Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

CHAPTER VII.

State of Europe during the Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Centuries.

FRANCE, which, under the splendid dominion of Charlemagne, had revived the western empire of the Romans, and rivalled, in extent of territory and power, the proudest times of ancient Rome, had dwindled down, under the weak posterity of this prince, even to the point of sustaining a diminution of her proper terri

At the time of the elevation of Hugh Capet, the founder of the third race of her kings, France comprehended neither Normandy, Dauphiny, nor Provence. On the death of Lewis V., surnamed Fainéant, or the Idle, his uncle Charles, duke of Brabant and Hainault, if the rules of succession to the throne had been observed, or the posterity of Charlemagne respected, ought to have succeeded to the crown of France; but Hugh Capet, count of Paris and lord of Picardy and Champagne, the most powerful and the most ambitious of the French nobles, whose greatgrandfather Eudes, or Odo, and grandfather Robert the Strong, both sat on the throne of France, by usurping the right of Charles the Simple, availing himself of these pretensions, and assembling his forces, dispersed a parliament summoned for investing his rival, the duke of Brabant, with the ensigns of royalty, and was elected sovereign of the kingdom by the voice of his brother peers. Charles of Brabant was betrayed by the bishop of Laon, and given up to Hugh Capet, who allowed him to die in prison.

Thus the posterity of Charlemagne being utterly extinct, Hugh Capet is the founder of the third, or Capetian race of monarchs, who, from the year 987 down to the present age, have swayed the sceptre of France for more than eight hundred years: an instance of uninterrupted succession in a royal family which is nexampled in the history of mankind. France, divided into parties, continued in a state of weakness and domestic misery during the reign of Hugh Capet and his successor Robert, whose reign affords no event worthy of record, unless a most audacious exertion of the authority of the pope over the sovereign of France. King Robert had married Bertha, his cousin in the fourth degree —a marriage which, though within the prohibitions of the Canon law, was, in every respect, a wise and politic connection, as it

united the contending factions in the kingdom. Although in Catholic countries, even at this day, private persons can easily purchase a dispensation from the pope for such matches, the French king met with no such indulgence. Gregory V., in the most insolent manner, dared to impose on king Robert a penance of seven years, ordered him to quit his wife, and excommunicated him in case of refusal. The emperor Otho III., who was Robert's enemy, gave this decree sanction by his presence at the council where it was pronounced, which makes it probable that this shameful procedure had its origin more in political reasons than in a religious motive. Be that as it may, the effect of this sentence of excommunication was very serious to Robert; the unhappy prince was abandoned by all his courtiers, and even his domestics. Historians inform us, that two only of his servants remained with him, whose care was to throw into the fire what he left at his meals, from the horror they felt at what had been touched by an excommunicated person. This absurdity is scarcely credible, and ought perhaps to be ranked along with another circumstance, likewise recorded of this event-which is, that the queen, in punishment of this pretended incest, was brought to bed of a monster. Voltaire well remarks, that there was nothing monstrous in this whole affair, except the bold assurance of the pope, and the weakness of the king, who, to obey him, separated from his wife. The piety of king Robert's character was signalized by his laying the foundation of that superb structure, the church of Notre Dame at Paris, one of the noblest Gothic edifices in the world.

The subserviency of this monarch to the domineering spirit of the popedom had its natural effect in exciting the holy fathers to further exercises of authority. Robert had been excommunicated for marrying his relation; and his grandson, Philip I., was excommunicated for divorcing a lady who was his relation, to make way for a mistress. Of all the superstitions of these times, it was not the least prejudicial to the welfare of states, that the marriage of relations, even to the seventh degree, was prohibited by the church. Henry, the father of Philip I. of France, to whom almost all the sovereigns of Europe were related, was obliged to seek a wife from the barbarous empire of Russia.

The prevailing passion of the times of which we now treat was a taste for pilgrimages and adventures. Some Normans, having been in Palestine about the year 983, passed at their return, by the sea of Naples, into the principality of Salerno, in Italy, which had been usurped by the lords of this small territory fron

The president Henault informs us that this church was built on the founda tion of an ancient temple of Jupiter. If this is true, it has been the peculiar lot of thus edifice to have seen, in modern times, the revival of its ancient wor ship, and to have been dedicated once more, in the course of a mad revolution to the gods and goddesses of paganism.

the emperors of Constantinople. The Normans found the prince of Salerno besieged by the Mahometans, and relieved him by raising the siege. They were dismissed loaded with presents, which encouraged others of their countrymen to go in quest of similar adventures. A troop of Normans went, in the year 1016. to offer their services to Benedict VIII., against the Mahometans; others went to Apulia, to serve the duke of Capua; a third band armed first against the Greeks, and then against the popes, always selling their services to those that best paid for them. William, surnamed Fier-a-bras, or strong-arm, with his brothers Humphry, Robert, and Richard, defeated the army of pope Leo IX., besieged him in his castle at Benevento, and kept him there for a year a prisoner; and the court of Rome was obliged to yield to these Normans a very considerable portion of the patrimonies of the holy see. Pope Nicholas II. gave up the principality of Capua to Richard; and to Robert he gave Apulia, Calabria, and the investiture of Sicily, provided he could wrest it by his arms out of the hands of the Saracens, who were at that time in possession of most of the country. Robert, on his part, agreed to pay annual tribute, and to do homage to the pope. He immediately prepared to extirpate the Saracens from Sicily; and in the year 1101, Roger the Norman completed the conquest of the island, of which the popes have to the present age remained the lords paramount.

The state of the northern kingdoms of Europe was at this time extremely barbarous. Russia, like France, owed its conversion to Christianity to its queen or empress, who was the daughter of Basilius, the emperor of Constantinople, and married the czar of Tsaraslow, in the eighth century. The Swedes, after their first conversion, relapsed again into idolatry, and appear, during the eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, to have sunk into the most absolute barbarism. Poland, down to the thirteenth century, was in no better situation. The empire of Constantinople still existing, maintained a struggle against the Bulgarians in the west, and the Turks and Arabians on the east and north. In Italy, the nobility, or independent lords, possessed all the country from Rome to the Calabrian Sea; and most of the rest was in the hands of the Normans.

The dukes of Savoy, who are now the kings of Sardinia, began at this time to make a figure. They possessed, by inheritance, the country of Savoy and Maurienne, as a fief of the empire. The Swiss and the Grisons were under the government of viceroys, whom the emperor appointed. Venice and Genoa were rising gradually into consequence, from the wealth which they acquired by a pretty extensive Mediterranean commerce. The first doge of Venice, who was created in 709, was only a tribune of the people elected by the citizens. The families who gave their voices in this election are many of them still in existence, and are

unquestionably the oldest nobility in Europe. The city of Venice, however, had not obtained its name for near two centuries after this period. The doges at first resided at Heraclea; they paid homage to the emperors, and sent annually, as a petty kind of tribute, a mantle of cloth of gold. But these marks of vassalage did not diminish their real power, for they acquired by conquest all the opposite side of Dalmatia, the province of Istria, with Spalatro, Ragusa, and Narenza; and about the middle of the tenth century the doge assumed the title of duke of Dalmatia; the republic increased in riches and in power; and, prosecuting trade with great spirit, they soon became the commercial agents of the European princes for all the produce and manufactures of the East.*

Spain was at this time chiefly possessed by the Moors. The Christians occupied about a fourth part of the country, and that the most barren of the whole. Their dominions were Asturia, the princes of which took the title of king of Leon; and part of Old Castile, which was governed by counts, as was Barcelona and a part of Catalonia. Navarre and Arragon had likewise a Christian sovereign. The Moors possessed the rest of the country, comprehending Portugal. Their capital, as we have before observed, was the city of Cordova, a most delightful residence, which they had adorned with every embellishment of art and magnificence. These Arabians were at this time, perhaps, the most refined and polished people in the world. Luxury and pleasure at length corrupted the princes of the Moors, and their dominions, in the tenth century, were split among a number of petty sovereigns. Had the Christians been more united than they, they might, perhaps, at this time have shaken off the Moorish yoke and regained the sovereignty of the whole kingdom; but they were divided among themselves, continually at war, and even formed alliances with the Moors against each other. Yet the Christian princes possessed, at this time, a very considerable proportion of the territory of Spain; and at a period when the feudal oppression was at its height, and the condition of the commonalty, through the greater part of Europe, was in the lowest stage of degradation, one of these small Christian kingdoms exhibited the example of a people who shared the sovereignty with the prince, and wisely limited his arbitrary government by constitutional restraints. This was the kingdom of Arragon, in which not only the representatives of the towns had a seat in the Cortes, or national assemblies, but an officer was elected by the people, termed a Justiza, who was the supreme interpreter of the law, and whose recognised duty it was to protect the rights of the people against the encroachments of the crown. This officer, whose person was sacred, was chosen from among the commoners;

• Voltaire sur les Muurs, ch. xliii.

Le had a right to judge whether the royal edicts were agreeable to law, before they could be carried into effect; and while the king's ministers were answerable to him for their conduct, he was responsible to the Cortes alone. This great officer had likewise the privilege of receiving, in the name of the people, the king's oath of coronation; and during this ceremony he held a naked sword, pointed at the breast of the sovereign, whom he thus addressed" We, your equals, constitute you our sovereign, and we solemnly engage to obey your mandates on condition that you protect us in the enjoyment of our rights: if otherwise, not." The kingdom of Arragon was, therefore, at this time a singular example of a limited monarchy, and of a people enjoying a high portion of civil liberty, at a time when the condition of the inferior ranks, in all the surrounding nations, was that of the severest servitude.

In the year 1035, one of these Christian princes, Ferdinand, the son of Sancho, king of Arragon and Navarre, united Old Castile with the kingdom of Leon, which he usurped by the murder of his brother-in-law. Castile henceforth gave name to a kingdom, of which Leon was only a province. In the reign of this Ferdinand lived Rodrigo, surnamed the Cid, the hero of the great tragedy of Corneille and of many of the noblest of the old Spanish romances and ballads. The most famous of his real exploits was the assisting Sancho, the eldest son of Ferdinand, to deprive his brothers and sisters of the inheritance left them by their father. There were at that time near twenty kings in Spain, Christians and Mahometans, besides a great many independent nobility-lords, who came in complete armor, with their attendants, to offer their services to the princes when at war. This custom was common at that time over all Europe, but more particularly among the Spaniards, who were a most romantic people; and in his age, Rodrigo of Bivar, or the Cid, distinguished himself above all other Christian knights. Many others, from his high reputation and prowess, ranged themselves under his banner, and with these having formed a considerable troop armed cap-a-pie, both man and horse, he subdued some of the Moorish princes, and established for himself a small sovereignty in the city of Alcasar. He undertook for his sovereign, Alphonso, king of Old Castile, to conquer the kingdom of New Castile, and achieved it with success; to which he added, some time after, the kingdom of Valencia. Thus Alphonso became, by the arms of his champion the Cid, the most powerful of those petty sovereigns who divided the kingdom of Spain.*

In those ages of discord and darkness, the contentions between the imperial and the papal power make the most conspicuous figure.

Lord.

Voltaire sur les Mœurs, ch. xliv. Cid is merely the Moorish or Arabic for

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »