions of dress, modes of speech,
and manners were revolutionized. Every vestige of "aristocracy" was to
be swept off the earth. There was a wild license given to divorce and
to profligacy. Paris was like a camp where young soldiers were
drilled, weapons were forged, and lint and bandages made ready for the
wounded. There were seen, even in the hall of the Convention, throngs
of coarse and fierce men, and of coarser and fiercer women, with their
songs and wild outcries and gestures. The commune of Paris
instituted a sacrilegious festival in the ancient cathedral of Notre
Dame, where an actress was enthroned as "Goddess of Liberty." There
were priests and bishops who abjured the Christian faith, and there
were others who adhered to it at the peril of their lives. The
prisons, which were packed with all classes, were theaters of strange
and thrilling scenes. In many cases, death, made familiar, ceased to
terrify. Crowds escorted the batch of victims carried on carts each
day to the place of execution, and insulted them with their brutal
shouts. The arrested Girondist deputies were executed. Some of the
leaders of that party, including Roland, perished by
suicide. Among the eminent persons sent to the guillotine were the
eloquent Vergniaud, Brissot, Bailly, Malesherbes (the brave
advocate who had defended Louis XVI.), and Madame
Roland; also the infamous Duke of Orleans, who had
intrigued to get himself raised to the throne. Marie
Antoinette, her hair turned white in the tragic scenes through
which she had passed, miserably clad, was dragged before the merciless
tribunal. There she was insulted with foul accusations which nobody
believed. After the mockery of a trial, she was carried like a common
criminal, in a cart, with her arms bound, to the place of execution
(Oct. 16). Her dignity and serenity, her pallid countenance, and the
simple, pathetic words uttered by her at her arraignment, touched for
the moment the hardened hearts of the imbruted spectators. Her sad
fate has blinded many to the calamitous errors committed by her in the
days of her power.
THE JACOBIN CHIEFS.—The Reign of Terror was not confined to
Paris. The unexampled atrocities there were repeated in the other
large towns with like circumstances of barbarity. A species of
fanaticism ruled and raged in the land. The mania, if one may so call
it, reached its height in such chiefs of the revolutionary party as
Marat, Billaud, and Robespierre. In Marat
especially, the mastery gained by one idea almost amounted to mental
disorder. He demanded first five hundred heads, then (in Sept., 1793)
forty thousand; then, six weeks later, two hundred and seventy
thousand. It did seem to be a "homicidal mania." Marat was
assassinated by a young maiden, Charlotte Corday, who devoted
herself to the task of ridding the world of such a monster.
DEATH OF DANTON.—The Jacobin leaders found their ideal of virtue in
the Spartan spirit. Infatuated by Rousseau's theory of the
omnipotence of the state, in which the individual is merged and lost
under the despotism of the majority, they looked on the massacre of
countless persons, guilty of no crime, as a good deed. At length men
began to grow weary of this frightful tyranny. The leaders became
divided among themselves. Danton, though often the advocate of
violent measures, was a statesman, and, to his credit be it said,
halted at a point where the others advanced. He made an objection to
the confounding of the innocent with the guilty. Hébert and the
leaders of the commune, with their atheism, as dangerous political
rivals, were offensive to Robespierre, who was a deist. He held
a sort of middle position, had most power with the Jacobins, and was
enabled to crush and destroy his associates. He was a dull man, of a
quiet mien, often seen with a nosegay in his hand, and bloodthirsty
according to a precise theory. His ascendency gave him the power,
after scenes of tempestuous debate, to inflict first on Hébert,
on Clootz, and his other confederates, and then on
Danton and the Dantonist chiefs, the same death by the
guillotine to which they had doomed so many. Robespierre
abolished the worship of Reason, and caused the Convention to pass a
resolution acknowledging the existence of a supreme Being, in whose
honor fêtes were held. Christianity was denounced as a base
superstition.
CRUELTIES IN THE PROVINCES.—When Robespierre was supreme, the
Reign of Terror became still more terrible. In trials, the hearing of
evidence and of argument were dispensed with. The prisons were crowded
with "suspects." Alleged conspiracies in prisons were made a pretext
for wholesale slaughter under the guillotine. Suicide and madness were
of common occurrence. Even before Robespierre's predominance
there had been in the provinces scenes of horror like those which
occurred in the capital. The revolted cities, as Lyons and
Toulon, were punished with savage ferocity. At Lyons,
men, women, and children in masses were shot down with
artillery. Those who were not killed with the shot were cut in pieces
by the soldiery. At Nantes prisoners were bound together in
pairs, and huddled together in barges, which were scuttled and set
afloat down the Loire. For these atrocities the deputy Carrier
was responsible.
FRENCH VICTORIES.—Yet, at this time, the arms of the republic, except
on the sea, where the French fleet was badly beaten by the English,
were mostly successful. The Duke of York was vanquished on the
Belgian frontier, and the defeat of the allies at Fleurus (June
26, 1794) obliged them to evacuate Belgium.
THE BONAPARTES
Charles Bonaparte, m. Letitia Ramolino.
|
+—1, Joseph, King of Spain, d. 1844.
| |
| | +—Lucien, Cardinal.
| | |
| +—Zénaïde,
| m.
| +—Charles, d. 1857
| |
+—3, Lucien, Prince of Canino, d .1840.
| |
| +—Lucien.
| |
| +—Pierre.
|
+—2, NAPOLEON I, 1804-1814, (deposed, d. 1821), m.
| (1), Maria Louisa, daughter of Emperor Francis II.
| |
| +—Napoleon, Duke of Reichstadt (Napoleon II), d. 1832.
|
| (2), Josephine, m. General Beauharnais.
| |
| +—Eugene, Duke of Leuchtenberg, d. 1824. m.
| | Augusta, daughter of Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria.
| | |
| | +—Josephine, m. Oscar I of Sweden.
| |
| +—Hortense,
| m.
+—4, Louis, King of Holland, d. 1846.
| |
| +—Napoleon Charles, d. 1807.
| |
| +—Napoleon Louis, d. 1831.
| |
| +—LOUIS NAPOLEON III, 1852-1870, d. 1873. m.
| Eugenie, Countess of Teba
| |
| +—Napoleon, d. 1879.
|
+—5, Caroline, m. Joachim Murat, King of Naples, shot 1815.
|
+—6, Jerome, King of Westphalia, d. 1860, m.
Catharine of Wurtemberg.
|
+—Napoleon. m. Clotilde, d. of Victor Emmanuel II of Italy
|
+—NAPOLEAN VICTOR JEROME FREDERIC.
CHAPTER III. FROM THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE TO THE EMPIRE OF NAPOLEON
(1794-1804).
FALL OF ROBESPIERRE (9TH THERMIDOR).—A reaction set in against the
cruelties of Jacobinism. Men—even the judges of the murderous
tribunal—grew weary of bloodshed. The authority of Robespierre
began to wane, even with his colleagues. The assembly at length turned
against him. On July 27 (the 9th Thermidor, according to the new
calendar) he was arrested. He was released, but was again seized, and,
with St. Just, Couthon, and most of the leaders of the commune,
was guillotined.
Bare statistics, accompanied by no thrilling descriptions, convey a
strong impression of the atrocities of the Reign of Terror. According
to M. Taine, "there were guillotined at Paris, between
April 16, 1793, and the 9th Thermidor, 2,625 persons. The same process
went forward all over France. In Arras, 299 men and 93 women; in
Orange, 331 persons; in Nantes, 1,971; in Lyons, 1,684 (avowedly, but a
correspondent of Robespierre estimates the total at 6,000); in the
fusillades (deaths by shooting) of Toulon, more than
1,000; in the noyades (drownings) of Nantes, nearly 5,000
perished. In the eight departments of the West, it is reckoned that
nearly half a million perished." The deaths from want, under the
Jacobin government, M. Taine thinks, much exceeded a
million. "France was on the brink of a great famine on the Asiatic
scale."
REACTION: CONTROL OF THE MODERATES.—The Reign of Terror was brought to
an end. The moderates controlled the Convention. The prison doors were
opened, and the multitude of suspects were set free. The revolutionary
tribunal was broken down. The commune of Paris was so shaped as to
strip it of its most dangerous powers. The Jacobin and other incendiary
clubs were suppressed. Religion was declared to be free, and the
churches were opened to their congregations. The Girondist deputies who
survived were invited back to their seats in the Convention. The
National Guards were filled up from the middle class,—the
bourgeoisie. Little mercy was shown to the Jacobins
anywhere. The reaction was seen in the altered character of society and
of manners. Those who had acquired wealth in the late time by the
changes of property came to the front. The old fondness for dress and
gayety reappeared. Paris was again alive with balls and other festive
entertainments. The salons were crowded with elegant youth of the
higher class (the jeunesse dorée). The party of Terror were
cowed; but in consequence of the rise in the cost of provisions, and of
the distress caused by it, and by the sudden abrogation of tyrannical
laws settling the price of food and wages, there were two fierce
outbreakings of the mob of Paris (April 1, May 20, 1795). These were
quelled, and the power of the Jacobins was finally crushed. The
moderates had now to guard against the increasing strength and rising
hopes of the royalists.
CONQUEST OF HOLLAND: PRUSSIA.—The armies of France were everywhere
successful. Through the victories of Jourdan and
Pichegru, Holland was conquered, and converted into the
Batavian Republic, and Dutch Flanders surrendered to France. The
Low Countries were now a dependency of the French Republic
(1794-1795). Hoche, an excellent general, partly by
conciliation, reduced the West—the theater of the La Vendée revolt—to
submission. The English and emigrants landed in Quiberon, on the
coast of Brittany, but were defeated. The coalition was broken up,
first by the withdrawal of Prussia, which ceded (April 5, 1795), and,
in a secret article, ceded permanently, its territories on the left
bank of the Rhine to the French, for a compensation to be obtained from
secularized German states,—that is, states in which the old
ecclesiastical rule should be abolished. A few months later (July,
1795), Spain concluded peace, ceding St. Domingo to the
Republic. The soldiers of France were fast becoming trained, and their
confidence rose with their increasing success. This success was due
largely to the weak generalship of the allies. The French were commonly
hard masters in the conquered places. On the other hand, however, they
effected a welcome abolition of old feudal inequalities and abuses.
CONSTITUTION OF 1995.—Meanwhile, there was disaffection, especially in
the cities, with the rule by the Convention. In the cities there was
distress, except in the moneyed class. There was a yearning for a
strong and stable government. The Convention framed and submitted to
the nation a new constitution, the third in the order of
political fabrics of this sort. There were to be seven hundred and
fifty legislators, divided into two bodies,—the Council of Elders, or
the Ancients, of two hundred and fifty, and the Council of
Five Hundred. The executive power was given to a Directory
of five persons. Two-thirds of the councils for the first term were to
be taken from the Convention. The constitution, thus conservative and
anti-Jacobin in its character, was well received. But there was
dissatisfaction in the reactionary parties; and a great insurrection of
the royalist middle class in Paris (Oct. 5, 1795, the 13th
Vendémaire) was promptly put down by the resolute action of
Bonaparte, to whom had been given the command of the troops of
the city. It was the royalist and the anti-republican parties which now
threatened the government. But a new authority, the will of the
army, was beginning plainly to disclose itself. The dread of
Jacobinism still existed. What the people more and more craved was
internal tranquillity and order.
BONAPARTE IN ITALY: TO THE PEACE OF CAMPO FORMIO.—The assignats became
worthless. This bankruptcy had one benefit: it relieved the state of
its debt, and brought coin into circulation. A triple attack was
planned by Carnot against Austria. In Germany, Jourdan
and Moreau were driven back by the Archduke Charles of
Austria. But a splendid success attended the arms of Bonaparte
in the attack on the Austrian power in Italy. He had been lately
married to Josephine Beauharnais, the widow of a French general
guillotined in 1794, the only woman to whom he appears ever to have
been warmly attached. There were two children by her former
marriage,—Eugène (1781-1824), and Hortense (1783-1837)
who married Louis Bonaparte. Starting from Nice, and following
the coast, Bonaparte defeated the Austrians and Piedmontese separately,
and forced the latter to conclude a distinct peace, which ceded
Savoy and Nice to France. He exemplified in this campaign
the characteristics which in after-years contributed essentially to his
success as a general. He struck the enemy before they could combine
their forces. He did not, after the old method, wait to capture all the
fortresses in his path, but by swift marches made his attacks at
unexpected places and times. He defeated the Austrians after a brief
struggle at the bridge of Lodi on the Adda, captured
Milan, overran Lombardy as far as Mantua, and forced the Pope,
and Parma, Modena, and Naples, to purchase peace by giving up their
treasures of art. Thus began the custom of despoiling conquered
capitals, and other subjugated cities, of works of art, which went to
adorn and enrich Paris,—a new custom among civilized Christian
nations. Wurmser, the veteran Austrian general, was defeated in
a series of engagements; and, after him, another great Austrian army,
under Alvinzi, was vanquished at Arcola (Nov. 14-17,
1796) and at Rivoli (Jan. 14, 1797). Bonaparte now
crossed the Alps to meet the Archduke Charles, who had cleared
Germany of its invaders. The French general, although his own situation
was not free from peril, was able to dictate the terms of peace. In the
treaty of Campo Formio (Oct. 17, 1797), Austria ceded the
Belgian provinces to France, recognized the Cisalpine Republic
to be established by Bonaparte in North Italy, and secretly
consented to the cession of the German provinces on the left bank of
the Rhine. In return, he gave Venice to Austria, in disregard of
the principles of international law, and perfidiously as regards that
republic, which had made its peace with him, and become a democracy
dependent on France. In this treaty with Austria, there was another
secret stipulation that Prussia should not be indemnified in Germany
for her losses on the west of the Rhine. Thus Napoleon used the
selfishness of the allies to divide them from one another. At
Tolentino in February the Pope had ceded for the Cispadane
Republic the Romagna, Bologna, and Ferrara. A
young man of twenty-seven, Bonaparte had given proof of his astonishing
military genius by a series of victories over large armies and
experienced generals; and he had evinced equally his skill, as well as
his lack of principle, in the field of diplomacy. He had won admiration
from his enemies by his evident freedom from the revolutionary
fanaticism, and his contempt for declamation about "the rights of man."
Returning to Paris, he was received with acclamation, but
thought it politic to avoid publicity, and to live quietly in his
modest dwelling.
COUP D'ÉTAT: 18 FRUCTIDOR (Sept. 4, 1797).—During Bonaparte's
absence, the royalist and reactionary faction had gained ground in the
governing bodies. Pichegru was plotting on that side. These
schemes had been baffled with the timely assistance of a detachment of
troops sent to Paris by Bonaparte under Augereau. On
Sept. 4 (the 18th Fructidor), the palace of the Tuileries, where the
councils met, was surrounded. The reactionary deputies were arrested;
Pichegru and his fellow-conspirators were banished. This coup
d'état sealed the triumph of the republicans, but it was effected
through the army.
THE EGYPTIAN EXPEDITION.—The Directory were conscious of weakness,
and looked with alarm and distrust on the young general, who was fast
becoming the idol of the people, as well as of the army. They wished
him to attempt a descent on England. He preferred, in the room of this
impracticable venture, to conduct an expedition to Egypt, with
the design of getting control, if possible, of the Eastern
Mediterranean, and of striking at the possessions of Great Britain in
India. To this scheme the Directory, quite willing to have him
at a distance, readily consented. Hiding his plans until all was
ready, he sailed from Toulon (May 19, 1798) with a strong fleet
and army; on his way captured Malta through treachery of the
knights, and landed safely in Egypt. With him were some of the best of
the French generals, and a large company of scientific men. He
defeated the Mamelukes in a great battle fought within sight of
the Pyramids. But at Aboukir, in the Battle of the
Nile, the French fleet was destroyed by the English naval force
under Nelson. The French army was thus cut off from the means
of return. Bonaparte invaded Syria, but was prevented by the
English fleet from getting a foothold on the coast. He had to raise
the siege of Acre, and returned to Egypt, where he vanquished
the Turks at Aboukir.
REVERSES OF FRANCE IN ITALY.—Here Bonaparte received
information which determined him to leave the army under the command of
Kléber, and himself to return to France. The European powers had
once more taken up arms. Among the causes of the renewal of the war
were the formation by the French of the Roman Republic out of
the dominion of the Pope, the establishment of the Helvetian
Republic in Switzerland, and the change of Genoa by its own
act into the Ligurian Republic. Prussia, since 1795, from
selfish motives had cooperated with France, and stood aloof from the
new—the second—coalition. Paul I., emperor of Russia,
was active against the French Republic, and Pitt was its
indefatigable enemy. The Czar had been made Grand Master of the Knights
of Malta, and made much of this empty dignity. The victory of
Nelson at Aboukir cemented the union of the hostile
powers, with whom the Sultan was now joined. The management of the
French armies by the government at Paris was
unskillful. Naples, to be sure, was overcome, and transformed
into the Parthenopæan Republic. The king of Sardinia was
driven out of Piedmont. But Jourdan was defeated by the Archduke
Charles, and retreated across the Rhine. The Austrians and the
Russian army under Suvoroff, a veteran officer, were victorious
south of the Alps (June, 1799); Moreau and Macdonald were
defeated at Trebbia. The French were defeated again at
Novi (Aug. 15), and lost almost all Italy. The king of Naples
came back, and thousands of republicans there were cruelly put to
death,—a proscription in which Nelson had a part. It was the
victory of Masséna, over the Russians at Zurich, that
saved France itself from invasion.
OVERTHROW OF THE DIRECTORY: 18TH BRUMAIRE.—These reverses added to the
unpopularity of the Directory. The discontent of the Jacobins with
their government had given rise to strong measures of repression. On
the other hand, the wealthy class were disgusted at the renewal of the
war. A rising was threatened in La Vendee. The feeling was
widely diffused, that there was need of a strong man at the helm to
save the ship of state from another terrible shipwreck. At this
juncture Napoleon appeared in Paris, and was greeted with
enthusiasm. Sieyès and one other director, with a majority of
the Ancients, agreed to another coup d'état which should
make Bonaparte the first magistrate. The garrison of Paris was ready to
lend its aid. The resistance of the Council of five Hundred at
St. Cloud was baffled by Lucien Bonaparte, Napoleon's
brother, their president, and by the use of military force. Thus there
was accomplished the revolution of the 18th Brumaire (Nov. 9,
1799).
THE CONSULATE.—In the provisional government set up by the remnant of
the council, Napoleon only gradually assumed the chief rôle. He
was later enabled to take and to hold supreme power, because of the
mutual fear of royalists and republicans, their common dread of
Jacobinism, and a prevailing conviction that safety must be sought in
the sway of an individual, representing neither extreme, and strong
enough to hold all in check. Yet the event evinced the supremacy now
gained by the military power. Napoleon immediately made
excellent financial reforms, and repealed or softened the laws against
the "emigrants" and the priests. By such mild and conservative
measures, the prosperity of France began to be renewed. The
constitution of the year VIII., as planned by Sieyès and
modified by Bonaparte, kept up the semblance, without much of
the reality, of democracy. The checks on the power of the First Consul
were more nominal than real. The mass of the people had power only to
vote for lists of citizens, out of whom all the higher officers were to
be selected by successive steps. All legislation was initiated by the
Council of State; the Tribunate of a hundred members
could discuss proposals made thus, but could not act; the
Legislative Chamber of three hundred could vote, but not
discuss; and the Senate of eighty was chosen for life, with
little to do. This constitution of 1799, in opposition to the communal
system of 1789 and 1791, established a centralized
administration which destroyed local liberty and self-government.
France no longer represented in other countries the cause of
liberty. In this character its armies had been hailed in Italy, where a
yearning for national unity was awakened. Equality, not liberty, was
all that the cause of France now represented.
Napoleon could not have expected that his overtures of peace would be
accepted by Austria. The rough, impolitic response made by England,
helped him by rousing resentment in France.
MARENGO: PEACE OF LUNGVILLE.—If Sieyès and others expected
that Napoleon would merely direct military operations from
Paris, they were soon undeceived. Masséna was at the
head of the army in Italy, and found it most difficult to hold
Genoa against the Austrians. Moreau was at the head of
the army in Germany. Apart from other reasons for taking the field in
person, it would not have been safe for the new ruler of France to
allow himself to be eclipsed in military fame by
Moreau. Napoleon, as usual veiling his purpose,
gradually collected a large army, and between May 16 and 19, 1800, led
his troops, and dragged his cannon, over the Great St. Bernard
Pass into Italy, threw himself in the rear of Melas, the
Austrian general, and entered Milan. He appears, however, to have used
less than his usual caution, probably from fear that Melas
might escape; so that he was attacked at Marengo (June 14), by
that general, at a moment when the French forces were not sufficiently
concentrated. What threatened to be a disastrous defeat for the
French, however, was turned into a signal victory by the timely
arrival of Desaix; and the name of Marengo rang through
Europe. In December, Moreau won the great victory of
Hohenlinden over the Archduke John. In February, 1801,
the peace of Lunéville was concluded. France kept its "natural
boundaries," Belgium and the west of the Rhine. The Italian
republics, except Rome and Naples, were restored. Tuscany
was to be given to a prince of Spain, a country now dependent on
France. The German princes who lost territory were to be indemnified
by "secularizing" German ecclesiastical states, and vied with one
another in imploring favors of the conqueror.
THE NORTHERN ALLIANCE: THE PEACE OF AMIENS.—England now stood alone
against France. Her navies were supreme, and had captured most of the
Dutch as well as French colonies. The French army in
Egypt had been driven to capitulate on the condition that it
should be transported in English vessels to France. Russia, Sweden,
and Denmark made (1800) a defensive alliance of armed neutrality on
the sea, to maintain the right of neutrals to trade with belligerents,
and the doctrine that the neutral ship protects its freight (not being
munitions of war) against seizure. England succeeded in ruining this
alliance. Pitt now retired from office. He had accomplished the
legislative union of England and Ireland, by which the separate Irish
Parliament had ceased to exist (1800). But he had encouraged the Irish
Catholics to expect that they would be delivered from the restrictions
which excluded them from the House of Commons and from many other
offices. When the king refused to consent to the fulfillment of these
expectations, Pitt resigned (1801). Addington became
prime minister. England was tired of the war. Peace was concluded at
Amiens (March, 1802). France was to retain all her conquests on
the Continent. England surrendered to France and her allies all
conquests except Trinidad and Ceylon. Malta was to be given
back by England to the Knights of Malta. A third great civil triumph
of Napoleon, added to Luneville and Amiens, was the
Concordat with the Pope.
REFORMS OF NAPOLEON.—Napoleon now was free to give his attention to
internal reforms in France. He called into his counsels the ablest men
in all departments of knowledge. In the reconstruction of political
and social order, his own clear perceptions and energy were everywhere
seen. He brought back from the old institutions whatever was good and
valuable which the tempest of revolution had swept away. He reformed
the judicial system. He caused to be framed the famous Code
which bears his name, and which still forms the basis of law in
several European countries. He reduced the power of the communes, and
centralized the administration of government by the system of prefects
and sub-prefects. Through the Concordat, he renewed the
connection of the Catholic Church of France with Rome, reserving,
however, to the executive the nomination of archbishops and bishops,
whom the government was to support, and guarding, in the spirit of the
Gallican theory, the supremacy of the civil authority. Full toleration
was secured for non-Catholics. Napoleon personally participated
in the religious ceremonies which attended the formal restoration of
the old system of worship where "the Goddess of Reason" had been
enthroned during the Terror. The ultimate effect of the
Concordat was to build up the ultramontane, or papal, theory
and sway within the church of France. Education was organized by the
establishment of the university, the comprehensive name for the entire
educational system of the country. All branches of technical
instruction were carefully fostered. The devotees of science were
encouraged with an enlightened sympathy and liberal aid. A better
organization and discipline were brought into the army.
CHARACTER OF THE CHANGES.—The changes made by Napoleon, while
they secured the equality of all Frenchmen before the law, did
nothing to rescue civil liberty, such as the republicans had
aimed to secure. They were all in the direction of
monarchy. Distinctions, like the Legion of Honor, were invented; titles
were instituted; a new aristocracy, made up of relics of the old
noblesse and of fresh recruits, was created; Napoleon was
declared to be consul for life, and the mechanism of the government was
converted into a practical dictatorship. Unsparing in his treatment of
Jacobins, he aimed still to moderate the passions of party. His
activity was seen in an excellent system of public works, such as
canals and noble highways, in new towns, and in magnificent buildings
which he erected in Paris. At the same time, he went as far as it was
safe to go in bringing in monarchical manners and luxuries. He himself
adopted a regal way of living. He had no faith in democracy, and spoke
with unaffected scorn of "ideology," or the theoretical statesmanship
which based itself on ideas of "human rights" in the matter of
exercising government. The press was placed under stringent police
regulation. Napoleon's family began to contend, with "Corsican
shamelessness," for high honors. A feud soon came to exist between them
and the Beauharnais,—the family of Josephine. Was the
principle of heredity to come back?
RENEWED WAR WITH ENGLAND.—In 1803 the war was renewed with
England. That Napoleon was resolved to dictate in European
affairs, as he was practical dictator in the French Republic, was
plain. He controlled the republics dependent on France. He annexed
Piedmont. He made the Spanish Bourbons do his bidding. He
intervened in Germany; among other things, offending Austria by
enlarging the bounds of Prussia. He exercised over the minor German
states the influence of which Austria had been robbed. He complained of
the strictures of the English press, and of the asylum granted in
England to conspirators against his rule. He was angry that
Malta was not given up, which England refused to do on account
of an aggrandizement of France not consistent with the Peace of
Amiens. There were provocations on both sides, and war was inevitable.
PLAN OF INVADING ENGLAND.—Napoleon seized Hanover. He talked of
making a descent on England. He gathered a vast army near
Boulogne, and constructed an immense flotilla for the
transportation of it across the Channel. His design was to decoy away
the British fleet, and then to concentrate enough ships of his own in
the Channel to protect the passage of his forces.
CHAPTER IV. FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE EMPIBE TO THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN
(1804-1812).
THE EMPIRE (1804).—Various attempts had been made against
Napoleon's life. An "infernal machine" was exploded near his
carriage. On that occasion, only the swift driving of the coachman
saved him from death (1800). There were now royalist plots against his
life, of which Count d'Artois was cognizant. Pichegru was
an accomplice; and Moreau, although not favoring the restoration
of the Bourbons, was not entirely innocent. The former died in prison;
Moreau escaped to America. Napoleon, exasperated by these plots,
caused the Duke d'Enghien, a young prince of the Condé branch of
the Bourbons, to be seized on German territory,—in Baden,—and dragged
away into France, where, at Vincennes, after a hurried military
examination, he was shot, and buried in a grave that had been dug for
him before the sentence was pronounced. Of this act of Napoleon, it was
said by Fouché, "It was worse than a crime: it was a blunder."
The young prince was really innocent. He was a victim of the natural,
but violent, wrath of Napoleon, who wanted to strike a blow that his
enemies would feel. The event opened the way for him—as it was perhaps
intended that it should—to the object of his ambition, the imperial
title and throne. He was authorized to adopt a successor. This, the
different parties felt, would make his government stable and secure. He
was proclaimed emperor, the election being ratified by popular
vote. The crown was to be handed down in his family. In imitation of
Charlemagne, whom he affected to consider a Frenchman and a
predecessor, he was crowned, with splendid pomp, by Pope Pius
VII. (Dec. 2, 1804), in Notre Dame. He took the crown from the
Pope's hands, and placed it on his own head.
THE NEW ROYALTY.—The emperor surrounded himself with the insignia and
ceremonies of royalty. The members of his family became princes and
princesses. A new nobility, with the various ancient titles, was called
into being. He made his generals—eighteen in number, most of whom had
sprung from the ranks—marshals. He first diminished the number of the
Tribunate, then (1807) abolished it. The republic of 1789 had
now passed into an absolute military monarchy.
THIRD COALITION AGAINST FRANCE (1805).—Napoleon turned the
Italian Republic into a vassal monarchy, with himself for its ruler
(1805). He incorporated Genoa with France. His step-son,
Eugène Beauharnais, he made viceroy of Italy. Pitt
had come back to office. Events since the death of the Duke
d'Enghien made it possible for him to create the third coalition of
England (in union with Austria, Russia, and Sweden) for restoring the
balance of power in Europe. Paul I. of Russia had been won over
from the previous coalition by the adroit efforts of Napoleon,
and by the Czar's hostility to England on account of Malta
(1800), he being grand master of the knights. His ordinary state of
mind bordered on derangement, so that he was not fit to reign. Refusing
to abdicate, he was assassinated by nobles (1801), and his son
Alexander I. (1801-24) succeeded him. Russia was now reconciled
to England, and the Northern Neutrality Convention against her maritime
oppression was dissolved.
POSITION OF PRUSSIA.—The king of Prussia, Frederick William
III. (1797-1840), and the ministers whom he trusted, refused to
listen to his spirited queen, Louisa, and the more earnest,
patriotic party, by which he was urged to unite with the coalition. He
clung to his policy of neutrality, and was to be bribed by the gift of
Hanover. The attitude of Prussia, which had been governed by
selfish considerations, was long the pivot on which the success of
Napoleon's aggressions hung.
FAILURE OF VILLENEUVE.—If Napoleon ever seriously projected an
invasion of England he abandoned the scheme before 1805, although he
retained an army at Boulogne to alarm the English. Villeneuve,
whose fleet was to command the Channel, had escaped from Nelson
and was on his way back from the West Indies. The admiralty were warned
of his movement by a vessel of light draught which Nelson, when
he could not find his foe, dispatched to inform them of the
danger. Villeneuve, after an indecisive action against the force
sent to meet him under Sir Robert Calder, put first into the
harbor of Ferrol, and then repaired to
Cadiz. Nelson came back with his fleet to the Channel.
ULM AND TRAFALGAR.—The allies marked out four lines of invasion. The
second and principal advance was to be up the valley of the Danube, and
to be pursued by the Russians and Austrians. Napoleon did not
wait for them to unite. He now made use of the army collected for the
proposed invasion of England. He suddenly broke up his camp at
Boulogne, and swiftly led his splendid and thoroughly drilled
army across the Rhine, to the rear of the Austrian forces, of which
Mack was the commander. Other detachments from Hanover and
Holland came down the Main to take part in the movement. The Austrians
were surrounded in Ulm, and gave themselves up, thirty thousand
in number, as prisoners of war (Oct. 17, 1805). The strategy was like
that pursued in the campaign of Marengo: the result was even
more astonishing. It was not long, however, before news came to him of
a great disaster to the French on the sea. Four days after the
surrender at Ulm, Nelson achieved a grand victory off
Cape Trafalgar, over the French and Spanish fleets. Before
Villeneuve decided to leave the shelter of Cadiz, he had
been obliged to weaken himself by sending away a number of his
ships. The watchword sent from the flag-ship just before the
encounter—"England expects every man to do his duty"—called forth
shouts of enthusiasm from the decks of the British fleet. Two-thirds of
the French ships were captured or ruined. Nelson himself was
struck by a bullet, and died the same night. His private life was not
free from grave faults, but he was the greatest naval hero England has
ever produced.
AUSTERLITZ: CONFEDERATION OF THE RHINE.—On the land, the career of
Napoleon was triumphant. The "Grand Army," with its system of
corps and reserves, marched on Vienna, which was occupied on the
13th of November. The Russians were still to be encountered. The army
of Alexander was a very powerful one; but he made, instead of
awaiting, the attack, and, on the 2d of December, was utterly defeated
on the memorable field of Austerlitz. The Peace of
Pressburg followed (Dec. 26, 1805). Austria gave up
Venice, which was annexed to the new Italian kingdom, of which
Napoleon was the head. The Tyrol went to Bavaria, whose elector
was recognized as a king, as was also the elector of
Würtemberg. Soon after, the Bourbons were dethroned at
Naples, and Napoleon's brother Joseph took that kingdom.
Bavaria, Baden, Würtemberg, and other smaller
states were united into a Confederation of the Rhine (1806),
with Napoleon for its protector. The Holy Roman Empire from that
time had no longer even the shadow of a reality. Francis I. was
simply emperor of Austria, and Austria was greatly reduced in power.
FALL OF PRUSSIA.—Prussia now stood by herself. Out of alarm at the
progress of the French arms, and anger because French troops had been
led across her territory without her consent, she had preferred to join
the coalition. Austerlitz moved her to retrace her steps. She
received Hanover as the price of a renewed alliance. England now
declared war against Prussia. But Fox, who was an advocate of
peace, had come into power in England (Jan. 23, 1806); and Prussia
discovered that Napoleon, who was friendly to him, was negotiating for
the surrender of Hanover to that country. This crowning indignity moved
Prussia, at this inopportune moment, to take up arms against
him. Prussia had no ally but Russia. The Prussian army was full of
pride and hope; but its organization and method of warfare were after
the old, traditional fashion which had come down from the days of
Frederick the Great, and its commander, the Duke of
Brunswick, though brave, was superannuated. In the two battles of
Jena and Auersfadt, fought on the same day (Oct. 14,
1806), the Prussian forces were routed, and either captured or
dispersed. A fortnight later (Oct. 27), Napoleon was in
Berlin. Fortress after fortress was surrendered, and corps after
corps captured by his troops. The royal family, including the Queen
Louisa, were treated personally with harshness and disdain. The
Prussian monarchy, to all appearance, was in ruins. Its museums and
picture-galleries were robbed of their treasures, which went away as
trophies to Paris. The Saxon Elector, made a king, joined the
Rhenish Confederacy.
Fox died on Sept. 13, 1806. In 1807 (March 31), the Duke of Portland
became prime minister; the rival and rising statesmen,
Castlereagh and Canning, being both in the cabinet.
TO THE PEACE OF TILSIT.—It remained for the conqueror to deal with
Russia. He had intended to prosecute a winter campaign in
Poland, but the severity of the winter and the lack of supplies
obliged him to fall back from Pultusk to the Vistula. The
Russians now took the initiative. A terrible battle at Eylau
(Feb. 7 and 8, 1807) was indecisive. Napoleon drew additional
troops from all parts of his empire to supply the losses of the grand
army. Benningsen, the Russian general, was incautious, and at
Friedland (June 14) was routed. Dantzic and the still
unconquered provinces of Prussia fell into the hands of the
French. This series of wonderful successes made the revolution in the
art of war, which Napoleon had introduced, obvious to the
dullest eyes. His peculiar method of rapid movement, and subsistence on
the country, and the obstacles to its uniform success, were likewise
evident. The Emperor Alexander and Napoleon met on the
Niemen. Alexander was won by Napoleon's gracious
and friendly demeanor. At Tilsit, on the North-Prussian
frontier, peace was concluded (July 7 and 9, 1807). Prussia fared the
hardest. She lost half of her territory. She had to close her ports and
lands to British trade, to limit her army to forty-two thousand men,
and to consent to the erection of a duchy of Warsaw out of her
Polish territory. Out of the Elbe provinces, a kingdom of
Westphalia was constructed, of which Jerome Bonaparte
received the crown. Russia also recognized Louis Bonaparte,
another brother of Napoleon, as king of
Holland. Alexander promised to go to war with England in
case England rejected the offer of peace which he was to make as
mediator. Alexander and Napoleon were to be fast friends
and allies. Russia was to expand on the north and east, but not to have
Constantinople. Napoleon had no better apology for the
dismemberment of Prussia than a reference to the intemperate manifesto
of the Duke of Brunswick in 1792, on the occasion of the first
invasion of France. His real object was thoroughly to divide and
disable Germany, and to take away the last obstacle to his complete
control within its borders.
POWER OF NAPOLEON.—No ruler since Charlemagne had held such
power as was now wielded by Napoleon. "Sovereign of France from
the Scheldt to the Pyrenees, and of Italy from the Alps to the Tiber,"
he had given the throne of Holland to his brother Louis,
that of Naples to Joseph, and made Jerome king of
Westphalia. Spain was content to do his will, and
Germany was under his feet. He was the leader of mighty armies,
with no military rival to endanger his supremacy over them. His
conquests, it was impossible to deny, carried with them the abolition
of numerous time-worn abuses, and the introduction of important
material improvements. France was in many respects prosperous under the
despotism established over it.
ELEMENTS OF WEAKNESS.—But there were certain elements of weakness
which Napoleon did not sufficiently discern. The feeling of
nationality and patriotism in the subject countries was certain to
awake with a strength which he did not at all anticipate. Old Rome had
extinguished this feeling in most of her provinces, but there were
countries whose spirit even Rome could not break. Napoleon undertook a
task to which no man was equal. Meantime, he was exhausting the
military resources of France. If its male population continued
to be willing to follow him to the slaughter, where were the men to be
found to fill the places of the multitudes that fell? The time must
come when the hunger of the French for military glory would be sated,
and dazzling victories would cease to hide the fearful cost at which
they were purchased.
THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM.—The Treaty of Tilsit was followed by
acts on the part of Napoleon which show the presumptuous confidence and
arrogant spirit of domination, which, however natural on the pinnacle
of might to which he had raised himself, proved disastrous, and, in the
end, fatal. One of these acts was the "Continental System," ordained in
the Berlin and Milan Decrees.
A Prussian decree (1806), Prussia being then a vassal of
Napoleon, undertook to close the ports and rivers of the North
Sea to English shipping. In retaliation, there was issued a British
"Order in Council," declaring the coast from the Elbe to Brest in a
state of blockade; the portion from Ostend to the Seine being declared
to be under a rigorous blockade. This led to the Berlin Decree
of Napoleon (Nov. 21, 1806). Then second "Orders in Council"
(Nov. 11, 1807), prohibiting trade with France, her allies and
colonies, as if they were blockaded, called out the Milan Decree
of Napoleon (Dec. 17, 1807).
The continental system thus originated undertook to cut off trade
between the entire Continent and England, by ordering all the
merchandise of England and her colonies to be seized and confiscated,
wherever it might be found,—even ships which touched at English
ports. The design was to inflict injury on England. It had this effect,
but it had the same effect on France, and still more in the other
countries which profited by English trade. Wide-spread disaffection at
the attempts to enforce this system was the inevitable
consequence. Moreover, one result of it was to stimulate
Napoleon to further conquests to keep up and to extend his
commercial policy. Another motive was added to his growing and
insatiable ambition for universal dominion.
INVASION OF SPAIN: WAGRAM.—Russia had declared war against Great
Britain, according to the promise of Alexander at
Tilsit. The British seized the Danish fleet in the harbor of
Copenhagen, to prevent it from falling into the hands of Russia
and France (Sept., 1807). Napoleon made this act a partial
excuse for invading the Spanish peninsula, under the pretense of
guarding the coasts against the English. His army entered
Lisbon, and he declared that the house of Braganza had
ceased to reign. His forces advanced into Spain beyond
Madrid. Dissensions between Charles IV. and his son
Ferdinand enabled Napoleon to get himself chosen as
arbiter; and having enticed the two contestants to Bayonne, he
set them both aside, and gave the crown of Spain to his brother
Joseph,—Murat, who had married Napoleon's sister
Caroline, taking the throne of Naples. This high-handed
proceeding roused the Spanish people to revolt. The officers of
Napoleon were several times defeated. A British force under
Wellington—then Sir Arthur Wellesley—appeared in
Portugal to lend help to the national movement. A French fleet
in Cadiz was destroyed. Napoleon invaded Spain with an
overwhelming force, and established his brother at Madrid
(Dec. 2, 1808). But the people still kept up a harassing guerilla
war. From Spain Napoleon was called away by the rising of
Austria, which the events in Spain had once more moved to begin
hostilities. Within a month from the beginning of the campaign, he
again entered Vienna as a victor (May 11, 1809). He suffered a
reverse at Aspern; but in the desperate battle of Wagram,
in which not far from three hundred thousand men took part, he was
triumphant. Austria purchased peace by further cessions of territory,
and by joining the Continental System. The brave Tyrolese kept
up the struggle with an heroic spirit; but at last Hofer, their
leader, was captured and shot at Mantua (1810).
PIUS VII.—As Pius VII. refused to close his ports against
England, and to ally himself with France, Napoleon proclaimed
(May, 1809) that the Papal States were annexed to his empire. The Pope,
who had steadfastly resisted his attempts at coercion, excommunicated
him. The pontiff was arrested, and conveyed to Savona, and
afterwards to France.
SWEDEN: BERNADOTTE.—Another ally in upholding the "Continental System"
against England, Napoleon gained in Sweden, where one of his marshals,
Bernadotte, had been chosen Crown Prince.
Under Adolf Frederic (1751-1771), a council of nobles usurped
many of the functions of the king. A combined Russian and French party
in Sweden was against him. His son, Gustavus III. (1771-1792),
being supported by France, invaded Russian Finland, and, by the help of
the Estates, reduced the power of the nobles, giving, however, to the
Estates in the new constitution, the right to veto a project for
offensive war. He was murdered in 1792. His son Gustavus IV.,
who became of age in 1808, was a bitter opponent of Napoleon,
whom he considered to be the beast of the Apocalypse
(Rev. xiii. 1). After the Peace of Tilsit, he made war on
Russia, and on Denmark, from which he sought to wrest Norway. The
nobles and the army rose against him, and obliged him to abdicate
(1809). His uncle, Charles XIII., became king. Finland
was surrendered to Russia. The king having no children,
Bernadotte (1764-1844), a French marshal, made by
Napoleon Prince of Pontecorno, but who often showed himself
independent in his relations to him, was elected Crown Prince of Sweden
(1810). Sweden joined the Continental System.
NAPOLEON'S DIVORCE AND MARRIAGE.—Napoleon, who was childless,
in the hope of founding a dynasty on a sure basis procured a divorce
from Josephine, and married Maria Louisa, the daughter
of Francis I. of Austria. To the son who was born of this
marriage he gave the sounding title of King of Rome, the old
designation of the emperors-elect before their coronation.
TORRES VEDRAS.—The first successful stand against the military
supremacy of Bonaparte was made in Spain. Wellington
divined the secret of the French victories, and devised the means of
effectual resistance. In Portugal, between the Tagus and
the sea he fortified the position called Torres Vedras, which
could be defended against superior forces. This he held against all the
efforts of Masséna to conquer and dislodge him. Deprived of the
means of subsistence, the French suffered great losses and privations,
and were obliged to retreat (May, 1811). Their method depended for
success on the attaining of the desired result in a short time by swift
operations.
REACTION AGAINST NAPOLEON.—The campaign of Wellington produced
a strong moral effect in other parts of Europe. While France was
beginning to show signs of weariness with the endless war, and with the
despotic government under which it was kept up, in Germany a new
spirit of patriotism was stirring in the hearts of the people. Under
Stein, a great and patriotic minister, the Prussian system of
civil administration was reorganized on a sound basis. The army was
likewise reconstructed on the basis of universal military
service. Serfdom was abolished and the old caste system, with its
restrictions on land-holding, abandoned. A new Germany was slowly
waking to life, and collecting its energies for the combat for
freedom. The "Continental System" caused increasing
irritation. Louis Bonaparte abdicated his throne in
Holland, rather than enforce its odious requirements (July,
1810). The quarrel of Napoleon with the Pope, and the
indignities suffered by the pontiff, who lived for three years upon
alms, added to the discontent which the emperor's commercial policy
provoked, even in France.
CHAPTER V. FROM THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN (1812) TO THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA
(1814-15).
THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN—The circumstances narrated above did not prevent
Napoleon from the fatal mistake of invading Russia. The
czar would not enforce the commercial restrictions. Napoleon
refused to promise not to restore the kingdom of Poland. There
were various other causes of mutual jealousy and
coolness. Sweden, under Bernadotte, which had been forced
to declare war against England (1810), now joined
Russia. Austria and Prussia, in their state of
practical vassalage, had to furnish military help to Napoleon. In June,
1812, when he crossed the Niemen, he had brought together a
force of five hundred and fifty thousand men. He had reinforcements
from Poland, and might have had more had he not, from deference
to Austria and Prussia, refused to restore the Polish kingdom. The
Russians retreated as he advanced. Barclay, the Russian general,
declined a battle, and destroyed whatever places could afford an
advantage to the invader. At length, Kutusoff took the command,
and was compelled by the Russian feeling, against his will, to give
battle. At Borodino, where there was immense slaughter on both
sides, the Russians retired, but without disorder. When the French
arrived at Moscow, they found an empty town, which was set on
fire by accident or by Russians. The Czar refused to treat for
peace. There was no alternative but to retreat (Oct. 19, 1812). The
sufferings of the soldiers from cold and famine were terrible. The
Russians availed themselves of every opportunity to harass the
retreating force. When it reached the ruins of Smolensk, only
forty thousand were left of more than a hundred thousand that had left
Moscow. The army continued to dwindle. At Smorgoni,
Napoleon left Murat in command, and hastened in disguise
to Paris. The expedition cost the lives of not less than three hundred
thousand men. This gigantic failure was due to the foiling by the
Russians of Napoleon's habitual plan of forcing decisive battles by
movements so rapid that his troops could subsist upon the country which
they overran, and to the unexpected destruction of Moscow.
THE GERMAN WAR OF LIBERATION: LEIPSIC.—In Germany, there now began the
great War of Liberation. York—the commander of the
Prussian contingent reluctantly furnished to Napoleon—went over
to the Russians (Dec. 1812). During the first three months of 1813, all
North Germany rose in arms. Heart-stirring appeals were issued by
Frederick William III. to his people. He called for the
formation of volunteer corps, and all young men capable of bearing arms
responded with alacrity to the summons. Russia and Prussia formed a
defensive alliance. Sweden made a treaty with England, and agreed to
assist the allies. Napoleon's wonted success attended him at first in
the encounter with the Russian and Prussian forces. He gained a victory
at Lützen (May 2), and another at Bautzen (May 20,
21). Austria sought to mediate, but Napoleon unwisely preferred
war. Austria now, disregarding the family tie with Napoleon, was drawn
by the current of German patriotism, as well as by self-interest, into
the alliance against him. His imperious and arrogant domination was
felt to be insupportable. But the circumstance that determined the
course of Austria was the victory gained by Wellington at
Vittoria, in Spain, over the French under Jourdan (June 21). The
news of it turned the scale in the Austrian councils. The odds against
Napoleon were now fearful, especially as his own army was largely
composed of recruits who were hardly above the age of boys. He won one
more triumph at Dresden (Aug. 27), but this was his last victory
on German soil. The allies avoided the errors which he had taught them
to avoid, and succeeded in bringing their forces together, and in
compelling Napoleon to fight at Leipsic. The allied armies
numbered three hundred thousand, while the French force did not exceed
a hundred and eighty thousand. The "battle of the nations" lasted for
three days (Oct. 16, 18, 19), although the fighting was chiefly on the
first and third. On the last day it continued for nine hours. The Saxon
contingent abandoned the French on the field, and went over to the
allies. The defeat of the French, as night approached, became a
rout. Napoleon, with the remnant of his army, was driven to the
Rhine. The battle of Leipsic was really the decisive contest in
the wars of Europe against Napoleon. From the defeat there, it was
impossible for him to recover.
FALL OF NAPOLEON: ELBA.—The members of the Confederacy of the
Rhine joined the allies. Holland rose in revolt, and drove
out the French officials. Even France was exhausted and full of
discontent. Meantime Wellington defeated Soult in the
Pyrenees, and invaded France from that side. Napoleon was bent
on resistance, and by his superior skill succeeded in ousting the brave
Prussian soldier, but inexpert strategist, Blücher, as well as the
Austrian general Schwartzenberg (Jan. and Feb. 1814). But the
preponderance of numbers on the side of the allies was too great. Their
bold decision to march on Paris secured their triumph. The city
surrendered (March 30). Napoleon had lost his hold on the ruling
bodies. The senate, through the influence of the astute
Talleyrand, once his minister, declared that he and his family
had forfeited the throne. At Fontainebleau, he signed his
abdication in favor of his son (April 6), but this condition was
rejected. The small island of Elba was given to him by the
allies as a sovereign principality. After a pathetic farewell to his
veteran Guard, he betook himself to his small dominion. Louis
XVIII., the brother of Louis XVI., was placed on the throne
of France. France, by the Peace of Paris (May 30), was left with
its ancient boundaries as they were before the Revolution slightly
increased.
THE CHARTER.—According to a promise which the king had given, he (June
4, 1814) promulgated a constitutional CHARTER, a name borrowed from the
Middle Ages when charters were granted to vassals. There was to be a
legislature, with a house of peers or lords appointed by the king, and
a chamber of deputies chosen by limited suffrage; the electors to be
owners of property to a certain amount, and to be thirty years old. The
king was to have the initiative in legislation. The Roman Catholic
religion was declared to be the religion of the state, but liberty was
given to dissenters. The right to make peace and war was given to the
king, and also the right to issue ordinances necessary for the
execution of the laws and the safety of the state. This last provision
opened a door for arbitrary government, and paved the way for the
downfall of the dynasty. The points of resemblance in the constitution
to the English system were adapted to provoke a constant contrast with
it, in respect to the degree of liberty actually secured and exercised
by the people. The charter was dated from the nineteenth year of Louis
XVIII., as if there had been no Republic or Empire.
PIUS VII.—Pope Pius VII., who, after 1809, was a virtual
prisoner at Savona, refused to comply with Napoleon's
demands. He could not be moved to invest the bishops whom the emperor
had appointed. This was a principal point in the dispute. Napoleon
called a national council of French bishops (1811). In 1812 the Pope
was taken to Fontainebleau, and treated by him with
harshness. When the pontiff refused to give a full and final sanction
to the proposed agreement, until he should be free to confer with his
cardinals, he was treated with still greater severity. The fall of
Napoleon set him free, and he entered Rome, May 24, 1814.
CONGRESS OF VIENNA.—In September, 1814, the congress of Vienna met to
readjust the map of Europe after the whirlwind of change and
revolution. There were present the emperors of Russia and Austria, the
kings of Prussia, Denmark, Bavaria, and Würtemberg, and a great number
of German princes. Castlereagh, and later Wellington,
represented England, and Talleyrand was one of the
representatives of France. The conferences were far from being
harmonious. In particular, the claims of Russia upon Poland, and the
claims of Prussia on Germany, threatened another war. While the
debates, alternating with gay festivities, were still proceeding, the
participants were startled by the news of the reappearance of
Napoleon in France.
RETURN OF NAPOLEON FROM ELBA.—The new Bourbon rule was unpopular with
the French. It was felt to be the effect and sign of national
humiliation. The offensive conduct of the returned emigrant nobility,
and measures looking towards a restoration of bygone abuses in
government, fomented the disaffection. Napoleon, while
apparently busy in laying out roads and canals, and regulating the
affairs of his little kingdom, which was only sixty miles in
circumference, kept himself well informed as to the state of public
opinion in France. With a few hundred men of the Imperial Guard, he
landed at Cannes (March I, 1815), and was joined by one regiment
after another which were sent out to crush him. Ney, one of the
best of his marshals, was carried away by the common feeling, and went
over to the side of his old commander. Louis XVIII. fled from
Paris; and, on March 20, Napoleon was again installed in the
Tuileries.
WATERLOO.—Napoleon offered to the country a more liberal constitution,
but the Bourbons were more hated than he was trusted. He professed to
the great powers his desire for peace, but they did not listen to these
assurances. Each agreed to furnish an army of one hundred and eighty
thousand men to serve against him. He put forth prodigious exertions to
gather a force with which to meet the host of his enemies; and although
he could appeal to no warm national feeling, such as had called into
being the armies of the Revolution, he succeeded in bringing together a
force of over one hundred thousand men. He decided not to wait for the
attack, but to assail the two armies of Blücher and
Wellington in Belgium. His plan was to attack them separately.
Blücher so far fell into the trap, that, in his eagerness to
meet the detested foe, he offered battle to Napoleon at Ligny
(June 16), and, after a desperate contest, was forced to retire from
the field. On the same day, Wellington so far checked Ney
in his attack at Quatre Bras, that he could not strike the
Prussians on the flank, as Napoleon had designed. Napoleon thought that
the Prussians would not be able, after their defeat, at once to aid
Wellington. He sent Grouchy, however, with thirty-four thousand
men, to observe them and inflict on them a final blow. On the forenoon
of June 18, he himself attacked the British forces at
Waterloo. The French got possession of La Haye Sainte, a
farmhouse in front of Wellington's center, the scene of a bloody
contest; but all their charges on Wellington's main line were met and
repelled by the immovable squares of the British infantry. In the
afternoon Napoleon's right began to be assailed by the Prussians; and
finding, at seven o'clock, that they were coming in great force, he
ordered a charge of the Imperial Guard on Wellington's forces. After a
fierce struggle, the Guard was compelled to recoil and retire. The
Prussians, piercing the right flank of the French army, turned its
defeat into a rout. Grouchy was at Wavre, fighting the
Prussian corps of Thielmann, which he seems to have mistaken for
the entire Prussian army.
ABDICATION OF NAPOLEON: ST. HELENA.—On the 22nd of June
Napoleon again abdicated in favor of his son. Carnot was
for a dictatorship. The French Assembly, with La Fayette at its
head, insisted on the abdication. On July 7 Blücher and
Wellington entered Paris. Napoleon fled to Rochefort,
and, finding himself unable to escape to America, surrendered to the
British admiral, and was taken on board the war-ship
Bellerophon. Louis XVIII. was brought back to
Paris. Napoleon, by the agreement of the allies, was conveyed to
the island of St. Helena, where he remained, a fretful captive,
until his death (May 5, 1821). Ney escaped, but was captured,
condemned, and shot (Dec. 7, 1815). France engaged to pay a war
indemnity of seven hundred million francs. Its boundaries were fixed as
at 1790.
CHARACTER OF NAPOLEON.—Respecting certain traits of Napoleon, there is
no dispute. His military genius all allow, although his daring was
sometimes over-daring; and there are critics who profess to discern,
after the beginning of the Russian campaign, and especially in the last
contest in Belgium, signs of a decline in his almost superhuman
vigilance and energy. Yet all must admit "that transcendent geometrical
faculty," as Sainte-Beuve calls it, "which characterized
Napoleon, and which that powerful genius applied to war with the same
ease and the same aptitude that Monge [a great French mathematician]
applied it to other subjects." No general ever had greater power to
fascinate soldiers, and secure their devotion to him. One reason was,
that he recognized and rewarded merit wherever he saw it. His
intellectual movements were as much swifter than the ordinary as his
marches were more rapid than those to which armies had been
accustomed. For civil organization and administration he had rare
talents, and in many directions enlightened views. Europe owes much to
his innovations in this sphere. He was not incapable of warm personal
attachments; as was manifested, for example, in his grief over
Duroc, the favorite general, who fell at Bautzen. But an
insatiable appetite for war, and, still more, a conviction, which he
sometimes confessed, that he could retain and fortify his authority
only by dazzling France, and continuing to astonish mankind by
brilliant achievements, drove him forward on a path of aggression and
bloodshed. He had an unpitying nature: he was careless of human
suffering. Early in his career, in Italy, he ordered a needless and
useless attack on the outposts of the enemy, "to treat a lady to a
sight of real war." He did not shrink from ordering two thousand
prisoners at Jaffa to be shot. He shocked all Germany by causing
Palm, a bookseller of Nuremberg, to be shot for refusing to tell
the name of the author of a publication offensive to him. He frequently
displayed a petty rancor,—as, for example, in leaving a legacy in his
will to the man who was accused of an attempt to assassinate the
Duke of Wellington. His violence of temper, as in the murder of
the Duke d'Enghien, hurried him into acts that were not less
impolitic than criminal. His tyrannical will would brook no
contradiction, even in matters o£ trifling importance. He broke away
from engagements when he thought it advantageous to do so. It is not an
injustice to say, that he was habitually untruthful: his bulletins were
disfigured by flagrant falsehoods, as well as gross exaggerations. In a
letter to Talleyrand from Italy (Oct. 17, 1797) he says, "This
is history: what I say in my proclamations and speeches is a romance."
With his wonderful intellectual powers, inexhaustible energy, and
amazing achievements, he never quite loses the characteristic spirit of
an adventurer. He is haunted by a secret consciousness that this
character belongs to him.
The judgment Of an adversary must be taken with allowance; but
Wellington spoke at least without passion when he said,
"Bonaparte's whole life—civil, political, and military—was a
fraud. There was not a transaction, great or small, in which lying
and fraud were not introduced." His "foreign policy was force and
menace, aided by fraud and corruption."—Croker's Correspondence,
etc., vol. ii. p. 86.
THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA.—The Congress of Vienna was dissolved in June,
1815. Its Acts were finally signed by the five great powers,—Austria,
France, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia,—and by Spain, Portugal,
and Sweden. The Austrian and Prussian monarchies were restored. Austria
received back Venice with Milan,—forming the subject
Lombardo-Venetian kingdom,—besides receiving the Illyrian
provinces and the Tyrol. The old possessions of Prussia were
restored. She received the Rhenish provinces, a part of the
duchy of Warsaw (Posen), and a great part of Saxony, besides
other important additions. Holland and Belgium were formed into the one
kingdom of the Netherlands, which had also a part of Luxemburg,
and was ruled by the stadt-holder William I. The German
Confederacy was instituted, with thirty-nine sovereign states,
including the four free cities,—Austria being the presiding state. The
greater part of the duchy of Warsaw fell to Russia, under the
name of the Kingdom of Poland. Sweden retained Norway, which,
however, kept its own free constitution; and Denmark acquired
Lauenburg. England had vastly enlarged her colonial
possessions. The present Swiss Confederation, consisting of twenty-two
cantons, was established; three new cantons having been added to the
former nineteen. The old dynasties were restored in Spain, in Tuscany,
Modena, and the Papal States, in Naples, and in Sardinia. To Sardinia,
Genoa, against its will, was annexed.
CHRONOLOGICAL STATEMENT.—The First Coalition was formed in
1793, when all Europe, except Sweden, Denmark, Tuscany, Switzerland,
Venice, and Genoa, and Turkey, joined against France. In 1792 France
had been at war with Austria and Prussia. In 1795 the coalition was
broken: Prussia and Spain made peace with France. In 1797 Austria also
concluded peace with France (the Peace of Campo'Formio). In 1798
the Second Coalition was formed, in which Turkey was included. Prussia
and Spain were not parties to it. The Peace of Amiens, made with
England (1802), ended the contest following it. The Third Coalition was
formed in 1805, by England, Russia, Austria, and Sweden. Peace was
concluded between Austria and France (Dec. 26, 1805). War followed in
1806-7, between France on one side, and Prussia and Russia on the
other. These allies, with England, made a Fourth Coalition. In
1807 France and Russia were allies. The rupture between Austria and
France in 1809 gave rise to what is often called the Fifth
Coalition. In 1813 the Sixth Coalition, made up, after the
accession of Austria, of all the principal powers, was in arms against
France. On March 25, 1815, after Napoleon's return from Elba,
the powers again declared war against him. As there was a fresh treaty,
this may be called a Seventh Coalition.
CHAPTER VI. AMERICAN HISTORY IN THIS PERIOD (1789-1815).
THE TWO PARTIES.—The cabinet of Washington consisted of four
members. The secretary of the treasury was Alexander Hamilton of
New York. The secretary of state was Thomas Jefferson of
Virginia. The seat of government was placed at Philadelphia; but
in 1800 it was removed to the District of Columbia, which was
ceded for the purpose by Virginia and Maryland. Almost from the
beginning, there were two political parties. The Federalists
were made up of those who had been most in favor of the new
Constitution, and desired to build up a strong central
government. Accordingly they advocated a liberal construction of the
Constitution as regards the extent of federal authority. They cherished
the traditional spirit of the English laws and English political
institutions. Washington and John Adams belonged to this
class, and Hamilton was their most active leader. The
Anti-Federalists, of whom Jefferson was the chief, were
for a careful guarding of the rights of the States, and a strict
interpretation of the powers allotted to the General Government. They
had more sympathy with the political ideas at that time fast coming
into vogue in France. They had a warm faith in the capacity of the mass
of the people for self-government and for suffrage. They were called
Republicans, and were sometimes styled Democrats.
HAMILTON'S MEASURES: THE CONFLICT OF PARTIES.—Hamilton proposed
and carried highly important measures for the restoration of public
credit and for the revival of industry and commerce. Under his
leadership, the debts of the old confederacy, and the debts of the
separate States which they had incurred in the common defense, were
assumed. To provide revenue, a protective tariff and a system of
internal taxation were ordained. A national bank was incorporated
(1791), and a mint was established at Philadelphia. These
measures had a great effect at home, and made a strong impression
favorable to the new government abroad; but they were opposed by the
Anti-Federalists as an unwarrantable assumption of power by the
General Government. The excise on domestic spirits provoked an
insurrection, called "the Whisky Rebellion," in Western
Pennsylvania, which was put down by the militia. As the French
Revolution advanced from step to step, the division of parties in
America became more marked, and their mutual hostility more intense. At
first all were in sympathy with France. La Fayette sent the key
of the fallen Bastille as a gift to Washington. But the
Federalists were determined to maintain a strict neutrality in the
conflict between France and England. As the Revolution proceeded, a
strong antipathy was awakened in America to the radical theories, as
well as to the bloody deeds, of its promoters. This was enhanced by the
strenuous efforts of the French Republic, aided by the
Anti-Federalists, to induce the United States to take an active part in
the war, on the side of France. Genet, the French minister,
undertook to fit out privateers in Charleston. Washington issued
a proclamation of neutrality (1793), which was followed by a Neutrality
Act of Congress (1794). When Genet had the effrontery to appeal
from the President to the people, at the demand of Washington he
was recalled.
JAY'S TREATY.—The contest of parties reached its climax in connection
with Jay's Treaty with Great Britain (1794),—a treaty negotiated by
John Jay, chief justice, whom Washington had sent as
envoy to London. There were mutual grounds of complaint between the two
countries. The British had not surrendered the Western military posts,
and were in the habit of "impressing seamen." 'This last practice was
founded on the claim that a British subject can never become the
subject of another country, and that, moreover, his military service
may be always called for by his sovereign. When almost all Europe was
at war, the carrying trade naturally fell, to a large extent, into
American hands; hence, it was alleged, many English sailors deserted to
get employment in American ships. The British claimed and exercised the
right to visit foreign vessels, and to take from their decks the
sailors who were asserted to be British subjects. The English, on their
part, complained that the treaty stipulations as to debts due in
America to British subjects had not been observed. Jay's Treaty
provided for the giving-up of the Western posts, according to the
previous stipulation; but said nothing respecting the right of
impressment, which the British at that time would never have consented
to relinquish. It was alleged, also, that in other features the treaty
favored England unwarrantably, and unfairly in relation to France. It
encountered violent opposition from the Republicans; but it was
approved by Washington, and the legislative measures for
carrying it out were passed in the House of Representatives by a
slender majority, obtained through the eloquence of Fisher Ames,
a member from Massachusetts.
NEW STATES: INVENTIONS.—According to the census of 1790, there were
somewhat less than four millions of people in the United
States. Virginia was the most populous State; next to Virginia
stood Pennsylvania, then North Carolina, and, fourth in
order, Massachusetts. A little more than one-fifth of the
population were negro slaves. Vermont, the territory of which
had been claimed by both New York and New Hampshire, was the first new
State admitted to the Union (1791). A genius for mechanical invention
early manifested itself in the country. Eli Whitney invented the
cotton-gin (1792), for separating the seed from the fiber of the
cotton-plant,—a machine which indirectly lent a powerful impulse to
the production of cotton. In 1788 John Fitch was running a
steamboat on the Delaware River; but the construction of a steamboat
with side-paddles was due to the inventive talent of Robert
Fulton (1807). Emigration from the Atlantic border to the West took
three principal routes,—one from New England and New York, through the
valley of the Mohawk; the second, through the passes of the
Alleghanies; and the third, across the Blue Ridge to the rivers flowing
from the south into the Ohio. In 1792 Kentucky, settled mainly
by emigrants over the last-mentioned path, was made a State. The next
State to be admitted was Tennessee (1796). The new settlers
carried into the West the spirit and institutions of the several
communities which they had left. South of the Ohio, negro slavery was
introduced. A treaty with Spain (in 1795) secured the free navigation
of the Mississippi.
WASHINGTON'S RETIREMENT AND DEATH.—Washington himself was not
exempt from bitter partisan attack in public prints. On his retirement
from office, he prepared, with the assistance of Hamilton, a
Farewell Address to the people, in which he exhorted them to maintain
the Union as the only safeguard of liberty, and warned them against
"entangling alliances" with European powers. The deep and universal
sorrow which was felt when he died (1799) was a tribute as exalted as
any nation ever paid to a fallen hero and benefactor.
ADAMS: RUPTURE OF THE FEDERAL PARTY.—John Adams, a Federalist,
succeeded Washington as president; and Jefferson became
vice-president (1797). The French had seized a large number of American
vessels, on the pretense that they were affording aid to England. In
order, if possible, to prevent war, the President sent out a special
mission to France; but the commissioners—Pinckney,
Gerry, and Marshall—were told by the Directory that they
must pay money as a bribe before they could be received, and were
finally ordered to quit the country (1797). The phrase of
Pinckney, "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute,"
expressed the universal feeling. The report of the insulted envoys
roused the indignation of the American people, and moved Congress to
prepare for war. Washington was made general of all the forces
to be raised, and he appointed Hamilton to be second in
command. Hostilities had really commenced; the Federalists were eager
for a declaration of war; but President Adams, without the
knowledge of his cabinet, suddenly nominated to the senate another
ambassador to France. He had previously become assured that such a
messenger would be well received. Napoleon having come into
power, a treaty was concluded with him (1800). The course of the
President, however, gave mortal offense to the adherents of
Hamilton, and fatally divided the Federal party. Hamilton and
his supporters became wholly alienated from Adams, so that the
triumph of the Republicans was rendered certain.
"RESOLUTIONS OF '98."—The violence of the attacks upon the
administration, which were made partly by foreign emissaries, had
caused the Federalists (1798) to pass the alien and sedition
laws. The first authorized the President to order out of the
country aliens who were conspiring against its peace. Its operation was
limited to two years. The second punished seditious libels upon the
government with fine and imprisonment. These acts provoked a storm of
opposition. Under the auspices of Jefferson, and of
Madison, who was now one of his supporters, the Virginia
and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798-99 were passed by the
Legislatures of those States. These resolves affirmed the right of a
State to judge of the constitutionality and validity of an Act of
Congress. They were interpreted as an assertion of the extreme doctrine
of State rights.
PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA.—In 1800 Jefferson was elected to the
presidency, and Aaron Burr, a scheming politician of the
Republican school, was made vice-president.
At that time, and until the amendment of the Constitution (1804), the
electors voted for two persons, without designating either for the
presidency or the vice-presidency. The candidate having the highest
number of votes became president. As Jefferson and Burr had an equal
number, the choice between them for the highest office was made by the
House of Representatives.
The obnoxious laws of the preceding administration disappeared with
it. One of the most important events under Jefferson's
administration was the purchase of Louisiana from France, which
had acquired it from Spain. Napoleon knew that he could not keep
it from falling into the hands of England, and readily sold it for
fifteen millions of dollars. Thereby the territory of the United States
was doubled in its extent. The whole region between the Mississippi and
the Rocky Mountains, with New Orleans, was added to the country,
together with whatever claim France had to West Florida, Texas,
and the district west of the Rocky Mountains. Ohio, composed of
the south-eastern portion of the northwest territory, was admitted to
the Union in 1803.
In the first fifteen years after the government was organized, there
are four things that affected powerfully the character and career of
the United States. The first was the influence of Washington in
inspiring attachment to the Union. The second was the genius of
Hamilton in creating an efficient administration of the new
civil polity. The third was the democratic political tendency fostered
by Jefferson. The fourth was the vast expansion of the national
territory by the Louisiana Purchase, insuring the extension of the
Union, and preventing the rise of rival political communities in
its neighborhood.
WAR WITH THE ALGERINES.—The pirates of Algiers, Morocco, and
the other Barbary States, demanded tribute of American vessels on the
Mediterranean. The first exploits of the navy of the United States were
in combats with these marauders (1801-5). Decatur performed the
exploit of burning in the harbor of Tripoli the American ship
Philadelphia, which the Tripolitans had captured
(1804). Derne was captured, and Tripoli
bombarded. Finally a treaty put an end to the exaction of tribute
(1805).
An event that deeply moved the whole country was the killing of
Hamilton by Burr in a duel (1804). Burr was
afterwards charged with an intention to form a new government on the
south-western borders of the United States. He was tried for treason
(1807), and not convicted, although many have believed him to be
guilty.
CAUSES OF THE WAR OF 18l2-15.—The great European wars brought the
United States into serious difficulties, principally in regard to
questions relating to commerce. Attempts were made by the European
nations to establish blockades by mere enactment, without actual and
sufficient occupation of the ports which were declared to be
closed. The tendency of the British Orders in council, and of
Napoleon's Berlin and Milan Decrees (p. 528), was "to
grind to pieces the few remaining neutral powers." These were in effect
cut off from trade with both Continental and English ports by the
ordinances of one or the other of the two belligerents, the penalty
being the confiscation of the vessels employed in such traffic. Such
were the restrictions upon neutrals, that a great number of American
ships were seized and confiscated by English and French cruisers. In
addition to these grievances, the Leander, a British ship,
exercised the pretended right of impressment by firing on an American
trading-sloop (1806); and in like manner another British vessel, the
Leopard, fired on the frigate Chesapeake, which was not prepared
for resistance, and took four men from its crew (June 22, 1807). In
retaliation, Jefferson ordered all British ships of war to leave
the coast of the United States. Then followed the Embargo,
embracing a succession of enactments of Congress, which forbade
American vessels to leave the harbors of the United States for Europe,
and forbade European vessels to land cargoes in American ports. The
result of this measure was to smite American commerce with an utter
paralysis. The ships rotted at the wharves. The unpopularity of the
Embargo, especially in the Eastern commercial States, was such that in
Jefferson's second term it was repealed. It was followed (1809)
by the Non-Intercourse Act, prohibiting commerce with France and
England. The British Orders in Council were then, in a measure,
relaxed, as was the practical enforcement against our vessels of the
Berlin Decree. In 1812, the French rescinded their obnoxious
decrees; and the English immediately took the same step, but not soon
enough to prevent a war with the United States.
EVENTS OF THE WAR IN 1812 AND 1813.-James Madison, a wise and
moderate statesman of the Republican party, became president in
1809. He was personally averse to engaging in war with Great Britain;
but the exasperation of a large part of the country, and the pressure
of the younger leaders of his party,—Calhoun, Clay, and
Lowndes,—moved him to a reluctant consent. The war, which was
declared in 1812, was bitterly opposed in the New-England States, where
the strength of the Federalists chiefly lay. By them the real motive of
it was considered to be partiality for France. The treasury was nearly
empty; there were but few ships of war, and only a small land force of
about ten thousand men, made up in part of raw recruits. Before this
time, the North-western Indians, under Tecumseh, whom the
British were suspected of inciting to war, had been defeated at
Tippecanoe (1811), by William Henry Harrison, governor of
Indiana. The war with England opened inauspiciously with the surrender
of Detroit by Gen. William Hull to Gen. Brock (Aug. 16,
1812), and an unsuccessful attempt to invade Canada at
Queenstown. On the sea, however, the Americans had successes
which filled them with pride and exultation. Captain Isaac Hull,
of the frigate è_Constitution_, captured the British frigate
Guerrière, and brought his prisoners to Boston. Decatur,
captain of the United States, brought the Macedonian as a
prize into the harbor of New York. The Constitution destroyed
the Java; but the Chesapeake, whose captain was killed,
surrendered to the Shannon. Privateers were fitted out, which
captured several hundreds of British ships and several thousands of
prisoners. In 1813 Perry defeated the English fleet on Lake
Erie. His victory gave the Americans the command of Lake Erie and Lake
Michigan. Harrison defeated the British and Indians,—who had
been driven to abandon Michigan,—near the River Thames in
Canada. Except on the Lakes the navy was successful only in single ship
actions. The Americans had taken possession of Mobile, which
they as well as the Spanish claimed; but the Creek Indians were
incited by the Spaniards to engage in hostilities. Forces from
Tennessee, under Andrew Jackson, and troops from Georgia and
Mississippi, fought the Creeks with success.
THE WAR IN 1814-15.—In 1814 a third attempt of the Americans under
Gen. Brown, to invade Canada, produced no decisive result. There
was hard fighting. The British were routed at Chippewa; and they
were repulsed at Lundy's Lane, opposite Niagara Falls, by
Lieut. (afterwards General) Winfield Scott. Napoleon had
now been defeated; and the English sent twelve thousand troops, who had
served under Wellington in Spain, to Canada, to invade the
United States from the north, while another army was to make an
invasion by way of New Orleans. A fleet under Admiral
Cockburn sailed up the Potomac, and burned the Capitol and other
public buildings at Washington (Aug. 24, 1814). An attack was
made on Baltimore by a British fleet, but was bravely
repelled. The defeat of the British fleet near Plattsburg, on
Lake Champlain, by Commodore Macdonough (Sept. 11, 1814),
resulted in the retreat of the British army, which was besieging that
place, to Canada. New Orleans was defended by General
Jackson. The British under Pakenham and Gibbs
attacked his works, but were defeated and withdrew (Jan. 8, 1815). The
town was protected from the approach of the English fleet by the
fort. Before the battle, peace had been concluded, but the news had not
reached this country.
THE HARTFORD CONVENTION.—The antagonism to the war in the New England
States found expression in the call of a convention at
Hartford, where their delegates met (Dec. 15, 1814). These
States complained, that while their commerce and fisheries were ruined,
there was no protection afforded to their sea-coast. Stonington
in Connecticut had been bombarded, and Castine in Maine had been
captured. They denied, also, that the General Government had the power
over the State militia which it claimed. For these and other
grievances, they sought for a remedy "not repugnant to their
obligations as members of the Union." They declared that measures of
the General Government which are palpable violations of the
Constitution are void, and that the States injuriously affected might
severally protect their citizens from the operation of them, by such
means as the several States should judge it wise to adopt; but they
disavowed the right or intent to break up the Union. The effect of the
convention was to bring great popular discredit on the Federalists, and
to seal their doom as a distinct party.
TREATY OF PEACE: ALGIERS.—In the Treaty of Ghent (Dec. 24,
1814), provisions were made for defining boundaries as settled by
previous treaties, and an engagement was made on both sides to suppress
the slave-trade; but no mention was made of maritime rights and the
impressment of seamen. This last practice was, however, discontinued,
although it was never renounced. The war left the disputes that caused
it just where they were. Many then and since have regarded it as really
undertaken by the dominant party in the United States, in order to help
one of the belligerents in the great struggle then going forward
between England and France. Whether this view be just, or not, it is
certain that the war imparted to Americans the consciousness of power
and nationality. The connection between America and Great Britain was
broken off at the Revolution, because, as Turgot once said,
colonies are like fruits which only stay on the tree until they are
ripe. But the conflict was not over at the conclusion of the Peace of
1783. Bancroft has called the war of 1812-15 "the second war of
independence." Nothing lent it this character so much as the naval
victories won by the United States, which gave them a standing among
the nations. In 1815 a squadron under Decatur was sent to
Algiers, and the Barbary States were compelled to give up by
treaties all their demands.
CHAPTER VII. LITERATURE, ART, AND SCIENCE (1789-1815).
NEW SPIRIT IN LITERATURE.—In the latter part of the eighteenth and the
early part of the nineteenth centuries, literature broke away from the
artificial rules and the one-sided intellectual tone of the "classical"
school,—that school which had prevailed through the influence of the
French writers of the age of Louis XIV. The new era was marked
by more spontaneity, and a return to nature, and by a more free rein
given to imagination and feeling. "Romanticism," a general designation
of the results of this new movement as contrasted with the "classical"
period, sometimes ran out into extravagances of sentiment, and an
exaggerated relish for the mediaeval spirit.
WRITERS IN ITALY AND IN FRANCE.—In Italy, there were few writers of
distinction. Monti (1754-1828) was a poet full of harmony and
elegance, a follower, but with unequal steps, of
Alfieri. Another of the same school is the patriotic poet,
Ugo Foscolo (1778-1827), a master of his native tongue. The
poems of Pindemonte (1753-1828) are graceful and
pathetic. Leopardi (1798-1837) mingles sublimity with pathos. Of
the Italian historians of this period, Botta (1766-1837), who
published a history of the American Revolution, and histories of Italy,
is a clear writer, with a talent for vivid description. In France,
Chateaubriand (1768-1848), who figured both in political life
and as a prolific and brilliant author, by his Genius of
Christianity and many other productions gained great
celebrity,—more, however, by charms of style and sentiment, than by
weight of matter. Madame de Staël (1766-1817) was the daughter
of Necker. Between her and Napoleon there was a mutual
hostility. She wrote Corinne, Delphine,—"in which she idealizes
herself,"—a work on Germany, and various other productions. She
was versatile, vigorous in thought, and humane in her temper and
spirit. In philosophy, a believing and spiritual school, in opposition
to materialism, was founded by Maine de Biran (1766-1824),
Royer-Collard (1763-1846), and Benjamin Constant. De
Maistre (1754-1821) wrote ably on the side of authority and of the
Catholic Church.
ENGLISH POETRY.—Literature in England, especially in the department of
poetry, casting off the trammels of the classical school, in which
Dryden and Pope were foremost, entered on a new and
splendid era. Whether it dwelt on external nature or human passions and
experiences, it appealed to sensibility. It was no more exclusively, or
in the main, an address to the understanding. Cowper (1731-1800)
set the example of genuine naturalness, and of interest in nature and
in every-day life. Robert Burns, a Scottish peasant (1759-1796),
by his wonderful union of tenderness, passion, and humor, with poetic
fancy and simplicity of diction, was more than the poet of a single
nation. Wordsworth (1770-1850) blended in his poems a delight in
rural and mountain scenery, with a deep vein of pensive thought and
sentiment. If he wrote dull pages, even the severest critics allow that
in The Excursion there are most beautiful "oases in the desert;"
while in such poems as the Ode on the Power of Sound, the
Intimations of Immortality from the Recollections of Childhood,
and Laodamia, there are passages not excelled since Milton. A
more sustained fervor of feeling and imagination belonged to
Byron (1788-1824), who, notwithstanding his morbid egotism and
offenses against morality, combined passion with beauty, and was never
dull. Walter Scott (1771-1832) exhibited in his narrative poems
the spirit of the romantic school, with none of its sentimentality or
extravagance. Coleridge (1772-1834), the author of
Christabel and The Ancient Mariner, was a highly original
poet, as well as a philosopher. Southey (1774-1843), with less
genius, was a man of letters, prolific both in verse and in
prose. Shelley and Keats had a much higher gift of
imagination. Campbell, Rogers, and Moore are names of
distinction, although less illustrious than those of Wordsworth
and Coleridge, Scott and Byron. Walter Savage
Landor (1775-1864), a poet and the author of Imaginary
Conversations, and other prose writings, was master of a style of
extraordinary power and purity.
ENGLISH PROSE WRITERS.—In novel-writing, Miss Austen, Miss
Porter, and Miss Edgeworth preceded Walter
Scott. Waverley, the first in the series of Scott's
novels, appeared anonymously in 1814. In 1802 the Edinburgh
Review, the first of the noted critical quarterlies, began its
existence, under the editorship of Francis Jeffrey, and numbered
among its writers Brougham, Sydney Smith, and Sir James
Mackintosh. In 1809 the Quarterly Review, the organ of the
Tories as the Edinburgh Review represented the Whigs, began, with
Gifford for its editor. Among the essayists of that time, in a
lighter vein, were John Wilson ("Christopher North"), poet and
critic in one; and the genial humorist, the friend of Wordsworth and
Coleridge, Charles Lamb. John Foster (1770-1843) was an
original essayist on grave themes. In philosophy, Dugald Stewart
(1753-1828), a clear and fluent expositor, and Thomas Brown
(1778-1821), kept up the reputation of the Scottish school founded by
Reid. Burke, Alison, and Jeffrey wrote on beauty,
and on the taste for the beautiful. Mackintosh, a statesman of
liberal opinions, wrote on ethics. Coleridge, inspired by the
German thinkers Kant and Schelling, through his
philosophical fragments and theological essays did much to create a new
current in English philosophical and religious thought. Jeremy
Bentham (1748-1832) was less eminent as a metaphysician than as a
contributor, through his writings, to legislative reform.
AMERICAN WRITERS.—In America, the political writings of Adams,
Jefferson, Hamilton, Jay, Madison, Marshall, and Ames, have
a permanent value. Their letters and the letters of Washington
are written in clear and manly English. Lindley Murray
(1745-1826) published (1795) an English Grammar, which
superseded all others. In theology, there were a number of vigorous
thinkers and writers, such as the younger President Edwards, Samuel
Hopkins, Bellamy, Emmons, J. M. Mason, and Dwight. Dwight's
System of Theology was much read in England and
Scotland. Belles-lettres literature in America was in its
infancy. There was a triad of poets,—Trumbull, a humorous
writer (1750-1831), Joel Barlow (1755-1812), and Dwight
(1752-1817); all of them survivors of the school of Pope. Their
patriotic feeling was their chief merit, but Barlow and
Dwight each wrote one excellent hymn.
GERMAN AUTHORS.—One of the most versatile and stimulating of German
writers was Herder (1744-1803). Full of imagination and spirit,
he made his quickening influence felt as a theologian, critic,
philosopher, and philologist. His name is in some measure eclipsed by
the fame of his two great associates at Weimar, Goethe
(1749-1832) and Schiller (1759-1805). By the universality of his
genius, which was equally exalted in the sphere of criticism and of
original production, Goethe is, by common consent, the foremost of
German authors. His dramas, especially Tasso, Egmont, and
Faust, and his pastoral epic, Hermann and Dorothea, are
the most celebrated of his poems; but many of his minor pieces are
marked by exquisite harmony and beauty. Schiller, with less
repose and a less profound artistic feeling, yet from his humane
impulses and fire of emotion stands closer to the popular
heart. Körner (1791-1813), and Arndt (1769-1860), the
author of the song, "Where is the German's Fatherland," were patriotic
lyrists of high merit. Uhland (1787-1862) is a ballad-writer,
not surpassed in this species of composition by any of his
contemporaries. The "Romantic School," with its predilection for the
Middle Ages, included Novalis, Tieck, and also the two
brothers Schlegel, who were critics rather than poets. One of
the most unique and original of the German writers was Jean Paul
Richter (1763-1825), essentially a philosopher and moralist, yet
with a pervading element of humor and pathos.
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY.—In philosophy, the first name in the order of time
and of merit is that of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). The
Critique of Pure Reason is the most important of his
productions. He showed, against Hume, that the ideas of cause,
substance, self, etc., are not products of imagination, or due to a
mere custom of thought, but are from within, and are necessary
and universal. In the Critique of the Practical Reason he
found the real basis of faith in God, free-will, and immortality, in
our moral nature. On all the topics which he treated, he was both
earnest and profound. On the basis of a portion of his teaching,
subsequent speculative philosophers reared a system of idealism and
pantheism. Of these, the most celebrated are Fichte (1762-1814),
who held that the world external to the mind has no existence;
Schelling (1775-1854), who taught that nature and mind are at
bottom one and the same substance, in different manifestations; and
Hegel (1770-1831), who resolved all being into a realm of ideas,
a self-existent and self-developing thought-world.
Among the numerous writers in other departments in this period, the
brothers Alexander von Humboldt and William von Humboldt
were eminent,—the former in natural science and as an explorer; the
latter in political sciences, criticism and philology.
PAINTING AND SCULPTURE.—In Italy, a great sculptor—the greatest since
Michael Angelo—appeared in the person of Canova
(1757-1822); who, however, was equaled by an Englishman, John
Flaxman (1755-1826). An eminent follower of Canova was
Thorwaldsen (1770-1844), a Dane. Dannecker, a German
sculptor (1758-1844), excelled in portrait statues. Another German
sculptor, the founder of a school, was Rauch (1774-1857), whose
statues are faithful, yet idealized, likenesses. A famous French
painter in this period was David, whose pictures, in the classic
style, lack force and warmth. Many of his scholars attained to high
proficiency in the art. Horace Vernet (1789-1863) and Paul
Delaroche (1797-1856) chose their subjects from modern European
history. The modern German school of painting was founded by
Overbeck, Von Schadow, and Cornelius. The greatest
English painter after Hogarth was Sir Joshua Reynolds
(1723-1792), whose portraits have seldom, if ever, been
surpassed. Almost or quite on a level with him was Gainsborough
(1727-1788). Benjamin West (1738-1820) was by birth an American,
as was Copley, an artist of superior talents
(1739-1815). Lawrence (1769-1830) was a British painter whose
portraits have a high historical value. The greatest of the English
landscape painters was Turner (1775-1851).
John Trumbull (1756-1843), an American, painted spirited
battle-pieces, and miniature portraits of decided artistic
merit. Washington Allston (1779-1843), another American painter,
produced works admired for their warmth of color, and for the refined
feeling expressed in them.
MUSIC.—The great German musicians Haydn and Mozart were
followed by an equal or greater genius in music, Beethoven
(1770-1827). At the head of the school of German song-writers is
Schubert (1797-1828). One of the most popular of the German
composers was Weber (1786-1826).
PHYSICAL AND NATURAL SCIENCE.—The most brilliant discoveries in
astronomy were made by the French philosopher Laplace, whose
Mécanique Céleste made an epoch in that science. Dr. Thomas
Young (1773-1829) did much to explain the true theory of the tides,
and to confirm the undulatory theory of light. Others eminent in the
progress of optics are Fresnel (1788-1827), Biot,
Arago,—all French physicists,—and Sir David
Brewster. Lavoisier (1743-1794) infused a new spirit into
chemical science. Priestley (1733-1804) discovered oxygen and
other gases. Dalton (1766-1844) is the author of the atomic
theory of the composition of matter. Sir Humphry Davy added to
chemical knowledge, and, simultaneously with George Stephenson,
invented the safety-lamp for miners. Berzelius (1779-1848), a
Swedish chemist, and Gay-Lussac (1778-1850), a Frenchman, are
great names in the history of this science. Galvani, the
discoverer of animal electricity, and Volta, the inventor of the
galvanic pile, stimulated others to fruitful experiments in this branch
of study. Lamarck (1744-1829) was one of the first of the modern
advocates of the origin of species by development. Cuvier
(1769-1832), the greatest naturalist of modern times, made most
important observations in comparative anatomy, and "established many of
the positive laws of geology and paleontology." Geology first assumed
the place of a science through the labors of Werner (1750-1817),
a German mineralogist. There were two classes of geologists,—the
Neptunians, or Wernerians, who ascribed rocks to aqueous
deposition exclusively; and the Vulcanians, or
Huttonists,—adherents of the view of Dr. Hutton
(1726-1797) of Edinburgh,—who attributed many of them to the action of
fire. The Geological Society of London was founded in
1807. Among discoveries of practical utility in science, the discovery
of vaccination for the prevention of small-pox, by Jenner
(1749-1823), an English physician, is one of the most remarkable.
LITERATURE: See the lists on pp. 16, 359, 497; also President
A. D. White's list, with critical notes, attached to Morris's The
French Revolution and First Empire (in "Epochs of history"), and
Adams's Manual: the Histories of Alison (Tory), Louis Blanc, Carlyle,
Jomini, Fyffe, Stephens, Mahan, Chuquet. Aulard, Lavisse et Rambaud,
Histoire Gènèrale VIII., IX. Michelet (7 vols.), Mignet,
Morris, Von Sybel (4 vols.), Thiers, Taine, L. Haüsser; Madame de
Rémusat's Memoirs; Metternich's Memoirs (5 vols.),
Joyneville, Life and Times of Alexander I. (3 vols.); Seeley,
Life of Stein; Lowell, Eve of the French Revolution; on
Napoleon, Rose, Lanfrey, Sloane.
De Tocqueville's L'Ancien Règime et la Révolution; P. Janet's
Philosophie de la Révolution Française; Quinet, La
Rèvolution; The Essays on the Revolution, by Burke, Mackintosh,
Croker; Macaulay's Essays on Mirabeau and Barère; Lamartine's The
Girondists; A. Young's Travels in France in 1787-88-89
(London, 1794); Oncken, Das Zeitalter der Revolution des
Kaiserreiches (2 vols.); Sorel, L'Europe et la Rèvolution
Française (5 vols.); Debidour, Rapports de l'Église et de
l'Etat en France; Vandal, Napoléon et Alexandre
1st. Treitschke Deutsche Geschichte im neunzehnten
Fahrhundert (4 vols.).
Taine, History of English Literature; Mrs. Oliphant,
Literary History of England in the end of the 18th and beginning
of the 19th centuries; Allibone, Dictionary of British and
American Authors; Wendell, A Literary History of America.
PERIOD V. FROM THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA (1815) TO THE PRESENT TIME.
INTRODUCTION.
POLITICAL CHANGES IN EUROPE.—The aspiration of the peoples of Europe
after constitutional freedom and national unity, after the yoke of
Napoleon had been thrown off, was for a long season baffled. This was
owing partly to the lassitude natural after the protracted and
exhausting wars, and more to the combination of the principal
sovereigns, instigated by the love of power and the dread of
revolution, for the purpose of preventing the popular yearning from
being gratified. But in 1830—when half of the lifetime of a generation
had passed by—the overthrow of the old Bourbon line of kings in France
was the signal for disturbances and changes elsewhere on the
Continent. In England, at about the same time, there began an
era of constitutional and legislative reforms which effected a wider
diffusion of political power. In 1848—after a second interval of about
equal length—another revolutionary crisis occurred. At the same time,
movements in favor of communism and socialism brought in a new
peril. Alarm felt on this account, by the middle class in France, was
one important aid to the third Napoleon in reviving the empire
in France. The condition of Europe—in particular, the divided
state of Germany—enabled him to maintain a leading influence
for a score of years in European politics. The unification of
Germany, which began in the triumph of Prussia over Austria, was
completed in Napoleon's downfall through the
Franco-German war. The unification of Italy, to which
Louis Napoleon had contributed by the French alliance with
Sardinia against Austria, was consummated under Victor
Emmanuel, after his cooperation with Prussia in her great
struggle with Austria. Thus Germany and Italy
reached the goal to which they had looked with desire and hope at the
close of the Napoleonic wars in 1815.
AMERICA.—On the Western Continent, Mexico and the
South-American dependencies of Spain and Portugal gained their
independence in connection with political revolutions in the European
countries to which they had been attached. The United States, in
the enjoyment of peace, and favored by great material advantages,
advanced with marvelous rapidity in population and in wealth. Discord,
growing out of the existence of negro slavery in the South, brought on
at last the Civil War, which terminated in the conquest of the
Confederate States and their restoration to the Union, in the
freedom of the slaves, and in the prohibition of slavery by
Constitutional amendment.
MILITARY SYSTEM IN EUROPE.—During this period, in Europe there has
been a wide diffusion of popular education. But a serious hinderance in
the way of physical comfort and general improvement in the principal
European states has long existed, in the immense standing armies and
costly military system which their mutual jealousies and apprehensions
have caused them to keep up.
SCIENCE AND INVENTION.—This period outstrips all previous eras as
regards the progress of the natural and physical sciences, and of
invention and discovery in the practical applications of science. An
almost miraculous advance has taken place in the means of travel and of
transmitting thought. There has been an equally marvelous advance in
devising machinery for use in agriculture and manufactures, and in
connection with labor of almost every sort.
PEACE AND PHILANTHROPY.—The vast extension of commerce, with its
interchange of products, and the intercourse which is incidental to it,
has proved favorable to international peace. The better understanding
of economical science, by bringing to view the mischiefs of war and the
bad policy of selfishness, has tended in the same
direction. Philanthropy has manifested itself with new energy and in
new forms of activity. A quickened and more enlightened zeal has been
shown in providing for the infirm and helpless, and for mitigating the
sufferings of the soldier. Missionary undertakings, for the conversion
and civilizing of heathen nations, have been a marked feature of the
age.
SOCIALISM.—The "industrial age" had its own perils to confront. The
progress of manufactures and trade, the accumulation of wealth
unequally distributed, brought forward new questions pertaining to the
rights and reciprocal aggressions of laborer and
capitalist. Socialism, with novel and startling doctrines as to
the right of property, and to the proper function of the state,
inaugurated movements of grave concern to the order and well-being of
society.
CHAPTER I. EUROPE, FROM THE CONGRESS OP VIENNA (1815) TO THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION OF 1830.
GERMANY: THE HOLY ALLIANCE.—The years of peace which followed the
War of Liberation produced a signal increase of thrift and of
culture in Germany. But they brought also a grievous disappointment of
ardent political hopes. There was a feeling of national brotherhood,
which that struggle had engendered,—such a feeling as Germans had not
experienced for centuries before. Constitutional government and German
unity were objects of earnest desire. Frederick William III.,
the king of Prussia (1797-1840), had promised his people a
constitution. But the two emperors, Francis I. of Austria and
Alexander of Russia, together with Frederick William,
had, at the instigation of Alexander,—whose mind was tinged
with religious mysticism,—formed at Paris (Sept. 26, 1815) "the
Holy Alliance," a covenant in which they pledged themselves, in
dealing with their subjects and in their international relations, to be
governed by the rules of Christian justice and charity. They invited
all the potentates of Europe, except the Sultan and the Pope, to become
parties to this sacred compact. With the exception of George
IV., the Prince Regent of England, the sovereigns complied with the
request. This alliance, which was sincerely meant by Alexander,
was popularly confused with the alliance of Austria, Russia,
Prussia, England, and France, the aim of which was to
prevent further revolutions. Francis I., who lived until 1835,
was stubbornly averse to every movement that in the least favored
popular freedom and constitutional government. Supreme in his counsels
for a whole generation was Metternich, not a profound statesman,
but an expert diplomatist, who labored, generally with success, to
stifle every effort for an increase of freedom in Germany, and
elsewhere on the Continent. In the smaller German states, especially
those which had belonged to the Confederacy of the Rhine, there
was a disposition to found a constitutional system; but the Prussian
government followed in the wake of Austria, and Austria stood in the
way of every such innovation.
AGITATION AND REACTION.—The agitation for liberty was specially rife
among the students in the German universities. A demonstration by them
at the Wartburg (1817), in commemoration of Luther and of
the victory over Napoleon at Leipsic,—in which there were songs
and speeches, and a burning of anti-liberal books,—was noticed by the
Prussian and Austrian ministers; and the alleged revolutionary
movements of students were denounced by the Emperor
Alexander. This reactionary zeal was whetted by the murder of
Kotzebue, a German poet, who was hated as a tool of Russia and a
foe of liberty, and was assassinated by Karl Sand, a fanatical
Prussian student (March 23, 1819). Young Sand was executed for
the deed, but his fate drew out many expressions of pity and
sympathy. The Diet of the confederacy (Sept. 20, 1819) adopted what
were called the Carlsbad Resolutions, which provided for a more
rigid censorship of the press, committees of investigation to suppress
revolutionary agitation, and a strict supervision of the universities
by the governments. All the states were required to enforce these
regulations. The liberal party, the party of freedom and unity, still
subsisted, especially in the smaller states, where some of the princes,
as William I. of Würtemberg (1819-1864) and Louis
I. of Bavaria (1825-1848), entertained comparatively liberal
views.
FRANCE UNDER LOUIS XVIII.—The Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle
(1818) withdrew the army of occupation left by the allies in France.
The Pentarchy, or Five Great Powers, pledged themselves to the
continued maintenance of peace by means of conferences and
congresses. Louis XVIII. (1814-1824), although inactive, was not
void of good sense, and was disposed to accommodate himself to the
times. But the court party, with his brother the Count d'Artois
at its head, were unyielding in their despotic ideas. They were for
restoring the system of the old monarchy. The increase in the liberal
members of the Chamber, or legislative assembly, impelled
Richelieu, the head of the ministry, to resign (Dec., 1818). A
more liberal man, Decazes, succeeded him. He was supported by a
party which arose at this time, called Doctrinaires on account
of a certain pedantic spirit, and a disposition to shape political
action by preconceived theories or ideas, which was imputed to them. In
their ranks were Royer-Collard, Guizot, Villemain, Barante, and
others. They advocated a constitutional monarchy. Among the liberals
not affiliated with them was La Fayette, who encouraged the
Charbonniers, a secret society for promoting liberty, that had
its origin in Italy.
TYRANNY IN SPAIN.—In 1820 revolts broke out against the Bourbon
governments in Spain and Italy. Ferdinand VII. had
been restored to liberty by Napoleon in 1814, and had returned
to the Spanish throne. In 1812 the Cortes had established a
constitution with a system of parliamentary government, limited
prerogatives being left to the king. In favor of the new system were
the educated and enlightened class generally. But—as was not the case
in Germany—the uprising against Napoleon in Spain had owed its
strength very much to the ignorant and superstitious peasantry, who,
while they hated the foreign yoke, clung to the feudal and
ecclesiastical abuses which the French rulers in Spain, as far as time
and opportunity permitted, swept away. Ferdinand thus had a
strong support in his movement to bring back the former bigoted and
exclusive system. He wrested the national property from the holders to
whom it had been sold. He restored the Inquisition: not less than fifty
thousand individuals were imprisoned for their opinions. From his
tyranny ten thousand Spaniards escaped into France.
SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE.—The French usurpation in Spain cost that
country its American colonies. They would not submit to the French
sovereignty, and after its fall maintained their
independence. Buenos Ayres broke loose from Spain in 1810, and
in 1816 joined the Plate states in a confederation. Paraguay
declined a union with Buenos Ayres, and continued under the patriarchal
absolutism introduced by the Jesuits, Dr. Francia being its
ruler until his death (1840). Uruguay became a republic distinct
from Buenos Ayres in 1828. In the northern colonies, the principal hero
of the struggle for independence was Simon Bolivar, who sprang
from a noble Creole family. He first fought for the independence of
Venezuela (1810), but was made by New Granada its general in
1812, and became president of the two countries, which were united
under the name of Colombia (1819). Quito was now taken,
and Peru was set free from the Spanish rule. Upper Peru, in 1825, was
named, in honor of the "Liberator," Bolivia. He found it
impracticable to connect the different states in one confederacy, and
closed his eventful life in 1830. Colombia divided itself into
the three states, Venezuela, New Granada, and
Ecuador (1831).
MEXICAN INDEPENDENCE.—After the year 1808, there were various attempts
at revolution in Mexico. In 1821 its independence was achieved
by an insurrection under Iturbide, a native Mexican. He failed
in the effort to make himself emperor (1822); and the Republic of
Mexico was organized in 1824, and was recognized by the United States
in 1829.
MILITARY REVOLT IN SPAIN.—The loss of her American colonies, and the
efforts to restore them, reduced Spain to extreme poverty. In 1820 a
successful military insurrection, led by Quiroga, Riego,
and Mina, proclaimed anew the constitution of
1812. Ferdinand, who was capable of any amount of hypocrisy as
well as cruelty, swore to uphold it. The revolution was supported by
the intelligent class of people, but the defenders of it were split
into different parties. The clergy and the peasantry were arrayed on
the other side. Guerilla bands were organized under the name of the
"Army of the Faith."
CONGRESS OF VERONA.—The military revolt in Spain alarmed the Great
Powers. The three sovereigns were now leagued for the defense of "the
throne and the altar;" for Alexander, who had shown liberal
inclinations on the subject of the emancipation of the serfs, and even
towards Greece in its aspiration for independence, now recoiled
from every thing that savored of freedom. At the Congress of
Verona (Oct., 1822), the sovereigns resolved to interfere in
Spain. The Duke of Wellington declined to concur with them, and,
on his return from the congress, advised Louis XVIII. to take
the same course.
ENGLAND: CANNING.—George IV. (1820-1830) had been regent since
1810. Already unpopular, he became still more so in consequence of his
abortive effort (1820) to procure a divorce from Queen Caroline,
whom he had married at the demand of his father (1795). She was not
allowed to be present at his coronation. On account of the profligacy
of her husband, there was a strong sympathy with her, although she was
a coarse-minded woman. For a number of years after the Peace of 1815,
the English government resisted movements towards reform at home; and
in its foreign policy, under the guidance of Castlereagh, it
sustained the reactionary cause abroad. Disaffection towards the
ministers gave rise to a plot, contrived by some desperate men, to
destroy them in a body. It was detected; and Thistlewood, with
some of his confederates, was executed (1820). On the death of Lord
Castlereagh in 1822, Canning, a disciple of Pitt,
became foreign secretary. He adopted a more liberal policy, and worked
against the schemes of Metternich for interference in the affairs of
foreign states. He transferred England, says Guizot, "from the camp of
resistance and of European order into the camp of liberty."
THE REBELLION CRUSHED IN SPAIN.—The French unwisely rejected
England's advice. Louis XVIII. sent an army into Spain, under
the Duke of Angoulême, released Ferdinand at Cadiz, and
gave him the power to revoke all that he had done in favor of
liberty. The brave Riego was hung on a gibbet of enormous
height. The Spanish army was disbanded, and the "Army of the Faith"
took its place. Many thousands of constitutionalists were thrown into
prison. Canning recognized the republics of South America, lest
they, too, should fall under French control. It was his boast, that he
"called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the
Old."
PORTUGAL: BRAZIL.—The royal family of Portugal were residing in
Brazil when the Spanish revolution occurred. Portugal, in the
absence of King John VI., framed a liberal constitution. The
Brazilians were eager for independence from Portugal. John
decided to withdraw. Arrived in Portugal, he accepted the new
constitution; but the anti-revolutionary party rallied about his son
Dom Miguel, who was supported by his mother, a sister of
Ferdinand VII, of Spain. Dom Miguel was at length driven
into exile, and went to Vienna. Meantime Dom Pedro, a son
of John VI., had made himself emperor in Brazil by allying
himself with the constitutional party; and John was prevailed on
by the British, in 1825, to recognize the new South American empire.
NAPLES AND SICILY.—In all the eight principalities of Italy, except in
Tuscany, the misrule of the restored governments was galling to the
people, whose hope of freedom had been raised only to be cast
down. Everywhere the tyrannical influence of Austria was
dominant. The rulers in Italy were slavishly submissive to her will;
and any rising of the people, if not put down by them, was crushed by
Austrian forces sent down from Lombardy. Secret societies sprung up;
the chief of which, the Carbonari, aimed at national
independence, but beyond that cherished no definite, united
purpose. The Spanish revolution served as the occasion for a similar
rebellion of the soldiery of Naples. A new liberal constitution
was established, which Ferdinand IV. (July 13, 1820) solemnly
swore to maintain. The insurrection in Sicily aimed at independence,
but Palermo was surrendered to the revolutionary government of
Naples. The Neapolitan rebellion led to the Congress of
Troppau (Oct., 1820), which was transferred to Laybach
(Jan., 1821). There Austria, Prussia, and Russia formed a league, the
fruit of which was, that an Austrian army of sixty thousand men marched
into the South of Italy, and the revolution was
crushed. Ferdinand reëstablished his despotism, disbanded the
greater part of his army, and punished with exile, imprisonment, and
death the leading supporters of the constitution which he had taken an
oath to defend.
SARDINIA.—In Piedmont, the demand for a constitution and a rising at
Alessandria impelled Victor Emmanuel I. to abdicate in
favor of his brother, Charles Felix, who was favorable to
Austria and her policy. Prince Charles Albert,—a distant
cousin,—who had liberal views, held the regency for a few months; but
Charles Felix, on his return from Modena (Oct., 1821),
governed according to despotic principles. The contest in Italy between
"despots and conspirators" went on until the renewed outbreakings of
revolt in 1830.
THE GREEK INSURRECTION.—The weakness of Turkey emboldened the Greeks
to attempt to throw off the hated Ottoman yoke. The sultans had become
the puppets of their guards, the janizaries. One after another of them
had been dethroned by their soldiers. The pashas were insubordinate: in
Egypt, Mehemet Ali had almost made himself independent. Russia,
by the Peace of Bucharest in 1812, had possessed herself of
Bessarabia and of Eastern Moldavia as far as the
Pruth. Among the Greeks, who were not more than a million in
number, and were only one among the various peoples subject to Turkey,
there were formed Hetaireiai, or secret societies, for the
purpose of organizing an insurrection. The people were first summoned
to rise by Alexander Ypsilanti (1821). A "national congress"
promulgated a new constitution for Greece (1822). Great enthusiasm in
behalf of the Greek cause was awakened in most of the civilized
countries; but the Congress of Verona (1822), inspired by
Metternich, decided to give no help to the "insurgents." In the
war of the Greeks with the Turks, there were atrocities committed on
both sides. Scio was taken by the latter in 1822. Not far from
twenty thousand of the inhabitants were massacred, and twice that
number were enslaved. In 1824 the Greeks began to receive foreign
help. Among those who volunteered with a chivalrous sympathy to aid
them in their combat was Lord Byron, who died at
Missolonghi (1824). Nicholas I. of Russia, who in 1825
succeeded Alexander I., was more inclined to take an active part
in the Greek contest, as he considered himself the head of all
Christians of the Greek faith. The Sultan Mahmoud II., by
crushing the janizaries, strengthened himself at home, but weakened his
means of attack and defense abroad. In 1826 he made important
concessions to Russia; among other things, allowing her to
occupy the east coast of the Black Sea, and giving to her vessels a
free admission to Turkish waters.
GREEK INDEPENDENCE.—Mehemet Ali hoped to succeed
Mahmoud. His son Ibrahim had defeated the Greeks at
Navarino (1825). The next year, in conjunction with the Turks,
he captured Missolonghi. The apprehension that Nicholas
might seek to divide Turkey with Mehemet Ali caused the
Treaty of London to be concluded by the Great Powers which
founded the kingdom of Greece (July 6, 1827). England, Russia,
and France joined in executing the treaty. They destroyed the
Turkish-Egyptian fleet at Navarino (Oct. 20). Later,
Nicholas waged a separate war with the Porte, which was
terminated by the Peace of Adrianople (1829), when the latter
recognized the independence of Greece. The crown of Greece was accepted
in 1832 by Otho, son of Louis of Bavaria.
CHAPTER II. EUROPE FROM THE REVOLUTION OF 1830 TO THE REVOLUTIONARY
EPOCH OF 1848.
CHARLES X.—Louis XVIII. died in 1824. His brother, Charles
X. (1824-30), dealt generously with the collateral branch of the
Bourbons, the house of Orleans. He restored to Louis
Philippe, the son of that Philip Egalite whose base career
was ended by the guillotine (p. 512), the vast estates of the Orleans
family, and gave him the title of "Royal Highness." But he failed to
secure the cordial support of this ambitious relative. The Duke of
Orleans stood well with the king, but was on good terms with the
liberal leaders. The king sought to reinstate the ideas and ways of the
old régime. He was specially zealous in behalf of ecclesiastics,
and ceremonies of devotion. But liberal views in politics gained ground
in the second Chamber, as well as in the army and among the people. A
liberal ministry under Martignac was in power for a while; but
in 1829 it was succeeded by a ministry the head of which was the
unpopular Prince Polignac, and the other principal members of
which were hardly less obnoxious. They represented the extreme
reactionary and royalist party. Their active opponents—Guizot,
Thiers, and Benjamin Constant among them—found that
their assaults on the government were generally applauded. All of these
were brilliant political writers. Constant (from 1825) had been
the leader of the opposition. Thiers was a journalist of wide
influence. Guizot had held office under the liberal ministers,
and as lecturer on modern history, and by his writings, had laid the
foundation of the great distinction which he deservedly gained, as one
of the foremost students and expounders of history in recent
times. Thiers and Guizot were at this time united in the
advocacy of a constitutional system, as opposed to the reactionary
policy and the personal government to which the king and his ministers
were committed. Later we shall see that the paths of these two
statesmen diverged. In 1830 Guizot was the opposition leader in
the Chamber of Deputies. In the Chamber of Peers, the ministry was
attacked by Chateaubriand, who had been a valuable supporter of
the Bourbon cause, and by others. The Chambers were dissolved by the
king. The capture of Algiers, in a war against the piratical
power of which it was the seat, did not avail to lessen the growing
hostility to his government. It found expression through the press and
in speeches at a great banquet.
ORDINANCES OF ST. CLOUD.—Taking advantage of the provision in the
charter which gave extraordinary powers to the king for special
emergencies (p. 537), the ministry took the fatal step (July 25, 1830)
of issuing the "ordinances of St. Cloud," dissolving the Chamber of
Deputies, further restricting the suffrage so that many merchants and
manufacturers lost this privilege, and reëstablishing the censorship
of the press in a peculiarly burdensome form.
THE JULY REVOLUTION.—The ordinances were published on July 26. That
evening Prince Polignac's windows were broken by a mob. The
whole city of Paris was in a tumult. The liberal journals
protested. There were collisions between the mob and the king's
troops. A protest of the liberal deputies, who met at the house of
Casimir Perier, was issued. In the night the people armed
themselves. La Fayette arrived in Paris. On the 28th students,
workmen, and all classes of citizens, armed themselves with whatever
weapons they could lay hold of. The revolutionists took possession of
the Hôtel de Ville. The cry was that the charter was violated. All
efforts to induce the king to make concessions failed. Many of the
soldiers in Paris fraternized with the people, who on the 29th had
control of the whole city, except the vicinity of the Tuileries, which
they gained possession of that evening. La Fayette, at the call
of the deputies, assumed command of the National Guard. Finally, when
it was too late, the king decided to withdraw the ordinances, and to
change the ministry. Thiers and Mignet caused anonymous
placards to be posted, proposing that the Duke of Orleans should
take the crown from the people. On the 30th Louis Philippe
entered Paris on foot: he had passed the summer at his country place at
Neuilly. Talleyrand,—whose influence was great with
foreign courts,—Lafitte, and Thiers were active in the
effort to advance him to the throne. The deputies decided that he must
be made lieutenant-general of the kingdom. Charles X., who still
blindly confided in him, on the 31st appointed him to this office. What
the intentions of Louis Philippe were, is not clear. He probably
meant to be governed by circumstances. On the 29th a municipal
commission was installed at the Hôtel de Ville, consisting of La
Fayette and six other leading men. They selected several persons as
officials whose authority was generally acknowledged. Louis
Philippe, at the head of the deputies, went to the Hôtel de
Ville. He was cordially received by La Fayette and his
associates. It was agreed that there should be "a popular throne, with
free institutions." On the balcony, under the tri-color flag, the Duke
of Orleans was introduced as "the man of the people." La
Fayette felt that a republic would be contrary to the national
wish. Thiers was of the same mind. They feared complications and
contests abroad, and what might be the results of general suffrage, in
the existing state of the country, at home.
FLIGHT OF CHARLES X.—The desertion of Charles X. by his troops
would have rendered an armed contest on his part impracticable. The
dexterous management of Louis Philippe was made effectual by the
favoring circumstances. On Aug. 2 the king abdicated in favor of his
grandson, the Duke of Bordeaux, and was compelled to fly from
the kingdom. The volunteer army had been stirred up to go out to
Rambouillet to drive him away. The angry old king did not wait
for their coming.
LOUIS PHILIPPE MADE KING.—The Chamber of Deputies declared the throne
vacant. They altered the charter,—putting all religious bodies on a
level, giving freedom to the press, limiting the powers of the king,
and giving to the Chambers, as well as to him, the initiative in
framing laws. They chose Louis Philippe "King of the French."
He owed his elevation to the middle classes, and claimed to be the
"citizen king."
SEPARATION OF BELGIUM.—The effect of the new revolution was to set in
motion the elements of discontent in the other European
countries. Belgium was the first to feel the shock. The Belgians
were restless under the rule of William I., whose treatment of
them aggravated the disaffection which their political relation to
Holland constantly occasioned. A revolt broke out at Brussels.
The offer of a legislative and administrative separation of
Belgium from Holland, with one king over both, might have
been accepted if it had been made earlier; but it followed unsuccessful
efforts to quell the insurrection by force. A provisional government
was created at Brussels, which proclaimed the independence of
Belgium (Oct. 4), and convoked a national congress. France
confined itself to preventing the interference of foreign powers. A
conference of ministers at London (Jan., 1831) recognized the
new state, which adopted a liberal constitution. Leopold I. of
Saxe-Coburg was chosen king. He was aided by the forces of the
French; but the war with Holland lasted until 1833, and it was not
until 1839 that Holland definitely accepted the action of the London
congress.
POLAND.—Poland was harshly ruled for the Czar by the Grand Duke
Constantine. The revolution in France was the signal for a
Polish rising, that began in an unsuccessful attempt of students and
others to seize the person of the grand duke. The insurrection spread:
men of talents and distinction, as well as Polish soldiers, joined the
cause of the people. The Czar, Nicholas, would make no terms
with the insurgents, and the Diet (Jan. 25, 1831) declared him to have
forfeited the Polish crown. The Poles fought with desperate valor in a
series of bloody battles, only to be overwhelmed by superiority of
numbers. They were defeated at Ostrolenka by Diebitsch
(May 26). After his death, Warsaw surrendered to
Paskievitch (Sept. 8), and another Russian general entered
Cracow. Poland was now reduced, as far as it could be, to
a Russian province. The army was merged in the Russian forces; the
university was suppressed; the Roman Catholic religion, the prevailing
faith, was persecuted; and it was computed that in one year (1832)
eighty thousand Poles were sent to Siberia.
GERMANY: HUNGARY.—In Saxony and in the minor states of Germany,
disturbances were consequent on the tidings of the revolution at
Paris. Prussia and Austria were little affected by it; but the demands
of the Diet in Hungary, when Ferdinand, the son of
Francis I. was crowned king of that country, were an augury of a
far greater commotion to arise at a later day. In the Diet of 1832
Louis Kossuth first appeared as a member. Between the years 1828
and 1834, the German states (not including Austria), under the guidance
of Prussia and Bavaria, formed a Zollverein, or customs-union,
which was an important step in the direction of German unity, and one
which Austria looked on with disfavor.
ITALY.—In 1831, there were signs of revolt in different states of
Italy. At Modena, a provisional government was erected. The same
thing was done at Bologna. Maria Louisa was driven out of
Parma. Among those who joined the insurgents in the Papal
Kingdom were Napoleon and his younger brother Louis
Bonaparte, sons of Louis Bonaparte king of Holland. The
elder of the sons died soon after at Forli. The Italians relied
on the help of Louis Philippe, but the citizen king had no
disposition to engage in war with Austria. The uprisings were
put down with the assistance of Austrian troops. Charles Albert,
after April, 1831, king of Sardinia, did a good work in the
discipline of his army. Without any esteem for Austria, he refused to
further the plans of the revolutionary party, and thus incurred the
hostility of Mazzini, who was organizing the movement of "Young
Italy" for independence and unity. Mazzini, a man of elevated
spirit and disinterested aims, was long to be known as the head of the
republican patriots and plotters.
ENGLAND.—In England, reform went forward peacefully. The middle
class gradually obtained its demands. The national debt, at the close
of the wars with Napoleon, amounted to nearly eight hundred millions of
pounds. In 1823, with the accession of Mr. Huskisson to office,
began the movement for a more free commercial policy, which led in the
end to the repeal of the corn-laws. The question of "Catholic
disabilities" was agitated from time to time, and something had been
done to lighten them. Yet in 1828 Catholics were still shut out by law
from almost every office of trust and distinction. They could not sit
in either house of Parliament. The endeavors of liberal statesmen for
their relief were defeated by the Tory majorities. The agitation was
increased by the "Catholic Association" formed in Ireland by the Irish
leader and orator, Daniel O'Connell. A Tory ministry was formed
by the Duke of Wellington, with Mr. (afterwards Sir)
Robert Peel for its chief supporter in the House of Commons
(1829). Yet, to avert the danger of civil war, the ministry introduced,
and with aid of the Whigs carried, the "Catholic Emancipation Bill."
THE REFORM BILL.—On the death of George IV., William
IV., his brother (1830-1837), succeeded to the throne. He was
favorable to parliamentary reform. The ferment on this subject caused
the resignation of the Wellington ministry, which was succeeded
by the ministry of Earl Grey. A bill for reform was presented to
Parliament, depriving eighty-eight "rotten or decayed" boroughs, where
there were very few inhabitants, of a hundred and forty-three members
of the House of Commons, who were given to counties or to large towns,
such as Birmingham and Manchester, which had no
representation. At the same time the franchise was greatly
extended. The bill was strenuously resisted by the Tories, who now
began to be called Conservatives. Its repeated rejection by the
House of Lords caused a violent agitation. Finally, in 1832, when it
was understood that the king would create new peers enough to pass the
measure, it was carried in the upper house, and became a law.
SLAVERY ABOLISHED.—In 1833 the system of slavery in the British
colonies was abolished, twenty million pounds being paid as a
compensation to the slave-owners. This measure was the result of an
agitation in which Wilberforce, Clarkson, and
Buxton had been foremost.
In the latter part of the eighteenth century, a strong feeling arose
against the slave-trade. Granville Sharp (1734-1813) was one of
the earliest promoters of its abolition. By his agency, in the case of
a negro,—Somerset,—claimed as a slave, the decision was
obtained from Lord Mansfield, that a slave could not be held in
England, or carried out of it. The Quakers were early in the field in
opposition to the traffic in slaves. In the House of Commons,
Wilberforce, a man of earnest religious convictions and one of
the most eloquent orators of his time, contended against it for
years. His friend Pitt, and Fox, joined him in 1790. The
measure of abolition was carried in 1807. Then followed the agitation
for the abolition of slavery itself. The slave-trade was made illegal
by France in 1819. It had been condemned by the Congress of Vienna. In
the French colonies, slavery continued until 1848.
LEGAL REFORMS.—In the same year the monopoly of the East-India Company
was abolished, and trade with the East was made free to all
merchants. A new Poor Law (1834) checked the growth of
pauperism. In 1835, by the Municipal Corporations Act, the
ancient rights of self-government by the towns, which had been lost
since the fourteenth century, were restored to them. Civil marriage was
made legal, in compliance with a demand of the Dissenters, who were
likewise relieved of other grounds of complaint (1836). Increased
attention began to be paid to popular education.
CHARTISM.—Notwithstanding the constitutional changes in England, the
distress and discontent of the poorer classes occasioned the riotous
"Chartist" movement in 1839, when universal suffrage, annual
parliaments, and other radical changes were in vain demanded. Mass
meetings were held, and outbreakings of violence were feared; but order
was preserved.
CHINA: AFGHANISTAN.—A war with China (1839) had no better ground than
the refusal of the Chinese government to allow the importation of
opium. The occupation of Kabul in 1839 caused a general revolt
of the Afghans. A British army was destroyed in the Khyber
Pass. The British then conquered, but did not care to retain,
Afghanistan.
REPEAL OF THE CORN LAWS.—Victoria, the only child of the Duke
of Kent, the brother of William IV., succeeded the latter in
1837. She married her cousin, Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
(1840). In 1846 the party which had long advocated free trade gained a
triumph in the repeal of the Corn Laws, which had existed since
1815, imposing duties on imported grain. In the agitation which
preceded the repeal, Richard Cobden was the leader: he was
effectively aided by John Bright. But the measure was carried by
Sir Robert Peel, who on this question abandoned his former views
and those of the Conservatives, by whom he had been raised to power. He
was bitterly assailed, especially by D'Israeli, who was rising
to the position of a leader among them.
LOUIS PHILIPPE.—Louis Philippe made up his first ministry from the
party which had raised him to the throne. Among its members were
Broglie, Guizot, and Casimir Périer. The king
aimed by shrewd management to maintain his popularity at home, and to
keep the peace with foreign powers, by taking care to encourage liberal
movements abroad, yet without taking any step in that direction which
would bring on war. He did nothing for the Poles in their mortal
struggle, and nothing really effectual for the Italians. Several
abortive attempts upon his life were made by secret societies; one of a
dangerous character, by Fieschi (1835), who fired "an infernal
machine" from his window when the king was passing. This was followed
by the "Laws of September," to curb the license of the press. They
reminded the public of the royalist laws of 1820. They were opposed by
the more liberal men: Royer-Collard and Villemain spoke
against them. They went by the name of the "Fieschi laws." An effort to
raise an insurrection among the French troops in Strasburg was
made by Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (1836), who, after his flight
from Italy, had resided in Switzerland, where he had busied himself in
study, and had written several books. The enterprise proved a
ridiculous failure: its author was allowed to go to America.
FRENCH POLICY IN THE EAST.—Various causes conspired to undermine
Louis Philippe's government. One of these was its connection
with the war of Mehemet Ali with the Sultan. In the former war
with his over-lord, the Sultan, the viceroy of Egypt had been invested
with Syria as a fief. He now sent an army into Syria, under his
son Ibrahim, who overran that country, advanced victoriously
into Asia Minor, and threatened Constantinople (1832). The
European powers intervened, and obliged Mehemet Ali to content
himself with Syria, together with the district of Adana in Asia
Minor, and the island of Candia, which the Sultan had ceded to
him before. In 1839 the Sultan tried to recover Syria, but encountered
an overwhelming defeat, and lost the entire Turkish fleet. England now
combined with Austria, Prussia, and Russia, and the Western powers once
more saved the Turkish Empire; although France, under the ministry of
Thiers, had strongly favored the cause of Mehemet Ali
(1840). Contrary to the wish of the French, he had to give up Syria. He
secured for himself and his descendants the pashalic of Egypt
(1841). The failure of the French policy in the East, by this action of
the Quadruple Alliance, caused indignation and chagrin in
France. Even Thiers, who was in sympathy with the cause of
Mehemet Ali, was loudly blamed. There was danger of a rupture with
England. Thiers was a principal author of the plan for
fortifying Paris by encircling the city with forts. The king judged
that they might prove to be of use in putting down
insurrections. Louis Napoleon thought the occasion favorable for
another attempt to seize the crown. He landed from England at
Boulogne with a few followers, and proclaimed himself
emperor. He was captured, tried, and imprisoned in the fortress of Ham,
where he spent six years. His time there was mostly given to study and
writing. A few months before this attempt of Louis Napoleon, the
French government had arranged for the bringing of the body of the
first Napoleon from St. Helena to Paris. It was
one of various impolitic measures, in which Thiers was actively
concerned, for doing honor to the emperor and his military
achievements. But at that time Louis Napoleon, who was known to
be a man of slow mind, but whose capacity for intrigue was not
understood, was regarded with contempt, and the Bonapartists excited no
alarm. In 1841, in the presence of the royal family and of a vast
concourse, the remains of Napoleon were deposited with great
pomp in a magnificent tomb under the dome of the Church of the
Invalides. Marshal Soult superseded Thiers at the head of
the ministry (1840); but Guizot was the ruling spirit in the
cabinet, and was associated with the king until his dethronement. The
death of the Duke of Orleans, the eldest son of Louis
Philippe, by a fall from his carriage (July 13, 1842), endangered
the new dynasty. The duke's eldest son, the Count of Paris, was
then only four years of age.
GUIZOT'S ADMINISTRATION.—From 1840 Guizot was the principal
minister of Louis Philippe, and Thiers was in the
opposition. They differed both as regards foreign and domestic
policy. Thiers, who in his convictions was a decided liberal,
and in full sympathy with the spirit of the French Revolution, was for
the extension of suffrage, and for making the influence of France felt
and respected in matters of European concern, even at the risk of war.
Guizot, on the contrary, clung to the English alliance, and he
considered that a foreign war—for example, in defense of Mehemet
Ali,—would be to France a great and needless calamity. Claiming to
be a fast friend of representative government, Guizot
nevertheless inflexibly resisted movements for the extension of popular
rights,—movements which he believed would lead, if they were not
withstood, to revolution and anarchy. On the one hand were the
legitimists, aiming at the restoration of the elder branch of the
Bourbons; on the other hand there were the republicans, who wished to
be rid of monarchy altogether. The government of Louis Philippe
satisfied neither. It served as a transition, or temporary
halting-place, in the progress of France towards the goal of rational
and stable republicanism, to which the great Revolution tended. It was
an "attempt to put new wine in old bottles." This inherent weakness of
the Orleans rule, it would have been difficult by any means to
neutralize in such a way as to avert, sooner or later, a
catastrophe. The unbending conservatism of Guizot—as seen, for
instance, in his refusal to extend suffrage—hastened this result. A
government over which less than half a million of voters of the middle
class alone had an influence, could not stand against the progressive
feeling of the country. The middle class, on which the throne depended,
became separated from the advanced party, to which the youth of France
more and more rallied. Guizot was personally upright; but
official corruption was suffered to spread in the last years of his
administration, and bribery was used in the elections. These
circumstances, added to the mortification of national pride from the
little heed paid to France by the other powers, weakened the
throne. The failure of the government to support the cause of liberty
in Poland and Italy was another important source of its
growing unpopularity.
Guizot, in the personal Memoirs written by him after the
fall of Louis Philippe, has defended himself against the charge
of a want of loyal support of Thiers, the head of the ministry,
while he (Guizot) was ambassador to England (1840). There was a private
understanding that he should go no farther than his sympathy with the
views of Thiers extended. Guizot has undertaken, also, to
show that a war in behalf of Mehemet Ali would have been most
unwise; and that it was for the interest of France to regain its weight
in European affairs, not by the renewal of the bloody and fruitless
contests of the past, but by methods of peace. He deemed it his duty
not to give way to the "warlike tastes and inclinations" of the French
people. The effort, however, to tie down so spirited a nation to so
tame a policy, proved to be futile. The recollections of the empire,
which the government itself did so much to arouse, moved the people to
compare the achievements of the past with the humiliating position of
their country under the Orleans rule.
Guizot has left this interesting exposition of his principles and
policy: "In the diplomatic complication which agitated Europe, I saw
a brilliant opportunity of exercising and loudly proclaiming a
foreign policy, extremely new and bold in fact, though moderate in
appearance, the only foreign policy which in 1840 suited the peculiar
position of France and her government, as also the only course in
harmony with the guiding principles and permanent wants of the great
scheme of civilization to which the world of to-day aspires and
tends.
"The spirit of conquest, of propagandism, and of system, has hitherto
been the moving cause and master of the foreign policy of states. The
ambition of princes or peoples has sought its gratification in
territorial aggrandizement. Religious or political faith has
endeavored to expand by imposing itself. Great heads of government
have attempted to regulate the destinies of nations according to
profound combinations, the offspring rather of their own thought than
the natural result of facts. Let us cast a glance over the history of
international European relations. We shall see the spirit of
conquest, or of armed propagandism, or of some systematic design upon
the territorial organization of Europe, inspire and determine the
foreign policy of governments. Let one or other of these impulses
prevail, and governments have disposed arbitrarily of the fate of
nations. War has ever been their indispensable mode of action.
"I know that this course of things has been the fatal result of men's
passions; and that, in spite of those passions and the evils they
have inflicted on nations, European civilization has continued to
increase and prosper, and may increase and prosper still more. It is
to the honor of the Christian world, that evil does not stifle
good. I know that the progress of civilization and public reason will
not abolish human passions, and that, under their impulse, the spirit
of conquest, of armed propagandism, and of system, will ever
maintain, in the foreign policy of states, their place and
portion. But, at the same time, I hold for certain that these various
incentives are no longer in harmony with the existing state of
manners, ideas, interests, and social instincts; and that it is quite
possible to-day to combat and restrain materially their empire. The
extent and activity of industry and commerce; the necessity of
consulting the general good; the habit of frequent, easy, prompt, and
regular intercourse between peoples; the invincible bias for free
association, inquiry, discussion, and publicity,—these
characteristic features of great modern society already exercise, and
will continue to exercise more and more, against the warlike or
diplomatic fancies of foreign policy, a preponderating
influence. People smile, not without reason, at the language and
puerile confidence of the Friends of Peace, and of the
Peace Societies. All the leading tendencies, all the most
elevated hopes of humanity, have their dreams, and their idle, gaping
advocates, as they have also their days of decline and defeat; but
they no less pursue their course; and through all the chimeras of
some, the doubts and mockeries of others, society becomes
transformed, and policy, foreign and domestic, is compelled to
transform itself with society. We have witnessed the most dazzling
exploits of the spirit of conquest, the most impassioned efforts of
the spirit of armed propagandism; we have seen territories and states
molded and re-molded, unmade, re-made, and unmade again, at the
pleasure of combinations more or less specious. What survives of all
these violent and arbitrary works? They have fallen, like plants
without roots, or edifices without foundation. And now, when
analogous enterprises are attempted, scarcely have they made a few
steps in advance when they pause and hesitate, as if embarrassed by,
and doubtful of, themselves; so little are they in accord with the
real wants, the profound instincts, of existing society, and with the
persevering, though frequently disputed, tendencies of modern
civilization…. I repeat, our history since 1789, our endless
succession of shocks, revolutions, and wars, have left us in a state
of leverish agitation which renders peace insipid, and teaches us to
find a blind gratification in the unexpected strokes of a hazardous
policy. We are a prey to two opposing currents,—one deep and
regular, which carries towards the definite goal of our social state;
the other superficial and disturbed, which throws us here and there
in search of new adventures and unknown lands. Thus we float and
alternate between these two opposing directions,—called towards the
one by our sound sense and moral conviction, and enticed towards the
other by our habits of routine and freaks of imagination."
(Memoirs of a Minister of State, from the year 1840 pp. 7-9,
10.)
THE KING'S AVARICE.—The imputation of avarice to Louis Philippe was
one source of his increasing unpopularity. On his accession he had
handed over to his children the estates of the house of Orleans, in
order that, as private property, they might not be forfeited with the
loss of the crown. He was not content with increasing his wealth by
adding to it all the possessions of Charles X. and of the
Duke of Bourbon, but it was discovered that he was engaged in
business ventures. In providing for ample marriage settlements for his
children, he resorted to devices which gave offense to the Chamber of
Deputies and to the public. Yet writers like Martin, who are
strongly averse to his method of rule, clear him of blame in these
particulars, if he is to be judged by what is usual in a monarchical
system.
THE SPANISH MARRIAGES.—An event of consequence in relation to the fall
of Louis Philippe from power was the affair of the Spanish marriages,
which took place under the ministry of Guizot. The Duke de
Montpensier, the youngest son of the king, was married to the
sister of Isabella II. of Spain. The design, it was believed,
was, in the anticipated childlessness of the queen, to secure for his
heirs the Spanish crown.
Ferdinand VII. of Spain was an absolutist; but the extreme
monarchical party there wished for a king of more energy, and desired
to raise to the throne his brother Don Carlos. In 1830
Ferdinand, being then childless, was induced by his wife, the
daughter of Ferdinand IV. of Naples, to abrogate the Salic law
excluding females from the succession. Her daughter Isabella was
born a few months later. After the death of the king (1833), the
Carlists resisted the exclusion of their favorite from the
throne. Don Carlos was proclaimed in the Basque provinces, and a
civil war arose. The queen, Maria Christina, as regent, was
supported by the moderados (moderates) and the liberals, and was
allowed to recruit for her army in England and France. The leading
constitutionalist general, Espartero, was successful; and Don
Carlos fled into France (1839). The queen regent allied herself
with the conservative wing of the progressive party (the
moderados); but insurrections at Barcelona and
Madrid, in the interest of the radical wing, obliged her to make
Espartero, the head of the movement, prime minister (1840). His
administration greatly promoted the prosperity of the country. But the
conservatives and absolutists were against him; and, as the result of a
counter-insurrection, Gen. Narvaez, the leader of the
conservatives, became chief of the cabinet (1844); but he was dismissed
two years later. The constitution was divested of some of its liberal
features. The queen, Isabella II., had been declared of age by
the Cortes, and placed on the throne (Nov. 10, 1843). Christina,
her dissolute mother, returned from France, whither she had fled. In
the hope of securing the Spanish throne to the Orleans family, Louis
Philippe arranged with Christina to effect a marriage
between Isabella and a weakling in body and mind, Francis de
Assis; and, at the same time, a marriage of his son, the Duke de
Montpensier, with her sister Maria Louisa (Oct. 10,
1846). An Orleans prince would not have acquired the crown, even if
Louis Philippe had remained on the French throne, since a daughter was
born to Isabella in 1851.
There was loud complaint in England against the king and Guizot,
for the alleged violation of a promise in this affair. Their defense
was that Lord Palmerston, who succeeded Aberdeen, took a
very different position from that of this minister, which had been the
condition of the engagement. It was from Palmerston's action
previously in the affair of Egypt, that the French were embittered, the
English alliance was weakened, and the policy of Guizot, who was
sincerely desirous to maintain this friendly relation, was discredited
at home.
FALL OF LOUIS PHILIPPE.—The scarcity of provisions in 1846 and 1847
provoked much discontent in France. "Bread riots" broke out in various
places. The liberal party, composed of diverse elements, organized
committees as one of their instruments of agitation in behalf of
political reform. The democratic and socialistic journals published
inflammatory discussions and appeals. The complaint of corruption among
officials grew louder. Communism had numerous votaries; and M. Louis
Blanc was an apostle of socialism,—the theory that the government
should furnish work and maintenance to all of its subjects. Great
reform banquets were held, where the spirit was inimical to
Guizot,—who would yield nothing to the popular clamor,—and
hostile to the reactionary policy of the Orleans monarchy. The spark
that kindled the flames of revolution was the prohibition by
Guizot of a great reform banquet appointed to be held on the 22d
of February, 1848, in the Champs Elysées, in which a hundred
thousand persons were expected to participate. On that day barricades
were thrown up in the streets, and there were some conflicts with the
municipal guard. These disturbances continued on the next day. The
king, who did not lack physical courage, evinced no firmness or
boldness in this crisis, dismissed Guizot as a peace-offering,
and called upon Count Molé to form a cabinet. Molé
declined; the riotous disturbances increased; and Thiers, on the
promise of the king to consent to the reforms demanded, undertook, when
it was too late, to take office, and try to pacify the people. Soldiers
began to fraternize with the mob. The king showed no spirit, but
abdicated in favor of his grandson, the Count of Paris. The
Duchess of Orleans presented her two sons, the count and his
brother, before the Chamber of Deputies. But the motion for a
provisional government prevailed (Feb. 24). It consisted of Dupont
de l'Eure, Lamartine the poet, Arago, Ledru-Rollin, and six
associates. It established itself in the Hotel de Ville. This act, and
the firmness and eloquence of Lamartine, prevented the
establishment of an ultra-republican, socialistic Directory. The middle
classes, alarmed on account of the displays of mob violence, rallied to
the support of Lamartine and the party of order. Louis
Philippe and his family were allowed to escape to England. There
Guizot temporarily took up his abode. After a year, this "last
of the Huguenots" returned to France, where he died in 1874.
CONTEST WITH SOCIALISTS.—A concession was made to the socialists in
the establishment of government workshops, which turned out to be not
workshops at all, but mere excavations. A mob of the Red Republicans
was checked (April 16) by the National Guards. The National Assembly
voted for a republic. Another mob of socialists and communists was
suppressed (May 15). But the great contest came (June 23-26) when the
government dismissed a part of those given employment on public
works. The battle was severe; but the government troops under the
command of a patriotic general, Cavaignac, who was made dictator
during the struggle, subdued the insurgents. He was now appointed
president of the council, or chief of the executive commission.
THE REPUBLIC: LOUIS NAPOLEON.—Fear of communism and of mob violence
gave a new impetus to the conservative tendency. A republican
constitution, however, with a president holding for a term of four
years, was adopted. Louis Napoleon was elected a member of the
assembly. He was chosen president of the republic, mainly by the votes
of the peasantry and common soldiers, and with the help of
Thiers and others who thought him incapable, and desired to
bring about a restoration of the Orleans rule.
Thiers was a personal enemy of
Cavaignac. "Thiers" says Martin, "did not feel
the same repulsion for the consulate and the empire as does the
present generation: he took Louis Napoleon for an inexperienced and
somewhat narrow-minded man, whom he could easily restrain and direct,
not guessing the determined obstinacy and prejudice hidden beneath
his heavy and commonplace exterior." (Popular History of
France [from 1789], iii. 200.)
CHAPTER III. EUROPE, FROM THE REVOLUTIONS OF 1848 TO THE
AUSTRO-PRUSSIAN WAR (1866).
DISTURBANCES IN GERMANY.—The effect of the revolution which dethroned
Louis Philippe was felt like an electric shock through all
Europe. It was experienced immediately in the smaller states of
Germany. New ministries were installed, which were pledged to a liberal
policy. Louis of Bavaria resigned the crown to his son
Maximilian. The Grand Duke of Baden agreed to the demands
of a popular convention at Mannheim, and he placed a liberal
ministry in control of the government. Prussia and
Austria were thoroughly disturbed by the movement for freedom
and national unity. A rising in Vienna (March 13-15), headed by
the students, compelled Metternich to depart for safety to
England, the asylum of political exiles of every creed. The emperor
summoned a Diet to be chosen by popular suffrage, and went for safety
to Innsbruck among his faithful Tyrolese. In Berlin, at
the same time, there were excited meetings, and conflicts in the
streets between the people and the soldiers. The Prussian king yielded
to the demand of the crowd which gathered before his palace on the 18th
of March, that the troops should be sent out of Berlin; but he did not
send them away until the next day, and after an attack had been made on
them from behind barricades. The ministry was dismissed, and a call was
issued for a National Assembly to be chosen by ballot.
THE FRANKFORT CONVENTION.—There was a gathering at Frankfort,
of about five hundred Germans, who organized themselves as a
provisional parliament under the presidency of Mittermaier
(March 31). They resolved to call a National Assembly, to be elected by
the German people. The Confederate Diet recognized the authority of the
provisional parliament.
THE FRANKFORT PARLIAMENT.—The National Assembly met on May 18, and
created a new provisional central government, with the Archduke John
of Austria as its head. The Confederate Diet ceased to exist. But
the division of parties in the assembly, with respect to the system of
government for united Germany, gave rise to long and profitless
discussions. Differences of opinion as to the steps to be taken in a
war which had sprung up with Denmark, respecting the duchies of
Schleswig and Holstein, made the strife of factions in
the parliament still more bitter.
NEW PRUSSIAN CONSTITUTION.—The Prussian National Assembly met on May
22. A hot contention arose between the moderate and the radical
parties. At length the king adjourned the assembly to meet in
Brandenburg; but the party of the "Left" (the radical party)
protested, and was soon dispersed by force. In Brandenburg a quorum
failed to meet. The government framed a constitution with two
chambers,—the second to be chosen by universal suffrage,—and called a
new parliament to consider it. The new parliament failed to agree with
the government, but another parliament met (Aug. 7, 1849). Mutual
concessions were made, and the king swore to maintain the new
constitution (Feb. 6, 1850).
AUSTRIA: END OF THE FRANKFORT ASSEMBLY.—The Diet of the Austrian
Empire was a confused assembly representing different
nationalities. Kossuth, an eloquent Hungarian deputy in the
lower house, demanded independence for his country. The Slavonic
tribes resisted the supremacy of the Magyars. When the
emperor took active measures against these (Oct. 6), there was an
uprising in Vienna. The city was held by the revolutionists
until the 30th, when it was captured by the emperor after much
bloodshed. Ferdinand I abdicated in favor of his young nephew,
Francis Joseph. The Frankfort Assembly debated the question,
what relation Austria should have to united Germany. A majority decided
(March 27, 1849) that a president should be appointed, whose office
should descend in his family, and that he should be styled "Emperor of
the Germans." The station was offered to Frederick William of
Prussia, but he declined it. The new constitution was not accepted
by the more important states. The assembly dwindled away through the
withdrawal or resignation of members, and, having adjourned to
Stuttgart, was finally dispersed by the Würtemberg government
(June 18). Its history was a grievous disappointment of ardent
hopes. The Prussians helped the Saxon, Bavarian, and
Baden governments, to put down formidable and partially
successful popular insurrections in their states.
THE HUNGARIAN REVOLT.—Austria reduced her German provinces to
subjection, and early in 1849 the Italian provinces also. But a
great contest was to be waged with the Hungarians, who gathered
an army of one hundred thousand men, and gained decided advantages over
incompetent Austrian generals. But in the end Austria brought together
overwhelming forces and was aided by the intervention of Russia,
which sent an army into Hungary. The Hungarian general, Gorgey,
whom Kossuth and the ministers had made dictator, surrendered at
Vilagos (Aug. 13, 1849). Kossuth and other Hungarian
patriots fled into Turkey. Hungary was dealt with as conquered
territory. The Austrian commander, Haynau, treated the
vanquished people with brutal severity. The Hungarian constitution was
abolished. The general constitution of Austria was abrogated on
Dec. 31, 1851.
CONDITION OF ITALY.—Charles Albert, the king of
Piedmont, or Sardinia, disliked the preponderance of the
Austrians, and desired to give his people good government, but was
disinclined to enter into the schemes of "Young Italy," composed of the
ardent republicans of whom Mazzini was the chief. On this
account they were exasperated with him. On the contrary, a great part
of the "moderates" placed their hope for Italy in the Sardinian king
and his house. To one of these, D'Azeglio, a nobleman of high
character, who reported to him, in 1845, the danger that revolutionary
risings against misrule in Italy would occur, and set forth the
necessity for a speedy remedy, the king said, "Make known to these
gentlemen, that they must be quiet and not move, for at present nothing
can be done; but let them be certain, that, if the occasion presents
itself, my life, the life of my sons, my arms, my treasure, my army,
all shall be devoted to the cause of Italy." In Tuscany, there
was much less oppression than elsewhere, but even there the government
was despotic.
LIBERAL POLICY OF PIUS IX.—On the death of Gregory XVI. (1846),
Cardinal Mastai Feretti was made Pope, and took the name of
Pius IX. He adopted a new and liberal policy. Prisoners for
political offenses were set free, an amnesty was proclaimed, and
improvements—including railroads—were promised. The "Gregoriani," who
were devoted to the old administrative system and to Austrian
predominance, were offended. The Roman people generally were full of
joy and hope. The extreme republicans were dissatisfied and
suspicious. On the occasion of disturbances, the Pope consented to the
formation of a National Guard, as the liberal party wished. The
consequence was, that Austrian troops were marched into his
territory. This movement roused Charles Albert to espouse more
actively the Italian cause. In Tuscany the Liberals, with
Ricasoli for a leader, drove the Grand Duke to measures of
reform. Austrian aggressions were more severely felt in Parma
and Modena. In Palermo, there was a rising (Jan. 12)
against the unbearable tyranny of Ferdinand II. This was
followed by an insurrection in Naples itself. The king was
obliged to grant to his people a constitution. The same boon was
granted by Pius IX., by the king of Sardinia, and by the
Tuscan Grand Duke. Italy, it should be observed, was already on
fire with these revolutionary movements prior to the overthrow of the
government of Louis Philippe. The earliest popular
demonstrations at Milan were on Sept. 5 and 8, 1847.
EVENTS IN ITALY.—The revolt in Vienna and in Hungary in
1848 furnished the long-coveted occasion for the Italians to attack the
hated Austrian rule. Lombardy flew to arms, and expelled the
Austrian troops. The Venetians set up a provisional government
under Daniele Manin, their leader in the insurrection. The king
of Sardinia declared war against Austria. A multitude of Italian
volunteers rushed to his standard. But there was no national league;
his military management lacked skill; and after some successes he was
defeated by Radetzky, the Austrian general, at Custozza
(July 25). Garibaldi, who had been a sailor, but was now a
gallant and adventurous champion of the Italian movement, kept up the
contest in the mountains on the north. The Austrians were once more in
power. The refusal of the Pope to take part in hostilities against them
alienated the liberals. His best minister Rossi, who stood
midway between the extreme parties, was assassinated (Nov. 15). From
the disorder that reigned at Rome, Pius IX. escaped in the dress
of a common priest to Gaeta. The extreme democrats in
Tuscany got the upper hand, and set up a provisional
government. In Piedmont, Gioberti, the minister, gave way to
Ratazzi, who was of the democratic school. But the dream of an
Italian confederation was dissipated by the great defeat of Charles
Albert by Radetzky at Novara (March 23). The
broken-hearted king resigned his crown to his son, Victor
Emmanuel. In Rome, the government, after the flight of the
Pope, was lodged in an assembly elected by popular suffrage, with
triumvirs, of whom Mazzini was the first. The French were not
disposed to allow the Austrians to dominate in the peninsula, and sent
an army under Oudinot, who captured Rome from the
republicans, after a stubborn defense by Garibaldi. A French
garrison now occupied the city. The Pope, who had abandoned the idea of
political changes in the direction of Italian freedom and unity, was
brought back to the Vatican (April, 1850). By the close of the summer
of 1849, the Austrian authority was restored, and was exercised with
redoubled severity in Venice and Milan. The rulers of
Tuscany, Modena, and Parma had before returned to their
capitals. They were kept in power by means of Austrian garrisons. The
will of Austria was law in the greater part of Italy. Ferdinand
II. (called Bomba) maintained his tyranny by the help of
Swiss mercenaries and loathsome dungeons. Piedmont was the only
spot where constitutional freedom survived. In its youthful monarch and
in Garibaldi, the hope of Italy rested. The course of events
ultimately proved that both the fire of the republicans and the
prudence of more moderate statesmen were requisite for its
emancipation.
COUP D'ÉTAT OF LOUIS NAPOLEON.—The Legislative Assembly in France,
consisting of one chamber, had in it many monarchists. As the
first Napoleon was sustained by the dread of Jacobin rule, so
the third Napoleon profited by the dread of the
ultra-republicans. It was felt by the trading-class, that the safety
of society depended on him. When the French troops were sent to Rome in
1849, the opposition of Ledru-Rollin and his radical party
became more furious. But Changarnier and his troops dispersed
their procession (June 13), and broke down their barricades. The Paris
insurrection was put down, and Ledru-Rollin fled the
country. Thiers, Broglie, Molé,
Montalembert, and other adherents of the Bourbons, either of the
old or of the Orleans branch, now professed to yield to Louis
Napoleon their adhesion. His measures for the restraint of the
press, the punishment of political offenses, etc., were popular,
especially in the provinces. The clergy were favorable to him. The
soldiers, in the autumn of 1850, began to shout "Vive
I'Empéreur!" Changarnier was removed from the command of the
troops (Jan., 1851) when it was learned that his regiments did not join
in the cry. Movements of this kind, together with petitions for a
revision of the constitution, provoked hostility in the Assembly. The
struggle between the president and that body culminated in the "Coup
d'État" of December 2, 1851. St. Arnaud had been appointed
minister of war, the fidelity of the troops in Paris rendered sure, and
all needful preparations made with profound secrecy. The president gave
a great party on the night of the first. During the night, the
republican and Orleanist leaders—Cavaignac, Changarnier,
Lamoricière, Thiers, Victor Hugo, and many
others—were surprised in their beds, and imprisoned. They were sent
away in custody to different places. Placards were posted, dissolving
the Assembly, and declaring Paris in a state of siege; also, an address
submitting to the people the question whether there should be a
responsible chief of state for ten years. The soldiers fired on
gatherings of the people in the streets, killing many innocent persons,
for the purpose of forestalling any attempt at resistance. The
deputies, as they persisted in their purpose to meet, were surrounded,
and placed under arrest. Within a few weeks many thousands of persons
suspected of disaffection were exiled or imprisoned. Nearly seven and a
half million votes were cast for Napoleon, and only 647,292
against him. The political prisoners were released. Thiers was
allowed to return to Paris.
NEW FRENCH EMPIRE.—A new constitution was promulgated (Jan. 14, 1852),
resembling that which existed under the consulate. The Legislative
Assembly was virtually stripped of power.
One year later, the restoration of the Empire was decreed, and
sanctioned by popular vote. The change was at first viewed with alarm
by Austria, Prussia, and Russia. Francis Joseph made a visit to
Berlin, and was received with great honor. The two principal
German sovereigns reviewed the troops of Berlin, in front of the bronze
statue of Blücher. But Napoleon declared that the Empire
meant peace, and the other great powers followed the example of England
in recognizing his imperial government.
THE CRIMEAN WAR.—The administration of the French emperor was
acceptable to the commercial classes, who prized tranquillity. He
erected new edifices in Paris, and made many other improvements,
which, however, had an eye to defense against popular insurrection, and
involved much hardship for the poor. He married (Jan. 30, 1853) a young
Spanish countess, Eugénie Montijo. What did most to give
stability to his power, and to raise his repute in Europe, was the
union of France with England in the prosecution of the
Crimean war. The Emperor Nicholas thought the time propitious
for the aggressive ambition of Russia with regard to
Turkey. His plan of attack embraced a "provisional" occupation
of Constantinople by Russian troops. He had intimated to England
that the situation of "the sick man"—meaning the decaying government
of Turkey—opened the way for a division of the Turkish Empire
between the two powers. Lord Aberdeen was then prime minister in
England, and Mr. Gladstone was chancellor of the exchequer. The
dispute of Russia with Turkey, which was the ostensible occasion of the
war, related to the holy places in Jerusalem, the resort of worshipers
of different creeds, and to the privileges accorded by the Sultan to
the Greek and Latin Christians respectively. The claim of
Nicholas resolved itself into a demand to exercise a sole
protectorate over the Christians of the Greek faith in the Turkish
Empire. Without formally declaring war his forces crossed the
Pruth. Alarm was awakened in Austria, in consequence of the
Russian movements in that region. Nicholas had only been able to
secure neutrality from Prussia and Austria. Louis Napoleon was
anxious for war. Lord Aberdeen was averse to it; but the
pressure of Lord Palmerston and his supporters was too strong,
and war was declared (March 27, 1854) by England and
France in alliance with Turkey. At first the Turks had
unexpectedly gained advantages over the Russians, but the Turkish fleet
was destroyed at Sinope (Nov. 30, 1853). Approaches of Russia
which portend the acquisition of the mouths of the Danube, or of any of
the Slavonic districts of European Turkey, can only excite jealousy and
apprehension on the side of Austria. Nicholas, on the demand of
Francis Joseph, which was seconded by Prussia, evacuated
the Danubian principalities, which were provisionally held by Austrian
forces. The English and French fleets that were sent into the Baltic
did not produce the effect that was anticipated by the allies. The
shores of the Black Sea were the main theater of the conflict. The
troops of the English and French landed at Eupatoria in the
Crimea in September, 1854, and defeated the Russians in the
battle of the Alma. There was a second engagement at
Balaklava (Oct. 25); and in the battle of Inkermann
(Nov. 5) the attempt of the Russians to surprise the British forces met
with a defeat. The effort of the allies was directed to the capture of
the strong fortress of Sebastopol. St. Arnaud, the French
general, had died, and been succeeded by Canrobert. Later,
Lord Raglan, the English commander, died. The siege was
prolonged. Once the batteries of Malakoff and Redan were
attacked by the allies unsuccessfully; but, after a month's
bombardment, both were taken by storm (Sept. 8, 1855), and
Malakoff, which the French took, was held. The Russians blew up
their forts at Sebastopol, and withdrew to the northern part of the
fortress. Meantime Nicholas had died (March 2, 1855), and been
succeeded by Alexander II.; and Lord Aberdeen had been
superseded by Palmerston as head of the English ministry.
PEACE OF PARIS (MARCH 30, 1856)—In the Peace of Paris, Russia
was obliged to cede the mouths of the Danube and a small portion of
Bessarabia to Moldavia, to limit the number of her ships
in the Black Sea, and to engage to establish no arsenals on its
coast. The Black Sea was to be open to commerce, but interdicted to
vessels of war. Russia gave up the claim to an exclusive protectorate
over Christians in Turkey. She surrendered also the fortress of
Kars in Turkish Armenia, which she had
captured. Wallachia and Moldavia were confirmed in
important privileges of self-government, under the Porte. Austria,
France, and Great Britain, in a distinct treaty, guaranteed the
independence and integrity of the Ottoman Empire.
NEUTRALITY DECLARATIONS.—The parties to the Treaty of Paris
(including Austria and Prussia) united in four declarations on the
subject of neutrality, by which privateering was abolished, the
neutral flag was made to protect enemy's goods except contraband of
war, these goods under an enemy's flag were exempted from capture,
and it was ordained that blockades in order to be binding must be
effective. The United States declined to concur in this
agreement unless the private property of subjects or citizens of a
belligerent power (unless it be contraband of war) should be also
exempted from seizure by armed vessels of the enemy. This rule, were
it adopted, would put private property on the sea on a level
with private property on the land, in case of war.
WAR OF FRANCE AND SARDINIA WITH AUSTRIA.—After the contests of
1848-49, Victor Emmanuel II. was looked on by all except the
ardent republicans of the school of Mazzini as the champion of
Italian independence. He made Azeglio his chief minister, and
Cavour his minister of commerce. Various reforms were adopted,
especially for the reduction of the power and wealth of
ecclesiastics. The rapid progress of administrative changes led
Azeglio to withdraw from office. Cavour, his successor, a
statesman of broad views and consummate ability, began to plan not only
for the Sardinian kingdom, but likewise for all Italy. By his advice,
Sardinia joined England and France in the Crimean war. At the Congress
of Paris (1856), he spread before the European powers the deplorable
misgovernment at Naples and in the other states of Southern Italy. He
denounced a plot against the life of Louis Napoleon, which
Orsini, a Roman, and a member of a secret society, tried to
carry out, but failed (Jan. 14, 1858). Communications and a personal
interview between Napoleon and Cavour followed. An
alliance was formed, one of the objects of which was the expulsion of
the Austrians from Italy. Prince Napoleon, the son of Louis
Napoleon's uncle Jerome, was married to Clotilde, the
daughter of Victor Emmanuel. Napoleon's ministers were opposed
to a war with Austria, and he himself affected to have no intention of
that kind. Russia proposed a congress; but Austria refused to admit
Sardinia, or to join it herself, unless that power should immediately
disarm. Russia was at that moment unfriendly to Austria, which had
refused to help the Czar in the Crimean war. Prussia, also, showed a
disinclination to interfere. France and Sardinia declared
war against Austria, and Napoleon proclaimed that he
would free Italy, from the Alps to the Adriatic (May, 1859). As the war
began, a revolt broke out in Tuscany. The Tuscan Duke, the
Duchess regent of Parma, and the Duke of Modena, had to
fly from their capitals. Cavour accepted help from all Italian
patriots except the adherents of Mazzini, to whom were imputed
schemes of assassination. Garibaldi led the "Riflemen of the
Alps." Louis Napoleon commanded the French army in person. The
French were victorious at Magenta (June 4), where
MacMahon was made a marshal. At the battle of Solferino
(June 24), all of the three contending sovereigns were present. The
Austrians were vanquished with very heavy losses. At this time
Napoleon, unexpectedly to his Italian ally, in a personal
interview with Francis Joseph at Villafranca, arranged
preliminaries of peace, which provided, to be sure, for the cession of
Lombardy to Sardinia, but left Venice and the
"Quadrilateral,"—as the district, with its fortifications, east of the
Mincio, was called,—under the Austrian rule. It was proposed that an
Italian confederation should be formed, with the Pope for its honorary
president,—a plan not destined to be realized. The Grand Duke of
Tuscany and the Duke of Modena were to be restored, could
it be done without a resort to arms. Napoleon was afraid of a long
war. Russia was not disposed to suffer him to stir up a revolution in
Hungary. Prussia might soon intervene; and this, Austria, too, did not
anticipate without anxiety, since Prussia would thereby become
predominant in Germany. Cavour, in disgust and indignation at
this premature close of the struggle, laid down his office.
FURTHER EXTENSION OF THE SARDINIAN KINGDOM.—Tuscany, Modena, and
Parma, and Romagna which belonged to the Pope, by deputies implored
Victor Emmanuel to annex them to his kingdom. Plus
IX. made the most strenuous opposition. Napoleon refused to
use coercion, or to suffer it to be used by others, to carry out the
Villafranca arrangements in the duchies. Cavour was recalled to
office in 1860; and at his suggestion, made to Napoleon, the
communities just named were allowed to dispose of themselves by popular
vote. The result was their incorporation in the Sardinian kingdom. By
way of compensation to Napoleon, Savoy and Nice
were ceded by the Sardinian government to France. The Pope
excommunicated all invaders and usurpers of the Papal States, without
the mention of names.
ANNEXING OF NAPLES AND SICILY.—The next great event in Italy was the
expulsion of Francis II., the tyrant who reigned in
Naples and Sicily after the death of Ferdinand
II. (1859). Garibaldi, without the consent of the Sardinian
government, raised the standard of revolt in Sicily (1860), and
conquered the island. The king and Cavour feared that his
movement would give control to the republicans, and also bring Sardinia
into war with other powers. But, despite this opposition,
Garibaldi entered Naples as a victor, and was joined by
Mazzini. The Sardinian troops entered the Papal States, which
the king had threatened to do unless the guerilla attacks of pontifical
troops in the south were suppressed. The French general,
Lamoricière, in the service of the pontiff, was defeated at
Castelfidardo. Garibaldi, triumphant in the Neapolitan
kingdom, met Victor Emmanuel in the Abruzzi, and hailed him as
"King of Italy." Naples and Sicily voted to join the
kingdom of Sardinia. With the exception of Venice and the
Roman Campagna, the whole of Italy was now united under the
house of Savoy. On Feb. 18, 1861, the first parliament of united Italy
was opened by Cavour. Shortly after, there was a public
reconciliation between him and Garibaldi, between whom there had
been an estrangement.
In addition to Garibaldi's general and constant dissent from the
moderate policy of Cavour, the former was displeased that his
soldiers had not been rewarded with higher positions in the Sardinian
army than it was practicable or safe to grant to them. Cavour
believed that society was on the march towards democracy, but that no
republic, at the present, in Italy could be stable. Cavour had
his heart set on gaining Rome for the capital of the kingdom, and on
establishing "a free church in a free state." He did not live to see
the realization of his hopes. His death occurred (May 30, 1861),
shortly after the amicable interview with the republican patriot, to
which reference has just been made.
"THE SEPTEMBER CONVENTION."—The hope of the national party in Italy
was now directed towards the gaining of Venice and
Rome. But, as regards Austria, the European powers would not
have suffered a breach of the Peace of Villafranca. Louis
Napoleon had assumed the part of protector of the Holy See, and a
French garrison was stationed at Rome. After Cavour's death,
Ricasoli, the head of the ministry, led the constitutional
party; and Ratazzi, who succeeded him and had been more in
sympathy with the Garibaldians, did not deviate from his predecessor's
cautious policy. The relations of the Italian government to France,
even obliged the king to interfere to put down a rising, set on foot by
Garibaldi, for driving the French out of Rome. Garibaldi was
defeated by the Sardinian troops at Aspromonte (Aug. 27, 1862),
and taken to Spezzia. Thence he went to Caprera. The
liberal party in Europe were incensed with Louis Napoleon. This
was one inducement that moved him to enter into an agreement with
Victor Emmanuel, by which France engaged to withdraw her troops
gradually from Rome, leaving the Pope to form an army of his own;
while, on the other hand, the king engaged (Sept. 1864) to prevent any
attack on the papal territory. The French minister of foreign affairs
said to the Italian minister at Paris, "Naturally the result of all
this will be that you will end by going to Rome;" but matters were to
be so managed that France should not be held responsible. This was the
September Convention. Florence was made the capital of
Italy; but it was acknowledged that this was a temporary arrangement,
and that, as soon as the progress of events should open the way, the
seat of government would be transferred to Rome. After the withdrawal
of the French troops in 1866, Garibaldi, with the connivance of
the Italian government,—in which Ratazzi, who had been obliged
to leave his office, was again the ruling spirit,—once more gathered a
force for the capture of Rome (1867); but France interfered, and the
advance of Garibaldi was checked at Mentana by French
troops. Afterwards Napoleon again placed a French garrison in
Rome. Ratazzi, whose scheme of capturing Rome by
non-interference was balked, had to lay down his office. The next step
towards Italian unity was to be a result of the Austro-Prussian
war.
CHAPTER IV. EUROPE, FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE AUSTRO-PRUSSIAN WAR TO
THE END OF THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR (1866-1871).
RIVALSHIP OF PRUSSIA AND AUSTRIA.—The brief but mighty struggle which
secured for Prussia the preponderance in Germany grew immediately out
of complications respecting Schleswig-Holstein. It was, however,
the fruit of a rivalship which had been gaining in intensity since the
times of Frederick the Great. It was the grand triumph of Prussia,
after a long succession of defeats and humiliations in the field of
diplomacy.
SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN.—The two duchies of Holstein and
Schleswig had long been annexed to the crown of Denmark, whose
king, as Duke of Holstein, was a member of the German
Confederation. The two duchies, as regards their government, did not
stand on the same footing; but the people of Holstein and the
German portion of the Schleswig people held that by a treaty in
1460 the two duchies could not be separated. Moreover, the law of
succession in the duchies excluded the female line, and when there was
a prospect that the male line of the Danish dynasty would die out the
Germans wished the duchies to become independent under an Augustenburg
prince while the Danes wished to absorb the duchies in Denmark. In 1848
the Germans of Schleswig-Holstein revolted against Frederick
VII. The troops of the German confederation assisted them; but the
attitude of England and Russia, which favored the Danes, moved Prussia
to conclude the armistice of Malmö,—an act that excited the
anger of the German National Assembly at Frankfort. After the
expiration of the truce, the war, with intermissions, went on, waged by
Schleswig-Holstein, alone or with aid from Germany; later in a
protocol—an agreement signed in London in 1852 by the Great
Powers, in which Austria and Prussia concurred,—the king of Denmark
and his heirs were guaranteed in the possession of the duchies. This
act, however, was not accepted by the duchies themselves, or by the
Diet of the German Confederation; so that the seeds of strife still
remained.
PREPONDERANCE OF AUSTRIA.—After the suppression of the revolts of
1848, Austria, whose counsels were guided by the astute minister
Schwarzenberg, labored to dwarf and supplant the influence of
Prussia. Frederick William IV. of Prussia aimed to bring about a
closer union of German states, and called a national parliament to meet
at Erfurt. Austria withstood these attempts. The disposition of
Prussia to support the resistance in Hesse to the tyranny of its
elector, threatened to bring on an armed contest with Austria and its
German allies; but the attitude of Russia caused Prussia to desist from
its movement. At the conference at Olmütz (1850),
Manteuffel, the Prussian minister, yielded every thing to
Austria; and subsequently, under the influence of Russia, the German
Confederation of 1815 was restored. Prussia took no part with the
Western powers in the Crimean war, with which it had no direct concern,
and thus did not, like Austria, make herself obnoxious to the Czar.
WILLIAM I: BISMARCK.—On the accession of William I. as regent
(Oct. 1857), the Prussian government initiated a more spirited and
independent policy in its relations to Austria. It refused to lend
active aid to that country in the war with France and Sardinia
(1859). The efficient measures of King William for the
reorganization and increase of the army encountered constant
opposition, year after year, in the assembly, from the liberal party,
which did not divine his motives, and saw in them nothing but the
usurping of an unconstitutional authority. In 1862 the king made
Bismarck minister of foreign affairs, and the virtual head of
the administration. This able man had widened his knowledge of European
politics by serving as ambassador first at St. Petersburg and
then at Paris. Previously he had been allied with the absolutist
party of Manteuffel: he was always for "strong government."
After 1851, when he was delegate of Prussia at the Federal Diet at
Frankfort, he made up his mind to deliver Prussia from the
domineering influence of Austria. But he was held in distrust by the
Prussian liberals, who saw in him only an energetic supporter of the
king in his reform of the army by acts of arbitrary power not warranted
by the constitution. In 1863 Francis Joseph summoned a congress
of German princes to Frankfort to frame a new German
constitution; but as Prussia stood aloof, nothing was
accomplished. There was much bitterness between the two states. For the
moment, however, attention was diverted by the aspect of affairs in
Schleswig-Holstein.
EVENTS LEADING TO WAR.—On March 30, 1863, Frederick VII. of
Denmark issued a decree for the separation of Schleswig, and its
incorporation in Denmark. The troops of the German Confederacy were
sent by the Diet into Holstein. Prussia and Austria, who held
that the Danes had broken the Treaty of 1852, announced their agreement
to prosecute the war with Denmark as independent powers, apart from the
confederation. They persisted in this purpose, and their victories over
the Danes compelled Christian IX. to sign a treaty (Oct. 30,
1864) by which he resigned his rights in the duchies in favor of the
emperor of Austria and the king of Prussia. How should the duchies be
disposed of? It was Bismarck's aim to annex them to Prussia,
which was sorely in need of seaports. He professed that the war had
abrogated the London Treaty of 1852. The prime object of Austria was to
prevent Prussia from making this gain. The dispute was hot and
threatening; but in the Gastein Convention (Aug. 14, 1865),
Lauenburg (which the Danes had also ceded) was sold to Prussia,
and the disposition of the duchies was left to be determined later.
Meantime the Prussians were to hold Schleswig, and the Austrians
Holstein. The Prussians were, moreover, to hold provisionally
the port of Kiel. The scheme of Austria was to hand over the
debated question to the Diet of the Confederation, where it could
command a majority. To this Prussia would not consent, but demanded
that the Confederacy should be reconstituted in such a that Prussia, as
well as Germany, might have strength in the event of a European
war. Bismarck made a secret treaty with Sardinia, which provided
that Prussia and Sardinia should act together in case of war with
Austria, and that peace should not be made until Venetia had
been given up to the kingdom of Italy. When Austria convoked the
estates of Holstein Prussia retorted by sending twenty thousand
troops into Holstein. The Austrian force, which was inferior,
retired. When the Confederation (June 14) passed a motion made by
Austria to put the confederate troops, not Austrian or Prussian, on a
war footing, the Prussian plenipotentiary protested, and declared the
Diet dissolved. He also presented a new constitution as the basis of a
new league of states, from which Austria was to be excluded. Prussia
issued a proclamation, to the effect that the purpose of the war that
was now to begin was the union of Germany, and the establishment of a
free parliament of the German nation.
THE AUSTRO-PRUSSIAN WAR.—The Prussian military plans were the work of
Von Moltke, chief of the general staff, who was without a
superior in military science. They were carried out with astonishing
precision and celerity. On June 15 Prussia required Saxony,
Hanover, and Hesse to disarm, to remain neutral, and to
send delegates to a German parliament. A few hours were given them to
decide. They refused the demand, and on the 16th the Prussian forces
marched into their lands. On that day they seized the capital of
Hesse, and took the elector prisoner. On the 29th they had
surrounded King George of Hanover, and he was compelled to
surrender with his whole army. The main Austrian army, under
Benedek, made up of contingents from the various nations subject
to the emperor, with the troops of Saxony, one of his German allies,
were gathered in Bohemia. Thither three Prussian armies moved,
on different lines, as they were directed by telegraph from
Berlin. Several battles occurred. The armies approached one another,
but were purposely kept apart. On June 30 King William and
Von Moltke left Berlin. On the 2d of July it was determined to
attack the Austrians the next day; and word was sent to the crown
prince, whose division was not so far that he could not bring up his
forces to take part in the combat. In the morning the battle of
Sadowa, in which between two hundred thousand and three hundred
thousand men were in each of the contending hosts, began. It raged
until noon, with no decisive advantage on either side. At two o'clock
the division of the crown prince, after a hard march, arrived; and
their attack on the flank of the Austrians was the signal for a forward
movement along the whole Prussian line. The battle in its course
resembled that of Waterloo. The defeat of the Austrians
virtually decided the whole contest. Francis Joseph asked France
to mediate, but Prussia and Italy refused to consent to the
proposal. The Austrian emperor ceded Venice by telegraph to
Louis Napoleon. The Austrians had defeated the Italians at
Custozza (June 24), and in a naval battle at Lissa. But a
great part of the Austrian army it was necessary to transfer to the
North.
THE PEACE OF PRAGUE: THE PEACE OF VIENNA.—The Peace of Prague was
concluded between Prussia and Austria (Aug. 23, 1866). Austria was
excluded from Germany, and gave up her rights in
Schleswig-Holstein to Prussia. At the request of Prussia,
Venice was ceded to Italy. Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover,
Hesse-Cassel, Nassau, and Frankfort were incorporated in
Prussia. The population of Prussia from about nineteen millions was
increased to twenty-three millions five hundred thousand. In the Peace
of Vienna (Oct. 3), Austria recognized the kingdom of Italy, to which
Venice had been ceded.
NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION.—The South German states remained
independent; but the North German Confederation was formed,
under the leadership of Prussia, which was to have control of the
military forces of its members. In the council of the Confederation,
Prussia was to have seventeen votes, and the other states together
twenty-six votes. An imperial Diet was established, the members of
which were to be elected by general suffrage. Bismarck was made
chancelor of the Confederation.
THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE.—The war with Prussia was followed by the
political reorganization of the Austro-Hungarian empire on a more
liberal basis. Von Beust, who had been a Saxon minister, became
minister of foreign affairs (1866), and afterwards president of the
ministry and chancellor of the empire. The Hungarian constitution of
1848 was restored, and a separate ministry was constituted for
Hungary; while, as regards the army and foreign affairs of both
divisions of the empire, an imperial ministry was established. The
Cisleithan division, composed of the German and Slavonic
provinces, was to have its own ministry and constitution. This
conferred on the people and their representatives "rights and
privileges of the greatest importance,—equality of all citizens before
the law, freedom of the press, right of association and meeting,
complete liberty of faith and conscience, the unrestricted right to
impose taxes and levy recruits, etc." The reconciliation with Hungary
having been effected, Francis Joseph was crowned as King of
Hungary at Pesth. Transylvania and Croatia were united
with Hungary. Great legal improvements in Austria ensued. The army was
re-constituted after the example of the Prussian military system. There
was an improvement in financial administration. Marriage by civil
contract was authorized; and on subjects connected with marriage, the
clergy were deprived of jurisdiction. The control of education, except
religious education, was assumed by the state. In case of marriage
between Catholics and Protestants, the male children were to be
educated according to the faith of the father; the female children,
according to that of the mother.
LOUIS NAPOLEON BAFFLED.—The Austro-Prussian war hastened the downfall
of Louis Napoleon. The only consolation which the French had for
the loss of freedom at home was power and reputation abroad. The
astonishing rapidity of the Prussians, and the overwhelming success of
their arms, had disconcerted the schemes of the French emperor. The
defeat of Austria was so quick and so complete that he could not come
in as mediator between the belligerents, and manage to secure the
extension of France to its "natural frontiers" on the Rhine. He was
baffled by Bismarck's diplomacy, as before he had been outwitted
by Cavour; for Napoleon had wished, not a united Italy, but
simply a Northern Kingdom. The French felt humiliated at the sight of
military achievements parallel to those by which in other days they had
disposed of the fate of Prussia herself. The opposing factions grew
bolder in their attitude towards the Napoleonic government. The emperor
made cautious attempts to secure cessions of territory from Prussia on
the Rhine, but was met with a blunt refusal from Bismarck. He
then sought to purchase from the king of Holland, Luxemburg,
which had formerly belonged to the German Confederation. This attempt
was resisted by Prussia, and war seemed imminent; but it was
finally settled at the London Conference, that the duchy should
be neutral territory, and that the fortress, which had been occupied by
the Prussians, should be demolished. Germany was making progress
towards a more complete union. A customs parliament, representing all
the states, met at Berlin in May, 1868. Before that time,
treaties of offensive and defensive alliance had been made between the
North German Confederation and Würtemberg, Baden,
and Bavaria. They were published on March 17, 1867.
BEGINNING OF THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR.—As Louis Napoleon, or
those who held sway in his counsels, were bent on war with Prussia, a
pretext was easily found. The bad administration of Queen
Isabella of Spain, and her personal misconduct, caused
insurrections to break out in 1868; and she was obliged to fly to
France. A provisional government was established under
Gens. Serrano and Prim, and Señor Olozaga. Later
(1869) Serrano was made regent. The Cortes in 1870 offered the
Spanish crown to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, who
belonged to a younger branch of King William's family. The
proposal was regarded in France with indignation, as a new step in the
upbuilding of Prussian power. King William was required to
forbid his relative's candidacy, which he declined to do. The prince,
however, of his own accord withdrew. Not satisfied with this issue of
the affair, Napoleon insisted that the Prussian king should
engage never to support the candidacy of a Hohenzollern prince for the
Spanish crown. William, who was at Ems, told the French
ambassador, Benedetti, that he could not give a promise of this
sort. When the question was again raised he sent an aide-de-camp,
declining to discuss the matter further. This act was represented at
Paris as an insult to France, and orders were issued to mobilize the
army. The king, on his way to Berlin, was met at the Brandenburg
station by the crown prince, Von Moltke, Von Roon, the
able war minister, and Bismarck. The Confederate Diet assembled
July 19, and placed its resources at the disposal of the king. The
French declaration of war was received on the same day. Bavaria,
Würtemberg, and the South German States, contrary to the
unreasonable expectation of Napoleon, allied themselves with
Prussia. In a moment all Germany was ablaze. The recollection of the
days of the first Napoleon, and of the war of liberation, filled
the whole land with patriotic enthusiasm. More than a million of men
took the field in defense of the fatherland.
EVENTS TO SEDAN.—At the outset Napoleon tried to modify the
plans Marshal Niel had drawn up in 1867 for such an emergency,
and which called for three armies. He unwisely attempted to unite all
the troops under his own command. Had he been able by a bold initiative
to have gained a foothold in South Germany, Italy and
Austria would probably have come to his support. But the French
army was not in the state of full readiness which had been alleged to
exist. The masterly dispositions of Von Moltke, and the swift
movements of the Germans, broke up the French programme. The three
great divisions of the German army were led by Steinmetz, Prince
Frederick Charles, the king's nephew, and the crown prince,
Frederick William. They advanced towards the boundary from
Treves to Landau. Three victories of the Germans—at
Weissenburg (Aug. 4), over Marshal MacMahon at
Wörth (Aug. 6), and at Spicheren on the same
day—compelled the French army to retreat towards the Moselle. The
Baden division was left to besiege Strasburg. The next great
battles, of which Gravelotte (Aug. 18) was the most hotly
contested, were fought for the purpose of preventing Marshal
Bazaine from joining with the main army the forces of
MacMahon. Bazaine was defeated, and confined with his
immense body of troops in and about the fortress of Metz; and
his efforts to break through the German lines were baffled. The
Prussian crown prince and the crown prince of Saxony, with their
combined armies, proceeded against MacMahon. The defeats of the
French had occasioned such wrath at Paris, that the ministry of
M. Ollivier was compelled to retire (Aug. 10), and it was not
safe for the emperor, who was with MacMahon, to return to the
capital. The French general concentrated his forces at Sedan. On
Sept. 1 the decisive battle was fought. The French were worsted and
surrounded. The Emperor Napoleon yielded his sword to King
William. The terms of capitulation were agreed upon by Von
Moltke and Gen. Wimpffen (MacMahon being disabled by
a wound), while other matters of a civil nature were arranged between
Napoleon and Bismarck. The army that was surrendered
numbered eighty-two thousand men, with fifty generals and five thousand
other officers.
SIEGE OF PARIS: SURRENDER OF METZ.—As soon as the news of Sedan
reached Paris, the imperial government fell to pieces. The Empress
Eugénie escaped to England. A republic was proclaimed; and a new
government was improvised, composed of enemies of the Empire, who
belonged to different parties. Trochu was president, and
governor of Paris; Jules Favre, a moderate republican, was
minister of foreign affairs; and Gambetta, an extreme
republican, was minister of the interior. The wish was for peace; but
the inexorable demand of the Germans for the cession of Alsace
and Lorraine, once parts of Germany, and now asserted to be
necessary for its defense against future attack from France, called out
a united and indignant spirit of resistance. The defense of
Paris was undertaken with extraordinary energy: a large army was
collected there, and a great supply of provisions was gathered. The
siege of Paris was prosecuted by the Germans with an equally
unflinching determination, from Sept. 19, 1870, to Jan. 28,
1871. Repeated sallies of the French troops, although made with much
spirit, failed of success. The efforts to break the Prussian lines of
connection with Paris, and to compel them by movements from without to
raise the siege, were likewise baffled. Gambetta escaped from
Paris in a balloon, and at Tours directed in the formation of
two armies,—the army of the Loire, and the northern army, both
of which were defeated. Strasburg capitulated (Sept. 27); and a
month later (Oct. 27) Bazaine surrendered Metz, with
three marshals, three thousand officers, and one hundred and
seventy-three thousand soldiers. The main army of France was thus lost.
WILLIAM MADE EMPEROR: SURRENDER OF PARIS.—While the siege of Paris was
in progress, all the princes of Germany, and the senates of the three
free towns, united in the resolution to offer to the President of the
Confederation the title of Emperor. Accordingly, on Jan. 18, 1871, King
William, in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, was
formally proclaimed Emperor of Germany. On the next day Trochu
led the final sortie from Paris, of a hundred thousand men, which was
repulsed after a severe contest. The provisions in the city were nearly
exhausted, and on Jan. 23 an armistice for twenty-one days was
signed. Paris surrendered on the 28th; and on the first day of March a
national convention at Bordeaux accepted the preliminaries of peace,
which included the cession of Alsace and the German part of
Lorraine with Metz, and the payment of an indemnity of
five thousand million francs. Thiers, who was elected chief of
the executive department (Feb. 17), had managed the negotiations with
Bismarck at Versailles, and urged the acceptance of them
on the convention.
THE GERMAN IMPERIAL CONSTITUTION.—The first Diet of the new German
Empire was opened at Berlin on March 21. The constitution of it
left to each state the management of its domestic affairs. To the
imperial government, with the Federal Council or Bundesrath, the
Reichstag, and the emperor were relegated the affairs of common
interest. The president of the Council was the imperial chancellor:
Bismarck was appointed to that office. The Reichstag was
composed of deputies chosen by general suffrage. The chancellor is not
responsible to the Reichstag, but to the emperor. Power has not passed
from the monarch to the representatives of the people.
CONTEST WITH THE COMMUNISTS: REPUBLICAN CONSTITUTION.—After the
conditions of peace with the Germans were settled, Paris had to
pass through a terrible period of disorder. The communists were bent on
establishing municipal independence, or the self-government of the
Commune, and a democratic republic. They demanded a federation
of the townships, or communes, and distrusted the republicanism
of the officials who were in the exercise of power. They are not to be
confounded with communists in the socialistic sense: only a
small fraction of the communal government, or central committee, were
socialists. The party comprised a multitude of fanatical democrats of
the lower classes, who were ready for the most violent measures. They
had risen several times during the siege of Paris, and had tried to
seize on power, but had been put down by the troops. After the
surrender of Paris, they gained possession of the northern part of the
city, and fortified it. The attempt to get back the cannon which they
had seized caused a great communist uprising (March 18, 1871). A new
reign of terror began. Darboy, the Archbishop of Paris, and many
others, were murdered. MacMahon, acting for the Assembly,
besieged Paris anew; the Germans being neutral in the forts that were
still left, according to the treaty, in their hands. In the fierce
struggle for the possession of the city, the principal buildings of
Paris were set on fire by the savage communistic mob. The Tuileries,
the Hôtel de Ville, and a part of the Palais Royal, with other public
edifices, were destroyed. The insurrection was at length suppressed,
and severe punishments were inflicted. A large number of the
ringleaders were either shot or transported.
CHAPTER V. EUROPE, THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC, AND THE UNION OF ITALY
(1871-).
COMPLETED UNION OF ITALY.—When the war between Prussia and France
broke out, the republicans in Italy were disposed to take possession of
Rome at once. Mazzini urged them to this step. The king,
however, was bound by the agreement with France to prevent this action;
which, moreover, might have divided, instead of uniting,
Italy. Mazzini was arrested, and sent to Gaeta. But with
the fall of Napoleon, on the declaration of Jules Favre that the
"September Convention" (p. 574) was at an end, Victor Emmanuel,
professing that he was bound to maintain order in the peninsula, sent
his troops into Rome. The Pope lost his temporal dominions, and
was limited to the title and prerogatives of the spiritual head of the
Catholic Church. The seat of the Italian government was removed to the
ancient capital (July 1, 1871). The present king, Umberto I.,
ascended the throne 1878.
PIUS IX.: THE COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN.—The long pontificate of Pius
IX. was distinguished by important acts having relation to the
doctrine and discipline of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1854 he
promulgated the declaration of the Immaculate Conception of the
Virgin Mary. He thus determined authoritatively a question which
had long been debated in the schools of theology. Ten years later
(1864) he issued an Encyclical, together with a Syllabus
of Errors, in which, besides the condemnation of opinions in matters of
faith which were adjudged heterodox, various alleged encroachments of
the civil authority and heretical views respecting the control of the
state in reference to marriage, education, etc., were denounced. The
views thus condemned are such as the kingdom of Belgium had recognized,
and France and some other Roman Catholic countries have shown
themselves willing to accept. In 1869 the Oecumenical Council of the
Vatican assembled, and after long debate sanctioned the doctrine of
papal infallibility; that is, they promulgated the dogma that the Pope,
when addressing the whole Church on a subject of morals or theology, is
kept by the Spirit of God from enunciating error.
"OLD CATHOLICS."—Most of those who had strenuously endeavored to
prevent this action, either because they considered it inexpedient, or
disbelieved in the doctrine which it established, acquiesced in the
decision of the council. There were some persevering dissentients,
however, in Germany especially, of whom Dr. Döllinger was the
most distinguished. They organized themselves as a distinct body, under
the name of "Old Catholics." They were mostly educated persons; the
party had no root among the common people. In France, the most
distinguished of them was Père Hyacinthe, a preacher of much
popularity and eloquence.
REVOLUTIONS IN SPAIN.—After the revolution attended by the flight of
Queen Isabella from Spain (1868), a majority of the Cortes
decided for a monarchy, although many desired a republic. In 1870
Amadeus, the second son of the King of Italy, accepted the
crown. But he found it impossible to restore order and peace, and
Feb. 11, 1873, abdicated the throne. A bloody conflict of factions
ensued. Don Carlos, the new Pretender of that name, raised his
standard in the North. The Cortes were for a federal
republic. Castelar, who as president was at the head of the
government, and after him Marshal Serrano, by whom he was
superseded, made no decisive progress against the
Carlists. Alfonso, the youthful son of Isabella, was
proclaimed king by General Martinez Campos; and the army
pronounced in his favor (Dec. 29, 1874). Serrano laid down his
office. The Carlist revolt was crushed, and Don Carlos driven
out of the country. Alfonso died 1885, and was succeeded by a
regency during the long minority of his posthumous son, Alfonso
XIII. Both Canovas and Sagasta loyally supported the
queen-mother, Maria Christina, acting as regent.
STATE OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.—In July, 1875, the Turkish provinces of
Herzegovina and Bosnia rebelled against the intolerable
oppression of the Sultan's government. The little mountainous kingdom
of Montenegro—which for four centuries had preserved its
independence through numerous struggles with Turkey, and had a quarrel
of its own with that power—lent help to its Slavonian
neighbor. Servia did the same. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, a
composite of distinct provinces and nationalities, was strongly
interested to avert war in that region. The revolt was not put down by
the Turks. The three European emperors moved the Sultan to pledge
himself to an extensive programme of reforms in Bosnia and
Herzegovina,—a pledge which there was no intention on his part
to fulfill. England gave no aid to the revolt, but strengthened herself
in the East by obtaining, through a purchase of shares from the Khedive
of Egypt, the control of the Suez Canal (Nov. 25, 1875). Russia,
as kinsman of all the Slavonic peoples, and protector of Greek
Christians, assumed alone the part of a champion of the maltreated
provinces. But England refused to join with Russia, Germany, Austria,
and France, in threatening "more effectual"—that is,
coercive—measures, in case of the Porte's refusal to pacify the
insurgents by carrying out his promises. Great Britain was bent on
keeping the Sultan's empire, as being a barrier in the way of Russian
ambition and essential to the security of India, from being
dismembered, and professed to be swayed by respect for the rights of
Turkey as an independent power. A revolt in Bulgaria was crushed by the
Turks, who were guilty of such terrible atrocities that the "Bulgarian
massacres" shocked all Christendom (1876). In the course of the
difficulties just narrated, two revolutions, by which sultans had been
dethroned, had taken place in the palace at Constantinople. The
ambassadors of the Great Powers, in a conference at Constantinople,
agreed in demanding of Turkey a constitution and guaranties for the
benefit of the oppressed subjects in the provinces of the Ottoman
Empire. This requirement the Porte refused to accept. A subsequent
attempt of the same nature met with no better success (1877). Russia
allowed its subjects to render effective help to the revolted
districts. On the contrary, England was offended by the alleged
ambitious schemes of the Muscovites, and advocated longer forbearance
with the Sultan; but Lord Derby announced (April 19, 1877) that
Turkey had been warned to expect no assistance from
England. Nevertheless, the mission of Mr. Layard to
Constantinople, and all the other circumstances, emboldened the Turks
to refuse compliance with the Czar's demands.
THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR.—The Turko-Russian war began in April,
1877. Russia, according to her previous declaration, took up arms
alone. The Russian troops crossed the Danube and the Balkan Mountains,
and seized on the important Shipka Pass. At first they seemed
destined to a speedy triumph. But the Turks under Osman Pasha
fought with unexpected valor and success. At length, however, their
leader was obliged to surrender his army of forty-four thousand men at
Plevna (Dec. 10). Adrianople was occupied by the Russians
(Jan. 28). They were thus in the neighborhood of
Constantinople. Meantime, after reverses in the East, the Russians had
taken Kars, and pushed on to Erzeroum.
TREATY OF SAN STEFANO: THE BERLIN CONFERENCE.—Turkey now appealed to
England to mediate; but Russia declined any such intervention, and
insisted on treating separately with Turkey. England was now ready to
interfere in behalf of the Sultan, and for the safety of
Constantinople. Russia hastened to conclude with Turkey the Peace of
San Stefano (March 3), the stipulations of which greatly reduced
the Turkish power in Europe. Bulgaria was to be governed by a
Christian prince, and fifty thousand Russian troops were to occupy it
for two years. England concluded (June 4) a secret treaty engaging to
protect Turkey in Asia: Cyprus was given up to be occupied by
the British. Austria, as well as Great Britain, was anxious to deprive
Russia of the advantages which she had naturally expected to reap by
the war,—a war in which the other powers had declined to take
part. Thus another great war was threatened, about the provisions of
the San Stefano treaty. The conflict was averted by the
Congress at Berlin (June 13-July 13, 1878), where
D'lsraeli—who was then prime minister, and a friend of the
anti-Russian policy—represented England. Austria and England were
aided by Germany, and the diplomacy of Gortchakoff was thus
overborne. Servia and Roumania, as well as
Montenegro, were declared independent. Bulgaria was
divided into two portions; the southern of which, called East
Roumelia, was to be governed by the Sultan directly, but with a
separate administration under a Christian governor. To Austria, the
military occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which
meant the possession of these provinces, was yielded. Thessaly
had engaged in an insurrection, and Greece had hoped for an
extension of her boundaries; but nothing effectual was done by England
to forward this claim. Here Russia, always opposed to the building-up
of a strong Greek kingdom, was at one with England. Russia obtained
Kars, but her gains were far less than she deemed herself
entitled to receive. The other powers, on the contrary, permitted
Austria to advance far in the direction of Constantinople. During the
war, the hostility of the Magyars (or Hungarians proper) to the
Slaves had been ready to break out in the form of direct armed
assistance to Turkey. On the other hand, the Slaves in Hungary, and in
all the Austrian territories, were with difficulty restrained from
enlisting actively in aid of the Russians. The arbitrary dealing of the
Berlin Conference with Bosnia and Herzegovina occasioned
an armed but ineffectual resistance, in these provinces, to the
extension of the Austrian sway over them.
SITUATION OF RUSSIA.—Russia, embittered by Austria's refusal to aid in
the Crimean War, had remained neutral in the struggle with Prussia,
which ended in the exclusion of Austria from Germany. Russia was now
offended with Germany for repaying her neutrality in the
Franco-Prussian struggle by helping in the Berlin Conference the
schemes of England and Austria. The attempt of Russia to form an
alliance with France prompted Bismarck (Sept., 1879) to
negotiate a defensive alliance with Austria. The activity of the
Nihilists, and the refusal of France (March, 1880) to deliver up
Hartmann, charged with an attempt on the life of the Czar, made
the French alliance impossible. The sympathy of the Emperor
William, after the endeavor made to assassinate Alexander
(Feb. 17, 1880), tended to restore cordiality. Russia was embarrassed
by these internal troubles. Alexander was murdered by Nihilists
(March 13, 1881), and was succeeded by his son, Alexander III.,
who died after a lingering illness, Nov. 1, 1894. He was succeeded by
his son Nicholas II. In 1891 and 1892 Russia was afflicted by famine
and cholera.
NIHILISM.—The accession of Alexander II., following on the
rigid autocracy of Nicholas, had introduced a more lenient
rule. Alexander decreed (March 3, 1861) the emancipation of the
serfs, who were also endowed with small possessions in land. The boon
thus conferred, along with its advantages, brought with it hardship;
for there were ways of oppression still open to the nobles, by which
the emancipated class were made grievously to suffer. The great measure
served to increase the national agitation which was connected with
other causes. There had long been an enthusiastic party of
"Slavophils," actuated by a strong race-feeling, and eager for
"Panslavism," or a union of Slavonic peoples. It was the people in
Russia which moved the court, against its will, to go to war,
single-handed, with Turkey, in 1877. In the prosecution of the war, the
abuses which were brought to light among officials, civil and military,
heightened the indignation which the corrupt "bureaucracy"—the
administration by departments, each under its chief—provoked. The
failure to gather the harvest of the war, of which Russia was deprived
by diplomacy, increased the popular unrest. A party of socialistic
democracy, a revolutionary party, had developed itself as early as
1874. The way had been preparing for it for a decade of years. Out of
this party came later (1878) the "Terrorists,"—the secret body which
sought for a remedy for social and governmental evils by annihilating
all existing authority in Church and State. They had begun with the
demand of a constitution. The despotic, repressive measures of the
government—in 1879 and 1880, sixty thousand persons were sent to
Siberia without a trial—were followed by more desperate
attempts of Nihilist conspirators upon the lives of the rulers of the
land, and of their agents. These culminated in the murder of the Czar.
COMMUNISM AND SOCIALISM.—A brief sketch of the various movements thus
designated may be here in place. Communism is the name given to
the theory that it is desirable to have a community of goods, and a
total or partial abolition of private property. Socialism is
often used to designate the same system, but is more commonly applied
to the doctrine that government should own the land and all the
implements of industry. Not a few religious sects of communists, like
the Shakers (established in 1780, in the United States), have
long existed. The hope of social amelioration by societies of a
communistic character has led to a variety of movements for the
formation of them on both sides of the Atlantic. Equality, education,
deliverance from poverty and from burdensome toil, have been the
blessings sought. Prominent leaders in such movements were
Saint-Simon (1760-1825), whose ideas produced a strong effect in
France; Charles Fourier (1772-1837), by whose influence
"phalanxes," as the communities adopting his views were named, were
formed in Europe and America; and Robert Owen (1771-1858), whose
societies were built up at New Lanark in Scotland, New
Harmony in Indiana, and in other places. Since the French
Revolution of 1848, these particular attempts of philanthropic
socialism have passed out of notice. Shortly after the Reign of Terror,
Babeuf attempted (1796) to overthrow the authorities in Paris,
and to bring to pass an equal division of property. The course of
political struggles in France, in connection with the revolutions in
industry and trade, which have occurred since the fall of the first
Napoleon, have given rise to a disaffected working-class, or
proletariat. The complaint has arisen, that the benefits
resulting from political freedom in Europe have come to the middle
class,—to tradesmen and manufacturers possessed of capital,—and
that the laboring class are deprived of their due share of the profits
of industry. One noted expounder of communism in France was
Proudhon (1809-1865), who sought to give emphasis to his
doctrine by affirming that "property is theft." Louis Blanc, who
was a member of the provisional government in France in 1848, both
before and after that time was an active promoter of the scheme under
which government is to furnish labor on a large scale, and to become
the grand employer of the working-class. In Germany, socialism in its
later distinctive form, as defined above, has been advocated by a
number of well-known writers. Perhaps the ablest of these was
Ferdinand Lasalle (1825-1864). Like the other principal
socialists, he would clothe the State with a vastly augmented power and
responsibility. In this particular, socialism is directly antagonistic
to the ideas of democracy which had previously
prevailed. Lasalle's doctrine was that the State should lend
capital at interest to associations of laborers. This, he thought,
would be the first step in their emancipation. Karl Marx would
go much farther. He would transfer to the State all capital and all
means of production. He would, as he professes, "overthrow all the
existing arrangements of society." With property, inheritance is to be
abolished; labor is to be made compulsory; all means of transport are
to be in the hands of the State, and so forth. The International
Working Men's Association—popularly called "the
International"—was organized in London in 1864. It has held congresses
in Geneva, and in other cities. It entered upon the most
destructive schemes of social agitation and revolution. But the society
was divided in 1872, on the expulsion of Bakunin, a Russian
Nihilist. A faction of the most violent class continued its activity
for a while, and stirred up risings in several towns in Spain in 1873,
in imitation of the insurrections in Paris in 1871. Different shades of
socialistic theory have been advocated; from the "Christian Socialism"
which aims at such objects as the creation of cooperative associations
in the working-class, to the fanatics who would sweep away existing
institutions by violence, and who resort to the use of dynamite as a
means of inspiring terror.
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION SINCE 1871.—Thiers had wonderful success
in providing for the payment of the German indemnity. His term of
office was prolonged (Aug. 31, 1871) for three years, with the title of
President. Thiers had cooperated with MacMahon in
crushing the commune, and in wholesome measures for the preservation of
order. An adverse vote in the Assembly (May 24, 1873) caused his
resignation. This was effected by a combination of the monarchical
parties. MacMahon, his successor, took a very conservative
position. The monarchists united to restore the Count of
Chambord to the throne as Henry V., but the scheme
failed. In February, 1875, a new constitution, of a conservative
republican cast, was established, which provided for a president and a
cabinet, a senate, and a chamber of deputies. The legitimists,
Orleanists, and imperialists united with the president in his
reactionary, anti-republican policy. The whole clerical party were on
that side. The republicans were divided among themselves, the most
radical group being under the leadership of Gambetta. The danger
to the republic compelled a common policy. One of the great subjects of
controversy related to public education, in the management of which the
Church and the clergy desired to retain and extend their influence and
control. To secularize education, was a main aim of the body of the
republicans. The success of the republicans, against extraordinary
efforts made to defeat them, in the elections of 1877, at last
prevailed on the marshal-president to accept the verdict of the
country; and late in the year a republican cabinet was formed. The
measures of Jules Ferry and his supporters, for taking the
business of instruction out of the hands of ecclesiastics and of the
clerical orders, although most earnestly resisted by Bishop
Dupanloup and the whole clerical party, and opposed by a section
of the republicans led by Jules Simon, were, after heated
contention, adopted, and were completely carried out (1880). The death
of Thiers (Sept., 1877) did not weaken the party of which he was
the most honored leader. The death of the young Prince Louis
Napoleon (1879) in South Africa, where he was serving, under the
British, against the Zulus, was an almost fatal blow to the
hopes of the Bonapartist faction. The more recent death of Count
Chambord (1883) was followed by the recognition, on the part of the
legitimists, of the Count of Paris, of the Orleans house, as the
next heir to the throne. A manifesto of Prince Jerome Napoleon
(1883), after the death of the young Prince Napoleon, aroused an
agitation against all pretenders to the throne,—in particular, against
the Orleanists; which led, after protracted debates, to the forced
retirement of all the princes of this family from active service in the
French army. In November, 1881, Gambetta became the head of the
cabinet; but the opposition to his policy within the republican ranks
was stronger than had been anticipated. After a short time he laid down
his office. He died Dec. 31, 1882. Jules Grévy (first elected
Jan. 30, 1879) was re-elected president Dec. 28, 1885. He was forced to
resign in 1887 because his son-in-law was implicated in corrupt
transactions. His successor was Sadi Carnot.
FRENCH CONQUESTS ABROAD.—The failure of France, in the Oriental
difficulties, to gain the power which she desired, impelled her to
build up colonial interests and settlements. Partly to punish marauding
tribes, in 1881, an expedition was sent against Tunis; and the
Bey was forced to accept a protectorate of the French over his
dominion. Thus the French enlarged their power in Africa. This
proceeding gave great offense to England, Italy, and the Turkish
Sultan. On the ground of a treaty of 1841, a French admiral demanded
the submission of the north-west coast of Madagascar to a French
protectorate; and when this demand was refused, he bombarded and
captured the second city in the island, Tamatave (1883). The
efforts of France to gain control over Tonquin and the adjacent
territory in China attracted still more
attention. Tonquin is the most populous province of the kingdom
of Anam, of which it formed a part after 1802. Over this
kingdom, China claimed the rights of a suzerain; which the French
refused to acknowledge. In 1862, after a war lasting for almost four
years, Napoleon III. obtained from Anam, by the treaty of
Saigun, the provinces called Cochin-China. In 1874 the
French Republic extorted from King Tuduc of Anam a treaty by
which his foreign policy was placed under the direction of
France. Against this treaty, China protested. In 1882 the French
commander Rivière seized the city of Hanoi. The "Black
Flags," a body of free-lances or pirates, whose leader had been one of
the Chinese rebels, fought against the French; but it soon appeared
that both the king of Anam and the government of China were in
league with his hostile force. Two years later a treaty was signed
bringing Tonkin almost directly under French rule and
reëstablishing the protectorate in Anam.
THE CONFLICT OF PRUSSIA AND THE VATICAN.—The Roman Catholic Church in
Germany is recognized as a legal institution. Its revenues are received
from the state, which, in turn, exercises a supervision over the
education of its clergy. In Prussia, especially under Frederick
William IV., large privileges were granted by law to the Catholic
body. The proceedings of the Vatican Council awakened in Germany, as
elsewhere in Europe, the apprehension that the decree of papal
infallibility might give rise to conflict between the authorities of
the Church and of the State. Bismarck considered that the
"ultramontane" party in the Church involved danger to the newly created
German Empire. The Prussian government resisted the attempt of the
Church, in 1871, to remove from office Catholic teachers who refused to
subscribe to the Vatican dogma of papal infallibility. In other words,
the government recognized and undertook to protect the "Old Catholics."
The contest with the clerical or ultramontane party went on; and before
the end of the year, the Catholic branch of the Prussian Ministry of
Worship and Instruction was abolished. In a debate in 1872,
Bismarck said, "Of this be sure, that neither in Church nor in
State are we on the way to Canossa." His policy met with a determined
resistance from Pius IX. The Jesuits were expelled from the
German Empire. This law was afterwards construed to include other
orders.
THE FALK LAWS: CONTINUED CONFLICT.—The laws proposed by the Prussian
minister of worship, Falk, required that candidates for the
clerical office in the Catholic Church should have a training in the
gymnasium and university, and that every ecclesiastical appointment
should be sanctioned by the civil authorities. They provided for a
royal court for the settlement of ecclesiastical questions. These laws
were passed in 1873. In 1875 civil marriage was made obligatory in the
empire. These measures were stoutly resisted by "the Center," or the
clerical party, in the Prussian Parliament, and in the
Reichstag. They were declared by the Pope to be invalid, and
Roman Catholics were forbidden to obey them. Other enactments, one of
which forbade all payments to the bishops and clergy unless they should
sign a promise to obey the laws of the state, were adopted by Prussia.
Refractory bishops and priests were punished in various ways. The
result was that the Roman Catholic party, led by Windhorst,
ex-minister of Hanover, in opposition to Bismarck's measures,
was consolidated. The struggle extended beyond the bounds of Prussia:
it was Bavaria, a Catholic state, which proposed the law
requiring civil marriage. After the accession of Leo XIII.,
there was on both sides an increased disposition to find terms of peace
by which the numerous vacancies in Catholic clerical offices could be
filled. The need which Bismarck felt of the support of "the
Center" for his financial measures favored this result. Falk
resigned (July 13, 1879), he being personally odious to the Roman
party. After long debates, a bill was passed (Jan. 1, 1882) giving to
the king and his ministers discretionary powers, which opened the way
for filling the vacant places. Still, in the great festival at the
completion of the Cologne Cathedral (Oct. 15), the clerical party stood
aloof. But the mutual friendly approaches of the chancelor and his
ultramontane opponents continued. Diplomatic correspondence was opened
with the Vatican. Some of the harsher features of the anti-papal
legislation were revoked.
BISMARCK AND SOCIALISM.—One motive in this modification of the
chancelor's policy was the rapid progress of socialism. At first, while
Bismarck was engaged in a struggle with the liberals, who
impeded his plans in the Prussian Parliament, he had willingly availed
himself of the support of Lasalle and his socialistic
followers. But after the war with France, the party of the "Social
Democrats" became more and more numerous and formidable. It was not,
however, until a second attempt was made on the emperor's life, that
Bismarck was able to carry, against the combination of parties, his
measures giving to the government extraordinary powers for the stifling
of socialistic agitation (1879). The law for the suppression of
socialistic meetings, newspapers, etc., was rigorously enforced.
THE "PARTICULARISTS."—Bismarck was, moreover, obliged to contend with
the "Particularists," who were hostile to the Empire, and with a large
number besides them, who were opposed to a greater degree of imperial
centralization at the expense of the power of the separate
states. Unable to obtain for the imperial government the control over
the German railroad system, he devised a plan (1879) by which Prussia
would eventually control three-quarters of the railroads of Germany. An
imperial code of laws was adopted (1877); but, from jealousy of
Prussia, the seat of the supreme court of appeal was fixed at
Leipsic. In his economical and financial measures, the chancelor
was often charged with the exercise of arbitrary power. Free,
representative government, according to the English system, did not
accord with his idea of the Prussian monarchy, and with the character
of the new empire, the unity of which he was naturally anxious to
fortify. By his alliance with Austria in 1879, he placed Germany in a
situation to resist Russia and France, in case Russia, aggrieved by the
action of Germany at the Berlin Conference (1878), should join hands
with France in acts of hostility against the German empire. In 1888
William I. died and was succeeded by his son, Frederick
III., who held the sovereignty but a few months, dying June 15,
1888. His son, William II., succeeded him.
THE BRITISH SWAY IN INDIA.—British sway by degrees extended itself
over India. The fall of the Mogul empire left the country in a state of
anarchy. Strife arose with one tribe after another, until the authority
of England came to be acknowledged as far north as the Himalayas. The
English advance was made with the help of native auxiliaries, and could
not have been made without it. It was quite as much an internal
revolution as a foreign conquest. As the British enlarged their
dominion, and came into conflict with the French, the appetite for
supremacy grew. Under the rule of the Marquis of Wellesley
(1798-1805), partly through the victories of Sir Arthur
Wellesley (afterwards the Duke of Wellington), "the policy of
intervention and annexation" was pursued with brilliant success. The
Burmese were conquered, and parts of their territory annexed, in
1826, 1852, and 1885. The effort always was to secure a quiet
frontier. In 1843 a war with Scinde resulted in its absorption
in British territory. In 1849 the annexation of Punjab followed,
a British protectorate having been found insufficient. The
misgovernment of the native princes in Oude led to the
assumption of the government of that province by the English in 1856.
THE INDIAN MUTINY.—There was hostility to British rule among the
Mohammedans in India, and distrust among the Hindoos. The latter
acquired a fanatical belief that the English, who had abolished the
burning of widows, and even legalized their marriage, meant to force
the people to lose caste by driving them to sacrilegious practices. The
report that cartridges had been served out which had been lubricated
with the fat of the swine, abhorred by Moslems, and of the cow,
venerated by the Hindoos, stirred up a revolt among the native Sepoy
troops (1857). The insurrection spread, and was attended with savage
cruelties. There was a frightful massacre of women and children at
Cawnpore, before General Havelock could arrive for its
relief. The English, who were besieged in Lucknow, after
terrible suffering, were relieved by the opportune coming of this
gallant soldier. All the English residents in Delhi, who could
not escape into the jungle, were murdered. The weak old king placed
himself at the head of the rebellion. Delhi was recaptured by
the British, and the conquest completed by Sir Colin Campbell
(March 22, 1858). Oude was subdued. Gradually the rebellion was
crushed, and merciless severity was exercised by the conquerors upon
those most actively concerned in it. One consequence of the revolt was
the entire transference of the government of India from the East India
Company to the Crown. The measure was introduced into Parliament by
Lord Palmerston (1858). Under the ministry of Disraeli,
and on his motion, the Queen added to her titles that of "Empress of
India" (1877).
BRITISH WARS WITH THE AFGHANS.—In the last century Ahmed Khan,
the ruler of Afghanistan, extended his dominion as far as
Delhi. But he died in 1773, and his son Timour changed
the seat of government from Candahar to Cabul. In 1838
the English declared war against Dost Mohammed, one of the three
rulers of the country, whose seat of power was in this city. The
British attack was successful; but insurrections broke out (1841), and
they agreed to evacuate the country. The whole British army, which had
to pass through the Kurd-Cabul Pass, was destroyed by cold and
hunger, and by the harassing attacks of the mountaineers (1842). It
numbered forty-five hundred fighting men and twelve thousand five
hundred camp-followers. Another British army, under
Gen. Pollock, forced the Khyber Pass, and took vengeance
on Cabul. In 1855 Dost Mohammed, now an ally of the
English, drove the Persians out of Herat, which, as "the key of
India," the British were anxious to protect against ambitious schemes
of Russia. In 1863 he took Herat from Ahmed, the sultan
there, who was considered a tool of Persia and of Russia. Dost
Mohammed died soon after, and was succeeded by his son Sher Ali
Khan. After the acquisition of Quetta by the English, he
began to side with the Russians. His intrigues with them, and his
refusal to receive a British embassy, brought on the second Afghan war
of the British (1878-81). The ameer died (Feb. 21, 1879); the Afghans
were defeated by Gen. Roberts, who took Cabul, and
installed as ameer Abdurrahman Khan (1880). The English then
decided to evacuate the territory. On their march they were attacked by
Ayub Khan of Herat. Later he was defeated by Roberts, and
driven back to that place. The Gladstone ministry had succeeded
the ministry of Disraeli, who had been anxious to establish a
"scientific frontier" between Afghanistan and the Czar's
territories,—such a frontier as would secure a "neutral zone" between
them and India, to serve as a barrier against Russian invasion.
RUSSIA AND AFGHANISTAN.—The gradual approaches of Russia in the
direction of Herat have been on two lines. The one is the line
south-easterly from the Caspian. She gained a lodgment in 1869 at
Krasnovodsk on the eastern shore of that sea. In 1880
Geopteke and Askabat were taken. The other line of
aggressive approach is south-westerly from the neighborhood of the
Oxus. On this line, partly from displeasure at the English occupation
of Egypt, and in pursuance of the policy, adopted especially since the
Berlin Conference (1878), to advance towards Herat, the Russians
suddenly seized Merv, an oasis extremely important from a
military point of view, over which Persia claimed a certain
suzerainty. The Russians occupied it in force, under
Gen. Komaroff (March 16, 1884). Subsequently England and Russia
agreed to ascertain and fix the northern boundary of Afghanistan. The
occupation of Penjdeh by the Afghans, followed by the advance of
Komaroff,—of which the British complained as an
aggression,—brought the two countries to the verge of war (1885).
THE WESTERN POWERS AND EGYPT.—"The Oriental question"—the question
relating to Turkey and its dependencies—constantly took on new phases,
and presented to the powers of Europe fresh difficulties and dangers of
conflict. The Khedive of Egypt, Ismail Pasha, was a friend and
admirer of Napoleon III. and of the French. He succeeded in
obtaining from the Sultan repeated concessions, which reduced his
dependence on Turkey to little more than an obligation to pay an annual
tribute, together with certain marks of respect and honor. His
conflicts with lands on the south, Dafour and Abyssinia,
his extravagant outlays in public works of internal improvement, and
the enormous interest paid to foreign capitalists for their loans,
involved him in the utmost financial embarrassment. This furnished the
occasion to the Western powers, in particular to England and France, to
intermeddle still more in Egyptian affairs. The Khedive sold to the
British Government his shares in the Suez Canal, and gave into
the hands of the English and French (1878) the control of the financial
administration of the country. This sort of dependence was repugnant to
both the Khedive and the Egyptian people. The native officers were
pushed into the background. The most lucrative stations were filled by
foreigners, and the weight of taxation was almost intolerable. The
attempt to throw off this yoke only resulted in the deposition of
Ismail by the Sultan, on the demand of the two Western
powers. His weak son, Tewfik Pasha, took his place. The control
of the finances remained in foreign hands. The result of the discontent
of the people, and of the disaffection of the Egyptian officers, was a
revolt led by Arabi Pasha, a military officer (1881). The
Khedive complied with the demands of the insurgents: their chief was
made minister of war. The Western powers were bent on suppressing this
movement, and, in addition to threats and diplomatic measures, sent
their fleets to Egypt. A revolt broke out in Alexandria, in
which the English consul was wounded and many Europeans were slain
(June, 1882). The city was filled with terror, and all trade was
suspended. The English fleet bombarded the city, and set it on
fire. Arabi withdrew his troops to Cairo. He was now
deposed by the Khedive, and declared a rebel. His troops showed little
spirit. The fortifications of Tel-el-Kebir were taken by the
English general, Sir Garnet Wolseley, almost without
resistance. Aboukir, Damietta, and Cairo surrendered, and
the Egyptian leader, Arabi, was captured and banished. From that
time Egypt fell into a condition of helpless dependence on
England. France found herself without the influence there which she had
always coveted since the days of the first Napoleon. The system
of administration in Egypt was now organized by the English, through
Lord Dufferin. Great complaint was made against them by the
other powers, for not taking sufficient precautions to prevent the
introduction of the cholera from India. The principal troubles of the
English grew out of the invasion of the false prophet called El
Mahdi, who gathered to himself a host of followers in the
Soudan, partly instigated by Moslem fanaticism, but largely
impelled by their hatred of the Egyptian government established over
that region. The people of the Soudan complained bitterly of the
oppressive Egyptian officers. The slave-dealers there were exasperated
at the prohibition of their traffic, on which England had insisted. In
the course of the conflict with El Mahdi, Hicks Pasha, an
English officer in the service of the Khedive, was defeated and slain,
and his force cut to pieces, near El Obeid (Nov. 3, 4, and 5,
1883). There was great fear now for the province of Sennaar and
especially for the city of Khartoum, where there were many
Europeans. Mr. Gladstone, and the English ministry of which he
was the head, were not disposed to hold the Soudan, but desired
to give it up as soon as the garrisons could be rescued and brought
away. To this policy the Khedive was opposed. The project of a military
interference in the Soudan by the Sultan, the English took care
to prevent by attaching to it impossible conditions. On the Red Sea,
Osman Digna, a partisan of the Mahdi, made repeated
attacks upon Suakim, the base of the operations of Baker
Pasha, another former English officer, now become general of the
Egyptian army. On account of the cowardice of the Egyptian troops,
Baker was defeated with heavy loss (Feb. 4, 1884). The British
troops from Cairo under Graham had better success; and
Osman Digna was vanquished, and driven into the mountains. The
English government adopted the extraordinary measure of sending General
Gordon to Khartoum; his errand being to pacify the tribes of the
Soudan, to provide for the deliverance of the garrisons, and to
arrange terms of accommodation with El Mahdi. This last it was
found impossible to accomplish. Berber was captured by the
enemy, and garrison and male population were slaughtered. Gordon
was shut up in Khartoum. The peculiar financial situation
obliged the English ministry to hold a conference of the great powers
(June 28, 1885) at London. Lord Granville insisted that only
financial points, and not the general Egyptian question, should be
considered, which did not accord with the views of the other powers,
and the conference adjourned without effecting anything. The perilous
situation of Gordon, and the feeling in England on this account,
obliged the government to send out General Wolseley with a large
force to Egypt; but before aid could be given Gordon,
Khartoum, was betrayed, and he was slain. The course of England
respecting Egypt had left her isolated as regards the other European
powers, and had awakened much disaffection in England. It was the
policy of the Gladstone ministry in relation to Egypt, even more than
complaints growing out of their conduct in the troubles with Russia,
that obliged them to resign, and to give place to the Tory cabinet of
Lord Salisbury. Upon the death of Tewfik (Jan. 7, 1892)
his son, Abbas Pasha, became khedive.
GREAT BRITAIN AND CANADA.—On the cession of Canada to Great Britain
(1763), the French inhabitants of Lower Canada were secured in
the free exercise of the Catholic religion, and in the possession of
equal rights with English settlers. "The Quebec Act" of 1774 made
Canada one royal government, and brought in the English criminal code
with trial by jury. During the Revolution, many loyalists emigrated to
Upper Canada. A strong desire arose for a repeal of the "Quebec Act."
In 1791, under Pitt, the two parts of Canada were made separate
provinces. A constitution was granted, which provided for an elective
legislature for each. The governors, the executive councils, and the
legislative councils were to be appointed by the Crown. The governments
were still subject to the Colonial Office in London. A spirit of
opposition between the two provinces increased. Upper Canada,
under English law, grew in numbers and prosperity; but the growth of
population in Lower Canada was much more rapid. Here there was
an antagonism between the Assembly and the English governors. There was
an open rebellion in 1837, which spread into Upper Canada. The two
Canadas were united in 1841; the executive department became
responsible, as in England, to the popular branch of the legislature;
and under the liberal and enlightened administration of Lord
Elgin (1847-54), a better feeling arose. He was obliged,
however, to suppress a mob of the conservatives, or "loyalists" (1849),
who were hostile to the extension of a general amnesty to former
rebels. In 1856 the Upper House was made elective. In 1857
Ottawa was made the seat of government. In 1867 the Dominion
of Canada was constituted. It was at first a federal union of Nova
Scotia, New Brunswick, and the Canadas; Upper Canada receiving
the name of Ontario, and Lower Canada being named
Quebec. Manitoba, formed out of a part of Hudson Bay
Territory, was admitted to the Dominion in 1870, and British
Columbia in 1871. Prince Edward Island was admitted in 1873;
and the same year the territories were received by transfer from the
Hudson Bay Company. The Dominion has a Senate and a House of
Commons. The authority of the Crown is represented by the
governor-general and the council. Legislation is subject to a veto from
the sovereign. Each province has its local government, but whatever
powers are not expressly reserved to the several provinces are granted
to the General Government,—a provision the reverse of that found in
the Constitution of the United States, which the Canadian system in
various features resembles.
In the Peace of Utrecht (1713), France gave up its claim to Nova
Scotia: the Peace of Paris (1763) surrendered to Great Britain
New Brunswick, and Cape Breton and Prince Edward
islands. These are known at present as the maritime provinces.
When the American War of Revolution began, thousands of loyalists
emigrated to Nova Scotia, as well as to Upper Canada,
from whom many of the present inhabitants are descended. The island of
Vancouver, on the western coast of British Columbia, was
surrendered to the navigator of this name by Quadra, a Spanish
commander, in 1792. In 1843 a trading-post was established at
Victoria by the Hudson Bay Company. The island forms politically
a part of British Columbia. The Government of the Dominion, when
British Columbia was received, engaged to construct a railway to the
Pacific across British North America. England acquired a title to
Newfoundland in 1713. It first received a constitution in
1832. The government was made responsible to the Assembly in 1852.
GREAT BRITAIN AND AUSTRALIA.—Australia, which covers an area of three
million square miles, when it was first visited by Europeans was found
to be inhabited by native tribes of the Papuan, Melanesian, or
Australasian race, of whom about eighty thousand now remain. In the
seventeenth century, various points along its coasts were touched by
European voyagers, especially by the Dutch. The discoveries of Captain
Cook (1769 to 1777) had an important influence in leading to
settlements on this island-continent. New South Wales, a name
given by Cook, is the oldest of the English provinces in
Australia. Not Botany Bay, which he had selected for a
settlement, but Port Jackson, was made a penal station (1788)
for convicts from England. This place, however, continued to be
erroneously called Botany Bay. The principal harbor was named
Sydney Cove. In 1803 Van Dieman's Land, now called
Tasmania, was first occupied. Thus the beginnings of
colonization in Australia were made by the dregs of English
society. The convicts labored for their own support, and, when their
terms had expired, sometimes received as a gift small farms, and
implements with which to till them. The character of the settlement,
and the management of it, became much more humane after 1810, when
Macquarie became governor. Free colonists, English and Scotch,
came and joined it. The discovery of the upland pastures beyond the
Blue Mountains, which were remarkably adapted to sheep, made an epoch
in the history of the colony. Spanish merino sheep were introduced:
wool became the chief staple; the production of it, especially after
the invention of the combing-machine, became very profitable, and free
emigrants poured in. The Australian Agricultural Company was formed in
England. Western Australia began to be settled in 1829, but did not
thrive. New colonies continued to be formed in Eastern Australia. South
Australia was made prosperous by copper-mines. Victoria, which became a
distinct province in 1851, owes its growth to gold
mines. Melbourne, its chief town, was planted in 1837. The first
British governors at Sydney were military officers, ruling with
despotic authority. Representative institutions were gradually formed
in the different provinces. The constitutions were framed on the model
of the home government; but in Victoria and Tasmania the
Upper House was made elective. After long conflicts with the home
government, the Australian colonies escaped from the misfortune of
being places to which convicts were transported. The discovery of gold
in New South Wales and Victoria was made in 1851, and
caused at once an immense influx of immigrants. Next to gold, the most
important article of export has been wool. Wheat and copper have been
exported in large quantities. The breeding of cattle has been a
profitable employment in these communities.
NEW ZEALAND.—In 1838 the first regular and permanent settlement was
made in New Zealand. Wellington was founded in the next
year. New Zealand, with South Island and North Island, became a colony
independent of Australia in 1841.
ENGLAND AND IRELAND.—The disaffection of the Irish, and their
antipathy to English rule, broke out in different forms, as
circumstances changed. For a long time the demand was for "Catholic
emancipation." This was granted (p. 558); but most of the English
concessions were made under such a pressure, and in appearance so
grudgingly, that little was accomplished by them in placating Irish
hostility. The outcry against tithes for the support of the Protestant
Established Church was to a great extent quieted in 1838, when the
odious features of this tax were removed. The Act disestablishing the
Irish Protestant Church, carried by Mr. Gladstone in 1869, and
put in execution in 1871, took away one of the great grievances of
which the Irish nation had to complain. The repeal of the legislative
union of England and Ireland was the watchword of O'Connell and
his followers. In one form or another, the demand for local
self-government or independence, which has been more lately urged under
the name of "home rule," has been kept up with little intermission. It
is about the special question of land reform that the most bitter
conflicts have centered. The ownership of a great part of the land in
Ireland by a few persons: the fact that great obstacles and great
expenses—difficulties of late somewhat lightened—have existed in the
way of the transference of land if any one had the means to purchase
it: the circumstances that the owners have generally been, not
residents, but absent landlords; that, in cases of dispute with
tenants, the laws were for a long period framed in their interest; that
the management of estates was left to agents or middle-men; that
multitudes of tenants, whose holdings were small, could glean a bare
subsistence from the soil, were doomed to famine if the potato-crop
failed, and, when unable to pay the rent, were liable to "eviction,"
that is, to be turned out of doors, with their families, to
perish,—these have been causes sufficient to give rise to endless
disputes and conflicts. Add to these facts the inbred hostility arising
from differences of race and religion; the memory, on the part of the
Irish, of centuries of misgovernment, and the feeling that the lands
held by sufferance were wrested from their ancestors by force,—and the
animosity manifested in revolts and outrages is easily explained. The
English government, in a series of measures,—in connection with which,
acts of coercion for preventing and punishing violence have been
passed,—undertook to lessen the evils that exist, and to produce a
better state of feeling. The Encumbered Estates Court was
established to render more easy the transfer of lands. This Act, and
the Land Act passed the same year (1860), although well meant,
failed to improve the situation of the tenants. Mr. Gladstone's
great measure of disestablishment has been referred to. His second
great reform measure was the Land Law of 1870, the effect of which was
to make the landlord pay damages to the evicted tenant, to compensate
him for improvements which he had made, etc. One object of this Act was
to create a body of peasant proprietors in Ireland. Additional Acts, in
1880, were designed to assist tenants to purchase their holdings. The
hopes as to the practical benefit to follow the Act of 1870 were
disappointed. In 1877, 1878, and 1879, there was a partial failure of
the crops. The Fenian movement, designed to secure Irish
independence by force, was organized in the United States, 1857. By
uniting with similar Irish brotherhoods, it extended itself in Great
Britain as well as America, collected large funds, and, 1866, made
ineffectual attempts to invade Canada. An armed rising in Ireland
shortly after, under Fenian leadership, was suppressed. The national
agitation consequent on these proceedings in Ireland, issued in the
organization, 1870, of the Home Rule party, with Mr. Isaac Butt
a leading promoter. The object was to secure an Irish Parliament for
Irish affairs, and for the control of Irish resources; the Imperial
Parliament being left to deal with imperial affairs. In this period
(about 1874) Mr. Parnell grew to be conspicuous in politics. He
became the leader of the Home Rule members of the House of Commons, who
sought, by obstructing the progress of business, to compel the English
government to withdraw its measures of coercion, and to legislate in
accordance with the views of himself and his associates. The
"obstructionists," by joining the Tories, effected the retirement of
the Gladstone Cabinet (1885). In Ireland a system of "boycotting" was
adopted for the punishment of landlords guilty of evicting
tenants. This led to deeds of violence and blood. Parnell died
in 1891. and Justin McCarthy became the leader of the Irish
cause in Parliament. A Gladstone Cabinet again came into power in 1892,
with an avowed object of securing Home Rule for Ireland.
CHAPTER VI. THE UNITED STATES (1815-1890): MEXICO: SOUTH AMERICAN
STATES: EASTERN ASIA.
END OF THE FEDERAL PARTY.—The end of the war with Great Britain
(1812-15) was marked by the extinction of the Federal party. But the
Republicans, the opposing party, were now equally zealous for the
perpetuity of the Union, and were quite ready to act on a liberal
construction of the Constitution with respect to the powers conferred
on the General Government. This had been shown in the purchase of
Louisiana: it was further exemplified in 1816 in the establishment of a
national bank, and in the enactment of a protective tariff. Then, and
until 1832, presidential candidates were nominated by Congressional
"caucuses." James Monroe (1817-25) received the votes of all of
the States but three. The absence of party division has caused his time
to be designated as "the era of good feeling."
PURCHASE OF FLORIDA.—Slaves in Georgia and Alabama frequently escaped
from their masters, and fled for shelter to the swamps of Florida. The
Creek and the Seminole Indians were always disposed to
aid them. In 1817 General Andrew Jackson was appointed to
conduct an expedition against the Seminoles. He came into conflict with
the Spanish authorities in Florida, where he seized Spanish forts, and
built a fort of his own. Finally, in 1819, the Floridas were purchased
of Spain for five million dollars, and the United States gave up its
claim to the extensive territory west of the Sabine River, which was
known afterwards as Texas. This became a part of Mexico two
years later.
SLAVERY: THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE.—In 1820 a sectional struggle arose
in Congress, on the question of the admission of Missouri as a State
with a constitution permitting slavery. The slave-trade had been
carried on by the States separately, before the National Constitution
was formed. It was abolished by Congress in 1808, the earliest date
allowed by the Constitution for the power to abolish it to be
exercised. The principal founders of the government, both in the North
and South, considered slavery an evil, and looked forward to its
gradual extinction. In the North, where the slaves were less numerous,
laws for gradual emancipation were early passed. But the rapid increase
of slaves in the South, the growing demand for cotton, and the stimulus
given to the production of it by the cotton-gin, made the prospect of
emancipation by legislative action less probable as time advanced. The
American Colonization Society was formed in 1811; and the
fallacious hope was entertained by many, that the negroes might be
carried back to the Liberian settlement on the African
coast. The extension of slavery in the territory north-west of the Ohio
had been prevented by the Congressional ordinance of 1787. When the
question of the admission of Missouri to the Union came up, the
members of Congress from the North and the members from the South were
in hostile array on the point, and a dangerous excitement was
kindled. By the exertions of Henry Clay, the "Missouri
Compromise" was adopted, by which the new State was admitted with
slavery in it; but, as a kind of equivalent, slavery was prohibited
forever in all the remaining territory of the United States north of
36° 30' north latitude, the southern boundary of Missouri.
THE "MONROE DOCTRINE."—When the "Holy Alliance" was engaged in its
crusade against liberty in Europe, it was thought that they might
attempt to conquer for Spain the revolted South American
republics. Canning suggested to the American minister in
England, that it would be well for the United States to take action
against such a scheme. President Monroe, in his annual message in 1823,
said that we should consider an attempt of the allied powers to extend
their system in this country, or any interference on their part for the
purpose of controlling the destiny of the American States, as
unfriendly action towards the United States. This is the "Monroe
Doctrine." An additional statement in disapproval of future
colonization on the American continents by European powers was made in
the same message. This second statement was never sanctioned by the
House of Representatives. It is vague, and was probably meant to
exclude indirect attempts to overthrow the liberty of the new
American republics. The only thing which the "Monroe Doctrine" really
contains is the intimation on the part of the United States of a right
to resist attempts of European powers to alter the constitutions of
American communities.
The true origin and intent of the "Monroe Doctrine" are often
misunderstood. They are set forth in Woolsey's International
Law, and in his article in Johnson's Encyclopedia, "Monroe
Doctrine;" also in Webster's writings, Vol. III. p. l78, and in
Calhoun's "Speech on the Panama Question." See also Foster, A
Century of American Diplomacy, Chap. XII.
PARTIES AFTER MONROE.—At the expiration of Monroe's second term, there
being no choice for president by the people, John Quincy Adams,
who had long been in public life in various important stations, was
chosen by the House of Representatives. His supporters combined with
the adherents of Henry Clay, who became secretary of state. This
alliance was loudly denounced by their opponents as a "bargain." From
the close of the last war with Great Britain, a party called by their
adversaries "loose constructionists" of the Constitution, of which
Clay was a leader,—a party who were in favor of measures like a
protective tariff, a national bank, and internal improvements,—as the
making of canals,—to be undertaken by Congress,—had been growing
up. It now took the name of National Republicans, which was
afterwards exchanged for that of Whigs. On the other side were
the "strict constructionists," who, however, differed among themselves
respecting certain measures,—for example, the tariff. In their ranks
Andrew Jackson belonged. Of this political tendency, John
C. Calhoun of South Carolina became a leading promoter. Andrew
Jackson was a favorite candidate for the presidency, and the name
of Democrats was applied to his followers.
PRESIDENCY OF JACKSON.—Jackson was elevated to the presidency
in 1829. He was a fearless man, an ardent patriot, with a choleric
temper and an imperious will. He carried to an unexampled extent a
custom, which had begun with Jefferson, of supplanting
office-holders of the opposite political party by supporters of the
administration. This came to be called the "spoils system," from the
maxim once quoted in defense of it, that "to the victors belong the
spoils."
NULLIFICATION.—During Jackson's administration, there occurred
the "nullification" crisis. In 1828 a new protective tariff had been
passed, which was regarded in the South, especially in South Carolina,
as extremely unjust and injurious. The New England States had been
averse to protection; and in 1816 Daniel Webster opposed the
tariff measure as specially hurtful to the Eastern States, whose
capital was so largely invested in commerce. After the protective
policy had been adopted, and when, under its shield, manufacturing had
been extensively established in the North, the former adversaries of
protection, with Webster, as well as Clay, who had been
a protectionist before, thought it unfair and destructive to do away
with the tariff. Its adversaries denounced it as
unconstitutional. Calhoun and his followers, moreover,
contended that nullification is legal and admissible; in other
words, that a law of Congress may be set aside by a State within its
own limits, provided it is considered by that State a gross infraction
of the Constitution. There was a memorable debate on this subject in
1830, in the United States Senate, when the State-rights theory was
advocated by Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina, and the
opposite doctrine defended by Webster. In 1832 South Carolina
passed an ordinance declaring that the tariff laws of 1828 and 1832
were null and void, and not binding in that State. President
Jackson issued a spirited proclamation in which the
nullification doctrine was repudiated, and the opposite, or national,
theory was affirmed, and the President's resolute intention to execute
the laws of the United States was announced. The difficulty was ended
by the compromise tariff introduced by Henry Clay, providing
for the gradual reduction of duties (1833).
REMOVAL OF THE DEPOSITS.—The President was hostile to the National
Bank, which he considered dangerous, as liable to be converted into a
tool for partisan ends. Not being able to carry Congress with him, he
assumed the responsibility, after his second election, of removing the
deposits, or public funds, from its custody, or, rather, of an order
for the cessation of these deposits. For this he was censured by the
Senate, a majority of which regarded his act as arbitrary and
unconstitutional.
ANTI-SLAVERY AGITATION.—From about this time, the agitation respecting
slavery constantly increased. In the North a party arose, which,
through lectures and in newspapers and pamphlets, denounced slavery as
iniquitous, and called for immediate emancipation. The most prominent
leader of this party was William Lloyd Garrison, and its most
captivating orator was Wendell Phillips. This party advocated
disunion, on account of the obligations imposed upon the North in
reference to slavery by the Constitution. They were sometimes assailed
by mobs in Northern cities. The major part of the people in the North
desired some method of extinguishing slavery which should leave the
Union intact. Meantime they were for obeying the Constitution, although
the obligation to restore fugitive slaves was felt to be obnoxious, and
there grew up a disposition to avoid compliance with it. The
"colonizationists" diminished in number. There were various types and
degrees of anti-slavery sentiment. The resolution to confine slavery,
by political action, within the limits of the States where it was under
the shield of local law, became more and more prevalent. In the South,
on the contrary, the enmity to "abolitionism" was intense, and served
to increase the popularity of the doctrine of State-rights. Slavery
came to be defended as necessary under the circumstances, and as
capable of justification on moral and Scriptural grounds. Occasions of
reciprocal complaint between North and South, for illegal doings
relating in one way or another to slavery, tended to multiply.
ANNEXATION OF TEXAS.—In 1836 Texas declared its independence of
Mexico. General Sam Houston, an emigrant from Tennessee, was the
leader in the revolt. He defeated the Mexicans under Santa Ana,
at the San Jacinto (1836). In 1845, largely by the agency of
Mr. Calhoun, Texas, by an Act of Congress, was annexed to the
United States. The motive which he avowed was the fear that it might
fall into the hands of England, and become dangerous to the institution
of slavery in the South. The measure was strenuously opposed in the
North as a scheme by which it was intended to strengthen the influence
of the slaveholding States in Congress. It was favored, for the same
reason, by those who were inimical to abolitionism in whatever form.
WAR WITH MEXICO.—A consequence of the acquisition of Texas was a war
with Mexico. The successes of Gen. Zachary Taylor at
Palo Alto and Monterey (1846), and at Buena Vista
(1847), and the campaign of Gen. Winfield Scott, who captured
Vera Cruz, fought his way through the pass of Cerro
Gordo, and at length entered the city of Mexico (Sept. 14,
1847), compelled the Mexicans to agree to the Treaty of Guadaloupe
Hidalgo (1848). By this treaty all claim on Texas to the Rio Grande
was relinquished, together with the provinces of Upper
California and New Mexico.
THE "WILMOT PROVISO."—The Wilmot Proviso was proposed in Congress,
excluding slavery from all territory to be acquired from Mexico. This
demand for the prevention of the further extension of slavery in the
territories subject to national jurisdiction, became a rallying-cry. On
the nomination of General Taylor to the presidency by the Whigs
(1848), a "Free-Soil" party was organized on this basis,—the precursor
of the Republican party. The convention which nominated Taylor
laid on the table a motion approving of the Wilmot Proviso. The Whigs
succeeded in the election, but their party lost a portion of its
adherents.
CLAY'S COMPROMISE.—The application of California for admission
to the Union, which, on account of the rapid growth of that community
through the discovery of gold, was soon made, brought the sectional
difficulty to another crisis. President Taylor died (July 9,
1850), and was succeeded by Millard Fillmore, the
vice-president. The contest in Congress was soon after adjusted by
Clay's compromise, by which California was admitted as a
free State, Utah and New Mexico were organized into
Territories without any mention of slavery, the slave-trade was
prohibited in the District of Columbia, and a new fugitive-slave law
was enacted, that was framed in such a way as to give great offense at
the North. Webster, in a celebrated speech in favor of the
compromise (March 7), gave as a reason for not insisting on the Wilmot
Proviso, that the physical character of the new Territories of itself
excluded slavery from them.
THE KANSAS TROUBLES.—In 1854, during the administration of Franklin
Pierce, the standing sectional controversy reached a new phase. Two
Territories, Kansas and Nebraska, were knocking at the
doors of Congress for admission as States. Kansas lay west of
Missouri, and, like Nebraska on the north, was protected from
slavery by the Missouri Compromise (p. 601). But the Democrats carried
through Congress a bill introduced by Mr. Douglas of Illinois,
practically repealing that compromise, and leaving the matter of the
toleration of slavery to be determined by the actual settlers as they
might see fit. This measure was extensively regarded in the North as a
breach of faith. Companies of emigrants were organized in the Northern
States, to form permanent settlements in Kansas; and in order to
prevent that country from becoming a free State, marauders from
Missouri crossed the line, to attack them, and to harass the
newly planted colonies.
THE DRED-SCOTT CASE.—James Buchanan became president in
1857. At this time the Supreme Court decided that neither negro slaves
nor their descendants, slave or free, could become citizens of the
United States; and added incidentally the dictum that the Missouri
Compromise was unconstitutional, and that Congress had no right to
prohibit the carrying of slaves into any State or Territory. The effect
of this opinion, if embodied in a legal decision, would have been to
prevent the exclusion of slavery, even by a Territorial legislature,
prior to the existence of the State government. This judicial act,
following upon the attitude taken by the government at Washington with
reference to the Kansas troubles, greatly strengthened the numbers and
stimulated the determination of the Republican party in the Northern
States.
THE JOHN BROWN RAID.—An occurrence not without a considerable effect
in exciting the resentment, as well as the apprehensions, of the South,
was the attempt of John Brown, a brave old man of the Puritan
type, whose enmity to slavery had been deepened by conflict and
suffering in the Kansas troubles, to stir up an insurrection of slaves
in Virginia. With a handful of armed men, he seized the United States
arsenal at Harper's Ferry in Virginia. Half of his followers
were killed: he himself was captured, and, after being tried and
convicted by the State authorities, was hanged (Dec. 2, 1859).
SECESSION OF STATES.—In the election of 1860, Abraham Lincoln
received the electoral vote of every Northern State except New
Jersey. The conviction of the Southern political leaders that the
anti-slavery feeling of the North, with its great and growing
preponderance in wealth and population, would dictate the policy of the
general government, determined them to attempt to break up the
Union. The result, it was expected, would be the permanent
establishment of a slave-holding confederacy, or the obtaining of new
constitutional guaranties and safeguards of the institution of slavery;
which, it was felt, would be undermined even if nothing more were done
than to prevent the spread of it beyond the States where it
existed. South Carolina passed an ordinance of secession
(Dec. 20, 1860), and was followed in this act by Mississippi,
Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. The
delegates of the seceding States met at Montgomery, Ala., and
formed a new government under the name of the Confederate States of
America (Feb. 8, 1861). Jefferson Davis was elected president,
and Alexander H. Stephens vice-president. Except at
Pensacola in Florida, and in Charleston, all the national
property within the borders of the seceding States was seized. Efforts
looking to compromise and conciliation were of no effect. After the
accession of Mr. Lincoln, the purpose of the government to send
supplies to the garrison of Fort Sumter in the harbor of
Charleston, caused the Confederates to attack that fortress, which the
commander, Major Anderson, after a gallant defense, was obliged
to surrender. President Lincoln immediately issued a
proclamation calling for seventy-five thousand volunteers to serve for
three months, and called Congress together (April 15). There was a
great uprising in the Northern States. The President's call for troops
at once met with an enthusiastic response. Virginia,
Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina now joined
the Southern Confederacy, the capital of which was established at
Richmond. Great Britain recognized the Confederate States as
having the rights of belligerents (May 13). France did the same.
EVENTS OF THE WAR IN 1861-62.—Only a brief account can be given of the
events of the war. General Winfield Scott was at first in
command of the Union forces, and General J. E. Johnston of the
forces of the Confederates. It was imagined at the North, that there
could be an easy and quick advance of the Federal forces to
Richmond; but the troops were not drilled, and the preparations
for a campaign were wholly inadequate. The Union troops were defeated
at Bull Run, or Manassas, and Washington was
thrown into a panic (July 21, 1861). Congress at once adopted energetic
measures for raising a large army and for building a navy. General
George B. McClellan was placed in command of the forces. It was
foreseen on both sides, that the result of the conflict might depend on
the course taken by foreign powers, especially by England. The South
counted upon the demand for cotton as certain to secure English help,
direct or indirect, for the Southern cause. Mr. Charles Francis
Adams was selected by Mr. Seward, the secretary of state, to
represent the Union at the Court of St. James. The Confederates sent
abroad Mr. Mason and Mr. Slidell to procure the full
recognition of the new Confederacy by England and France. The
Trent, on which they sailed, was stopped by Captain
Wilkes of the United States Navy, and the commissioners taken
from it. This breach of international law threatened war, which was
averted by the surrender of the two captives to England. England,
however, refused to assent to Louis Napoleon's proposal to
recognize the independence of the seceding States; but the laxness of
the British Government in not preventing the fitting out of vessels of
war in her ports, to prey on American commerce, excited indignation in
the United States. Palmerston was at the head of the cabinet,
and Lord John Russell was secretary for foreign affairs. For the
depredations of the Alabama, the tribunal chosen to arbitrate at
the end of the war, and meeting at Geneva, condemned England to pay to
the United States an indemnity of fifteen and a half millions of
dollars. Early in 1862 Fort Henry on the Tennessee, and Fort
Donelson on the Cumberland, were taken by General Ulysses
S. Grant, who led the land forces, and Commodore
A. H. Foote, who commanded the gunboats. At Fort Donelson nearly
fifteen thousand prisoners were captured. Grant fought the
battle of Pittsburg Landing, or Shiloh, which continued two days
(April 6, 7), and ended in the retreat of the Confederates. Their
general, A. S. Johnston, was killed, and the command of his
troops devolved on Beauregard. Grant, who had been
reinforced by Buell, drove the Confederates back to
Corinth, Miss., nineteen miles distant. The capture of Island
Number Ten, by Pope, followed; and soon Memphis was
in the hands of the Union forces. Farragut ran the gauntlet of
the forts at New Orleans (April 24), and captured that city. In the
East the Union forces had not been so successful. The iron-sheathed
frigate Merrimac destroyed the Union fleet at Hampton
Roads (March 9), but was driven back to Gosport by the
timely appearance of the iron-clad Union vessel, the
Monitor. McClellan undertook to approach Richmond
by the peninsula. The campaign lasted from March to July, and included,
besides various other engagements, the important battles of Fair
Oaks, and of Malvern Hill (July 1). At the end of June the
Union army was driven back to Harrison's Landing on the James
River. Meantime the Confederate general, Jackson, in the valley
of the Shenandoah, repulsed Fremont, Banks, and McDowell,
and joined General Robert E. Lee, the commander of the
Confederate forces, who now pressed forward towards
Washington. Pope was defeated at Manassas (Aug. 29, 30),
and Lee crossed the Potomac into Maryland. He was met by
McClellan, and defeated at Antietam (Sept. 17), but was
able to withdraw in safety across the river. McClellan was
superseded by Burnside, who was defeated by Lee at
Fredericksburg (Dec. 13).
EMANCIPATION.—On the 1st of January, 1863, President Lincoln
issued a proclamation declaring all slaves in States or parts of States
in rebellion, to be free. This act was legally possible only as a
belligerent measure, or as an exercise of the right of a commander. The
refusal of the Government to carry on the war for the direct purpose of
emancipation, or to adopt measures of this character before,—measures
which the Constitution did not permit,—was not understood in foreign
countries, and, in England especially, had tended to chill sympathy
with the Northern cause. Regiments of negro soldiers were now formed.
THE FIRST SIX MONTHS OF 1863.—Hooker succeeded Burnside
in command of the Potomac Army, and was defeated by Lee at
Chancellorsville (May 3). There "Stonewall" Jackson, one
of the best and bravest of the Confederate generals, lost his
life. Lee now crossed the river, and entered
Pennsylvania. This was the critical moment in the
struggle. Great pains were taken, by such people in the North as were
disaffected with the administration at Washington, to manifest
hostility to the war, or to the method in which it was prosecuted. A
riot broke out in the city of New York while the drafts for troops were
in progress, and it was several days before it was put down. The defeat
of Lee by Meade at Gettysburg (July 1-3) turned
the tide against the Confederates; their army again retired beyond the
Potomac. At the same time, in the West, General Grant captured
Vicksburg with upwards of thirty thousand men (July 4), and
Port Hudson was taken. The Mississippi was thus opened to its
mouth. The Union navy acted effectively on the Atlantic coast, and at
the end of the year nearly all the Southern ports were closed by
blockades.
VICTORIES AT CHATTANOOGA.—Grant assumed command of the military
division of the Mississippi, including the region between the
Alleghanies and that river. With the Army of the Cumberland under
Thomas, with reinforcements from Vicksburg under Sherman
and from the Army of the Potomac under Hooker, he won the
victories of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, at
Chattanooga, Tennessee (Nov. 24 and 25). This success opened a
path for the Union forces into Alabama and the Atlantic States.
Sherman was sent to reinforce Burnside in Tennessee, and
defeated Longstreet.
TO THE SURRENDER OF LEE.—Grant was made lieutenant-general, or
first in command under the President (March 7, 1864). Three attempts to
reach Richmond, made severally by McClellan, Hooker, and
Burnside, had failed, as Lee's two aggressive movements had been
defeated at Antietam and Gettysburg. The "border States"
in the West were in the hands of the Union forces, as well as the lower
Mississippi; and the blockade was maintained along the Atlantic
coast. The plan now was for Sherman to secure Georgia,
and to march eastward and northward into the heart of the Confederacy,
starting at Chattanooga. Military operations, which had been
prosecuted over so vast an extent of territory, now began to have a
unity which they had greatly missed before. Grant personally
took command of the Army of the Potomac. His object was to get between
Lee's army and Richmond. This object was not effected; but the
sanguinary battle of the Wilderness (May 5, 6), and other
subsequent battles, had the effect, in the course of six weeks, to push
Lee back within the fortifications of Petersburg and
Richmond. During the long siege of these places, diversions were
attempted by Early in Maryland and Pennsylvania; but he was
repelled and defeated by Sheridan. The Confederate vessel
Alabama was sunk in the English Channel by the Kearsarge
(June, 1864). Farragut captured the forts in Mobile
Bay. Sherman's forces, after a series of engagements,
entered Atlanta, Ga., which the Confederates had been compelled
to evacuate (Sept. 2). A detachment was sent by Sherman, under
Thomas, after Hood, which defeated him at
Nashville (Dec. 15, 16). Sherman marched through Georgia,
and entered Savannah (Dec. 21). On Feb. 1, 1865, he commenced
his movement northward. The attempts of General J. E. Johnston
to check his advance were ineffectual. Sherman entered
Columbia, S. C., and pushed on to Raleigh;
Johnston, whose numbers were inferior, retiring as he
approached. The efforts of Lee to break away from Grant,
in order to effect a junction with Johnston, did not
succeed. Sheridan's victory over Lee at Five Forks
(April 1) compelled him to evacuate Petersburg. He was pursued
and surrounded by Grant, and surrendered his army at
Appomattox Court House (April 9). The Union forces had entered
Richmond (April 2). Johnston surrendered his forces to
Sherman (April 26). Jefferson Davis was captured by a
body of Union cavalry in Georgia (May 10).
MURDER OF LINCOLN.—The joy felt in the North over the complete victory
of the Union cause was turned into grief by the assassination of
President Lincoln (April 14), who had begun his second term on
the 4th of March. He was shot in a theater in Washington, by a fanatic
named Booth, who imagined that he was avenging wrongs of the
South. An attempt was made at the same time to murder Secretary
Seward in his bed. The assailant inflicted on him severe but not
fatal wounds.
Mr. Lincoln had taken a strong hold upon the affections of the
people. With a large store of plain common-sense, with an even temper,
an abounding good-nature, and a humor that cast wise thoughts into the
form of pithy maxims and similes, he combined an unflinching firmness,
and loyalty to his convictions of duty. He refused to be hurried to the
issue of an edict of emancipation, which, as he judged, if prematurely
framed, would lose to the Union cause the great States of Maryland,
Tennessee, Arkansas, and Missouri. Keeping steadily before him the
prime object of the war, he inculcated, as he felt, malice toward none,
and charity for all. What Clarendon says of Cromwell is
true of Lincoln: "As he grew into place and authority, his parts
seemed to be raised, as if he had had concealed faculties, till he had
occasion to use them."
FINANCES IN THE WAR.—The Confederate Government had carried on the war
by the issue of paper money made redeemable on the condition of success
in gaining independence. This currency, of course, became
worthless. The debt of the United States at the close of the war had
risen from about sixty-five millions to more than twenty-seven hundred
millions of dollars, not to speak of the debts incurred by States and
towns.
AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION.—The Thirteenth Amendment to the
Constitution (declared in force Dec. 18, 1865) prohibited slavery in
the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment (declared in force
July 28, 1868) secured to all the freedmen the right of citizenship and
equality under State law, and ordained that the basis of representation
in each State should be reduced in proportion to any abridgment by
State law of the right of suffrage in its male population. The
Fifteenth Amendment (declared in force March 30, 1870) forbade the
abridgment of the right to vote, on account of race, color, or previous
condition of servitude. The effect of the amendments was to confer on
the blacks the civil and political rights enjoyed by the whites.
RECONSTRUCTION: ADMINISTRATION OF JOHNSON.—The Southern States were
conquered communities; but the theory was held that they had not been,
and could not be in law, dissevered from the Union. The difficulty of
reconstructing State governments was aggravated by the fact that the
bulk of the intelligent people in the seceding States were precluded,
or excluded themselves, from taking part in the measures requisite for
this end; by the additional fact of the ignorance of the blacks, and of
the selfish greed of white adventurers who took the place of leaders
among them; and by dissensions in the North, and in the administration
at Washington, as to the right and lawful course to be pursued. The
President, Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, became
involved in a contest with the dominant Republican party in Congress,
on questions pertaining to reconstruction. He was impeached and tried
by the Senate (Feb. 24-May 16, 1868), but the number of votes for his
conviction was one less than the number required. On the expiration of
Johnson's term, General Grant was raised to the
presidential office. It was complained, that the new governments
instituted in the South by the freedmen and their white coadjutors were
grossly corrupt and incapable, and that their "returning boards" made
false results of elections. On the other hand, it was complained, that
the opponents of these governments resorted to violence and fraud to
intimidate their political adversaries, and to keep them out of
office. The troops of the United States, which had sustained the
officers appointed by the blacks and by their white allies in several
of the States, were at length withdrawn; and political power was
resumed throughout the South by the adverse party, or the class which
had contended against what were derisively styled "carpet-bag"
governments. A difficulty arose in 1876, in consequence of a dispute
about the result of the presidential election. It was referred to an
"Electoral Commission" appointed by Congress, and Rutherford
B. Hayes was declared to be chosen (1877-1881). During his
administration (Jan. 1, 1879) the banks and the government resumed
specie payments, which had been suspended since an early date in the
civil war. The rapid diminution of the national debt is one of the
important features of later American history. The Republicans succeeded
in the next national election; but General Garfield, who was
chosen President, was mortally wounded by an assassin (July 2, 1881), a
few months after his inauguration. Guiteau, who committed the
causeless and ruthless deed, claimed to be "inspired by the Deity," but
was judged to be morally and legally responsible, and died on the
gallows. Chester A. Arthur, the Vice-president, filled the
highest office for the remainder of the presidential term. At the
election in 1884 Grover Cleveland, Governor of New York, was
elected as Chief Magistrate; and the Democrats, for the first time
since the retirement of Mr. Buchanan and the inauguration of
Mr. Lincoln (in 1861), took the reins of power into their hands;
the Republicans, however, retaining a majority in the
Senate. Benjamin Harrison (Republican) succeeded
Cleveland as President, 1889. The McKinley Tariff Bill, 1890,
reduced the duty on some imports, but increased them heavily on
others. In 1892 the four hundredth anniversary of America's discovery
was celebrated, and Grover Cleveland, Democratic nominee, was
again elected to the presidency. The revival of industry and prosperity
in the Southern States, and efforts for popular education for the
blacks as well as whites, are circumstances worthy of special record.
GRANT AND LEE.—About two months after his retirement from the
presidency, General Grant began a tour of the world. He landed
in San Francisco from Japan, on his return, in September, 1879, after
an absence of nearly two years and a half. In 1880 an effort was made
by his warm political supporters to bring him forward as a candidate of
the Republicans for a third term in the presidency. This effort failed,
as had a similar endeavor, made with less vigor, four years before. The
remainder of his days were spent in private life. His death occurred on
July 23, 1885. He was buried in New York, on Aug. 8, with distinguished
honors. General Lee, the commander of the Confederate forces in
the civil war, from the close of the struggle to his death (Oct. 12,
1870) was president of Washington and Lee University, at Lexington, Va.
UTAH: THE MORMONS.—The sect of Mormons was founded in Manchester,
N. Y., in 1830, by Joseph Smith, a native of Vermont, who
claimed to have received heavenly visions from the time when he was
fifteen years old. He pretended that he was guided by an angel to the
spot, near Manchester, where was buried a stone box containing
a volume made up of thin gold plates, which were covered with strange
characters in the "reformed Egyptian" tongue. This "Book of Mormon"
was really a manuscript composed, in 1812, for quite another purpose,
by one Solomon Spaulding, who had been a preacher. A copy of
it made by a printer, Sidney Rigdon, fell into the hands of
Joseph Smith. It contains fabulous stories of the settlement
of refugees coming from the Tower of Babel to America, who were
followed in 600 B.C. by a colony from Jerusalem that landed on the
coast of Chili. War broke out among their descendants, from the bad
part of whom the North American Indians sprung. One of the survivors
of the better class of these Hebrews, named Mormon, collected
in a volume the books of records of former kings and priests, which,
with some additions from his son, was buried until the prophet chosen
of God should appear. In style the Book of Mormon endeavors to
imitate the English version of the Scriptures. On the basis of this
volume and of its alleged miraculous origin, Smith founded the
sect of "Latter Day Saints," as he styled them. From Kirtland,
O., where they came in 1831, and where the converts were
numerous, they removed to a place which they named New
Jerusalem, in Jackson County, Mo. Here they were joined by
Brigham Young, also a native of Vermont, a man of much energy
and shrewdness. Smith was charged by the Missourians, and some
of his own followers who deserted him, with outrageous crimes and
frauds. The conflict between the Mormons and the Missourians resulted
in the migration of the former to Nauvoo in Illinois, where a
community was organized in which Smith exercised supreme
power. In 1843 Smith, who was as profligate as he was knavish,
professed to receive a revelation sanctioning polygamy. His bad
conduct, and that of his adherents, brought on a conflict with the
civil authorities. Smith, with his brother, was killed in the jail by
a mob. Driven out of Nauvoo, the Mormons (1848) made their way
to Utah, and founded Salt Lake City. Their systematic efforts
to obtain converts brought to them a large number from the ignorant
working-class in Great Britain and in Sweden and Norway. The
Territory of Utah was organized by Congress in 1849. The laws and
officers of the United States, however, were treated with defiance
and openly resisted by Brigham Young, the Mormon leader; and he was
removed from the office of governor, to which he had been appointed
by President Fillmore. A contest with the United States
authorities was succeeded by the submission of the Mormons in
1858. In 1871 efforts for the suppression of polygamy by law were
undertaken by the Federal Government, and have since been continued
with imperfect success. Brigham Young died in 1877, and was
succeeded in the presidency of the Mormons by John Taylor, an
Englishman. A body of anti-polygamist seceders from the Mormon
community, including a son of Brigham Young, has been
formed. Another Mormon sect opposed to polygamy, calling itself the
"Reorganized Church of Latter Day Saints," originated in 1851. The
number of professed believers in the strange and grotesque tenets of
Mormonism, in all the different places where its disciples are found,
probably exceeds two hundred thousand.
THE FORMATION OF THE STATES.—The "District of Maine" formed a
part of Massachusetts from 1651 to 1820, when it was admitted to the
Union as a distinct State. Its northern boundary was not clearly
defined until the treaty of 1842 between the United States and England,
which was made by Mr. Webster and Lord Ashburton. The
North-West Territory, which was organized in 1789, comprised the
cessions north of the Ohio and as far west as the Mississippi, which
had been made by the "landed States;" that is, the several States
holding portions of this region. A small portion, "the Western
Reserve," was retained by Connecticut until 1795, when it was sold to
the National Government. Out of this "North-West Territory," there were
formed five States. Connected with the name of each is the date of its
admission to the Union: Ohio (1802), Indiana (1816), Illinois (1818),
Michigan (1837), Wisconsin (1848). South of the Ohio and east of the
Mississippi, lay the territory belonging to Virginia, the Carolinas,
and Georgia. From this, the cession of Virginia formed the State of
Kentucky (1792); that of the Carolinas formed Tennessee (1796); that of
Georgia formed Alabama (1819) and Mississippi (1817). The extensive
territory called Louisiana was ceded by France to Spain in 1762,
was ceded back to France in 1801, and purchased by the United States in
1803. From this territory, there have been formed the States of
Louisiana (1812), Missouri (1820), Arkansas (1836), Iowa (1846),
Minnesota (1858), Kansas (1861), Nebraska (1867), Colorado (1876),
Montana and the two Dakotas (1889), Wyoming (1890), and Oklahoma and
Indian Territories. From the cession of Florida by Spain (1819), the
State of Florida was formed (1845). Oregon was claimed by the
United States by the right of prior discovery: it was organized as a
Territory in 1849; the Territory of Washington was formed from it in
1853, and Idaho in 1863. Oregon was admitted as a State in 1859,
Washington in 1889, and Idaho in 1890. Texas was admitted to the Union
in 1845. From the cessions of Mexico (1848) there have been formed the
States of California (1850) and Nevada (1864), and the Territories of
Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Alaska was purchased from Russia in
1867. West Virginia was formed into a distinct State in 1863, in
consequence of the secession of Virginia.
MEXICO.
THE FRENCH INVASION: MAXIMILLIAN.—After the close of the war with the
United States (1848), there continued to be a war of factions in
Mexico. There was a democratic party, which obtained the upper hand in
1857, but was opposed by the church party. The clergy and the religious
bodies were possessed of nearly one-half of the landed property in the
country. Benito Juarez, who had been chief justice, became
president; but he was resisted by the clerical party, with their
military supporters, and there was civil war (1857-58). Juarez
was recognized as the lawful president by the United States. Spain,
France, and England demanded reparation for injuries and losses
suffered in Mexico by their subjects. In December, 1861, and January,
1862, they landed troops at Vera Cruz, to compel Mexico to
satisfy their claims. The demands of England and Spain were met, and
they withdrew their forces. It became clear, however, that Louis
Napoleon, who refused to recognize Juarez, had an ulterior
design to overthrow the Mexican government, and to establish an empire
in its place. It was a part of a visionary scheme to establish the
domination of "the Latin race." He expected to check the progress of
the United States, and ventured on this aggressive enterprise on
account of the opportunity offered by the civil war in America. He
persuaded the Archduke Maximilian, the brother of Francis
Joseph, emperor of Austria, to accept the throne, and agreed to
sustain him with men and money. Maximilian arrived in Mexico in
1864. Large bodies of French troops fought on his side. The war
resolved itself into a guerrilla contest, in which great cruelties were
perpetrated on both sides. The end of the American civil war put the
Government of the United States in a position to demand of Louis
Napoleon the withdrawal of the French forces. His own situation in
France, and the state of public opinion there, prevented him from
refusing this demand. The folly, as well as criminality, of the
undertaking, had become more and more obvious. He therefore decided to
violate his promises to Maximilian. Deserted thus by his
defenders, this prince, who, although misled by ambition, had noble
traits, was captured by the troops of Juarez, tried by
court-martial, and shot (1867). His wife Carlotta, the daughter
of Leopold I. of Belgium, and the grand-daughter of Louis
Philippe, failing in negotiations at Rome, had lost her
reason. Juarez was installed in power at the capital. In 1868
and 1869, there was a succession of insurrections and revolutions; but
he was again elected in 1871, and died the next year. After that time,
there was more tranquillity in Mexico, and much was done to develop the
mines and other material resources of the country, and for public
education.
DIAZ: INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.—President Juarez died in 1872, and
was succeeded by Lerdo de Tejada. Under him the authority of the
State over the Church was maintained. The monastic orders were
abolished. The democratic constitution, which had been framed in 1857,
was amended (1873-4), and was afterwards upheld against the efforts of
the reactionary or ecclesiastical party to overthrow it. In 1876, there
were three claimants of the presidency,—Tejada, Iglesias, the
chief justice, who denied the validity of his election, and
Gen. Porfirio Diaz, who was at the head of a revolt. Diaz
established himself in power, and was succeeded in 1880 by Manuel
Gonzalez. On the expiration of his term (1884), Diaz was
once more chosen to the same office. In 1891 an insurrection, headed by
Catarino Garza, a journalist, and General Riez Sandival,
was directed against the Diaz government. It was put down and
Diaz was re-elected president, July 11, 1892. Under Diaz
and his coadjutors much was done for the development of the
country. Mexico has advanced towards a stable government in the
republican form.
SOUTH AMERICA.
BRAZIL.—After returning to Portugal, King John recognized the
independence of Brazil, and his son Dom Pedro as emperor of the country
(1825), although John kept the title during his lifetime (p. 553). The
two crowns were not to be united. On the death of his father (1826),
Dom Pedro resigned his claim to the throne of Portugal. His subsequent
career in Brazil was a troublous one, owing to his contest with a
liberal party. He returned to Spain in 1831. After his departure there
were party contests under a regency. In 1840 Dom Pedro II., who had
been left behind in Brazil by his father, and was then fourteen years
of age, was proclaimed emperor. Measures were taken against the
slave-trade, and it was finally abolished; an effective plan for the
gradual emancipation of slaves was adopted (1871). Rosas, dictator of
Buenos Ayres, who intended to subvert the republics of Uruguay and
Paraguay, was defeated by the Brazilian forces and their allies
(1852). A long war against Lopez, dictator of Paraguay, ended in his
capture and death (1870). This war involved losses to Brazil in men and
money. Under Dom Pedro II., public works, manufactures, and commerce
were promoted. A long strife of the government with the Catholic
hierarchy ended in an accommodation (1875). In November, 1889, as the
result of a bloodless revolution, Dom Pedro II. was dethroned, and a
republican form of government declared. In Feb., 1891, Marshal Deodoro
da Fonseca was confirmed as President, resigned in November, and was
succeeded by Vice-President Floriano Peixoto, who held office until
Nov. 15, 1894, when Prudente de Moraes, the first Brazilian President
elected by a popular vote, was inaugurated.
OHILI, PERU, BOLIVIA.—The contest of Chili with Peru and Bolivia has
attracted special notice. Chili, after the formation of its
constitution in 1833,—which resembles the constitution of the United
States,—enjoyed remarkable prosperity. The strife to which we refer
began between Chili and Bolivia. The point in dispute was the right to
the province of Atacama, between Chili and Peru, the southern part of
which was claimed by Chili. Bolivia claimed the whole. By a treaty in
1866, the territory in dispute was to be, under certain conditions,
common property. A rivalry existed between Chili and Peru, and a secret
alliance was formed in 1873 between Peru and Bolivia. Bolivia now
asserted her title to the entire province of Atacama. The Argentine
Republic was disposed to take sides against Chili, but, in consequence
of the success of the Chilians, remained neutral. The Chilians captured
(Oct. 8, 1879) the Peruvian iron-clad vessel, the Huascar. They gained
other advantages, and took possession of the whole province, with its
deposits of nitrate and guano. Revolutions ensued in Bolivia and
Peru. Chilians took Lima, the Peruvian capital, and overran the
country. Terms of peace proposed by Chili, involving large cessions of
territory, were ratified by the Congress at Lima (March 1,
1884). A treaty of peace was made between Chili and Bolivia (May 4). In
Jan., 1891, war broke out in Chili, resulting in the defeat of
President Balmaceda in August. An assault on American seamen by
Chilians in Valparaiso, Oct., 1891, caused strained relations between
Chili and the United States, the latter demanding apology and
reparation. Chili complied, Jan., 1892.
CHINA AND JAPAN.
CHINA AND FOREIGN NATIONS: THE TAIPING REBELLION.—In the recent
period, there has been a gradual but grudging and reluctant opening of
China to commercial intercourse with foreign nations, and to the
labors of Christian missionaries. In 1840 there began the first war
with Great Britain, called the "opium war" for the reason that it was
caused by the Chinese prohibition of the importing of that article. In
the treaty at the end of the war, five ports were made free to British
trade; Hong-Kong was ceded to England; and it was provided that
the intercourse between the officials of the two nations should be on
the basis of equality (1842). Two years later an advantageous treaty
was concluded by the United States with China: a treaty was also
concluded with France (1844). Aggressions of the Chinese led to a
second war with Great Britain, in alliance with France (1857-60); in
which the Chinese fleet was destroyed, and Canton, a city of a
million inhabitants, was captured. Treaties were made, but the
infraction of them was followed by the capture of Peking
(1859). In the settlement which immediately took place, toleration was
granted to Christianity, and liberty to foreign ambassadors to reside
at the capital. In 1868 Mr. Anson Burlingame, who had been
United States minister to China, with two Chinese envoys, visited the
powers which had made treaties with China, and negotiated agreements by
which important principles of international law were mutually
adopted. The most important domestic event in China, in recent times,
is the "Taiping"-rebellion, which broke out in 1850, in Southern
China. Complaints of oppression and consequent disorder were brought to
a climax on the accession of the young emperor, Heen-fung. The
revolt spread from province to province, and found a leader in the
person of Hung Lew-tseuen, who called himself Teen-Wang
(Celestial Virtue). He proclaimed his purpose to overthrow the
Manchu dynasty, and to restore the throne to the native
Chinese. He claimed a divine commission, had caught up certain
Christian ideas, and professed to be an adherent of
Christianity. Multitudes flocked to his standard.
City after city fell into their hands. The war with England and France
operated in his favor. After the conclusion of peace, the government
was more energetic and successful in its effort to suppress the
rebellion, and was helped by foreign officers, in particular by Major
(afterwards General) Gordon. Nanking was recaptured
(1864); and the revolt, which had been attended with an enormous
destruction of life, came to an end.
JAPAN AND FOREIGN NATIONS.—Up to the year 1866, the actual rulers of
Japan were the Shogun, or emperor's lieutenant, who resided at
Yedo, and the daimios, or territorial nobles, whose
residence was also there. The Mikado, or emperor, lived in
Kioto, surrounded by his relatives, the imperial nobles. There
was a strict classification of the whole people, and a strict
supervision of them, and the country was shut to foreigners. In 1853
Commodore Perry, of the United-States Navy, first entered the
harbor of Yedo, and in 1854 returned, and negotiated a treaty
with the Shogun, which opened certain ports to foreign trade,
and to the admission of consuls. Treaties of a like nature between
Japan and the other principal nations were soon made. The Mikado
and his court were deeply incensed at the Shogun's usurpation of
authority, and were at the same time hostile to the introduction of
foreigners. Thus a double contest arose. There was an attempt to put
down the Shogun, and to strip him of his authority, and to drive
off the strangers. This last effort led the Mikado's officers to
fire on the ships of the foreign nations. The punishment which these
inflicted in the harbor of Shimonoseki (1864) so impressed the
emperor, in conjunction with his fear lest the foreigners should help
the Shogun, that he completely reversed his policy, and
proceeded to remove the barriers to intercourse with them. The
daimios, who had been compelled to live at Yedo, flocked
to Kioto. The Mikado, countenanced by the foreigners,
overcame the resistance of the party of the Shoguns. He removed his
residence to Yedo, now called Tokio (1869). Feudalism was
abolished (1871), and a constitution promulgated in 1889. The empire
was thus united and strengthened. Institutions and customs of Western
civilization were rapidly introduced. Political and legal reforms kept
pace with the introduction of railroads and other material
improvements. Christian missionaries actively engaged in preaching and
teaching.
CHAPTER VII. THE LAST DECADE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
During the last decade of the nineteenth century tendencies which years
before had begun to appear became the dominant feature of the European
situation. The old ideals of the Manchester school—freer trade, more
intimate and peaceful intercourse between nations, the right of each
people to control its destiny, the development of liberal
institutions—gave way to a policy of high protective tariffs and
bitter commercial warfare, of constant increase in armaments, of eager
rivalry in seizing the territory of less civilized and weaker peoples,
accompanied, particularly on the continent, by a decrease in the
effectiveness of parliamentary government. Several of the great
statesmen of the century yielded to new men. Although the close came
without such wars as desolated Europe at the end of the eighteenth
century, the heavy burdens which rested upon the taxpayer and the
constant danger that the work of civilization would be rudely
interrupted hardly justified the optimism of the earlier decades. The
pronunciamento of the Czar Nicholas in favor of restricting the growth
of armaments and the consequent establishment, in 1900, of an
international tribunal of arbitration at the Hague held out hopes of a
better future.
ENGLAND.—An analysis of the majority which Gladstone had obtained in
the general election of 1892 showed that the prospects of Home Rule for
Ireland were slight. This majority was composed of an English minority
supported by Scottish, Welsh, and Irish groups. The bill which was
introduced in the following year differed from the previous bill in
that it did not withdraw the Irish members from Westminster. Although
the House of Commons gave it a small majority, it was defeated in the
Lords. Gladstone felt that his support was too precarious to force the
question to a final settlement by an appeal to the country. He
accordingly turned his attention to the remainder of his programme, the
most important part of which was a Parish Councils bill. This aimed to
do for local government in the parishes what the previous Salisbury
ministry had done for local government in the counties. After the
success of the bill was assured Gladstone withdrew, and Lord Rosebery
became prime-minister. Gladstone spent the remainder of his life in
retirement. The Rosebery ministry soon fell, and a new Salisbury
ministry dissolved Parliament. In the general election of 1895 the
Conservatives and their allies, the Liberal-Unionists, received an
overwhelming majority. This took the Home Rule question out of
practical politics. Only through a series of minor concessions was the
attempt to be made to satisfy Ireland's legitimate aspirations. This
victory also showed that English public sentiment was ready to break
definitely with the principles of Gladstone and his friends, and
support a policy of energetic imperialism. The Queen, whose jubilee was
again celebrated in 1897, died on January 22, 1901. The new king,
Edward VII., at the age of sixty-one, was crowned in 1902.
GERMANY: BISMARCK's LATER POLICY.—Since 1878, when Bismarck abandoned
his alliance with the National Liberals, he had been endeavoring to
increase the financial strength of the empire by changing the customs
and excise system, to conquer the socialists both by direct attack and
by taking the working classes under the special care of the state, and,
more recently, to procure for Germany colonial possessions. Although
his new financial policy was definitely protectionist, his chief aim
was to free the imperial government from the need of applying to the
different states for a subvention. In consequence of his policy, the
income from customs and excises rose in ten years from 230,000,000
marks to 700,000,000. But the plan of state subventions although
altered in fact was preserved in appearance, for Bismarck was obliged
to concede to Particularist jealousies that all income from these
sources above 130,000,000 must be paid to the states and the deficiency
in the imperial treasury be made up in the usual manner. Later on the
new naval programme again made state contributions a reality. In the
laws to protect the workingmen Bismarck affirmed this to be the duty of
the Christian state; he did not concede that such measures were simply
the right of the workmen. The plan was carried out in three great laws:
that of insurance in case of illness (1883), in case of accident in
mines or factories (1884), and in case of old age or incapacity (1889).
These laws were enacted in the face of much outcry from employers, and
were effectively administered. They did not, however, so far remove the
grievances of the lower classes as to check the growth of the Social
Democratic party. Although the party has since 1891 embodied in its
programme the theories of Marx, it is not wholly socialistic in
character; it is also a protest of the democratic spirit against the
administration of Germany as an aristocratic, military monarchy. In the
face of repressive laws the party grew steadily, so that in 1890 it was
able to cast 1,400,000 votes. The only force able to resist its advance
was the Catholic Center, because the Catholic Church included among its
members all classes in the community; while the Protestant Church, in
the cities at least, was more generally composed of the employing
class. From 1884 Bismarck had put Germany forward as an eager
competitor for colonial acquisitions in Africa and the Pacific. The
lands that Germany was able to obtain were hardly suited to
distinctively German settlement, and afforded comparatively little
advantage to trade.
BISMARCK'S FALL.—William II. began by continuing the policies which
had been characteristic of the closing years of his grandfather's
reign. It was not long before he became restive under the leadership of
Bismarck. He desired to make his own personal aims more prominent. In
1890 there was a struggle over the renewal of the laws against the
socialists and a consequent general election. The Emperor seized the
opportunity to declare his purpose to improve still further the
situation of the working classes, and, with this in view, to call an
international congress. In Prussia he declared it to be the duty of the
state to regulate the conditions of labor. Such declarations took the
control of the electoral campaign out of Bismarck's hands. One result
was decided losses for the conservative groups. Bismarck tried to
maintain his ascendency by insisting that, according to a cabinet order
of Frederick William IV., the king of Prussia must communicate with the
ministers through the president of the council. William retorted by
denying Bismarck's right to negotiate with the chiefs of the
parliamentary groups, and by requiring a decree reversing the obnoxious
cabinet order. On March 20 he demanded Bismarck's resignation. Bismarck
left Berlin amid a great ovation a few days later. For some years he
and his friends formed an unofficial center of opposition and
criticism. He died in July, 1898.
GERMANY SINCE BISMARCK'S FALL.—Bismarck's successors were Count
Caprivi (1890-1894), Prince Hohenlobe (1894-1900), and Count Bülow. It
was tacitly recognized that the anti-socialist laws had failed, and
they were not renewed. The socialists as well as all other groups
received the additional advantage that somewhat later a law was passed
permitting societies of all kinds to affiliate. It was estimated that
in 1900 the Social Democrats controlled over 2,000,000 votes. The
government vainly attempted to dike the rising flood by laws providing
a practical censorship of art and of literature, but these had to be
abandoned. In the parliamentary life of Germany the most significant
change was the disintegration of the old parties, the strengthening of
such groups as the Catholic Center and the Social Democrats, and the
creation of a strong Agrarian party or interest. The Agrarians became
prominent during the controversy over a commercial treaty with
Russia. This treaty was part of a general attempt to develop the
European market to make good the loss through the adoption of high
tariffs in countries like America and France, and, at first, by Russia
herself. Although Germany could not furnish enough grain to feed her
own people, and there was a tariff on imported grain, the price kept
falling, while the prices of manufactured articles steadily
increased. The peasants and the landowners felt that they were
threatened with ruin. Accordingly they formed an alliance in 1893, and
a parliamentary union which, from that time on, was so formidable as to
force important concessions from the government. Among other important
measures of this period were the adoption of a new Civil Code for the
empire, to go into effect Jan. 1, 1900; the reduction of the term of
military service to two years; and the efforts by the successive naval
programmes of 1897 and 1900 to create for Germany a strong sea power
capable of supporting her trade and colonial aspirations.
FRANCE: BOULANGER.—In 1888 the continuance of the Republic was
endangered by the support which many of its enemies and some of its
ignorant friends lent to the pretensions of General Boulanger, who had
made himself popular as minister of war by his army reforms and by his
belligerent attitude toward Germany. When he ceased to be minister, and
particularly after he was deprived of his military command, he began an
energetic propaganda for a revision of the constitution, with the cry
"Dissolution, Revision, Constituent." The royalists gave freely to
further the campaign, hoping that moderate men would be frightened into
calling the Count of Paris to the throne in order to save the country
from another military empire. The Boulangists took skillful advantage
of the fact that the deputies representing each department were elected
"at large," and not on single district tickets, so that it was possible
for Boulanger's name to be placed on each departmental ticket, and so
in time to receive the votes of all France. With such a mandate it
would be impossible for the moderate Republicans to resist him. For a
time the scheme was successful. Boulanger was even elected on the Paris
list. Had he been willing to undertake a coup d'etat he might then have
overthrown the Republic, but he wished for a more peaceful triumph at
the approaching general election. This his opponents deprived him of by
abolishing the method of election "at large," so that each deputy was
to represent a particular district. Boulanger was soon after attacked
on a charge of treason before the Senate acting as a high court. He
fled to Belgium and a little later committed suicide on the grave of
his mistress.
PANAMA CRISIS.—Hardly had the danger from Boulanger subsided when, in
1892, many of the leading politicians were discredited by the
disclosures made in the judicial investigation of the bankruptcy of the
Panama Canal Company. It appeared that the company had spent large sums
to muzzle the press, so that ignorant investors should not discover the
precarious condition of the enterprise. It had also contributed to the
campaign expenses of friendly deputies and directly purchased votes in
order to obtain authority to negotiate a loan in a manner ordinarily
illegal.
Although several deputies and senators were tried, no one was convicted
save an ex-minister, who confessed that he had accepted 300,000
francs. Had the exposure come a little earlier, it must have led to the
triumph of Boulanger. Its principal consequence was to bring new men of
less tarnished reputations to the front.
THE CHURCH.—In the same year the Church with direct encouragement and
even pressure from Pope Leo XIII, rallied to the support of the
Republic. The pope issued an encyclical to French Catholics and
followed this by a letter to the French cardinals. Many royalists were
afflicted by this attitude, but nearly all were submissive. They called
themselves the "constitutional party," but were also called the
"rallied." Their watchword seemed to be, "Accept the constitution in
order to modify legislation."
PARTIES.—The radical revolutionary groups, which had been crushed in
the suppression of the Commune of 1871, and which had not been able to
reconstitute themselves effectively until the amnesty of 1880, began in
the early nineties to make their influence more effective. This
coincided with a general shifting of political power toward the
Left. The assassination of President Carnot, in 1894, and the
enthusiasm provoked by the cementing of the Russian alliance and by the
coming of the Czar to Paris, prolonged the control of the moderates, or
Progressists, as they were called in 1896. It was the persistent
attacks of the radicals that disgusted Casimir-Périer with the
presidency. His successor was Félix Faure, a successful business
man. When he died suddenly in 1899, Émile Loubet was chosen by the
support of the groups of the Left. Before the moderate Republicans lost
control they revolutionized the economic policy of France, substituting
for practical free trade and commercial treaties a high protective
tariff.
DREYFUS CASE.—France had not recovered from the shock of the Panama
scandal before she was involved in another scandal far more subtle in
its demoralizing influence. Jealousy of the success of Jewish
financiers, strengthened by the common feeling that capitalists are
enriched by ill-gotten gains, led to an obscure campaign against the
Jews and all capitalists. The reminiscences of Panama did not allay
these feelings. Soon the royalists seized this instrument as a means of
discrediting the Republic, asserting that it had been organized through
the influence of German-Jewish immigrants who were enriching themselves
at the expense of the thrifty but guileless French. It was also
asserted that Jews in the army were betraying its secrets to their
German kindred. As the army was universally popular, this was an
effective blow at the Jews. The denouement was the arrest of Captain
Dreyfus, his degradation, and his confinement on an island off the
coast of French Guiana. The evidence had been slight, and it was
discredited when a courageous officer of the Intelligence Department
told his superiors that even this had been constructed by a Major
Esterhazy. The officer, Colonel Picquart, was removed, and his place
taken by Colonel Henry, who undertook to supply the necessary
evidence. Although he imposed on the minister of war, he was unable to
endure the moral strain, especially after distinguished men like Zola
became champions of the innocence of Dreyfus, and he committed suicide
after making a confession. The government was obliged to bring the case
before the Court of Cassation in 1898, which ordered a new
trial. Although Dreyfus was again convicted by a military court, he was
immediately pardoned by the President.
OTHER COUNTRIES.—After 1897 the situation in Austro-Hungary became
precarious, owing to the difficulties which arose when the time came to
renew the Ausgleich, or agreement, between Austria and Hungary,
first made in 1867. Neither portion of the empire was satisfied with
its part of the bargain. As the Hungarians always stood together in any
struggle with Austria, they were likely to get the better of the
bargain. There was the additional difficulty that no agreement of any
sort could be adopted in the Austrian parliament, which had become
hopelessly disorganized through the savage conflicts between the
various groups, Germans, Czechs, anti-Semites, etc. The only way to
prevent the actual dissolution of the empire was to renew the agreement
in behalf of Austria by imperial warrant. Another country belonging to
the Triple Alliance, Italy, was brought into trouble by the policy of
extravagant expansion, pursued especially under the leadership of
Crispi. But the disastrous defeat by the Abyssinians at Adowa, in 1896,
gave pause to the plans of such statesmen. Spain also suffered disaster
in this period, first through the outbreak of revolt in Cuba, and then
through the loss of the remnant of her once splendid colonial empire in
consequence of the war with the United States.
EUROPEAN DIPLOMACY.—The foundation of the Triple Alliance had been
laid by the treaty between Germany and Austria. To this Italy had
acceded in 1883. Such a combination tended to bring Russia and France
together, especially as Russia began to see that the only power
pursuing a policy favorable to her desires was France. Finally Russian
and French officers were authorized to arrange for the possible
coöperation of armies in case of war, and in 1894 a military convention
was completed. That there came to be a definite understanding still
more comprehensive has been generally believed, but its terms were not
divulged. The French minister of foreign affairs used the word
"alliance" in the Chamber of Deputies in 1895, and two years later,
when President Faure visited the Czar at St. Petersburg, the Czar used
the phrase "two great nations, friends and allies." The consequence of
these two alliances, and of the peaceful policy pursued by England, was
the localizing of difficulties and the maintenance of a "concert" on
all questions likely to embroil Europe. This was evident from the
treatment of the Eastern, the African, and the Far Eastern questions.
ARMENIA.—Bulgarian affairs had not received their final solution at
the Berlin Congress, for the peaceful revolution of Philippopolis in
1885 had forcibly reunited Bulgaria and East Roumelia. But the powers
did not recognize the change until Prince Alexander had withdrawn, and
Prince Ferdinand had placed himself more under Russian tutelage, making
this emphatic by the decision to bring up his son, Prince Boris,
according to the Greek rite. The success of Bulgaria rendered the
Armenians envious. Discontent at the failure to carry out the reforms
promised by the treaty of Berlin led to the formation of a
revolutionary party which hoped by provoking a Turkish repression,
similar to the Bulgarian "atrocities," to necessitate a new European
intervention. Such a scheme was opposed by American missionaries and by
the native clergy, for they saw that it was doomed to disaster. The
revolutionists endeavored to compromise the missionaries by posting
their placards on the walls of the American college at Marsivan. The
suspicions of the Turks were directed against the missionaries, and the
Girls' Schoolhouse was burned by a mob. Ostensibly to capture agitators
the Kurds followed by the regular troops perpetrated terrible massacres
in the mountain villages of Sasún in 1893 and 1894. The powers could
not agree upon any common plan to check such evils, and when they did
force upon the Sultan a scheme of reform, it served only as a signal
for worse massacres, which recurred chronically until the final
massacre in Constantinople in August, 1896. As the "concert" was
honeycombed by jealousies, it was impossible to do more than prevent
the development of this horror into a general European war. England was
unable to intervene separately because of the hostile attitude of
Russia. Such statesmen as Lord Salisbury recognized that England's
traditional support of Turkey had been discredited by such
events. When, in the following year, war broke out between Greece and
Turkey, and when Crete fell into a state of anarchy, the powers were
more successful in their common action, for they were able to mitigate
the terms which the victorious Turks demanded, and to withdraw Crete
from direct Turkish control.
EGYPT.—The history of Egypt touches both the situation in the Turkish
empire and the more general situation of Africa and the routes to the
Far East. England's occupation of Egypt, at first considered temporary,
gave her practical control of the Suez Canal; it also gave her a strong
position in the eastern Mediterranean, the lack of which had been one
reason for her hostility to the treaty of San Stefano in 1878. The
problem of the equatorial provinces had remained vexatious ever since
the triumph of the Mahdi and of his successor, the Kalifa. Any attempt
to begin a campaign for their recovery was hindered by the peculiar
financial condition of Egypt. As all the funds were either mortgaged to
creditors, or at least under an international control not favorable to
the presence of England, the only money absolutely under the control of
the Egyptian government was a special reserve fund, the result of
painful administrative economies. But the necessity of an advance was
imperative. Although the attempt of the Congo Free State to establish a
permanent foothold in the upper Nile basin had been checked by England,
France was striving to extend her territorial possessions straight
across from Senegal to Jibutil, on the Gulf of Aden. Major Marchand had
left Paris secretly in 1896 with this mission. In this year also the
defeat of the Italians at Adowa, and the pressure of the troops of the
Kalifa upon Kassala, held by the Italians for the English, did not
permit longer delay. A great preparatory work had been done in the ten
years previous. A new army had been created. The advance began in
March, under the leadership of Sir Herbert Kitchener. One of its most
effective and brilliant features was the construction in the following
year of a railway 230 miles across the Nubian desert to save a river
journey of 600 miles. The decisive campaign took place in 1898, with
the battle on the Atbara and the crushing defeat of the Kalifa at
Omdurman in September. During the summer Marchand had been establishing
posts in the upper Nile region as far as Fashoda. Kitchener immediately
proceeded thither, raised the English and Egyptian flags near by,
leaving the settlement of the question to diplomacy. The French, not
being supported by Russia in an aggressive attitude, were obliged to
give way, and their sphere of influence was not to include any portion
of the Nile basin. The war had been economically managed, so that
Egyptian finances were not seriously disarranged. The help that England
was obliged to give justified her in considering the Sudan as territory
held jointly by her and by Egypt. The general consequence of English
rule in Egypt has been a reduction of taxation, and, at the same time,
the collection of a larger revenue. Vast public improvements, like the
dam at Assouan, also added to the resources of the country.
AFRICA.—Although Africa since 1885 had been the subject of an
important conference at Berlin and of various international agreements
it was, strictly speaking, beyond the sphere of action of the European
concert. Its partition among the European states, a movement
originating in the expeditions of Livingstone and Stanley, went on
rapidly from 1884. The Congo Free State, which at first promised to be
an international enterprise, speedily changed into a territorial
possession of the king of Belgium. When in 1890 it became necessary for
him to raise funds for the support of his rule, it was agreed that the
reversion of the territory belonged to Belgium as a colony. King
Leopold, as already remarked, made an attempt to establish his
authority over a part of the upper Nile basin, but here he was thwarted
by the ambition of both England and France. England undertook to lease
the Bahr-el-Ghazal in consideration of the lease from him of a strip
fifteen and a half miles wide along the eastern border of the state, in
order to make possible the scheme of a railway on land under British
control from "the Cape to Cairo." This scheme was defeated by the
Germans as well as by the French. The Portuguese were in turn prevented
from extending their holdings from Angola to Mozambique. The French and
the English, though each disappointed in their extreme purposes, made
substantial gains; England in the regions north of the Cape, across the
Zambezi, in Uganda, and in the Sudan; France in western and northern
Africa, so that all the northwest, except the coast colonies and the
independent Sultanate of Morocco, came under her power. France also
turned her protectorate of Madagascar into a colonial
possession. England's policy of expansion, together with difficulties
arising out of the gold mining industry, involved her in a war with the
Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free
State. The center of the mining industry was Johannesberg. So rich were
the mines that the foreign population there soon outnumbered the
Boers. These foreigners, or uitlanders, desired all the privileges of
Englishmen, although they had become residents in a state ruled by
primitive agriculturists. They claimed that their industry was
ruinously hampered by unwise taxation. So great did their sense of
wrong become that they entered into an arrangement with Cecil Rhodes,
premier of Cape Colony, and with Dr. Jameson, administrator of the
South African Chartered Company, in accordance with which, at a given
signal, they were to rise and Dr. Jameson with armed troopers was to
come to their assistance. Dr. Jameson did not wait for the signal, the
scheme broke down, and he and his troops were captured. To the Boers
all this seemed to be an English plot against their independence, and
so they became more suspicious. Through a series of incidents the
Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, was led to attempt to extort by
force from the Boers the desired concessions. Before the diplomatic
campaign was well begun new issues were introduced, both parties began
to prepare for war, and finally in October, 1899, the Boers took the
initiative and invaded the British colonies. The war was at first
disastrous for the English, but finally through a large army under Lord
Roberts the Boers were driven from both the Transvaal and the Orange
Free State, which were occupied and declared to be colonies of the
empire. But it was not until three years after the beginning of the war
that the last Boer bands were compelled by Lord Kitchener to surrender,
and the country was pacified. England's influence in South Africa was
greatly strengthened by this victory, although her prestige in the
world at large was somewhat compromised.
THE FAR EAST.—Before the close of the century the interest which had
once belonged to the near East was transferred to the Far East. The
first indication of this was the action of the powers at the close of
the war which broke out between Japan and China, in 1894, over their
relations to Korea. Japan was triumphant, demonstrating in the battle
of the Yaloo River the superiority of her new navy. She occupied the
peninsula of Liaotung and Port Arthur, a harbor of strategic
importance. She demanded a cession of this peninsula, together with
Formosa and a large indemnity. Russia, Germany, and France intervened
and kept Japan from establishing herself on the mainland. This action
did not appear altogether in the interest of China, for each of the
three powers soon asked of China quite as important concessions for
themselves,—France in the south, Germany at Kiaochow, and Russia at
Port Arthur,—which compelled England to guard her interests by leasing
WVei-hai-wei, opposite Port Arthur. At this time began the marking out
of spheres of influence, a practical partition of China, accompanied by
demands of all sorts of railway and mining concessions. This unedifying
pressure from aggressive Europeans seemed for a time to awaken
China. The emperor began to urge forward reform. It was thought that
China might follow in the footsteps of Japan, but suddenly there was a
palace revolution, the dowager-empress seized control, and the
reformers had to fly for their lives. Closely following this came a
serious anti-foreign outbreak, led by "the Boxers," and encouraged by
certain high officials. Before Europe was aware of the gravity of the
situation it was alarmed by the report that the foreign legations at
Pekin had been besieged, captured, and massacred. Although this was a
false report, it was true that from June 20 to August 14, 1899, the
legations were besieged, partly by a mob and partly by Chinese
regulars. The siege was raised by a mixed expedition of European and
Japanese troops sent from the coast. The satisfaction with which the
news of rescue was received in Europe was chilled by stories that some
portions of the expeditionary corps had been guilty of crimes only to
be paralleled in the history of European wars in the seventeenth
century. After the war a difficult diplomatic question remained, all
the more puzzling because the ambitions of the powers prevented any
hearty agreement among them. These questions were only in appearance
settled by the signing of the protocol in January, 1901. Attention was
fixed upon Russia, supported by a new instrument of influence, the
Trans-Siberian railway, because it appeared to be her purpose to
establish her power in Manchuria on a permanent basis.
AUSTRALIA.—During the Boer war the English colonies by their loyal and
generous cooperation strengthened the bonds of empire and forced to the
front schemes to render the imperial tie more practically beneficial
and effective. One of these groups succeeded in completing its own
federal organization. This was Australia. Active effort towards
federation was begun in 1889 by Sir Henry Parkes, but not until six
years later was public sentiment sufficiently aroused. The main
difficulty, as in the case of the American colonies, was to reconcile
the differing trade-interests and to establish a proper balance between
the larger and the smaller states. Finally, in 1900, these difficulties
were overcome, and all the colonies save New Zealand voted to become
parts of the commonwealth of Australia. Each state was to have six
senators, and to be represented in the lower house in proportion to its
population, although no state was to have fewer than five
representatives. Matters of taxation were more fully intrusted to the
lower house than in the United States. For a time it seemed impossible
to settle the delicate questions of appeal to the Judicial Committee of
the Privy Council of England, the only instrument of control left in
the hands of the home government, but this was settled by a judicious
compromise. During the last decade not only Australia, but also New
Zealand, made many interesting attempts to solve labor and social
problems by legislation. Although the prosperity of Australia received
heavy blows after 1890, it began to recover after 1895, and to advance
towards its earlier level.
UNITED STATES: CLEVELAND'S SECOND ADMINISTRATION.—Although the
McKinley tariff aided in elevating its author to the presidency, its
first political consequences were not helpful to the Republican
party. In 1892 there was a popular cry for tariff reduction, and
Cleveland was triumphantly elected by the Democrats, who also obtained
control of both houses of Congress. President Cleveland's purpose of
reforming the tariff was hindered at first by a grave financial and
industrial crisis, which came in the spring of 1893. The causes of this
crisis were the extravagant inflation of business during the preceding
years, a financial policy accompanied by the purchase for coinage of
vast quantities of silver, and the natural timidity of capital while
the economic policy of the government was in danger of fundamental
change. The opponents of the administration took skillful advantage of
the panic to bring its policies into discredit. So great was the
stringency of the money market, especially on account of the depletion
of the gold reserve in the treasury, that President Cleveland was
obliged to call an extra session of Congress, and to urge upon that
body the repeal of the law requiring the monthly purchases of silver
for coinage. This measure, adopted by the Senate with evident
reluctance in the late fall, did not wholly relieve the situation, and
to maintain the gold reserve and defend its credit the government was
forced four times to issue bonds for more gold, the consequence of
which was the increase of the public debt by over $262,000,000. During
the controversies upon monetary legislation, the President had
alienated many members of his party in the House, and particularly in
the Senate. He was unable to bring them together for such tariff
legislation as had been promised. A bill was passed which also embodied
income tax provisions, and this bill became a law without the
President's signature. Not long afterwards the Supreme Court declared
the income-tax clauses unconstitutional. Since the tariff bill did not
produce the expected revenue, the government was obliged to face an
ominous deficit. The President, however, by his courage and honesty,
upheld the national credit despite attacks from his own party. His
foreign policy, save in one instance, was conservative. He refused to
take advantage of the Hawaiian revolution to bring on the annexation of
those islands, and he endeavored to maintain the neutrality of the
United States in the struggle between Spain and the Cuban
revolutionists; but he intervened in a boundary dispute between Great
Britain and Venezuela, insisting that the question should be submitted
to arbitration rather than be settled on the terms imposed by the
stronger.
MCKINLEY ADMINISTRATION.—In the campaign of 1896 the older leaders of
the democracy were thrust aside and William J. Bryan became the party
candidate, with the free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 as
its watchword. This appealed strongly to the distressed debtor class,
very numerous in the West on account of the "hard times." The tone of
the platform and of the speeches of the leaders was such as to attract
the workingmen. The Republicans nominated McKinley, with the promise to
reenact the former tariff legislation, to foster industries, and to
protect the financial credit of the country. The success of the
Republicans was at first doubtful; but the conservative interests
became alarmed, and finally the Republicans gained a decisive
victory. By the time President McKinley was inaugurated, the period of
business liquidation and readjustment was over, confidence had
returned, and so the new President became, as campaign placards of his
party had announced, "the advance agent of prosperity." The tariff was
restored to its older level, the monetary system was reformed, and the
gold standard legally established. It was not this legislation,
however, that rendered the period significant; it was the adoption of a
new national policy of expansion, incident to the war with Spain. The
Spaniards had been unable to put down the Cuban insurrection. The
drastic measures, especially the policy of "reconcentration" adopted by
General Weyler, had discredited the Spanish cause. The ancient
tradition of Spain's cruelty to her colonies predisposed the American
people to credit reports of atrocity. The administration was apparently
anxious to perform its duties as a friendly power, but this was
rendered more and more difficult owing to the growing popular demand
for intervention. On the 15th of February, 1898, the American
battleship Maine was blown up in Havana harbor. Although there
was no decisive proof that this was due to the Spaniards, there was no
doubt of it in the popular mind. A little later the Spaniards were
ready to make any concessions short of an actual abandonment of their
sovereignty. It was now too late. There was an irresistible demand for
war, and war was declared in April. The result was inevitable, and
Spain was obliged to yield sooner than was anticipated. Her fleet at
Manila was destroyed by Admiral Dewey, May 1, and her West India
squadron by the fleet in which Rear Admiral Sampson held the chief
command, on July 3. Meantime a small American army had rendered
Santiago untenable. After the surrender of Santiago, Porto Rico was
soon overrun. Manila, which had been under the American guns since May,
was also forced to surrender. A protocol signed in August led to the
negotiation of peace in December. According to its terms, not only was
Cuba to be evacuated, but Porto Rico, the Philippines, and the Ladrones
were to become American possessions. In this way a war begun because of
popular sympathy with the Cubans, turned into a means of territorial
expansion. The resistance to the policy of an expansion of this sort
was strong in certain sections of the country. Many senators held
similar opinions, long delaying the ratification of the treaty of
peace.
COLONIAL PROBLEMS.—Simultaneously with the ratification of the peace,
war broke out in the Philippines between the American army and the
natives, whose leaders had been bent on securing independence. The
American troops easily defeated the organized native armies, though one
consequence of the struggle was widespread ruin in the island of Luzon;
but they were unable for over two years to pacify the country. Even
before these troubles were ended, measures were taken to substitute a
civil for a military administration, which went into effect in the
summer of 1901. Porto Rico was organized as a partly autonomous
territory, and although on its trade with the United States there was
not at first a full freedom from tariff restrictions, these
subsequently disappeared. In dealing with Cuba there had been no formal
recognition of the revolutionary organization. It was suspected by many
that the military occupation would be prolonged until annexation was
brought about, but the President insisted upon the fulfilment of the
pledges which had been made at the beginning of the war. A Cuban
convention agreed to a treaty in accordance with which the United
States acquired the right to intervene to guarantee the independence of
the island should this be endangered by entanglements with foreign
states. The Cubans also promised to sell or lease to the United States
sites for naval stations. The army of occupation was then withdrawn,
and the new government inaugurated in 1902. Even before the outbreak of
the war, President McKinley had endeavored to bring about the
annexation of the Hawaiian Islands, but it required such a pressing
need of a controlling position in the mid-Pacific, as the hostilities
emphasized, to overcome the opposition. It was not until after the war
closed that the islands were organized as a territory. About the same
time England withdrew from her joint control of Samoa, and Germany
agreed with the United States for a partition of the group. Active
preparations were also made for the building of an interoceanic canal
through Nicaragua or the Isthmus of Panama on the route laid out by the
French. With these questions of expansion and colonial government,
other equally important problems, growing out of the new period of
prosperity, agitated the public mind, particularly the formation of
gigantic corporations, a form of organization which tended to supersede
the trusts. As the state laws were helpless to check abuse of power by
such corporations, there was a growing demand for the better
enforcement of the national laws already enacted or the adoption of
other laws more effective. In 1900 McKinley was reëlected, Bryan again
being put forward by the Democrats. A few months after his
inauguration, while he was visiting the Pan-American Exposition at
Buffalo, he was fatally shot by an anarchist. Upon his death, the
Vice-President, Theodore Roosevelt, became President.
CHAPTER VIII. DISCOVERY AND INVENTION: SCIENCE AND LITERATURE:
PROGRESS OF HUMANE SENTIMENT: PROGRESS TOWARD THE UNITY OF MANKIND.
As an era of invention and discovery, the nineteenth century is a rival
of the fifteenth.
GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERIES.—Too much was already known of the globe to
leave room for another so stupendous discovery as that of the New
World. Nevertheless, many important geographical discoveries have been
made, especially since about 1825. Geographical societies without
number have been founded, of which the Royal Geographical Society in
England (1830) is one of the best known. Geographical knowledge is
increased in two ways,—first, by the discovery of places not before
known; and secondly, by the scientific examination of countries and
districts, with accurate surveys, and the making of maps. In both these
departments, especially in the latter, the recent period won
distinction. The Russians in their advance rendered the regions
of Northern and Central Asia accessible to travelers. Not only India,
but also extensive districts in Central Asia, have been explored by the
British. China has been traversed by a succession of travelers, and
Japan has unbarred its gates for the admission of foreigners. Abyssinia
has been traversed. The mystery respecting the sources of the Nile has
been dispelled by Speke, Grant, and Baker. In 1822
and 1825 Clapperlon, in two journeys, went over the whole route
from Tripoli to the coast of Guinea. In 1830 Richard and John
Lander settled the question as to the outlet of the Niger.
Barth, and other later explorers, have carried forward the study
of the course of this great river, in the exploration of which Mungo
Park lost his life (1806). In 1816 the Congo was explored to the
falls of Yellala. The travels of Schweinfurth,
Livingstone, Barth, Cameron, and Stanley
have greatly enlarged our acquaintance with formerly unknown portions
of the African continent. In 1879 Stanley, commissioned by King
Leopold of Belgium, opened up communication with the populous
basin of the Congo. During the struggle of the European states to
acquire colonial territory, no part of the continent remained
unexplored. European rivalries also had similar important consequences
to geography in Asia, especially in the Trans-Caspian region and in
Tibet. Dr. Sven Hedin was the most successful of the explorers in
Tibet, traversing wholly unknown districts. Unknown regions on the
American continent, in South America, in far north-western North
America, and in Labrador, have been visited. The same is true of the
interior of Australia. The eagerness to find a north-western passage
(and later in scientific exploration) has led to hazardous and not
unfruitful expeditions under Ross, Parry,
Franklin, Kane, Markham, McClintock,
Greely, and other voyagers. In 1875 Markham reached the
highest latitude that up to that time had been attained (83° 21'
26"). A still higher point (86° 14') was reached by Dr. Nansen who in
1893 started to drift in the Fram across the polar regions. In
1892 Lieutenant Peary crossed Greenland from the west coast to a part
of the north-east coast never before visited. The Antarctic seas were
also explored first by the Challenger in 1874. By 1900 the
farthest point reached was 78° 50'. Geography has become a much more
profound and instructive science. The physical character of the globe,
and of the atmosphere that surrounds it, have been studied in their
relation to man and history. Physical geography, or physiography, has
thus arisen. In recent years scientists have gone far in the study of
the physical geography of the sea, in making maps of its bottom, and in
the endeavor to define the system of oceanic winds and currents. In
connection with physical geography, the distribution of animal life on
the land and in the depths of the sea has been studied, and much
valuable information gained.
FOUR INVENTIONS.—Among the useful inventions of the present century,
there are four which are of preëminent consequence. The honor connected
with each of these, as is generally the case with great inventions,
belongs to no individual exclusively. Several, and in some cases many
persons, can fairly claim a larger or smaller share in it. (1) The most
efficient agent in bringing the steam-engine to perfection was
James Watt (1736-1819), a native of Scotland. (2) In connection
with the application of steam to navigation, no name stands higher than
that of Robert Fulton. (3) Carriages on railroads were at first
drawn by horses. In 1814 George Stephenson, in England, invented
the locomotive, and afterwards (1829) an improved construction of it.
The first great railroad for the transportation of passengers began to
run between Manchester and Liverpool in 1830. Remarkable achievements
in engineering have been connected with the construction of
railways. The Alps were pierced, and the Mont Cenis tunnel was
completed in 1871. The principal civilized countries have gradually
become covered with networks of railways. The whole method of
transportation of the products of industry has been altered by
them. Besides their vast influence in facilitating and stimulating
travel and trade, they have modified the method of conducting warfare,
with very important results. (4) In contriving the electric
telegraph, Wheatstone, an Englishman, Oersted, a
Dane, and Henry, an American, had each an important part. The
most simple and efficient form of the telegraphic instrument is
admitted to be due to the inventive sagacity of Morse
(1837). His instrument was first put in use in 1844. The first
submarine wires connecting Europe with America transmitted messages in
1858, between England and the United States. Since that time numerous
submarine cables have been laid in different parts of the globe. Upon
the invention of the telegraph, another invention—that of the
telephone—has followed, by which conversation can be held with
the voice between distant places. By the phonograph it has become
possible to reproduce audibly songs, speeches, and conversations. Still
more recently a system of wireless telegraphy has been invented by
which messages may be sent even across the Atlantic without the use of
a cable.
The Suez Canal, a channel for ships, connecting the Mediterranean
with the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, and opening thus a shorter
highway by water between Europe and the East, was officially opened
on the 17th of November, 1869.
USES OF STEAM.—The practical applications of steam, besides its use in
the propulsion of vessels, and of carriages on railways, are
numberless. It is used, for example, in automobiles, in traction
engines, in plowing and harvesting machinery, in fire-engines, in
road-rollers, and in all sorts of hoisting and conveying machinery.
Steam forge hammers were invented by Nasmyth, an engineer of
Manchester, in 1839. In a multitude of industrial occupations, where
water-power was once used, or tools and machines whose use involved
muscular exertion, the work is now done by the energy of steam. More
recently electricity has been displacing steam not only on street
railroads and suburban railroads, but also in many other industrial
processes, as well as the lighting of buildings and streets.
TOOLS AND MACHINES.—In modern days no small amount of skill has been
directed to the devising of tools and machines for the more facile and
exact production of whatever costs labor. Factories have become
monuments of ingenuity, and museums in the useful arts. Improved
machinery lightens the toil of the sailor. Machines in a great variety
facilitate agricultural labor. They open the furrow, sow the seed, reap
and winnow the harvest. In-doors, the sewing-machine performs a great
part of the labor formerly done by the fingers of the seamstress. The
art of printing has attained to a marvelous degree of
progress. Hoe's printing-press, moved by steam, seizes on the
blank paper, severs it from the roll in sheets of the right size,
prints it on both sides, and folds it in a convenient shape,—all with
miraculous rapidity. Inventions in rock-boring and rock-drilling have
made it possible to tunnel mountains. The use of explosives for
mechanical purposes is a highly important fact in connection with the
modern labor-saving inventions.
INDIA RUBBER.—Shoes made of caoutchouc, the thickened milky
juice of the india-rubber plant, were imported from Brazil to Boston as
early as 1825. Improvements in the use of this material, in the solid
form and in solution, were made by Mr. Macintosh of Glasgow, and
Thomas Hancock of Newington, England, about 1820. From the
dissolved caoutchouc, a coating was obtained making garments
water-proof. In 1839 Charles Goodyear, an American, discovered
the process of vulcanizing india-rubber,—that is, producing in it a
chemical change whereby its valuable qualities are greatly
enhanced. The material thus procured was applied to a great number of
uses. It enters into a great variety of manufactured articles.
ENGINERY OF WAR.—A continual advance has been made in the construction
of the implements of war. The whole science and art of war have been
fundamentally changed, mainly in consequence of these modern
inventions. Reference may be made to the invention of rifled
cannon, heavier ordnance, breech-loading guns, and shells and
explosive bullets. It was the needle-gun of the Prussians, which
gave them a signal advantage in their war with the French. The building
of armored battle ships has been followed by the construction of small
swift vessels from which to launch torpedoes at the battle ships. Other
swift vessels have been constructed to pursue and destroy the torpedo
boat. High explosives and smokeless powder have also been invented.
THE TELESCOPE AND MICROSCOPE.—Among the instruments which have
promoted the extension of science, the microscope, with its modern
improvements, is one of the most interesting. It has aided discovery in
botany, in physiology, in mineralogy, and in almost all other branches
of science. It has even assisted in the detection of crime. The large
refracting telescopes have been constructed within the last few
decades. Telescopes have recently been used with increasing success in
photographing the heavens with accuracy.
INSTRUMENTS IN MEDICINE AND SURGERY.—The microscope has rendered
inestimable service to the healing art. Rare ingenuity has been exerted
in contriving surgical instruments by which difficult operations are
performed with comparative safety and without pain. In medicine and
surgery, the discovery of anesthetics for the general or partial
suspending of nervous sensibility is one of the triumphs of practical
science in later times. Chloroform was brought into general use
in the medical profession in 1847; although it had been discovered, and
had been used by individuals in the profession, much
earlier. Nitrous oxide was first used by Horace Wells, a
dentist of Hartford, in the extraction of a tooth (1844). In 1846 the
great discovery of anæsthetic ether, by Morton of Boston,
was first applied in surgery. Jackson and others were claimants,
with more or less justice, to a part in the honors of this
discovery. Lately cocaine has been found to benumb the
sensibility of the more delicate membranes, as those of the eye and the
throat. In auscultation, or the ascertaining of the state of the
internal organs by listening to their sound, a very valuable instrument
is the stethoscope. The principle of the ophthalmoscope,
that wonderful instrument for inspecting the interior of the eye, was
expounded by Helmholtz in 1851. By its aid, not only the
condition of that organ is explored, but indications of certain
diseases in the brain, and in other parts of the body, are
discovered. Helmholtz did an equal work in acoustics. The recent
discovery and use of the X-rays has assisted surgeons in
locating foreign substances and in diagnosing disease.
THE SPECTROSCOPE: PHOTOGRAPHY.—In connection with the phenomena of
light, the spectroscope, by which the chemical elements entering
in the composition of the sun and of other heavenly bodies are
ascertained, is one of the marvels of the age. The way was paved for
this discovery by a succession of chemists and
opticians,—Fraunhofer (1814), Brewster (1832), Sir
John Herschel (1822), J. W. Draper, and others; but the
instrument was devised by Kirchhoff and
Bunsen. Photography, or the art of making permanent
sun-pictures, is the result of the labors of Niepce (who died in
1833), Daguerre (1839), Fox Talbot, an Englishman,
J. W. Draper, and other men of science and practical
artisans. Instantaneous photography has been of much service in
the observation of eclipses and other astronomical phenomena. Progress
has also been made in color-photography.
THE CONSERVATION OF ENERGY.—Perhaps the most important conclusion of
physical science which has been reached in the recent period is the
doctrine of the conservation of energy. Chemists had shown that the sum
of matter always remains the same. In the transformations of chemistry
no matter is destroyed, however it may change its form. Now, it has
been proved that the quantity of power or energy is constant. If lost
in one body, it reappears in another; if it ceases in one form, it is
exerted in another, and this according to definite ratios. One form of
energy is convertible into another: heat, light, electricity,
magnetism, chemical action, are so related that one can be made to
produce either of the others. This fact is termed the
correlation of physical forces. Connected with the discovery of
it are Meyer in Germany, and Grove and Joule in
England. It has been expounded by Sir William Thompson,
Helmholtz, Tait, Maxwell, etc. The truth was
elucidated by Tyndall in his Heat considered as a Mode of
Motion, and by Balfour Stewart in his Conservation of
Energy. But Count Rumford, an American (1753-1814), the real
founder of the Royal Institution, long ago opened the path for this
discovery by furnishing the data for computing the mechanical
equivalent of heat.
GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY.—In geology, from the publication of
Lyell's work (1830), the tendency has more and more prevailed to
explain the geological structure of the earth by the slow operation of
forces now in action, rather than by violent convulsions and
catastrophes. In 1831 Sedgwick and Murchison, likewise
English geologists, commenced their labors. Agassiz published
his Essay on the Glaciers in 1837, the precursor of like investigations
by Tyndall and others. These are only a small fraction of the
numerous body of explorers and writers in geological science. In the
United States, Benjamin Silliman (1779-1864), an eminent
scientific teacher, lent a strong stimulus to the progress of geology,
as well as of chemistry. Even in the branch of paleontology, or
the study of the fossil remains of extinct animals, it would be
impracticable to give the names of those who have added so much to our
knowledge of the earth and its inhabitants in the ages that preceded
man.
ASTRONOMY.—The great French geometers, Lagrange and
Laplace, made an epoch in astronomical science. Since their
time, however, there has been a large increase of knowledge in this
branch. The discovery of the planet Neptune (1846) by Galle, as
the result of mathematical calculations of Leverrier, which were
made independently also by Adams, was hailed as a signal proof
of scientific progress; and, recently, the discovery of a fifth
satellite of Jupiter. Besides Neptune hundreds of thousands of stars
have been discovered and registered. Mathematical astronomy has
advanced, while the study of nebulae and of meteors, and the
investigation of the constitution of celestial bodies by the help of
the spectroscope, are among the more recent achievements of this oldest
of the sciences. Among the names identified with the recent progress of
astronomy are Sir John Herschel and A. Herschel,
Maxwell, Struve, Secchi, Bessel,
Bond, Peirce, Newton, Newcomb,
Young, Lockyer, Schiaparelli.
PROGRESS IN CHEMISTRY.—In chemistry the major part of the more rare
elements have been discovered since the century began. It was proved in
1819 that the capacities for heat which belong to the atoms of the
different elements are equal. In the same year Mitscherlich's
law was propounded,—the law of isomorphism, according to which
atoms of elements of the same class may replace each other in a
compound without altering its crystalline structure. Chemists have
directed their attention to the molecular structure—the
ultimate constitution—of various compounds. Faraday (1791-1867)
developed the relations of electricity to chemistry. Liebig
(1803-1873), a German chemist, in connection with numerous laborers in
the same field, made interesting contributions in the different
departments of chemical science. Among the recent elements which have
been discovered are argon, which enters into the composition of air,
helium, and radium.
BIOLOGY.—No branch of natural science has been more zealously
cultivated of late than biology. Among those who have given an
impulse to the study of natural history, one of the most eminent names
is that of Charles Darwin. His work on The Origin of
Species (1859) advocated the opinion that the various species of
animals, instead of being all separately created, spring by natural
descent and slow variation from a few primitive forms of animal
life. He laid much stress upon "natural selection," or the survival of
the strongest or fittest in the struggle for existence. With the name
of Darwin should be associated that of Wallace, who
simultaneously propounded the same doctrine. The general doctrine of
evolution, or of the origin of species by natural generation,
has been held in other forms and modifications by Richard Owen,
and other distinguished naturalists. One of the most noted opponents of
the evolution doctrine in zoology was Louis Agassiz (1807-1873),
a very able and enthusiastic student of nature. One of its most eminent
expounders and defenders was Huxley. Some have sought to extend
the theory of natural development over the field of inorganic as well
as living things, and to trace all existences back to nebulous vapor.
ARCHEOLOGY.—Geology lends its aid to archeology, or the inquiry
into the primitive condition of man. Not only has much light been
thrown on obscure periods of history, by the uncovering of the remains
of Babylon, Assyria, and other abodes of early civilization, and by the
deciphering of monumental inscriptions in characters long forgotten;
but the discovery of buried relics of prehistoric men has afforded
glimpses of human life as it was prior to all written memorials. One of
the most instructive writers on this last subject is Tylor in
his Primitive Culture, and in other works on the same general
theme.
PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE.
PHILOSOPHY IN FRANCE.—Victor Cousin (1792—1867), a brilliant
thinker and eloquent lecturer and writer, founded in France the
eclectic school of philosophy. He aimed to construct a
positive view on the basis of previous systems, which he classified
under four heads,—idealism, sensualism,
skepticism, and mysticism. In his teaching, he sought a
middle path between the German and the Scottish schools, leaning now
more decidedly to the one, and now to the other. Jouffroy
(1796-1842), the most prominent of Cousin's disciples, but
more exact and methodical than his master, wrote instructively,
especially on aesthetics and moral
philosophy. Philosophy in France took an altogether different
direction in the hands of Auguste Comte (1798-1857), the
founder of the positivist school. He taught that we know only
phenomena, or things as manifested to our consciousness, and know
nothing either of first causes, efficient causes, or of final causes
(or design). We are limited to the ascertaining of facts by
observation and experiment, which we register according to their
likeness or unlikeness, and their chronological relation, or the
order of their occurrence in time.
SCOTTISH PHILOSOPHY.—The most distinguished expounder of the
Scottish philosophy, and the most learned of that whole
school, was Sir William Hamilton (1788-1856). He maintained
the doctrine of natural realism,—that we have a direct, "face
to face" perception of external things. He held that the range of the
mind's power of conceptive thought lies between two
inconceivables, one of which must be real. Thus we can not
conceive of free-will (which would be a new beginning), nor can we
conceive of an endless series of causes. Free-will—and the same is
true of the fundamental truths of religion—is verified to us as real
by our moral nature. A Scottish writer of ability, who, however,
opposed the peculiar tenets of the Scottish school, was
Ferrier (1808-1864). Among the other philosophical writers of
Scotland, affiliated, but with different degrees of dissent, with the
school of Reid and Hamilton, are Professors Fraser and
Calderwood, and the late James McCosh.
PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLAND.—More allied to the philosophy of Hume and of
Comte are the metaphysical theories of John Stuart Mill
(1806-1873). Intuitions were regarded by Mill as the
impression produced by a frequent conjunction of like experiences,
and thus to be the product of sensation. Causation was
resolved into the invariable association of phenomena, by which an
expectation is created that seems instinctive. Another writer of the
same general tendency, who seeks for the explanation of knowledge in
the materials furnished by the senses, is Alexander Bain, a
Scottish author, versed in physiology. Herbert Spencer
constructed a general system of philosophy on the basis of the theory
of evolution. He holds that our knowledge is limited to
phenomena, which are the manifestation in our consciousness of
things which in themselves are unknown; and that behind and below all
is "the Unknowable,"—an inscrutable force, out of which the universe
of matter and mind is developed, and which gives to it unity and
coherence.
PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY.—In Germany the decline of the school of
Hegel was succeeded by a sort of anarchy in
philosophy. Herbart (1776-1841), a contemporary of
Hegel, framed a system antagonistic to Hegelian
idealism. Among numerous metaphysical authors, each of whom has a
"standpoint" of his own, are the justly distinguished names of
Fichte (the younger), Ulrici, Trendelenburg, and
Hermann Lotze. Lotze. in his Microcosm, has unfolded,
in a style attractive to the general reader, profound and genial
views of man, nature, and religion. A remarkable phenomenon in German
speculation is "pessimism,"—the doctrine gravely propounded in the
systems of Schopenhauer and E. Von Hartmann, that the
world is radically and essentially evil, and personal existence a
curse from which the refuge is in the hope of annihilation. In its
view of the world as springing from an unconscious force, and of the
extinction of consciousness as the state of bliss, as well as in its
notions of evil as inwrought in the essence of things, this
philosophy is a revival of Indian Oriental speculation. Historical
and critical writings in the department of philosophy abound in
Germany. The histories of philosophy by Ritter, Erdmann, Zeller,
Kuno Fischer, and Lange, are works of remarkable merit.
PHILOSOPHY IN ITALY.—Among the Italian metaphysicians, the two
writers who are most noteworthy are Rosmini (1797-1855), who
taught idealism; and Gioberti (1801-1882), whose system is on
a different basis,—a gifted writer who was equally conspicuous as a
statesman and a philosopher.
PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNITED STATES.—Philosophy in America has been
zealously cultivated, both in connection with theology and apart from
it, by a considerable number of teachers and writers. Among them are
James Marsh, C. S. Henry, Francis Wayland, L. P. Hickok,
H. B. Smith, and other eminent authors, mostly of a more recent
date.
POLITICAL ECONOMY.—Ricardo (1772-1823), who followed Adam
Smith (p. 492), dealt more in abstractions and processes of
logic, than his predecessor. The writings of Ricardo, together
with the discussions of Malthus (1766-1834) on population,—in
which it was maintained that the tendency to an increase of
population outstrips the increase of the means of subsistence,—led
to numerous other writings.
Political economy was handled in productions by James Mill
(1821), J. R. McCulloch, N. W. Senior (1790-1864),
R. Torrens (1780-1864), Harriet Martineau (1802-1876),
Thomas Chalmers, the celebrated Scottish divine, Archbishop
Richard Whately, Richard Jones (1790-1855), a critic of the
system of Ricardo, and others. An eminent writer, an expositor
with important modifications of the Ricardian teaching, is John
Stuart Mill (1806-1873). Fawcett and other able authors
have followed for the most part in Mill's path. An English author of
distinction in this field is J. E. Cairnes (1824-1875). The
French school of economists have adhered to the principles of Adam
Smith much more than have the Germans. Among the most noted of
the French authors in this field are Say (1767-1832), whose
views are founded on those of Smith; Sismondi (1773-1842),
who, however, departs from the English doctrine, and favors the
intervention of government to "regulate the progress of wealth";
Dunoyer (1786-1862); Bastiat (1801-1850), one of the
most brilliant advocates of free-trade; Cournot (1801-1877),
who applies, with much acumen, mathematics to economical questions.
In America, since the days of Franklin and Hamilton,
both of whom wrote instructively on these topics, a number of writers
of ability have appeared. Among them are H. C. Carey, who
opposes the views of Ricardo and Malthus, and defends
the theory of protection; Francis Bowen, also a protectionist;
F. A. Walker, Perry, etc. In Italy, there have not been
wanting productions of marked acuteness in this department. Of the
numerous German writers, one of the most eminent is List
(1798-1846), a critic of Adam Smith, and not an adherent of
the unqualified doctrine of free-trade. In the list of later English
writers, the names of Bagehot, Leslie, Jevons, and
Sidgwick are quite prominent. With regard to free-trade and
protection, the latter doctrine has been maintained in two
forms. Some have regarded protection as the best permanent
policy for a nation to adopt. Others have defended it as a
provisional policy, to shield manufactures in their infancy,
until they grow strong enough to compete, without help, with foreign
products. After the repeal of the corn-laws in England (1846), the
free-trade doctrine prevailed in England. Since Comte
published his exposition of Sociology (1839), the tendency has
arisen to consider political economy as one branch of this broader
theme. With it the controversies pertaining to socialism are
intimately connected.
The disciples of Adam Smith have contended for the
non-intervention of governments in the industrial pursuits of the
people. They are to be left to the natural desire of wealth, and the
natural exercise of competition in the pursuit of it. The prevalent
theories of socialism are directly hostile to this—called the
laissez-faire—principle. Socialists would make government the
all-regulative agent, the owner of land and of the implements of
labor.
ENGLISH ESSAYISTS.—In literature the later time has seen an
extraordinary multiplying of periodicals and newspapers, among whose
editors and contributors have been included numerous writers of much
celebrity. In Great Britain, several famous authors first acquired
distinction mainly by historical and critical articles in reviews. This
is true of Thomas Babington Macaulay and Thomas
Carlyle. Each of them became a historian. Macaulay, an
ardent Whig, with an astonishing familiarity with political and
literary facts, wrote in a spirited and brilliant style a History of
England from the Accession of James II. to the death of his hero,
William III. Carlyle, with a unique force of imagination and a
rugged intensity of feeling, original in his thought, yet strongly
affected by German literature, especially by Richter and
Goethe, wrote in his earlier days a Life of Schiller. He
wrote later a history of the French Revolution, in which the scenes of
that tragic epoch are depicted with dramatic vividness; and a copious
History of Frederick the Great. Among the most characteristic of
his writings are his Heroes and Hero-Worship; the "Latter-Day
Pamphlets," in which is poured out his contempt of democracy; and the
Life of John Sterling,—the counterpart of a biography of
Sterling, written in a different vein by a learned and scholarly
divine, Julius Hare.
Of essayists in a lighter, discursive vein, one of the most popular,
who has already been referred to (p. 544), was the Scottish writer,
John Wilson (1785-1854), the author of numerous tales and
criticisms, and of diverting papers written under the name of
"Christopher North." Without the fancy and humor of Wilson, yet master
of a style keeping within the limits of prose while verging on poetry,
was Thomas De Quincey, the author of The Confessions of an
Opium Eater, Essays on the Roman Emperors, etc.
HISTORICAL WRITINGS IN ENGLAND.—The literature of history has been
enriched by British authors with important works besides those named
above. Grote and Thirlwall each composed histories of
Greece which are the fruit of thorough and enlightened scholarship. The
work of Grote is a vindication of the Athenian democracy, a view
the antipode of that taken in the work on Grecian history by
Mitford. An elaborate work on the History of the Romans under
the Empire is one of several historical productions of Charles
Merivale. Stanhope [Lord Mahon] composed a narrative of the
War of the Spanish Succession, and other useful histories. Sir
W. F. P. Napier wrote a History of the War in the
Peninsula, in which the campaigns of Wellington in Spain are
described by an author who took part in them. The constitutional
history of England has been treated with satisfactory learning and
judgment by Hallam, May, and Stubbs. The Puritan
revolution has been described with masterly skill and judicial fairness
by S. R. Gardiner. In the earlier field, Mr. Edward
A. Freeman labored with distinguished success, the History of
the Norman Conquest being his principal work in this branch of
historical inquiry. J. R. Green is the author of an attractive
history of the English people. J. A. Froude wrote with engaging
literary art a History of England in the Reign of Elizabeth,
which attempts, in the preliminary part, an apology for the character
and conduct of Henry VIII. Spencer Walpole has written a
History of England since 1815. Ramsay has written the
Foundations of England, Angevin England, Lancaster, and
York. John Hill Burton, a Scottish author, educated as a
lawyer, composed vigorously written histories of Scotland and of the
reign of Queen Anne. Lecky wrote in a pleasing style a
History of England in the Eighteenth Century, besides a
History of Rationalism in Europe, and a History of European
Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne. In ecclesiastical history,
Milman, whose leading work is the History of Latin
Christianity, Dean Stanley, and Bishop Creighton have
been the principal writers.
ENGLISH NOVELISTS.—The series of "Waverley novels" by Walter
Scott (1771-1832) had an unbounded popularity. Pervaded by a
cheerful, healthy tone, they presented fascinating pictures of life and
manners, and kindled a fresh sympathy with the Middle Ages and with the
spirit of chivalry. The poems of Scott depicted, in a metrical form,
like picturesque scenes, and knightly combats and adventures. The
fictions of Scott gave rise to a school of writers, one of whom was
G. P. R. James (1801-1860). A new and different type of novel
appeared, in connection with which the names of Dickens
(1812-1870) and Thackeray (1811-1863) are preëminent. Both are
humorists; in Dickens especially, humor runs into broad
caricature. Both present pictures of society and of common life. They
illustrate the tendency of the novel at present to rely for its
attraction upon scenes and incidents of ordinary life, and the minute
portraiture of manners and of character. Dickens owes his
popularity largely to the unique sort of drollery and the genuine
pathos that are mingled in his pages. Thackeray is a satirist,
with a keen eye to detect the weaknesses of humanity, but with a deep
well of sympathy, veiled, however, and sedulously guarded from
sentimentalism, by a tone of banter and a semblance of
cynicism. Measured by their popularity with the cultivated class, the
novels of Mrs. Lewes (George Eliot) stand next in rank to
the productions last referred to. In some of her tales, the artistic
motive and spirit are qualified by the didactic aim, or the underlying
"tendency,"—the purpose to teach, or to promote a favorite
cause,—which has become a frequent characteristic in modern
fiction. Among the other English novelists, Bulwer (1805-1873),
whose later stories are free from the immorality that stains the
earlier, is one of the most widely read. The novels of Charles
Kingsley (1819-1875) are among the justly popular productions in
this department. Among the novelists of the late Victorian Era were
Charles Keade, Blackmore, Stevenson,
Kipling, Meredith, Hardy, and Mrs. Humphry
Ward.
ENGLISH POETS.—Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), the author of
The Princess, In Memoriam, and the Idylls of the
King, held the first place among the poets of his day. An adept in
the metrical art, he combines in these mature productions, with
terseness of diction and fresh, striking imagery, deep reflection and
sympathy with the intellectual questionings and yearnings of the
time. In his lyrical poems the fullness of his power is seen. He was,
without question, a consummate literary artist. Browning
(1812-1889), careless of rhythmical art, with a defiance of form, but
with dramatic power, in his descent to "the under-currents" of the
soul, placed himself open to the reproach of obscurity. Among English
poets of high merit in the recent period stand the names of the
delightful humorist Thomas Hood (1798-1845), Arthur
Clough (1819-1861), and more recently, Matthew Arnold
(1822-1888).
With this reference to the poets may be coupled the name of the most
eloquent and suggestive of the English writers on art, John
Ruskin.
THEOLOGY IN ENGLAND.—Theological scholarship in Great Britain, after a
long season of partial eclipse, again shone forth in the present
period. Critical works relating to the Scriptures have been produced,
which are on a level with the best Continental learning. About 1833,
there began at Oxford what has been called the "Tractarian movement,"
from a series of "Tracts for the Times," relating to theology and the
Church, which were issued by its promoters. The party thus originating
were called "Puseyites," as Dr. Edward Pusey (1800-1882), the
author of learned commentaries, and of works in other departments of
divinity, was their acknowledged leader. They formed one branch of the
class called "High Churchmen." They laid great emphasis on the doctrine
of the "apostolic succession" of the ministry, the necessity and
efficacy of the sacraments administered by them, and the importance of
visible ecclesiastical unity. They claimed to stand in the "middle
path" between the Church of England and the Church of Rome. One of the
leading associates of Pusey was John Keble (1792-1866),
the poet, author of The Christian Year. The most eminent writer
in this group of theologians was John Henry Newman (1801-1890),
who won general admiration by the subtlety of his genius and its rare
felicity of expression. He entered the Church of Rome, and was advanced
to the rank of a cardinal. One of the principal literary undertakings
of the recent period is the Revision of the Authorized Version of the
Bible, by associated companies of English and American scholars. In the
long catalogue of influential writers in theology, it is practicable to
refer here to a few suggestive names. Thomas Chalmers
(1780-1847) was equally noted as a glowing preacher, an eloquent
defender of the Christian faith, and a lucid expounder of the
Calvinistic system. Edward Irving (1792-1834) was a pulpit
orator of unsurpassed eloquence in his day, whose peculiar view as to
the restoration of the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, that were
granted in the apostolic age, gave rise to a religious body calling
itself the "Catholic Apostolic Church." Frederick Denison
Maurice (1805-1872) was one of the leaders of the "liberal," or
"Broad Church," portion of the English Episcopal Church. His writings
have exerted a strong influence. In the same general direction, but of
a more critical and argumentative tone, were Richard Whately
(1787-1863), Archbishop of Dublin; and Thomas Arnold, who, in
addition to his influence as a teacher, classical scholar, and
historian, engaged actively in discussions on the questions relating to
Church and State.
LITERATURE IN AMERICA: POEMS AND TALES.—The period which we are now
considering witnessed a gratifying development of belles-lettres and
historical literature in the United States. At the outset, two writers
appeared who acquired a transatlantic fame. Washington Irving
(1783-1859) in 1818 published The Sketch Book, in a series of
pamphlets. It had been preceded by Knickerbocker's History of New
York and other humorous publications. Among his later writings were
included the Life of Columbus, the Life of Mohammed, and
the Life of Washington. The refinement and charm of his style,
which brought back the simplicity of Goldsmith, satisfied the foreign
critics who had ridiculed the florid rhetoric of previous American
authors. James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) published The
Spy, the first of his novels, which attracted much attention, in
1821. This was followed, two years later, by The Pioneers, the
first of the famous "Leatherstocking" series of novels, in which Indian
life and manners were portrayed. Cooper was also the founder of the
"sea-novel," a line of fiction in which he was followed by an English
writer, Marryat (1792-1848). Richard H. Dana and
Fitz-Greene Halleck were poets who had a much higher than the
merely negative merit of freedom from tumidity, the bane of the earlier
American bards. Not only in verse, but also in his prose tales,
Dana manifested genius. Several later poets, acknowledged at
home and abroad, well deserve the name. Such are Bryant
(1794-1878), whose poems, pensive and elevated in their tone, lack
neither vigor nor finish; Longfellow (1807-1882), a poet of
exquisite culture, whose purity of sentiment, as well as polish and
melody of diction, have made him a favorite in both Europe and America;
Whittier (1807-1892), whose spirited productions are pervaded
with a glowing love of liberty and humanity. Lowell (1819-1891)
has justly earned fame as a poet and a critic; and, as a poet, in both
serious and humorous compositions. The "Biglow Papers" are without a
rival in the species of humor that characterize them. Distinction as a
poet and a prose writer belongs likewise to Oliver Wendell
Holmes (1809-1894), who was especially successful as an author of
"poems of society." Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), faulty in his
moral spirit as he was wayward in his conduct, exhibited, both in his
poems and tales, which are unique in their character, the traits of a
wild and somber genius. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), admired
as a poet, but more generally as an essayist, valuing insight above
logic, has commented on nature, man, and literature with so rare a
penetration and felicity of expression that Matthew Arnold has
placed his productions on a level with the Meditations of the Emperor
Marcus Aurelius. In the list of American novelists the foremost
name is that of Nathaniel Hawthorne. In his romances the subtle
analysis of the workings of conscience and sensibility, in particular
the obscure—including the morbid-action of these powers, is combined
with perfection of style and of literary art. The novels of Harriet
Beecher Stowe, especially those which relate to slavery and depict
negro character, have had a world-wide currency. Among other novelists
were Paulding and Sedgwick, and more recently,
Howells, James, Bret Harte, Cable, and Aldrich. The most
distinguished humorist has been S. M. Clemens (Mark Twain).
Good work has been done by Americans in literary history and criticism.
The History of Spanish Literature, by George Ticknor, is
the fruit of many years of labor by a competent scholar.
HISTORICAL WRITINGS IN AMERICA.—Creditable works have been produced in
America in the department of historical literature. The lives of
Washington and Franklin, and other biographical and historical writings
of much value, have been composed or edited by Jared Sparks. George
Bancroft (1800-1891) published, in successive editions, the results
of extensive researches in the history of the United States. Works on
the same subject have been published by Richard Hildreth and
many others. John G. Palfrey is the author of an excellent
history of New England. William H. Prescott by his History of
the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, his histories of Spanish
conquest in America, and his fragment on the reign of Philip II. of
Spain, has deservedly attained to a high distinction on both sides of
the Atlantic. The same may be said of John Lothrop Motley
(1814-1877), in his Rise and Progress of the Dutch Republic. The
history of French colonization and of the contests of France in America
has been detailed with thoroughness and skill by Francis
Parkman. Other prominent writers have been John Fiske, Justin
Winsor, Henry. Adams, James F. Rhodes, and A. T. Mahan.
AMERICAN WRITERS ON LAW ANS POLITICS.—American writers on law embrace
names of world-wide celebrity. Among them are Henry Wheaton, in
international law, a science to which Woolsey and
Lawrence have made valuable contributions; James Kent,
whose Commentaries on American Law is a work held in high honor
by the legal profession; and Joseph Story, a jurist and legal
writer of distinguished merit. The speeches and other productions of
Webster, Calhoun, Clay, John Quincy Adams, Edward Everett, Seward,
Sumner, form a valuable body of political writings. The works of
Francis Lieber, a German by birth, and the treatise on
Political Science by Theodore D. Woolsey, are important
contributions to the branch of knowledge to which they relate.
PHILOLOGY IN AMERICA.—On the catalogue of students of language, the
name of Noah Webster (1758-1843) is prominent, through his
English Dictionary, the fruit of many years of arduous labor; a work
that since his death has appeared in successive and improved
editions. Another successful laborer in the same field was Joseph
E. Worcester (1784-1865), likewise the author of a copious and
valuable lexicon of the English language. George P. Marsh, an
erudite Scandinavian scholar, wrote also on the Origin and History
of the English Language. In the departments of classical learning,
of Oriental study, and of general philology, there have appeared other
American authors of acknowledged merit, e.g. William D. Whitney.
THEOLOGY IN AMERICA.—Theology has been cultivated with much fruit by a
large number of preachers and authors, of different religious bodies.
Moses Stuart, by his commentaries on Biblical books, and
Edward Robinson, especially through his published Travels in the
Holy Land, were widely known. Charles Hodge, long a professor at
Princeton; Nathaniel W. Taylor, who broached modifications of
the Calvinistic system; Henry B. Smith, an acute and learned
theologian; and Horace Bushnell,—are among the influential
authors on the Protestant side. To these should be added the name of
William Ellery Channing, the most prominent leader of the
Unitarians, equally distinguished as a preacher and as a
philanthropist.
The Unitarian movement in New England, which began in the early part
of the nineteenth century, included other theological writers, one of
the most learned and scholarly of whom was Andrews Norton
(1786-1853). Theodore Parker (1810-1860) subsequently went so
far in his divergence from received views as to reject miracle and
supernatural revelation altogether. He was one of the most vigorous
combatants in the warfare carried on through the press and in the
pulpit against slavery. Out of the Unitarian school there came a
class of cultured writers in literature and criticism, of whom
George Ripley (1802-1880) was a representative. The
"transcendentalists," as they were popularly styled, with whom these
were often at the outset affiliated, were much influenced by
contemporary French and German authors and speculations. Emerson, was
the most prominent writer in this vaguely defined class. A periodical
called "The Dial" was issued by them.
One of the most ingenious and active-minded thinkers in the Roman
Catholic Church was Orestes A. Brownson, a prolific author on
topics of religion and philosophy.
LITERATURE IN GERMANY.—The German mind has been so productive in
almost all branches of literary effort, that the annual issues of the
German press have numbered many thousands. The political condition of
Germany until a recent date was such as to attract large numbers to the
pursuits of literature and science. It is possible to allude to but few
of the principal authors. In imaginative literature, Heinrich
Heine (1799-1856), of Jewish extraction, was a most witty yet
irreverent satirist, and one of the principal song-writers of modern
times. Gustav Freytag has written some of the best of the later
German novels. Auerbach, Keller, and Spielhagen
stand very high on the roll of novelists. Of numerous recent poets,
Lenau and Freiligrath are among the few best esteemed. In
the long catalogue of German historical writers, to whom the world owes
a debt, are found the names of Schlosser (1776-1861),
Heeren (1760-1842), Raumer (1781-1873); Ranke,
whose numerous works are based on original researches, and are written
with masterly skill; Gervinus, a critic as well as historian;
Von Sybel, Droysen, Duncker, Weber,
Giesebrecht, Mommsen, Curtius,
Treitschke. A powerful impulse was given to the study of history
by Niebuhr (1776-1831). German researches have been carried into
every region of the past. In Egyptology, Lipsius, Bunsen,
Brugsch, and Ebers are leading
authorities. Neander, Gieseler, Baur,
Döllinger, Hefele, Alzog, Harnack,
Janssen, and Pastor are writers on ecclesiastical
history. German travelers have explored many of the countries of the
globe. Schliemann has uncovered the ruins of Troy. In
mathematics and the natural sciences, in philology and criticism, in
philosophy, in law and the political sciences, and in the different
branches of theology, the world acknowledges its debt to the patient,
methodical investigations and the exhaustive discussions of German
students during the nineteenth century.
THEOLOGY IN GERMANY.—The history of religious thought in Germany
includes the successive phases of rationalism, or that general
theory which makes the human understanding, apart from supernatural
revelation, the chief or the exclusive source of religious knowledge,
and the umpire in controversies. In the age of Frederick II.,
the Anglo-French deism was widely diffused (p. 493). Lessing;
the genial poet and critic (1729-1781), allied himself to no
party. In his work on The Education of the Human Race, he set
forth the view that the Scriptures have a high providential purpose
as an instrument for the religious training of mankind, but that
their essential contents are ultimately verified by reason on
grounds of its own; so that the prop of authority eventually becomes
needless, and falls away. Not radically different was the position of
Kant (p. 545), who gave rise to a school of theologians that
for a time flourished. This school made the essential thing in
Christianity to be its morality. With Semler (1721-1791), the
rationalistic Biblical criticism took its rise. From that day,
a host of scholars have engaged in the investigation of the origin
and interpretation of the Bible, and of the early history of
Christianity. A middle position between the established orthodoxy and
the Kantian rationalism was taken by Frederick Schleiermacher
(1768-1834), a man of genius, alike eminent as a critic, philosopher,
and theologian. He placed the foundation of religion in the feeling
of absolute dependence. In laying stress on feeling as at the
root of piety, he had been preceded by the philosopher
Jacobi. From the impulse given by Schleiermacher, there
sprung up an intermediate school of theologians, many of whom
departed less than he from the traditional Protestant creed. This
they professed to undertake to revise in accordance with the results
of the scientific study of the Bible and of history. In their number
belong Neander, Nitzsch, Twesten,
Tholuck, J. Müller, Dorner, Rothe,
Bleek, Ullman, and many other influential authors and
teachers. In the department of Biblical criticism, Ewald,
Tischendorf, Meyer, Weiss, are among the names
of German theological scholars which are familiar to Biblical
students in all countries. The critical works of De Wette
(1780-1849) were extensively studied. The philosophy of
_Hegel_connected itself with a new form of rationalism, which
found expression in the Life of Jesus, by Strauss,
published in 1835, in which the Gospel miracles were treated as
myths; and in the writings of Ferdinand Christian Baur, in
connection with his followers of the "Tubingen School," who attempted
to resolve primitive Christianity into a natural growth out of
preëxisting conditions, and held that the historical books of the New
Testament were the product of different theological "tendencies" and
parties in the apostolic and the subsequent age. The Roman Catholic
system has not lacked in Germany able defenders, one of the most
noted of whom was Möhler, the author of Symbolism
(Symbolik), an ingenious polemical work in opposition to
Protestantism.
PHILOLOGY AND LAW IN GERMANY.—Classical philology was founded as a
science by Heyne (1729-1812) and Wolf
(1759-1824). Their work was carried forward by G. Hermann
(1772-1848), Buttmann (1764-1829), Jacobs (1764-1847),
K. O. Muller (1797-1840), and by numerous contemporaries and
successors of these. By this succession of scholars, not only have
the tongues of Greece and Rome been accurately learned and taught,
but classical antiquity has been thoroughly explored. Comparative
philology, under the hands of Bopp (1791-1867), of
Lassen (1800-1876), a Norwegian by birth, of W. von
Humboldt (1767-1835), of Pott (born in 1802), of
Schleicher (1821-1868), and their coadjutors, has grown to be
a fruitful science. In the study of the German language and early
literature, J. Grimm (1785-1863), W. Grimm (1786-1859),
Lachmann (1793-1851), Simrock (1802-1878), have been
among the pioneers. The study of law, especially of Roman law, was
placed on a new foundation by the labors of Savigny
(1779-1861), while a like thoroughness was brought to the exposition
of German law by Mittermaier and others. In political science,
Mohl (1779-1875), Bluntschli (1808-1881), Stahl
(1802-1861), and Gneist (1816-1895) gained a worldwide
celebrity.
LITERATURE IN FRANCE.—A class of vigorous young writers in France
broke loose from the restraints of the "classical" school and its
patterns, and composed dramas in the more free method of the "romantic"
school. They drew their ideas of the drama from Shakspeare,
rather than from Corneille. Among these writers were
Alexandre Dumas, a most prolific novelist as well as writer of
plays; and the celebrated poet and dramatist, Victor Hugo. The
romances of Dumas comprise more than a hundred volumes. In his
historical novels, incidents and characters without number crowd upon
the scene, but without confusion, while the narrative maintains an
unfailing vivacity. Of the authors of light and witty comedies,
Scribe is one of the most fertile. George Sand
(Mme. Dudevant) is one of the principal novel-writers of the
age. Eugene Sue and Balzac are both popular authors in
this department. The leading poets are the song-writer Béranger,
Lamartine, Victor Hugo, and Alfred de Musset. With
the close of the first half-century romanticism began to give way
before realism, from which, however, there was a reaction before the
century closed. Among the greater poets are Sully-Prudhomme and
Coppée; among the novelists, Daudet, Zola,
Maupassant, and Bourget. In history some writers, as
Villemain, are remarkable for their power of descriptive
narrative; others, like Guizot, for their breadth of
philosophical reflection, superadded to deep researches. Some, like
Augustin Thierry, in his work on the Middle Ages, combined both
elements. His brother, Amédée Thierry, depicted the state of
society in Gaul and other countries in the period of the fall of the
Roman Empire. Barante composed an interesting history of the
Dukes of Burgundy. Among those, besides Guizot, who treated of the
history of France, Sismondi, the spirited Michelet, and
the thorough and dispassionate Henri Martin are specially
eminent. Thiers, Mignet, Louis Blanc,
Taine, and Lanfrey wrote on the Revolution or
Napoleon. The most eminent of the newer school of scientific historians
are Boissier, Sorel, Lavisse, Luchaire, and
Aulard. In political economy and the science of politics,
Chevalier, De Tocqueville (the author of Democracy in
America), and Bastiat are among the writers widely read
beyond the limits of France. Sainte-Beuve is only one of the
foremost in the class of literary critics, in which are included
Renan, Sarcey, Brunetière, Lemaître,
Faguet, and others, themselves authors. The clearness of
exposition which goes far to justify the claim of the French to be the
interpreters of European science to the world, appears in numerous
treatises in mathematics and physics. The qualities of lucid
arrangement, transparency of style, and terseness of language have
extended, however, to other branches of authorship; so that the French
have presented a fair claim to precedence in the literary art.
SWEDEN AND RUSSIA.—There are Swedish authors who are well known in
other countries. Such are the historian Geijer (1783-1847);
and the novelist Fredrika Bremer, who wrote "The Neighbors,"
and other tales. The most famous of the Russian novelists is Ivan
Turgenejff, some of whose stories contain admirable pictures of
Russian life.
ARCHITECTURE.—The nineteenth century witnessed in Germany, France, and
England a revival of the ancient or classic styles of
architecture. This appears, for example, in edifices at Munich,
and in such buildings as St. George's Hall at Liverpool. But a
reaction arose against this tendency, and in behalf of the Gothic
style, which is exemplified in the new Houses of Parliament in
London. Many Gothic churches have been erected in Great
Britain. Many-storied office buildings are characteristic of America.
SCULPTURE AND PAINTING.—One of the most original of modern sculptors
was Schwanthaler (1802-1848), who carved the pediments of the
Walhalla at Munich, and the bronze statue of Bavaria. French sculptors
at the present day are fully on a level with the recent sculptors of
Italy. Chantrey (1788-1841) and John Gibson (1791-1866),
a pupil of Canova and himself an original mind, are high on the
roll of English sculptors. A genius for sculpture appeared among
Americans, and to the names of Powers and Crawford, of Story,
Brown, and Ward, the names of other meritorious artists in this
province might justly be added. The German national school of painting
had Overbeck for its most eminent founder. Cornelius
(1783-1867) revived the art of fresco-painting, and established the
Munich school. Von Kaulbach, who painted the "Battle of the
Huns" in the Berlin Museum, was one of his pupils. W. von
Schadow is the founder of the Düsseldorf school. One of his eminent
pupils was K. F. Lessing. Still more recent are Ad. Menzel,
Liberman, and Lenbach. In Great Britain, Constable
(1796-1837) painted English landscapes full of thought and feeling, and
gave a fresh impulse to this branch of art. Stanfleld
(1788-1864) was a master of the realistic school, which aims at a
simple and faithful representation of the landscape to be
depicted. Wilkie, a Scotchman (1785-1841), was chief among the
genre painters, of whom Leslie (1794-1859), by birth an
American, was one of the most forcible and refined. Eastlake
(1793-1865) was a writer on art, as well as a painter. Landseer
(1802-1873) was unrivaled as an animal painter. William Hunt
(1790-1864) had decided skill as a painter in water-colors. The
pre-Raphaelite school, professing to go back of Raphael
to nature, included Turner, Hunt, Millais, and
Burne-Jones. Other prominent artists have been Herkomer,
Leighton, and Alma-Tadema. In France, Paul Delaroche
(1797-1856) followed in the path of Horace Vernet (1789-1863),
as a painter of battle-pieces and other modern historical
scenes. Ary Scheffer (1795-1858), a Dutchman by birth, painted
in a graceful and pathetic tone "Christ the Consoler," and other sacred
subjects. The more recent French school, comprising Delacroix,
Meissonier, Gérome, Cabanel, Millet, Rosa Bonheur, an artist of
masculine vigor, the famous painter of animal pictures,—is
distinguished for technical skill and finish, but also for a bold and
peculiar method of treatment. Among the leading landscape-painters of
this school, Corot, Daubigny, Rousseau, Diaz, are
conspicuous. Still more recent are Bastien-Lepage, Chavannes,
Bréton, Bouguereau, Dagnan-Bouveret, Lhermitte, Jean-Paul Laurens,
and Dupré.
About the year 1825 an American school of landscape-painters was
founded by Thomas Cole, many of whose pictures were
allegorical. Durand is one of those who excelled in landscape
painting. In other provinces of the art, Peale, Weir,
Huntington, Page, Morse, Chase,
Whistler, Sargent, Abbey; in landscape,
Gifford, Kensett, Church, Bierstadt,
McEntee, Inness, Winslow Homer, well represent
what is best and most characteristic in the later productions of
American painters.
MUSIC.—In music, Germany in the nineteenth century held the palm.
Schubert, Spohr, Weber, Meyerbeer, and
Wagner are names of world-wide celebrity, while in the works of
Mendelssohn (1809-1849) and Schumann (1810-1856) the art
of music reached its climax. Chopin (1810-1849), the founder of
a new style of piano-forte music, was born in Poland: his father,
however, was French.
PHILANTHROPIC REFORM.
In a survey of the course of recent history, notice should be taken of
the increased activity of a humane spirit in the several nations.
1. SOCIAL SCIENCE.—The investigation of social evils and of their
proper remedies, and of the laws which govern man in his social
relations, has received of late the name of social science. In
1857 a meeting in London, over which Lord Brougham
presided, resulted in the organization of a society of persons
interested in different forms of social improvement, bearing the name
of the National Association for the Promotion of Social
Science. Its work embraced the consideration of these five
subjects: law-amendment,—to promote which a society had existed, of
which Lord Brougham was the head; education; prevention and
repression of crime; public health; and social economy. Branches were
established in various towns in England. Similar societies have
flourished in the United States. An international society of the same
character held its first meeting in Brussels in 1862. The wide
range of special topics which these societies consider may give an
appearance of indefiniteness to their aims. The movement at least
indicates that social advancement has assumed the form of a distinct
and comprehensive problem, and is drawing to itself the deliberate
attention of thoughtful persons of diverse nations and creeds.
2. MITIGATION OF THE SUFFERINGS OF WAR: HOSPITALS.—If wars are still
frequent and destructive, much more has been done of late to mitigate
the sufferings consequent upon armed conflicts. The right of an
invading force to ravage the territory of an enemy was seldom
practically asserted in the nineteenth century. Non-combatants,
according to the modern rules of war, are not to be molested. Their
property, if it is taken, is to be paid for at its fair value. The
doctrine that requisitions may be made by a commander is not yet
abandoned. It was acted on by Napoleon on a large scale. It was
not approved by Wellington. There is a growing opinion against
it. It is not now held to be a crime for an officer to hold a fortress
as long as he can. In the care of the sick and the wounded, there has
been a great change for the better. The ambulance system, or the
system of movable hospitals accompanying armies on the field, was
established by the French, with the approval of Napoleon, in
1795. The name ambulance is also frequently given to the
vehicles for transporting the wounded and sick. The whole ambulance
system was completely organized in the American civil war, and defined
by an Act of Congress in 1864. To a French surgeon is due, also, the
establishment of a corps of stretcher-bearers. By the European
Convention adopted at Geneva (1864), the wounded, and the whole
official staff connected with ambulances, are exempted from capture as
prisoners of war. For the more efficient organization of hospitals, a
great service was rendered by the example of Florence
Nightingale, an English lady, who, at the head of a company of
volunteer nurses, during the Crimean war created a great establishment
of this sort at Scutari (1854). The increased pains-taking in the
method of building, in the ventilation and general management of
hospitals, during the last half-century, has gone far towards freeing
them from the dangers and evils to which they were formerly subject.
SANITARY SCIENCE.—Sanitary science, and the engineering connected with
it, belong to the nineteenth century, and mainly to the second half of
it. Systems of drainage have been devised which involve much mechanical
skill, not to dwell on their usefulness in promoting health. Prior to
1815, in England, the law forbade the discharge of sewage in
water-drains. The law of 1847 required that which up to 1815 was
prohibited. The great change on this whole subject dates from the
cholera of 1832, which awoke public attention to the sources of
disease. The condition of the poor, and the discussions relating to it,
lent a new stimulus to the inquiry. A series of English reports, from
1842 to 1848, had a great influence in producing a sanitary reform, in
the particulars referred to, in England and in other countries.
3. PUBLIC EDUCATION.—During the nineteenth century, systems of general
education were established in different countries. In a part of the
United States, an effective common-school system has always existed. In
Germany also, especially in Prussia, there have long been thorough
provisions for the instruction of all the young in elementary
branches. In France, in consequence of the laws requiring primary
schools in all the communes of any considerable size, the average of
illiteracy has of late steadily diminished. In 1881, in France,
instruction in the public primary schools was made absolutely
free. England has witnessed a very great change in the legal
establishment of means of instruction in the rudiments of knowledge for
the whole people. The Education Act of 1876 required that every child
between the ages of five and fourteen should receive such teaching. In
England, and in some other countries, the employment of children who
have not had a certain amount of school instruction was prohibited by
law. In the new kingdom of Italy, every commune having four thousand
inhabitants was required by law (1859) to maintain a primary school. By
subsequent legislation, the compulsory principle was adopted as far as
the circumstances of the country would allow. The result has been a
most remarkable diminution in the numbers of the wholly illiterate
class. Other European states have made primary education
compulsory. For instance, in Hungary, attendance at school was made
obligatory for children from the beginning of the eighth to the end of
the twelfth year. Such measures in behalf of general education as
governments have adopted in recent times are founded, to be sure,
partly on the conscious need of self-protection against ignorance and
its baleful consequences to the state. A more directly humane impulse,
however, mingles with this motive. The operation of benevolent feeling
is seen in the multiplying of special schools for the benefit of the
blind, of the deaf and dumb, and even of imbeciles.
4. REFORM OF CRIMINAL LAW.—The advance of humane sentiment has
produced a reform of criminal law. In England, in the closing part of
the eighteenth century, there were two hundred and twenty-three
offenses that were punished with death. To injure Westminster Bridge,
to cut down young trees, to shoot at rabbits, to steal property of the
value of five shillings, were capital offenses. Vigorous and
persevering opposition was made to the mitigation of this bloody
code. Sir Samuel Romilly (1757-1818) began his effort at reform
by endeavoring to secure the repeal of these cruel laws, one by
one. His bills, when carried with difficulty through the Commons, were
repeatedly thrown out by the House of Lords. One of the most strenuous
opponents of the change was the Lord Chancellor, Eldon. Lord
Ellenborough, the chief justice, stigmatized the proposed
alteration of the statutes as the fruit of "speculation and modern
philosophy." It was predicted that, if it were made, there would be a
terrible increase of crime. Sir James Mackintosh continued with
success the effort of Romilly. In 1837 the list of capital offenses had
been reduced to seven. One consequence was the striking diminution of
crime. Another reform in England was that of the police-system
(1816). The officers of the police had encouraged crime in order to
secure the reward of forty pounds offered by the government on
conviction, in the case of crimes of a certain grade.
5. PRISON-DISCIPLINE REFORM.—One of the distinctions of modern
philanthropy is the prison-discipline reform. When Howard began
his labors (1773), the prisons in England were generally dirty,
pestiferous dens, crowded with inmates of both sexes,—nurseries of
loathsome disease, and of still more loathsome vice. Soon after this
time, a serious effort began to make prisons a means of reform, instead
of schools of debauchery and crime. There was a movement for the
erection of penitentiaries of improved construction. This was aided by
the exertions of Jeremy Bentham. The most successful efforts in
behalf of a better system of management in prisons were made by members
of the Society of Friends. Of these, the most useful person in this
cause was Mrs. Elizabeth Gurney Fry (1780-1845), a woman of rare
powers of mind and of the noblest Christian character. By her personal
influence, she wrought such a transformation of character and behavior
among the female convicts in Newgate Prison as it had been deemed
impossible to effect. The reforms which Mrs. Fry effected spread
to other places. Her labors were not confined to Great Britain. She
visited France (1838), Belgium, Holland, and other countries. Her
correspondence in the interest of the cause which she served extended
to Russia and Italy. Her recommendations bore fruit for good in almost
all parts of Europe. Signal improvements in plans of construction, and
in the interior life of prisons, have been effected under the auspices
of the Prison Discipline Society in England. In these changes, the
example of changes and reforms in this matter in the United States has
had a marked influence. The two great ends kept in view at present in
the arrangements and occupations of prisons are the reform of the
criminal, and the deterring of others from the commission of
crime. Distinct establishments for the detention, reform, and training
of juvenile offenders, who were formerly corrupted by association with
criminals mature in vice, are peculiar to recent times. The
transportation of English convicts to Australia began in 1787. As these
multiplied, there sprang up cruelty on the part of supervisors in the
colonies; and in the penal settlements where the worst offenders were
guarded, there were found the most corrupt and degraded herds of
criminals. The opposition in the colonial communities to transportation
found support in England. In 1840 deportation to New South Wales
ceased. At length Van Dieman's Land also refused to receive this forced
emigration even of released convicts. The British Government was
obliged to rely on other methods of punishment, especially on the
graduation of the term of confinement according to the conduct of the
criminal.
PROGRESS TOWARDS THE UNITY OF MANKIND.
UNITY AMID DIVERSITY.—The path of human progress has led in the
direction of unity as the ultimate goal. It is, however, a
unity in variety toward which the course of history has moved.
The development and growth of distinct nations, each after its own
type, and, not less, the freedom of the individual to realize the
destiny intended for him by nature, are necessary to the full
development of mankind,—necessary to the perfection of the race. The
final unity that is sought is to be reached, not by stifling the
capacities of human nature, but by the complete unfolding of them in
all their diversity. The modern era has made an approach toward this
higher unity that is to coexist with a rich and manifold
development. An enlightened man, Prince Albert of England,
remarked in a public address (1850): "Nobody who has paid any attention
to the peculiar features of our present era will doubt for a moment
that we are living at a period of most wonderful transition, which
tends rapidly to accomplish that great end to which, indeed, all
history points, the realization of the unity of mankind! Not a
unity which breaks down the limits and levels the peculiar
characteristics of the different nations of the earth, but rather a
unity, the result and product of those very national varieties
and antagonistic qualities."
In concluding this volume, it is proper to advert to some of the signs
and means of this unification of mankind, which belong to the recent
era.
1. INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITIONS.—The words quoted above from Prince
Albert were spoken in anticipation of the Great International
Exhibition in London, in 1854. The industrial exhibitions, in which the
products of many nations are collected, and to which visitors are drawn
from different parts of the earth, are one indication of the effect of
manufactures and commerce in drawing mankind together. The first
displays of this kind were for French manufactures alone, and were held
in Paris in 1798, and, under the consulate of Napoleon, in 1801 and
1802. The first international exposition was in Paris in 1844;
and it was followed by the "World's Fair" in London (1850), for which
the vast edifice called "the Crystal Palace," made of iron and of
glass, was constructed. Similar exhibitions were held in New York
(1853), in Paris in 1855 and again in 1867, in Constantinople,
Amsterdam, Vienna, (1873), in Philadelphia on the hundredth anniversary
of American independence (1876), in Chicago in 1893, and in Paris in
1900. In these fairs, the products of the industry of the far East were
shown by the side of the products of European and American manufacture.
2. ECONOMICAL ENLIGHTENMENT.—In connection with the wide extension of
commerce, the better methods and ideas which have come into vogue in
respect to commercial relations deserve notice. The system of
credit, facilitating trade and forming a bond of confidence and of
union between different nations, although it began in the Middle Ages,
was not fairly established until the organization of the Bank of
Amsterdam in 1609. This system, if it is "one of the most powerful
engines of warfare," is likewise "one of the great pledges of peace."
The stimulus given to manufactures by mechanical inventions has been an
effective promoter of commercial intercourse. The teaching of Adam
Smith, and of the political economists since his time, by which it
is seen that the gain of one nation is not the loss of another, and
that nations are mutually benefited by the interchange of the products
of their labor, which is the true source of wealth, has operated as an
antidote to discord. The ruin of a neighbor, or non-intercourse with
him, has been discovered to be as contrary to the demands of a prudent
self-interest as of a disinterested benevolence.
3. COMMUNITY IN SCIENCE AND LETTERS.—The community of literature and
science has been growing more cosmopolitan. The barriers created by
differences of language are overcome. The custom of learning foreign
languages has become more diffused. The most important writings, in
whatever country they appear, circulate through translations in all
other civilized lands. All well-stored libraries are polyglot.
4. WIDENED POLITICAL SYSTEM.—In the political relations of countries,
it is found necessary to comprehend all parts of the globe in the
political system, in the right adjustment of which each country has a
stake, and over which stretches an acknowledged code of international
law. The establishment of an international tribunal of arbitration at
The Hague is a long step toward making such a code effective and toward
preventing war.
5. INTERNATION PHILANTHROPY.—The growth of humane feeling, of the
interest felt in man as man, engendered a spirit of universal
philanthropy. For example, the hostility to the slave-trade led to the
treatment of it as piracy by the municipal laws and by the treaties of
several nations, while it is prohibited and punished by nearly all of
the countries of Europe. This is the direct result of a heightened
respect for man and for the rights of human nature, however poor or
degraded man may be. Instances have occurred in which help has been
generously given to sufferers by fire or famine, by strangers in remote
lands. A famine in Persia called out liberal contributions from
America. Examples of the exercise of justice and kindness toward
distant nations may remind the reader of opposite examples of wrong and
cruelty. We are pointing out, however, only the drift of
sentiment; and it must be remembered that the facts which have been
referred to as illustrative of the growth of philanthropy, are such as
never occurred in former ages.
6. CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.—The spread of the Christian religion by
missionary efforts is one of the means of unifying mankind. In ancient
times and in the Middle Ages, the two great achievements of the Church
were the conversion of the Roman Empire, and then of the barbarian
nations by whom it was subverted. But, in the Middle Ages, there was
also missionary labor, here and there among the Saracens and in the
lands of the East. Since the thirteenth century, missions in the Roman
Catholic Church have been chiefly prosecuted by the monastic orders. In
this work, the Jesuits, from the first establishment of their order,
were conspicuously active in all quarters of the globe. Of their
missionaries, none have been more eminent and zealous than Francis
Xavier (1506?1552), who died just as he was about to undertake the
conversion of China. Protestants, in the period after the Reformation,
were too busy in the struggles going forward in their own lands, to
undertake foreign missions on an extended scale. Yet they were not
indifferent to the importance of the work. Under the protectorate of
Cromwell, an ordinance established a Society for the Propagation
of the Gospel in New England (1649). In 1701 the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was established in
England. Later, the Moravians from the beginning evinced great interest
in foreign missions, and planted missionary stations in several
countries. In the Roman Catholic Church, the Congregation of the
Propaganda was founded in 1622, for the general superintendence of
missionary operations. Colleges for their training were established,
the chief of which was the "Urban College" at Rome, where students from
all nations have been educated for missionary service.
The nineteenth century was marked by an extraordinary outburst of
missionary activity. In this sort of exertion the Roman Catholic body
has kept up an unflagging zeal. Within the various Protestant
denominations, a remarkable increase of fervor and of success in this
department of Christian labor has been witnessed. In the room of
seven societies for this purpose at the end of the eighteenth
century, there were in 1880, in Europe and America, seventy
organizations. At this last date, there were not less than twenty-four
hundred ordained Europeans and Americans employed in this service,
besides a great number of assistants, both foreign and native. The
native converts numbered not less than 1,650,000. The yearly
contributions for the support of the missions increased
proportionately. In 1882 British contributions alone amounted to
£1,090,000. It is not an exaggeration to say that the globe is now
"covered with a network of Christian outposts."
The following passage, slightly abbreviated, from a German writer,
presents a glowing sketch of the wide extension of recent missionary
labors:—
"At the beginning of this century, the island world of the Pacific
was shut against the gospel; but England and America have attacked
those lands so vigorously in all directions, especially through
native workers, that whole groups of islands, even the whole Malayan
Polynesia, is to-day almost entirely Christianized, and in Melanesia
and Micronesia the mission-field is extended every year. The gates of
British East India have been thrown open wider and wider during this
century; at first for English, then for all missionaries. This great
kingdom, from Cape Comorin to the Punjaub and up to the Himalayas,
where the gospel is knocking on the door of Thibet, has been covered
with hundreds of mission-stations, closer than the mission-net which
at the close of the first century surrounded the Roman empire; the
largest and some of the smaller islands of the Indian Archipelago,
Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Celebes, and now New Guinea also, are
occupied, partly on the coast and partly in the interior. Burmah, and
in part Siam, is open to the gospel; and China, the most powerful and
most populous of heathen lands, forced continually to open her doors
wider, has been traversed by individual pioneers of the gospel, to
Thibet and Burmah, and half of her provinces occupied from Hong-Kong
and Canton to Peking; and in Manchuria, if by only a thin chain, yet
at many of the principal points, stations have been founded, while
the population overflowing into Australia and America is being
labored with by Protestant missionaries. Japan also, hungry for
reform, by granting entrance to the gospel has been quickly occupied
by American and English missionary societies, and already, after so
little labor, has scores of evangelical congregations. Indeed, the
aboriginal Australians have, in some places, been reached. In the
lands of Islam, from the Balkans to Bagdad, from Egypt to Persia,
there have been common central evangelization stations established in
the chief places, for Christians and Mohammedans, by means of
theological and Christian medical missions, conducted especially by
Americans. Also in the primitive seat of Christianity, Palestine,
from Bethlehem to Tripoli, and to the northern boundaries of Lebanon,
the land is covered by a network of Protestant schools, with here and
there an evangelical church. Africa, west, south, and east, has been
vigorously attacked; in the west, from Senegal to Gaboon, yes, lately
even to the Congo, by Great Britain, Basel, Bremen, and America,
which have stations all along the coast. South Africa at the
extremity was evangelized by German, Dutch, English, Scotch, French,
and Scandinavian societies. Upon both sides, as in the center,
Protestant missions, although at times checked by war, are
continually pressing to the north; to the left, beyond the Walfisch
Bay; to the right, into Zululand, up to Delagoa Bay; in the center,
to the Bechuana and Basuto lands. In the east, the sun of the gospel,
after a long storm, has burst forth over Madagascar in such
brightness that it can never again disappear. Along the coasts from
Zanzibar and the Nile, even to Abyssinia, out-stations have been
established, and powerful assaults made by the Scotch, English, and
recently also by the American mission and civilization, into the very
heart of the Dark Continent, even to the great central and east
African lakes. In America, the immense plains of the Hudson's Bay
Territory, from Canada over the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean,
have not only been visited by missionaries, but have been opened far
and wide to the gospel through rapidly growing Indian missions. In
the United States, hundreds of thousands of freedmen have been
gathered into evangelical congregations; and, of the remnants of the
numerous Indian tribes, some at least have been converted through the
work of evangelization by various churches, and have awakened new
hope for the future. In Central America and the West Indies, as far
as the country is under Protestant home nations, the net of
evangelical missions has been thrown from island to island, even to
the mainland in Honduras, upon the Mosquito Coast; and in British and
Dutch Guiana it has taken even firmer hold. Finally, the lands on and
before the southern extremity of the continent, the Falkland Islands,
Terra del Fuego, and Patagonia, received the first light through the
South American Missionary Society (in London); and recently its
messengers have pushed into the heart of the land, and are rapidly
pressing on to the banks of the great Amazon, to the Indians of
Brazil."
RESULTS OF MISSIONS.—In carrying forward missionary work during the
nineteenth century, the Bible has been translated into numerous
languages. Missionaries, as in the early days of the Church, have
reduced the languages of uncultivated peoples to writing, and made the
beginning of native literatures. Schools, colleges, and
printing-presses follow in the path of the preachers. The contributions
made to philology and to other branches of science by missionary
preachers and explorers are of high value. As far as the number of
converts is concerned, progress has been more rapid, as was the case in
the first Christian centuries, among uncivilized tribes. The reception
of Christianity is more slow in a country like China, and among the
Aryan inhabitants of India. But the influence exerted by missions in
such communities is not to be measured by the number of
converts. Moreover, history has often shown, that, in the spread of the
Christian religion, the first steps are the most slow and difficult:
they are like the early operations in a siege. Sir Bartle Frere
writes thus: "Statistical facts can in no way convey any adequate idea
of the work done in any part of India. The effect is enormous where
there has not been a single avowed conversion. The teaching of
Christianity amongst a hundred and sixty millions of civilized,
industrious Hindoos and Mohammedans in India, is effecting changes,
moral, social, and political, which for extent and rapidity in effect
are far more extraordinary than any that have been witnessed in modern
Europe." Of the same tenor is an opinion expressed in strong terms by
Sir Henry Lawrence, governor-general of India during the mutiny
of 1857, and a most competent judge.
It is worthy of remark, as one characteristic of the Christian missions
of the recent period, that the religions of the non-Christian nations
have been studied more thoroughly, and the true and praiseworthy
elements in them have been better appreciated.
The progress made in the past encourages the hope that the unity of
mankind, a unity which shall be the crown of individual and national
development, will one day be reached. That unity of mankind, in loyal
fellowship with Him in whose image man was made, is the community of
which the ancient Stoic vaguely dreamed, and which the apostles of
Christ proclaimed and predicted,—the perfected kingdom of God.
LITERATURE. See lists on pp. Alison, Hist. of Europe, from
1815 to 1852 (8 vols.); Bulle, Gesch. d. neuesten Zeit,
1815-1871 (2 vols.); Flathe. Zeitalter der Restauration und der
Revolution; Stern, Geschichte Europas (3 vols.); Debidpur,
Hist. Diplomatique de l'Europe (2 vols.); Seignobus,
Political History of Europe since 1814; Sears. Political
Growth in the Nineteenth Century; Lavisse et Rambaud. Hist
Gén., Vols. X., XI., XII.; Phillips, European History,
1815-1899; Müller, Political History of Recent Times (Peters's
translation, 1882); Müller, Politische Gesch. d. Gegenwart (an
annual, since 1867); Honegger, Grundsteine einer
allgem. Culturgeschichte d. neuesten Zeit (5 vols.).
Works on the History of Italy. Thayer, Dawn of Italian
Independence (2 vols.); Reuchlin, Geschichte Italiens (4
vols.); Stillman, Union of Italy; Probyn, Italy from
1815-1878; Lives of Cavour, by De la Rive (English translation), by
E. Dicey, by Mazade (French); Life and Writings of Mazzini (9
vols.).
Works on the History of Germany. Treitschke, Deutsche
Geschichte; Von Sybel, Founding of the German Empire (6
vols,); Busch, Bismarck in the Franco-Prussian War (2 vols.),
Bismarck, The Man and the Statesman (2 vols.); Springer,
Geschichte Oesterreichs (2 vols.).
France. Hillebrand, Gesch. Frankreichs (1830-1870); Adams,
Democracy and Monarchy in France; Stein, Gesch. der
Sozialen Bewegung in Frankreich; Guizot, Memoirs of His Own
Time (1807-1848) (4 vols.); Delord, Hist. du Second Empire
(6 vols.); Zevort, Hist. de la 3'me Republique (4 vols.);
Hanotaux, Contemporary France (Vol. I.); Bodley, France
(2 vols.); Simon, The Government of M. Thiers (from 1871-1873)
(2 vols.).
Works on the History of England. Harriet Martineau, The History of
England (1800-1854); Walpole, A History of England, from
1815 (6 vols., 1878-1880); Molesworth, The History of England
(1830-1874); Justin McCarthy, A History of Our Own Times
(1878-1880); Kinglake, The Invasion of the Crimea (6 vols.);
Seeley, The Expansion of England; Rutherford, The Fenian
Conspiracy; Richey, The Irish Land Laws; King, The
Irish Question; Morley, Life of Gladstone, 3 vols. (1903)
(an able historical review).
Works on History of the United States. Benton, Thirty Year's
View [1820-1850]; Johnston, History of American Politics;
DE TOCQUEVILLE, Democracy in America (2 vols.); Thorpe,
Constitutional History of the American People (2 vols.);
Roosevelt, Winning of the West (4 vols); Stanwood, A
History of the Presidency; Bryce, The American
Commonwealth (2 vols).; Ostrogorski, Democracy and the Origin
of Political Parties (2 vols.); Henry Adams, History of the
United States (1800-1817, 9 vols.); Rhodes, History of the
United States from the Compromise of 1850 (4 vols.); Wilson,
Division and Reunion; Burgess, The Middle Period, The Civil
War and the Constitution (2 vols.); Dunning, Essays on the
Civil War and Reconstruction; Bolles, Financial History of the
United States (3 vols.); Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall
of the Slave Power; Blaine, Twenty Years in Congress;
Histories of the Civil War, by the Count of Paris (2 vols.), by
Roper, by J. W. Draper, by H. Greeley, by A. H. Stephens, by
E. A. Pollard (The Lost Cause); Swinton's Twelve Decisive
Battles of the [Civil] War; Memoirs of
Gen. W. T. Sherman, by himself; Grant, Personall Memoirs
(2 vols.); John Sherman, Recollections (2 vols.); Moore,
The Rebellion Record (1861-1871); Biography of
Gallatin, by H. Adams; of Jackson, by Parton, by
W. G. Sumner; of Madison, by Rives; of J. Q. Adams, by
Morse; of Josiah Quincy, by Edmund Quincy; of Webster,
by G. T. Curtis, by Lodge; of Clay, by Schurz; of
Calhoun, by Crallé; of Sumner, by E. L. Pierce; of
Lincoln, by Nicolay and Hay, by Morse; of Seward, by
Fr. Brancroft; of W. L. Garrison, by O. Johnson, by
W. P. Garrison; The American Commonwealths, a series of
histories of the separate States (edited by H. E. Scudder); writings
of J. Q. Adams, Webster, Clay, Calhoun, E. Everett, C. Sumner,
W. H. Seward; John Fiske, American Political Ideas.
Literary Biographies. Life of Walter Scott, by Lockhart; of
Jeffrey, by Cockburn; of Macaulay, by Trevelyan; of Arnold, by
Stanley; of Dickens, by Forster; of Carlyle, by Froude; of George
Eliot [Mrs. Lewes], by Cross. Life of Irving, by P. M. Irving;
of Bryant, by Parke Godwin; Life and Letters of George Ticknor;
Life of Ripley, by Frothingham; Series of "American Men of
Letters," including Washington Irving, by Warner;
Cooper, by T. R. Lounsbury; Emerson, by O. W. Holmes,
etc.
Argyll, The Eastern Question, 1856 to 1858 and the Second Afghan
War; Taylor, Russia before and after the War [of 1877]
(1880); Daily News Correspondence of the War between Russia and
Turkey [1877-78] (2 vols.); Baker Pasha, War in Bulgaria
(2 vols.); Wallace, Egypt and the Egyptian Question; Malleson,
History of Afghanistan; Labilliere, Early History of the
Colony of Victoria (2 vols.); Grant and Knollys, The China War
of 1860; Scott, France and Tongking [in 1884]; Vambéry,
Central Asia; Stanley, Congo and the Founding of its Free
State (2 vols.).
Rae, Contemporary Socialism; Woolsey, Communism and
Socialism; Laveleye, Le Socialisme Contemporain (10th
ed.); Schaeffle, Quintessens des Socialismus; A. Menger,
Das Recht auf den vollen Arbeitsertrag (2d ed.).
End of Project Gutenberg's Outline of Universal History, by George Park Fisher