A. D. 476. History rights and conditions might be surrendered, or their political existence swallowed up in the accumulation of the greater domains. Even of the Saxon race in England, where a portion of the peasantry always remained free, at least two-thirds, before the IXth century, had sunk into predial bondage to their own aristocracy ;* the lower Orders of the Frankish, and Lombard, and German races, equally with the descendants of the Roman Provincials, had universally shared the same fate in their several Countries; and the intermediate ranks between the Noble and the Slave were becoming almost everywhere obliterated by the operation of violence and want, oppression and weakness. At this epoch, it was happy for the well-being, and almost the existence of Society, that the feudal system, with its long chain of defined relations, its manly spirit of mutual and fixed obligations, arose to preserve the social frame of Europe from a state of indiscriminate Asiatic servitude. Distinction of laws geg the Barbarian It has been usual with modern writers to extol the liberal principle of the Barbarian codes, which left the Roman Provincials in the possession of their own Civil and Roman institutions, and further allowed every man to declare population. under what Law he would be governed. But the first lis effects. permission served only to prolong the distinction of the conquering and conquered races: the extent and degree of the latter indulgence are both very uncertain, until a much subsequent period. The Roman, or at least native, population of France and Italy were, however, always suffered by the conquerors, from the outset, to follow the rule of the Theodosian code in their Civil and domestic affairs, and to appeal to its protection in the Courts, even against a plaintiff or accuser of the victorious stock. Among the Barbarians themselves, whose different races came to be mingled in the same Country, the utmost license was afforded to every freeman to choose under what national Law he would live; and, in the legal deeds of the times, a formal declaration, on the part of the subscriber, of his adherence to the Salic, the Burgundian, Lombard, Gothic, Bavarian, or other German code, forms the common preamble.† At whatever period in the lapse of time the same privilege of adopting a Barbarian nation and Law had been silently acquired by the descendants of the Roman population, the odious distinction of a dominant and subjugated race in the same community, must, by that circumstance, have merged into an equality of rights, varying only in the hereditary preference of legal forms. And this separation of laws seems to have subsisted, in France especially, by the mere force of caprice, for centuries after it had ceased to form the badge of conquest or servitude.‡ How far durable. Eradicated But a much more powerful cause in eradicating this community distinction was the influence of a common Religion. of Religion. The Northern nations owed their conversion to Christianity, and the imperfect rudiments of their acquaintance with Letters, to Roman teachers; and the possession of sacred and profane learning, corrupted and obscured as it was, enabled the subjugated race to recover, by their superiority in knowledge and mental Efects of cultivation, the temporal wealth and dominion which e conver had been lost by their degeneracy in the field. The on of the Northern mations. of the Barbarian Nations. 476. ignorance of the illiterate Barbarians naturally excluded Settlement them, for many Ages after they had embraced the Christian worship, from the ministry and offices of the Church; the Clergy in the new Kingdoms were composed almost wholly out of the Roman population; and A. D. the arrogant conquerors surrendered their consciences and their wills, with all the blind devotion of a super- Highly fastitious Age, in spiritual dependence on an order of voured contheir subjects and tributaries. The rate of the compo- dition of the sition for homicide-the great test of political condition Clergy. in the Barbaric codes-denotes the respect and the sanctity in which the Clergy were held. By the laws of the Frankish Monarchy, for example, the life of the lowest Minister of Religion was made equivalent in value to that of two freemen; a simple priest was rated with a Nobleman; and the compensation for the blood of a Bishop rose to one half more than for that of the highest Civil dignitary under the Crown.* No distinction of Frankish or Gaulish birth was here preserved in the protection of the Ecclesiastical Body; but the estimate silently marks the power, not of a Barbarian, but a Roman Order, who filled the Church. the institu Ecclesiasti and power. The establishment and growth of the Christian General inChurch in the Barbarian Kingdoms of Europe, will be fluence of more properly related in that division of our pages, tions of which is assigned to ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY: but the Christianity influence of the institutions of Christianity on the state on the Dark of Society among the Northern nations is closely con- Ages, nected with their Political annals; and its consideration belongs to our present subject of inquiry. Nor, throughout the History of the Middle Ages, can the temporal condition of the Papacy and the Church, which exercised so pervading and paramount an ascendancy over the fortunes of the European Monarchies, be separated from the narrative of their Political vicissitudes. The rapid conversion of the Barbarian nations to Christianity, had accompanied their dismemberment of the Roman Empire. In their new seats, they found the Clergy everywhere endowed with considerable Growth of possessions; and the lavish munificence of their new cal wealth zeal was added to the former wealth of the Church. The mixture of a superstitious imagination with violent passions, which entered into the character of all the Northern nations, contributed to swell the amount of these pious donations. Believing that offences might be expiated by the measure of their offerings at the altar, they were actuated, in the intervals of their rapine and outrage, by remorse and Religious apprehension, to satisfy the pangs of conscience in this manner. dowments of land to the Episcopal sees, and still more to the Monastic foundations, poured in from every quarter; and Monarchs, powerful Lords, and petty Barons, all felt the necessity of atoning for the disorders and crimes of their past lives by accumulated bequests to the Church. A considerable portion of the territorial property in every Country thus passed into the hands of the Episcopal and Monastic Clergy; and the Ecclesiastical Order obtained, in all the new Monarchies, a large share of positive temporal possessions and power, and a still greater influence upon the Constitution of Governments.† En The revolting spectacle of ignorance and supersti- Moral tion, of crime and anarchy, which is presented in the effects of Christianity in those Ages, History. aspect of Europe during the Dark Ages, might lead us, on a cursory view, to question the beneficial effects of A. D. the Barbarian conversion on the state of Society. Nor 476. have endeavours been wanting to depreciate and deny notwith- the salutary influence of Christianity over those times, by standing the a certain class of writers, who have delighted to mulacknowtiply examples of the corruption of the Church, and the ledged corruption of wickedness of its Ministers and Professors. Unquesthe Church, tionably the Romish Clergy of the Middle Ages, as a Body, were very corrupt: their private lives were frequently dissolute; their covetousness and rapacity in the pursuit of wealth unbounded; their ambition worldly and unholy; their hypocrisies, frauds, and impostures manifold; their ignorance extreme; and the sacred truths of Christianity were violated and perverted in their doctrines by the gross admixture of a thousand Pagan superstitions and idolatries. It was not to be expected that the moral and intellectual character of the laity should attain a higher standard than that of their teachers; and while the Clergy were themselves ignorant and vicious, the people were naturally plunged into a lower deep of impurity and darkness. decidedly But admitting the operation of all these debasing beneficial. influences to the fullest extent, it is still easy to discern, on an attentive and candid examination, that the introduction of Christianity among the Northern nations, though in its most corrupted form, had a signal and beneficial effect upon the aspect of Society. To judge the question fairly, we should compare those times, not with the enlightened period to which they have given Contrast of birth, but with the previous state of the world. We the Gothic should endeavour to conceive the fate of Europe, if the Paganism. Gothic nations had been permitted to plant the bloody idolatry of Woden and Thor, with its reeking hecatombs of human sacrifices, and its brutal promises of an immortality of drunkenness or slaughter, in those favoured regions of the globe, which had received the dawning light of Truth, humanity, and civilization. We should imagine the ferocious passions of the Barbarians in an era of universal conquest, encouraged by that gloomy and inexorable superstition of their forests, in which war and bloodshed were the creed of virtue; instead of being mitigated by the precepts of a Religion which, however imperfectly heard and obeyed, breathed nothing Silent ame- but mercy and peace. The ameliorating power of a purer spirit often went forth, even from among the clouds of error and falsehood which veiled the divine form of Revelation. If that power was insufficient to direct the actions and control the passions of rude and morality. ignorant men, it sometimes touched their consciences, and frequently awakened their remorse. The political effects of Christianity in the Dark Ages, were not, we may confess, so beneficial as its individual influence; but they were as good as the constitution of Society would admit, and far better than, under the same circumstances, any mere human restraints of Law or opinion could possibly have produced. Even a celebrated Historian, who has rendered his name unhappily proverbial for hostility to the Christian faith, has been compelled to acknowledge the universal benefits which followed its introduction among the Barbarian nations, in inculcating justice and mercy; in alleviating the horrors of war, and moderating the insolence of conquest; in preventing the total extinction of ancient Civilization, Learning, and Science; and in producing that union of the European Republic, that community of lioration produced by the Christian faith and of the Nations. A. D. 476. The vices of upon jurisprudence, manners, and Arts, which has cemented Settlement the bonds of humanity through the modern World.* Nor, in the exaggerated tone of declamation, which Barbarian it has been usual for almost all controversial Protestant writers to adopt, in stigmatizing the vices of the Clergy of the Dark Ages, has justice been rendered to their memory, even for the real benefits, which they either positively conferred, or were instrumental in engrafting, the Romish on Society. Their efforts were in general unceasingly Clergy exdirected to soften the ferocity, and humanize the feel- aggerated. ings of their times. They constantly opposed the san- Benefits guinary institution of the judicial duel, and fulminated which they every species of Ecclesiastical censure against that absurd conferred and cruel practice. With equal consistency, they Society. laboured strenuously, by exhortation and anathema, to 1. By their repress the private wars of the Barons, which, in rather reprobation a later Age, had converted every Kingdom of Europe of private into one great battle-field. The periodical observance wars and which they attempted to enforce of the Truce of God,t judicial was a humane endeavour to suspend, at least for brief seasons, the fury of those inextinguishable and bloody feuds; to afford the harassed and wearied people some short intervals of breathing and repose; and to tempt even their tyrants with the familiar blessings of tranquillity. The success of their efforts, indeed, was not immediately visible: but there can be no doubt that the spiritual prohibitions of the Church exercised a great influence both in hastening the disuse of trial by combat, and in diminishing the frequency of private wars. combats. In the protection of the oppressed, the Clergy often 2. By their discharged a yet higher and holier vocation. The right protection of sanctuary, which was very early established, secured of the op persons from seizure within the hallowed vicinity of pressed. churches; and this superstitious privilege which, in the Roman Catholic Countries of modern times, has only impeded the operation of justice, had some very different consequences in the lawlessness and tyranny of the Middle Ages. It undoubtedly enabled the Clergy to shelter many defenceless and persecuted individuals from the hand of violence and cruelty. If it afforded an asylum for malefactors, it was also the only secure refuge for weakness and innocence; and we may readily conceive, with an elegant writer, how much this protection must have enhanced the veneration for Religious institutions, how gladly the victims of internal war must have turned their eyes from the Baronial castle, the dread and scourge of the neighbourhood, to those venerable walls, within which, not even the clamour of arms could be heard to disturb the chant of holy men, and the sacred service of the altar.‡ Monks, Among these Religious institutions, the Monasteries 3. Eleemoespecially seem to have been everywhere, in those Ages, synary vira blessing to the surrounding districts. In ameliorat- tues of the ing the condition of the poor, some of the virtues of the Monks had the most benign effects. The Clergy of all denominations were continually enjoining upon laymen the duty of enfranchising their slaves: though indeed they are accused of not being equally ready to set the example of manumission on their own lands. But 4. Enfranwhen we find them inveighing against the sin of keeping chisement Christians in bondage, and observe how frequently the of slaves manumission of slaves is expressly performed in testa- successfull mentary acts from Religious motives, we may safely enjoined by Gibbon, vol. vi. p. 276, 278. See Du Cange, ad v. Treuga. Hallam, Middle Ages, vol. iii. p. 351. the Clergy History. ascribe the practice to the injunctions of the Clergy.' 476. The general exercise of charity by the Monks in the A. D. relief of indigence, too, is undisputed; and the condition of the peasantry on the church estates, was always 3. Superior superior to that of the vassals of lay lords. It was a condition of common saying of the people, that men lived more the peasan. try on the happily under the crosier than the sceptre. The lands of the Monasteries were far better cultivated than any other; and to the peaceful occupations and superior 6. The resto- intelligence of the Monks, we are indebted for the agricultural restoration of great part of Europe. Many of Agriculture, the grants to Monasteries, which appear enormous, were of tracts absolutely desolated by wars, that would probably have been reclaimed from sterility by no other Church lands. ration of 7. and the preservation of ancient Learning altributable to means. But beyond all question the most important benefit for which the modern world is indebted to the Clergy and the Monastic institutions of the Dark Ages, is the preservation of ancient Learning. However gross the ignorance in which the Clergy were themselves involved, the Monks. they were the only Order which retained any glimmerings of knowledge; and their Monastic houses were the sole depositaries of the neglected remains of classical Literature. The Latin language itself was rescued from ex * Du Cange, ad vv. Testamentum aud Manumissio. of the Barbarian Nations. A. D. 476. tinction only by its corrupted use in the liturgy, the Settlement See the proofs of this in England, collected by Mr. Turner, ceased to advance, since that period in which it ap- And by Mr. Hallam, vol, iii. p. 436. peared to have approached the verge of its extreme and 628 Rise of the Mayors of the Palace, The Monarchy again 577 Leovogild. Revolt and martyrdom of his son Hermene divided. 631 Dagobert I. sole Monarch. gild. 584 Autharis 591 Agilulf.. 615 Adaloald 638 Partition until 586 Recared, the first Catholic King of Spain. 660 Partition until 678 Thierri III. sole Monarch. 687 Pepin d'Heristal, Mayor of the 717 Charles Martel, Duke of 732 DEFEATS THE SARACENS in the FALL OF THE MEROVIN- Extinguishes the Merovingian Dynasty; and assuming the II. THE CARLOVINGIAN DYNASTY OF THE FRANKS. THE MOHAMMEDAN OR SARACEN POWER. A. D. Throughout the Vth and VIth centuries, Arabia appears to have been divided among a number of petty Chieftains and Tribes of the cultivated country and de serts, who enjoyed a common independence: though they recognised a 'superior dignity in the state of Mecca, as the holiest seat of their idolatrous worship, and the principal city of their nation. Under the general name of SARACENS, (from some unknown etymology,) the natives of Arabia alternately engaged during these Ages in capricious alliance and desultory hostility with the Eastern and Persian Empires; and towards the close of the VIth century, the South-Western parts of the Peninsula, in the Arabia Felix, or Yemen, were subjugated by the latter Power. But the History of the Arabian Tribes is obscure and disjointed; and the authentic Saracen Annals commence only with 569 The birth of Mohammed at Mecca. 609 He proclaims himself the Prophet of God 622 The HEGIRA, or Flight of Mohammed from Mecca: the commencement of the great Musulman era. 629 The submission of Mecca: followed by the conquest and conversion of all Arabia, and the invasion of the Eastern Empire. 632 Death of Mohammed. Abubeker, his successor or Caliph. Invasion of Persia. 634 Omar, Caliph. 639 Conquest of Syria, ineluding Pales tine, &c. and (640) of Egypt. 644 Othman, Caliph. 647 The Saracen arms progressive in Africa. 651 The conquest of Persia completed. 655 Ali, Caliph. I. DYNASTY OF THE OMMIADES. 660 Moawiyah, or Ommiyah, Caliph. 668 Siege of Constantinople by the Saracens. 680 Yezid. 683 Marwan. 684 Abdalmalek. 704 Walid. 709 The conquest of all Northern Africa completed. 655 The Saracen arms continually progressive up to this year 712 Conquest of Spain. against the Empire. 668 Constantine IV. Constantinople itself besieged by the Saracens. 675 They are repulsed, and become for a time tributary to the Empire. 685 Justinian II. 711 Philippicus. 713 Anastasius II. 716 Theodosius III. Constantinople again besieged by the Saracens, who are repulsed by 717 Leo III. He interdicts (726) the Worship of Images, and provokes the separation of the Greek and Latin Churches. 741 Constantine V. 752 Loss of the Italian Exarchate. EGBERT, King of Wessex. Subjects the Kingdoms of Kenneth, King of the Scots, soon after subjugates the 797 Irene. The Empire tributary to the Caliph Haroun Alraschid 714 Soliman. 716 Second siege of Constantinople by the |