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diff --git a/44101-0.txt b/44101-0.txt index 055a022..f49b6fb 100644 --- a/44101-0.txt +++ b/44101-0.txt @@ -1,36 +1,4 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Holy Roman Empire, by James Bryce - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Holy Roman Empire - -Author: James Bryce - -Release Date: November 4, 2013 [EBook #44101] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE *** - - - - -Produced by Melissa McDaniel, Stephen Rowland, and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net -(This file was produced from images generously made -available by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44101 *** Transcriber's Note: @@ -15510,361 +15478,4 @@ INDEX. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Holy Roman Empire - -Author: James Bryce - -Release Date: November 4, 2013 [EBook #44101] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE *** - - - - -Produced by Melissa McDaniel, Stephen Rowland, and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net -(This file was produced from images generously made -available by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - -Transcriber's Note: - - Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have - been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. - - - - - THE - HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE - - BY - JAMES BRYCE, D.C.L. - - _FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE - and - PROFESSOR OF CIVIL LAW IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD_ - - - THIRD EDITION REVISED - - - London - MACMILLAN AND CO. - 1871 - - - - - OXFORD: - By T. Combe, M.A., E. B. Gardner, and E. Pickard Hall, - PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. - - - - -PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. - - -The object of this treatise is not so much to give a narrative history -of the countries included in the Romano-Germanic Empire--Italy during -the middle ages, Germany from the ninth century to the nineteenth--as -to describe the Holy Empire itself as an institution or system, the -wonderful offspring of a body of beliefs and traditions which have -almost wholly passed away from the world. Such a description, however, -would not be intelligible without some account of the great events -which accompanied the growth and decay of imperial power; and it has -therefore appeared best to give the book the form rather of a -narrative than of a dissertation; and to combine with an exposition of -what may be called the theory of the Empire an outline of the -political history of Germany, as well as some notices of the affairs -of mediæval Italy. To make the succession of events clearer, a -Chronological List of Emperors and Popes has been prefixed[1]. - -The present edition has been carefully revised and corrected -throughout; and a good many additions have been made to both text and -notes. - - LINCOLN'S INN, - August 11, 1870. - -FOOTNOTE: - -[1] The author has in preparation, and hopes before long to complete -and publish, a set of chronological tables which may be made to serve -as a sort of skeleton history of mediæval Germany and Italy. - - - - -CONTENTS. - - - CHAPTER I. - Introductory. - - - CHAPTER II. - The Roman Empire before the Invasion of the Barbarians. - - The Empire in the Second Century 5 - Obliteration of National distinctions 6 - Rise of Christianity 10 - Its Alliance with the State 10 - Its Influence on the Idea of an Imperial Nationality 13 - - - CHAPTER III. - The Barbarian Invasions. - - Relations between the Primitive Germans and the Romans 15 - Their Feelings towards Rome and her Empire 16 - Belief in its Eternity 20 - Extinction by Odoacer of the Western branch of the Empire 26 - Theodoric the Ostrogothic King 27 - Gradual Dissolution of the Empire 30 - Permanence of the Roman Religion and the Roman Law 31 - - - CHAPTER IV. - Restoration of the Empire in the West. - - The Franks 34 - Italy under Greeks and Lombards 37 - The Iconoclastic Schism 38 - Alliance of the Popes with the Frankish Kings 39 - The Frankish Conquest of Italy 41 - Adventures and Plans of Pope Leo III 43 - Coronation of Charles the Great 48 - - - CHAPTER V. - Empire and Policy of Charles. - - Import of the Coronation at Rome 52 - Accounts given in the Annals of the time 53 - Question as to the Intentions of Charles 58 - Legal Effect of the Coronation 62 - Position of Charles towards the Church 64 - Towards his German Subjects 67 - Towards the other Races of Europe 70 - General View of his Character and Policy 72 - - - CHAPTER VI. - Carolingian and Italian Emperors. - - Reign of Lewis I 76 - Dissolution of the Carolingian Empire 78 - Beginnings of the German Kingdom 79 - Italian Emperors 80 - Otto the Saxon King 84 - Coronation of Otto at Rome 87 - - - CHAPTER VII. - Theory of the Mediæval Empire. - - The World Monarchy and the World Religion 91 - Unity of the Christian Church 94 - Influence of the Doctrine of Realism 97 - The Popes as heirs to the Roman Monarchy 99 - Character of the revived Roman Empire 102 - Respective Functions of the Pope and the Emperor 104 - Proofs and Illustrations 109 - Interpretations of Prophecy 112 - Two remarkable Pictures 116 - - - CHAPTER VIII. - The Roman Empire and the German Kingdom. - - The German or East Frankish Monarchy 122 - Feudality in Germany 123 - Reciprocal Influence of the Roman and Teutonic Elements on - the Character of the Empire 127 - - - CHAPTER IX. - Saxon and Franconian Emperors. - - Adventures of Otto the Great in Rome 134 - Trial and Deposition of Pope John XII 135 - Position of Otto in Italy 139 - His European Policy 140 - Comparison of his Empire with the Carolingian 144 - Character and Projects of the Emperor Otto III 146 - The Emperors Henry II and Conrad II 150 - The Emperor Henry III 151 - - - CHAPTER X. - Struggle of the Empire and the Papacy. - - Origin and Progress of Papal Power 153 - Relations of the Popes with the early Emperors 155 - Quarrel of Henry IV and Gregory VII 159 - Gregory's Ideas 160 - Concordat of Worms 163 - General Results of the Contest 164 - - - CHAPTER XI. - The Emperors in Italy: Frederick Barbarossa. - - Frederick and the Papacy 167 - Revival of the Study of the Roman Law 172 - Arnold of Brescia and the Roman Republicans 174 - Frederick's Struggle with the Lombard Cities 175 - His Policy as German King 178 - - - CHAPTER XII. - Imperial Titles and Pretensions. - - Territorial Limits of the Empire--Its Claims of Jurisdiction - over other Countries 182 - Hungary 183 - Poland 184 - Denmark 184 - France 185 - Sweden 185 - Spain 185 - England 186 - Scotland 187 - Naples and Sicily 188 - Venice 188 - The East 189 - Rivalry of the Teutonic and Byzantine Emperors 191 - The Four Crowns 193 - Origin and Meaning of the title 'Holy Empire' 199 - - - CHAPTER XIII. - Fall of the Hohenstaufen. - - Reign of Henry VI 205 - Contest of Philip and Otto IV 206 - Character and Career of the Emperor Frederick II 207 - Destruction of Imperial Authority in Italy 211 - The Great Interregnum 212 - Rudolf of Hapsburg 213 - Change in the Character of the Empire 214 - Haughty Demeanour of the Popes 217 - - - CHAPTER XIV. - The Germanic Constitution--the Seven Electors. - - Germany in the Fourteenth Century 222 - Reign of the Emperor Charles IV 225 - Origin and History of the System of Election, and of the - Electoral Body 225 - The Golden Bull 230 - Remarks on the Elective Monarchy of Germany 233 - Results of Charles IV's Policy 236 - - - CHAPTER XV. - The Empire as an International Power. - - Revival of Learning 240 - Beginnings of Political Thought 241 - Desire for an International Power 242 - Theory of the Emperor's Functions as Monarch of Europe 244 - Illustrations 249 - Relations of the Empire and the New Learning 251 - The Men of Letters--Petrarch, Dante 254 - The Jurists 256 - Passion for Antiquity in the Middle Ages: its Causes 258 - The Emperor Henry VII in Italy 262 - The _De Monarchia_ of Dante 264 - - - CHAPTER XVI. - The City of Rome in the Middle Ages. - - Rapid Decline of the City after the Gothic Wars 273 - Her Condition in the Dark Ages 274 - Republican Revival of the Twelfth Century 276 - Character and Ideas of Nicholas Rienzi 278 - Social State of Mediæval Rome 280 - Visits of the Teutonic Emperors 282 - Revolts against them 284 - Existing Traces of their Presence in Rome 286 - Want of Mediæval, and especially of Gothic Buildings, in - Modern Rome 289 - Causes of this; Ravages of Enemies and Citizens 291 - Modern Restorations 292 - Surviving Features of truly Mediæval Architecture--the - Bell-towers 294 - The Roman Church and the Roman City 296 - Rome since the Revolution 299 - - - CHAPTER XVII. - The Renaissance: Change in the Character of the Empire. - - Weakness of Germany 302 - Loss of Imperial Territories 303 - Gradual Change in the Germanic Constitution 307 - Beginning of the Predominance of the Hapsburgs 310 - The Discovery of America 311 - The Renaissance and its Effects on the Empire 311 - Projects of Constitutional Reform 313 - Changes of Title 316 - - - CHAPTER XVIII. - The Reformation and its Effects upon the Empire. - - Accession of Charles V 319 - His Attitude towards the Reformation 321 - Issue of his Attempts at Coercion 322 - Spirit and Essence of the Religious Movement 325 - Its Influence on the Doctrine of the Visible Church 327 - How far it promoted Civil and Religious Liberty 329 - Its Effect upon the Mediæval Theory of the Empire 332 - Upon the Position of the Emperor in Europe 333 - Dissensions in Germany 334 - The Thirty Years' War 335 - - - CHAPTER XIX. - The Peace of Westphalia: Last Stage in the Decline - of the Empire. - - Political Import of the Peace of Westphalia 337 - Hippolytus a Lapide and his Book 339 - Changes in the Germanic Constitution 340 - Narrowed Bounds of the Empire 341 - Condition of Germany after the Peace 342 - The Balance of Power 345 - The Hapsburg Emperors and their Policy 348 - The Emperor Charles VII 351 - The Empire in its last Phase 352 - Feelings of the German People 354 - - - CHAPTER XX. - Fall of the Empire. - - The Emperor Francis II 356 - Napoleon as the Representative of the Carolingians 357 - The French Empire 360 - Napoleon's German Policy 361 - The Confederation of the Rhine 362 - End of the Empire 363 - The German Confederation 364 - - - CHAPTER XXI. - Conclusion: General Summary. - - Causes of the Perpetuation of the Name of Rome 366 - Parallel instances: Claims now made to represent the Roman - Empire 367 - Parallel afforded by the History of the Papacy 369 - In how far was the Empire really Roman 374 - Imperialism: Ancient and Modern 375 - Essential Principles of the Mediæval Empire 377 - Influence of the Imperial System in Germany 378 - The Claim of Modern Austria to represent the Mediæval Empire 381 - Results of the Influence of the Empire upon Europe 383 - Upon Modern Jurisprudence 383 - Upon the Development of the Ecclesiastical Power 384 - Struggle of the Empire with three Hostile Principles 388 - Its Relations, Past and Present, to the Nationalities - of Europe 390 - Conclusion: Difficulties caused by the Nature of the - Subject 392 - - - APPENDIX. - - NOTE A. - On the Burgundies 395 - - NOTE B. - On the Relations to the Empire of the Kingdom of Denmark - and the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein 398 - - NOTE C. - On certain Imperial Titles and Ceremonies 400 - - NOTE D. - Hildebert's Lines contrasting the Past and Present of Rome 406 - - - INDEX 407 - - - - - DATES OF - SEVERAL IMPORTANT EVENTS - IN THE HISTORY OF THE EMPIRE. - - - B.C. - - Battle of Pharsalia 48 - - A.D. - - Council of Nicæa 325 - - End of the separate Western Empire 476 - - Revolt of the Italians from the Iconoclastic Emperors 728 - - Coronation of Charles the Great 800 - - End of the Carolingian Empire 888 - - Coronation of Otto the Great 962 - - Final Union of Italy to the Empire 1014 - - Quarrel between Henry IV and Gregory VII 1076 - - The First Crusade 1096 - - Battle of Legnano 1176 - - Death of Frederick II 1250 - - League of the three Forest Cantons of Switzerland 1308 - - Career of Rienzi 1347-1354 - - The Golden Bull 1356 - - Council of Constance 1415 - - Extinction of the Eastern Empire 1453 - - Discovery of America 1492 - - Luther at the Diet of Worms 1521 - - Beginning of the Thirty Years' War 1618 - - Peace of Westphalia 1648 - - Prussia recognized as a Kingdom 1701 - - End of the House of Hapsburg 1742 - - Seven Years' War 1756-1763 - - Peace of Luneville 1801 - - Formation of the German Confederation 1815 - - Establishment of the North German Confederation 1866 - - - - - CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE - OF - EMPERORS AND POPES. - - - A. D. B. C. - Augustus. 27 - A. D. - Tiberius. 14 - Caligula. 37 - Claudius. 41 - 42 St. Peter, (according - to Jerome). - Nero. 54 - 67 Linus, (according to - Jerome, Irenæus, - Eusebius). - 68 Clement, (according Galba, Otho, Vitellius, - to Tertullian and Vespasian. 68 - Rufinus). - 78 Anacletus (?). - Titus. 79 - Domitian. 81 - 91 Clement, (according - to later writers). - Nerva. 96 - Trajan. 98 - 100 Evaristus (?). - 109 Alexander (?). - Hadrian. 117 - 119 Sixtus I. - 129 Telesphorus. - Antoninus Pius. 138 - 139 Hyginus. - 143 Pius I. - 157 Anicetus. - Marcus Aurelius. 161 - 168 Soter. - 177 Eleutherius. - Commodus. 180 - Pertinax. 190 - Didius Julianus. 191 - Niger. 192 - 193 Victor (?). Septimius Severus. 193 - 202 Zephyrinus (?). - Caracalla, Geta, - Diadumenian. 211 - Opilius Macrinus. 217 - Elagabalus. 218 - 219 Calixtus I. - Alexander Severus. 222 - 223 Urban I. - 230 Pontianus. - 235 Anterius or Anteros. Maximin. 235 - 236 Fabianus. - The two Gordians, Maximus - Pupienus, Balbinus. 237 - Gordian the Younger. 238 - Philip. 244 - Decius. 249 - 251 Cornelius. Gallus. 251 - 252 Lucius I. Volusian. 252 - 253 Stephen I. Æmilian, Valerian, - Gallienus. 253 - 257 Sixtus II. - 259 Dionysius. - Claudius II. 268 - 269 Felix. - Aurelian. 270 - 275 Eutychianus. Tacitus. 275 - Probus. 276 - Carus. 282 - 283 Caius. - Carinus, Numerian, - Diocletian. 284 - Maximian, joint Emperor - with Diocletian. 286 - 296 Marcellinus. [305(?) - 304 Vacancy. Constantius, Galerius. 304(?) - Licinius. or 307] - 308 Marcellus I. Maximin. 308 - Constantine, Galerius, - Licinius, Maximin, - Maxentius, and Maximian - reigning jointly. 309 - 310 Eusebius. - 311 Melchiades. - 314 Sylvester I. - Constantine (the Great) - alone. 323 - 336 Marcus I. - 337 Julius I. Constantine II, - Constantius II, - Constans. 337 - Magnentius. 350 - 352 Liberius. - Constantius alone. 353 - 356 Felix (Anti-pope). - Julian. 361 - Jovian. 363 - Valens and Valentinian I. 364 - 366 Damasus I. - Gratian and Valentinian I. 367 - Valentinian II and - Gratian. 375 - Theodosius. 379 - 384 Siricius. - Arcadius (in the East), - Honorius (in the West). 395 - 398 Anastasius I. - 402 Innocent I. - Theodosius II. (E) 408 - 417 Zosimus. - 418 Boniface I. - 418 Eulalius (Anti-pope). - 422 Celestine I. - Valentinian III. (W) 424 - 432 Sixtus III. - 440 Leo I (the Great). - Marcian. (E) 450 - Maximus, Avitus. (W) 455 - Majorian. (W) 455 - Leo I. (E) 457 - 461 Hilarius. Severus. (W) 461 - Vacancy. (W) 465 - Anthemius. (W) 467 - 468 Simplicius. - Olybrius. (W) 472 - Glycerius. (W) 473 - Julius Nepos. (W) 474 - Leo II, Zeno, Basiliscus - (all E.) 474 - Romulus Augustulus. (W) 475 - (End of the Western Line - in Romulus Augustus. 476) - (Henceforth, till A.D. 800, - Emperors reigning at - 483 Felix III[2]. Constantinople). - Anastasius I. 491 - 492 Gelasius I. - 496 Anastasius II. - 498 Symmachus. - 498 Laurentius (Anti-pope). - 514 Hormisdas. - Justin I. 518 - 523 John I. - 526 Felix IV. - Justinian. 527 - 530 Boniface II. - 530 Dioscorus (Anti-pope). - 532 John II. - 535 Agapetus I. - 536 Silverius. - 537 Vigilius. - 555 Pelagius I. - 560 John III. - Justin II. 565 - 574 Benedict I. - 578 Pelagius II. Tiberius II. 578 - Maurice. 582 - 590 Gregory I (the Great). - Phocas. 602 - 604 Sabinianus. - 607 Boniface III. - 607 Boniface IV. - Heraclius. 610 - 615 Deus dedit. - 618 Boniface V. - 625 Honorius I. - 638 Severinus. - 640 John IV. - Constantine III, - Heracleonas, - Constans II. 641 - 642 Theodorus I. - 649 Martin I. - 654 Eugenius I. - 657 Vitalianus. - Constantine IV (Pogonatus). 668 - 672 Adeodatus. - 676 Domnus or Donus I. - 678 Agatho. - 682 Leo II. - 683(?) Benedict II. - 685 John V. Justinian II. 685 - 685(?) Conon. - 687 Sergius I. - 687 Paschal (Anti-pope). - 687 Theodorus (Anti-pope). - Leontius. 694 - Tiberius. 697 - 701 John VI. - 705 John VII. Justinian II restored. 705 - 708 Sisinnius. - 708 Constantine. - Philippicus Bardanes. 711 - Anastasius II. 713 - 715 Gregory II. - Theodosius III. 716 - Leo III (the Isaurian). 718 - 731 Gregory III. - 741 Zacharias. Constantine V - (Copronymus). 741 - 752 Stephen (II). - 752 Stephen II (or III). - 757 Paul I. - 767 Constantine (Anti-pope). - 768 Stephen III (IV). - 772 Hadrian I. - Leo IV. 775 - Constantine VI. 780 - 795 Leo III. - Deposition of Constantine - VI by Irene. 797 - Charles I (the Great). 800 - (Following henceforth the - new Western line). - Lewis I (the Pious). 814 - 816 Stephen IV. - 817 Paschal I. - 824 Eugenius II. - 827 Valentinus. - 827 Gregory IV. - Lothar I. 840 - 844 Sergius II. - 847 Leo IV. - 855 Benedict III. Lewis II. 855 - 855 Anastasius (Anti-pope). - 858 Nicholas I. - 867 Hadrian II. - 872 John VIII. - Charles II (the Bald). 875 - Charles III (the Fat). 881 - 882 Martin II. - 884 Hadrian III. - 885 Stephen V. - 891 Formosus. Guido. 891 - Lambert. 894 - 896 Boniface VI. Arnulf. 896 - 896 Stephen VI. - 897 Romanus. - 897 Theodore II. - 898 John IX. - Lewis (the Child).[+] 899 - 900 Benedict IV. - Lewis III (of Provence). 901 - 903 Leo V. - 903 Christopher. - 904 Sergius III. - 911 Anastasius III. - Conrad I.[+] 912(?) - 913 Lando. - 914 John X. - Berengar. 915 - Henry I (the Fowler).[+] 918 - 928 Leo VI. - 929 Stephen VII. - 931 John XI. - 936 Leo VII. Otto I (the Great).[+] 936 - 939 Stephen VIII. - 941 Martin III. - 946 Agapetus II. - 955 John XII. - Otto I, crowned at Rome. 962 - 963 Leo VIII. - 964 Benedict V (Anti-Pope?). - 965 John XIII. - 972 Benedict VI. - Otto II. 973 - 974 Boniface VII (Anti-pope?). - 974 Domnus II (?). - 974 Benedict VII. - 983 John XIV. Otto III 983 - 985 John XV. - 996 Gregory V. - 996 John XVI (Anti-pope). - 999 Sylvester II. - Henry II (the Saint). 1002 - 1003 John XVII. - 1003 John XVIII. - 1009 Sergius IV. - 1012 Benedict VIII. - 1024 John XIX. Conrad II (the Salic). 1024 - 1033 Benedict IX. - Henry III. 1039 - 1044 Sylvester (Anti-pope). - 1045( Gregory VI. - 1046 Clement II. - 1048 Damasus II. - 1048 Leo IX. - 1054 Victor II. - Henry IV. 1056 - 1057 Stephen IX. - 1058 Benedict X. - 1059 Nicholas II. - 1061 Alexander II. - 1073 Gregory VII (Hildebrand). - 1080 (Clement, Anti-pope). - 1086 Victor III. - 1087 Urban II. - 1099 Paschal II. - Henry V. 1106 - 1118 Gelasius II. - 1118 Gregory, (Anti-pope). - 1119 Calixtus II. - 1121 (Celestine, Anti-pope). - 1124 Honorius II. - Lothar II (the Saxon). 1125 - 1130 Innocent II. - (Anacletus, Anti-pope). - 1138 Victor (Anti-pope). [*]Conrad III. 1138 - 1143 Celestine II. - 1144 Lucius II. - 1145 Eugenius III. - Frederick I (Barbarossa). 1152 - 1153 Anastasius IV. - 1154 Hadrian IV. - 1159 Alexander III. - 1159 (Victor, Anti-pope). - 1164 (Paschal, Anti-pope). - 1168 (Calixtus, Anti-pope). - 1181 Lucius III. - 1185 Urban III. - 1187 Gregory VIII. - 1187 Clement III. - Henry VI. 1190 - 1191 Celestine III. - 1198 Innocent III. [*]Philip, Otto IV - (rivals). 1198 - Otto IV. 1208 - Frederick II. 1212 - 1216 Honorius III. - 1227 Gregory IX. - 1241 Celestine IV. - 1241 Vacancy. - 1243 Innocent IV. - [*]Conrad IV, [*]William, - (rivals). 1250 - 1254 Alexander IV. Interregnum. 1254 - [*]Richard (earl of - Cornwall). - [*]Alfonso (king of - Castile), (rivals). 1257 - 1261 Urban IV. - 1265 Clement IV. - 1269 Vacancy. - 1271 Gregory X. - [*]Rudolf I (of Hapsburg). 1272 - 1276 Innocent V. - 1276 Hadrian V. - 1277 John XX or XXI. - 1277 Nicholas I - 1281 Martin IV. - 1285 Honorius IV. - 1289 Nicholas IV. - 1292 Vacancy. [*]Adolf (of Nassau). 1292 - 1294 Celestine V. - 1294 Boniface VIII. - [*]Albert I. 1298 - 1303 Benedict XI. - 1305 Clement V. - Henry VII. 1308 - 1314 Vacancy. Lewis IV. 1315 - (Frederick of Austria, - rival). - 1316 John XXI or XXII. - 1334 Benedict XII. - 1342 Clement VI. - Charles IV. 1347 - 1352 Innocent VI. (Günther of Schwartzburg, - rival). - 1362 Urban V. - 1370 Gregory XI. - 1378 Urban VI, - Clement VII [*]Wenzel. 1378 - (Anti-pope). - 1389 Boniface IX. - 1394 Benedict (Anti-pope). - [*]Rupert. 1400 - 1404 Innocent VII. - 1406 Gregory XII. - 1409 Alexander V. - 1410 John XXII or Sigismund. 1410 - XXIII. (Jobst of Moravia, rival). - - 1417 Martin V. - 1431 Eugene IV. - [*]Albert II. 1438 - 1439 Felix V (Anti-pope). - Frederick III. 1440 - 1447 Nicholas V. - 1455 Calixtus IV. - 1458 Pius II. - 1464 Paul II. - 1471 Sixtus IV. - 1484 Innocent VIII. - 1493 Alexander VI. [*]Maximilian I. 1493 - 1503 Pius III. - 1503 Julius II. - 1513 Leo X. - Charles V.[3] 1519 - 1522 Hadrian VI. - 1523 Clement VII. - 1534 Paul III. - 1550 Julius III. - 1555 Marcellus II. - 1555 Paul IV. - [*]Ferdinand I. 1558 - 1559 Pius IV. - [*]Maximilian II. 1564 - 1566 Pius V. - 1572 Gregory XIII. - [*]Rudolf II. 1576 - 1585 Sixtus V. - 1590 Urban VII. - 1590 Gregory XIV. - 1591 Innocent IX. - 1592 Clement VIII. - 1604 Leo XI. - 1604 Paul V. - [*]Matthias. 1612 - [*]Ferdinand II. 1619 - 1621 Gregory XV. - 1623 Urban VIII. - [*]Ferdinand III. 1637 - 1644 Innocent X. - 1655 Alexander VII. - [*]Leopold I. 1658 - 1667 Clement IX. - 1670 Clement X. - 1676 Innocent XI. - 1689 Alexander VIII. - 1691 Innocent XII. - 1700 Clement XI. - [*]Joseph I. 1705 - [*]Charles VI. 1711 - 1720 Innocent XIII. - 1724 Benedict XIII. - 1740 Benedict XIV. - [*]Charles VII. 1742 - [*]Francis I. 1745 - 1758 Clement XII. - [*]Joseph II. 1765 - 1769 Clement XIII. - 1775 Pius VI. - [*]Leopold II. 1790 - [*]Francis II. 1792 - 1800 Pius VII. - Abdication of Francis II. 1806 - 1823 Leo XII. - 1829 Pius VIII. - 1831 Gregory XVI. - 1846 Pius IX. - -[*] Those marked with an asterisk were never actually crowned at Rome. -[+] The names marked with a + are those of German kings who never made any -claim to the imperial title. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[2] Reckoning the Anti-pope Felix (A.D. 356) as Felix II. - -[3] Crowned Emperor, but at Bologna, not at Rome. - - - - -CHAPTER I. - -INTRODUCTORY. - - -Of those who in August, 1806, read in the English newspapers that the -Emperor Francis II had announced to the Diet his resignation of the -imperial crown, there were probably few who reflected that the oldest -political institution in the world had come to an end. Yet it was so. -The Empire which a note issued by a diplomatist on the banks of the -Danube extinguished, was the same which the crafty nephew of Julius -had won for himself, against the powers of the East, beneath the -cliffs of Actium; and which had preserved almost unaltered, through -eighteen centuries of time, and through the greatest changes in -extent, in power, in character, a title and pretensions from which all -meaning had long since departed. Nothing else so directly linked the -old world to the new--nothing else displayed so many strange contrasts -of the present and the past, and summed up in those contrasts so much -of European history. From the days of Constantine till far down into -the middle ages it was, conjointly with the Papacy, the recognised -centre and head of Christendom, exercising over the minds of men an -influence such as its material strength could never have commanded. It -is of this influence and of the causes that gave it power rather than -of the external history of the Empire, that the following pages are -designed to treat. That history is indeed full of interest and -brilliance, of grand characters and striking situations. But it is a -subject too vast for any single canvas. Without a minuteness of detail -sufficient to make its scenes dramatic and give us a lively sympathy -with the actors, a narrative history can have little value and still -less charm. But to trace with any minuteness the career of the Empire, -would be to write the history of Christendom from the fifth century to -the twelfth, of Germany and Italy from the twelfth to the nineteenth; -while even a narrative of more restricted scope, which should attempt -to disengage from a general account of the affairs of those countries -the events that properly belong to imperial history, could hardly be -compressed within reasonable limits. It is therefore better, declining -so great a task, to attempt one simpler and more practicable though -not necessarily inferior in interest; to speak less of events than of -principles, and endeavour to describe the Empire not as a State but as -an Institution, an institution created by and embodying a wonderful -system of ideas. In pursuance of such a plan, the forms which the -Empire took in the several stages of its growth and decline must be -briefly sketched. The characters and acts of the great men who -founded, guided, and overthrew it must from time to time be touched -upon. But the chief aim of the treatise will be to dwell more fully on -the inner nature of the Empire, as the most signal instance of the -fusion of Roman and Teutonic elements in modern civilization: to shew -how such a combination was possible; how Charles and Otto were led to -revive the imperial title in the West; how far during the reigns of -their successors it preserved the memory of its origin, and influenced -the European commonwealth of nations. - -Strictly speaking, it is from the year 800 A.D., when a King of the -Franks was crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III, that the -beginning of the Holy Roman Empire must be dated. But in history there -is nothing isolated, and just as to explain a modern Act of Parliament -or a modern conveyance of lands we must go back to the feudal customs -of the thirteenth century, so among the institutions of the Middle -Ages there is scarcely one which can be understood until it is traced -up either to classical or to primitive Teutonic antiquity. Such a mode -of inquiry is most of all needful in the case of the Holy Empire, -itself no more than a tradition, a fancied revival of departed -glories. And thus, in order to make it clear out of what elements the -imperial system was formed, we might be required to scrutinize the -antiquities of the Christian Church; to survey the constitution of -Rome in the days when Rome was no more than the first of the Latin -cities; nay, to travel back yet further to that Jewish theocratic -polity whose influence on the minds of the mediæval priesthood was -necessarily so profound. Practically, however, it may suffice to begin -by glancing at the condition of the Roman world in the third and -fourth centuries of the Christian era. We shall then see the old -Empire with its scheme of absolutism fully matured; we shall mark how -the new religion, rising in the midst of a hostile power, ends by -embracing and transforming it; and we shall be in a position to -understand what impression the whole huge fabric of secular and -ecclesiastical government which Roman and Christian had piled up made -upon the barbarian tribes who pressed into the charmed circle of the -ancient civilization. - - - - -CHAPTER II. - -THE ROMAN EMPIRE BEFORE THE INVASIONS OF THE BARBARIANS. - - -[Sidenote: The Roman Empire in the second century.] - -[Sidenote: Obliteration of national distinctions.] - -[Sidenote: The Capital.] - -That ostentation of humility which the subtle policy of Augustus had -conceived, and the jealous hypocrisy of Tiberius maintained, was -gradually dropped by their successors, till despotism became at last -recognised in principle as the government of the Roman Empire. With an -aristocracy decayed, a populace degraded, an army no longer recruited -from Italy, the semblance of liberty that yet survived might be swept -away with impunity. Republican forms had never been known in the -provinces at all, and the aspect which the imperial administration had -originally assumed there, soon reacted on its position in the capital. -Earlier rulers had disguised their supremacy by making a slavish -senate the instrument of their more cruel or arbitrary acts. As time -went on, even this veil was withdrawn; and in the age of Septimius -Severus, the Emperor stood forth to the whole Roman world as the -single centre and source of power and political action. The warlike -character of the Roman state was preserved in his title of General; -his provincial lieutenants were military governors; and a more -terrible enforcement of the theory was found in his dependence on the -army, at once the origin and support of all authority. But, as he -united in himself every function of government, his sovereignty was -civil as well as military. Laws emanated from him; all officials acted -under his commission; the sanctity of his person bordered on divinity. -This increased concentration of power was mainly required by the -necessities of frontier defence, for within there was more decay than -disaffection. Few troops were quartered through the country: few -fortresses checked the march of armies in the struggles which placed -Vespasian and Severus on the throne. The distant crash of war from the -Rhine or the Euphrates was scarcely heard or heeded in the profound -quiet of the Mediterranean coasts, where, with piracy, fleets had -disappeared. No quarrels of race or religion disturbed that calm, for -all national distinctions were becoming merged in the idea of a common -Empire. The gradual extension of Roman citizenship through the -_coloniæ_, the working of the equalized and equalizing Roman law, the -even pressure of the government on all subjects, the movement of -population caused by commerce and the slave traffic, were steadily -assimilating the various peoples. Emperors who were for the most part -natives of the provinces cared little to cherish Italy or conciliate -Rome: it was their policy to keep open for every subject a career by -whose freedom they had themselves risen to greatness, and to recruit -the senate from the most illustrious families in the cities of Gaul, -Spain, and Asia. The edict by which Caracalla extended to all natives -of the Roman world the rights of Roman citizenship, though prompted by -no motives of kindness, proved in the end a boon. Annihilating legal -distinctions, it completed the work which trade and literature and -toleration to all beliefs but one were already performing, and left, -so far as we can tell, only two nations still cherishing a national -feeling. The Jew was kept apart by his religion: the Greek boasted his -original intellectual superiority. Speculative philosophy lent her aid -to this general assimilation. Stoicism, with its doctrine of a -universal system of nature, made minor distinctions between man and -man seem insignificant: and by its teachers the idea of -cosmopolitanism was for the first time proclaimed. Alexandrian -Neo-Platonism, uniting the tenets of many schools, first bringing the -mysticism of the East into connection with the logical philosophies of -Greece, had opened up a new ground of agreement or controversy for the -minds of all the world. Yet Rome's commanding position was scarcely -shaken. Her actual power was indeed confined within narrow limits. -Rarely were her senate and people permitted to choose the sovereign: -more rarely still could they control his policy; neither law nor -custom raised them above other subjects, or accorded to them any -advantage in the career of civil or military ambition. As in time past -Rome had sacrificed domestic freedom that she might be the mistress of -others, so now to be universal, she, the conqueror, had descended to -the level of the conquered. But the sacrifice had not wanted its -reward. From her came the laws and the language that had overspread -the world: at her feet the nations laid the offerings of their labour: -she was the head of the Empire and of civilization, and in riches, -fame, and splendour far outshone as well the cities of that time as -the fabled glories of Babylon or Persepolis. - -[Sidenote: Diocletian and Constantine.] - -Scarcely had these slowly working influences brought about this unity, -when other influences began to threaten it. New foes assailed the -frontiers; while the loosening of the structure within was shewn by -the long struggles for power which followed the death or deposition of -each successive emperor. In the period of anarchy after the fall of -Valerian, generals were raised by their armies in every part of the -Empire, and ruled great provinces as monarchs apart, owning no -allegiance to the possessor of the capital. - -The founding of the kingdoms of modern Europe might have been -anticipated by two hundred years, had the barbarians been bolder, or -had there not arisen in Diocletian a prince active and politic enough -to bind up the fragments before they had lost all cohesion, meeting -altered conditions by new remedies. By dividing and localizing -authority, he confessed that the weaker heart could no longer make its -pulsations felt to the body's extremities. He parcelled out the -supreme power among four persons, and then sought to give it a -factitious strength, by surrounding it with an oriental pomp which his -earlier predecessors would have scorned. The sovereign's person became -more sacred, and was removed further from the subject by the -interposition of a host of officials. The prerogative of Rome was -menaced by the rivalry of Nicomedia, and the nearer greatness of -Milan. Constantine trod in the same path, extending the system of -titles and functionaries, separating the civil from the military, -placing counts and dukes along the frontiers and in the cities, making -the household larger, its etiquette stricter, its offices more -important, though to a Roman eye degraded by their attachment to the -monarch's person. The crown became, for the first time, the fountain -of honour. These changes brought little good. Heavier taxation -depressed the aristocracy[4]: population decreased, agriculture -withered, serfdom spread: it was found more difficult to raise native -troops and to pay any troops whatever. The removal of the seat of -power to Byzantium, if it prolonged the life of a part of the Empire, -shook it as a whole, by making the separation of East and West -inevitable. By it Rome's self-abnegation that she might Romanize the -world, was completed; for though the new capital preserved her name, -and followed her customs and precedents, yet now the imperial sway -ceased to be connected with the city which had created it. Thus did -the idea of Roman monarchy become more universal; for, having lost its -local centre, it subsisted no longer historically, but, so to speak, -naturally, as a part of an order of things which a change in external -conditions seemed incapable of disturbing. Henceforth the Empire would -be unaffected by the disasters of the city. And though, after the -partition of the Empire had been confirmed by Valentinian, and finally -settled on the death of Theodosius, the seat of the Western government -was removed first to Milan and then to Ravenna, neither event -destroyed Rome's prestige, nor the notion of a single imperial -nationality common to all her subjects. The Syrian, the Pannonian, the -Briton, the Spaniard, still called himself a Roman[5]. - -[Sidenote: Christianity.] - -[Sidenote: Its alliance with the State.] - -For that nationality was now beginning to be supported by a new and -vigorous power. The Emperors had indeed opposed it as disloyal and -revolutionary: had more than once put forth their whole strength to -root it out. But the unity of the Empire, and the ease of -communication through its parts, had favoured the spread of -Christianity: persecution had scattered the seeds more widely, had -forced on it a firm organization, had given it martyr-heroes and a -history. When Constantine, partly perhaps from a genuine moral -sympathy, yet doubtless far more in the well-grounded belief that he -had more to gain from the zealous sympathy of its professors than he -could lose by the aversion of those who still cultivated a languid -paganism, took Christianity to be the religion of the Empire, it was -already a great political force, able, and not more able than willing, -to repay him by aid and submission. Yet the league was struck in no -mere mercenary spirit, for the league was inevitable. Of the evils and -dangers incident to the system then founded, there was as yet no -experience: of that antagonism between Church and State which to a -modern appears so natural, there was not even an idea. Among the Jews, -the State had rested upon religion; among the Romans, religion had -been an integral part of the political constitution, a matter far more -of national or tribal or family feeling than of personal[6]. Both in -Israel and at Rome the mingling of religious with civic patriotism had -been harmonious, giving strength and elasticity to the whole body -politic. So perfect a union was now no longer possible in the Roman -Empire, for the new faith had already a governing body of her own in -those rulers and teachers whom the growth of sacramentalism, and of -sacerdotalism its necessary consequence, was making every day more -powerful, and marking off more sharply from the mass of the Christian -people. Since therefore the ecclesiastical organization could not be -identical with the civil, it became its counterpart. Suddenly called -from danger and ignominy to the seat of power, and finding her -inexperience perplexed by a sphere of action vast and varied, the -Church was compelled to frame herself upon the model of the secular -administration. Where her own machinery was defective, as in the case -of doctrinal disputes affecting the whole Christian world, she sought -the interposition of the sovereign; in all else she strove not to sink -in, but to reproduce for herself the imperial system. And just as with -the extension of the Empire all the independent rights of districts, -towns, or tribes had disappeared, so now the primitive freedom and -diversity of individual Christians and local Churches, already -circumscribed by the frequent struggles against heresy, was finally -overborne by the idea of one visible catholic Church, uniform in faith -and ritual; uniform too in her relation to the civil power and the -increasingly oligarchical character of her government. Thus, under the -combined force of doctrinal theory and practical needs, there shaped -itself a hierarchy of patriarchs, metropolitans, and bishops, their -jurisdiction, although still chiefly spiritual, enforced by the laws -of the State, their provinces and dioceses usually corresponding to -the administrative divisions of the Empire. As no patriarch yet -enjoyed more than an honorary supremacy, the head of the Church--so -far as she could be said to have a head--was virtually the Emperor -himself. The inchoate right to intermeddle in religious affairs which -he derived from the office of Pontifex Maximus was readily admitted; -and the clergy, preaching the duty of passive obedience now as it had -been preached in the days of Nero and Diocletian[7], were well pleased -to see him preside in councils, issue edicts against heresy, and -testify even by arbitrary measures his zeal for the advancement of the -faith and the overthrow of pagan rites. But though the tone of the -Church remained humble, her strength waxed greater, nor were occasions -wanting which revealed the future that was in store for her. The -resistance and final triumph of Athanasius proved that the new society -could put forth a power of opinion such as had never been known -before: the abasement of Theodosius the Emperor before Ambrose the -Archbishop admitted the supremacy of spiritual authority. In the -decrepitude of old institutions, in the barrenness of literature and -the feebleness of art, it was to the Church that the life and feelings -of the people sought more and more to attach themselves; and when in -the fifth century the horizon grew black with clouds of ruin, those -who watched with despair or apathy the approach of irresistible foes, -fled for comfort to the shrine of a religion which even those foes -revered. - -[Sidenote: It embraces and preserves the imperial idea.] - -But that which we are above all concerned to remark here is, that this -church system, demanding a more rigid uniformity in doctrine and -organization, making more and more vital the notion of a visible body -of worshippers united by participation in the same sacraments, -maintained and propagated afresh the feeling of a single Roman people -throughout the world. Christianity as well as civilization became -conterminous with the Roman Empire[8]. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[4] According to the vicious financial system that prevailed, the -_curiales_ in each city were required to collect the taxes, and when -there was a deficit, to supply it from their own property. - -[5] See the eloquent passage of Claudian, _In secundum consulatum -Stilichonis_, 129, _sqq._, from which the following lines are taken -(150-60):-- - - 'Hæc est in gremio victos quæ sola recepit, - Humanumque genus communi nomine fovit, - Matris, non dominæ, ritu; civesque vocavit - Quos domuit, nexuque pio longinqua revinxit. - Hujus pacificis debemus moribus omnes - Quod veluti patriis regionibus utitur hospes: - Quod sedem mutare licet: quod cernere Thulen - Lusus, et horrendos quondam penetrare recessus: - Quod bibimus passim Rhodanum, potamus Oronten, - Quod cuncti gens una sumus. Nec terminus unquam - Romanæ ditionis erit.' - -[6] In the Roman jurisprudence, _ius sacrum_ is a branch of _ius -publicum_. - -[7] Tertullian, writing circ. A.D. 200, says: 'Sed quid ego amplius de -religione atque pietate Christiana in imperatorem quem necesse est -suspiciamus ut eum quem Dominus noster elegerit. Et merito dixerim, -noster est magis Cæsar, ut a nostro Deo constitutus.'--_Apologet._ -cap. 34. - -[8] See the book of Optatus, bishop of Milevis, _Contra Donatistas_. -'Non enim respublica est in ecclesia, sed ecclesia in republica, id -est, in imperio Romano, cum super imperatorem non sit nisi solus -Deus:' (p. 999 of vol. ii. of Migne's _Patrologiæ Cursus completus_.) -The treatise of Optatus is full of interest, as shewing the growth of -the idea of the visible Church, and of the primacy of Peter's chair, -as constituting its centre and representing its unity. - - - - -CHAPTER III. - -THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS. - - -[Sidenote: The Barbarians.] - -[Sidenote: Admitted to Roman titles and honours.] - -Upon a world so constituted did the barbarians of the North descend. -From the dawn of history they shew as a dim background to the warmth -and light of the Mediterranean coast, changing little while kingdoms -rise and fall in the South: only thought on when some hungry swarm -comes down to pillage or to settle. It is always as foes that they are -known. The Romans never forgot the invasion of Brennus; and their -fears, renewed by the irruption of the Cimbri and Teutones, could not -let them rest till the extension of the frontier to the Rhine and the -Danube removed Italy from immediate danger. A little more perseverance -under Tiberius, or again under Hadrian, would probably have reduced -all Germany as far as the Baltic and the Oder. But the politic or -jealous advice of Augustus[9] was followed, and it was only along the -frontiers that Roman arts and culture affected the Teutonic races. -Commerce was brisk; Roman envoys penetrated the forests to the courts -of rude chieftains; adventurous barbarians entered the provinces, -sometimes to admire, oftener, like the brother of Arminius[10], to -take service under the Roman flag, and rise to a distinction in the -legion which some feud denied them at home. This was found even more -convenient by the hirer than by the employed; till by degrees -barbarian mercenaries came to form the largest, or at least the most -effective, part of the Roman armies. The body-guard of Augustus had -been so composed; the prætorians were generally selected from the -bravest frontier troops, most of them German; the practice could not -but increase with the extinction of the free peasantry, the growth of -villenage, and the effeminacy of all classes. Emperors who were, like -Maximin, themselves foreigners, encouraged a system by whose means -they had risen, and whose advantages they knew. After Constantine, the -barbarians form the majority of the troops; after Theodosius, a Roman -is the exception. The soldiers of the Eastern Empire in the time of -Arcadius are almost all Goths, vast bodies of whom had been settled in -the provinces; while in the West, Stilicho[11] can oppose Rhodogast -only by summoning the German auxiliaries from the frontiers. Along -with this practice there had grown up another, which did still more to -make the barbarians feel themselves members of the Roman state. -Whatever the pride of the old republic might assert, the maxim of the -Empire had always been that birth and race should exclude no subject -from any post which his abilities deserved. This principle, which had -removed all obstacles from the path of the Spaniard Trajan, the -Pannonian Maximin, the Numidian Philip, was afterwards extended to the -conferring of honour and power on persons who did not even profess to -have passed through the grades of Roman service, but remained leaders -of their own tribes. Ariovistus had been soothed by the title of -Friend of the Roman People; in the third century the insignia of the -consulship[12] were conferred on a Herulian chief: Crocus and his -Alemanni entered as an independent body into the service of Rome; -along the Rhine whole tribes received, under the name of Laeti, lands -within the provinces on condition of military service; and the foreign -aid which the Sarmatian had proffered to Vespasian against his rival, -and Marcus Aurelius had indignantly rejected in the war with Cassius, -became the usual, at last the sole support of the Empire, in civil as -well as in external strife. - -Thus in many ways was the old antagonism broken down--Romans admitting -barbarians to rank and office, barbarians catching something of the -manners and culture of their neighbours. And thus when the final -movement came, and the Teutonic tribes slowly established themselves -through the provinces, they entered not as savage strangers, but as -colonists knowing something of the system into which they came, and -not unwilling to be considered its members; despising the degenerate -provincials who struck no blow in their own defence, but full of -respect for the majestic power which had for so many centuries -confronted and instructed them. - -[Sidenote: Their feelings towards the Roman Empire.] - -Great during all these ages, but greatest when they were actually -traversing and settling in the Empire, must have been the impression -which its elaborate machinery of government and mature civilization -made upon the minds of the Northern invaders. With arms whose -fabrication they had learned from their foes, these dwellers in the -forest conquered well-tilled fields, and entered towns whose busy -workshops, marts stored with the productions of distant countries, and -palaces rich in monuments of art, equally roused their wonder. To the -beauty of statuary or painting they might often be blind, but the -rudest mind must have been awed by the massive piles with which vanity -or devotion, or the passion for amusement, had adorned Milan and -Verona, Arles, Treves, and Bordeaux. A deeper awe would strike them as -they gazed on the crowding worshippers and stately ceremonial of -Christianity, most unlike their own rude sacrifices. The exclamation -of the Goth Athanaric, when led into the market-place of -Constantinople, may stand for the feelings of his nation: 'Without -doubt the Emperor is a God upon earth, and he who attacks him is -guilty of his own blood[13].' - -[Sidenote: Their desire to preserve its institutions.] - -The social and political system, with its cultivated language and -literature, into which they came, would impress fewer of the -conquerors, but by those few would be admired beyond all else. Its -regular organization supplied what they most needed and could least -construct for themselves, and hence it was that the greatest among -them were the most desirous to preserve it. The Mongol Attila -excepted, there is among these terrible hosts no destroyer; the wish -of each leader is to maintain the existing order, to spare life, to -respect every work of skill and labour, above all to perpetuate the -methods of Roman administration, and rule the people as the deputy or -successor of their Emperor. Titles conferred by him were the highest -honours they knew: they were also the only means of acquiring -something like a legal claim to the obedience of the subject, and of -turning a patriarchal or military chieftainship into the regular sway -of an hereditary monarch. Civilis had long since endeavoured to govern -his Batavians as a Roman general[14]. Alaric became master-general of -the armies of Illyricum. Clovis exulted in the consulship; his son -Theodebert received Provence, the conquest of his own battle-axe, as -the gift of Justinian. Sigismund the Burgundian king, created count -and patrician by the Emperor Anastasius, professed the deepest -gratitude and the firmest faith to that Eastern court which was -absolutely powerless to help or to hurt him. 'My people is yours,' he -writes, 'and to rule them delights me less than to serve you; the -hereditary devotion of my race to Rome has made us account those the -highest honours which your military titles convey; we have always -preferred what an Emperor gave to all that our ancestors could -bequeath. In ruling our nation we hold ourselves but your lieutenants: -you, whose divinely-appointed sway no barrier bounds, whose blessed -beams shine from the Bosphorus into distant Gaul, employ us to -administer the remoter regions of your Empire: your world is our -fatherland[15].' A contemporary historian has recorded the remarkable -disclosure of his own thoughts and purposes, made by one of the ablest -of the barbarian chieftains, Athaulf the Visigoth, the brother-in-law -and successor of Alaric. 'It was at first my wish to destroy the Roman -name, and erect in its place a Gothic empire, taking to myself the -place and the powers of Cæsar Augustus. But when experience taught me -that the untameable barbarism of the Goths would not suffer them to -live beneath the sway of law, and that the abolition of the -institutions on which the state rested would involve the ruin of the -state itself, I chose the glory of renewing and maintaining by Gothic -strength the fame of Rome, desiring to go down to posterity as the -restorer of that Roman power which it was beyond my power to replace. -Wherefore I avoid war and strive for peace[16].' - -Historians have remarked how valuable must have been the skill of -Roman officials to princes who from leaders of tribes were become -rulers of wide lands; and in particular how indispensable the aid of -the Christian bishops, the intellectual aristocracy of their new -subjects, whose advice could alone guide their policy and conciliate -the vanquished. Not only is this true; it is but a small part of the -truth; one form of that manifold and overpowering influence which the -old system exercised over its foes not less than its own children. For -it is hardly too much to say that the thought of antagonism to the -Empire and the wish to extinguish it never crossed the mind of the -barbarians[17]. The conception of that Empire was too universal, too -august, too enduring. It was everywhere around them, and they could -remember no time when it had not been so. It had no association of -people or place whose fall could seem to involve that of the whole -fabric; it had that connection with the Christian Church which made it -all-embracing and venerable. - -[Sidenote: The belief in its eternity.] - -There were especially two ideas whereon it rested, and from which it -obtained a peculiar strength and a peculiar direction. The one was the -belief that as the dominion of Rome was universal, so must it be -eternal. Nothing like it had been seen before. The empire of Alexander -had lasted a short lifetime; and within its wide compass were included -many arid wastes, and many tracts where none but the roving savage had -ever set foot. That of the Italian city had for fourteen generations -embraced all the most wealthy and populous regions of the civilized -world, and had laid the foundations of its power so deep that they -seemed destined to last for ever. If Rome moved slowly for a time, her -foot was always planted firmly: the ease and swiftness of her later -conquests proved the solidity of the earlier; and to her, more justly -than to his own city, might the boast of the Athenian historian be -applied: that she advanced farthest in prosperity, and in adversity -drew back the least. From the end of the republican period her poets, -her orators, her jurists, ceased not to repeat the claim of -world-dominion, and confidently predict its eternity[18]. The proud -belief of his countrymen which Virgil had expressed-- - - 'His ego nec metas rerum, nec tempora pono: - Imperium sine fine dedi'-- - -was shared by the early Christians when they prayed for the -persecuting power whose fall would bring Antichrist upon earth. -Lactantius writes: 'When Rome the head of the world shall have fallen, -who can doubt that the end is come of human things, aye, of the earth -itself. She, she alone is the state by which all things are upheld -even until now; wherefore let us make prayers and supplications to the -God of heaven, if indeed his decrees and his purposes can be delayed, -that that hateful tyrant come not sooner than we look for, he for whom -are reserved fearful deeds, who shall pluck out that eye in whose -extinction the world itself shall perish[19].' With the triumph of -Christianity this belief had found a new basis. For as the Empire had -decayed, the Church had grown stronger; and now while the one, -trembling at the approach of the destroyer, saw province after -province torn away, the other, rising in stately youth, prepared to -fill her place and govern in her name, and in doing so, to adopt and -sanctify and propagate anew the notion of a universal and unending -state. - -[Sidenote: Sanctity of the imperial name.] - -The second chief element in this conception was the association of -such a state with one irresponsible governor, the Emperor. The hatred -to the name of King, which their earliest political struggles had left -in the Romans, by obliging their ruler to take a new and strange -title, marked him off from all the other sovereigns of the world. To -the provincials especially he became an awful impersonation of the -great machine of government which moved above and around them. It was -not merely that he was, like a modern king, the centre of power and -the dispenser of honour: his pre-eminence, broken by no comparison -with other princes, by the ascending ranks of no aristocracy, had in -it something almost supernatural. The right of legislation had become -vested in him alone: the decrees of the people, and resolutions of the -senate, and edicts of the magistrates were, during the last three -centuries, replaced by imperial constitutions; his domestic council, -the consistory, was the supreme court of appeal; his interposition, -like that of some terrestrial Providence, was invoked, and legally -provided so to be, to reverse or overleap the ordinary rules of -law[20]. From the time of Julius and Augustus his person had been -hallowed by the office of chief pontiff[21] and the tribunician power; -to swear by his head was considered the most solemn of all oaths[22]; -his effigy was sacred[23], even on a coin; to him or to his Genius -temples were erected and divine honours paid while he lived[24]; and -when, as it was expressed, he ceased to be among men, the title of -Divus was accorded to him, after a solemn consecration[25]. In the -confused multiplicity of mythologies, the worship of the Emperor was -the only worship common to the whole Roman world, and was therefore -that usually proposed as a test to the Christians on their trial. -Under the new religion the form of adoration vanished, the sentiment -of reverence remained: the right to control Church as well as State, -admitted at Nicæa, and habitually exercised by the sovereigns of -Constantinople, made the Emperor hardly less essential to the new -conception of a world-wide Christian monarchy than he had been to the -military despotism of old. These considerations explain why the men of -the fifth century, clinging to preconceived ideas, refused to believe -in that dissolution of the Empire which they saw with their own eyes. -Because it could not die, it lived. And there was in the slowness of -the change and its external aspect, as well as in the fortunes of the -capital, something to favour the illusion. The Roman name was shared -by every subject; the Roman city was no longer the seat of government, -nor did her capture extinguish the imperial power, for the maxim was -now accepted, Where the Emperor is, there is Rome[26]. But her -continued existence, not permanently occupied by any conqueror, -striking the nations with an awe which the history or the external -splendours of Constantinople, Milan, or Ravenna could nowise inspire, -was an ever new assertion of the endurance of the Roman race and -dominion. Dishonoured and defenceless, the spell of her name was still -strong enough to arrest the conqueror in the moment of triumph. The -irresistible impulse that drew Alaric was one of glory or revenge, not -of destruction: the Hun turned back from Aquileia with a vague fear -upon him: the Ostrogoth adorned and protected his splendid prize. - -[Sidenote: Last days of the Western Empire.] - -[Sidenote: Its extinction by Odoacer, A.D. 476.] - -In the history of the last days of the Western Empire, two points -deserve special remark: its continued union with the Eastern branch, -and the way in which its ideal dignity was respected while its -representatives were despised. After Stilicho's death, and Alaric's -invasion, its fall was a question of time. While one by one the -provinces were abandoned by the central government, left either to be -occupied by invading tribes or to maintain a precarious independence, -like Britain and Armorica[27], by means of municipal unions, Italy lay -at the mercy of the barbarian auxiliaries and was governed by their -leaders. The degenerate line of Theodosius might have seemed to reign -by hereditary right, but after their extinction in Valentinian III -each phantom Emperor--Maximus, Avitus, Majorian, Anthemius, -Olybrius--received the purple from the haughty Ricimer, general of the -troops, only to be stripped of it when he presumed to forget his -dependence. Though the division between Arcadius and Honorius had -definitely severed the two realms for administrative purposes, they -were still supposed to constitute a single Empire, and the rulers of -the East interfered more than once to raise to the Western throne -princes they could not protect upon it. Ricimer's insolence quailed -before the shadowy grandeur of the imperial title: his ambition, and -Gundobald his successor's, were bounded by the name of patrician. The -bolder genius of Odoacer[28], general of the barbarian auxiliaries, -resolved to abolish an empty pageant, and extinguish the title and -office of Emperor of the West. Yet over him too the spell had power; -and as the Gaulish warrior had gazed on the silent majesty of the -senate in a deserted city, so the Herulian revered the power before -which the world had bowed, and though there was no force to check or -to affright him, shrank from grasping in his own barbarian hand the -sceptre of the Cæsars. When, at Odoacer's bidding, Romulus Augustulus, -the boy whom a whim of fate had chosen to be the last native Cæsar of -Rome, had formally announced his resignation to the senate, a -deputation from that body proceeded to the Eastern court to lay the -insignia of royalty at the feet of the Eastern Emperor Zeno. The West, -they declared, no longer required an Emperor of its own; one monarch -sufficed for the world; Odoacer was qualified by his wisdom and -courage to be the protector of their state, and upon him Zeno was -entreated to confer the title of patrician and the administration of -the Italian provinces[29]. The Emperor granted what he could not -refuse, and Odoacer, taking the title of King[30], continued the -consular office, respected the civil and ecclesiastical institutions -of his subjects, and ruled for fourteen years as the nominal vicar of -the Eastern Emperor. There was thus legally no extinction of the -Western Empire at all, but only a reunion of East and West. In form, -and to some extent also in the belief of men, things now reverted to -their state during the first two centuries of the Empire, save that -Byzantium instead of Rome was the centre of the civil government. The -joint tenancy which had been conceived by Diocletian, carried further -by Constantine, renewed under Valentinian I and again at the death of -Theodosius, had come to an end; once more did a single Emperor sway -the sceptre of the world, and head an undivided Catholic Church[31]. -To those who lived at the time, this year (476 A.D.) was no such epoch -as it has since become, nor was any impression made on men's minds -commensurate with the real significance of the event. For though it -did not destroy the Empire in idea, nor wholly even in fact, its -consequences were from the first great. It hastened the development of -a Latin as opposed to Greek and Oriental forms of Christianity: it -emancipated the Popes: it gave a new character to the projects and -government of the Teutonic rulers of the West. But the importance of -remembering its formal aspect to those who witnessed it will be felt -as we approach the era when the Empire was revived by Charles the -Frank. - -[Sidenote: Odoacer.] - -[Sidenote: Theodoric.] - -[Sidenote: Italy reconquered, by Justinian.] - -Odoacer's monarchy was not more oppressive than those of his -neighbours in Gaul, Spain, and Africa. But the mercenary _foederati_ -who supported it were a loose swarm of predatory tribes: themselves -without cohesion, they could take no firm root in Italy. During the -eighteen years of his reign no progress seems to have been made -towards the re-organization of society; and the first real attempt to -blend the peoples and maintain the traditions of Roman wisdom in the -hands of a new and vigorous race was reserved for a more famous -chieftain, the greatest of all the barbarian conquerors, the -forerunner of the first barbarian Emperor, Theodoric the Ostrogoth. -The aim of his reign, though he professed allegiance to the Eastern -court which had favoured his invasion[32], was the establishment of a -national monarchy in Italy. Brought up as a hostage in the court of -Byzantium, he learnt to know the advantages of an orderly and -cultivated society and the principles by which it must be maintained; -called in early manhood to roam as a warrior-chief over the plains of -the Danube, he acquired along with the arts of command a sense of the -superiority of his own people in valour and energy and truth. When the -defeat and death of Odoacer had left the peninsula at his mercy, he -sought no further conquest, easy as it would have been to tear away -new provinces from the Eastern realm, but strove only to preserve and -strengthen the ancient polity of Rome, to breathe into her decaying -institutions the spirit of a fresh life, and without endangering the -military supremacy of his own Goths, to conciliate by indulgence and -gradually raise to the level of their masters the degenerate -population of Italy. The Gothic nation appears from the first less -cruel in war and more prudent in council than any of their Germanic -brethren[33]: all that was most noble among them shone forth now in -the rule of the greatest of the Amali. From his palace at Verona[34], -commemorated in the song of the Nibelungs, he issued equal laws for -Roman and Goth, and bade the intruder, if he must occupy part of the -lands, at least respect the goods and the person of his -fellow-subject. Jurisprudence and administration remained in native -hands: two annual consuls, one named by Theodoric, the other by the -Eastern monarch, presented an image of the ancient state; and while -agriculture and the arts revived in the provinces, Rome herself -celebrated the visits of a master who provided for the wants of her -people and preserved with care the monuments of her former splendour. -With peace and plenty men's minds took hope, and the study of letters -revived. The last gleam of classical literature gilds the reign of the -barbarian. By the consolidation of the two races under one wise -government, Italy might have been spared six hundred years of gloom -and degradation. It was not so to be. Theodoric was tolerant, but -toleration was itself a crime in the eyes of his orthodox subjects: -the Arian Goths were and remained strangers and enemies among the -Catholic Italians. Scarcely had the sceptre passed from the hands of -Theodoric to his unworthy offspring, when Justinian, who had viewed -with jealousy the greatness of his nominal lieutenant, determined to -assert his dormant rights over Italy; its people welcomed Belisarius -as a deliverer, and in the struggle that followed the race and name of -the Ostrogoths perished for ever. Thus again reunited in fact, as it -had been all the while united in name, to the Roman Empire, the -peninsula was divided into counties and dukedoms, and obeyed the -exarch of Ravenna, viceroy of the Byzantine court, till the arrival of -the Lombards in A.D. 568 drove him from some districts, and left him -only a feeble authority in the rest. - -[Sidenote: The Transalpine provinces.] - -Beyond the Alps, though the Roman population had now ceased to seek -help from the Eastern court, the Empire's rights still subsisted in -theory, and were never legally extinguished. As has been said, they -were admitted by the conquerors themselves: by Athaulf, when he -reigned in Aquitaine as the vicar of Honorius, and recovered Spain -from the Suevi to restore it to its ancient masters; by the Visigothic -kings of Spain, when they permitted the Mediterranean cities to send -tribute to Byzantium; by Clovis, when, after the representatives of -the old government, Syagrius and the Armorican cities, had been -overpowered or absorbed, he received with delight from the Eastern -emperor Anastasius the grant of a Roman dignity to confirm his -possession. Arrayed like a Fabius or Valerius in the consul's -embroidered robe, the Sicambrian chieftain rode through the streets of -Tours, while the shout of the provincials hailed him Augustus[35]. -They already obeyed him, but his power was now legalised in their -eyes, and it was not without a melancholy pride that they saw the -terrible conqueror himself yield to the spell of the Roman name, and -do homage to the enduring majesty of their legitimate sovereign[36]. - -[Sidenote: Lingering influences of Rome.] - -[Sidenote: Religion.] - -Yet the severed limbs of the Empire forgot by degrees their original -unity. As in the breaking up of the old society, which we trace from -the sixth to the eighth century, rudeness and ignorance grew apace, as -language and manners were changed by the infiltration of Teutonic -settlers, as men's thoughts and hopes and interests were narrowed by -isolation from their fellows, as the organization of the Roman -province and the Germanic tribe alike dissolved into a chaos whence -the new order began to shape itself, dimly and doubtfully as yet, the -memory of the old Empire, its symmetry, its sway, its civilization, -must needs wane and fade. It might have perished altogether but for -the two enduring witnesses Rome had left--her Church and her Law. The -barbarians had at first associated Christianity with the Romans from -whom they learned it: the Romans had used it as their only bulwark -against oppression. The hierarchy were the natural leaders of the -people, and the necessary councillors of the king. Their power grew -with the extinction of civil government and the spread of -superstition; and when the Frank found it too valuable to be abandoned -to the vanquished people, he insensibly acquired the feelings and -policy of the order he entered. - -[Sidenote: Jurisprudence.] - -As the Empire fell to pieces, and the new kingdoms which the -conquerors had founded themselves began to dissolve, the Church clung -more closely to her unity of faith and discipline, the common bond of -all Christian men. That unity must have a centre, that centre was -Rome. A succession of able and zealous pontiffs extended her influence -(the sanctity and the writings of Gregory the Great were famous -through all the West): never occupied by barbarians, she retained her -peculiar character and customs, and laid the foundations of a power -over men's souls more durable than that which she had lost over their -bodies[37]. Only second in importance to this influence was that which -was exercised by the permanence of the old law, and of its creature -the municipality. The barbarian invaders retained the customs of their -ancestors, characteristic memorials of a rude people, as we see them -in the Salic law or in the ordinances of Ina and Alfred. But the -subject population and the clergy continued to be governed by that -elaborate system which the genius and labour of many generations had -raised to be the most lasting monument of Roman greatness. - -The civil law had maintained itself in Spain and Southern Gaul, nor -was it utterly forgotten even in the North, in Britain, on the borders -of Germany. Revised editions of the Theodosian code were issued by the -Visigothic and Burgundian princes. For some centuries it was the -patrimony of the subject population everywhere, and in Aquitaine and -Italy has outlived feudalism. The presumption in later times was that -all men were to be judged by it who could not be proved to be subject -to some other[38]. Its phrases, its forms, its courts, its subtlety -and precision, all recalled the strong and refined society which had -produced it. Other motives, as well as those of kindness to their -subjects, made the new kings favour it; for it exalted their -prerogative, and the submission enjoined by it on one class of their -subjects soon came to be demanded from the other, by their own laws -the equals of the prince. Considering attentively how many of the old -institutions continued to subsist, and studying the feelings of that -time, as they are faintly preserved in its scanty records, it seems -hardly too much to say that in the eighth century the Roman Empire -still existed in the West: existed in men's minds as a power weakened, -delegated, suspended, but not destroyed. - -It is easy for those who read the history of an age in the light of -those that followed it, to perceive that in this men erred; that the -tendency of events was wholly different; that society had entered on a -new phase, wherein every change did more to localize authority and -strengthen the aristocratic principle at the expense of the despotic. -We can see that other forms of life, more full of promise for the -distant future, had already begun to shew themselves: they--with no -type of power or beauty, but that which had filled the imagination of -their forefathers, and now loomed on them grander than ever through -the mist of centuries--mistook, as it has been said of Rienzi in later -days, memories for hopes, and sighed only for the renewal of its -strength. Events were at hand by which these hopes seemed destined to -be gratified. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[9] 'Addiderat consilium coercendi intra terminos imperii.'--Tac. -_Ann._ i. 2. - -[10] Tac. _Ann._ ii. 9. - -[11] Stilicho, the bulwark of the Empire, seems to have been himself a -Vandal by extraction. - -[12] Of course not the consulship itself, but the _ornamenta -consularia_. - -[13] Jornandes, _De Rebus Geticis_, cap. 28. - -[14] Tac. _Hist._ i. and iv. - -[15] 'Vester quidem est populus meus sed me plus servire vobis quam -illi præesse delectat. Traxit istud a proavis generis mei apud vos -decessoresque vestros semper animo Romana devotio, ut illa nobis magis -claritas putaretur, quam vestra per militiæ titulos porrigeret -celsitudo: cunctisque auctoribus meis semper magis ambitum est quod a -principibus sumerent quam quod a patribus attulissent. Cumque gentem -nostram videamur regere, non aliud nos quam milites vestros credimus -ordinari.... Per nos administratis remotarum spatia regionum: patria -nostra vester orbis est. Tangit Galliam suam lumen orientis, et radius -qui illis partibus oriri creditur, hic refulget. Dominationem vobis -divinitus præstitam obex nulla concludit, nec ullis provinciarum -terminis diffusio felicium sceptrorum limitatur. Salvo divinitatis -honore sit dictum.'--Letter printed among the works of Avitus, Bishop -of Vienne. (Migne's _Patrologia_, vol. lix. p. 285.) - -This letter, as its style shews, is the composition not of Sigismund -himself, but of Avitus, writing on Sigismund's behalf. But this makes -it scarcely less valuable evidence of the feelings of the time. - -[16] 'Referre solitus est (_sc._ Ataulphus) se in primis ardenter -inhiasse: ut obliterato Romanorum nomine Romanum omne solum Gothorum -imperium et faceret et vocaret: essetque, ut vulgariter loquar, Gothia -quod Romania fuisset; fieretque nunc Ataulphus quod quondam Cæsar -Augustus. At ubi multa experientia probavisset, neque Gothos ullo modo -parere legibus posse propter effrenatam barbariem, neque reipublicæ -interdici leges oportere sine quibus respublica non est respublica; -elegisse se saltem, ut gloriam sibi de restituendo in integrum -augendoque Romano nomine Gothorum viribus quæreret, habereturque apud -posteros Romanæ restitutionis auctor postquam esse non potuerat -immutator. Ob hoc abstinere a bello, ob hoc inhiare paci -nitebatur.'--Orosius, vii. 43. - -[17] Athaulf formed only to abandon it. - -[18] See, among other passages, Varro, _De lingua Latina_, iv. 34; -Cic., _Pro Domo_, 33; and in the _Corpus Iuris Civilis_, Dig. i. 5, -17; l. 1, 33; xiv. 2, 9; quoted by Ægidi, _Der Fürstenrath nach dem -Luneviller Frieden_. The phrase 'urbs æterna' appears in a novel -issued by Valentinian III. - -Tertullian speaks of Rome as 'civitas sacrosancta.' - -[19] Lact. _Divin. Instit._ vii. 25: 'Etiam res ipsa declarat lapsum -ruinamque rerum brevi fore: nisi quod incolumi urbe Roma nihil -istiusmodi videtur esse metuendum. At vero cum caput illud orbis -occident, et [Greek:rhymê] esse coeperit quod Sibyllæ fore aiunt, quis -dubitet venisse iam finem rebus humanis, orbique terrarum? Illa, illa -est civitas quæ adhuc sustentat omnia, precandusque nobis et adorandus -est Deus coeli si tamen statuta eius et placita differri possunt, -ne citius quam putemus tyrannus ille abominabilis veniat qui tantum -facinus moliatur, ac lumen illud effodiat cuius interitu mundus ipse -lapsurus est.' - -Cf. Tertull. _Apolog._ cap. xxxii: 'Est et alia maior necessitas nobis -orandi pro imperatoribus, etiam pro omni statu imperii rebusque -Romanis, qui vim maximam universo orbi imminentem ipsamque clausulam -sæculi acerbitates horrendas comminantem Romani imperii commeatu -scimus retardari.' Also the same writer, _Ad Scapulam_, cap. ii: -'Christianus sciens imperatorem a Deo suo constitui, necesse est ut -ipsum diligat et revereatur et honoret et salvum velit cum toto Romano -imperio quousque sæculum stabit: tamdiu enim stabit.' So too the -author--now usually supposed to be Hilary the Deacon--of the -Commentary on the Pauline Epistles ascribed to S. Ambrose: 'Non prius -veniet Dominus quam regni Romani defectio fiat, et appareat -antichristus qui interficiet sanctos, reddita Romanis libertate, sub -suo tamen nomine.'--Ad II Thess. ii. 4, 7. - -[20] For example, by the 'restitutio natalium,' and the 'adrogatio per -rescriptum principis,' or, as it is expressed, 'per sacrum oraculum.' - -[21] Even the Christian Emperors took the title of Pontifex Maximus, -till Gratian refused it: [Greek: athemiston einai Christianô to schêma -nomisas].--Zosimus, lib. iv. cap. 36. - -[22] 'Maiore formidine et callidiore timiditate Cæsarem observatis quam -ipsum ex Olympo Iovem, et merito, si sciatis.... Citius denique apud -vos per omnes Deos quam per unum genium Cæsaris peieratur.'--Tertull. -_Apolog._ c. xxviii. - -Cf. Zos. v. 51: [Greek: ei men gar pros ton theon tetychêkei didomenos -horkos, ên an hôs eikos paridein endidontas tê tou theou philanthrôpia -tên epi tê asebeia syngnômên. epei de kata tên tou basileôs -omômokesan kephalês, ouk einai themiton autois eis ton tosouton horkon -examartein.] - -[23] Tac. _Ann._ i. 73; iii. 38, etc. - -[24] It is curious that this should have begun in the first years of -the Empire. See, among other passages that might be cited from the -Augustan poets, Virg. _Georg._ i. 42; iv. 462; Hor. _Od._ iii. 3, 11; -Ovid, _Epp. ex Ponto_, iv. 9. 105. - -[25] Hence Vespasian's dying jest, 'Ut puto, deus fio.' - -[26] [Greek: hopou an ho basileus ê, ekei hê Rhômê.]--Herodian. - -[27] If the accounts we find of the Armorican republic can be trusted. - -[28] Odoacer or Odovaker, as it seems his name ought to be written, is -usually, but incorrectly, described as a King of the Heruli, who led -his people into Italy and overthrew the Empire of the West; others -call him King of the Rugii, or Skyrri, or Turcilingi. The truth seems -to be that he was not a king at all, but the son of a Skyrrian -chieftain (Edecon, known as one of the envoys whom Attila sent to -Constantinople), whose personal merits made him chosen by the -barbarian auxiliaries to be their leader. The Skyrri were a small -tribe, apparently akin to the more powerful Heruli, whose name is -often extended to them. - -[29] [Greek: Augoustos ho Orestou huios akousas Zênôna palin tên -basileian anakektêsthai tês heô ... ênankase tên boulên aposteilai -presbeian Zênôni sêmainousan hôs idias men autois basileias ou deoi, -koinos de apochrêsei monos ôn autokratôr ep' amphoterois tois perasi. -ton mentoi Odoachon hyp' autôn probeblêsthai hikanon onta sôzein -ta par' autois pragmata politikên echôn noun kai synesin homou kai -machimon. kai deisthai tou Zênônos patrikiou te autô aposteilai axian -kai tên tôn Italôn toutô epheinai dioikêsin]--Malchus ap. Photium in -_Corp. Hist. Byzant._ - -[30] Not king of Italy, as is often said. The barbarian kings did not -for several centuries employ territorial titles; the title 'king of -France,' for instance, was first used by Henry IV. Jornandes tells us -that Odoacer never so much as assumed the insignia of royalty. - -[31] Sismondi, _Histoire de la Chute de l'Empire Occidentale_. - -[32] 'Nil deest nobis imperio vestro famulantibus.'--Theodoric to -Zeno: Jornandes, _De Rebus Geticis_, cap. 57. - -[33] 'Unde et pæne omnibus barbaris Gothi sapientiores exstiterunt -Græcisque pæne consimiles.'--Jorn. cap. 5. - -[34] Theodoric (Thiodorich) seems to have resided usually at Ravenna, -where he died and was buried; a remarkable building which tradition -points out as his tomb stands a little way out of the town, near the -railway station, but the porphyry sarcophagus, in which his body is -supposed to have lain, has been removed thence, and may be seen built -up into the wall of the building called his palace, situated close to -the church of Sant' Apollinare, and not far from the tomb of Dante. -There does not appear to be any sufficient authority for attributing -this building to Ostrogothic times; it is very different from the -representation of Theodoric's palace which we have in the contemporary -mosaics of Sant' Apollinare in urbe. - -In the German legends, however, Theodoric is always the prince of -Verona (Dietrich von Berne), no doubt because that city was better -known to the Teutonic nations, and because it was thither that he -moved his court when transalpine affairs required his attention. His -castle there stood in the old town on the left bank of the Adige, on -the height now occupied by the citadel; it is doubtful whether any -traces of it remain, for the old foundations which we now see may have -belonged to the fortress erected by Gian Galeazzo Visconti in the -fourteenth century. - -[35] 'Igitur Chlodovechus ab imperatore Anastasio codicillos de -consulatu accepit, et in basilica beati Martini tunica blatea indutus -est et chlamyde, imponens vertici diadema ... et ab ea die tanquam -consul aut (=et) Augustus est vocitatus.'--Gregory of Tours, ii. 58. - -[36] Sir F. Palgrave (_English Commonwealth_) considers this grant as -equivalent to a formal ratification of Clovis' rule in Gaul. Hallam -rates its importance lower (_Middle Ages_, note iii. to chap. i.). -Taken in connection with the grant of south-eastern Gaul to Theodebert -by Justinian, it may fairly be held to shew that the influence of the -Empire was still felt in these distant provinces. - -[37] Even so early as the middle of the fifth century, S. Leo the -Great could say to the Roman people, 'Isti (sc. Petrus et Paulus) sunt -qui te ad hanc gloriam provexerunt ut gens sancta, populus electus, -civitas sacerdotalis et regia, per sacram B. Petri sedem caput orbis -effecta latius præsideres religione divina quam dominatione -terrena.'--_Sermon on the feast of SS. Peter and Paul._ (Opp. _ap._ -Migne tom. i. p. 336.) - -[38] 'Ius Romanum est adhuc in viridi observantia et eo iure -præsumitur quilibet vivere nisi adversum probetur.'--Maranta, quoted -by Marquard Freher. - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - -RESTORATION OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE. - - -It was towards Rome as their ecclesiastical capital that the thoughts -and hopes of the men of the sixth and seventh centuries were -constantly directed. Yet not from Rome, feeble and corrupt, nor on the -exhausted soil of Italy, was the deliverer to arise. Just when, as we -may suppose, the vision of a renewal of imperial authority in the -Western provinces was beginning to vanish away, there appeared in the -furthest corner of Europe, sprung of a race but lately brought within -the pale of civilization, a line of chieftains devoted to the service -of the Holy See, and among them one whose power, good fortune, and -heroic character pointed him out as worthy of a dignity to which -doctrine and tradition had attached a sanctity almost divine. - -[Sidenote: The Franks.] - -[Sidenote: A.D. 486.] - -Of the new monarchies that had risen on the ruins of Rome, that of the -Franks was by far the greatest. In the third century they appear, with -Saxons, Alemanni, and Thuringians, as one of the greatest German tribe -leagues. The Sicambri (for it seems probable that this famous race was -a chief source of the Frankish nation) had now laid aside their former -hostility to Rome, and her future representatives were thenceforth, -with few intervals, her faithful allies. Many of their chiefs rose to -high place: Malarich receives from Jovian the charge of the Western -provinces; Bauto and Mellobaudes figure in the days of Theodosius and -his sons; Meroveus (if Meroveus be a real name) fights under Aetius -against Attila in the great battle of Chalons; his countrymen -endeavour in vain to save Gaul from the Suevi and Burgundians. Not -till the Empire was evidently helpless did they claim a share of the -booty; then Clovis, or Chlodovech, chief of the Salian tribe, leaving -his kindred the Ripuarians in their seats on the lower Rhine, advances -from Flanders to wrest Gaul from the barbarian nations which had -entered it some sixty years before. Few conquerors have had a career -of more unbroken success. By the defeat of the Roman governor Syagrius -he was left master of the northern provinces: the Burgundian kingdom -in the valley of the Rhone was in no long time reduced to dependence: -last of all, the Visigothic power was overthrown in one great battle, -and Aquitaine added to the dominions of Clovis. Nor were the Frankish -arms less prosperous on the other side of the Rhine. The victory of -Tolbiac led to the submission of the Alemanni: their allies the -Bavarians followed, and when the Thuringian power had been broken by -Theodorich I (son of Clovis), the Frankish league embraced all the -tribes of western and southern Germany. The state thus formed, -stretching from the Bay of Biscay to the Inn and the Ems, was of -course in no sense a French, that is to say, a Gallic monarchy. Nor, -although the widest and strongest empire that had yet been founded by -a Teutonic race, was it, under the Merovingian kings, a united kingdom -at all, but rather a congeries of principalities, held together by the -predominance of a single nation and a single family, who ruled in Gaul -as masters over a subject race, and in Germany exercised a sort of -hegemony among kindred and scarcely inferior tribes. But towards the -middle of the eighth century a change began. Under the rule of Pipin -of Herstal and his son Charles Martel, mayors of the palace to the -last feeble Merovingians, the Austrasian Franks in the lower Rhineland -became acknowledged heads of the nation, and were able, while -establishing a firmer government at home, to direct its whole strength -in projects of foreign ambition. The form those projects took arose -from a circumstance which has not yet been mentioned. It was not -solely or even chiefly to their own valour that the Franks owed their -past greatness and the yet loftier future which awaited them, it was -to the friendship of the clergy and the favour of the Apostolic See. -The other Teutonic nations, Goths, Vandals, Burgundians, Suevians, -Lombards, had been most of them converted by Arian missionaries who -proceeded from the Roman Empire during the short period when Arian -doctrines were in the ascendant. The Franks, who were among the latest -converts, were Catholics from the first, and gladly accepted the -clergy as their teachers and allies. Thus it was that while the -hostility of their orthodox subjects destroyed the Vandal kingdom in -Africa and the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy, the eager sympathy of the -priesthood enabled the Franks to vanquish their Burgundian and -Visigothic enemies, and made it comparatively easy for them to blend -with the Roman population in the provinces. They had done good service -against the Saracens of Spain; they had aided the English Boniface in -his mission to the heathen of Germany[39]; and at length, as the most -powerful among Catholic nations, they attracted the eyes of the -ecclesiastical head of the West, now sorely bested by domestic foes. - -[Sidenote: Italy: the Lombards.] - -[Sidenote: The Popes.] - -Since the invasion of Alboin, Italy had groaned under a complication -of evils. The Lombards who had entered along with that chief in A.D. -568 had settled in considerable numbers in the valley of the Po, and -founded the duchies of Spoleto and Benevento, leaving the rest of the -country to be governed by the exarch of Ravenna as viceroy of the -Eastern crown. This subjection was, however, little better than -nominal. Although too few to occupy the whole peninsula, the invaders -were yet strong enough to harass every part of it by inroads which met -with no resistance from a population unused to arms, and without the -spirit to use them in self-defence. More cruel and repulsive, if we -may believe the evidence of their enemies, than any other of the -Northern tribes, the Lombards were certainly singular in their -aversion to the clergy, never admitting them to the national councils. -Tormented by their repeated attacks, Rome sought help in vain from -Byzantium, whose forces, scarce able to repel from their walls the -Avars and Saracens, could give no support to the distant exarch of -Ravenna. The Popes were the Emperor's subjects; they awaited his -confirmation, like other bishops; they had more than once been the -victims of his anger[40]. But as the city became more accustomed in -independence, and the Pope rose to a predominance, real if not yet -legal, his tone grew bolder than that of the Eastern patriarchs. In -the controversies that had raged in the Church, he had had the wisdom -or good fortune to espouse (though not always from the first) the -orthodox side: it was now by another quarrel of religion that his -deliverance from an unwelcome yoke was accomplished[41]. - -[Sidenote: Iconoclastic controversy.] - -[Sidenote: The Popes appeal to the Franks.] - -[Sidenote: Pipin patrician of the Romans, A.D. 754.] - -The Emperor Leo, born among the Isaurian mountains, where a purer -faith may yet have lingered, and stung by the Mohammedan taunt of -idolatry, determined to abolish the worship of images, which seemed -fast obscuring the more spiritual part of Christianity. An attempt -sufficient to cause tumults among the submissive Greeks, excited in -Italy a fiercer commotion. The populace rose with one heart in defence -of what had become to them more than a symbol: the exarch was slain: -the Pope, though unwilling to sever himself from the lawful head and -protector of the Church, must yet excommunicate the prince whom he -could not reclaim from so hateful a heresy. Liudprand, king of the -Lombards, improved his opportunity: falling on the exarchate as the -champion of images, on Rome as the minister of the Greek Emperor, he -overran the one, and all but succeeded in capturing the other. The -Pope escaped for the moment, but saw his peril; placed between a -heretic and a robber, he turned his gaze beyond the Alps, to a -Catholic chief who had just achieved a signal deliverance for -Christendom on the field of Poitiers. Gregory II had already opened -communications with Charles Martel, mayor of the palace, and virtual -ruler of the Frankish realm[42]. As the crisis becomes more pressing, -Gregory III finds in the same quarter his only hope, and appeals to -him, in urgent letters, to haste to the succour of Holy Church[43]. -Some accounts add that Charles was offered, in the name of the Roman -people, the office of consul and patrician. It is at least certain -that here begins the connection of the old imperial seat with the -rising German power: here first the pontiff leads a political -movement, and shakes off the ties that bound him to his legitimate -sovereign. Charles died before he could obey the call; but his son -Pipin (surnamed the Short) made good use of the new friendship with -Rome. He was the third of his family who had ruled the Franks with a -monarch's full power: it seemed time to abolish the pageant of -Merovingian royalty; yet a departure from the ancient line might shock -the feelings of the people. A course was taken whose dangers no one -then foresaw: the Holy See, now for the first time invoked as an -international power, pronounced the deposition of Childeric, and gave -to the royal office of his successor Pipin a sanctity hitherto -unknown; adding to the old Frankish election, which consisted in -raising the chief on a shield amid the clash of arms, the Roman diadem -and the Hebrew rite of anointing. The compact between the chair of -Peter and the Teutonic throne was hardly sealed, when the latter was -summoned to discharge its share of the duties. Twice did Aistulf the -Lombard assail Rome, twice did Pipin descend to the rescue: the second -time at the bidding of a letter written in the name of St. Peter -himself[44]. Aistulf could make no resistance; and the Frank bestowed -on the Papal chair all that belonged to the exarchate in North Italy, -receiving as the meed of his services the title of Patrician[45]. - -[Sidenote: Import of this title.] - -As a foreshadowing of the higher dignity that was to follow, this -title requires a passing notice. Introduced by Constantine at a time -when its original meaning had been long forgotten, it was designed to -be, and for awhile remained, the name not of an office but of a rank, -the highest after those of emperor and consul. As such, it was usually -conferred upon provincial governors of the first class, and in time -also upon barbarian potentates whose vanity the Roman court might wish -to flatter. Thus Odoacer, Theodoric, the Burgundian king Sigismund, -Clovis himself, had all received it from the Eastern emperor; so too -in still later times it was given to Saracenic and Bulgarian -princes[46]. In the sixth and seventh centuries an invariable practice -seems to have attached it to the Byzantine viceroys of Italy, and -thus, as we may conjecture, a natural confusion of ideas had made men -take it to be, in some sense, an official title, conveying an -extensive though undefined authority, and implying in particular the -duty of overseeing the Church and promoting her temporal interests. It -was doubtless with such a meaning that the Romans and their bishop -bestowed it upon the Frankish kings, acting quite without legal right, -for it could emanate from the emperor alone, but choosing it as the -title which bound its possessor to render to the Church support and -defence against her Lombard foes. Hence the phrase is always -'_Patricius Romanorum_;' not, as in former times, '_Patricius_' alone: -hence it is usually associated with the terms '_defensor_' and -'_protector_.' And since 'defence' implies a corresponding measure of -obedience on the part of those who profit by it, there must have been -conceded to the new patrician more or less of the positive authority -in Rome, although not such as to extinguish the supremacy of the -Emperor. - -[Sidenote: Extinction of the Lombard kingdom by Charles king of the -Franks.] - -[Sidenote: A.D. 774.] - -So long indeed as the Franks were separated by a hostile kingdom from -their new allies, this control remained little better than nominal. -But when on Pipin's death the restless Lombards again took up arms and -menaced the possessions of the Church, Pipin's son Charles or -Charlemagne swept down like a whirlwind from the Alps at the call of -Pope Hadrian, seized king Desiderius in his capital, assumed himself -the Lombard crown, and made northern Italy thenceforward an integral -part of the Frankish empire. Proceeding to Rome at the head of his -victorious army, the first of a long line of Teutonic kings who were -to find her love more deadly than her hate, he was received by Hadrian -with distinguished honours, and welcomed by the people as their leader -and deliverer. Yet even then, whether out of policy or from that -sentiment of reverence to which his ambitious mind did not refuse to -bow, he was moderate in claims of jurisdiction, he yielded to the -pontiff the place of honour in processions, and renewed, although in -the guise of a lord and conqueror, the gift of the Exarchate and -Pentapolis, which Pipin had made to the Roman Church twenty years -before. - -[Sidenote: Charles and Hadrian.] - -It is with a strange sense, half of sadness, half of amusement, that -in watching the progress of this grand historical drama, we recognise -the meaner motives by which its chief actors were influenced. The -Frankish king and the Roman pontiff were for the time the two most -powerful forces that urged the movement of the world, leading it on by -swift steps to a mighty crisis of its fate, themselves guided, as it -might well seem, by the purest zeal for its spiritual welfare. Their -words and acts, their whole character and bearing in the sight of -expectant Christendom, were worthy of men destined to leave an -indelible impress on their own and many succeeding ages. Nevertheless -in them too appears the undercurrent of vulgar human desires and -passions. The lofty and fervent mind of Charles was not free from the -stirrings of personal ambition: yet these may be excused, if not -defended, as almost inseparable from an intense and restless genius, -which, be it never so unselfish in its ends, must in pursuing them fix -upon everything its grasp and raise out of everything its monument. -The policy of the Popes was prompted by motives less noble. Ever since -the extinction of the Western Empire had emancipated the -ecclesiastical potentate from secular control, the first and most -abiding object of his schemes and prayers had been the acquisition of -territorial wealth in the neighbourhood of his capital. He had indeed -a sort of justification--for Rome, a city with neither trade nor -industry, was crowded with poor, for whom it devolved on the bishop to -provide. Yet the pursuit was one which could not fail to pervert the -purposes of the Popes and give a sinister character to all they did. -It was this fear for the lands of the Church far more than for -religion or the safety of the city--neither of which were really -endangered by the Lombard attacks--that had prompted their passionate -appeals to Charles Martel and Pipin; it was now the well-grounded hope -of having these possessions confirmed and extended by Pipin's greater -son that made the Roman ecclesiastics so forward in his cause. And it -was the same lust after worldly wealth and pomp, mingled with the -dawning prospect of an independent principality, that now began to -seduce them into a long course of guile and intrigue. For this is -probably the very time, although the exact date cannot be established, -to which must be assigned the extraordinary forgery of the Donation of -Constantine, whereby it was pretended that power over Italy and the -whole West had been granted by the first Christian Emperor to Pope -Sylvester and his successors in the Chair of the Apostle. - -[Sidenote: Accession of Pope Leo III, A.D. 796.] - -For the next twenty-four years Italy remained quiet. The government of -Rome was carried on in the name of the Patrician Charles, although it -does not appear that he sent thither any official representative; -while at the same time both the city and the exarchate continued to -admit the nominal supremacy of the Eastern Emperor, employing the -years of his reign to date documents. In A.D. 796, Leo the Third -succeeded Pope Hadrian, and signalized his devotion to the Frankish -throne by sending to Charles the banner of the city and the keys of -the holiest of all Rome's shrines, the confession of St. Peter, asking -that some officer should be deputed to the city to receive from the -people their oath of allegiance to the Patrician. He had soon need to -seek the Patrician's help for himself. In A.D. 798 a sedition broke -out: the Pope, going in solemn procession from the Lateran to the -church of S. Lorenzo in Lucina, was attacked by a band of armed men, -headed by two officials of his court, nephews of his predecessor; was -wounded and left for dead, and with difficulty succeeded in escaping -to Spoleto, whence he fled northward into the Frankish lands. Charles -had led his army against the revolted Saxons: thither Leo following -overtook him at Paderborn in Westphalia. The king received with -respect his spiritual father, entertained and conferred with him for -some time, and at length sent him back to Rome under the escort of -Angilbert, one of his trustiest ministers; promising to follow ere -long in person. After some months peace was restored in Saxony, and in -the autumn of 799 Charles descended from the Alps once more, while Leo -revolved deeply the great scheme for whose accomplishment the time was -now ripe. - -[Sidenote: Belief in the Roman Empire not extinct.] - -[Sidenote: Motives of the Pope.] - -Three hundred and twenty-four years had passed since the last Cæsar of -the West resigned his power into the hands of the senate, and left to -his Eastern brother the sole headship of the Roman world. To the -latter Italy had from that time been nominally subject; but it was -only during one brief interval between the death of Totila the last -Ostrogothic king and the descent of Alboin the first Lombard, that his -power had been really effective. In the further provinces, Gaul, -Spain, Britain, it was only a memory. But the idea of a Roman Empire -as a necessary part of the world's order had not vanished: it had been -admitted by those who seemed to be destroying it; it had been -cherished by the Church; was still recalled by laws and customs; was -dear to the subject populations, who fondly looked back to the days -when slavery was at least mitigated by peace and order. We have seen -the Teuton endeavouring everywhere to identify himself with the system -he overthrew. As Goths, Burgundians, and Franks sought the title of -consul or patrician, as the Lombard kings when they renounced their -Arianism styled themselves Flavii, so even in distant England the -fierce Saxon and Anglian conquerors used the names of Roman dignities, -and before long began to call themselves _imperatores_ and _basileis_ -of Britain. Within the last century and a half the rise of -Mohammedanism[47] had brought out the common Christianity of Europe -into a fuller relief. The false prophet had left one religion, one -Empire, one Commander of the faithful: the Christian commonwealth -needed more than ever an efficient head and centre. Such leadership it -could nowise find in the Court of the Bosphorus, growing ever feebler -and more alien to the West. The name of 'respublica,' permanent at the -elder Rome, had never been applied to the Eastern Empire. Its -government was from the first half Greek, half Asiatic; and had now -drifted away from its ancient traditions into the forms of an Oriental -despotism. Claudian had already sneered at 'Greek Quirites[48]:' the -general use, since Heraclius's reign, of the Greek tongue, and the -difference of manners and usages, made the taunt now more deserved. -The Pope had no reason to wish well to the Byzantine princes, who -while insulting his weakness had given him no help against the savage -Lombards, and who for nearly seventy years[49] had been contaminated -by a heresy the more odious that it touched not speculative points of -doctrine but the most familiar usages of worship. In North Italy their -power was extinct: no pontiff since Zacharias had asked their -confirmation of his election: nay, the appointment of the intruding -Frank to the patriciate, an office which it belonged to the Emperor to -confer, was of itself an act of rebellion. Nevertheless their rights -subsisted: they were still, and while they retained the imperial name, -must so long continue, titular sovereigns of the Roman city. Nor could -the spiritual head of Christendom dispense with the temporal: without -the Roman Empire there could not be a Roman, nor by necessary -consequence a Catholic and Apostolic Church[50]. For, as will be shewn -more fully hereafter, men could not separate in fact what was -indissoluble in thought: Christianity must stand or fall along with -the great Christian state: they were but two names for the same thing. -Thus urged, the Pope took a step which some among his predecessors are -said to have already contemplated[51], and towards which the events of -the last fifty years had pointed. The moment was opportune. The -widowed empress Irene, equally famous for her beauty, her talents, and -her crimes, had deposed and blinded her son Constantine VI: a woman, -an usurper, almost a parricide, sullied the throne of the world. By -what right, it might well be asked, did the factions of Byzantium -impose a master on the original seat of empire? It was time to provide -better for the most august of human offices: an election at Rome was -as valid as at Constantinople--the possessor of the real power should -also be clothed with the outward dignity. Nor could it be doubted -where that possessor was to be found. The Frank had been always -faithful to Rome: his baptism was the enlistment of a new barbarian -auxiliary. His services against Arian heretics and Lombard marauders, -against the Saracen of Spain and the Avar of Pannonia, had earned him -the title of Champion of the Faith and Defender of the Holy See. He -was now unquestioned lord of Western Europe, whose subject nations, -Keltic and Teutonic, were eager to be called by his name and to -imitate his customs[52]. In Charles, the hero who united under one -sceptre so many races, who ruled all as the vicegerent of God, the -pontiff might well see--as later ages saw--the new golden head of a -second image[53], erected on the ruins of that whose mingled iron and -clay seemed crumbling to nothingness behind the impregnable bulwarks -of Constantinople. - -[Sidenote: Coronation of Charles at Rome, A.D. 800.] - -At length the Frankish host entered Rome. The Pope's cause was heard; -his innocence, already vindicated by a miracle, was pronounced by the -Patrician in full synod; his accusers condemned in his stead. Charles -remained in the city for some weeks; and on Christmas-day, A.D. -800[54], he heard mass in the basilica of St. Peter. On the spot where -now the gigantic dome of Bramante and Michael Angelo towers over the -buildings of the modern city, the spot which tradition had hallowed as -that of the Apostle's martyrdom, Constantine the Great had erected the -oldest and stateliest temple of Christian Rome. Nothing could be less -like than was this basilica to those northern cathedrals, shadowy, -fantastic, irregular, crowded with pillars, fringed all round by -clustering shrines and chapels, which are to most of us the types of -mediæval architecture. In its plan and decorations, in the spacious -sunny hall, the roof plain as that of a Greek temple, the long rows of -Corinthian columns, the vivid mosaics on its walls, in its brightness, -its sternness, its simplicity, it had preserved every feature of Roman -art, and had remained a perfect expression of the Roman character[55]. -Out of the transept, a flight of steps led up to the high altar -underneath and just beyond the great arch, the arch of triumph as it -was called: behind in the semicircular apse sat the clergy, rising -tier above tier around its walls; in the midst, high above the rest, -and looking down past the altar over the multitude, was placed the -bishop's throne[56], itself the curule chair of some forgotten -magistrate[57]. From that chair the Pope now rose, as the reading of -the Gospel ended, advanced to where Charles--who had exchanged his -simple Frankish dress for the sandals and the chlamys of a Roman -patrician[58]--knelt in prayer by the high altar, and as in the sight -of all he placed upon the brow of the barbarian chieftain the diadem -of the Cæsars, then bent in obeisance before him, the church rang to -the shout of the multitude, again free, again the lords and centre of -the world, 'Karolo Augusto a Deo coronato magno et pacifico imperatori -vita et victoria[59].' In that shout, echoed by the Franks without, -was pronounced the union, so long in preparation, so mighty in its -consequences, of the Roman and the Teuton, of the memories and the -civilization of the South with the fresh energy of the North, and from -that moment modern history begins. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[39] 'Denique gens Francorum multos et foecundissimos fructus Domino -attulit, non solum credendo, sed et alios salutifere convertendo,' -says the emperor Lewis II in A.D. 871. - -[40] Martin, as in earlier times Sylverius. - -[41] A singular account of the origin of the separation of the Greeks -and Latins occurs in the treatise of Radulfus de Columna (Ralph -Colonna, or, as some think, de Coloumelle), _De translatione Imperii -Romani_ (circ. 1300). 'The tyranny of Heraclius,' says he, 'provoked a -revolt of the Eastern nations. They could not be reduced, because the -Greeks at the same time began to disobey the Roman Pontiff, receding, -like Jeroboam, from the true faith. Others among these schismatics -(apparently with the view of strengthening their political revolt) -carried their heresy further and founded Mohammedanism.' Similarly, -the Franciscan Marsilius of Padua (circa 1324) says that Mohammed, 'a -rich Persian,' invented his religion to keep the East from returning -to allegiance to Rome. It is worth remarking that few, if any, of the -earlier historians (from the tenth to the fifteenth century) refer to -the Emperors of the West from Constantine to Augustulus: the very -existence of this Western line seems to have been even in the eighth -or ninth century altogether forgotten. - -[42] Anastasius, _Vitæ Pontificum Romanorum_ i. _ap._ Muratori. - -[43] Letter in _Codex Carolinus_, in Muratori's _Scriptores Rerum -Italicarum_, vol. iii. (part 2nd), addressed 'Subregulo Carolo.' - -[44] Letter in _Cod. Carol._ (Mur. _R. S. I._ iii. [2.] p. 96), a -strange mixture of earnest adjurations, dexterous appeals to Frankish -pride, and long scriptural quotations: 'Declaratum quippe est quod -super omnes gentes vestra Francorum gens prona mihi Apostolo Dei Petro -exstitit, et ideo ecclesiam quam mihi Dominus tradidit vobis per manus -Vicarii mei commendavi.' - -[45] The exact date when Pipin received the title cannot be made out. -Pope Stephen's next letter (p. 96 of Mur. iii.) is addressed 'Pipino, -Carolo et Carolomanno patriciis.' And so the _Chronicon Casinense_ -(Mur. iv. 273) says it was first given to Pipin. Gibbon can hardly be -right in attributing it to Charles Martel, although one or two -documents may be quoted in which it is used of him. As one of these is -a letter of Pope Gregory II's, the explanation may be that the title -was offered or intended to be offered to him, although never accepted -by him. - -[46] The title of Patrician appears even in the remote West: it stands -in a charter of Ina the West Saxon king, and in one given by Richard -of Normandy in A.D. 1015. Ducange, _s.v._ - -[47] After the _translatio ad Francos_ of A.D. 800, the two Empires -corresponded exactly to the two Khalifates of Bagdad and Cordova. - -[48] - - 'Plaudentem cerne senatum - Et Byzantinos proceres, Graiosque Quirites.' - _In Eutrop._ ii. 135. - -[49] Several Emperors during this period had been patrons of images, -as was Irene at the moment of which I write: the stain nevertheless -adhered to their government as a whole. - -[50] I should not have thought it necessary to explain that the -sentence in the text is meant simply to state what were (so far as can -be made out) the sentiments and notions of the ninth century, if a -writer in the _Tablet_ (reviewing a former edition) had not understood -it as an expression of the author's own belief. - -To a modern eye there is of course no necessary connection between the -Roman Empire and a catholic and apostolic Church; in fact, the two -things seem rather, such has been the impression made on us by the -long struggle of church and state, in their nature mutually -antagonistic. The interest of history lies not least in this, that it -shews us how men have at different times entertained wholly different -notions respecting the relation to one another of the same ideas or -the same institutions. - -[51] Monachus Sangallensis, _De Gestis Karoli_; in Pertz, _Monumenta -Germaniæ Historica_. - -[52] Monachus Sangallensis; _ut supra_. So Pope Gregory the Great two -centuries earlier: 'Quanto cæteros homines regia dignitas antecedit, -tanto cæterarum gentium regna regni Francorum culmen excellit.' Ep. v. -6. - -[53] Alciatus, _De Formula imperii Romani_. - -[54] Or rather, according to the then prevailing practice of beginning -the year from Christmas-day, A.D. 801. - -[55] An elaborate description of old St. Peter's may be found in -Bunsen's and Platner's _Beschreibung der Stadt Rom_; with which -compare Bunsen's work on the Basilicas of Rome. - -[56] The primitive custom was for the bishop to sit in the centre of -the apse, at the central point of the east end of the church (or, as -it would be more correct to say, the end furthest from the door) just -as the judge had done in those law courts on the model of which the -first basilicas were constructed. This arrangement may still be seen -in some of the churches of Rome, as well as elsewhere in Italy; -nowhere better than in the churches of Ravenna, particularly the -beautiful one of Sant' Apollinare in Classe, and in the cathedral of -Torcello, near Venice. - -[57] On this chair were represented the labours of Hercules and the -signs of the zodiac. It is believed at Rome to be the veritable chair -of the Apostle himself, and whatever may be thought of such an -antiquity as this, it can be satisfactorily traced back to the third -or fourth century of Christianity. (The story that it is inscribed -with verses from the Koran is, I believe, without foundation.) It is -now enclosed in a gorgeous casing of gilded wood (some say, of -bronze), and placed aloft at the extremity of St. Peter's, just over -the spot where a bishop's chair would in the old arrangement of the -basilica have stood. The sarcophagus in which Charles himself lay, -till the French scattered his bones abroad, had carved on it the rape -of Proserpine. It may still be seen in the gallery of the basilica at -Aachen. - -[58] Eginhard, _Vita Karoli_. - -[59] The coronation scene is described in all the annals of the time, -to which it is therefore needless to refer more particularly. - - - - -CHAPTER V. - -EMPIRE AND POLICY OF CHARLES. - - -The coronation of Charles is not only the central event of the Middle -Ages, it is also one of those very few events of which, taking them -singly, it may be said that if they had not happened, the history of -the world would have been different. In one sense indeed it has -scarcely a parallel. The assassins of Julius Cæsar thought that they -had saved Rome from monarchy, but monarchy came inevitable in the next -generation. The conversion of Constantine changed the face of the -world, but Christianity was spreading fast, and its ultimate triumph -was only a question of time. Had Columbus never spread his sails, the -secret of the western sea would yet have been pierced by some later -voyager: had Charles V broken his safe-conduct to Luther, the voice -silenced at Wittenberg would have been taken up by echoes elsewhere. -But if the Roman Empire had not been restored in the West in the -person of Charles, it would never have been restored at all, and the -inexhaustible train of consequences for good and for evil that -followed could not have been. Why this was so may be seen by examining -the history of the next two centuries. In that day, as through all the -Dark and Middle Ages, two forces were striving for the mastery. The -one was the instinct of separation, disorder, anarchy, caused by the -ungoverned impulses and barbarous ignorance of the great bulk of -mankind; the other was that passionate longing of the better minds for -a formal unity of government, which had its historical basis in the -memories of the old Roman Empire, and its most constant expression in -the devotion to a visible and catholic Church. The former tendency, as -everything shews, was, in politics at least, the stronger, but the -latter, used and stimulated by an extraordinary genius like Charles, -achieved in the year 800 a victory whose results were never to be -lost. When the hero was gone, the returning wave of anarchy and -barbarism swept up violent as ever, yet it could not wholly obliterate -the past: the Empire, maimed and shattered though it was, had struck -its roots too deep to be overthrown by force, and when it perished at -last, perished from inner decay. It was just because men felt that no -one less than Charles could have won such a triumph over the evils of -the time, by framing and establishing a gigantic scheme of government, -that the excitement and hope and joy which the coronation evoked were -so intense. Their best evidence is perhaps to be found not in the -records of that time itself, but in the cries of lamentation that -broke forth when the Empire began to dissolve towards the close of the -ninth century, in the marvellous legends which attached themselves to -the name of Charles the Emperor, a hero of whom any exploit was -credible[60], in the devout admiration wherewith his German successors -looked back to, and strove in all things to imitate, their all but -superhuman prototype. - -[Sidenote: Import of the coronation.] - -As the event of A.D. 800 made an unparalleled impression on those who -lived at the time, so has it engaged the attention of men in -succeeding ages, has been viewed in the most opposite lights, and -become the theme of interminable controversies. It is better to look -at it simply as it appeared to the men who witnessed it. Here, as in -so many other cases, may be seen the errors into which jurists have -been led by the want of historical feeling. In rude and unsettled -states of society men respect forms and obey facts, while careless of -rules and principles. In England, for example, in the eleventh and -twelfth centuries, it signified very little whether an aspirant to the -throne was next lawful heir, but it signified a great deal whether he -had been duly crowned and was supported by a strong party. Regarding -the matter thus, it is not hard to see why those who judged the actors -of A.D. 800 as they would have judged their contemporaries should have -misunderstood the nature of that which then came to pass. Baronius and -Bellarmine, Spanheim and Conring, are advocates bound to prove a -thesis, and therefore believing it; nor does either party find any -lack of plausible arguments[61]. But civilian and canonist alike -proceed upon strict legal principles, and no such principles can be -found in the case, or applied to it. Neither the instances cited by -the Cardinal from the Old Testament of the power of priests to set up -and pull down princes, nor those which shew the earlier Emperors -controlling the bishops of Rome, really meet the question. Leo acted -not as having alone the right to transfer the crown; the practice of -hereditary succession and the theory of popular election would have -equally excluded such a claim; he was the spokesman of the popular -will, which, identifying itself with the sacerdotal power, hated the -Greeks and was grateful to the Franks. Yet he was also something more. -The act, as it specially affected his interests, was mainly his work, -and without him would never have been brought about at all. It was -natural that a confusion of his secular functions as leader, and his -spiritual as consecrating priest, should lay the foundation of the -right claimed afterwards of raising and deposing monarchs at the will -of Christ's vicar. The Emperor was passive throughout; he did not, as -in Lombardy, appear as a conqueror, but was received by the Pope and -the people as a friend and ally. Rome no doubt became his capital, but -it had already obeyed him as Patrician, and the greatest fact that -stood out to posterity from the whole transaction was that the crown -was bestowed, was at least imposed, by the hands of the pontiff. He -seemed the trustee and depositary of the imperial authority[62]. - -[Sidenote: Contemporary accounts.] - -The best way of shewing the thoughts and motives of those concerned in -the transaction is to transcribe the narratives of three contemporary, -or almost contemporary annalists, two of them German and one Italian. -The Annals of Lauresheim say:-- - -'And because the name of Emperor had now ceased among the Greeks, and -their Empire was possessed by a woman, it then seemed both to Leo the -Pope himself, and to all the holy fathers who were present in the -selfsame council, as well as to the rest of the Christian people, that -they ought to take to be Emperor Charles king of the Franks, who held -Rome herself, where the Cæsars had always been wont to sit, and all -the other regions which he ruled through Italy and Gaul and Germany; -and inasmuch as God had given all these lands into his hand, it seemed -right that with the help of God and at the prayer of the whole -Christian people he should have the name of Emperor also. Whose -petition king Charles willed not to refuse, but submitting himself -with all humility to God, and at the prayer of the priests and of the -whole Christian people, on the day of the nativity of our Lord Jesus -Christ he took on himself the name of Emperor, being consecrated by -the lord Pope Leo[63].' - -Very similar in substance is the account of the Chronicle of Moissac -(ad ann. 801):-- - -'Now when the king upon the most holy day of the Lord's birth was -rising to the mass after praying before the confession of the blessed -Peter the Apostle, Leo the Pope, with the consent of all the bishops -and priests and of the senate of the Franks and likewise of the -Romans, set a golden crown upon his head, the Roman people also -shouting aloud. And when the people had made an end of chanting the -Laudes, he was adored by the Pope after the manner of the emperors of -old. For this also was done by the will of God. For while the said -Emperor abode at Rome certain men were brought unto him, who said that -the name of Emperor had ceased among the Greeks, and that among them -the Empire was held by a woman called Irene, who had by guile laid -hold on her son the Emperor, and put out his eyes, and taken the -Empire to herself, as it is written of Athaliah in the Book of the -Kings; which when Leo the Pope and all the assembly of the bishops and -priests and abbots heard, and the senate of the Franks and all the -elders of the Romans, they took counsel with the rest of the Christian -people, that they should name Charles king of the Franks to be -Emperor, seeing that he held Rome the mother of empire where the -Cæsars and Emperors were always used to sit; and that the heathen -might not mock the Christians if the name of Emperor should have -ceased among the Christians[64].' - -These two accounts are both from a German source: that which follows -is Roman, written probably within some fifty or sixty years of the -event. It is taken from the Life of Leo III in the _Vitæ Pontificum -Romanorum_, compiled by Anastasius the papal librarian. - -'After these things came the day of the birth of our Lord Jesus -Christ, and all men were again gathered together in the aforesaid -basilica of the blessed Peter the Apostle: and then the gracious and -venerable pontiff did with his own hands crown Charles with a very -precious crown. Then all the faithful people of Rome, seeing the -defence that he gave and the love that he bare to the holy Roman -Church and her Vicar, did by the will of God and of the blessed Peter, -the keeper of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, cry with one accord -with a loud voice, 'To Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned of -God, the great and peacegiving Emperor, be life and victory.' While -he, before the holy confession of the blessed Peter the Apostle, was -invoking divers saints, it was proclaimed thrice, and he was chosen by -all to be Emperor of the Romans. Thereon the most holy pontiff -anointed Charles with holy oil, and likewise his most excellent son to -be king, upon the very day of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ; and -when the mass was finished, then after the mass the most serene lord -Emperor offered gifts[65].' - -[Sidenote: Impression which they convey.] - -[Sidenote: Later theories respecting the coronation.] - -In these three accounts there is no serious discrepancy as to the -facts, although the Italian priest, as is natural, heightens the -importance of the part played by the Pope, while the Germans are too -anxious to rationalize the event, talking of a synod of the clergy, a -consultation of the people, and a formal request to Charles, which the -silence of Eginhard, as well as the other circumstances of the case, -forbid us to accept as literally true. Similarly Anastasius passes -over the adoration rendered by the Pope to the Emperor, upon which -most of the Frankish records insist in a way which puts it beyond -doubt. But the impression which the three narratives leave is -essentially the same. They all shew how little the transaction can be -made to wear a strictly legal character. The Frankish king does not of -his own might seize the crown, but rather receives it as coming -naturally to him, as the legitimate consequence of the authority he -already enjoyed. The Pope bestows the crown, not in virtue of any -right of his own as head of the Church: he is merely the instrument of -God's providence, which has unmistakeably pointed out Charles as the -proper person to defend and lead the Christian commonwealth. The Roman -people do not formally elect and appoint, but by their applause accept -the chief who is presented to them. The act is conceived of as -directly ordered by the Divine Providence which has brought about a -state of things that admits of but one issue, an issue which king, -priest, and people have only to recognise and obey; their personal -ambitions, passions, intrigues, sinking and vanishing in reverential -awe at what seems the immediate interposition of Heaven. And as the -result is desired by all parties alike, they do not think of inquiring -into one another's rights, but take their momentary harmony to be -natural and necessary, never dreaming of the difficulties and -conflicts which were to arise out of what seemed then so simple. And -it was just because everything was thus left undetermined, resting not -on express stipulation but rather on a sort of mutual understanding, a -sympathy of beliefs and wishes which augured no evil, that the event -admitted of being afterwards represented in so many different lights. -Four centuries later, when Papacy and Empire had been forced into the -mortal struggle by which the fate of both was decided, three distinct -theories regarding the coronation of Charles will be found advocated -by three different parties, all of them plausible, all of them to some -extent misleading. The Swabian Emperors held the crown to have been -won by their great predecessor as the prize of conquest, and drew the -conclusion that the citizens and bishop of Rome had no rights as -against themselves. The patriotic party among the Romans, appealing to -the early history of the Empire, declared that by nothing but the -voice of their senate and people could an Emperor be lawfully created, -he being only their chief magistrate, the temporary depositary of -their authority. The Popes pointed to the indisputable fact that Leo -imposed the crown, and argued that as God's earthly vicar it was then -his, and must always continue to be their right to give to whomsoever -they would an office which was created to be the handmaid of their -own. Of these three it was the last view that eventually prevailed, -yet to an impartial eye it cannot claim, any more than do the two -others, to contain the whole truth. Charles did not conquer, nor the -Pope give, nor the people elect. As the act was unprecedented so was -it illegal; it was a revolt of the ancient Western capital against a -daughter who had become a mistress; an exercise of the sacred right of -insurrection, justified by the weakness and wickedness of the -Byzantine princes, hallowed to the eyes of the world by the sanction -of Christ's representative, but founded upon no law, nor competent to -create any for the future. - -[Sidenote: Was the coronation a surprise?] - -It is an interesting and somewhat perplexing question, how far the -coronation scene, an act as imposing in its circumstances as it was -momentous in its results, was prearranged among the parties. Eginhard -tells us that Charles was accustomed to declare that he would not, -even on so high a festival, have entered the church had he known of -the Pope's intention. Even if the monarch had uttered, the secretary -would hardly have recorded a falsehood long after the motive that -might have prompted it had disappeared. Of the existence of that -motive which has been most commonly assumed, a fear of the discontent -of the Franks who might think their liberties endangered, little or no -proof can be brought from the records of the time, wherein the nation -is represented as exulting in the new dignity of their chief as an -accession of grandeur to themselves. Nor can we suppose that Charles's -disavowal was meant to soothe the offended pride of the Byzantine -princes, from whom he had nothing to fear, and who were none the more -likely to recognise his dignity, if they should believe it to be not -of his own seeking. Yet it is hard to suppose the whole affair a -surprise; for it was the goal towards which the policy of the Frankish -kings had for many years pointed, and Charles himself, in sending -before him to Rome many of the spiritual and temporal magnates of his -realm, in summoning thither his son Pipin from the war against the -Lombards of Benevento, had shewn that he expected some more than -ordinary result from this journey to the imperial city. Alcuin -moreover, Alcuin of York, the prime minister of Charles in matters -religious and literary, appears from one of his extant letters to have -sent as a Christmas gift to his royal pupil a carefully corrected and -superbly adorned copy of the Scriptures, with the words 'ad splendorem -imperialis potentiæ.' This has commonly been taken for conclusive -evidence that the plan had been settled beforehand, and such it would -be were there not some reasons for giving the letter an earlier date, -and looking upon the word 'imperialis' as a mere magniloquent -flourish[66]. More weight is therefore to be laid upon the arguments -supplied by the nature of the case itself. The Pope, whatever his -confidence in the sympathy of the people, would never have ventured on -so momentous a step until previous conferences had assured him of the -feelings of the king, nor could an act for which the assembly were -evidently prepared have been kept a secret. Nevertheless, the -declaration of Charles himself can neither be evaded nor set down to -mere dissimulation. It is more just to him, and on the whole more -reasonable, to suppose that Leo, having satisfied himself of the -wishes of the Roman clergy and people as well as of the Frankish -magnates, resolved to seize an occasion and place so eminently -favourable to his long-cherished plan, while Charles, carried away by -the enthusiasm of the moment and seeing in the pontiff the prophet and -instrument of the divine will, accepted a dignity which he might have -wished to receive at some later time or in some other way. If, -therefore, any positive conclusion be adopted, it would seem to be -that Charles, although he had probably given a more or less vague -consent to the project, was surprised and disconcerted by a sudden -fulfilment which interrupted his own carefully studied designs. And -although a deed which changed the history of the world was in any case -no accident, it may well have worn to the Frankish and Roman -spectators the air of a surprise. For there were no preparations -apparent in the church; the king was not, like his Teutonic successors -in aftertime, led in procession to the pontifical throne: suddenly, at -the very moment when he rose from the sacred hollow where he had knelt -among the ever-burning lamps before the holiest of Christian -relics--the body of the prince of the Apostles--the hands of that -Apostle's representative placed upon his head the crown of glory and -poured upon him the oil of sanctification. There was something in this -to thrill the beholders with the awe of a divine presence, and make -them hail him whom that presence seemed almost visibly to consecrate, -the 'pious and peace-giving Emperor, crowned of God.' - -[Sidenote: Theories of the motives of Charles.] - -The reluctance of Charles to assume the imperial title is ascribed by -Eginhard to a fear of the jealous hostility of the Greeks, who could -not only deny his claim to it, but might disturb by their intrigues -his dominions in Italy. Accepting this statement, the problem remains, -how is this reluctance to be reconciled with those acts of his which -clearly shew him aiming at the Roman crown? An ingenious and probable, -if not certain solution, is suggested by a recent historian[67], who -argues from a minute examination of the previous policy of Charles, -that while it was the great object of his reign to obtain the crown of -the world, he foresaw at the same time the opposition of the Eastern -Court, and the want of legality from which his title would in -consequence suffer. He was therefore bent on getting from the -Byzantines, if possible, a transference of their crown; if not, at -least a recognition of his own: and he appears to have hoped to win -this by the negotiations which had been for some time kept on foot -with the Empress Irene. Just at this moment came the coronation by -Pope Leo, interrupting these deep-laid schemes, irritating the Eastern -Court, and forcing Charles into the position of a rival who could not -with dignity adopt a soothing or submissive tone. Nevertheless, he -seems not even then to have abandoned the hope of obtaining a peaceful -recognition. Irene's crimes did not prevent him, if we may credit -Theophanes[68], from seeking her hand in marriage. And when the -project of thus uniting the East and West in a single Empire, baffled -for a time by the opposition of her minister Ætius, was rendered -impossible by her subsequent dethronement and exile, he did not -abandon the policy of conciliation until a surly acquiescence in -rather than admission of his dignity had been won from the Byzantine -sovereigns Michael and Nicephorus[69]. - -[Sidenote: Defect in the title of the Teutonic Emperors.] - -Whether, supposing Leo to have been less precipitate, a cession of the -crown, or an acknowledgment of the right of the Romans to confer it, -could ever have been obtained by Charles is perhaps more than -doubtful. But it is clear that he judged rightly in rating its -importance high, for the want of it was the great blemish in his own -and his successors' dignity. To shew how this was so, reference must -be made to the events of A.D. 476. Both the extinction of the Western -Empire in that year and its revival in A.D. 800 have been very -generally misunderstood in modern times, and although the mistake is -not, in a certain sense, of practical importance, yet it tends to -confuse history and to blind us to the ideas of the people who acted -on both occasions. When Odoacer compelled the abdication of Romulus -Augustulus, he did not abolish the Western Empire as a separate power, -but caused it to be reunited with or sink into the Eastern, so that -from that time there was, as there had been before Diocletian, a -single undivided Roman Empire. In A.D. 800 the very memory of the -separate Western Empire, as it had stood from the death of Theodosius -till Odoacer, had, so far as appears, been long since lost, and -neither Leo nor Charles nor any one among their advisers dreamt of -reviving it. They too, like their predecessors, held the Roman Empire -to be one and indivisible, and proposed by the coronation of the -Frankish king not to proclaim a severance of the East and West, but to -reverse the act of Constantine, and make Old Rome again the civil as -well as the ecclesiastical capital of the Empire that bore her name. -Their deed was in its essence illegal, but they sought to give it -every semblance of legality: they professed and partly believed that -they were not revolting against a reigning sovereign, but legitimately -filling up the place of the deposed Constantine the Sixth; the people -of the imperial city exercising their ancient right of choice, their -bishop his right of consecration. - -Their purpose was but half accomplished. They could create but they -could not destroy: they set up an Emperor of their own, whose -representatives thenceforward ruled the West, but Constantinople -retained her sovereigns as of yore; and Christendom saw henceforth two -imperial lines, not as in the time before A.D. 476, the conjoint heads -of a single realm, but rivals and enemies, each denouncing the other -as an impostor, each professing to be the only true and lawful head of -the Christian Church and people. Although therefore we must in -practice speak during the next seven centuries (down till A.D. 1453, -when Constantinople fell before the Mohammedan) of an Eastern and a -Western Empire, the phrase is in strictness incorrect, and was one -which either court ought to have repudiated. The Byzantines always did -repudiate it; the Latins usually; although, yielding to facts, they -sometimes condescended to employ it themselves. But their theory was -always the same. Charles was held to be the legitimate successor, not -of Romulus Augustulus, but of Basil, Heraclius, Justinian, Arcadius, -and all the Eastern line; and hence it is that in all the annals of -the time and of many succeeding centuries, the name of Constantine VI, -the sixty-seventh in order from Augustus, is followed without a break -by that of Charles, the sixty-eighth. - -[Sidenote: Government of Charles as Emperor.] - -[Sidenote: His authority in matters ecclesiastical.] - -The maintenance of an imperial line among the Greeks was a continuing -protest against the validity of Charles's title. But from their enmity -he had little to fear, and in the eyes of the world he seemed to step -into their place, adding the traditional dignity which had been theirs -to the power that he already enjoyed. North Italy and Rome ceased for -ever to own the supremacy of Byzantium; and while the Eastern princes -paid a shameful tribute to the Mussulman, the Frankish Emperor--as the -recognised head of Christendom--received from the patriarch of -Jerusalem the keys of the Holy Sepulchre and the banner of Calvary; -the gift of the Sepulchre itself, says Eginhard, from Aaron king of -the Persians[70]. Out of this peaceful intercourse with the great -Khalif the romancers created a crusade. Within his own dominions his -sway assumed a more sacred character. Already had his unwearied and -comprehensive activity made him throughout his reign an ecclesiastical -no less than a civil ruler, summoning and sitting in councils, -examining and appointing bishops, settling by capitularies the -smallest points of church discipline and polity. A synod held at -Frankfort in A.D. 794 condemned the decrees of the second council of -Nicæa, which had been approved by Pope Hadrian, censured in violent -terms the conduct of the Byzantine rulers in suggesting them, and -without excluding images from churches, altogether forbade them to be -worshipped or even venerated. Not only did Charles preside in and -direct the deliberations of this synod, although legates from the Pope -were present--he also caused a treatise to be drawn up stating and -urging its conclusions; he pressed Hadrian to declare Constantine VI a -heretic for enouncing doctrines to which Hadrian had himself -consented. There are letters of his extant in which he lectures Pope -Leo in a tone of easy superiority, admonishes him to obey the holy -canons, and bids him pray earnestly for the success of the efforts -which it is the monarch's duty to make for the subjugation of pagans -and the establishment of sound doctrine throughout the Church. Nay, -subsequent Popes themselves[71] admitted and applauded the despotic -superintendence of matters spiritual which he was wont to exercise, -and which led some one to give him playfully a title that had once -been applied to the Pope himself, 'Episcopus episcoporum.' - -[Sidenote: The imperial office in its ecclesiastical relations.] - -[Sidenote: Capitulary of A.D. 802.] - -Acting and speaking thus when merely king, it may be thought that -Charles needed no further title to justify his power. The inference is -in truth rather the converse of this. Upon what he had done already -the imperial title must necessarily follow: the attitude of protection -and control which he held towards the Church and the Holy See -belonged, according to the ideas of the time, especially and only to -an Emperor. Therefore his coronation was the fitting completion and -legitimation of his authority, sanctifying rather than increasing it. -We have, however, one remarkable witness to the importance that was -attached to the imperial name, and the enhancement which he conceived -his office to have received from it. In a great assembly held at -Aachen, A.D. 802, the lately-crowned Emperor revised the laws of all -the races that obeyed him, endeavouring to harmonize and correct them, -and issued a capitulary singular in subject and tone[72]. All persons -within his dominions, as well ecclesiastical as civil, who have -already sworn allegiance to him as king, are thereby commanded to -swear to him afresh as Cæsar; and all who have never yet sworn, down -to the age of twelve, shall now take the same oath. 'At the same time -it shall be publicly explained to all what is the force and meaning of -this oath, and how much more it includes than a mere promise of -fidelity to the monarch's person. Firstly, it binds those who swear it -to live, each and every one of them, according to his strength and -knowledge, in the holy service of God; since the lord Emperor cannot -extend over all his care and discipline. Secondly, it binds them -neither by force nor fraud to seize or molest any of the goods or -servants of his crown. Thirdly, to do no violence nor treason towards -the holy Church, or to widows, or orphans, or strangers, seeing that -the lord Emperor has been appointed, after the Lord and his saints, -the protector and defender of all such.' Then in similar fashion -purity of life is prescribed to the monks; homicide, the neglect of -hospitality, and other offences are denounced, the notions of sin and -crime being intermingled and almost identified in a way to which no -parallel can be found, unless it be in the Mosaic code. There God, the -invisible object of worship, is also, though almost incidentally, the -judge and political ruler of Israel; here the whole cycle of social -and moral duty is deduced from the obligation of obedience to the -visible autocratic head of the Christian state. - -In most of Charles's words and deeds, nor less distinctly in the -writings of his adviser Alcuin, may be discerned the working of the -same theocratic ideas. Among his intimate friends he chose to be -called by the name of David, exercising in reality all the powers of -the Jewish king; presiding over this kingdom of God upon earth rather -as a second Constantine or Theodosius than in the spirit and -traditions of the Julii or the Flavii. Among his measures there are -two which in particular recall the first Christian Emperor. As -Constantine founds so Charles erects on a firmer basis the connection -of Church and State. Bishops and abbots are as essential a part of -rising feudalism as counts and dukes. Their benefices are held under -the same conditions of fealty and the service in war of their vassal -tenants, not of the spiritual person himself: they have similar rights -of jurisdiction, and are subject alike to the imperial _missi_. The -monarch tries often to restrict the clergy, as persons, to spiritual -duties; quells the insubordination of the monasteries; endeavours to -bring the seculars into a monastic life by instituting and regulating -chapters. But after granting wealth and power, the attempt was vain; -his strong hand withdrawn, they laughed at control. Again, it was by -him first that the payment of tithes, for which the priesthood had -long been pleading, was made compulsory in Western Europe, and the -support of the ministers of religion entrusted to the laws of the -state. - -[Sidenote: Influence of the imperial title in Germany and Gaul.] - -[Sidenote: Action of Charles on Europe.] - -In civil affairs also Charles acquired, with the imperial title, a new -position. Later jurists labour to distinguish his power as Roman -Emperor from that which he held already as king of the Franks and -their subject allies: they insist that his coronation gave him the -capital only, that it is absurd to talk of a Roman Empire in regions -whither the eagles had never flown[73]. In such expressions there -seems to lurk either confusion or misconception. It was not the actual -government of the city that Charles obtained in A.D. 800: that his -father had already held as Patrician and he had constantly exercised -in the same capacity: it was far more than the titular sovereignty of -Rome which had hitherto been supposed to be vested in the Byzantine -princes: it was nothing less than the headship of the world, believed -to appertain of right to the lawful Roman Emperor, whether he reigned -on the Bosphorus, the Tiber, or the Rhine. As that headship, although -never denied, had been in abeyance in the West for several centuries, -its bestowal on the king of so vast a realm was a change of the first -moment, for it made the coronation not merely a transference of the -seat of Empire, but a renewal of the Empire itself, a bringing back of -it from faith to sight, from the world of belief and theory to the -world of fact and reality. And since the powers it gave were -autocratic and unlimited, it must swallow up all minor claims and -dignities: the rights of Charles the Frankish king were merged in -those of Charles the successor of Augustus, the lord of the world. -That his imperial authority was theoretically irrespective of place is -clear from his own words and acts, and from all the monuments of that -time. He would not, indeed, have dreamed of treating the free Franks -as Justinian had treated his half-Oriental subjects, nor would the -warriors who followed his standard have brooked such an attempt. Yet -even to German eyes his position must have been altered by the halo of -vague splendour which now surrounded him; for all, even the Saxon and -the Slave, had heard of Rome's glories, and revered the name of Cæsar. -And in his effort to weld discordant elements into one body, to -introduce regular gradations of authority, to control the Teutonic -tendency to localization by his _missi_--officials commissioned to -traverse each some part of his dominions, reporting on and redressing -the evils they found--and by his own oft-repeated personal progresses, -Charles was guided by the traditions of the old Empire. His sway is -the revival of order and culture, fusing the West into a compact -whole, whose parts are never thenceforward to lose the marks of their -connection and their half-Roman character, gathering up all that is -left in Europe of spirit and wealth and knowledge, and hurling it with -the new force of Christianity on the infidel of the South and the -masses of untamed barbarism to the North and East. Ruling the world by -the gift of God, and the transmitted rights of the Romans and their -Cæsar whom God had chosen to conquer it, he renews the original -aggressive movement of the Empire: the civilized world has subdued her -invader[74], and now arms him against savagery and heathendom. Hence -the wars, not more of the sword than of the cross, against Saxons, -Avars, Slaves, Danes, Spanish Arabs, where monasteries are fortresses -and baptism the badge of submission. The overthrow of the -Irminsûl[75], in the first Saxon campaign[76], sums up the changes of -seven centuries. The Romanized Teuton destroys the monument of his -country's freedom, for it is also the emblem of paganism and -barbarism. The work of Arminius is undone by his successor. - -[Sidenote: His position as Frankish king.] - -This, however, is not the only side from which Charles's policy and -character may be regarded. If the unity of the Church and the shadow -of imperial prerogative was one pillar of his power, the other was the -Frankish nation. The Empire was still military, though in a sense -strangely different from that of Julius or Severus. The warlike Franks -had permeated Western Europe; their primacy was admitted by the -kindred tribes of Lombards, Bavarians, Thuringians, Alemannians, and -Burgundians; the Slavic peoples on the borders trembled and paid -tribute; Alfonso of Asturias found in the Emperor a protector against -the infidel foe. His influence, if not his exerted power, crossed the -ocean: the kings of the Scots sent gifts and called him lord[77]: the -restoration of Eardulf to Northumbria, still more of Egbert to Wessex, -might furnish a better ground for the claim of suzerainty than many to -which his successors had afterwards recourse. As it was by Frankish -arms that this predominance in Europe which the imperial title adorned -and legalized had been won, so was the government of Charles Roman in -semblance rather than in fact. It was not by restoring the effete -mechanism of the old Empire, but by his own vigorous personal action -and that of his great officers, that he strove to administer and -reform. With every effort for a strong central government, there is no -despotism; each nation retains its laws, its hereditary chiefs, its -free popular assemblies. The conditions granted to the Saxons after -such cruel warfare, conditions so favourable that in the next century -their dukes hold the foremost place in Germany, shew how little he -desired to make the Franks a dominant caste. - -[Sidenote: General results of his Empire.] - -He repeats the attempt of Theodoric to breathe a Teutonic spirit into -Roman forms. The conception was magnificent; great results followed -its partial execution. Two causes forbade success. The one was the -ecclesiastical, especially the Papal power, apparently subject to the -temporal, but with a strong and undefined prerogative which only -waited the occasion to trample on what it had helped to raise. The -Pope might take away the crown he had bestowed, and turn against the -Emperor the Church which now obeyed him. The other was to be found in -the discordance of the component parts of the Empire. The nations were -not ripe for settled life or extensive schemes of polity; the -differences of race, language, manners, over vast and thinly-peopled -lands baffled every attempt to maintain their connection: and when -once the spell of the great mind was withdrawn, the mutually repellent -forces began to work, and the mass dissolved into that chaos out of -which it had been formed. Nevertheless, the parts separated not as -they met, but having all of them undergone influences which continued -to act when political connection had ceased. For the work of -Charles--a genius pre-eminently creative--was not lost in the anarchy -that followed: rather are we to regard his reign as the beginning of a -new era, or as laying the foundations whereon men continued for many -generations to build. - -[Sidenote: Personal habits and sympathies.] - -No claim can be more groundless than that which the modern French, the -sons of the Latinized Kelt, set up to the Teutonic Charles. At Rome he -might assume the chlamys and the sandals, but at the head of his -Frankish host he strictly adhered to the customs of his country, and -was beloved by his people as the very ideal of their own character and -habits[78]. Of strength and stature almost superhuman, in swimming and -hunting unsurpassed, steadfast and terrible in fight, to his friends -gentle and condescending, he was a Roman, much less a Gaul, in nothing -but his culture and his width of view, otherwise a Teuton. The centre -of his realm was the Rhine; his capitals Aachen[79] and -Engilenheim[80]; his army Frankish; his sympathies as they are shewn -in the gathering of the old hero-lays[81], the composition of a German -grammar, the ordinance against confining prayer to the three -languages,--Hebrew, Greek, and Latin,--were all for the race from -which he sprang, and whose advance, represented by the victory of -Austrasia, the true Frankish fatherland, over Neustria and Aquitaine, -spread a second Germanic wave over the conquered countries. - -[Sidenote: His Empire and character generally.] - -There were in his Empire, as in his own mind, two elements; those two -from the union and mutual action and reaction of which modern -civilization has arisen. These vast domains, reaching from the Ebro to -the Carpathian mountains, from the Eyder to the Liris, were all the -conquests of the Frankish sword, and were still governed almost -exclusively by viceroys and officers of Frankish blood. But the -conception of the Empire, that which made it a State and not a mere -mass of subject tribes like those great Eastern dominions which rise -and perish in a lifetime, the realms of Sesostris, or Attila, or -Timur, was inherited from an older and a grander system, was not -Teutonic but Roman--Roman in its ordered rule, in its uniformity and -precision, in its endeavour to subject the individual to the -system--Roman in its effort to realize a certain limited and human -perfection, whose very completeness shall exclude the hope of further -progress. And the bond, too, by which the Empire was held together was -Roman in its origin, although Roman in a sense which would have -surprised Trajan or Severus, could it have been foretold them. The -ecclesiastical body was already organized and centralized, and it was -in his rule over the ecclesiastical body that the secret of Charles's -power lay. Every Christian--Frank, Gaul, or Italian--owed loyalty to -the head and defender of his religion: the unity of the Empire was a -reflection of the unity of the Church. - -Into a general view of the government and policy of Charles it is not -possible here to enter. Yet his legislation, his assemblies, his -administrative system, his magnificent works, recalling the projects -of Alexander and Cæsar[82], the zeal for education and literature -which he shewed in the collection of manuscripts, the founding of -schools, the gathering of eminent men from all quarters around him, -cannot be appreciated apart from his position as restorer of the Roman -Empire. Like all the foremost men of our race, Charles was all great -things in one, and was so great just because the workings of his -genius were so harmonious. He was not a mere barbarian warrior any -more than he was an astute diplomatist; there is none of all his -qualities which would not be forced out of its place were we to -characterize him chiefly by it. Comparisons between famous men of -different ages are generally as worthless as they are easy: the -circumstances among which Charles lived do not permit us to institute -a minute parallel between his greatness and that of those two to whom -it is the modern fashion to compare him, nor to say whether he was or -could have become as profound a politician as Cæsar, as skilful a -commander as Napoleon[83]. But neither to the Roman nor to the -Corsican was he inferior in that one quality by which both he and they -chiefly impress our imaginations--that intense, vivid, unresting -energy which swept him over Europe in campaign after campaign, which -sought a field for its workings in theology, science, literature, no -less than in politics and war. As it was this wondrous activity that -made him the conqueror of Europe, so was it by the variety of his -culture that he became her civilizer. From him, in whose wide deep -mind the whole mediæval theory of the world and human life mirrored -itself, did mediæval society take the form and impress which it -retained for centuries, and the traces whereof are among us and upon -us to this day. - -The great Emperor was buried at Aachen, in that basilica which it had -been the delight of his later years to erect and adorn with the -treasures of ancient art. His tomb under the dome--where now we see an -enormous slab, with the words 'Carolo Magno'--was inscribed, '_Magnus -atque Orthodoxus Imperator_[84].' Poets, fostered by his own zeal, -sang of him who had given to the Franks the sway of Romulus[85]. The -gorgeous drapery of romance gradually wreathed itself round his name, -till by canonization as a saint he received the highest glory the -world or the Church could confer. For the Roman Church claimed then, -as she claims still, the privilege which humanity in one form or -another seems scarce able to deny itself, of raising to honours almost -divine its great departed; and as in pagan times temples had risen to -a deified Emperor, so churches were dedicated to St. Charlemagne. -Between Sanctus Carolus and Divus Julius how strange an analogy and -how strange a contrast! - -FOOTNOTES: - -[60] Before the end of the tenth century we find the monk Benedict of -Soracte ascribing to Charles an expedition to Palestine, and other -marvellous exploits. The romance which passes under the name of -Archbishop Turpin is well known. All the best stories about -Charles--and some of them are very good--may be found in the book of -the Monk of St. Gall. Many refer to his dealings with the bishops, -towards whom he is described as acting like a good-humoured -schoolmaster. - -[61] Baronius, _Ann._, ad ann. 800; Bellarminus, _De translatione -imperii Romani adversus Illyricum_; Spanhemius, _De ficta translatione -imperii_; Conringius, _De imperio Romano Germanico_. - -[62] See especially Greenwood, _Cathedra Petri_, vol. iii. p. 109. - -[63] _Ann. Lauresb. ap._ Pertz, _M. G. H._ i. - -[64] _Apud_ Pertz, _M. G. H._ i. - -[65] _Vitæ Pontif._ in Mur. _S. R. I._ Anastasius in reporting the -shout of the people omits the word 'Romanorum,' which the other -annalists insert after 'imperatori.' The balance of probability is -certainly in his favour. - -[66] Lorentz, _Leben Alcuins_. And cf. Döllinger, _Das Kaiserthum -Karls des Grossen und seiner Nachfolger_. - -[67] See a very learned and interesting tract entitled _Das Kaiserthum -Karls des Grossen und seiner Nachfolger_, recently published by Dr. v. -Döllinger of Munich. - -[68] [Greek: Apokrisiarioi para Karoullou kai Leontos aitoumenoi -zeuchthênai autên tô Karoullô pros gamon kai henôsai ta Heôa kai ta -Hesperia.]--Theoph. _Chron._ in _Corp. Scriptt. Hist. Byz._ - -[69] Their ambassadors at last saluted him by the desired title -'Laudes ei dixerunt imperatorem eum et basileum appellantes.' Eginh. -_Ann._, ad ann. 812. - -[70] Harun er Rashid; Eginh. _Vita Karoli_, c. 16. - -[71] So Pope John VIII in a document quoted by Waitz, _Deutsche -Verfassungs-geschichte_, iii. - -[72] Pertz, _M. G. H._ iii. (legg. I.) - -[73] Pütter, _Historical Development of the German Constitution_; so -too Conring, and esp. David Blondel, _Adv. Chiffletium_. - -[74] 'Græcia capta ferum victorem cepit,' is repeated in this conquest -of the Teuton by the Roman. - -[75] The notion that once prevailed that the Irminsûl was the 'pillar -of Hermann,' set up on the spot of the defeat of Varus, is now -generally discredited. Some German antiquaries take the pillar to be a -rude figure of the native god Irmin; but nothing seems to be known of -this alleged deity: and it is more probable that the name Irmin is -after all merely an altered form of the Keltic word which appears in -Welsh as Hir Vaen, the long stone (_Maen_, a stone). Thus the pillar, -so far from being the monument of the great Teutonic victory, would -commemorate a pre-Teutonic race, whose name for it the invading tribes -adopted. The Rev. Dr. Scott, of Westminster, to whose kindness I am -indebted for this explanation, informs me that a rude ditty recording -the destruction of the pillar by Charles was current on the spot a few -years ago. It ran thus:-- - - 'Irmin slad Irmin - Sla Pfeifen sla Trommen - Der Kaiser wird kommen - Mit Hammer und Stangen - Wird Irmin uphangen.' - -[76] Eginhard, _Ann_. - -[77] Most probably the Scots of Ireland--Eginhard, _Vita Karoli_, cap. -16. - -[78] Eginhard, _Vita Karoli_, cap. 23. - -[79] Aix-la-Chapelle. See the lines in Pertz (_M. G. H._ ii.), -beginning,-- - - 'Urbs Aquensis, urbs regalis, - Sedes regni principalis, - Prima regum curia.' - -This city is commonly called Aken in English books of the seventeenth -century, and probably that ought to be taken as its proper English -name. That name has, however, fallen so entirely into disuse that I do -not venture to use it; and as the employment of the French name -Aix-la-Chapelle seems inevitably to produce the belief that the place -is and was, even in Charles's time, a French town, there is nothing -for it but to fall back upon the comparatively unfamiliar German name. - -[80] Engilenheim, or Ingelheim, lies near the left shore of the Rhine -between Mentz and Bingen. - -[81] Eginhard, _Vita Karoli_, cap. 29. - -[82] Eginhard, _Vita Karoli_, cap. 17. - -[83] It is not a little curious that of the three whom the modern -French have taken to be their national heroes all should have been -foreigners, and two foreign conquerors. - -[84] This basilica was built upon the model of the church of the Holy -Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and as it was the first church of any size -that had been erected in those regions for centuries past, it excited -extraordinary interest among the Franks and Gauls. In many of its -features it greatly resembles the beautiful church of San Vitale, at -Ravenna (also modelled upon that of the Holy Sepulchre) which was -begun by Theodoric, and completed under Justinian. Probably San Vitale -was used as a pattern by Charles's architects: we know that he caused -marble columns to be brought from Ravenna to deck the church at -Aachen. Over the tomb of Charles, below the central dome (to which the -Gothic choir we now see was added some centuries later), there hangs a -huge chandelier, the gift of Frederick Barbarossa. - -[85] 'Romuleum Francis præstitit imperium.'--Elegy of Ermoldus -Nigellus, in Pertz; _M. G. H._, t. i. So too Florus the Deacon,-- - - 'Huic etenim cessit etiam gens Romula genti, - Regnorumque simul mater Roma inclyta cessit: - Huius ibi princeps regni diademata sumpsit - Munere apostolico, Christi munimine fretus.' - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - -CAROLINGIAN AND ITALIAN EMPERORS. - - -[Sidenote: Lewis the Pious.] - -[Sidenote: Partition of Verdun, A.D. 843.] - -Lewis the Pious[86], left by Charles's death sole heir, had been some -years before associated with his father in the Empire, and had been -crowned by his own hands in a way which, intentionally or not, -appeared to deny the need of Papal sanction. But it was soon seen that -the strength to grasp the sceptre had not passed with it. Too mild to -restrain his turbulent nobles, and thrown by over-conscientiousness -into the hands of the clergy, he had reigned few years when -dissensions broke out on all sides. Charles had wished the Empire to -continue one, under the supremacy of a single Emperor, but with its -several parts, Lombardy, Aquitaine, Austrasia, Bavaria, each a kingdom -held by a scion of the reigning house. A scheme dangerous in itself, -and rendered more so by the absence or neglect of regular rules of -succession, could with difficulty have been managed by a wise and firm -monarch. Lewis tried in vain to satisfy his sons (Lothar, Lewis, and -Charles) by dividing and redividing: they rebelled; he was deposed, -and forced by the bishops to do penance; again restored, but without -power, a tool in the hands of contending factions. On his death the -sons flew to arms, and the first of the dynastic quarrels of modern -Europe was fought out on the field of Fontenay. In the partition -treaty of Verdun which followed, the Teutonic principle of equal -division among heirs triumphed over the Roman one of the transmission -of an indivisible Empire: the practical sovereignty of all three -brothers was admitted in their respective territories, a barren -precedence only reserved to Lothar, with the imperial title which he, -as the eldest, already enjoyed. A more important result was the -separation of the Gaulish and German nationalities. Their difference -of feeling, shewn already in the support of Lewis the Pious by the -Germans against the Gallo-Franks and the Church[87], took now a -permanent shape: modern Germany proclaims the era of A.D. 843 the -beginning of her national existence, and celebrated its thousandth -anniversary twenty-seven years ago. To Charles the Bald was given -Francia Occidentalis, that is to say, Neustria and Aquitaine; to -Lothar, who as Emperor must possess the two capitals, Rome and Aachen, -a long and narrow kingdom stretching from the North Sea to the -Mediterranean, and including the northern half of Italy: Lewis -(surnamed, from his kingdom, the German) received all east of the -Rhine, Franks, Saxons, Bavarians, Austria, Carinthia, with possible -supremacies over Czechs and Moravians beyond. Throughout these regions -German was spoken; through Charles's kingdom a corrupt tongue, equally -removed from Latin and from modern French. Lothar's, being mixed and -having no national basis, was the weakest of the three, and soon -dissolved into the separate sovereignties of Italy, Burgundy, and -Lotharingia, or, as we call it, Lorraine. - -[Sidenote: End of the Carolingian Empire of the West, A.D. 888.] - -On the tangled history of the period that follows it is not possible -to do more than touch. After passing from one branch of the -Carolingian line to another[88], the imperial sceptre was at last -possessed and disgraced by Charles the Fat, who united all the -dominions of his great-grandfather. This unworthy heir could not avail -himself of recovered territory to strengthen or defend the expiring -monarchy. He was driven out of Italy in A.D. 887, and his death in 888 -has been usually taken as the date of the extinction of the -Carolingian Empire of the West. The Germans, still attached to the -ancient line, chose Arnulf, an illegitimate Carolingian, for their -king: he entered Italy and was crowned Emperor by his partizan Pope -Formosus, in 894. But Germany, divided and helpless, was in no -condition to maintain her power over the southern lands: Arnulf -retreated in haste, leaving Rome and Italy to sixty years of stormy -independence. - -That time was indeed the nadir of order and civilization. From all -sides the torrent of barbarism which Charles the Great had stemmed was -rushing down upon his empire. The Saracen wasted the Mediterranean -coasts, and sacked Rome herself. The Dane and Norseman swept the -Atlantic and the North Sea, pierced France and Germany by their -rivers, burning, slaying, carrying off into captivity: pouring through -the Straits of Gibraltar, they fell upon Provence and Italy. By land, -while Wends and Czechs and Obotrites threw off the German yoke and -threatened the borders, the wild Hungarian bands, pressing in from the -steppes of the Caspian, dashed over Germany like the flying spray of a -new wave of barbarism, and carried the terror of their battleaxes to -the Apennines and the ocean. Under such strokes the already loosened -fabric swiftly dissolved. No one thought of common defence or wide -organization: the strong built castles, the weak became their -bondsmen, or took shelter under the cowl: the governor--count, abbot, -or bishop--tightened his grasp, turned a delegated into an -independent, a personal into a territorial authority, and hardly owned -a distant and feeble suzerain. The grand vision of a universal -Christian empire was utterly lost in the isolation, the antagonism, -the increasing localization of all powers: it might seem to have been -but a passing gleam from an older and better world. - -[Sidenote: The German Kingdom.] - -[Sidenote: Henry the Fowler.] - -In Germany, the greatness of the evil worked at last its cure. When -the male line of the eastern branch of the Carolingians had ended in -Lewis (surnamed the Child), son of Arnulf, the chieftains chose and -the people accepted Conrad the Franconian, and after him Henry the -Saxon duke, both representing the female line of Charles. Henry laid -the foundations of a firm monarchy, driving back the Magyars and -Wends, recovering Lotharingia, founding towns to be centres of orderly -life and strongholds against Hungarian irruptions. He had meant to -claim at Rome his kingdom's rights, rights which Conrad's weakness had -at least asserted by the demand of tribute; but death overtook him, -and the plan was left to be fulfilled by Otto his son. - -[Sidenote: Otto the Great.] - -The Holy Roman Empire, taking the name in the sense which it commonly -bore in later centuries, as denoting the sovereignty of Germany and -Italy vested in a Germanic prince, is the creation of Otto the Great. -Substantially, it is true, as well as technically, it was a -prolongation of the Empire of Charles; and it rested (as will be shewn -in the sequel) upon ideas essentially the same as those which brought -about the coronation of A.D. 800. But a revival is always more or less -a revolution: the one hundred and fifty years that had passed since -the death of Charles had brought with them changes which made Otto's -position in Germany and Europe less commanding and less autocratic -than his predecessor's. With narrower geographical limits, his Empire -had a less plausible claim to be the heir of Rome's universal -dominion; and there were also differences in its inner character and -structure sufficient to justify us in considering Otto (as he is -usually considered by his countrymen) not a mere successor after an -interregnum, but rather a second founder of the imperial throne in the -West. - -Before Otto's descent into Italy is described, something must be said -of the condition of that country, where circumstances had again made -possible the plan of Theodoric, permitted it to become an independent -kingdom, and attached the imperial title to its sovereign. - -[Sidenote: Italian Emperors.] - -The bestowal of the purple on Charles the Great was not really that -'translation of the Empire from the Greeks to the Franks,' which it -was afterwards described as having been. It was not meant to settle -the office in one nation or one dynasty: there was but an extension of -that principle of the equality of all Romans which had made Trajan and -Maximin Emperors. The '_arcanum imperii_,' whereof Tacitus speaks, -'_posse principem alibi quam Romæ fieri_[89],' had long before become -_alium quam Romanum_; and now, the names of Roman and Christian having -grown co-extensive, a barbarian chieftain was, as a Roman citizen, -eligible to the office of Roman Emperor. Treating him as such, the -people and pontiff of the capital had in the vacancy of the Eastern -throne asserted their ancient rights of election, and while attempting -to reverse the act of Constantine, had re-established the division of -Valentinian. The dignity was therefore in strictness personal to -Charles; in point of fact, and by consent, hereditarily transmissible, -just as it had formerly become in the families of Constantine and -Theodosius. To the Frankish crown or nation it was by no means legally -attached, though they might think it so; it had passed to their king -only because he was the greatest European potentate, and might equally -well pass to some stronger race, if any such appeared. Hence, when the -line of Carolingian Emperors ended in Charles the Fat, the rights of -Rome and Italy might be taken to revive, and there was nothing to -prevent the citizens from choosing whom they would. At that memorable -era (A.D. 888) the four kingdoms which this prince had united fell -asunder; West France, where Odo or Eudes then began to reign, was -never again united to Germany; East France (Germany) chose Arnulf; -Burgundy[90] split up into two principalities, in one of which -(Transjurane) Rudolf proclaimed himself king, while the other -(Cisjurane with Provence) submitted to Boso[91]; while Italy was -divided between the parties of Berengar of Friuli and Guido of -Spoleto. The former was chosen king by the estates of Lombardy; the -latter, and on his speedy death his son Lambert, was crowned Emperor -by the Pope. Arnulf's descent chased them away and vindicated the -claims of the Franks, but on his flight Italy and the anti-German -faction at Rome became again free. Berengar was made king of Italy, -and afterwards Emperor. Lewis of Burgundy, son of Boso, renounced his -fealty to Arnulf, and procured the imperial dignity, whose vain title -he retained through years of misery and exile, till A.D. 928[92]. None -of these Emperors were strong enough to rule well even in Italy; -beyond it they were not so much as recognized. The crown had become a -bauble with which unscrupulous Popes dazzled the vanity of princes -whom they summoned to their aid, and soothed the credulity of their -more honest supporters. The demoralization and confusion of Italy, the -shameless profligacy of Rome and her pontiffs during this period, were -enough to prevent a true Italian kingdom from being built up on the -basis of Roman choice and national unity. Italian indeed it can -scarcely be called, for these Emperors were still in blood and manners -Teutonic, and akin rather to their Transalpine enemies than their -Romanic subjects. But Italian it might soon have become under a -vigorous rule which should have organized it within and knit it -together to resist attacks from without. And therefore the attempt to -establish such a kingdom is remarkable, for it might have had great -consequences; might, if it had prospered, have spared Italy much -suffering and Germany endless waste of strength and blood. He who from -the summit of Milan cathedral sees across the misty plain the gleaming -turrets of its icy wall sweep in a great arc from North to West, may -well wonder that a land which nature has so severed from its -neighbours should, since history begins, have been always the victim -of their intrusive tyranny. - -[Sidenote: Adelheid Queen of Italy.] - -[Sidenote: Otto's first expedition into Italy, A.D. 951.] - -[Sidenote: Invitation sent by the Pope to Otto.] - -[Sidenote: Motives for reviving the Empire.] - -In A.D. 924 died Berengar, the last of these phantom Emperors. After -him Hugh of Burgundy, and Lothar his son, reigned as kings of Italy, -if puppets in the hands of a riotous aristocracy can be so called. -Rome was meanwhile ruled by the consul or senator Alberic[93], who had -renewed her never quite extinct republican institutions, and in the -degradation of the papacy was almost absolute in the city. Lothar -dying, his widow Adelheid[94] was sought in marriage by Adalbert son -of Berengar II, the new Italian monarch. A gleam of romance is shed on -the Empire's revival by her beauty and her adventures. Rejecting the -odious alliance, she was seized by Berengar, escaped with difficulty -from the loathsome prison where his barbarity had confined her, and -appealed to Otto the German king, the model of that knightly virtue -which was beginning to shew itself after the fierce brutality of the -last age. He listened, descended into Lombardy by the Adige valley, -espoused the injured queen, and forced Berengar to hold his kingdom as -a vassal of the East Frankish crown. That prince was turbulent and -faithless; new complaints reached ere long his liege lord, and envoys -from the Pope offered Otto the imperial title if he would re-visit and -pacify Italy. The proposal was well-timed. Men still thought, as they -had thought in the centuries before the Carolingians, that the Empire -was suspended, not extinct; and the desire to see its effective power -restored, the belief that without it the world could never be right, -might seem better grounded than it had been before the coronation of -Charles. Then the imperial name had recalled only the faint memories -of Roman majesty and order; now it was also associated with the golden -age of the first Frankish Emperor, when a single firm and just hand -had guided the state, reformed the church, repressed the excesses of -local power: when Christianity had advanced against heathendom, -civilizing as she went, fearing neither Hun nor Paynim. One annalist -tells us that Charles was elected 'lest the pagans should insult the -Christians, if the name of Emperor should have ceased among the -Christians[95].' The motive would be bitterly enforced by the -calamities of the last fifty years. In a time of disintegration, -confusion, strife, all the longings of every wiser and better soul for -unity, for peace and law, for some bond to bring Christian men and -Christian states together against the common enemy of the faith, were -but so many cries for the restoration of the Roman Empire[96]. These -were the feelings that on the field of Merseburg broke forth in the -shout of 'Henry the Emperor:' these the hopes of the Teutonic host -when after the great deliverance of the Lechfeld they greeted Otto, -conqueror of the Magyars, as 'Imperator Augustus, Pater Patriæ[97].' - -[Sidenote: Condition of Italy.] - -The anarchy which an Emperor was needed to heal was at its worst in -Italy, desolated by the feuds of a crowd of petty princes. A -succession of infamous Popes, raised by means yet more infamous, the -lovers and sons of Theodora and Marozia, had disgraced the chair of -the Apostle, and though Rome herself might be lost to decency, Western -Christendom was roused to anger and alarm. Men had not yet learned to -satisfy their consciences by separating the person from the office. -The rule of Alberic had been succeeded by the wildest confusion, and -demands were raised for the renewal of that imperial authority which -all admitted in theory[98], and which nothing but the resolute -opposition of Alberic himself had prevented Otto from claiming in 951. -From the Byzantine Empire, whither Italy was more than once tempted to -turn, nothing could be hoped; its dangers from foreign enemies were -aggravated by the plots of the court and the seditions of the capital; -it was becoming more and more alienated from the West by the Photian -schism and the question regarding the Procession of the Holy Ghost, -which that quarrel had started. Germany was extending and -consolidating herself, had escaped domestic perils, and might think of -reviving ancient claims. No one could be more willing to revive them -than Otto the Great. His ardent spirit, after waging a bold and -successful struggle against the turbulent magnates of his German -realm, had engaged him in wars with the surrounding nations, and was -now captivated by the vision of a wider sway and a loftier -world-embracing dignity. Nor was the prospect which the papal offer -opened up less welcome to his people. Aachen, their capital, was the -ancestral home of the house of Pipin: their sovereign, although -himself a Saxon by race, titled himself king of the Franks, in -opposition to the Frankish rulers of the Western branch, whose -Teutonic character was disappearing among the Romans of Gaul; they -held themselves in every way the true representatives of the -Carolingian power, and accounted the period since Arnulf's death -nothing but an interregnum which had suspended but not impaired their -rights over Rome. 'For so long,' says a writer of the time, 'as there -remain kings of the Franks, so long will the dignity of the Roman -Empire not wholly perish, seeing that it will abide in its -kings[99].' The recovery of Italy was therefore to German eyes a -righteous as well as a glorious design: approved by the Teutonic -Church which had lately been negotiating with Rome on the subject of -missions to the heathen; embraced by the people, who saw in it an -accession of strength to their young kingdom. Everything smiled on -Otto's enterprise, and the connection which was destined to bring so -much strife and woe to Germany and to Italy was welcomed by the wisest -of both countries as the beginning of a better era. - -[Sidenote: Descent of Otto the Great into Italy.] - -[Sidenote: His coronation at Rome, A.D. 962.] - -Whatever were Otto's own feelings, whether or not he felt that he was -sacrificing, as modern writers have thought that he did sacrifice, the -greatness of his German kingdom to the lust of universal dominion, he -shewed no hesitation in his acts. Descending from the Alps with an -overpowering force, he was acknowledged as king of Italy at -Pavia[100]; and, having first taken an oath to protect the Holy See -and respect the liberties of the city, advanced to Rome. There, with -Adelheid his queen, he was crowned by John XII, on the day of the -Purification, the second of February, A.D. 962. The details of his -election and coronation are unfortunately still more scanty than in -the case of his great predecessor. Most of our authorities represent -the act as of the Pope's favour[101], yet it is plain that the consent -of the people was still thought an essential part of the ceremony, and -that Otto rested after all on his host of conquering Saxons. Be this -as it may, there was neither question raised nor opposition made in -Rome; the usual courtesies and promises were exchanged between Emperor -and Pope, the latter owning himself a subject, and the citizens swore -for the future to elect no pontiff without Otto's consent. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[86] Usage has established this translation of 'Hludowicus Pius,' but -'gentle' or 'kind-hearted' would better express the meaning of the -epithet. - -[87] Von Ranke discovers in this early traces of the aversion of the -Germans to the pretensions of the spiritual power.--_History of -Germany during the Reformation_: Introduction. - -[88] Singularly enough, when one thinks of modern claims, the dynasty -of France (Francia occidentalis) had the least share of it. Charles -the Bald was the only West Frankish Emperor, and reigned a very short -time. - -[89] Tac. _Hist._ i. 4. - -[90] For an account of the various applications of the name Burgundy, -see Appendix, Note A. - -[91] The accession of Boso took place in A.D. 877, eleven years before -Charles the Fat's death. But the new kingdom could not be considered -legally settled until the latter date, and its establishment is at any -rate a part of that general break-up of the great Carolingian empire -whereof A.D. 888 marks the crisis. See Appendix A at the end. - -It is a curious mark of the reverence paid to the Carolingian blood, -that Boso, a powerful and ambitious prince, seems to have chiefly -rested his claims on the fact that he was husband of Irmingard, -daughter of the Emperor Lewis II. Baron de Gingins la Sarraz quotes a -charter of his (drawn up when he seems to have doubted whether to call -himself king) which begins, 'Ego Boso Dei gratia id quod sum, et -coniux mea Irmingardis proles imperialis.' - -[92] Lewis had been surprised by Berengar at Verona, blinded, and -forced to take refuge in his own kingdom of Provence. - -[93] Alberic is called variously senator, consul, patrician, and -prince of the Romans. - -[94] Adelheid was daughter of Rudolf, king of Trans-Jurane Burgundy. -She was at this time in her nineteenth year. - -[95] _Chron. Moiss._, in Pertz; _M. G. H._ i. 305. - -[96] See especially the poem of Florus the Deacon (printed in the -Benedictine collection and in Migne), a bitter lament over the -dissolution of the Carolingian Empire. It is too long for quotation. I -give four lines here:-- - - 'Quid faciant populi quos ingens alluit Hister, - Quos Rhenus Rhodanusque rigant, Ligerisve, Padusve, - Quos omnes dudum tenuit concordia nexos, - Foedere nunc rupto divortia moesta fatigant.' - -[97] Witukind, _Annales_, in Pertz. It may, however, be doubted -whether the annalist is not here giving a very free rendering of the -triumphant cries of the German army. - -[98] Cf. esp. the '_Libellus de imperatoria potestate in urbe Roma_,' -in Pertz. - -[99] 'Licet videamus Romanorum regnum in maxima parte jam destructum, -tamen quamdiu reges Francorum duraverint qui Romanum imperium tenere -debent, dignitas Romani imperii ex toto non peribit, quia stabit in -regibus suis.'--_Liber de Antichristo_, addressed by Adso, abbot of -Moutier-en-Der, to queen Gerberga (circa A.D. 950). - -[100] From the money which Otto struck in Italy, it seems probable -that he did occasionally use the title of king of Italy or of the -Lombards. That he was crowned can hardly be considered quite certain. - -[101] 'A papa imperator ordinatur,' says Hermannus Contractus. -'Dominum Ottonem, ad hoc usque vocatum regem, non solum Romano sed et -poene totius Europæ populo acclamante imperatorem consecravit -Augustum.'--_Annal. Quedlinb._, ad ann. 962. 'Benedictionem a domno -apostolico Iohanne, cuius rogatione huc venit, cum sua coniuge promeruit -imperialem ac patronus Romanæ effectus est ecclesiæ.'--Thietmar. -'Acclamatione totius Romani populi ab apostolico Iohanne, filio -Alberici, imperator et Augustus vocatur et ordinatur.'--Continuator -Reginonis. And similarly the other annalists. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - -THEORY OF THE MEDIÆVAL EMPIRE. - - -[Sidenote: Why the revival of the Empire was desired.] - -These were the events and circumstances of the time: let us now look -at the causes. The restoration of the Empire by Charles may seem to be -sufficiently accounted for by the width of his conquests, by the -peculiar connection which already subsisted between him and the Roman -Church, by his commanding personal character, by the temporary vacancy -of the Byzantine throne. The causes of its revival under Otto must be -sought deeper. Making every allowance for the favouring incidents -which have already been dwelt upon, there must have been some further -influence at work to draw him and his successors, Saxon and Frankish -kings, so far from home in pursuit of a barren crown, to lead the -Italians to accept the dominion of a stranger and a barbarian, to make -the Empire itself appear through the whole Middle Age not what it -seems now, a gorgeous anachronism, but an institution divine and -necessary, having its foundations in the very nature and order of -things. The empire of the elder Rome had been splendid in its life, -yet its judgment was written in the misery to which it had brought the -provinces, and the helplessness that had invited the attacks of the -barbarian. Now, as we at least can see, it had long been dead, and the -course of events was adverse to its revival. Its actual -representatives, the Roman people, were a turbulent rabble, sunk in a -profligacy notorious even in that guilty age. Yet not the less for all -this did men cling to the idea, and strive through long ages to stem -the irresistible time-current, fondly believing that they were -breasting it even while it was sweeping them ever faster and faster -away from the old order into a region of new thoughts, new feelings, -new forms of life. Not till the days of the Reformation was the -illusion dispelled. - -[Sidenote: Mediæval theories.] - -The explanation is to be found in the state of the human mind during -these centuries. The Middle Ages were essentially unpolitical. Ideas -as familiar to the commonwealths of antiquity as to ourselves, ideas -of the common good as the object of the State, of the rights of the -people, of the comparative merits of different forms of government, -were to them, though sometimes carried out in fact, in their -speculative form unknown, perhaps incomprehensible. Feudalism was the -one great institution to which those times gave birth, and feudalism -was a social and a legal system, only indirectly and by consequence a -political one. Yet the human mind, so far from being idle, was in -certain directions never more active; nor was it possible for it to -remain without general conceptions regarding the relation of men to -each other in this world. Such conceptions were neither made an -expression of the actual present condition of things nor drawn from an -induction of the past; they were partly inherited from the system that -had preceded, partly evolved from the principles of that metaphysical -theology which was ripening into scholasticism[102]. Now the two great -ideas which expiring antiquity bequeathed to the ages that followed -were those of a World-Monarchy and a World-Religion. - -[Sidenote: The World-Religion.] - -Before the conquests of Rome, men, with little knowledge of each -other, with no experience of wide political union[103], had held -differences of race to be natural and irremovable barriers. Similarly, -religion appeared to them a matter purely local and national; and as -there were gods of the hills and gods of the valleys, of the land and -of the sea, so each tribe rejoiced in its peculiar deities, looking on -the natives of another country who worshipped other gods as Gentiles, -natural foes, unclean beings. Such feelings, if keenest in the East, -frequently shew themselves in the early records of Greece and Italy: -in Homer the hero who wanders over the unfruitful sea glories in -sacking the cities of the stranger[104]; the primitive Latins have the -same word for a foreigner and an enemy: the exclusive systems of -Egypt, Hindostan, China, are only more vehement expressions of the -belief which made Athenian philosophers look on a state of war between -Greeks and barbarians as natural[105], and defend slavery on the same -ground of the original diversity of the races that rule and the races -that serve. The Roman dominion giving to many nations a common speech -and law, smote this feeling on its political side; Christianity more -effectually banished it from the soul by substituting for the variety -of local pantheons the belief in one God, before whom all men are -equal[106]. - -[Sidenote: Coincides with the World-Empire.] - -It is on the religious life that nations repose. Because divinity was -divided, humanity had been divided likewise; the doctrine of the unity -of God now enforced the unity of man, who had been created in His -image[107]. The first lesson of Christianity was love, a love that was -to join in one body those whom suspicion and prejudice and pride of -race had hitherto kept apart. There was thus formed by the new -religion a community of the faithful, a Holy Empire, designed to -gather all men into its bosom, and standing opposed to the manifold -polytheisms of the older world, exactly as the universal sway of the -Cæsars was contrasted with the innumerable kingdoms and republics that -had gone before it. The analogy of the two made them appear parts of -one great world-movement toward unity: the coincidence of their -boundaries, which had begun before Constantine, lasted long enough -after him to associate them indissolubly together, and make the names -of Roman and Christian convertible[108]. Oecumenical councils, where -the whole spiritual body gathered itself from every part of the -temporal realm under the presidency of the temporal head, presented -the most visible and impressive examples of their connection[109]. The -language of civil government was, throughout the West, that of the -sacred writings and of worship; the greatest mind of his generation -consoled the faithful for the fall of their earthly commonwealth Rome, -by describing to them its successor and representative, the 'city -which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God[110].' - -[Sidenote: Preservation of the unity of the Church.] - -[Sidenote: Mediæval Theology requires One Visible Catholic Church.] - -Of these two parallel unities, that of the political and that of the -religious society, meeting in the higher unity of all Christians, -which may be indifferently called Catholicity or Romanism (since in -that day those words would have had the same meaning), that only which -had been entrusted to the keeping of the Church survived the storms of -the fifth century. Many reasons may be assigned for the firmness with -which she clung to it. Seeing one institution after another falling to -pieces around her, seeing how countries and cities were being severed -from each other by the irruption of strange tribes and the increasing -difficulty of communication, she strove to save religious fellowship -by strengthening the ecclesiastical organization, by drawing tighter -every bond of outward union. Necessities of faith were still more -powerful. Truth, it was said, is one, and as it must bind into one -body all who hold it, so it is only by continuing in that body that -they can preserve it. Thus with the growing rigidity of dogma, which -may be traced from the council of Jerusalem to the council of Trent, -there had arisen the idea of supplementing revelation by tradition as -a source of doctrine, of exalting the universal conscience and belief -above the individual, and allowing the soul to approach God only -through the universal consciousness, represented by the sacerdotal -order: principles still maintained by one branch of the Church, and -for some at least of which far weightier reasons could be assigned -then, in the paucity of written records and the blind ignorance of the -mass of the people, than any to which their modern advocates have -recourse. There was another cause yet more deeply seated, and which it -is hard adequately to describe. It was not exactly a want of faith in -the unseen, nor a shrinking fear which dared not look forth on the -universe alone: it was rather the powerlessness of the untrained mind -to realize the idea as an idea and live in it: it was the tendency to -see everything in the concrete, to turn the parable into a fact, the -doctrine into its most literal application, the symbol into the -essential ceremony; the tendency which intruded earthly Madonnas and -saints between the worshipper and the spiritual Deity, and could -satisfy its devotional feelings only by visible images even of these: -which conceived of man's aspirations and temptations as the result of -the direct action of angels and devils: which expressed the strivings -of the soul after purity by the search for the Holy Grail: which in -the Crusades sent myriads to win at Jerusalem by earthly arms the -sepulchre of Him whom they could not serve in their own spirit nor -approach by their own prayers. And therefore it was that the whole -fabric of mediæval Christianity rested upon the idea of the Visible -Church. Such a Church could be in nowise local or limited. To -acquiesce in the establishment of National Churches would have -appeared to those men, as it must always appear when scrutinized, -contradictory to the nature of a religious body, opposed to the genius -of Christianity, defensible, when capable of defence at all, only as a -temporary resource in the presence of insuperable difficulties. Had -this plan, on which so many have dwelt with complacency in later -times, been proposed either to the primitive Church in its adversity -or to the dominant Church of the ninth century, it would have been -rejected with horror; but since there were as yet no nations, the plan -was one which did not and could not present itself. The Visible Church -was therefore the Church Universal, the whole congregation of -Christian men dispersed throughout the world. - -[Sidenote: Idea of political unity upheld by the clergy.] - -Now of the Visible Church the emblem and stay was the priesthood; and -it was by them, in whom dwelt whatever of learning and thought was -left in Europe, that the second great idea whereof mention has been -made--the belief in one universal temporal state--was preserved. As a -matter of fact, that state had perished out of the West, and it might -seem their interest to let its memory be lost. They, however, did not -so calculate their interest. So far from feeling themselves opposed to -the civil authority in the seventh and eighth centuries, as they came -to do in the twelfth and thirteenth, the clergy were fully persuaded -that its maintenance was indispensable to their own welfare. They -were, be it remembered, at first Romans themselves living by the Roman -law, using Latin as their proper tongue, and imbued with the idea of -the historical connection of the two powers. And by them chiefly was -that idea expounded and enforced for many generations, by none more -earnestly than by Alcuin of York, the adviser of Charles[111]. The -limits of those two powers had become confounded in practice: bishops -were princes, the chief ministers of the sovereign, sometimes even the -leaders of their flocks in war: kings were accustomed to summon -ecclesiastical councils, and appoint to ecclesiastical offices. - -[Sidenote: Influence of the metaphysics of the time upon the theory of -a World-State.] - -But, like the unity of the Church, the doctrine of a universal -monarchy had a theoretical as well as an historical basis, and may be -traced up to those metaphysical ideas out of which the system we call -Realism developed itself. The beginnings of philosophy in those times -were logical; and its first efforts were to distribute and classify: -system, subordination, uniformity, appeared to be that which was most -desirable in thought as in life. The search after causes became a -search after principles of classification; since simplicity and truth -were held to consist not in an analysis of thought into its elements, -nor in an observation of the process of its growth, but rather in a -sort of genealogy of notions, a statement of the relations of classes -as containing or excluding each other. These classes, genera or -species, were not themselves held to be conceptions formed by the mind -from phenomena, nor mere accidental aggregates of objects grouped -under and called by some common name; they were real things, existing -independently of the individuals who composed them, recognized rather -than created by the human mind. In this view, Humanity is an essential -quality present in all men, and making them what they are: as regards -it they are therefore not many but one, the differences between -individuals being no more than accidents. The whole truth of their -being lies in the universal property, which alone has a permanent and -independent existence. The common nature of the individuals thus -gathered into one Being is typified in its two aspects, the spiritual -and the secular, by two persons, the World-Priest and the -World-Monarch, who present on earth a similitude of the Divine unity. -For, as we have seen, it was only through its concrete and symbolic -expression that a thought could then be apprehended[112]. Although it -was to unity in religion that the clerical body was both by doctrine -and by practice attached, they found this inseparable from the -corresponding unity in politics. They saw that every act of man has a -social and public as well as a moral and personal bearing, and -concluded that the rules which directed and the powers which rewarded -or punished must be parallel and similar, not so much two powers as -different manifestations of one and the same. That the souls of all -Christian men should be guided by one hierarchy, rising through -successive grades to a supreme head, while for their deeds they were -answerable to a multitude of local, unconnected, mutually -irresponsible potentates, appeared to them necessarily opposed to the -Divine order. As they could not imagine, nor value if they had -imagined, a communion of the saints without its expression in a -visible Church, so in matters temporal they recognized no brotherhood -of spirit without the bonds of form, no universal humanity save in the -image of a universal State[113]. In this, as in so much else, the men -of the Middle Ages were the slaves of the letter, unable, with all -their aspirations, to rise out of the concrete, and prevented by the -very grandeur and boldness of their conceptions from carrying them out -in practice against the enormous obstacles that met them. - -[Sidenote: The ideal state supposed to be embodied in the Roman -Empire.] - -[Sidenote: Constantine's Donation.] - -Deep as this belief had struck its roots, it might never have risen to -maturity nor sensibly affected the progress of events, had it not -gained in the pre-existence of the monarchy of Rome a definite shape -and a definite purpose. It was chiefly by means of the Papacy that -this came to pass. When under Constantine the Christian Church was -framing her organization on the model of the state which protected -her, the bishop of the metropolis perceived and improved the analogy -between himself and the head of the civil government. The notion that -the chair of Peter was the imperial throne of the Church had dawned -upon the Popes very early in their history, and grew stronger every -century under the operation of causes already specified. Even before -the Empire of the West had fallen, St. Leo the Great could boast that -to Rome, exalted by the preaching of the chief of the Apostles to be a -holy nation, a chosen people, a priestly and royal city, there had -been appointed a spiritual dominion wider than her earthly sway[114]. -In A.D. 476 Rome ceased to be the political capital of the Western -countries, and the Papacy, inheriting no small part of the Emperor's -power, drew to herself the reverence which the name of the city still -commanded, until by the middle of the eighth, or, at latest, of the -ninth century she had perfected in theory a scheme which made her the -exact counterpart of the departed despotism, the centre of the -hierarchy, absolute mistress of the Christian world. The character of -that scheme is best set forth in the singular document, most -stupendous of all the mediæval forgeries, which under the name of the -Donation of Constantine commanded for seven centuries the -unquestioning belief of mankind[115]. Itself a portentous falsehood, -it is the most unimpeachable evidence of the thoughts and beliefs of -the priesthood which framed it, some time between the middle of the -eighth and the middle of the tenth century. It tells how Constantine -the Great, cured of his leprosy by the prayers of Sylvester, resolved, -on the fourth day from his baptism, to forsake the ancient seat for a -new capital on the Bosphorus, lest the continuance of the secular -government should cramp the freedom of the spiritual, and how he -bestowed therewith upon the Pope and his successors the sovereignty -over Italy and the countries of the West. But this is not all, -although this is what historians, in admiration of its splendid -audacity, have chiefly dwelt upon. The edict proceeds to grant to the -Roman pontiff and his clergy a series of dignities and privileges, all -of them enjoyed by the Emperor and his senate, all of them shewing the -same desire to make the pontifical a copy of the imperial office. The -Pope is to inhabit the Lateran palace, to wear the diadem, the collar, -the purple cloak, to carry the sceptre, and to be attended by a body -of chamberlains. Similarly his clergy are to ride on white horses and -receive the honours and immunities of the senate and patricians[116]. - -[Sidenote: Interdependence of Papacy and Empire.] - -The notion which prevails throughout, that the chief of the religious -society must be in every point conformed to his prototype the chief of -the civil, is the key to all the thoughts and acts of the Roman -clergy; not less plainly seen in the details of papal ceremonial than -it is in the gigantic scheme of papal legislation. The Canon law was -intended by its authors to reproduce and rival the imperial -jurisprudence; a correspondence was traced between its divisions and -those of the Corpus Juris Civilis, and Gregory IX, who was the first -to consolidate it into a code, sought the fame and received the title -of the Justinian of the Church. But the wish of the clergy was always, -even in the weakness or hostility of the temporal power, to imitate -and rival, not to supersede it; since they held it the necessary -complement of their own, and thought the Christian people equally -imperilled by the fall of either. Hence the reluctance of Gregory II -to break with the Byzantine princes[117], and the maintenance of their -titular sovereignty till A.D. 800: hence the part which the Holy See -played in transferring the crown to Charles, the first sovereign of -the West capable of fulfilling its duties; hence the grief with which -its weakness under his successors was seen, the gladness when it -descended to Otto as representative of the Frankish kingdom. - -[Sidenote: The Roman Empire revived in a new character.] - -Up to the era of A.D. 800 there had been at Constantinople a -legitimate historical prolongation of the Roman Empire. Technically, -as we have seen, the election of Charles, after the deposition of -Constantine VI, was itself a prolongation, and maintained the old -rights and forms in their integrity. But the Pope, though he knew it -not, did far more than effect a change of dynasty when he rejected -Irene and crowned the barbarian chief. Restorations are always -delusive. As well might one hope to stop the earth's course in her -orbit as to arrest that ceaseless change and movement in human affairs -which forbids an old institution, suddenly transplanted into a new -order of things, from filling its ancient place and serving its former -ends. The dictatorship at Rome in the second Punic war was not more -unlike the dictatorships of Sulla and Cæsar, nor the States-general of -Louis XIII to the assembly which his unhappy descendant convoked in -1789, than was the imperial office of Theodosius to that of Charles -the Frank; and the seal, ascribed to A.D. 800, which bears the legend -'Renovatio Romani Imperii[118],' expresses, more justly perhaps than -was intended by its author, a second birth of the Roman Empire. - -It is not, however, from Carolingian times that a proper view of this -new creation can be formed. That period was one of transition, of -fluctuation and uncertainty, in which the office, passing from one -dynasty and country to another, had not time to acquire a settled -character and claims, and was without the power that would have -enabled it to support them. From the coronation of Otto the Great a -new period begins, in which the ideas that have been described as -floating in men's minds took clearer shape, and attached to the -imperial title a body of definite rights and definite duties. It is -this new phase, the Holy Empire, that we have now to consider. - -[Sidenote: Position and functions of the Emperor.] - -[Sidenote: Correspondence and harmony of the spiritual and temporal -powers.] - -The realistic philosophy, and the needs of a time when the only notion -of civil or religious order was submission to authority, required the -World-State to be a monarchy; tradition, as well as the continuance of -certain institutions, gave the monarch the name of Roman Emperor. A -king could not be universal sovereign, for there were many kings: the -Emperor must be, for there had never been but one Emperor; he had in -older and brighter days been the actual lord of the civilized world; -the seat of his power was placed beside that of the spiritual autocrat -of Christendom[119]. His functions will be seen most clearly if we -deduce them from the leading principle of mediæval mythology, the -exact correspondence of earth and heaven. As God, in the midst of the -celestial hierarchy, ruled blessed spirits in paradise, so the Pope, -His Vicar, raised above priests, bishops, metropolitans, reigned over -the souls of mortal men below. But as God is Lord of earth as well as -of heaven, so must he (the _Imperator coelestis_[t]) be represented by -a second earthly viceroy, the Emperor (_Imperator terrenus_[120]), -whose authority shall be of and for this present life. And as in this -present world the soul cannot act save through the body, while yet the -body is no more than an instrument and means for the soul's -manifestation, so must there be a rule and care of men's bodies as -well as of their souls, yet subordinated always to the well-being of -that which is the purer and the more enduring. It is under the emblem -of soul and body that the relation of the papal and imperial power is -presented to us throughout the Middle Ages[121]. The Pope, as God's -vicar in matters spiritual, is to lead men to eternal life; the -Emperor, as vicar in matters temporal, must so control them in their -dealings with one another that they may be able to pursue undisturbed -the spiritual life, and thereby attain the same supreme and common end -of everlasting happiness. In the view of this object his chief duty is -to maintain peace in the world, while towards the Church his position -is that of Advocate, a title borrowed from the practice adopted by -churches and monasteries of choosing some powerful baron to protect -their lands and lead their tenants in war[122]. The functions of -Advocacy are twofold: at home to make the Christian people obedient to -the priesthood, and to execute their decrees upon heretics and -sinners; abroad to propagate the faith among the heathen, not sparing -to use carnal weapons[123]. Thus does the Emperor answer in every -point to his antitype the Pope, his power being yet of a lower rank, -created on the analogy of the papal, as the papal itself had been -modelled after the elder Empire. The parallel holds good even in its -details; for just as we have seen the churchman assuming the crown and -robes of the secular prince, so now did he array the Emperor in his -own ecclesiastical vestments, the stole and the dalmatic, gave him a -clerical as well as a sacred character, removed his office from all -narrowing associations of birth or country, inaugurated him by rites -every one of which was meant to symbolize and enjoin duties in their -essence religious. Thus the Holy Roman Church and the Holy Roman -Empire are one and the same thing, in two aspects; and Catholicism, -the principle of the universal Christian society, is also Romanism; -that is, rests upon Rome as the origin and type of its universality; -manifesting itself in a mystic dualism which corresponds to the two -natures of its Founder. As divine and eternal, its head is the Pope, -to whom souls have been entrusted; as human and temporal, the Emperor, -commissioned to rule men's bodies and acts. - -[Sidenote: Union of Church and State.] - -In nature and compass the government of these two potentates is the -same, differing only in the sphere of its working; and it matters not -whether we call the Pope a spiritual Emperor or the Emperor a secular -Pope. Nor, though the one office is below the other as far as man's -life on earth is less precious than his life hereafter, is therefore, -on the older and truer theory, the imperial authority delegated by the -papal. For, as has been said already, God is represented by the Pope -not in every capacity, but only as the ruler of spirits in heaven: as -sovereign of earth, He issues His commission directly to the Emperor. -Opposition between two servants of the same King is inconceivable, -each being bound to aid and foster the other: the co-operation of both -being needed in all that concerns the welfare of Christendom at large. -This is the one perfect and self-consistent scheme of the union of -Church and State; for, taking the absolute coincidence of their limits -to be self-evident, it assumes the infallibility of their joint -government, and derives, as a corollary from that infallibility, the -duty of the civil magistrate to root out heresy and schism no less -than to punish treason and rebellion. It is also the scheme which, -granting the possibility of their harmonious action, places the two -powers in that relation which gives each of them its maximum of -strength. But by a law to which it would be hard to find exceptions, -in proportion as the State became more Christian, the Church, who to -work out her purposes had assumed worldly forms, became by the contact -worldlier, meaner, spiritually weaker; and the system which -Constantine founded amid such rejoicings, which culminated so -triumphantly in the Empire Church of the Middle Ages, has in each -succeeding generation been slowly losing ground, has seen its -brightness dimmed and its completeness marred, and sees now those who -are most zealous on behalf of its surviving institutions feebly defend -or silently desert the principle upon which all must rest. - -The complete accord of the papal and imperial powers which this -theory, as sublime as it is impracticable, requires, was attained only -at a few points in their history[124]. It was finally supplanted by -another view of their relation, which, professing to be a development -of a principle recognized as fundamental, the superior importance of -the religious life, found increasing favour in the eyes of fervent -churchmen[125]. Declaring the Pope sole representative on earth of the -Deity, it concluded that from him, and not directly from God, must the -Empire be held--held feudally, it was said by many--and it thereby -thrust down the temporal power, to be the slave instead of the sister -of the spiritual[126]. Nevertheless, the Papacy in her meridian, and -under the guidance of her greatest minds, of Hildebrand, of Alexander, -of Innocent, not seeking to abolish or absorb the civil government, -required only its obedience, and exalted its dignity against all save -herself[127]. It was reserved for Boniface VIII, whose extravagant -pretensions betrayed the decay that was already at work within, to -show himself to the crowding pilgrims at the jubilee of A.D. 1300, -seated on the throne of Constantine, arrayed with sword, and crown, -and sceptre, shouting aloud, 'I am Cæsar--I am Emperor[128].' - -[Sidenote: Proofs from mediæval documents.] - -The theory of an Emperor's place and functions thus sketched cannot be -definitely assigned to any point of time; for it was growing and -changing from the fifth century to the fifteenth. Nor need it surprise -us that we do not find in any one author a statement of the grounds -whereon it rested, since much of what seems strangest to us was then -too obvious to be formally explained. No one, however, who examines -mediæval writings can fail to perceive, sometimes from direct words, -oftener from allusions or assumptions, that such ideas as these are -present to the minds of the authors[129]. That which it is easiest to -prove is the connection of the Empire with religion. From every -record, from chronicles and treatises, proclamations, laws, and -sermons, passages may be adduced wherein the defence and spread of the -faith, and the maintenance of concord among the Christian people, are -represented as the function to which the Empire has been set apart. -The belief expressed by Lewis II, 'Imperii dignitas non in vocabuli -voce sed in gloriosæ pietatis culmine consistit[130],' appears again -in the address of the Archbishop of Mentz to Conrad II[131], as Vicar -of God; is reiterated by Frederick I[132], when he writes to the -prelates of Germany, 'On earth God has placed no more than two powers, -and as there is in heaven but one God, so is there here one Pope and -one Emperor. Divine providence has specially appointed the Roman -Empire to prevent the continuance of schism in the Church[133];' is -echoed by jurists and divines down to the days of Charles V[134]. It -was a doctrine which we shall find the friends and foes of the Holy -See equally concerned to insist on, the one to make the transference -(_translatio_) from the Greeks to the Germans appear entirely the -Pope's work, and so establish his right of overseeing or cancelling -his rival's election, the others by setting the Emperor at the head of -the Church to reduce the Pope to the place of chief bishop of his -realm[135]. His headship was dwelt upon chiefly in the two duties -already noticed. As the counterpart of the Mussulman Commander of the -Faithful, he was leader of the Church militant against her infidel -foes, was in this capacity summoned to conduct crusades, and in later -times recognized chief of the confederacies against the conquering -Ottomans. As representative of the whole Christian people, it belonged -to him to convoke General Councils, a right not without importance -even when exercised concurrently with the Pope, but far more weighty -when the object of the council was to settle a disputed election, or, -as at Constance, to depose the reigning pontiff himself. - -[Sidenote: The Coronation ceremonies.] - -No better illustrations can be desired than those to be found in the -office for the imperial coronation at Rome, too long to be transcribed -here, but well worthy of an attentive study[136]. The rites prescribed -in it are rights of consecration to a religious office: the Emperor, -besides the sword, globe, and sceptre of temporal power, receives a -ring as the symbol of his faith, is ordained a subdeacon, assists the -Pope in celebrating mass, partakes as a clerical person of the -communion in both kinds, is admitted a canon of St. Peter and St. John -Lateran. The oath to be taken by an elector begins, 'Ego N. volo regem -Romanorum in Cæsarem promovendum, temporale caput populo Christiano -eligere.' The Emperor swears to cherish and defend the Holy Roman -Church and her bishop: the Pope prays after the reading of the Gospel, -'Deus qui ad prædicandum æterni regni evangelium Imperium Romanum -præparasti, prætende famulo tuo Imperatori nostro arma coelestia.' -Among the Emperor's official titles there occur these: 'Head of -Christendom,' 'Defender and Advocate of the Christian Church,' -'Temporal Head of the Faithful,' 'Protector of Palestine and of the -Catholic Faith[137].' - -[Sidenote: The rights of the Empire proved from the Bible.] - -Very singular are the reasonings used by which the necessity and -divine right of the Empire are proved out of the Bible. The mediæval -theory of the relation of the civil power to the priestly was -profoundly influenced by the account in the Old Testament of the -Jewish theocracy, in which the king, though the institution of his -office was a derogation from the purity of the older system, appears -divinely chosen and commissioned, and stood in a peculiarly intimate -relation to the national religion. From the New Testament the -authority and eternity of Rome herself was established. Every passage -was seized on where submission to the powers that be is enjoined, -every instance cited where obedience had actually been rendered to -imperial officials, a special emphasis being laid on the sanction -which Christ Himself had given to Roman dominion by pacifying the -world through Augustus, by being born at the time of the taxing, by -paying tribute to Cæsar, by saying to Pilate, 'Thou couldest have no -power at all against Me except it were given thee from above.' - -More attractive to the mystical spirit than these direct arguments -were those drawn from prophecy, or based on the allegorical -interpretation of Scripture. Very early in Christian history had the -belief formed itself that the Roman Empire--as the fourth beast of -Daniel's vision, as the iron legs and feet of Nebuchadnezzar's -image--was to be the world's last and universal kingdom. From Origen -and Jerome downwards it found unquestioned acceptance[138], and that -not unnaturally. For no new power had arisen to extinguish the Roman, -as the Persian monarchy had been blotted out by Alexander, as the -realms of his successors had fallen before the conquering republic -herself. Every Northern conqueror, Goth, Lombard, Burgundian, had -cherished her memory and preserved her laws; Germany had adopted even -the name of the Empire 'dreadful and terrible and strong exceedingly, -and diverse from all that were before it.' To these predictions, and -to many others from the Apocalypse, were added those which in the -Gospels and Epistles foretold the advent of Antichrist[139]. He was to -succeed the Roman dominion, and the Popes are more than once warned -that by weakening the Empire they are hastening the coming of the -enemy and the end of the world[140]. It is not only when groping in -the dark labyrinths of prophecy that mediæval authors are quick in -detecting emblems, imaginative in explaining them. Men were wont in -those days to interpret Scripture in a singular fashion. Not only did -it not occur to them to ask what meaning words had to those to whom -they were originally addressed; they were quite as careless whether -the sense they discovered was one which the language used would -naturally and rationally bear to any reader at any time. No analogy -was too faint, no allegory too fanciful, to be drawn out of a simple -text; and, once propounded, the interpretation acquired in argument -all the authority of the text itself. Thus the two swords of which -Christ said, 'It is enough,' became the spiritual and temporal powers, -and the grant of the spiritual to Peter involves the supremacy of the -Papacy[141]. Thus one writer proves the eternity of Rome from the -seventy-second Psalm, 'They shall fear thee as long as the sun and -moon endure, throughout all generations;' the moon being of course, -since Gregory VII, the Roman Empire, as the sun, or greater light, is -the Popedom. Another quoting, 'Qui tenet teneat donec auferatur[142],' -with Augustine's explanation thereof[143], says, that when 'he who -letteth' is removed, tribes and provinces will rise in rebellion, and -the Empire to which God has committed the government of the human race -will be dissolved. From the miseries of his own time (he wrote under -Frederick III) he predicts that the end is near. The same spirit of -symbolism seized on the number of the electors: 'the seven lamps -burning in the unity of the sevenfold spirit which illumine the Holy -Empire[144].' Strange legends told how Romans and Germans were of one -lineage; how Peter's staff had been found on the banks of the Rhine, -the miracle signifying that a commission was issued to the Germans to -reclaim wandering sheep to the one fold. So complete does the -scriptural proof appear in the hands of mediæval churchmen, many -holding it a mortal sin to resist the power ordained of God, that we -forget they were all the while only adapting to an existing -institution what they found written already; we begin to fancy that -the Empire was maintained, obeyed, exalted for centuries, on the -strength of words to which we attach in almost every case a wholly -different meaning. - -[Sidenote: Illustrations from Mediæval Art.] - -It would be a task both pleasant and profitable to pass on from the -theologians to the poets and artists of the Middle Ages, and endeavour -to trace through their works the influence of the ideas which have -been expounded above. But it is one far too wide for the scope of the -present treatise; and one which would demand an acquaintance with -those works themselves such as only minute and long-continued study -could give. For even a slight knowledge enables any one to see how -much still remains to be interpreted in the imaginative literature and -in the paintings of those times, and how apt we are in glancing over a -piece of work to miss those seemingly trifling indications of the -artist's thought or belief which are all the more precious that they -are indirect or unconscious. Therefore a history of mediæval art which -shall evolve its philosophy from its concrete forms, if it is to have -any value at all, must be minute in description as well as subtle in -method. But lest this class of illustrations should appear to have -been wholly forgotten, it may be well to mention here two paintings in -which the theory of the mediæval empire is unmistakeably set forth. -One of them is in Rome, the other in Florence; every traveller in -Italy may examine both for himself. - -[Sidenote: Mosaic of the Lateran Palace at Rome.] - -The first of these is the famous mosaic of the Lateran triclinium, -constructed by Pope Leo III about A.D. 800, and an exact copy of -which, made by the order of Sextus V, may still be seen over against -the façade of St. John Lateran. Originally meant to adorn the state -banqueting-hall of the Popes, it is now placed in the open air, in the -finest situation in Rome, looking from the brow of a hill across the -green ridges of the Campagna to the olive-groves of Tivoli and the -glistering crags and snow-capped summits of the Umbrian and Sabine -Apennine. It represents in the centre Christ surrounded by the -Apostles, whom He is sending forth to preach the Gospel; one hand is -extended to bless, the other holds a book with the words 'Pax Vobis.' -Below and to the right Christ is depicted again, and this time -sitting: on his right hand kneels Pope Sylvester, on his left the -Emperor Constantine; to the one he gives the keys of heaven and hell, -to the other a banner surmounted by a cross. In the group on the -opposite, that is, on the left side of the arch, we see the Apostle -Peter seated, before whom in like manner kneel Pope Leo III and -Charles the Emperor; the latter wearing, like Constantine, his crown. -Peter, himself grasping the keys, gives to Leo the pallium of an -archbishop, to Charles the banner of the Christian army. The -inscription is, 'Beatus Petrus dona vitam Leoni PP et bictoriam Carulo -regi dona;' while round the arch is written, 'Gloria in excelsis Deo, -et in terra pax omnibus bonæ voluntatis.' - -The order and nature of the ideas here symbolized is sufficiently -clear. First comes the revelation of the Gospel, and the divine -commission to gather all men into its fold. Next, the institution, at -the memorable era of Constantine's conversion, of the two powers by -which the Christian people is to be respectively taught and governed. -Thirdly, we are shewn the permanent Vicar of God, the Apostle who -keeps the keys of heaven and hell, re-establishing these same powers -on a new and firmer basis[145]. The badge of ecclesiastical supremacy -he gives to Leo as the spiritual head of the faithful on earth, the -banner of the Church Militant to Charles, who is to maintain her cause -against heretics and infidels. - -[Sidenote: Fresco in S. Maria Novella at Florence.] - -The second painting is of greatly later date. It is a fresco in the -chapter-house of the Dominican convent of Santa Maria Novella[146] at -Florence, usually known as the Capellone degli Spagnuoli. It has been -commonly ascribed, on Vasari's authority, to Simone Martini of Siena, -but an examination of the dates of his life seems to discredit this -view[147]. Most probably it was executed between A.D. 1340 and 1350. -It is a huge work, covering one whole wall of the chapter-house, and -filled with figures, some of which, but seemingly on no sufficient -authority, have been taken to represent eminent persons of the -time--Cimabue, Arnolfo, Boccaccio, Petrarch, Laura, and others. In it -is represented the whole scheme of man's life here and hereafter--the -Church on earth and the Church in heaven. Full in front are seated -side by side the Pope and the Emperor: on their right and left, in a -descending row, minor spiritual and temporal officials; next to the -Pope a cardinal, bishops, and doctors; next to the Emperor, the king -of France and a line of nobles and knights. Behind them appears the -Duomo of Florence as an emblem of the Visible Church, while at their -feet is a flock of sheep (the faithful) attacked by ravening wolves -(heretics and schismatics), whom a pack of spotted dogs (the -Dominicans[148]) combat and chase away. From this, the central -foreground of the picture, a path winds round and up a height to a -great gate where the Apostle sits on guard to admit true believers: -they passing through it are met by choirs of seraphs, who lead them on -through the delicious groves of Paradise. Above all, at the top of the -painting and just over the spot where his two lieutenants, Pope and -Emperor, are placed below, is the Saviour enthroned amid saints and -angels[149]. - -[Sidenote: Anti-national character of the Empire.] - -Here, too, there needs no comment. The Church Militant is the perfect -counterpart of the Church Triumphant: her chief danger is from those -who would rend the unity of her visible body, the seamless garment of -her heavenly Lord; and that devotion to His person which is the sum of -her faith and the essence of her being, must on earth be rendered to -those two lieutenants whom He has chosen to govern in His name. - -A theory, such as that which it has been attempted to explain and -illustrate, is utterly opposed to restrictions of place or person. The -idea of one Christian people, all whose members are equal in the sight -of God,--an idea so forcibly expressed in the unity of the priesthood, -where no barrier separated the successor of the Apostle from the -humblest curate,--and in the prevalence of one language for worship -and government, made the post of Emperor independent of the race, or -rank, or actual resources of its occupant. The Emperor was entitled to -the obedience of Christendom, not as hereditary chief of a victorious -tribe, or feudal lord of a portion of the earth's surface, but as -solemnly invested with an office. Not only did he excel in dignity the -kings of the earth: his power was different in its nature; and, so far -from supplanting or rivalling theirs, rose above them to become the -source and needful condition of their authority in their several -territories, the bond which joined them in one harmonious body. The -vast dominions and vigorous personal action of Charles the Great had -concealed this distinction while he reigned; under his successors the -imperial crown appeared disconnected from the direct government of the -kingdoms they had established, existing only in the form of an -undefined suzerainty, as the type of that unity without which men's -minds could not rest. It was characteristic of the Middle Ages, that -demanding the existence of an Emperor, they were careless who he was -or how he was chosen, so he had been duly inaugurated; and that they -were not shocked by the contrast between unbounded rights and actual -helplessness. At no time in the world's history has theory, pretending -all the while to control practice, been so utterly divorced from it. -Ferocious and sensual, that age worshipped humility and asceticism: -there has never been a purer ideal of love, nor a grosser profligacy -of life. - -The power of the Roman Emperor cannot as yet be called international; -though this, as we shall see, became in later times its most important -aspect; for in the tenth century national distinctions had scarcely -begun to exist. But its genius was clerical and old Roman, in nowise -territorial or Teutonic: it rested not on armed hosts or wide lands, -but upon the duty, the awe, the love of its subjects. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[102] I do not mean to say that the system of ideas which it is -endeavoured to set forth in the following pages was complete in this -particular form, either in the days of Charles or in those of Otto, or -in those of Frederick Barbarossa. It seems to have been constantly -growing and decaying from the fourth century to the sixteenth, the -relative prominence of its cardinal doctrines varying from age to age. -But, just as the painter who sees the ever-shifting lights and shades -play over the face of a wide landscape faster than his brush can place -them on the canvas, in despair at representing their exact position at -any single moment, contents himself with painting the effects that are -broadest and most permanent, and at giving rather the impression which -the scene makes on him than every detail of the scene itself, so here, -the best and indeed the only practicable course seems to be that of -setting forth in its most self-consistent form the body of ideas and -beliefs on which the Empire rested, although this form may not be -exactly that which they can be asserted to have worn in any one -century, and although the illustrations adduced may have to be taken -sometimes from earlier, sometimes from later writers. As the doctrine -of the Empire was in its essence the same during the whole Middle Age, -such a general description as is attempted here may, I venture to -hope, be found substantially true for the tenth as well as for the -fourteenth century. - -[103] Empires like the Persian did nothing to assimilate the subject -races, who retained their own laws and customs, sometimes their own -princes, and were bound only to serve in the armies and fill the -treasury of the Great King. - -[104] Od. iii. 72:-- - - [Greek: ... ê mapsidiôs alalêsthe, - hoia te lêïstêres, hypeir hala, toit' aloôntai - psychas parthemenoi, kakon allodapoisi pherontes?] - -Cf. Od. ix. 39: and the Hymn to the Pythian Apollo, I. 274. So in II. -v. 214, [Greek: allotrios phôs]. - -[105] Plato, in the beginning of the Laws, represents it as natural -between all states: [Greek: polemos physei hyparchei pros hapasas tas -poleis]. - -[106] See especially Acts xvii. 26; Gal. iii. 28; Eph. ii. 11, sqq.; -iv. 3-6; Col. iii. 11. - -[107] This is drawn out by Laurent, _Histoire du Droit des Gens_; and -Ægidi, _Der Fürstenrath nach dem Luneviller Frieden_. - -[108] 'Romanos enim vocitant homines nostræ religionis.'--Gregory of -Tours, quoted by Ægidi, from A. F. Pott, _Essay on the Words 'Römisch,' -'Romanisch,' 'Roman,' 'Romantisch.'_ So in the Middle Ages, [Greek: -Rhômaioi] is used to mean Christians, as opposed to [Greek: Hellênes], -heathens. - -Cf. Ducange, 'Romani olim dicti qui alias Christiani vel etiam -Catholici.' - -[109] As a reviewer in the _Tablet_ (whose courtesy it is the more -pleasant to acknowledge since his point of view is altogether opposed -to mine) has understood this passage as meaning that 'people imagined -the Christian religion was to last for ever because the Holy Roman -Empire was never to decay,' it may be worth while to say that this is -far from being the purport of the argument which this chapter was -designed to state. The converse would be nearer the truth:--'people -imagined the Holy Roman Empire was never to decay, because the -Christian religion was to last for ever.' - -The phenomen may perhaps be stated thus:--Men who were already -disposed to believe the Roman Empire to be eternal for one set of -reasons, came to believe the Christian Church to be eternal for -another and, to them, more impressive set of reasons. Seeing the two -institutions allied in fact, they took their alliance and connection -to be eternal also; and went on for centuries believing in the -necessary existence of the Roman Empire because they believed in its -necessary union with the Catholic Church. - -[110] Augustine, in the _De Civitate Dei_. His influence, great -through all the Middle Ages, was greater on no one than on -Charles.--'Delectabatur et libris sancti Augustini, præcipueque his -qui De Civitate Dei prætitulati sunt.'--Eginhard, _Vita Karoli_, cap. -24. - -[111] 'Quapropter universorum precibus fidelium optandum est, ut in -omnem gloriam vestram extendatur imperium, ut scilicet catholica fides -... veraciter in una confessione cunctorum cordibus infigatur, -quatenus summi Regis donante pietate eadem sanctæ pacis et perfectæ -caritatis omnes ubique regat et custodiat unitas.' Quoted by Waitz -(_Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte_, ii. 182) from an unprinted letter -of Alcuin. - -[112] A curious illustration of this tendency of mind is afforded by -the descriptions we meet with of Learning or Theology (_Studium_) as a -concrete existence, having a visible dwelling in the University of -Paris. The three great powers which rule human life, says one writer, -the Popedom, the Empire, and Learning, have been severally entrusted -to the three foremost nations of Europe: Italians, Germans, French. -'His siquidem tribus, scilicet sacerdotio imperio et studio, tanquam -tribus virtutibus, videlicet naturali vitali et scientiali, catholica -ecclesia spiritualiter mirificatur, augmentatur et regitur. His itaque -tribus, tanquam fundamento, pariete et tecto, eadem ecclesia tanquam -materialiter proficit. Et sicut ecclesia materialis uno tantum -fundamento et uno tecto eget, parietibus vero quatuor, ita imperium -quatuor habet parietes, hoc est, quatuor imperii sedes, Aquisgranum, -Arelatum, Mediolanum, Romam.'--_Jordanis Chronica_; _ap._ Schardius -_Sylloge Tractatuum_. And see Döllinger, _Die Vergangenheit und -Gegenwart der katholischen Theologie_, p. 8. - -[113] 'Una est sola respublica totius populi Christiani, ergo de -necessitate erit et unus solus princeps et rex illius reipublicæ, -statutus et stabilitus ad ipsius fidei et populi Christiani -dilatationem et defensionem. Ex qua ratione concludit etiam Augustinus -(_De Civitate Dei_, lib. xix.) quod extra ecclesiam nunquam fuit nec -potuit nec poterit esse verum imperium, etsi fuerint imperatores -qualitercumque et secundum quid, non simpliciter, qui fuerunt extra -fidem Catholicam et ecclesiam.'--Engelbert (abbot of Admont in Upper -Austria), _De Ortu et Fine imperii Romani_ (circ. 1310). - -In this 'de necessitate' everything is included. - -[114] See note 37. - -[115] This is admirably brought out by Ægidi, _Der Fürstenrath nach -dem Luneviller Frieden_. - -[116] See the original forgery (or rather the extracts which Gratian -gives from it) in the _Corpus Iuris Canonici_, _Dist._ xcvi. cc. 13, -14. 'Et sicut nostram terrenam imperialem potentiam, sic sacrosanctam -Romanam ecclesiam decrevimus veneranter honorari, et amplius quam -nostrum imperium et terrenum thronum sedem beati Petri gloriose -exaltari, tribuentes ei potestatem et gloriæ dignitatem atque vigorem -et honorificentiam imperialem.... Beato Sylvestro patri nostro summo -pontifici et universali urbis Romæ papæ, et omnibus eius successoribus -pontificibus, qui usque in finem mundi in sede beati Petri erunt -sessuri, de præsenti contradimus palatium imperii nostri Lateranense, -deinde diadema, videlicet coronam capitis nostri, simulque phrygium, -necnon et superhumerale, verum etiam et chlamydem purpuream et tunicam -coccineam, et omnia imperialia indumenta, sed et dignitatem imperialem -præsidentium equitum, conferentes etiam et imperialia sceptra, -simulque cuncta signa atque banda et diversa ornamenta imperialia et -omnem processionem imperialis culminis et gloriam potestatis -nostræ.... Et sicut imperialis militia ornatur ita et clerum sanctæ -Romanæ ecclesiæ ornari decernimus.... Unde ut pontificalis apex non -vilescat sed magis quam terreni imperii dignitas gloria et potentia -decoretur, ecce tam palatium nostrum quam Romanam urbem et omnes -Italiæ seu occidentalium regionum provincias loca et civitates -beatissimo papæ Sylvestro universali papæ contradimus atque -relinquimus.... Ubi enim principatus sacerdotum et Christianæ -religionis caput ab imperatore coelesti constitutum est, iustum non est -ut illic imperator terrenus habeat potestatem.' - -The practice of kissing the Pope's foot was adopted in imitation of -the old imperial court. It was afterwards revived by the German -Emperors. - -[117] Döllinger has shewn in a recent work (_Die Papst-Fabeln des -Mittelalters_) that the common belief that Gregory II excited the -revolt against Leo the Iconoclast is unfounded. - -So Anastasius, 'Ammonebat (_sc._ Gregorius Secundus) ne a fide vel -amore Romani imperii desisterent.'--_Vitæ Pontif. Rom._ - -[118] Of this curious seal, a leaden one, preserved at Paris, a figure -is given upon the cover of this volume. There are very few monuments -of that age whose genuineness can be considered altogether beyond -doubt; but this seal has many respectable authorities in its favour. -See, among others, Le Blanc, _Dissertation historique sur quelques -Monnoies de Charlemagne_, Paris, 1689; J. M. Heineccius, _De Veteribus -Germanorum aliarumque nationum sigillis_, Lips. 1709; Anastasius, -_Vitæ Pontificum Romanorum_, ed. Vignoli, Romæ, 1752; Götz, -_Deutschlands Kayser-Münzen des Mittelalters_, Dresden, 1827; and the -authorities cited by Waitz, _Deutsche Verfassungs-geschichte_, iii. -179, n. 4. - -[119] 'Præterea mirari se dilecta fraternitas tua quod non Francorum -set Romanorum imperatores nos appellemus; set scire te convenit quia -nisi Romanorum imperatores essemus, utique nec Francorum. A Romanis -enim hoc nomen et dignitatem assumpsimus, apud quos profecto primum -tantæ culmen sublimitatis effulsit,' &c--_Letter of the Emperor Lewis -II to Basil the Emperor at Constantinople_, from _Chron. Salernit. -ap._ Murat. _S. R. I._ - -[120] 'Illam (_sc._ Romanam ecclesiam) solus ille fundavit, et super -petram fidei mox nascentis erexit, qui beato æternæ vitæ clavigero -terreni simul et coelestis imperii iura commisit.'--_Corpus Iuris -Canonici_, _Dist._ xxii. c. 1. The expression is not uncommon in -mediæval writers. So 'unum est imperium Patris et Filii et Spiritus -Sancti, cuius est pars ecclesia constituta in terris,' in Lewis II's -letter. - -[121] 'Merito summus Pontifex Romanus episcopus dici potest rex et -sacerdos. Si enim dominus noster Iesus Christus sic appellatur, non -videtur incongruum suum vocare successorem. Corporale et temporale ex -spirituali et perpetuo dependet, sicut corporis operatio ex virtute -animæ. Sicut ergo corpus per animam habet esse virtutem et -operationem, ita et temporalis iurisdictio principum per spiritualem -Petri et successorum eius.'--St. Thomas Aquinas, _De Regimine -Principum_. - -[122] 'Nonne Romana ecclesia tenetur imperatori tanquam suo patrono, -et imperator ecclesiam fovere et defensare tanquam suus vere patronus? -certe sic.... Patronis vero concessum est ut prælatos in ecclesiis sui -patronatus eligant. Cum ergo imperator onus sentiat patronatus, ut qui -tenetur eam defendere, sentire debet honorem et emolumentum.' I quote -this from a curious document in Goldast's collection of tracts -(_Monarchia Imperii_), entitled '_Letter of the four Universities, -Paris, Oxford, Prague, and the "Romana generalitas," to the Emperor -Wenzel and Pope Urban_,' A.D. 1380. The title can scarcely be right, -but if the document is, as in all probability it is, not later than -the fifteenth century, its being misdescribed, or even its being a -forgery, does not make it less valuable as an evidence of men's ideas. - -[123] So Leo III in a charter issued on the day of Charles's -coronation: '... actum in præsentia gloriosi atque excellentissimi -filii nostri Caroli quem auctore Deo in defensionem et provectionem -sanctæ universalis ecclesiæ hodie Augustum sacravimus.'--Jaffé -_Regesta Pontificum Romanorum_, ad ann. 800. - -So, indeed, Theodulf of Orleans, a contemporary of Charles, ascribes -to the Emperor an almost papal authority over the Church itself:-- - - 'Coeli habet hic (_sc._ Papa) claves, proprias te iussit habere; - Tu regis ecclesiæ, nam regit ille poli; - Tu regis eius opes, clerum populumque gubernas, - Hic te coelicolas ducet ad usque choros.' - In D. Bouquet, v. 415. - -[124] Perhaps at no more than three: in the time of Charles and Leo; -again under Otto III and his two Popes, Gregory V and Sylvester II; -thirdly, under Henry III; certainly never thenceforth. - -[125] _The Sachsenspiegel_ (_Speculum Saxonicum_, circ. A.D. 1240), -the great North-German law book, says, 'The Empire is held from God -alone, not from the Pope. Emperor and Pope are supreme each in what -has been entrusted to him: the Pope in what concerns the soul; the -Emperor in all that belongs to the body and to knighthood.' _The -Schwabenspiegel_, compiled half a century later, subordinates the -prince to the pontiff: 'Daz weltliche Schwert des Gerichtes daz lihet -der Babest dem Chaiser; daz geistlich ist dem Babest gesetzt daz er -damit richte.' - -[126] So Boniface VIII in the bull _Unam Sanctam_, will have but one -head for the Christian people. 'Igitur ecclesiæ unius et unicæ unum -corpus, unum caput, non duo capita quasi monstrum.' - -[127] St. Bernard writes to Conrad III: 'Non veniat anima mea in -consilium eorum qui dicunt vel imperio pacem et libertatem ecclesiæ -vel ecclesiæ prosperitatem et exaltationem imperii nocituram.' So in -the _De Consideratione_: 'Si utrumque simul habere velis, perdes -utrumque,' of the papal claim to temporal and spiritual authority, -quoted by Gieseler. - -[128] 'Sedens in solio armatus et cinctus ensem, habensque in capite -Constantini diadema, stricto dextra capulo ensis accincti, ait: -"Numquid ego summus sum pontifex? nonne ista est cathedra Petri? Nonne -possum imperii iura tutari? ego sum Cæsar, ego sum imperator."'--Fr. -Pipinus (ap. Murat. _S. R. I._ ix.) l. iv. c. 47. These words, -however, are by this writer ascribed to Boniface, when receiving the -envoys of the emperor Albert I, in A.D. 1299. I have not been able to -find authority for their use at the jubilee, but give the current -story for what it is worth. - -It has been suggested that Dante may be alluding to this sword scene -in a well-known passage of the Purgatorio (xvi. l. 106):-- - - 'Soleva Roma, che 'l buon mondo feo - Duo Soli aver, che l' una e l' altra strada - Facean vedere, e del mondo e di Deo. - L' un l' altro ha spento, ed è giunta la spada - Col pastorale: e l' un coll altro insieme - Per viva forzu mal convien che vada.' - - -[129] See especially Peter de Andlo (_De Imperio Romano_); Ralph -Colonna (_De translatione Imperii Romani_); Dante (_De Monarchia_); -Engelbert (_De Ortu et Fine Imperii Romani_); Marsilius Patavinus (_De -translatione Imperii Romani_); Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini (_De Ortu et -Authoritate Imperii Romani_); Zoannetus (_De Imperio Romano atque ejus -Iurisdictione_); and the writers in Schardius's _Sylloge_, and in -Goldast's Collection of Tracts, entitled _Monarchia Imperii_. - -[130] Letter of Lewis II to Basil the Macedonian, in _Chron. -Salernit._ in Mur. _S. R. I._; also given by Baronius, _Ann. Eccl._ ad -ann. 871. - -[131] 'Ad summum dignitatis pervenisti: Vicarius es Christi.'--Wippo, -_Vita Chuonradi_ (_ap._ Pertz), c. 3. - -[132] Letter in Radewic, _ap._ Murat, _S. R. I._ - -[133] Lewis IV is styled in one of his proclamations, 'Gentis humanæ, -orbis Christiani custos, urbi et orbi a Deo electus præesse.'--Pfeffinger, -_Vitriarius Illustratus_. - -[134] In a document issued by the Diet of Speyer (A.D. 1529) the -Emperor is called 'Oberst, Vogt, und Haupt der Christenheit.' -Hieronymus Balbus, writing about the same time, puts the question -whether all Christians are subject to the Emperor in temporal things, -as they are to the Pope in spiritual, and answers it by saying, 'Cum -ambo ex eodem fonte perfluxerint et eadem semita incedant, de utroque -idem puto sentiendum.' - -[135] 'Non magis ad Papam depositio seu remotio pertinet quam ad -quoslibet regum prælatos, qui reges suos prout assolent, consecrant et -inungunt.'--_Letter of Frederick II_ (lib. i. c. 3). - -[136] _Liber Ceremonialis Romanus_, lib. i. sect. 5; with which -compare the _Coronatio Romana_ of Henry VII, in Pertz, and Muratori's -Dissertation in vol. i. of the _Antiquitates Italiæ Medii Ævi_. - -[137] See Goldast, _Collection of Imperial Constitutions_; and Moser, -_Römische Kayser_. - -[138] The abbot Engelbert (_De Ortu et Fine Imperii Romani_) quotes -Origen and Jerome to this effect, and proceeds himself to explain, -from 2 Thess. ii., how the falling away will precede the coming of -Antichrist. There will be a triple 'discessio,' of the kingdoms of the -earth from the Roman Empire, of the Church from the Apostolic See, of -the faithful from the faith. Of these, the first causes the second; -the temporal sword to punish heretics and schismatics being no longer -ready to work the will of the rulers of the Church. - -[139] A full statement of the views that prevailed in the earlier -Middle Age regarding Antichrist--as well as of the singular prophecy -of the Frankish Emperor who shall appear in the latter days, conquer -the world, and then going to Jerusalem shall lay down his crown on the -Mount of Olives and deliver over the kingdom to Christ--may be found -in the little treatise, _Vita Antichristi_, which Adso, monk and -afterwards abbot of Moutier-en-Der, compiled (cir. 950) for the -information of Queen Gerberga, wife of Louis d'Outremer. Antichrist is -to be born a Jew of the tribe of Dan (Gen. xlix. 17), 'non de episcopo -et monacha, sicut alii delirando dogmatizant, sed de immundissima -meretrice et crudelissimo nebulone. Totus in peccato concipietur, in -peccato generabitur, in peccato nascetur.' His birthplace is Babylon: -he is to be brought up in Bethsaida and Chorazin. - -Adso's book may be found printed in Migne, t. ci. p. 1290. - -[140] S. Thomas explains the prophecy in a remarkable manner, shewing -how the decline of the Empire is no argument against its fulfilment. -'Dicendum quod nondum cessavit, sed est commutatum de temporali in -spirituale, ut dicit Leo Papa in sermone de Apostolis: et ideo -discessio a Romano imperio debet intelligi non solum a temporali sed -etiam a spirituali, scilicit a fide Catholica Romanæ Ecclesiæ. Est -autem hoc conveniens signum nam Christus venit, quando Romanum -imperium omnibus dominabatur: ita e contra signum adventus Antichristi -est discessio ab eo.'--_Comment. ad 2 Thess._ ii. - -[141] See note 149, page 119. The Papal party sometimes insisted that -both swords were given to Peter, while the imperialists assigned the -temporal sword to John. Thus a gloss to the _Sachsenspiegel_ says, -'Dat eine svert hadde Sinte Peter, dat het nu de paves: dat andere -hadde Johannes, dat het nu de keyser.' - -[142] 2 Thess. ii. 7. - -[143] St. Augustine, however, though he states the view (applying the -passage to the Roman Empire) which was generally received in the -Middle Ages, is careful not to commit himself positively to it. - -[144] _Jordanis Chronica_ (written towards the close of the thirteenth -century). - -[145] Compare with this the words which Pope Hadrian I. had used some -twenty-three years before, of Charles as representative of -Constantine: 'Et sicut temporibus Beati Sylvestri, Romani pontificis, -a sanctæ recordationis piissimo Constantino magno imperatore, per eius -largitatem sancta Dei catholica et apostolica Romana ecclesia elevata -atque exaltata est, et potestatem in his Hesperiæ partibus largiri -dignatus est, ita et in his vestris felicissimis temporibus atque -nostris, sancta Dei ecclesia, id est, beati Petri apostoli germinet -atque exsultet, ut omnes gentes quæ hæc audierint edicere valeant, -'Domine salvum fac regem, et exaudi nos in die in qua invocaverimus -te;' quia ecce novus Christianissimus Dei Constantinus imperator his -temporibus surrexit, per quem omnia Deus sanctæ suæ ecclesiæ beati -apostolorum principis Petri largiri dignatus est.'--_Letter XLIX of -Cod. Carol._, A.D. 777 (in Mur. _Scriptores Rerum Italicarum_). - -This letter is memorable as containing the first allusion, or what -seems an allusion, to Constantine's Donation. - -The phrase 'sancta Dei ecclesia, id est, B. Petri apostoli,' is worth -noting. - -[146] The church in which the opening scene of Boccaccio's _Decameron_ -is laid. - -[147] So Kugler (Eastlake's ed. vol. i. p. 144), and so also Messrs. -Crowe and Cavalcaselle, in their _New History of Painting in Italy_, -vol. ii. pp. 85 _sqq._ - -[148] Domini canes. Spotted because of their black-and-white raiment. - -[149] There is of course a great deal more detail in the picture, -which it does not appear necessary to describe. St. Dominic is a -conspicuous figure. - -It is worth remarking that the Emperor, who is on the Pope's left -hand, and so made slightly inferior to him while superior to every one -else, holds in his hand, instead of the usual imperial globe, a -death's head, typifying the transitory nature of his power. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. - -THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND THE GERMAN KINGDOM. - - -[Sidenote: Union of the Roman Empire with the German kingdom.] - -This was the office which Otto the Great assumed in A.D. 962. But it -was not his only office. He was already a German king; and the new -dignity by no means superseded the old. This union in one person of -two characters, a union at first personal, then official, and which -became at last a fusion of the two into something different from -either, is the key to the whole subsequent history of Germany and the -Empire. - -[Sidenote: Germany and its monarchy.] - -Of the German kingdom little need be said, since it differs in no -essential respect from the other kingdoms of Western Europe as they -stood in the tenth century. The five or six great tribes or -tribe-leagues which composed the German nation had been first brought -together under the sceptre of the Carolingians; and, though still -retaining marks of their independent origin, were prevented from -separating by community of speech and a common pride in the great -Frankish Empire. When the line of Charles the Great ended in A.D. 911, -by the death of Lewis the Child (son of Arnulf), Conrad, duke of the -Franconians, and after him Henry (the Fowler), duke of the Saxons, was -chosen to fill the vacant throne. By his vigorous yet conciliatory -action, his upright character, his courage and good fortune in -repelling the Hungarians, Henry laid deep the foundations of royal -power: under his more famous son it rose into a stable edifice. Otto's -coronation feast at Aachen, where the great nobles of the realm did -him menial service, where Franks, Bavarians, Suabians, Thuringians, -and Lorrainers gathered round the Saxon monarch, is the inauguration -of a true Teutonic realm, which, though it called itself not German -but East Frankish, and claimed to be the lawful representative of the -Carolingian monarchy, had a constitution and a tendency in many -respects different. - -[Sidenote: Feudalism.] - -There had been under those princes a singular mixture of the old -German organization by tribes or districts (the so-called -Gauverfassung), such as we find in the earliest records, with the -method introduced by Charles of maintaining by means of officials, -some fixed, others moving from place to place, the control of the -central government. In the suspension of that government which -followed his days, there grew up a system whose seeds had been sown as -far back as the time of Clovis, a system whose essence was the -combination of the tenure of land by military service with a peculiar -personal relation between the landlord and his tenant, whereby the one -was bound to render fatherly protection, the other aid and obedience. -This is not the place for tracing the origin of feudality on Roman -soil, nor for shewing how, by a sort of contagion, it spread into -Germany, how it struck firm root in the period of comparative quiet -under Pipin and Charles, how from the hands of the latter it took the -impress which determined its ultimate form, how the weakness of his -successors allowed it to triumph everywhere. Still less would it be -possible here to examine its social and moral influence. Politically -it might be defined as the system which made the owner of a piece of -land, whether large or small, the sovereign of those who dwelt -thereon: an annexation of personal to territorial authority more -familiar to Eastern despotism than to the free races of primitive -Europe. On this principle were founded, and by it are explained, -feudal law and justice, feudal finance, feudal legislation, each -tenant holding towards his lord the position which his own tenants -held towards himself. And it is just because the relation was so -uniform, the principle so comprehensive, the ruling class so firmly -bound to its support, that feudalism has been able to lay upon society -that grasp which the struggles of more than twenty generations have -scarcely shaken off. - -[Sidenote: The feudal king.] - -[Sidenote: The nobility.] - -[Sidenote: The Germanic feudal polity generally.] - -Now by the middle of the tenth century, Germany, less fully committed -than France to feudalism's worst feature, the hopeless bondage of the -peasantry, was otherwise thoroughly feudalized. As for that equality -of all the freeborn save the sacred line which we find in the Germany -of Tacitus, there had been substituted a gradation of ranks and a -concentration of power in the hands of a landholding caste, so had the -monarch lost his ancient character as leader and judge of the people, -to become the head of a tyrannical oligarchy. He was titular lord of -the soil, could exact from his vassals service and aid in arms and -money, could dispose of vacant fiefs, could at pleasure declare war or -make peace. But all these rights he exercised far less as sovereign of -the nation than as standing in a peculiar relation to the feudal -tenants, a relation in its origin strictly personal, and whose -prominence obscured the political duties of prince and subject. And -great as these rights might become in the hands of an ambitious and -politic ruler, they were in practice limited by the corresponding -duties he owed to his vassals, and by the difficulty of enforcing them -against a powerful offender. The king was not permitted to retain in -his own hands escheated fiefs, must even grant away those he had held -before coming to the throne; he could not interfere with the -jurisdiction of his tenants in their own lands, nor prevent them from -waging war or forming leagues with each other like independent -princes. Chief among the nobles stood the dukes, who, although their -authority was now delegated, theoretically at least, instead of -independent, territorial instead of personal, retained nevertheless -much of that hold on the exclusive loyalty of their subjects which had -belonged to them as hereditary leaders of the tribe under the ancient -system. They were, with the three Rhenish archbishops, by far the -greatest subjects, often aspiring to the crown, sometimes not unable -to resist its wearer. The constant encroachments which Otto made upon -their privileges, especially through the institution of the Counts -Palatine, destroyed their ascendancy, but not their importance. It was -not till the thirteenth century that they disappeared with the rise of -the second order of nobility. That order, at this period far less -powerful, included the counts, margraves or marquises and landgraves, -originally officers of the crown, now feudal tenants; holding their -lands of the dukes, and maintaining against them the same contest -which they in turn waged with the crown. Below these came the barons -and simple knights, then the diminishing class of freemen, the -increasing one of serfs. The institutions of primitive Germany were -almost all gone; supplanted by a new system, partly the natural result -of the formation of a settled from a half-nomad society, partly -imitated from that which had arisen upon Roman soil, west of the Rhine -and south of the Alps. The army was no longer the Heerban of the whole -nation, which had been wont to follow the king on foot in distant -expeditions, but a cavalry militia of barons and their retainers, -bound to service for a short period, and rendering it unwillingly -where their own interest was not concerned. The frequent popular -assemblies, whereof under the names of the Mallum, the Placitum, the -Mayfield, we hear so much under Clovis and Charles, were now never -summoned, and the laws that had been promulgated there were, if not -abrogated, practically obsolete. No national council existed, save the -Diet in which the higher nobility, lay and clerical, met their -sovereign, sometimes to decide on foreign war, oftener to concur in -the grant of a fief or the proscription of a rebel. Every district had -its own rude local customs administered by the court of the local -lord: other law there was none, for imperial jurisprudence had in -these lately civilized countries not yet filled the place left empty -by the disuse of the barbarian codes. - -[Sidenote: The Roman Empire and the German kingdom.] - -This condition of things was indeed better than that utter confusion -which had gone before, for a principle of order had begun to group and -bind the tossing atoms; and though the union into which it drove men -was a hard and narrow one, it was something that they should have -learnt to unite themselves at all. Yet nascent feudality was but one -remove from anarchy; and the tendency to isolation and diversity -continued, despite the efforts of the Church and the Carolingian -princes, to be all-powerful in Western Europe. The German kingdom was -already a bond between the German races, and appears strong and united -when we compare it with the France of Hugh Capet, or the England of -Ethelred II; yet its history to the twelfth century is little else -than a record of disorders, revolts, civil wars, of a ceaseless -struggle on the part of the monarch to enforce his feudal rights, a -resistance by his vassals equally obstinate and more frequently -successful. What the issue of the contest might have been if Germany -had been left to take her own course is matter of speculation, though -the example of every European state except England and Norway may -incline the balance in favour of the crown. But the strife had -scarcely begun when a new influence was interposed: the German king -became Roman Emperor. No two systems can be more unlike than those -whose headship became thus vested in one person: the one centralized, -the other local; the one resting on a sublime theory, the other the -rude offspring of anarchy; the one gathering all power into the hands -of an irresponsible monarch, the other limiting his rights and -authorizing resistance to his commands; the one demanding the equality -of all citizens as creatures equal before Heaven, the other bound up -with an aristocracy the proudest, and in its gradations of rank the -most exact, that Europe had ever seen. Characters so repugnant could -not, it might be thought, meet in one person, or if they met must -strive till one swallowed up the other. It was not so. In the fusion -which began from the first, though it was for a time imperceptible, -each of the two characters gave and each lost some of its attributes: -the king became more than German, the Emperor less than Roman, till, -at the end of six centuries, the monarch in whom two 'persons' had -been united, appeared as a third different from either of the former, -and might not inappropriately be entitled 'German Emperor[150].' The -nature and progress of this change will appear in the after history of -Germany, and cannot be described here without in some measure -anticipating subsequent events. A word or two may indicate how the -process of fusion began. - -[Sidenote: Results of this union in one person.] - -It was natural that the great mass of Otto's subjects, to whom the -imperial title, dimly associated with Rome and the Pope, sounded -grander than the regal, without being known as otherwise different, -should in thought and speech confound them. The sovereign and his -ecclesiastical advisers, with far clearer views of the new office and -of the mutual relation of the two, found it impossible to separate -them in practice, and were glad to merge the lesser in the greater. -For as lord of the world, Otto was Emperor north as well as south of -the Alps. When he issued an edict, he claimed the obedience of his -Teutonic subjects in both capacities; when as Emperor he led the -armies of the gospel against the heathen, it was the standard of their -feudal superior that his armed vassals followed; when he founded -churches and appointed bishops, he acted partly as suzerain of feudal -lands, partly as protector of the faith, charged to guide the Church -in matters temporal. Thus the assumption of the imperial crown brought -to Otto as its first result an apparent increase of domestic -authority; it made his position by its historical associations more -dignified, by its religious more hallowed; it raised him higher above -his vassals and above other sovereigns; it enlarged his prerogative in -ecclesiastical affairs, and by necessary consequence gave to -ecclesiastics a more important place at court and in the -administration of government than they had enjoyed before. Great as -was the power of the bishops and abbots in all the feudal kingdoms, it -stood nowhere so high as in Germany. There the Emperor's double -position, as head both of Church and State, required the two -organizations to be exactly parallel. In the eleventh century a full -half of the land and wealth of the country, and no small part of its -military strength, was in the hands of Churchmen: their influence -predominated in the Diet; the archchancellorship of the Empire, -highest of all offices, belonged of right to the archbishop of Mentz, -as primate of Germany. It was by Otto, who in resuming the attitude -must repeat the policy of Charles, that the greatness of the clergy -was thus advanced. He is commonly said to have wished to weaken the -aristocracy by raising up rivals to them in the hierarchy. It may have -been so, and the measure was at any rate a disastrous one, for the -clergy soon approved themselves not less rebellious than those whom -they were to restrain. But in accusing Otto's judgment, historians -have often forgotten in what position he stood to the Church, and how -it behoved him, according to the doctrine received, to establish in -her an order like in all things to that which he found already -subsisting in the State. - -[Sidenote: Changes in title.] - -The style which Otto adopted shewed his desire thus to merge the king -in the Emperor[151]. Charles had called himself 'Imperator Cæsar -Carolus rex Francorum invictissimus;' and again, 'Carolus serenissimus -Augustus, Pius, Felix, Romanorum gubernans Imperium, qui et per -misericordiam Dei rex Francorum atque Langobardorum.' Otto and his -first successors, who until their coronation at Rome had used the -titles of 'Rex Francorum,' or 'Rex Francorum Orientalium,' or oftener -still 'Rex' alone, discarded after it all titles save the highest of -'Imperator Augustus;' seeming thereby, though they too had been -crowned at Aachen and Milan, to claim the authority of Cæsar through -all their dominions. Tracing as we are the history of a title, it is -needless to dwell on the significance of the change[152]. Charles, son -of the Ripuarian allies of Probus, had been a Frankish chieftain on -the Rhine; Otto, the Saxon, successor of the Cheruscan Arminius, would -rule his native Elbe with a power borrowed from the Tiber. - -[Sidenote: Imperial power feudalized.] - -Nevertheless, the imperial element did not in every respect -predominate over the royal. The monarch might desire to make good -against his turbulent barons the boundless prerogative which he -acquired with his new crown, but he lacked the power to do so; and -they, disputing neither the supremacy of that crown nor his right to -wear it, refused with good reason to let their own freedom be -infringed upon by any act of which they had not been the authors. So -far was Otto from embarking on so vain an enterprise, that his rule -was even more direct and more personal than that of Charles had been. -There was no scheme of mechanical government, no claim of absolutism; -there was only the resolve to make the energetic assertion of the -king's feudal rights subserve the further aims of the Emperor. What -Otto demanded he demanded as Emperor, what he received he received as -king; the singular result was that in Germany the imperial office was -itself pervaded and transformed by feudal ideas. Feudality needing, to -make its theory complete, a lord paramount of the world, from whose -grant all ownership in land must be supposed to have emanated, and -finding such a suzerain in the Emperor, constituted him liege lord of -all kings and potentates, keystone of the feudal arch, himself, as it -was expressed, 'holding' the world from God. There were not wanting -Roman institutions to which these notions could attach themselves. -Constantine, imitating the courts of the East, had made the -dignitaries of his household great officials of the State: these were -now reproduced in the cup-bearer, the seneschal, the marshal, the -chamberlain of the Empire, so soon to become its electoral princes. -The holding of land on condition of military service was Roman in its -origin: the divided ownership of feudal law found its analogies in the -Roman tenure of emphyteusis. Thus while Germany was Romanized the -Empire was feudalized, and came to be considered not the antagonist -but the perfection of an aristocratic system. And it was this -adaptation to existing political facts that enabled it afterwards to -assume an international character. Nevertheless, even while they -seemed to blend, there remained between the genius of imperialism (if -one may use a now perverted word) and that of feudalism a deep and -lasting hostility. And so the rule of Otto and his successors was in a -measure adverse to feudal polity, not from knowledge of what Roman -government had been, but from the necessities of their position, -raised as they were to an unapproachable height above their subjects, -surrounded with a halo of sanctity as protectors of the Church. Thus -were they driven to reduce local independence, and assimilate the -various races through their vast territories. It was Otto who made the -Germans, hitherto an aggregate of tribes, a single people, and welding -them into a strong political body taught them to rise through its -collective greatness to the consciousness of national life, never -thenceforth to be extinguished. - -[Sidenote: The Commons.] - -One expedient against the land-holding oligarchy which Roman -traditions as well as present needs might have suggested, it was -scarcely possible for Otto to use. He could not invoke the friendship -of the Third Estate, for as yet none existed. The Teutonic order of -freemen, which two centuries earlier had formed the bulk of the -population, was now fast disappearing, just as in England all who did -not become thanes were classed as ceorls, and from ceorls sank for the -most part, after the Conquest, into villeins. It was only in the -Alpine valleys and along the shores of the ocean that free democratic -communities maintained themselves. Town-life there was none, till -Henry the Fowler forced his forest-loving people to dwell in -fortresses that might repel the Hungarian invaders; and the burgher -class thus beginning to form was too small to be a power in the state. -But popular freedom, as it expired, bequeathed to the monarch such of -its rights as could be saved from the grasp of the nobles; and the -crown thus became what it has been wherever an aristocracy presses -upon both, the ally, though as yet the tacit ally, of the people. -More, too, than the royal could have done, did the imperial name -invite the sympathy of the commons. For in all, however ignorant of -its history, however unable to comprehend its functions, there yet -lived a feeling that it was in some mysterious way consecrated to -Christian brotherhood and equality, to peace and law, to the restraint -of the strong and the defence of the helpless. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[150] Although this was of course never his legal title. Till 1806 he -was 'Romanorum Imperator semper Augustus;' 'Römischer Kaiser.' - -[151] Pütter, _Dissertationes de Instauratione Imperii Romani_; cf. -Goldast's _Collection of Constitutions_; and the proclamations and -other documents collected in Pertz, _M. G. H._ legg. I. - -[152] Pütter (_De Instauratione Imperii Romani_) will have it that -upon this mistake, as he calls it, of Otto's, the whole subsequent -history of the Empire turned; that if Otto had but continued to style -himself 'Francorum Rex,' Germany would have been spared all her -Italian wars. - - - - -CHAPTER IX. - -SAXON AND FRANCONIAN EMPERORS. - - -He who begins to read the history of the Middle Ages is alternately -amused and provoked by the seeming absurdities that meet him at every -step. He finds writers proclaiming amidst universal assent magnificent -theories which no one attempts to carry out. He sees men who are -stained with every vice full of sincere devotion to a religion which, -even when its doctrines were most obscured, never sullied the purity -of its moral teaching. He is disposed to conclude that such people -must have been either fools or hypocrites. Yet such a conclusion would -be wholly erroneous. Every one knows how little a man's actions -conform to the general maxims which he would lay down for himself, and -how many things there are which he believes without realizing: -believes sufficiently to be influenced, yet not sufficiently to be -governed by them. Now in the Middle Ages this perpetual opposition of -theory and practice was peculiarly abrupt. Men's impulses were more -violent and their conduct more reckless than is often witnessed in -modern society; while the absence of a criticizing and measuring -spirit made them surrender their minds more unreservedly than they -would now do to a complete and imposing theory. Therefore it was, that -while everyone believed in the rights of the Empire as a part of -divine truth, no one would yield to them where his own passions or -interests interfered. Resistance to God's Vicar might be and indeed -was admitted to be a deadly sin, but it was one which nobody hesitated -to commit. Hence, in order to give this unbounded imperial prerogative -any practical efficiency, it was found necessary to prop it up by the -limited but tangible authority of a feudal king. And the one spot in -Otto's empire on which feudality had never fixed its grasp, and where -therefore he was forced to rule merely as emperor, and not also as -king, was that in which he and his successors were never safe from -insult and revolt. That spot was his capital. Accordingly an account -of what befel the first Saxon emperor in Rome is a not unfitting -comment on the theory expounded above, as well as a curious episode in -the history of the Apostolic Chair. - -[Sidenote: Otto the Great in Rome.] - -After his coronation Otto had returned to North Italy, where the -partizans of Berengar and his son Adalbert still maintained themselves -in arms. Scarcely was he gone when the restless John the Twelfth, who -found too late that in seeking an ally he had given himself a master, -renounced his allegiance, opened negotiations with Berengar, and even -scrupled not to send envoys pressing the heathen Magyars to invade -Germany. The Emperor was soon informed of these plots, as well as of -the flagitious life of the pontiff, a youth of twenty-five, the most -profligate if not the most guilty of all who have worn the tiara. But -he affected to despise them, saying, with a sort of unconscious irony, -'He is a boy, the example of good men may reform him.' When, however, -Otto returned with a strong force, he found the city gates shut, and a -party within furious against him. John the Twelfth was not only Pope, -but as the heir of Alberic, the head of a strong faction among the -nobles, and a sort of temporal prince in the city. But neither he nor -they had courage enough to stand a siege: John fled into the Campagna -to join Adalbert, and Otto entering convoked a synod in St. Peter's. -Himself presiding as temporal head of the Church, he began by -inquiring into the character and manners of the Pope. At once a -tempest of accusations burst forth from the assembled clergy. -Liudprand, a credible although a hostile witness, gives us a long list -of them:--'Peter, cardinal-priest, rose and witnessed that he had seen -the Pope celebrate mass and not himself communicate. John, bishop of -Narnia, and John, cardinal-deacon, declared that they had seen him -ordain a deacon in a stable, neglecting the proper formalities. They -said further that he had defiled by shameless acts of vice the -pontifical palace; that he had openly diverted himself with hunting; -had put out the eyes of his spiritual father Benedict; had set fire to -houses; had girt himself with a sword, and put on a helmet and -hauberk. All present, laymen as well as priests, cried out that he had -drunk to the devil's health; that in throwing the dice he had invoked -the help of Jupiter, Venus, and other demons; that he had celebrated -matins at uncanonical hours, and had not fortified himself by making -the sign of the cross. After these things the Emperor, who could not -speak Latin, since the Romans could not understand his native, that is -to say, the Saxon tongue, bade Liudprand bishop of Cremona interpret -for him, and adjured the council to declare whether the charges they -had brought were true, or sprang only of malice and envy. Then all the -clergy and people cried with a loud voice, 'If John the Pope hath not -committed all the crimes which Benedict the deacon hath read over, and -even greater crimes than these, then may the chief of the Apostles, -the blessed Peter, who by his word closes heaven to the unworthy and -opens it to the just, never absolve us from our sins, but may we be -bound by the chain of anathema, and on the last day may we stand on -the left hand along with those who have said to the Lord God, "Depart -from us, for we will not know Thy ways."' - -The solemnity of this answer seems to have satisfied Otto and the -council: a letter was despatched to John, couched in respectful terms, -recounting the charges brought against him, and asking him to appear -to clear himself by his own oath and that of a sufficient number of -compurgators. John's reply was short and pithy. - -'John the bishop, the servant of the servants of God, to all the -bishops. We have heard tell that you wish to set up another Pope: if -you do this, by Almighty God I excommunicate you, so that you may not -have power to perform mass or to ordain no one[153].' - -[Sidenote: Deposition of John XII.] - -To this Otto and the synod replied by a letter of humorous -expostulation, begging the Pope to reform both his morals and his -Latin. But the messenger who bore it could not find John: he had -repeated what seems to have been thought his most heinous sin, by -going into the country with his bow and arrows; and after a search had -been made in vain, the synod resolved to take a decisive step. Otto, -who still led their deliberations, demanded the condemnation of the -Pope; the assembly deposed him by acclamation, 'because of his -reprobate life,' and having obtained the Emperor's consent, proceeded -in an equally hasty manner to raise Leo, the chief secretary and a -layman, to the chair of the Apostle. - -[Sidenote: Revolt of the Romans.] - -Otto might seem to have now reached a position loftier and firmer than -that of any of his predecessors. Within little more than a year from -his arrival in Rome, he had exercised powers greater than those of -Charles himself, ordering the dethronement of one pontiff and the -installation of another, forcing a reluctant people to bend themselves -to his will. The submission involved in his oath to protect the Holy -See was more than compensated by the oath of allegiance to his crown -which the Pope and the Romans had taken, and by their solemn -engagement not to elect nor ordain any future pontiff without the -Emperor's consent[154]. But he had yet to learn what this obedience -and these oaths were worth. The Romans had eagerly joined in the -expulsion of John; they soon began to regret him. They were mortified -to see their streets filled by a foreign soldiery, the habitual -licence of their manners sternly repressed, their most cherished -privilege, the right of choosing the universal bishop, grasped by the -strong hand of a master who used it for purposes in which they did not -sympathize. In a fickle and turbulent people, disaffection quickly -turned to rebellion. One night, Otto's troops being most of them -dispersed in their quarters at a distance, the Romans rose in arms, -blocked up the Tiber bridges, and fell furiously upon the Emperor and -his creature the new Pope. Superior valour and constancy triumphed -over numbers, and the Romans were overthrown with terrible slaughter; -yet this lesson did not prevent them from revolting a second time, -after Otto's departure in pursuit of Adalbert. John the Twelfth -returned to the city, and when his pontifical career was speedily -closed by the sword of an injured husband[155], the people chose a new -Pope in defiance of the Emperor and his nominee. Otto again subdued -and again forgave them, but when they rebelled for a third time, in -A.D. 966, he resolved to shew them what imperial supremacy meant. -Thirteen leaders, among them the twelve tribunes, were executed, the -consuls were banished, republican forms entirely suppressed, the -government of the city entrusted to Pope Leo as viceroy. He, too, must -not presume on the sacredness of his person to set up any claims to -independence. Otto regarded the pontiff as no more than the first of -his subjects, the creature of his own will, the depositary of an -authority which must be exercised according to the discretion of his -sovereign. The citizens yielded to the Emperor an absolute veto on -papal elections in A.D. 963. Otto obtained from his nominee, Leo VIII, -a confirmation of this privilege, which it was afterwards supposed -that Hadrian I had granted to Charles, in a decree which may yet be -read in the collections of the canon law[156]. The vigorous exercise -of such a power might be expected to reform as well as to restrain the -apostolic see; and it was for this purpose, and in noble honesty, that -the Teutonic sovereigns employed it. But the fortunes of Otto in the -city are a type of those which his successors were destined to -experience. Notwithstanding their clear rights and the momentary -enthusiasm with which they were greeted in Rome, not all the efforts -of Emperor after Emperor could gain any firm hold on the capital they -were so proud of. Visiting it only once or twice in their reigns, they -must be supported among a fickle populace by a large army of -strangers, which melted away with terrible rapidity under the sun of -Italy amid the deadly hollows of the Campagna[157]. Rome soon resumed -her turbulent independence. - -[Sidenote: Otto's rule in Italy.] - -Causes partly the same prevented the Saxon princes from gaining a firm -footing throughout Italy. Since Charles the Bald had bartered away for -the crown all that made it worth having, no Emperor had exercised -substantial authority there. The _missi dominici_ had ceased to -traverse the country; the local governors had thrown off control, a -crowd of petty potentates had established principalities by -aggressions on their weaker neighbours. Only in the dominions of great -nobles, like the marquises of Tuscany and Spoleto, and in some of the -cities where the supremacy of the bishop was paving the way for a -republican system, could traces of political order be found, or the -arts of peace flourish. Otto, who, though he came as a conqueror, -ruled legitimately as Italian king, found his feudal vassals less -submissive than in Germany. While actually present he succeeded by -progresses and edicts, and stern justice, in doing something to still -the turmoil; on his departure Italy relapsed into that disorganization -for which her natural features are not less answerable than the -mixture of her races. Yet it was at this era, when the confusion was -wildest, that there appeared the first rudiments of an Italian -nationality, based partly on geographical position, partly on the use -of a common language and the slow growth of peculiar customs and modes -of thought. But though already jealous of the Tedescan, national -feeling was still very far from disputing his sway. Pope, princes, and -cities bowed to Otto as king and Emperor; nor did he bethink himself -of crushing while it was weak a sentiment whose development threatened -the existence of his empire. Holding Italy equally for his own with -Germany, and ruling both on the same principles, he was content to -keep it a separate kingdom, neither changing its institutions nor -sending Saxons, as Charles had sent Franks, to represent his -government[158]. - -[Sidenote: Otto's foreign policy.] - -[Sidenote: Towards Byzantium.] - -The lofty claims which Otto acquired with the Roman crown urged him to -resume the plans of foreign conquest which had lain neglected since -the days of Charles: the growing vigour of the Teutonic people, now -definitely separating themselves from surrounding races (this is the -era of the Marks--Brandenburg, Meissen, Schleswig), placed in his -hands a force to execute those plans which his predecessors had -wanted. In this, as in his other enterprises, the great Emperor was -active, wise, successful. Retaining the extreme south of Italy, and -unwilling to confess the loss of Rome, the Greeks had not ceased to -annoy her German masters by intrigue, and might now, under the -vigorous leadership of Nicephorus and Tzimiskes, hope again to menace -them in arms. Policy, and the fascination which an ostentatiously -legitimate court exercised over the Saxon stranger, made Otto, as -Napoleon wooed Maria Louisa, seek for his heir the hand of the -princess Theophano. Liudprand's account of his embassy represents in -an amusing manner the rival pretensions of the old and new -Empires[159]. The Greeks, who fancied that with the name they -preserved the character and rights of Rome, held it almost as absurd -as it was wicked that a Frank should insult their prerogative by -reigning in Italy as Emperor. They refused him that title altogether; -and when the Pope had, in a letter addressed '_Imperatori Græcorum_,' -asked Nicephorus to gratify the wishes of the Emperor of the Romans, -the Eastern was furious. 'You are no Romans,' said he, 'but wretched -Lombards: what means this insolent Pope? with Constantine all Rome -migrated hither.' The wily bishop appeased him by abusing the Romans, -while he insinuated that Byzantium could lay no claim to their name, -and proceeded to vindicate the Francia and Saxonia of his master. -'"Roman" is the most contemptuous name we can use--it conveys the -reproach of every vice, cowardice, falsehood, avarice. But what can be -expected from the descendants of the fratricide Romulus? to his asylum -were gathered the offscourings of the nations: thence came these -[Greek: kosmokratores].' Nicephorus demanded the 'theme' or province of -Rome as the price of compliance[160]; Tzimiskes was more moderate, and -Theophano became the bride of Otto II. - -[Sidenote: Towards the West Franks.] - -Holding the two capitals of Charles the Great, Otto might vindicate -the suzerainty over the West Frankish kingdom which it had been meant -that the imperial title should carry with it. Arnulf had asserted it -by making Eudes, the first Capetian king, receive the crown as his -feudatory: Henry the Fowler had been less successful. Otto pursued the -same course, intriguing with the discontented nobles of Louis -d'Outremer, and receiving their fealty as Superior of Roman Gaul. -These pretensions, however, could have been made effective only by -arms, and the feudal militia of the tenth century was no such -instrument of conquest as the hosts of Clovis and Charles had been. -The star of the Carolingian of Laon was paling before the rising -greatness of the Parisian Capets: a Romano-Keltic nation had formed -itself, distinct in tongue from the Franks, whom it was fast -absorbing, and still less willing to submit to a Saxon stranger. -Modern France[161] dates from the accession of Hugh Capet, A.D. 987, -and the claims of the Roman Empire were never afterwards formally -admitted. - -[Sidenote: Lorraine and Burgundy.] - -Of that France, however, Aquitaine was virtually independent. -Lotharingia and Burgundy belonged to it as little as did England. The -former of these kingdoms had adhered to the West Frankish king, -Charles the Simple, against the East Frankish Conrad: but now, as -mostly German in blood and speech, threw itself into the arms of Otto, -and was thenceforth an integral part of the Empire. Burgundy, a -separate kingdom, had, by seeking from Charles the Fat a ratification -of Boso's election, by admitting, in the person of Rudolf the first -Transjurane king, the feudal superiority of Arnulf, acknowledged -itself to be dependent on the German crown. Otto governed it for -thirty years, nominally as the guardian of the young king Conrad (son -of Rudolf II). - -[Sidenote: Denmark and the Slaves.] - -[Sidenote: England.] - -Otto's conquests to the North and East approved him a worthy successor -of the first Emperor. He penetrated far into Jutland, annexed -Schleswig, made Harold the Blue-toothed his vassal. The Slavic tribes -were obliged to submit, to follow the German host in war, to allow the -free preaching of the Gospel in their borders. The Hungarians he -forced to forsake their nomad life, and delivered Europe from the fear -of Asiatic invasions by strengthening the frontier of Austria. Over -more distant lands, Spain and England, it was not possible to recover -the commanding position of Charles. Henry, as head of the Saxon name, -may have wished to unite its branches on both sides the sea[162], and -it was perhaps partly with this intent that he gained for Otto the -hand of Edith, sister of the English Athelstan. But the claim of -supremacy, if any there was, was repudiated by Edgar, when, -exaggerating the lofty style assumed by some of his predecessors, he -called himself 'Basileus and imperator of Britain[163],' thereby -seeming to pretend to a sovereignty over all the nations of the island -similar to that which the Roman Emperor claimed over the states of -Christendom. - -[Sidenote: Extent of Otto's Empire.] - -[Sidenote: Comparison between it and that of Charles.] - -This restored Empire, which professed itself a continuation of the -Carolingian, was in many respects different. It was less wide, -including, if we reckon strictly, only Germany proper and two-thirds -of Italy; or counting in subject but separate kingdoms, Burgundy, -Bohemia, Moravia, Poland, Denmark, perhaps Hungary. Its character was -less ecclesiastical. Otto exalted indeed the spiritual potentates of -his realm, and was earnest in spreading Christianity among the -heathen: he was master of the Pope and Defender of the Holy Roman -Church. But religion held a less important place in his mind and his -administration: he made fewer wars for its sake, held no councils, and -did not, like his predecessor, criticize the discourses of bishops. It -was also less Roman. We do not know whether Otto associated with that -name anything more than the right to universal dominion and a certain -oversight of matters spiritual, nor how far he believed himself to be -treading in the steps of the Cæsars. He could not speak Latin, he had -few learned men around him, he cannot have possessed the varied -cultivation which had been so fruitful in the mind of Charles. -Moreover, the conditions of his time were different, and did not -permit similar attempts at wide organization. The local potentates -would have submitted to no _missi dominici_; separate laws and -jurisdictions would not have yielded to imperial capitularies; the -_placita_ at which those laws were framed or published would not have -been crowded, as of yore, by armed freemen. But what Otto could he -did, and did it to good purpose. Constantly traversing his dominions, -he introduced a peace and prosperity before unknown, and left -everywhere the impress of an heroic character. Under him the Germans -became not only a united nation, but were at once raised on a pinnacle -among European peoples as the imperial race, the possessors of Rome -and Rome's authority. While the political connection with Italy -stirred their spirit, it brought with it a knowledge and culture -hitherto unknown, and gave the newly-kindled energy an object. Germany -became in her turn the instructress of the neighbouring tribes, who -trembled at Otto's sceptre; Poland and Bohemia received from her their -arts and their learning with their religion. If the revived -Romano-Germanic Empire was less splendid than the Empire of the West -had been under Charles, it was, within narrower limits, firmer and -more lasting, since based on a social force which the other had -wanted. It perpetuated the name, the language, the literature, such as -it then was, of Rome; it extended her spiritual sway; it strove to -represent that concentration for which men cried, and became a power -to unite and civilize Europe. - -[Sidenote: Otto II, A.D. 973-983.] - -[Sidenote: Otto III, A.D. 983-1002.] - -[Sidenote: His ideas. Fascination exercised over him by the name of -Rome.] - -[Sidenote: Pope Sylvester II, A.D. 1000.] - -The time of Otto the Great has required a fuller treatment, as the era -of the Holy Empire's foundation: succeeding rulers may be more quickly -dismissed. Yet Otto III's reign cannot pass unnoticed: short, sad, -full of bright promise never fulfilled. His mother was the Greek -princess Theophano; his preceptor, the illustrious Gerbert: through -the one he felt himself connected with the old Empire, and had imbibed -the absolutism of Byzantium; by the other he had been reared in the -dream of a renovated Rome, with her memories turned to realities. To -accomplish that renovation, who so fit as he who with the vigorous -blood of the Teutonic conqueror inherited the venerable rights of -Constantinople? It was his design, now that the solemn millennial era -of the founding of Christianity had arrived, to renew the majesty of -the city and make her again the capital of a world-embracing Empire, -victorious as Trajan's, despotic as Justinian's, holy as -Constantine's. His young and visionary mind was too much dazzled by -the gorgeous fancies it created to see the world as it was: Germany -rude, Italy unquiet, Rome corrupt and faithless. In A.D. 994, at the -age of sixteen, he took from his mother's hands the reins of -government, and entered Italy to receive his crown, and quell the -turbulence of Rome. There he put to death the rebel Crescentius, in -whom modern enthusiasm has seen a patriotic republican, who, reviving -the institutions of Alberic, had ruled as consul or senator, sometimes -entitling himself Emperor[164]. The young monarch reclaimed, perhaps -extended, the privilege of Charles and Otto the Great, by nominating -successive pontiffs: first Bruno his cousin (Gregory V), then Gerbert, -whose name of Sylvester II recalled significantly the ally of -Constantine: Gerbert, to his contemporaries a marvel of piety and -learning, in later legend the magician who, at the price of his own -soul, purchased preferment from the Enemy, and by him was at last -carried off in the body. With the substitution of these men for the -profligate priests of Italy, began that Teutonic reform of the Papacy -which raised it from the abyss of the tenth century to the point where -Hildebrand found it. The Emperors were working the ruin of their power -by their most disinterested acts. - -[Sidenote: Schemes of Otto III: Changes of style and usage.] - -With his tutor on Peter's chair to second or direct him, Otto laboured -on his great project in a spirit almost mystic. He had an intense -religious belief in the Emperor's duties to the world--in his -proclamations he calls himself 'Servant of the Apostles,' 'Servant of -Jesus Christ[165]'--together with the ambitious antiquarianism of a -fiery imagination, kindled by the memorials of the glory and power he -represented. Even the wording of his laws witnesses to the strange -mixture of notions that filled his eager brain. 'We have ordained -this,' says an edict, 'in order that, the church of God being freely -and firmly stablished, our Empire may be advanced and the crown of our -knighthood triumph; that the power of the Roman people may be extended -and the commonwealth be restored; so may we be found worthy after -living righteously in the tabernacle of this world, to fly away from -the prison of this life and reign most righteously with the Lord.' To -exclude the claims of the Greeks he used the title '_Romanorum -Imperator_' instead of the simple '_Imperator_' of his predecessors. -His seals bear a legend resembling that used by Charles, '_Renovatio -Imperii Romanorum_;' even the 'commonwealth,' despite the results that -name had produced under Alberic and Crescentius, was to be -re-established. He built a palace on the Aventine, then the most -healthy and beautiful quarter of the city; he devised a regular -administrative system of government for his capital--naming a -patrician, a prefect, and a body of judges, who were commanded to -recognize no law but Justinian's. The formula of their appointment has -been preserved to us: in it the Emperor delivering to the judge a copy -of the code bids him 'with this code judge Rome and the Leonine city -and the whole world.' He introduced into the simple German court the -ceremonious magnificence of Byzantium, not without giving offence to -many of his followers[166]. His father's wish to draw Italy and -Germany more closely together, he followed up by giving the -chancellorship of both countries to the same churchman, by maintaining -a strong force of Germans in Italy, and by taking his Italian retinue -with him through the Transalpine lands. How far these brilliant and -far-reaching plans were capable of realization, had their author lived -to attempt it, can be but guessed at. It is reasonable to suppose that -whatever power he might have gained in the South he would have lost in -the North. Dwelling rarely in Germany, and in sympathies more a Greek -than a Teuton, he reined in the fierce barons with no such tight hand -as his grandfather had been wont to do; he neglected the schemes of -northern conquest; he released the Polish dukes from the obligation of -tribute. But all, save that those plans were his, is now no more than -conjecture, for Otto III, 'the wonder of the world,' as his own -generation called him, died childless on the threshold of manhood; the -victim, if we may trust a story of the time, of the revenge of -Stephania, widow of Crescentius, who ensnared him by her beauty, and -slew him by a lingering poison. They carried him across the Alps with -laments whose echoes sound faintly yet from the pages of monkish -chroniclers, and buried him in the choir of the basilica at Aachen -some fifty paces from the tomb of Charles beneath the central dome. -Two years had not passed since, setting out on his last journey to -Rome, he had opened that tomb, had gazed on the great Emperor, sitting -on a marble throne, robed and crowned, with the Gospel-book open -before him; and there, touching the dead hand, unclasping from the -neck its golden cross, had taken, as it were, an investiture of Empire -from his Frankish forerunner. Short as was his life and few his acts, -Otto III is in one respect more memorable than any who went before or -came after him. None save he desired to make the seven-hilled city -again the seat of dominion, reducing Germany and Lombardy and Greece -to their rightful place of subject provinces. No one else so forgot -the present to live in the light of the ancient order; no other soul -was so possessed by that fervid mysticism and that reverence for the -glories of the past, whereon rested the idea of the mediæval Empire. - -[Sidenote: Italy independent.] - -[Sidenote: Henry II Emperor.] - -[Sidenote: Southern Italy.] - -The direct line of Otto the Great had now ended, and though the Franks -might elect and the Saxons accept Henry II[167], Italy was nowise -affected by their acts. Neither the Empire nor the Lombard kingdom -could as yet be of right claimed by the German king. Her princes -placed Ardoin, marquis of Ivrea, on the vacant throne of Pavia, moved -partly by the growing aversion to a Transalpine power, still more by -the desire of impunity under a monarch feebler than any since -Berengar. But the selfishness that had exalted Ardoin soon overthrew -him. Ere long a party among the nobles, seconded by the Pope, invited -Henry[168]; his strong army made opposition hopeless, and at Rome he -received the imperial crown, A.D. 1014. It is, perhaps, more singular -that the Transalpine kings should have clung so pertinaciously to -Italian sovereignty than that the Lombards should have so frequently -attempted to recover their independence. For the former had often -little or no hereditary claim, they were not secure in their seat at -home, they crossed a huge mountain barrier into a land of treachery -and hatred. But Rome's glittering lure was irresistible, and the -disunion of Italy promised an easy conquest. Surrounded by martial -vassals, these Emperors were generally for the moment supreme: once -their pennons had disappeared in the gorges of Tyrol, things reverted -to their former condition, and Tuscany was little more dependent than -France. In Southern Italy the Greek viceroy ruled from Bari, and Rome -was an outpost instead of the centre of Teutonic power. A curious -evidence of the wavering politics of the time is furnished by the -Annals of Benevento, the Lombard town which on the confines of the -Greek and Roman realms gave steady obedience to neither. They usually -date by and recognize the princes of Constantinople[169], seldom -mentioning the Franks, till the reign of Conrad II; after him the -Western becomes _Imperator_, the Greek, appearing more rarely, is -_Imperator Constantinopolitanus_. Assailed by the Saracens, masters -already of Sicily, these regions seemed on the eve of being lost to -Christendom, and the Romans sometimes bethought themselves of -returning under the Byzantine sceptre. As the weakness of the Greeks -in the South favoured the rise of the Norman kingdom, so did the -liberties of the northern cities shoot up in the absence of the -Emperors and the feuds of the princes. Milan, Pavia, Cremona, were -only the foremost among many populous centres of industry, some of -them self-governing, all quickly absorbing or repelling the rural -nobility, and not afraid to display by tumults their aversion to the -Germans. - -[Sidenote: Conrad II.] - -The reign of Conrad II, the first monarch of the great Franconian -line, is remarkable for the accession to the Empire of Burgundy, or, -as it is after this time more often called, the kingdom of Arles[170]. -Rudolf III, the last king, had proposed to bequeath it to Henry II, -and the states were at length persuaded to consent to its reunion to -the crown from which it had been separated, though to some extent -dependent, since the death of Lothar I (son of Lewis the Pious). On -Rudolf's death in 1032, Eudes, count of Champagne, endeavoured to -seize it, and entered the north-western districts, from which he was -dislodged by Conrad with some difficulty. Unlike Italy, it became an -integral member of the Germanic realm: its prelates and nobles sat in -imperial diets, and retained till recently the style and title of -Princes of the Holy Empire. The central government was, however, -seldom effective in these outlying territories, exposed always to the -intrigues, finally to the aggressions, of Capetian France. - -[Sidenote: Henry III.] - -[Sidenote: His reform of the Popedom.] - -[Sidenote: Henry IV, A.D. 1056-1106.] - -Under Conrad's son Henry the Third the Empire attained the meridian of -its power. At home Otto the Great's prerogative had not stood so high. -The duchies, always the chief source of fear, were allowed to remain -vacant or filled by the relatives of the monarch, who himself -retained, contrary to usual practice, those of Franconia and (for some -years) Swabia. Abbeys and sees lay entirely in his gift. Intestine -feuds were repressed by the proclamation of a public peace. Abroad, -the feudal superiority over Hungary, which Henry II had gained by -conferring the title of King with the hand of his sister Gisela, was -enforced by war, the country made almost a province, and compelled to -pay tribute. In Rome no German sovereign had ever been so absolute. A -disgraceful contest between three claimants of the papal chair had -shocked even the reckless apathy of Italy. Henry deposed them all, and -appointed their successor: he became hereditary patrician, and wore -constantly the green mantle and circlet of gold which were the badges -of that office, seeming, one might think, to find in it some further -authority than that which the imperial name conferred. The synod -passed a decree granting to Henry the right of nominating the supreme -pontiff; and the Roman priesthood, who had forfeited the respect of -the world even more by habitual simony than by the flagrant corruption -of their manners, were forced to receive German after German as their -bishop, at the bidding of a ruler so powerful, so severe, and so -pious. But Henry's encroachments alarmed his own nobles no less than -the Italians, and the reaction, which might have been dangerous to -himself, was fatal to his successor. A mere chance, as some might call -it, determined the course of history. The great Emperor died suddenly -in A.D. 1056, and a child was left at the helm, while storms were -gathering that might have demanded the wisest hand. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[153] 'Iohannes episcopus, servus servorum Dei, omnibus episcopis. Nos -audivimus dicere quia vos vultis alium papam facere: si hoc facitis, -da Deum omnipotentem excommunico vos, ut non habeatis licentiam missam -celebrare aut nullum ordinare.'--Liudprand, _ut supra_. The 'da' is -curious, as shewing the progress of the change from Latin to Italian. -The answer sent by Otto and the council takes exception to the double -negative. - -[154] 'Cives fidelitatem promittunt hæc addentes et firmiter iurantes -nunquam se papam electuros aut ordinaturos præter consensum atque -electionem domini imperatoris Ottonis Cæsaris Augusti filiique ipsius -Ottonis.'--Liudprand, _Gesta Ottonis_, lib. vi. - -[155] 'In timporibus adeo a dyabulo est percussus ut infra dierum octo -spacium eodem sit in vulnere mortuus,' says the chronicler, crediting -with but little of his wonted cleverness the supposed author of John's -death, who well might have desired a long life for so useful a -servant. - -He adds a detail too characteristic of the time to be omitted--'Sed -eucharistiæ viaticum, ipsius instinctu qui eum percusserat, non -percepit.' - -[156] _Corpus Iuris Canonici_, Dist. lxiii., '_In synodo_.' A decree -which is probably substantially genuine, although the form in which we -have it is evidently of later date. - -[157] Cf. St. Peter Damiani's lines-- - - 'Roma vorax hominum domat ardua colla virorum, - Roma ferax febrium necis est uberrima frugum, - Romanæ febres stabili sunt iure fideles.' - -[158] There was a separate chancellor for Italy, as afterwards for the -kingdom of Burgundy. - -[159] Liudprand, _Legatio Constantinopolitana_. - -[160] 'Sancti imperii nostri olim servos principes, Beneventanum -scilicet, tradat,' &c. The epithet is worth noticing. - -[161] Liudprand calls the Eastern Franks 'Franci Teutonici' to -distinguish them from the Romanized Franks of Gaul or 'Francigenæ,' as -they were frequently called. The name 'Frank' seems even so early as -the tenth century to have been used in the East as a general name for -the Western peoples of Europe. Liudprand says that the Greek Emperor -included 'sub Francorum nomine tam Latinos quam Teutonicos.' Probably -this use dates from the time of Charles. - -[162] Conring, _De Finibus Imperii_. - -[163] Basileus was a favourite title of the English kings before the -Conquest. Titles like this used in these early English charters prove, -it need hardly be said, absolutely nothing as to the real existence of -any rights or powers of the English king beyond his own borders. What -they do prove (over and above the taste for florid rhetoric in the -royal clerks) is the impression produced by the imperial style, and by -the idea of the emperor's throne as supported by the thrones of kings -and other lesser potentates. - -[164] The coins of Crescentius are said to exhibit the insignia of the -old Empire.--Palgrave, _Normandy and England_, i. 715. But probably -some at least of them are forgeries. - -[165] Proclamation in Pertz, _M. G. H._ ii. - -[166] 'Imperator antiquam Romanorum consuetudinem iam ex magna parte -deletam suis cupiens renovare temporibus multa faciebat quæ diversi -diverse sentiebant.'--Thietmar, _Chron._ ix.; ap. Pertz, _M. G. H._ t. -iii. - -[167] _Annales Quedlinb._, ad ann. 1002. - -[168] Henry had already entered Italy in 1004. - -[169] _Annales Beneventani_, in Pertz, _M. G. H._ - -[170] See Appendix, Note A. - - - - -CHAPTER X. - -STRUGGLE OF THE EMPIRE AND THE PAPACY. - - -Reformed by the Emperors and their Teutonic nominees, the Papacy had -resumed in the middle of the eleventh century the schemes of polity -shadowed forth by Nicholas I, and which the degradation of the last -age had only suspended. Under the guidance of her greatest mind, -Hildebrand, the archdeacon of Rome, she now advanced to their -completion, and proclaimed that war of the ecclesiastical power -against the civil power in the person of the Emperor, which became the -centre of the subsequent history of both. While the nature of the -struggle cannot be understood without a glance at their previous -connection, the vastness of the subject warns one from the attempt to -draw even its outlines, and restricts our view to those relations of -Popedom and Empire which arise directly out of their respective -positions as heads spiritual and temporal of the universal Christian -state. - -[Sidenote: Growth of the Papal power.] - -[Sidenote: Relations of the Papacy and the Empire.] - -The eagerness of Christianity in the age immediately following her -political establishment to purchase by submission the support of the -civil power, has been already remarked. The change from independence -to supremacy was gradual. The tale we smile at, how Constantine, -healed of his leprosy, granted the West to bishop Sylvester, and -retired to Byzantium that no secular prince might interfere with the -jurisdiction or profane the neighbourhood of Peter's chair, worked -great effects through the belief it commanded for many centuries. Nay -more, its groundwork was true. It was the removal of the seat of -government from the Tiber to the Bosphorus that made the Pope the -greatest personage in the city, and in the prostration after Alaric's -invasion he was seen to be so. Henceforth he alone was a permanent and -effective, though still unacknowledged power, as truly superior to the -revived senate and consuls of the phantom republic as Augustus and -Tiberius had been to the faint continuance of their earlier -prototypes. Pope Leo the First asserted the universal jurisdiction of -his see[171], and his persevering successors slowly enthralled Italy, -Illyricum, Gaul, Spain, Africa, dexterously confounding their -undoubted metropolitan and patriarchal rights with those of oecumenical -bishop, in which they were finally merged. By his writings and the -fame of his personal sanctity, by the conversion of England and the -introduction of an impressive ritual, Gregory the Great did more than -any other pontiff to advance Rome's ecclesiastical authority. Yet his -tone to Maurice of Constantinople was deferential, to Phocas -adulatory; his successors were not consecrated till confirmed by the -Emperor or the Exarch; one of them was dragged in chains to the -Bosphorus, and banished thence to Scythia. When the iconoclastic -controversy and the intervention of Pipin broke the allegiance of the -Popes to the East, the Franks, as patricians and Emperors, seemed to -step into the position which Byzantium had lost[172]. At Charles's -coronation, says the Saxon poet, - - 'Et summus eundem - Præsul adoravit, sicut mos debitus olim - Principibus fuit antiquis.' - -[Sidenote: Temporal power of the Popes.] - -Their relations were, however, no longer the same. If the Frank -vaunted conquest, the priest spoke only of free gift. What Christendom -saw was that Charles was crowned by the Pope's hands, and undertook as -his principal duty the protection and advancement of the Holy Roman -Church. The circumstances of Otto the Great's coronation gave an even -more favourable opening to sacerdotal claims, for it was a Pope who -summoned him to Rome and a Pope who received from him an oath of -fidelity and aid. In the conflict of three powers, the Emperor, the -pontiff, and the people--represented by their senate and consuls, or -by the demagogue of the hour--the most steady, prudent, and -far-sighted was sure eventually to prevail. The Popedom had no -minorities, as yet few disputed successions, few revolts within its -own army--the host of churchmen through Europe. Boniface's conversion -of Germany under its direct sanction, gave it a hold on the rising -hierarchy of the greatest European state; the extension of the rule of -Charles and Otto diffused in the same measure its emissaries and -pretensions. The first disputes turned on the right of the prince to -confirm the elected pontiff, which was afterwards supposed to have -been granted by Hadrian I to Charles, in the decree quoted as -'_Hadrianus Papa_[173].' This '_ius eligendi et ordinandi summum -pontificem_,' which Lewis I appears as yielding by the '_Ego -Ludovicus_[174],' was claimed by the Carolingians whenever they felt -themselves strong enough, and having fallen into desuetude in the -troublous times of the Italian Emperors, was formally renewed to Otto -the Great by his nominee Leo VIII. We have seen it used, and used in -the purest spirit, by Otto himself, by his grandson Otto III, last of -all, and most despotically, by Henry III. Along with it there had -grown up a bold counter-assumption of the Papal chair to be itself the -source of the imperial dignity. In submitting to a fresh coronation, -Lewis the Pious admitted the invalidity of his former self-performed -one: Charles the Bald did not scout the arrogant declaration of John -VIII[175], that to him alone the Emperor owed his crown; and the -council of Pavia[176], when it chose him king of Italy, repeated the -assertion. Subsequent Popes knew better than to apply to the chiefs of -Saxon and Franconian chivalry language which the feeble Neustrian had -not resented; but the precedent remained, the weapon was only hid -behind the pontifical robe to be flashed out with effect when the -moment should come. There were also two other great steps which papal -power had taken. By the invention and adoption of the False Decretals -it had provided itself with a legal system suited to any emergency, -and which gave it unlimited authority through the Christian world in -causes spiritual and over persons ecclesiastical. Canonistical -ingenuity found it easy in one way or another to make this include all -causes and persons whatsoever: for crime is always and wrong is often -sin, nor can aught be anywhere done which may not affect the clergy. -On the gift of Pipin and Charles, repeated and confirmed by Lewis I, -Charles II, Otto I and III, and now made to rest on the more venerable -authority of the first Christian Emperor, it could found claims to the -sovereignty of Rome, Tuscany, and all else that had belonged to the -exarchate. Indefinite in their terms, these grants were never meant by -the donors to convey full dominion over the districts--that belonged -to the head of the Empire--but only as in the case of other church -estates, a perpetual usufruct or _dominium utile_. They were, in fact, -mere endowments. Nor had the gifts been ever actually reduced into -possession: the Pope had been hitherto the victim, not the lord, of -the neighbouring barons. They were not, however, denied, and might be -made a formidable engine of attack: appealing to them, the Pope could -brand his opponents as unjust and impious; and could summon nobles and -cities to defend him as their liege lord, just as, with no better -original right, he invoked the help of the Norman conquerors of Naples -and Sicily. - -The attitude of the Roman Church to the imperial power at Henry the -Third's death was externally respectful. The right of a German king to -the crown of the city was undoubted, and the Pope was his lawful -subject. Hitherto the initiative in reform had come from the civil -magistrate. But the secret of the pontiff's strength lay in this: he, -and he alone, could confer the crown, and had therefore the right of -imposing conditions on its recipient. Frequent interregna had weakened -the claim of the Transalpine monarch and prevented his power from -taking firm root; his title was never by law hereditary: the holy -Church had before sought and might again seek a defender elsewhere. -And since the need of such defence had originated this transference of -the Empire from the Greeks to the Franks, since to render it was the -Emperor's chief function, it was surely the Pope's duty as well as his -right to see that the candidate was capable of fulfilling his task, to -degrade him if he rejected or misperformed it. - -[Sidenote: Hildebrandine reforms.] - -The first step was to remove a blemish in the constitution of the -Church, by fixing a regular body to choose the supreme pontiff. This -Nicholas II did in A.D. 1059, feebly reserving the rights of Henry IV -and his successors. Then the reforming spirit, kindled by the abuses -and depravity of the last century, advanced apace. It had two main -objects: the enforcement of celibacy, especially on the secular -clergy, who enjoyed in this respect considerable freedom, and the -extinction of simony. In the former, the Emperors and a large part of -the laity were not unwilling to join: the latter no one dared to -defend in theory. But when Gregory VII declared that it was sin for -the ecclesiastic to receive his benefice under conditions from a -layman, and so condemned the whole system of feudal investitures to -the clergy, he aimed a deadly blow at all secular authority. Half of -the land and wealth of Germany was in the hands of bishops and abbots, -who would now be freed from the monarch's control to pass under that -of the Pope. In such a state of things government itself would be -impossible. - -[Sidenote: Henry IV and Gregory VII.] - -[Sidenote: A.D. 1077.] - -Henry and Gregory already mistrusted each other: after this decree war -was inevitable. The Pope cited his opponent to appear and be judged at -Rome for his vices and misgovernment. The Emperor[177] replied by -convoking a synod, which deposed and insulted Gregory. At once the -dauntless monk pronounced Henry excommunicate, and fixed a day on -which, if still unrepentant, he should cease to reign. Supported by -his own princes, the monarch might have defied a mandate backed by no -external force; but the Saxons, never contented since the first place -had passed from their own dukes to the Franconians, only waited the -signal to burst into a new revolt, whilst through all Germany the -Emperor's tyranny and irregularities of life had sown the seeds of -disaffection. Shunned, betrayed, threatened, he rushed into what -seemed the only course left, and Canosa saw Europe's mightiest prince, -titular lord of the world, a suppliant before the successor of the -Apostle. Henry soon found that his humiliation had not served him; -driven back into opposition, he defied Gregory anew, set up an -anti-pope, overthrew the rival whom his rebellious subjects had -raised, and maintained to the end of his sad and chequered life a -power often depressed but never destroyed. Nevertheless had all other -humiliation been spared, that one scene in the yard of the Countess -Matilda's castle, an imperial penitent standing barefoot and -woollen-frocked on the snow three days and nights, till the priest who -sat within should admit and absolve him, was enough to mark a decisive -change, and inflict an irretrievable disgrace on the crown so abased. -Its wearer could no more, with the same lofty confidence, claim to be -the highest power on earth, created by and answerable to God alone. -Gregory had extorted the recognition of that absolute superiority of -the spiritual dominion which he was wont to assert so sternly; -proclaiming that to the Pope, as God's vicar, all mankind are subject, -and all rulers responsible: so that he, the giver of the crown, may -also excommunicate and depose. Writing to William the Conqueror, he -says[178]: 'For as for the beauty of this world, that it may be at -different seasons perceived by fleshly eyes, God hath disposed the sun -and the moon, lights that outshine all others; so lest the creature -whom His goodness hath formed after His own image in this world should -be drawn astray into fatal dangers, He hath provided in the apostolic -and royal dignities the means of ruling it through divers offices.... -If I, therefore, am to answer for thee on the dreadful day of judgment -before the just Judge who cannot lie, the creator of every creature, -bethink thee whether I must not very diligently provide for thy -salvation, and whether, for thine own safety, thou oughtest not -without delay to obey me, that so thou mayest possess the land of the -living.' - -Gregory was not the inventor nor the first propounder of these -doctrines; they had been long before a part of mediæval Christianity, -interwoven with its most vital doctrines. But he was the first who -dared to apply them to the world as he found it. His was that rarest -and grandest of gifts, an intellectual courage and power of -imaginative belief which, when it has convinced itself of aught, -accepts it fully with all its consequences, and shrinks not from -acting at once upon it. A perilous gift, as the melancholy end of his -own career proved, for men were found less ready than he had thought -them to follow out with unswerving consistency like his the principles -which all acknowledged. But it was the very suddenness and boldness of -his policy that secured the ultimate triumph of his cause, awing men's -minds and making that seem realized which had been till then a vague -theory. His premises once admitted,--and no one dreamt of denying -them,--the reasonings by which he established the superiority of -spiritual to temporal jurisdiction were unassailable. With his -authority, in whose hands are the keys of heaven and hell, whose word -can bestow eternal bliss or plunge in everlasting misery, no other -earthly authority can compete or interfere: if his power extends into -the infinite, how much more must he be supreme over things finite? It -was thus that Gregory and his successors were wont to argue: the -wonder is, not that they were obeyed, but that they were not obeyed -more implicitly. In the second sentence of excommunication which -Gregory passed upon Henry the Fourth are these words:-- - -'Come now, I beseech you, O most holy and blessed Fathers and Princes, -Peter and Paul, that all the world may understand and know that if ye -are able to bind and to loose in heaven, ye are likewise able on -earth, according to the merits of each man, to give and to take away -empires, kingdoms, princedoms, marquisates, duchies, countships, and -the possessions of all men. For if ye judge spiritual things, what -must we believe to be your power over worldly things? and if ye judge -the angels who rule over all proud princes, what can ye not do to -their slaves?' - -[Sidenote: Results of the struggle.] - -Doctrines such as these do indeed strike equally at all temporal -governments, nor were the Innocents and Bonifaces of later days slow -to apply them so. On the Empire, however, the blow fell first and -heaviest. As when Alaric entered Rome, the spell of ages was broken, -Christendom saw her greatest and most venerable institution -dishonoured and helpless; allegiance was no longer undivided, for who -could presume to fix in each case the limits of the civil and -ecclesiastical jurisdictions? The potentates of Europe beheld in the -Papacy a force which, if dangerous to themselves, could be made to -repel the pretensions and baffle the designs of the strongest and -haughtiest among them. Italy learned how to meet the Teutonic -conqueror by gaining the papal sanction for the leagues of her cities. -The German princes, anxious to narrow the prerogative of their head, -were the natural allies of his enemy, whose spiritual thunders, more -terrible than their own lances, could enable them to depose an -aspiring monarch, or extort from him any concessions they desired. -Their altered tone is marked by the promise they required from Rudolf -of Swabia, whom they set up as a rival to Henry, that he would not -endeavour to make the throne hereditary. - -[Sidenote: Concordat of Worms, A.D. 1122.] - -It is not possible here to dwell on the details of the great struggle -of the Investitures, rich as it is in the interest of adventure and -character, momentous as were its results for the future. A word or two -must suffice to describe the conclusion, not indeed of the whole -drama, which was to extend over centuries, but of what may be called -its first act. Even that act lasted beyond the lives of the original -performers. Gregory the Seventh passed away at Salerno in A.D. 1087, -exclaiming with his last breath 'I have loved justice and hated -iniquity, therefore I die in exile.' Nineteen years later, in A.D. -1106, Henry IV died, dethroned by an unnatural son whom the hatred of -a relentless pontiff had raised in rebellion against him. But that -son, the emperor Henry the Fifth, so far from conceding the points in -dispute, proved an antagonist more ruthless and not less able than his -father. He claimed for his crown all the rights over ecclesiastics -that his predecessors had ever enjoyed, and when at his coronation in -Rome, A.D. 1112, Pope Paschal II refused to complete the rite until he -should have yielded, Henry seized both Pope and cardinals and -compelled them by a rigorous imprisonment to consent to a treaty which -he dictated. Once set free, the Pope, as was natural, disavowed his -extorted concessions, and the struggle was protracted for ten years -longer, until nearly half a century had elapsed from the first quarrel -between Gregory VII and Henry IV. The Concordat of Worms, concluded in -A.D. 1122, was in form a compromise, designed to spare either party -the humiliation of defeat. Yet the Papacy remained master of the -field. The Emperor retained but one-half of those rights of -investiture which had formerly been his. He could never resume the -position of Henry III; his wishes or intrigues might influence the -proceedings of a chapter, his oath bound him from open interference. -He had entered the strife in the fulness of dignity; he came out of it -with tarnished glory and shattered power. His wars had been hitherto -carried on with foreign foes, or at worst with a single rebel noble; -now his steadiest ally was turned into his fiercest assailant, and had -enlisted against him half his court, half the magnates of his realm. -At any moment his sceptre might be shivered in his hand by the bolt of -anathema, and a host of enemies spring up from every convent and -cathedral. - -[Sidenote: The Crusades.] - -Two other results of this great conflict ought not to pass unnoticed. -The Emperor was alienated from the Church at the most unfortunate of -all moments, the era of the Crusades. To conduct a great religious war -against the enemies of the faith, to head the church militant in her -carnal as the Popes were accustomed to do in her spiritual strife, -this was the very purpose for which an Emperor had been called into -being; and it was indeed in these wars, more particularly in the first -three of them, that the ideal of a Christian commonwealth which the -theory of the mediæval Empire proclaimed, was once for all and never -again realized by the combined action of the great nations of Europe. -Had such an opportunity fallen to the lot of Henry III, he might have -used it to win back a supremacy hardly inferior to that which had -belonged to the first Carolingians. But Henry IV's proscription -excluded him from all share in an enterprise which he must otherwise -have led--nay, more, committed it to the guidance of his foes. The -religious feeling which the Crusades evoked--a feeling which became -the origin of the great orders of chivalry, and somewhat later of the -two great orders of mendicant friars--turned wholly against the -opponent of ecclesiastical claims, and was made to work the will of -the Holy See, which had blessed and organized the project. A century -and a half later the Pope did not scruple to preach a crusade against -the Emperor himself. - -Again: it was now that the first seeds were sown of that fear and -hatred wherewith the German people never thenceforth ceased to regard -the encroaching Romish court. Branded by the Church and forsaken by -the nobles, Henry IV retained the affections of the faithful burghers -of Worms and Liege. It soon became the test of Teutonic patriotism to -resist Italian priestcraft. - -[Sidenote: Limitations of imperial prerogative.] - -[Sidenote: Lothar II, 1125-1138.] - -[Sidenote: Conrad III, 1138-1152.] - -The changes in the internal constitution of Germany which the long -anarchy of Henry IV's reign had produced are seen when the nature of -the prerogative as it stood at the accession of Conrad II, the first -Franconian Emperor, is compared with its state at Henry V's death. All -fiefs are now hereditary, and when vacant can be granted afresh only -by consent of the States; the jurisdiction of the crown is less wide; -the idea is beginning to make progress that the most essential part of -the Empire is not its supreme head but the commonwealth of princes and -barons. The greatest triumph of these feudal magnates is in the -establishment of the elective principle, which when confirmed by the -three free elections of Lothar II, Conrad III, and Frederick I, passes -into an undoubted law. The Prince-Electors are mentioned in A.D. 1156 -as a distinct and important body[179]. The clergy, too, whom the -policy of Otto the Great and Henry II had raised, are now not less -dangerous than the dukes, whose power it was hoped they would balance; -possibly more so, since protected by their sacred character and their -allegiance to the Pope, while able at the same time to command the -arms of their countless vassals. Nor were the two succeeding Emperors -the men to retrieve those disasters. The Saxon Lothar the Second is -the willing minion of the Pope; performs at his coronation a menial -service unknown before, and takes a more stringent oath to defend the -Holy See, that he may purchase its support against the Swabian faction -in his own dominions. Conrad the Third, the first Emperor of the great -house of Hohenstaufen[180], represents the anti-papal party; but -domestic troubles and an unfortunate crusade prevented him from -effecting anything in Italy. He never even entered Rome to receive the -crown. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[171] 'Roma per sedem Beati Petri caput orbis effecta.'--See note _i_, -p. 32. - -[172] 'Claves tibi _ad regnum_ dimisimus.'--Pope Stephen to Charles -Martel, in _Codex Carolinus_, ap. Muratori, _S. R. I._ iii. Some, -however, prefer to read 'ad rogum.' - -[173] _Corpus Iuris Canonici_, Dist. lxiii. c. 22. - -[174] Dist. lxiii. c. 30. This decree is, however, in all probability -spurious. - -[175] 'Nos elegimus merito et approbavimus una cum annisu et voto -patrum amplique senatus et gentis togatæ,' &c., ap. Baron. _Ann. -Eccl._, ad ann. 876. - -[176] 'Divina vos pietas B. principum apostolorum Petri et Pauli -interventione per vicarium ipsorum dominum Ioannem summum pontificem -... ad imperiale culmen S. Spiritus iudicio provexit.'--_Concil. -Ticinense_, in Mur., _S. R. I._ ii. - -[177] Strictly speaking, Henry was at this time only king of the -Romans: he was not crowned Emperor at Rome till 1084. - -[178] Letter of Gregory VII to William I, A.D. 1080. I quote from -Migne, t. cxlviii. p. 568. - -[179] 'Gradum statim post Principes Electores.'--Frederick I's -Privilege of Austria, in Pertz, _M. G. H._ legg. ii. - -[180] Hohenstaufen is a castle in what is now the kingdom of -Würtemberg, about four miles from the Göppingen station of the railway -from Stuttgart to Ulm. It stands, or rather stood, on the summit of a -steep and lofty conical hill, commanding a boundless view over the -great limestone plateau of the Rauhe Alp, the eastern declivities of -the Schwartzwald, and the bare and tedious plains of western Bavaria. -Of the castle itself, destroyed in the Peasants' War, there remain -only fragments of the wall-foundations: in a rude chapel lying on the -hill slope below are some strange half-obliterated frescoes; over the -arch of the door is inscribed 'Hic transibat Cæsar.' Frederick -Barbarossa had another famous palace at Kaiserslautern, a small town -in the Palatinate, on the railway from Mannheim to Treves, lying in a -wide valley at the western foot of the Hardt mountains. It was -destroyed by the French and a house of correction has been built upon -its site; but in a brewery hard by may be seen some of the huge -low-browed arches of its lower story. - - - - -CHAPTER XI. - -THE EMPERORS IN ITALY: FREDERICK BARBAROSSA. - - -[Sidenote: Frederick of Hohenstaufen, 1152-1189.] - -The reign of Frederick the First, better known under his Italian -surname Barbarossa, is the most brilliant in the annals of the Empire. -Its territory had been wider under Charles, its strength perhaps -greater under Henry the Third, but it never appeared in such pervading -vivid activity, never shone with such lustre of chivalry, as under the -prince whom his countrymen have taken to be one of their national -heroes, and who is still, as the half-mythic type of Teutonic -character, honoured by picture and statue, in song and in legend, -through the breadth of the German lands. The reverential fondness of -his annalists and the whole tenour of his life go far to justify this -admiration, and dispose us to believe that nobler motives were joined -with personal ambition in urging him to assert so haughtily and carry -out so harshly those imperial rights in which he had such unbounded -confidence. Under his guidance the Transalpine power made its greatest -effort to subdue the two antagonists which then threatened and were -fated in the end to destroy it--Italian nationality and the Papacy. - -[Sidenote: His relations to the Popedom.] - -Even before Gregory VII's time it might have been predicted that two -such potentates as the Emperor and the Pope, closely bound together, -yet each with pretensions wide and undefined, must ere long come into -collision. The boldness of that great pontiff in enforcing, the -unflinching firmness of his successors in maintaining, the supremacy -of clerical authority, inspired their supporters with a zeal and -courage which more than compensated the advantages of the Emperor in -defending rights he had long enjoyed. On both sides the hatred was -soon very bitter. But even had men's passions permitted a -reconciliation, it would have been found difficult to bring into -harmony adverse principles, each irresistible, mutually destructive. -As the spiritual power, in itself purer, since exercised over the soul -and directed to the highest of all ends, eternal felicity, was -entitled to the obedience of all, laymen as well as clergy; so the -spiritual person, to whom, according to the view then universally -accepted, there had been imparted by ordination a mysterious sanctity, -could not without sin be subject to the lay magistrate, be installed -by him in office, be judged in his court, and render to him any -compulsory service. Yet it was no less true that civil government was -indispensable to the peace and advancement of society; and while it -continued to subsist, another jurisdiction could not be suffered to -interfere with its workings, nor one-half of the people be altogether -removed from its control. Thus the Emperor and the Pope were forced -into hostility as champions of opposite systems, however fully each -might admit the strength of his adversary's position, however bitterly -he might bewail the violence of his own partisans. There had also -arisen other causes of quarrel, less respectable but not less -dangerous. The pontiff demanded and the monarch refused the lands -which the Countess Matilda of Tuscany had bequeathed to the Holy See; -Frederick claiming them as feudal suzerain, the Pope eager by their -means to carry out those schemes of temporal dominion which -Constantine's donation sanctioned, and Lothar's seeming renunciation -of the sovereignty of Rome had done much to encourage. As feudal -superior of the Norman kings of Naples and Sicily, as protector of the -towns and barons of North Italy who feared the German yoke, the -successor of Peter wore already the air of an independent potentate. - -[Sidenote: Contest with Hadrian IV.] - -No man was less likely than Frederick to submit to these -encroachments. He was a sort of imperialist Hildebrand, strenuously -proclaiming the immediate dependence of his office on God's gift, and -holding it every whit as sacred as his rival's. On his first journey -to Rome, he refused to hold the Pope's stirrup[181], as Lothar had -done, till Pope Hadrian the Fourth's threat that he would withhold the -crown enforced compliance. Complaints arising not long after on some -other ground, the Pope exhorted Frederick by letter to shew himself -worthy of the kindness of his mother the Roman Church, who had given -him the imperial crown, and would confer on him, if dutiful, benefits -still greater. This word benefits--_beneficia_--understood in its -usual legal sense of 'fief,' and taken in connection with the picture -which had been set up at Rome to commemorate Lothar's homage, provoked -angry shouts from the nobles assembled in diet at Besançon; and when -the legate answered, 'From whom, then, if not from our Lord the Pope, -does your king hold the Empire?' his life was not safe from their -fury. On this occasion Frederick's vigour and the remonstrances of the -Transalpine prelates obliged Hadrian to explain away the obnoxious -word, and remove the picture. Soon after the quarrel was renewed by -other causes, and came to centre itself round the Pope's demand that -Rome should be left entirely to his government. Frederick, in reply, -appeals to the civil law, and closes with the words, 'Since by the -ordination of God I both am called and am Emperor of the Romans, in -nothing but name shall I appear to be ruler if the control of the -Roman city be wrested from my hands.' That such a claim should need -assertion marks the change since Henry III; how much more that it -could not be enforced. Hadrian's tone rises into defiance; he mingles -the threat of excommunication with references to the time when the -Germans had not yet the Empire. 'What were the Franks till Zacharias -welcomed Pipin? What is the Teutonic king now till consecrated at Rome -by holy hands? The chair of Peter has given, and can withdraw its -gifts.' - -[Sidenote: With Pope Alexander III.] - -The schism that followed Hadrian's death produced a second and more -momentous conflict. Frederick, as head of Christendom, proposed to -summon the bishops of Europe to a general council, over which he -should preside, like Justinian or Heraclius. Quoting the favourite -text of the two swords, 'On earth,' he continues, 'God has placed no -more than two powers: above there is but one God, so here one Pope and -one Emperor. The Divine Providence has specially appointed the Roman -Empire as a remedy against continued schism[182].' The plan failed; -and Frederick adopted the candidate whom his own faction had chosen, -while the rival claimant, Alexander III, appealed, with a confidence -which the issue justified, to the support of sound churchmen -throughout Europe. The keen and long doubtful strife of twenty years -that followed, while apparently a dispute between rival Popes, was in -substance an effort by the secular monarch to recover his command of -the priesthood; not less truly so than that contemporaneous conflict -of the English Henry II and St. Thomas of Canterbury, with which it -was constantly involved. Unsupported, not all Alexander's genius and -resolution could have saved him: by the aid of the Lombard cities, -whose league he had counselled and hallowed, and of the fevers of -Rome, by which the conquering German host was suddenly annihilated, he -won a triumph the more signal, that it was over a prince so wise and -so pious as Frederick. At Venice, who, inaccessible by her position, -maintained a sedulous neutrality, claiming to be independent of the -Empire, yet seldom led into war by sympathy with the Popes, the two -powers whose strife had roused all Europe were induced to meet by the -mediation of the doge Sebastian Ziani. Three slabs of red marble in -the porch of St. Mark's point out the spot where Frederick knelt in -sudden awe, and the Pope with tears of joy raised him, and gave the -kiss of peace. A later legend, to which poetry and painting have given -an undeserved currency[183], tells how the pontiff set his foot on the -neck of the prostrate king, with the words, 'The lion and the dragon -shalt thou trample under feet[184].' It needed not this exaggeration -to enhance the significance of that scene, even more full of meaning -for the future than it was solemn and affecting to the Venetian crowd -that thronged the church and the piazza. For it was the renunciation -by the mightiest prince of his time of the project to which his life -had been devoted: it was the abandonment by the secular power of a -contest in which it had twice been vanquished, and which it could not -renew under more favourable conditions. - -[Sidenote: Revival of the study of the civil law.] - -Authority maintained so long against the successor of Peter would be -far from indulgent to rebellious subjects. For it was in this light -that the Lombard cities appeared to a monarch bent on reviving all the -rights his predecessors had enjoyed: nay, all that the law of ancient -Rome gave her absolute ruler. It would be wrong to speak of a -re-discovery of the civil law. That system had never perished from -Gaul and Italy, had been the groundwork of some codes, and the whole -substance, modified only by the changes in society, of many others. -The Church excepted, no agent did so much to keep alive the memory of -Roman institutions. The twelfth century now beheld the study -cultivated with a surprising increase of knowledge and ardour, -expended chiefly upon the Pandects. First in Italy and the schools of -the South, then in Paris and Oxford, they were expounded, commented -on, extolled as the perfection of human wisdom, the sole, true, and -eternal law. Vast as has been the labour and thought expended from -that time to this in the elucidation of the civil law, the most -competent authorities declare that in acuteness, in subtlety, in all -those branches of learning which can subsist without help from -historical criticism, these so-called Glossatores have been seldom -equalled and never surpassed by their successors. The teachers of the -canon law, who had not as yet become the rivals of the civilian, and -were accustomed to recur to his books where their own were silent, -spread through Europe the fame and influence of the Roman -jurisprudence; while its own professors were led both by their feeling -and their interest to give to all its maxims the greatest weight and -the fullest application. Men just emerging from barbarism, with minds -unaccustomed to create and blindly submissive to authority, viewed -written texts with an awe to us incomprehensible. All that the most -servile jurists of Rome had ever ascribed to their despotic princes -was directly transferred to the Cæsarean majesty who inherited their -name. He was 'Lord of the world,' absolute master of the lives and -property of all his subjects, that is, of all men; the sole fountain -of legislation, the embodiment of right and justice. These doctrines, -which the great Bolognese jurists, Bulgarus, Martinus, Hugolinus, and -others who constantly surrounded Frederick, taught and applied, as -matter of course, to a Teutonic, a feudal king, were by the rest of -the world not denied, were accepted in fervent faith by his German and -Italian partisans. 'To the Emperor belongs the protection of the whole -world,' says bishop Otto of Freysing. 'The Emperor is a living law -upon earth[185].' To Frederick, at Roncaglia, the archbishop of Milan -speaks for the assembled magnates of Lombardy: 'Do and ordain -whatsoever thou wilt, thy will is law; as it is written, "Quicquid -principi placuit legis habet vigorem, cum populus ei et in eum omne -suum imperium et potestatem concesserit[186]." The Hohenstaufen -himself was not slow to accept these magnificent ascriptions of -dignity, and though modestly professing his wish to govern according -to law rather than override the law, was doubtless roused by them to a -more vehement assertion of a prerogative so hallowed by age and by -what seemed a divine ordinance. - -[Sidenote: Frederick in Italy.] - -[Sidenote: Rome under Arnold of Brescia.] - -That assertion was most loudly called for in Italy. The Emperors might -appear to consider it a conquered country without privileges to be -respected, for they did not summon its princes to the German diets, -and overawed its own assemblies at Pavia or Roncaglia by the -Transalpine host that followed them. Its crown, too, was theirs -whenever they crossed the Alps to claim it, while the elections on the -banks of the Rhine might be adorned but could not be influenced by the -presence of barons from the southern kingdom[187]. In practice, -however, the imperial power stood lower in Italy than in Germany, for -it had been from the first intermittent, depending on the personal -vigour and present armed support of each invader. The theoretic -sovereignty of the Emperor-king was nowise disputed: in the cities -toll and tax were of right his: he could issue edicts at the Diet, and -require the tenants in chief to appear with their vassals. But the -revival of a control never exercised since Henry IV's time, was felt -as an intolerable hardship by the great Lombard cities, proud of -riches and population equal to that of the duchies of Germany or the -kingdoms of the North, and accustomed for more than a century to a -turbulent independence. For republicanism and popular freedom -Frederick had little sympathy. At Rome the fervent Arnold of Brescia -had repeated, but with far different thoughts and hopes, the part of -Crescentius[188]. The city had thrown off the yoke of its bishop, and -a commonwealth under consuls and senate professed to emulate the -spirit while it renewed the forms of the primitive republic. Its -leaders had written to Conrad III[189], asking him to help them to -restore the Empire to its position under Constantine and Justinian; -but the German, warned by St. Bernard, had preferred the friendship of -the Pope. Filled with a vain conceit of their own importance, they -repeated their offers to Frederick when he sought the crown from -Hadrian the Fourth. A deputation, after dwelling in highflown language -on the dignity of the Roman people, and their kindness in bestowing -the sceptre on him, a Swabian and a stranger, proceeded, in a manner -hardly consistent, to demand a largess ere he should enter the city. -Frederick's anger did not hear them to the end: 'Is this your Roman -wisdom? Who are ye that usurp the name of Roman dignities? Your -honours and your authority are yours no longer; with us are consuls, -senate, soldiers. It was not you who chose us, but Charles and Otto -that rescued you from the Greek and the Lombard, and conquered by -their own might the imperial crown. That Frankish might is still the -same: wrench, if you can, the club from Hercules. It is not for the -people to give laws to the prince, but to obey his mandate[190].' This -was Frederick's version of the 'Translation of the Empire[191].' - -[Sidenote: The Lombard Cities.] - -He who had been so stern to his own capital was not likely to deal -more gently with the rebels of Milan and Tortona. In the contest by -which Frederick is chiefly known to history, he is commonly painted as -the foreign tyrant, the forerunner of the Austrian oppressor[192], -crushing under the hoofs of his cavalry the home of freedom and -industry. Such a view is unjust to a great man and his cause. To the -despot liberty is always licence; yet Frederick was the advocate of -admitted claims; the aggressions of Milan threatened her neighbours; -the refusal, where no actual oppression was alleged, to admit his -officers and allow his regalian rights, seemed a wanton breach of -oaths and engagements, treason against God no less than himself[193]. -Nevertheless our sympathy must go with the cities, in whose victory we -recognize the triumph of freedom and civilization. Their resistance -was at first probably a mere aversion to unused control, and to the -enforcement of imposts less offensive in former days than now, and by -long dereliction apparently obsolete[194]. Republican principles were -not avowed, nor Italian nationality appealed to. But the progress of -the conflict developed new motives and feelings, and gave them clearer -notions of what they fought for. As the Emperor's antagonist, the Pope -was their natural ally: he blessed their arms, and called on the -barons of Romagna and Tuscany for aid; he made 'The Church' ere long -their watchword, and helped them to conclude that league of mutual -support by means whereof the party of the Italian Guelfs was formed. -Another cry, too, began to be heard, hardly less inspiriting than the -last, the cry of freedom and municipal self-government--freedom little -understood and terribly abused, self-government which the cities who -claimed it for themselves refused to their subject allies, yet both of -them, through their divine power of stimulating effort and quickening -sympathy, as much nobler than the harsh and sterile system of a feudal -monarchy as the citizen of republican Athens rose above the slavish -Asiatic or the brutal Macedonian. Nor was the fact that Italians were -resisting a Transalpine invader without its effect; there was as yet -no distinct national feeling, for half Lombardy, towns as well as -rural nobles, fought under Frederick; but events made the cause of -liberty always more clearly the cause of patriotism, and increased -that fear and hate of the Tedescan for which Italy has had such bitter -justification. - -[Sidenote: Temporary success of Frederick.] - -The Emperor was for a time successful: Tortona was taken, Milan razed -to the ground, her name apparently lost: greater obstacles had been -overcome, and a fuller authority was now exercised than in the days of -the Ottos or the Henrys. The glories of the first Frankish conqueror -were triumphantly recalled, and Frederick was compared by his admirers -to the hero whose canonization he had procured, and whom he strove in -all things to imitate[195]. 'He was esteemed,' says one, 'second only -to Charles in piety and justice.' 'We ordain this,' says a decree: 'Ut -ad Caroli imitationem ius ecclesiarum statum reipublicæ et legum -integritatem per totum imperium nostrum servaremus[196].' But the hold -the name of Charles had on the minds of the people, and the way in -which he had become, so to speak, an eponym of Empire, has better -witnesses than grave documents. A rhyming poet sings[197]:-- - - 'Quanta sit potentia vel laus Friderici - Cum sit patens omnibus, non est opus dici; - Qui rebelles lancea fodiens ultrici - Repræsentat Karolum dextera victrici.' - -The diet at Roncaglia was a chorus of gratulations over the -re-establishment of order by the destruction of the dens of unruly -burghers. - -[Sidenote: Victory of the Lombard league.] - -This fair sky was soon clouded. From her quenchless ashes uprose -Milan; Cremona, scorning old jealousies, helped to rebuild what she -had destroyed, and the confederates, committed to an all but hopeless -strife, clung faithfully together till on the field of Legnano the -Empire's banner went down before the carroccio[198] of the free city. -Times were changed since Aistulf and Desiderius trembled at the -distant tramp of the Frankish hosts. A new nation had arisen, slowly -reared through suffering into strength, now at last by heroic deeds -conscious of itself. The power of Charles had overleaped boundaries of -nature and language that were too strong for his successor, and that -grew henceforth ever firmer, till they made the Empire itself a -delusive name. Frederick, though harsh in war, and now balked of his -most cherished hopes, could honestly accept a state of things it was -beyond his power to change: he signed cheerfully and kept dutifully -the peace of Constance, which left him little but a titular supremacy -over the Lombard towns. - -[Sidenote: Frederick as German king.] - -At home no Emperor since Henry III had been so much respected and so -generally prosperous. Uniting in his person the Saxon and Swabian -families, he healed the long feud of Welf and Waiblingen: his prelates -were faithful to him, even against Rome: no turbulent rebel disturbed -the public peace. Germany was proud of a hero who maintained her -dignity so well abroad, and he crowned a glorious life with a happy -death, leading the van of Christian chivalry against the Mussulman. -Frederick, the greatest of the Crusaders, is the noblest type of -mediæval character in many of its shadows, in all its lights. - -[Sidenote: The German cities.] - -Legal in form, in practice sometimes almost absolute, the government -of Germany was, like that of other feudal kingdoms, restrained chiefly -by the difficulty of coercing refractory vassals. All depended on the -monarch's character, and one so vigorous and popular as Frederick -could generally lead the majority with him and terrify the rest. A -false impression of the real strength of his prerogative might be -formed from the readiness with which he was obeyed. He repaired the -finances of the kingdom, controlled the dukes, introduced a more -splendid ceremonial, endeavoured to exalt the central power by -multiplying the nobles of the second rank, afterwards the 'college of -princes,' and by trying to substitute the civil law and Lombard feudal -code for the old Teutonic customs, different in every province. If not -successful in this project, he fared better with another. Since Henry -the Fowler's day towns had been growing up through Southern and -Western Germany, especially where rivers offered facilities for trade. -Cologne, Treves, Mentz, Worms, Speyer, Nürnberg, Ulm, Regensburg, -Augsburg, were already considerable cities, not afraid to beard their -lord or their bishop, and promising before long to counterbalance the -power of the territorial oligarchy. Policy or instinct led Frederick -to attach them to the throne, enfranchising many, granting, with -municipal institutions, an independent jurisdiction, conferring -various exemptions and privileges; while receiving in turn their -good-will and loyal aid, in money always, in men when need should -come. His immediate successors trode in his steps, and thus there -arose in the state a third order, the firmest bulwark, had it been -rightly used, of imperial authority; an order whose members, the Free -Cities, were through many ages the centres of German intellect and -freedom, the only haven from the storms of civil war, the surest hope -of future peace and union. In them national congresses to this day -sometimes meet: from them aspiring spirits strive to diffuse those -ideas of Germanic unity and self-government, which they alone have -kept alive. Out of so many flourishing commonwealths, four[199] have -been spared by foreign conquerors and faithless princes. To the -primitive order of German freemen, scarcely existing out of the towns, -except in Swabia and Switzerland, Frederick further commended himself -by allowing them to be admitted to knighthood, by restraining the -licence of the nobles, imposing a public peace, making justice in -every way more accessible and impartial. To the south-west of the -green plain that girdles in the rock of Salzburg, the gigantic mass of -the Untersberg frowns over the road which winds up a long defile to -the glen and lake of Berchtesgaden. There, far up among its limestone -crags, in a spot scarcely accessible to human foot, the peasants of -the valley point out to the traveller the black mouth of a cavern, and -tell him that within Barbarossa lies amid his knights in an enchanted -sleep[200], waiting the hour when the ravens shall cease to hover -round the peak, and the pear-tree blossom in the valley, to descend -with his Crusaders and bring back to Germany the golden age of peace -and strength and unity. Often in the evil days that followed the fall -of Frederick's house, often when tyranny seemed unendurable and -anarchy endless, men thought on that cavern, and sighed for the day -when the long sleep of the just Emperor should be broken, and his -shield be hung aloft again as of old in the camp's midst, a sign of -help to the poor and the oppressed. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[181] A great deal of importance seems to have been attached to this -symbolic act of courtesy. See Art. I of the Sachsenspiegel. - -[182] Letter to the German bishops in Radewic; Mur., _S. R. I._, t. -vi. p. 833. - -[183] A picture in the great hall of the ducal palace (the Sala del -Maggio Consiglio) represents the scene. See Rogers' Italy. - -[184] Psalm xci. - -[185] Document of 1230, quoted by Von Raumer, v. p. 81. - -[186] Speech of archbishop of Milan, in Radewic; Mur. vi. - -[187] Frederick's election (at Frankfort) was made 'non sine quibusdam -Italiæ baronibus.'--Otto Fris. i. But this was the exception. - -[188] See also _post_, Chapter XVI. - -[189] 'Senatus Populusque Romanus urbis et orbis totius domino -Conrado.' - -[190] Otto of Freysing. - -[191] Later in his reign, Frederick condescended to negotiate with -these Roman magistrates against a hostile Pope, and entered into a -sort of treaty by which they were declared exempt from all -jurisdiction but his own. - -[192] See the first note to Shelley's _Hellas_. Sismondi is mainly -answerable for this conception of Barbarossa's position. - -[193] They say rebelliously, says Frederick, 'Nolumus hunc regnare -super nos ... at nos maluimus honestam mortem quam ut,' &c.--Letter in -Pertz. _M. G. H._ legg. ii. - -[194] - - 'De tributo Cæsaris nemo cogitabat; - Omnes erant Cæsares, nemo censum dabat; - Civitas Ambrosii, velut Troia, stabat, - Deos parum, homines minus formidabat.' - -Poems relating to the Emperor Frederick of Hohenstaufen, published by -Grimm. - -[195] Charles the Great was canonized by Frederick's anti-pope and -confirmed afterwards. - -[196] _Acta Concil. Hartzhem._ iii., quoted by Von Raumer, ii. 6. - -[197] Poems relating to Frederick I, _ut supra_. - -[198] The carroccio was a waggon with a flagstaff planted on it, which -served the Lombards for a rallying-point in battle. - -[199] Lübeck, Hamburg, Bremen, and Frankfort. - -[Since this was first written Frankfort has been annexed by Prussia, -and her three surviving sisters have, by their entrance into the North -German confederation, lost something of their independence.] - -[200] The legend is one which appears under various forms in many -countries. - - - - -CHAPTER XII. - -IMPERIAL TITLES AND PRETENSIONS. - - -The era of the Hohenstaufen is perhaps the fittest point at which to -turn aside from the narrative history of the Empire to speak shortly -of the legal position which it professed to hold to the rest of -Europe, as well as of certain duties and observances which throw a -light upon the system it embodied. This is not indeed the era of its -greatest power: that was already past. Nor is it conspicuously the era -when its ideal dignity stood highest: for that remained scarcely -impaired till three centuries had passed away. But it was under the -Hohenstaufen, owing partly to the splendid abilities of the princes of -that famous line, partly to the suddenly-gained ascendancy of the -Roman law, that the actual power and the theoretical influence of the -Empire most fully coincided. There can therefore be no better -opportunity for noticing the titles and claims by which it announced -itself the representative of Rome's universal dominion, and for -collecting the various instances in which they were (either before or -after Frederick's time) more or less admitted by the other states of -Europe. - -The territories over which Barbarossa would have declared his -jurisdiction to extend may be classed under four heads:-- - -First, the German lands, in which, and in which alone, the Emperor -was, up till the death of Frederick the Second, effective sovereign. - -Second, the non-German districts of the Holy Empire, where the Emperor -was acknowledged as sole monarch, but in practice little regarded. - -Third, certain outlying countries, owing allegiance to the Empire, but -governed by kings of their own. - -Fourth, the other states of Europe, whose rulers, while in most cases -admitting the superior rank of the Emperor, were virtually independent -of him. - -[Sidenote: Limits of the Empire.] - -Thus within the actual boundaries of the Holy Empire were included -only districts coming under the first and second of the above classes, -i.e. Germany, the northern half of Italy, and the kingdom of Burgundy -or Arles--that is to say, Provence, Dauphiné, the Free County of -Burgundy (Franche Comté), and Western Switzerland. Lorraine, Alsace, -and a portion of Flanders were of course parts of Germany. To the -north-east, Bohemia and the Slavic principalities in Mecklenburg and -Pomerania were as yet not integral parts of its body, but rather -dependent outliers. Beyond the march of Brandenburg, from the Oder to -the Vistula, dwelt pagan Lithuanians or Prussians[201], free till the -establishment among them of the Teutonic knights. - -[Sidenote: Hungary.] - -Hungary had owed a doubtful allegiance since the days of Otto I. -Gregory VII had claimed it as a fief of the Holy See; Frederick wished -to reduce it completely to subjection, but could not overcome the -reluctance of his nobles. After Frederick II, by whom it was recovered -from the Mongol hordes, no imperial claims were made for so many years -that at last they became obsolete, and were confessed to be so by the -Constitution of Augsburg, A.D. 1566[202]. - -[Sidenote: Poland.] - -Under Duke Misico, Poland had submitted to Otto the Great, and -continued, with occasional revolts, to obey the Empire, till the -beginning of the Great Interregnum (as it is called) in 1254. Its duke -was present at the election of Richard, A.D. 1258. Thereafter -Primislas called himself king, in token of emancipation, and the -country became independent, though some of its provinces were long -afterwards reunited to the German state. Silesia, originally Polish, -was attached to Bohemia by Charles IV, and so became part of the -Empire; Posen and Galicia were seized by Prussia and Austria, A.D. -1772. Down to her partition in that year, the constitution of Poland -remained a copy of that which had existed in the German kingdom in the -twelfth century[203]. - -[Sidenote: Denmark.] - -Lewis the Pious had received the homage of the Danish king Harold, on -his baptism at Mentz, A.D. 826; Otto the Great's victories over Harold -Blue Tooth made the country regularly subject, and added the march of -Schleswig to the immediate territory of the Empire: but the boundary -soon receded to the Eyder, on whose banks might be seen the -inscription,-- - - 'Eidora Romani terminus imperii.' - -King Peter[204] attended at Frederick I's coronation, to do homage, -and receive from the Emperor, as suzerain, his own crown. Since the -Interregnum Denmark has been always free[205]. - -[Sidenote: France.] - -Otto the Great was the last Emperor whose suzerainty the French kings -had admitted; nor were Henry VI and Otto IV successful in their -attempts to enforce it. Boniface VIII, in his quarrel with Philip the -Fair, offered the French throne, which he had pronounced vacant, to -Albert I; but the wary Hapsburg declined the dangerous prize. The -precedence, however, which the Germans continued to assert, irritated -Gallic pride, and led to more than one contest. Blondel denies the -Empire any claim to the Roman name; and in A.D. 1648 the French envoys -at Münster refused for some time to admit what no other European state -disputed. Till recent times the title of the Archbishop of Treves, -'Archicancellarius per Galliam atque regnum Arelatense,' preserved the -memory of an obsolete supremacy which the constant aggressions of -France might seem to have reversed. - -[Sidenote: Sweden.] - -No reliance can be placed on the author who tells us that Sweden was -granted by Frederick I to Waldemar the Dane[206]; the fact is -improbable, and we do not hear that such pretensions were ever put -forth before or after. - -[Sidenote: Spain.] - -Nor does it appear that authority was ever exercised by any Emperor in -Spain. Nevertheless the choice of Alfonso X by a section of the German -electors, in A.D. 1258, may be construed to imply that the Spanish -kings were members of the Empire. And when, A.D. 1053, Ferdinand the -Great of Castile had, in the pride of his victories over the Moors, -assumed the title of 'Hispaniæ Imperator,' the remonstrance of Henry -III declared the rights of Rome over the Western provinces indelible, -and the Spaniard, though protesting his independence, was forced to -resign the usurped dignity[207]. - -[Sidenote: England.] - -No act of sovereignty is recorded to have been done by any of the -Emperors in England, though as heirs of Rome they might be thought to -have better rights over it than over Poland or Denmark[208]. There -was, however, a vague notion that the English, like other kingdoms, -must depend on the Empire: a notion which appears in Conrad III's -letter to John of Constantinople[209]; and which was countenanced by -the submissive tone in which Frederick I was addressed by the -Plantagenet Henry II[210]. English independence was still more -compromised in the next reign, when Richard I, according to Hoveden, -'Consilio matris suæ deposuit se de regno Angliæ et tradidit illud -imperatori (Henrico VIto) sicut universorum domino.' But as Richard -was at the same time invested with the kingdom of Arles by Henry VI, -his homage may have been for that fief only; and it was probably in -that capacity that he voted, as a prince of the Empire, at the -election of Frederick II. The case finds a parallel in the claims of -England over the Scottish king, doubtful, to say the least, as regards -the domestic realm of the latter, certain as regards Cumbria, which he -had long held from the Southern crown[211]. But Germany had no Edward -I. Henry VI is said at his death to have released Richard from his -submission (this too may be compared with Richard's release to the -Scottish William the Lion), and Edward II declared, 'regnum Angliæ ab -omni subiectione imperiali esse liberrimum[212].' Yet the idea -survived: the Emperor Lewis the Bavarian, when he named Edward III his -vicar in the great French war, demanded, though in vain, that the -English monarch should kiss his feet[213]. Sigismund[214], visiting -Henry V at London, before the meeting of the council of Constance, was -met by the Duke of Gloucester, who, riding into the water to the ship -where the Emperor sat, required him, at the sword's point, to declare -that he did not come purposing to infringe on the king's authority in -the realm of England[215]. One curious pretension of the imperial -crown called forth many protests. It was declared by civilians and -canonists that no public notary could have any standing, or attach any -legality to the documents he drew, unless he had received his diploma -from the Emperor or the Pope. A strenuous denial of a doctrine so -injurious was issued by the parliament of Scotland under James -III[216]. - -[Sidenote: Naples.] - -The kingdom of Naples and Sicily, although of course claimed as a part -of the Empire, was under the Norman dynasty (A.D. 1060-1189) not -merely independent, but the most dangerous enemy of the German power -in Italy. Henry VI, the son and successor of Barbarossa, obtained -possession of it by marrying Constantia the last heiress of the Norman -kings. But both he and Frederick II treated it as a separate -patrimonial state, instead of incorporating it with their more -northerly dominions. After the death of Conradin, the last of the -Hohenstaufen, it passed away to an Angevin, then to an Aragonese -dynasty, continuing under both to maintain itself independent of the -Empire, nor ever again, except under Charles V, united to the Germanic -crown. - -[Sidenote: Venice.] - -One spot in Italy there was whose singular felicity of situation -enabled her through long centuries of obscurity and weakness, slowly -ripening into strength, to maintain her freedom unstained by any -submission to the Frankish and Germanic Emperors. Venice glories in -deducing her origin from the fugitives who escaped from Aquileia in -the days of Attila: it is at least probable that her population never -received an intermixture of Teutonic settlers, and continued during -the ages of Lombard and Frankish rule in Italy to regard the Byzantine -sovereigns as the representatives of their ancient masters. In the -tenth century, when summoned to submit by Otto, they had said, 'We -wish to be the servants of the Emperors of the Romans' (the -Constantinopolitan), and though they overthrew this very Eastern -throne in A.D. 1204, the pretext had served its turn, and had aided -them in defying or evading the demands of obedience made by the -Teutonic princes. Alone of all the Italian republics, Venice never, -down to her extinction by France and Austria in A.D. 1796, recognized -within her walls any secular authority save her own. - -[Sidenote: The East.] - -The kings of Cyprus and Armenia sent to Henry VI to confess themselves -his vassals and ask his help. Over remote Eastern lands, where -Frankish foot had never trod, Frederick Barbarossa asserted the -indestructible rights of Rome, mistress of the world. A letter to -Saladin, amusing from its absolute identification of his own Empire -with that which had sent Crassus to perish in Parthia, and had blushed -to see Mark Antony 'consulum nostrum'[217] at the feet of Cleopatra, -is preserved by Hoveden: it bids the Soldan withdraw at once from the -dominions of Rome, else will she, with her new Teutonic defenders, of -whom a pompous list follows, drive him from them with all her ancient -might. - -[Sidenote: The Byzantine Emperors.] - -[Sidenote: Rivalry of the two Empires.] - -Unwilling as were the great kingdoms of Western Europe to admit the -territorial supremacy of the Emperor, the proudest among them never -refused, until the end of the Middle Ages, to recognize his precedence -and address him in a tone of respectful deference. Very different was -the attitude of the Byzantine princes, who denied his claim to be an -Emperor at all. The separate existence of the Eastern Church and -Empire was not only, as has been said above, a blemish in the title of -the Teutonic sovereigns; it was a continuing and successful protest -against the whole system of an Empire Church of Christendom, centering -in Rome, ruled by the successor of Peter and the successor of -Augustus. Instead of the one Pope and one Emperor whom mediæval theory -presented as the sole earthly representatives of the invisible head of -the Church, the world saw itself distracted by the interminable feud -of rivals, each of whom had much to allege on his behalf. It was easy -for the Latins to call the Easterns schismatics and their Emperor an -usurper, but practically it was impossible to dethrone him or reduce -them to obedience: while even in controversy no one could treat the -pretensions of communities who had been the first to embrace -Christianity and retained so many of its most ancient forms, with the -contempt which would have been felt for any Western sectaries. -Seriously, however, as the hostile position of the Greeks seems to us -to affect the claims of the Teutonic Empire, calling in question its -legitimacy and marring its pretended universality, those who lived at -the time seem to have troubled themselves little about it, finding -themselves in practice seldom confronted by the difficulties it -raised. The great mass of the people knew of the Greeks not even by -name; of those who did, the most thought of them only as perverse -rebels, Samaritans who refused to worship at Jerusalem, and were -little better than infidels. The few ecclesiastics of superior -knowledge and insight had their minds preoccupied by the established -theory, and accepted it with too intense a belief to suffer anything -else to come into collision with it: they do not seem to have even -apprehended all that was involved in this one defect. Nor, what is -still stranger, in all the attacks made upon the claims of the -Teutonic Empire, whether by its Papal or its French antagonists, do we -find the rival title of the Greek sovereigns adduced in argument -against it. Nevertheless, the Eastern Church was then, as she is to -this day, a thorn in the side of the Papacy; and the Eastern Emperors, -so far from uniting for the good of Christendom with their Western -brethren, felt towards them a bitter though not unnatural jealousy, -lost no opportunity of intriguing for their evil, and never ceased to -deny their right to the imperial name. The coronation of Charles was -in their eyes an act of unholy rebellion; his successors were -barbarian intruders, ignorant of the laws and usages of the ancient -state, and with no claim to the Roman name except that which the -favour of an insolent pontiff might confer. The Greeks had themselves -long since ceased to use the Latin tongue, and were indeed become more -than half Orientals in character and manners. But they still continued -to call themselves Romans, and preserved most of the titles and -ceremonies which had existed in the time of Constantine or Justinian. -They were weak, although by no means so weak as modern historians have -been till lately wont to paint them, and the weaker they grew the -higher rose their conceit, and the more did they plume themselves upon -the uninterrupted legitimacy of their crown, and the ceremonial -splendour wherewith custom had surrounded its wearer. It gratified -their spite to pervert insultingly the titles of the Frankish princes. -Basil the Macedonian reproached Lewis II with presuming to use the -name of 'Basileus,' to which Lewis retorted that he was as good an -emperor as Basil himself, but that, anyhow, _Basileus_ was only the -Greek for _rex_, and need not mean 'Emperor' at all. Nicephorus would -not call Otto I anything but 'King of the Lombards[218],' Conrad III -was addressed by Calo-Johannes as 'amice imperii mei Rex[219];' Isaac -Angelus had the impudence to style Frederick I 'chief prince of -Alemannia[220].' The great Emperor, half-resentful, half-contemptuous, -told the envoys that he was 'Romanorum imperator,' and bade their -master call himself 'Romaniorum' from his Thracian province. Though -these ebullitions were the most conclusive proof of their weakness, -the Byzantine rulers sometimes planned the recovery of their former -capital, and seemed not unlikely to succeed under the leadership of -the conquering Manuel Comnenus. He invited Alexander III, then in the -heat of his strife with Frederick, to return to the embrace of his -rightful sovereign, but the prudent pontiff and his synod courteously -declined[221]. The Greeks were, however, too unstable and too much -alienated from Latin feeling to have held Rome, could they even have -seduced her allegiance. A few years later they were themselves the -victims of the French and Venetian crusaders. - -[Sidenote: Dignities and titles.] - -[Sidenote: The four crowns.] - -Though Otto the Great and his successors had dropped all titles save -their highest (the tedious lists of imperial dignities were happily -not yet in being), they did not therefore endeavour to unite their -several kingdoms, but continued to go through four distinct -coronations at the four capitals of their Empire[222]. These are -concisely given in the verses of Godfrey of Viterbo, a notary of -Frederick's household[223]:-- - - 'Primus Aquisgrani locus est, post hæc Arelati, - Inde Modoetiæ regali sede locari - Post solet Italiæ summa corona dari: - Cæsar Romano cum vult diademate fungi - Debet apostolicis manibus reverenter inungi.' - -By the crowning at Aachen, the old Frankish capital, the monarch -became 'king;' formerly 'king of the Franks,' or, 'king of the Eastern -Franks;' now, since Henry II's time, 'king of the Romans, always -Augustus.' At Monza, (or, more rarely, at Milan) in later times, at -Pavia in earlier times, he became king of Italy, or of the -Lombards[224]; at Rome he received the double crown of the Roman -Empire, 'double,' says Godfrey, as 'urbis et orbis:'-- - - 'Hoc quicunque tenet, summus in orbe sedet;' - -though others hold that, uniting the mitre to the crown, it typifies -spiritual as well as secular authority. The crown of Burgundy[225] or -the kingdom of Arles, first gained by Conrad II, was a much less -splendid matter, and carried with it little effective power. Most -Emperors never assumed it at all, Frederick I not till late in life, -when an interval of leisure left him nothing better to do. These four -crowns[226] furnish matter of endless discussion to the old writers; -they tell us that the Roman was golden, the German silver, the Italian -iron, the metal corresponding to the dignity of each realm[227]. -Others say that that of Aachen is iron, and the Italian silver, and -give elaborate reasons why it should be so[228]. There seems to be no -doubt that the allegory created the fact, and that all three crowns -were of gold, though in that of Italy there was and is inserted a -piece of iron, a nail, it was believed, of the true Cross. - -[Sidenote: Meaning of the four coronations.] - -Why, it may well be asked, seeing that the Roman crown made the -Emperor ruler of the whole habitable globe, was it thought necessary -for him to add to it minor dignities which might be supposed to have -been already included in it? The reason seems to be that the imperial -office was conceived of as something different in kind from the regal, -and as carrying with it not the immediate government of any particular -kingdom, but a general suzerainty over and right of controlling all. -Of this a pertinent illustration is afforded by an anecdote told of -Frederick Barbarossa. Happening once to inquire of the famous jurists -who surrounded him whether it was really true that he was 'lord of the -world,' one of them simply assented, another, Bulgarus, answered, 'Not -as respects ownership.' In this dictum, which is evidently conformable -to the philosophical theory of the Empire, we have a pointed -distinction drawn between feudal sovereignty, which supposes the -prince original owner of the soil of his whole kingdom, and imperial -sovereignty, which is irrespective of place, and exercised not over -things but over men, as God's rational creatures. But the Emperor, as -has been said already, was also the East Frankish king, uniting in -himself, to use the legal phrase, two wholly distinct 'persons,' and -hence he might acquire more direct and practically useful rights over -a portion of his dominions by being crowned king of that portion, just -as a feudal monarch was often duke or count of lordships whereof he -was already feudal superior; or, to take a better illustration, just -as a bishop may hold livings in his own diocese. That the Emperors, -while continuing to be crowned at Milan and Aachen, did not call -themselves kings of the Lombards and of the Franks, was probably -merely because these titles seemed insignificant compared to that of -Roman Emperor. - -[Sidenote: 'Emperor' not assumed till the Roman coronation.] - -[Sidenote: Origin and results of this practice.] - -In this supreme title, as has been said, all lesser honours were blent -and lost, but custom or prejudice forbade the German king to assume it -till actually crowned at Rome by the Pope[229]. Matters of phrase and -title are never unimportant, least of all in an age ignorant and -superstitiously antiquarian: and this restriction had the most -important consequences. The first barbarian kings had been -tribe-chiefs; and when they claimed a dominion which was universal, -yet in a sense territorial, they could not separate their title from -the spot which it was their boast to possess, and by virtue of whose -name they ruled. 'Rome,' says the biographer of St. Adalbert, 'seeing -that she both is and is called the head of the world and the mistress -of cities, is alone able to give to kings imperial power, and since -she cherishes in her bosom the body of the Prince of the Apostles, she -ought of right to appoint the Prince of the whole earth[230].' The -crown was therefore too sacred to be conferred by any one but the -supreme Pontiff, or in any city less august than the ancient capital. -Had it become hereditary in any family, Lothar I's, for instance, or -Otto's, this feeling might have worn off; as it was, each successive -transfer, to Guido, to Otto, to Henry II, to Conrad the Salic, -strengthened it. The force of custom, tradition, precedent, is -incalculable when checked neither by written rules nor free -discussion. What sheer assertion will do is shewn by the success of a -forgery so gross as the Isidorian decretals. No arguments are needed -to discredit the alleged decree of Pope Benedict VIII[231], which -prohibited the German prince from taking the name or office of Emperor -till approved and consecrated by the pontiff, but a doctrine so -favourable to papal pretensions was sure not to want advocacy; Hadrian -IV proclaims it in the broadest terms, and through the efforts of the -clergy and the spell of reverence in the Teutonic princes, it passed -into an unquestioned belief. That none ventured to use the title till -the Pope conferred it, made it seem in some manner to depend on his -will, enabled him to exact conditions from every candidate, and gave a -colour to his pretended suzerainty. Since by feudal theory every -honour and estate is held from some superior, and since the divine -commission has been without doubt issued directly to the Pope, must -not the whole earth be his fief, and he the lord paramount, to whom -even the Emperor is a vassal? This argument, which derived -considerable plausibility from the rivalry between the Emperor and -other monarchs, as compared with the universal and undisputed[232] -authority of the Pope, was a favourite with the high sacerdotal party: -first distinctly advanced by Hadrian IV, when he set up the -picture[233] representing Lothar's homage, which had so irritated the -followers of Barbarossa, though it had already been hinted at in -Gregory VII's gift of the crown to Rudolf of Suabia, with the line,-- - - 'Petra dedit Petro, Petrus diadema Rudolfo.' - -Nor was it only by putting him at the pontiff's mercy that this -dependence of the imperial name on a coronation in the city injured -the German sovereign[234]. With strange inconsistency it was not -pretended that the Emperor's rights were any narrower before he -received the rite: he could summon synods, confirm papal elections, -exercise jurisdiction over the citizens: his claim of the crown itself -could not, at least till the times of the Gregorys and the Innocents, -be positively denied. For no one thought of contesting the right of -the German nation to the Empire, or the authority of the electoral -princes, strangers though they were, to give Rome and Italy a master. -The republican followers of Arnold of Brescia might murmur, but they -could not dispute the truth of the proud lines in which the poet who -sang the glories of Barbarossa[235], describes the result of the -conquest of Charles the Great:-- - - 'Ex quo Romanum nostra virtute redemptum - Hostibus expulsis, ad nos iustissimus ordo - Transtulit imperium, Romani gloria regni - Nos penes est. Quemcunque sibi Germania regem - Præficit, hunc dives summisso vertice Roma - Suscipit, et verso Tiberim regit ordine Rhenus.' - -But the real strength of the Teutonic kingdom was wasted in the -pursuit of a glittering toy: once in his reign each Emperor undertook -a long and dangerous expedition, and dissipated in an inglorious and -ever to be repeated strife the forces that might have achieved -conquest elsewhere, or made him feared and obeyed at home. - -[Sidenote: The title 'Holy Empire.'] - -At this epoch appears another title, of which more must be said. To -the accustomed 'Roman Empire' Frederick Barbarossa adds the epithet of -'Holy.' Of its earlier origin, under Conrad II (the Salic), which some -have supposed[236], there is no documentary trace, though there is -also no proof to the contrary[237]. So far as is known it occurs first -in the famous Privilege of Austria, granted by Frederick in the fourth -year of his reign, the second of his empire, 'terram Austriæ quæ -clypeus et cor sacri imperii esse dinoscitur[238]:' then afterwards, -in other manifestos of his reign; for example, in a letter to Isaac -Angelus of Byzantium[239], and in the summons to the princes to help -him against Milan: 'Quia ... urbis et orbis gubernacula tenemus ... -sacro imperio et divæ reipublicæ consulere debemus[240];' where the -second phrase is a synonym explanatory of the first. Used occasionally -by Henry VI and Frederick II, it is more frequent under their -successors, William, Richard, Rudolf, till after Charles IV's time it -becomes habitual, for the last few centuries indispensable. Regarding -the origin of so singular a title many theories have been advanced. -Some declared it a perpetuation of the court style of Rome and -Byzantium, which attached sanctity to the person of the monarch: thus -David Blondel, contending for the honour of France, calls it a mere -epithet of the Emperor, applied by confusion to his government[241]. -Others saw in it a religious meaning, referring to Daniel's prophecy, -or to the fact that the Empire was contemporary with Christianity, or -to Christ's birth under it[242]. Strong churchmen derived it from the -dependence of the imperial crown on the Pope. There were not wanting -persons to maintain that it meant nothing more than great or splendid. -We need not, however, be in any great doubt as to its true meaning and -purport. The ascription of sacredness to the person, the palace, the -letters, and so forth, of the sovereign, so common in the later ages -of Rome, had been partly retained in the German court. Liudprand calls -Otto 'imperator sanctissimus[243].' Still this sanctity, which the -Greeks above all others lavished on their princes, is something -personal, is nothing more than the divinity that always hedges a king. -Far more intimate and peculiar was the relation of the revived Roman -Empire to the church and religion. As has been said already, it was -neither more nor less than the visible Church, seen on its secular -side, the Christian society organized as a state under a form divinely -appointed, and therefore the name 'Holy Roman Empire' was the needful -and rightful counterpart to that of 'Holy Catholic Church.' Such had -long been the belief, and so the title might have had its origin as -far back as the tenth or ninth century, might even have emanated from -Charles himself. Alcuin in one of his letters uses the phrase -'imperium Christianum.' But there was a further reason for its -introduction at this particular epoch. Ever since Hildebrand had -claimed for the priesthood exclusive sanctity and supreme -jurisdiction, the papal party had not ceased to speak of the civil -power as being, compared with that of their own chief, merely secular, -earthly, profane. It may be conjectured that to meet this reproach, no -less injurious than insulting, Frederick or his advisers began to use -in public documents the expression 'Holy Empire;' thereby wishing to -assert the divine institution and religious duties of the office he -held. Previous Emperors had called themselves 'Catholici,' -'Christiani,' 'ecclesiæ defensores[244];' now their State itself is -consecrated an earthly theocracy. 'Deus Romanum imperium adversus -schisma ecclesiæ præparavit[245],' writes Frederick to the English -Henry II. The theory was one which the best and greatest Emperors, -Charles, Otto the Great, Henry III, had most striven to carry out; it -continued to be zealously upheld when it had long ceased to be -practicable. In the proclamations of mediæval kings there is a -constant dwelling on their Divine commission. Power in an age of -violence sought to justify while it enforced its commands, to make -brute force less brutal by appeals to a higher sanction. This is seen -nowhere more than in the style of the German sovereigns: they delight -in the phrases 'maiestas sacrosancta[246],' 'imperator divina -ordinante providentia,' 'divina pietate,' 'per misericordiam Dei;' -many of which were preserved till, like those used now by other -European kings, like our own 'Defender of the Faith,' they had become -at last more grotesque than solemn. The Emperor Joseph II, at the end -of the eighteenth century, was 'Advocate of the Christian Church,' -'Vicar of Christ,' 'Imperial head of the faithful,' 'Leader of the -Christian army,' 'Protector of Palestine, of general councils, of the -Catholic faith[247].' - -The title, if it added little to the power, yet certainly seems to -have increased the dignity of the Empire, and by consequence the -jealousy of other states, of France especially. This did not, however, -go so far as to prevent its recognition by the Pope and the French -king[248], and after the sixteenth century it would have been a breach -of diplomatic courtesy to omit it. Nor have imitators been -wanting[249]: witness such titles as 'Most Christian king,' 'Catholic -king,' 'Defender of the Faith[250].' - -FOOTNOTES: - -[201] 'Pruzzi,' says the biographer of St. Adalbert, 'quorum Deus est -venter et avaritia iuncta cum morte.'--_M. G. H._ t. iv. - -It is curious that this non-Teutonic people should have given their -name to the great German kingdom of the present. - -[202] Conring, _De Finibus Imperii_. It is hardly necessary to observe -that the connection of Hungary with the Hapsburgs is of comparatively -recent origin, and of a purely dynastic nature. The position of the -archdukes of Austria as kings of Hungary had nothing to do legally -with the fact that many of them were also chosen Emperors, although -practically their possession of the imperial crown had greatly aided -them in grasping and retaining the thrones of Hungary and Bohemia. - -[203] Cf. Pfeffel, _Abrégé Chronologique_. - -[204] Letter of Frederick I to Otto of Freising, prefixed to the -latter's History. This king is also called Sweyn. - -[205] See Appendix, Note B. - -[206] Albertus Stadensis apud Conringium, _De Finibus Imperii_. - -[207] There is an allusion to this in the poems of the Cid. Arthur -Duck, _De Usu et Authoritate Iuris Civilis_, quotes the view of some -among the older jurists, that Spain having been, as far as the Romans -were concerned, a _res derelicta_, recovered by the Spaniards -themselves from the Moors, and thus acquired by _occupatio_, ought not -to be subject to the Emperors. - -[208] One of the greatest of English kings appears performing an act -of courtesy to the Emperor which was probably construed into an -acknowledgment of his own inferior position. Describing the Roman -coronation of the Emperor Conrad II, Wippo (c. 16) tells us 'His ita -peractis in duorum regum præsentia Ruodolfi regis Burgundiæ et -Chnutonis regis Anglorum divino officio finito imperator duorum regum -medius ad cubiculum suum honorifice ductus est.' - -[209] Letter in Otto Fris. i.: 'Nobis submittuntur Francia et -Hispania, Anglia et Dania.' - -[210] Letter in Radewic says, 'Regnum nostrum vobis exponimus.... -Vobis imperandi cedat auctoritas, nobis non deerit voluntas -obsequendi.' - -[211] The alleged instances of homage by the Scots to the Saxon and -early Norman kings are almost all complicated in some such way. They -had once held also the earldom of Huntingdon from the English crown, -and some have supposed (but on no sufficient grounds) that homage was -also done by them for Lothian. - -[212] Selden, _Titles of Honour_, part i. chap. ii. - -[213] Edward refused upon the ground that he was '_rex inunctus_.' - -[214] Sigismund had shortly before given great offence in France by -dubbing knights. - -[215] Sigismund answered, 'Nihil se contra superioritatem regis -prætexere.' - -[216] Selden, _Titles of Honour_, part i. chap. ii. Nevertheless, -notaries in Scotland, as elsewhere, continued for a long time to style -themselves 'Ego M. auctoritate imperiali (or papali) notarius.' - -[217] It is not necessary to prove this letter to have been the -composition of Frederick or his ministers. If it be (as it doubtless -is) contemporary, it is equally to the purpose as an evidence of the -feelings and ideas of the age. As a reviewer of a former edition of -this book has questioned its authenticity, I may mention that it is to -be found not only in Hoveden, but also in the 'Itinerarium regis -Ricardi,' in Ralph de Diceto, and in the 'Chronicon Terrae Sanctae.' -[See Mr. Stubbs' edition of Hoveden, vol. ii. p. 356.] - -[218] Liutprand, _Legatio Constantinopolitana_. Nicephorus says, 'Vis -maius scandalum quam quod se imperatorem vocat.' - -[219] Otto of Freising, i. - -[220] 'Isaachius a Deo constitutus Imperator, sacratissimus, -excellentissimus, potentissimus, moderator Romanorum, Angelus totius -orbis, heres coronæ magni Constantini, dilecto fratri imperii sui, -maximo principi Alemanniæ.' A remarkable speech of Frederick's to the -envoys of Isaac, who had addressed a letter to him as 'Rex Alemaniæ' -is preserved by Ansbert (_Historia de Expeditione Friderici -Imperatoris_):--'Dominus Imperator divina se illustrante gratia -ulterius dissimulare non valens temerarium fastum regis (_sc._ -Græcorum) et usurpantem vocabulum falsi imperatoris Romanorum, hæc -inter cætera exorsus est:--"Omnibus qui sanæ mentis sunt constat, quia -unus est Monarchus Imperator Romanorum, sicut et unus est pater -universitatis, pontifex videlicet Romanus; ideoque cum ego Romani -imperii sceptrum plusquam per annos XXX absque omnium regum vel -principum contradictione tranquille tenuerim et in Romana urbe a summo -pontifice imperiali benedictione unctus sim et sublimatus, quia -denique Monarchiam prædecessores mei imperatores Romanorum plusquam -per CCCC annos etiam gloriose transmiserint, utpote a Constantinopolitana -urbe ad pristinam sedem imperii, caput orbis Romam, acclamatione -Romanorum et principum imperii, auctoritate quoque summi pontificis et -S. catholicæ ecclesiæ translatam, propter tardum et infructuosum -Constantinopolitani imperatoris auxilium contra tyrannos ecclesiæ, -mirandum est admodum cur frater meus dominus vester Constantinopolitanus -imperator usurpet inefficax sibi idem vocabulum et glorietur stulte -alieno sibi prorsus honore, cum liquido noverit me et nomine dici et -re esse Fridericum Romanorum imperatorem semper Augustum."' - -Isaac was so far moved by Frederick's indignation that in his next -letter he addressed him as 'generosissimum imperatorem Alemaniæ,' and -in a third thus:-- - -'Isaakius in Christo fidelis divinitus coronatus, sublimis, potens, -excelsus, hæres coronæ magni Constantini et Moderator Romeon Angelus -nobilissimo Imperatori antiquæ Romæ, regi Alemaniæ et dilecto fratri -imperii sui, salutem,' &c., &c. (Ansbert, _ut supra_.) - -[221] Baronius, ad ann. - -[222] See Appendix, Note C. - -[223] Godefr. Viterb., _Pantheon_, in Mur., _S. R. I._, tom. vii. - -[224] Dönniges, _Deutsches Staatsrecht_, thinks that the crown of -Italy, neglected by the Ottos, and taken by Henry II, was a -recognition of the separate nationality of Italy. But Otto I seems to -have been crowned king of Italy, and Muratori (_Ant. It._ Dissert. -iii.) believes that Otto II and Otto III were likewise. - -[225] See Appendix, note A. - -[226] Some add a fifth crown, of Germany (making that of Aachen -Frankish), which they say belonged to Regensburg--Marquardus Freherus. - -[227] 'Dy erste ist tho Aken: dar kronet men mit der Yseren Krone, so -is he Konig over alle Dudesche Ryke. Dy andere tho Meylan, de is -Sulvern, so is he Here der Walen. Dy drüdde is tho Rome; dy is guldin, -so is he Keyser over alle dy Werlt.'--Gloss to the _Sachsenspiegel_, -quoted by Pfeffinger. Similarly Peter de Andlo. - -[228] Cf. Gewoldus, _De Septemviratu imperii Romani_. One would expect -some ingenious allegorizer to have discovered that the crown of -Burgundy must be, and therefore is, of copper or bronze, making the -series complete, like the four ages of men in Hesiod. But I have not -been able to find any such. - -[229] Hence the numbers attached to the names of the Emperors are -often different in German and Italian writers, the latter not -reckoning Henry the Fowler nor Conrad I. So Henry III (of Germany) -calls himself 'Imperator Henricus Secundus;' and all distinguish the -years of their _regnum_ from those of the _imperium_. Cardinal -Baronius will not call Henry V anything but Henry III, not recognizing -Henry IV's coronation, because it was performed by an antipope. - -[230] Life of S. Adalbert (written at Rome early in the eleventh -century, probably by a brother of the monastery of SS. Boniface and -Alexius) in Pertz, _M. G. H._ iv. - -[231] Given by Glaber Rudolphus. It is on the face of it a most -impudent forgery: 'Ne quisquam audacter Romani Imperii sceptrum -præpostere gestare princeps appetat neve Imperator dici aut esse -valeat nisi quem Papa Romanus morum probitate aptum elegerit, eique -commiserit insigne imperiale.' - -[232] Universal and undisputed in the West, which, for practical -purposes, meant the world. The denial of the supreme jurisdiction of -Peter's chair by the eastern churches affected very slightly the -belief of Latin Christendom, just as the existence of a rival emperor -at Constantinople with at least as good a legal title as the Teutonic -Cæsar, was readily forgotten or ignored by the German and Italian -subjects of the latter. - -[233] Odious especially for the inscription,-- - - 'Rex venit ante fores nullo prius urbis honore; - Post homo fit Papæ, sumit quo dante coronam.'--Radewic. - -[234] Mediæval history is full of instances of the superstitious -veneration attached to the rite of coronation (made by the Church -almost a sacrament), and to the special places where, or even utensils -with which it was performed. Everyone knows the importance in France -of Rheims and its sacred _ampulla_; so the Scottish king must be -crowned at Scone, an old seat of Pictish royalty--Robert Bruce risked -a great deal to receive his crown there; so no Hungarian coronation -was valid unless made with the crown of St. Stephen; the possession -whereof is still accounted so valuable by the Austrian court. - -Great importance seems to have been attached to the imperial globe -(Reichsapfel) which the Pope delivered to the Emperor at his -coronation. - -[235] Whether the poem which passes under the name of Gunther -Ligurinus be his work or that of some scholar in a later age is for -the present purpose indifferent. - -[236] Zedler, _Universal Lexicon_, s. v. _Reich_. - -[237] It does not occur before Frederick I's time in any of the -documents printed by Pertz; and this is the date which Boeclerus also -assigns in his treatise, _De Sacro Imperio Romano_, vindicating the -terms 'sacrum' and 'Romanum' against the aspersions of Blondel. - -[238] Pertz, _M. G. H._, tom. iv. (legum ii.) - -[239] Ibid. iv. - -[240] Radewic. _ap._ Pertz. - -[241] Blondellus adv. Chiffletium. Most of these theories are stated -by Boeclerus. Jordanes (_Chronica_) says, 'Sacri imperii quod non est -dubium sancti Spiritus ordinatione, secundum qualitatem ipsam et -exigentiam meritorum humanorum disponi.' - -[242] Marquard Freher's notes to Peter de Andlo, book i. chap. vii. - -[243] So in the song on the capture of the Emperor Lewis II by -Adalgisus of Benevento, we find the words, 'Ludhuicum comprenderunt -sancto, pio, Augusto.' (Quoted by Gregorovius, _Geschichte der Stadt -Rom im Mittelalter_, iii. p. 185.) - -[244] Goldast, _Constitutiones_. - -[245] Pertz, _M. G. H._, legg. ii. - -[246] 'Apostolic majesty' was the proper title of the king of Hungary. -The Austrian court has recently revived it. - -[247] Moser, _Römische Kayser_. - -[248] Urban IV used the title in 1259: Francis I (of France) calls the -Empire 'sacrosanctum.' - -[249] Cf. 'Holy Russia.' - -[250] It is almost superfluous to observe that the beginning of the -title 'Holy' has nothing to do with the beginning of the Empire -itself. Essentially and substantially, the Holy Roman Empire was, as -has been shewn already, the creation of Charles the Great. Looking at -it more technically, as the monarchy, not of the whole West, like that -of Charles, but of Germany and Italy, with a claim, which was never -more than a claim, to universal sovereignty, its beginning is fixed by -most of the German writers, whose practice has been followed in the -text, at the coronation of Otto the Great. But the title was at least -one, and probably two centuries later. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII. - -FALL OF THE HOHENSTAUFEN. - - -In the three preceding chapters the Holy Empire has been described in -what is not only the most brilliant but the most momentous period of -its history; the period of its rivalry with the Popedom for the chief -place in Christendom. For it was mainly through their relations with -the spiritual power, by their friendship and protection at first, no -less than by their subsequent hostility, that the Teutonic Emperors -influenced the development of European politics. The reform of the -Roman Church which went on during the reigns of Otto I and his -successors down to Henry III, and which was chiefly due to the efforts -of those monarchs, was the true beginning of the grand period of the -Middle Ages, the first of that long series of movements, changes, and -creations in the ecclesiastical system of Europe which was, so to -speak, the master current of history, secular as well as religious, -during the centuries which followed. The first result of Henry III's -purification of the Papacy was seen in Hildebrand's attempt to subject -all jurisdiction to that of his own chair, and in the long struggle of -the Investitures, which brought out into clear light the opposing -pretensions of the temporal and spiritual powers. Although destined in -the end to bear far other fruit, the immediate effect of this struggle -was to evoke in all classes an intense religious feeling; and, in -opening up new fields of ambition to the hierarchy, to stimulate -wonderfully their power of political organization. It was this impulse -that gave birth to the Crusades, and that enabled the Popes, stepping -forth as the rightful leaders of a religious war, to bend it to serve -their own ends: it was thus too that they struck the alliance--strange -as such an alliance seems now--with the rebellious cities of Lombardy, -and proclaimed themselves the protectors of municipal freedom. But the -third and crowning triumph of the Holy See was reserved for the -thirteenth century. In the foundation of the two great orders of -ecclesiastical knighthood, the all-powerful all-pervading Dominicans -and Franciscans, the religious fervour of the Middle Ages culminated: -in the overthrow of the only power which could pretend to vie with her -in antiquity, in sanctity, in universality, the Papacy saw herself -exalted to rule alone over the kings of the earth. Of that overthrow, -following with terrible suddenness on the days of strength and glory -which we have just been witnessing, this chapter has now to speak. - -[Sidenote: Henry VI, 1190-1197.] - -[Sidenote: Philip, 1198-1208.] - -[Sidenote: Innocent III and Otto IV.] - -[Sidenote: Otto IV, 1208 (1198)-1212.] - -It happened strangely enough that just while their ruin was preparing, -the house of Swabia gained over their ecclesiastical foes what seemed -likely to prove an advantage of the first moment. The son and -successor of Barbarossa was Henry VI, a man who had inherited all his -father's harshness with none of his father's generosity. By his -marriage with Constance, the heiress of the Norman kings, he had -become master of Naples and Sicily. Emboldened by the possession of -what had been hitherto the stronghold of his predecessors' bitterest -enemies, and able to threaten the Pope from south as well as north, -Henry conceived a scheme which might have wonderfully changed the -history of Germany and Italy. He proposed to the Teutonic magnates to -lighten their burdens by uniting these newly-acquired countries to the -Empire, to turn their feudal lands into allodial, and to make no -further demands for money on the clergy, on condition that they should -pronounce the crown hereditary in his family. Results of the highest -importance would have followed this change, which Henry advocated by -setting forth the perils of interregna, and which he doubtless meant -to be but part of an entirely new system of polity. Already so strong -in Germany, and with an absolute command of their new kingdom, the -Hohenstaufen might have dispensed with the renounced feudal services, -and built up a firm centralized system, like that which was already -beginning to develope itself in France. First, however, the Saxon -princes, then some ecclesiastics headed by Conrad of Mentz, opposed -the scheme; the pontiff retracted his consent, and Henry had to -content himself with getting his infant son Frederick the Second -chosen king of the Romans. On Henry's untimely death the election was -set aside, and the contest which followed between Otto of Brunswick -and Philip of Hohenstaufen, brother of Henry the Sixth, gave the -Popedom, now guided by the genius of Innocent the Third, an -opportunity of extending its sway at the expense of its antagonist. -The Pope moved heaven and earth on behalf of Otto, whose family had -been the constant rivals of the Hohenstaufen, and who was himself -willing to promise all that Innocent required; but Philip's personal -merits and the vast possessions of his house gave him while he lived -the ascendancy in Germany. His death by the hand of an assassin, while -it seemed to vindicate the Pope's choice, left the Swabian party -without a head, and the Papal nominee was soon recognized over the -whole Empire. But Otto IV became less submissive as he felt his throne -more secure. If he was a Guelf by birth, his acts in Italy, whither he -had gone to receive the imperial crown, were those of a Ghibeline, -anxious to reclaim the rights he had but just forsworn. The Roman -Church at last deposed and excommunicated her ungrateful son, and -Innocent rejoiced in a second successful assertion of pontifical -supremacy, when Otto was dethroned by the youthful Frederick the -Second, whom a tragic irony sent into the field of politics as the -champion of the Holy See, whose hatred was to embitter his life and -extinguish his house. - -[Sidenote: Frederick the Second, 1212-1250.] - -Upon the events of that terrific strife, for which Emperor and Pope -girded themselves up for the last time, the narrative of Frederick the -Second's career, with its romantic adventures, its sad picture of -marvellous powers lost on an age not ripe for them, blasted as by a -curse in the moment of victory, it is not necessary, were it even -possible, here to enlarge. That conflict did indeed determine the -fortunes of the German kingdom no less than of the republics of Italy, -but it was upon Italian ground that it was fought out and it is to -Italian history that its details belong. So too of Frederick himself. -Out of the long array of the Germanic successors of Charles, he is, -with Otto III, the only one who comes before us with a genius and a -frame of character that are not those of a Northern or a Teuton[251]. -There dwelt in him, it is true, all the energy and knightly valour of -his father Henry and his grandfather Barbarossa. But along with these, -and changing their direction, were other gifts, inherited perhaps from -his Italian mother and fostered by his education among the -orange-groves of Palermo--a love of luxury and beauty, an intellect -refined, subtle, philosophical. Through the mist of calumny and fable -it is but dimly that the truth of the man can be discerned, and the -outlines that appear serve to quicken rather than appease the -curiosity with which we regard one of the most extraordinary -personages in history. A sensualist, yet also a warrior and a -politician; a profound lawgiver and an impassioned poet; in his youth -fired by crusading fervour, in later life persecuting heretics while -himself accused of blasphemy and unbelief; of winning manners and -ardently beloved by his followers, but with the stain of more than one -cruel deed upon his name, he was the marvel of his own generation, and -succeeding ages looked back with awe, not unmingled with pity, upon -the inscrutable figure of the last Emperor who had braved all the -terrors of the Church and died beneath her ban, the last who had ruled -from the sands of the ocean to the shores of the Sicilian sea. But -while they pitied they condemned. The undying hatred of the Papacy -threw round his memory a lurid light; him and him alone of all the -imperial line, Dante, the worshipper of the Empire, must perforce -deliver to the flames of hell[252]. - -[Sidenote: Struggle of Frederick with the Papacy.] - -Placed as the Empire was, it was scarcely possible for its head not to -be involved in war with the constantly aggressive Popedom--aggressive -in her claims of territorial dominion in Italy as well as of -ecclesiastical jurisdiction throughout the world. But it was -Frederick's peculiar misfortune to have given the Popes a hold over -him which they well knew how to use. In a moment of youthful -enthusiasm he had taken the cross from the hands of an eloquent monk, -and his delay to fulfil the vow was branded as impious neglect. -Excommunicated by Gregory IX for not going to Palestine, he went, and -was excommunicated for going: having concluded an advantageous peace, -he sailed for Italy, and was a third time excommunicated for -returning. To Pope Gregory he was at last after a fashion reconciled, -but with the accession of Innocent IV the flame burst out afresh. Upon -the special pretexts which kindled the strife it is not worth while to -descant: the real causes were always the same, and could only be -removed by the submission of one or other combatant. Chief among them -was Frederick's possession of Sicily. Now were seen the fruits which -Barbarossa had stored up for his house when he gained for Henry his -son the hand of the Norman heiress. Naples and Sicily had been for -some two hundred years recognized as a fief of the Holy See, and the -Pope, who felt himself in danger while encircled by the powers of his -rival, was determined to use his advantage to the full and make it the -means of extinguishing imperial authority throughout Italy. But -although the struggle was far more of a territorial and political one -than that of the previous century had been, it reopened every former -source of strife, and passed into a contest between the civil and the -spiritual potentate. The old war-cries of Henry and Hildebrand, of -Barbarossa and Alexander, roused again the unquenchable hatred of -Italian factions: the pontiff asserted the transference of the Empire -as a fief, and declared that the power of Peter, symbolized by the two -keys, was temporal as well as spiritual: the Emperor appealed to law, -to the indelible rights of Cæsar; and denounced his foe as the -antichrist of the New Testament, since it was God's second vicar whom -he was resisting. The one scoffed at anathema, upbraided the avarice -of the Church, and treated her soldiery, the friars, with a severity -not seldom ferocious. The other solemnly deposed a rebellious and -heretical prince, offered the imperial crown to Robert of France, to -the heir of Denmark, to Haco the Norse king; succeeded at last in -raising up rivals in Henry of Thuringia and William of Holland. Yet -throughout it is less the Teutonic Emperor who is attacked than the -Sicilian king, the unbeliever and friend of Mohammedans, the -hereditary enemy of the Church, the assailant of Lombard independence, -whose success must leave the Papacy defenceless. And as it was from -the Sicilian kingdom that the strife chiefly arose, so was the -possession of the Sicilian kingdom a source rather of weakness than of -strength, for it distracted Frederick's forces and put him in the -false position of a liegeman resisting his lawful suzerain. Truly, as -the Greek proverb says, the gifts of foes are no gifts, and bring no -profit with them. The Norman kings were more terrible in their death -than in their life: they had sometimes baffled the Teutonic Emperor; -their heritage destroyed him. - -[Sidenote: Conrad IV, 1250-1254.] - -With Frederick fell the Empire. From the ruin that overwhelmed the -greatest of its houses it emerged, living indeed, and destined to a -long life, but so shattered, crippled, and degraded, that it could -never more be to Europe and to Germany what it once had been. In the -last act of the tragedy were joined the enemy who had now blighted its -strength and the rival who was destined to insult its weakness and at -last blot out its name. The murder of Frederick's grandson Conradin--a -hero whose youth and whose chivalry might have moved the pity of any -other foe--was approved, if not suggested, by Pope Clement; it was -done by the minions of Charles of France. - -[Sidenote: Italy lost to the Empire.] - -The Lombard league had successfully resisted Frederick's armies and -the more dangerous Ghibeline nobles: their strong walls and swarming -population made defeats in the open field hardly felt; and now that -South Italy too had passed away from a German line--first to an -Angevin, afterwards to an Aragonese dynasty--it was plain that the -peninsula was irretrievably lost to the Emperors. Why, however, should -they not still be strong beyond the Alps? was their position worse -than that of England when Normandy and Aquitaine no longer obeyed a -Plantagenet? The force that had enabled them to rule so widely would -be all the greater in a narrower sphere. - -[Sidenote: Decline of imperial power in Germany.] - -[Sidenote: The Great Interregnum] - -[Sidenote: Double election, of Richard of England and Alfonso of -Castile.] - -[Sidenote: State of Germany during the Interregnum.] - -[Sidenote: Rudolf of Hapsburg, 1272-1292.] - -So indeed it might once have been, but now it was too late. The German -kingdom broke down beneath the weight of the Roman Empire. To be -universal sovereign Germany had sacrificed her own political -existence. The necessity which their projects in Italy and disputes -with the Pope laid the Emperors under of purchasing by concessions the -support of their own princes, the ease with which in their absence the -magnates could usurp, the difficulty which the monarch returning found -in resuming the privileges of his crown, the temptation to revolt and -set up pretenders to the throne which the Holy See held out, these -were the causes whose steady action laid the foundation of that -territorial independence which rose into a stable fabric at the era of -the Great Interregnum[253]. Frederick II had by two Pragmatic -Sanctions, A.D. 1220 and 1232, granted, or rather confirmed, rights -already customary, such as to give the bishops and nobles legal -sovereignty in their own towns and territories, except when the -Emperor should be present; and thus his direct jurisdiction became -restricted to his narrowed domain, and to the cities immediately -dependent on the crown. With so much less to do, an Emperor became -altogether a less necessary personage; and hence the seven magnates of -the realm, now by law or custom sole electors, were in no haste to -fill up the place of Conrad IV, whom the supporters of his father -Frederick had acknowledged. William of Holland was in the field, but -rejected by the Swabian party: on his death a new election was called -for, and at last set on foot. The archbishop of Cologne advised his -brethren to choose some one rich enough to support the dignity, not -strong enough to be feared by the electors: both requisites met in the -Plantagenet Richard, earl of Cornwall, brother of the English Henry -III. He received three, eventually four votes, came to Germany, and -was crowned at Aachen. But three of the electors, finding that his -bribe to them was lower than to the others, seceded in disgust, and -chose Alfonso X of Castile[254], who, shrewder than his competitor, -continued to watch the stars at Toledo, enjoying the splendours of his -title while troubling himself about it no further than to issue now -and then a proclamation. Meantime the condition of Germany was -frightful. The new Didius Julianus, the chosen of princes baser than -the prætorians whom they copied, had neither the character nor the -outward power and resources to make himself respected. Every floodgate -of anarchy was opened: prelates and barons extended their domains by -war: robber-knights infested the highways and the rivers: the misery -of the weak, the tyranny and violence of the strong, were such as had -not been seen for centuries. Things were even worse than under the -Saxon and Franconian Emperors; for the petty nobles who had then been -in some measure controlled by their dukes were now, after the -extinction of the great houses, left without any feudal superior. Only -in the cities was shelter or peace to be found. Those of the Rhine had -already leagued themselves for mutual defence, and maintained a -struggle in the interests of commerce and order against universal -brigandage. At last, when Richard had been some time dead, it was felt -that such things could not go on for ever: with no public law, and no -courts of justice, an Emperor, the embodiment of legal government, was -the only resource. The Pope himself, having now sufficiently improved -the weakness of his enemy, found the disorganization of Germany -beginning to tell upon his revenues, and threatened that if the -electors did not appoint an Emperor, he would. Thus urged, they chose, -in A.D. 1272, Rudolf, count of Hapsburg, founder of the house of -Austria[255]. - -[Sidenote: Change in the position of the Empire.] - -From this point there begins a new era. We have seen the Roman Empire -revived in A.D. 800, by a prince whose vast dominions gave ground to -his claim of universal monarchy; again erected, in A.D. 962, on the -narrower but firmer basis of the German kingdom. We have seen Otto the -Great and his successors during the three following centuries, a line -of monarchs of unrivalled vigour and abilities, strain every nerve to -make good the pretensions of their office against the rebels in Italy -and the ecclesiastical power. Those efforts had now failed signally -and hopelessly. Each successive Emperor had entered the strife with -resources scantier than his predecessors, each had been more -decisively vanquished by the Pope, the cities, and the princes. The -Roman Empire might, and, so far as its practical utility was -concerned, ought now to have been suffered to expire; nor could it -have ended more gloriously than with the last of the Hohenstaufen. -That it did not so expire, but lived on six hundred years more, till -it became a piece of antiquarianism hardly more venerable than -ridiculous--till, as Voltaire said, all that could be said about it -was that it was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire--was owing -partly indeed to the belief, still unshaken, that it was a necessary -part of the world's order, yet chiefly to its connection, which was by -this time indissoluble, with the German kingdom. The Germans had -confounded the two characters of their sovereign so long, and had -grown so fond of the style and pretensions of a dignity whose -possession appeared to exalt them above the other peoples of Europe, -that it was now too late for them to separate the local from the -universal monarch. If a German king was to be maintained at all, he -must be Roman Emperor; and a German king there must still be. Deeply, -nay, mortally wounded as the event proved his power to have been by -the disasters of the Empire to which it had been linked, the time was -by no means come for its extinction. In the unsettled state of -society, and the conflict of innumerable petty potentates, no force -save feudalism was able to hold society together; and its efficacy for -that purpose depended, as the anarchy of the recent interregnum -shewed, upon the presence of the recognized feudal head. - -[Sidenote: Decline of the regal power in Germany as compared with -France and England.] - -That head, however, was no longer what he had been. The relative -position of Germany and France was now exactly the reverse of that -which they had occupied two centuries earlier. Rudolf was as -conspicuously a weaker sovereign than Philip III of France, as the -Franconian Emperor Henry III had been stronger than the Capetian -Philip I. In every other state of Europe the tendency of events had -been to centralize the administration and increase the power of the -monarch, even in England not to diminish it: in Germany alone had -political union become weaker, and the independence of the princes -more confirmed. The causes of this change are not far to seek. They -all resolve themselves into this one, that the German king attempted -too much at once. The rulers of France, where manners were less rude -than in the other Transalpine lands, and where the Third Estate rose -into power more quickly, had reduced one by one the great feudataries -by whom the first Capetians had been scarcely recognized. The English -kings had annexed Wales, Cumbria, and part of Ireland, had obtained a -prerogative great if not uncontrolled, and exercised no doubtful sway -through every corner of their country. Both had won their successes by -the concentration on that single object of their whole personal -activity, and by the skilful use of every device whereby their feudal -rights, personal, judicial, and legislative, could be applied to -fetter the vassal. Meantime the German monarch, whose utmost efforts -it would have needed to tame his fierce barons and maintain order -through wide territories occupied by races unlike in dialect and -customs, had been struggling with the Lombard cities and the Normans -of South Italy, and had been for full two centuries the object of the -unrelenting enmity of the Roman pontiff. And in this latter contest, -by which more than by any other the fate of the Empire was decided, he -fought under disadvantages far greater than his brethren in England -and France. William the Conqueror had defied Hildebrand, William Rufus -had resisted Anselm; but the Emperors Henry the Fourth and Barbarossa -had to cope with prelates who were Hildebrand and Anselm in one; the -spiritual heads of Christendom as well as the primates of their -special realm, the Empire. And thus, while the ecclesiastics of -Germany were a body more formidable from their possessions than those -of any other European country, and enjoying far larger privileges, the -Emperor could not, or could with far less effect, win them over by -invoking against the Pope that national feeling which made the cry of -Gallican liberties so welcome even to the clergy of France. - -[Sidenote: Relations of the Papacy and the Empire.] - -After repeated defeats, each more crushing than the last, the imperial -power, so far from being able to look down on the papal, could not -even maintain itself on an equal footing. Against no pontiff since -Gregory VII had the monarch's right to name or confirm a pope, -undisputed in the days of the Ottos and of Henry III, been made good. -It was the turn of the Emperor to repel a similar claim of the Holy -See to the function of reviewing his own election, examining into his -merits, and rejecting him if unsound, that is to say, impatient of -priestly tyranny. A letter of Innocent III, who was the first to make -this demand in terms, was inserted by Gregory IX in his digest of the -Canon Law, the inexhaustible armoury of the churchman, and continued -to be quoted thence by every canonist till the end of the sixteenth -century[256]. It was not difficult to find grounds on which to base -such a doctrine. Gregory VII deduced it with characteristic boldness -from the power of the keys, and the superiority over all other -dignities which must needs appertain to the Pope as arbiter of eternal -weal or woe. Others took their stand on the analogy of clerical -ordination, and urged that since the Pope in consecrating the Emperor -gave him a title to the obedience of all Christian men, he must have -himself the right of approving or rejecting the candidate according to -his merits. Others again, appealing to the Old Testament, shewed how -Samuel discarded Saul and anointed David in his room, and argued that -the Pope now must have powers at least equal to those of the Hebrew -prophets. But the ascendancy of the doctrine dates from the time of -Pope Innocent III, whose ingenuity discovered for it an historical -basis. It was by the favour of the Pope, he declared, that the Empire -was taken away from the Greeks and given to the Germans in the person -of Charles[257], and the authority which Leo then exercised as God's -representative must abide thenceforth and for ever in his successors, -who can therefore at any time recall the gift, and bestow it on a -person or a nation more worthy than its present holders. This is the -famous theory of the Translation of the Empire, which plays so large a -part in controversy down till the seventeenth century[258], a theory -with plausibility enough to make it generally successful, yet one -which to an impartial eye appears far removed from the truth of the -facts[259]. Leo III did not suppose, any more than did Charles -himself, that it was by his sole pontifical authority that the crown -was given to the Frank; nor do we find such a notion put forward by -any of his successors down to the twelfth century. Gregory VII in -particular, in a remarkable letter dilating on his prerogative, -appeals to the substitution by papal interference of Pipin for the -last Merovingian king, and even goes back to cite the case of -Theodosius humbling himself before St. Ambrose, but says never a word -about this 'translatio,' excellently as it would have served his -purpose. - -Sound or unsound, however, these arguments did their work, for they -were urged skilfully and boldly, and none denied that it was by the -Pope alone that the crown could be lawfully imposed[260]. In some -instances the rights claimed were actually made good. Thus Innocent -III withstood Philip and overthrew Otto IV; thus another haughty -priest commanded the electors to choose the Landgrave of Thuringia -(A.D. 1246), and was by some of them obeyed; thus Gregory X compelled -the recognition of Rudolf. The further pretensions of the Popes to the -vicariate of the Empire during interregna the Germans never -admitted[261]. Still their place was now generally felt to be higher -than that of the monarch, and their control over the three spiritual -electors and the whole body of the clergy was far more effective than -his. A spark of national feeling was at length kindled by the -exactions and shameless subservience to France of the papal court at -Avignon[262]; and the infant democracy of industry and intelligence -represented by the cities and by the English Franciscan Occam, -supported Lewis IV in his conflict with John XXII, till even the -princes who had risen by the help of the Pope were obliged to oppose -him. The same sentiment dictated the reforms of Constance, but the -imperial power which might have floated onwards and higher on the -turning tide of popular opinion lacked men equal to the occasion: the -Hapsburg Frederick the Third, timid and superstitious, abased himself -before the Romish court, and his house has generally adhered to the -alliance then struck. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[251] I quote from the Liber Augustalis printed among Petrarch's works -the following curious description of Frederick: 'Fuit armorum -strenuus, linguarum peritus, rigorosus, luxuriosus, epicurus, nihil -curans vel credens nisi temporale: fuit malleus Romanae ecclesiae.' - -As Otto III had been called 'mirabilia mundi,' so Frederick II is -often spoken of in his own time as 'stupor mundi Fridericus.' - -[252] 'Quà entro è lo secondo Federico.'--_Inferno_, canto x. - -[253] The interregnum is by some reckoned as the two years before -Richard's election; by others, as the whole period from the death of -Frederick II or that of his son Conrad IV till Rudolf's accession in -1273. - -[254] Surnamed, from his scientific tastes, 'the Wise.' - -[255] Hapsburg is a castle in the Aargau on the banks of the Aar, and -near the line of railway from Olten to Zürich, from a point on which a -glimpse of it may be had. 'Within the ancient walls of Vindonissa,' -says Gibbon, 'the castle of Hapsburg, the abbey of Königsfeld, and the -town of Bruck have successively arisen. The philosophic traveller may -compare the monuments of Roman conquests, of feudal or Austrian -tyranny, of monkish superstition, and of industrious freedom. If he be -truly a philosopher, he will applaud the merit and happiness of his -own time.' - -[256] _Corpus Iuris Canonici_, Decr. Greg. i. 6, cap. 34, -_Venerabilem_: 'Ius et authoritas examinandi personam electam in regem -et promovendam ad imperium, ad nos spectat, qui eum inungimus, -consecramus, et coronamus.' - -[257] 'Illis principibus,' writes Innocent, 'ius et potestatem -eligendi regem [Romanorum] in imperatorem postmodum promovendum -recognoscimus, ad quos de iure ac antiqua consuetudine noscitur -pertinere, præsertim quum ad eos ius et potestas huiusmodi ab -apostolica sede pervenerit, quæ Romanum imperium in persona magnifici -Caroli a Græcis transtulit in Germanos.'--Decr. Greg. i. 6, cap. 34, -_Venerabilem_. - -[258] Its influence, however, as Döllinger (_Das Kaiserthum Karls des -Grossen und seiner Nachfolger_) remarks, first became great when this -letter, some forty or fifty years after Innocent wrote it, was -inserted in the digest of the canon law. - -[259] Vid. supra, pp. 52-58. - -[260] Upon this so-called 'Translation of the Empire,' many books -remain to us: many more have probably perished. A good although far -from impartial summary of the controversy may be found in Vagedes, _De -Ludibriis Aulæ Romanæ in transferendo Imperio Romano_. - -[261] 'Vacante imperio Romano, cum in illo ad sæcularem iudicem -nequeat haberi recursus, ad summum pontificem, cui in persona B. Petri -terreni simul et coelestis imperii iura Deus ipse commisit, imperii -prædicti iurisdictio regimen et dispositio devolvitur.'--Bull _Si -fratrum_ (of John XXI, in A.D. 1316), in _Bullar. Rom._ So again: -'Attendentes quod Imperii Romani regimen cura et administratio tempore -quo illud vacare contingit ad nos pertinet, sicut dignoscitur -pertinere.' So Boniface VIII, refusing to recognize Albert I, because -he was ugly and one-eyed ('est homo monoculus et vultu sordido, non -potest esse Imperator'), and had taken a wife from the serpent brood -of Frederick II ('de sanguine viperali Friderici'), declared himself -Vicar of the Empire, and assumed the crown and sword of Constantine. - -[262] Avignon was not yet in the territory of France: it lay within -the bounds of the kingdom of Arles. But the French power was nearer -than that of the Emperor; and pontiffs many of them French by -extraction sympathized, as was natural, with princes of their own -race. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV. - -THE GERMANIC CONSTITUTION: THE SEVEN ELECTORS. - - -[Sidenote: Territorial Sovereignty of the Princes.] - -[Sidenote: Adolf, 1292-1298.] - -[Sidenote: Albert I, 1298-1308.] - -[Sidenote: Henry VII, 1308-1314.] - -[Sidenote: Lewis IV, 1314-1347.] - -The reign of Frederick the Second was not less fatal to the domestic -power of the German king than to the European supremacy of the -Emperor. His two Pragmatic Sanctions had conferred rights that made -the feudal aristocracy almost independent, and the long anarchy of the -Interregnum had enabled them not only to use but to extend and fortify -their power. Rudolf of Hapsburg had striven, not wholly in vain, to -coerce their insolence, but the contest between his son Albert and -Adolf of Nassau which followed his death, the short and troubled reign -of Albert himself, the absence of Henry the Seventh in Italy, the -civil war of Lewis of Bavaria and Frederick duke of Austria, rival -claimants of the imperial throne, the difficulties in which Lewis, the -successful competitor, found himself involved with the Pope--all these -circumstances tended more and more to narrow the influence of the -crown and complete the emancipation of the turbulent nobles. They now -became virtually supreme in their own domains, enjoying full -jurisdiction, certain appeals excepted, the right of legislation, -privileges of coining money, of levying tolls and taxes: some were -without even a feudal bond to remind them of their allegiance. The -numbers of the immediate nobility--those who held directly of the -crown--had increased prodigiously by the extinction of the dukedoms of -Saxony, Franconia, and Swabia: along the Rhine the lord of a single -tower was usually a sovereign prince. The petty tyrants whose boast it -was that they owed fealty only to God and the Emperor, shewed -themselves in practice equally regardless of both powers. Pre-eminent -were the three great houses of Austria, Bavaria, and Luxemburg, this -last having acquired Bohemia, A.D. 1309; next came the electors, -already considered collectively more important than the Emperor, and -forming for themselves the first considerable principalities. -Brandenburg and the Rhenish Palatinate are strong independent states -before the end of this period: Bohemia and the three archbishoprics -almost from its beginning. - -[Sidenote: Policy of the Emperors.] - -The chief object of the magnates was to keep the monarch in his -present state of helplessness. Till the expenses which the crown -entailed were found ruinous to its wearer, their practice was to -confer it on some petty prince, such as were Rudolf and Adolf of -Nassau and Gunther of Schwartzburg, seeking when they could to keep it -from settling in one family. They bound the newly-elected to respect -all their present immunities, including those which they had just -extorted as the price of their votes; they checked all his attempts to -recover lost lands or rights: they ventured at last to depose their -anointed head, Wenzel of Bohemia. Thus fettered, the Emperor sought -only to make the most of his short tenure, using his position to -aggrandize his family and raise money by the sale of crown estates and -privileges. His individual action and personal relation to the subject -was replaced by a merely legal and formal one: he represented order -and legitimate ownership, and so far was still necessary to the -political system. But progresses through the country were abandoned: -unlike his predecessors, who had resigned their patrimony when they -assumed the sceptre, he lived mostly in his own states, often without -the Empire's bounds. Frederick III never entered it for twenty-seven -years. - -[Sidenote: Power of the cities.] - -[Sidenote: Financial distress.] - -How thoroughly the national character of the office was gone is shewn -by the repeated attempts to bestow it on foreign potentates, who could -not fill the place of a German king of the good old vigorous type. Not -to speak of Richard and Alfonso, Charles of Valois was proposed -against Henry VII, Edward III of England actually elected against -Charles IV (his parliament forbade him to accept), George Podiebrad, -king of Bohemia, against Frederick III. Sigismund was virtually a -Hungarian king. The Emperor's only hope would have been in the support -of the cities. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries they had -increased wonderfully in population, wealth, and boldness: the -Hanseatic confederacy was the mightiest power of the North, and cowed -the Scandinavian kings: the towns of Swabia and the Rhine formed great -commercial leagues, maintained regular wars against the -counter-associations of the nobility, and seemed at one time, by an -alliance with the Swiss, on the point of turning West Germany into a -federation of free municipalities. Feudalism, however, was still too -strong; the cavalry of the nobles was irresistible in the field, and -the thoughtless Wenzel let slip a golden opportunity of repairing the -losses of two centuries. After all, the Empire was perhaps past -redemption, for one fatal ailment paralyzed all its efforts. The -Empire was poor. The crown lands, which had suffered heavily under -Frederick II, were further usurped during the confusion that followed; -till at last, through the reckless prodigality of sovereigns who -sought only their immediate interest, little was left of the vast and -fertile domains along the Rhine from which the Saxon and Franconian -Emperors had drawn the chief part of their revenue. Regalian rights, -the second fiscal resource, had fared no better--tolls, customs, -mines, rights of coining, of harbouring Jews, and so forth, were -either seized or granted away: even the advowsons of churches had been -sold or mortgaged; and the imperial treasury depended mainly on an -inglorious traffic in honours and exemptions. Things were so bad under -Rudolf that the electors refused to make his son Albert king of the -Romans, declaring that, while Rudolf lived, the public revenue which -with difficulty supported one monarch, could much less maintain two at -the same time[263]. Sigismund told his Diet, 'Nihil esse imperio -spoliatius, nihil egentius, adeo ut qui sibi ex Germaniæ principibus -successurus esset, qui præter patrimonium nihil aliud habuerit, apud -eum non imperium sed potius servitium sit futurum[264].' Patritius, -the secretary of Frederick III, declared that the revenues of the -Empire scarcely covered the expenses of its ambassadors[265]. Poverty -such as these expressions point to, a poverty which became greater -after each election, not only involved the failure of the attempts -which were sometimes made to recover usurped rights[266], but put -every project of reform within or war without at the mercy of a -jealous Diet. The three orders of which that Diet consisted, electors, -princes, and cities, were mutually hostile, and by consequence -selfish; their niggardly grants did no more than keep the Empire from -dying of inanition. - -[Sidenote: Charles IV (A.D. 1347-1378), and his electoral -constitution.] - -The changes thus briefly described were in progress when Charles the -Fourth, king of Bohemia, son of that blind king John of Bohemia who -fell at Cressy, and grandson of the Emperor Henry VII, was chosen to -ascend the throne. His skilful and consistent policy aimed at settling -what he perhaps despaired of reforming, and the famous instrument -which, under the name of the Golden Bull, became the corner-stone of -the Germanic constitution, confessed and legalized the independence of -the electors and the powerlessness of the crown. The most conspicuous -defect of the existing system was the uncertainty of the elections, -followed as they usually were by a civil war. It was this which -Charles set himself to redress. - -[Sidenote: German kingdom not originally elective.] - -The kingdoms founded on the ruins of the Roman Empire by the Teutonic -invaders presented in their original form a rude combination of the -elective with the hereditary principle. One family in each tribe had, -as the offspring of the gods, an indefeasible claim to rule, but from -among the members of such a family the warriors were free to choose -the bravest or the most popular as king[267]. That the German crown -came to be purely elective, while in France, Castile, Aragon, England, -and most other European states, the principle of strict hereditary -succession established itself, was due to the failure of heirs male in -three successive dynasties; to the restless ambition of the nobles, -who, since they were not, like the French, strong enough to disregard -the royal power, did their best to weaken it; to the intrigues of the -churchmen, zealous for a method of appointment prescribed by their own -law and observed in capitular elections; to the wish of the Popes to -gain an opening for their own influence and make effective the veto -which they claimed; above all, to the conception of the imperial -office as one too holy to be, in the same manner as the regal, -transmissible by blood. Had the German, like other feudal kingdoms, -remained merely local, feudal, and national, it would without doubt -have ended by becoming a hereditary monarchy. Transformed as it was by -the Roman Empire, this could not be. The headship of the human race -being, like the Papacy, the common inheritance of all mankind, could -not be confined to any family, nor pass like a private estate by the -ordinary rules of descent. - -[Sidenote: Electoral body in primitive times.] - -The right to choose the war-chief belonged, in the earliest ages, to -the whole body of freemen. Their suffrage, which must have been very -irregularly exercised, became by degrees vested in their leaders, but -the assent of the multitude, although ensured already, was needed to -complete the ceremony. It was thus that Henry the Fowler, and St. -Henry, and Conrad the Franconian duke were chosen[268]. Though even -tradition might have commemorated what extant records place beyond a -doubt, it was commonly believed, till the end of the sixteenth -century, that the elective constitution had been established, and the -privilege of voting confined to seven persons, by a decree of Gregory -V and Otto III, which a famous jurist describes as 'lex a pontifice de -imperatorum comitiis lata, ne ius eligendi penes populum Romanum in -posterum esset[269].' St. Thomas says, 'Election ceased from the times -of Charles the Great to those of Otto III, when Pope Gregory V -established that of the seven princes, which will last as long as the -holy Roman Church, who ranks above all other powers, shall have judged -expedient for Christ's faithful people[270].' Since it tended to exalt -the papal power, this fiction was accepted, no doubt honestly -accepted, and spread abroad by the clergy. And indeed, like so many -other fictions, it had a sort of foundation in fact. The death of Otto -III, the fourth of a line of monarchs among whom son had regularly -succeeded to father, threw back the crown into the gift of the nation, -and was no doubt one of the chief causes why it did not in the end -become hereditary[271]. - -[Sidenote: Encroachments of the great nobles.] - -Thus, under the Saxon and Franconian sovereigns, the throne was -theoretically elective, the assent of the chiefs and their followers -being required, though little more likely to be refused than it was to -an English or a French king; practically hereditary, since both of -these dynasties succeeded in occupying it for four generations, the -father procuring the son's election during his own lifetime. And so it -might well have continued, had the right of choice been retained by -the whole body of the aristocracy. But at the election of Lothar II, -A.D. 1125, we find a certain small number of magnates exercising the -so-called right of prætaxation; that is to say, choosing alone the -future monarch, and then submitting him to the rest for their -approval. A supreme electoral college, once formed, had both the will -and the power to retain the crown in their own gift, and still further -exclude their inferiors from participation. So before the end of the -Hohenstaufen dynasty, two great changes had passed upon the ancient -constitution. It had become a fundamental doctrine that the Germanic -throne, unlike the thrones of other countries, was purely -elective[272]: nor could the influence and the liberal offers of Henry -VI prevail on the princes to abandon what they rightly judged the -keystone of their powers. And at the same time the right of -prætaxation had ripened into an exclusive privilege of election, -vested in a small body[273]: the assent of the rest of the nobility -being at first assumed, finally altogether dispensed with. On the -double choice of Richard and Alfonso, A.D. 1264, the only question was -as to the majority of votes in the electoral college: neither then nor -afterwards was there a word of the rights of the other princes, counts -and barons, important as their voices had been two centuries earlier. - -[Sidenote: The Seven Electors.] - -[Sidenote: Golden Bull of Charles IV, A.D. 1356.] - -The origin of that college is a matter somewhat intricate and obscure. -It is mentioned A.D. 1152, and in somewhat clearer terms in 1198, as a -distinct body; but without anything to shew who composed it. First in -A.D. 1265 does a letter of Pope Urban IV say that by immemorial custom -the right of choosing the Roman king belonged to seven persons, the -seven who had just divided their votes on Richard of Cornwall and -Alfonso of Castile. Of these seven, three, the archbishops of Mentz, -Treves, and Cologne, pastors of the richest Transalpine sees, -represented the German church: the other four ought, according to the -ancient constitution, to have been the dukes of the four nations, -Franks, Swabians, Saxons, Bavarians, to whom had also belonged the -four great offices of the imperial household. But of these dukedoms -the two first named were now extinct, and their place and power in the -state, as well as the household offices they had held, had descended -upon two principalities of more recent origin, those, namely, of the -Palatinate of the Rhine and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. The Saxon -duke, though with greatly narrowed dominions, retained his vote and -office of arch-marshal, and the claim of his Bavarian compeer would -have been equally indisputable had it not so happened that both he and -the Palsgrave of the Rhine were members of the great house of -Wittelsbach. That one family should hold two votes out of seven seemed -so dangerous to the state that it was made a ground of objection to -the Bavarian duke, and gave an opening to the pretensions of the king -of Bohemia, who, though not properly a Teutonic prince[274], might on -the score of rank and power assert himself the equal of any one of the -electors. The dispute between these rival claimants, as well as all -the rules and requisites of the election, were settled by Charles the -Fourth in the Golden Bull, thenceforward a fundamental law of the -Empire. He decided in favour of Bohemia, of which he was then king; -fixed Frankfort as the place of election; named the archbishop of -Mentz convener of the electoral college; gave to Bohemia the first, to -the Count Palatine the second place among the secular electors. A -majority of votes was in all cases to be decisive. As to each -electorate there was attached a great office, it was supposed that -this was the title by which the vote was possessed; though it was in -truth rather an effect than a cause. The three prelates were -archchancellors of Germany, Gaul and Burgundy, and Italy respectively: -Bohemia cupbearer, the Palsgrave seneschal, Saxony marshal, and -Brandenburg chamberlain[275]. - -[Sidenote: Eighth Electorate.] - -[Sidenote: Ninth Electorate.] - -These arrangements, under which disputed elections became far less -frequent, remained undisturbed till A.D. 1618, when on the breaking -out of the Thirty Years' War the Emperor Ferdinand II by an -unwarranted stretch of prerogative deprived the Palsgrave Frederick -(king of Bohemia, and husband of Elizabeth, the daughter of James I of -England) of his electoral vote, and transferred it to his own -partisan, Maximilian of Bavaria. At the peace of Westphalia the -Palsgrave was reinstated as an eighth elector, Bavaria retaining her -place. The sacred number having been once broken through, less scruple -was felt in making further changes. In A.D. 1692, the Emperor Leopold -I conferred a ninth electorate on the house of Brunswick Lüneburg, -which was then in possession of the duchy of Hanover, and succeeded to -the throne of Great Britain in 1714; and in A.D. 1708, the assent of -the Diet thereto was obtained. It was in this way that English kings -came to vote at the election of a Roman Emperor. - -It is not a little curious that the only potentate who still continues -to entitle himself Elector[276] should be one who never did (and of -course never can now) join in electing an Emperor, having been under -the arrangements of the old Empire a simple Landgrave. In A.D. 1803, -Napoleon, among other sweeping changes in the Germanic constitution, -procured the extinction of the electorates of Cologne and Treves, -annexing their territories to France, and gave the title of Elector, -as the highest after that of king, to the duke of Würtemburg, the -Margrave of Baden, the Landgrave of Hessen-Cassel, and the archbishop -of Salzburg. Three years afterwards the Empire itself ended, and the -title became meaningless. - -As the Germanic Empire is the most conspicuous example of a monarchy -not hereditary that the world has ever seen, it may not be amiss to -consider for a moment what light its history throws upon the character -of elective monarchy in general, a contrivance which has always had, -and will probably always continue to have, seductions for a certain -class of political theorists. - -[Sidenote: Objects of an elective monarchy: how far attained in -Germany.] - -[Sidenote: Choice of the fittest.] - -First of all then it deserves to be noticed how difficult, one might -almost say impossible, it was found to maintain in practice the -elective principle. In point of law, the imperial throne was from the -tenth century to the nineteenth absolutely open to any orthodox -Christian candidate. But as a matter of fact, the competition was -confined to a few very powerful families, and there was always a -strong tendency for the crown to become hereditary in some one of -these. Thus the Franconian Emperors held it from A.D. 1024 till 1125, -the Hohenstaufen, themselves the heirs of the Franconians, for a -century or more; the house of Luxemburg (kings of Bohemia) enjoyed it -through three successive reigns, and when in the fifteenth century it -fell into the tenacious grasp of the Hapsburgs, they managed to retain -it thenceforth (with but one trifling interruption) till it vanished -out of nature altogether. Therefore the chief benefit which the scheme -of elective sovereignty seems to promise, that of putting the fittest -man in the highest place, was but seldom attained, and attained even -then rather by good fortune than design. - -[Sidenote: Restraint of the sovereign.] - -No such objection can be brought against the second ground on which an -elective system has sometimes been advocated, its operation in -moderating the power of the crown, for this was attained in the -fullest and most ruinous measure. We are reminded of the man in the -fable, who opened a sluice to water his garden, and saw his house -swept away by the furious torrent. The power of the crown was not -moderated but destroyed. Each successful candidate was forced to -purchase his title by the sacrifice of rights which had belonged to -his predecessors, and must repeat the same shameful policy later in -his reign to procure the election of his son. Feeling at the same time -that his family could not make sure of keeping the throne, he treated -it as a life-tenant is apt to treat his estate, seeking only to make -out of it the largest present profit. And the electors, aware of the -strength of their position, presumed upon it and abused it to assert -an independence such as the nobles of other countries could never have -aspired to. - -[Sidenote: Recognition of the popular will.] - -[Sidenote: Conception of the electoral function.] - -Modern political speculation supposes the method of appointing a ruler -by the votes of his subjects, as opposed to the system of hereditary -succession, to be an assertion by the people of their own will as the -ultimate fountain of authority, an acknowledgment by the prince that -he is no more than their minister and deputy. To the theory of the -Holy Empire nothing could be more repugnant. This will best appear -when the aspect of the system of election at different epochs in its -history is compared with the corresponding changes in the composition -of the electoral body which have been described as in progress from -the ninth to the fourteenth century. In very early times, the tribe -chose a war chief, who was, even if he belonged to the most noble -family, no more than the first among his peers, with a power -circumscribed by the will of his subjects. Several ages later, in the -tenth and eleventh centuries, the right of choice had passed into the -hands of the magnates, and the people were only asked to assent. In -the same measure had the relation of prince and subject taken a new -aspect. We must not expect to find, in such rude times, any very clear -apprehension of the technical quality of the process, and the throne -had indeed become for a season so nearly hereditary that the election -was often a mere matter of form. But it seems to have been regarded, -not as a delegation of authority by the nobles and people, with a -power of resumption implied, but rather as their subjection of -themselves to the monarch who enjoys, as of his own right, a wide and -ill-defined prerogative. In yet later times, when, as has been shewn -above, the assembly of the chieftains and the applauding shout of the -host had been superseded by the secret conclave of the seven electoral -princes, the strict legal view of election became fully established, -and no one was supposed to have any title to the crown except what a -majority of votes might confer upon him. Meantime, however, the -conception of the imperial office itself had been thoroughly -penetrated by religious ideas, and the fact that the sovereign did -not, like other princes, reign by hereditary right, but by the choice -of certain persons, was supposed to be an enhancement and consecration -of his dignity. The electors, to draw what may seem a subtle, but is -nevertheless a very real distinction, selected, but did not create. -They only named the person who was to receive what it was not theirs -to give. God, say the mediæval writers, not deigning to interfere -visibly in the affairs of this world, has willed that these seven -princes of Germany should discharge the function which once belonged -to the senate and people of Rome, that of choosing his earthly viceroy -in matters temporal. But it is immediately from Himself that the -authority of this viceroy comes, and men can have no relation towards -him except that of obedience. It was in this period, therefore, when -the Emperor was in practice the mere nominee of the electors, that the -belief in this divine right stood highest, to the complete exclusion -of the mutual responsibility of feudalism, and still more of any -notion of a devolution of authority from the sovereign people. - -[Sidenote: General results of Charles IV's policy.] - -Peace and order appeared to be promoted by the institutions of Charles -IV, which removed one fruitful cause of civil war. But these seven -electoral princes acquired, with their extended privileges, a marked -and dangerous predominance in Germany. They were to enjoy full -regalian rights in their territories[277]; causes were not to be -evoked from their courts, save when justice should have been denied: -their consent was necessary to all public acts of consequence. Their -persons were held to be sacred, and the seven mystic luminaries of the -Holy Empire, typified by the seven lamps of the Apocalypse, soon -gained much of the Emperor's hold on popular reverence, as well as -that actual power which he lacked. To Charles, who viewed the German -Empire much as Rudolf had viewed the Roman, this result came not -unforeseen. He saw in his office a means of serving personal ends, and -to them, while appearing to exalt by elaborate ceremonies its ideal -dignity, he deliberately sacrificed what real strength was left. The -object which he sought steadily through life was the prosperity of the -Bohemian kingdom, and the advancement of his own house. In the Golden -Bull, whose seal bears the legend,-- - - 'Roma caput mundi regit orbis frena rotundi[278],' - -there is not a word of Rome or of Italy. To Germany he was indirectly -a benefactor, by the foundation of the University of Prague, the -mother of all her schools: otherwise her bane. He legalized anarchy, -and called it a constitution. The sums expended in obtaining the -ratification of the Golden Bull, in procuring the election of his son -Wenzel, in aggrandizing Bohemia at the expense of Germany, had been -amassed by keeping a market in which honours and exemptions, with what -lands the crown retained, were put up openly to be bid for. In Italy -the Ghibelines saw, with shame and rage, their chief hasten to Rome -with a scanty retinue, and return from it as swiftly, at the mandate -of an Avignonese Pope, halting on his route only to traffic away the -last rights of his Empire. The Guelf might cease to hate a power he -could now despise. - -Thus, alike at home and abroad, the German king had become practically -powerless by the loss of his feudal privileges, and saw the authority -that had once been his parcelled out among a crowd of greedy and -tyrannical nobles. Meantime how had it fared with the rights which he -claimed by virtue of the imperial crown? - -FOOTNOTES: - -[263] Quoted by Moser, _Römische Kayser_, from _Chron. Hirsang._: -'Regni vires temporum iniuria nimium contritæ vix uni alendo regi -sufficerent, tantum abesse ut sumptus in duos reges ferre queant.' - -[264] At Rupert's death, under whom the mischief had increased -greatly, there were, we are told, many bishops better off than the -Emperor. - -[265] 'Proventus Imperii ita minimi sunt ut legationibus vix -suppetant.'--Quoted by Moser. - -[266] Albert I tried in vain to wrest the tolls of the Rhine from the -grasp of the Rhenish electors. - -[267] The Æthelings of the line of Cerdic, among the West Saxons, and -the Bavarian Agilolfings, may thus be compared with the Achæmenids of -Persia or the heroic houses of early Greece. - -[268] Wippo, describing the election of Conrad the Franconian, says, -'Inter confinia Moguntiæ et Wormatiæ convenerunt cuncti primates et, -ut ita dicam, vires et viscera regni.' So Bruno says that Henry IV was -elected by the '_populus_.' So Gunther Ligurinus of Frederick I's -election:-- - - 'Acturi sacræ de successione coronæ - Conveniunt proceres, totius viscera regni.' - -So Amandus, secretary of Frederick Barbarossa, in describing his -election, says, 'Multi illustres heroes ex Lombardia, Tuscia, Ianuensi -et aliis Italiæ dominiis, ac maior et potior pars principum ex -Transalpino regno.'--Quoted by Mur. _Antiq._ Diss. iii. And see many -other authorities to the same effect, collected by Pfeffinger, -_Vitriarius illustratus_. - -[269] Alciatus, _De Formula Romani Imperii_. He adds that the Gauls -and Italians were incensed at the preference shewn to Germany. So too -Radulfus de Columna. - -[270] Quoted by Gewoldus, _De Septemviratu Sacri Imperii Romani_, -himself a violent advocate of Gregory's decree, though living as late -as the days of Ferdinand II. As late as A.D. 1648 we find Pope -Innocent X maintaining that the sacred number _Seven_ of the electors -was 'apostolica auctoritate olim præfinitus.' Bull _Zelo domus_ in -_Bullar. Rom._ - -[271] Sometimes we hear of a decree made by Pope Sergius IV and his -cardinals (of course equally fabulous with Otto's). So John Villani, -iv. 2. - -[272] In 1152 we read, 'Id iuris Romani Imperii apex habere dicitur ut -non per sanguinis propaginem sed per principum electionem reges -creentur.'--Otto Fris. Gulielmus Brito, writing not much later, says -(quoted by Freher),-- - - 'Est etenim talis dynastia Theutonicorum - Ut nullus regnet super illos, ni prius illum - Eligat unanimis cleri populique voluntas.' - -[273] Innocent III, during the contest between Philip and Otto IV, -speaks of 'principes ad quos principaliter spectat regis Romani -electio.' - -[274] 'Rex Bohemiæ non eligit, quia non est Teutonicus,' says a writer -early in the fourteenth century. - -[275] The names and offices of the seven are concisely given in these -lines, which appear in the treatise of Marsilius of Padua, _De Imperio -Romano_:-- - - 'Moguntinensis, Trevirensis, Coloniensis, - Quilibet Imperii sit Cancellarius horum; - Et Palatinus dapifer, Dux portitor ensis, - Marchio præpositus cameræ, pincerna Bohemus, - Hi statuunt dominum cunctis per sæcula summum.' - -It is worth while to place beside this the first stanza of Schiller's -ballad, _Der Graf von Hapsburg_, in which the coronation feast of -Rudolf is described:-- - - 'Zu Aachen in seiner Kaiserpracht - Im alterthümlichen Saale, - Sass König Rudolphs heilige Macht - Beim festlichen Krönungsmahle. - Die Speisen trug der Pfalzgraf des Rheins, - Es schenkte der Böhme des perlenden Weins, - Und alle die Wähler, die Sieben, - Wie der Sterne Chor um die Sonne sich stellt, - Umstanden geschäftig den Herrscher der Welt, - Die Würde des Amtes zu üben.' - -It is a poetical licence, however (as Schiller himself admits), to -bring the Bohemian there, for King Ottocar was far away at home, -mortified at his own rejection, and already meditating war. - -[276] The electoral prince (Kurfürst) of Hessen-Cassel. His retention -of the title has this advantage, that it enables the Germans readily -to distinguish electoral Hesse (Kur-Hessen) from the Grand Duchy -(Hessen-Darmstadt) and the landgraviate (Hessen Homburg). [Since the -above was written (in 1865) this last relic of the electoral system -has passed away, the Elector of Hessen having been dethroned in 1866, -and his territories (to the great satisfaction of the inhabitants, -whom he had worried by a long course of petty tyrannies) annexed to -the Prussian kingdom, along with Hanover, Nassau, and the free city of -Frankfort. Count Bismarck, as he raises his master nearer and nearer -to the position of a Germanic Emperor, destroys one by one the -historical memorials of that elder Empire which people had learned to -associate with the Austrian house.] - -[277] Goethe, whose imagination was wonderfully attracted by the -splendours of the old Empire, has given in the second part of _Faust_ -a sort of fancy sketch of the origin of the great offices and the -territorial independence of the German princes. Two lines express -concisely the fiscal rights granted by the Emperor to the electors:-- - - 'Dann Steuer Zins und Beed, Lehn und Geleit und Zoll, - Berg-, Salz- und Münz-regal euch angehören soll.' - -[278] This line is said to be as old as the time of Otto III. - - - - -CHAPTER XV. - -THE EMPIRE AS AN INTERNATIONAL POWER. - - -[Sidenote: Theory of the Roman Empire in the fourteenth and fifteenth -centuries.] - -That the Roman Empire survived the seemingly mortal wound it had -received at the era of the Great Interregnum, and continued to put -forth pretensions which no one was likely to make good where the -Hohenstaufen had failed, has been attributed to its identification -with the German kingdom, in which some life was still left. But this -was far from being the only cause which saved it from extinction. It -had not ceased to be upheld in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries -by the same singular theory which had in the ninth and tenth been -strong enough to re-establish it in the West. The character of that -theory was indeed somewhat changed, for if not positively less -religious, it was less exclusively so. In the days of Charles and -Otto, the Empire, in so far as it was anything more than a tradition -from times gone by, rested solely upon the belief that with the -visible Church there must be coextensive a single Christian state -under one head and governor. But now that the Emperor's headship had -been repudiated by the Pope, and his interference in matters of -religion denounced as a repetition of the sin of Uzziah; now that the -memory of mutual injuries had kindled an unquenchable hatred between -the champions of the ecclesiastical and those of the civil power, it -was natural that the latter, while they urged, fervently as ever, the -divine sanction given to the imperial office, should at the same time -be led to seek some further basis whereon to establish its claims. -What that basis was, and how they were guided to it, will best appear -when a word or two has been said on the nature of the change that had -passed on Europe in the course of the three preceding centuries, and -the progress of the human mind during the same period. - -[Sidenote: Revival of learning and literature, A.D. 1100-1400.] - -Such has been the accumulated wealth of literature, and so rapid the -advances of science among us since the close of the Middle Ages, that -it is not now possible by any effort fully to enter into the feelings -with which the relics of antiquity were regarded by those who saw in -them their only possession. It is indeed true that modern art and -literature and philosophy have been produced by the working of new -minds upon old materials: that in thought, as in nature, we see no new -creation. But with us the old has been transformed and overlaid by the -new till its origin is forgotten: to them ancient books were the only -standard of taste, the only vehicle of truth, the only stimulus to -reflection. Hence it was that the most learned man was in those days -esteemed the greatest: hence the creative energy of an age was exactly -proportioned to its knowledge of and its reverence for the written -monuments of those that had gone before. For until they can look -forward, men must look back: till they should have reached the level -of the old civilization, the nations of mediæval Europe must continue -to live upon its memories. Over them, as over us, the common dream of -all mankind had power; but to them, as to the ancient world, that -golden age which seems now to glimmer on the horizon of the future was -shrouded in the clouds of the past. It is to the fifteenth and -sixteenth centuries that we are accustomed to assign that new birth of -the human spirit--if it ought not rather to be called a renewal of its -strength and quickening of its sluggish life--with which the modern -time begins. And the date is well chosen, for it was then first that -the transcendently powerful influence of Greek literature began to -work upon the world. But it must not be forgotten that for a long time -previous there had been in progress a great revival of learning, and -still more of zeal for learning, which being caused by and directed -towards the literature and institutions of Rome, might fitly be called -the Roman Renaissance. The twelfth century saw this revival begin with -that passionate study of the legislation of Justinian, whose influence -on the doctrines of imperial prerogative has been noticed already. The -thirteenth witnessed the rapid spread of the scholastic philosophy, a -body of systems most alien, both in subject and manner, to anything -that had arisen among the ancients, yet one to whose development Greek -metaphysics and the theology of the Latin fathers had largely -contributed, and the spirit of whose reasonings was far more free than -the presumed orthodoxy of its conclusions suffered to appear. In the -fourteenth century there arose in Italy the first great masters of -painting and song; and the literature of the new languages, springing -into the fulness of life in the Divina Commedia, adorned not long -after by the names of Petrarch and Chaucer, assumed at once its place -as a great and ever-growing power in the affairs of men. - -[Sidenote: Growing freedom of spirit.] - -[Sidenote: Influence of thought upon the arrangements of society.] - -Now, along with the literary revival, partly caused by, partly causing -it, there had been also a wonderful stirring and uprising in the mind -of Europe. The yoke of church authority still pressed heavily on the -souls of men; yet some had been found to shake it off, and many more -murmured in secret. The tendency was one which shewed itself in -various and sometimes apparently opposite directions. The revolt of -the Albigenses, the spread of the Cathari and other so-called -heretics, the excitement created by the writings of Wickliffe and -Huss, witnessed to the fearlessness wherewith it could assail the -dominant theology. It was present, however skilfully disguised, among -those scholastic doctors who busied themselves with proving by natural -reason the dogmas of the Church: for the power which can forge fetters -can also break them. It took a form more dangerous because of a more -direct application to facts, in the attacks, so often repeated from -Arnold of Brescia downwards, upon the wealth and corruptions of the -clergy, and above all of the papal court. For the agitation was not -merely speculative. There was beginning to be a direct and rational -interest in life, a power of applying thought to practical ends, which -had not been seen before. Man's life among his fellows was no longer a -mere wild beast struggle; man's soul no more, as it had been, the -victim of ungoverned passion, whether it was awed by supernatural -terrors or captivated by examples of surpassing holiness. Manners were -still rude, and governments unsettled; but society was learning to -organize itself upon fixed principles; to recognize, however faintly, -the value of order, industry, equality; to adapt means to ends, and -conceive of the common good as the proper end of its own existence. In -a word, Politics had begun to exist, and with them there had appeared -the first of a class of persons whom friends and enemies may both, -though with different meanings, call ideal politicians; men who, -however various have been the doctrines they have held, however -impracticable many of the plans they have advanced, have been -nevertheless alike in their devotion to the highest interests of -humanity, and have frequently been derided as theorists in their own -age to be honoured as the prophets and teachers of the next. - -[Sidenote: Separation of the peoples of Europe into hostile kingdoms: -consequent need of an international power.] - -Now it was towards the Roman Empire that the hopes and sympathies of -these political speculators as well as of the jurists and poets of the -fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were constantly directed. The cause -may be gathered from the circumstances of the time. The most -remarkable event in the history of the last three hundred years had -been the formation of nationalities, each distinguished by a peculiar -language and character, and by steadily increasing differences of -habits and institutions. And as upon this national basis there had -been in most cases established strong monarchies, Europe was broken up -into disconnected bodies, and the cherished scheme of a united -Christian state appeared less likely than ever to be realized. Nor was -this all. Sometimes through race-hatred, more often by the jealousy -and ambition of their sovereigns, these countries were constantly -involved in war with one another, violating on a larger scale and with -more destructive results than in time past the peace of the religious -community; while each of them was at the same time torn within by -frequent insurrections, and desolated by long and bloody civil wars. -The new nationalities were too fully formed to allow the hope that by -their extinction a remedy might be applied to these evils. They had -grown up in spite of the Empire and the Church, and were not likely to -yield in their strength what they had won in their weakness. But it -still appeared possible to soften, if not to overcome, their -antagonism. What might not be looked for from the erection of a -presiding power common to all Europe, a power which, while it should -oversee the internal concerns of each country, not dethroning the -king, but treating him as an hereditary viceroy, should be more -especially charged to prevent strife between kingdoms, and to maintain -the public order of Europe by being not only the fountain of -international law, but also the judge in its causes and the enforcer -of its sentences? - -[Sidenote: The Popes as international Judges.] - -To such a position had the Popes aspired. They were indeed excellently -fitted for it by the respect which the sacredness of their office -commanded; by their control of the tremendous weapons of -excommunication and interdict; above all, by their exemption from -those narrowing influences of place, or blood, or personal interest, -which it would be their chiefest duty to resist in others. And there -had been pontiffs whose fearlessness and justice were worthy of their -exalted office, and whose interference was gratefully remembered by -those who found no other helpers. Nevertheless, judging the Papacy by -its conduct as a whole, it had been tried and found wanting. Even when -its throne stood firmest and its purposes were most pure, one motive -had always biassed its decisions--a partiality to the most submissive. -During the greater part of the fourteenth century it was at Avignon -the willing tool of France: in the pursuit of a temporal principality -it had mingled in and been contaminated by the unhallowed politics of -Italy; its supreme council, the college of cardinals, was distracted -by the intrigues of two bitterly hostile factions. And while the power -of the Popes had declined steadily, though silently, since the days of -Boniface the Eighth, the insolence of the great prelates and the vices -of the inferior clergy had provoked throughout Western Christendom a -reaction against the pretensions of all sacerdotal authority. As there -is no theory at first sight more attractive than that which entrusts -all government to a supreme spiritual power, which, knowing what is -best for man, shall lead him to his true good by appealing to the -highest principles of his nature, so there is no disappointment more -bitter than that of those who find that the holiest office may be -polluted by the lusts and passions of its holder; that craft and -hypocrisy lead while fanaticism follows; that here too, as in so much -else, the corruption of the best is worst. Some such disappointment -there was in Europe now, and with it a certain disposition to look -with favour on the secular power: a wish to escape from the unhealthy -atmosphere of clerical despotism to the rule of positive law, harsher, -it might be, yet surely less corrupting. Espousing the cause of the -Roman Empire as the chief opponent of priestly claims, this tendency -found it, with shrunken territory and diminished resources, fitter in -some respects for the office of an international judge and mediator -than it had been as a great national power. For though far less widely -active, it was losing that local character which was fast gathering -round the Papacy. With feudal rights no longer enforcible, and -removed, except in his patrimonial lands, from direct contact with the -subject, the Emperor was not, as heretofore, conspicuously a German -and a feudal king, and occupied an ideal position far less marred by -the incongruous accidents of birth and training, of national and -dynastic interests. - -[Sidenote: Duties attributed to the Empire by the developed theory.] - -[Sidenote: Divine right of the Emperor.] - -To that position three cardinal duties were attached. He who held it -must typify spiritual unity, must preserve peace, must be a fountain -of that by which alone among imperfect men peace is preserved and -restored, law and justice. The first of these three objects was sought -not only on religious grounds, but also from that longing for a wider -brotherhood of humanity towards which, ever since the barrier between -Jew and Gentile, Greek and barbarian, was broken down, the aspirations -of the higher minds of the world have been constantly directed. Placed -in the midst of Europe, the Emperor was to bind its tribes into one -body, reminding them of their common faith, their common blood, their -common interest in each other's welfare. And he was therefore above -all things, professing indeed to be upon earth the representative of -the Prince of Peace, bound to listen to complaints, and to redress the -injuries inflicted by sovereigns or people upon each other; to punish -offenders against the public order of Christendom; to maintain through -the world, looking down as from a serene height upon the schemes and -quarrels of meaner potentates, that supreme good without which neither -arts nor letters, nor the gentler virtues of life, can rise and -flourish. The mediæval Empire was in its essence what the modern -despotisms that mimic it profess themselves: the Empire was -peace[279]: the oldest and noblest title of its head was 'Imperator -pacificus[280].' And that he might be the peacemaker, he must be the -expounder of justice and the author of its concrete embodiment, -positive law; chief legislator and supreme judge of appeal, like his -predecessor the compiler of the Corpus Iuris, the one and only source -of all legitimate authority. In this sense, as governor and -administrator, not as owner, is he, in the words of the jurists, Lord -of the world; not that its soil belongs to him in the same sense in -which the soil of France or England belongs to their respective kings: -he is the steward of Him who has received the heathen for his -possession and the uttermost parts of the earth for his inheritance. -It is, therefore, by him alone that the idea of pure right, acquired -not by force but by legitimate devolution from those whom God himself -had set up, is visibly expressed upon earth. To find an external and -positive basis for that idea is a problem which it has at all times -been more easy to evade than to solve, and one peculiarly distressing -to those who could neither explain the phenomena of society by -reducing it to its original principles, nor inquire historically how -its existing arrangements had grown up. Hence the attempt to represent -human government as an emanation from divine: a view from which all -the similar but far less logically consistent doctrines of divine -right which have prevailed in later times are borrowed. As has been -said already, there is not a trace of the notion that the Emperor -reigns by an hereditary right of his own or by the will of the people, -for such a theory would have seemed to the men of the middle ages an -absurd and wicked perversion of the true order. Nor do his powers come -to him from those who choose him, but from God, who uses the electoral -princes as mere instruments of nomination. Having such an origin, his -rights exist irrespective of their actual exercise, and no voluntary -abandonment, not even an express grant, can impair them. Boniface the -Eighth[281] reminds the king of France, and imperialist lawyers till -the seventeenth century repeated the claim, that he, like other -princes, is of right and must ever remain subject to the Roman -Emperor. And the sovereigns of Europe long continued to address the -Emperor in language, and yield to him a precedence, which admitted the -inferiority of their own position[282]. - -There was in this theory nothing that was absurd, though much that was -impracticable. The ideas on which it rested are still unapproached in -grandeur and simplicity, still as far in advance of the average -thought of Europe, and as unlikely to find men or nations fit to apply -them, as when they were promulgated five hundred years ago. The -practical evil which the establishment of such a universal monarchy -was intended to meet, that of wars and hardly less ruinous -preparations for war between the states of Europe, remains what it was -then. The remedy which mediæval theory proposed has been in some -measure applied by the construction and reception of international -law; the greater difficulty of erecting a tribunal to arbitrate and -decide, with the power of enforcing its decisions, is as far from a -solution as ever. - -[Sidenote: Roman Empire why an international power.] - -It is easy to see how it was to the Roman Emperor, and to him only, -that the duties and privileges above mentioned could be attributed. -Being Roman, he was of no nation, and therefore fittest to judge -between contending states, and appease the animosities of race. His -was the imperial tongue of Rome, not only the vehicle of religion and -law, but also, since no other was understood everywhere in Europe, the -necessary medium of diplomatic intercourse. As there was no Church but -the Holy Roman Church, and he its temporal head, it was by him that -the communion of the saints in its outward form, its secular side, was -represented, and to his keeping that the sanctity of peace must be -entrusted. As direct heir of those who from Julius to Justinian had -shaped the existing law of Europe[283], he was, so to speak, legality -personified[284]; the only sovereign on earth who, being possessed of -power by an unimpeachable title, could by his grant confer upon others -rights equally valid. And as he claimed to perpetuate the greatest -political system the world had known, a system which still moves the -wonder of those who see before their eyes empires as much wider than -the Roman as they are less symmetrical, and whose vast and complex -machinery far surpassed anything the fourteenth century possessed or -could hope to establish, it was not strange that he and his government -(assuming them to be what they were entitled to be) should be taken as -the ideal of a perfect monarch and a perfect state. - -[Sidenote: Illustrations.] - -[Sidenote: Right of creating Kings.] - -Of the many applications and illustrations of these doctrines which -mediæval documents furnish, it will suffice to adduce two or three. No -imperial privilege was prized more highly than the power of creating -kings, for there was none which raised the Emperor so much above them. -In this, as in other international concerns, the Pope soon began to -claim a jurisdiction, at first concurrent, then separate and -independent. But the older and more reasonable view assigned it, as -flowing from the possession of supreme secular authority, to the -Emperor; and it was from him that the rulers of Burgundy, Bohemia, -Hungary, perhaps Poland and Denmark, received the regal title[285]. -The prerogative was his in the same manner in which that of conferring -titles is still held to belong to the sovereign in every modern -kingdom. And so when Charles the Bold, last duke of French Burgundy, -proposed to consolidate his wide dominions into a kingdom, it was from -Frederick III that he sought permission to do so. The Emperor, -however, was greedy and suspicious, the Duke uncompliant; and when -Frederick found that terms could not be arranged between them, he -stole away suddenly, and left Charles to carry back, with -ill-concealed mortification, the crown and sceptre which he had -brought ready-made to the place of interview. - -[Sidenote: Chivalry.] - -In the same manner, as representing what was common to and valid -throughout all Europe, nobility, and more particularly knighthood, -centred in the Empire. The great Orders of Chivalry were international -institutions, whose members, having consecrated themselves a military -priesthood, had no longer any country of their own, and could -therefore be subject to no one save the Emperor and the Pope. For -knighthood was constructed on the analogy of priesthood, and knights -were conceived of as being to the world in its secular aspect exactly -what priests, and more especially the monastic orders, were to it in -its religious aspect: to the one body was given the sword of the -flesh, to the other the sword of the spirit; each was universal, each -had its autocratic head[286]. Singularly, too, were these notions -brought into harmony with the feudal polity. Cæsar was lord paramount -of the world: its countries great fiefs whose kings were his tenants -in chief, the suitors of his court, owing to him homage, fealty, and -military service against the infidel. - -[Sidenote: Persons eligible as Emperors.] - -One illustration more of the way in which the empire was held to be -something of and for all mankind, cannot be omitted. Although from the -practical union of the imperial with the German throne none but -Germans were chosen to fill it[287], it remained in point of law -absolutely free from all restrictions of country or birth. In an age -of the most intense aristocratic exclusiveness, the highest office in -the world was the only secular one open to all Christians. The old -writers, after debating at length the qualifications that are or may -be desirable in an Emperor, and relating how in pagan times Gauls and -Spaniards, Moors and Pannonians, were thought worthy of the purple, -decide that two things, and no more, are required of the candidate for -Empire: he must be free-born, and he must be orthodox[288]. - -[Sidenote: The Empire and the new learning.] - -[Sidenote: The doctrine of the Empire's rights and functions never -carried out in fact.] - -It is not without a certain surprise that we see those who were -engaged in the study of ancient letters, or felt indirectly their -stimulus, embrace so fervently the cause of the Roman Empire. Still -more difficult is it to estimate the respective influence exerted by -each of the three revivals which it has been attempted to distinguish. -The spirit of the ancient world by which the men who led these -movements fancied themselves animated, was in truth a pagan, or at -least a strongly secular spirit, in many respects inconsistent with -the associations which had now gathered round the imperial office. And -this hostility did not fail to shew itself when at the beginning of -the sixteenth century, in the fulness of the Renaissance, a direct and -for the time irresistible sway was exercised by the art and literature -of Greece, when the mythology of Euripides and Ovid supplanted that -which had fired the imagination of Dante and peopled the visions of -St. Francis; when men forsook the image of the saint in the cathedral -for the statue of the nymph in the garden; when the uncouth jargon of -scholastic theology was equally distasteful to the scholars who formed -their style upon Cicero and the philosophers who drew their -inspiration from Plato. That meanwhile the admirers of antiquity did -ally themselves with the defenders of the Empire, was due partly -indeed to the false notions that were entertained regarding the early -Cæsars, yet still more to the common hostility of both sects to the -Papacy. It was as successor of old Rome, and by virtue of her -traditions, that the Holy See had established so wide a dominion; yet -no sooner did Arnold of Brescia and his republicans arise, claiming -liberty in the name of the ancient constitution of the republic, than -they found in the Popes their bitterest foes, and turned for help to -the secular monarch against the clergy. With similar aversion did the -Romish court view the revived study of the ancient jurisprudence, so -soon as it became, in the hands of the school of Bologna and -afterwards of the jurists of France, a power able to assert its -independence and resist ecclesiastical pretensions. In the ninth -century, Pope Nicholas the First had himself judged in the famous case -of Teutberga, wife of Lothar, according to the civil law: in the -thirteenth, his successors[289] forbade its study, and the canonists -strove to expel it from Europe[290]. And as the current of educated -opinion among the laity was beginning, however imperceptibly at first, -to set against sacerdotal tyranny, it followed that the Empire would -find sympathy in any effort it could make to regain its lost position. -Thus the Emperors became, or might have become had they seen the -greatness of the opportunity and been strong enough to improve it, the -exponents and guides of the political movement, the pioneers, in part -at least, of the Reformation. But the revival came too late to arrest, -if not to adorn, the decline of their office. The growth of a national -sentiment in the several countries of Europe, which had already gone -too far to be arrested, and was urged on by forces far stronger than -the theories of Catholic unity which opposed it, imprinted on the -resistance to papal usurpation, and even on the instincts of political -freedom, that form of narrowly local patriotism which they still -retain. It can hardly be said that upon any occasion, except the -gathering of the council of Constance by Sigismund, did the Emperor -appear filling a truly international place. For the most part he -exerted in the politics of Europe no influence greater than that of -other princes. In actual resources he stood below the kings of France -and England, far below his vassals the Visconti of Milan[291]. Yet -this helplessness, such was men's faith or their timidity, and such -their unwillingness to make prejudice bend to facts, did not prevent -his dignity from being extolled in the most sonorous language by -writers whose imaginations were enthralled by the halo of traditional -glory which surrounded it. - -[Sidenote: Attitude of the men of letters.] - -We are thus brought back to ask, What was the connection between -imperialism and the literary revival? - -[Sidenote: Petrarch.] - -To moderns who think of the Roman Empire as the heathen persecuting -power, it is strange to find it depicted as the model of a Christian -commonwealth. It is stranger still that the study of antiquity should -have made men advocates of arbitrary power. Democratic Athens, -oligarchic Rome, suggest to us Pericles and Brutus: the moderns who -have striven to catch their spirit have been men like Algernon Sidney, -and Vergniaud, and Shelley. The explanation is the same in both -cases[292]. The ancient world was known to the earlier middle ages by -tradition, freshest for what was latest, and by the authors of the -Empire. Both presented to them the picture of a mighty despotism and a -civilization brilliant far beyond their own. Writings of the fourth -and fifth centuries, unfamiliar to us, were to them authorities as -high as Tacitus or Livy; yet Virgil and Horace too had sung the -praises of the first and wisest of the Emperors. To the enthusiasts of -poetry and law, Rome meant universal monarchy[293]; to those of -religion, her name called up the undimmed radiance of the Church under -Sylvester and Constantine. Petrarch, the apostle of the dawning -Renaissance, is excited by the least attempt to revive even the shadow -of imperial greatness: as he had hailed Rienzi, he welcomes Charles IV -into Italy, and execrates his departure. The following passage is -taken from his letter to the Roman people asking them to receive back -Rienzi:--'When was there ever such peace, such tranquillity, such -justice, such honour paid to virtue, such rewards distributed to the -good and punishments to the bad, when was ever the state so wisely -guided, as in the time when the world had obtained one head, and that -head Rome; the very time wherein God deigned to be born of a virgin -and dwell upon earth. To every single body there has been given a -head; the whole world therefore also, which is called by the poet a -great body, ought to be content with one temporal head. For every -two-headed animal is monstrous; how much more horrible and hideous a -portent must be a creature with a thousand different heads, biting and -fighting against one another! If, however, it is necessary that there -be more heads than one, it is nevertheless evident that there ought to -be one to restrain all and preside over all, that so the peace of the -whole body may abide unshaken. Assuredly both in heaven and in earth -the sovereignty of one has always been best.' - -[Sidenote: Dante.] - -His passion for the heroism of Roman conquest and the ordered peace to -which it brought the world, is the centre of Dante's political hopes: -he is no more an exiled Ghibeline, but a patriot whose fervid -imagination sees a nation arise regenerate at the touch of its -rightful lord. Italy, the spoil of so many Teutonic conquerors, is the -garden of the Empire which Henry is to redeem: Rome the mourning -widow, whom Albert is denounced for neglecting[294]. Passing through -purgatory, the poet sees Rudolf of Hapsburg seated gloomily apart, -mourning his sin in that he left unhealed the wounds of Italy[295]. In -the deepest pit of hell's ninth circle lies Lucifer, huge, -three-headed; in each mouth a sinner whom he crunches between his -teeth, in one mouth Iscariot the traitor to Christ, in the others the -two traitors to the first Emperor of Rome, Brutus and Cassius[296]. To -multiply illustrations from other parts of the poem would be an -endless task; for the idea is ever present in Dante's mind, and -displays itself in a hundred unexpected forms. Virgil himself is -selected to be the guide of the pilgrim through hell and purgatory, -not so much as being the great poet of antiquity, as because he 'was -born under Julius and lived beneath the good Augustus;' because he was -divinely charged to sing of the Empire's earliest and brightest -glories. Strange, that the shame of one age should be the glory of -another. For Virgil's melancholy panegyrics upon the destroyer of the -republic are no more like Dante's appeals to the coming saviour of -Italy than is Cæsar Octavianus to Henry count of Luxemburg. - -[Sidenote: Attitude of the Jurists.] - -The visionary zeal of the man of letters was seconded by the more -sober devotion of the lawyer. Conqueror, theologian, and jurist, -Justinian is a hero greater than either Julius or Constantine, for his -enduring work bears him witness. Absolutism was the civilian's -creed[297]: the phrases 'legibus solutus,' 'lex regia,' whatever else -tended in the same direction, were taken to express the prerogative of -him whose official style of Augustus, as well as the vernacular name -of 'Kaiser,' designated the legitimate successor of the compiler of -the Corpus Juris. Since it was upon that legitimacy that his claim to -be the fountain of law rested, no pains were spared to seek out and -observe every custom and precedent by which old Rome seemed to be -connected with her representative. - -[Sidenote: Imitations of old Rome.] - -Of the many instances that might be collected, it would be tedious to -enumerate more than a few. The offices of the imperial household, -instituted by Constantine the Great, were attached to the noblest -families of Germany. The Emperor and Empress, before their coronation -at Rome, were lodged in the chambers called those of Augustus and -Livia[298]; a bare sword was borne before them by the prætorian -prefect; their processions were adorned by the standards, eagles, -wolves and dragons, which had figured in the train of Hadrian or -Theodosius[299]. The constant title of the Emperor himself, according -to the style introduced by Probus, was 'semper Augustus,' or -'perpetuus Augustus,' which erring etymology translated 'at all times -increaser of the Empire[300].' Edicts issued by a Franconian or -Swabian sovereign were inserted as Novels[301] in the Corpus Juris, in -the latest editions of which custom still allows them a place. The -_pontificatus maximus_ of his pagan predecessors was supposed to be -preserved by the admission of each Emperor as a canon of St. Peter's -at Rome and St. Mary's at Aachen[302]. Sometimes we even find him -talking of his consulship[303]. Annalists invariably number the place -of each sovereign from Augustus downwards[304]. The notion of an -uninterrupted succession, which moves the stranger's wondering smile -as he sees ranged round the magnificent Golden Hall of Augsburg the -portraits of the Cæsars, laurelled, helmeted, and periwigged, from -Julius the conqueror of Gaul to Joseph the partitioner of Poland, was -to those generations not an article of faith only because its denial -was inconceivable. - -[Sidenote: Reverence for ancient forms and phrases in the Middle -Ages.] - -[Sidenote: Absence of the idea of change or progress.] - -And all this historical antiquarianism, as one might call it, which -gathers round the Empire, is but one instance, though the most -striking, of that eager wish to cling to the old forms, use the old -phrases, and preserve the old institutions to which the annals of -mediæval Europe bear witness. It appears even in trivial expressions, -as when a monkish chronicler says of evil bishops deposed, _Tribu moti -sunt_, or talks of the 'senate and people of the Franks,' when he -means a council of chiefs surrounded by a crowd of half-naked -warriors. So throughout Europe charters and edicts were drawn up on -Roman precedents; the trade-guilds, though often traceable to a -different source, represented the old _collegia_; villenage was the -offspring of the system of _coloni_ under the later Empire. Even in -remote Britain, the Teutonic invaders used Roman ensigns, and stamped -their coins with Roman devices; called themselves 'Basileis' and -'Augusti[305].' Especially did the cities perpetuate Rome through her -most lasting boon to the conquered, municipal self-government; those -of later origin emulating in their adherence to antique style others -who, like Nismes and Cologne, Zürich and Augsburg, could trace back -their institutions to the _coloniæ_ and _municipia_ of the first -centuries. On the walls and gates of hoary Nürnberg[306] the traveller -still sees emblazoned the imperial eagle, with the words 'Senatus -populusque Norimbergensis,' and is borne in thought from the quiet -provincial town of to-day to the stirring republic of the middle ages: -thence to the Forum and the Capitol of her greater prototype. For, in -truth, through all that period which we call the Dark and Middle Ages, -men's minds were possessed by the belief that all things continued as -they were from the beginning, that no chasm never to be recrossed lay -between them and that ancient world to which they had not ceased to -look back. We who are centuries removed can see that there had passed -a great and wonderful change upon thought, and art, and literature, -and politics, and society itself: a change whose best illustration is -to be found in the process whereby there arose out of the primitive -basilica the Romanesque cathedral, and from it in turn the endless -varieties of Gothic. But so gradual was the change that each -generation felt it passing over them no more than a man feels that -perpetual transformation by which his body is renewed from year to -year; while the few who had learning enough to study antiquity through -its contemporary records, were prevented by the utter want of -criticism and of that which we call historical feeling, from seeing -how prodigious was the contrast between themselves and those whom they -admired. There is nothing more modern than the critical spirit which -dwells upon the difference between the minds of men in one age and in -another; which endeavours to make each age its own interpreter, and -judge what it did or produced by a relative standard. Such a spirit -was, before the last century or two, wholly foreign to art as well as -to metaphysics. The converse and the parallel of the fashion of -calling mediæval offices by Roman names, and supposing them therefore -the same, is to be found in those old German pictures of the siege of -Carthage or the battle between Porus and Alexander, where in the -foreground two armies of knights, mailed and mounted, are charging -each other like Crusaders, lance, in rest, while behind, through the -smoke of cannon, loom out the Gothic spires and towers of the -beleaguered city. And thus, when we remember that the notion of -progress and development, and of change as the necessary condition -thereof, was unwelcome or unknown in mediæval times, we may better -understand, though we do not cease to wonder, how men, never doubting -that the political system of antiquity had descended to them, modified -indeed, yet in substance the same, should have believed that the -Frank, the Saxon, and the Swabian ruled all Europe by a right which -seems to us not less fantastic than that fabled charter whereby -Alexander the Great[307] bequeathed his empire to the Slavic race for -the love of Roxolana. - -It is a part of that perpetual contradiction of which the history of -the Middle Ages is full, that this belief had hardly any influence on -practical politics. The more abjectly helpless the Emperor becomes, so -much the more sonorous is the language in which the dignity of his -crown is described. His power, we are told, is eternal, the provinces -having resumed their allegiance after the barbarian irruptions[308]; -it is incapable of diminution or injury: exemptions and grants by him, -so far as they tend to limit his own prerogative, are invalid[309]: -all Christendom is still of right subject to him, though it may -contumaciously refuse obedience[310]. The sovereigns of Europe are -solemnly warned that they are resisting the power ordained of -God[311]. No laws can bind the Emperor, though he may choose to live -according to them: no court can judge him, though he may condescend to -be sued in his own: none may presume to arraign the conduct or -question the motives of him who is answerable only to God[312]. So -writes Æneas Sylvius, while Frederick the Third, chased from his -capital by the Hungarians, is wandering from convent to convent, an -imperial beggar; while the princes, whom his subserviency to the Pope -has driven into rebellion, are offering the imperial crown to -Podiebrad the Bohemian king. - -[Sidenote: Henry VII, A.D. 1308-1313.] - -[Sidenote: Death of Henry VII.] - -But the career of Henry the Seventh in Italy is the most remarkable -illustration of the Emperor's position: and imperialist doctrines are -set forth most strikingly in the treatise which the greatest spirit of -the age wrote to herald the advent of that hero, the _De Monarchia_ of -Dante[313]. Rudolf, Adolf of Nassau, Albert of Hapsburg, none of them -crossed the Alps or attempted to aid the Italian Ghibelines who -battled away in the name of their throne. Concerned only to restore -order and aggrandize his house, and thinking apparently that nothing -more was to be made of the imperial crown, Rudolf was content never to -receive it, and purchased the Pope's goodwill by surrendering his -jurisdiction in the capital, and his claims over the bequest of the -Countess Matilda. Henry the Luxemburger ventured on a bolder course; -urged perhaps only by his lofty and chivalrous spirit, perhaps in -despair at effecting anything with his slender resources against the -princes of Germany. Crossing from his Burgundian dominions with a -scanty following of knights, and descending from the Cenis upon Turin, -he found his prerogative higher in men's belief after sixty years of -neglect than it had stood under the last Hohenstaufen. The cities of -Lombardy opened their gates; Milan decreed a vast subsidy; Guelf and -Ghibeline exiles alike were restored, and imperial vicars appointed -everywhere: supported by the Avignonese pontiff, who dreaded the -restless ambition of his French neighbour, king Philip IV, Henry had -the interdict of the Church as well as the ban of the Empire at his -command. But the illusion of success vanished as soon as men, -recovering from their first impression, began to be again governed by -their ordinary passions and interests, and not by an imaginative -reverence for the glories of the past. Tumults and revolts broke out -in Lombardy; at Rome the king of Naples held St. Peter's, and the -coronation must take place in St. John Lateran, on the southern bank -of the Tiber. The hostility of the Guelfic league, headed by the -Florentines, Guelfs even against the Pope, obliged Henry to depart -from his impartial and republican policy, and to purchase the aid of -the Ghibeline chiefs by granting them the government of cities. With -few troops, and encompassed by enemies, the heroic Emperor sustained -an unequal struggle for a year longer, till, in A.D. 1313, he sank -beneath the fevers of the deadly Tuscan summer. His German followers -believed, nor has history wholly rejected the tale, that poison was -given him by a Dominican monk, in sacramental wine. - -[Sidenote: Later Emperors in Italy.] - -Others after him descended from the Alps, but they came, like Lewis -the Fourth, Rupert, Sigismund, at the behest of a faction, which found -them useful tools for a time, then flung them away in scorn; or like -Charles the Fourth and Frederick the Third, as the humble minions of a -French or Italian priest. With Henry the Seventh ends the history of -the Empire in Italy, and Dante's book is an epitaph instead of a -prophecy. A sketch of its argument will convey a notion of the -feelings with which the noblest Ghibelines fought, as well as of the -spirit in which the Middle Age was accustomed to handle such subjects. - -[Sidenote: Dante's feelings and theories.] - -Weary of the endless strife of princes and cities, of the factions -within every city against each other, seeing municipal freedom, the -only mitigation of turbulence, vanish with the rise of domestic -tyrants, Dante raises a passionate cry for some power to still the -tempest, not to quench liberty or supersede local self-government, but -to correct and moderate them, to restore unity and peace to hapless -Italy. His reasoning is throughout closely syllogistic: he is -alternately the jurist, the theologian, the scholastic metaphysician: -the poet of the Divina Commedia is betrayed only by the compressed -energy of diction, by his clear vision of the unseen, rarely by a -glowing metaphor. - -[Sidenote: The 'De Monarchia.'] - -Monarchy is first proved to be the true and rightful form of -government. Men's objects are best attained during universal peace: -this is possible only under a monarch. And as he is the image of the -Divine unity, so man is through him made one, and brought most near to -God. There must, in every system of forces, be a 'primum mobile;' to -be perfect, every organization must have a centre, into which all is -gathered, by which all is controlled[314]. Justice is best secured by -a supreme arbiter of disputes, himself unsolicited by ambition, since -his dominion is already bounded only by ocean. Man is best and -happiest when he is most free; to be free is to exist for one's own -sake. To this grandest end does the monarch and he alone guide us; -other forms of government are perverted[315], and exist for the -benefit of some class; he seeks the good of all alike, being to that -very end appointed[316]. - -Abstract arguments are then confirmed from history. Since the world -began there has been but one period of perfect peace, and but one of -perfect monarchy, that, namely, which existed at our Lord's birth, -under the sceptre of Augustus; since then the heathen have raged, and -the kings of the earth have stood up; they have set themselves against -their Lord, and his anointed the Roman prince[317]. The universal -dominion, the need for which has been thus established, is then proved -to belong to the Romans. Justice is the will of God, a will to exalt -Rome shewn through her whole history[318]. Her virtues deserved -honour: Virgil is quoted to prove those of Æneas, who by descent and -marriage was the heir of three continents: of Asia through Assaracus -and Creusa; of Africa by Electra (mother of Dardanus and daughter of -Atlas) and Dido; of Europe by Dardanus and Lavinia. God's favour was -approved in the fall of the shields to Numa, in the miraculous -deliverance of the capital from the Gauls, in the hailstorm after -Cannæ. Justice is also the advantage of the state: that advantage was -the constant object of the virtuous Cincinnatus, and the other heroes -of the republic. They conquered the world for its own good, and -therefore justly, as Cicero attests[319]; so that their sway was not -so much 'imperium' as 'patrocinium orbis terrarum.' Nature herself, -the fountain of all right, had, by their geographical position and by -the gift of a genius so vigorous, marked them out for universal -dominion:-- - - 'Excudent alii spirantia mollius æra, - Credo equidem: vivos ducent de marmore vultus; - Orabunt causas melius, coelique meatus - Describent radio, et surgentia sidera dicent: - Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento; - Hæ tibi erunt artes; pacisque imponere morem, - Parcere subiectis, et debellare superbos.' - -Finally, the right of war asserted, Christ's birth, and death under -Pilate, ratified their government. For Christian doctrine requires -that the procurator should have been a lawful judge[320], which he was -not unless Tiberius was a lawful Emperor. - -The relations of the imperial and papal power are then examined, and -the passages of Scripture (tradition being rejected), to which the -advocates of the Papacy appeal, are elaborately explained away. The -argument from the sun and moon[321] does not hold, since both lights -existed before man's creation, and at a time when, as still sinless, -he needed no controlling powers. Else _accidentia_ would have preceded -_propria_ in creation. The moon, too, does not receive her being nor -all her light from the sun, but so much only as makes her more -effective. So there is no reason why the temporal should not be aided -in a corresponding measure by the spiritual authority. This difficult -text disposed of, others fall more easily; Levi and Judah, Samuel and -Saul, the incense and gold offered by the Magi[322]; the two swords, -the power of binding and loosing given to Peter. Constantine's -donation was illegal: no single Emperor nor Pope can disturb the -everlasting foundations of their respective thrones: the one had no -right to bestow, nor the other to receive, such a gift. Leo the Third -gave the Empire to Charles wrongfully: '_usurpatio iuris non facit -ius_.' It is alleged that all things of one kind are reducible to one -individual, and so all men to the Pope. But Emperor and Pope differ in -kind, and so far as they are men, are reducible only to God, on whom -the Empire immediately depends; for it existed before Peter's see, and -was recognized by Paul when he appealed to Cæsar. The temporal power -of the Papacy can have been given neither by natural law, nor divine -ordinance, nor universal consent: nay, it is against its own Form and -Essence, the life of Christ, who said, 'My kingdom is not of this -world.' - -Man's nature is twofold, corruptible and incorruptible: he has -therefore two ends, active virtue on earth, and the enjoyment of the -sight of God hereafter; the one to be attained by practice conformed -to the precepts of philosophy, the other by the theological virtues. -Hence two guides are needed, the pontiff and the Emperor, the latter -of whom, in order that he may direct mankind in accordance with the -teachings of philosophy to temporal blessedness, must preserve -universal peace in the world. Thus are the two powers equally ordained -of God, and the Emperor, though supreme in all that pertains to the -secular world, is in some things dependent on the pontiff, since -earthly happiness is subordinate to eternal. 'Let Cæsar, therefore, -shew towards Peter the reverence wherewith a firstborn son honours his -father, that, being illumined by the light of his paternal favour, he -may the more excellently shine forth upon the whole world, to the rule -of which he has been appointed by Him alone who is of all things, both -spiritual and temporal, the King and Governor.' So ends the treatise. - -Dante's arguments are not stranger than his omissions. No suspicion is -breathed against Constantine's donation; no proof is adduced, for no -doubt is felt, that the Empire of Henry the Seventh is the legitimate -continuation of that which had been swayed by Augustus and Justinian. -Yet Henry was a German, sprung from Rome's barbarian foes, the elected -of those who had neither part nor share in Italy and her capital. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[279] See esp. Ægidi, _Der Fürstenrath nach dem Luneviller Frieden_, -and the passages by him quoted. - -[280] The archbishop of Mentz addresses Conrad II on his election -thus: 'Deus quum a te multa requirat tum hoc potissimum desiderat ut -facias iudicium et iustitiam et pacem patriæ quæ respicit ad te, ut -sis defensor ecclesiarum et clericorum, tutor viduarum et -orphanorum.'--Wippo, Vita Chuonradi, c. 3, _ap._ Pertz. So Pope Urban -IV writes to Richard: 'Ut consternatis Imperii Romani inimicis, in -pacis pulchritudine sedeat populus Christianus et requie opulenta -quiescat.' Compare also the 'Edictum de crimine læsæ maiestatis' -issued by Henry VII in Italy: 'Ad reprimenda multorum facinora qui -ruptis totius debitæ fidelitatis habenis adversus Romanum imperium, in -cuius tranquillitate totius orbis regularitas requiescit, hostili -animo armati conentur nedum humana, verum etiam divina præcepta, -quibus iubetur quod omnis anima Romanorum principi sit subiecta, -scelestissimis facinoribus et rebellionibus demoliri,' &c.--Pertz, _M. -G. H._, legg. ii. p. 544. - -See also a curious passage in the Life of St. Adalbert, describing the -beginning of the reign at Rome of the Emperor Otto III, and his cousin -and nominee Pope Gregory V: 'Lætantur cum primatibus minores -civitatis: cum afflicto paupere exultant agmina viduarum, quia novus -imperator dat iura populis; dat iura novus papa.' - -[281] 'Imperator est monarcha omnium regum et principum terrenorum ... -nec insurgat superbia Gallicorum quæ dicat quod non recognoscit -superiorem, mentiuntur, quia de iure sunt et esse debent sub rege -Romanorum et Imperatore.'--Speech of Boniface VIII. It is curious to -compare with this the words addressed nearly five centuries earlier by -Pope John VIII to Lewis, king of Bavaria: 'Si sumpseritis Romanum -imperium, omnia regna vobis subiecta existent.' - -[282] So Alfonso, king of Naples, writes to Frederick III: 'Nos reges -omnes debemus reverentiam Imperatori, tanquam summo regi, qui est -Caput et Dux regum.'--Quoted by Pfeffinger, _Vitriarius illustratus_, -i. 379. And Francis I (of France), speaking of a proposed combined -expedition against the Turks, says, 'Cæsari nihilominus principem ea -in expeditione locum non gravarer ex officio cedere.'--For a long time -no European sovereign save the Emperor ventured to use the title of -'Majesty.' The imperial chancery conceded it in 1633 to the kings of -England and Sweden; in 1641 to the king of France.--Zedler, _Universal -Lexicon_, _s. v._ Majestät. - -[283] For with the progress of society and the growth of commerce the -old feudal customs were through the greater part of Western Europe, -and especially in Germany, either giving way to or being remodelled -and supplemented by the civil law. - -[284] 'Imperator est animata lex in terris.'--Quoted by Von Raumer, v. -81. - -[285] Thus we are told of the Emperor Charles the Bald, when he -confirmed the election of Boso, king of Burgundy and Provence, 'Dedit -Bosoni Provinciam (_sc._ Carolus Calvus), et corona in vertice capitis -imposita, eum regem appellari iussit, ut more priscorum imperatorum -regibus videretur dominari.'--_Regin. Chron._ Frederick II made his -son Enzio (that famous Enzio whose romantic history every one who has -seen Bologna will remember) king of Sardinia, and also erected the -duchy of Austria into a kingdom, although for some reason the title -seems never to have been used; and Lewis IV gave to Humbert of -Dauphiné the title of King of Vienne, A.D. 1336. - -[286] It is probably for this reason that the _Ordo Romanus_ directs -the Emperor and Empress to be crowned (in St. Peter's) at the altar of -St. Maurice, the patron saint of knighthood. - -[287] See especially Gerlach Buxtorff, _Dissertatio ad Auream Bullam_; -and Augustinus Stenchus, _De Imperio Romano_; quoted by Marquard -Freher. It was keenly debated, while Charles V and Francis I (of -France) were rival candidates, whether any one but a German was -eligible. By birth Charles was either a Spaniard or a Fleming; but -this difficulty his partisans avoided by holding that he had been, -according to the civil law, _in potestate_ of Maximilian his -grandfather. However, to say nothing of the Guidos and Berengars of -earlier days, the examples of Richard and Alfonso are conclusive as to -the eligibility of others than Germans. Edward III of England was, as -has been said, actually elected; Henry VIII was a candidate. And -attempts were frequently made to elect the kings of France. - -[288] The mediæval practice seems to have been that which still -prevails in the Roman Catholic Church--to presume the doctrinal -orthodoxy and external conformity of every citizen, whether lay or -clerical, until the contrary be proved. Of course when heresy was rife -it went hard with suspected men, unless they could either clear -themselves or submit to recant. But no one was required to pledge -himself beforehand, as a qualification for any office, to certain -doctrines. And thus, important as an Emperor's orthodoxy was, he does -not appear to have been subjected to any test, although the Pope -pretended to the right of catechizing him in the faith and rejecting -him if unsound. In the _Ordo Romanus_ we find a long series of -questions which the Pontiff was to administer, but it does not appear, -and is in the highest degree unlikely, that such a programme was ever -carried out. - -The charge of heresy was one of the weapons used with most effect -against Frederick II. - -[289] Honorius II in 1229 forbade it to be studied or taught in the -University of Paris. Innocent IV published some years later a still -more sweeping prohibition. - -[290] See Von Savigny, _History of Roman Law in the Middle Ages_, vol. -iii. pp. 81, 341-347. - -[291] Charles the Bold of Burgundy was a potentate incomparably -stronger than the Emperor Frederick III from whom he sought the regal -title. - -[292] Cf. Sismondi, _Républiques Italiennes_, iv. chap. xxvii. - -[293] See Dante, _Paradiso_, canto vi. - -[294] - - 'Vieni a veder la tua Roma, che piange - Vedova, sola, e di e notte chiama: - "Cesare mio, perchè non m' accompagne?"' - _Purgatorio_, canto vi. - -[295] _Purgatorio_, canto vii. - -[296] _Inferno_, canto xxxiv. - -[297] Not that the doctors of the civil law were necessarily political -partisans of the Emperors. Savigny says that there were on the -contrary more Guelfs than Ghibelines among the jurists of -Bologna.--_Roman Law in the Middle Ages_, vol. iii. p. 80. - -[298] Cf. Palgrave, _Normandy and England_, vol. ii. (of Otto and -Adelheid). The _Ordo Romanus_ talks of a 'Camera Iuliæ' in the Lateran -palace, reserved for the Empress. - -[299] See notes to _Chron. Casin._ in Muratori, _S. R. I._ iv. 515. - -[300] Zu aller Zeiten Mehrer des Reichs. - -[301] _Novellæ Constitutiones_. - -[302] Marquard Freher. The question whether the seven electors vote as -_singuli_ or as a _collegium_, is solved by shewing that they have -stepped into the place of the senate and people of Rome, whose duty it -was to choose the Emperor, though (it is naïvely added) the soldiers -sometimes usurped it.--Peter de Andlo, _De Imperio Romano_. - -[303] Thus Charles, in a capitulary added to a revised edition of the -Lombard law issued in A.D. 801, says, 'Anno consulatus nostri primo.' -So Otto III calls himself 'Consul Senatus populique Romani.' - -[304] Francis II, the last Emperor, was one hundred and twentieth from -Augustus. Some chroniclers call Otto the Great Otto II, counting in -Salvius Otho, the successor of Galba. - -[305] See p. 45 and note to p. 143. - -[306] Nürnberg herself was not of Roman foundation. But this makes the -imitation all the more curious. The fashion even passed from the -cities to rural communities like some of the Swiss cantons. Thus we -find 'Senatus populusque Uronensis.' - -[307] See Palgrave, _Normandy and England_, i. p. 379. - -[308] Æneas Sylvius, _De Ortu et Authoritate Imperii Romani_. - -[309] Thus some civilians held Constantine's Donation null; but the -canonists, we are told, were clear as to its legality. - -[310] 'Et idem dico de istis aliis regibus et principibus, qui negant -se esse subditos regi Romanorum, ut rex Franciæ, Angliæ, et similes. -Si enim fatentur ipsum esse Dominum universalem, licet ab illo -universali domino se subtrahant ex privilegio vel ex præscriptione vel -consimili, non ergo desunt esse cives Romani, per ea quæ dicta sunt. -Et per hoc omnes gentes quæ obediunt S. matri ecclesiæ sunt de populo -Romano. Et forte si quis diceret dominum Imperatorem non esse dominum -et monarcham totius orbis, esset hæreticus, quia diceret contra -determinationem ecclesiæ et textum S. evangelii, dum dicit, "Exivit -edictum a Cæsare Augusto ut describeretur universus orbis." Ita et -recognovit Christus Imperatorem ut dominum.'--Bartolus, _Commentary on -the Pandects_, xlviii. i. 24; _De Captivis et postliminio reversis_. - -[311] Peter de Andlo, _multis locis_ (see esp. cap. viii.), and other -writings of the time. Cf. Dante's letter to Henry VII: 'Romanorum -potestas nec metis Italiæ nec tricornis Siciliæ margine coarctatur. -Nam etsi vim passa in angustum gubernacula sua contraxit undique, -tamen de inviolabili iure fluctus Amphitritis attingens vix ab inutili -unda Oceani se circumcingi dignatur. Scriptum est enim - - "Nascetur pulchra Troianus origine Cæsar, - Imperium Oceano, famam qui terminet astris."' - -So Fr. Zoannetus, in the sixteenth century, declares it to be a mortal -sin to resist the Empire, as the power ordained of God. - -[312] Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini (afterwards Pope Pius II), _De Ortu et -Authoritate Imperii Romani_. Cf. Gerlach Buxtorff, _Dissertatio ad -Auream Bullam_. - -[313] It has hitherto been the common opinion that the _De Monarchia_ -was written in the view of Henry's expedition. But latterly weighty -reasons have been advanced for believing that its date must be placed -some years later. - -[314] Suggesting the celestial hierarchies of Dionysius the -Areopagite. - -[315] Quoting Aristotle's _Politics_. - -[316] 'Non enim cives propter consules nec gens propter regem, sed e -converso consules propter cives, rex propter gentem.' - -[317] 'Reges et principes in hoc unico concordantes, ut adversentur -Domino suo et uncto suo Romano Principi,' having quoted 'Quare -fremuerunt gentes.' - -[318] Especially in the opportune death of Alexander the Great. - -[319] Cic., _De Off._, ii. 'Ita ut illud patrocinium orbis terrarum -potius quam imperium poterat nominari.' - -[320] 'Si Pilati imperium non de iure fuit, peccatum in Christo non -fuit adeo punitum.' - -[321] There is a curious seal of the Emperor Otto IV (figured in J. M. -Heineccius, _De veteribus Germanorum atque aliarum nationum -sigillis_), on which the sun and moon are represented over the head of -the Emperor. Heineccius says he cannot explain it, but there seems to -be no reason why we should not take the device as typifying the accord -of the spiritual and temporal powers which was brought about at the -accession of Otto, the Guelfic leader, and the favoured candidate of -Pope Innocent III. - -The analogy between the lights of heaven and the princes of earth is -one which mediæval writers are very fond of. It seems to have -originated with Gregory VII. - -[322] Typifying the spiritual and temporal powers. Dante meets this by -distinguishing the homage paid to Christ from that which his Vicar can -rightfully demand. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI. - -THE CITY OF ROME IN THE MIDDLE AGES. - - -'It is related,' says Sozomen in the ninth book of his Ecclesiastical -History, 'that when Alaric was hastening against Rome, a holy monk of -Italy admonished him to spare the city, and not to make himself the -cause of such fearful ills. But Alaric answered, "It is not of my own -will that I do this; there is One who forces me on, and will not let -me rest, bidding me spoil Rome[323]."' - -Towards the close of the tenth century the Bohemian Woitech, famous in -after legend as St. Adalbert, forsook his bishopric of Prague to -journey into Italy, and settled himself in the Roman monastery of -Sant' Alessio. After some few years passed there in religious -solitude, he was summoned back to resume the duties of his see, and -laboured for awhile among his half-savage countrymen. Soon, however, -the old longing came over him: he resought his cell upon the brow of -the Aventine, and there, wandering among the ancient shrines, and -taking on himself the menial offices of the convent, he abode happily -for a space. At length the reproaches of his metropolitan, the -archbishop of Mentz, and the express commands of Pope Gregory the -Fifth, drove him back over the Alps, and he set off in the train of -Otto the Third, lamenting, says his biographer, that he should no more -enjoy his beloved quiet in the mother of martyrs, the home of the -Apostles, golden Rome. A few months later he died a martyr among the -pagan Lithuanians of the Baltic[324]. - -Nearly four hundred years later, and nine hundred after the time of -Alaric, Francis Petrarch writes thus to his friend John Colonna:-- - -'Thinkest thou not that I long to see that city to which there has -never been any like nor ever shall be; which even an enemy called a -city of kings; of whose people it hath been written, "Great is the -valour of the Roman people, great and terrible their name;" concerning -whose unexampled glory and incomparable empire, which was, and is, and -is to be, divine prophets have sung; where are the tombs of the -apostles and martyrs and the bodies of so many thousands of the saints -of Christ[325]?' - -It was the same irresistible impulse that drew the warrior, the monk, -and the scholar towards the mystical city which was to mediæval Europe -more than Delphi had been to the Greek or Mecca to the Islamite, the -Jerusalem of Christianity, the city which had once ruled the earth, -and now ruled the world of disembodied spirits[326]. For there was -then, as there is now, something in Rome to attract men of every -class. The devout pilgrim came to pray at the shrine of the Prince of -the Apostles, too happy if he could carry back to his monastery in the -forests of Saxony or by the bleak Atlantic shore the bone of some holy -martyr; the lover of learning and poetry dreamed of Virgil and Cicero -among the shattered columns of the Forum; the Germanic kings, in spite -of pestilence, treachery and seditions, came with their hosts to seek -in the ancient capital of the world the fountain of temporal dominion. -Nor has the spell yet wholly lost its power. To half the Christian -nations Rome is the metropolis of religion, to all the metropolis of -art. In her streets, and hers alone among the cities of the world, may -every form of human speech be heard: she is more glorious in her decay -and desolation than the stateliest seats of modern power. - -But while men thought thus of Rome, what was Rome herself? - -The modern traveller, after his first few days in Rome, when he has -looked out upon the Campagna from the summit of St. Peter's, paced the -chilly corridors of the Vatican, and mused under the echoing dome of -the Pantheon, when he has passed in review the monuments of regal and -republican and papal Rome, begins to seek for some relics of the -twelve hundred years that lie between Constantine and Pope Julius the -Second. 'Where,' he asks, 'is the Rome of the Middle Ages, the Rome of -Alberic and Hildebrand and Rienzi? the Rome which dug the graves of so -many Teutonic hosts; whither the pilgrims flocked; whence came the -commands at which kings bowed? Where are the memorials of the -brightest age of Christian architecture, the age which reared Cologne -and Rheims and Westminster, which gave to Italy the cathedrals of -Tuscany and the wave-washed palaces of Venice?' - -To this question there is no answer. Rome, the mother of the arts, has -scarcely a building to commemorate those times, for to her they were -times of turmoil and misery, times in which the shame of the present -was embittered by recollections of a brighter past. Nevertheless a -minute scrutiny may still discover, hidden in dark corners or -disguised under an unbecoming modern dress, much that carries us back -to the mediæval town, and helps us to realize its social and political -condition. Therefore a brief notice of the state of Rome during the -Middle Ages, with especial reference to those monuments which the -visitor may still examine for himself, may not be without its use, and -is at any rate no unfitting pendant to an account of the institution -which drew from the city its name and its magnificent pretensions. -Moreover, as will appear more fully in the sequel, the history of the -Roman people is an instructive illustration of the influence of those -ideas upon which the Empire itself rested, as well in their weakness -as in their strength[327]. - -[Sidenote: Causes of the rapid decay of the city.] - -It is not from her capture by Alaric, nor even from the more -destructive ravages of the Vandal Genseric, that the material and -social ruin of Rome must be dated, but rather from the repeated sieges -which she sustained in the war of Belisarius with the Ostrogoths. This -struggle however, long and exhausting as it was, would not have proved -so fatal had the previous condition of the city been sound and -healthy. Her wealth and population in the middle of the fifth century -were probably little inferior to what they had been in the most -prosperous days of the imperial government. But this wealth was -entirely gathered into the hands of a small and effeminate -aristocracy. The crowd that filled her streets was composed partly of -poor and idle freemen, unaccustomed to arms and debarred from -political rights; partly of a far more numerous herd of slaves, -gathered from all parts of the world, and morally even lower than -their masters. There was no middle class, and no system of municipal -institutions, for although the senate and consuls with many of the -lesser magistracies continued to exist, they had for centuries enjoyed -no effective power, and were nowise fitted to lead and rule the -people. Hence it was that when the Gothic war and the subsequent -inroads of the Lombards had reduced the great families to beggary, the -framework of society dissolved and could not be replaced. In a state -rotten to the core there was no vital force left for reconstruction. -The old forms of political activity had been too long dead to be -recalled to life: the people wanted the moral force to produce new -ones, and all the authority that could be said to exist in the midst -of anarchy tended to centre itself in the chief of the new religious -society. - -[Sidenote: Peculiarities in the position of Rome.] - -So far Rome's condition was like that of the other great towns of -Italy and Gaul. But in two points her case differed from theirs, and -to these the difference of her after fortunes may be traced. Her -bishop had no temporal potentate to overshadow his dignity or check -his ambition, for the vicar of the Eastern court lived far away at -Ravenna, and seldom interfered except to ratify a papal election or -punish a more than commonly outrageous sedition. Her population -received an all but imperceptible infusion of that Teutonic blood and -those Teutonic customs by whose stern discipline the inhabitants of -northern Italy were in the end renovated. Everywhere the old -institutions had perished of decay: in Rome alone there was nothing -except the ecclesiastical system out of which new ones could arise. -Her condition was therefore the most pitiable in which a community can -find itself, one of struggle without purpose or progress. The citizens -were divided into three orders: the military class, including what was -left of the ancient aristocracy; the clergy, a host of priests, monks -and nuns, attached to the countless churches and convents; and the -people or _plebs_, as they are called, a poverty-stricken rabble -without trade, without industry, without any municipal organization to -bind them together. Of these two latter classes the Pope was the -natural leader, the first was divided into factions headed by some -three or four of the great families, whose quarrels kept the town in -incessant bloodshed. The internal history of Rome from the sixth to -the twelfth century is an obscure and tedious record of the contest of -these factions with each other, and of the aristocracy as a whole with -the slowly growing power of the Church. - -[Sidenote: Her condition in the ninth and tenth centuries.] - -The revolt of the Romans from the Iconoclastic Emperors of the East, -followed as it was by the reception of the Franks as patricians and -emperors, is an event of the highest importance in the history of -Italy and of the popedom. In the domestic constitution of Rome it made -little change. With the instinct of a profound genius, Charles the -Great saw that Rome, though it might be ostensibly the capital, could -not be the real centre of his dominions. He continued to reside in -Germany, and did not even build a palace at Rome. For a time the awe -of his power, the presence of his _missus_ or lieutenant, and the -occasional visits of his successors Lothar and Lewis II to the city, -repressed her internal disorders. But after the death of the prince -last named, and still more after the dissolution of the Carolingian -Empire itself, Rome relapsed into a state of profligacy and barbarism -to which, even in that age, Europe supplied no parallel, a barbarism -which had inherited all the vices of civilization without any of its -virtues. The papal office in particular seems to have lost its -religious character, as it had certainly lost all claim to moral -purity. For more than a century the chief priest of Christendom was no -more than a tool of some ferocious faction among the nobles. Criminal -means had raised him to the throne; violence, sometimes going the -length of mutilation or murder, deprived him of it. The marvel is, a -marvel in which papal historians have not unnaturally discovered a -miracle, that after sinking so low, the Papacy should ever have risen -again. Its rescue and exaltation to the pinnacle of glory was -accomplished not by the Romans but by the efforts of the Transalpine -Church, aiding and prompting the Saxon and Franconian Emperors. Yet -even the religious reform did not abate intestine turmoil, and it was -not till the twelfth century that a new spirit began to work in -politics, which ennobled if it could not heal the sufferings of the -Roman people. - -[Sidenote: Growth of a republican feeling: hostility to the Popes.] - -[Sidenote: Arnold of Brescia.] - -[Sidenote: Short-sighted policy of the Emperors.] - -Ever since the time of Alberic their pride had revolted against the -haughty behaviour of the Teutonic emperors. From still earlier times -they had been jealous of sacerdotal authority, and now watched with -alarm the rapid extension of its influence. The events of the twelfth -century gave these feelings a definite direction. It was the time of -the struggle of the Investitures, in which Hildebrand and his -disciples had been striving to draw all the things of this world as -well as of the next into their grasp. It was the era of the revived -study of Roman law, by which alone the extravagant pretensions of the -decretalists could be resisted. The Lombard and Tuscan towns had -become flourishing municipalities, independent of their bishops, and -at open war with their Emperor. While all these things were stirring -the minds of the Romans, Arnold of Brescia came preaching reform, -denouncing the corrupt life of the clergy, not perhaps, like some -others of the so-called schismatics of his time, denying the need of a -sacerdotal order, but at any rate urging its restriction to purely -spiritual duties. On the minds of the Romans such teaching fell like -the spark upon dry grass; they threw off the yoke of the Pope[328], -drove out the imperial prefect, reconstituted the senate and the -equestrian order, appointed consuls, struck their own coins, and -professed to treat the German Emperors as their nominees and -dependants. To have successfully imitated the republican constitution -of the cities of northern Italy would have been much, but with this -they were not content. Knowing in a vague ignorant way that there had -been a Roman republic before there was a Roman empire, they fed their -vanity with visions of a renewal of all their ancient forms, and saw -in fancy their senate and people sitting again upon the Seven Hills -and ruling over the kings of the earth. Stepping, as it were, into the -arena where Pope and Emperor were contending for the headship of the -world, they rejected the one as a priest, and declaring the other to -be only their creature, they claimed as theirs the true and lawful -inheritance of the world-dominion which their ancestors had won. -Antiquity was in one sense on their side, and to us now it seems less -strange that the Roman people should aspire to rule the earth than -that a German barbarian should rule it in their name. But practically -the scheme was absurd, and could not maintain itself against any -serious opposition. As a modern historian aptly expresses it, 'they -were setting up ruins:' they might as well have raised the broken -columns that strewed their Forum and hoped to rear out of them a -strong and stately temple. The reverence which the men of the Middle -Ages felt for Rome was given altogether to the name and to the place, -nowise to the people. As for power, they had none: so far from holding -Italy in subjection, they could scarcely maintain themselves against -the hostility of Tusculum. But it would have been well worth the while -of the Teutonic Emperors to have made the Romans their allies, and -bridled by their help the temporal ambition of the Popes. The offer -was actually made to them, first to Conrad the Third, who seems to -have taken no notice of it; and afterwards, as has been already -stated, to Frederick the First, who repelled in the most contumelious -fashion the envoys of the senate. Hating and fearing the Pope, he -always respected him: towards the Romans he felt all the contempt of a -feudal king for burghers, and of a German warrior for Italians. At the -demand of Pope Hadrian, whose foresight thought no heresy so dangerous -as one which threatened the authority of the clergy, Arnold of Brescia -was seized by the imperial prefect, put to death, and his ashes cast -into the Tiber, lest the people should treasure them up as relics. But -the martyrdom of their leader did not quench the hopes of his -followers. The republican constitution continued to exist, and rose -from time to time, during the weakness or the absence of the Popes, -into a brief and fitful activity[329]. Once awakened, the idea, -seductive at once to the imagination of the scholar and the vanity of -the Roman citizen, could not wholly disappear, and two centuries after -Arnold's time it found a more brilliant if less disinterested exponent -in the tribune Nicholas Rienzi. - -[Sidenote: Character and career of the tribune Rienzi.] - -The career of this singular personage is misunderstood by those who -suppose him to have been possessed of profound political insight, a -republican on modern principles. He was indeed, despite his -overweening conceit, and what seems to us his charlatanry, both a -patriot and a man of genius, in temperament a poet, filled with -soaring ideas. But those ideas, although dressed out in gaudier -colours by his lively fancy, were after all only the old ones, -memories of the long-faded glories of the heathen republic, and a -series of scornful contrasts levelled at her present oppressors, both -of them shewing no vista of future peace except through the revival of -those ancient names to which there were no things to correspond. It -was by declaiming on old texts and displaying old monuments that the -tribune enlisted the support of the Roman populace, not by any appeal -to democratic principles; and the whole of his acts and plans, though -they astonished men by their boldness, do not seem to have been -regarded as novel or impracticable[330]. In the breasts of men like -Petrarch, who loved Rome even more than they hated her people, the -enthusiasm of Rienzi found a sympathetic echo: others scorned and -denounced him as an upstart, a demagogue, and a rebel. Both friends -and enemies seem to have comprehended and regarded as natural his -feelings and designs, which were altogether those of his age. Being, -however, a mere matter of imagination, not of reason, having no -anchor, so to speak, in realities, no true relation to the world as it -then stood, these schemes of republican revival were as transient and -unstable as they were quick of growth and gay of colour. As the -authority of the Popes became consolidated, and free municipalities -disappeared elsewhere throughout Italy, the dream of a renovated Rome -at length withered up and fell and died. Its last struggle was made in -the conspiracy of Stephen Porcaro, in the time of Pope Nicholas the -Fifth; and from that time onward there was no question of the -supremacy of the bishop within his holy city. - -[Sidenote: Causes of the failure of the struggle for independence.] - -It is never without a certain regret that we watch the disappearance -of a belief, however illusive, around which the love and reverence for -mankind once clung. But this illusion need be the less regretted that -it had only the feeblest influence for good on the state of mediæval -Rome. During the three centuries that lie between Arnold of Brescia -and Porcaro, the disorders of Rome were hardly less violent than they -had been in the Dark Ages, and to all appearance worse than those of -any other European city. There was a want not only of fixed authority, -but of those elements of social stability which the other cities of -Italy possessed. In the greater republics of Lombardy and Tuscany the -bulk of the population were artizans, hard working orderly people; -while above them stood a prosperous middle class, engaged mostly in -commerce, and having in their system of trade-guilds an organization -both firm and flexible. It was by foreign trade that Genoa, Venice, -and Pisa became great, as it was the wealth acquired by manufacturing -industry that enabled Milan and Florence to overcome and incorporate -the territorial aristocracies which surrounded them. - -[Sidenote: Internal condition of the city.] - -[Sidenote: The people.] - -[Sidenote: The nobility.] - -[Sidenote: The bishop.] - -Rome possessed neither source of riches. She was ill-placed for trade; -having no market she produced no goods to be disposed of, and the -unhealthiness which long neglect had brought upon her Campagna made -its fertility unavailable. Already she stood as she stands now, lonely -and isolated, a desert at her very gates. As there was no industry, so -there was nothing that deserved to be called a citizen class. The -people were a mere rabble, prompt to follow the demagogue who -flattered their vanity, prompter still to desert him in the hour of -danger. Superstition was with them a matter of national pride, but -they lived too near sacred things to feel much reverence for them: -they ill-treated the Pope and fleeced the pilgrims who crowded to -their shrines: they were probably the only community in Europe who -sent no recruit to the armies of the Cross. Priests, monks, and all -the nondescript hangers on of an ecclesiastical court formed a large -part of the population; while of the rest many were supported in a -state of half mendicancy by the countless religious foundations, -themselves enriched by the gifts or the plunder of Latin Christendom. -The noble families were numerous, powerful, ferocious; they were -surrounded by bands of unruly retainers, and waged a constant war -against each other from their castles in the adjoining country or in -the streets of the city itself. Had things been left to take their -natural course, one of these families, the Colonna, for instance, or -the Orsini, would probably have ended by overcoming its rivals, and -have established, as was the case in the republics of Romagna and -Tuscany, a 'signoria' or local tyranny, like those which had once -prevailed in the cities of Greece. But the presence of the sacerdotal -power, as it had hindered the growth of feudalism, so also it stood in -the way of such a development as this, and in so far aggravated the -confusion of the city. Although the Pope was not as yet recognized as -legitimate sovereign, he was not only the most considerable person in -Rome, but the only one whose authority had anything of an official -character. But the reign of each pontiff was short; he had no military -force, he was frequently absent from his see. He was, moreover, very -often a member of one of the great families, and, as such, no better -than a faction leader at home, while venerated by the rest of Europe -as the universal priest. - -[Sidenote: The Emperor.] - -[Sidenote: Visits of the Emperors to Rome.] - -It remains only to speak of the person who should have been to Rome -what the national king was to the cities of France, or England, or -Germany, that is to say, of the Emperor. As has been said already, his -power was a mere chimera, chiefly important as furnishing a pretext to -the Colonna and other Ghibeline chieftains for their opposition to the -papal party. Even his abstract rights were matter of controversy. The -Popes, whose predecessors had been content to govern as the -lieutenants of Charles and Otto, now maintained that Rome as a -spiritual city could not be subject to any temporal jurisdiction, and -that she was therefore no part of the Roman Empire, though at the same -time its capital. Not only, it was urged, had Constantine yielded up -Rome to Sylvester and his successors, Lothar the Saxon had at his -coronation formally renounced his sovereignty by doing homage to the -pontiff and receiving the crown as his vassal. The Popes felt then as -they feel now, that their dignity and influence would suffer if they -should even appear to admit in their place of residence the -jurisdiction of a civil potentate, and although they could not secure -their own authority, they were at least able to exclude any other. -Hence it was that they were so uneasy whenever an Emperor came to them -to be crowned, that they raised up difficulties in his path, and -endeavoured to be rid of him as soon as possible. And here something -must be said of the programme, as one may call it, of these imperial -visits to Rome, and of the marks of their presence which the Germans -left behind them, remembering always that after the time of Frederick -the Second it was rather the exception than the rule for an Emperor to -be crowned in his capital at all. - -[Sidenote: Their approach.] - -The traveller who enters Rome now, if he comes, as he most commonly -does, by way of Civita Vecchia, slips in by the railway before he is -aware, is huddled into a vehicle at the terminus, and set down at his -hotel in the middle of the modern town before he has seen anything at -all. If he comes overland from Tuscany along the bleak road that -passes near Veii and crosses the Milvian bridge, he has indeed from -the slopes of the Ciminian range a splendid prospect of the sea-like -Campagna, girdled in by glittering hills, but of the city he sees no -sign, save the pinnacle of St. Peter's, until he is within the walls. -Far otherwise was it in the Middle Ages. Then travellers of every -grade, from the humble pilgrim to the new-made archbishop who came in -the pomp of a lengthy train to receive from the Pope the pallium of -his office, approached from the north or north-east side; following a -track along the hilly ground on the Tuscan side of the Tiber until -they halted on the brow of Monte Mario[331]--the Mount of Joy--and saw -the city of their solemnities lie spread before them, from the great -pile of the Lateran far away upon the Coelian hill, to the basilica of -St. Peter's at their feet. They saw it not, as now, a sea of billowy -cupolas, but a mass of low red-roofed houses, varied by tall brick -towers, and at rarer intervals by masses of ancient ruin, then larger -far than now; while over all rose those two monuments of the best of -the heathen Emperors, monuments that still look down, serenely -changeless, on the armies of new nations and the festivals of a new -religion--the columns of Marcus Aurelius and Trajan. - -[Sidenote: Their entrance.] - -[Sidenote: Hostility of Pope and people to the Germans.] - -From Monte Mario the Teutonic host descended, when they had paid their -orisons, into the Neronian field, the piece of flat land that lies -outside the gate of St. Angelo. Here it was the custom for the elders -of the Romans to meet the elected Emperor, present their charters for -confirmation, and receive his oath to preserve their good -customs[332]. Then a procession was formed: the priests and monks, who -had come out with hymns to greet the Emperor, led the way; the knights -and soldiers of Rome, such as they were, came next; then the monarch, -followed by a long array of Transalpine chivalry. Passing into the -city they advanced to St. Peter's, where the Pope, surrounded by his -clergy, stood on the great staircase of the basilica to welcome and -bless the Roman king. On the next day came the coronation, with -ceremonies too elaborate for description[333], ceremonies which, we -may well believe, were seldom duly completed. Far more usual were -other rites, of which the book of ritual makes no mention, unless they -are to be counted among the 'good customs of the Romans;' the clang of -war bells, the battle cry of German and Italian combatants. The Pope, -when he could not keep the Emperor from entering Rome, required him to -leave the bulk of his host without the walls, and if foiled in this, -sought his safety in raising up plots and seditions against his too -powerful friend. The Roman people, on the other hand, violent as they -often were against the Pope, felt nevertheless a sort of national -pride in him. Very different were their feelings towards the Teutonic -chieftain, who came from a far land to receive in their city, yet -without thanking them for it, the ensign of a power which the prowess -of their forefathers had won. Despoiled of their ancient right to -choose the universal bishop, they clung all the more desperately to -the belief that it was they who chose the universal prince; and were -mortified afresh when each successive sovereign contemptuously scouted -their claims, and paraded before their eyes his rude barbarian -cavalry. Thus it was that a Roman sedition was the all but invariable -accompaniment of a Roman coronation. The three revolts against Otto -the Great have been already described. His grandson Otto the Third, in -spite of his passionate fondness for the city, was met by the same -faithlessness and hatred, and departed at last in despair at the -failure of his attempts at conciliation[334]. A century afterwards -Henry the Fifth's coronation produced violent tumults, which ended in -his seizing the Pope and cardinals in St. Peter's, and keeping them -prisoners till they submitted to his terms. Remembering this, Pope -Hadrian the Fourth would fain have forced the troops of Frederick -Barbarossa to remain without the walls, but the rapidity of their -movements disconcerted his plans and anticipated the resistance of the -Roman populace. Having established himself in the Leonine city[335], -Frederick barricaded the bridge over the Tiber, and was duly crowned -in St. Peter's. But the rite was scarcely finished when the Romans, -who had assembled in arms on the Capitol, dashed over the bridge, fell -upon the Germans, and were with difficulty repulsed by the personal -efforts of Frederick. Into the city he did not venture to pursue them, -nor was he at any period of his reign able to make himself master of -the whole of it. Finding themselves similarly baffled, his successors -at last accepted their position, and were content to take the crown on -the Pope's conditions and depart without further question. - -[Sidenote: Memorials of the Germanic Emperors in Rome.] - -[Sidenote: Of Otto the Third.] - -Coming so seldom and remaining for so short a time, it is not -wonderful that the Teutonic Emperors should, in the seven centuries -from Charles the Great to Charles the Fifth, have left fewer marks of -their presence in Rome than Titus or Hadrian alone have done; fewer -and less considerable even than those which tradition attributes to -those whom it calls Servius Tullius and the elder Tarquin. Those -monuments which do exist are just sufficient to make the absence of -all others more conspicuous. The most important dates from the time of -Otto the Third, the only Emperor who attempted to make Rome his -permanent residence. Of the palace, probably nothing more than a -tower, which he built on the Aventine, no trace has been discovered; -but the church, founded by him to receive the ashes of his friend the -martyred St. Adalbert, may still be seen upon the island in the Tiber. -Having received from Benevento relics supposed to be those of -Bartholomew the Apostle[336], it became dedicated to that saint, and -is now the church of San Bartolommeo in Isola, whose quaintly -picturesque bell-tower of red brick, now grey with extreme age, looks -out from among the orange trees of a convent garden over the -swift-eddying yellow waters of the Tiber. - -[Sidenote: Of Otto the Second.] - -[Sidenote: Of Frederick the Second.] - -Otto the Second, son of Otto the Great, died at Rome, and lies buried -in the crypt of St. Peter's, the only Emperor who has found a -resting-place among the graves of the Popes[337]. His tomb is not far -from that of his nephew Pope Gregory the Fifth: it is a plain one of -roughly chiselled marble. The lid of the superb porphyry sarcophagus -in which he lay for a time now serves as the great font of St. -Peter's, and may be seen in the baptismal chapel, on the left of the -entrance of the church, not far from the tombs of the Stuarts. Last of -all must be mentioned a curious relic of the Emperor Frederick the -Second, the prince whom of all others one would least expect to see -honoured in the city of his foes. It is an inscription in the palace -of the Conservators upon the Capitoline hill, built into the wall of -the great staircase, and relates the victory of Frederick's army over -the Milanese, and the capture of the carroccio[338] of the rebel city, -which he sends as a trophy to his faithful Romans. These are all or -nearly all the traces of her Teutonic lords that Rome has preserved -till now. Pictures indeed there are in abundance, from the mosaic of -the Scala Santa at the Lateran[339] and the curious frescoes in the -church of Santi Quattro Incoronati[340], down to the paintings of the -Sistine antechapel and the Stanze of Raphael in the Vatican, where the -triumphs of the Popedom over all its foes are set forth with matchless -art and equally matchless unveracity. But these are mostly long -subsequent to the events they describe, and these all the world knows. - -Associations of the highest interest would have attached to the -churches in which the imperial coronation was performed--a ceremony -which, whether we regard the dignity of the performers or the -splendour of the adjuncts, was probably the most imposing that modern -Europe has known. But old St. Peter's disappeared in the end of the -fifteenth century, not long after the last Roman coronation, that of -Frederick the Third, while the basilica of St. John Lateran, in which -Lothar the Saxon and Henry the Seventh were crowned, has been so -wofully modernized that we can hardly figure it to ourselves as the -same building[341]. - -[Sidenote: Causes of the want of mediæval monuments in Rome.] - -[Sidenote: Barbarism of the aristocracy.] - -Bearing in mind what was the social condition of Rome during the -middle ages, it becomes easier to understand the architectural -barrenness which at first excites the visitor's surprise. Rome had no -temporal sovereign, and there were therefore only two classes who -could build at all, the nobles and the clergy. Of these, the former -had seldom the wealth, and never the taste, which would have enabled -them to construct palaces graceful as the Venetian or massively grand -as the Florentine and Genoese. Moreover, the constant practice of -domestic war made defence the first object of a house, beauty and -convenience the second. The nobility, therefore, either adapted -ancient edifices to their purpose or built out of their materials -those huge square towers of brick, a few of which still frown over the -narrow streets in the older parts of Rome. We may judge of their -number from the statement that the senator Brancaleone destroyed one -hundred and forty of them. With perhaps no more than one exception, -that of the so-called House of Rienzi, these towers are the only -domestic buildings in the city older than the middle of the fifteenth -century. The vast palaces to which strangers now flock for the sake of -the picture galleries they contain, have been most of them erected in -the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries, some even later. Among the -earliest is that Palazzo Cenci[342], whose gloomy low-browed arch so -powerfully affected the imagination of Shelley. - -[Sidenote: Ambition, weakness, and corruption of the clergy.] - -It was no want of wealth that hampered the architectural efforts of -the clergy, for vast revenues flowed in upon them from every corner of -Christendom. A good deal was actually spent upon the erection or -repairs of churches and convents, although with a less liberal hand -than that of such great Transalpine prelates as Hugh of Lincoln or -Conrad of Cologne. But the Popes always needed money for their -projects of ambition, and in times when disorder or corruption were at -their height the work of building stopped altogether. Thus it was that -after the time of the Carolingians scarcely a church was erected until -the beginning of the twelfth century, when the reforms of Hildebrand -had breathed new zeal into the priesthood. The Babylonish captivity of -Avignon, as it was called, with the great schism of the West that -followed upon it, was the cause of a second similar intermission, -which lasted nearly a century and a half. - -[Sidenote: Tendency of the Roman builders to adhere to the ancient -manner.] - -[Sidenote: Absence of Gothic in Rome.] - -At every time, however, even when his work went on most briskly, the -labours of the Roman architect took the direction of restoring and -readorning old churches rather than of erecting new ones. While the -Transalpine countries, except in a few favoured spots, such as -Provence and part of the Rhineland, remained during several ages with -few and rudely built stone churches, Rome possessed, as the -inheritance of the earlier Christian centuries, a profusion of houses -of worship, some of them still unsurpassed in splendour, and far more -than adequate to the needs of her diminished population. In repairing -these from time to time, their original form and style of work were -usually as far as possible preserved, while in constructing new ones, -the abundance of models beautiful in themselves and hallowed as well -by antiquity as by religious feeling, enthralled the invention of the -workman, bound him down to be at best a faithful imitator, and forbade -him to deviate at pleasure from the old established manner. Thus it -befel that while his brethren throughout the rest of Europe were -passing by successive steps from the old Roman and Byzantine styles to -Romanesque, and from Romanesque to Gothic, the Roman architect -scarcely departed from the plan and arrangements of the primitive -basilica. This is one chief reason why there is so little of Gothic -work in Rome, so little even of Romanesque like that of Pisa. What -there is appears chiefly in the pointed window, more rarely in the -arch, seldom or never in spire or tower or column. Only one of the -existing churches of Rome is Gothic throughout, and that, the -Dominican church of S. Maria sopra Minerva, was built by foreign -monks. In some of the other churches, and especially in the cloisters -of the convents, instances may be observed of the same style: in -others slight traces, by accident or design almost obliterated[343]. - -[Sidenote: Destruction and alteration of the old buildings:] - -[Sidenote: By invaders.] - -[Sidenote: By the Romans of the Middle Ages.] - -[Sidenote: By modern restorers of churches.] - -The mention of obliteration suggests a third cause of the comparative -want of mediæval buildings in the city--the constant depredations and -changes of which she has been the subject. Ever since the time of -Constantine Rome has been a city of destruction, and Christians have -vied with pagans, citizens with enemies, in urging on the fatal work. -Her siege and capture by Robert Guiscard[344], the ally of Hildebrand -against Henry the Fourth, was far more ruinous than the attacks of the -Goths or Vandals: and itself yields in atrocity to the sack of Rome in -A.D. 1526 by the soldiers of the Catholic king and most pious Emperor -Charles the Fifth[345]. Since the days of the first barbarian -invasions the Romans have gone on building with materials taken from -the ancient temples, theatres, law-courts, baths and villas, stripping -them of their gorgeous casings of marble, pulling down their walls for -the sake of the blocks of travertine, setting up their own hovels on -the top or in the midst of these majestic piles. Thus it has been with -the memorials of paganism: a somewhat different cause has contributed -to the disappearance of the mediæval churches. What pillage, or -fanaticism, or the wanton lust of destruction did in the one case, the -ostentatious zeal of modern times has done in the other. The era of -the final establishment of the Popes as temporal sovereigns of the -city, is also that of the supremacy of the Renaissance style in -architecture. After the time of Nicholas the Fifth, the pontiff -against whom, it will be remembered, the spirit of municipal freedom -made its last struggle in the conspiracy of Porcaro, nothing was built -in Gothic, and the prevailing enthusiasm for the antique produced a -corresponding dislike to everything mediæval, a dislike conspicuous in -men like Julius the Second and Leo the Tenth, from whom the grandeur -of modern Rome may be said to begin. Not long after their time the -great religious movement of the sixteenth century, while triumphing in -the north of Europe, was in the south met and overcome by a -counter-reformation in the bosom of the old church herself, and the -construction or restoration of ecclesiastical buildings became again -the passion of the devout[346]. No employment, whether it be called an -amusement or a duty, could have been better suited to the court and -aristocracy of Rome. They were indolent; wealthy, and fond of -displaying their wealth; full of good taste, and anxious, especially -when advancing years had chased away youth's pleasures, to be full of -good works also. Popes and cardinals and the heads of the great -families vied with one another in building new churches and restoring -or enlarging those they found till little of the old was left; raising -over them huge cupolas, substituting massive pilasters for the -single-shafted columns, adorning the interior with a profusion of rare -marbles, of carving and gilding, of frescoes and altar-pieces by the -best masters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. None but a -bigoted mediævalist can refuse to acknowledge the warmth of tone, the -repose, the stateliness, of the churches of modern Rome; but even in -the midst of admiration the sated eye turns away from the wealth of -ponderous ornament, and we long for the clear pure colour, the simple -yet grand proportions that give a charm to the buildings of an earlier -age. - -[Sidenote: Existing relics of the Dark and Middle Ages.] - -[Sidenote: The Mosaics.] - -[Sidenote: The Bell-towers.] - -Few of the ancient churches have escaped untouched; many have been -altogether rebuilt. There are also some, however, in which the -modernizers of the sixteenth and subsequent centuries have spared two -features of the old structure, its round apse or tribune and its -bell-tower. The apse has its interior usually covered with mosaics, -exceedingly interesting, both from the ideas they express and as the -only monuments of pictorial art that remain to us from the Dark Ages. -To speak of them, however, as they deserve to be spoken of, would -involve a digression for which there is no space here. The campanile -or bell-tower is a quaint little square brick tower, of no great -height, usually standing detached from the church, and having in its -topmost, sometimes also in its other upper stories, several arcade -windows, divided by tiny marble pillars[347]. What with these -campaniles, then far more numerous than they are now, and with the -huge brick fortresses of the nobles, towers must have held in the -landscape of the mediæval city very much the part which domes do now. -Although less imposing, they were probably more picturesque, the -rather as in the earlier part of the Middle Ages the houses and -churches, which are now mostly crowded together on the flat of the -Campus Martius, were scattered over the heights and slopes of the -Coelian, Aventine, and Esquiline hills[348]. Modern Rome lies chiefly -on the opposite or north-eastern side of the Capitol, and the change -from the old to the new site of the city, which can hardly be said to -have distinctly begun before the destruction of the south-western part -of the town by Robert Guiscard, was not completed until the sixteenth -century. In A.D. 1536 the Capitol was rebuilt by Michael Angelo, in -anticipation of the entry of Charles the Fifth, upon foundations that -had been laid by the first Tarquin; and the palace of the Senator, the -greatest municipal edifice of Rome, which had hitherto looked towards -the Forum and the Coliseum, was made to front in the direction of St. -Peter's and the modern town. - -[Sidenote: Changed aspect of the city of Rome.] - -[Sidenote: Analogy between her architecture and her civil and -ecclesiastical constitution.] - -[Sidenote: Preservation of an antique character in both.] - -The Rome of to-day is no more like the city of Rienzi than she is to -the city of Trajan; just as the Roman church of the nineteenth century -differs profoundly, however she may strive to disguise it, from the -church of Hildebrand. But among all their changes, both church and -city have kept themselves wonderfully free from the intrusion of -foreign, at least of Teutonic, elements, and have faithfully preserved -at all times something of an old Roman character. Latin Christianity -inherited from the imperial system of old that firmly knit yet -flexible organization, which was one of the grand secrets of its -power: the great men whom mediæval Rome gave to or trained up for the -Papacy were, like their progenitors, administrators, legislators, -statesmen; seldom enthusiasts themselves, but perfectly understanding -how to use and guide the enthusiasm of others--of the French and -German crusaders, of men like Francis of Assisi and Dominic and -Ignatius. Between Catholicism in Italy and Catholicism in Germany or -England there was always, as there is still, a very perceptible -difference. So also, if the analogy be not too fanciful, was it with -Rome the city. Socially she seemed always drifting towards feudalism; -yet she never fell into its grasp. Materially, her architecture was at -one time considerably influenced by Gothic forms, yet Gothic never -became, as in the rest of Europe, the dominant style. It approached -Rome late, and departed from her early, so that we scarcely notice its -presence, and seem to pass almost without a break from the old -Romanesque[349] to the Græco-Roman of the Renaissance. Thus regarded, -the history of the city, both in her political state and in her -buildings, is seen to be intimately connected with that of the Holy -Empire itself. The Empire in its title and its pretensions expressed -the idea of the permanence of the institutions of the ancient world; -Rome the city had, in externals at least, carefully preserved their -traditions: the names of her magistracies, the character of her -buildings, all spoke of antiquity, and gave it a strange and shadowy -life in the midst of new races and new forms of faith. - -[Sidenote: Relation of the City and the Empire.] - -In its essence the Empire rested on the feeling of the unity of -mankind; it was the perpetuation of the Roman dominion by which the -old nationalities had been destroyed, with the addition of the -Christian element which had created a new nationality that was also -universal. By the extension of her citizenship to all her subjects -heathen Rome had become the common home, and, figuratively, even the -local dwelling-place of the civilized races of man. By the theology of -the time Christian Rome had been made the mystical type of humanity, -the one flock of the faithful scattered over the whole earth, the holy -city whither, as to the temple on Moriah, all the Israel of God should -come up to worship. She was not merely an image of the mighty world, -she was the mighty world itself in miniature. The pastor of her local -church is also the universal bishop; the seven suffragans who -consecrate him are the overseers of petty sees in Ostia, Antium, and -the like, towns lying close round Rome: the cardinal priests and -deacons who join these seven in electing him derive their title to be -princes of the Church, the supreme spiritual council of the Christian -world, from the incumbency of a parochial cure within the precincts of -the city. Similarly, her ruler, the Emperor, is ruler of mankind; he -is chosen by the acclamations of her people[350]: he can be lawfully -crowned nowhere but in one of her basilicas. She is, like Jerusalem of -old, the mother of us all. - -[Sidenote: Extinction of the Florentine republic, A.D. 1530.] - -There is yet another way in which the record of the domestic contests -of Rome throws light upon the history of the Empire. From the eleventh -century to the fifteenth her citizens ceased not to demand in the name -of the old republic their freedom from the tyranny of the nobles and -the Pope, and their right to rule over the world at large. These -efforts--selfish and fantastic we may call them, yet men like Petrarch -did not disdain to them their sympathy--issued from the same theories -and were directed to the same ends as those which inspired Otto the -Third and Frederick Barbarossa and Dante himself. They witness to the -same incapacity to form any ideal for the future except a revival of -the past; the same belief that one universal state is both desirable -and possible, but possible only through the means of Rome: the same -refusal to admit that a right which has once existed can ever be -extinguished. In the days of the Renaissance these notions were -passing silently away: the succeeding century brought with it -misfortunes that broke the spirit of the nation. Italy was the -battle-field of Europe: her wealth became the prey of a rapacious -soldiery: the last and greatest of her republics was enslaved by an -unfeeling Emperor, and handed over as the pledge of amity to a selfish -Medicean Pope. When the hope of independence had been lost, the people -turned away from politics to live for art and literature, and found, -before many generations had passed, how little such exclusive devotion -could compensate for the departure of freedom, and a national spirit, -and the activity of civic life. A century after the golden days of -Ariosto and Raphael, Italian literature had become frigid and -affected, while Italian art was dying of mannerism. - -[Sidenote: Feelings of the modern Italians towards Rome.] - -At length, after long ages of sloth, the stagnant waters were -troubled. The Romans, who had lived in listless contentment under the -paternal sway of the Popes, received new ideas from the advent of the -revolutionary armies of France, and have found the Papal system, since -its re-establishment fifty years ago as a modern bureaucratic -despotism, far less tolerable than it was of yore. Our own days have -seen the name of Rome become again a rallying-cry for the patriots of -Italy, but in a sense most unlike the old one. The contemporaries of -Arnold and Rienzi desired freedom only as a step to universal -domination: their descendants, more wisely, yet not more from -patriotism than from a pardonable civic pride, seek only to be the -capital of the Italian kingdom. Dante prayed for a monarchy of the -world, a reign of peace and Christian brotherhood: those who invoke -his name as the earliest prophet of their creed strive after an idea -that never crossed his mind--the national union of Italy[351]. - -Plain common-sense politicians in other countries do not understand -this passion for Rome as a capital, and think it their duty to lecture -the Italians on their flightiness. The latter do not themselves -pretend that the shores of the Tiber are a suitable site for a -capital: Rome is lonely, unhealthy, and in a bad strategical position; -she has no particular facilities for trade: her people, with some fine -qualities, are less orderly and industrious than the Tuscans or the -Piedmontese. Nevertheless all Italy cries with one voice for Rome, -firmly believing that national life can never thrill with a strong and -steady pulsation till the ancient capital has become the nation's -heart. They feel that it is owing to Rome--Rome pagan as well as -Christian--that they once played so grand a part in the drama of -European history, and that they have now been able to attain that -fervid sentiment of unity which has brought them at last together -under one government. Whether they are right, whether if right they -are likely to be successful, need not be inquired here. But it -deserves to be noted that this enthusiasm for a famous name--for it is -nothing more--is substantially the same feeling as that which created -and hallowed the Holy Empire of the Middle Ages. The events of the -last few years on both sides of the Atlantic have proved that men are -not now, any more than they ever were, chiefly governed by -calculations of material profit and loss. Sentiments, fancies, -theories, have not lost their power; the spirit of poetry has not -wholly passed away from politics. And strange as seems to us the -worship paid to the name of mediæval Rome by those who saw the sins -and the misery of her people, it can hardly have been an intenser -feeling than is the imaginative reverence wherewith the Italians of -to-day look on the city whence, as from a fountain, all the streams of -their national life have sprung, and in which, as in an ocean, they -are all again to mingle. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[323] Hist. Eccl. l. ix. c. 6: [Greek: ton de phanai, hôs ouch hekôn -tade epicheirei, alla tis synechôs enochlôn auton biazetai, kai -epitattei tên Rhômên porthein.] - -[324] See the two Lives of St. Adalbert in Pertz, _M. G. H._, iv., -evidently compiled soon after his death. - -[325] Another letter of Petrarch's to John Colonna, written -immediately after his arrival in the city, deserves to be quoted, it -is so like what a stranger would now write off after his first day in -Rome:--'In præsens nihil est quod inchoare ausim, miraculo rerum -tantarum et stuporis mole obrutus ... præsentia vero, mirum dictu, -nihil imminuit sed auxit omnia: vere maior fuit Roma maioresque sunt -reliquiæ quam rebar: iam non orbem ab hac urbe domitum sed tam sero -domitum miror. Vale.' - -[326] The idea of the continuance of the sway of Rome under a new -character is one which mediæval writers delight to illustrate. In -Appendix, Note D, there is quoted as a specimen a poem upon Rome, by -Hildebert (bishop of Le Mans, and afterwards archbishop of Tours), -written in the beginning of the twelfth century. - -[327] In writing this chapter I have derived much assistance from the -admirable work of Ferdinand Gregorovius, _Geschichte der Stadt Rom im -Mittelalter_. Unfortunately no English translation of it exists; but I -am informed by the author that one is likely ere long to appear. - -[328] Republican forms of some sort had existed before Arnold's -arrival, but we hear the name of no other leader mentioned; and -doubtless it was by him chiefly that the spirit of hostility to the -clerical power was infused into the minds of the Romans. - -[329] The series of papal coins is interrupted (with one or two slight -exceptions) from A.D. 984 (not long after the time of Alberic) to A.D. -1304. In their place we meet with various coins struck by the -municipal authorities, some of which bear on the obverse the head of -the Apostle Peter, with the legend Roman. Pricipe: on the reverse the -head of the Apostle Paul, legend, Senat. Popul. Q. R. Gregorovius, _ut -supra_. - -[330] Rienzi called himself Augustus as well as tribune; 'tribuno -Augusto de Roma.' (He pretended, or his friends pretended for him--it -was at any rate believed--that he was an illegitimate son of the -Emperor Henry the Seventh.) He cited, on his appointment, the Pope and -cardinals to appear before the people of Rome and give an account of -their conduct; and after them the Emperor. 'Ancora citao lo Bavaro -(Lewis the Fourth). Puoi citao li elettori de lo imperio in Alemagna, -e disse "Voglio vedere che rascione haco nella elettione," che -trovasse scritto che passato alcuno tempo la elettione recadeva a li -Romani.'--_Vita di Cola di Rienzi_, c. xxvi (written by a -contemporary). I give the spelling as it stands in Muratori's edition. - -[331] The Germans called this hill, which is the highest in or near -Rome, conspicuous from a beautiful group of stone-pines upon its brow, -Mons Gaudii; the origin of the Italian name, Monte Mario, is not -known, unless it be, as some think, a corruption of Mons Malus. - -It was on this hill that Otto the Third hanged Crescentius and his -followers. - -[332] I quote this from the _Ordo Romanus_ as it stands in Muratori's -third Dissertation in the _Antiquitates Italiæ medii ævi_. - -[333] Great stress was laid on one part of the procedure,--the holding -by the Emperor of the Pope's stirrup for him to mount, and the leading -of his palfrey for some distance. Frederick Barbarossa's omission of -this mark of respect when Pope Hadrian IV met him on his way to Rome, -had nearly caused a breach between the two potentates, Hadrian -absolutely refusing the kiss of peace until Frederick should have gone -through the form, which he was at last forced to do in a somewhat -ignominious way. - -[334] A remarkable speech of expostulation made by Otto III to the -Roman people (after one of their revolts) from the tower of his house -on the Aventine has been preserved to us. It begins thus: 'Vosne estis -mei Romani? Propter vos quidem meam patriam, propinquos quoque -reliqui; amore vestro Saxones et cunctos Theotiscos, sanguinem meum, -proieci; vos in remotas partes imperii nostri adduxi, quo patres -vestri cum orbem ditione premerent numquam pedem posuerunt; scilicet -ut nomen vestrum et gloriam ad fines usque dilatarem; vos filios -adoptavi: vos cunctis prætuli.'--_Vita S. Bernwardi_; in Pertz, _M. G. -H._, t. iv. - -(It is from this form 'Theotiscus' that the Italian 'Tedesco' seems to -have been derived.) - -[335] The Leonine city, so called from Pope Leo IV, lay between the -Vatican and St. Peter's and the river. - -[336] It would seem that Otto was deceived, and that in reality they -are the bones of St. Paulinus of Nola. - -[337] The only other of the Teutonic Emperors buried in Italy were, so -far as I know, Lewis the Second (whose tomb, with an inscription -commemorating his exploits, is built into the wall of the north aisle -of the famous church of S. Ambrose at Milan), Henry the Sixth and -Frederick the Second, who lie at Palermo, Conrad IV, buried at Foggia, -and Henry the Seventh, whose sarcophagus may be seen in the Campo -Santo of Pisa, a city always conspicuous for her zeal on the imperial -side. - -Six Emperors lie buried at Speyer, three or four at Prague, two at -Aachen, two at Bamberg, one at Innsbruck, one at Magdeburg, one at -Quedlinburg, two at Munich, and most of the later ones at Vienna. - -[338] See note 198, p. 178. - -[339] See p. 117. - -[340] These highly curious frescoes are in the chapel of St. Sylvester -attached to the very ancient church of Quattro Santi on the Coelian -hill, and are supposed to have been executed in the time of Pope -Innocent III. They represent scenes in the life of the Saint, more -particularly the making of the famous donation to him by Constantine, -who submissively holds the bridle of his palfrey. - -[341] The last imperial coronation, that of Charles the Fifth, took -place in the church of St. Petronius at Bologna, Pope Clement VII -being unwilling to receive Charles in Rome. It is a grand church, but -the choir, where the ceremony took place, seems to have been -'restored,' that is to say modernized, since Charles' time. - -[342] The name of Cenci is a very old one at Rome: it is supposed to -be an abbreviation of Crescentius. We hear in the eleventh century of -a certain Cencius, who on one occasion made Gregory VII prisoner. - -[343] Thus in the church of San Lorenzo without the walls there are -several pointed windows, now bricked up; and similar ones may be seen -in the church of Ara Coeli on the summit of the Capitol. So in the apse -of St. John Lateran there are three or four windows of Gothic form: -and in its cloister, as well as in that of St. Paul without the walls, -a great deal of beautiful Lombard work. The elegant porch of the -church of Sant' Antonio Abate is Lombard. In the apse of the church of -San Giovanni e Paolo on the Coelian hill there is an external arcade -exactly like those of the Duomo at Pisa. Nor are these the only -instances. - -The ruined chapel attached to the fortress of the Caetani family--the -family to which Boniface the Eighth belonged, and whose head is now -the first of the Roman nobility--is a pretty little building, more -like northern Gothic than anything within the walls of Rome. It stands -upon the Appian Way, opposite the tomb of Cæcilia Metella, which the -Caetani used as a stronghold. - -[344] A good deal of the mischief done by Robert Guiscard, from which -the parts of the city lying beyond the Coliseum towards the river and -St. John Lateran never recovered, is attributed to the Saracenic -troops in his service. Saracen pirates are said to have once before -sacked Rome. Genseric was not a heathen, but he was a furious Arian, -which, as far as respect to the churches of the orthodox went, was -nearly the same thing. He is supposed to have carried off the -seven-branched candlestick and other vessels of the Temple, which -Titus had brought from Jerusalem to Rome. - -[345] We are told that one cause of the ferocity of the German part of -the army of Charles was their anger at the ruinous condition of the -imperial palace. - -[346] Under the influence, partly of this anti-pagan spirit, partly of -his own restless vanity, partly of a passion to be doing something, -Pope Sixtus the Fifth did a great deal of mischief in the way of -destroying or spoiling the monuments of antiquity. - -[347] These campaniles are generally supposed to date from the ninth -and tenth centuries. I am informed, however, by Mr. J. H. Parker, of -Oxford, whose antiquarian skill is well known, that he is led to -believe by an examination of their mouldings that few or none, unless -it be that of San Prassede, are older than the twelfth century. - -This of course applies only to the existing buildings. The type of -tower may be, and indeed no doubt is, older. - -Somewhat similar towers may be observed in many parts of the Italian -Alps, especially in the wonderful mountain land north of Venice, where -such towers are of all dates from the eleventh or twelfth down to the -nineteenth century, the ancient type having in these remote valleys -been adhered to because the builder had no other models before him. In -the valley of Cimolais I have seen such a campanile in course of -erection, precisely similar to others in the neighbouring villages -some eight centuries old. - -The very curious round towers of Ravenna, some four or five of which -are still standing, seem to have originally had similar windows, -though these have been all, or nearly all, stopped up. The Roman -towers are all square. - -[348] The Palatine hill seems to have been then, as it is for the most -part now, a waste of stupendous ruins. In the great imperial palace -upon its northern and eastern sides was the residence of an official -of the Eastern court in the beginning of the eighth century. In the -time of Charles, some seventy years later, this palace was no longer -habitable. - -[349] Such as we see it in the later and lesser churches of basilica -form. - -[350] It was thus that most of the earlier Teutonic Emperors, and -notably Charles and Otto, professed to have obtained the crown; -although practically it was partly a matter of conquest and partly of -private arrangement with the Pope. In later times, the seven Germanic -princes were recognized as the legally qualified electoral body, but -their appearance on the stage was a result of the confusion of the -German kingdom with the Roman Empire, and in strictness they had -nothing to do with the Roman crown at all. The right to bestow it -could only--on principle--belong to some Roman authority, and those -who felt the difficulty were driven to suppose a formal cession of -their privilege by the Roman people to the seven electors. See p. 227 -_supra_: and cf. Matthew Villani (iv. 77), 'Il popolo Romano, non da -se, ma la chiesa per lui, concedette la elezione degli Imperadori a -sette principi della Magna.' - -[351] That which Dante, Arnold of Brescia, and the rest really have in -common with the modern Italian 'party of movement' is their hostility -to the temporal power of the Popes. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII. - -THE RENAISSANCE: CHANGE IN THE CHARACTER OF THE EMPIRE. - - -[Sidenote: Wenzel, 1378-1400.] - -[Sidenote: Rupert, 1400-1410.] - -[Sidenote: Sigismund, 1410-1438.] - -[Sidenote: Council of Constance.] - -In Frederick the Third's reign the Empire sank to its lowest point. It -had shot forth a fitful gleam under Sigismund, who in convoking and -presiding over the council of Constance had revived one of the highest -functions of his predecessors. The precedents of the first great -oecumenical councils, and especially of the council of Nicæa, had -established the principle that it belonged to the Emperor, even more -properly than to the Pope, to convoke ecclesiastical assemblies from -the whole Christian world[352]. The tenet commended itself to the -reforming party in the church, headed by Gerson, the chancellor of -Paris, whose aim it was, while making no changes in matters of faith, -to correct the abuses which had grown up in discipline and government, -and limit the power of the Popes by exalting the authority of general -councils, to whom there was now attributed an immunity from error -superior even to that which resided in the successor of Peter. And -although it was only the sacerdotal body, not the whole Christian -people, who were thus made the exponents of the universal religious -consciousness, the doctrine was nevertheless a foreshadowing of that -fuller freedom which was soon to follow. The existence of the Holy -Empire and the existence of general councils were, as has been already -remarked, necessary parts of one and the same theory[353], and it was -therefore more than a coincidence that the last occasion on which the -whole of Latin Christendom met to deliberate and act as a single -commonwealth[354] was also the last on which that commonwealth's -lawful temporal head appeared in the exercise of his international -functions. Never afterwards was he, in the eyes of Europe, anything -more than a German monarch. - -[Sidenote: Weakness of Germany as compared with the other states of -Europe.] - -[Sidenote: Albert II. 1438-1440. Frederick III. 1440-1493.] - -It might seem doubtful whether he would long remain a monarch at all. -When in A.D. 1493 the calamitous reign of Frederick the Third ended, -it was impossible for the princes to see with unconcern the condition -into which their selfishness and turbulence had brought the Empire. -The time was indeed critical. Hitherto the Germans had been protected -rather by the weakness of their enemies than by their own strength. -From France there had been little to fear while the English menaced -her on one side and the Burgundian dukes on the other: from England -still less while she was torn by the strife of York and Lancaster. But -now throughout Western Europe the power of the feudal oligarchies was -broken; and its chief countries were being, by the establishment of -fixed rules of succession and the absorption of the smaller into the -larger principalities, rapidly built up into compact and aggressive -military monarchies. Thus Spain became a great state by the union of -Castile and Aragon, and the conquest of the Moors of Granada. Thus in -England there arose the popular despotism of the Tudors. Thus France, -enlarged and consolidated under Lewis the Eleventh and his successors, -began to acquire that predominant influence on the politics of Europe -which her commanding geographical position, the martial spirit of her -people, and, it must be added, the unscrupulous ambition of her -rulers, have secured to her in every succeeding century. Meantime -there had appeared in the far East a foe still more terrible. The -capture of Constantinople gave Turks a firm hold on Europe, and -inspired them with the hope of effecting in the fifteenth century what -Abderrahman and his Saracens had so nearly effected in the eighth--of -establishing the faith of Islam through all the provinces that obeyed -the Western as well as the Eastern Cæsars. The navies of the Ottoman -Sultans swept the Mediterranean; their well-appointed armies pierced -Hungary and threatened Vienna. - -[Sidenote: Loss of imperial territories.] - -Nor was it only that formidable enemies had arisen without: the -frontiers of Germany herself were exposed by the loss of those -adjoining territories which had formerly owned allegiance to the -Emperors. Poland, once tributary, had shaken off the yoke at the -interregnum, and had recently wrested Prussia and Lusatz from the -Teutonic knights. Bohemia, where German culture had struck deeper -roots, remained a member of the Empire; but the privileges she had -obtained from Charles the Fourth, and the subsequent acquisition of -Silesia and Moravia, made her virtually independent. The restless -Hungarians avenged their former vassalage to Germany by frequent -inroads on her eastern border. - -[Sidenote: Italy.] - -Imperial power in Italy ended with the life of Henry the Seventh. -Rupert did indeed cross the Alps, but it was as the hireling of -Florence; Frederick the Third received the Lombard crown, but it no -longer conveyed the slightest power. In the beginning of the -fourteenth century Dante still hopes the renovation of his country -from the action of the Teutonic Emperors. Some fifty years later -Matthew Villani sees clearly that they do not and cannot reign to any -purpose south of the Alps[355]. Nevertheless the phantom of imperial -authority lingers on for a time. It is put forward by the Ghibeline -tyrants of the cities to justify their attacks on their Guelfic -neighbours: even resolute republicans like the Florentines do not yet -venture altogether to reject it, however unwilling to permit its -exercise. Before the middle of the fifteenth century, the names of -Guelf and Ghibeline had ceased to have any sense or meaning; the Pope -was no longer the protector nor the Emperor the assailant of municipal -freedom, for municipal freedom itself had well-nigh disappeared. But -the old war-cries of the Church and the Empire were still repeated as -they had been three centuries before, and the rival principles that -had once enlisted the noblest spirits of Italy on one or other side -had now sunk into a pretext for wars of aggrandizement or of mere -unmeaning hate. That which had been remarked long before in Greece was -seen to be true here; the spirit of faction outlived the cause of -faction, and became itself the new and prolific source of a useless, -endless strife. - -[Sidenote: Burgundy.] - -After Frederick the Third no Emperor was crowned in Rome, and almost -the only trace of that connection between Germany and Italy to -maintain which so much had been risked and lost, was to be found in -the obstinate belief of the Hapsburg Emperors, that their own claims, -though often purely dynastic and personal, could be enforced by an -appeal to the imperial rights of their predecessors. Because -Barbarossa had overrun Lombardy with a Transalpine host they fancied -themselves entitled to demand duchies for themselves and their -relatives, and to entangle the Empire in wars wherein no interest but -their own was involved. - -The kingdom of Arles, if it had never added much strength to the -Empire, had been useful as an outwork against France. And thus its -loss--Dauphiné passing over, partly in A.D. 1350, finally in 1457, -Provence in 1486--proved a serious calamity, for it brought the French -nearer to Switzerland, and opened to them a tempting passage into -Italy. The Emperors did not for a time expressly renounce their feudal -suzerainty over these lands, but if it was hard to enforce a feudal -claim over a rebellious landgrave in Germany, how much harder to -control a vassal who was also the mightiest king in Europe. - -On the north-west frontier, the fall in A.D. 1477 of the great -principality which the dukes of French Burgundy were building up, was -seen with pleasure by the Rhinelanders whom Charles the last duke had -incessantly alarmed. But the only effect of its fall was to leave -France and Germany directly confronting each other, and it was soon -seen that the balance of strength lay on the side of the less numerous -but better organized and more active nation. - -[Sidenote: Switzerland.] - -Switzerland, too, could no longer be considered a part of the Germanic -realm. The revolt of the Forest Cantons, in A.D. 1313, was against the -oppressions practised in the name of Albert count of Hapsburg, rather -than against the legitimate authority of Albert the Emperor. But -although several subsequent sovereigns, and among them conspicuously -Henry the Seventh and Sigismund, favoured the Swiss liberties, yet -while the antipathy between the Confederates and the territorial -nobility gave a peculiar direction to their policy, the accession of -new cantons to their body, and their brilliant success against Charles -the Bold in A.D. 1477, made them proud of a separate national -existence, and not unwilling to cast themselves loose from the -stranded hulk of the Empire. Maximilian tried to reconquer them, but -after a furious struggle, in which the valleys of Western Tyrol were -repeatedly laid waste by the peasants of the Engadin, he was forced to -give way, and in A.D. 1500 recognized them by treaty as practically -independent. Not, however, till the peace of Westphalia, in A.D. 1648, -was the Swiss Confederation in the eye of public law a sovereign -state, and even after that date some of the towns continued to stamp -their coins with the double eagle of the Empire. - -[Sidenote: Internal weakness.] - -If those losses of territory were serious, far more serious was the -plight in which Germany herself lay. The country had now become not so -much an empire as an aggregate of very many small states, governed by -sovereigns who would neither remain at peace with each other nor -combine against a foreign enemy, under the nominal presidency of an -Emperor who had little lawful authority, and could not exert what he -had[356]. - -[Sidenote: Influence of the theory of the Empire as an international -power upon the Germanic constitution.] - -[Sidenote: Position of the Emperor in Germany, compared with that of -his predecessors in Europe.] - -There was another cause, besides those palpable and obvious ones -already enumerated, to which this state of things must be ascribed. -That cause is to be found in the theory which regarded the Empire as -an international power, supreme among Christian states. From the day -when Otto the Great was crowned at Rome, the characters of German king -and Roman Emperor were united in one person, and it has been shewn how -that union tended more and more to become a fusion. If the two -offices, in their nature and origin so dissimilar, had been held by -different persons, the Roman Empire would most probably have soon -disappeared, while the German kingdom grew into a robust national -monarchy. Their connection gave a longer life to the one and a feebler -life to the other, while at the same time it transformed both. So long -as Germany was only one of the many countries that bowed beneath their -sceptre it was possible for the Emperors, though we need not suppose -they troubled themselves with speculations on the matter, to -distinguish their imperial authority, as international and more than -half religious, from their royal, which was, or was meant to be, -exclusively local and feudal. But when within the narrowed bounds of -Germany these international functions had ceased to have any meaning, -when the rulers of England, Spain, France, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, -Italy, Burgundy, had in succession repudiated their control, and the -Lord of the World found himself obeyed by none but his own people, he -would not sink from being lord of the world into a simple Teutonic -king, but continued to play in the more contracted theatre the part -which had belonged to him in the wider. Thus did Germany instead of -Europe become the sphere of his international jurisdiction; and her -electors and princes, originally mere vassals, no greater than a Count -of Champagne in France, or an Earl of Chester in England, stepped into -the place which it had been meant that the several monarchs of -Christendom should fill. If the power of their head had been what it -was in the eleventh century, the additional dignity so assigned to -them might have signified very little. But coming in to confirm and -justify the liberties already won, this theory of their relation to -the sovereign had a great though at the time scarcely perceptible -influence in changing the German Empire, as we may now begin to call -it, from a state into a sort of confederation or body of states, -united indeed for some of the purposes of government, but separate and -independent for others more important. Thus, and that in its -ecclesiastical as well as its civil organization, Germany became a -miniature of Christendom[357]. The Pope, though he retained the wider -sway which his rival had lost, was in an especial manner the head of -the German clergy, as the Emperor was of the laity: the three Rhenish -prelates sat in the supreme college beside the four temporal electors: -the nobility of prince-bishops and abbots was as essential a part of -the constitution and as influential in the deliberations of the Diet -as were the dukes, counts, and margraves of the Empire. The -world-embracing Christian state was to have been governed by a -hierarchy of spiritual pastors, whose graduated ranks of authority -should exactly correspond with those of the temporal magistracy, who -were to be like them endowed with worldly wealth and power, and to -enjoy a jurisdiction co-ordinate although distinct. This system, which -it was in vain attempted to establish in Europe during the eleventh -and twelfth centuries, was in its main features that which prevailed -in the Germanic Empire from the fourteenth century onwards. And -conformably to the analogy which may be traced between the position of -the archdukes of Austria in Germany and the place which the four Saxon -and the two first Franconian Emperors had held in Europe, both being -recognized as leaders and presidents in all that concerned the common -interest, in the one case of the Christian, in the other of the whole -German people, while neither of them had any power of direct -government in the territories of local kings and lords; so the plan by -which those who chose Maximilian emperor sought to strengthen their -national monarchy was in substance that which the Popes had followed -when they conferred the crown of the world on Charles and Otto. The -pontiffs then, like the electors now, finding that they could not give -with the title the power which its functions demanded, were driven to -the expedient of selecting for the office persons whose private -resources enabled them to sustain it with dignity. The first Frankish -and the first Saxon Emperors were chosen because they were already the -mightiest potentates in Europe; Maximilian because he was the -strongest of the German princes. The parallel may be carried one step -further. Just as under Otto and his successors the Roman Empire was -Teutonized, so now under the Hapsburg dynasty, from whose hands the -sceptre departed only once thenceforth, the Teutonic Empire tends more -and more to lose itself in an Austrian monarchy. - -[Sidenote: Beginning of the Hapsburg influence in Germany.] - -Of that monarchy and of the power of the house of Hapsburg, Maximilian -was, even more than Rudolph his ancestor, the founder[358]. Uniting in -his person those wide domains through Germany which had been dispersed -among the collateral branches of his house, and claiming by his -marriage with Mary of Burgundy most of the territories of Charles the -Bold, he was a prince greater than any who had sat on the Teutonic -throne since the death of Frederick the Second. But it was as archduke -of Austria, count of Tyrol, duke of Styria and Carinthia, feudal -superior of lands, in Swabia, Alsace, and Switzerland, that he was -great, not as Roman Emperor. For just as from him the Austrian -monarchy begins, so with him the Holy Empire in its old meaning ends. -That strange system of doctrines, half religious half political, which -had supported it for so many ages, was growing obsolete, and the -theory which had wrought such changes on Germany and Europe, passed -ere long so completely from remembrance that we can now do no more -than call up a faint and wavering image of what it must once have -been. - -[Sidenote: Character of the epoch of Maximilian.] - -[Sidenote: The discovery of America.] - -For it is not only in imperial history that the accession of -Maximilian is a landmark. That time--a time of change and movement in -every part of human life, a time when printing had become common, and -books were no longer confined to the clergy, when drilled troops were -replacing the feudal militia, when the use of gunpowder was changing -the face of war--was especially marked by one event, to which the -history of the world offers no parallel before or since, the discovery -of America. The cloud which from the beginning of things had hung -thick and dark round the borders of civilization was suddenly lifted: -the feeling of mysterious awe with which men had regarded the firm -plain of earth and her encircling ocean ever since the days of Homer, -vanished when astronomers and geographers taught them that she was an -insignificant globe, which, so far from being the centre of the -universe, was itself swept round in the motion of one of the least of -its countless systems. The notions that had hitherto prevailed -regarding the life of man and his relations to nature and the -supernatural, were rudely shaken by the knowledge that was soon gained -of tribes in every stage of culture and living under every variety of -condition, who had developed apart from all the influences of the -Eastern hemisphere. In A.D. 1453 the capture of Constantinople and -extinction of the Eastern Empire had dealt a fatal blow to the -prestige of tradition and an immemorial name: in A.D. 1492 there was -disclosed a world whither the eagles of all-conquering Rome had never -winged their flight. No one could now have repeated the arguments of -the _De Monarchia_. - -[Sidenote: The Renaissance.] - -Another movement, too, widely different, but even more momentous, was -beginning to spread from Italy beyond the Alps. Since the barbarian -tribes settled in the Roman provinces, no change had come to pass in -Europe at all comparable to that which followed the diffusion of the -new learning in the latter half of the fifteenth century. Enchanted by -the beauty of the ancient models of art and poetry, more particularly -those of the Greeks, men came to regard with aversion and contempt all -that had been done or produced from the days of Trajan to those of -Pope Nicholas the Fifth. The Latin style of the writers who lived -after Tacitus was debased: the architecture of the Middle Ages was -barbarous: the scholastic philosophy was an odious and unmeaning -jargon: Aristotle himself, Greek though he was, Aristotle who had been -for three centuries more than a prophet or an apostle, was hurled from -his throne, because his name was associated with the dismal quarrels -of Scotists and Thomists. That spirit, whether we call it analytical -or sceptical, or earthly, or simply secular, for it is more or less -all of these--the spirit which was the exact antithesis of mediæval -mysticism, had swept in and carried men away, with all the force of a -pent-up torrent. People were content to gratify their tastes and their -senses, caring little for worship, and still less for doctrine: their -hopes and ideas were no longer such as had made their forefathers -crusaders or ascetics: their imagination was possessed by associations -far different from those which had inspired Dante: they did not revolt -against the church, but they had no enthusiasm for her, and they had -enthusiasm for whatever was fresh and graceful and intelligible. From -all that was old and solemn, or that seemed to savour of feudalism or -monkery, they turned away, too indifferent to be hostile. And so, in -the midst of the Renaissance, so, under the consciousness that former -things were passing from the earth, and a new order opening, so, with -the other beliefs and memories of the Middle Age, the shadowy rights -of the Roman Empire melted away in the fuller modern light. Here and -there a jurist muttered that no neglect could destroy its universal -supremacy, or a priest declaimed to listless hearers on its duty to -protect the Holy See; but to Germany it had become an ancient device -for holding together the discordant members of her body, to its -possessors an engine for extending the power of the house of Hapsburg. - -[Sidenote: Empire henceforth German.] - -Henceforth, therefore, we must look upon the Holy Roman Empire as lost -in the German; and after a few faint attempts to resuscitate -old-fashioned claims, nothing remains to indicate its origin save a -sounding title and a precedence among the states of Europe. It was not -that the Renaissance exerted any direct political influence either -against the Empire or for it; men were too busy upon statues and coins -and manuscripts to care what befel Popes or Emperors. It acted rather -by silently withdrawing the whole system of doctrines upon which the -Empire had rested, and thus leaving it, since it had previously no -support but that of opinion, without any support at all. - -[Sidenote: Attempts to reform the Germanic Constitution.] - -[Sidenote: Causes of the failure of the projects of reform.] - -During Maximilian's eventful reign several efforts were made to -construct a new constitution, but it is to German, rather than to -imperial history that they properly belong. Here, indeed, the history -of the Holy Empire might close, did not the title unchanged beckon us -on, and were it not that the events of these later centuries may in -their causes be traced back to times when the name of Roman was not -wholly a mockery. It may be enough to remark that while the -preservation of peace and the better administration of justice were in -some measure attained by the Public Peace and Imperial Chamber, -established in A.D. 1495, schemes still more important failed through -the bad constitution of the Diet, and the unconquerable jealousy of -the Emperor and the Estates. Maximilian refused to have his -prerogative, indefinite though weak, restricted by the appointment of -an administrative council[359], and when the Estates extorted it from -him, did his best to ensure its failure. In the Diet, which consisted -of three colleges, electors, princes, and cities, the lower nobility -and knights of the Empire were unrepresented, and resented every -decree that affected their position, refusing to pay taxes in voting -which they had no voice. The interests of the princes and the cities -were often irreconcilable, while the strength of the crown would not -have been sufficient to make its adhesion to the latter of any effect. -The policy of conciliating the commons, which Sigismund had tried, -succeeding Emperors seldom cared to repeat, content to gain their -point by raising factions among the territorial magnates, and so to -stave off the unwelcome demand for reform. After many earnest attempts -to establish a representative system, such as might resist the -tendency to local independence and cure the evils of separate -administration, the hope so often baffled died away. Forces were too -nearly balanced: the sovereign could not extend his personal control, -nor could the reforming party limit him by a strong council of -government, for such a measure would have equally trenched on the -independence of the states. So ended the first great effort for German -unity, interesting from its bearing on the events and aspirations of -our own day; interesting, too, as giving the most convincing proof of -the decline of the imperial office. For the projects of reform did not -propose to effect their objects by restoring to Maximilian the -authority his predecessors had once enjoyed, but by setting up a body -which would resemble far more nearly the senate of a federal state -than the administrative council which surrounds a monarch. The -existing system developed itself further: relieved from external -pressure, the princes became more despotic in their own territories: -distinct codes were framed, and new systems of administration -introduced: the insurgent peasantry were crushed down with more -confident harshness. Already had leagues of princes and cities been -formed[360] (that of Swabia was one of the strongest forces in -Germany, and often the monarch's firmest support); now alliances begin -to be contracted with foreign powers, and receive a direction of -formidable import from the rivalry which the pretensions on Naples and -Milan of Charles the Eighth and Lewis the Twelfth of France kindled -between their house and the Austrian. It was no slight gain to have -friends in the heart of the enemy's country, such as French intrigue -found in the Elector Palatine and the count of Würtemberg. - -[Sidenote: Germanic nationality.] - -[Sidenote: Change of Titles.] - -[Sidenote: The title 'Imperator Electus.'] - -Nevertheless this was also the era of the first conscious feeling of -German nationality, as distinct from imperial. Driven in on all hands, -with Italy and the Slavic lands and Burgundy hopelessly lost, -Teutschland learnt to separate itself from Welschland[361]. The Empire -became the representative of a narrower but more practicable national -union. It is not a mere coincidence that at this date there appear -several notable changes of style. 'Nationis Teutonicæ' (Teutscher -Nation) is added to the simple 'sacrum imperium Romanum.' The title of -'Imperator electus,' which Maximilian obtains leave from Pope Julius -the Second to assume, when the Venetians prevent him from reaching his -capital, marks the severance of Germany from Rome. No subsequent -Emperor received his crown in the ancient capital (Charles the Fifth -was indeed crowned by the Pope's hands, but the ceremony took place at -Bologna, and was therefore of at least questionable validity); each -assumed after his German coronation[362] the title of Emperor -Elect[363], and employed this in all documents issued in his name. But -the word 'elect' being omitted when he was addressed by others, partly -from motives of courtesy, partly because the old rules regarding the -Roman coronation were forgotten, or remembered only by antiquaries, he -was never called, even when formality was required, anything but -Emperor. The substantial import of another title now first introduced -is the same. Before Otto the First, the Teutonic king had called -himself either 'rex' alone, or 'Francorum orientalium rex,' or -'Francorum atque Saxonum rex:' after A.D. 962, all lesser dignities -had been merged in the 'Romanorum Imperator[364].' To this Maximilian -appended 'Germaniæ rex,' or, adding Frederick the Second's -bequest[365], 'König in Germanien und Jerusalem.' It has been thought -that from a mixture of the title King of Germany, and that of Emperor, -has been formed the phrase 'German Emperor,' or less correctly, -'Emperor of Germany[366].' But more probably the terms 'German -Emperor' and 'Emperor of Germany' are nothing but convenient -corruptions of the technical description of the Germanic -sovereign[367]. - -That the Empire was thus sinking into a merely German power cannot be -doubted. But it was only natural that those who lived at the time -should not discern the tendency of events. Again and again did the -restless and sanguine Maximilian propose the recovery of Burgundy and -Italy,--his last scheme was to adjust the relations of Papacy and -Empire by becoming Pope himself: nor were successive Diets less -zealous to check private war, still the scandal of Germany, to set -right the gear of the imperial chamber, to make the imperial officials -permanent, and their administration uniform throughout the country. -But while they talked the heavens darkened, and the flood came and -destroyed them all. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[352] See Dean Stanley's _Lectures on the History of the Eastern -Church_, Lecture II. - -[353] It is not without interest to observe that the council of Basel -shewed signs of reciprocating imperial care by claiming those very -rights over the Empire to which the Popes were accustomed to pretend. - -[354] The councils of Basel and Florence were not recognized from -first to last by all Europe, as was the council of Constance. When the -assembly of Trent met, the great religious schism had already made a -general council, in the true sense of the word, impossible. - -[355] 'E pero venendo gl'imperadori della Magna col supremo titolo, e -volendo col senno e colla forza della Magna reggiere gli Italiani, non -lo fanno e non lo possono fare.'--M. Villani, iv. 77. - -Matthew Villani's etymology of the two great faction names of Italy is -worth quoting, as a fair sample of the skill of mediævals in such -matters:--'La Italia tutta e divisa mistamente in due parti, l'una che -seguita ne' fatti del mondo la santa chiesa--e questi son dinominati -Guelfi; cioè, guardatori di fè. E l'altra parte seguitano lo 'mperio o -fedele o enfedele che sia delle cose del mondo a santa chiesa. E -chiamansi Ghibellini, quasi guida belli; cioè, guidatori di -battaglie.' - -[356] 'Nam quamvis Imperatorem et regem et dominum vestrum esse -fateamini, precario tamen ille imperare videtur: nulla ei potentia -est; tantum ei paretis quantum vultis, vultis autem minimum.'--Æneas -Sylvius to the princes of Germany, quoted by Hippolytus a Lapide. - -[357] See Ægidi, _Der Fürstenrath nach dem Luneviller Frieden_; a book -which throws more light than any other with which I am acquainted on -the inner nature of the Empire. - -[358] The two immediately preceding Emperors, Albert II (1438-1439) -and Frederick III, father of Maximilian (1439-1493), had been -Hapsburgs. It is nevertheless from Maximilian that the ascendancy of -that family must be dated. - -[359] Reichsregiment. - -[360] Wenzel had encouraged the leagues of the cities, and incurred -thereby the hatred of the nobles. - -[361] The Germans, like our own ancestors, called foreign, _i. e._ -non-Teutonic nations, Welsh. Yet apparently not all such nations, but -only those which they in some way associated with the Roman Empire, -the Cymry of Roman Britain, the Romanized Kelts of Gaul, the Italians, -the Roumans or Wallachs of Transylvania and the Principalities. It -does not appear that either the Magyars or any Slavonic people were -called by any form of the name Welsh. - -[362] The German crown was received at Aachen, the ancient Frankish -capital, where may still be seen, in the gallery of the basilica, the -marble throne on which the Emperors from the days of Charles to those -of Ferdinand I were crowned. It was upon this chair that Otto III had -found the body of Charles seated, when he opened his tomb in A.D. -1001. After Ferdinand I, the coronation as well as the election took -place at Frankfort. An account of the ceremony may be found in -Goethe's _Wahrheit und Dichtung_. Aachen, though it remained and -indeed is still a German town, lay in too remote a corner of the -country to be a convenient capital, and was moreover in dangerous -proximity to the West Franks, as stubborn old Germans continue to call -them. As early as A.D. 1353 we find bishop Leopold of Bamberg -complaining that the French had arrogated to themselves the honours of -the Frankish name, and called themselves 'reges Franciæ,' instead of -'reges Franciæ occidentalis.'--Lupoldus Bebenburgensis, apud -Schardium, _Sylloge Tractatuum_. - -[363] Erwählter Kaiser. See Appendix, Note C. - -[364] Romanorum rex (after Henry II) till the coronation at Rome. - -[365] But the Emperor was only one of many claimants to this kingdom; -they multiplied as the prospect of regaining it died away. - -[366] The latter does not occur, even in English books, till -comparatively recent times. English writers of the seventeenth century -always call him 'The Emperor,' pure and simple, just as they -invariably say 'the French king.' But the phrase 'Empereur d'Almayne' -may be found in very early French writers. - -[367] See Moser, _Römische Kayser_; Goldast's and other collections of -imperial edicts and proclamations. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII. - -THE REFORMATION AND ITS EFFECTS UPON THE EMPIRE. - - -The Reformation falls to be mentioned here, of course not as a -religious movement, but as the cause of political changes, which still -further rent the Empire, and struck at the root of the theory by which -it had been created and upheld. Luther completed the work of -Hildebrand. Hitherto it had seemed not impossible to strengthen the -German state into a monarchy, compact if not despotic; the very Diet -of Worms, where the monk of Wittenberg proclaimed to an astonished -church and Emperor that the day of spiritual tyranny was past, had -framed and presented a fresh scheme for the construction of a central -council of government. The great religious schism put an end to all -such hopes, for it became a source of political disunion far more -serious and permanent than any that had existed before, and it taught -the two factions into which Germany was henceforth divided to regard -each other with feelings more bitter than those of hostile nations. - -[Sidenote: Accession of Charles V (1519-1558).] - -The breach came at the most unfortunate time possible. After an -election, more memorable than any preceding, an election in which -Francis the First of France and Henry the Eighth of England had been -his competitors, a prince had just ascended the imperial throne who -united dominions vaster than any Europe had seen since the days of his -great namesake. Spain and Naples, Flanders, and other parts of the -Burgundian lands, as well as large regions in Eastern Germany, obeyed -Charles: he drew inexhaustible revenues from a new empire beyond the -Atlantic. Such a power, directed by a mind more resolute and profound -than that of Maximilian his grandfather, might have well been able, -despite the stringency of his coronation engagements[368], and the -watchfulness of the electors[369], to override their usurped -privileges, and make himself practically as well as officially the -head of the nation. Charles the Fifth, though from the coldness of his -manner[370] and his Flemish speech never a favourite among the -Germans, was in point of fact far stronger than Maximilian or any -other Emperor who had reigned for three centuries. In Italy he -succeeded, after long struggles with the Pope and the French, in -rendering himself supreme: England he knew how to lead, by flattering -Henry and cajoling Wolsey: from no state but France had he serious -opposition to fear. To this strength his imperial dignity was indeed a -mere accident: its sources were the infantry of Spain, the looms of -Flanders, the sierras of Peru. But the conquest once achieved, might -could lose itself in right; and as an earlier Charles had veiled the -terror of the Frankish sword under the mask of Roman election, so -might his successor sway a hundred provinces with the sole name of -Roman Emperor, and transmit to his race a dominion as wide and more -enduring. - -[Sidenote: Attitude of Charles towards the religious movement.] - -One is tempted to speculate as to what might have happened had Charles -espoused the reforming cause. His reverence for the Pope's person is -sufficiently seen in the sack of Rome and the captivity of Clement; -the traditions of his office might have led him to tread in the steps -of the Henrys and the Fredericks, into which even the timid Lewis the -Fourth and the unstable Sigismund had sometimes ventured; the -awakening zeal of the German people, exasperated by the exactions of -the Romish court, would have strengthened his hands, and enabled him, -while moderating the excesses of change, to fix his throne on the deep -foundations of national love. It may well be doubted--Englishmen at -least have reason for the doubt--whether the Reformation would not -have lost as much as it could have gained by being entangled in the -meshes of royal patronage. But, setting aside Charles's personal -leaning to the old faith, and forgetting that he was king of the most -bigoted race of Europe, his position as Emperor made him almost -perforce the Pope's ally. The Empire had been called into being by -Rome, had vaunted the protection of the Apostolic See as its highest -earthly privilege, had latterly been wont, especially in Hapsburg -hands, to lean on the papacy for support. Itself founded entirely on -prescription and the traditions of immemorial reverence, how could it -abandon the cause which the longest prescription and the most solemn -authority had combined to consecrate? With the German clergy, despite -occasional quarrels, it had been on better terms than with the lay -aristocracy; their heads had been the chief ministers of the crown; -the advocacies of their abbeys were the last source of imperial -revenue to disappear. To turn against them now, when furiously -assailed by heretics; to abrogate claims hallowed by antiquity and a -hundred laws, would be to pronounce its own sentence, and the fall of -the eternal city's spiritual dominion must involve the fall of what -still professed to be her temporal. Charles would have been glad to -see some abuses corrected; but a broad line of policy was called for, -and he cast in his lot with the Catholics[371]. - -[Sidenote: Ultimate failure of the repressive policy of Charles.] - -[Sidenote: Ferdinand I, 1558-1564.] - -[Sidenote: Maximilian II, 1564-1576.] - -[Sidenote: Destruction of the Germanic state-system.] - -Of many momentous results only a few need be noticed here. The -reconstruction of the old imperial system, upon the basis of Hapsburg -power, proved in the end impossible. Yet for some years it had seemed -actually accomplished. When the Smalkaldic league had been dissolved -and its leaders captured, the whole country lay prostrate before -Charles. He overawed the Diet at Augsburg by the Spanish soldiery: he -forced formularies of doctrine upon the vanquished Protestants: he set -up and pulled down whom he would throughout Germany, amid the muttered -discontent of his own partisans. Then, as in the beginning of the year -1552, he lay at Innsbruck, fondly dreaming that his work was done, -waiting the spring weather to cross to Trent, where the Catholic -fathers had again met to settle the world's faith for it, news was -suddenly brought that North Germany was in arms, and that the revolted -Maurice of Saxony had seized Donauwerth, and was hurrying through the -Bavarian Alps to surprise his sovereign. Charles rose and fled -southwards over the snows of the Brenner, then eastwards, under the -blood-red cliffs of dolomite that wall in the Pusterthal, far away -into the valleys of Carinthia: the council of Trent broke up in -consternation: Europe saw and the Emperor acknowledged that in his -fancied triumph over the spirit of revolution he had done no more than -block up for the moment an irresistible torrent. When this last effort -to produce religious uniformity by violence had failed as hopelessly -as the previous devices of holding discussions of doctrine and calling -a general council, a sort of armistice was agreed to in 1554, which -lasted in mutual fear and suspicion for more than sixty years. Four -years after this disappointment of the hopes and projects which had -occupied his busy life, Charles, weighed down by cares and with the -shadow of coming death already upon him, resigned the sovereignty of -Spain and the Indies, of Flanders and Naples, into the hands of his -son Philip the Second; while the imperial sceptre passed to his -brother Ferdinand, who had been some time before chosen King of the -Romans. Ferdinand was content to leave things much as he found them, -and the amiable Maximilian II, who succeeded him, though personally -well inclined to the Protestants, found himself fettered by his -position and his allies, and could do little or nothing to quench the -flame of religious and political hatred. Germany remained divided into -two omnipresent factions, and so further than ever from harmonious -action, or a tightening of the long-loosened bond of feudal -allegiance. The states of either creed being gathered into a league, -there could no longer be a recognized centre of authority for judicial -or administrative purposes. Least of all could a centre be sought in -the Emperor, the leader of the papal party, the suspected foe of every -Protestant. Too closely watched to do anything of his own authority, -too much committed to one party to be accepted as a mediator by the -other, he was driven to attain his own objects by falling in with the -schemes and furthering the selfish ends of his adherents, by becoming -the accomplice or the tool of the Jesuits. The Lutheran princes -addressed themselves to reduce a power of which they had still an -over-sensitive dread, and found when they exacted from each successive -sovereign engagements more stringent than his predecessor's, that in -this, and this alone, their Catholic brethren were not unwilling to -join them. Thus obliged to strip himself one by one of the ancient -privileges of his crown, the Emperor came to have little influence on -the government except that which his intrigues might exercise. Nay, it -became almost impossible to maintain a government at all. For when the -Reformers found themselves outvoted at the Diet, they declared that in -matters of religion a majority ought not to bind a minority. As the -measures were few which did not admit of being reduced to this -category, for whatever benefited the Emperor or any other Catholic -prince injured the Protestants, nothing could be done save by the -assent of two bitterly hostile factions. Thus scarce anything was -done; and even the courts of justice were stopped by the disputes that -attended the appointment of every judge or assessor. - -[Sidenote: Alliance of the Protestants with France.] - -In the foreign politics of Germany another result followed. Inferior -in military force and organization, the Protestant princes at first -provided for their safety by forming leagues among themselves. The -device was an old one, and had been employed by the monarch himself -before now, in despair at the effete and cumbrous forms of the -imperial system. Soon they began to look beyond the Vosges, and found -that France, burning heretics at home, was only too happy to smile on -free opinions elsewhere. The alliance was easily struck; Henry the -Second assumed in 1552 the title of 'Protector of the Germanic -liberties,' and a pretext for interference was never wanting in -future. - -[Sidenote: The Reformation spirit, and its influence upon the Empire.] - -[Sidenote: Effect of the Reformation on the doctrines regarding the -Visible Church.] - -These were some of the visible political consequences of the great -religious schism of the sixteenth century. But beyond and above them -there was a change far more momentous than any of its immediate -results. There is perhaps no event in history which has been represented -in so great a variety of lights as the Reformation. It has been called -a revolt of the laity against the clergy, or of the Teutonic races -against the Italians, or of the kingdoms of Europe against the -universal monarchy of the Popes. Some have seen in it only a burst of -long-repressed anger at the luxury of the prelates and the manifold -abuses of the ecclesiastical system; others a renewal of the youth of -the church by a return to primitive forms of doctrine. All these -indeed to some extent it was; but it was also something more profound, -and fraught with mightier consequences than any of them. It was in its -essence the assertion of the principle of individuality--that is to -say, of true spiritual freedom. Hitherto the personal consciousness -had been a faint and broken reflection of the universal; obedience had -been held the first of religious duties; truth had been conceived as a -something external and positive, which the priesthood who were its -stewards were to communicate to the passive layman, and whose saving -virtue lay not in its being felt and known by him to be truth, but in -a purely formal and unreasoning acceptance. The great principles which -mediæval Christianity still cherished were obscured by the limited, -rigid, almost sensuous forms which had been forced on them in times of -ignorance and barbarism. That which was in its nature abstract, had -been able to survive only by taking a concrete expression. The -universal consciousness became the Visible Church: the Visible Church -hardened into a government and degenerated into a hierarchy. Holiness -of heart and life was sought by outward works, by penances and -pilgrimages, by gifts to the poor and to the clergy, wherein there -dwelt often little enough of a charitable mind. The presence of divine -truth among men was symbolized under one aspect by the existence on -earth of an infallible Vicar of God, the Pope; under another, by the -reception of the present Deity in the sacrifice of the mass; in a -third, by the doctrine that the priest's power to remit sins and -administer the sacraments depended upon a transmission of miraculous -gifts which can hardly be called other than physical. All this system -of doctrine, which might, but for the position of the church as a -worldly and therefore obstructive power, have expanded, renewed, and -purified itself during the four centuries that had elapsed since its -completion[372], and thus remained in harmony with the growing -intelligence of mankind, was suddenly rent in pieces by the convulsion -of the Reformation, and flung away by the more religious and more -progressive peoples of Europe. That which was external and concrete, -was in all things to be superseded by that which was inward and -spiritual. It was proclaimed that the individual spirit, while it -continued to mirror itself in the world-spirit, had nevertheless an -independent existence as a centre of self-issuing force, and was to be -in all things active rather than passive. Truth was no longer to be -truth to the soul until it should have been by the soul recognized, -and in some measure even created; but when so recognized and felt, it -is able under the form of faith to transcend outward works and to -transform the dogmas of the understanding; it becomes the living -principle within each man's breast, infinite itself, and expressing -itself infinitely through his thoughts and acts. He who as a spiritual -being was delivered from the priest, and brought into direct relation -with the Divinity, needed not, as heretofore, to be enrolled a member -of a visible congregation of his fellows, that he might live a pure -and useful life among them. Thus by the Reformation the Visible Church -as well as the priesthood lost that paramount importance which had -hitherto belonged to it, and sank from being the depositary of all -religious tradition, the source and centre of religious life, the -arbiter of eternal happiness or misery, into a mere association of -Christian men, for the expression of mutual sympathy and the better -attainment of certain common ends. Like those other doctrines which -were now assailed by the Reformation, this mediæval view of the nature -of the Visible Church had been naturally, and so, it may be said, -necessarily developed between the third and the twelfth century, and -must therefore have represented the thoughts and satisfied the wants -of those times. By the Visible Church the flickering lamp of knowledge -and literary culture, as well as of religion, had been fed and tended -through the long night of the Dark Ages. But, like the whole -theological fabric of which it formed a part, it was now hard and -unfruitful, identified with its own worst abuses, capable apparently -of no further development, and unable to satisfy minds which in -growing stronger had grown more conscious of their strength. Before -the awakened zeal of the northern nations it stood a cold and lifeless -system, whose organization as a hierarchy checked the free activity of -thought, whose bestowal of worldly power and wealth on spiritual -pastors drew them away from their proper duties, and which by -maintaining alongside of the civil magistracy a co-ordinate and rival -government, maintained also that separation of the spiritual element -in man from the secular, which had been so complete and so pernicious -during the Middle Ages, which debases life, and severs religion from -morality. - -[Sidenote: Consequent effect upon the Empire.] - -The Reformation, it may be said, was a religious movement: and it is -the Empire, not the Church, that we have here to consider. The -distinction is only apparent. The Holy Empire is but another name for -the Visible Church. It has been shewn already how mediæval theory -constructed the State on the model of the Church; how the Roman Empire -was the shadow of the Popedom--designed to rule men's bodies as the -pontiff ruled their souls. Both alike claimed obedience on the ground -that Truth is One, and that where there is One faith there must be One -government[373]. And, therefore, since it was this very principle of -Formal Unity that the Reformation overthrew, it became a revolt -against despotism of every kind; it erected the standard of civil as -well as of religious liberty, since both of them are needed, though -needed in a different measure, for the worthy development of the -individual spirit. The Empire had never been conspicuously the -antagonist of popular freedom, and was, even under Charles the Fifth, -far less formidable to the commonalty than were the petty princes of -Germany. But submission, and submission on the ground of indefeasible -transmitted right, upon the ground of Catholic traditions and the duty -of the Christian magistrate to suffer heresy and schism as little as -the parallel sins of treason and rebellion, had been its constant -claim and watchword. Since the days of Julius Cæsar it had passed -through many phases, but in none of them had it ever been a -constitutional monarchy, pledged to the recognition of popular rights. -And hence the indirect tendency of the Reformation to narrow the -province of government and exalt the privileges of the subject was as -plainly adverse to the Empire as the Protestant claim of the right of -private judgment was to the pretensions of the Papacy and the -priesthood. - -[Sidenote: Immediate influence of the Reformation on political and -religious liberty.] - -[Sidenote: Conduct of the Protestant States.] - -The remark must not be omitted in passing, how much less than might -have been expected the religious movement did at first actually effect -in the way of promoting either political progress or freedom of -conscience. The habits of centuries were not to be unlearnt in a few -years, and it was natural that ideas struggling into existence and -activity should work erringly and imperfectly for a time. By a few -inflammable minds liberty was carried into antinomianism, and produced -the wildest excesses of life and doctrine. Several fantastic sects -arose, refusing to conform to the ordinary rules without which human -society could not subsist. But these commotions neither spread widely -nor lasted long. Far more pervading and more remarkable was the other -error, if that can be called an error which was the almost unavoidable -result of the circumstances of the time. The principles which had led -the Protestants to sever themselves from the Roman Church, should have -taught them to bear with the opinions of others, and warned them from -the attempt to connect agreement in doctrine or manner of worship with -the necessary forms of civil government. Still less ought they to have -enforced that agreement by civil penalties; for faith, upon their own -shewing, had no value save when it was freely given. A church which -does not claim to be infallible is bound to allow that some part of -the truth may possibly be with its adversaries: a church which permits -or encourages human reason to apply itself to revelation has no right -first to argue with people and then to punish them if they are not -convinced. But whether it was that men only half saw what they had -done, or that finding it hard enough to unrivet priestly fetters, they -welcomed all the aid a temporal prince could give, the result was that -religion, or rather religious creeds, began to be involved with -politics more closely than had ever been the case before. Through the -greater part of Christendom wars of religion raged for a century or -more, and down to our own days feelings of theological antipathy -continue to affect the relations of the powers of Europe. In almost -every country the form of doctrine which triumphed associated itself -with the state, and maintained the despotic system of the Middle Ages, -while it forsook the grounds on which that system had been based. It -was thus that there arose National Churches, which were to be to the -several countries of Europe that which the Church Catholic had been to -the world at large; churches, that is to say, each of which was to be -co-extensive with its respective state, was to enjoy landed wealth and -exclusive political privilege, and was to be armed with coercive -powers against recusants. It was not altogether easy to find a set of -theoretical principles on which such churches might be made to rest, -for they could not, like the old church, point to the historical -transmission of their doctrines; they could not claim to have in any -one man or body of men an infallible organ of divine truth; they could -not even fall back upon general councils, or the argument, whatever it -may be worth, '_Securus iudicat orbis terrarum_.' But in practice -these difficulties were soon got over, for the dominant party in each -state, if it was not infallible, was at any rate quite sure that it -was right, and could attribute the resistance of other sects to -nothing but moral obliquity. The will of the sovereign, as in England, -or the will of the majority, as in Holland, Scandinavia, and Scotland, -imposed upon each country a peculiar form of worship, and kept up the -practices of mediæval intolerance without their justification. -Persecution, which might be at least excused in an infallible Catholic -and Apostolic Church, was peculiarly odious when practised by those -who were not catholic, who were no more apostolic than their -neighbours, and who had just revolted from the most ancient and -venerable authority in the name of rights which they now denied to -others. If union with the visible church by participation in a -material sacrament be necessary to eternal life, persecution may be -held a duty, a kindness to perishing souls. But if the kingdom of -heaven be in every sense a kingdom of the spirit, if saving faith be -possible out of one visible body and under a diversity of external -forms, persecution becomes at once a crime and a folly. Therefore the -intolerance of Protestants, if the forms it took were less cruel than -those practised by the Roman Catholics, was also far less defensible; -for it had seldom anything better to allege on its behalf than motives -of political expediency, or, more often, the mere headstrong passion -of a ruler or a faction to silence the expressions of any opinions but -their own. To enlarge upon this theme, did space permit it, would not -be to digress from the proper subject of this narrative. For the -Empire, as has been said more than once already, was far less an -institution than a theory or doctrine. And hence it is not too much to -say, that the ideas which have but recently ceased to prevail -regarding the duty of the magistrate to compel uniformity in doctrine -and worship by the civil arm, may all be traced to the relation which -that doctrine established between the Roman Church and the Roman -Empire; to the conception, in fact, of an Empire Church itself. - -[Sidenote: Influence of the Reformation on the name and associations -of the Empire.] - -Two of the ways in which the Reformation affected the Empire have been -now described: its immediate political results, and its far more -profound doctrinal importance, as implanting new ideas regarding the -nature of freedom and the province of government. A third, though -apparently almost superficial, cannot be omitted. Its name and its -traditions, little as they retained of their former magic power, were -still such as to excite the antipathy of the German reformers. The -form which the doctrine of the supreme importance of one faith and one -body of the faithful had taken was the dominion of the ancient capital -of the world through her spiritual head, the Roman bishop, and her -temporal head, the Emperor. As the names of Roman and Christian had -been once convertible, so long afterwards were those of Roman and -Catholic. The Reformation, separating into its parts what had hitherto -been one conception, attacked Romanism but not Catholicity, and formed -religious communities which, while continuing to call themselves -Christian, repudiated the form with which Christianity had been so -long identified in the West. As the Empire was founded upon the -assumption that the limits of Church and State are exactly -co-extensive, a change which withdrew half of its subjects from the -one body while they remained members of the other, transformed it -utterly, destroyed the meaning and value of its old arrangements, and -forced the Emperor into a strange and incongruous position. To his -Protestant subjects he was merely the head of the administration, to -the Catholics he was also the Defender and Advocate of their church. -Thus from being chief of the whole state he became the chief of a -party within it, the Corpus Catholicorum, as opposed to the Corpus -Evangelicorum; he lost what had been hitherto his most holy claim to -the obedience of the subject; the awakened feeling of German -nationality was driven into hostility to an institution whose title -and history bound it to the centre of foreign tyranny. After exulting -for seven centuries in the heritage of Roman rule, the Teutonic -nations cherished again the feelings with which their ancestors had -resisted Julius Cæsar and Germanicus. Two mutually repugnant systems -could not exist side by side without striving to destroy one another. -The instincts of theological sympathy overcame the duties of political -allegiance, and men who were subjects both of the Empire and of their -local prince, gave all their loyalty to him who espoused their -doctrines and protected their worship. For in North Germany, princes -as well as people were mostly Lutheran: in the southern and especially -the south-eastern lands, where the magnates held to the old faith, -Protestants were scarcely to be found except in the free cities. The -same causes which injured the Emperor's position in Germany swept away -the last semblance of his authority through other countries. In the -great struggle which followed, the Protestants of England and France, -of Holland and Sweden, thought of him only as the ally of Spain, of -the Vatican, of the Jesuits; and he of whom it had been believed a -century before that by nothing but his existence was the coming of -Antichrist on earth delayed, was in the eyes of the northern divines -either Antichrist himself or Antichrist's foremost champion. The -earthquake that opened a chasm in Germany was felt through Europe; its -states and peoples marshalled themselves under two hostile banners, -and with the Empire's expiring power vanished that united Christendom -it had been created to lead[374]. - -[Sidenote: Troubles of Germany.] - -[Sidenote: Rudolf II, 1576-1612.] - -[Sidenote: Matthias, 1612-1619.] - -Some of the effects thus sketched began to shew themselves as early as -that famous Diet of Worms, from Luther's appearance at which, in A.D. -1521, we may date the beginning of the Reformation. But just as the -end of the religious conflict in England can hardly be placed earlier -than the Revolution of 1688, nor in France than the Revocation of the -Edict of Nantes in 1685, so it was not till after more than a century -of doubtful strife that the new order of things was fully and finally -established in Germany. The arrangements of Augsburg, like most -treaties on the basis of _uti possidetis_, were no better than a -hollow truce, satisfying no one, and consciously made to be broken. -The church lands which Protestants had seized, and Jesuit confessors -urged the Catholic princes to reclaim, furnished an unceasing ground -of quarrel: neither party yet knew the strength of its antagonists -sufficiently to abstain from insulting or persecuting their modes of -worship, and the smouldering hate of half a century was kindled by the -troubles of Bohemia into the Thirty Years' War. - -[Sidenote: Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648.] - -[Sidenote: Ferdinand II, A.D. 1619-37.] - -[Sidenote: Plans of Ferdinand II.] - -[Sidenote: Gustavus Adolphus.] - -[Sidenote: Ferdinand III, 1637-1658.] - -[Sidenote: The peace of Westphalia.] - -The imperial sceptre had now passed from the indolent and vacillating -Rudolf II (1576-1612), the corrupt and reckless policy of whose -ministers had done much to exasperate the already suspicious minds of -the Protestants, into the firmer grasp of Ferdinand the Second[375]. -Jealous, bigoted, implacable, skilful in forming and concealing his -plans, resolute to obstinacy in carrying them out in action, the house -of Hapsburg could have had no abler and no more unpopular leader in -their second attempt to turn the German Empire into an Austrian -military monarchy. They seemed for a time as near to the -accomplishment of the project as Charles the Fifth had been. Leagued -with Spain, backed by the Catholics of Germany, served by such a -leader as Wallenstein, Ferdinand proposed nothing less than the -extension of the Empire to its old limits, and the recovery of his -crown's full prerogative over all its vassals. Denmark and Holland -were to be attacked by sea and land: Italy to be reconquered with the -help of Spain: Maximilian of Bavaria and Wallenstein to be rewarded -with principalities in Pomerania and Mecklenburg. The latter general -was all but master of Northern Germany when the successful resistance -of Stralsund turned the wavering balance of the war. Soon after (A.D. -1630), Gustavus Adolphus crossed the Baltic, and saved Europe from an -impending reign of the Jesuits. Ferdinand's high-handed proceedings -had already alarmed even the Catholic princes. Of his own authority he -had put the Elector Palatine and other magnates to the ban of the -Empire: he had transferred an electoral vote to Bavaria; had treated -the districts overrun by his generals as spoil of war, to be portioned -out at his pleasure; had unsettled all possession by requiring the -restitution of church property occupied since A.D. 1555. The -Protestants were helpless; the Catholics, though they complained of -the flagrant illegality of such conduct, did not dare to oppose it: -the rescue of Germany was the work of the Swedish king. In four -campaigns he destroyed the armies and the prestige of the Emperor; -devastated his lands, emptied his treasury, and left him at last so -enfeebled that no subsequent successes could make him again -formidable. Such, nevertheless, was the selfishness and apathy of the -Protestant princes, divided by the mutual jealousy of the Lutheran and -the Calvinist party--some, like the Saxon elector, most inglorious of -his inglorious house, bribed by the cunning Austrian; others afraid to -stir lest a reverse should expose them unprotected to his -vengeance--that the issue of the long protracted contest would have -gone against them but for the interference of France. It was the -leading principle of Richelieu's policy to depress the house of -Hapsburg and keep Germany disunited: hence he fostered Protestantism -abroad while trampling it down at home. The triumph he did not live to -see was sealed in A.D. 1648, on the utter exhaustion of all the -combatants, and the treaties of Münster and Osnabrück were -thenceforward the basis of the Germanic constitution. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[368] The so-called 'Wahlcapitulation.' - -[369] The electors long refused to elect Charles, dreading his great -hereditary power, and were at last induced to do so only by their -overmastering fear of the Turks. - -[370] Nearly all the Hapsburgs seem to have wanted that sort of genial -heartiness which, apt as it is to be stifled by education in the -purple, has nevertheless been possessed by several other royal lines, -greatly contributing to their vitality; as for instance by more than -one prince of the houses of Brunswick and Hohenzollern. - -[371] See this brought out with great force in the very interesting -work of Padre Tosti, _Prolegomeni alla Storia Universale della -Chiesa_, from which I quote one passage, which bears directly on the -matter in hand: 'Il grido della riforma clericale aveva un eco -terribile in tutta la compagnia civile dei popoli: essa percuoteva le -cime del laicale potere, e rimbalzava per tutta la gerarchia sociale. -Se l'imperadore Sigismondo nel concilio di Costanza non avesse -fiutate queste consequenze nella eresia di Hus e di Girolamo di Praga, -forse non avrebbe con tanto zelo mandati alle fiamme que' novatori. -Rotto da Lutero il vincolo di suggezione al Papa ed ai preti in fatti -di religione, avvenne che anche quello che sommetteva il vassallo al -barone, il barone al imperadore si allentasse. Il popolo con la Bibbia -in mano era prete, vescovo, e papa; e se prima contristato della -prepotenza di chi gli soprastava, ricorreva al successore di San -Pietro, ora ricorreva a se stesso, avendogli commesse Fra Martino le -chiavi del regno dei Cieli.'--vol. ii. pp. 398, 9. - -[372] It was not till the end of the eleventh century that -transubstantiation was definitely established as a dogma. - -[373] See the passages quoted in note 113, p. 98; and note 132, p. 110. - -[374] Henry VIII of England when he rebelled against the Pope called -himself King of Ireland (his predecessors had used only the title -'Dominus Hiberniæ') without asking the Emperor's permission, in order -to shew that he repudiated the temporal as well as the spiritual -dominion of Rome. - -So the Statute of Appeals is careful to deny and reject the authority -of 'other foreign potentates,' meaning, no doubt, the Emperor as well -as the Pope. - -[375] Matthias, brother of Rudolf II, reigned from 1612 till 1619. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX. - -THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA: LAST STAGE IN THE DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE. - - -The Peace of Westphalia is the first, and, with the exception perhaps -of the Treaties of Vienna in 1815, the most important of those -attempts to reconstruct by diplomacy the European states-system which -have played so large a part in modern history. It is important, -however, not as marking the introduction of new principles, but as -winding up the struggle which had convulsed Germany since the revolt -of Luther, sealing its results, and closing definitively the period of -the Reformation. Although the causes of disunion which the religious -movement called into being had now been at work for more than a -hundred years, their effects were not fully seen till it became -necessary to establish a system which should represent the altered -relations of the German states. It may thus be said of this famous -peace, as of the other so-called 'fundamental law of the Empire,' the -Golden Bull, that it did no more than legalize a condition of things -already in existence, but which by being legalized acquired new -importance. To all parties alike the result of the Thirty Years' War -was thoroughly unsatisfactory: to the Protestants, who had lost -Bohemia, and still were obliged to hold an inferior place in the -electoral college and in the Diet: to the Catholics, who were forced -to permit the exercise of heretical worship, and leave the church -lands in the grasp of sacrilegious spoilers: to the princes, who could -not throw off the burden of imperial supremacy: to the Emperor, who -could turn that supremacy to no practical account. No other conclusion -was possible to a contest in which every one had been vanquished and -no one victorious; which had ceased because while the reasons for war -continued the means of war had failed. Nevertheless, the substantial -advantage remained with the German princes, for they gained the formal -recognition of that territorial independence whose origin may be -placed as far back as the days of Frederick the Second, and the -maturity of which had been hastened by the events of the last -preceding century. It was, indeed, not only recognized but justified -as rightful and necessary. For while the political situation, to use a -current phrase, had changed within the last two hundred years, the -eyes with which men regarded it had changed still more. Never by their -fiercest enemies in earlier times, not once by the Popes or Lombard -republicans in the heat of their strife with the Franconian and -Swabian Cæsars, had the Emperors been reproached as mere German kings, -or their claim to be the lawful heirs of Rome denied. The Protestant -jurists of the sixteenth or rather of the seventeenth century were the -first persons who ventured to scoff at the pretended lordship of the -world, and declare their Empire to be nothing more than a German -monarchy, in dealing with which no superstitious reverence need -prevent its subjects from making the best terms they could for -themselves, and controlling a sovereign whose religious predilections -made him the friend of their enemies. - -[Sidenote: The treatise of Hippolytus a Lapide.] - -[Sidenote: Rights of the Emperor and the Diet, as settled in A.D. -1648.] - -It is very instructive to turn suddenly from Dante or Peter de Andlo -to a book published shortly before A.D. 1648, under the name of -Hippolytus a Lapide[376], and notice the matter-of-fact way, the -almost contemptuous spirit in which, disregarding the traditional -glories of the Empire, he comments on its actual condition and -prospects. Hippolytus, the pseudonym which the jurist Chemnitz -assumed, urges with violence almost superfluous, that the Germanic -constitution must be treated entirely as a native growth: that the -'lex regia' (so much discussed and so often misunderstood) and the -whole system of Justinianean absolutism which the Emperor had used so -dexterously, were in their applications to Germany not merely -incongruous but positively absurd. With eminent learning, Chemnitz -examines the early history of the Empire, draws from the unceasing -contests of the monarch with the nobility the unexpected moral that -the power of the former has been always dangerous, and is now more -dangerous than ever, and then launches out into a long invective -against the policy of the Hapsburgs, an invective which the ambition -and harshness of the late Emperor made only too plausible. The one -real remedy for the evils that menace Germany he states -concisely--'domus Austriacæ extirpatio:' but, failing this, he would -have the Emperor's prerogative restricted in every way, and provide -means for resisting or dethroning him. It was by these views, which -seem to have made a profound impression in Germany, that the states, -or rather France and Sweden acting on their behalf, were guided in the -negotiations of Osnabrück and Münster. By extorting a full recognition -of the sovereignty of all the princes, Catholics and Protestants -alike, in their respective territories, they bound the Emperor from -any direct interference with the administration, either in particular -districts or throughout the Empire. All affairs of public importance, -including the rights of making war or peace, of levying contributions, -raising troops, building fortresses, passing or interpreting laws, -were henceforth to be left entirely in the hands of the Diet. The -Aulic Council, which had been sometimes the engine of imperial -oppression, and always of imperial intrigue, was so restricted as to -be harmless for the future. The 'reservata' of the Emperor were -confined to the rights of granting titles and confirming tolls. In -matters of religion, an exact though not perfectly reciprocal equality -was established between the two chief ecclesiastical bodies, and the -right of 'Itio in partes,' that is to say, of deciding questions in -which religion was involved by amicable negotiations between the -Protestant and Catholic states, instead of by a majority of votes in -the Diet, was definitely conceded. Both Lutherans and Calvinists were -declared free from all jurisdiction of the Pope or any Catholic -prelate. Thus the last link which bound Germany to Rome was snapped, -the last of the principles by virtue of which the Empire had existed -was abandoned. For the Empire now contained and recognized as its -members persons who formed a visible body at open war with the Holy -Roman Church; and its constitution admitted schismatics to a full -share in all those civil rights which, according to the doctrines of -the early Middle Age, could be enjoyed by no one who was out of the -communion of the Catholic Church. The Peace of Westphalia was -therefore an abrogation of the sovereignty of Rome, and of the theory -of Church and State with which the name of Rome was associated. And in -this light was it regarded by Pope Innocent the Tenth, who commanded -his legate to protest against it, and subsequently declared it void by -the bull 'Zelo domus Dei[377].' - -[Sidenote: Loss of imperial territories.] - -The transference of power within the Empire, from its head to its -members, was a small matter compared with the losses which the Empire -suffered as a whole. The real gainers by the treaties of Westphalia -were those who had borne the brunt of the battle against Ferdinand the -Second and his son. To France were ceded Brisac, the Austrian part of -Alsace, and the lands of the three bishoprics in Lorraine--Metz, Toul, -and Verdun, which her armies had seized in A.D. 1552: to Sweden, -northern Pomerania, Bremen, and Verden. There was, however, this -difference between the position of the two, that whereas Sweden became -a member of the German Diet for what she received (as the king of -Holland was, until 1866-7, a member for Dutch Luxemburg, and as the -kings of Denmark, up till the accession of the present sovereign, were -for Holstein), the acquisitions of France were delivered over to her -in full sovereignty, and for ever severed from the Germanic body. And -as it was by their aid that the liberties of the Protestants had been -won, these two states obtained at the same time what was more valuable -than territorial accessions--the right of interfering at imperial -elections, and generally whenever the provisions of the treaties of -Osnabrück and Münster, which they had guaranteed, might be supposed to -be endangered. The bounds of the Empire were further narrowed by the -final separation of two countries, once integral parts of Germany, and -up to this time legally members of her body. Holland and Switzerland -were, in A.D. 1648, declared independent. - -[Sidenote: Germany after the Peace.] - -[Sidenote: Number of petty independent states: effects of such a -system on Germany.] - -The Peace of Westphalia is an era in imperial history not less clearly -marked than the coronation of Otto the Great, or the death of -Frederick the Second. As from the days of Maximilian it had borne a -mixed or transitional character, well expressed by the name -Romano-Germanic, so henceforth it is in everything but title purely -and solely a German Empire. Properly, indeed, it was no longer an -Empire at all, but a Confederation, and that of the loosest sort. For -it had no common treasury, no efficient common tribunals[378], no -means of coercing a refractory member[379]; its states were of -different religions, were governed according to different forms, were -administered judicially and financially without any regard to each -other. The traveller in Central Germany now is amused to find, every -hour or two, by the change in the soldiers' uniforms, and the colour -of the stripes on the railway fences, that he has passed out of one -and into another of its miniature kingdoms. Much more surprised and -embarrassed would he have been a century ago, when, instead of the -present thirty-two there were three hundred petty principalities -between the Alps and the Baltic, each with its own laws, its own -courts (in which the ceremonious pomp of Versailles was faintly -reproduced), its little armies, its separate coinage, its tolls and -custom-houses on the frontier, its crowd of meddlesome and pedantic -officials, presided over by a prime minister who was generally the -unworthy favourite of his prince and the pensioner of some foreign -court. This vicious system, which paralyzed the trade, the literature, -and the political thought of Germany, had been forming itself for some -time, but did not become fully established until the Peace of -Westphalia, by emancipating the princes from imperial control, had -made them despots in their own territories. The impoverishment of the -inferior nobility and the decline of the commercial cities caused by a -war that had lasted a whole generation, removed every counterpoise to -the power of the electors and princes, and made absolutism supreme -just where absolutism wants all its justification, in states too small -to have any public opinion, states in which everything depends on the -monarch, and the monarch depends on his favourites. After A.D. 1648 -the provincial estates or parliaments became obsolete in most of these -principalities, and powerless in the rest. Germany was forced to drink -to its very dregs the cup of feudalism, feudalism from which all the -feelings that once ennobled it had departed. - -[Sidenote: Feudalism in France, England, Germany.] - -It is instructive to compare the results of the system of feudality in -the three chief countries of modern Europe. In France, the feudal head -absorbed all the powers of the state, and left to the aristocracy only -a few privileges, odious indeed, but politically worthless. In -England, the mediæval system expanded into a constitutional monarchy, -where the oligarchy was still strong, but the commons had won the full -recognition of equal civil rights. In Germany, everything was taken -from the sovereign, and nothing given to the people; the -representatives of those who had been fief-holders of the first and -second rank before the Great Interregnum were now independent -potentates; and what had been once a monarchy was now an aristocratic -federation. The Diet, originally an assembly of magnates meeting from -time to time like our early English Parliaments, became in A.D. 1654 a -permanent body, at which the electors, princes, and cities were -represented by their envoys. In other words, it was now not a national -council, but an international congress of diplomatists. - -[Sidenote: Causes of the continuance of the Empire.] - -Where the sacrifice of imperial, or rather federal, rights to state -rights was so complete, we may wonder that the farce of an Empire -should have been retained at all. A mere German Empire would probably -have perished; but the Teutonic people could not bring itself to -abandon the venerable heritage of Rome. Moreover, the Germans were of -all European peoples the most slow-moving and long-suffering; and as, -if the Empire had fallen, something must have been erected in its -place, they preferred to work on with the clumsy machine so long as it -would work at all. Properly speaking, it has no history after this; -and the history of the particular states of Germany which takes its -place is one of the dreariest chapters in the annals of mankind. It -would be hard to find, from the Peace of Westphalia to the French -Revolution, a single grand character or a single noble enterprise; a -single sacrifice made to great public interests, a single instance in -which the welfare of nations was preferred to the selfish passions of -their princes. The military history of those times will always be read -with interest; but free and progressive countries have a history of -peace not less rich and varied than that of war; and when we ask for -an account of the political life of Germany in the eighteenth century, -we hear nothing but the scandals of buzzing courts, and the wrangling -of diplomatists at never-ending congresses. - -[Sidenote: The Empire and the Balance of power.] - -Useless and helpless as the Empire had become, it was not without its -importance to the neighbouring countries, with whose fortunes it had -been linked by the Peace of Westphalia. It was the pivot on which the -political system of Europe was to revolve: the scales, so to speak, -which marked the equipoise of power that had become the grand object -of the policy of all states. This modern caricature of the plan by -which the theorists of the fourteenth century had proposed to keep the -world at peace, used means less noble and attained its end no better -than theirs had done. No one will deny that it was and is desirable to -prevent a universal monarchy in Europe. But it may be asked whether a -system can be considered successful which allowed Frederick of Prussia -to seize Silesia, which did not check the aggressions of Russia and -France upon their neighbours, which was for ever bartering and -exchanging lands in every part of Europe without thought of the -inhabitants, which permitted and has never been able to redress that -greatest of public misfortunes, the partitionment of Poland. And if it -be said that bad as things have been under this system, they would -have been worse without it, it is hard to refrain from asking whether -any evils could have been greater than those which the people of -Europe have suffered through constant wars with each other, and -through the withdrawal, even in time of peace, of so large a part of -their population from useful labour to be wasted in maintaining a -standing army. - -[Sidenote: Position of the Empire in Europe.] - -[Sidenote: Weakness and stagnation of Germany.] - -The result of the extended relations in which Germany now found -herself to Europe, with two foreign kings never wanting an occasion, -one of them never the wish, to interfere, was that a spark from her -set the Continent ablaze, while flames kindled elsewhere were sure to -spread hither. Matters grew worse as her princes inherited or created -so many thrones abroad. The Duke of Holstein acquired Denmark, the -Count Palatine Sweden, the Elector of Saxony Poland, the Elector of -Hanover England, the Archduke of Austria Hungary and Bohemia, while -the Elector (originally Margrave) of Brandenburg obtained, on the -strength of non-imperial territories to the north-eastward which had -come into his hands, the style and title of King of Prussia. Thus the -Empire seemed again about to embrace Europe; but in a sense far -different from that which those words would have expressed under -Charles and Otto. Its history for a century and a half is a dismal -list of losses and disgraces. The chief external danger was from -French influence, for a time supreme, always menacing. For though -Lewis the Fourteenth, on whom, in A.D. 1658, half the electoral -college wished to confer the imperial crown, was before the end of his -life an object of intense hatred, officially entitled 'Hereditary -enemy of the Holy Empire[380],' France had nevertheless a strong party -among the princes always at her beck. The Rhenish and Bavarian -electors were her favourite tools. The '_réunions_' begun in A.D. -1680, a pleasant euphemism for robbery in time of peace, added -Strasburg and other places in Alsace, Lorraine, and Franche Comté to -the monarchy of Lewis, and brought him nearer the heart of the Empire; -his ambition and cruelty were witnessed to by repeated wars, and by -the devastation of the Rhine countries; the ultimate though -short-lived triumph of his policy was attained when Marshal Belleisle -dictated the election of Charles VII in A.D. 1742. In the Turkish -wars, when the princes left Vienna to be saved by the Polish Sobieski, -the Empire's weakness appeared in a still more pitiable light. There -was, indeed, a complete loss of hope and interest in the old system. -The princes had been so long accustomed to consider themselves the -natural foes of a central government, that a request made by it was -sure to be disregarded; they aped in their petty courts the pomp and -etiquette of Vienna or Paris, grumbling that they should be required -to garrison the great frontier fortresses which alone protected them -from an encroaching neighbour. The Free Cities had never recovered the -famines and sieges of the Thirty Years' War: Hanseatic greatness had -waned, and the southern towns had sunk into languid oligarchies. All -the vigour of the people in a somewhat stagnant age either found its -sphere in rising states like the Prussia of Frederick the Great, or -turned away from politics altogether into other channels. The Diet had -become contemptible from the slowness with which it moved, and its -tedious squabbles on matters the most frivolous. Many sittings were -consumed in the discussion of a question regarding the time of keeping -Easter, more ridiculous than that which had distracted the Western -churches in the seventh century, the Protestants refusing to reckon by -the reformed calendar because it was the work of a Pope. Collective -action through the old organs was confessed impossible, when the -common object of defence against France was sought by forming a league -under the Emperor's presidency, and when at European congresses the -Empire was not represented at all[381]. No change could come from the -Emperor, whom the capitulation of A.D. 1658 deposed _ipso facto_ if he -violated its provisions. As Dohm[382] said, to keep him from doing -harm, he was kept from doing anything. - -[Sidenote: Leopold I, 1658-1705.] - -[Sidenote: Joseph I, 1705-1711.] - -[Sidenote: Charles VI, 1711-1742.] - -[Sidenote: The Hapsburg Emperors and their policy.] - -[Sidenote: Causes of the long retention of the throne by Austria.] - -[Sidenote: Charles VII, 1742-1745.] - -[Sidenote: Francis I, 1745-1765.] - -[Sidenote: Seven Years' War.] - -[Sidenote: Joseph II, 1765-1790.] - -[Sidenote: Leopold II, 1790-1792. Last phase of the Empire.] - -[Sidenote: The Diet.] - -Yet little was lost by his inactivity, for what could have been hoped -from his action? From the election of Albert the Second, A.D. 1437, to -the death of Charles the Sixth, A.D. 1742, the sceptre had remained in -the hands of one family. So far from being fit subjects for -undistinguishing invective, the Hapsburg Emperors may be contrasted -favourably with the contemporary dynasties of France, Spain, or -England. Their policy, viewed as a whole from the days of Rudolf -downwards, had been neither conspicuously tyrannical, nor faltering, -nor dishonest. But it had been always selfish. Entrusted with an -office which might, if there be any power in those memories of the -past to which the champions of hereditary monarchy so constantly -appeal, have stirred their sluggish souls with some enthusiasm for the -heroes on whose throne they sat, some wish to advance the glory and -the happiness of Germany, they had cared for nothing, sought nothing, -used the Empire as an instrument for nothing but the attainment of -their own personal or dynastic ends. Placed on the eastern verge of -Germany, the Hapsburgs had added to their ancient lands in Austria -proper and Tyrol, non-German territories far more extensive, and had -thus become the chiefs of a separate and independent state. They -endeavoured to reconcile its interests with the interests of the -Empire, so long as it seemed possible to recover part of the old -imperial prerogative. But when such hopes were dashed by the defeats -of the Thirty Years' War, they hesitated no longer between an elective -crown and the rule of their hereditary states, and comported -themselves thenceforth in European politics not as the representatives -of Germany, but as heads of the great Austrian monarchy. There would -have been nothing culpable in this had they not at the same time -continued to entangle Germany in wars with which she had no concern: -to waste her strength in tedious combats with the Turks, or plunge her -into a new struggle with France, not to defend her frontiers or -recover the lands she had lost, but that some scion of the house of -Hapsburg might reign in Spain or Italy. Watching the whole course of -their foreign policy, marking how in A.D. 1736 they had bartered away -Lorraine for Tuscany, a German for a non-German territory, and seeing -how at home they opposed every scheme of reform which could in the -least degree trench upon their own prerogative, how they strove to -obstruct the imperial chamber lest it should interfere with their own -Aulic council, men were driven to separate the body of the Empire from -the imperial office and its possessors[383], and when plans for -reinvigorating the one failed, to leave the others to their fate. -Still the old line clung to the crown with that Hapsburg gripe which -has almost passed into a proverb. Odious as Austria was, no one could -despise her, or fancy it easy to shake her commanding position in -Europe. Her alliances were fortunate: her designs were steadily -pursued: her dismembered territories always returned to her. Though -the throne continued strictly elective, it was impossible not to be -influenced by long prescription. Projects were repeatedly formed to -set the Hapsburgs aside by electing a prince of some other line[384], -or by passing a law that there should never be more than two, or four, -successive Emperors of the same house. France[385] ever and anon -renewed her warnings to the electors, that their freedom was passing -from them, and the sceptre becoming hereditary in one haughty family. -But it was felt that a change would be difficult and disagreeable, and -that the heavy expense and scanty revenues of the Empire required to -be supported by larger patrimonial domains than most German princes -possessed. The heads of states like Prussia and Hanover, states whose -size and wealth would have made them suitable candidates, were -Protestants, and so excluded both by the connexion of the imperial -office with the Church, and by the majority of Roman Catholics in the -electoral college[386], who, however jealous they might be of Austria, -were led both by habit and sympathy to rally round her in moments of -peril. The one occasion on which these considerations were disregarded -shewed their force. On the extinction of the male line of Hapsburg in -the person of Charles the Sixth, the intrigues of the French envoy, -Marshal Belleisle, procured the election of Charles Albert of Bavaria, -who stood first among the Catholic princes. His reign was a succession -of misfortunes and ignominies. Driven from Munich by the Austrians, -the head of the Holy Empire lived in Frankfort on the bounty of -France, cursed by the country on which his ambition had brought the -miseries of a protracted war[387]. The choice in 1745 of Duke Francis -of Lorraine, husband of the archduchess of Austria and queen of -Hungary, Maria Theresa, was meant to restore the crown to the only -power capable of wearing it with dignity: in Joseph the Second, her -son, it again rested on the brow of a Hapsburg[388]. In the war of the -Austrian succession, which followed on the death of Charles the Sixth, -the Empire as a body took no part; in the Seven Years' War its whole -might broke in vain against one resolute member. Under Frederick the -Great Prussia approved herself at least a match for France and Austria -leagued against her, and the semblance of unity which the predominance -of a single power had hitherto given to the Empire was replaced by the -avowed rivalry of two military monarchies. The Emperor Joseph the -Second, a sort of philosopher-king, than whom few have more narrowly -missed greatness, made a desperate effort to set things right, -striving to restore the disordered finances, to purge and vivify the -Imperial Chamber. Nay, he renounced the intolerant policy of his -ancestors, quarrelled with the Pope[389], and presumed to visit Rome, -whose streets heard once more the shout that had been silent for three -centuries, 'Evviva il nostro imperatore! Siete a casa vostra: siete il -padrone[390].' But his indiscreet haste was met by a sullen -resistance, and he died disappointed in plans for which the time was -not yet ripe, leaving no result save the league of princes which -Frederick the Great had formed to oppose his designs on Bavaria. His -successor, Leopold the Second, abandoned the projected reforms, and a -calm, the calm before the hurricane, settled down again upon Germany. -The existence of the Empire was almost forgotten by its subjects: -there was nothing to remind them of it but a feudal investiture now -and then at Vienna (real feudal rights were obsolete[391]); a -concourse of solemn old lawyers at Wetzlar puzzling over interminable -suits[392]; and some thirty diplomatists at Regensburg[393], the -relics of that Imperial Diet where once a hero-king, a Frederick or a -Henry, enthroned amid mitred prelates and steel-clad barons, had -issued laws for every tribe from the Mediterranean to the Baltic[394]. -The solemn triflings of this so-called 'Diet of Deputation' have -probably never been equalled elsewhere[395]. Questions of precedence -and title, questions whether the envoys of princes should have chairs -of red cloth like those of the electors, or only of the less -honourable green, whether they should be served on gold or on silver, -how many hawthorn boughs should be hung up before the door of each on -May-day; these, and such as these, it was their chief employment not -to settle but to discuss. The pedantic formalism of old Germany passed -that of Spaniards or Turks; it had now crushed under a mountain of -rubbish whatever meaning or force its old institutions had contained. -It is the penalty of greatness that its form should outlive its -substance: that gilding and trappings should remain when that which -they were meant to deck and clothe has departed. So our sloth or our -timidity, not seeing that whatever is false must be also bad, -maintains in being what once was good long after it has become -helpless and hopeless: so now at the close of the eighteenth century, -strings of sounding titles were all that was left of the Empire which -Charles had founded, and Frederick adorned, and Dante sung. - -[Sidenote: Feelings of the German people.] - -The German mind, just beginning to put forth the blossoms of its -wondrous literature, turned away in disgust from the spectacle of -ceremonious imbecility more than Byzantine. National feeling seemed -gone from princes and people alike. Lessing, who did more than any one -else to create the German literary spirit, says, 'Of the love of -country I have no conception: it appears to me at best a heroic -weakness which I am right glad to be without[396].' The Emperor Joseph -II writes to his brother of France: 'You must know that the -annihilation of German nationality is a necessary leading principle of -my policy[397].' There were nevertheless persons who saw how fatal -such a system was, lying like a nightmare on the people's soul. -Speaking of the union of princes formed by Frederick of Prussia to -preserve the existing condition of things, Johannes von Müller -writes[398]: 'If the German Union serves for nothing better than to -maintain the _status quo_, it is against the eternal order of God, by -which neither the physical nor the moral world remains for a moment in -the _status quo_, but all is life and motion and progress. To exist -without law or justice, without security from arbitrary imposts, -doubtful whether we can preserve from day to day our honours, our -liberties, our rights, our lives, helpless before superior force, -without a beneficial connexion between our states, without a national -spirit at all, this is the _status quo_ of our nation. And it was this -that the Union was meant to confirm. If it be this and nothing more, -then bethink you how when Israel saw that Rehoboam would not hearken, -the people gave answer to the king and spake, "What portion have we in -David, or what inheritance in the son of Jesse? to your tents, O -Israel: David, see to thine own house." See then to your own houses, -ye princes.' - -Nevertheless, though the Empire stood like a corpse brought forth from -some Egyptian sepulchre, ready to crumble at a touch, there seemed no -reason why it should not stand so for centuries more. Fate was kind, -and slew it in the light. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[376] _De Ratione Status in Imperio nostro Romano-Germanico_. - -[377] Even then the Roman pontiffs had lapsed into that scolding, -anile tone (so unlike the fiery brevity of Hildebrand, or the stern -precision of Innocent III) which is now seldom absent from their -public utterances. Pope Innocent the Tenth pronounces the provisions -of the treaty, 'ipso iure nulla, irrita, invalida, iniqua, iniusta, -damnata, reprobata, inania, viribusque et effectu vacua, omnino -fuisse, esse, et perpetuo fore.' In spite of which they were observed. - -This bull may be found in vol. xvii. of the _Bullarium_. It bears date -Nov. 20th, A.D. 1648. - -[378] The Imperial Chamber (Kammergericht) continued, with frequent -and long interruptions, to sit while the Empire lasted. But its -slowness and formality passed that of any other legal body the world -has yet seen, and it had no power to enforce its sentences. The Aulic -council was little more efficient, and was generally disliked as the -tool of imperial intrigue. - -[379] The 'matricula' specifying the quota of each state to the -imperial army could not be any longer employed. - -[380] _Erbfeind des heiligen Reichs._ - -[381] Only the envoys of the several states were present at Utrecht in -1713. - -[382] Quoted by Ludwig Haüsser, _Deutsche Geschichte_. - -[383] The distinction is well expressed by the German 'Reich' and -'Kaiserthum,' to which we have unfortunately no terms to correspond. - -[384] So the Elector of Saxony proposed in 1532 that Albert II, -Frederick III, and Maximilian having been all of one house, Charles -V's successor should be chosen from some other.--Moser, _Römische -Kayser_. See the various attempts of France in Moser. The coronation -engagements (Wahlcapitulation) of every Emperor bound him not to -attempt to make the throne hereditary in his family. - -[385] In 1658 France offered to subsidize the Elector of Bavaria if he -would become Emperor. - -[386] Whether an Evangelical was eligible for the office of Emperor -was a question often debated, but never actually raised by the -candidature of any but a Roman Catholic prince. The 'exacta æqualitas' -conceded by the Peace of Westphalia might appear to include so -important a privilege. But when we consider that the peculiar relation -in which the Emperor stood to the Holy Roman Church was one which no -heretic could hold, and that the coronation oaths could not have been -taken by, nor the coronation ceremonies (among which was a sort of -ordination) performed upon a Protestant, the conclusion must be -unfavourable to the claims of any but a Catholic. - -[387] - - 'The bold Bavarian, in a luckless hour, - Tries the dread summits of Cæsarian power. - With unexpected legions bursts away, - And sees defenceless realms receive his sway.... - The baffled prince in honour's flattering bloom - Of hasty greatness finds the fatal doom; - His foes' derision and his subjects' blame, - And steals to death from anguish and from shame.' - JOHNSON, _Vanity of Human Wishes_. - -[388] The following nine reasons for the long continuance of the -Empire in the House of Hapsburg are given by Pfeffinger (_Vitriarius -Illustratus_), writing early in the eighteenth century:-- - - 1. The great power of Austria. - - 2. Her wealth, now that the Empire was so poor. - - 3. The majority of Catholics among the electors. - - 4. Her fortunate matrimonial alliances. - - 5. Her moderation. - - 6. The memory of benefits conferred by her. - - 7. The example of evils that had followed a departure from - the blood of former Cæsars. - - 8. The fear of the confusion that would ensue if she were - deprived of the crown. - - 9. Her own eagerness to have it. - -[389] The Pope undertook a journey to Vienna to mollify Joseph, and -met with a sufficiently cold reception. When he saw the famous -minister Kaunitz and gave him his hand to kiss, Kaunitz took it and -shook it. - -[390] 'You are in your own house: be the master.' - -[391] Joseph II was foiled in his attempt to assert them. - -[392] Goethe spent some time in studying law at Wetzlar among those -who practised in the Kammergericht. - -[393] Cf. Pütter, _Historical Developement of the Political -Constitution of the German Empire_, vol. iii. - -[394] Frederick the Great said of the Diet, 'Es ist ein Schattenbild, -eine Versammlung aus Publizisten die mehr mit Formalien als mit Sachen -sich beschäftigen, und, wie Hofhunde, den Mond anbellen.' - -[395] Cf. Haüsser, _Deutsche Geschichte_; Introduction. - -[396] Quoted by Haüsser. - -[397] Rotteck and Welcker, _Staats Lexikon_, s. v. 'Deutsches Reich.' - -[398] _Deutschlands Erwartungen vom Fürstenbunde_, quoted in the -_Staats Lexikon_. - - - - -CHAPTER XX. - -FALL OF THE EMPIRE. - - -[Sidenote: Francis II, 1792-1806.] - -[Sidenote: Napoleon, Emperor of the West.] - -[Sidenote: Belief of Napoleon that he was the successor of -Charlemagne.] - -[Sidenote: Attitude of the Papacy towards Napoleon.] - -Goethe has described the uneasiness with which, in the days of his -childhood, the burghers of his native Frankfort saw the walls of the -Roman Hall covered with the portraits of Emperor after Emperor, till -space was left for few, at last for one[399]. In A.D. 1792 Francis the -Second mounted the throne of Augustus, and the last place was filled. -Three years before there had arisen on the western horizon a little -cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, and now the heaven was black with -storms of ruin. There was a prophecy[400], dating from the first days -of the Empire's decline, that when all things were falling to ruin, -and wickedness rife in the world, a second Frankish Charles should -rise as Emperor to purge and heal, to bring back peace and purify -religion. If this was not exactly the mission of the new ruler of the -West Franks, he was at least anxious to tread in the steps and revive -the glories of the hero whose crown he professed to have inherited. It -were a task superfluously easy to shew how delusive is that minute -historical parallel of which every Parisian was full in A.D. 1804, the -parallel between the heir of a long line of fierce Teutonic -chieftains, whose vigorous genius had seized what it could of the -monkish learning of the eighth century, and the son of the Corsican -lawyer, with all the brilliance of a Frenchman and all the resolute -profundity of an Italian, reared in, yet only half believing, the -ideas of the Encyclopædists, swept up into the seat of absolute power -by the whirlwind of a revolution. Alcuin and Talleyrand are not more -unlike than are their masters. But though in the characters and temper -of the men there is little resemblance, though their Empires agree in -this only, and hardly even in this, that both were founded on -conquest, there is nevertheless a sort of grand historical similarity -between their positions. Both were the leaders of fiery and warlike -nations, the one still untamed as the creatures of their native woods, -the other drunk with revolutionary fury. Both aspired to found, and -seemed for a time to have succeeded in founding, universal monarchies. -Both were gifted with a strong and susceptible imagination, which if -it sometimes overbore their judgment, was yet one of the truest and -highest elements of their greatness. As the one looked back to the -kings under the Jewish theocracy and the Emperors of Christian Rome, -so the other thought to model himself after Cæsar and Charlemagne. -For, useful as was the fancied precedent of the title and career of -the great Carolingian to a chief determined to be king, yet unable to -be king after the fashion of the Bourbons, and seductive as was such a -connexion to the imaginative vanity of the French people, it was no -studied purpose or simulating art that led Napoleon to remind his -subjects so frequently of the hero he claimed to represent. No one who -reads the records of his life can doubt that he believed, as fully as -he believed anything, that the same destiny which had made France the -centre of the modern world had also appointed him to sit on the throne -and carry out the projects of Charles the Frank, to rule all Europe -from Paris, as the Cæsars had ruled it from Rome[401]. It was in this -belief that he went to the ancient capital of the Frankish Emperors to -receive there the Austrian recognition of his imperial title: that he -talked of 'revendicating' Catalonia and Aragon, because they had -formed a part of the Carolingian realm, though they had never obeyed -the descendants of Hugh Capet: that he undertook a journey to -Nimeguen, where he had ordered the ancient palace to be restored, and -inscribed on its walls his name below that of Charles: that he -summoned the Pope to attend his coronation as Stephen had come ten -centuries before to instal Pipin in the throne of the last -Merovingian[402]. The same desire to be regarded as lawful Emperor of -the West shewed itself in his assumption of the Lombard crown at -Milan; in the words of the decree by which he annexed Rome to the -Empire, revoking 'the donations which my predecessors, the French -Emperors, have made[403];' in the title 'King of Rome,' which he -bestowed on his ill-fated son, in imitation of the German 'King of the -Romans[404].' We are even told that it was at one time his intention -to eject the Hapsburgs, and be chosen Roman Emperor in their stead. -Had this been done, the analogy would have been complete between the -position which the French ruler held to Austria now, and that in which -Charles and Otto had stood to the feeble Cæsars of Byzantium. It was -curious to see the head of the Roman church turning away from his -ancient ally to the reviving power of France--France, where the -Goddess of Reason had been worshipped eight years before--just as he -had sought the help of the first Carolingians against his Lombard -enemies[405]. The difference was indeed great between the feelings -wherewith Pius the Seventh addressed his 'very dear son in Christ,' -and those that had pervaded the intercourse of Pope Hadrian the First -with the son of Pipin; just as the contrast is strange between the -principles that shaped Napoleon's policy and the vision of a theocracy -that had floated before the mind of Charles. Neither comparison is -much to the advantage of the modern; but Pius might be pardoned for -catching at any help in his distress, and Napoleon found that the -protectorship of the church strengthened his position in France, and -gave him dignity in the eyes of Christendom[406]. - -[Sidenote: The French Empire.] - -[Sidenote: Napoleon in Germany.] - -[Sidenote: The Confederation of the Rhine.] - -[Sidenote: Abdication of the Emperor Francis II.] - -[Sidenote: End of the Empire.] - -A swift succession of triumphs had left only one thing still -preventing the full recognition of the Corsican warrior as sovereign -of Western Europe, and that one was the existence of the old -Romano-Germanic Empire. Napoleon had not long assumed his new title -when he began to mark a distinction between 'la France' and 'l'Empire -Française.' France had, since A.D. 1792, advanced to the Rhine, and, -by the annexation of Piedmont, had overstepped the Alps; the French -Empire included, besides the kingdom of Italy, a mass of dependent -states, Naples, Holland, Switzerland, and many German principalities, -the allies of France in the same sense in which the 'socii populi -Romani' were allies of Rome[407]. When the last of Pitt's coalitions -had been destroyed at Austerlitz, and Austria had made her submission -by the peace of Presburg, the conqueror felt that his hour was come. -He had now overcome two Emperors, those of Austria and Russia, -claiming to represent the old and the new Rome respectively, and had -in eighteen months created more kings than the occupants of the -Germanic throne in as many centuries. It was time, he thought, to -sweep away obsolete pretensions, and claim the sole inheritance of -that Western Empire, of which the titles and ceremonies of his court -presented a grotesque imitation[408]. The task was an easy one after -what had been already accomplished. Previous wars and treaties had so -redistributed the territories and changed the constitution of the -Germanic Empire that it could hardly be said to exist in anything but -name. In French history Napoleon appears as the restorer of peace, the -rebuilder of the shattered edifice of social order: the author of a -code and an administrative system which the Bourbons who dethroned him -were glad to preserve. Abroad he was the true child of the Revolution, -and conquered only to destroy. It was his mission--a mission more -beneficent in its result than in its means[409]--to break up in -Germany and Italy the abominable system of petty states, to reawaken -the spirit of the people, to sweep away the relics of an effete -feudalism, and leave the ground clear for the growth of newer and -better forms of political life. Since A.D. 1797, when Austria at Campo -Formio perfidiously exchanged the Netherlands for Venetia, the work of -destruction had gone on apace. All the German sovereigns west of the -Rhine had been dispossessed, and their territories incorporated with -France, while the rest of the country had been revolutionized by the -arrangements of the peace of Luneville and the 'Indemnities,' dictated -by the French to the Diet in February 1803. New kingdoms were erected, -electorates created and extinguished, the lesser princes mediatized, -the free cities occupied by troops and bestowed on some neighbouring -potentate. More than any other change, the secularization of the -dominions of the prince-bishops and abbots proclaimed the fall of the -old constitution, whose principles had required the existence of a -spiritual alongside of the temporal aristocracy. The Emperor Francis, -partly foreboding the events that were at hand, partly in order to -meet Napoleon's assumption of the imperial name by depriving that name -of its peculiar meaning, began in A.D. 1805 to style himself -'Hereditary Emperor of Austria,' while retaining at the same time his -former title[410]. The next act of the drama was one in which we may -more readily pardon the ambition of a foreign conqueror than the -traitorous selfishness of the German princes, who broke every tie of -ancient friendship and duty to grovel at his throne. By the Act of the -Confederation[411] of the Rhine, signed at Paris, July 12th, 1806, -Bavaria, Würtemberg, Baden, and several other states, sixteen in all, -withdrew from the body and repudiated the laws of the Empire, while on -August 1st the French envoy at Regensburg announced to the Diet that -his master, who had consented to become Protector of the Confederate -princes, no longer recognized the existence of the Empire. Francis the -Second resolved at once to anticipate this new Odoacer, and by a -declaration, dated August 6th, 1806, resigned the imperial dignity. -His deed states that finding it impossible, in the altered state of -things, to fulfil the obligations imposed by his capitulation, he -considers as dissolved the bonds which attached him to the Germanic -body, releases from their allegiance the states who formed it, and -retires to the government of his hereditary dominions under the title -of 'Emperor of Austria[412].' Throughout, the term 'German Empire' -(_Deutsches Reich_) is employed. But it was the crown of Augustus, of -Constantine, of Charles, of Maximilian, that Francis of Hapsburg laid -down, and a new era in the world's history was marked by the fall of -its most venerable institution. One thousand and six years after Leo -the Pope had crowned the Frankish king, eighteen hundred and -fifty-eight years after Cæsar had conquered at Pharsalia, the Holy -Roman Empire came to its end. - -[Sidenote: Congress of Vienna.] - -There was a time when this event would have been thought a sign that -the last days of the world were at hand. But in the whirl of change -that had bewildered men since A.D. 1789, it passed almost unnoticed. -No one could yet fancy how things would end, or what sort of a new -order would at last shape itself out of chaos. When Napoleon's -universal monarchy had dissolved, and old landmarks shewed themselves -again above the receding waters, it was commonly supposed that the -Empire would be re-established on its former footing[413]. Such was -indeed the wish of many states, and among them of Hanover, -representing Great Britain[414]. Though a simple revival of the old -Romano-Germanic Empire was plainly out of the question, it still -appeared to them that Germany would be best off under the presidency -of a single head, entrusted with the ancient office of maintaining -peace among the members of the confederation. But the new kingdoms, -Bavaria especially, were unwilling to admit a superior; Prussia, -elated at the glory she had won in the war of independence, would have -disputed the crown with Austria; Austria herself cared little to -resume an office shorn of much of its dignity, with duties to perform -and no resources to enable her to discharge them. Use was therefore -made of an expression in the Peace of Paris which spoke of uniting -Germany by a federative bond[415], and the Congress of Vienna was -decided by the wishes of Austria to establish a Confederation. Thus -was brought about the present German federal constitution, which is -itself confessed, by the attempts so often made to reform it, to be a -mere temporary expedient, oppressive in the hands of the strong, and -useless for the protection of the weak. Of late years, one school of -liberal politicians, justly indignant at their betrayal by the princes -after the enthusiastic uprising of A.D. 1814, has aspired to the -restoration of the Empire, either as an hereditary kingdom in the -Prussian or some other family, or in a more republican fashion under a -head elected by the people[416]. The obstacles in the way of such -plans are evidently very great; but even were the horizon more clear -than it is, this would not be the place from which to scan it[417]. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[399] _Wahrheit und Dichtung_, book i. The Römer Saal is still one of -the sights of Frankfort. The portraits, however, which one now sees in -it, seem to be all or nearly all of them modern; and few have any -merit as works of art. - -[400] _Jordanis Chronica_, ap. Schardium, _Sylloge Tractatuum_. - -[401] In an address by Napoleon to the Senate in 1804, bearing date -10th Frimaire (1st Dec.), are the words, 'Mes descendans conserveront -longtemps ce trône, le premier de l'univers.' Answering a deputation -from the department of the Lippe, Aug. 8th, 1811, 'La Providence, qui -a voulu que je rétablisse le trône de Charlemagne, vous a fait -naturellement rentrer, avec la Hollande et les villes anséatiques, -dans le sein de l'Empire.'--_Oeuvres de Napoléon_, tom. v. p. 521. - -'Pour le Pape, je suis Charlemagne, parce que, comme Charlemagne, je -réunis la couronne de France à celle des Lombards, et que mon Empire -confine avec l'Orient.' (Quoted by Lanfrey, _Vie de Napoleon_, iii. -417.) - -'Votre Sainteté est souveraine de Rome, mais j'en suis l'Empereur.' -(Letter of Napoleon to Pope Pius, Feb. 13th, 1806. Lanfrey.) - -'Dites bien,' says Napoleon to Cardinal Fesch, 'que je suis -Charlemagne, leur Empereur [of the Papal Court] que je dois être -traité de même. Je fais connaitre au Pape mes intentions en peu de -mots, s'il n'y acquiesce pas, je le réduirai à la même condition qu'il -était avant Charlemagne.' (Lanfrey, _Vie de Napoleon_, iii. 420.) - -[402] Napoleon said on one occasion, 'Je n'ai pas succédé a Louis -Quatorze, mais à Charlemagne.'--Bourrienne, _Vie de Napoléon_, iv. In -1804, shortly before he was crowned, he had the imperial insignia of -Charles brought from the old Frankish capital, and exhibited them in a -jeweller's shop in Paris, along with those which had just been made -for his own coronation;--(Bourrienne, _ut supra_.) Somewhat in the -same spirit in which he displayed the Bayeux tapestry, in order to -incite his subjects to the conquest of England. - -[403] 'Je n'ai pu concilier ces grands interêts (of political order -and the spiritual authority of the Pope) qu'en annulant les donations -des Empereurs Français, mes predecesseurs, et en réunissant les états -romains à la France.'--Proclamation issued in 1809: _Oeuvres_, iv. - -[404] See Appendix, Note C. - -[405] Pope Pius VII wrote to the First Consul, 'Carissime in Christo -Fili noster ... tam perspecta sunt nobis tuæ voluntatis studia erga -nos, ut _quotiescunque_ ope aliqua in rebus nostris indigemus, eam a -te fidenter petere non dubitare debeamus.'--Quoted by Ægidi. - -[406] Let us place side by side the letters of Hadrian to Charles in -the _Codex Carolinus_, and the following preamble to the Concordat of -A.D. 1801, between the First Consul and the Pope (which I quote from -the _Bullarium Romanum_), and mark the changes of a thousand years. - -'Gubernium reipublicæ [Gallicæ] recognoscit religionem Catholicam -Apostolicam Romanam eam esse religionem quam longe maxima pars civium -Gallicæ reipublicæ profitetur. - -'Summus pontifex pari modo recognoscit eandem religionem maximam -utilitatem maximumque decus percepisse et hoc quoque tempore -præstolari ex catholico cultu in Gallia constituto, necnon ex -peculiari eius professione quam faciunt reipublicæ consules.' - -[407] Cf. Heeren, _Political System_, vol. iii. 273. - -[408] He had arch-chancellors, arch-treasurers, and so forth. The -Legion of Honour, which was thought important enough to be mentioned -in the coronation oath, was meant to be something like the mediæval -orders of knighthood: whose connexion with the Empire has already been -mentioned. - -[409] Napoleon's feelings towards Germany may be gathered from the -phrase he once used, 'Il faut depayser l'Allemagne.' - -[410] Thus in documents issued by the Emperor during these two years -he is styled 'Roman Emperor Elect, Hereditary Emperor of Austria' -(erwählter Römischer Kaiser, Erbkaiser von Oesterreich). - -[411] This Act of Confederation of the Rhine (Rheinbund) is printed in -Koch's _Traités_ (continued by Schöll), vol. viii., and Meyer's -_Corpus Iuris Confoederationis Germanicæ_, vol. i. It has every -appearance of being a translation from the French, and was no doubt -originally drawn up in that language. Napoleon is called in one place -'Der nämliche Monarch, dessen Absichten sich stets mit den wahren -Interessen Deutschlands übereinstimmend gezeigt haben.' The phrase -'Roman Empire' does not occur: we hear only of the 'German Empire,' -'body of German states' (Staatskörper), and so forth. This -Confederation of the Rhine was eventually joined by every German State -except Austria, Prussia, Electoral Hesse, and Brunswick. - -[412] _Histoire des Traités_, vol. viii. The original may be found in -Meyer's _Corpus Iuris Confoederationis Germanicæ_, vol. i. p. 70. It is -a document in no way remarkable, except from the ludicrous resemblance -which its language suggests to the circular in which a tradesman, -announcing the dissolution of an old partnership, solicits, and hopes -by close attention to merit, a continuance of his customers' patronage -to his business, which will henceforth be carried on under the name -of, &c., &c. - -[413] Koch (Schöll), _Histoire des Traités_, vol. xi. p. 257, sqq.; -Haüsser, _Deutsche Geschichte_, vol. iv. - -[414] Great Britain had refused in 1806 to recognize the dissolution -of the Empire. And it may indeed be maintained that in point of law -the Empire was never extinguished at all, but lives on as a -disembodied spirit to this day. For it is clear that, technically -speaking, the abdication of a sovereign can destroy only his own -rights, and does not dissolve the state over which he presides. - -[415] 'Les états d'Allemagne seront independans et unis par un lien -federatif.'--_Histoire des Traités_, xi. p. 257. - -[416] The late king of Prussia was actually elected Emperor by the -revolutionary Diet at Frankfort in 1848. He refused the crown. - -[417] [Since the above was written (in A.D. 1865) sudden and momentous -changes have been effected in Germany by the war of 1866; the Prussian -kingdom has been enlarged by the annexation of Hanover, Hessen-Cassel, -Nassau, and Frankfort; the establishment of the North German -Confederation has brought all the states north of the Main under -Prussian control; while even the potentates of the south have -virtually accepted the hegemony of the house of Hohenzollern. It was -the author's intention to have added here a chapter examining these -changes by the light of the past history of Germany and the Empire, -and tracing out the causes to which the success of Prussia is to be -ascribed. But at this moment (July 15th, 1870) the French Emperor -declares war against Prussia, and there rises to meet the challenge an -united German people,--united for the time, at least, by the folly of -the enemy who has so long plotted for and profited by its disunion. -Whatever the result of the struggle may be, it is almost certain to -alter still further the internal constitution of Germany; and there is -therefore little use in discussing the existing system, and tracing -the progress hitherto of a development which, if not suddenly -arrested, is likely to be greatly accelerated by the events which we -see passing.] - - - - -CHAPTER XXI. - -CONCLUSION. - - -[Sidenote: General summary.] - -[Sidenote: Perpetuation of the name of Rome.] - -After the attempts already made to examine separately each of the -phases of the Empire, little need be said, in conclusion, upon its -nature and results in general. A general character can hardly help -being either vague or false. For the aspects which the Empire took are -as many and as various as the ages and conditions of society during -which it continued to exist. Among the exhausted peoples around the -Mediterranean, whose national feeling had died out, whose faith was -extinct or turned to superstition, whose thought and art was a faint -imitation of the Greek, there arises a huge despotism, first of a -city, then of an administrative system, which presses with equal -weight on all its subjects, and becomes to them a religion as well as -a government. Just when the mass is at length dissolving, the tribes -of the North come down, too rude to maintain the institutions they -found subsisting, too few to introduce their own, and a weltering -confusion follows, till the strong hand of the first Frankish Emperor -raises the fallen image and bids the nations bow down to it once more. -Under him it is for some brief space a theocracy; under his German -successors the first of feudal kingdoms, the centre of European -chivalry. As feudalism wanes, it is again transformed, and after -promising for a time to become an hereditary Hapsburg monarchy, sinks -at last into the presidency, not more dignified than powerless, of an -international league. To us moderns, a perpetuation under conditions -so diverse of the same name and the same pretensions, appears at first -sight absurd, a phantom too vain to impress the most superstitious -mind. Closer examination will correct such a notion. No power was ever -based on foundations so sure and deep as those which Rome laid during -three centuries of conquest and four of undisturbed dominion. If her -empire had been an hereditary or local kingdom, it might have fallen -with the extinction of the royal line, the conquest of the tribe, the -destruction of the city to which it was attached. But it was not so -limited. It was imperishable because it was universal; and when its -power had ceased, it was remembered with awe and love by the races -whose separate existence it had destroyed, because it had spared the -weak while it smote down the strong; because it had granted equal -rights to all, and closed against none of its subjects the path of -honourable ambition. When the military power of the conquering city -had departed, her sway over the world of thought began: by her the -theories of the Greeks had been reduced to practice; by her the new -religion had been embraced and organized; her language, her theology, -her laws, her architecture made their way where the eagles of war had -never flown, and with the spread of civilization have found new homes -on the Ganges and the Mississippi. - -[Sidenote: Parallel instances.] - -[Sidenote: Claims to represent the Roman Empire.] - -[Sidenote: Austria.] - -[Sidenote: France.] - -[Sidenote: Russia.] - -[Sidenote: Greece.] - -[Sidenote: The Turks.] - -Nor is such a claim of government prolonged under changed conditions -by any means a singular phenomenon. Titles sum up the political -history of nations, and are as often causes as effects: if not -insignificant now, how much less so in ages of ignorance and unreason. -It would be an instructive, if it were not a tedious task, to examine -the many pretensions that are still put forward to represent the -Empire of Rome, all of them baseless, none of them effectless. Austria -clings to a name which seems to give her a sort of precedence in -Europe, and was wont, while she held Lombardy, to justify her position -there by invoking the feudal rights of the Hohenstaufen. With no more -legal right than the prince of Reuss or the landgrave of Homburg might -pretend to, she has assumed the arms and devices of the old Empire, -and being almost the youngest of European monarchies, is respected as -the oldest and most conservative. Bonapartean France, as the -self-appointed heir of the Carolingians, grasped for a time the -sceptre of the West, and still aspires to hold the balance of European -politics, and be recognized as the leader and patron of the so-called -Latin races on both sides of the Atlantic[418]. Professing the creed -of Byzantium, Russia claims the crown of the Byzantine Cæsars, and -trusts that the capital which prophecy has promised for a thousand -years will not be long withheld. The doctrine of Panslavism, under an -imperial head of the whole Eastern church, has become a formidable -engine of aggression in the hands of a crafty and warlike despotism. -Another testimony to the enduring influence of old political -combinations is supplied by the eagerness with which modern Hellas has -embraced the notion of gathering all the Greek races into a revived -Empire of the East, with its capital on the Bosphorus. Nay, the -intruding Ottoman himself, different in faith as well as in blood, has -more than once declared himself the representative of the Eastern -Cæsars, whose dominion he extinguished. Solyman the Magnificent -assumed the name of Emperor, and refused it to Charles the Fifth: his -successors were long preceded through the streets of Constantinople by -twelve officers, bearing straws aloft, a faint semblance of the -consular fasces that had escorted a Quinctius or a Fabius through the -Roman forum. Yet in no one of these cases has there been that apparent -legality of title which the shouts of the people and the benediction -of the pontiff conveyed to Charles and Otto[419]. - -[Sidenote: Parallel of the Papacy.] - -These examples, however, are minor parallels: the complement and -illustration of the history of the Empire is to be found in that of -the Holy See. The Papacy, whose spiritual power was itself the -offspring of Rome's temporal dominion, evoked the phantom of her -parent, used it, obeyed it, rebelled and overthrew it, in its old age -once more embraced it, till in its downfall she has heard the knell of -her own approaching doom[420]. - -Both Papacy and Empire rose in an age when the human spirit was -utterly prostrated before authority and tradition, when the exercise -of private judgment was impossible to most and sinful to all. Those -who believed the miracles recorded in the _Acta Sanctorum_, and did -not question the Isidorian decretals, might well recognize as ordained -of God the twofold authority of Rome, founded, as it seemed to be, on -so many texts of Scripture, and confirmed by five centuries of -undisputed possession. - -Both sanctioned and satisfied the passion of the Middle Ages for -unity. Ferocity, violence, disorder, were the conspicuous evils of -that time: hence all the aspirations of the good were for something -which, breaking the force of passion and increasing the force of -sympathy, should teach the stubborn wills to sacrifice themselves in -the view of a common purpose. To those men, moreover, unable to rise -above the sensuous, not seeing the true connexion or the true -difference of the spiritual and the secular, the idea of the Visible -Church was full of awful meaning. Solitary thought was helpless, and -strove to lose itself in the aggregate, since it could not create for -itself that which was universal. The schism that severed a man from -the congregation of the faithful on earth was hardly less dreadful -than the heresy which excluded him from the company of the blessed in -heaven. He who kept not his appointed place in the ranks of the church -militant had no right to swell the rejoicing anthems of the church -triumphant. Here, as in so many other cases, the continued use of -traditional language seems to have prevented us from seeing how great -is the difference between our own times and those in which the phrases -we repeat were first used, and used in full sincerity. Whether the -world is better or worse for the change which has passed upon its -feelings in these matters is another question: all that it is -necessary to note here is that the change is a profound and pervading -one. Obedience, almost the first of mediæval virtues, is now often -spoken of as if it were fit only for slaves or fools. Instead of -praising, men are wont to condemn the submission of the individual -will, the surrender of the individual belief, to the will or the -belief of the community. Some persons declare variety of opinion to be -a positive good. The great mass have certainly no longing for an -abstract unity of faith. They have no horror of schism. They do not, -cannot, understand the intense fascination which the idea of one -all-pervading church exercised upon their mediæval forefathers. A life -in the church, for the church, through the church; a life which she -blessed in mass at morning and sent to peaceful rest by the vesper -hymn; a life which she supported by the constantly recurring stimulus -of the sacraments, relieving it by confession, purifying it by -penance, admonishing it by the presentation of visible objects for -contemplation and worship,--this was the life which they of the Middle -Ages conceived of as the rightful life for man; it was the actual life -of many, the ideal of all. The unseen world was so unceasingly pointed -to, and its dependence on the seen so intensely felt, that the barrier -between the two seemed to disappear. The church was not merely the -portal to heaven; it was heaven anticipated; it was already -self-gathered and complete. In one sentence from a famous mediæval -document may be found a key to much which seems strangest to us in the -feelings of the Middle Ages: 'The church is dearer to God than heaven. -For the church does not exist for the sake of heaven, but conversely, -heaven for the sake of the church[421].' - -Again, both Empire and Papacy rested on opinion rather than on -physical force, and when the struggle of the eleventh century came, -the Empire fell, because its rival's hold over the souls of men was -firmer, more direct, enforced by penalties more terrible than the -death of the body. The ecclesiastical body under Alexander and -Innocent was animated by a loftier spirit and more wholly devoted to a -single aim than the knights and nobles who followed the banner of the -Swabian Cæsars. Its allegiance was undivided; it comprehended the -principles for which it fought: they trembled at even while they -resisted the spiritual power. - -[Sidenote: Papacy and Empire compared as perpetuations of a name.] - -Both sprang from what might be called the accident of name. The power -of the great Latin patriarchate was a Form: the ghost, it has been -said, of the older Empire, favoured in its growth by circumstances, -but really vital because capable of wonderful adaptation to the -character and wants of the time. So too, though far less perfectly, -was the Empire. Its Form was the tradition of the universal rule of -Rome; it met the needs of successive centuries by civilizing barbarous -peoples, by maintaining unity in confusion and disorganization, by -controlling brute violence through the sanctions of a higher power, by -being made the keystone of a gigantic feudal arch, by assuming in its -old age the presidency of a European confederation. And the history of -both, as it shews the power of ancient names and forms, shews also -within what limits such a perpetuation is possible, and how it -sometimes deceives men, by preserving the shadow while it loses the -substance. This perpetuation itself, what is it but the expression of -the belief of mankind, a belief incessantly corrected yet never -weakened, that their old institutions do and may continue to subsist -unchanged, that what has served their fathers will do well enough for -them, that it is possible to make a system perfect and abide in it for -ever? Of all political instincts this is perhaps the strongest; often -useful, often grossly abused, but never so natural and so fitting as -when it leads men who feel themselves inferior to their predecessors, -to save what they can from the wreck of a civilization higher than -their own. It was thus that both Papacy and Empire were maintained by -the generations who had no type of greatness and wisdom save that -which they associated with the name of Rome. And therefore it is that -no examples shew so convincingly how hopeless are all such attempts to -preserve in life a system which arose out of ideas and under -conditions that have passed away. Though it never could have existed -save as a prolongation, though it was and remained through the Middle -Ages an anachronism, the Empire of the tenth century had little in -common with the Empire of the second. Much more was the Papacy, though -it too hankered after the forms and titles of antiquity, in reality a -new creation. And in the same proportion as it was new, and -represented the spirit not of a past age but of its own, was it a -power stronger and more enduring than the Empire. More enduring, -because younger, and so in fuller harmony with the feelings of its -contemporaries: stronger, because at the head of the great -ecclesiastical body, in and through which, rather than through secular -life, all the intelligence and political activity of the Middle Ages -sought its expression. The famous simile of Gregory the Seventh is -that which best describes the Empire and the Popedom. They were indeed -the 'two lights in the firmament of the militant church,' the lights -which illumined and ruled the world all through the Middle Ages. And -as moonlight is to sunlight, so was the Empire to the Papacy. The rays -of the one were borrowed, feeble, often interrupted: the other shone -with an unquenchable brilliance that was all her own. - -[Sidenote: In what sense was the Empire Roman?] - -The Empire, it has just been said, was never truly mediæval. Was it -then Roman in anything but name? and was that name anything better -than a piece of fantastic antiquarianism? It is easy to draw a -comparison between the Antonines and the Ottos which should shew -nothing but unlikeness. What the Empire was in the second century -every one knows. In the tenth it was a feudal monarchy, resting on a -strong territorial oligarchy. Its chiefs were barbarians, the sons of -those who had destroyed Varus and baffled Germanicus, sometimes unable -even to use the tongue of Rome. Its powers were limited. It could -scarcely be said to have a regular organization at all, whether -judicial or administrative. It was consecrated to the defence, nay, it -existed by virtue of the religion which Trajan and Marcus had -persecuted. Nevertheless, when the contrast has been stated in the -strongest terms, there will remain points of resemblance. The -thoroughly Roman idea of universal denationalization survived, and -drew with it that of a certain equality among all free subjects. It -has been remarked already, that the world's highest dignity was for -many centuries the only civil office to which any free-born Christian -was legally eligible. And there was also, during the earlier ages, -that indomitable vigour which might have made Trajan or Severus seek -their true successors among the woods of Germany rather than in the -palaces of Byzantium, where every office and name and custom had -floated down from the court of Constantine in a stream of unbroken -legitimacy. The ceremonies of Henry the Seventh's coronation would -have been strange indeed to Caius Julius Cæsar Octavianus Augustus; -but how much nobler, how much more Roman in force and truth than the -childish and unmeaning forms with which a Palæologus was installed! It -was not in purple buskins that the dignity of the Luxemburger -lay[422]. To such a boast the Germanic Empire had long ere its death -lost right: it had lived on, when honour and nature bade it die: it -had become what the Empire of the Moguls was, and that of the Ottomans -is now, a curious relic of antiquity, over which the imaginative might -muse, but which the mass of men would push aside with impatient -contempt. But institutions, like men, should be judged by their prime. - -[Sidenote: 'Imperialism:' Roman, French, and mediæval.] - -[Sidenote: Political character of the Teutonic and Gallic races.] - -The comparison of the old Roman Empire with its Germanic -representative raises a question which has been a good deal canvassed -of late years. That wonderful system which Julius Cæsar and his subtle -nephew erected upon the ruins of the republican constitution of Rome -has been made the type of a certain form of government and of a -certain set of social as well as political arrangements, to which, or -rather to the theory whereof they are a part, there has been given the -name of Imperialism. The sacrifice of the individual to the mass, the -concentration of all legislative and judicial powers in the person of -the sovereign, the centralization of the administrative system, the -maintenance of order by a large military force, the substitution of -the influence of public opinion for the control of representative -assemblies, are commonly taken, whether rightly or wrongly, to -characterize that theory. Its enemies cannot deny that it has before -now given and may again give to nations a sudden and violent access of -aggressive energy; that it has often achieved the glory (whatever that -may be) of war and conquest; that it has a better title to respect in -the ease with which it may be made, as it was by the Flavian and -Antonine Cæsars of old, and at the beginning of this century by -Napoleon in France, the instrument of comprehensive reforms in law and -government. The parallel between the Roman world under the Cæsars and -the French people now is indeed less perfect than those who dilate -upon it fancy. That equalizing despotism which was a good to a medley -of tribes, the force of whose national life had spent itself and left -them languid, yet restless, with all the evils of isolation and none -of its advantages, is not necessarily a good to a country already the -strongest and most united in Europe, a country where the -administration is only too perfect, and the pressure of social -uniformity only too strong. But whether it be a good or an evil, no -one can doubt that France represents, and has always represented, the -imperialist spirit of Rome far more truly than those whom the Middle -Ages recognized as the legitimate heirs of her name and dominion. In -the political character of the French people, whether it be the result -of the five centuries of Roman rule in Gaul, or rather due to the -original instincts of the Gallic race, is to be found their claim, a -claim better founded than any which Napoleon put forward, to be the -Romans[423] of the modern world. The tendency of the Teuton was and is -to the independence of the individual life, to the mutual repulsion, -if the phrase may be permitted, of the social atoms, as contrasted -with Keltic and so-called Romanic peoples, among which the unit is -more completely absorbed in the mass, who live possessed by a common -idea which they are driven to realize in the concrete. Teutonic states -have been little more successful than their neighbours in the -establishment of free constitutions. Their assemblies meet, and vote, -and are dissolved, and nothing comes of it: their citizens endure -without greatly resenting outrages that would raise the more excitable -French or Italians in revolt. But, whatever may have been the form of -government, the body of the people have in Germany always enjoyed a -freedom of thought which has made them comparatively careless of -politics; and the absolutism of the Elbe is at this day no more like -that of the Seine than a revolution at Dresden is to a revolution at -Paris. The rule of the Hohenstaufen had nothing either of the good or -the evil of the imperialism which Tacitus painted, or of that which -the panegyrists of the present system in France paint in colours -somewhat different from his. - -[Sidenote: Essential principles of the mediæval Empire.] - -There was, nevertheless, such a thing as mediæval imperialism, a -theory of the nature of the state and the best form of government, -which has been described once already, and need not be described -again. It is enough to say, that from three leading principles all its -properties may be derived. The first and the least essential was the -existence of the state as a monarchy. The second was the exact -coincidence of the state's limits, and the perfect harmony of its -workings with the limits and the workings of the church. The third was -its universality. These three were vital. Forms of political -organization, the presence or absence of constitutional checks, the -degree of liberty enjoyed by the subject, the rights conceded to local -authorities, all these were matters of secondary importance. But -although there brooded over all the shadow of a despotism, it was a -despotism not of the sword but of law; a despotism not chilling and -blighting, but one which, in Germany at least, looked with favour on -municipal freedom, and everywhere did its best for learning, for -religion, for intelligence; a despotism not hereditary, but one which -constantly maintained in theory the principle that he should rule who -was found the fittest. To praise or to decry the Empire as a despotic -power is to misunderstand it altogether. We need not, because an -unbounded prerogative was useful in ages of turbulence, advocate it -now; nor need we, with Sismondi, blame the Frankish conqueror because -he granted no 'constitutional charter' to all the nations that obeyed -him. Like the Papacy, the Empire expressed the political ideas of a -time, and not of all time: like the Papacy, it decayed when those -ideas changed; when men became more capable of rational liberty; when -thought grew stronger, and the spiritual nature shook itself more free -from the bonds of sense. - -[Sidenote: Influence of the Holy Empire on Germany.] - -The influence of the Empire upon Germany is a subject too wide to be -more than glanced at here. There is much to make it appear altogether -unfortunate. For many generations the flower of Teutonic chivalry -crossed the Alps to perish by the sword of the Lombards, or the -deadlier fevers of Rome. Italy terribly avenged the wrongs she -suffered. Those who destroyed the national existence of another people -forfeited their own: the German kingdom, crushed beneath the weight of -the Roman Empire, could never recover strength enough to form a -compact and united monarchy, such as arose elsewhere in Europe: the -race whom their neighbours had feared and obeyed till the fourteenth -century saw themselves, down even to our own day, the prey of -intestine feuds and their country the battlefield of Europe. Spoiled -and insulted by a neighbour restlessly aggressive and superior in all -the arts of success, they came to regard France as the persecuted -Slave regards them. The want of national union and political liberty -from which Germany has suffered, and to some extent suffers still, -cannot be attributed to the differences of her races; for, conspicuous -as that difference was in the days of Otto the Great, it was no -greater than in France, where intruding Franks, Goths, Burgundians, -and Northmen were mingled with primitive Kelts and Basques; not so -great as in Spain, or Italy, or Britain. Rather is it due to the -decline of the central government, which was induced by its strife -with the Popedom, its endless Italian wars, and the passion for -universal dominion which made it the assailant of all the neighbouring -countries. The absence or the weakness of the monarch enabled his -feudal vassals to establish petty despotisms, debarring the nation -from united political action, and greatly retarding the emancipation -of the commons. Thus, while the princes became shamelessly selfish, -justifying their resistance to the throne as the defence of their own -liberty--liberty to oppress the subject--and ready on the least -occasion to throw themselves into the arms of France, the body of the -people were deprived of all political training, and have found the -lack of such experience impede their efforts to this day. - -For these misfortunes, however, there has not been wanting some -compensation. The inheritance of the Roman Empire made the Germans the -ruling race of Europe, and the brilliance of that glorious dawn can -never fade entirely from their name. A peaceful people now, peaceful -in sentiment even now when they have become a great military power, -submissive to paternal government, and given to the quiet enjoyments -of art, music, and meditation, they delight themselves with memories -of the time when their conquering chivalry was the terror of the Gaul -and the Slave, the Lombard and the Saracen. The national life received -a keen stimulus from the sense of exaltation which victory brought, -and from the intercourse with countries where the old civilization had -not wholly perished. It was this connexion with Italy that raised the -German lands out of barbarism, and did for them the work which Roman -conquest had performed in Gaul, Spain, and Britain. From the Empire -flowed all the richness of their mediæval life and literature: it -first awoke in them a consciousness of national existence; its history -has inspired and served as material to their poetry; to many ardent -politicians the splendours of the past have become the beacon of the -future[424]. There is a bright side even to their political disunion. -When they complain that they are not a nation, and sigh for the -harmony of feeling and singleness of aim which their great rival -displays, the example of the Greeks may comfort them. To the variety -which so many small governments have produced may be partly attributed -the breadth of development in German thought and literature, by virtue -of which it transcends the French hardly less than the Greek surpassed -the Roman. Paris no doubt is great, but a country may lose as well as -gain by the predominance of a single city; and Germany need not mourn -that she alone among modern states has not and never has had a -capital. - -[Sidenote: Austria as heir of the Holy Empire.] - -The merits of the old Empire were not long since the subject of a -brisk controversy among several German professors of history[425]. The -spokesmen of the Austrian or Roman Catholic party, a party which ten -years ago was not less powerful in some of the minor South German -States than in Vienna, claimed for the Hapsburg monarchy the honour of -being the legitimate representative of the mediæval Empire, and -declared that only by again accepting Hapsburg leadership could -Germany win back the glory and the strength that once were hers. The -North German liberals ironically applauded the comparison. 'Yes,' they -replied, 'your Austrian Empire, as it calls itself, is the true -daughter of the old despotism: not less tyrannical, not less -aggressive, not less retrograde; like its progenitor, the friend of -priests, the enemy of free thought, the trampler upon the national -feeling of the peoples that obey it. It is you whose selfish and -anti-national policy blasts the hope of German unity now, as Otto and -Frederick blasted it long ago by their schemes of foreign conquest. -The dream of Empire has been our bane from first to last.' It is -possible, one may hope, to escape the alternative of admiring the -Austrian Empire or denouncing the Holy Roman. Austria has indeed, in -some things, but too faithfully reproduced the policy of the Saxon and -Swabian Cæsars. Like her, they oppressed and insulted the Italian -people: but it was in the defence of rights which the Italians -themselves admitted. Like her, they lusted after a dominion over the -races on their borders, but that dominion was to them a means of -spreading civilization and religion in savage countries, not of -pampering upon their revenues a hated court and aristocracy. Like her, -they strove to maintain a strong government at home, but they did it -when a strong government was the first of political blessings. Like -her, they gathered and maintained vast armies; but those armies were -composed of knights and barons who lived for war alone, not of -peasants torn away from useful labour and condemned to the cruel task -of perpetuating their own bondage by crushing the aspirations of -another nationality. They sinned grievously, no doubt, but they sinned -in the dim twilight of a half-barbarous age, not in the noonday blaze -of modern civilization. The enthusiasm for mediæval faith and -simplicity which was so fervid some years ago has run its course, and -is not likely soon to revive. He who reads the history of the Middle -Ages will not deny that its heroes, even the best of them, were in -some respects little better than savages. But when he approaches more -recent times, and sees how, during the last three hundred years, kings -have dealt with their subjects and with each other, he will forget the -ferocity of the Middle Ages, in horror at the heartlessness, the -treachery, the injustice all the more odious because it sometimes -wears the mask of legality, which disgraces the annals of the military -monarchies of Europe. With regard, however, to the pretensions of -modern Austria, the truth is that this dispute about the worth of the -old system has no bearing upon them at all. The day of imperial -greatness was already past when Rudolf the first Hapsburg reached the -throne; while during what may be called the Austrian period, from -Maximilian to Francis II, the Holy Empire was to Germany a mere clog -and incumbrance, which the unhappy nation bore because she knew not -how to rid herself of it. The Germans are welcome to appeal to the old -Empire to prove that they were once a united people. Nor is there any -harm in their comparing the politics of the twelfth century with those -of the nineteenth, although to argue from the one to the other seems -to betray a want of historical judgment. But the one thing which is -wholly absurd is to make Francis Joseph of Austria the successor of -Frederick of Hohenstaufen, and justify the most sordid and ungenial of -modern despotisms by the example of the mirror of mediæval chivalry, -the noblest creation of mediæval thought. - -[Sidenote: Bearing of the Empire upon the progress of European -civilization.] - -[Sidenote: Influence upon modern jurisprudence.] - -We are not yet far enough from the Empire to comprehend or state -rightly its bearing on European progress. The mountain lies behind us, -but miles must be traversed before we can take in at a glance its -peaks and slopes and buttresses, picture its form, and conjecture its -height. Of the perpetuation among the peoples of the West of the arts -and literature of Rome it was both an effect and a cause, a cause only -less powerful than the church. It would be endless to shew in how many -ways it affected the political institutions of the Middle Ages, and -through them of the whole civilized world. Most of the attributes of -modern royalty, to take the most obvious instance, belonged originally -and properly to the Emperor, and were borrowed from him by other -monarchs. The once famous doctrine of divine right had the same -origin. To the existence of the Empire is chiefly to be ascribed the -prevalence of Roman law through Europe, and its practical importance -in our own days. For while in Southern France and Central Italy, where -the subject population greatly outnumbered their conquerors, the old -system would have in any case survived, it cannot be doubted that in -Germany, as in England, a body of customary Teutonic law would have -grown up, had it not been for the notion that since the German monarch -was the legitimate successor of Justinian, the Corpus Juris must be -binding on all his subjects. This strange idea was received with a -faith so unhesitating that even the aristocracy, who naturally -disliked a system which the Emperors and the cities favoured, could -not but admit its validity, and before the end of the Middle Ages -Roman law prevailed through all Germany[426]. When it is considered -how great are the services which German writers have rendered and -continue to render to the study of scientific jurisprudence, this -result will appear far from insignificant. But another of still wider -import followed. When by the Peace of Westphalia a crowd of petty -principalities were recognized as practically independent states, the -need of a code to regulate their intercourse became pressing. That -code Grotius and his successors formed out of what was then the -private law of Germany, which thus became the foundation whereon the -system of international jurisprudence has been built up during the -last two centuries. That system is, indeed, entirely a German -creation, and could have arisen in no country where the law of Rome -had not been the fountain of legal ideas and the groundwork of -positive codes. In Germany, too, was it first carried out in practice, -and that with a success which is the best, some might say the only, -title of the later Empire to the grateful remembrance of mankind. -Under its protecting shade small princedoms and free cities lived -unmolested beside states like Saxony and Bavaria; each member of the -Germanic body feeling that the rights of the weakest of his brethren -were also his own. - -[Sidenote: Influence of the Empire upon the history of the Church.] - -[Sidenote: Nature of the question at issue between the Emperors and -the Popes.] - -The most important chapter in the history of the Empire is that which -describes its relation to the Church and the Papacy. Of the -ecclesiastical power it was alternately the champion and the enemy. In -the ninth and tenth centuries the Emperors extended the dominion of -Peter's chair: in the tenth and eleventh they rescued it from an abyss -of guilt and shame to be the instrument of their own downfall. The -struggle which Gregory the Seventh began, although it was political -rather than religious, awoke in the Teutonic nations a hostility to -the pretensions of the Romish court. That struggle ended, with the -death of the last Hohenstaufen, in the victory of the priesthood, a -victory whose abuse by the insolent and greedy pontiffs of the -fourteenth and fifteenth centuries made it more ruinous than a defeat. -The anger which had long smouldered in the breasts of the northern -nations of Europe burst out in the sixteenth with a violence which -alarmed those whom it had hitherto defended, and made the Emperors -once more the allies of the Popedom, and the partners of its declining -fortunes. But the nature of that alliance and of the hostility which -had preceded it must not be misunderstood. It is a natural, but not -the less a serious error to suppose, as modern writers often seem to -do, that the pretensions of the Empire and the Popedom were mutually -exclusive; that each claimed all the rights, spiritual and secular, of -a universal monarch. So far was this from being the case, that we find -mediæval writers and statesmen, even Emperors and Popes themselves, -expressly recognizing a divinely appointed duality of government--two -potentates, each supreme in the sphere of his own activity, Peter in -things eternal, Cæsar in things temporal. The relative position of the -two does indeed in course of time undergo a signal alteration. In the -days of Charles, the barbarous age of modern Europe, when men were and -could not but be governed chiefly by physical force, the Emperor was -practically, if not theoretically, the grander figure. Four centuries -later, in the era of Pope Innocent the Third, when the power of ideas -had grown stronger in the world, and was able to resist or to bend to -its service the arms and the wealth of men, we see the balance -inclined the other way. Spiritual authority is conceived of as being -of a nature so high and holy that it must inspire and guide the civil -administration. But it is not proposed to supplant that administration -nor to degrade its head: the great struggle of the eleventh and two -following centuries does not aim at the annihilation of one or other -power, but turns solely upon the character of their connexion. -Hildebrand, the typical representative of the Popedom, requires the -obedience of the Emperor on the ground of his own personal -responsibility for the souls of their common subjects: he demands, not -that the functions of temporal government shall be directly committed -to himself, but that they shall be exercised in conformity with the -will of God, whereof he is the exponent. The imperialist party had no -means of meeting this argument, for they could not deny the spiritual -supremacy of the Pope, nor the transcendant importance of eternal -salvation. They could therefore only protest that the Emperor, being -also divinely appointed, was directly answerable to God, and remind -the Pope that his kingdom was not of this world. There was in truth no -way out of the difficulty, for it was caused by the attempt to sever -things that admit of no severance, life in the soul and life in the -world, life for the future and life in the present. What it is most -pertinent to remark is that neither combatant pushed his theory to -extremities, since he felt that his adversary's title rested on the -same foundations as his own. The strife was keenest at the time when -the whole world believed fervently in both powers; the alliance came -when faith had forsaken the one and grown cold towards the other; from -the Reformation onwards Empire and Popedom fought no longer for -supremacy, but for existence. One is fallen already, the other shakes -with every blast. - -[Sidenote: Ennobling influence of the conception of the World Empire.] - -Nor was that which may be called the inner life of the Empire less -momentous in its influence upon the minds of men than were its outward -dealings with the Roman church upon her greatness and decline. In the -Middle Ages, men conceived of the communion of the saints as the -formal unity of an organized body of worshippers, and found the -concrete realization of that conception in their universal religious -state, which was in one aspect, the Church; in another, the Empire. -Into the meaning and worth of the conception, into the nature of the -connexion which subsists or ought to subsist between the Church and -the State, this is not the place to inquire. That the form which it -took in the Middle Ages was always imperfect and became eventually -rigid and unprogressive was sufficiently proved by the event. But by -it the European peoples were saved from the isolation, and narrowness, -and jealous exclusiveness which had checked the growth of the earlier -civilizations of the world, and which we see now lying like a weight -upon the kingdoms of the East: by it they were brought into that -mutual knowledge and co-operation which is the condition if it be not -the source of all true culture and progress. For as by the Roman -Empire of old the nations were first forced to own a common sway, so -by the Empire of the Middle Ages was preserved the feeling of a -brotherhood of mankind, a commonwealth of the whole world, whose -sublime unity transcended every minor distinction. - -[Sidenote: Principles adverse to the Empire.] - -As despotic monarchs claiming the world for their realm, the Teutonic -Emperors strove from the first against three principles, over all of -which their forerunners of the elder Rome had triumphed,--those of -Nationality, Aristocracy, and Popular Freedom. Their early struggles -were against the first of these, and ended with its victory in the -emancipation, one after another, of England, France, Poland, Hungary, -Denmark, Burgundy, and Italy. The second, in the form of feudalism, -menaced even when seeming to embrace and obey them, and succeeded, -after the Great Interregnum, in destroying their effective strength in -Germany. Aggression and inheritance turned the numerous independent -principalities thus formed out of the greater fiefs, into a few -military monarchies, resting neither on a rude loyalty, like feudal -kingdoms, nor on religious duty and tradition, like the Empire, but on -physical force, more or less disguised by legal forms. That the -hostility to the Empire of the third was accidental rather than -necessary is seen by this, that the very same monarchs who strove to -crush the Lombard and Tuscan cities favoured the growth of the free -towns of Germany. Asserting the rights of the individual in the sphere -of religion, the Reformation weakened the Empire by denying the -necessity of external unity in matters spiritual: the extension of the -same principle to the secular world, whose fulness is still withheld -from the Germans, would have struck at the doctrine of imperial -absolutism had it not found a nearer and deadlier foe in the actual -tyranny of the princes. It is more than a coincidence, that as the -proclamation of the liberty of thought had shaken it, so that of the -liberty of action made by the revolutionary movement, whose beginning -the world saw and understood not in 1789, whose end we see not yet, -should have indirectly become the cause which overthrew the Empire. - -[Sidenote: Change marked by its fall.] - -[Sidenote: Relations of the Empire to the nationalities of Europe.] - -Its fall in the midst of the great convulsion that changed the face of -Europe marks an era in history, an era whose character the events of -every year are further unfolding: an era of the destruction of old -forms and systems and the building up of new. The last instance is the -most memorable. Under our eyes, the work which Theodoric and Lewis the -Second, Guido and Ardoin and the second Frederick essayed in vain, has -been achieved by the steadfast will of the Italian people. The fairest -province of the Empire, for which Franconian and Swabian battled so -long, is now a single monarchy under the Burgundian count, whom -Sigismund created imperial vicar in Italy, and who wants only the -possession of the capital to be able to call himself 'king of the -Romans' more truly than Greek or Frank or Austrian has done since -Constantine forsook the Tiber for the Bosphorus. No longer the prey of -the stranger, Italy may forget the past, and sympathize, as she has -now indeed, since the fortunate alliance of 1866, begun to sympathize, -with the efforts after national unity of her ancient enemy--efforts -confronted by so many obstacles that a few years ago they seemed all -but hopeless. On the new shapes that may emerge in this general -reconstruction it would be idle to speculate. Yet one prediction may -be ventured. No universal monarchy is likely to arise. More frequent -intercourse, and the progress of thought, have done much to change the -character of national distinctions, substituting for ignorant -prejudice and hatred a genial sympathy and the sense of a common -interest. They have not lessened their force. No one who reads the -history of the last three hundred years, no one, above all, who -studies attentively the career of Napoleon, can believe it possible -for any state, however great her energy and material resources, to -repeat in modern Europe the part of ancient Rome: to gather into one -vast political body races whose national individuality has grown more -and more marked in each successive age. Nevertheless, it is in great -measure due to Rome and to the Roman Empire of the Middle Ages that -the bonds of national union are on the whole both stronger and nobler -than they were ever before. The latest historian of Rome, after -summing up the results to the world of his hero's career, closes his -treatise with these words: 'There was in the world as Cæsar found it -the rich and noble heritage of past centuries, and an endless -abundance of splendour and glory, but little soul, still less taste, -and, least of all, joy in and through life. Truly it was an old world, -and even Cæsar's genial patriotism could not make it young again. The -blush of dawn returns not until the night has fully descended. Yet -with him there came to the much-tormented races of the Mediterranean a -tranquil evening after a sultry day; and when, after long historical -night, the new day broke once more upon the peoples, and fresh nations -in free self-guided movement began their course towards new and higher -aims, many were found among them in whom the seed of Cæsar had sprung -up, many who owed him, and who owe him still, their national -individuality[427].' If this be the glory of Julius, the first great -founder of the Empire, so is it also the glory of Charles, the second -founder, and of more than one amongst his Teutonic successors. The -work of the mediæval Empire was self-destructive; and it fostered, -while seeming to oppose, the nationalities that were destined to -replace it. It tamed the barbarous races of the North, and forced them -within the pale of civilization. It preserved the arts and literature -of antiquity. In times of violence and oppression, it set before its -subjects the duty of rational obedience to an authority whose -watchwords were peace and religion. It kept alive, when national -hatreds were most bitter, the notion of a great European Commonwealth. -And by doing all this, it was in effect abolishing the need for a -centralizing and despotic power like itself: it was making men capable -of using national independence aright: it was teaching them to rise to -that conception of spontaneous activity, and a freedom which is above -law but not against it, to which national independence itself, if it -is to be a blessing at all, must be only a means. Those who mark what -has been the tendency of events since A.D. 1789, and who remember how -many of the crimes and calamities of the past are still but half -redressed, need not be surprised to see the so-called principle of -nationalities advocated with honest devotion as the final and perfect -form of political development. But such undistinguishing advocacy is -after all only the old error in a new shape. If all other history did -not bid us beware the habit of taking the problems and the conditions -of our own age for those of all time, the warning which the Empire -gives might alone be warning enough. From the days of Augustus down to -those of Charles the Fifth the whole civilized world believed in its -existence as a part of the eternal fitness of things, and Christian -theologians were not behind heathen poets in declaring that when it -perished the world would perish with it. Yet the Empire is gone, and -the world remains, and hardly notes the change. - -[Sidenote: Difficulties arising from the nature of the subject.] - -This is but a small part of what might be said upon an almost -inexhaustible theme: inexhaustible not from its extent but from its -profundity: not because there is so much to say, but because, pursue -we it never so far, more will remain unexpressed, since incapable of -expression. For that which it is at once most necessary and least -possible to do, is to look at the Empire as a whole: a single -institution, in which centres the history of eighteen centuries--whose -outer form is the same, while its essence and spirit are constantly -changing. It is when we come to consider it in this light that the -difficulties of so vast a subject are felt in all their force. Try to -explain in words the theory and inner meaning of the Holy Empire, as -it appeared to the saints and poets of the Middle Ages, and that which -we cannot but conceive as noble and fertile in its life, sinks into a -heap of barren and scarcely intelligible formulas. Who has been able -to describe the Papacy in the power it once wielded over the hearts -and imaginations of men? Those persons, if such there still be, who -see in it nothing but a gigantic upas-tree of fraud and superstition, -planted and reared by the enemy of mankind, are hardly further from -entering into the mystery of its being than the complacent political -philosopher, who explains in neat phrases the process of its growth, -analyses it as a clever piece of mechanism, enumerates and measures -the interests it appealed to, and gives, in conclusion, a sort of -tabular view of its results for good and for evil. So, too, is the -Holy Empire above all description or explanation; not that it is -impossible to discover the beliefs which created and sustained it, but -that the power of those beliefs cannot be adequately apprehended by -men whose minds have been differently trained, and whose imaginations -are fired by different ideals. Something, yet still how little, we -should know of it if we knew what were the thoughts of Julius Cæsar -when he laid the foundations on which Augustus built: of Charles, when -he reared anew the stately pile: of Barbarossa and his grandson, when -they strove to avert the surely coming ruin. Something more succeeding -generations will know, who will judge the Middle Ages more fairly than -we, still living in the midst of a reaction against all that is -mediæval, can hope to do, and to whom it will be given to see and -understand new forms of political life, whose nature we cannot so much -as conjecture. Seeing more than we do, they will also see some things -less distinctly. The Empire which to us still looms largely on the -horizon of the past, will to them sink lower and lower as they journey -onwards into the future. But its importance in universal history it -can never lose. For into it all the life of the ancient world was -gathered: out of it all the life of the modern world arose. - -THE END. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[418] See Louis Napoleon's letter to General Forey, explaining the -object of the expedition to Mexico. - -[419] One may also compare the retention of the office of consul at -Rome till the time of Justinian: indeed it even survived his formal -abolition. The relinquishment of the title 'King of Great Britain, -France, and Ireland,' seriously distressed many excellent persons. - -[420] I speak, of course, of the Papacy as an autocratic power -claiming a more than spiritual authority. - -[421] 'Ipsa enim ecclesia charior Deo est quam coelum. Non enim propter -coelum ecclesia, sed e converso propter ecclesiam coelum.' From the -tract entitled 'A Letter of the four Universities to Wenzel and Urban -VIII,' quoted in an earlier chapter. - -[422] Von Raumer, _Geschichte der Hohenstaufen_, v. - -[423] Meaning thereby not the citizens of Rome in her republican days, -but the Italo-Hellenic subjects of the Roman Empire. - -[424] Take, among many instances, those of the preface to Giesebrecht, -_Die Deutsche Kaiserzeit_; and Rotteck and Welcker's _Staats Lexikon_. -The German newspapers are indeed sufficient illustration. - -[425] See especially Von Sybel, _Die Deutsche Nation und das -Kaiserreich_; and the answers of Ficker and Von Wydenbrugk. - -[426] Modified of course by the canon law, and not superseding the -feudal law of land. - -[427] Mommsen, _Römische Geschichte_, iii. _sub. fin._ - - - - -APPENDIX. - - -NOTE A. - -ON THE BURGUNDIES. - -It would be hard to mention any geographical name which, by its -application at different times to different districts, has caused, and -continues to cause, more confusion than this name Burgundy. There may, -therefore, be some use in a brief statement of the more important of -those applications. Without going into the minutiæ of the subject, the -following may be given as the ten senses in which the name is most -frequently to be met with:-- - -I. The kingdom of the Burgundians (_regnum Burgundionum_), founded -A.D. 406, occupying the whole valley of the Saone and lower Rhone, -from Dijon to the Mediterranean, and including also the western half -of Switzerland. It was destroyed by the sons of Clovis in A.D. 534. - -II. The kingdom of Burgundy (_regnum Burgundiæ_), mentioned -occasionally under the Merovingian kings as a separate principality, -confined within boundaries apparently somewhat narrower than those of -the older kingdom last named. - -III. The kingdom of Provence or Burgundy (_regnum Provinciæ seu -Burgundiæ_)--also, though less accurately, called the kingdom of -Cis-Jurane Burgundy--was founded by Boso in A.D. 877, and included -Provence, Dauphiné, the southern part of Savoy, and the country -between the Saone and the Jura. - -IV. The kingdom of Trans-Jurane Burgundy (_regnum Iurense_, _Burgundia -Transiurensis_), founded by Rudolf in A.D. 888, recognized in the same -year by the Emperor Arnulf, included the northern part of Savoy, and -all Switzerland between the Reuss and the Jura. - -V. The kingdom of Burgundy or Arles (_regnum Burgundiæ_, _regnum -Arelatense_), formed by the union, under Conrad the Pacific, in A.D. -937, of the kingdoms described above as III and IV. On the death, in -1032, of the last independent king, Rudolf III, it came partly by -bequest, partly by conquest, into the hands of the Emperor Conrad II -(the Salic), and thenceforward formed a part of the Empire. In the -thirteenth century, France began to absorb it, bit by bit, and has now -(since the annexation of Savoy in 1861) acquired all except the Swiss -portion of it. - -VI. The Lesser Duchy (_Burgundia Minor_), (Klein Burgund), -corresponded very nearly with what is now Switzerland west of the -Reuss, including the Valais. It was Trans-Jurane Burgundy (IV) _minus_ -the parts of Savoy which had belonged to that kingdom. It disappears -from history after the extinction of the house of Zahringen in the -thirteenth century. Legally it was part of the Empire till A.D. 1648, -though practically independent long before that date. - -VII. The Free County or Palatinate of Burgundy (Franche Comté), -(Freigrafschaft), (called also Upper Burgundy), to which the name of -Cis-Jurane Burgundy originally and properly belonged, lay between the -Saone and the Jura. It formed a part of III and V, and was therefore a -fief of the Empire. The French dukes of Burgundy were invested with it -in A.D. 1384, and in 1678 it was annexed to the crown of France. - -VIII. The Landgraviate of Burgundy (Landgrafschaft) was in Western -Switzerland, on both sides of the Aar, between Thun and Solothurn. It -was a part of the Lesser Duchy (VI), and, like it, is hardly mentioned -after the thirteenth century. - -IX. The Circle of Burgundy (Kreis Burgund), an administrative division -of the Empire, was established by Charles V in 1548; and included the -Free County of Burgundy (VII) and the seventeen provinces of the -Netherlands, which Charles inherited from his grandmother Mary, -daughter of Charles the Bold. - -X. The Duchy of Burgundy (Lower Burgundy), (Bourgogne), the most -northerly part of the old kingdom of the Burgundians, was always a -fief of the crown of France, and a province of France till the -Revolution. It was of this Burgundy that Philip the Good and Charles -the Bold were Dukes. They were also Counts of the Free County (VII). - - * * * * * - -The most copious and accurate information regarding the obscure -history of the Burgundian kingdoms (III, IV, and V) is to be found in -the contributions of Baron Frederic de Gingins la Sarraz, a Vaudois -historian, to the _Archiv für Schweizer Geschichte_. See also an -admirable article in the _National Review_ for October 1860, entitled -'The Franks and the Gauls.' - - -NOTE B. - -ON THE RELATIONS TO THE EMPIRE OF THE KINGDOM OF DENMARK, AND THE -DUCHIES OF SCHLESWIG AND HOLSTEIN. - -The history of the relations of Denmark and the Duchies to the -Romano-Germanic Empire is a very small part of the great -Schleswig-Holstein controversy. But having been unnecessarily mixed up -with two questions properly quite distinct,--the first, as to the -relation of Schleswig to Holstein, and of both jointly to the Danish -crown; the second, as to the diplomatic engagements which the Danish -kings have in recent times contracted with the German powers,--it has -borne its part in making the whole question the most intricate and -interminable that has vexed Europe for two centuries and a half. -Setting aside irrelevant matter, the facts as to the Empire are as -follows:-- - -I. The Danish kings began to own the supremacy of the Frankish -Emperors early in the ninth century. Having recovered their -independence in the confusion that followed the fall of the -Carolingian dynasty, they were again subdued by Henry the Fowler and -Otto the Great, and continued tolerably submissive till the death of -Frederick II and the period of anarchy which followed. Since that time -Denmark has been always independent, although her king was, until the -treaty of A.D. 1865, a member of the German Confederation for -Holstein. - -II. Schleswig was in Carolingian times Danish; the Eyder being, as -Eginhard tells us, the boundary between Saxonia Transalbiana -(Holstein), and the Terra Nortmannorum (wherein lay the town of -Sliesthorp), inhabited by the Scandinavian heathen. Otto the Great -conquered all Schleswig, and, it is said, Jutland also, and added the -southern part of Schleswig to the immediate territory of the Empire, -erecting it into a margraviate. So it remained till the days of Conrad -II, who made the Eyder again the boundary, retaining of course his -suzerainty over the kingdom of Denmark as a whole. But by this time -the colonization of Schleswig by the Germans had begun; and ever since -the numbers of the Danish population seem to have steadily declined, -and the mass of the people to have grown more and more disposed to -sympathize with their southern rather than their northern neighbours. - -III. Holstein always was an integral part of the Empire, as it is at -this day of the North German Bund. - - -NOTE C. - -ON CERTAIN IMPERIAL TITLES AND CEREMONIES. - -This subject is a great deal too wide and too intricate to be more -than touched upon here. But a few brief statements may have their use; -for the practice of the Germanic Emperors varied so greatly from time -to time, that the reader becomes hopelessly perplexed without some -clue. And if there were space to explain the causes of each change of -title, it would be seen that the subject, dry as it may appear, is -very far from being a barren or a dull one. - -I. TITLES OF EMPERORS. Charles the Great styled himself 'Carolus -serenissimus Augustus, a Deo coronatus, magnus et pacificus imperator, -Romanum (_or_ Romanorum) gubernans imperium, qui et per misericordiam -Dei rex Francorum et Langobardorum.' - -Subsequent Carolingian Emperors were usually entitled simply -'Imperator Augustus.' Sometimes 'rex Francorum et Langobardorum' was -added[428]. - -Conrad I and Henry I (the Fowler) were only German kings. - -A Saxon Emperor was, before his coronation at Rome, 'rex,' or 'rex -Francorum Orientalium,' or 'Francorum atque Saxonum rex;' after it, -simply 'Imperator Augustus.' Otto III is usually said to have -introduced the form 'Romanorum Imperator Augustus,' but some -authorities state that it occurs in documents of the time of Lewis I. - -Henry II and his successors, not daring to take the title of Emperor -till crowned at Rome (in conformity with the superstitious notion -which had begun with Charles the Bald), but anxious to claim the -sovereignty of Rome, as indissolubly attached to the German crown, -began to call themselves 'reges Romanorum.' The title did not, -however, become common or regular till the time of Henry IV, in whose -proclamations it occurs constantly. - -From the eleventh century till the sixteenth, the invariable practice -was for the monarch to be called 'Romanorum rex semper Augustus,' till -his coronation at Rome by the Pope; after it, 'Romanorum Imperator -semper Augustus.' - -In A.D. 1508, Maximilian I, being refused a passage to Rome by the -Venetians, obtained a bull from Pope Julius II permitting him to call -himself 'Imperator electus' (erwählter Kaiser). This title Ferdinand I -(brother of Charles V) and all succeeding Emperors took immediately -upon their German coronation, and it was till A.D. 1806 their strict -legal designation[429], and was always employed by them in -proclamations or other official documents. The term 'elect' was -however omitted, even in formal documents when the sovereign was -addressed or spoken of in the third person; and in ordinary practice -he was simply 'Roman Emperor.' - -Maximilian added the title 'Germaniæ rex,' which had never been known -before, although the phrase 'rex Germanorum' may be found employed -once or twice in early times. 'Rex Teutonicorum,' 'regnum -Teutonicum[430],' occur often in the tenth and eleventh centuries. A -great many titles of less consequence were added from time to time. -Charles the Fifth had seventy-five, not, of course, as Emperor, but in -virtue of his vast hereditary possessions[431]. - -It is perhaps worth remarking that the word Emperor has not at all the -same meaning now that it had even so lately as two centuries ago. It -is now a commonplace, not to say vulgar, title, somewhat more pompous -than that of King, and supposed to belong especially to despots. It is -given to all sorts of barbarous princes, like those of China and -Abyssinia, in default of a better name. It is peculiarly affected by -new dynasties; and has indeed grown so fashionable, that what with -Emperors of Brazil, of Hayti, and of Mexico, the good old title of -King seems in a fair way to become obsolete[432]. But in former times -there was, and could be but one Emperor; he was always mentioned with -a certain reverence: his name summoned up a host of thoughts and -associations, which we cannot comprehend or sympathize with. His -office, unlike that of modern Emperors, was by its very nature -elective, and not hereditary; and, so far from resting on conquest or -the will of the people, rested on and represented pure legality. War -could give him nothing which law had not given him already: the people -could delegate no power to him who was their lord and the viceroy of -God. - -II. THE CROWNS. - -Of the four crowns something has been said in the text. They were -those of Germany, taken at Aachen; of Burgundy, at Arles; of Italy, -sometimes at Pavia, more usually at Milan or Monza; of the world, at -Rome. - -The German crown was taken by every Emperor after the time of Otto the -Great; that of Italy by every one, or almost every one, who took the -Roman down to Frederick III, by none after him; that of Burgundy, it -would appear, by four Emperors only, Conrad II, Henry III, Frederick -I, and Charles IV. The imperial crown was received at Rome by most -Emperors till Frederick III; after him by none save Charles V, who -obtained both it and the Italian at Bologna in a somewhat informal -manner. But down to A.D. 1806, every Emperor bound himself by his -capitulation to proceed to Rome to receive it. - -It should be remembered that none of these inferior crowns was -necessarily connected with that of the Roman Empire, which might have -been held by a simple knight without a foot of land in the world. For -as there had been Emperors (Lothar I, Lewis II, Lewis of Provence (son -of Boso), Guy, Lambert, and Berengar) who were not kings of Germany, -so there were several (all those who preceded Conrad II) who were not -kings of Burgundy, and others (Arnulf, for example) who were not kings -of Italy. And it is also worth remarking, that although no crown save -the German was assumed by the successors of Charles V, their wider -rights remained in full force, and were never subsequently -relinquished. There was nothing, except the practical difficulty and -absurdity of such a project, to prevent Francis II from having himself -crowned at Arles[433], Milan, and Rome. - -III. THE KING OF THE ROMANS (RÖMISCHER KÖNIG). - -It has been shewn above how and why, about the time of Henry II, the -German monarch began to entitle himself 'Romanorum rex.' Now it was -not uncommon in the Middle Ages for the heir-apparent to a throne to -be crowned during his father's lifetime, that at the death of the -latter he might step at once into his place. (Coronation, it must be -remembered, which is now merely a spectacle, was in those days not -only a sort of sacrament, but a matter of great political importance.) -This plan was specially useful in an elective monarchy, such as -Germany was after the twelfth century, for it avoided the delays and -dangers of an election while the throne was vacant. But as it seemed -against the order of nature to have two Emperors at once[434], and as -the sovereign's authority in Germany depended not on the Roman but on -the German coronation, the practice came to be that each Emperor -during his own life procured, if he could, the election of his -successor, who was crowned at Aachen, in later times at Frankfort, and -took the title of 'King of the Romans.' During the presence of the -Emperor in Germany he exercised no more authority than a Prince of -Wales does in England, but on the Emperor's death he succeeded at -once, without any second election or coronation, and assumed (after -the time of Ferdinand I) the title of 'Emperor Elect[435].' Before -Ferdinand's time, he would have been expected to go to Rome to be -crowned there. While the Hapsburgs held the sceptre, each monarch -generally contrived in this way to have his son or some other near -relative chosen to succeed him. But many were foiled in their attempts -to do so; and, in such cases, an election was held after the Emperor's -death, according to the rules laid down in the Golden Bull. - -The first person who thus became king of the Romans in the lifetime of -an Emperor seems to have been Henry VI, son of Frederick I. - -It was in imitation of this title that Napoleon called his son king of -Rome. - - -NOTE D. - -LINES CONTRASTING THE PAST AND PRESENT OF ROME. - - Dum simulacra mihi, dum numina vana placebant, - Militia, populo, moenibus alta fui: - At simul effigies arasque superstitiosas - Deiiciens, uni sum famulata Deo, - Cesserunt arces, cecidere palatia divûm, - Servivit populus, degeneravit eques. - Vix scio quæ fuerim, vix Romæ Roma recordor; - Vix sinit occasus vel meminisse mei. - Gratior hæc iactura mihi successibus illis; - Maior sum pauper divite, stante iacens: - Plus aquilis vexilla crucis, plus Cæsare Petrus, - Plus cinctis ducibus vulgus inerme dedit. - Stans domui terras, infernum diruta pulso, - Corpora stans, animas fracta iacensque rego. - Tunc miseræ plebi, modo principibus tenebrarum - Impero: tunc urbes, nunc mea regna polus. - -Written by Hildebert, bishop of Le Mans, and afterwards archbishop of -Tours (born A.D. 1057). Extracted from his works as printed by Migne, -_Patrologiæ Cursus Completus_[436]. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[428] Waitz (_Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte_) says that the phrase -'semper Augustus' may be found in the times of the Carolingians, but -not in official documents. - -[429] There is some reason to think that towards the end of the Empire -people had begun to fancy that 'erwählter' did not mean 'elect,' but -'elective.' Cf. note 410, p. 362. - -[430] These expressions seem to have been intended to distinguish the -kingdom of the Eastern or Germanic Franks from that of the Western or -Gallicized Franks (Francigenæ), which having been for some time -'regnum Francorum Occidentalium,' grew at last to be simply 'regnum -Franciæ,' the East Frankish kingdom being swallowed up in the Empire. - -[431] It is right to remark that what is stated here can be taken as -only generally and probably true: so great are the discrepancies among -even the most careful writers on the subject, and so numerous the -forgeries of a later age, which are to be found among the genuine -documents of the early Empire. Goldast's _Collections_, for instance, -are full of forgeries and anachronisms. Detailed information may be -found in Pfeffinger, Moser, and Pütter, and in the host of writers to -whom they refer. - -[432] We in England may be thought to have made some slight movement -in the same direction by calling the united great council of the Three -Kingdoms the Imperial Parliament. - -[433] Although to be sure the Burgundian dominions had all passed from -the Emperor to France, the kingdom of Sardinia, and the Swiss -Confederation. - -[434] Nevertheless, Otto II was crowned Emperor, and reigned for some -time along with his father, under the title of 'Co-Imperator.' So -Lothar I was associated in the Empire with Lewis the Pious, as Lewis -himself had been crowned in the lifetime of Charles. Many analogies to -the practice of the Romano-Germanic Empire in this respect might be -adduced from the history of the old Roman, as well as of the Byzantine -Empire. - -[435] Maximilian had obtained this title, 'Emperor Elect,' from the -Pope. Ferdinand took it as of right, and his successors followed the -example. - -[436] See note 326, p. 270. - - - - -INDEX. - - - A. - - Aachen, 72, 77, 86, 148, 212, 316 note, 403. - - ADALBERT (St.), 245; the church founded at Rome to receive - his ashes, 286. - - ADELHEID (Queen of Italy), account of her adventures, 83. - - ADOLF of Nassau, 221, 222, 262. - - ADSO, his _Vita Antichristi_, 114 note. - - AISTULF the Lombard, 39. - - ALARIC, his desire to preserve the institutions of the - Empire, 17, 19. - - ALBERIC (consul or senator), 83. - - ALBERT I (son of Rudolf of Hapsburg), 221, 224, 262. - - Albigenses, revolt of the, 241. - - ALBOIN, his invasion of Italy, 36. - - ALCUIN of York, 59, 66, 96, 201. - - ALEXANDER III (Pope), Frederick I's contest with, 170; - their meeting at Venice, 171. - - ALFONSO of Castile, his double election with Richard of - England, 212, 229. - - America, discovery of, 311. - - ANASTASIUS, his account of the coronation of Charles, 55. - - ANGELO (Michael), rebuilding of the Capitol by, 295. - - Antichrist, views respecting, in the earlier Middle Ages, - 114 note; in later times, 334. - - Architecture, Roman, 48, 290; analogy between it and the - civil and ecclesiastical constitution, 296; preservation of - an antique character in both, 296. - - ARDOIN (Marquis of Ivrea), 149. - - Aristocracy, barbarism of the, in the Middle Ages, 289; - struggles of the Teutonic Emperors against the, 388. - - Arles; _see_ Burgundy. - - ARNOLD of Brescia, Rome under, 174, 252, 276; put to death - at the instance of Pope Hadrian, 278, 299 note. - - ARNULF (Emperor), 78. - - ATHANARIC, 17. - - ATHANASIUS, the triumph of, 12. - - ATHAULF the Visigoth, his thoughts and purposes respecting - the Roman Empire, 19, 30. - - Augsburg, 259; treaty of, 334. - - AUGUSTINE, 94. - - Aulic Council, the, 340, 342 note. - - Austria, privilege of, 199; her claim to represent the - Roman Empire, 368, 381. - - Austrian succession, war of the, 352. - - Avignon, exactions of the court of, 219; its subservience - to France, 219, 243. - - AVITUS, letter of, on Sigismund's behalf, 18. - - - B. - - Barbarians, feared by the Romans, 14; Roman armies largely - composed of, 14; admitted to Roman titles and honours, 15; - their feelings towards the Roman Empire, 16; their desire - to preserve its institutions, 17; value of the Roman - officials and Christian bishops to the, 19. - - BARTOLOMMEO (San), the church of, 287. - - BASIL the Macedonian and Lewis II, 191. - - 'Basileus,' the title of, 143, 191. - - Basilica, erected at Aachen by Charles the Great, 76 note. - - BELISARIUS, his war with the Ostrogoths, 29, 273. - - Bell-tower, or campanile, in the churches of Rome, 294. - - BENEDICT of Soracte, 51 note. - - BENEDICT VIII (Pope), alleged decree of, 197. - - Benevento, the Annals of, 150. - - BERENGAR of Friuli, 82; his death, 83. - - BERENGAR II (King of Italy), 83. - - BERNARD (St.), 109 note. - - Bible, rights of the Empire proved from the, 112; - perversion of its meaning, 114. - - Bohemia, acquired by Luxemburg A. D. 1309, 222; the king - of, an elector, 230. - - BONIFACE VIII (Pope), his extravagant pretensions, 109, - 247; declares himself Vicar of the Empire, 219 note. - - BOSO, 81, 395. - - Bosphorus, removal of the seat of government to the, 154. - - Britain, abandoned by Imperial Government, 24; Roman Civil - Law not forgotten in, at a late date, 32; Roman ensigns and - devices in, 258. - - Buildings, the old, destruction and alteration of, by - invaders, 291; by the Romans of the Middle Ages, 292; by - modern restorers of churches, 292. - - Bull, the Golden, of Charles IV, 225, 230, 236. - - Burgundy, the kingdom of, Otto's policy towards, 143; added - to the Empire under Conrad II, 151; effect of its loss on - the Empire, 305; confusion caused by the name, 395; ten - senses in which it is met with, 395-7. - - Byzantium, effect of the removal of the seat of power to, - 9; Otto's policy towards, 141; attitude towards Emperor, - 189. - - - C. - - Campanile; _see_ Bell-tower. - - Canon law, correspondence between it and the Corpus Juris - Civilis, 101; its consolidation by Gregory IX, 112, 217. - - CAPET (Hugh), 142. - - Capitol, rebuilding of the, by Michael Angelo, 295. - - Capitulary of A. D. 802, 65. - - CARACALLA (Emperor), effect of his edict, 6. - - Carolingian Emperors, 76. - - Carolingian Empire of the West, its end in A. D. 888, 78; - Florus the Deacon's lament over its dissolution, 85 note. - - Carroccio, the, 178 note, 328. - - Cathari and other heretics, spread of, 241. - - Catholicity or Romanism, 94, 106. - - Celibacy, enforcement of, 158. - - Cenci, name of, 289 note. - - CHARLEMAGNE; _see_ Charles I. - - CHARLES I (the Great), extinguishes the Lombard kingdom, - 41; is received with honours by Pope Hadrian and the - people, 41; his personal ambition, 42; his treatment of - Pope Leo III, 44; title of 'Champion of the Faith and - Defender of the Holy See' conferred upon, 47; crowned at - Rome, 48; important consequences of his coronation, 50, 52; - its real meaning, 52, 80, 81; contemporary accounts, 53, - 64, 65, 84; their uniformity, 56; illegality of the - transaction, 56; three theories respecting it held four - centuries after, 57; was the coronation a surprise? 58; his - reluctance to assume the imperial title, 60; solution - suggested by Döllinger, 60; seeks the hand of Irene, 61; - defect of his imperial title, 61; theoretically the - successor of the whole Eastern line of Emperors, 62, 63; - has nothing to fear from Byzantine Princes, 63; his - authority in matters ecclesiastical, 64; presses Hadrian to - declare Constantine VI a heretic, 64; his spiritual - despotism applauded by subsequent Popes, 64; importance - attached by him to the Imperial name, 65; issues a - Capitulary, 65; draws closer the connexion of Church and - State, 66; new position in civil affairs acquired with the - Imperial title, 67, 68, 69; his position as Frankish king, - 69, 70; partial failure of his attempt to breathe a - Teutonic spirit into Roman forms, 70, 71; his personal - habits and sympathies, 71; groundlessness of the claims of - the modern French to, 71; the conception of his Empire - Roman, not Teutonic, 72; his Empire held together by the - Church, 73; appreciation of his character generally, 73, - 74; impress of his mind on mediæval society, 74; buried at - Aachen, 74; inscription on his tomb, 74; canonised as a - saint, 75; his plan of Empire, 76. - - CHARLES II (the BALD), 77, 156, 157. - - CHARLES III (the FAT), 78, 81. - - CHARLES IV, 223; his electoral constitution, 225; his - Golden Bull, 225, 236; general results of his policy, 236; - his object through life, 236; the University of Prague - founded by, 237; welcomed into Italy by Petrarch, 254. - - CHARLES V, accession of, 319; casts in his lot with the - Catholics, 321; the momentous results, 322; failure of his - repressive policy, 322. - - CHARLES VI, 348, 351, 352. - - CHARLES VII, his disastrous reign, 351. - - CHARLES VIII (King of France), his pretensions on Naples - and Milan, 315. - - CHARLES MARTEL, 36, 38. - - CHARLES of Valois, 223. - - CHARLES the BOLD and Frederick III, 249. - - CHEMNITZ, his comments on the condition and prospects of - the Empire, 339. - - CHILDERIC, his deposition by the Holy See, 39. - - Chivalry, the orders of, 250. - - Church, the, opposed by the Emperors, 10; growth of, 10; - alliance of, with the State, 10, 66, 107, 387; organization - of, framed on the model of the secular administration, 11; - the Emperor the head of, 12; maintains the Imperial idea, - 13; attitude of Charles the Great towards, 65, 66; the bond - that holds together the Empire of Charles, 73; first gives - men a sense of unity, 92; how regarded in Middle Ages, 92, - 370; draws tighter all bonds of outward union, 94; unity - of, felt to be analogous to that of the Empire, 93; becomes - the exact counterpart of the Empire, 99, 101, 107, 328; - position of, in Germany, 128; Otto's position towards, 129; - effect of the Reformation upon, 327; influence of the - Empire upon the history of, 384. - - Churches, national, 95, 330. - - Churches of Rome, destruction of old buildings by modern - restorers of, 292; mosaics and bell-tower in the, 294. - - Cities, in Lombardy, 175; growth of in Germany, 179; their - power, 223. - - Civil law, revival of the study of, 172; its study - forbidden by the Popes in the thirteenth century, 253. - - CIVILIS, the Batavian, 17. - - Clergy, aversion of the Lombards to the, 37; their idea of - political unity, 96; their power in the eleventh century, - 128; Gregory VII's condemnation of feudal investitures to - the, 158; their ambition and corruption in the later Middle - Age, 290. - - CLOVIS, his desire to preserve the institutions of the - Empire, 17, 30; his unbroken success, 35. - - Coins, papal, 278 note. - - COLONNA (John), Petrarch's letters to, 270 and note; the - family of, 281. - - Commons, the, 132, 314. - - Concordat of Worms, 163. - - Confederation of the Rhine, provisions of the, 362. - - CONRAD I (King of the East Franks), 122, 226. - - CONRAD II, the reign of, 151; comparison between the - prerogative at his accession and at the death of Henry V, - 165; the crown of Burgundy first gained by, 194. - - CONRAD III, 165, 277. - - CONRAD IV, 210. - - CONRADIN (Frederick II's grandson), murder of, 211. - - Constance, the Council of, 220, 253, 301; the peace of, - signed by Frederick I, 178. - - CONSTANTINE, his vigorous policy, 8; the Donation of, 43, - 100, 288 note. - - Constantinople, capture of, 303, 311. - - Coronations, ceremonies at, 112; the four, gone through by - the Emperors, 193, 403; their meaning, 195; churches in - which they were performed, 284, 288. - - Corpus Juris Civilis, correspondence between, and the Canon - Law, 101. - - Councils, General, right of Emperors to summon, 111. - - Counts Palatine, Otto's institution of, 125. - - CRESCENTIUS, 146. - - Crown, the Imperial, the right to confer, 57, 61, 81; not - legally attached to Frankish crown or nation, 81; how - treated by the Popes, 82. - - Crowns, the four, 193, 403. - - Crusades, the, 164, 166, 179, 193, 205, 209. - - - D. - - DANTE, 208; his attitude towards the Empire, 255; his - treatise _De Monarchia_, 262; sketch of its argument, 264 - et seq.; its omissions, 268, 299. - - Dark Ages, existing relics of the, 294. - - Decretals, the False, 156. - - Denmark, and the Slaves, 143; imperial authority in, 184; - its relations to the Empire, 398. - - Diet, the, 126, 314, 353; its rights as settled A. D. 1648, - 340; its altered character A. D. 1654, 344; its triflings, - 353. - - DIOCLETIAN, his vigorous policy, 8. - - Divine right of the Emperor, 246. - - DÖLLINGER (Dr.), 60 note. - - Dominicans, the order of, 205. - - Donation of Constantine, forgery of the, 43, 100, 118 note, - 261 note. - - Dukes, the, in Germany, 125. - - - E. - - East, imperial pretensions in the, 189. - - Eastern Church, the, 191. - - Eastern Empire, its relations with the Western, 24, 25; - decay of its power in the West, 45; how regarded by the - Popes, 46. - - Edict of Caracalla, 6. - - EDWARD II (King of England), his declaration of England's - independence of the Empire, 187. - - EDWARD III (King of England) and Lewis the Bavarian, 187; - his election against Charles IV, 223. - - EGINHARD, his statement respecting Charles's coronation, - 58, 60. - - Elective constitution, the, 227; difficulty of maintaining - the principle in practice, 233; its object the choice of - the fittest man, 233; restraint of the sovereign, 233; - recognition of the popular will, 234. - - Elector, the title of, its advantage, 232 note; personages - upon whom it was conferred by Napoleon, 232. - - Electoral body in primitive times, 226. - - Electoral function, conception of the, 235. - - Electorate, the Eighth, 231; the Ninth, 231. - - Electors, the Seven, 165, 229; their names and offices, 230 - note; the question of their vote, 257 note. - - Emperor, the position of, in the second century, 5, 6; the - head of the Church, 12, 23, 111; sanctity of the name, 22, - 120; correspondence between his position and functions and - those of the Pope, 104; proofs from mediæval documents, - 109; and from the coronation ceremonies, 112; illustrations - from mediæval art, 116; nature of his power, 120; fusion of - his functions with those of German King, 127; his office - feudalized, 130; attitude of Byzantine Emperors towards, - 189; his dignities and titles, 193, 257, 261, 400; the - title not assumed till the Roman coronation, 196; origin - and results of this practice, 196; policy of, 222; his - office as peace-maker, 244, 245; divine right of the, 246; - his right of creating kings, 249; his international place - at the Council of Constance, 253; change in titles of, 316; - his rights as settled A.D. 1648, 340; altered meaning of - the word now-a-days, 402. - - Emperors, meaning of their four coronations, 193, 195, 403; - persons eligible as, 251; after Henry VII, 263; their - short-sighted policy towards Rome, 277; their visits to - Rome, 282; their approach, 283; their entrance, 284; - hostility of the Pope and people to the, 284; their - burial-places, 287 note; nature of the question at issue - between the Popes and the, 385; their titles, 400. - - Emperors, Carolingian, 76. - - Emperors, Franconian, 133. - - Emperors, Hapsburg, beginning of their influence in - Germany, 310; their policy, 305, 348; repeated attempts to - set them aside, 350; causes of the long retention of the - throne by the, 349; modern pretensions of, 368, 381. - - Emperors, Italian, 80. - - Emperors, Saxon, 133. - - Emperors, Swabian or Hohenstaufen, 57, 165, 167. - - Emperors, Teutonic, defects in their title, 61; their - short-sighted policy, 277; their memorials in Rome, 286; - names of those buried in Italy, 287 note; their struggles - against nationality, aristocracy, and popular freedom, 388. - - Empire, the Roman, growth of despotism in, 5; obliteration - of national distinctions in, 6; unity of, threatened from - without and from within, 7, 8; preserved for a time by the - policy of Diocletian and Constantine, 8, 9; partition of, - 9; influence of the Church in supporting, 13; armies of, - composed of barbarians, 15; how regarded by the barbarians, - 16; belief in eternity of, 20; reunion of Italy to, 29; its - influence in the Transalpine provinces, 30; influence of - religion and jurisprudence in supporting, 31, 32; belief - in, not extinct in the eighth century, 44; restoration of - by Charles the Great, 48; the 'translation' of the, 52, - 111, 175, 218; divided between the grandsons of Charles, - 77; dissolution of, 78; ideal state supposed to be embodied - in, 99; never, strictly speaking, restored, 102. - - Empire, the Holy Roman, created by Otto the Great, 80, 103; - a prolongation of the Empire of Charles, 80; wherein it - differed therefrom, 80; motives for establishment of, 84; - identical with Holy Roman Church, 106; its rights proved - from the Bible, 112; its anti-national character, 120; its - union with the German kingdom, 122; dissimilarity between - the two, 127; results of the union, 128; its pretensions in - Hungary, 183; in Poland, 184; in Denmark, 184; in France, - 185; in Sweden, 185; in Spain, 185; in England, 186; in - Naples, 188; in Venice, 188; in the East, 189; the epithet - 'Holy' applied by Frederick I, 199; origin and meaning of - epithet, 200; its fall with Frederick II, 210; Italy lost - to, 211; change in its position, 214; its continuance due - to its connexion with the German kingdom, 214; its - relations with the Papacy, 153, 155, 216; its financial - distress, 223; theory of, in the fourteenth and fifteenth - centuries, 238; its duties as an international judge and - mediator, 244; why an international power, 248; - illustrations, 249; attitude of new learning towards, 251, - 254, 256; doctrine of its rights and functions never - carried out in fact, 253; end of its history in Italy, 263, - 304; relation between it and the city, 297; reaches its - lowest point in Frederick III's reign, 301; its loss of - Burgundy, 305, and of Switzerland, 306; change in its - character, 308, 313; effects of the Renaissance upon, 312; - effects of the Reformation upon, 319, 325; its influence - upon the name and associations of, 332; narrowing of its - bounds, 341; causes of the continuance of, 344; its - relation to the balance of power, 345; its position in - Europe, 346; its last phase, 352; signs of its approaching - fall, 356; its end, 363; the desire for its - re-establishment, 364; unwillingness of certain states, - 364; technically never extinguished, 364 note; summary of - its nature and results, 366; claim of Austria to represent, - 368; of France, 368; of Russia, 368; of Greece, 368; of the - Turks, 368; parallel between the Papacy and, 369, 373; - never truly mediæval, 373; sense in which it was Roman, - 374; its condition in the tenth century, 374; essential - principles of, 377; its influence on Germany, 378; Austria - as heir of, 381; its bearing on the progress of Europe, - 383; ways in which it affected the political institutions - of the Middle Ages, 383; its influence upon modern - jurisprudence, 383; upon the history of the Church, 384; - influence of its inner life on the minds of men, 387; - principles adverse to, 388; change marked by its fall, 389; - its relations to the nationalities of Europe, 390; - difficulty of fully understanding, 392. - - Empire and Papacy, interdependence of, 101; consequences, - 102; struggle between, 153; their relations, 155, 216; - parallel between, 369; compared as perpetuation of a name, - 372. - - Empire Western, last days of the, 24; its extinction by - Odoacer, 26; its restoration, 34. - - Empire, French, under Napoleon, 360. - - ENGELBERT, 113 note. - - England, 45; Otto's position towards, 143; authority not - exercised by any Emperors in, 186; vague notion that it - must depend on the Empire, 186; imperial pretensions - towards, 187; position of the regal power in, as compared - with Germany, 215; feudalism in, 343. - - Estate, Third, did not exist in time of Otto the Great, - 132. - - EUDES (Count of Champagne), 151. - - Europe, bearing of the Empire on the progress of, 383; on - the nationalities of, 390. - - - F. - - False Decretals, the, 156. - - FERDINAND I, 316 note, 323, 401. - - FERDINAND II, accession of, 335; his plans, 335; deprives - the Palsgrave Frederick of his electoral vote, 231. - - Feudal aristocracy, power of the, 221. - - Feudal king, his peculiar relation to his tenants, 124. - - Feudalism, 90, 123; reason of its firm grasp upon society, - 124; hostility between it and imperialism, 131; its results - in France, 343; in England, 343; in Germany, 344; struggles - of the Teutonic Emperors against, 388. - - Financial distress of the Empire, 223. - - FLORUS the Deacon's lament over the dissolution of the - Carolingian Empire, 85 note. - - Fontenay, battle of, 77. - - France, modern, dates from Hugh Capet, 142; imperial - authority exercised in, 185; her irritation at Germany's - precedence, 185; growth of the regal power in, as compared - with Germany, 215; alliance of the Protestants with, 325; - territory gained by treaties of Westphalia, 341; feudalism - in, 343; under Napoleon, 360; her claim to represent the - Roman Empire, 368, 376. - - Francia occidentalis, given to Charles the Bald, 77. - - FRANCIS I, reign of, 351. - - FRANCIS II, accession of, 356; resignation of imperial - crown by, 1, 363. - - Franciscans, the order of, 205. - - Franconia, extinction of the dukedom of, 222. - - Franconian Emperors, 133. - - 'Frank,' sense in which the name was used, 142 note. - - Franks, rise of the, 34; success of their arms, 35; - Catholics from the first, 36; their greatness chiefly due - to the clergy, 36; enter Rome, 48. - - Franks, the West, Otto's policy towards, 142. - - Frankfort, synod held at, 64; coronations at, 316 note, - 404. - - FREDERICK I (Barbarossa), his brilliant reign, 167, 179; - his relations to the Popedom, 167; his contest with Pope - Hadrian IV, 169, 316; incident at their meeting on the way - to Rome, 314 note; his contest with Pope Alexander III, - 170; their meeting at Venice, 171; magnificent ascriptions - of dignity to, 173; assertion of his prerogative in Italy, - 174; his version of the 'Translation of the Empire,' 175; - his dealings with the rebels of Milan and Tortona, 175; his - temporary success, 177; victory of the Lombards over, 178; - his prosperity as German king, 178; his glorious life and - happy death, 179; legend respecting him, 180; extent of his - jurisdiction, 182; his dominion in the East, 189; his - letter to Saladin, 189; anecdote of, 214. - - FREDERICK II, character of, 207; events of his struggle - with the Papacy, 209; results of his reign, 221; the charge - of heresy against, 251 note; memorials left by, in Rome, - 287. - - FREDERICK III, abases himself before the Romish court, 220; - Charles the Bold seeks an arrangement with, 249; his - calamitous reign, 301. - - FREDERICK (Count Palatine and King of Bohemia), deprived by - Ferdinand II of his electoral vote, 231. - - FREDERICK of Prussia (the Great), 347, 352, 353 note. - - Freedom popular, growth of, 240; struggles of the Teutonic - Emperors against, 388. - - - G. - - Gallic race, political character of the, 376. - - Gauverfassung, the so-called, 123. - - GERBERT (Pope Sylvester II), 146. - - 'German Emperor,' the title of, 127, 317. - - Germanic constitution, the, 221; influence upon, of the - theory of the Empire as an international power, 307; - attempted reforms of, 313; means by which it was proposed - to effect them, 314; causes of their failure, 314. - - Germany, beginning of the national existence of, 77; - chooses Arnulf as king, 78; overrun by Hungarians, 79; - establishment of monarchy in, by Henry the Fowler, 79; - desires the restoration of the Carolingian Empire, 86; - position of in the tenth century, 122; union of the Empire - with, 122; results of the union, 128; dissimilarity of the - two systems, 127; feudalism in, 123; the feudal polity of, - generally, 125; nature of the history of, till the twelfth - century, 126; princes of, ally themselves with the Pope - against the Emperor, 162; its hatred of the Romish Court, - 169; the position of under Frederick Barbarossa, 179; - growth of towns in, 179, 223; decline of imperial power in, - 211; state of during Great Interregnum, 213; decline of - regal power in, 215; encroachments of nobles in, 221, 228; - kingdom of, not originally elective, 225; how it ultimately - became elective, 226; changes in the constitution of, 228; - its weakness as compared with other states of Europe, 302; - its loss of imperial territories, 303; its internal - weakness, 306; position of the Emperor in, compared with - that of his predecessors in Europe, 309; beginning of the - Hapsburg influence in, 310; first consciousness of its - nationality, 315; destruction of its State-system, 324; its - troubles, 324; finally severed from Rome, 340; after the - peace of Westphalia, 342; effect of a number of petty - independent states upon, 343; feudalism in, 343; its - political life in the eighteenth century, 345; foreign - thrones acquired by its princes, 346; French aggression - upon, 346; its weakness and stagnation, 347; popular - feeling in at the close of eighteenth century, 354; - Napoleon in, 361; changes in, by war of 1866, 365 note; - influence of the Holy Empire on, 378. - - GERSON, chancellor of Paris, plans of, 301. - - Ghibeline, the name of, 304. - - GOETHE, 236 note, 316 note, 356. - - Golden Bull of Charles IV, 225, 230, 236. - - Goths, wisest and least cruel of the Germanic family, 28; - Arian Goths regarded as enemies by Catholic Italians, 29. - - Greece, her influence in the fifteenth and sixteenth - centuries, 240, 252; her claim to represent the Roman - Empire, 368. - - Greeks and Latins, origin of their separation, 37 note. - - Greeks, effect of their hostility upon the Teutonic Empire, - 210. - - GREGORY THE GREAT, fame of his sanctity and writings, 31; - means by which he advanced Rome's ecclesiastical authority, - 154. - - GREGORY II (Pope), reason of his reluctance to break with - the Byzantine princes, 102. - - GREGORY III (Pope) appeals to Charles Martel for succour - against the Lombards, 39. - - GREGORY V (Pope), 146. - - GREGORY VII (Pope), his condemnation of feudal investitures - to the clergy, 158; war between him and Henry IV, 159; his - letter to William the Conqueror, 160; passage in his second - excommunication of Henry, 161; results of the struggle - between them, 162; his death, 162; his theory as to the - rights of the Pope with respect to the election of - Emperors, 217; his silence about the Translation of the - Empire, 218; his simile between the Empire and the Popedom, - 373; his demands on the Emperor, 386. - - GREGORY IX (Pope), Canon law consolidated by, 102; receives - the title of 'Justinian of the Church,' 102. - - GREGORY X (Pope), 219. - - GROTIUS, 384. - - Guelf, the name of, 304. - - GUIDO, or GUY, of Spoleto, 82. - - GUISCARD, Robert, 292. - - GUNDOBALD the Burgundian, 25. - - GUNTHER of Schwartzburg, 222. - - GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS, 336. - - - H. - - HADRIAN I (Pope), summons Charles (the Great) to resist the - Lombards, 41; motives of his policy, 42; his allusion to - Constantine's Donation, 118 note. - - HADRIAN IV (Pope), Frederick I's contest with, 169, 285; - his pretensions, 197. - - HALLAM, his view of the grant of a Roman dignity to Clovis, - 30 note. - - Hanseatic Confederacy, 223, 347. - - Hapsburg, the castle of, 213 note. - - HAROLD the BLUE-TOOTHED, 143. - - HENRY I (the Fowler), 79, 122, 132, 226. - - HENRY II crowned Emperor, 149. - - HENRY II (King of France), assumes the title of 'Protector - of the German Liberties,' 325. - - HENRY II (King of England), his submissive tone towards - Frederick I, 186. - - HENRY III, power of the Empire at its meridian under, 151; - his reform of the Popedom, 152; fatal results of his - encroachments, 152; his death, 152. - - HENRY IV, election of, 226 note; war between him and - Gregory VII, 159; his humiliation, 159; results of the - struggle, 162; his death, 162. - - HENRY V (Emperor), his claims over ecclesiastics, 163; his - quarrel with Pope Paschal II, 163; his perilous position, - 163; comparison between the prerogative at his death and - that at the accession of Conrad II, 165; tumults produced - by his coronation, 285. - - HENRY V (King of England) refuses submission to the Emperor - Sigismund, 187. - - HENRY VI, 188; his proposal to unite Naples and Sicily to - the Empire, 206; opposition to the scheme, 206; his - untimely death, 206. - - HENRY VII, 221, 223; in Italy, 262; his death, 263. - - HENRY VIII (King of England), 334 note. - - Hessen-Cassel, Elector of, dethroned, 232. - - HILARY, feelings of, towards the Roman Empire, 21 note. - - HILDEBERT (Bishop of Caen), his lines contrasting the past - and present of Rome, 406. - - HILDEBRAND; _see_ Gregory VII. - - HIPPOLYTUS a Lapide, the treatise of, 339. - - Hohenstaufen; _see_ Emperors, Swabian. - - Hohenstaufen, the castle of, 165 note. - - Holland, declared independent, 342. - - Holstein, its relations to the Empire, 398. - - HUGH CAPET, 42. - - HUGH of Burgundy, 83. - - Hungarians, the, 143. - - Hungary, imperial authority exercised in, 183; its - connexion with the Hapsburgs, 184 note. - - HUSS, the writings of, 241. - - - I. - - Iconoclastic controversy, 38. - - 'Imperator electus,' the title of, 316, 405. - - Imperialism, Roman, French, and Mediæval, 375. - - Imperial titles and ceremonies, 193, 400. - - INNOCENT III (Pope), his exertions on behalf of Otto IV, - 206; his pretensions, 209, 217; his struggle with Frederick - II, 208. - - INNOCENT X and the sacred number Seven of the electors, 227 - note; his protest against the Peace of Westphalia, 341. - - International power, the need of an, 242; why the Roman - Empire an, 248. - - Interregnum, the Great, frightful state of Germany during, - 213; enables the feudal aristocracy to extend their power, - 221. - - Investitures, the struggle of the, 162. - - IRENE (Empress), behaviour of, 47, 61, 68. - - Irminsûl, overthrow of, by Charles the Great, 69; meaning - of term, 69 note. - - Italian Emperors, 80. - - Italian nationality, era at which its first rudiments - appeared, 140. - - Italians, modern, their feelings towards Rome, 299. - - Italy, under Odoacer, 26, 27; attempt of Theodoric to - establish a national monarchy in, 27; reconquered by - Justinian, 29; harassed by the Lombards, 37; condition of, - previous to Otto's descent into, 80; Otto the Great's first - expedition into, 84; its connexion with Germany, 87; Otto's - rule in, 139; liberties of the northern cities of, 150; - Frederick I in, 174; Henry VII in, 263; lost to the Empire, - 211, 304; names of Emperors buried in, 287 note; the nation - at the present day, 389. - - Italy, Southern, 150. - - - J. - - JOHN VIII (Pope), 156. - - JOHN XII (Pope), crowns Otto the Great, 87; plots against - him, 134; his reprobate life, 134; Liudprand's list of the - charges against, 135; letter recounting them sent to him, - 136; his reply, 136; Otto's answer, 136; deposed by Otto, - 137; regret of the Romans at his expulsion, 137; his return - and death, 138. - - JOHN XXII (Pope), his conflict with Lewis IV, 220. - - JOSEPH II, reign of, 352. - - JULIUS CÆSAR, 390, 392. - - JULIUS II (Pope), 316. - - Jurisprudence, influence of, in supporting the Empire, 31; - aversion of the Romish court to the ancient, 252; influence - of the Empire on modern, 383. - - Jurists, their attitude towards imperialism, 256. - - JUSTINIAN, Italy reconquered by, 29; study of the - legislation of, 240, 256. - - 'Justinian of the Church,' title of, conferred on Gregory - IX, 102. - - Jutland, Otto penetrates into, 143. - - - K. - - Kings, the Emperor's right of creating, 249. - - Knighthood, analogy between priesthood and, 250. - - - L. - - LACTANTIUS, his belief in the eternity of the Roman Empire, - 21. - - LAMBERT (son of Guido of Spoleto), 82. - - Landgrave of Thuringia, choice of the, commanded by the - Pope, 219. - - Lateran Palace at Rome, mosaic of the, 117, 288. - - Latins and Greeks, origin of their separation, 37 note. - - Lauresheim, Annals of, their account of the coronation of - Charles, 53. - - Law, old, the influence exercised by, 32; era of the - revived study of, 276. - - Learning, revival of, 240; connexion between it and - imperialism, 254. - - LEO I (Pope), his assertion of universal jurisdiction, 154. - - LEO the ISAURIAN (Emperor), his attempt to abolish the - worship of images, 38. - - LEO III (Pope), his accession, 43; his adventures, 44; - crowns Charles at Rome on Christmas Day, A.D. 800, 3, 49; - charter of, issued on same day, 106; relation of, to the - act of coronation, 52, 53; lectured by Charles, 64. - - LEO VIII (Pope), 138. - - Leonine city, the, 286 note. - - LEOPOLD I, ninth electorate conferred by, 231. - - LEOPOLD II, 352. - - LEWIS I (the Pious), 76, 77. - - LEWIS II, 77, 104 note, 191, 403. - - LEWIS III (son of Boso), 82. - - LEWIS IV, his conflict with Pope John XXII, 220. - - LEWIS XII (King of France), his pretensions on Naples and - Milan, 315. - - LEWIS XIV (King of France), 346. - - LEWIS (the German) (son of Lewis the Pious), 77. - - LEWIS the CHILD (son of Arnulf), 121. - - Literature, revival of, 240; connexion between it and - imperialism, 254. - - LIUDPRAND (Bishop of Cremona), his list of the accusations - against John XII, 135; account of his embassy to the - princess Theophano, 141. - - LIUDPRAND (King of the Lombards), attacks Rome and the - exarchate, 38. - - Lombard cities, 175; their victory over Frederick I, 178. - - Lombards, arrival of the, A.D. 568, 29, 37; their aversion - to the clergy, 37; the Popes seek help from the Franks - against the, 39; extinction of their kingdom by - Charlemagne, 41. - - LOTHAR I (son of Lewis the Pious), 77, 403. - - LOTHAR II, election of, 165, 228. - - LOTHAR (son of Hugh of Burgundy), 83. - - Lotharingia or Lorraine, 78, 79, 143, 183, 341, 349. - - Luneville, the Peace of, 361. - - LUTHER, 319. - - - M. - - Majesty, the title of, 247 note. - - Mallum, the popular assembly so called, 126. - - MANUEL COMNENUS, 193. - - Mario (Monte), 283. - - MARSILIUS of Padua, his 'de Imperio Romano,' 231 note. - - MAXIMILIAN I, 231, 310; character of his epoch, 310; events - of his reign, 313; his title of 'Imperator electus,' 316, - 405; his proposals to recover Burgundy and Italy, 317. - - MAXIMILIAN II, 323. - - Mayfield, the popular assembly so called, 126. - - Mediæval art, rights of the Empire set forth in, 116. - - Mediæval monuments, causes of the want of in Rome, 289. - - MICHAEL, 61. - - MICHAEL ANGELO, capital rebuilt by, 295. - - Middle Ages, the state of the human mind in, 90; theology - of, 95; philosophy of, 97; relations of Church and State - during, 107, 387; mode of interpreting Scriptures in, 114; - art of, 116; opposition of theory and practice in, 133, - 261; real beginning of, 204; reverence for ancient forms - and phrases in, 258; absence of the idea of change or - progress in, 259; the city of Rome in, 269; barbarism of - the aristocracy in, 289; ambition and corruption of the - clergy in the latter, 290; destruction of old buildings by - the Romans of, 292; existing relics of, 294; aspiration for - unity during, 370; the Visible Church in the, 370; ferocity - of the heroes of, 382; ways in which the Empire affected the - political institutions of, 383; idea of the communion of - saints during, 387. - - Milan, Frederick I's dealings with the rebels of, 125; the - rebuilding of, 178; victory of Frederick II over, 287; - pretensions of Charles VIII and Lewis XII of France on, - 315. - - Mahommedanism, rise of, 45. - - Moissac, Chronicle of, its account of the coronation of - Charles, 54, 84. - - MOMMSEN, 390. - - Monarchy, universal, doctrine of, 91, 97. - - Monarchy, elective, 232. - - Mosaics in the churches of Rome, 294. - - MÜLLER, Johannes von, 354. - - Münster, the treaty of; _see_ Westphalia. - - - N. - - Naples, imperial authority in, 188, 205; pretensions of - Charles VIII and Lewis XII of France on, 315. - - NAPOLEON, as compared with Charles the Great, 74; - extinction of Electorates by, 232; Emperor of the West, - 357; his belief that he was the successor of Charlemagne, - 358; attitude of the Papacy towards, 359; his mission in - Germany, 361. - - Nationalities of Europe, the formation of, 242; relations - of the Empire to the, 390. - - Nationality, struggles of the Teutonic Emperors against, - 388. - - Neo-Platonism, Alexandrian, effect of, 7. - - Nicæa, first council of, 23, 301; second council of, 64. - - NICEPHORUS, 61, 192. - - NICHOLAS I (Pope) and the case of Teutberga, 252. - - NICHOLAS II (Pope), fixes a regular body to elect the Pope, - 158. - - NICHOLAS V (Pope), 279, 292, 312. - - Nobles, the, in feudal times, 125, 221; encroachments of - the, 228. - - Nürnberg, 259. - - - O. - - OCCAM, the English Franciscan, 220. - - ODO, 81. - - ODOACER, extinction of the Western Empire by, A.D. 476, 25; - his original position, 25 note; his assumption of the title - of King, 26; nature of his government, 27. - - OPTATUS (Bishop of Milevis), his treatise _Contra - Donatistas_, 13 note. - - Orsini, the family of, 281. - - Osnabrück, treaty of; _see_ Westphalia. - - Ostrogoths, 24; war between Belisarius and the, 273. - - OTTO I, the GREAT, appealed to by Adelheid, 83; his first - expedition into Italy, 84; invitation sent by the Pope to, - 84; his victory over the Hungarians, 85; crowned king of - Italy at Rome, 87; his coronation a favourable opening to - sacerdotal claims, 155; causes of the revival of the Empire - under, 84; his coronation feast the inauguration of the - Teutonic realm, 123; consequences of his assumption of the - imperial title, 128; his position towards the Church, 128; - changes in title, 129; his imperial office feudalized, 130; - the Germans made a single people by, 131; incidents which - befel him in Rome, 134; inquires into the character and - manners of Pope John XII, 135; his letters to John, 136; - deposes John, 136; appoints Leo in his stead, 137; his - suppression of the revolts of the Romans on account of - John, 138; his rule in Italy, 139; resumes Charles's plans - of foreign conquest, 140; his policy towards Byzantium, - 141; seeks for his heir the hand of the princess Theophano, - 141; his policy towards the West Franks, 142; his Northern - and Eastern conquests, 143; extent of his empire, 144; - comparison between it and that of Charles, 144; beneficial - results of his rule, 145; how styled by Nicephorus, 211. - - OTTO II, 142; memorials left by, in Rome, 317. - - OTTO III, his plans and ideas, 146, 147, 148; his intense - religious belief in the Emperor's duties, 147; his reason - for using the title 'Romanorum Imperator,' 147; his early - death, 148, 228; his burial at Aachen, 148; respect in - which his life was so memorable, 149; compared with - Frederick II, 207; his expostulation with the Roman people, - 285 note; memorials left by, in Rome, 286. - - OTTO IV, Pope Innocent III's exertions in behalf of, 206; - overthrown by Innocent, 207; explanation of a curious seal - of, 266 note. - - - P. - - PALGRAVE (Sir F.), his view of the grant of a Roman dignity - to Clovis, 30 note. - - PALSGRAVE, deprived of his vote, 231; reinstated, 231. - - Panslavism, Russia's doctrine of, 368. - - Papacy, the Teutonic reform of, 146; Frederick I's bad - relations with, 168; Henry III's purification of, 152, 204; - growth of its power, 153; its relations with the Empire, - 153, 155, 216; its condition after the dissolution of the - Carolingian Empire, 275; its attitude towards Napoleon, - 359. - - Papacy and Empire, interdependence of, 101; its - consequences, 102; struggle between them, 153; their - relations, 155, 216; parallel between, 369; compared as - perpetuation of a name, 372. - - Papal elections, veto of Emperor on, 138, 155. - - Partition treaty of Verdun, 77. - - PASCHAL II (Pope), his quarrel with Henry V, 163. - - Patrician of the Romans, import of the title, 40; date when - it was bestowed on Pipin, 40 note. - - PATRITIUS, secretary of Frederick III, on the poverty of - the Empire, 224. - - Pavia, the Council of, and Charles the Bald, 156. - - Persecution, Protestant, 330. - - Peter's (St.), old, 48. - - PETRARCH, his feelings towards the Empire, 254; towards the - city of Rome, 270. - - PFEFFINGER, 351 note. - - PHILIP of Hohenstaufen, contest between Otto of Brunswick - and, 206; his assassination, 206. - - Philosophy, scholastic, spread of, in the thirteenth - century, 240. - - PIPIN of Herstal, 35. - - PIPIN the SHORT appointed successor to Childeric, 39; twice - rescues Rome from the Lombards, 39; receives the title of - Patrician of the Romans, 40; import of this title, 40; date - at which it was bestowed, 40 note. - - PIUS VII (Pope), 359. - - Placitum, the popular assembly so called, 126. - - PODIEBRAD (George), (King of Bohemia), 223. - - Poland, imperial authority in, 184; partition of, 345. - - Politics, beginning of the existence of, 241. - - Popes, emancipation of the, 27, 37, 281, 282; appeal to the - Franks for succour against the Lombards, 39; their reasons - for desiring the restoration of the Western Empire, 45, 46; - their theory respecting the coronation of Charles, 57; - their profligacy in the tenth century, 82, 85, 275; their - theory respecting the chair of St. Peter, 99; their - position and functions, 104; growth of their pretensions, - 108, 156, 217; and power, 153; their relations to the - Emperor, 155; their temporal power, 157; their position as - international judges, 243; reaction against their - pretensions, 243, 275; their aversion to the study of - ancient jurisprudence, 252; hostility of, to the Germans, - 284; nature of the question at issue between the Emperors - and, 385. - - PORCARO (Stephen), conspiracy of, 279. - - Prætaxation, the so-called right of, 228, 229. - - Pragmatic Sanctions of Frederick II, 212, 221. - - Prague, University of, 237. - - Prerogative, Imperial, contrast of, at accession of Conrad - II and death of Henry V, 165. - - Priesthood, analogy between knighthood and, 250. - - Princes, league of, formed by Frederick the Great, 352. - - Protestant States, their conduct after the Reformation, - 330. - - Protestants of Germany, their alliance with France, 325. - - Public Peace and Imperial Chamber, establishment of the, - 313. - - - R. - - RADULFUS DE COLONNA, his account of the origin of the - separation of Greeks and Latins, 37 note. - - Ravenna, exarch of, 27. - - Reformation, dawnings of the, 240; Charles V's attitude - towards the, 321; influence of its spirit on the Empire, - 319, 325; its real meaning, 325; its effect on the - doctrines regarding the Visible Church, 327; consequent - effect upon the Empire, 328; its small immediate influence - on political and religious liberty, 329; conduct of the - Protestant States after the, 330; its influence on the name - and associations of the Empire, 332. - - Religion, influence of, in supporting the Empire, 31; wars - of, 330. - - Renaissance, the, 240, 311. - - 'Renovatio Romani Imperii,' signification of the seal - bearing legend of, 103. - - Rhine, towns of the, 223; provisions of the Confederation - of the, 362. - - RICHARD I (King of England), pays homage to the Emperor - Henry VI, 186; his release, 187. - - RICHARD (Earl of Cornwall), his double election with - Alfonso X of Castile, 212, 229. - - RICHELIEU, policy of, 336. - - RICIMER (patrician), 25. - - RIENZI, Petrarch's letter to the Roman people respecting, - 255; his character and career, 278. - - Romans, revolts of the, at the expulsion of Pope John XII, - 137, 138; Otto's vigorous measures against the, 138; their - revolt from the Iconoclastic Emperors of the East, 274; the - title of King of the, 404. - - Romanism or Catholicity, 94, 106. - - Rome, commanding position of, in the second century, 7; - prestige of, not destroyed by the partition of the Empire, - 9; lingering influences of her Church and Law, 31, 32; - claim of, to the right of conferring the imperial crown, - 57, 61, 81; republican institutions of, renewed, 83; - profligacy of, in the tenth century, 82, 85; under Arnold - of Brescia, 174; imitations of old, 257; in the Middle - Ages, 269; absence of Gothic in, 271; the modern traveller - in, 271, 283; causes of her rapid decay, 273; peculiarities - of her position, 274; her internal history from the sixth - to the twelfth century, 274; her condition in the ninth and - tenth centuries, 274; growth of a republican feeling in, - 276; short-sighted policy of the Emperors towards, 277; - causes of the failure of the struggle for independence in, - 280; her internal condition, 280; her people, 280; her - nobility, 281; her bishop, 281; relation of the Emperor to, - 282; the Emperors' visits to, 282; dislike of, to the - Germans, 285; memorials of Otto III in, 286; of Otto II, - 287; of Frederick II, 287; causes of the want of mediæval - monuments in, 289; barbarism of the aristocracy of, 289; - ambition, weakness, and corruption of the clergy of, 290; - tendency of her builders to adhere to the ancient manner, - 290; destruction and alteration of old buildings in, 291; - her modern churches, 293; existing relics of Dark and - Middle Ages in, 291; changed aspect of, 295; analogy - between her architecture and the civil and ecclesiastical - constitution, 296; relation of, to the Empire, 297; - feelings of modern Italians towards, 299; perpetuation of - the name of, 367; parallel instances, 367; Hildebert's - lines contrasting the past and present of, 406. - - ROMULUS AUGUSTULUS, his resignation at Odoacer's bidding, - 25. - - RUDOLF (King of Transjurane), 81. - - RUDOLF of Hapsburg, 213, 219, 221, 222; financial distress - under, 224; Schiller's description of the coronation feast - of, 231 note, 262. - - RUDOLF II, 335. - - RUDOLF III, 151. - - RUDOLF of Swabia, 162. - - RUDOLF III (King of Burgundy), his proposal to bequeath - Burgundy to Henry II, 151. - - Russia, her claim to represent the Roman Empire, 368. - - - S. - - Sachsenspiegel, the, 108 note. - - SALADIN (the Sultan), Frederick I's letter to, 189. - - Santa Maria Novella at Florence, fresco in, 118. - - Saxon Emperors, 133. - - Saxony, extinction of the dukedom of, 222. - - Schleswig, its annexation by Otto, 143; its relation to the - Empire, 398. - - Scholastic philosophy, spread of, in the thirteenth - century, 240. - - Seal, ascribed to A. D. 800, 103. - - SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS, concentration of power in his hands, 5, - 6. - - SERGIUS IV (Pope), 228 note. - - Seven Years' War, 352. - - Sicambri, probably the chief source of the Frankish nation, - 34. - - Sicily, imperial authority in, 188, 205. - - SIGISMUND (the Burgundian king), his desire to preserve the - institutions of the Empire, 18. - - SIGISMUND (Emperor), his visit to Henry V, 187; at the - Council of Constance, 253, 301. - - Simony, measures taken against, 158. - - Slavic races, the, 27, 143, 260, 378. - - Smalkaldic league, the, 322. - - Southern Italy, 150. - - Spain, Otto's position towards, 143; authority not - exercised by any Emperor in, 185; compared with Germany, - 303. - - Speyer, Diet of, 111 note. - - STEPHANIA (widow of Crescentius), 148. - - Swabia, extinction of the dukedom of, 222; the towns of, - 223, 313; theory of the Emperors of the house of, - respecting the coronation of Charles, 57. - - Sweden, improbability of imperial pretensions to, 185. - - Swiss Confederation, the, 306; her gains by treaties of - Westphalia, 341. - - Switzerland lost to the Empire, 306, 342. - - SYLVESTER (Pope), 43. - - - T. - - Taxes, mode of collecting in Roman Empire, 9 note. - - TERTULLIAN, his feelings towards the Roman Emperor, 21 - note, 23 note. - - TEUTBERGA (wife of Lothar), the famous case of, 252. - - Teutonic race, political character of the, 376. - - THEODEBERT (son of Clovis), his desire to preserve the - institutions of the Empire, 18. - - THEODORIC the Ostrogoth, his attempt to establish a - national monarchy in Italy, 27, 28; its failure, 29; his - usual place of residence, 28 note; prosperity under his - reign, 29. - - THEODOSIUS (the Emperor), his abasement before St. Ambrose, - 12. - - THEOPHANO (princess), 141. - - Thirty Years' War, 335; its unsatisfactory results, 336; - its substantial advantage to the German princes, 338. - - THOMAS (St.), his statement respecting the election of - Emperors, 227. - - Tithes, first enforced by Charles the Great, 67. - - Titles, change of, 129, 316, 400. - - Tortona, Frederick I's dealing with the rebels of, 175. - - Transalpine provinces, influence of the Empire in, 30. - - 'Translation of the Empire,' 52, 111, 175, 218. - - Transubstantiation, 326 note. - - Turks, the, 303; their claim to represent the Roman Empire, - 368. - - TURPIN (Archbishop), 51 note. - - - U. - - University of Prague, foundation of, 237. - - Unity, political, idea of, upheld by the clergy, 96. - - URBAN IV (Pope), on the right of choosing the Roman king, - 229. - - - V. - - Venice, her attitude, 171; imperial pretensions towards, - 188; maintains her independence, 188. - - Verdun, partition treaty of, 77. - - VESPASIAN, his dying jest, 23 note. - - Vienna, Congress of, 364. - - VILLANI (Matthew), his idea of the Teutonic Emperors, 304; - his etymology of Guelf and Ghibeline, 304 note. - - Visigothic kings of Spain, the Empire's rights admitted by - the, 30. - - - W. - - WALLENSTEIN, 335. - - WENZEL of Bohemia, 223. - - Western Empire, its last days, 24, 25; its extinction by - Odoacer, 26; its restoration, 34. - - Westphalia, the Peace of, 336; its advantages to France, - 341; to Sweden, 341; its importance in imperial history, - 342. - - WICKLIFFE, excitement caused by his writings, 241. - - WILLIAM the Conqueror, letter of Hildebrand to, 160. - - WIPPO, 227 note. - - WITUKIND, 85 note. - - WOITECH (St. Adalbert), 269. - - World-Monarchy, the idea of a, 91; influence of metaphysics - upon the theory, 97. - - World-Religion, the idea of a, 91; coincides with the - World-Empire, 92. - - Worms, Concordant of, 163; Diet of, 319, 334. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Holy Roman Empire, by James Bryce - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE *** - -***** This file should be named 44101-8.txt or 44101-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/1/0/44101/ - -Produced by Melissa McDaniel, Stephen Rowland, and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net -(This file was produced from images generously made -available by The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Holy Roman Empire - -Author: James Bryce - -Release Date: November 4, 2013 [EBook #44101] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE *** - - - - -Produced by Melissa McDaniel, Stephen Rowland, and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net -(This file was produced from images generously made -available by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - -Transcriber's Note: - - Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have - been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. - - - - - THE - HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE - - BY - JAMES BRYCE, D.C.L. - - _FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE - and - PROFESSOR OF CIVIL LAW IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD_ - - - THIRD EDITION REVISED - - - London - MACMILLAN AND CO. - 1871 - - - - - OXFORD: - By T. Combe, M.A., E. B. Gardner, and E. Pickard Hall, - PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. - - - - -PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. - - -The object of this treatise is not so much to give a narrative history -of the countries included in the Romano-Germanic Empire--Italy during -the middle ages, Germany from the ninth century to the nineteenth--as -to describe the Holy Empire itself as an institution or system, the -wonderful offspring of a body of beliefs and traditions which have -almost wholly passed away from the world. Such a description, however, -would not be intelligible without some account of the great events -which accompanied the growth and decay of imperial power; and it has -therefore appeared best to give the book the form rather of a -narrative than of a dissertation; and to combine with an exposition of -what may be called the theory of the Empire an outline of the -political history of Germany, as well as some notices of the affairs -of mediaeval Italy. To make the succession of events clearer, a -Chronological List of Emperors and Popes has been prefixed[1]. - -The present edition has been carefully revised and corrected -throughout; and a good many additions have been made to both text and -notes. - - LINCOLN'S INN, - August 11, 1870. - -FOOTNOTE: - -[1] The author has in preparation, and hopes before long to complete -and publish, a set of chronological tables which may be made to serve -as a sort of skeleton history of mediaeval Germany and Italy. - - - - -CONTENTS. - - - CHAPTER I. - Introductory. - - - CHAPTER II. - The Roman Empire before the Invasion of the Barbarians. - - The Empire in the Second Century 5 - Obliteration of National distinctions 6 - Rise of Christianity 10 - Its Alliance with the State 10 - Its Influence on the Idea of an Imperial Nationality 13 - - - CHAPTER III. - The Barbarian Invasions. - - Relations between the Primitive Germans and the Romans 15 - Their Feelings towards Rome and her Empire 16 - Belief in its Eternity 20 - Extinction by Odoacer of the Western branch of the Empire 26 - Theodoric the Ostrogothic King 27 - Gradual Dissolution of the Empire 30 - Permanence of the Roman Religion and the Roman Law 31 - - - CHAPTER IV. - Restoration of the Empire in the West. - - The Franks 34 - Italy under Greeks and Lombards 37 - The Iconoclastic Schism 38 - Alliance of the Popes with the Frankish Kings 39 - The Frankish Conquest of Italy 41 - Adventures and Plans of Pope Leo III 43 - Coronation of Charles the Great 48 - - - CHAPTER V. - Empire and Policy of Charles. - - Import of the Coronation at Rome 52 - Accounts given in the Annals of the time 53 - Question as to the Intentions of Charles 58 - Legal Effect of the Coronation 62 - Position of Charles towards the Church 64 - Towards his German Subjects 67 - Towards the other Races of Europe 70 - General View of his Character and Policy 72 - - - CHAPTER VI. - Carolingian and Italian Emperors. - - Reign of Lewis I 76 - Dissolution of the Carolingian Empire 78 - Beginnings of the German Kingdom 79 - Italian Emperors 80 - Otto the Saxon King 84 - Coronation of Otto at Rome 87 - - - CHAPTER VII. - Theory of the Mediaeval Empire. - - The World Monarchy and the World Religion 91 - Unity of the Christian Church 94 - Influence of the Doctrine of Realism 97 - The Popes as heirs to the Roman Monarchy 99 - Character of the revived Roman Empire 102 - Respective Functions of the Pope and the Emperor 104 - Proofs and Illustrations 109 - Interpretations of Prophecy 112 - Two remarkable Pictures 116 - - - CHAPTER VIII. - The Roman Empire and the German Kingdom. - - The German or East Frankish Monarchy 122 - Feudality in Germany 123 - Reciprocal Influence of the Roman and Teutonic Elements on - the Character of the Empire 127 - - - CHAPTER IX. - Saxon and Franconian Emperors. - - Adventures of Otto the Great in Rome 134 - Trial and Deposition of Pope John XII 135 - Position of Otto in Italy 139 - His European Policy 140 - Comparison of his Empire with the Carolingian 144 - Character and Projects of the Emperor Otto III 146 - The Emperors Henry II and Conrad II 150 - The Emperor Henry III 151 - - - CHAPTER X. - Struggle of the Empire and the Papacy. - - Origin and Progress of Papal Power 153 - Relations of the Popes with the early Emperors 155 - Quarrel of Henry IV and Gregory VII 159 - Gregory's Ideas 160 - Concordat of Worms 163 - General Results of the Contest 164 - - - CHAPTER XI. - The Emperors in Italy: Frederick Barbarossa. - - Frederick and the Papacy 167 - Revival of the Study of the Roman Law 172 - Arnold of Brescia and the Roman Republicans 174 - Frederick's Struggle with the Lombard Cities 175 - His Policy as German King 178 - - - CHAPTER XII. - Imperial Titles and Pretensions. - - Territorial Limits of the Empire--Its Claims of Jurisdiction - over other Countries 182 - Hungary 183 - Poland 184 - Denmark 184 - France 185 - Sweden 185 - Spain 185 - England 186 - Scotland 187 - Naples and Sicily 188 - Venice 188 - The East 189 - Rivalry of the Teutonic and Byzantine Emperors 191 - The Four Crowns 193 - Origin and Meaning of the title 'Holy Empire' 199 - - - CHAPTER XIII. - Fall of the Hohenstaufen. - - Reign of Henry VI 205 - Contest of Philip and Otto IV 206 - Character and Career of the Emperor Frederick II 207 - Destruction of Imperial Authority in Italy 211 - The Great Interregnum 212 - Rudolf of Hapsburg 213 - Change in the Character of the Empire 214 - Haughty Demeanour of the Popes 217 - - - CHAPTER XIV. - The Germanic Constitution--the Seven Electors. - - Germany in the Fourteenth Century 222 - Reign of the Emperor Charles IV 225 - Origin and History of the System of Election, and of the - Electoral Body 225 - The Golden Bull 230 - Remarks on the Elective Monarchy of Germany 233 - Results of Charles IV's Policy 236 - - - CHAPTER XV. - The Empire as an International Power. - - Revival of Learning 240 - Beginnings of Political Thought 241 - Desire for an International Power 242 - Theory of the Emperor's Functions as Monarch of Europe 244 - Illustrations 249 - Relations of the Empire and the New Learning 251 - The Men of Letters--Petrarch, Dante 254 - The Jurists 256 - Passion for Antiquity in the Middle Ages: its Causes 258 - The Emperor Henry VII in Italy 262 - The _De Monarchia_ of Dante 264 - - - CHAPTER XVI. - The City of Rome in the Middle Ages. - - Rapid Decline of the City after the Gothic Wars 273 - Her Condition in the Dark Ages 274 - Republican Revival of the Twelfth Century 276 - Character and Ideas of Nicholas Rienzi 278 - Social State of Mediaeval Rome 280 - Visits of the Teutonic Emperors 282 - Revolts against them 284 - Existing Traces of their Presence in Rome 286 - Want of Mediaeval, and especially of Gothic Buildings, in - Modern Rome 289 - Causes of this; Ravages of Enemies and Citizens 291 - Modern Restorations 292 - Surviving Features of truly Mediaeval Architecture--the - Bell-towers 294 - The Roman Church and the Roman City 296 - Rome since the Revolution 299 - - - CHAPTER XVII. - The Renaissance: Change in the Character of the Empire. - - Weakness of Germany 302 - Loss of Imperial Territories 303 - Gradual Change in the Germanic Constitution 307 - Beginning of the Predominance of the Hapsburgs 310 - The Discovery of America 311 - The Renaissance and its Effects on the Empire 311 - Projects of Constitutional Reform 313 - Changes of Title 316 - - - CHAPTER XVIII. - The Reformation and its Effects upon the Empire. - - Accession of Charles V 319 - His Attitude towards the Reformation 321 - Issue of his Attempts at Coercion 322 - Spirit and Essence of the Religious Movement 325 - Its Influence on the Doctrine of the Visible Church 327 - How far it promoted Civil and Religious Liberty 329 - Its Effect upon the Mediaeval Theory of the Empire 332 - Upon the Position of the Emperor in Europe 333 - Dissensions in Germany 334 - The Thirty Years' War 335 - - - CHAPTER XIX. - The Peace of Westphalia: Last Stage in the Decline - of the Empire. - - Political Import of the Peace of Westphalia 337 - Hippolytus a Lapide and his Book 339 - Changes in the Germanic Constitution 340 - Narrowed Bounds of the Empire 341 - Condition of Germany after the Peace 342 - The Balance of Power 345 - The Hapsburg Emperors and their Policy 348 - The Emperor Charles VII 351 - The Empire in its last Phase 352 - Feelings of the German People 354 - - - CHAPTER XX. - Fall of the Empire. - - The Emperor Francis II 356 - Napoleon as the Representative of the Carolingians 357 - The French Empire 360 - Napoleon's German Policy 361 - The Confederation of the Rhine 362 - End of the Empire 363 - The German Confederation 364 - - - CHAPTER XXI. - Conclusion: General Summary. - - Causes of the Perpetuation of the Name of Rome 366 - Parallel instances: Claims now made to represent the Roman - Empire 367 - Parallel afforded by the History of the Papacy 369 - In how far was the Empire really Roman 374 - Imperialism: Ancient and Modern 375 - Essential Principles of the Mediaeval Empire 377 - Influence of the Imperial System in Germany 378 - The Claim of Modern Austria to represent the Mediaeval Empire 381 - Results of the Influence of the Empire upon Europe 383 - Upon Modern Jurisprudence 383 - Upon the Development of the Ecclesiastical Power 384 - Struggle of the Empire with three Hostile Principles 388 - Its Relations, Past and Present, to the Nationalities - of Europe 390 - Conclusion: Difficulties caused by the Nature of the - Subject 392 - - - APPENDIX. - - NOTE A. - On the Burgundies 395 - - NOTE B. - On the Relations to the Empire of the Kingdom of Denmark - and the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein 398 - - NOTE C. - On certain Imperial Titles and Ceremonies 400 - - NOTE D. - Hildebert's Lines contrasting the Past and Present of Rome 406 - - - INDEX 407 - - - - - DATES OF - SEVERAL IMPORTANT EVENTS - IN THE HISTORY OF THE EMPIRE. - - - B.C. - - Battle of Pharsalia 48 - - A.D. - - Council of Nicaea 325 - - End of the separate Western Empire 476 - - Revolt of the Italians from the Iconoclastic Emperors 728 - - Coronation of Charles the Great 800 - - End of the Carolingian Empire 888 - - Coronation of Otto the Great 962 - - Final Union of Italy to the Empire 1014 - - Quarrel between Henry IV and Gregory VII 1076 - - The First Crusade 1096 - - Battle of Legnano 1176 - - Death of Frederick II 1250 - - League of the three Forest Cantons of Switzerland 1308 - - Career of Rienzi 1347-1354 - - The Golden Bull 1356 - - Council of Constance 1415 - - Extinction of the Eastern Empire 1453 - - Discovery of America 1492 - - Luther at the Diet of Worms 1521 - - Beginning of the Thirty Years' War 1618 - - Peace of Westphalia 1648 - - Prussia recognized as a Kingdom 1701 - - End of the House of Hapsburg 1742 - - Seven Years' War 1756-1763 - - Peace of Luneville 1801 - - Formation of the German Confederation 1815 - - Establishment of the North German Confederation 1866 - - - - - CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE - OF - EMPERORS AND POPES. - - - A. D. B. C. - Augustus. 27 - A. D. - Tiberius. 14 - Caligula. 37 - Claudius. 41 - 42 St. Peter, (according - to Jerome). - Nero. 54 - 67 Linus, (according to - Jerome, Irenaeus, - Eusebius). - 68 Clement, (according Galba, Otho, Vitellius, - to Tertullian and Vespasian. 68 - Rufinus). - 78 Anacletus (?). - Titus. 79 - Domitian. 81 - 91 Clement, (according - to later writers). - Nerva. 96 - Trajan. 98 - 100 Evaristus (?). - 109 Alexander (?). - Hadrian. 117 - 119 Sixtus I. - 129 Telesphorus. - Antoninus Pius. 138 - 139 Hyginus. - 143 Pius I. - 157 Anicetus. - Marcus Aurelius. 161 - 168 Soter. - 177 Eleutherius. - Commodus. 180 - Pertinax. 190 - Didius Julianus. 191 - Niger. 192 - 193 Victor (?). Septimius Severus. 193 - 202 Zephyrinus (?). - Caracalla, Geta, - Diadumenian. 211 - Opilius Macrinus. 217 - Elagabalus. 218 - 219 Calixtus I. - Alexander Severus. 222 - 223 Urban I. - 230 Pontianus. - 235 Anterius or Anteros. Maximin. 235 - 236 Fabianus. - The two Gordians, Maximus - Pupienus, Balbinus. 237 - Gordian the Younger. 238 - Philip. 244 - Decius. 249 - 251 Cornelius. Gallus. 251 - 252 Lucius I. Volusian. 252 - 253 Stephen I. AEmilian, Valerian, - Gallienus. 253 - 257 Sixtus II. - 259 Dionysius. - Claudius II. 268 - 269 Felix. - Aurelian. 270 - 275 Eutychianus. Tacitus. 275 - Probus. 276 - Carus. 282 - 283 Caius. - Carinus, Numerian, - Diocletian. 284 - Maximian, joint Emperor - with Diocletian. 286 - 296 Marcellinus. [305(?) - 304 Vacancy. Constantius, Galerius. 304(?) - Licinius. or 307] - 308 Marcellus I. Maximin. 308 - Constantine, Galerius, - Licinius, Maximin, - Maxentius, and Maximian - reigning jointly. 309 - 310 Eusebius. - 311 Melchiades. - 314 Sylvester I. - Constantine (the Great) - alone. 323 - 336 Marcus I. - 337 Julius I. Constantine II, - Constantius II, - Constans. 337 - Magnentius. 350 - 352 Liberius. - Constantius alone. 353 - 356 Felix (Anti-pope). - Julian. 361 - Jovian. 363 - Valens and Valentinian I. 364 - 366 Damasus I. - Gratian and Valentinian I. 367 - Valentinian II and - Gratian. 375 - Theodosius. 379 - 384 Siricius. - Arcadius (in the East), - Honorius (in the West). 395 - 398 Anastasius I. - 402 Innocent I. - Theodosius II. (E) 408 - 417 Zosimus. - 418 Boniface I. - 418 Eulalius (Anti-pope). - 422 Celestine I. - Valentinian III. (W) 424 - 432 Sixtus III. - 440 Leo I (the Great). - Marcian. (E) 450 - Maximus, Avitus. (W) 455 - Majorian. (W) 455 - Leo I. (E) 457 - 461 Hilarius. Severus. (W) 461 - Vacancy. (W) 465 - Anthemius. (W) 467 - 468 Simplicius. - Olybrius. (W) 472 - Glycerius. (W) 473 - Julius Nepos. (W) 474 - Leo II, Zeno, Basiliscus - (all E.) 474 - Romulus Augustulus. (W) 475 - (End of the Western Line - in Romulus Augustus. 476) - (Henceforth, till A.D. 800, - Emperors reigning at - 483 Felix III[2]. Constantinople). - Anastasius I. 491 - 492 Gelasius I. - 496 Anastasius II. - 498 Symmachus. - 498 Laurentius (Anti-pope). - 514 Hormisdas. - Justin I. 518 - 523 John I. - 526 Felix IV. - Justinian. 527 - 530 Boniface II. - 530 Dioscorus (Anti-pope). - 532 John II. - 535 Agapetus I. - 536 Silverius. - 537 Vigilius. - 555 Pelagius I. - 560 John III. - Justin II. 565 - 574 Benedict I. - 578 Pelagius II. Tiberius II. 578 - Maurice. 582 - 590 Gregory I (the Great). - Phocas. 602 - 604 Sabinianus. - 607 Boniface III. - 607 Boniface IV. - Heraclius. 610 - 615 Deus dedit. - 618 Boniface V. - 625 Honorius I. - 638 Severinus. - 640 John IV. - Constantine III, - Heracleonas, - Constans II. 641 - 642 Theodorus I. - 649 Martin I. - 654 Eugenius I. - 657 Vitalianus. - Constantine IV (Pogonatus). 668 - 672 Adeodatus. - 676 Domnus or Donus I. - 678 Agatho. - 682 Leo II. - 683(?) Benedict II. - 685 John V. Justinian II. 685 - 685(?) Conon. - 687 Sergius I. - 687 Paschal (Anti-pope). - 687 Theodorus (Anti-pope). - Leontius. 694 - Tiberius. 697 - 701 John VI. - 705 John VII. Justinian II restored. 705 - 708 Sisinnius. - 708 Constantine. - Philippicus Bardanes. 711 - Anastasius II. 713 - 715 Gregory II. - Theodosius III. 716 - Leo III (the Isaurian). 718 - 731 Gregory III. - 741 Zacharias. Constantine V - (Copronymus). 741 - 752 Stephen (II). - 752 Stephen II (or III). - 757 Paul I. - 767 Constantine (Anti-pope). - 768 Stephen III (IV). - 772 Hadrian I. - Leo IV. 775 - Constantine VI. 780 - 795 Leo III. - Deposition of Constantine - VI by Irene. 797 - Charles I (the Great). 800 - (Following henceforth the - new Western line). - Lewis I (the Pious). 814 - 816 Stephen IV. - 817 Paschal I. - 824 Eugenius II. - 827 Valentinus. - 827 Gregory IV. - Lothar I. 840 - 844 Sergius II. - 847 Leo IV. - 855 Benedict III. Lewis II. 855 - 855 Anastasius (Anti-pope). - 858 Nicholas I. - 867 Hadrian II. - 872 John VIII. - Charles II (the Bald). 875 - Charles III (the Fat). 881 - 882 Martin II. - 884 Hadrian III. - 885 Stephen V. - 891 Formosus. Guido. 891 - Lambert. 894 - 896 Boniface VI. Arnulf. 896 - 896 Stephen VI. - 897 Romanus. - 897 Theodore II. - 898 John IX. - Lewis (the Child).[+] 899 - 900 Benedict IV. - Lewis III (of Provence). 901 - 903 Leo V. - 903 Christopher. - 904 Sergius III. - 911 Anastasius III. - Conrad I.[+] 912(?) - 913 Lando. - 914 John X. - Berengar. 915 - Henry I (the Fowler).[+] 918 - 928 Leo VI. - 929 Stephen VII. - 931 John XI. - 936 Leo VII. Otto I (the Great).[+] 936 - 939 Stephen VIII. - 941 Martin III. - 946 Agapetus II. - 955 John XII. - Otto I, crowned at Rome. 962 - 963 Leo VIII. - 964 Benedict V (Anti-Pope?). - 965 John XIII. - 972 Benedict VI. - Otto II. 973 - 974 Boniface VII (Anti-pope?). - 974 Domnus II (?). - 974 Benedict VII. - 983 John XIV. Otto III 983 - 985 John XV. - 996 Gregory V. - 996 John XVI (Anti-pope). - 999 Sylvester II. - Henry II (the Saint). 1002 - 1003 John XVII. - 1003 John XVIII. - 1009 Sergius IV. - 1012 Benedict VIII. - 1024 John XIX. Conrad II (the Salic). 1024 - 1033 Benedict IX. - Henry III. 1039 - 1044 Sylvester (Anti-pope). - 1045( Gregory VI. - 1046 Clement II. - 1048 Damasus II. - 1048 Leo IX. - 1054 Victor II. - Henry IV. 1056 - 1057 Stephen IX. - 1058 Benedict X. - 1059 Nicholas II. - 1061 Alexander II. - 1073 Gregory VII (Hildebrand). - 1080 (Clement, Anti-pope). - 1086 Victor III. - 1087 Urban II. - 1099 Paschal II. - Henry V. 1106 - 1118 Gelasius II. - 1118 Gregory, (Anti-pope). - 1119 Calixtus II. - 1121 (Celestine, Anti-pope). - 1124 Honorius II. - Lothar II (the Saxon). 1125 - 1130 Innocent II. - (Anacletus, Anti-pope). - 1138 Victor (Anti-pope). [*]Conrad III. 1138 - 1143 Celestine II. - 1144 Lucius II. - 1145 Eugenius III. - Frederick I (Barbarossa). 1152 - 1153 Anastasius IV. - 1154 Hadrian IV. - 1159 Alexander III. - 1159 (Victor, Anti-pope). - 1164 (Paschal, Anti-pope). - 1168 (Calixtus, Anti-pope). - 1181 Lucius III. - 1185 Urban III. - 1187 Gregory VIII. - 1187 Clement III. - Henry VI. 1190 - 1191 Celestine III. - 1198 Innocent III. [*]Philip, Otto IV - (rivals). 1198 - Otto IV. 1208 - Frederick II. 1212 - 1216 Honorius III. - 1227 Gregory IX. - 1241 Celestine IV. - 1241 Vacancy. - 1243 Innocent IV. - [*]Conrad IV, [*]William, - (rivals). 1250 - 1254 Alexander IV. Interregnum. 1254 - [*]Richard (earl of - Cornwall). - [*]Alfonso (king of - Castile), (rivals). 1257 - 1261 Urban IV. - 1265 Clement IV. - 1269 Vacancy. - 1271 Gregory X. - [*]Rudolf I (of Hapsburg). 1272 - 1276 Innocent V. - 1276 Hadrian V. - 1277 John XX or XXI. - 1277 Nicholas I - 1281 Martin IV. - 1285 Honorius IV. - 1289 Nicholas IV. - 1292 Vacancy. [*]Adolf (of Nassau). 1292 - 1294 Celestine V. - 1294 Boniface VIII. - [*]Albert I. 1298 - 1303 Benedict XI. - 1305 Clement V. - Henry VII. 1308 - 1314 Vacancy. Lewis IV. 1315 - (Frederick of Austria, - rival). - 1316 John XXI or XXII. - 1334 Benedict XII. - 1342 Clement VI. - Charles IV. 1347 - 1352 Innocent VI. (Guenther of Schwartzburg, - rival). - 1362 Urban V. - 1370 Gregory XI. - 1378 Urban VI, - Clement VII [*]Wenzel. 1378 - (Anti-pope). - 1389 Boniface IX. - 1394 Benedict (Anti-pope). - [*]Rupert. 1400 - 1404 Innocent VII. - 1406 Gregory XII. - 1409 Alexander V. - 1410 John XXII or Sigismund. 1410 - XXIII. (Jobst of Moravia, rival). - - 1417 Martin V. - 1431 Eugene IV. - [*]Albert II. 1438 - 1439 Felix V (Anti-pope). - Frederick III. 1440 - 1447 Nicholas V. - 1455 Calixtus IV. - 1458 Pius II. - 1464 Paul II. - 1471 Sixtus IV. - 1484 Innocent VIII. - 1493 Alexander VI. [*]Maximilian I. 1493 - 1503 Pius III. - 1503 Julius II. - 1513 Leo X. - Charles V.[3] 1519 - 1522 Hadrian VI. - 1523 Clement VII. - 1534 Paul III. - 1550 Julius III. - 1555 Marcellus II. - 1555 Paul IV. - [*]Ferdinand I. 1558 - 1559 Pius IV. - [*]Maximilian II. 1564 - 1566 Pius V. - 1572 Gregory XIII. - [*]Rudolf II. 1576 - 1585 Sixtus V. - 1590 Urban VII. - 1590 Gregory XIV. - 1591 Innocent IX. - 1592 Clement VIII. - 1604 Leo XI. - 1604 Paul V. - [*]Matthias. 1612 - [*]Ferdinand II. 1619 - 1621 Gregory XV. - 1623 Urban VIII. - [*]Ferdinand III. 1637 - 1644 Innocent X. - 1655 Alexander VII. - [*]Leopold I. 1658 - 1667 Clement IX. - 1670 Clement X. - 1676 Innocent XI. - 1689 Alexander VIII. - 1691 Innocent XII. - 1700 Clement XI. - [*]Joseph I. 1705 - [*]Charles VI. 1711 - 1720 Innocent XIII. - 1724 Benedict XIII. - 1740 Benedict XIV. - [*]Charles VII. 1742 - [*]Francis I. 1745 - 1758 Clement XII. - [*]Joseph II. 1765 - 1769 Clement XIII. - 1775 Pius VI. - [*]Leopold II. 1790 - [*]Francis II. 1792 - 1800 Pius VII. - Abdication of Francis II. 1806 - 1823 Leo XII. - 1829 Pius VIII. - 1831 Gregory XVI. - 1846 Pius IX. - -[*] Those marked with an asterisk were never actually crowned at Rome. -[+] The names marked with a + are those of German kings who never made any -claim to the imperial title. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[2] Reckoning the Anti-pope Felix (A.D. 356) as Felix II. - -[3] Crowned Emperor, but at Bologna, not at Rome. - - - - -CHAPTER I. - -INTRODUCTORY. - - -Of those who in August, 1806, read in the English newspapers that the -Emperor Francis II had announced to the Diet his resignation of the -imperial crown, there were probably few who reflected that the oldest -political institution in the world had come to an end. Yet it was so. -The Empire which a note issued by a diplomatist on the banks of the -Danube extinguished, was the same which the crafty nephew of Julius -had won for himself, against the powers of the East, beneath the -cliffs of Actium; and which had preserved almost unaltered, through -eighteen centuries of time, and through the greatest changes in -extent, in power, in character, a title and pretensions from which all -meaning had long since departed. Nothing else so directly linked the -old world to the new--nothing else displayed so many strange contrasts -of the present and the past, and summed up in those contrasts so much -of European history. From the days of Constantine till far down into -the middle ages it was, conjointly with the Papacy, the recognised -centre and head of Christendom, exercising over the minds of men an -influence such as its material strength could never have commanded. It -is of this influence and of the causes that gave it power rather than -of the external history of the Empire, that the following pages are -designed to treat. That history is indeed full of interest and -brilliance, of grand characters and striking situations. But it is a -subject too vast for any single canvas. Without a minuteness of detail -sufficient to make its scenes dramatic and give us a lively sympathy -with the actors, a narrative history can have little value and still -less charm. But to trace with any minuteness the career of the Empire, -would be to write the history of Christendom from the fifth century to -the twelfth, of Germany and Italy from the twelfth to the nineteenth; -while even a narrative of more restricted scope, which should attempt -to disengage from a general account of the affairs of those countries -the events that properly belong to imperial history, could hardly be -compressed within reasonable limits. It is therefore better, declining -so great a task, to attempt one simpler and more practicable though -not necessarily inferior in interest; to speak less of events than of -principles, and endeavour to describe the Empire not as a State but as -an Institution, an institution created by and embodying a wonderful -system of ideas. In pursuance of such a plan, the forms which the -Empire took in the several stages of its growth and decline must be -briefly sketched. The characters and acts of the great men who -founded, guided, and overthrew it must from time to time be touched -upon. But the chief aim of the treatise will be to dwell more fully on -the inner nature of the Empire, as the most signal instance of the -fusion of Roman and Teutonic elements in modern civilization: to shew -how such a combination was possible; how Charles and Otto were led to -revive the imperial title in the West; how far during the reigns of -their successors it preserved the memory of its origin, and influenced -the European commonwealth of nations. - -Strictly speaking, it is from the year 800 A.D., when a King of the -Franks was crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III, that the -beginning of the Holy Roman Empire must be dated. But in history there -is nothing isolated, and just as to explain a modern Act of Parliament -or a modern conveyance of lands we must go back to the feudal customs -of the thirteenth century, so among the institutions of the Middle -Ages there is scarcely one which can be understood until it is traced -up either to classical or to primitive Teutonic antiquity. Such a mode -of inquiry is most of all needful in the case of the Holy Empire, -itself no more than a tradition, a fancied revival of departed -glories. And thus, in order to make it clear out of what elements the -imperial system was formed, we might be required to scrutinize the -antiquities of the Christian Church; to survey the constitution of -Rome in the days when Rome was no more than the first of the Latin -cities; nay, to travel back yet further to that Jewish theocratic -polity whose influence on the minds of the mediaeval priesthood was -necessarily so profound. Practically, however, it may suffice to begin -by glancing at the condition of the Roman world in the third and -fourth centuries of the Christian era. We shall then see the old -Empire with its scheme of absolutism fully matured; we shall mark how -the new religion, rising in the midst of a hostile power, ends by -embracing and transforming it; and we shall be in a position to -understand what impression the whole huge fabric of secular and -ecclesiastical government which Roman and Christian had piled up made -upon the barbarian tribes who pressed into the charmed circle of the -ancient civilization. - - - - -CHAPTER II. - -THE ROMAN EMPIRE BEFORE THE INVASIONS OF THE BARBARIANS. - - -[Sidenote: The Roman Empire in the second century.] - -[Sidenote: Obliteration of national distinctions.] - -[Sidenote: The Capital.] - -That ostentation of humility which the subtle policy of Augustus had -conceived, and the jealous hypocrisy of Tiberius maintained, was -gradually dropped by their successors, till despotism became at last -recognised in principle as the government of the Roman Empire. With an -aristocracy decayed, a populace degraded, an army no longer recruited -from Italy, the semblance of liberty that yet survived might be swept -away with impunity. Republican forms had never been known in the -provinces at all, and the aspect which the imperial administration had -originally assumed there, soon reacted on its position in the capital. -Earlier rulers had disguised their supremacy by making a slavish -senate the instrument of their more cruel or arbitrary acts. As time -went on, even this veil was withdrawn; and in the age of Septimius -Severus, the Emperor stood forth to the whole Roman world as the -single centre and source of power and political action. The warlike -character of the Roman state was preserved in his title of General; -his provincial lieutenants were military governors; and a more -terrible enforcement of the theory was found in his dependence on the -army, at once the origin and support of all authority. But, as he -united in himself every function of government, his sovereignty was -civil as well as military. Laws emanated from him; all officials acted -under his commission; the sanctity of his person bordered on divinity. -This increased concentration of power was mainly required by the -necessities of frontier defence, for within there was more decay than -disaffection. Few troops were quartered through the country: few -fortresses checked the march of armies in the struggles which placed -Vespasian and Severus on the throne. The distant crash of war from the -Rhine or the Euphrates was scarcely heard or heeded in the profound -quiet of the Mediterranean coasts, where, with piracy, fleets had -disappeared. No quarrels of race or religion disturbed that calm, for -all national distinctions were becoming merged in the idea of a common -Empire. The gradual extension of Roman citizenship through the -_coloniae_, the working of the equalized and equalizing Roman law, the -even pressure of the government on all subjects, the movement of -population caused by commerce and the slave traffic, were steadily -assimilating the various peoples. Emperors who were for the most part -natives of the provinces cared little to cherish Italy or conciliate -Rome: it was their policy to keep open for every subject a career by -whose freedom they had themselves risen to greatness, and to recruit -the senate from the most illustrious families in the cities of Gaul, -Spain, and Asia. The edict by which Caracalla extended to all natives -of the Roman world the rights of Roman citizenship, though prompted by -no motives of kindness, proved in the end a boon. Annihilating legal -distinctions, it completed the work which trade and literature and -toleration to all beliefs but one were already performing, and left, -so far as we can tell, only two nations still cherishing a national -feeling. The Jew was kept apart by his religion: the Greek boasted his -original intellectual superiority. Speculative philosophy lent her aid -to this general assimilation. Stoicism, with its doctrine of a -universal system of nature, made minor distinctions between man and -man seem insignificant: and by its teachers the idea of -cosmopolitanism was for the first time proclaimed. Alexandrian -Neo-Platonism, uniting the tenets of many schools, first bringing the -mysticism of the East into connection with the logical philosophies of -Greece, had opened up a new ground of agreement or controversy for the -minds of all the world. Yet Rome's commanding position was scarcely -shaken. Her actual power was indeed confined within narrow limits. -Rarely were her senate and people permitted to choose the sovereign: -more rarely still could they control his policy; neither law nor -custom raised them above other subjects, or accorded to them any -advantage in the career of civil or military ambition. As in time past -Rome had sacrificed domestic freedom that she might be the mistress of -others, so now to be universal, she, the conqueror, had descended to -the level of the conquered. But the sacrifice had not wanted its -reward. From her came the laws and the language that had overspread -the world: at her feet the nations laid the offerings of their labour: -she was the head of the Empire and of civilization, and in riches, -fame, and splendour far outshone as well the cities of that time as -the fabled glories of Babylon or Persepolis. - -[Sidenote: Diocletian and Constantine.] - -Scarcely had these slowly working influences brought about this unity, -when other influences began to threaten it. New foes assailed the -frontiers; while the loosening of the structure within was shewn by -the long struggles for power which followed the death or deposition of -each successive emperor. In the period of anarchy after the fall of -Valerian, generals were raised by their armies in every part of the -Empire, and ruled great provinces as monarchs apart, owning no -allegiance to the possessor of the capital. - -The founding of the kingdoms of modern Europe might have been -anticipated by two hundred years, had the barbarians been bolder, or -had there not arisen in Diocletian a prince active and politic enough -to bind up the fragments before they had lost all cohesion, meeting -altered conditions by new remedies. By dividing and localizing -authority, he confessed that the weaker heart could no longer make its -pulsations felt to the body's extremities. He parcelled out the -supreme power among four persons, and then sought to give it a -factitious strength, by surrounding it with an oriental pomp which his -earlier predecessors would have scorned. The sovereign's person became -more sacred, and was removed further from the subject by the -interposition of a host of officials. The prerogative of Rome was -menaced by the rivalry of Nicomedia, and the nearer greatness of -Milan. Constantine trod in the same path, extending the system of -titles and functionaries, separating the civil from the military, -placing counts and dukes along the frontiers and in the cities, making -the household larger, its etiquette stricter, its offices more -important, though to a Roman eye degraded by their attachment to the -monarch's person. The crown became, for the first time, the fountain -of honour. These changes brought little good. Heavier taxation -depressed the aristocracy[4]: population decreased, agriculture -withered, serfdom spread: it was found more difficult to raise native -troops and to pay any troops whatever. The removal of the seat of -power to Byzantium, if it prolonged the life of a part of the Empire, -shook it as a whole, by making the separation of East and West -inevitable. By it Rome's self-abnegation that she might Romanize the -world, was completed; for though the new capital preserved her name, -and followed her customs and precedents, yet now the imperial sway -ceased to be connected with the city which had created it. Thus did -the idea of Roman monarchy become more universal; for, having lost its -local centre, it subsisted no longer historically, but, so to speak, -naturally, as a part of an order of things which a change in external -conditions seemed incapable of disturbing. Henceforth the Empire would -be unaffected by the disasters of the city. And though, after the -partition of the Empire had been confirmed by Valentinian, and finally -settled on the death of Theodosius, the seat of the Western government -was removed first to Milan and then to Ravenna, neither event -destroyed Rome's prestige, nor the notion of a single imperial -nationality common to all her subjects. The Syrian, the Pannonian, the -Briton, the Spaniard, still called himself a Roman[5]. - -[Sidenote: Christianity.] - -[Sidenote: Its alliance with the State.] - -For that nationality was now beginning to be supported by a new and -vigorous power. The Emperors had indeed opposed it as disloyal and -revolutionary: had more than once put forth their whole strength to -root it out. But the unity of the Empire, and the ease of -communication through its parts, had favoured the spread of -Christianity: persecution had scattered the seeds more widely, had -forced on it a firm organization, had given it martyr-heroes and a -history. When Constantine, partly perhaps from a genuine moral -sympathy, yet doubtless far more in the well-grounded belief that he -had more to gain from the zealous sympathy of its professors than he -could lose by the aversion of those who still cultivated a languid -paganism, took Christianity to be the religion of the Empire, it was -already a great political force, able, and not more able than willing, -to repay him by aid and submission. Yet the league was struck in no -mere mercenary spirit, for the league was inevitable. Of the evils and -dangers incident to the system then founded, there was as yet no -experience: of that antagonism between Church and State which to a -modern appears so natural, there was not even an idea. Among the Jews, -the State had rested upon religion; among the Romans, religion had -been an integral part of the political constitution, a matter far more -of national or tribal or family feeling than of personal[6]. Both in -Israel and at Rome the mingling of religious with civic patriotism had -been harmonious, giving strength and elasticity to the whole body -politic. So perfect a union was now no longer possible in the Roman -Empire, for the new faith had already a governing body of her own in -those rulers and teachers whom the growth of sacramentalism, and of -sacerdotalism its necessary consequence, was making every day more -powerful, and marking off more sharply from the mass of the Christian -people. Since therefore the ecclesiastical organization could not be -identical with the civil, it became its counterpart. Suddenly called -from danger and ignominy to the seat of power, and finding her -inexperience perplexed by a sphere of action vast and varied, the -Church was compelled to frame herself upon the model of the secular -administration. Where her own machinery was defective, as in the case -of doctrinal disputes affecting the whole Christian world, she sought -the interposition of the sovereign; in all else she strove not to sink -in, but to reproduce for herself the imperial system. And just as with -the extension of the Empire all the independent rights of districts, -towns, or tribes had disappeared, so now the primitive freedom and -diversity of individual Christians and local Churches, already -circumscribed by the frequent struggles against heresy, was finally -overborne by the idea of one visible catholic Church, uniform in faith -and ritual; uniform too in her relation to the civil power and the -increasingly oligarchical character of her government. Thus, under the -combined force of doctrinal theory and practical needs, there shaped -itself a hierarchy of patriarchs, metropolitans, and bishops, their -jurisdiction, although still chiefly spiritual, enforced by the laws -of the State, their provinces and dioceses usually corresponding to -the administrative divisions of the Empire. As no patriarch yet -enjoyed more than an honorary supremacy, the head of the Church--so -far as she could be said to have a head--was virtually the Emperor -himself. The inchoate right to intermeddle in religious affairs which -he derived from the office of Pontifex Maximus was readily admitted; -and the clergy, preaching the duty of passive obedience now as it had -been preached in the days of Nero and Diocletian[7], were well pleased -to see him preside in councils, issue edicts against heresy, and -testify even by arbitrary measures his zeal for the advancement of the -faith and the overthrow of pagan rites. But though the tone of the -Church remained humble, her strength waxed greater, nor were occasions -wanting which revealed the future that was in store for her. The -resistance and final triumph of Athanasius proved that the new society -could put forth a power of opinion such as had never been known -before: the abasement of Theodosius the Emperor before Ambrose the -Archbishop admitted the supremacy of spiritual authority. In the -decrepitude of old institutions, in the barrenness of literature and -the feebleness of art, it was to the Church that the life and feelings -of the people sought more and more to attach themselves; and when in -the fifth century the horizon grew black with clouds of ruin, those -who watched with despair or apathy the approach of irresistible foes, -fled for comfort to the shrine of a religion which even those foes -revered. - -[Sidenote: It embraces and preserves the imperial idea.] - -But that which we are above all concerned to remark here is, that this -church system, demanding a more rigid uniformity in doctrine and -organization, making more and more vital the notion of a visible body -of worshippers united by participation in the same sacraments, -maintained and propagated afresh the feeling of a single Roman people -throughout the world. Christianity as well as civilization became -conterminous with the Roman Empire[8]. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[4] According to the vicious financial system that prevailed, the -_curiales_ in each city were required to collect the taxes, and when -there was a deficit, to supply it from their own property. - -[5] See the eloquent passage of Claudian, _In secundum consulatum -Stilichonis_, 129, _sqq._, from which the following lines are taken -(150-60):-- - - 'Haec est in gremio victos quae sola recepit, - Humanumque genus communi nomine fovit, - Matris, non dominae, ritu; civesque vocavit - Quos domuit, nexuque pio longinqua revinxit. - Hujus pacificis debemus moribus omnes - Quod veluti patriis regionibus utitur hospes: - Quod sedem mutare licet: quod cernere Thulen - Lusus, et horrendos quondam penetrare recessus: - Quod bibimus passim Rhodanum, potamus Oronten, - Quod cuncti gens una sumus. Nec terminus unquam - Romanae ditionis erit.' - -[6] In the Roman jurisprudence, _ius sacrum_ is a branch of _ius -publicum_. - -[7] Tertullian, writing circ. A.D. 200, says: 'Sed quid ego amplius de -religione atque pietate Christiana in imperatorem quem necesse est -suspiciamus ut eum quem Dominus noster elegerit. Et merito dixerim, -noster est magis Caesar, ut a nostro Deo constitutus.'--_Apologet._ -cap. 34. - -[8] See the book of Optatus, bishop of Milevis, _Contra Donatistas_. -'Non enim respublica est in ecclesia, sed ecclesia in republica, id -est, in imperio Romano, cum super imperatorem non sit nisi solus -Deus:' (p. 999 of vol. ii. of Migne's _Patrologiae Cursus completus_.) -The treatise of Optatus is full of interest, as shewing the growth of -the idea of the visible Church, and of the primacy of Peter's chair, -as constituting its centre and representing its unity. - - - - -CHAPTER III. - -THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS. - - -[Sidenote: The Barbarians.] - -[Sidenote: Admitted to Roman titles and honours.] - -Upon a world so constituted did the barbarians of the North descend. -From the dawn of history they shew as a dim background to the warmth -and light of the Mediterranean coast, changing little while kingdoms -rise and fall in the South: only thought on when some hungry swarm -comes down to pillage or to settle. It is always as foes that they are -known. The Romans never forgot the invasion of Brennus; and their -fears, renewed by the irruption of the Cimbri and Teutones, could not -let them rest till the extension of the frontier to the Rhine and the -Danube removed Italy from immediate danger. A little more perseverance -under Tiberius, or again under Hadrian, would probably have reduced -all Germany as far as the Baltic and the Oder. But the politic or -jealous advice of Augustus[9] was followed, and it was only along the -frontiers that Roman arts and culture affected the Teutonic races. -Commerce was brisk; Roman envoys penetrated the forests to the courts -of rude chieftains; adventurous barbarians entered the provinces, -sometimes to admire, oftener, like the brother of Arminius[10], to -take service under the Roman flag, and rise to a distinction in the -legion which some feud denied them at home. This was found even more -convenient by the hirer than by the employed; till by degrees -barbarian mercenaries came to form the largest, or at least the most -effective, part of the Roman armies. The body-guard of Augustus had -been so composed; the praetorians were generally selected from the -bravest frontier troops, most of them German; the practice could not -but increase with the extinction of the free peasantry, the growth of -villenage, and the effeminacy of all classes. Emperors who were, like -Maximin, themselves foreigners, encouraged a system by whose means -they had risen, and whose advantages they knew. After Constantine, the -barbarians form the majority of the troops; after Theodosius, a Roman -is the exception. The soldiers of the Eastern Empire in the time of -Arcadius are almost all Goths, vast bodies of whom had been settled in -the provinces; while in the West, Stilicho[11] can oppose Rhodogast -only by summoning the German auxiliaries from the frontiers. Along -with this practice there had grown up another, which did still more to -make the barbarians feel themselves members of the Roman state. -Whatever the pride of the old republic might assert, the maxim of the -Empire had always been that birth and race should exclude no subject -from any post which his abilities deserved. This principle, which had -removed all obstacles from the path of the Spaniard Trajan, the -Pannonian Maximin, the Numidian Philip, was afterwards extended to the -conferring of honour and power on persons who did not even profess to -have passed through the grades of Roman service, but remained leaders -of their own tribes. Ariovistus had been soothed by the title of -Friend of the Roman People; in the third century the insignia of the -consulship[12] were conferred on a Herulian chief: Crocus and his -Alemanni entered as an independent body into the service of Rome; -along the Rhine whole tribes received, under the name of Laeti, lands -within the provinces on condition of military service; and the foreign -aid which the Sarmatian had proffered to Vespasian against his rival, -and Marcus Aurelius had indignantly rejected in the war with Cassius, -became the usual, at last the sole support of the Empire, in civil as -well as in external strife. - -Thus in many ways was the old antagonism broken down--Romans admitting -barbarians to rank and office, barbarians catching something of the -manners and culture of their neighbours. And thus when the final -movement came, and the Teutonic tribes slowly established themselves -through the provinces, they entered not as savage strangers, but as -colonists knowing something of the system into which they came, and -not unwilling to be considered its members; despising the degenerate -provincials who struck no blow in their own defence, but full of -respect for the majestic power which had for so many centuries -confronted and instructed them. - -[Sidenote: Their feelings towards the Roman Empire.] - -Great during all these ages, but greatest when they were actually -traversing and settling in the Empire, must have been the impression -which its elaborate machinery of government and mature civilization -made upon the minds of the Northern invaders. With arms whose -fabrication they had learned from their foes, these dwellers in the -forest conquered well-tilled fields, and entered towns whose busy -workshops, marts stored with the productions of distant countries, and -palaces rich in monuments of art, equally roused their wonder. To the -beauty of statuary or painting they might often be blind, but the -rudest mind must have been awed by the massive piles with which vanity -or devotion, or the passion for amusement, had adorned Milan and -Verona, Arles, Treves, and Bordeaux. A deeper awe would strike them as -they gazed on the crowding worshippers and stately ceremonial of -Christianity, most unlike their own rude sacrifices. The exclamation -of the Goth Athanaric, when led into the market-place of -Constantinople, may stand for the feelings of his nation: 'Without -doubt the Emperor is a God upon earth, and he who attacks him is -guilty of his own blood[13].' - -[Sidenote: Their desire to preserve its institutions.] - -The social and political system, with its cultivated language and -literature, into which they came, would impress fewer of the -conquerors, but by those few would be admired beyond all else. Its -regular organization supplied what they most needed and could least -construct for themselves, and hence it was that the greatest among -them were the most desirous to preserve it. The Mongol Attila -excepted, there is among these terrible hosts no destroyer; the wish -of each leader is to maintain the existing order, to spare life, to -respect every work of skill and labour, above all to perpetuate the -methods of Roman administration, and rule the people as the deputy or -successor of their Emperor. Titles conferred by him were the highest -honours they knew: they were also the only means of acquiring -something like a legal claim to the obedience of the subject, and of -turning a patriarchal or military chieftainship into the regular sway -of an hereditary monarch. Civilis had long since endeavoured to govern -his Batavians as a Roman general[14]. Alaric became master-general of -the armies of Illyricum. Clovis exulted in the consulship; his son -Theodebert received Provence, the conquest of his own battle-axe, as -the gift of Justinian. Sigismund the Burgundian king, created count -and patrician by the Emperor Anastasius, professed the deepest -gratitude and the firmest faith to that Eastern court which was -absolutely powerless to help or to hurt him. 'My people is yours,' he -writes, 'and to rule them delights me less than to serve you; the -hereditary devotion of my race to Rome has made us account those the -highest honours which your military titles convey; we have always -preferred what an Emperor gave to all that our ancestors could -bequeath. In ruling our nation we hold ourselves but your lieutenants: -you, whose divinely-appointed sway no barrier bounds, whose blessed -beams shine from the Bosphorus into distant Gaul, employ us to -administer the remoter regions of your Empire: your world is our -fatherland[15].' A contemporary historian has recorded the remarkable -disclosure of his own thoughts and purposes, made by one of the ablest -of the barbarian chieftains, Athaulf the Visigoth, the brother-in-law -and successor of Alaric. 'It was at first my wish to destroy the Roman -name, and erect in its place a Gothic empire, taking to myself the -place and the powers of Caesar Augustus. But when experience taught me -that the untameable barbarism of the Goths would not suffer them to -live beneath the sway of law, and that the abolition of the -institutions on which the state rested would involve the ruin of the -state itself, I chose the glory of renewing and maintaining by Gothic -strength the fame of Rome, desiring to go down to posterity as the -restorer of that Roman power which it was beyond my power to replace. -Wherefore I avoid war and strive for peace[16].' - -Historians have remarked how valuable must have been the skill of -Roman officials to princes who from leaders of tribes were become -rulers of wide lands; and in particular how indispensable the aid of -the Christian bishops, the intellectual aristocracy of their new -subjects, whose advice could alone guide their policy and conciliate -the vanquished. Not only is this true; it is but a small part of the -truth; one form of that manifold and overpowering influence which the -old system exercised over its foes not less than its own children. For -it is hardly too much to say that the thought of antagonism to the -Empire and the wish to extinguish it never crossed the mind of the -barbarians[17]. The conception of that Empire was too universal, too -august, too enduring. It was everywhere around them, and they could -remember no time when it had not been so. It had no association of -people or place whose fall could seem to involve that of the whole -fabric; it had that connection with the Christian Church which made it -all-embracing and venerable. - -[Sidenote: The belief in its eternity.] - -There were especially two ideas whereon it rested, and from which it -obtained a peculiar strength and a peculiar direction. The one was the -belief that as the dominion of Rome was universal, so must it be -eternal. Nothing like it had been seen before. The empire of Alexander -had lasted a short lifetime; and within its wide compass were included -many arid wastes, and many tracts where none but the roving savage had -ever set foot. That of the Italian city had for fourteen generations -embraced all the most wealthy and populous regions of the civilized -world, and had laid the foundations of its power so deep that they -seemed destined to last for ever. If Rome moved slowly for a time, her -foot was always planted firmly: the ease and swiftness of her later -conquests proved the solidity of the earlier; and to her, more justly -than to his own city, might the boast of the Athenian historian be -applied: that she advanced farthest in prosperity, and in adversity -drew back the least. From the end of the republican period her poets, -her orators, her jurists, ceased not to repeat the claim of -world-dominion, and confidently predict its eternity[18]. The proud -belief of his countrymen which Virgil had expressed-- - - 'His ego nec metas rerum, nec tempora pono: - Imperium sine fine dedi'-- - -was shared by the early Christians when they prayed for the -persecuting power whose fall would bring Antichrist upon earth. -Lactantius writes: 'When Rome the head of the world shall have fallen, -who can doubt that the end is come of human things, aye, of the earth -itself. She, she alone is the state by which all things are upheld -even until now; wherefore let us make prayers and supplications to the -God of heaven, if indeed his decrees and his purposes can be delayed, -that that hateful tyrant come not sooner than we look for, he for whom -are reserved fearful deeds, who shall pluck out that eye in whose -extinction the world itself shall perish[19].' With the triumph of -Christianity this belief had found a new basis. For as the Empire had -decayed, the Church had grown stronger; and now while the one, -trembling at the approach of the destroyer, saw province after -province torn away, the other, rising in stately youth, prepared to -fill her place and govern in her name, and in doing so, to adopt and -sanctify and propagate anew the notion of a universal and unending -state. - -[Sidenote: Sanctity of the imperial name.] - -The second chief element in this conception was the association of -such a state with one irresponsible governor, the Emperor. The hatred -to the name of King, which their earliest political struggles had left -in the Romans, by obliging their ruler to take a new and strange -title, marked him off from all the other sovereigns of the world. To -the provincials especially he became an awful impersonation of the -great machine of government which moved above and around them. It was -not merely that he was, like a modern king, the centre of power and -the dispenser of honour: his pre-eminence, broken by no comparison -with other princes, by the ascending ranks of no aristocracy, had in -it something almost supernatural. The right of legislation had become -vested in him alone: the decrees of the people, and resolutions of the -senate, and edicts of the magistrates were, during the last three -centuries, replaced by imperial constitutions; his domestic council, -the consistory, was the supreme court of appeal; his interposition, -like that of some terrestrial Providence, was invoked, and legally -provided so to be, to reverse or overleap the ordinary rules of -law[20]. From the time of Julius and Augustus his person had been -hallowed by the office of chief pontiff[21] and the tribunician power; -to swear by his head was considered the most solemn of all oaths[22]; -his effigy was sacred[23], even on a coin; to him or to his Genius -temples were erected and divine honours paid while he lived[24]; and -when, as it was expressed, he ceased to be among men, the title of -Divus was accorded to him, after a solemn consecration[25]. In the -confused multiplicity of mythologies, the worship of the Emperor was -the only worship common to the whole Roman world, and was therefore -that usually proposed as a test to the Christians on their trial. -Under the new religion the form of adoration vanished, the sentiment -of reverence remained: the right to control Church as well as State, -admitted at Nicaea, and habitually exercised by the sovereigns of -Constantinople, made the Emperor hardly less essential to the new -conception of a world-wide Christian monarchy than he had been to the -military despotism of old. These considerations explain why the men of -the fifth century, clinging to preconceived ideas, refused to believe -in that dissolution of the Empire which they saw with their own eyes. -Because it could not die, it lived. And there was in the slowness of -the change and its external aspect, as well as in the fortunes of the -capital, something to favour the illusion. The Roman name was shared -by every subject; the Roman city was no longer the seat of government, -nor did her capture extinguish the imperial power, for the maxim was -now accepted, Where the Emperor is, there is Rome[26]. But her -continued existence, not permanently occupied by any conqueror, -striking the nations with an awe which the history or the external -splendours of Constantinople, Milan, or Ravenna could nowise inspire, -was an ever new assertion of the endurance of the Roman race and -dominion. Dishonoured and defenceless, the spell of her name was still -strong enough to arrest the conqueror in the moment of triumph. The -irresistible impulse that drew Alaric was one of glory or revenge, not -of destruction: the Hun turned back from Aquileia with a vague fear -upon him: the Ostrogoth adorned and protected his splendid prize. - -[Sidenote: Last days of the Western Empire.] - -[Sidenote: Its extinction by Odoacer, A.D. 476.] - -In the history of the last days of the Western Empire, two points -deserve special remark: its continued union with the Eastern branch, -and the way in which its ideal dignity was respected while its -representatives were despised. After Stilicho's death, and Alaric's -invasion, its fall was a question of time. While one by one the -provinces were abandoned by the central government, left either to be -occupied by invading tribes or to maintain a precarious independence, -like Britain and Armorica[27], by means of municipal unions, Italy lay -at the mercy of the barbarian auxiliaries and was governed by their -leaders. The degenerate line of Theodosius might have seemed to reign -by hereditary right, but after their extinction in Valentinian III -each phantom Emperor--Maximus, Avitus, Majorian, Anthemius, -Olybrius--received the purple from the haughty Ricimer, general of the -troops, only to be stripped of it when he presumed to forget his -dependence. Though the division between Arcadius and Honorius had -definitely severed the two realms for administrative purposes, they -were still supposed to constitute a single Empire, and the rulers of -the East interfered more than once to raise to the Western throne -princes they could not protect upon it. Ricimer's insolence quailed -before the shadowy grandeur of the imperial title: his ambition, and -Gundobald his successor's, were bounded by the name of patrician. The -bolder genius of Odoacer[28], general of the barbarian auxiliaries, -resolved to abolish an empty pageant, and extinguish the title and -office of Emperor of the West. Yet over him too the spell had power; -and as the Gaulish warrior had gazed on the silent majesty of the -senate in a deserted city, so the Herulian revered the power before -which the world had bowed, and though there was no force to check or -to affright him, shrank from grasping in his own barbarian hand the -sceptre of the Caesars. When, at Odoacer's bidding, Romulus Augustulus, -the boy whom a whim of fate had chosen to be the last native Caesar of -Rome, had formally announced his resignation to the senate, a -deputation from that body proceeded to the Eastern court to lay the -insignia of royalty at the feet of the Eastern Emperor Zeno. The West, -they declared, no longer required an Emperor of its own; one monarch -sufficed for the world; Odoacer was qualified by his wisdom and -courage to be the protector of their state, and upon him Zeno was -entreated to confer the title of patrician and the administration of -the Italian provinces[29]. The Emperor granted what he could not -refuse, and Odoacer, taking the title of King[30], continued the -consular office, respected the civil and ecclesiastical institutions -of his subjects, and ruled for fourteen years as the nominal vicar of -the Eastern Emperor. There was thus legally no extinction of the -Western Empire at all, but only a reunion of East and West. In form, -and to some extent also in the belief of men, things now reverted to -their state during the first two centuries of the Empire, save that -Byzantium instead of Rome was the centre of the civil government. The -joint tenancy which had been conceived by Diocletian, carried further -by Constantine, renewed under Valentinian I and again at the death of -Theodosius, had come to an end; once more did a single Emperor sway -the sceptre of the world, and head an undivided Catholic Church[31]. -To those who lived at the time, this year (476 A.D.) was no such epoch -as it has since become, nor was any impression made on men's minds -commensurate with the real significance of the event. For though it -did not destroy the Empire in idea, nor wholly even in fact, its -consequences were from the first great. It hastened the development of -a Latin as opposed to Greek and Oriental forms of Christianity: it -emancipated the Popes: it gave a new character to the projects and -government of the Teutonic rulers of the West. But the importance of -remembering its formal aspect to those who witnessed it will be felt -as we approach the era when the Empire was revived by Charles the -Frank. - -[Sidenote: Odoacer.] - -[Sidenote: Theodoric.] - -[Sidenote: Italy reconquered, by Justinian.] - -Odoacer's monarchy was not more oppressive than those of his -neighbours in Gaul, Spain, and Africa. But the mercenary _foederati_ -who supported it were a loose swarm of predatory tribes: themselves -without cohesion, they could take no firm root in Italy. During the -eighteen years of his reign no progress seems to have been made -towards the re-organization of society; and the first real attempt to -blend the peoples and maintain the traditions of Roman wisdom in the -hands of a new and vigorous race was reserved for a more famous -chieftain, the greatest of all the barbarian conquerors, the -forerunner of the first barbarian Emperor, Theodoric the Ostrogoth. -The aim of his reign, though he professed allegiance to the Eastern -court which had favoured his invasion[32], was the establishment of a -national monarchy in Italy. Brought up as a hostage in the court of -Byzantium, he learnt to know the advantages of an orderly and -cultivated society and the principles by which it must be maintained; -called in early manhood to roam as a warrior-chief over the plains of -the Danube, he acquired along with the arts of command a sense of the -superiority of his own people in valour and energy and truth. When the -defeat and death of Odoacer had left the peninsula at his mercy, he -sought no further conquest, easy as it would have been to tear away -new provinces from the Eastern realm, but strove only to preserve and -strengthen the ancient polity of Rome, to breathe into her decaying -institutions the spirit of a fresh life, and without endangering the -military supremacy of his own Goths, to conciliate by indulgence and -gradually raise to the level of their masters the degenerate -population of Italy. The Gothic nation appears from the first less -cruel in war and more prudent in council than any of their Germanic -brethren[33]: all that was most noble among them shone forth now in -the rule of the greatest of the Amali. From his palace at Verona[34], -commemorated in the song of the Nibelungs, he issued equal laws for -Roman and Goth, and bade the intruder, if he must occupy part of the -lands, at least respect the goods and the person of his -fellow-subject. Jurisprudence and administration remained in native -hands: two annual consuls, one named by Theodoric, the other by the -Eastern monarch, presented an image of the ancient state; and while -agriculture and the arts revived in the provinces, Rome herself -celebrated the visits of a master who provided for the wants of her -people and preserved with care the monuments of her former splendour. -With peace and plenty men's minds took hope, and the study of letters -revived. The last gleam of classical literature gilds the reign of the -barbarian. By the consolidation of the two races under one wise -government, Italy might have been spared six hundred years of gloom -and degradation. It was not so to be. Theodoric was tolerant, but -toleration was itself a crime in the eyes of his orthodox subjects: -the Arian Goths were and remained strangers and enemies among the -Catholic Italians. Scarcely had the sceptre passed from the hands of -Theodoric to his unworthy offspring, when Justinian, who had viewed -with jealousy the greatness of his nominal lieutenant, determined to -assert his dormant rights over Italy; its people welcomed Belisarius -as a deliverer, and in the struggle that followed the race and name of -the Ostrogoths perished for ever. Thus again reunited in fact, as it -had been all the while united in name, to the Roman Empire, the -peninsula was divided into counties and dukedoms, and obeyed the -exarch of Ravenna, viceroy of the Byzantine court, till the arrival of -the Lombards in A.D. 568 drove him from some districts, and left him -only a feeble authority in the rest. - -[Sidenote: The Transalpine provinces.] - -Beyond the Alps, though the Roman population had now ceased to seek -help from the Eastern court, the Empire's rights still subsisted in -theory, and were never legally extinguished. As has been said, they -were admitted by the conquerors themselves: by Athaulf, when he -reigned in Aquitaine as the vicar of Honorius, and recovered Spain -from the Suevi to restore it to its ancient masters; by the Visigothic -kings of Spain, when they permitted the Mediterranean cities to send -tribute to Byzantium; by Clovis, when, after the representatives of -the old government, Syagrius and the Armorican cities, had been -overpowered or absorbed, he received with delight from the Eastern -emperor Anastasius the grant of a Roman dignity to confirm his -possession. Arrayed like a Fabius or Valerius in the consul's -embroidered robe, the Sicambrian chieftain rode through the streets of -Tours, while the shout of the provincials hailed him Augustus[35]. -They already obeyed him, but his power was now legalised in their -eyes, and it was not without a melancholy pride that they saw the -terrible conqueror himself yield to the spell of the Roman name, and -do homage to the enduring majesty of their legitimate sovereign[36]. - -[Sidenote: Lingering influences of Rome.] - -[Sidenote: Religion.] - -Yet the severed limbs of the Empire forgot by degrees their original -unity. As in the breaking up of the old society, which we trace from -the sixth to the eighth century, rudeness and ignorance grew apace, as -language and manners were changed by the infiltration of Teutonic -settlers, as men's thoughts and hopes and interests were narrowed by -isolation from their fellows, as the organization of the Roman -province and the Germanic tribe alike dissolved into a chaos whence -the new order began to shape itself, dimly and doubtfully as yet, the -memory of the old Empire, its symmetry, its sway, its civilization, -must needs wane and fade. It might have perished altogether but for -the two enduring witnesses Rome had left--her Church and her Law. The -barbarians had at first associated Christianity with the Romans from -whom they learned it: the Romans had used it as their only bulwark -against oppression. The hierarchy were the natural leaders of the -people, and the necessary councillors of the king. Their power grew -with the extinction of civil government and the spread of -superstition; and when the Frank found it too valuable to be abandoned -to the vanquished people, he insensibly acquired the feelings and -policy of the order he entered. - -[Sidenote: Jurisprudence.] - -As the Empire fell to pieces, and the new kingdoms which the -conquerors had founded themselves began to dissolve, the Church clung -more closely to her unity of faith and discipline, the common bond of -all Christian men. That unity must have a centre, that centre was -Rome. A succession of able and zealous pontiffs extended her influence -(the sanctity and the writings of Gregory the Great were famous -through all the West): never occupied by barbarians, she retained her -peculiar character and customs, and laid the foundations of a power -over men's souls more durable than that which she had lost over their -bodies[37]. Only second in importance to this influence was that which -was exercised by the permanence of the old law, and of its creature -the municipality. The barbarian invaders retained the customs of their -ancestors, characteristic memorials of a rude people, as we see them -in the Salic law or in the ordinances of Ina and Alfred. But the -subject population and the clergy continued to be governed by that -elaborate system which the genius and labour of many generations had -raised to be the most lasting monument of Roman greatness. - -The civil law had maintained itself in Spain and Southern Gaul, nor -was it utterly forgotten even in the North, in Britain, on the borders -of Germany. Revised editions of the Theodosian code were issued by the -Visigothic and Burgundian princes. For some centuries it was the -patrimony of the subject population everywhere, and in Aquitaine and -Italy has outlived feudalism. The presumption in later times was that -all men were to be judged by it who could not be proved to be subject -to some other[38]. Its phrases, its forms, its courts, its subtlety -and precision, all recalled the strong and refined society which had -produced it. Other motives, as well as those of kindness to their -subjects, made the new kings favour it; for it exalted their -prerogative, and the submission enjoined by it on one class of their -subjects soon came to be demanded from the other, by their own laws -the equals of the prince. Considering attentively how many of the old -institutions continued to subsist, and studying the feelings of that -time, as they are faintly preserved in its scanty records, it seems -hardly too much to say that in the eighth century the Roman Empire -still existed in the West: existed in men's minds as a power weakened, -delegated, suspended, but not destroyed. - -It is easy for those who read the history of an age in the light of -those that followed it, to perceive that in this men erred; that the -tendency of events was wholly different; that society had entered on a -new phase, wherein every change did more to localize authority and -strengthen the aristocratic principle at the expense of the despotic. -We can see that other forms of life, more full of promise for the -distant future, had already begun to shew themselves: they--with no -type of power or beauty, but that which had filled the imagination of -their forefathers, and now loomed on them grander than ever through -the mist of centuries--mistook, as it has been said of Rienzi in later -days, memories for hopes, and sighed only for the renewal of its -strength. Events were at hand by which these hopes seemed destined to -be gratified. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[9] 'Addiderat consilium coercendi intra terminos imperii.'--Tac. -_Ann._ i. 2. - -[10] Tac. _Ann._ ii. 9. - -[11] Stilicho, the bulwark of the Empire, seems to have been himself a -Vandal by extraction. - -[12] Of course not the consulship itself, but the _ornamenta -consularia_. - -[13] Jornandes, _De Rebus Geticis_, cap. 28. - -[14] Tac. _Hist._ i. and iv. - -[15] 'Vester quidem est populus meus sed me plus servire vobis quam -illi praeesse delectat. Traxit istud a proavis generis mei apud vos -decessoresque vestros semper animo Romana devotio, ut illa nobis magis -claritas putaretur, quam vestra per militiae titulos porrigeret -celsitudo: cunctisque auctoribus meis semper magis ambitum est quod a -principibus sumerent quam quod a patribus attulissent. Cumque gentem -nostram videamur regere, non aliud nos quam milites vestros credimus -ordinari.... Per nos administratis remotarum spatia regionum: patria -nostra vester orbis est. Tangit Galliam suam lumen orientis, et radius -qui illis partibus oriri creditur, hic refulget. Dominationem vobis -divinitus praestitam obex nulla concludit, nec ullis provinciarum -terminis diffusio felicium sceptrorum limitatur. Salvo divinitatis -honore sit dictum.'--Letter printed among the works of Avitus, Bishop -of Vienne. (Migne's _Patrologia_, vol. lix. p. 285.) - -This letter, as its style shews, is the composition not of Sigismund -himself, but of Avitus, writing on Sigismund's behalf. But this makes -it scarcely less valuable evidence of the feelings of the time. - -[16] 'Referre solitus est (_sc._ Ataulphus) se in primis ardenter -inhiasse: ut obliterato Romanorum nomine Romanum omne solum Gothorum -imperium et faceret et vocaret: essetque, ut vulgariter loquar, Gothia -quod Romania fuisset; fieretque nunc Ataulphus quod quondam Caesar -Augustus. At ubi multa experientia probavisset, neque Gothos ullo modo -parere legibus posse propter effrenatam barbariem, neque reipublicae -interdici leges oportere sine quibus respublica non est respublica; -elegisse se saltem, ut gloriam sibi de restituendo in integrum -augendoque Romano nomine Gothorum viribus quaereret, habereturque apud -posteros Romanae restitutionis auctor postquam esse non potuerat -immutator. Ob hoc abstinere a bello, ob hoc inhiare paci -nitebatur.'--Orosius, vii. 43. - -[17] Athaulf formed only to abandon it. - -[18] See, among other passages, Varro, _De lingua Latina_, iv. 34; -Cic., _Pro Domo_, 33; and in the _Corpus Iuris Civilis_, Dig. i. 5, -17; l. 1, 33; xiv. 2, 9; quoted by AEgidi, _Der Fuerstenrath nach dem -Luneviller Frieden_. The phrase 'urbs aeterna' appears in a novel -issued by Valentinian III. - -Tertullian speaks of Rome as 'civitas sacrosancta.' - -[19] Lact. _Divin. Instit._ vii. 25: 'Etiam res ipsa declarat lapsum -ruinamque rerum brevi fore: nisi quod incolumi urbe Roma nihil -istiusmodi videtur esse metuendum. At vero cum caput illud orbis -occident, et [Greek:rhyme] esse coeperit quod Sibyllae fore aiunt, quis -dubitet venisse iam finem rebus humanis, orbique terrarum? Illa, illa -est civitas quae adhuc sustentat omnia, precandusque nobis et adorandus -est Deus coeli si tamen statuta eius et placita differri possunt, -ne citius quam putemus tyrannus ille abominabilis veniat qui tantum -facinus moliatur, ac lumen illud effodiat cuius interitu mundus ipse -lapsurus est.' - -Cf. Tertull. _Apolog._ cap. xxxii: 'Est et alia maior necessitas nobis -orandi pro imperatoribus, etiam pro omni statu imperii rebusque -Romanis, qui vim maximam universo orbi imminentem ipsamque clausulam -saeculi acerbitates horrendas comminantem Romani imperii commeatu -scimus retardari.' Also the same writer, _Ad Scapulam_, cap. ii: -'Christianus sciens imperatorem a Deo suo constitui, necesse est ut -ipsum diligat et revereatur et honoret et salvum velit cum toto Romano -imperio quousque saeculum stabit: tamdiu enim stabit.' So too the -author--now usually supposed to be Hilary the Deacon--of the -Commentary on the Pauline Epistles ascribed to S. Ambrose: 'Non prius -veniet Dominus quam regni Romani defectio fiat, et appareat -antichristus qui interficiet sanctos, reddita Romanis libertate, sub -suo tamen nomine.'--Ad II Thess. ii. 4, 7. - -[20] For example, by the 'restitutio natalium,' and the 'adrogatio per -rescriptum principis,' or, as it is expressed, 'per sacrum oraculum.' - -[21] Even the Christian Emperors took the title of Pontifex Maximus, -till Gratian refused it: [Greek: athemiston einai Christiano to schema -nomisas].--Zosimus, lib. iv. cap. 36. - -[22] 'Maiore formidine et callidiore timiditate Caesarem observatis quam -ipsum ex Olympo Iovem, et merito, si sciatis.... Citius denique apud -vos per omnes Deos quam per unum genium Caesaris peieratur.'--Tertull. -_Apolog._ c. xxviii. - -Cf. Zos. v. 51: [Greek: ei men gar pros ton theon tetychekei didomenos -horkos, en an hos eikos paridein endidontas te tou theou philanthropia -ten epi te asebeia syngnomen. epei de kata ten tou basileos -omomokesan kephales, ouk einai themiton autois eis ton tosouton horkon -examartein.] - -[23] Tac. _Ann._ i. 73; iii. 38, etc. - -[24] It is curious that this should have begun in the first years of -the Empire. See, among other passages that might be cited from the -Augustan poets, Virg. _Georg._ i. 42; iv. 462; Hor. _Od._ iii. 3, 11; -Ovid, _Epp. ex Ponto_, iv. 9. 105. - -[25] Hence Vespasian's dying jest, 'Ut puto, deus fio.' - -[26] [Greek: hopou an ho basileus e, ekei he Rhome.]--Herodian. - -[27] If the accounts we find of the Armorican republic can be trusted. - -[28] Odoacer or Odovaker, as it seems his name ought to be written, is -usually, but incorrectly, described as a King of the Heruli, who led -his people into Italy and overthrew the Empire of the West; others -call him King of the Rugii, or Skyrri, or Turcilingi. The truth seems -to be that he was not a king at all, but the son of a Skyrrian -chieftain (Edecon, known as one of the envoys whom Attila sent to -Constantinople), whose personal merits made him chosen by the -barbarian auxiliaries to be their leader. The Skyrri were a small -tribe, apparently akin to the more powerful Heruli, whose name is -often extended to them. - -[29] [Greek: Augoustos ho Orestou huios akousas Zenona palin ten -basileian anakektesthai tes heo ... enankase ten boulen aposteilai -presbeian Zenoni semainousan hos idias men autois basileias ou deoi, -koinos de apochresei monos on autokrator ep' amphoterois tois perasi. -ton mentoi Odoachon hyp' auton probeblesthai hikanon onta sozein -ta par' autois pragmata politiken echon noun kai synesin homou kai -machimon. kai deisthai tou Zenonos patrikiou te auto aposteilai axian -kai ten ton Italon touto epheinai dioikesin]--Malchus ap. Photium in -_Corp. Hist. Byzant._ - -[30] Not king of Italy, as is often said. The barbarian kings did not -for several centuries employ territorial titles; the title 'king of -France,' for instance, was first used by Henry IV. Jornandes tells us -that Odoacer never so much as assumed the insignia of royalty. - -[31] Sismondi, _Histoire de la Chute de l'Empire Occidentale_. - -[32] 'Nil deest nobis imperio vestro famulantibus.'--Theodoric to -Zeno: Jornandes, _De Rebus Geticis_, cap. 57. - -[33] 'Unde et paene omnibus barbaris Gothi sapientiores exstiterunt -Graecisque paene consimiles.'--Jorn. cap. 5. - -[34] Theodoric (Thiodorich) seems to have resided usually at Ravenna, -where he died and was buried; a remarkable building which tradition -points out as his tomb stands a little way out of the town, near the -railway station, but the porphyry sarcophagus, in which his body is -supposed to have lain, has been removed thence, and may be seen built -up into the wall of the building called his palace, situated close to -the church of Sant' Apollinare, and not far from the tomb of Dante. -There does not appear to be any sufficient authority for attributing -this building to Ostrogothic times; it is very different from the -representation of Theodoric's palace which we have in the contemporary -mosaics of Sant' Apollinare in urbe. - -In the German legends, however, Theodoric is always the prince of -Verona (Dietrich von Berne), no doubt because that city was better -known to the Teutonic nations, and because it was thither that he -moved his court when transalpine affairs required his attention. His -castle there stood in the old town on the left bank of the Adige, on -the height now occupied by the citadel; it is doubtful whether any -traces of it remain, for the old foundations which we now see may have -belonged to the fortress erected by Gian Galeazzo Visconti in the -fourteenth century. - -[35] 'Igitur Chlodovechus ab imperatore Anastasio codicillos de -consulatu accepit, et in basilica beati Martini tunica blatea indutus -est et chlamyde, imponens vertici diadema ... et ab ea die tanquam -consul aut (=et) Augustus est vocitatus.'--Gregory of Tours, ii. 58. - -[36] Sir F. Palgrave (_English Commonwealth_) considers this grant as -equivalent to a formal ratification of Clovis' rule in Gaul. Hallam -rates its importance lower (_Middle Ages_, note iii. to chap. i.). -Taken in connection with the grant of south-eastern Gaul to Theodebert -by Justinian, it may fairly be held to shew that the influence of the -Empire was still felt in these distant provinces. - -[37] Even so early as the middle of the fifth century, S. Leo the -Great could say to the Roman people, 'Isti (sc. Petrus et Paulus) sunt -qui te ad hanc gloriam provexerunt ut gens sancta, populus electus, -civitas sacerdotalis et regia, per sacram B. Petri sedem caput orbis -effecta latius praesideres religione divina quam dominatione -terrena.'--_Sermon on the feast of SS. Peter and Paul._ (Opp. _ap._ -Migne tom. i. p. 336.) - -[38] 'Ius Romanum est adhuc in viridi observantia et eo iure -praesumitur quilibet vivere nisi adversum probetur.'--Maranta, quoted -by Marquard Freher. - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - -RESTORATION OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE. - - -It was towards Rome as their ecclesiastical capital that the thoughts -and hopes of the men of the sixth and seventh centuries were -constantly directed. Yet not from Rome, feeble and corrupt, nor on the -exhausted soil of Italy, was the deliverer to arise. Just when, as we -may suppose, the vision of a renewal of imperial authority in the -Western provinces was beginning to vanish away, there appeared in the -furthest corner of Europe, sprung of a race but lately brought within -the pale of civilization, a line of chieftains devoted to the service -of the Holy See, and among them one whose power, good fortune, and -heroic character pointed him out as worthy of a dignity to which -doctrine and tradition had attached a sanctity almost divine. - -[Sidenote: The Franks.] - -[Sidenote: A.D. 486.] - -Of the new monarchies that had risen on the ruins of Rome, that of the -Franks was by far the greatest. In the third century they appear, with -Saxons, Alemanni, and Thuringians, as one of the greatest German tribe -leagues. The Sicambri (for it seems probable that this famous race was -a chief source of the Frankish nation) had now laid aside their former -hostility to Rome, and her future representatives were thenceforth, -with few intervals, her faithful allies. Many of their chiefs rose to -high place: Malarich receives from Jovian the charge of the Western -provinces; Bauto and Mellobaudes figure in the days of Theodosius and -his sons; Meroveus (if Meroveus be a real name) fights under Aetius -against Attila in the great battle of Chalons; his countrymen -endeavour in vain to save Gaul from the Suevi and Burgundians. Not -till the Empire was evidently helpless did they claim a share of the -booty; then Clovis, or Chlodovech, chief of the Salian tribe, leaving -his kindred the Ripuarians in their seats on the lower Rhine, advances -from Flanders to wrest Gaul from the barbarian nations which had -entered it some sixty years before. Few conquerors have had a career -of more unbroken success. By the defeat of the Roman governor Syagrius -he was left master of the northern provinces: the Burgundian kingdom -in the valley of the Rhone was in no long time reduced to dependence: -last of all, the Visigothic power was overthrown in one great battle, -and Aquitaine added to the dominions of Clovis. Nor were the Frankish -arms less prosperous on the other side of the Rhine. The victory of -Tolbiac led to the submission of the Alemanni: their allies the -Bavarians followed, and when the Thuringian power had been broken by -Theodorich I (son of Clovis), the Frankish league embraced all the -tribes of western and southern Germany. The state thus formed, -stretching from the Bay of Biscay to the Inn and the Ems, was of -course in no sense a French, that is to say, a Gallic monarchy. Nor, -although the widest and strongest empire that had yet been founded by -a Teutonic race, was it, under the Merovingian kings, a united kingdom -at all, but rather a congeries of principalities, held together by the -predominance of a single nation and a single family, who ruled in Gaul -as masters over a subject race, and in Germany exercised a sort of -hegemony among kindred and scarcely inferior tribes. But towards the -middle of the eighth century a change began. Under the rule of Pipin -of Herstal and his son Charles Martel, mayors of the palace to the -last feeble Merovingians, the Austrasian Franks in the lower Rhineland -became acknowledged heads of the nation, and were able, while -establishing a firmer government at home, to direct its whole strength -in projects of foreign ambition. The form those projects took arose -from a circumstance which has not yet been mentioned. It was not -solely or even chiefly to their own valour that the Franks owed their -past greatness and the yet loftier future which awaited them, it was -to the friendship of the clergy and the favour of the Apostolic See. -The other Teutonic nations, Goths, Vandals, Burgundians, Suevians, -Lombards, had been most of them converted by Arian missionaries who -proceeded from the Roman Empire during the short period when Arian -doctrines were in the ascendant. The Franks, who were among the latest -converts, were Catholics from the first, and gladly accepted the -clergy as their teachers and allies. Thus it was that while the -hostility of their orthodox subjects destroyed the Vandal kingdom in -Africa and the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy, the eager sympathy of the -priesthood enabled the Franks to vanquish their Burgundian and -Visigothic enemies, and made it comparatively easy for them to blend -with the Roman population in the provinces. They had done good service -against the Saracens of Spain; they had aided the English Boniface in -his mission to the heathen of Germany[39]; and at length, as the most -powerful among Catholic nations, they attracted the eyes of the -ecclesiastical head of the West, now sorely bested by domestic foes. - -[Sidenote: Italy: the Lombards.] - -[Sidenote: The Popes.] - -Since the invasion of Alboin, Italy had groaned under a complication -of evils. The Lombards who had entered along with that chief in A.D. -568 had settled in considerable numbers in the valley of the Po, and -founded the duchies of Spoleto and Benevento, leaving the rest of the -country to be governed by the exarch of Ravenna as viceroy of the -Eastern crown. This subjection was, however, little better than -nominal. Although too few to occupy the whole peninsula, the invaders -were yet strong enough to harass every part of it by inroads which met -with no resistance from a population unused to arms, and without the -spirit to use them in self-defence. More cruel and repulsive, if we -may believe the evidence of their enemies, than any other of the -Northern tribes, the Lombards were certainly singular in their -aversion to the clergy, never admitting them to the national councils. -Tormented by their repeated attacks, Rome sought help in vain from -Byzantium, whose forces, scarce able to repel from their walls the -Avars and Saracens, could give no support to the distant exarch of -Ravenna. The Popes were the Emperor's subjects; they awaited his -confirmation, like other bishops; they had more than once been the -victims of his anger[40]. But as the city became more accustomed in -independence, and the Pope rose to a predominance, real if not yet -legal, his tone grew bolder than that of the Eastern patriarchs. In -the controversies that had raged in the Church, he had had the wisdom -or good fortune to espouse (though not always from the first) the -orthodox side: it was now by another quarrel of religion that his -deliverance from an unwelcome yoke was accomplished[41]. - -[Sidenote: Iconoclastic controversy.] - -[Sidenote: The Popes appeal to the Franks.] - -[Sidenote: Pipin patrician of the Romans, A.D. 754.] - -The Emperor Leo, born among the Isaurian mountains, where a purer -faith may yet have lingered, and stung by the Mohammedan taunt of -idolatry, determined to abolish the worship of images, which seemed -fast obscuring the more spiritual part of Christianity. An attempt -sufficient to cause tumults among the submissive Greeks, excited in -Italy a fiercer commotion. The populace rose with one heart in defence -of what had become to them more than a symbol: the exarch was slain: -the Pope, though unwilling to sever himself from the lawful head and -protector of the Church, must yet excommunicate the prince whom he -could not reclaim from so hateful a heresy. Liudprand, king of the -Lombards, improved his opportunity: falling on the exarchate as the -champion of images, on Rome as the minister of the Greek Emperor, he -overran the one, and all but succeeded in capturing the other. The -Pope escaped for the moment, but saw his peril; placed between a -heretic and a robber, he turned his gaze beyond the Alps, to a -Catholic chief who had just achieved a signal deliverance for -Christendom on the field of Poitiers. Gregory II had already opened -communications with Charles Martel, mayor of the palace, and virtual -ruler of the Frankish realm[42]. As the crisis becomes more pressing, -Gregory III finds in the same quarter his only hope, and appeals to -him, in urgent letters, to haste to the succour of Holy Church[43]. -Some accounts add that Charles was offered, in the name of the Roman -people, the office of consul and patrician. It is at least certain -that here begins the connection of the old imperial seat with the -rising German power: here first the pontiff leads a political -movement, and shakes off the ties that bound him to his legitimate -sovereign. Charles died before he could obey the call; but his son -Pipin (surnamed the Short) made good use of the new friendship with -Rome. He was the third of his family who had ruled the Franks with a -monarch's full power: it seemed time to abolish the pageant of -Merovingian royalty; yet a departure from the ancient line might shock -the feelings of the people. A course was taken whose dangers no one -then foresaw: the Holy See, now for the first time invoked as an -international power, pronounced the deposition of Childeric, and gave -to the royal office of his successor Pipin a sanctity hitherto -unknown; adding to the old Frankish election, which consisted in -raising the chief on a shield amid the clash of arms, the Roman diadem -and the Hebrew rite of anointing. The compact between the chair of -Peter and the Teutonic throne was hardly sealed, when the latter was -summoned to discharge its share of the duties. Twice did Aistulf the -Lombard assail Rome, twice did Pipin descend to the rescue: the second -time at the bidding of a letter written in the name of St. Peter -himself[44]. Aistulf could make no resistance; and the Frank bestowed -on the Papal chair all that belonged to the exarchate in North Italy, -receiving as the meed of his services the title of Patrician[45]. - -[Sidenote: Import of this title.] - -As a foreshadowing of the higher dignity that was to follow, this -title requires a passing notice. Introduced by Constantine at a time -when its original meaning had been long forgotten, it was designed to -be, and for awhile remained, the name not of an office but of a rank, -the highest after those of emperor and consul. As such, it was usually -conferred upon provincial governors of the first class, and in time -also upon barbarian potentates whose vanity the Roman court might wish -to flatter. Thus Odoacer, Theodoric, the Burgundian king Sigismund, -Clovis himself, had all received it from the Eastern emperor; so too -in still later times it was given to Saracenic and Bulgarian -princes[46]. In the sixth and seventh centuries an invariable practice -seems to have attached it to the Byzantine viceroys of Italy, and -thus, as we may conjecture, a natural confusion of ideas had made men -take it to be, in some sense, an official title, conveying an -extensive though undefined authority, and implying in particular the -duty of overseeing the Church and promoting her temporal interests. It -was doubtless with such a meaning that the Romans and their bishop -bestowed it upon the Frankish kings, acting quite without legal right, -for it could emanate from the emperor alone, but choosing it as the -title which bound its possessor to render to the Church support and -defence against her Lombard foes. Hence the phrase is always -'_Patricius Romanorum_;' not, as in former times, '_Patricius_' alone: -hence it is usually associated with the terms '_defensor_' and -'_protector_.' And since 'defence' implies a corresponding measure of -obedience on the part of those who profit by it, there must have been -conceded to the new patrician more or less of the positive authority -in Rome, although not such as to extinguish the supremacy of the -Emperor. - -[Sidenote: Extinction of the Lombard kingdom by Charles king of the -Franks.] - -[Sidenote: A.D. 774.] - -So long indeed as the Franks were separated by a hostile kingdom from -their new allies, this control remained little better than nominal. -But when on Pipin's death the restless Lombards again took up arms and -menaced the possessions of the Church, Pipin's son Charles or -Charlemagne swept down like a whirlwind from the Alps at the call of -Pope Hadrian, seized king Desiderius in his capital, assumed himself -the Lombard crown, and made northern Italy thenceforward an integral -part of the Frankish empire. Proceeding to Rome at the head of his -victorious army, the first of a long line of Teutonic kings who were -to find her love more deadly than her hate, he was received by Hadrian -with distinguished honours, and welcomed by the people as their leader -and deliverer. Yet even then, whether out of policy or from that -sentiment of reverence to which his ambitious mind did not refuse to -bow, he was moderate in claims of jurisdiction, he yielded to the -pontiff the place of honour in processions, and renewed, although in -the guise of a lord and conqueror, the gift of the Exarchate and -Pentapolis, which Pipin had made to the Roman Church twenty years -before. - -[Sidenote: Charles and Hadrian.] - -It is with a strange sense, half of sadness, half of amusement, that -in watching the progress of this grand historical drama, we recognise -the meaner motives by which its chief actors were influenced. The -Frankish king and the Roman pontiff were for the time the two most -powerful forces that urged the movement of the world, leading it on by -swift steps to a mighty crisis of its fate, themselves guided, as it -might well seem, by the purest zeal for its spiritual welfare. Their -words and acts, their whole character and bearing in the sight of -expectant Christendom, were worthy of men destined to leave an -indelible impress on their own and many succeeding ages. Nevertheless -in them too appears the undercurrent of vulgar human desires and -passions. The lofty and fervent mind of Charles was not free from the -stirrings of personal ambition: yet these may be excused, if not -defended, as almost inseparable from an intense and restless genius, -which, be it never so unselfish in its ends, must in pursuing them fix -upon everything its grasp and raise out of everything its monument. -The policy of the Popes was prompted by motives less noble. Ever since -the extinction of the Western Empire had emancipated the -ecclesiastical potentate from secular control, the first and most -abiding object of his schemes and prayers had been the acquisition of -territorial wealth in the neighbourhood of his capital. He had indeed -a sort of justification--for Rome, a city with neither trade nor -industry, was crowded with poor, for whom it devolved on the bishop to -provide. Yet the pursuit was one which could not fail to pervert the -purposes of the Popes and give a sinister character to all they did. -It was this fear for the lands of the Church far more than for -religion or the safety of the city--neither of which were really -endangered by the Lombard attacks--that had prompted their passionate -appeals to Charles Martel and Pipin; it was now the well-grounded hope -of having these possessions confirmed and extended by Pipin's greater -son that made the Roman ecclesiastics so forward in his cause. And it -was the same lust after worldly wealth and pomp, mingled with the -dawning prospect of an independent principality, that now began to -seduce them into a long course of guile and intrigue. For this is -probably the very time, although the exact date cannot be established, -to which must be assigned the extraordinary forgery of the Donation of -Constantine, whereby it was pretended that power over Italy and the -whole West had been granted by the first Christian Emperor to Pope -Sylvester and his successors in the Chair of the Apostle. - -[Sidenote: Accession of Pope Leo III, A.D. 796.] - -For the next twenty-four years Italy remained quiet. The government of -Rome was carried on in the name of the Patrician Charles, although it -does not appear that he sent thither any official representative; -while at the same time both the city and the exarchate continued to -admit the nominal supremacy of the Eastern Emperor, employing the -years of his reign to date documents. In A.D. 796, Leo the Third -succeeded Pope Hadrian, and signalized his devotion to the Frankish -throne by sending to Charles the banner of the city and the keys of -the holiest of all Rome's shrines, the confession of St. Peter, asking -that some officer should be deputed to the city to receive from the -people their oath of allegiance to the Patrician. He had soon need to -seek the Patrician's help for himself. In A.D. 798 a sedition broke -out: the Pope, going in solemn procession from the Lateran to the -church of S. Lorenzo in Lucina, was attacked by a band of armed men, -headed by two officials of his court, nephews of his predecessor; was -wounded and left for dead, and with difficulty succeeded in escaping -to Spoleto, whence he fled northward into the Frankish lands. Charles -had led his army against the revolted Saxons: thither Leo following -overtook him at Paderborn in Westphalia. The king received with -respect his spiritual father, entertained and conferred with him for -some time, and at length sent him back to Rome under the escort of -Angilbert, one of his trustiest ministers; promising to follow ere -long in person. After some months peace was restored in Saxony, and in -the autumn of 799 Charles descended from the Alps once more, while Leo -revolved deeply the great scheme for whose accomplishment the time was -now ripe. - -[Sidenote: Belief in the Roman Empire not extinct.] - -[Sidenote: Motives of the Pope.] - -Three hundred and twenty-four years had passed since the last Caesar of -the West resigned his power into the hands of the senate, and left to -his Eastern brother the sole headship of the Roman world. To the -latter Italy had from that time been nominally subject; but it was -only during one brief interval between the death of Totila the last -Ostrogothic king and the descent of Alboin the first Lombard, that his -power had been really effective. In the further provinces, Gaul, -Spain, Britain, it was only a memory. But the idea of a Roman Empire -as a necessary part of the world's order had not vanished: it had been -admitted by those who seemed to be destroying it; it had been -cherished by the Church; was still recalled by laws and customs; was -dear to the subject populations, who fondly looked back to the days -when slavery was at least mitigated by peace and order. We have seen -the Teuton endeavouring everywhere to identify himself with the system -he overthrew. As Goths, Burgundians, and Franks sought the title of -consul or patrician, as the Lombard kings when they renounced their -Arianism styled themselves Flavii, so even in distant England the -fierce Saxon and Anglian conquerors used the names of Roman dignities, -and before long began to call themselves _imperatores_ and _basileis_ -of Britain. Within the last century and a half the rise of -Mohammedanism[47] had brought out the common Christianity of Europe -into a fuller relief. The false prophet had left one religion, one -Empire, one Commander of the faithful: the Christian commonwealth -needed more than ever an efficient head and centre. Such leadership it -could nowise find in the Court of the Bosphorus, growing ever feebler -and more alien to the West. The name of 'respublica,' permanent at the -elder Rome, had never been applied to the Eastern Empire. Its -government was from the first half Greek, half Asiatic; and had now -drifted away from its ancient traditions into the forms of an Oriental -despotism. Claudian had already sneered at 'Greek Quirites[48]:' the -general use, since Heraclius's reign, of the Greek tongue, and the -difference of manners and usages, made the taunt now more deserved. -The Pope had no reason to wish well to the Byzantine princes, who -while insulting his weakness had given him no help against the savage -Lombards, and who for nearly seventy years[49] had been contaminated -by a heresy the more odious that it touched not speculative points of -doctrine but the most familiar usages of worship. In North Italy their -power was extinct: no pontiff since Zacharias had asked their -confirmation of his election: nay, the appointment of the intruding -Frank to the patriciate, an office which it belonged to the Emperor to -confer, was of itself an act of rebellion. Nevertheless their rights -subsisted: they were still, and while they retained the imperial name, -must so long continue, titular sovereigns of the Roman city. Nor could -the spiritual head of Christendom dispense with the temporal: without -the Roman Empire there could not be a Roman, nor by necessary -consequence a Catholic and Apostolic Church[50]. For, as will be shewn -more fully hereafter, men could not separate in fact what was -indissoluble in thought: Christianity must stand or fall along with -the great Christian state: they were but two names for the same thing. -Thus urged, the Pope took a step which some among his predecessors are -said to have already contemplated[51], and towards which the events of -the last fifty years had pointed. The moment was opportune. The -widowed empress Irene, equally famous for her beauty, her talents, and -her crimes, had deposed and blinded her son Constantine VI: a woman, -an usurper, almost a parricide, sullied the throne of the world. By -what right, it might well be asked, did the factions of Byzantium -impose a master on the original seat of empire? It was time to provide -better for the most august of human offices: an election at Rome was -as valid as at Constantinople--the possessor of the real power should -also be clothed with the outward dignity. Nor could it be doubted -where that possessor was to be found. The Frank had been always -faithful to Rome: his baptism was the enlistment of a new barbarian -auxiliary. His services against Arian heretics and Lombard marauders, -against the Saracen of Spain and the Avar of Pannonia, had earned him -the title of Champion of the Faith and Defender of the Holy See. He -was now unquestioned lord of Western Europe, whose subject nations, -Keltic and Teutonic, were eager to be called by his name and to -imitate his customs[52]. In Charles, the hero who united under one -sceptre so many races, who ruled all as the vicegerent of God, the -pontiff might well see--as later ages saw--the new golden head of a -second image[53], erected on the ruins of that whose mingled iron and -clay seemed crumbling to nothingness behind the impregnable bulwarks -of Constantinople. - -[Sidenote: Coronation of Charles at Rome, A.D. 800.] - -At length the Frankish host entered Rome. The Pope's cause was heard; -his innocence, already vindicated by a miracle, was pronounced by the -Patrician in full synod; his accusers condemned in his stead. Charles -remained in the city for some weeks; and on Christmas-day, A.D. -800[54], he heard mass in the basilica of St. Peter. On the spot where -now the gigantic dome of Bramante and Michael Angelo towers over the -buildings of the modern city, the spot which tradition had hallowed as -that of the Apostle's martyrdom, Constantine the Great had erected the -oldest and stateliest temple of Christian Rome. Nothing could be less -like than was this basilica to those northern cathedrals, shadowy, -fantastic, irregular, crowded with pillars, fringed all round by -clustering shrines and chapels, which are to most of us the types of -mediaeval architecture. In its plan and decorations, in the spacious -sunny hall, the roof plain as that of a Greek temple, the long rows of -Corinthian columns, the vivid mosaics on its walls, in its brightness, -its sternness, its simplicity, it had preserved every feature of Roman -art, and had remained a perfect expression of the Roman character[55]. -Out of the transept, a flight of steps led up to the high altar -underneath and just beyond the great arch, the arch of triumph as it -was called: behind in the semicircular apse sat the clergy, rising -tier above tier around its walls; in the midst, high above the rest, -and looking down past the altar over the multitude, was placed the -bishop's throne[56], itself the curule chair of some forgotten -magistrate[57]. From that chair the Pope now rose, as the reading of -the Gospel ended, advanced to where Charles--who had exchanged his -simple Frankish dress for the sandals and the chlamys of a Roman -patrician[58]--knelt in prayer by the high altar, and as in the sight -of all he placed upon the brow of the barbarian chieftain the diadem -of the Caesars, then bent in obeisance before him, the church rang to -the shout of the multitude, again free, again the lords and centre of -the world, 'Karolo Augusto a Deo coronato magno et pacifico imperatori -vita et victoria[59].' In that shout, echoed by the Franks without, -was pronounced the union, so long in preparation, so mighty in its -consequences, of the Roman and the Teuton, of the memories and the -civilization of the South with the fresh energy of the North, and from -that moment modern history begins. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[39] 'Denique gens Francorum multos et foecundissimos fructus Domino -attulit, non solum credendo, sed et alios salutifere convertendo,' -says the emperor Lewis II in A.D. 871. - -[40] Martin, as in earlier times Sylverius. - -[41] A singular account of the origin of the separation of the Greeks -and Latins occurs in the treatise of Radulfus de Columna (Ralph -Colonna, or, as some think, de Coloumelle), _De translatione Imperii -Romani_ (circ. 1300). 'The tyranny of Heraclius,' says he, 'provoked a -revolt of the Eastern nations. They could not be reduced, because the -Greeks at the same time began to disobey the Roman Pontiff, receding, -like Jeroboam, from the true faith. Others among these schismatics -(apparently with the view of strengthening their political revolt) -carried their heresy further and founded Mohammedanism.' Similarly, -the Franciscan Marsilius of Padua (circa 1324) says that Mohammed, 'a -rich Persian,' invented his religion to keep the East from returning -to allegiance to Rome. It is worth remarking that few, if any, of the -earlier historians (from the tenth to the fifteenth century) refer to -the Emperors of the West from Constantine to Augustulus: the very -existence of this Western line seems to have been even in the eighth -or ninth century altogether forgotten. - -[42] Anastasius, _Vitae Pontificum Romanorum_ i. _ap._ Muratori. - -[43] Letter in _Codex Carolinus_, in Muratori's _Scriptores Rerum -Italicarum_, vol. iii. (part 2nd), addressed 'Subregulo Carolo.' - -[44] Letter in _Cod. Carol._ (Mur. _R. S. I._ iii. [2.] p. 96), a -strange mixture of earnest adjurations, dexterous appeals to Frankish -pride, and long scriptural quotations: 'Declaratum quippe est quod -super omnes gentes vestra Francorum gens prona mihi Apostolo Dei Petro -exstitit, et ideo ecclesiam quam mihi Dominus tradidit vobis per manus -Vicarii mei commendavi.' - -[45] The exact date when Pipin received the title cannot be made out. -Pope Stephen's next letter (p. 96 of Mur. iii.) is addressed 'Pipino, -Carolo et Carolomanno patriciis.' And so the _Chronicon Casinense_ -(Mur. iv. 273) says it was first given to Pipin. Gibbon can hardly be -right in attributing it to Charles Martel, although one or two -documents may be quoted in which it is used of him. As one of these is -a letter of Pope Gregory II's, the explanation may be that the title -was offered or intended to be offered to him, although never accepted -by him. - -[46] The title of Patrician appears even in the remote West: it stands -in a charter of Ina the West Saxon king, and in one given by Richard -of Normandy in A.D. 1015. Ducange, _s.v._ - -[47] After the _translatio ad Francos_ of A.D. 800, the two Empires -corresponded exactly to the two Khalifates of Bagdad and Cordova. - -[48] - - 'Plaudentem cerne senatum - Et Byzantinos proceres, Graiosque Quirites.' - _In Eutrop._ ii. 135. - -[49] Several Emperors during this period had been patrons of images, -as was Irene at the moment of which I write: the stain nevertheless -adhered to their government as a whole. - -[50] I should not have thought it necessary to explain that the -sentence in the text is meant simply to state what were (so far as can -be made out) the sentiments and notions of the ninth century, if a -writer in the _Tablet_ (reviewing a former edition) had not understood -it as an expression of the author's own belief. - -To a modern eye there is of course no necessary connection between the -Roman Empire and a catholic and apostolic Church; in fact, the two -things seem rather, such has been the impression made on us by the -long struggle of church and state, in their nature mutually -antagonistic. The interest of history lies not least in this, that it -shews us how men have at different times entertained wholly different -notions respecting the relation to one another of the same ideas or -the same institutions. - -[51] Monachus Sangallensis, _De Gestis Karoli_; in Pertz, _Monumenta -Germaniae Historica_. - -[52] Monachus Sangallensis; _ut supra_. So Pope Gregory the Great two -centuries earlier: 'Quanto caeteros homines regia dignitas antecedit, -tanto caeterarum gentium regna regni Francorum culmen excellit.' Ep. v. -6. - -[53] Alciatus, _De Formula imperii Romani_. - -[54] Or rather, according to the then prevailing practice of beginning -the year from Christmas-day, A.D. 801. - -[55] An elaborate description of old St. Peter's may be found in -Bunsen's and Platner's _Beschreibung der Stadt Rom_; with which -compare Bunsen's work on the Basilicas of Rome. - -[56] The primitive custom was for the bishop to sit in the centre of -the apse, at the central point of the east end of the church (or, as -it would be more correct to say, the end furthest from the door) just -as the judge had done in those law courts on the model of which the -first basilicas were constructed. This arrangement may still be seen -in some of the churches of Rome, as well as elsewhere in Italy; -nowhere better than in the churches of Ravenna, particularly the -beautiful one of Sant' Apollinare in Classe, and in the cathedral of -Torcello, near Venice. - -[57] On this chair were represented the labours of Hercules and the -signs of the zodiac. It is believed at Rome to be the veritable chair -of the Apostle himself, and whatever may be thought of such an -antiquity as this, it can be satisfactorily traced back to the third -or fourth century of Christianity. (The story that it is inscribed -with verses from the Koran is, I believe, without foundation.) It is -now enclosed in a gorgeous casing of gilded wood (some say, of -bronze), and placed aloft at the extremity of St. Peter's, just over -the spot where a bishop's chair would in the old arrangement of the -basilica have stood. The sarcophagus in which Charles himself lay, -till the French scattered his bones abroad, had carved on it the rape -of Proserpine. It may still be seen in the gallery of the basilica at -Aachen. - -[58] Eginhard, _Vita Karoli_. - -[59] The coronation scene is described in all the annals of the time, -to which it is therefore needless to refer more particularly. - - - - -CHAPTER V. - -EMPIRE AND POLICY OF CHARLES. - - -The coronation of Charles is not only the central event of the Middle -Ages, it is also one of those very few events of which, taking them -singly, it may be said that if they had not happened, the history of -the world would have been different. In one sense indeed it has -scarcely a parallel. The assassins of Julius Caesar thought that they -had saved Rome from monarchy, but monarchy came inevitable in the next -generation. The conversion of Constantine changed the face of the -world, but Christianity was spreading fast, and its ultimate triumph -was only a question of time. Had Columbus never spread his sails, the -secret of the western sea would yet have been pierced by some later -voyager: had Charles V broken his safe-conduct to Luther, the voice -silenced at Wittenberg would have been taken up by echoes elsewhere. -But if the Roman Empire had not been restored in the West in the -person of Charles, it would never have been restored at all, and the -inexhaustible train of consequences for good and for evil that -followed could not have been. Why this was so may be seen by examining -the history of the next two centuries. In that day, as through all the -Dark and Middle Ages, two forces were striving for the mastery. The -one was the instinct of separation, disorder, anarchy, caused by the -ungoverned impulses and barbarous ignorance of the great bulk of -mankind; the other was that passionate longing of the better minds for -a formal unity of government, which had its historical basis in the -memories of the old Roman Empire, and its most constant expression in -the devotion to a visible and catholic Church. The former tendency, as -everything shews, was, in politics at least, the stronger, but the -latter, used and stimulated by an extraordinary genius like Charles, -achieved in the year 800 a victory whose results were never to be -lost. When the hero was gone, the returning wave of anarchy and -barbarism swept up violent as ever, yet it could not wholly obliterate -the past: the Empire, maimed and shattered though it was, had struck -its roots too deep to be overthrown by force, and when it perished at -last, perished from inner decay. It was just because men felt that no -one less than Charles could have won such a triumph over the evils of -the time, by framing and establishing a gigantic scheme of government, -that the excitement and hope and joy which the coronation evoked were -so intense. Their best evidence is perhaps to be found not in the -records of that time itself, but in the cries of lamentation that -broke forth when the Empire began to dissolve towards the close of the -ninth century, in the marvellous legends which attached themselves to -the name of Charles the Emperor, a hero of whom any exploit was -credible[60], in the devout admiration wherewith his German successors -looked back to, and strove in all things to imitate, their all but -superhuman prototype. - -[Sidenote: Import of the coronation.] - -As the event of A.D. 800 made an unparalleled impression on those who -lived at the time, so has it engaged the attention of men in -succeeding ages, has been viewed in the most opposite lights, and -become the theme of interminable controversies. It is better to look -at it simply as it appeared to the men who witnessed it. Here, as in -so many other cases, may be seen the errors into which jurists have -been led by the want of historical feeling. In rude and unsettled -states of society men respect forms and obey facts, while careless of -rules and principles. In England, for example, in the eleventh and -twelfth centuries, it signified very little whether an aspirant to the -throne was next lawful heir, but it signified a great deal whether he -had been duly crowned and was supported by a strong party. Regarding -the matter thus, it is not hard to see why those who judged the actors -of A.D. 800 as they would have judged their contemporaries should have -misunderstood the nature of that which then came to pass. Baronius and -Bellarmine, Spanheim and Conring, are advocates bound to prove a -thesis, and therefore believing it; nor does either party find any -lack of plausible arguments[61]. But civilian and canonist alike -proceed upon strict legal principles, and no such principles can be -found in the case, or applied to it. Neither the instances cited by -the Cardinal from the Old Testament of the power of priests to set up -and pull down princes, nor those which shew the earlier Emperors -controlling the bishops of Rome, really meet the question. Leo acted -not as having alone the right to transfer the crown; the practice of -hereditary succession and the theory of popular election would have -equally excluded such a claim; he was the spokesman of the popular -will, which, identifying itself with the sacerdotal power, hated the -Greeks and was grateful to the Franks. Yet he was also something more. -The act, as it specially affected his interests, was mainly his work, -and without him would never have been brought about at all. It was -natural that a confusion of his secular functions as leader, and his -spiritual as consecrating priest, should lay the foundation of the -right claimed afterwards of raising and deposing monarchs at the will -of Christ's vicar. The Emperor was passive throughout; he did not, as -in Lombardy, appear as a conqueror, but was received by the Pope and -the people as a friend and ally. Rome no doubt became his capital, but -it had already obeyed him as Patrician, and the greatest fact that -stood out to posterity from the whole transaction was that the crown -was bestowed, was at least imposed, by the hands of the pontiff. He -seemed the trustee and depositary of the imperial authority[62]. - -[Sidenote: Contemporary accounts.] - -The best way of shewing the thoughts and motives of those concerned in -the transaction is to transcribe the narratives of three contemporary, -or almost contemporary annalists, two of them German and one Italian. -The Annals of Lauresheim say:-- - -'And because the name of Emperor had now ceased among the Greeks, and -their Empire was possessed by a woman, it then seemed both to Leo the -Pope himself, and to all the holy fathers who were present in the -selfsame council, as well as to the rest of the Christian people, that -they ought to take to be Emperor Charles king of the Franks, who held -Rome herself, where the Caesars had always been wont to sit, and all -the other regions which he ruled through Italy and Gaul and Germany; -and inasmuch as God had given all these lands into his hand, it seemed -right that with the help of God and at the prayer of the whole -Christian people he should have the name of Emperor also. Whose -petition king Charles willed not to refuse, but submitting himself -with all humility to God, and at the prayer of the priests and of the -whole Christian people, on the day of the nativity of our Lord Jesus -Christ he took on himself the name of Emperor, being consecrated by -the lord Pope Leo[63].' - -Very similar in substance is the account of the Chronicle of Moissac -(ad ann. 801):-- - -'Now when the king upon the most holy day of the Lord's birth was -rising to the mass after praying before the confession of the blessed -Peter the Apostle, Leo the Pope, with the consent of all the bishops -and priests and of the senate of the Franks and likewise of the -Romans, set a golden crown upon his head, the Roman people also -shouting aloud. And when the people had made an end of chanting the -Laudes, he was adored by the Pope after the manner of the emperors of -old. For this also was done by the will of God. For while the said -Emperor abode at Rome certain men were brought unto him, who said that -the name of Emperor had ceased among the Greeks, and that among them -the Empire was held by a woman called Irene, who had by guile laid -hold on her son the Emperor, and put out his eyes, and taken the -Empire to herself, as it is written of Athaliah in the Book of the -Kings; which when Leo the Pope and all the assembly of the bishops and -priests and abbots heard, and the senate of the Franks and all the -elders of the Romans, they took counsel with the rest of the Christian -people, that they should name Charles king of the Franks to be -Emperor, seeing that he held Rome the mother of empire where the -Caesars and Emperors were always used to sit; and that the heathen -might not mock the Christians if the name of Emperor should have -ceased among the Christians[64].' - -These two accounts are both from a German source: that which follows -is Roman, written probably within some fifty or sixty years of the -event. It is taken from the Life of Leo III in the _Vitae Pontificum -Romanorum_, compiled by Anastasius the papal librarian. - -'After these things came the day of the birth of our Lord Jesus -Christ, and all men were again gathered together in the aforesaid -basilica of the blessed Peter the Apostle: and then the gracious and -venerable pontiff did with his own hands crown Charles with a very -precious crown. Then all the faithful people of Rome, seeing the -defence that he gave and the love that he bare to the holy Roman -Church and her Vicar, did by the will of God and of the blessed Peter, -the keeper of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, cry with one accord -with a loud voice, 'To Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned of -God, the great and peacegiving Emperor, be life and victory.' While -he, before the holy confession of the blessed Peter the Apostle, was -invoking divers saints, it was proclaimed thrice, and he was chosen by -all to be Emperor of the Romans. Thereon the most holy pontiff -anointed Charles with holy oil, and likewise his most excellent son to -be king, upon the very day of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ; and -when the mass was finished, then after the mass the most serene lord -Emperor offered gifts[65].' - -[Sidenote: Impression which they convey.] - -[Sidenote: Later theories respecting the coronation.] - -In these three accounts there is no serious discrepancy as to the -facts, although the Italian priest, as is natural, heightens the -importance of the part played by the Pope, while the Germans are too -anxious to rationalize the event, talking of a synod of the clergy, a -consultation of the people, and a formal request to Charles, which the -silence of Eginhard, as well as the other circumstances of the case, -forbid us to accept as literally true. Similarly Anastasius passes -over the adoration rendered by the Pope to the Emperor, upon which -most of the Frankish records insist in a way which puts it beyond -doubt. But the impression which the three narratives leave is -essentially the same. They all shew how little the transaction can be -made to wear a strictly legal character. The Frankish king does not of -his own might seize the crown, but rather receives it as coming -naturally to him, as the legitimate consequence of the authority he -already enjoyed. The Pope bestows the crown, not in virtue of any -right of his own as head of the Church: he is merely the instrument of -God's providence, which has unmistakeably pointed out Charles as the -proper person to defend and lead the Christian commonwealth. The Roman -people do not formally elect and appoint, but by their applause accept -the chief who is presented to them. The act is conceived of as -directly ordered by the Divine Providence which has brought about a -state of things that admits of but one issue, an issue which king, -priest, and people have only to recognise and obey; their personal -ambitions, passions, intrigues, sinking and vanishing in reverential -awe at what seems the immediate interposition of Heaven. And as the -result is desired by all parties alike, they do not think of inquiring -into one another's rights, but take their momentary harmony to be -natural and necessary, never dreaming of the difficulties and -conflicts which were to arise out of what seemed then so simple. And -it was just because everything was thus left undetermined, resting not -on express stipulation but rather on a sort of mutual understanding, a -sympathy of beliefs and wishes which augured no evil, that the event -admitted of being afterwards represented in so many different lights. -Four centuries later, when Papacy and Empire had been forced into the -mortal struggle by which the fate of both was decided, three distinct -theories regarding the coronation of Charles will be found advocated -by three different parties, all of them plausible, all of them to some -extent misleading. The Swabian Emperors held the crown to have been -won by their great predecessor as the prize of conquest, and drew the -conclusion that the citizens and bishop of Rome had no rights as -against themselves. The patriotic party among the Romans, appealing to -the early history of the Empire, declared that by nothing but the -voice of their senate and people could an Emperor be lawfully created, -he being only their chief magistrate, the temporary depositary of -their authority. The Popes pointed to the indisputable fact that Leo -imposed the crown, and argued that as God's earthly vicar it was then -his, and must always continue to be their right to give to whomsoever -they would an office which was created to be the handmaid of their -own. Of these three it was the last view that eventually prevailed, -yet to an impartial eye it cannot claim, any more than do the two -others, to contain the whole truth. Charles did not conquer, nor the -Pope give, nor the people elect. As the act was unprecedented so was -it illegal; it was a revolt of the ancient Western capital against a -daughter who had become a mistress; an exercise of the sacred right of -insurrection, justified by the weakness and wickedness of the -Byzantine princes, hallowed to the eyes of the world by the sanction -of Christ's representative, but founded upon no law, nor competent to -create any for the future. - -[Sidenote: Was the coronation a surprise?] - -It is an interesting and somewhat perplexing question, how far the -coronation scene, an act as imposing in its circumstances as it was -momentous in its results, was prearranged among the parties. Eginhard -tells us that Charles was accustomed to declare that he would not, -even on so high a festival, have entered the church had he known of -the Pope's intention. Even if the monarch had uttered, the secretary -would hardly have recorded a falsehood long after the motive that -might have prompted it had disappeared. Of the existence of that -motive which has been most commonly assumed, a fear of the discontent -of the Franks who might think their liberties endangered, little or no -proof can be brought from the records of the time, wherein the nation -is represented as exulting in the new dignity of their chief as an -accession of grandeur to themselves. Nor can we suppose that Charles's -disavowal was meant to soothe the offended pride of the Byzantine -princes, from whom he had nothing to fear, and who were none the more -likely to recognise his dignity, if they should believe it to be not -of his own seeking. Yet it is hard to suppose the whole affair a -surprise; for it was the goal towards which the policy of the Frankish -kings had for many years pointed, and Charles himself, in sending -before him to Rome many of the spiritual and temporal magnates of his -realm, in summoning thither his son Pipin from the war against the -Lombards of Benevento, had shewn that he expected some more than -ordinary result from this journey to the imperial city. Alcuin -moreover, Alcuin of York, the prime minister of Charles in matters -religious and literary, appears from one of his extant letters to have -sent as a Christmas gift to his royal pupil a carefully corrected and -superbly adorned copy of the Scriptures, with the words 'ad splendorem -imperialis potentiae.' This has commonly been taken for conclusive -evidence that the plan had been settled beforehand, and such it would -be were there not some reasons for giving the letter an earlier date, -and looking upon the word 'imperialis' as a mere magniloquent -flourish[66]. More weight is therefore to be laid upon the arguments -supplied by the nature of the case itself. The Pope, whatever his -confidence in the sympathy of the people, would never have ventured on -so momentous a step until previous conferences had assured him of the -feelings of the king, nor could an act for which the assembly were -evidently prepared have been kept a secret. Nevertheless, the -declaration of Charles himself can neither be evaded nor set down to -mere dissimulation. It is more just to him, and on the whole more -reasonable, to suppose that Leo, having satisfied himself of the -wishes of the Roman clergy and people as well as of the Frankish -magnates, resolved to seize an occasion and place so eminently -favourable to his long-cherished plan, while Charles, carried away by -the enthusiasm of the moment and seeing in the pontiff the prophet and -instrument of the divine will, accepted a dignity which he might have -wished to receive at some later time or in some other way. If, -therefore, any positive conclusion be adopted, it would seem to be -that Charles, although he had probably given a more or less vague -consent to the project, was surprised and disconcerted by a sudden -fulfilment which interrupted his own carefully studied designs. And -although a deed which changed the history of the world was in any case -no accident, it may well have worn to the Frankish and Roman -spectators the air of a surprise. For there were no preparations -apparent in the church; the king was not, like his Teutonic successors -in aftertime, led in procession to the pontifical throne: suddenly, at -the very moment when he rose from the sacred hollow where he had knelt -among the ever-burning lamps before the holiest of Christian -relics--the body of the prince of the Apostles--the hands of that -Apostle's representative placed upon his head the crown of glory and -poured upon him the oil of sanctification. There was something in this -to thrill the beholders with the awe of a divine presence, and make -them hail him whom that presence seemed almost visibly to consecrate, -the 'pious and peace-giving Emperor, crowned of God.' - -[Sidenote: Theories of the motives of Charles.] - -The reluctance of Charles to assume the imperial title is ascribed by -Eginhard to a fear of the jealous hostility of the Greeks, who could -not only deny his claim to it, but might disturb by their intrigues -his dominions in Italy. Accepting this statement, the problem remains, -how is this reluctance to be reconciled with those acts of his which -clearly shew him aiming at the Roman crown? An ingenious and probable, -if not certain solution, is suggested by a recent historian[67], who -argues from a minute examination of the previous policy of Charles, -that while it was the great object of his reign to obtain the crown of -the world, he foresaw at the same time the opposition of the Eastern -Court, and the want of legality from which his title would in -consequence suffer. He was therefore bent on getting from the -Byzantines, if possible, a transference of their crown; if not, at -least a recognition of his own: and he appears to have hoped to win -this by the negotiations which had been for some time kept on foot -with the Empress Irene. Just at this moment came the coronation by -Pope Leo, interrupting these deep-laid schemes, irritating the Eastern -Court, and forcing Charles into the position of a rival who could not -with dignity adopt a soothing or submissive tone. Nevertheless, he -seems not even then to have abandoned the hope of obtaining a peaceful -recognition. Irene's crimes did not prevent him, if we may credit -Theophanes[68], from seeking her hand in marriage. And when the -project of thus uniting the East and West in a single Empire, baffled -for a time by the opposition of her minister AEtius, was rendered -impossible by her subsequent dethronement and exile, he did not -abandon the policy of conciliation until a surly acquiescence in -rather than admission of his dignity had been won from the Byzantine -sovereigns Michael and Nicephorus[69]. - -[Sidenote: Defect in the title of the Teutonic Emperors.] - -Whether, supposing Leo to have been less precipitate, a cession of the -crown, or an acknowledgment of the right of the Romans to confer it, -could ever have been obtained by Charles is perhaps more than -doubtful. But it is clear that he judged rightly in rating its -importance high, for the want of it was the great blemish in his own -and his successors' dignity. To shew how this was so, reference must -be made to the events of A.D. 476. Both the extinction of the Western -Empire in that year and its revival in A.D. 800 have been very -generally misunderstood in modern times, and although the mistake is -not, in a certain sense, of practical importance, yet it tends to -confuse history and to blind us to the ideas of the people who acted -on both occasions. When Odoacer compelled the abdication of Romulus -Augustulus, he did not abolish the Western Empire as a separate power, -but caused it to be reunited with or sink into the Eastern, so that -from that time there was, as there had been before Diocletian, a -single undivided Roman Empire. In A.D. 800 the very memory of the -separate Western Empire, as it had stood from the death of Theodosius -till Odoacer, had, so far as appears, been long since lost, and -neither Leo nor Charles nor any one among their advisers dreamt of -reviving it. They too, like their predecessors, held the Roman Empire -to be one and indivisible, and proposed by the coronation of the -Frankish king not to proclaim a severance of the East and West, but to -reverse the act of Constantine, and make Old Rome again the civil as -well as the ecclesiastical capital of the Empire that bore her name. -Their deed was in its essence illegal, but they sought to give it -every semblance of legality: they professed and partly believed that -they were not revolting against a reigning sovereign, but legitimately -filling up the place of the deposed Constantine the Sixth; the people -of the imperial city exercising their ancient right of choice, their -bishop his right of consecration. - -Their purpose was but half accomplished. They could create but they -could not destroy: they set up an Emperor of their own, whose -representatives thenceforward ruled the West, but Constantinople -retained her sovereigns as of yore; and Christendom saw henceforth two -imperial lines, not as in the time before A.D. 476, the conjoint heads -of a single realm, but rivals and enemies, each denouncing the other -as an impostor, each professing to be the only true and lawful head of -the Christian Church and people. Although therefore we must in -practice speak during the next seven centuries (down till A.D. 1453, -when Constantinople fell before the Mohammedan) of an Eastern and a -Western Empire, the phrase is in strictness incorrect, and was one -which either court ought to have repudiated. The Byzantines always did -repudiate it; the Latins usually; although, yielding to facts, they -sometimes condescended to employ it themselves. But their theory was -always the same. Charles was held to be the legitimate successor, not -of Romulus Augustulus, but of Basil, Heraclius, Justinian, Arcadius, -and all the Eastern line; and hence it is that in all the annals of -the time and of many succeeding centuries, the name of Constantine VI, -the sixty-seventh in order from Augustus, is followed without a break -by that of Charles, the sixty-eighth. - -[Sidenote: Government of Charles as Emperor.] - -[Sidenote: His authority in matters ecclesiastical.] - -The maintenance of an imperial line among the Greeks was a continuing -protest against the validity of Charles's title. But from their enmity -he had little to fear, and in the eyes of the world he seemed to step -into their place, adding the traditional dignity which had been theirs -to the power that he already enjoyed. North Italy and Rome ceased for -ever to own the supremacy of Byzantium; and while the Eastern princes -paid a shameful tribute to the Mussulman, the Frankish Emperor--as the -recognised head of Christendom--received from the patriarch of -Jerusalem the keys of the Holy Sepulchre and the banner of Calvary; -the gift of the Sepulchre itself, says Eginhard, from Aaron king of -the Persians[70]. Out of this peaceful intercourse with the great -Khalif the romancers created a crusade. Within his own dominions his -sway assumed a more sacred character. Already had his unwearied and -comprehensive activity made him throughout his reign an ecclesiastical -no less than a civil ruler, summoning and sitting in councils, -examining and appointing bishops, settling by capitularies the -smallest points of church discipline and polity. A synod held at -Frankfort in A.D. 794 condemned the decrees of the second council of -Nicaea, which had been approved by Pope Hadrian, censured in violent -terms the conduct of the Byzantine rulers in suggesting them, and -without excluding images from churches, altogether forbade them to be -worshipped or even venerated. Not only did Charles preside in and -direct the deliberations of this synod, although legates from the Pope -were present--he also caused a treatise to be drawn up stating and -urging its conclusions; he pressed Hadrian to declare Constantine VI a -heretic for enouncing doctrines to which Hadrian had himself -consented. There are letters of his extant in which he lectures Pope -Leo in a tone of easy superiority, admonishes him to obey the holy -canons, and bids him pray earnestly for the success of the efforts -which it is the monarch's duty to make for the subjugation of pagans -and the establishment of sound doctrine throughout the Church. Nay, -subsequent Popes themselves[71] admitted and applauded the despotic -superintendence of matters spiritual which he was wont to exercise, -and which led some one to give him playfully a title that had once -been applied to the Pope himself, 'Episcopus episcoporum.' - -[Sidenote: The imperial office in its ecclesiastical relations.] - -[Sidenote: Capitulary of A.D. 802.] - -Acting and speaking thus when merely king, it may be thought that -Charles needed no further title to justify his power. The inference is -in truth rather the converse of this. Upon what he had done already -the imperial title must necessarily follow: the attitude of protection -and control which he held towards the Church and the Holy See -belonged, according to the ideas of the time, especially and only to -an Emperor. Therefore his coronation was the fitting completion and -legitimation of his authority, sanctifying rather than increasing it. -We have, however, one remarkable witness to the importance that was -attached to the imperial name, and the enhancement which he conceived -his office to have received from it. In a great assembly held at -Aachen, A.D. 802, the lately-crowned Emperor revised the laws of all -the races that obeyed him, endeavouring to harmonize and correct them, -and issued a capitulary singular in subject and tone[72]. All persons -within his dominions, as well ecclesiastical as civil, who have -already sworn allegiance to him as king, are thereby commanded to -swear to him afresh as Caesar; and all who have never yet sworn, down -to the age of twelve, shall now take the same oath. 'At the same time -it shall be publicly explained to all what is the force and meaning of -this oath, and how much more it includes than a mere promise of -fidelity to the monarch's person. Firstly, it binds those who swear it -to live, each and every one of them, according to his strength and -knowledge, in the holy service of God; since the lord Emperor cannot -extend over all his care and discipline. Secondly, it binds them -neither by force nor fraud to seize or molest any of the goods or -servants of his crown. Thirdly, to do no violence nor treason towards -the holy Church, or to widows, or orphans, or strangers, seeing that -the lord Emperor has been appointed, after the Lord and his saints, -the protector and defender of all such.' Then in similar fashion -purity of life is prescribed to the monks; homicide, the neglect of -hospitality, and other offences are denounced, the notions of sin and -crime being intermingled and almost identified in a way to which no -parallel can be found, unless it be in the Mosaic code. There God, the -invisible object of worship, is also, though almost incidentally, the -judge and political ruler of Israel; here the whole cycle of social -and moral duty is deduced from the obligation of obedience to the -visible autocratic head of the Christian state. - -In most of Charles's words and deeds, nor less distinctly in the -writings of his adviser Alcuin, may be discerned the working of the -same theocratic ideas. Among his intimate friends he chose to be -called by the name of David, exercising in reality all the powers of -the Jewish king; presiding over this kingdom of God upon earth rather -as a second Constantine or Theodosius than in the spirit and -traditions of the Julii or the Flavii. Among his measures there are -two which in particular recall the first Christian Emperor. As -Constantine founds so Charles erects on a firmer basis the connection -of Church and State. Bishops and abbots are as essential a part of -rising feudalism as counts and dukes. Their benefices are held under -the same conditions of fealty and the service in war of their vassal -tenants, not of the spiritual person himself: they have similar rights -of jurisdiction, and are subject alike to the imperial _missi_. The -monarch tries often to restrict the clergy, as persons, to spiritual -duties; quells the insubordination of the monasteries; endeavours to -bring the seculars into a monastic life by instituting and regulating -chapters. But after granting wealth and power, the attempt was vain; -his strong hand withdrawn, they laughed at control. Again, it was by -him first that the payment of tithes, for which the priesthood had -long been pleading, was made compulsory in Western Europe, and the -support of the ministers of religion entrusted to the laws of the -state. - -[Sidenote: Influence of the imperial title in Germany and Gaul.] - -[Sidenote: Action of Charles on Europe.] - -In civil affairs also Charles acquired, with the imperial title, a new -position. Later jurists labour to distinguish his power as Roman -Emperor from that which he held already as king of the Franks and -their subject allies: they insist that his coronation gave him the -capital only, that it is absurd to talk of a Roman Empire in regions -whither the eagles had never flown[73]. In such expressions there -seems to lurk either confusion or misconception. It was not the actual -government of the city that Charles obtained in A.D. 800: that his -father had already held as Patrician and he had constantly exercised -in the same capacity: it was far more than the titular sovereignty of -Rome which had hitherto been supposed to be vested in the Byzantine -princes: it was nothing less than the headship of the world, believed -to appertain of right to the lawful Roman Emperor, whether he reigned -on the Bosphorus, the Tiber, or the Rhine. As that headship, although -never denied, had been in abeyance in the West for several centuries, -its bestowal on the king of so vast a realm was a change of the first -moment, for it made the coronation not merely a transference of the -seat of Empire, but a renewal of the Empire itself, a bringing back of -it from faith to sight, from the world of belief and theory to the -world of fact and reality. And since the powers it gave were -autocratic and unlimited, it must swallow up all minor claims and -dignities: the rights of Charles the Frankish king were merged in -those of Charles the successor of Augustus, the lord of the world. -That his imperial authority was theoretically irrespective of place is -clear from his own words and acts, and from all the monuments of that -time. He would not, indeed, have dreamed of treating the free Franks -as Justinian had treated his half-Oriental subjects, nor would the -warriors who followed his standard have brooked such an attempt. Yet -even to German eyes his position must have been altered by the halo of -vague splendour which now surrounded him; for all, even the Saxon and -the Slave, had heard of Rome's glories, and revered the name of Caesar. -And in his effort to weld discordant elements into one body, to -introduce regular gradations of authority, to control the Teutonic -tendency to localization by his _missi_--officials commissioned to -traverse each some part of his dominions, reporting on and redressing -the evils they found--and by his own oft-repeated personal progresses, -Charles was guided by the traditions of the old Empire. His sway is -the revival of order and culture, fusing the West into a compact -whole, whose parts are never thenceforward to lose the marks of their -connection and their half-Roman character, gathering up all that is -left in Europe of spirit and wealth and knowledge, and hurling it with -the new force of Christianity on the infidel of the South and the -masses of untamed barbarism to the North and East. Ruling the world by -the gift of God, and the transmitted rights of the Romans and their -Caesar whom God had chosen to conquer it, he renews the original -aggressive movement of the Empire: the civilized world has subdued her -invader[74], and now arms him against savagery and heathendom. Hence -the wars, not more of the sword than of the cross, against Saxons, -Avars, Slaves, Danes, Spanish Arabs, where monasteries are fortresses -and baptism the badge of submission. The overthrow of the -Irminsul[75], in the first Saxon campaign[76], sums up the changes of -seven centuries. The Romanized Teuton destroys the monument of his -country's freedom, for it is also the emblem of paganism and -barbarism. The work of Arminius is undone by his successor. - -[Sidenote: His position as Frankish king.] - -This, however, is not the only side from which Charles's policy and -character may be regarded. If the unity of the Church and the shadow -of imperial prerogative was one pillar of his power, the other was the -Frankish nation. The Empire was still military, though in a sense -strangely different from that of Julius or Severus. The warlike Franks -had permeated Western Europe; their primacy was admitted by the -kindred tribes of Lombards, Bavarians, Thuringians, Alemannians, and -Burgundians; the Slavic peoples on the borders trembled and paid -tribute; Alfonso of Asturias found in the Emperor a protector against -the infidel foe. His influence, if not his exerted power, crossed the -ocean: the kings of the Scots sent gifts and called him lord[77]: the -restoration of Eardulf to Northumbria, still more of Egbert to Wessex, -might furnish a better ground for the claim of suzerainty than many to -which his successors had afterwards recourse. As it was by Frankish -arms that this predominance in Europe which the imperial title adorned -and legalized had been won, so was the government of Charles Roman in -semblance rather than in fact. It was not by restoring the effete -mechanism of the old Empire, but by his own vigorous personal action -and that of his great officers, that he strove to administer and -reform. With every effort for a strong central government, there is no -despotism; each nation retains its laws, its hereditary chiefs, its -free popular assemblies. The conditions granted to the Saxons after -such cruel warfare, conditions so favourable that in the next century -their dukes hold the foremost place in Germany, shew how little he -desired to make the Franks a dominant caste. - -[Sidenote: General results of his Empire.] - -He repeats the attempt of Theodoric to breathe a Teutonic spirit into -Roman forms. The conception was magnificent; great results followed -its partial execution. Two causes forbade success. The one was the -ecclesiastical, especially the Papal power, apparently subject to the -temporal, but with a strong and undefined prerogative which only -waited the occasion to trample on what it had helped to raise. The -Pope might take away the crown he had bestowed, and turn against the -Emperor the Church which now obeyed him. The other was to be found in -the discordance of the component parts of the Empire. The nations were -not ripe for settled life or extensive schemes of polity; the -differences of race, language, manners, over vast and thinly-peopled -lands baffled every attempt to maintain their connection: and when -once the spell of the great mind was withdrawn, the mutually repellent -forces began to work, and the mass dissolved into that chaos out of -which it had been formed. Nevertheless, the parts separated not as -they met, but having all of them undergone influences which continued -to act when political connection had ceased. For the work of -Charles--a genius pre-eminently creative--was not lost in the anarchy -that followed: rather are we to regard his reign as the beginning of a -new era, or as laying the foundations whereon men continued for many -generations to build. - -[Sidenote: Personal habits and sympathies.] - -No claim can be more groundless than that which the modern French, the -sons of the Latinized Kelt, set up to the Teutonic Charles. At Rome he -might assume the chlamys and the sandals, but at the head of his -Frankish host he strictly adhered to the customs of his country, and -was beloved by his people as the very ideal of their own character and -habits[78]. Of strength and stature almost superhuman, in swimming and -hunting unsurpassed, steadfast and terrible in fight, to his friends -gentle and condescending, he was a Roman, much less a Gaul, in nothing -but his culture and his width of view, otherwise a Teuton. The centre -of his realm was the Rhine; his capitals Aachen[79] and -Engilenheim[80]; his army Frankish; his sympathies as they are shewn -in the gathering of the old hero-lays[81], the composition of a German -grammar, the ordinance against confining prayer to the three -languages,--Hebrew, Greek, and Latin,--were all for the race from -which he sprang, and whose advance, represented by the victory of -Austrasia, the true Frankish fatherland, over Neustria and Aquitaine, -spread a second Germanic wave over the conquered countries. - -[Sidenote: His Empire and character generally.] - -There were in his Empire, as in his own mind, two elements; those two -from the union and mutual action and reaction of which modern -civilization has arisen. These vast domains, reaching from the Ebro to -the Carpathian mountains, from the Eyder to the Liris, were all the -conquests of the Frankish sword, and were still governed almost -exclusively by viceroys and officers of Frankish blood. But the -conception of the Empire, that which made it a State and not a mere -mass of subject tribes like those great Eastern dominions which rise -and perish in a lifetime, the realms of Sesostris, or Attila, or -Timur, was inherited from an older and a grander system, was not -Teutonic but Roman--Roman in its ordered rule, in its uniformity and -precision, in its endeavour to subject the individual to the -system--Roman in its effort to realize a certain limited and human -perfection, whose very completeness shall exclude the hope of further -progress. And the bond, too, by which the Empire was held together was -Roman in its origin, although Roman in a sense which would have -surprised Trajan or Severus, could it have been foretold them. The -ecclesiastical body was already organized and centralized, and it was -in his rule over the ecclesiastical body that the secret of Charles's -power lay. Every Christian--Frank, Gaul, or Italian--owed loyalty to -the head and defender of his religion: the unity of the Empire was a -reflection of the unity of the Church. - -Into a general view of the government and policy of Charles it is not -possible here to enter. Yet his legislation, his assemblies, his -administrative system, his magnificent works, recalling the projects -of Alexander and Caesar[82], the zeal for education and literature -which he shewed in the collection of manuscripts, the founding of -schools, the gathering of eminent men from all quarters around him, -cannot be appreciated apart from his position as restorer of the Roman -Empire. Like all the foremost men of our race, Charles was all great -things in one, and was so great just because the workings of his -genius were so harmonious. He was not a mere barbarian warrior any -more than he was an astute diplomatist; there is none of all his -qualities which would not be forced out of its place were we to -characterize him chiefly by it. Comparisons between famous men of -different ages are generally as worthless as they are easy: the -circumstances among which Charles lived do not permit us to institute -a minute parallel between his greatness and that of those two to whom -it is the modern fashion to compare him, nor to say whether he was or -could have become as profound a politician as Caesar, as skilful a -commander as Napoleon[83]. But neither to the Roman nor to the -Corsican was he inferior in that one quality by which both he and they -chiefly impress our imaginations--that intense, vivid, unresting -energy which swept him over Europe in campaign after campaign, which -sought a field for its workings in theology, science, literature, no -less than in politics and war. As it was this wondrous activity that -made him the conqueror of Europe, so was it by the variety of his -culture that he became her civilizer. From him, in whose wide deep -mind the whole mediaeval theory of the world and human life mirrored -itself, did mediaeval society take the form and impress which it -retained for centuries, and the traces whereof are among us and upon -us to this day. - -The great Emperor was buried at Aachen, in that basilica which it had -been the delight of his later years to erect and adorn with the -treasures of ancient art. His tomb under the dome--where now we see an -enormous slab, with the words 'Carolo Magno'--was inscribed, '_Magnus -atque Orthodoxus Imperator_[84].' Poets, fostered by his own zeal, -sang of him who had given to the Franks the sway of Romulus[85]. The -gorgeous drapery of romance gradually wreathed itself round his name, -till by canonization as a saint he received the highest glory the -world or the Church could confer. For the Roman Church claimed then, -as she claims still, the privilege which humanity in one form or -another seems scarce able to deny itself, of raising to honours almost -divine its great departed; and as in pagan times temples had risen to -a deified Emperor, so churches were dedicated to St. Charlemagne. -Between Sanctus Carolus and Divus Julius how strange an analogy and -how strange a contrast! - -FOOTNOTES: - -[60] Before the end of the tenth century we find the monk Benedict of -Soracte ascribing to Charles an expedition to Palestine, and other -marvellous exploits. The romance which passes under the name of -Archbishop Turpin is well known. All the best stories about -Charles--and some of them are very good--may be found in the book of -the Monk of St. Gall. Many refer to his dealings with the bishops, -towards whom he is described as acting like a good-humoured -schoolmaster. - -[61] Baronius, _Ann._, ad ann. 800; Bellarminus, _De translatione -imperii Romani adversus Illyricum_; Spanhemius, _De ficta translatione -imperii_; Conringius, _De imperio Romano Germanico_. - -[62] See especially Greenwood, _Cathedra Petri_, vol. iii. p. 109. - -[63] _Ann. Lauresb. ap._ Pertz, _M. G. H._ i. - -[64] _Apud_ Pertz, _M. G. H._ i. - -[65] _Vitae Pontif._ in Mur. _S. R. I._ Anastasius in reporting the -shout of the people omits the word 'Romanorum,' which the other -annalists insert after 'imperatori.' The balance of probability is -certainly in his favour. - -[66] Lorentz, _Leben Alcuins_. And cf. Doellinger, _Das Kaiserthum -Karls des Grossen und seiner Nachfolger_. - -[67] See a very learned and interesting tract entitled _Das Kaiserthum -Karls des Grossen und seiner Nachfolger_, recently published by Dr. v. -Doellinger of Munich. - -[68] [Greek: Apokrisiarioi para Karoullou kai Leontos aitoumenoi -zeuchthenai auten to Karoullo pros gamon kai henosai ta Heoa kai ta -Hesperia.]--Theoph. _Chron._ in _Corp. Scriptt. Hist. Byz._ - -[69] Their ambassadors at last saluted him by the desired title -'Laudes ei dixerunt imperatorem eum et basileum appellantes.' Eginh. -_Ann._, ad ann. 812. - -[70] Harun er Rashid; Eginh. _Vita Karoli_, c. 16. - -[71] So Pope John VIII in a document quoted by Waitz, _Deutsche -Verfassungs-geschichte_, iii. - -[72] Pertz, _M. G. H._ iii. (legg. I.) - -[73] Puetter, _Historical Development of the German Constitution_; so -too Conring, and esp. David Blondel, _Adv. Chiffletium_. - -[74] 'Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit,' is repeated in this conquest -of the Teuton by the Roman. - -[75] The notion that once prevailed that the Irminsul was the 'pillar -of Hermann,' set up on the spot of the defeat of Varus, is now -generally discredited. Some German antiquaries take the pillar to be a -rude figure of the native god Irmin; but nothing seems to be known of -this alleged deity: and it is more probable that the name Irmin is -after all merely an altered form of the Keltic word which appears in -Welsh as Hir Vaen, the long stone (_Maen_, a stone). Thus the pillar, -so far from being the monument of the great Teutonic victory, would -commemorate a pre-Teutonic race, whose name for it the invading tribes -adopted. The Rev. Dr. Scott, of Westminster, to whose kindness I am -indebted for this explanation, informs me that a rude ditty recording -the destruction of the pillar by Charles was current on the spot a few -years ago. It ran thus:-- - - 'Irmin slad Irmin - Sla Pfeifen sla Trommen - Der Kaiser wird kommen - Mit Hammer und Stangen - Wird Irmin uphangen.' - -[76] Eginhard, _Ann_. - -[77] Most probably the Scots of Ireland--Eginhard, _Vita Karoli_, cap. -16. - -[78] Eginhard, _Vita Karoli_, cap. 23. - -[79] Aix-la-Chapelle. See the lines in Pertz (_M. G. H._ ii.), -beginning,-- - - 'Urbs Aquensis, urbs regalis, - Sedes regni principalis, - Prima regum curia.' - -This city is commonly called Aken in English books of the seventeenth -century, and probably that ought to be taken as its proper English -name. That name has, however, fallen so entirely into disuse that I do -not venture to use it; and as the employment of the French name -Aix-la-Chapelle seems inevitably to produce the belief that the place -is and was, even in Charles's time, a French town, there is nothing -for it but to fall back upon the comparatively unfamiliar German name. - -[80] Engilenheim, or Ingelheim, lies near the left shore of the Rhine -between Mentz and Bingen. - -[81] Eginhard, _Vita Karoli_, cap. 29. - -[82] Eginhard, _Vita Karoli_, cap. 17. - -[83] It is not a little curious that of the three whom the modern -French have taken to be their national heroes all should have been -foreigners, and two foreign conquerors. - -[84] This basilica was built upon the model of the church of the Holy -Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and as it was the first church of any size -that had been erected in those regions for centuries past, it excited -extraordinary interest among the Franks and Gauls. In many of its -features it greatly resembles the beautiful church of San Vitale, at -Ravenna (also modelled upon that of the Holy Sepulchre) which was -begun by Theodoric, and completed under Justinian. Probably San Vitale -was used as a pattern by Charles's architects: we know that he caused -marble columns to be brought from Ravenna to deck the church at -Aachen. Over the tomb of Charles, below the central dome (to which the -Gothic choir we now see was added some centuries later), there hangs a -huge chandelier, the gift of Frederick Barbarossa. - -[85] 'Romuleum Francis praestitit imperium.'--Elegy of Ermoldus -Nigellus, in Pertz; _M. G. H._, t. i. So too Florus the Deacon,-- - - 'Huic etenim cessit etiam gens Romula genti, - Regnorumque simul mater Roma inclyta cessit: - Huius ibi princeps regni diademata sumpsit - Munere apostolico, Christi munimine fretus.' - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - -CAROLINGIAN AND ITALIAN EMPERORS. - - -[Sidenote: Lewis the Pious.] - -[Sidenote: Partition of Verdun, A.D. 843.] - -Lewis the Pious[86], left by Charles's death sole heir, had been some -years before associated with his father in the Empire, and had been -crowned by his own hands in a way which, intentionally or not, -appeared to deny the need of Papal sanction. But it was soon seen that -the strength to grasp the sceptre had not passed with it. Too mild to -restrain his turbulent nobles, and thrown by over-conscientiousness -into the hands of the clergy, he had reigned few years when -dissensions broke out on all sides. Charles had wished the Empire to -continue one, under the supremacy of a single Emperor, but with its -several parts, Lombardy, Aquitaine, Austrasia, Bavaria, each a kingdom -held by a scion of the reigning house. A scheme dangerous in itself, -and rendered more so by the absence or neglect of regular rules of -succession, could with difficulty have been managed by a wise and firm -monarch. Lewis tried in vain to satisfy his sons (Lothar, Lewis, and -Charles) by dividing and redividing: they rebelled; he was deposed, -and forced by the bishops to do penance; again restored, but without -power, a tool in the hands of contending factions. On his death the -sons flew to arms, and the first of the dynastic quarrels of modern -Europe was fought out on the field of Fontenay. In the partition -treaty of Verdun which followed, the Teutonic principle of equal -division among heirs triumphed over the Roman one of the transmission -of an indivisible Empire: the practical sovereignty of all three -brothers was admitted in their respective territories, a barren -precedence only reserved to Lothar, with the imperial title which he, -as the eldest, already enjoyed. A more important result was the -separation of the Gaulish and German nationalities. Their difference -of feeling, shewn already in the support of Lewis the Pious by the -Germans against the Gallo-Franks and the Church[87], took now a -permanent shape: modern Germany proclaims the era of A.D. 843 the -beginning of her national existence, and celebrated its thousandth -anniversary twenty-seven years ago. To Charles the Bald was given -Francia Occidentalis, that is to say, Neustria and Aquitaine; to -Lothar, who as Emperor must possess the two capitals, Rome and Aachen, -a long and narrow kingdom stretching from the North Sea to the -Mediterranean, and including the northern half of Italy: Lewis -(surnamed, from his kingdom, the German) received all east of the -Rhine, Franks, Saxons, Bavarians, Austria, Carinthia, with possible -supremacies over Czechs and Moravians beyond. Throughout these regions -German was spoken; through Charles's kingdom a corrupt tongue, equally -removed from Latin and from modern French. Lothar's, being mixed and -having no national basis, was the weakest of the three, and soon -dissolved into the separate sovereignties of Italy, Burgundy, and -Lotharingia, or, as we call it, Lorraine. - -[Sidenote: End of the Carolingian Empire of the West, A.D. 888.] - -On the tangled history of the period that follows it is not possible -to do more than touch. After passing from one branch of the -Carolingian line to another[88], the imperial sceptre was at last -possessed and disgraced by Charles the Fat, who united all the -dominions of his great-grandfather. This unworthy heir could not avail -himself of recovered territory to strengthen or defend the expiring -monarchy. He was driven out of Italy in A.D. 887, and his death in 888 -has been usually taken as the date of the extinction of the -Carolingian Empire of the West. The Germans, still attached to the -ancient line, chose Arnulf, an illegitimate Carolingian, for their -king: he entered Italy and was crowned Emperor by his partizan Pope -Formosus, in 894. But Germany, divided and helpless, was in no -condition to maintain her power over the southern lands: Arnulf -retreated in haste, leaving Rome and Italy to sixty years of stormy -independence. - -That time was indeed the nadir of order and civilization. From all -sides the torrent of barbarism which Charles the Great had stemmed was -rushing down upon his empire. The Saracen wasted the Mediterranean -coasts, and sacked Rome herself. The Dane and Norseman swept the -Atlantic and the North Sea, pierced France and Germany by their -rivers, burning, slaying, carrying off into captivity: pouring through -the Straits of Gibraltar, they fell upon Provence and Italy. By land, -while Wends and Czechs and Obotrites threw off the German yoke and -threatened the borders, the wild Hungarian bands, pressing in from the -steppes of the Caspian, dashed over Germany like the flying spray of a -new wave of barbarism, and carried the terror of their battleaxes to -the Apennines and the ocean. Under such strokes the already loosened -fabric swiftly dissolved. No one thought of common defence or wide -organization: the strong built castles, the weak became their -bondsmen, or took shelter under the cowl: the governor--count, abbot, -or bishop--tightened his grasp, turned a delegated into an -independent, a personal into a territorial authority, and hardly owned -a distant and feeble suzerain. The grand vision of a universal -Christian empire was utterly lost in the isolation, the antagonism, -the increasing localization of all powers: it might seem to have been -but a passing gleam from an older and better world. - -[Sidenote: The German Kingdom.] - -[Sidenote: Henry the Fowler.] - -In Germany, the greatness of the evil worked at last its cure. When -the male line of the eastern branch of the Carolingians had ended in -Lewis (surnamed the Child), son of Arnulf, the chieftains chose and -the people accepted Conrad the Franconian, and after him Henry the -Saxon duke, both representing the female line of Charles. Henry laid -the foundations of a firm monarchy, driving back the Magyars and -Wends, recovering Lotharingia, founding towns to be centres of orderly -life and strongholds against Hungarian irruptions. He had meant to -claim at Rome his kingdom's rights, rights which Conrad's weakness had -at least asserted by the demand of tribute; but death overtook him, -and the plan was left to be fulfilled by Otto his son. - -[Sidenote: Otto the Great.] - -The Holy Roman Empire, taking the name in the sense which it commonly -bore in later centuries, as denoting the sovereignty of Germany and -Italy vested in a Germanic prince, is the creation of Otto the Great. -Substantially, it is true, as well as technically, it was a -prolongation of the Empire of Charles; and it rested (as will be shewn -in the sequel) upon ideas essentially the same as those which brought -about the coronation of A.D. 800. But a revival is always more or less -a revolution: the one hundred and fifty years that had passed since -the death of Charles had brought with them changes which made Otto's -position in Germany and Europe less commanding and less autocratic -than his predecessor's. With narrower geographical limits, his Empire -had a less plausible claim to be the heir of Rome's universal -dominion; and there were also differences in its inner character and -structure sufficient to justify us in considering Otto (as he is -usually considered by his countrymen) not a mere successor after an -interregnum, but rather a second founder of the imperial throne in the -West. - -Before Otto's descent into Italy is described, something must be said -of the condition of that country, where circumstances had again made -possible the plan of Theodoric, permitted it to become an independent -kingdom, and attached the imperial title to its sovereign. - -[Sidenote: Italian Emperors.] - -The bestowal of the purple on Charles the Great was not really that -'translation of the Empire from the Greeks to the Franks,' which it -was afterwards described as having been. It was not meant to settle -the office in one nation or one dynasty: there was but an extension of -that principle of the equality of all Romans which had made Trajan and -Maximin Emperors. The '_arcanum imperii_,' whereof Tacitus speaks, -'_posse principem alibi quam Romae fieri_[89],' had long before become -_alium quam Romanum_; and now, the names of Roman and Christian having -grown co-extensive, a barbarian chieftain was, as a Roman citizen, -eligible to the office of Roman Emperor. Treating him as such, the -people and pontiff of the capital had in the vacancy of the Eastern -throne asserted their ancient rights of election, and while attempting -to reverse the act of Constantine, had re-established the division of -Valentinian. The dignity was therefore in strictness personal to -Charles; in point of fact, and by consent, hereditarily transmissible, -just as it had formerly become in the families of Constantine and -Theodosius. To the Frankish crown or nation it was by no means legally -attached, though they might think it so; it had passed to their king -only because he was the greatest European potentate, and might equally -well pass to some stronger race, if any such appeared. Hence, when the -line of Carolingian Emperors ended in Charles the Fat, the rights of -Rome and Italy might be taken to revive, and there was nothing to -prevent the citizens from choosing whom they would. At that memorable -era (A.D. 888) the four kingdoms which this prince had united fell -asunder; West France, where Odo or Eudes then began to reign, was -never again united to Germany; East France (Germany) chose Arnulf; -Burgundy[90] split up into two principalities, in one of which -(Transjurane) Rudolf proclaimed himself king, while the other -(Cisjurane with Provence) submitted to Boso[91]; while Italy was -divided between the parties of Berengar of Friuli and Guido of -Spoleto. The former was chosen king by the estates of Lombardy; the -latter, and on his speedy death his son Lambert, was crowned Emperor -by the Pope. Arnulf's descent chased them away and vindicated the -claims of the Franks, but on his flight Italy and the anti-German -faction at Rome became again free. Berengar was made king of Italy, -and afterwards Emperor. Lewis of Burgundy, son of Boso, renounced his -fealty to Arnulf, and procured the imperial dignity, whose vain title -he retained through years of misery and exile, till A.D. 928[92]. None -of these Emperors were strong enough to rule well even in Italy; -beyond it they were not so much as recognized. The crown had become a -bauble with which unscrupulous Popes dazzled the vanity of princes -whom they summoned to their aid, and soothed the credulity of their -more honest supporters. The demoralization and confusion of Italy, the -shameless profligacy of Rome and her pontiffs during this period, were -enough to prevent a true Italian kingdom from being built up on the -basis of Roman choice and national unity. Italian indeed it can -scarcely be called, for these Emperors were still in blood and manners -Teutonic, and akin rather to their Transalpine enemies than their -Romanic subjects. But Italian it might soon have become under a -vigorous rule which should have organized it within and knit it -together to resist attacks from without. And therefore the attempt to -establish such a kingdom is remarkable, for it might have had great -consequences; might, if it had prospered, have spared Italy much -suffering and Germany endless waste of strength and blood. He who from -the summit of Milan cathedral sees across the misty plain the gleaming -turrets of its icy wall sweep in a great arc from North to West, may -well wonder that a land which nature has so severed from its -neighbours should, since history begins, have been always the victim -of their intrusive tyranny. - -[Sidenote: Adelheid Queen of Italy.] - -[Sidenote: Otto's first expedition into Italy, A.D. 951.] - -[Sidenote: Invitation sent by the Pope to Otto.] - -[Sidenote: Motives for reviving the Empire.] - -In A.D. 924 died Berengar, the last of these phantom Emperors. After -him Hugh of Burgundy, and Lothar his son, reigned as kings of Italy, -if puppets in the hands of a riotous aristocracy can be so called. -Rome was meanwhile ruled by the consul or senator Alberic[93], who had -renewed her never quite extinct republican institutions, and in the -degradation of the papacy was almost absolute in the city. Lothar -dying, his widow Adelheid[94] was sought in marriage by Adalbert son -of Berengar II, the new Italian monarch. A gleam of romance is shed on -the Empire's revival by her beauty and her adventures. Rejecting the -odious alliance, she was seized by Berengar, escaped with difficulty -from the loathsome prison where his barbarity had confined her, and -appealed to Otto the German king, the model of that knightly virtue -which was beginning to shew itself after the fierce brutality of the -last age. He listened, descended into Lombardy by the Adige valley, -espoused the injured queen, and forced Berengar to hold his kingdom as -a vassal of the East Frankish crown. That prince was turbulent and -faithless; new complaints reached ere long his liege lord, and envoys -from the Pope offered Otto the imperial title if he would re-visit and -pacify Italy. The proposal was well-timed. Men still thought, as they -had thought in the centuries before the Carolingians, that the Empire -was suspended, not extinct; and the desire to see its effective power -restored, the belief that without it the world could never be right, -might seem better grounded than it had been before the coronation of -Charles. Then the imperial name had recalled only the faint memories -of Roman majesty and order; now it was also associated with the golden -age of the first Frankish Emperor, when a single firm and just hand -had guided the state, reformed the church, repressed the excesses of -local power: when Christianity had advanced against heathendom, -civilizing as she went, fearing neither Hun nor Paynim. One annalist -tells us that Charles was elected 'lest the pagans should insult the -Christians, if the name of Emperor should have ceased among the -Christians[95].' The motive would be bitterly enforced by the -calamities of the last fifty years. In a time of disintegration, -confusion, strife, all the longings of every wiser and better soul for -unity, for peace and law, for some bond to bring Christian men and -Christian states together against the common enemy of the faith, were -but so many cries for the restoration of the Roman Empire[96]. These -were the feelings that on the field of Merseburg broke forth in the -shout of 'Henry the Emperor:' these the hopes of the Teutonic host -when after the great deliverance of the Lechfeld they greeted Otto, -conqueror of the Magyars, as 'Imperator Augustus, Pater Patriae[97].' - -[Sidenote: Condition of Italy.] - -The anarchy which an Emperor was needed to heal was at its worst in -Italy, desolated by the feuds of a crowd of petty princes. A -succession of infamous Popes, raised by means yet more infamous, the -lovers and sons of Theodora and Marozia, had disgraced the chair of -the Apostle, and though Rome herself might be lost to decency, Western -Christendom was roused to anger and alarm. Men had not yet learned to -satisfy their consciences by separating the person from the office. -The rule of Alberic had been succeeded by the wildest confusion, and -demands were raised for the renewal of that imperial authority which -all admitted in theory[98], and which nothing but the resolute -opposition of Alberic himself had prevented Otto from claiming in 951. -From the Byzantine Empire, whither Italy was more than once tempted to -turn, nothing could be hoped; its dangers from foreign enemies were -aggravated by the plots of the court and the seditions of the capital; -it was becoming more and more alienated from the West by the Photian -schism and the question regarding the Procession of the Holy Ghost, -which that quarrel had started. Germany was extending and -consolidating herself, had escaped domestic perils, and might think of -reviving ancient claims. No one could be more willing to revive them -than Otto the Great. His ardent spirit, after waging a bold and -successful struggle against the turbulent magnates of his German -realm, had engaged him in wars with the surrounding nations, and was -now captivated by the vision of a wider sway and a loftier -world-embracing dignity. Nor was the prospect which the papal offer -opened up less welcome to his people. Aachen, their capital, was the -ancestral home of the house of Pipin: their sovereign, although -himself a Saxon by race, titled himself king of the Franks, in -opposition to the Frankish rulers of the Western branch, whose -Teutonic character was disappearing among the Romans of Gaul; they -held themselves in every way the true representatives of the -Carolingian power, and accounted the period since Arnulf's death -nothing but an interregnum which had suspended but not impaired their -rights over Rome. 'For so long,' says a writer of the time, 'as there -remain kings of the Franks, so long will the dignity of the Roman -Empire not wholly perish, seeing that it will abide in its -kings[99].' The recovery of Italy was therefore to German eyes a -righteous as well as a glorious design: approved by the Teutonic -Church which had lately been negotiating with Rome on the subject of -missions to the heathen; embraced by the people, who saw in it an -accession of strength to their young kingdom. Everything smiled on -Otto's enterprise, and the connection which was destined to bring so -much strife and woe to Germany and to Italy was welcomed by the wisest -of both countries as the beginning of a better era. - -[Sidenote: Descent of Otto the Great into Italy.] - -[Sidenote: His coronation at Rome, A.D. 962.] - -Whatever were Otto's own feelings, whether or not he felt that he was -sacrificing, as modern writers have thought that he did sacrifice, the -greatness of his German kingdom to the lust of universal dominion, he -shewed no hesitation in his acts. Descending from the Alps with an -overpowering force, he was acknowledged as king of Italy at -Pavia[100]; and, having first taken an oath to protect the Holy See -and respect the liberties of the city, advanced to Rome. There, with -Adelheid his queen, he was crowned by John XII, on the day of the -Purification, the second of February, A.D. 962. The details of his -election and coronation are unfortunately still more scanty than in -the case of his great predecessor. Most of our authorities represent -the act as of the Pope's favour[101], yet it is plain that the consent -of the people was still thought an essential part of the ceremony, and -that Otto rested after all on his host of conquering Saxons. Be this -as it may, there was neither question raised nor opposition made in -Rome; the usual courtesies and promises were exchanged between Emperor -and Pope, the latter owning himself a subject, and the citizens swore -for the future to elect no pontiff without Otto's consent. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[86] Usage has established this translation of 'Hludowicus Pius,' but -'gentle' or 'kind-hearted' would better express the meaning of the -epithet. - -[87] Von Ranke discovers in this early traces of the aversion of the -Germans to the pretensions of the spiritual power.--_History of -Germany during the Reformation_: Introduction. - -[88] Singularly enough, when one thinks of modern claims, the dynasty -of France (Francia occidentalis) had the least share of it. Charles -the Bald was the only West Frankish Emperor, and reigned a very short -time. - -[89] Tac. _Hist._ i. 4. - -[90] For an account of the various applications of the name Burgundy, -see Appendix, Note A. - -[91] The accession of Boso took place in A.D. 877, eleven years before -Charles the Fat's death. But the new kingdom could not be considered -legally settled until the latter date, and its establishment is at any -rate a part of that general break-up of the great Carolingian empire -whereof A.D. 888 marks the crisis. See Appendix A at the end. - -It is a curious mark of the reverence paid to the Carolingian blood, -that Boso, a powerful and ambitious prince, seems to have chiefly -rested his claims on the fact that he was husband of Irmingard, -daughter of the Emperor Lewis II. Baron de Gingins la Sarraz quotes a -charter of his (drawn up when he seems to have doubted whether to call -himself king) which begins, 'Ego Boso Dei gratia id quod sum, et -coniux mea Irmingardis proles imperialis.' - -[92] Lewis had been surprised by Berengar at Verona, blinded, and -forced to take refuge in his own kingdom of Provence. - -[93] Alberic is called variously senator, consul, patrician, and -prince of the Romans. - -[94] Adelheid was daughter of Rudolf, king of Trans-Jurane Burgundy. -She was at this time in her nineteenth year. - -[95] _Chron. Moiss._, in Pertz; _M. G. H._ i. 305. - -[96] See especially the poem of Florus the Deacon (printed in the -Benedictine collection and in Migne), a bitter lament over the -dissolution of the Carolingian Empire. It is too long for quotation. I -give four lines here:-- - - 'Quid faciant populi quos ingens alluit Hister, - Quos Rhenus Rhodanusque rigant, Ligerisve, Padusve, - Quos omnes dudum tenuit concordia nexos, - Foedere nunc rupto divortia moesta fatigant.' - -[97] Witukind, _Annales_, in Pertz. It may, however, be doubted -whether the annalist is not here giving a very free rendering of the -triumphant cries of the German army. - -[98] Cf. esp. the '_Libellus de imperatoria potestate in urbe Roma_,' -in Pertz. - -[99] 'Licet videamus Romanorum regnum in maxima parte jam destructum, -tamen quamdiu reges Francorum duraverint qui Romanum imperium tenere -debent, dignitas Romani imperii ex toto non peribit, quia stabit in -regibus suis.'--_Liber de Antichristo_, addressed by Adso, abbot of -Moutier-en-Der, to queen Gerberga (circa A.D. 950). - -[100] From the money which Otto struck in Italy, it seems probable -that he did occasionally use the title of king of Italy or of the -Lombards. That he was crowned can hardly be considered quite certain. - -[101] 'A papa imperator ordinatur,' says Hermannus Contractus. -'Dominum Ottonem, ad hoc usque vocatum regem, non solum Romano sed et -poene totius Europae populo acclamante imperatorem consecravit -Augustum.'--_Annal. Quedlinb._, ad ann. 962. 'Benedictionem a domno -apostolico Iohanne, cuius rogatione huc venit, cum sua coniuge promeruit -imperialem ac patronus Romanae effectus est ecclesiae.'--Thietmar. -'Acclamatione totius Romani populi ab apostolico Iohanne, filio -Alberici, imperator et Augustus vocatur et ordinatur.'--Continuator -Reginonis. And similarly the other annalists. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - -THEORY OF THE MEDIAEVAL EMPIRE. - - -[Sidenote: Why the revival of the Empire was desired.] - -These were the events and circumstances of the time: let us now look -at the causes. The restoration of the Empire by Charles may seem to be -sufficiently accounted for by the width of his conquests, by the -peculiar connection which already subsisted between him and the Roman -Church, by his commanding personal character, by the temporary vacancy -of the Byzantine throne. The causes of its revival under Otto must be -sought deeper. Making every allowance for the favouring incidents -which have already been dwelt upon, there must have been some further -influence at work to draw him and his successors, Saxon and Frankish -kings, so far from home in pursuit of a barren crown, to lead the -Italians to accept the dominion of a stranger and a barbarian, to make -the Empire itself appear through the whole Middle Age not what it -seems now, a gorgeous anachronism, but an institution divine and -necessary, having its foundations in the very nature and order of -things. The empire of the elder Rome had been splendid in its life, -yet its judgment was written in the misery to which it had brought the -provinces, and the helplessness that had invited the attacks of the -barbarian. Now, as we at least can see, it had long been dead, and the -course of events was adverse to its revival. Its actual -representatives, the Roman people, were a turbulent rabble, sunk in a -profligacy notorious even in that guilty age. Yet not the less for all -this did men cling to the idea, and strive through long ages to stem -the irresistible time-current, fondly believing that they were -breasting it even while it was sweeping them ever faster and faster -away from the old order into a region of new thoughts, new feelings, -new forms of life. Not till the days of the Reformation was the -illusion dispelled. - -[Sidenote: Mediaeval theories.] - -The explanation is to be found in the state of the human mind during -these centuries. The Middle Ages were essentially unpolitical. Ideas -as familiar to the commonwealths of antiquity as to ourselves, ideas -of the common good as the object of the State, of the rights of the -people, of the comparative merits of different forms of government, -were to them, though sometimes carried out in fact, in their -speculative form unknown, perhaps incomprehensible. Feudalism was the -one great institution to which those times gave birth, and feudalism -was a social and a legal system, only indirectly and by consequence a -political one. Yet the human mind, so far from being idle, was in -certain directions never more active; nor was it possible for it to -remain without general conceptions regarding the relation of men to -each other in this world. Such conceptions were neither made an -expression of the actual present condition of things nor drawn from an -induction of the past; they were partly inherited from the system that -had preceded, partly evolved from the principles of that metaphysical -theology which was ripening into scholasticism[102]. Now the two great -ideas which expiring antiquity bequeathed to the ages that followed -were those of a World-Monarchy and a World-Religion. - -[Sidenote: The World-Religion.] - -Before the conquests of Rome, men, with little knowledge of each -other, with no experience of wide political union[103], had held -differences of race to be natural and irremovable barriers. Similarly, -religion appeared to them a matter purely local and national; and as -there were gods of the hills and gods of the valleys, of the land and -of the sea, so each tribe rejoiced in its peculiar deities, looking on -the natives of another country who worshipped other gods as Gentiles, -natural foes, unclean beings. Such feelings, if keenest in the East, -frequently shew themselves in the early records of Greece and Italy: -in Homer the hero who wanders over the unfruitful sea glories in -sacking the cities of the stranger[104]; the primitive Latins have the -same word for a foreigner and an enemy: the exclusive systems of -Egypt, Hindostan, China, are only more vehement expressions of the -belief which made Athenian philosophers look on a state of war between -Greeks and barbarians as natural[105], and defend slavery on the same -ground of the original diversity of the races that rule and the races -that serve. The Roman dominion giving to many nations a common speech -and law, smote this feeling on its political side; Christianity more -effectually banished it from the soul by substituting for the variety -of local pantheons the belief in one God, before whom all men are -equal[106]. - -[Sidenote: Coincides with the World-Empire.] - -It is on the religious life that nations repose. Because divinity was -divided, humanity had been divided likewise; the doctrine of the unity -of God now enforced the unity of man, who had been created in His -image[107]. The first lesson of Christianity was love, a love that was -to join in one body those whom suspicion and prejudice and pride of -race had hitherto kept apart. There was thus formed by the new -religion a community of the faithful, a Holy Empire, designed to -gather all men into its bosom, and standing opposed to the manifold -polytheisms of the older world, exactly as the universal sway of the -Caesars was contrasted with the innumerable kingdoms and republics that -had gone before it. The analogy of the two made them appear parts of -one great world-movement toward unity: the coincidence of their -boundaries, which had begun before Constantine, lasted long enough -after him to associate them indissolubly together, and make the names -of Roman and Christian convertible[108]. Oecumenical councils, where -the whole spiritual body gathered itself from every part of the -temporal realm under the presidency of the temporal head, presented -the most visible and impressive examples of their connection[109]. The -language of civil government was, throughout the West, that of the -sacred writings and of worship; the greatest mind of his generation -consoled the faithful for the fall of their earthly commonwealth Rome, -by describing to them its successor and representative, the 'city -which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God[110].' - -[Sidenote: Preservation of the unity of the Church.] - -[Sidenote: Mediaeval Theology requires One Visible Catholic Church.] - -Of these two parallel unities, that of the political and that of the -religious society, meeting in the higher unity of all Christians, -which may be indifferently called Catholicity or Romanism (since in -that day those words would have had the same meaning), that only which -had been entrusted to the keeping of the Church survived the storms of -the fifth century. Many reasons may be assigned for the firmness with -which she clung to it. Seeing one institution after another falling to -pieces around her, seeing how countries and cities were being severed -from each other by the irruption of strange tribes and the increasing -difficulty of communication, she strove to save religious fellowship -by strengthening the ecclesiastical organization, by drawing tighter -every bond of outward union. Necessities of faith were still more -powerful. Truth, it was said, is one, and as it must bind into one -body all who hold it, so it is only by continuing in that body that -they can preserve it. Thus with the growing rigidity of dogma, which -may be traced from the council of Jerusalem to the council of Trent, -there had arisen the idea of supplementing revelation by tradition as -a source of doctrine, of exalting the universal conscience and belief -above the individual, and allowing the soul to approach God only -through the universal consciousness, represented by the sacerdotal -order: principles still maintained by one branch of the Church, and -for some at least of which far weightier reasons could be assigned -then, in the paucity of written records and the blind ignorance of the -mass of the people, than any to which their modern advocates have -recourse. There was another cause yet more deeply seated, and which it -is hard adequately to describe. It was not exactly a want of faith in -the unseen, nor a shrinking fear which dared not look forth on the -universe alone: it was rather the powerlessness of the untrained mind -to realize the idea as an idea and live in it: it was the tendency to -see everything in the concrete, to turn the parable into a fact, the -doctrine into its most literal application, the symbol into the -essential ceremony; the tendency which intruded earthly Madonnas and -saints between the worshipper and the spiritual Deity, and could -satisfy its devotional feelings only by visible images even of these: -which conceived of man's aspirations and temptations as the result of -the direct action of angels and devils: which expressed the strivings -of the soul after purity by the search for the Holy Grail: which in -the Crusades sent myriads to win at Jerusalem by earthly arms the -sepulchre of Him whom they could not serve in their own spirit nor -approach by their own prayers. And therefore it was that the whole -fabric of mediaeval Christianity rested upon the idea of the Visible -Church. Such a Church could be in nowise local or limited. To -acquiesce in the establishment of National Churches would have -appeared to those men, as it must always appear when scrutinized, -contradictory to the nature of a religious body, opposed to the genius -of Christianity, defensible, when capable of defence at all, only as a -temporary resource in the presence of insuperable difficulties. Had -this plan, on which so many have dwelt with complacency in later -times, been proposed either to the primitive Church in its adversity -or to the dominant Church of the ninth century, it would have been -rejected with horror; but since there were as yet no nations, the plan -was one which did not and could not present itself. The Visible Church -was therefore the Church Universal, the whole congregation of -Christian men dispersed throughout the world. - -[Sidenote: Idea of political unity upheld by the clergy.] - -Now of the Visible Church the emblem and stay was the priesthood; and -it was by them, in whom dwelt whatever of learning and thought was -left in Europe, that the second great idea whereof mention has been -made--the belief in one universal temporal state--was preserved. As a -matter of fact, that state had perished out of the West, and it might -seem their interest to let its memory be lost. They, however, did not -so calculate their interest. So far from feeling themselves opposed to -the civil authority in the seventh and eighth centuries, as they came -to do in the twelfth and thirteenth, the clergy were fully persuaded -that its maintenance was indispensable to their own welfare. They -were, be it remembered, at first Romans themselves living by the Roman -law, using Latin as their proper tongue, and imbued with the idea of -the historical connection of the two powers. And by them chiefly was -that idea expounded and enforced for many generations, by none more -earnestly than by Alcuin of York, the adviser of Charles[111]. The -limits of those two powers had become confounded in practice: bishops -were princes, the chief ministers of the sovereign, sometimes even the -leaders of their flocks in war: kings were accustomed to summon -ecclesiastical councils, and appoint to ecclesiastical offices. - -[Sidenote: Influence of the metaphysics of the time upon the theory of -a World-State.] - -But, like the unity of the Church, the doctrine of a universal -monarchy had a theoretical as well as an historical basis, and may be -traced up to those metaphysical ideas out of which the system we call -Realism developed itself. The beginnings of philosophy in those times -were logical; and its first efforts were to distribute and classify: -system, subordination, uniformity, appeared to be that which was most -desirable in thought as in life. The search after causes became a -search after principles of classification; since simplicity and truth -were held to consist not in an analysis of thought into its elements, -nor in an observation of the process of its growth, but rather in a -sort of genealogy of notions, a statement of the relations of classes -as containing or excluding each other. These classes, genera or -species, were not themselves held to be conceptions formed by the mind -from phenomena, nor mere accidental aggregates of objects grouped -under and called by some common name; they were real things, existing -independently of the individuals who composed them, recognized rather -than created by the human mind. In this view, Humanity is an essential -quality present in all men, and making them what they are: as regards -it they are therefore not many but one, the differences between -individuals being no more than accidents. The whole truth of their -being lies in the universal property, which alone has a permanent and -independent existence. The common nature of the individuals thus -gathered into one Being is typified in its two aspects, the spiritual -and the secular, by two persons, the World-Priest and the -World-Monarch, who present on earth a similitude of the Divine unity. -For, as we have seen, it was only through its concrete and symbolic -expression that a thought could then be apprehended[112]. Although it -was to unity in religion that the clerical body was both by doctrine -and by practice attached, they found this inseparable from the -corresponding unity in politics. They saw that every act of man has a -social and public as well as a moral and personal bearing, and -concluded that the rules which directed and the powers which rewarded -or punished must be parallel and similar, not so much two powers as -different manifestations of one and the same. That the souls of all -Christian men should be guided by one hierarchy, rising through -successive grades to a supreme head, while for their deeds they were -answerable to a multitude of local, unconnected, mutually -irresponsible potentates, appeared to them necessarily opposed to the -Divine order. As they could not imagine, nor value if they had -imagined, a communion of the saints without its expression in a -visible Church, so in matters temporal they recognized no brotherhood -of spirit without the bonds of form, no universal humanity save in the -image of a universal State[113]. In this, as in so much else, the men -of the Middle Ages were the slaves of the letter, unable, with all -their aspirations, to rise out of the concrete, and prevented by the -very grandeur and boldness of their conceptions from carrying them out -in practice against the enormous obstacles that met them. - -[Sidenote: The ideal state supposed to be embodied in the Roman -Empire.] - -[Sidenote: Constantine's Donation.] - -Deep as this belief had struck its roots, it might never have risen to -maturity nor sensibly affected the progress of events, had it not -gained in the pre-existence of the monarchy of Rome a definite shape -and a definite purpose. It was chiefly by means of the Papacy that -this came to pass. When under Constantine the Christian Church was -framing her organization on the model of the state which protected -her, the bishop of the metropolis perceived and improved the analogy -between himself and the head of the civil government. The notion that -the chair of Peter was the imperial throne of the Church had dawned -upon the Popes very early in their history, and grew stronger every -century under the operation of causes already specified. Even before -the Empire of the West had fallen, St. Leo the Great could boast that -to Rome, exalted by the preaching of the chief of the Apostles to be a -holy nation, a chosen people, a priestly and royal city, there had -been appointed a spiritual dominion wider than her earthly sway[114]. -In A.D. 476 Rome ceased to be the political capital of the Western -countries, and the Papacy, inheriting no small part of the Emperor's -power, drew to herself the reverence which the name of the city still -commanded, until by the middle of the eighth, or, at latest, of the -ninth century she had perfected in theory a scheme which made her the -exact counterpart of the departed despotism, the centre of the -hierarchy, absolute mistress of the Christian world. The character of -that scheme is best set forth in the singular document, most -stupendous of all the mediaeval forgeries, which under the name of the -Donation of Constantine commanded for seven centuries the -unquestioning belief of mankind[115]. Itself a portentous falsehood, -it is the most unimpeachable evidence of the thoughts and beliefs of -the priesthood which framed it, some time between the middle of the -eighth and the middle of the tenth century. It tells how Constantine -the Great, cured of his leprosy by the prayers of Sylvester, resolved, -on the fourth day from his baptism, to forsake the ancient seat for a -new capital on the Bosphorus, lest the continuance of the secular -government should cramp the freedom of the spiritual, and how he -bestowed therewith upon the Pope and his successors the sovereignty -over Italy and the countries of the West. But this is not all, -although this is what historians, in admiration of its splendid -audacity, have chiefly dwelt upon. The edict proceeds to grant to the -Roman pontiff and his clergy a series of dignities and privileges, all -of them enjoyed by the Emperor and his senate, all of them shewing the -same desire to make the pontifical a copy of the imperial office. The -Pope is to inhabit the Lateran palace, to wear the diadem, the collar, -the purple cloak, to carry the sceptre, and to be attended by a body -of chamberlains. Similarly his clergy are to ride on white horses and -receive the honours and immunities of the senate and patricians[116]. - -[Sidenote: Interdependence of Papacy and Empire.] - -The notion which prevails throughout, that the chief of the religious -society must be in every point conformed to his prototype the chief of -the civil, is the key to all the thoughts and acts of the Roman -clergy; not less plainly seen in the details of papal ceremonial than -it is in the gigantic scheme of papal legislation. The Canon law was -intended by its authors to reproduce and rival the imperial -jurisprudence; a correspondence was traced between its divisions and -those of the Corpus Juris Civilis, and Gregory IX, who was the first -to consolidate it into a code, sought the fame and received the title -of the Justinian of the Church. But the wish of the clergy was always, -even in the weakness or hostility of the temporal power, to imitate -and rival, not to supersede it; since they held it the necessary -complement of their own, and thought the Christian people equally -imperilled by the fall of either. Hence the reluctance of Gregory II -to break with the Byzantine princes[117], and the maintenance of their -titular sovereignty till A.D. 800: hence the part which the Holy See -played in transferring the crown to Charles, the first sovereign of -the West capable of fulfilling its duties; hence the grief with which -its weakness under his successors was seen, the gladness when it -descended to Otto as representative of the Frankish kingdom. - -[Sidenote: The Roman Empire revived in a new character.] - -Up to the era of A.D. 800 there had been at Constantinople a -legitimate historical prolongation of the Roman Empire. Technically, -as we have seen, the election of Charles, after the deposition of -Constantine VI, was itself a prolongation, and maintained the old -rights and forms in their integrity. But the Pope, though he knew it -not, did far more than effect a change of dynasty when he rejected -Irene and crowned the barbarian chief. Restorations are always -delusive. As well might one hope to stop the earth's course in her -orbit as to arrest that ceaseless change and movement in human affairs -which forbids an old institution, suddenly transplanted into a new -order of things, from filling its ancient place and serving its former -ends. The dictatorship at Rome in the second Punic war was not more -unlike the dictatorships of Sulla and Caesar, nor the States-general of -Louis XIII to the assembly which his unhappy descendant convoked in -1789, than was the imperial office of Theodosius to that of Charles -the Frank; and the seal, ascribed to A.D. 800, which bears the legend -'Renovatio Romani Imperii[118],' expresses, more justly perhaps than -was intended by its author, a second birth of the Roman Empire. - -It is not, however, from Carolingian times that a proper view of this -new creation can be formed. That period was one of transition, of -fluctuation and uncertainty, in which the office, passing from one -dynasty and country to another, had not time to acquire a settled -character and claims, and was without the power that would have -enabled it to support them. From the coronation of Otto the Great a -new period begins, in which the ideas that have been described as -floating in men's minds took clearer shape, and attached to the -imperial title a body of definite rights and definite duties. It is -this new phase, the Holy Empire, that we have now to consider. - -[Sidenote: Position and functions of the Emperor.] - -[Sidenote: Correspondence and harmony of the spiritual and temporal -powers.] - -The realistic philosophy, and the needs of a time when the only notion -of civil or religious order was submission to authority, required the -World-State to be a monarchy; tradition, as well as the continuance of -certain institutions, gave the monarch the name of Roman Emperor. A -king could not be universal sovereign, for there were many kings: the -Emperor must be, for there had never been but one Emperor; he had in -older and brighter days been the actual lord of the civilized world; -the seat of his power was placed beside that of the spiritual autocrat -of Christendom[119]. His functions will be seen most clearly if we -deduce them from the leading principle of mediaeval mythology, the -exact correspondence of earth and heaven. As God, in the midst of the -celestial hierarchy, ruled blessed spirits in paradise, so the Pope, -His Vicar, raised above priests, bishops, metropolitans, reigned over -the souls of mortal men below. But as God is Lord of earth as well as -of heaven, so must he (the _Imperator coelestis_[t]) be represented by -a second earthly viceroy, the Emperor (_Imperator terrenus_[120]), -whose authority shall be of and for this present life. And as in this -present world the soul cannot act save through the body, while yet the -body is no more than an instrument and means for the soul's -manifestation, so must there be a rule and care of men's bodies as -well as of their souls, yet subordinated always to the well-being of -that which is the purer and the more enduring. It is under the emblem -of soul and body that the relation of the papal and imperial power is -presented to us throughout the Middle Ages[121]. The Pope, as God's -vicar in matters spiritual, is to lead men to eternal life; the -Emperor, as vicar in matters temporal, must so control them in their -dealings with one another that they may be able to pursue undisturbed -the spiritual life, and thereby attain the same supreme and common end -of everlasting happiness. In the view of this object his chief duty is -to maintain peace in the world, while towards the Church his position -is that of Advocate, a title borrowed from the practice adopted by -churches and monasteries of choosing some powerful baron to protect -their lands and lead their tenants in war[122]. The functions of -Advocacy are twofold: at home to make the Christian people obedient to -the priesthood, and to execute their decrees upon heretics and -sinners; abroad to propagate the faith among the heathen, not sparing -to use carnal weapons[123]. Thus does the Emperor answer in every -point to his antitype the Pope, his power being yet of a lower rank, -created on the analogy of the papal, as the papal itself had been -modelled after the elder Empire. The parallel holds good even in its -details; for just as we have seen the churchman assuming the crown and -robes of the secular prince, so now did he array the Emperor in his -own ecclesiastical vestments, the stole and the dalmatic, gave him a -clerical as well as a sacred character, removed his office from all -narrowing associations of birth or country, inaugurated him by rites -every one of which was meant to symbolize and enjoin duties in their -essence religious. Thus the Holy Roman Church and the Holy Roman -Empire are one and the same thing, in two aspects; and Catholicism, -the principle of the universal Christian society, is also Romanism; -that is, rests upon Rome as the origin and type of its universality; -manifesting itself in a mystic dualism which corresponds to the two -natures of its Founder. As divine and eternal, its head is the Pope, -to whom souls have been entrusted; as human and temporal, the Emperor, -commissioned to rule men's bodies and acts. - -[Sidenote: Union of Church and State.] - -In nature and compass the government of these two potentates is the -same, differing only in the sphere of its working; and it matters not -whether we call the Pope a spiritual Emperor or the Emperor a secular -Pope. Nor, though the one office is below the other as far as man's -life on earth is less precious than his life hereafter, is therefore, -on the older and truer theory, the imperial authority delegated by the -papal. For, as has been said already, God is represented by the Pope -not in every capacity, but only as the ruler of spirits in heaven: as -sovereign of earth, He issues His commission directly to the Emperor. -Opposition between two servants of the same King is inconceivable, -each being bound to aid and foster the other: the co-operation of both -being needed in all that concerns the welfare of Christendom at large. -This is the one perfect and self-consistent scheme of the union of -Church and State; for, taking the absolute coincidence of their limits -to be self-evident, it assumes the infallibility of their joint -government, and derives, as a corollary from that infallibility, the -duty of the civil magistrate to root out heresy and schism no less -than to punish treason and rebellion. It is also the scheme which, -granting the possibility of their harmonious action, places the two -powers in that relation which gives each of them its maximum of -strength. But by a law to which it would be hard to find exceptions, -in proportion as the State became more Christian, the Church, who to -work out her purposes had assumed worldly forms, became by the contact -worldlier, meaner, spiritually weaker; and the system which -Constantine founded amid such rejoicings, which culminated so -triumphantly in the Empire Church of the Middle Ages, has in each -succeeding generation been slowly losing ground, has seen its -brightness dimmed and its completeness marred, and sees now those who -are most zealous on behalf of its surviving institutions feebly defend -or silently desert the principle upon which all must rest. - -The complete accord of the papal and imperial powers which this -theory, as sublime as it is impracticable, requires, was attained only -at a few points in their history[124]. It was finally supplanted by -another view of their relation, which, professing to be a development -of a principle recognized as fundamental, the superior importance of -the religious life, found increasing favour in the eyes of fervent -churchmen[125]. Declaring the Pope sole representative on earth of the -Deity, it concluded that from him, and not directly from God, must the -Empire be held--held feudally, it was said by many--and it thereby -thrust down the temporal power, to be the slave instead of the sister -of the spiritual[126]. Nevertheless, the Papacy in her meridian, and -under the guidance of her greatest minds, of Hildebrand, of Alexander, -of Innocent, not seeking to abolish or absorb the civil government, -required only its obedience, and exalted its dignity against all save -herself[127]. It was reserved for Boniface VIII, whose extravagant -pretensions betrayed the decay that was already at work within, to -show himself to the crowding pilgrims at the jubilee of A.D. 1300, -seated on the throne of Constantine, arrayed with sword, and crown, -and sceptre, shouting aloud, 'I am Caesar--I am Emperor[128].' - -[Sidenote: Proofs from mediaeval documents.] - -The theory of an Emperor's place and functions thus sketched cannot be -definitely assigned to any point of time; for it was growing and -changing from the fifth century to the fifteenth. Nor need it surprise -us that we do not find in any one author a statement of the grounds -whereon it rested, since much of what seems strangest to us was then -too obvious to be formally explained. No one, however, who examines -mediaeval writings can fail to perceive, sometimes from direct words, -oftener from allusions or assumptions, that such ideas as these are -present to the minds of the authors[129]. That which it is easiest to -prove is the connection of the Empire with religion. From every -record, from chronicles and treatises, proclamations, laws, and -sermons, passages may be adduced wherein the defence and spread of the -faith, and the maintenance of concord among the Christian people, are -represented as the function to which the Empire has been set apart. -The belief expressed by Lewis II, 'Imperii dignitas non in vocabuli -voce sed in gloriosae pietatis culmine consistit[130],' appears again -in the address of the Archbishop of Mentz to Conrad II[131], as Vicar -of God; is reiterated by Frederick I[132], when he writes to the -prelates of Germany, 'On earth God has placed no more than two powers, -and as there is in heaven but one God, so is there here one Pope and -one Emperor. Divine providence has specially appointed the Roman -Empire to prevent the continuance of schism in the Church[133];' is -echoed by jurists and divines down to the days of Charles V[134]. It -was a doctrine which we shall find the friends and foes of the Holy -See equally concerned to insist on, the one to make the transference -(_translatio_) from the Greeks to the Germans appear entirely the -Pope's work, and so establish his right of overseeing or cancelling -his rival's election, the others by setting the Emperor at the head of -the Church to reduce the Pope to the place of chief bishop of his -realm[135]. His headship was dwelt upon chiefly in the two duties -already noticed. As the counterpart of the Mussulman Commander of the -Faithful, he was leader of the Church militant against her infidel -foes, was in this capacity summoned to conduct crusades, and in later -times recognized chief of the confederacies against the conquering -Ottomans. As representative of the whole Christian people, it belonged -to him to convoke General Councils, a right not without importance -even when exercised concurrently with the Pope, but far more weighty -when the object of the council was to settle a disputed election, or, -as at Constance, to depose the reigning pontiff himself. - -[Sidenote: The Coronation ceremonies.] - -No better illustrations can be desired than those to be found in the -office for the imperial coronation at Rome, too long to be transcribed -here, but well worthy of an attentive study[136]. The rites prescribed -in it are rights of consecration to a religious office: the Emperor, -besides the sword, globe, and sceptre of temporal power, receives a -ring as the symbol of his faith, is ordained a subdeacon, assists the -Pope in celebrating mass, partakes as a clerical person of the -communion in both kinds, is admitted a canon of St. Peter and St. John -Lateran. The oath to be taken by an elector begins, 'Ego N. volo regem -Romanorum in Caesarem promovendum, temporale caput populo Christiano -eligere.' The Emperor swears to cherish and defend the Holy Roman -Church and her bishop: the Pope prays after the reading of the Gospel, -'Deus qui ad praedicandum aeterni regni evangelium Imperium Romanum -praeparasti, praetende famulo tuo Imperatori nostro arma coelestia.' -Among the Emperor's official titles there occur these: 'Head of -Christendom,' 'Defender and Advocate of the Christian Church,' -'Temporal Head of the Faithful,' 'Protector of Palestine and of the -Catholic Faith[137].' - -[Sidenote: The rights of the Empire proved from the Bible.] - -Very singular are the reasonings used by which the necessity and -divine right of the Empire are proved out of the Bible. The mediaeval -theory of the relation of the civil power to the priestly was -profoundly influenced by the account in the Old Testament of the -Jewish theocracy, in which the king, though the institution of his -office was a derogation from the purity of the older system, appears -divinely chosen and commissioned, and stood in a peculiarly intimate -relation to the national religion. From the New Testament the -authority and eternity of Rome herself was established. Every passage -was seized on where submission to the powers that be is enjoined, -every instance cited where obedience had actually been rendered to -imperial officials, a special emphasis being laid on the sanction -which Christ Himself had given to Roman dominion by pacifying the -world through Augustus, by being born at the time of the taxing, by -paying tribute to Caesar, by saying to Pilate, 'Thou couldest have no -power at all against Me except it were given thee from above.' - -More attractive to the mystical spirit than these direct arguments -were those drawn from prophecy, or based on the allegorical -interpretation of Scripture. Very early in Christian history had the -belief formed itself that the Roman Empire--as the fourth beast of -Daniel's vision, as the iron legs and feet of Nebuchadnezzar's -image--was to be the world's last and universal kingdom. From Origen -and Jerome downwards it found unquestioned acceptance[138], and that -not unnaturally. For no new power had arisen to extinguish the Roman, -as the Persian monarchy had been blotted out by Alexander, as the -realms of his successors had fallen before the conquering republic -herself. Every Northern conqueror, Goth, Lombard, Burgundian, had -cherished her memory and preserved her laws; Germany had adopted even -the name of the Empire 'dreadful and terrible and strong exceedingly, -and diverse from all that were before it.' To these predictions, and -to many others from the Apocalypse, were added those which in the -Gospels and Epistles foretold the advent of Antichrist[139]. He was to -succeed the Roman dominion, and the Popes are more than once warned -that by weakening the Empire they are hastening the coming of the -enemy and the end of the world[140]. It is not only when groping in -the dark labyrinths of prophecy that mediaeval authors are quick in -detecting emblems, imaginative in explaining them. Men were wont in -those days to interpret Scripture in a singular fashion. Not only did -it not occur to them to ask what meaning words had to those to whom -they were originally addressed; they were quite as careless whether -the sense they discovered was one which the language used would -naturally and rationally bear to any reader at any time. No analogy -was too faint, no allegory too fanciful, to be drawn out of a simple -text; and, once propounded, the interpretation acquired in argument -all the authority of the text itself. Thus the two swords of which -Christ said, 'It is enough,' became the spiritual and temporal powers, -and the grant of the spiritual to Peter involves the supremacy of the -Papacy[141]. Thus one writer proves the eternity of Rome from the -seventy-second Psalm, 'They shall fear thee as long as the sun and -moon endure, throughout all generations;' the moon being of course, -since Gregory VII, the Roman Empire, as the sun, or greater light, is -the Popedom. Another quoting, 'Qui tenet teneat donec auferatur[142],' -with Augustine's explanation thereof[143], says, that when 'he who -letteth' is removed, tribes and provinces will rise in rebellion, and -the Empire to which God has committed the government of the human race -will be dissolved. From the miseries of his own time (he wrote under -Frederick III) he predicts that the end is near. The same spirit of -symbolism seized on the number of the electors: 'the seven lamps -burning in the unity of the sevenfold spirit which illumine the Holy -Empire[144].' Strange legends told how Romans and Germans were of one -lineage; how Peter's staff had been found on the banks of the Rhine, -the miracle signifying that a commission was issued to the Germans to -reclaim wandering sheep to the one fold. So complete does the -scriptural proof appear in the hands of mediaeval churchmen, many -holding it a mortal sin to resist the power ordained of God, that we -forget they were all the while only adapting to an existing -institution what they found written already; we begin to fancy that -the Empire was maintained, obeyed, exalted for centuries, on the -strength of words to which we attach in almost every case a wholly -different meaning. - -[Sidenote: Illustrations from Mediaeval Art.] - -It would be a task both pleasant and profitable to pass on from the -theologians to the poets and artists of the Middle Ages, and endeavour -to trace through their works the influence of the ideas which have -been expounded above. But it is one far too wide for the scope of the -present treatise; and one which would demand an acquaintance with -those works themselves such as only minute and long-continued study -could give. For even a slight knowledge enables any one to see how -much still remains to be interpreted in the imaginative literature and -in the paintings of those times, and how apt we are in glancing over a -piece of work to miss those seemingly trifling indications of the -artist's thought or belief which are all the more precious that they -are indirect or unconscious. Therefore a history of mediaeval art which -shall evolve its philosophy from its concrete forms, if it is to have -any value at all, must be minute in description as well as subtle in -method. But lest this class of illustrations should appear to have -been wholly forgotten, it may be well to mention here two paintings in -which the theory of the mediaeval empire is unmistakeably set forth. -One of them is in Rome, the other in Florence; every traveller in -Italy may examine both for himself. - -[Sidenote: Mosaic of the Lateran Palace at Rome.] - -The first of these is the famous mosaic of the Lateran triclinium, -constructed by Pope Leo III about A.D. 800, and an exact copy of -which, made by the order of Sextus V, may still be seen over against -the facade of St. John Lateran. Originally meant to adorn the state -banqueting-hall of the Popes, it is now placed in the open air, in the -finest situation in Rome, looking from the brow of a hill across the -green ridges of the Campagna to the olive-groves of Tivoli and the -glistering crags and snow-capped summits of the Umbrian and Sabine -Apennine. It represents in the centre Christ surrounded by the -Apostles, whom He is sending forth to preach the Gospel; one hand is -extended to bless, the other holds a book with the words 'Pax Vobis.' -Below and to the right Christ is depicted again, and this time -sitting: on his right hand kneels Pope Sylvester, on his left the -Emperor Constantine; to the one he gives the keys of heaven and hell, -to the other a banner surmounted by a cross. In the group on the -opposite, that is, on the left side of the arch, we see the Apostle -Peter seated, before whom in like manner kneel Pope Leo III and -Charles the Emperor; the latter wearing, like Constantine, his crown. -Peter, himself grasping the keys, gives to Leo the pallium of an -archbishop, to Charles the banner of the Christian army. The -inscription is, 'Beatus Petrus dona vitam Leoni PP et bictoriam Carulo -regi dona;' while round the arch is written, 'Gloria in excelsis Deo, -et in terra pax omnibus bonae voluntatis.' - -The order and nature of the ideas here symbolized is sufficiently -clear. First comes the revelation of the Gospel, and the divine -commission to gather all men into its fold. Next, the institution, at -the memorable era of Constantine's conversion, of the two powers by -which the Christian people is to be respectively taught and governed. -Thirdly, we are shewn the permanent Vicar of God, the Apostle who -keeps the keys of heaven and hell, re-establishing these same powers -on a new and firmer basis[145]. The badge of ecclesiastical supremacy -he gives to Leo as the spiritual head of the faithful on earth, the -banner of the Church Militant to Charles, who is to maintain her cause -against heretics and infidels. - -[Sidenote: Fresco in S. Maria Novella at Florence.] - -The second painting is of greatly later date. It is a fresco in the -chapter-house of the Dominican convent of Santa Maria Novella[146] at -Florence, usually known as the Capellone degli Spagnuoli. It has been -commonly ascribed, on Vasari's authority, to Simone Martini of Siena, -but an examination of the dates of his life seems to discredit this -view[147]. Most probably it was executed between A.D. 1340 and 1350. -It is a huge work, covering one whole wall of the chapter-house, and -filled with figures, some of which, but seemingly on no sufficient -authority, have been taken to represent eminent persons of the -time--Cimabue, Arnolfo, Boccaccio, Petrarch, Laura, and others. In it -is represented the whole scheme of man's life here and hereafter--the -Church on earth and the Church in heaven. Full in front are seated -side by side the Pope and the Emperor: on their right and left, in a -descending row, minor spiritual and temporal officials; next to the -Pope a cardinal, bishops, and doctors; next to the Emperor, the king -of France and a line of nobles and knights. Behind them appears the -Duomo of Florence as an emblem of the Visible Church, while at their -feet is a flock of sheep (the faithful) attacked by ravening wolves -(heretics and schismatics), whom a pack of spotted dogs (the -Dominicans[148]) combat and chase away. From this, the central -foreground of the picture, a path winds round and up a height to a -great gate where the Apostle sits on guard to admit true believers: -they passing through it are met by choirs of seraphs, who lead them on -through the delicious groves of Paradise. Above all, at the top of the -painting and just over the spot where his two lieutenants, Pope and -Emperor, are placed below, is the Saviour enthroned amid saints and -angels[149]. - -[Sidenote: Anti-national character of the Empire.] - -Here, too, there needs no comment. The Church Militant is the perfect -counterpart of the Church Triumphant: her chief danger is from those -who would rend the unity of her visible body, the seamless garment of -her heavenly Lord; and that devotion to His person which is the sum of -her faith and the essence of her being, must on earth be rendered to -those two lieutenants whom He has chosen to govern in His name. - -A theory, such as that which it has been attempted to explain and -illustrate, is utterly opposed to restrictions of place or person. The -idea of one Christian people, all whose members are equal in the sight -of God,--an idea so forcibly expressed in the unity of the priesthood, -where no barrier separated the successor of the Apostle from the -humblest curate,--and in the prevalence of one language for worship -and government, made the post of Emperor independent of the race, or -rank, or actual resources of its occupant. The Emperor was entitled to -the obedience of Christendom, not as hereditary chief of a victorious -tribe, or feudal lord of a portion of the earth's surface, but as -solemnly invested with an office. Not only did he excel in dignity the -kings of the earth: his power was different in its nature; and, so far -from supplanting or rivalling theirs, rose above them to become the -source and needful condition of their authority in their several -territories, the bond which joined them in one harmonious body. The -vast dominions and vigorous personal action of Charles the Great had -concealed this distinction while he reigned; under his successors the -imperial crown appeared disconnected from the direct government of the -kingdoms they had established, existing only in the form of an -undefined suzerainty, as the type of that unity without which men's -minds could not rest. It was characteristic of the Middle Ages, that -demanding the existence of an Emperor, they were careless who he was -or how he was chosen, so he had been duly inaugurated; and that they -were not shocked by the contrast between unbounded rights and actual -helplessness. At no time in the world's history has theory, pretending -all the while to control practice, been so utterly divorced from it. -Ferocious and sensual, that age worshipped humility and asceticism: -there has never been a purer ideal of love, nor a grosser profligacy -of life. - -The power of the Roman Emperor cannot as yet be called international; -though this, as we shall see, became in later times its most important -aspect; for in the tenth century national distinctions had scarcely -begun to exist. But its genius was clerical and old Roman, in nowise -territorial or Teutonic: it rested not on armed hosts or wide lands, -but upon the duty, the awe, the love of its subjects. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[102] I do not mean to say that the system of ideas which it is -endeavoured to set forth in the following pages was complete in this -particular form, either in the days of Charles or in those of Otto, or -in those of Frederick Barbarossa. It seems to have been constantly -growing and decaying from the fourth century to the sixteenth, the -relative prominence of its cardinal doctrines varying from age to age. -But, just as the painter who sees the ever-shifting lights and shades -play over the face of a wide landscape faster than his brush can place -them on the canvas, in despair at representing their exact position at -any single moment, contents himself with painting the effects that are -broadest and most permanent, and at giving rather the impression which -the scene makes on him than every detail of the scene itself, so here, -the best and indeed the only practicable course seems to be that of -setting forth in its most self-consistent form the body of ideas and -beliefs on which the Empire rested, although this form may not be -exactly that which they can be asserted to have worn in any one -century, and although the illustrations adduced may have to be taken -sometimes from earlier, sometimes from later writers. As the doctrine -of the Empire was in its essence the same during the whole Middle Age, -such a general description as is attempted here may, I venture to -hope, be found substantially true for the tenth as well as for the -fourteenth century. - -[103] Empires like the Persian did nothing to assimilate the subject -races, who retained their own laws and customs, sometimes their own -princes, and were bound only to serve in the armies and fill the -treasury of the Great King. - -[104] Od. iii. 72:-- - - [Greek: ... e mapsidios alalesthe, - hoia te leisteres, hypeir hala, toit' aloontai - psychas parthemenoi, kakon allodapoisi pherontes?] - -Cf. Od. ix. 39: and the Hymn to the Pythian Apollo, I. 274. So in II. -v. 214, [Greek: allotrios phos]. - -[105] Plato, in the beginning of the Laws, represents it as natural -between all states: [Greek: polemos physei hyparchei pros hapasas tas -poleis]. - -[106] See especially Acts xvii. 26; Gal. iii. 28; Eph. ii. 11, sqq.; -iv. 3-6; Col. iii. 11. - -[107] This is drawn out by Laurent, _Histoire du Droit des Gens_; and -AEgidi, _Der Fuerstenrath nach dem Luneviller Frieden_. - -[108] 'Romanos enim vocitant homines nostrae religionis.'--Gregory of -Tours, quoted by AEgidi, from A. F. Pott, _Essay on the Words 'Roemisch,' -'Romanisch,' 'Roman,' 'Romantisch.'_ So in the Middle Ages, [Greek: -Rhomaioi] is used to mean Christians, as opposed to [Greek: Hellenes], -heathens. - -Cf. Ducange, 'Romani olim dicti qui alias Christiani vel etiam -Catholici.' - -[109] As a reviewer in the _Tablet_ (whose courtesy it is the more -pleasant to acknowledge since his point of view is altogether opposed -to mine) has understood this passage as meaning that 'people imagined -the Christian religion was to last for ever because the Holy Roman -Empire was never to decay,' it may be worth while to say that this is -far from being the purport of the argument which this chapter was -designed to state. The converse would be nearer the truth:--'people -imagined the Holy Roman Empire was never to decay, because the -Christian religion was to last for ever.' - -The phenomen may perhaps be stated thus:--Men who were already -disposed to believe the Roman Empire to be eternal for one set of -reasons, came to believe the Christian Church to be eternal for -another and, to them, more impressive set of reasons. Seeing the two -institutions allied in fact, they took their alliance and connection -to be eternal also; and went on for centuries believing in the -necessary existence of the Roman Empire because they believed in its -necessary union with the Catholic Church. - -[110] Augustine, in the _De Civitate Dei_. His influence, great -through all the Middle Ages, was greater on no one than on -Charles.--'Delectabatur et libris sancti Augustini, praecipueque his -qui De Civitate Dei praetitulati sunt.'--Eginhard, _Vita Karoli_, cap. -24. - -[111] 'Quapropter universorum precibus fidelium optandum est, ut in -omnem gloriam vestram extendatur imperium, ut scilicet catholica fides -... veraciter in una confessione cunctorum cordibus infigatur, -quatenus summi Regis donante pietate eadem sanctae pacis et perfectae -caritatis omnes ubique regat et custodiat unitas.' Quoted by Waitz -(_Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte_, ii. 182) from an unprinted letter -of Alcuin. - -[112] A curious illustration of this tendency of mind is afforded by -the descriptions we meet with of Learning or Theology (_Studium_) as a -concrete existence, having a visible dwelling in the University of -Paris. The three great powers which rule human life, says one writer, -the Popedom, the Empire, and Learning, have been severally entrusted -to the three foremost nations of Europe: Italians, Germans, French. -'His siquidem tribus, scilicet sacerdotio imperio et studio, tanquam -tribus virtutibus, videlicet naturali vitali et scientiali, catholica -ecclesia spiritualiter mirificatur, augmentatur et regitur. His itaque -tribus, tanquam fundamento, pariete et tecto, eadem ecclesia tanquam -materialiter proficit. Et sicut ecclesia materialis uno tantum -fundamento et uno tecto eget, parietibus vero quatuor, ita imperium -quatuor habet parietes, hoc est, quatuor imperii sedes, Aquisgranum, -Arelatum, Mediolanum, Romam.'--_Jordanis Chronica_; _ap._ Schardius -_Sylloge Tractatuum_. And see Doellinger, _Die Vergangenheit und -Gegenwart der katholischen Theologie_, p. 8. - -[113] 'Una est sola respublica totius populi Christiani, ergo de -necessitate erit et unus solus princeps et rex illius reipublicae, -statutus et stabilitus ad ipsius fidei et populi Christiani -dilatationem et defensionem. Ex qua ratione concludit etiam Augustinus -(_De Civitate Dei_, lib. xix.) quod extra ecclesiam nunquam fuit nec -potuit nec poterit esse verum imperium, etsi fuerint imperatores -qualitercumque et secundum quid, non simpliciter, qui fuerunt extra -fidem Catholicam et ecclesiam.'--Engelbert (abbot of Admont in Upper -Austria), _De Ortu et Fine imperii Romani_ (circ. 1310). - -In this 'de necessitate' everything is included. - -[114] See note 37. - -[115] This is admirably brought out by AEgidi, _Der Fuerstenrath nach -dem Luneviller Frieden_. - -[116] See the original forgery (or rather the extracts which Gratian -gives from it) in the _Corpus Iuris Canonici_, _Dist._ xcvi. cc. 13, -14. 'Et sicut nostram terrenam imperialem potentiam, sic sacrosanctam -Romanam ecclesiam decrevimus veneranter honorari, et amplius quam -nostrum imperium et terrenum thronum sedem beati Petri gloriose -exaltari, tribuentes ei potestatem et gloriae dignitatem atque vigorem -et honorificentiam imperialem.... Beato Sylvestro patri nostro summo -pontifici et universali urbis Romae papae, et omnibus eius successoribus -pontificibus, qui usque in finem mundi in sede beati Petri erunt -sessuri, de praesenti contradimus palatium imperii nostri Lateranense, -deinde diadema, videlicet coronam capitis nostri, simulque phrygium, -necnon et superhumerale, verum etiam et chlamydem purpuream et tunicam -coccineam, et omnia imperialia indumenta, sed et dignitatem imperialem -praesidentium equitum, conferentes etiam et imperialia sceptra, -simulque cuncta signa atque banda et diversa ornamenta imperialia et -omnem processionem imperialis culminis et gloriam potestatis -nostrae.... Et sicut imperialis militia ornatur ita et clerum sanctae -Romanae ecclesiae ornari decernimus.... Unde ut pontificalis apex non -vilescat sed magis quam terreni imperii dignitas gloria et potentia -decoretur, ecce tam palatium nostrum quam Romanam urbem et omnes -Italiae seu occidentalium regionum provincias loca et civitates -beatissimo papae Sylvestro universali papae contradimus atque -relinquimus.... Ubi enim principatus sacerdotum et Christianae -religionis caput ab imperatore coelesti constitutum est, iustum non est -ut illic imperator terrenus habeat potestatem.' - -The practice of kissing the Pope's foot was adopted in imitation of -the old imperial court. It was afterwards revived by the German -Emperors. - -[117] Doellinger has shewn in a recent work (_Die Papst-Fabeln des -Mittelalters_) that the common belief that Gregory II excited the -revolt against Leo the Iconoclast is unfounded. - -So Anastasius, 'Ammonebat (_sc._ Gregorius Secundus) ne a fide vel -amore Romani imperii desisterent.'--_Vitae Pontif. Rom._ - -[118] Of this curious seal, a leaden one, preserved at Paris, a figure -is given upon the cover of this volume. There are very few monuments -of that age whose genuineness can be considered altogether beyond -doubt; but this seal has many respectable authorities in its favour. -See, among others, Le Blanc, _Dissertation historique sur quelques -Monnoies de Charlemagne_, Paris, 1689; J. M. Heineccius, _De Veteribus -Germanorum aliarumque nationum sigillis_, Lips. 1709; Anastasius, -_Vitae Pontificum Romanorum_, ed. Vignoli, Romae, 1752; Goetz, -_Deutschlands Kayser-Muenzen des Mittelalters_, Dresden, 1827; and the -authorities cited by Waitz, _Deutsche Verfassungs-geschichte_, iii. -179, n. 4. - -[119] 'Praeterea mirari se dilecta fraternitas tua quod non Francorum -set Romanorum imperatores nos appellemus; set scire te convenit quia -nisi Romanorum imperatores essemus, utique nec Francorum. A Romanis -enim hoc nomen et dignitatem assumpsimus, apud quos profecto primum -tantae culmen sublimitatis effulsit,' &c--_Letter of the Emperor Lewis -II to Basil the Emperor at Constantinople_, from _Chron. Salernit. -ap._ Murat. _S. R. I._ - -[120] 'Illam (_sc._ Romanam ecclesiam) solus ille fundavit, et super -petram fidei mox nascentis erexit, qui beato aeternae vitae clavigero -terreni simul et coelestis imperii iura commisit.'--_Corpus Iuris -Canonici_, _Dist._ xxii. c. 1. The expression is not uncommon in -mediaeval writers. So 'unum est imperium Patris et Filii et Spiritus -Sancti, cuius est pars ecclesia constituta in terris,' in Lewis II's -letter. - -[121] 'Merito summus Pontifex Romanus episcopus dici potest rex et -sacerdos. Si enim dominus noster Iesus Christus sic appellatur, non -videtur incongruum suum vocare successorem. Corporale et temporale ex -spirituali et perpetuo dependet, sicut corporis operatio ex virtute -animae. Sicut ergo corpus per animam habet esse virtutem et -operationem, ita et temporalis iurisdictio principum per spiritualem -Petri et successorum eius.'--St. Thomas Aquinas, _De Regimine -Principum_. - -[122] 'Nonne Romana ecclesia tenetur imperatori tanquam suo patrono, -et imperator ecclesiam fovere et defensare tanquam suus vere patronus? -certe sic.... Patronis vero concessum est ut praelatos in ecclesiis sui -patronatus eligant. Cum ergo imperator onus sentiat patronatus, ut qui -tenetur eam defendere, sentire debet honorem et emolumentum.' I quote -this from a curious document in Goldast's collection of tracts -(_Monarchia Imperii_), entitled '_Letter of the four Universities, -Paris, Oxford, Prague, and the "Romana generalitas," to the Emperor -Wenzel and Pope Urban_,' A.D. 1380. The title can scarcely be right, -but if the document is, as in all probability it is, not later than -the fifteenth century, its being misdescribed, or even its being a -forgery, does not make it less valuable as an evidence of men's ideas. - -[123] So Leo III in a charter issued on the day of Charles's -coronation: '... actum in praesentia gloriosi atque excellentissimi -filii nostri Caroli quem auctore Deo in defensionem et provectionem -sanctae universalis ecclesiae hodie Augustum sacravimus.'--Jaffe -_Regesta Pontificum Romanorum_, ad ann. 800. - -So, indeed, Theodulf of Orleans, a contemporary of Charles, ascribes -to the Emperor an almost papal authority over the Church itself:-- - - 'Coeli habet hic (_sc._ Papa) claves, proprias te iussit habere; - Tu regis ecclesiae, nam regit ille poli; - Tu regis eius opes, clerum populumque gubernas, - Hic te coelicolas ducet ad usque choros.' - In D. Bouquet, v. 415. - -[124] Perhaps at no more than three: in the time of Charles and Leo; -again under Otto III and his two Popes, Gregory V and Sylvester II; -thirdly, under Henry III; certainly never thenceforth. - -[125] _The Sachsenspiegel_ (_Speculum Saxonicum_, circ. A.D. 1240), -the great North-German law book, says, 'The Empire is held from God -alone, not from the Pope. Emperor and Pope are supreme each in what -has been entrusted to him: the Pope in what concerns the soul; the -Emperor in all that belongs to the body and to knighthood.' _The -Schwabenspiegel_, compiled half a century later, subordinates the -prince to the pontiff: 'Daz weltliche Schwert des Gerichtes daz lihet -der Babest dem Chaiser; daz geistlich ist dem Babest gesetzt daz er -damit richte.' - -[126] So Boniface VIII in the bull _Unam Sanctam_, will have but one -head for the Christian people. 'Igitur ecclesiae unius et unicae unum -corpus, unum caput, non duo capita quasi monstrum.' - -[127] St. Bernard writes to Conrad III: 'Non veniat anima mea in -consilium eorum qui dicunt vel imperio pacem et libertatem ecclesiae -vel ecclesiae prosperitatem et exaltationem imperii nocituram.' So in -the _De Consideratione_: 'Si utrumque simul habere velis, perdes -utrumque,' of the papal claim to temporal and spiritual authority, -quoted by Gieseler. - -[128] 'Sedens in solio armatus et cinctus ensem, habensque in capite -Constantini diadema, stricto dextra capulo ensis accincti, ait: -"Numquid ego summus sum pontifex? nonne ista est cathedra Petri? Nonne -possum imperii iura tutari? ego sum Caesar, ego sum imperator."'--Fr. -Pipinus (ap. Murat. _S. R. I._ ix.) l. iv. c. 47. These words, -however, are by this writer ascribed to Boniface, when receiving the -envoys of the emperor Albert I, in A.D. 1299. I have not been able to -find authority for their use at the jubilee, but give the current -story for what it is worth. - -It has been suggested that Dante may be alluding to this sword scene -in a well-known passage of the Purgatorio (xvi. l. 106):-- - - 'Soleva Roma, che 'l buon mondo feo - Duo Soli aver, che l' una e l' altra strada - Facean vedere, e del mondo e di Deo. - L' un l' altro ha spento, ed e giunta la spada - Col pastorale: e l' un coll altro insieme - Per viva forzu mal convien che vada.' - - -[129] See especially Peter de Andlo (_De Imperio Romano_); Ralph -Colonna (_De translatione Imperii Romani_); Dante (_De Monarchia_); -Engelbert (_De Ortu et Fine Imperii Romani_); Marsilius Patavinus (_De -translatione Imperii Romani_); AEneas Sylvius Piccolomini (_De Ortu et -Authoritate Imperii Romani_); Zoannetus (_De Imperio Romano atque ejus -Iurisdictione_); and the writers in Schardius's _Sylloge_, and in -Goldast's Collection of Tracts, entitled _Monarchia Imperii_. - -[130] Letter of Lewis II to Basil the Macedonian, in _Chron. -Salernit._ in Mur. _S. R. I._; also given by Baronius, _Ann. Eccl._ ad -ann. 871. - -[131] 'Ad summum dignitatis pervenisti: Vicarius es Christi.'--Wippo, -_Vita Chuonradi_ (_ap._ Pertz), c. 3. - -[132] Letter in Radewic, _ap._ Murat, _S. R. I._ - -[133] Lewis IV is styled in one of his proclamations, 'Gentis humanae, -orbis Christiani custos, urbi et orbi a Deo electus praeesse.'--Pfeffinger, -_Vitriarius Illustratus_. - -[134] In a document issued by the Diet of Speyer (A.D. 1529) the -Emperor is called 'Oberst, Vogt, und Haupt der Christenheit.' -Hieronymus Balbus, writing about the same time, puts the question -whether all Christians are subject to the Emperor in temporal things, -as they are to the Pope in spiritual, and answers it by saying, 'Cum -ambo ex eodem fonte perfluxerint et eadem semita incedant, de utroque -idem puto sentiendum.' - -[135] 'Non magis ad Papam depositio seu remotio pertinet quam ad -quoslibet regum praelatos, qui reges suos prout assolent, consecrant et -inungunt.'--_Letter of Frederick II_ (lib. i. c. 3). - -[136] _Liber Ceremonialis Romanus_, lib. i. sect. 5; with which -compare the _Coronatio Romana_ of Henry VII, in Pertz, and Muratori's -Dissertation in vol. i. of the _Antiquitates Italiae Medii AEvi_. - -[137] See Goldast, _Collection of Imperial Constitutions_; and Moser, -_Roemische Kayser_. - -[138] The abbot Engelbert (_De Ortu et Fine Imperii Romani_) quotes -Origen and Jerome to this effect, and proceeds himself to explain, -from 2 Thess. ii., how the falling away will precede the coming of -Antichrist. There will be a triple 'discessio,' of the kingdoms of the -earth from the Roman Empire, of the Church from the Apostolic See, of -the faithful from the faith. Of these, the first causes the second; -the temporal sword to punish heretics and schismatics being no longer -ready to work the will of the rulers of the Church. - -[139] A full statement of the views that prevailed in the earlier -Middle Age regarding Antichrist--as well as of the singular prophecy -of the Frankish Emperor who shall appear in the latter days, conquer -the world, and then going to Jerusalem shall lay down his crown on the -Mount of Olives and deliver over the kingdom to Christ--may be found -in the little treatise, _Vita Antichristi_, which Adso, monk and -afterwards abbot of Moutier-en-Der, compiled (cir. 950) for the -information of Queen Gerberga, wife of Louis d'Outremer. Antichrist is -to be born a Jew of the tribe of Dan (Gen. xlix. 17), 'non de episcopo -et monacha, sicut alii delirando dogmatizant, sed de immundissima -meretrice et crudelissimo nebulone. Totus in peccato concipietur, in -peccato generabitur, in peccato nascetur.' His birthplace is Babylon: -he is to be brought up in Bethsaida and Chorazin. - -Adso's book may be found printed in Migne, t. ci. p. 1290. - -[140] S. Thomas explains the prophecy in a remarkable manner, shewing -how the decline of the Empire is no argument against its fulfilment. -'Dicendum quod nondum cessavit, sed est commutatum de temporali in -spirituale, ut dicit Leo Papa in sermone de Apostolis: et ideo -discessio a Romano imperio debet intelligi non solum a temporali sed -etiam a spirituali, scilicit a fide Catholica Romanae Ecclesiae. Est -autem hoc conveniens signum nam Christus venit, quando Romanum -imperium omnibus dominabatur: ita e contra signum adventus Antichristi -est discessio ab eo.'--_Comment. ad 2 Thess._ ii. - -[141] See note 149, page 119. The Papal party sometimes insisted that -both swords were given to Peter, while the imperialists assigned the -temporal sword to John. Thus a gloss to the _Sachsenspiegel_ says, -'Dat eine svert hadde Sinte Peter, dat het nu de paves: dat andere -hadde Johannes, dat het nu de keyser.' - -[142] 2 Thess. ii. 7. - -[143] St. Augustine, however, though he states the view (applying the -passage to the Roman Empire) which was generally received in the -Middle Ages, is careful not to commit himself positively to it. - -[144] _Jordanis Chronica_ (written towards the close of the thirteenth -century). - -[145] Compare with this the words which Pope Hadrian I. had used some -twenty-three years before, of Charles as representative of -Constantine: 'Et sicut temporibus Beati Sylvestri, Romani pontificis, -a sanctae recordationis piissimo Constantino magno imperatore, per eius -largitatem sancta Dei catholica et apostolica Romana ecclesia elevata -atque exaltata est, et potestatem in his Hesperiae partibus largiri -dignatus est, ita et in his vestris felicissimis temporibus atque -nostris, sancta Dei ecclesia, id est, beati Petri apostoli germinet -atque exsultet, ut omnes gentes quae haec audierint edicere valeant, -'Domine salvum fac regem, et exaudi nos in die in qua invocaverimus -te;' quia ecce novus Christianissimus Dei Constantinus imperator his -temporibus surrexit, per quem omnia Deus sanctae suae ecclesiae beati -apostolorum principis Petri largiri dignatus est.'--_Letter XLIX of -Cod. Carol._, A.D. 777 (in Mur. _Scriptores Rerum Italicarum_). - -This letter is memorable as containing the first allusion, or what -seems an allusion, to Constantine's Donation. - -The phrase 'sancta Dei ecclesia, id est, B. Petri apostoli,' is worth -noting. - -[146] The church in which the opening scene of Boccaccio's _Decameron_ -is laid. - -[147] So Kugler (Eastlake's ed. vol. i. p. 144), and so also Messrs. -Crowe and Cavalcaselle, in their _New History of Painting in Italy_, -vol. ii. pp. 85 _sqq._ - -[148] Domini canes. Spotted because of their black-and-white raiment. - -[149] There is of course a great deal more detail in the picture, -which it does not appear necessary to describe. St. Dominic is a -conspicuous figure. - -It is worth remarking that the Emperor, who is on the Pope's left -hand, and so made slightly inferior to him while superior to every one -else, holds in his hand, instead of the usual imperial globe, a -death's head, typifying the transitory nature of his power. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. - -THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND THE GERMAN KINGDOM. - - -[Sidenote: Union of the Roman Empire with the German kingdom.] - -This was the office which Otto the Great assumed in A.D. 962. But it -was not his only office. He was already a German king; and the new -dignity by no means superseded the old. This union in one person of -two characters, a union at first personal, then official, and which -became at last a fusion of the two into something different from -either, is the key to the whole subsequent history of Germany and the -Empire. - -[Sidenote: Germany and its monarchy.] - -Of the German kingdom little need be said, since it differs in no -essential respect from the other kingdoms of Western Europe as they -stood in the tenth century. The five or six great tribes or -tribe-leagues which composed the German nation had been first brought -together under the sceptre of the Carolingians; and, though still -retaining marks of their independent origin, were prevented from -separating by community of speech and a common pride in the great -Frankish Empire. When the line of Charles the Great ended in A.D. 911, -by the death of Lewis the Child (son of Arnulf), Conrad, duke of the -Franconians, and after him Henry (the Fowler), duke of the Saxons, was -chosen to fill the vacant throne. By his vigorous yet conciliatory -action, his upright character, his courage and good fortune in -repelling the Hungarians, Henry laid deep the foundations of royal -power: under his more famous son it rose into a stable edifice. Otto's -coronation feast at Aachen, where the great nobles of the realm did -him menial service, where Franks, Bavarians, Suabians, Thuringians, -and Lorrainers gathered round the Saxon monarch, is the inauguration -of a true Teutonic realm, which, though it called itself not German -but East Frankish, and claimed to be the lawful representative of the -Carolingian monarchy, had a constitution and a tendency in many -respects different. - -[Sidenote: Feudalism.] - -There had been under those princes a singular mixture of the old -German organization by tribes or districts (the so-called -Gauverfassung), such as we find in the earliest records, with the -method introduced by Charles of maintaining by means of officials, -some fixed, others moving from place to place, the control of the -central government. In the suspension of that government which -followed his days, there grew up a system whose seeds had been sown as -far back as the time of Clovis, a system whose essence was the -combination of the tenure of land by military service with a peculiar -personal relation between the landlord and his tenant, whereby the one -was bound to render fatherly protection, the other aid and obedience. -This is not the place for tracing the origin of feudality on Roman -soil, nor for shewing how, by a sort of contagion, it spread into -Germany, how it struck firm root in the period of comparative quiet -under Pipin and Charles, how from the hands of the latter it took the -impress which determined its ultimate form, how the weakness of his -successors allowed it to triumph everywhere. Still less would it be -possible here to examine its social and moral influence. Politically -it might be defined as the system which made the owner of a piece of -land, whether large or small, the sovereign of those who dwelt -thereon: an annexation of personal to territorial authority more -familiar to Eastern despotism than to the free races of primitive -Europe. On this principle were founded, and by it are explained, -feudal law and justice, feudal finance, feudal legislation, each -tenant holding towards his lord the position which his own tenants -held towards himself. And it is just because the relation was so -uniform, the principle so comprehensive, the ruling class so firmly -bound to its support, that feudalism has been able to lay upon society -that grasp which the struggles of more than twenty generations have -scarcely shaken off. - -[Sidenote: The feudal king.] - -[Sidenote: The nobility.] - -[Sidenote: The Germanic feudal polity generally.] - -Now by the middle of the tenth century, Germany, less fully committed -than France to feudalism's worst feature, the hopeless bondage of the -peasantry, was otherwise thoroughly feudalized. As for that equality -of all the freeborn save the sacred line which we find in the Germany -of Tacitus, there had been substituted a gradation of ranks and a -concentration of power in the hands of a landholding caste, so had the -monarch lost his ancient character as leader and judge of the people, -to become the head of a tyrannical oligarchy. He was titular lord of -the soil, could exact from his vassals service and aid in arms and -money, could dispose of vacant fiefs, could at pleasure declare war or -make peace. But all these rights he exercised far less as sovereign of -the nation than as standing in a peculiar relation to the feudal -tenants, a relation in its origin strictly personal, and whose -prominence obscured the political duties of prince and subject. And -great as these rights might become in the hands of an ambitious and -politic ruler, they were in practice limited by the corresponding -duties he owed to his vassals, and by the difficulty of enforcing them -against a powerful offender. The king was not permitted to retain in -his own hands escheated fiefs, must even grant away those he had held -before coming to the throne; he could not interfere with the -jurisdiction of his tenants in their own lands, nor prevent them from -waging war or forming leagues with each other like independent -princes. Chief among the nobles stood the dukes, who, although their -authority was now delegated, theoretically at least, instead of -independent, territorial instead of personal, retained nevertheless -much of that hold on the exclusive loyalty of their subjects which had -belonged to them as hereditary leaders of the tribe under the ancient -system. They were, with the three Rhenish archbishops, by far the -greatest subjects, often aspiring to the crown, sometimes not unable -to resist its wearer. The constant encroachments which Otto made upon -their privileges, especially through the institution of the Counts -Palatine, destroyed their ascendancy, but not their importance. It was -not till the thirteenth century that they disappeared with the rise of -the second order of nobility. That order, at this period far less -powerful, included the counts, margraves or marquises and landgraves, -originally officers of the crown, now feudal tenants; holding their -lands of the dukes, and maintaining against them the same contest -which they in turn waged with the crown. Below these came the barons -and simple knights, then the diminishing class of freemen, the -increasing one of serfs. The institutions of primitive Germany were -almost all gone; supplanted by a new system, partly the natural result -of the formation of a settled from a half-nomad society, partly -imitated from that which had arisen upon Roman soil, west of the Rhine -and south of the Alps. The army was no longer the Heerban of the whole -nation, which had been wont to follow the king on foot in distant -expeditions, but a cavalry militia of barons and their retainers, -bound to service for a short period, and rendering it unwillingly -where their own interest was not concerned. The frequent popular -assemblies, whereof under the names of the Mallum, the Placitum, the -Mayfield, we hear so much under Clovis and Charles, were now never -summoned, and the laws that had been promulgated there were, if not -abrogated, practically obsolete. No national council existed, save the -Diet in which the higher nobility, lay and clerical, met their -sovereign, sometimes to decide on foreign war, oftener to concur in -the grant of a fief or the proscription of a rebel. Every district had -its own rude local customs administered by the court of the local -lord: other law there was none, for imperial jurisprudence had in -these lately civilized countries not yet filled the place left empty -by the disuse of the barbarian codes. - -[Sidenote: The Roman Empire and the German kingdom.] - -This condition of things was indeed better than that utter confusion -which had gone before, for a principle of order had begun to group and -bind the tossing atoms; and though the union into which it drove men -was a hard and narrow one, it was something that they should have -learnt to unite themselves at all. Yet nascent feudality was but one -remove from anarchy; and the tendency to isolation and diversity -continued, despite the efforts of the Church and the Carolingian -princes, to be all-powerful in Western Europe. The German kingdom was -already a bond between the German races, and appears strong and united -when we compare it with the France of Hugh Capet, or the England of -Ethelred II; yet its history to the twelfth century is little else -than a record of disorders, revolts, civil wars, of a ceaseless -struggle on the part of the monarch to enforce his feudal rights, a -resistance by his vassals equally obstinate and more frequently -successful. What the issue of the contest might have been if Germany -had been left to take her own course is matter of speculation, though -the example of every European state except England and Norway may -incline the balance in favour of the crown. But the strife had -scarcely begun when a new influence was interposed: the German king -became Roman Emperor. No two systems can be more unlike than those -whose headship became thus vested in one person: the one centralized, -the other local; the one resting on a sublime theory, the other the -rude offspring of anarchy; the one gathering all power into the hands -of an irresponsible monarch, the other limiting his rights and -authorizing resistance to his commands; the one demanding the equality -of all citizens as creatures equal before Heaven, the other bound up -with an aristocracy the proudest, and in its gradations of rank the -most exact, that Europe had ever seen. Characters so repugnant could -not, it might be thought, meet in one person, or if they met must -strive till one swallowed up the other. It was not so. In the fusion -which began from the first, though it was for a time imperceptible, -each of the two characters gave and each lost some of its attributes: -the king became more than German, the Emperor less than Roman, till, -at the end of six centuries, the monarch in whom two 'persons' had -been united, appeared as a third different from either of the former, -and might not inappropriately be entitled 'German Emperor[150].' The -nature and progress of this change will appear in the after history of -Germany, and cannot be described here without in some measure -anticipating subsequent events. A word or two may indicate how the -process of fusion began. - -[Sidenote: Results of this union in one person.] - -It was natural that the great mass of Otto's subjects, to whom the -imperial title, dimly associated with Rome and the Pope, sounded -grander than the regal, without being known as otherwise different, -should in thought and speech confound them. The sovereign and his -ecclesiastical advisers, with far clearer views of the new office and -of the mutual relation of the two, found it impossible to separate -them in practice, and were glad to merge the lesser in the greater. -For as lord of the world, Otto was Emperor north as well as south of -the Alps. When he issued an edict, he claimed the obedience of his -Teutonic subjects in both capacities; when as Emperor he led the -armies of the gospel against the heathen, it was the standard of their -feudal superior that his armed vassals followed; when he founded -churches and appointed bishops, he acted partly as suzerain of feudal -lands, partly as protector of the faith, charged to guide the Church -in matters temporal. Thus the assumption of the imperial crown brought -to Otto as its first result an apparent increase of domestic -authority; it made his position by its historical associations more -dignified, by its religious more hallowed; it raised him higher above -his vassals and above other sovereigns; it enlarged his prerogative in -ecclesiastical affairs, and by necessary consequence gave to -ecclesiastics a more important place at court and in the -administration of government than they had enjoyed before. Great as -was the power of the bishops and abbots in all the feudal kingdoms, it -stood nowhere so high as in Germany. There the Emperor's double -position, as head both of Church and State, required the two -organizations to be exactly parallel. In the eleventh century a full -half of the land and wealth of the country, and no small part of its -military strength, was in the hands of Churchmen: their influence -predominated in the Diet; the archchancellorship of the Empire, -highest of all offices, belonged of right to the archbishop of Mentz, -as primate of Germany. It was by Otto, who in resuming the attitude -must repeat the policy of Charles, that the greatness of the clergy -was thus advanced. He is commonly said to have wished to weaken the -aristocracy by raising up rivals to them in the hierarchy. It may have -been so, and the measure was at any rate a disastrous one, for the -clergy soon approved themselves not less rebellious than those whom -they were to restrain. But in accusing Otto's judgment, historians -have often forgotten in what position he stood to the Church, and how -it behoved him, according to the doctrine received, to establish in -her an order like in all things to that which he found already -subsisting in the State. - -[Sidenote: Changes in title.] - -The style which Otto adopted shewed his desire thus to merge the king -in the Emperor[151]. Charles had called himself 'Imperator Caesar -Carolus rex Francorum invictissimus;' and again, 'Carolus serenissimus -Augustus, Pius, Felix, Romanorum gubernans Imperium, qui et per -misericordiam Dei rex Francorum atque Langobardorum.' Otto and his -first successors, who until their coronation at Rome had used the -titles of 'Rex Francorum,' or 'Rex Francorum Orientalium,' or oftener -still 'Rex' alone, discarded after it all titles save the highest of -'Imperator Augustus;' seeming thereby, though they too had been -crowned at Aachen and Milan, to claim the authority of Caesar through -all their dominions. Tracing as we are the history of a title, it is -needless to dwell on the significance of the change[152]. Charles, son -of the Ripuarian allies of Probus, had been a Frankish chieftain on -the Rhine; Otto, the Saxon, successor of the Cheruscan Arminius, would -rule his native Elbe with a power borrowed from the Tiber. - -[Sidenote: Imperial power feudalized.] - -Nevertheless, the imperial element did not in every respect -predominate over the royal. The monarch might desire to make good -against his turbulent barons the boundless prerogative which he -acquired with his new crown, but he lacked the power to do so; and -they, disputing neither the supremacy of that crown nor his right to -wear it, refused with good reason to let their own freedom be -infringed upon by any act of which they had not been the authors. So -far was Otto from embarking on so vain an enterprise, that his rule -was even more direct and more personal than that of Charles had been. -There was no scheme of mechanical government, no claim of absolutism; -there was only the resolve to make the energetic assertion of the -king's feudal rights subserve the further aims of the Emperor. What -Otto demanded he demanded as Emperor, what he received he received as -king; the singular result was that in Germany the imperial office was -itself pervaded and transformed by feudal ideas. Feudality needing, to -make its theory complete, a lord paramount of the world, from whose -grant all ownership in land must be supposed to have emanated, and -finding such a suzerain in the Emperor, constituted him liege lord of -all kings and potentates, keystone of the feudal arch, himself, as it -was expressed, 'holding' the world from God. There were not wanting -Roman institutions to which these notions could attach themselves. -Constantine, imitating the courts of the East, had made the -dignitaries of his household great officials of the State: these were -now reproduced in the cup-bearer, the seneschal, the marshal, the -chamberlain of the Empire, so soon to become its electoral princes. -The holding of land on condition of military service was Roman in its -origin: the divided ownership of feudal law found its analogies in the -Roman tenure of emphyteusis. Thus while Germany was Romanized the -Empire was feudalized, and came to be considered not the antagonist -but the perfection of an aristocratic system. And it was this -adaptation to existing political facts that enabled it afterwards to -assume an international character. Nevertheless, even while they -seemed to blend, there remained between the genius of imperialism (if -one may use a now perverted word) and that of feudalism a deep and -lasting hostility. And so the rule of Otto and his successors was in a -measure adverse to feudal polity, not from knowledge of what Roman -government had been, but from the necessities of their position, -raised as they were to an unapproachable height above their subjects, -surrounded with a halo of sanctity as protectors of the Church. Thus -were they driven to reduce local independence, and assimilate the -various races through their vast territories. It was Otto who made the -Germans, hitherto an aggregate of tribes, a single people, and welding -them into a strong political body taught them to rise through its -collective greatness to the consciousness of national life, never -thenceforth to be extinguished. - -[Sidenote: The Commons.] - -One expedient against the land-holding oligarchy which Roman -traditions as well as present needs might have suggested, it was -scarcely possible for Otto to use. He could not invoke the friendship -of the Third Estate, for as yet none existed. The Teutonic order of -freemen, which two centuries earlier had formed the bulk of the -population, was now fast disappearing, just as in England all who did -not become thanes were classed as ceorls, and from ceorls sank for the -most part, after the Conquest, into villeins. It was only in the -Alpine valleys and along the shores of the ocean that free democratic -communities maintained themselves. Town-life there was none, till -Henry the Fowler forced his forest-loving people to dwell in -fortresses that might repel the Hungarian invaders; and the burgher -class thus beginning to form was too small to be a power in the state. -But popular freedom, as it expired, bequeathed to the monarch such of -its rights as could be saved from the grasp of the nobles; and the -crown thus became what it has been wherever an aristocracy presses -upon both, the ally, though as yet the tacit ally, of the people. -More, too, than the royal could have done, did the imperial name -invite the sympathy of the commons. For in all, however ignorant of -its history, however unable to comprehend its functions, there yet -lived a feeling that it was in some mysterious way consecrated to -Christian brotherhood and equality, to peace and law, to the restraint -of the strong and the defence of the helpless. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[150] Although this was of course never his legal title. Till 1806 he -was 'Romanorum Imperator semper Augustus;' 'Roemischer Kaiser.' - -[151] Puetter, _Dissertationes de Instauratione Imperii Romani_; cf. -Goldast's _Collection of Constitutions_; and the proclamations and -other documents collected in Pertz, _M. G. H._ legg. I. - -[152] Puetter (_De Instauratione Imperii Romani_) will have it that -upon this mistake, as he calls it, of Otto's, the whole subsequent -history of the Empire turned; that if Otto had but continued to style -himself 'Francorum Rex,' Germany would have been spared all her -Italian wars. - - - - -CHAPTER IX. - -SAXON AND FRANCONIAN EMPERORS. - - -He who begins to read the history of the Middle Ages is alternately -amused and provoked by the seeming absurdities that meet him at every -step. He finds writers proclaiming amidst universal assent magnificent -theories which no one attempts to carry out. He sees men who are -stained with every vice full of sincere devotion to a religion which, -even when its doctrines were most obscured, never sullied the purity -of its moral teaching. He is disposed to conclude that such people -must have been either fools or hypocrites. Yet such a conclusion would -be wholly erroneous. Every one knows how little a man's actions -conform to the general maxims which he would lay down for himself, and -how many things there are which he believes without realizing: -believes sufficiently to be influenced, yet not sufficiently to be -governed by them. Now in the Middle Ages this perpetual opposition of -theory and practice was peculiarly abrupt. Men's impulses were more -violent and their conduct more reckless than is often witnessed in -modern society; while the absence of a criticizing and measuring -spirit made them surrender their minds more unreservedly than they -would now do to a complete and imposing theory. Therefore it was, that -while everyone believed in the rights of the Empire as a part of -divine truth, no one would yield to them where his own passions or -interests interfered. Resistance to God's Vicar might be and indeed -was admitted to be a deadly sin, but it was one which nobody hesitated -to commit. Hence, in order to give this unbounded imperial prerogative -any practical efficiency, it was found necessary to prop it up by the -limited but tangible authority of a feudal king. And the one spot in -Otto's empire on which feudality had never fixed its grasp, and where -therefore he was forced to rule merely as emperor, and not also as -king, was that in which he and his successors were never safe from -insult and revolt. That spot was his capital. Accordingly an account -of what befel the first Saxon emperor in Rome is a not unfitting -comment on the theory expounded above, as well as a curious episode in -the history of the Apostolic Chair. - -[Sidenote: Otto the Great in Rome.] - -After his coronation Otto had returned to North Italy, where the -partizans of Berengar and his son Adalbert still maintained themselves -in arms. Scarcely was he gone when the restless John the Twelfth, who -found too late that in seeking an ally he had given himself a master, -renounced his allegiance, opened negotiations with Berengar, and even -scrupled not to send envoys pressing the heathen Magyars to invade -Germany. The Emperor was soon informed of these plots, as well as of -the flagitious life of the pontiff, a youth of twenty-five, the most -profligate if not the most guilty of all who have worn the tiara. But -he affected to despise them, saying, with a sort of unconscious irony, -'He is a boy, the example of good men may reform him.' When, however, -Otto returned with a strong force, he found the city gates shut, and a -party within furious against him. John the Twelfth was not only Pope, -but as the heir of Alberic, the head of a strong faction among the -nobles, and a sort of temporal prince in the city. But neither he nor -they had courage enough to stand a siege: John fled into the Campagna -to join Adalbert, and Otto entering convoked a synod in St. Peter's. -Himself presiding as temporal head of the Church, he began by -inquiring into the character and manners of the Pope. At once a -tempest of accusations burst forth from the assembled clergy. -Liudprand, a credible although a hostile witness, gives us a long list -of them:--'Peter, cardinal-priest, rose and witnessed that he had seen -the Pope celebrate mass and not himself communicate. John, bishop of -Narnia, and John, cardinal-deacon, declared that they had seen him -ordain a deacon in a stable, neglecting the proper formalities. They -said further that he had defiled by shameless acts of vice the -pontifical palace; that he had openly diverted himself with hunting; -had put out the eyes of his spiritual father Benedict; had set fire to -houses; had girt himself with a sword, and put on a helmet and -hauberk. All present, laymen as well as priests, cried out that he had -drunk to the devil's health; that in throwing the dice he had invoked -the help of Jupiter, Venus, and other demons; that he had celebrated -matins at uncanonical hours, and had not fortified himself by making -the sign of the cross. After these things the Emperor, who could not -speak Latin, since the Romans could not understand his native, that is -to say, the Saxon tongue, bade Liudprand bishop of Cremona interpret -for him, and adjured the council to declare whether the charges they -had brought were true, or sprang only of malice and envy. Then all the -clergy and people cried with a loud voice, 'If John the Pope hath not -committed all the crimes which Benedict the deacon hath read over, and -even greater crimes than these, then may the chief of the Apostles, -the blessed Peter, who by his word closes heaven to the unworthy and -opens it to the just, never absolve us from our sins, but may we be -bound by the chain of anathema, and on the last day may we stand on -the left hand along with those who have said to the Lord God, "Depart -from us, for we will not know Thy ways."' - -The solemnity of this answer seems to have satisfied Otto and the -council: a letter was despatched to John, couched in respectful terms, -recounting the charges brought against him, and asking him to appear -to clear himself by his own oath and that of a sufficient number of -compurgators. John's reply was short and pithy. - -'John the bishop, the servant of the servants of God, to all the -bishops. We have heard tell that you wish to set up another Pope: if -you do this, by Almighty God I excommunicate you, so that you may not -have power to perform mass or to ordain no one[153].' - -[Sidenote: Deposition of John XII.] - -To this Otto and the synod replied by a letter of humorous -expostulation, begging the Pope to reform both his morals and his -Latin. But the messenger who bore it could not find John: he had -repeated what seems to have been thought his most heinous sin, by -going into the country with his bow and arrows; and after a search had -been made in vain, the synod resolved to take a decisive step. Otto, -who still led their deliberations, demanded the condemnation of the -Pope; the assembly deposed him by acclamation, 'because of his -reprobate life,' and having obtained the Emperor's consent, proceeded -in an equally hasty manner to raise Leo, the chief secretary and a -layman, to the chair of the Apostle. - -[Sidenote: Revolt of the Romans.] - -Otto might seem to have now reached a position loftier and firmer than -that of any of his predecessors. Within little more than a year from -his arrival in Rome, he had exercised powers greater than those of -Charles himself, ordering the dethronement of one pontiff and the -installation of another, forcing a reluctant people to bend themselves -to his will. The submission involved in his oath to protect the Holy -See was more than compensated by the oath of allegiance to his crown -which the Pope and the Romans had taken, and by their solemn -engagement not to elect nor ordain any future pontiff without the -Emperor's consent[154]. But he had yet to learn what this obedience -and these oaths were worth. The Romans had eagerly joined in the -expulsion of John; they soon began to regret him. They were mortified -to see their streets filled by a foreign soldiery, the habitual -licence of their manners sternly repressed, their most cherished -privilege, the right of choosing the universal bishop, grasped by the -strong hand of a master who used it for purposes in which they did not -sympathize. In a fickle and turbulent people, disaffection quickly -turned to rebellion. One night, Otto's troops being most of them -dispersed in their quarters at a distance, the Romans rose in arms, -blocked up the Tiber bridges, and fell furiously upon the Emperor and -his creature the new Pope. Superior valour and constancy triumphed -over numbers, and the Romans were overthrown with terrible slaughter; -yet this lesson did not prevent them from revolting a second time, -after Otto's departure in pursuit of Adalbert. John the Twelfth -returned to the city, and when his pontifical career was speedily -closed by the sword of an injured husband[155], the people chose a new -Pope in defiance of the Emperor and his nominee. Otto again subdued -and again forgave them, but when they rebelled for a third time, in -A.D. 966, he resolved to shew them what imperial supremacy meant. -Thirteen leaders, among them the twelve tribunes, were executed, the -consuls were banished, republican forms entirely suppressed, the -government of the city entrusted to Pope Leo as viceroy. He, too, must -not presume on the sacredness of his person to set up any claims to -independence. Otto regarded the pontiff as no more than the first of -his subjects, the creature of his own will, the depositary of an -authority which must be exercised according to the discretion of his -sovereign. The citizens yielded to the Emperor an absolute veto on -papal elections in A.D. 963. Otto obtained from his nominee, Leo VIII, -a confirmation of this privilege, which it was afterwards supposed -that Hadrian I had granted to Charles, in a decree which may yet be -read in the collections of the canon law[156]. The vigorous exercise -of such a power might be expected to reform as well as to restrain the -apostolic see; and it was for this purpose, and in noble honesty, that -the Teutonic sovereigns employed it. But the fortunes of Otto in the -city are a type of those which his successors were destined to -experience. Notwithstanding their clear rights and the momentary -enthusiasm with which they were greeted in Rome, not all the efforts -of Emperor after Emperor could gain any firm hold on the capital they -were so proud of. Visiting it only once or twice in their reigns, they -must be supported among a fickle populace by a large army of -strangers, which melted away with terrible rapidity under the sun of -Italy amid the deadly hollows of the Campagna[157]. Rome soon resumed -her turbulent independence. - -[Sidenote: Otto's rule in Italy.] - -Causes partly the same prevented the Saxon princes from gaining a firm -footing throughout Italy. Since Charles the Bald had bartered away for -the crown all that made it worth having, no Emperor had exercised -substantial authority there. The _missi dominici_ had ceased to -traverse the country; the local governors had thrown off control, a -crowd of petty potentates had established principalities by -aggressions on their weaker neighbours. Only in the dominions of great -nobles, like the marquises of Tuscany and Spoleto, and in some of the -cities where the supremacy of the bishop was paving the way for a -republican system, could traces of political order be found, or the -arts of peace flourish. Otto, who, though he came as a conqueror, -ruled legitimately as Italian king, found his feudal vassals less -submissive than in Germany. While actually present he succeeded by -progresses and edicts, and stern justice, in doing something to still -the turmoil; on his departure Italy relapsed into that disorganization -for which her natural features are not less answerable than the -mixture of her races. Yet it was at this era, when the confusion was -wildest, that there appeared the first rudiments of an Italian -nationality, based partly on geographical position, partly on the use -of a common language and the slow growth of peculiar customs and modes -of thought. But though already jealous of the Tedescan, national -feeling was still very far from disputing his sway. Pope, princes, and -cities bowed to Otto as king and Emperor; nor did he bethink himself -of crushing while it was weak a sentiment whose development threatened -the existence of his empire. Holding Italy equally for his own with -Germany, and ruling both on the same principles, he was content to -keep it a separate kingdom, neither changing its institutions nor -sending Saxons, as Charles had sent Franks, to represent his -government[158]. - -[Sidenote: Otto's foreign policy.] - -[Sidenote: Towards Byzantium.] - -The lofty claims which Otto acquired with the Roman crown urged him to -resume the plans of foreign conquest which had lain neglected since -the days of Charles: the growing vigour of the Teutonic people, now -definitely separating themselves from surrounding races (this is the -era of the Marks--Brandenburg, Meissen, Schleswig), placed in his -hands a force to execute those plans which his predecessors had -wanted. In this, as in his other enterprises, the great Emperor was -active, wise, successful. Retaining the extreme south of Italy, and -unwilling to confess the loss of Rome, the Greeks had not ceased to -annoy her German masters by intrigue, and might now, under the -vigorous leadership of Nicephorus and Tzimiskes, hope again to menace -them in arms. Policy, and the fascination which an ostentatiously -legitimate court exercised over the Saxon stranger, made Otto, as -Napoleon wooed Maria Louisa, seek for his heir the hand of the -princess Theophano. Liudprand's account of his embassy represents in -an amusing manner the rival pretensions of the old and new -Empires[159]. The Greeks, who fancied that with the name they -preserved the character and rights of Rome, held it almost as absurd -as it was wicked that a Frank should insult their prerogative by -reigning in Italy as Emperor. They refused him that title altogether; -and when the Pope had, in a letter addressed '_Imperatori Graecorum_,' -asked Nicephorus to gratify the wishes of the Emperor of the Romans, -the Eastern was furious. 'You are no Romans,' said he, 'but wretched -Lombards: what means this insolent Pope? with Constantine all Rome -migrated hither.' The wily bishop appeased him by abusing the Romans, -while he insinuated that Byzantium could lay no claim to their name, -and proceeded to vindicate the Francia and Saxonia of his master. -'"Roman" is the most contemptuous name we can use--it conveys the -reproach of every vice, cowardice, falsehood, avarice. But what can be -expected from the descendants of the fratricide Romulus? to his asylum -were gathered the offscourings of the nations: thence came these -[Greek: kosmokratores].' Nicephorus demanded the 'theme' or province of -Rome as the price of compliance[160]; Tzimiskes was more moderate, and -Theophano became the bride of Otto II. - -[Sidenote: Towards the West Franks.] - -Holding the two capitals of Charles the Great, Otto might vindicate -the suzerainty over the West Frankish kingdom which it had been meant -that the imperial title should carry with it. Arnulf had asserted it -by making Eudes, the first Capetian king, receive the crown as his -feudatory: Henry the Fowler had been less successful. Otto pursued the -same course, intriguing with the discontented nobles of Louis -d'Outremer, and receiving their fealty as Superior of Roman Gaul. -These pretensions, however, could have been made effective only by -arms, and the feudal militia of the tenth century was no such -instrument of conquest as the hosts of Clovis and Charles had been. -The star of the Carolingian of Laon was paling before the rising -greatness of the Parisian Capets: a Romano-Keltic nation had formed -itself, distinct in tongue from the Franks, whom it was fast -absorbing, and still less willing to submit to a Saxon stranger. -Modern France[161] dates from the accession of Hugh Capet, A.D. 987, -and the claims of the Roman Empire were never afterwards formally -admitted. - -[Sidenote: Lorraine and Burgundy.] - -Of that France, however, Aquitaine was virtually independent. -Lotharingia and Burgundy belonged to it as little as did England. The -former of these kingdoms had adhered to the West Frankish king, -Charles the Simple, against the East Frankish Conrad: but now, as -mostly German in blood and speech, threw itself into the arms of Otto, -and was thenceforth an integral part of the Empire. Burgundy, a -separate kingdom, had, by seeking from Charles the Fat a ratification -of Boso's election, by admitting, in the person of Rudolf the first -Transjurane king, the feudal superiority of Arnulf, acknowledged -itself to be dependent on the German crown. Otto governed it for -thirty years, nominally as the guardian of the young king Conrad (son -of Rudolf II). - -[Sidenote: Denmark and the Slaves.] - -[Sidenote: England.] - -Otto's conquests to the North and East approved him a worthy successor -of the first Emperor. He penetrated far into Jutland, annexed -Schleswig, made Harold the Blue-toothed his vassal. The Slavic tribes -were obliged to submit, to follow the German host in war, to allow the -free preaching of the Gospel in their borders. The Hungarians he -forced to forsake their nomad life, and delivered Europe from the fear -of Asiatic invasions by strengthening the frontier of Austria. Over -more distant lands, Spain and England, it was not possible to recover -the commanding position of Charles. Henry, as head of the Saxon name, -may have wished to unite its branches on both sides the sea[162], and -it was perhaps partly with this intent that he gained for Otto the -hand of Edith, sister of the English Athelstan. But the claim of -supremacy, if any there was, was repudiated by Edgar, when, -exaggerating the lofty style assumed by some of his predecessors, he -called himself 'Basileus and imperator of Britain[163],' thereby -seeming to pretend to a sovereignty over all the nations of the island -similar to that which the Roman Emperor claimed over the states of -Christendom. - -[Sidenote: Extent of Otto's Empire.] - -[Sidenote: Comparison between it and that of Charles.] - -This restored Empire, which professed itself a continuation of the -Carolingian, was in many respects different. It was less wide, -including, if we reckon strictly, only Germany proper and two-thirds -of Italy; or counting in subject but separate kingdoms, Burgundy, -Bohemia, Moravia, Poland, Denmark, perhaps Hungary. Its character was -less ecclesiastical. Otto exalted indeed the spiritual potentates of -his realm, and was earnest in spreading Christianity among the -heathen: he was master of the Pope and Defender of the Holy Roman -Church. But religion held a less important place in his mind and his -administration: he made fewer wars for its sake, held no councils, and -did not, like his predecessor, criticize the discourses of bishops. It -was also less Roman. We do not know whether Otto associated with that -name anything more than the right to universal dominion and a certain -oversight of matters spiritual, nor how far he believed himself to be -treading in the steps of the Caesars. He could not speak Latin, he had -few learned men around him, he cannot have possessed the varied -cultivation which had been so fruitful in the mind of Charles. -Moreover, the conditions of his time were different, and did not -permit similar attempts at wide organization. The local potentates -would have submitted to no _missi dominici_; separate laws and -jurisdictions would not have yielded to imperial capitularies; the -_placita_ at which those laws were framed or published would not have -been crowded, as of yore, by armed freemen. But what Otto could he -did, and did it to good purpose. Constantly traversing his dominions, -he introduced a peace and prosperity before unknown, and left -everywhere the impress of an heroic character. Under him the Germans -became not only a united nation, but were at once raised on a pinnacle -among European peoples as the imperial race, the possessors of Rome -and Rome's authority. While the political connection with Italy -stirred their spirit, it brought with it a knowledge and culture -hitherto unknown, and gave the newly-kindled energy an object. Germany -became in her turn the instructress of the neighbouring tribes, who -trembled at Otto's sceptre; Poland and Bohemia received from her their -arts and their learning with their religion. If the revived -Romano-Germanic Empire was less splendid than the Empire of the West -had been under Charles, it was, within narrower limits, firmer and -more lasting, since based on a social force which the other had -wanted. It perpetuated the name, the language, the literature, such as -it then was, of Rome; it extended her spiritual sway; it strove to -represent that concentration for which men cried, and became a power -to unite and civilize Europe. - -[Sidenote: Otto II, A.D. 973-983.] - -[Sidenote: Otto III, A.D. 983-1002.] - -[Sidenote: His ideas. Fascination exercised over him by the name of -Rome.] - -[Sidenote: Pope Sylvester II, A.D. 1000.] - -The time of Otto the Great has required a fuller treatment, as the era -of the Holy Empire's foundation: succeeding rulers may be more quickly -dismissed. Yet Otto III's reign cannot pass unnoticed: short, sad, -full of bright promise never fulfilled. His mother was the Greek -princess Theophano; his preceptor, the illustrious Gerbert: through -the one he felt himself connected with the old Empire, and had imbibed -the absolutism of Byzantium; by the other he had been reared in the -dream of a renovated Rome, with her memories turned to realities. To -accomplish that renovation, who so fit as he who with the vigorous -blood of the Teutonic conqueror inherited the venerable rights of -Constantinople? It was his design, now that the solemn millennial era -of the founding of Christianity had arrived, to renew the majesty of -the city and make her again the capital of a world-embracing Empire, -victorious as Trajan's, despotic as Justinian's, holy as -Constantine's. His young and visionary mind was too much dazzled by -the gorgeous fancies it created to see the world as it was: Germany -rude, Italy unquiet, Rome corrupt and faithless. In A.D. 994, at the -age of sixteen, he took from his mother's hands the reins of -government, and entered Italy to receive his crown, and quell the -turbulence of Rome. There he put to death the rebel Crescentius, in -whom modern enthusiasm has seen a patriotic republican, who, reviving -the institutions of Alberic, had ruled as consul or senator, sometimes -entitling himself Emperor[164]. The young monarch reclaimed, perhaps -extended, the privilege of Charles and Otto the Great, by nominating -successive pontiffs: first Bruno his cousin (Gregory V), then Gerbert, -whose name of Sylvester II recalled significantly the ally of -Constantine: Gerbert, to his contemporaries a marvel of piety and -learning, in later legend the magician who, at the price of his own -soul, purchased preferment from the Enemy, and by him was at last -carried off in the body. With the substitution of these men for the -profligate priests of Italy, began that Teutonic reform of the Papacy -which raised it from the abyss of the tenth century to the point where -Hildebrand found it. The Emperors were working the ruin of their power -by their most disinterested acts. - -[Sidenote: Schemes of Otto III: Changes of style and usage.] - -With his tutor on Peter's chair to second or direct him, Otto laboured -on his great project in a spirit almost mystic. He had an intense -religious belief in the Emperor's duties to the world--in his -proclamations he calls himself 'Servant of the Apostles,' 'Servant of -Jesus Christ[165]'--together with the ambitious antiquarianism of a -fiery imagination, kindled by the memorials of the glory and power he -represented. Even the wording of his laws witnesses to the strange -mixture of notions that filled his eager brain. 'We have ordained -this,' says an edict, 'in order that, the church of God being freely -and firmly stablished, our Empire may be advanced and the crown of our -knighthood triumph; that the power of the Roman people may be extended -and the commonwealth be restored; so may we be found worthy after -living righteously in the tabernacle of this world, to fly away from -the prison of this life and reign most righteously with the Lord.' To -exclude the claims of the Greeks he used the title '_Romanorum -Imperator_' instead of the simple '_Imperator_' of his predecessors. -His seals bear a legend resembling that used by Charles, '_Renovatio -Imperii Romanorum_;' even the 'commonwealth,' despite the results that -name had produced under Alberic and Crescentius, was to be -re-established. He built a palace on the Aventine, then the most -healthy and beautiful quarter of the city; he devised a regular -administrative system of government for his capital--naming a -patrician, a prefect, and a body of judges, who were commanded to -recognize no law but Justinian's. The formula of their appointment has -been preserved to us: in it the Emperor delivering to the judge a copy -of the code bids him 'with this code judge Rome and the Leonine city -and the whole world.' He introduced into the simple German court the -ceremonious magnificence of Byzantium, not without giving offence to -many of his followers[166]. His father's wish to draw Italy and -Germany more closely together, he followed up by giving the -chancellorship of both countries to the same churchman, by maintaining -a strong force of Germans in Italy, and by taking his Italian retinue -with him through the Transalpine lands. How far these brilliant and -far-reaching plans were capable of realization, had their author lived -to attempt it, can be but guessed at. It is reasonable to suppose that -whatever power he might have gained in the South he would have lost in -the North. Dwelling rarely in Germany, and in sympathies more a Greek -than a Teuton, he reined in the fierce barons with no such tight hand -as his grandfather had been wont to do; he neglected the schemes of -northern conquest; he released the Polish dukes from the obligation of -tribute. But all, save that those plans were his, is now no more than -conjecture, for Otto III, 'the wonder of the world,' as his own -generation called him, died childless on the threshold of manhood; the -victim, if we may trust a story of the time, of the revenge of -Stephania, widow of Crescentius, who ensnared him by her beauty, and -slew him by a lingering poison. They carried him across the Alps with -laments whose echoes sound faintly yet from the pages of monkish -chroniclers, and buried him in the choir of the basilica at Aachen -some fifty paces from the tomb of Charles beneath the central dome. -Two years had not passed since, setting out on his last journey to -Rome, he had opened that tomb, had gazed on the great Emperor, sitting -on a marble throne, robed and crowned, with the Gospel-book open -before him; and there, touching the dead hand, unclasping from the -neck its golden cross, had taken, as it were, an investiture of Empire -from his Frankish forerunner. Short as was his life and few his acts, -Otto III is in one respect more memorable than any who went before or -came after him. None save he desired to make the seven-hilled city -again the seat of dominion, reducing Germany and Lombardy and Greece -to their rightful place of subject provinces. No one else so forgot -the present to live in the light of the ancient order; no other soul -was so possessed by that fervid mysticism and that reverence for the -glories of the past, whereon rested the idea of the mediaeval Empire. - -[Sidenote: Italy independent.] - -[Sidenote: Henry II Emperor.] - -[Sidenote: Southern Italy.] - -The direct line of Otto the Great had now ended, and though the Franks -might elect and the Saxons accept Henry II[167], Italy was nowise -affected by their acts. Neither the Empire nor the Lombard kingdom -could as yet be of right claimed by the German king. Her princes -placed Ardoin, marquis of Ivrea, on the vacant throne of Pavia, moved -partly by the growing aversion to a Transalpine power, still more by -the desire of impunity under a monarch feebler than any since -Berengar. But the selfishness that had exalted Ardoin soon overthrew -him. Ere long a party among the nobles, seconded by the Pope, invited -Henry[168]; his strong army made opposition hopeless, and at Rome he -received the imperial crown, A.D. 1014. It is, perhaps, more singular -that the Transalpine kings should have clung so pertinaciously to -Italian sovereignty than that the Lombards should have so frequently -attempted to recover their independence. For the former had often -little or no hereditary claim, they were not secure in their seat at -home, they crossed a huge mountain barrier into a land of treachery -and hatred. But Rome's glittering lure was irresistible, and the -disunion of Italy promised an easy conquest. Surrounded by martial -vassals, these Emperors were generally for the moment supreme: once -their pennons had disappeared in the gorges of Tyrol, things reverted -to their former condition, and Tuscany was little more dependent than -France. In Southern Italy the Greek viceroy ruled from Bari, and Rome -was an outpost instead of the centre of Teutonic power. A curious -evidence of the wavering politics of the time is furnished by the -Annals of Benevento, the Lombard town which on the confines of the -Greek and Roman realms gave steady obedience to neither. They usually -date by and recognize the princes of Constantinople[169], seldom -mentioning the Franks, till the reign of Conrad II; after him the -Western becomes _Imperator_, the Greek, appearing more rarely, is -_Imperator Constantinopolitanus_. Assailed by the Saracens, masters -already of Sicily, these regions seemed on the eve of being lost to -Christendom, and the Romans sometimes bethought themselves of -returning under the Byzantine sceptre. As the weakness of the Greeks -in the South favoured the rise of the Norman kingdom, so did the -liberties of the northern cities shoot up in the absence of the -Emperors and the feuds of the princes. Milan, Pavia, Cremona, were -only the foremost among many populous centres of industry, some of -them self-governing, all quickly absorbing or repelling the rural -nobility, and not afraid to display by tumults their aversion to the -Germans. - -[Sidenote: Conrad II.] - -The reign of Conrad II, the first monarch of the great Franconian -line, is remarkable for the accession to the Empire of Burgundy, or, -as it is after this time more often called, the kingdom of Arles[170]. -Rudolf III, the last king, had proposed to bequeath it to Henry II, -and the states were at length persuaded to consent to its reunion to -the crown from which it had been separated, though to some extent -dependent, since the death of Lothar I (son of Lewis the Pious). On -Rudolf's death in 1032, Eudes, count of Champagne, endeavoured to -seize it, and entered the north-western districts, from which he was -dislodged by Conrad with some difficulty. Unlike Italy, it became an -integral member of the Germanic realm: its prelates and nobles sat in -imperial diets, and retained till recently the style and title of -Princes of the Holy Empire. The central government was, however, -seldom effective in these outlying territories, exposed always to the -intrigues, finally to the aggressions, of Capetian France. - -[Sidenote: Henry III.] - -[Sidenote: His reform of the Popedom.] - -[Sidenote: Henry IV, A.D. 1056-1106.] - -Under Conrad's son Henry the Third the Empire attained the meridian of -its power. At home Otto the Great's prerogative had not stood so high. -The duchies, always the chief source of fear, were allowed to remain -vacant or filled by the relatives of the monarch, who himself -retained, contrary to usual practice, those of Franconia and (for some -years) Swabia. Abbeys and sees lay entirely in his gift. Intestine -feuds were repressed by the proclamation of a public peace. Abroad, -the feudal superiority over Hungary, which Henry II had gained by -conferring the title of King with the hand of his sister Gisela, was -enforced by war, the country made almost a province, and compelled to -pay tribute. In Rome no German sovereign had ever been so absolute. A -disgraceful contest between three claimants of the papal chair had -shocked even the reckless apathy of Italy. Henry deposed them all, and -appointed their successor: he became hereditary patrician, and wore -constantly the green mantle and circlet of gold which were the badges -of that office, seeming, one might think, to find in it some further -authority than that which the imperial name conferred. The synod -passed a decree granting to Henry the right of nominating the supreme -pontiff; and the Roman priesthood, who had forfeited the respect of -the world even more by habitual simony than by the flagrant corruption -of their manners, were forced to receive German after German as their -bishop, at the bidding of a ruler so powerful, so severe, and so -pious. But Henry's encroachments alarmed his own nobles no less than -the Italians, and the reaction, which might have been dangerous to -himself, was fatal to his successor. A mere chance, as some might call -it, determined the course of history. The great Emperor died suddenly -in A.D. 1056, and a child was left at the helm, while storms were -gathering that might have demanded the wisest hand. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[153] 'Iohannes episcopus, servus servorum Dei, omnibus episcopis. Nos -audivimus dicere quia vos vultis alium papam facere: si hoc facitis, -da Deum omnipotentem excommunico vos, ut non habeatis licentiam missam -celebrare aut nullum ordinare.'--Liudprand, _ut supra_. The 'da' is -curious, as shewing the progress of the change from Latin to Italian. -The answer sent by Otto and the council takes exception to the double -negative. - -[154] 'Cives fidelitatem promittunt haec addentes et firmiter iurantes -nunquam se papam electuros aut ordinaturos praeter consensum atque -electionem domini imperatoris Ottonis Caesaris Augusti filiique ipsius -Ottonis.'--Liudprand, _Gesta Ottonis_, lib. vi. - -[155] 'In timporibus adeo a dyabulo est percussus ut infra dierum octo -spacium eodem sit in vulnere mortuus,' says the chronicler, crediting -with but little of his wonted cleverness the supposed author of John's -death, who well might have desired a long life for so useful a -servant. - -He adds a detail too characteristic of the time to be omitted--'Sed -eucharistiae viaticum, ipsius instinctu qui eum percusserat, non -percepit.' - -[156] _Corpus Iuris Canonici_, Dist. lxiii., '_In synodo_.' A decree -which is probably substantially genuine, although the form in which we -have it is evidently of later date. - -[157] Cf. St. Peter Damiani's lines-- - - 'Roma vorax hominum domat ardua colla virorum, - Roma ferax febrium necis est uberrima frugum, - Romanae febres stabili sunt iure fideles.' - -[158] There was a separate chancellor for Italy, as afterwards for the -kingdom of Burgundy. - -[159] Liudprand, _Legatio Constantinopolitana_. - -[160] 'Sancti imperii nostri olim servos principes, Beneventanum -scilicet, tradat,' &c. The epithet is worth noticing. - -[161] Liudprand calls the Eastern Franks 'Franci Teutonici' to -distinguish them from the Romanized Franks of Gaul or 'Francigenae,' as -they were frequently called. The name 'Frank' seems even so early as -the tenth century to have been used in the East as a general name for -the Western peoples of Europe. Liudprand says that the Greek Emperor -included 'sub Francorum nomine tam Latinos quam Teutonicos.' Probably -this use dates from the time of Charles. - -[162] Conring, _De Finibus Imperii_. - -[163] Basileus was a favourite title of the English kings before the -Conquest. Titles like this used in these early English charters prove, -it need hardly be said, absolutely nothing as to the real existence of -any rights or powers of the English king beyond his own borders. What -they do prove (over and above the taste for florid rhetoric in the -royal clerks) is the impression produced by the imperial style, and by -the idea of the emperor's throne as supported by the thrones of kings -and other lesser potentates. - -[164] The coins of Crescentius are said to exhibit the insignia of the -old Empire.--Palgrave, _Normandy and England_, i. 715. But probably -some at least of them are forgeries. - -[165] Proclamation in Pertz, _M. G. H._ ii. - -[166] 'Imperator antiquam Romanorum consuetudinem iam ex magna parte -deletam suis cupiens renovare temporibus multa faciebat quae diversi -diverse sentiebant.'--Thietmar, _Chron._ ix.; ap. Pertz, _M. G. H._ t. -iii. - -[167] _Annales Quedlinb._, ad ann. 1002. - -[168] Henry had already entered Italy in 1004. - -[169] _Annales Beneventani_, in Pertz, _M. G. H._ - -[170] See Appendix, Note A. - - - - -CHAPTER X. - -STRUGGLE OF THE EMPIRE AND THE PAPACY. - - -Reformed by the Emperors and their Teutonic nominees, the Papacy had -resumed in the middle of the eleventh century the schemes of polity -shadowed forth by Nicholas I, and which the degradation of the last -age had only suspended. Under the guidance of her greatest mind, -Hildebrand, the archdeacon of Rome, she now advanced to their -completion, and proclaimed that war of the ecclesiastical power -against the civil power in the person of the Emperor, which became the -centre of the subsequent history of both. While the nature of the -struggle cannot be understood without a glance at their previous -connection, the vastness of the subject warns one from the attempt to -draw even its outlines, and restricts our view to those relations of -Popedom and Empire which arise directly out of their respective -positions as heads spiritual and temporal of the universal Christian -state. - -[Sidenote: Growth of the Papal power.] - -[Sidenote: Relations of the Papacy and the Empire.] - -The eagerness of Christianity in the age immediately following her -political establishment to purchase by submission the support of the -civil power, has been already remarked. The change from independence -to supremacy was gradual. The tale we smile at, how Constantine, -healed of his leprosy, granted the West to bishop Sylvester, and -retired to Byzantium that no secular prince might interfere with the -jurisdiction or profane the neighbourhood of Peter's chair, worked -great effects through the belief it commanded for many centuries. Nay -more, its groundwork was true. It was the removal of the seat of -government from the Tiber to the Bosphorus that made the Pope the -greatest personage in the city, and in the prostration after Alaric's -invasion he was seen to be so. Henceforth he alone was a permanent and -effective, though still unacknowledged power, as truly superior to the -revived senate and consuls of the phantom republic as Augustus and -Tiberius had been to the faint continuance of their earlier -prototypes. Pope Leo the First asserted the universal jurisdiction of -his see[171], and his persevering successors slowly enthralled Italy, -Illyricum, Gaul, Spain, Africa, dexterously confounding their -undoubted metropolitan and patriarchal rights with those of oecumenical -bishop, in which they were finally merged. By his writings and the -fame of his personal sanctity, by the conversion of England and the -introduction of an impressive ritual, Gregory the Great did more than -any other pontiff to advance Rome's ecclesiastical authority. Yet his -tone to Maurice of Constantinople was deferential, to Phocas -adulatory; his successors were not consecrated till confirmed by the -Emperor or the Exarch; one of them was dragged in chains to the -Bosphorus, and banished thence to Scythia. When the iconoclastic -controversy and the intervention of Pipin broke the allegiance of the -Popes to the East, the Franks, as patricians and Emperors, seemed to -step into the position which Byzantium had lost[172]. At Charles's -coronation, says the Saxon poet, - - 'Et summus eundem - Praesul adoravit, sicut mos debitus olim - Principibus fuit antiquis.' - -[Sidenote: Temporal power of the Popes.] - -Their relations were, however, no longer the same. If the Frank -vaunted conquest, the priest spoke only of free gift. What Christendom -saw was that Charles was crowned by the Pope's hands, and undertook as -his principal duty the protection and advancement of the Holy Roman -Church. The circumstances of Otto the Great's coronation gave an even -more favourable opening to sacerdotal claims, for it was a Pope who -summoned him to Rome and a Pope who received from him an oath of -fidelity and aid. In the conflict of three powers, the Emperor, the -pontiff, and the people--represented by their senate and consuls, or -by the demagogue of the hour--the most steady, prudent, and -far-sighted was sure eventually to prevail. The Popedom had no -minorities, as yet few disputed successions, few revolts within its -own army--the host of churchmen through Europe. Boniface's conversion -of Germany under its direct sanction, gave it a hold on the rising -hierarchy of the greatest European state; the extension of the rule of -Charles and Otto diffused in the same measure its emissaries and -pretensions. The first disputes turned on the right of the prince to -confirm the elected pontiff, which was afterwards supposed to have -been granted by Hadrian I to Charles, in the decree quoted as -'_Hadrianus Papa_[173].' This '_ius eligendi et ordinandi summum -pontificem_,' which Lewis I appears as yielding by the '_Ego -Ludovicus_[174],' was claimed by the Carolingians whenever they felt -themselves strong enough, and having fallen into desuetude in the -troublous times of the Italian Emperors, was formally renewed to Otto -the Great by his nominee Leo VIII. We have seen it used, and used in -the purest spirit, by Otto himself, by his grandson Otto III, last of -all, and most despotically, by Henry III. Along with it there had -grown up a bold counter-assumption of the Papal chair to be itself the -source of the imperial dignity. In submitting to a fresh coronation, -Lewis the Pious admitted the invalidity of his former self-performed -one: Charles the Bald did not scout the arrogant declaration of John -VIII[175], that to him alone the Emperor owed his crown; and the -council of Pavia[176], when it chose him king of Italy, repeated the -assertion. Subsequent Popes knew better than to apply to the chiefs of -Saxon and Franconian chivalry language which the feeble Neustrian had -not resented; but the precedent remained, the weapon was only hid -behind the pontifical robe to be flashed out with effect when the -moment should come. There were also two other great steps which papal -power had taken. By the invention and adoption of the False Decretals -it had provided itself with a legal system suited to any emergency, -and which gave it unlimited authority through the Christian world in -causes spiritual and over persons ecclesiastical. Canonistical -ingenuity found it easy in one way or another to make this include all -causes and persons whatsoever: for crime is always and wrong is often -sin, nor can aught be anywhere done which may not affect the clergy. -On the gift of Pipin and Charles, repeated and confirmed by Lewis I, -Charles II, Otto I and III, and now made to rest on the more venerable -authority of the first Christian Emperor, it could found claims to the -sovereignty of Rome, Tuscany, and all else that had belonged to the -exarchate. Indefinite in their terms, these grants were never meant by -the donors to convey full dominion over the districts--that belonged -to the head of the Empire--but only as in the case of other church -estates, a perpetual usufruct or _dominium utile_. They were, in fact, -mere endowments. Nor had the gifts been ever actually reduced into -possession: the Pope had been hitherto the victim, not the lord, of -the neighbouring barons. They were not, however, denied, and might be -made a formidable engine of attack: appealing to them, the Pope could -brand his opponents as unjust and impious; and could summon nobles and -cities to defend him as their liege lord, just as, with no better -original right, he invoked the help of the Norman conquerors of Naples -and Sicily. - -The attitude of the Roman Church to the imperial power at Henry the -Third's death was externally respectful. The right of a German king to -the crown of the city was undoubted, and the Pope was his lawful -subject. Hitherto the initiative in reform had come from the civil -magistrate. But the secret of the pontiff's strength lay in this: he, -and he alone, could confer the crown, and had therefore the right of -imposing conditions on its recipient. Frequent interregna had weakened -the claim of the Transalpine monarch and prevented his power from -taking firm root; his title was never by law hereditary: the holy -Church had before sought and might again seek a defender elsewhere. -And since the need of such defence had originated this transference of -the Empire from the Greeks to the Franks, since to render it was the -Emperor's chief function, it was surely the Pope's duty as well as his -right to see that the candidate was capable of fulfilling his task, to -degrade him if he rejected or misperformed it. - -[Sidenote: Hildebrandine reforms.] - -The first step was to remove a blemish in the constitution of the -Church, by fixing a regular body to choose the supreme pontiff. This -Nicholas II did in A.D. 1059, feebly reserving the rights of Henry IV -and his successors. Then the reforming spirit, kindled by the abuses -and depravity of the last century, advanced apace. It had two main -objects: the enforcement of celibacy, especially on the secular -clergy, who enjoyed in this respect considerable freedom, and the -extinction of simony. In the former, the Emperors and a large part of -the laity were not unwilling to join: the latter no one dared to -defend in theory. But when Gregory VII declared that it was sin for -the ecclesiastic to receive his benefice under conditions from a -layman, and so condemned the whole system of feudal investitures to -the clergy, he aimed a deadly blow at all secular authority. Half of -the land and wealth of Germany was in the hands of bishops and abbots, -who would now be freed from the monarch's control to pass under that -of the Pope. In such a state of things government itself would be -impossible. - -[Sidenote: Henry IV and Gregory VII.] - -[Sidenote: A.D. 1077.] - -Henry and Gregory already mistrusted each other: after this decree war -was inevitable. The Pope cited his opponent to appear and be judged at -Rome for his vices and misgovernment. The Emperor[177] replied by -convoking a synod, which deposed and insulted Gregory. At once the -dauntless monk pronounced Henry excommunicate, and fixed a day on -which, if still unrepentant, he should cease to reign. Supported by -his own princes, the monarch might have defied a mandate backed by no -external force; but the Saxons, never contented since the first place -had passed from their own dukes to the Franconians, only waited the -signal to burst into a new revolt, whilst through all Germany the -Emperor's tyranny and irregularities of life had sown the seeds of -disaffection. Shunned, betrayed, threatened, he rushed into what -seemed the only course left, and Canosa saw Europe's mightiest prince, -titular lord of the world, a suppliant before the successor of the -Apostle. Henry soon found that his humiliation had not served him; -driven back into opposition, he defied Gregory anew, set up an -anti-pope, overthrew the rival whom his rebellious subjects had -raised, and maintained to the end of his sad and chequered life a -power often depressed but never destroyed. Nevertheless had all other -humiliation been spared, that one scene in the yard of the Countess -Matilda's castle, an imperial penitent standing barefoot and -woollen-frocked on the snow three days and nights, till the priest who -sat within should admit and absolve him, was enough to mark a decisive -change, and inflict an irretrievable disgrace on the crown so abased. -Its wearer could no more, with the same lofty confidence, claim to be -the highest power on earth, created by and answerable to God alone. -Gregory had extorted the recognition of that absolute superiority of -the spiritual dominion which he was wont to assert so sternly; -proclaiming that to the Pope, as God's vicar, all mankind are subject, -and all rulers responsible: so that he, the giver of the crown, may -also excommunicate and depose. Writing to William the Conqueror, he -says[178]: 'For as for the beauty of this world, that it may be at -different seasons perceived by fleshly eyes, God hath disposed the sun -and the moon, lights that outshine all others; so lest the creature -whom His goodness hath formed after His own image in this world should -be drawn astray into fatal dangers, He hath provided in the apostolic -and royal dignities the means of ruling it through divers offices.... -If I, therefore, am to answer for thee on the dreadful day of judgment -before the just Judge who cannot lie, the creator of every creature, -bethink thee whether I must not very diligently provide for thy -salvation, and whether, for thine own safety, thou oughtest not -without delay to obey me, that so thou mayest possess the land of the -living.' - -Gregory was not the inventor nor the first propounder of these -doctrines; they had been long before a part of mediaeval Christianity, -interwoven with its most vital doctrines. But he was the first who -dared to apply them to the world as he found it. His was that rarest -and grandest of gifts, an intellectual courage and power of -imaginative belief which, when it has convinced itself of aught, -accepts it fully with all its consequences, and shrinks not from -acting at once upon it. A perilous gift, as the melancholy end of his -own career proved, for men were found less ready than he had thought -them to follow out with unswerving consistency like his the principles -which all acknowledged. But it was the very suddenness and boldness of -his policy that secured the ultimate triumph of his cause, awing men's -minds and making that seem realized which had been till then a vague -theory. His premises once admitted,--and no one dreamt of denying -them,--the reasonings by which he established the superiority of -spiritual to temporal jurisdiction were unassailable. With his -authority, in whose hands are the keys of heaven and hell, whose word -can bestow eternal bliss or plunge in everlasting misery, no other -earthly authority can compete or interfere: if his power extends into -the infinite, how much more must he be supreme over things finite? It -was thus that Gregory and his successors were wont to argue: the -wonder is, not that they were obeyed, but that they were not obeyed -more implicitly. In the second sentence of excommunication which -Gregory passed upon Henry the Fourth are these words:-- - -'Come now, I beseech you, O most holy and blessed Fathers and Princes, -Peter and Paul, that all the world may understand and know that if ye -are able to bind and to loose in heaven, ye are likewise able on -earth, according to the merits of each man, to give and to take away -empires, kingdoms, princedoms, marquisates, duchies, countships, and -the possessions of all men. For if ye judge spiritual things, what -must we believe to be your power over worldly things? and if ye judge -the angels who rule over all proud princes, what can ye not do to -their slaves?' - -[Sidenote: Results of the struggle.] - -Doctrines such as these do indeed strike equally at all temporal -governments, nor were the Innocents and Bonifaces of later days slow -to apply them so. On the Empire, however, the blow fell first and -heaviest. As when Alaric entered Rome, the spell of ages was broken, -Christendom saw her greatest and most venerable institution -dishonoured and helpless; allegiance was no longer undivided, for who -could presume to fix in each case the limits of the civil and -ecclesiastical jurisdictions? The potentates of Europe beheld in the -Papacy a force which, if dangerous to themselves, could be made to -repel the pretensions and baffle the designs of the strongest and -haughtiest among them. Italy learned how to meet the Teutonic -conqueror by gaining the papal sanction for the leagues of her cities. -The German princes, anxious to narrow the prerogative of their head, -were the natural allies of his enemy, whose spiritual thunders, more -terrible than their own lances, could enable them to depose an -aspiring monarch, or extort from him any concessions they desired. -Their altered tone is marked by the promise they required from Rudolf -of Swabia, whom they set up as a rival to Henry, that he would not -endeavour to make the throne hereditary. - -[Sidenote: Concordat of Worms, A.D. 1122.] - -It is not possible here to dwell on the details of the great struggle -of the Investitures, rich as it is in the interest of adventure and -character, momentous as were its results for the future. A word or two -must suffice to describe the conclusion, not indeed of the whole -drama, which was to extend over centuries, but of what may be called -its first act. Even that act lasted beyond the lives of the original -performers. Gregory the Seventh passed away at Salerno in A.D. 1087, -exclaiming with his last breath 'I have loved justice and hated -iniquity, therefore I die in exile.' Nineteen years later, in A.D. -1106, Henry IV died, dethroned by an unnatural son whom the hatred of -a relentless pontiff had raised in rebellion against him. But that -son, the emperor Henry the Fifth, so far from conceding the points in -dispute, proved an antagonist more ruthless and not less able than his -father. He claimed for his crown all the rights over ecclesiastics -that his predecessors had ever enjoyed, and when at his coronation in -Rome, A.D. 1112, Pope Paschal II refused to complete the rite until he -should have yielded, Henry seized both Pope and cardinals and -compelled them by a rigorous imprisonment to consent to a treaty which -he dictated. Once set free, the Pope, as was natural, disavowed his -extorted concessions, and the struggle was protracted for ten years -longer, until nearly half a century had elapsed from the first quarrel -between Gregory VII and Henry IV. The Concordat of Worms, concluded in -A.D. 1122, was in form a compromise, designed to spare either party -the humiliation of defeat. Yet the Papacy remained master of the -field. The Emperor retained but one-half of those rights of -investiture which had formerly been his. He could never resume the -position of Henry III; his wishes or intrigues might influence the -proceedings of a chapter, his oath bound him from open interference. -He had entered the strife in the fulness of dignity; he came out of it -with tarnished glory and shattered power. His wars had been hitherto -carried on with foreign foes, or at worst with a single rebel noble; -now his steadiest ally was turned into his fiercest assailant, and had -enlisted against him half his court, half the magnates of his realm. -At any moment his sceptre might be shivered in his hand by the bolt of -anathema, and a host of enemies spring up from every convent and -cathedral. - -[Sidenote: The Crusades.] - -Two other results of this great conflict ought not to pass unnoticed. -The Emperor was alienated from the Church at the most unfortunate of -all moments, the era of the Crusades. To conduct a great religious war -against the enemies of the faith, to head the church militant in her -carnal as the Popes were accustomed to do in her spiritual strife, -this was the very purpose for which an Emperor had been called into -being; and it was indeed in these wars, more particularly in the first -three of them, that the ideal of a Christian commonwealth which the -theory of the mediaeval Empire proclaimed, was once for all and never -again realized by the combined action of the great nations of Europe. -Had such an opportunity fallen to the lot of Henry III, he might have -used it to win back a supremacy hardly inferior to that which had -belonged to the first Carolingians. But Henry IV's proscription -excluded him from all share in an enterprise which he must otherwise -have led--nay, more, committed it to the guidance of his foes. The -religious feeling which the Crusades evoked--a feeling which became -the origin of the great orders of chivalry, and somewhat later of the -two great orders of mendicant friars--turned wholly against the -opponent of ecclesiastical claims, and was made to work the will of -the Holy See, which had blessed and organized the project. A century -and a half later the Pope did not scruple to preach a crusade against -the Emperor himself. - -Again: it was now that the first seeds were sown of that fear and -hatred wherewith the German people never thenceforth ceased to regard -the encroaching Romish court. Branded by the Church and forsaken by -the nobles, Henry IV retained the affections of the faithful burghers -of Worms and Liege. It soon became the test of Teutonic patriotism to -resist Italian priestcraft. - -[Sidenote: Limitations of imperial prerogative.] - -[Sidenote: Lothar II, 1125-1138.] - -[Sidenote: Conrad III, 1138-1152.] - -The changes in the internal constitution of Germany which the long -anarchy of Henry IV's reign had produced are seen when the nature of -the prerogative as it stood at the accession of Conrad II, the first -Franconian Emperor, is compared with its state at Henry V's death. All -fiefs are now hereditary, and when vacant can be granted afresh only -by consent of the States; the jurisdiction of the crown is less wide; -the idea is beginning to make progress that the most essential part of -the Empire is not its supreme head but the commonwealth of princes and -barons. The greatest triumph of these feudal magnates is in the -establishment of the elective principle, which when confirmed by the -three free elections of Lothar II, Conrad III, and Frederick I, passes -into an undoubted law. The Prince-Electors are mentioned in A.D. 1156 -as a distinct and important body[179]. The clergy, too, whom the -policy of Otto the Great and Henry II had raised, are now not less -dangerous than the dukes, whose power it was hoped they would balance; -possibly more so, since protected by their sacred character and their -allegiance to the Pope, while able at the same time to command the -arms of their countless vassals. Nor were the two succeeding Emperors -the men to retrieve those disasters. The Saxon Lothar the Second is -the willing minion of the Pope; performs at his coronation a menial -service unknown before, and takes a more stringent oath to defend the -Holy See, that he may purchase its support against the Swabian faction -in his own dominions. Conrad the Third, the first Emperor of the great -house of Hohenstaufen[180], represents the anti-papal party; but -domestic troubles and an unfortunate crusade prevented him from -effecting anything in Italy. He never even entered Rome to receive the -crown. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[171] 'Roma per sedem Beati Petri caput orbis effecta.'--See note _i_, -p. 32. - -[172] 'Claves tibi _ad regnum_ dimisimus.'--Pope Stephen to Charles -Martel, in _Codex Carolinus_, ap. Muratori, _S. R. I._ iii. Some, -however, prefer to read 'ad rogum.' - -[173] _Corpus Iuris Canonici_, Dist. lxiii. c. 22. - -[174] Dist. lxiii. c. 30. This decree is, however, in all probability -spurious. - -[175] 'Nos elegimus merito et approbavimus una cum annisu et voto -patrum amplique senatus et gentis togatae,' &c., ap. Baron. _Ann. -Eccl._, ad ann. 876. - -[176] 'Divina vos pietas B. principum apostolorum Petri et Pauli -interventione per vicarium ipsorum dominum Ioannem summum pontificem -... ad imperiale culmen S. Spiritus iudicio provexit.'--_Concil. -Ticinense_, in Mur., _S. R. I._ ii. - -[177] Strictly speaking, Henry was at this time only king of the -Romans: he was not crowned Emperor at Rome till 1084. - -[178] Letter of Gregory VII to William I, A.D. 1080. I quote from -Migne, t. cxlviii. p. 568. - -[179] 'Gradum statim post Principes Electores.'--Frederick I's -Privilege of Austria, in Pertz, _M. G. H._ legg. ii. - -[180] Hohenstaufen is a castle in what is now the kingdom of -Wuertemberg, about four miles from the Goeppingen station of the railway -from Stuttgart to Ulm. It stands, or rather stood, on the summit of a -steep and lofty conical hill, commanding a boundless view over the -great limestone plateau of the Rauhe Alp, the eastern declivities of -the Schwartzwald, and the bare and tedious plains of western Bavaria. -Of the castle itself, destroyed in the Peasants' War, there remain -only fragments of the wall-foundations: in a rude chapel lying on the -hill slope below are some strange half-obliterated frescoes; over the -arch of the door is inscribed 'Hic transibat Caesar.' Frederick -Barbarossa had another famous palace at Kaiserslautern, a small town -in the Palatinate, on the railway from Mannheim to Treves, lying in a -wide valley at the western foot of the Hardt mountains. It was -destroyed by the French and a house of correction has been built upon -its site; but in a brewery hard by may be seen some of the huge -low-browed arches of its lower story. - - - - -CHAPTER XI. - -THE EMPERORS IN ITALY: FREDERICK BARBAROSSA. - - -[Sidenote: Frederick of Hohenstaufen, 1152-1189.] - -The reign of Frederick the First, better known under his Italian -surname Barbarossa, is the most brilliant in the annals of the Empire. -Its territory had been wider under Charles, its strength perhaps -greater under Henry the Third, but it never appeared in such pervading -vivid activity, never shone with such lustre of chivalry, as under the -prince whom his countrymen have taken to be one of their national -heroes, and who is still, as the half-mythic type of Teutonic -character, honoured by picture and statue, in song and in legend, -through the breadth of the German lands. The reverential fondness of -his annalists and the whole tenour of his life go far to justify this -admiration, and dispose us to believe that nobler motives were joined -with personal ambition in urging him to assert so haughtily and carry -out so harshly those imperial rights in which he had such unbounded -confidence. Under his guidance the Transalpine power made its greatest -effort to subdue the two antagonists which then threatened and were -fated in the end to destroy it--Italian nationality and the Papacy. - -[Sidenote: His relations to the Popedom.] - -Even before Gregory VII's time it might have been predicted that two -such potentates as the Emperor and the Pope, closely bound together, -yet each with pretensions wide and undefined, must ere long come into -collision. The boldness of that great pontiff in enforcing, the -unflinching firmness of his successors in maintaining, the supremacy -of clerical authority, inspired their supporters with a zeal and -courage which more than compensated the advantages of the Emperor in -defending rights he had long enjoyed. On both sides the hatred was -soon very bitter. But even had men's passions permitted a -reconciliation, it would have been found difficult to bring into -harmony adverse principles, each irresistible, mutually destructive. -As the spiritual power, in itself purer, since exercised over the soul -and directed to the highest of all ends, eternal felicity, was -entitled to the obedience of all, laymen as well as clergy; so the -spiritual person, to whom, according to the view then universally -accepted, there had been imparted by ordination a mysterious sanctity, -could not without sin be subject to the lay magistrate, be installed -by him in office, be judged in his court, and render to him any -compulsory service. Yet it was no less true that civil government was -indispensable to the peace and advancement of society; and while it -continued to subsist, another jurisdiction could not be suffered to -interfere with its workings, nor one-half of the people be altogether -removed from its control. Thus the Emperor and the Pope were forced -into hostility as champions of opposite systems, however fully each -might admit the strength of his adversary's position, however bitterly -he might bewail the violence of his own partisans. There had also -arisen other causes of quarrel, less respectable but not less -dangerous. The pontiff demanded and the monarch refused the lands -which the Countess Matilda of Tuscany had bequeathed to the Holy See; -Frederick claiming them as feudal suzerain, the Pope eager by their -means to carry out those schemes of temporal dominion which -Constantine's donation sanctioned, and Lothar's seeming renunciation -of the sovereignty of Rome had done much to encourage. As feudal -superior of the Norman kings of Naples and Sicily, as protector of the -towns and barons of North Italy who feared the German yoke, the -successor of Peter wore already the air of an independent potentate. - -[Sidenote: Contest with Hadrian IV.] - -No man was less likely than Frederick to submit to these -encroachments. He was a sort of imperialist Hildebrand, strenuously -proclaiming the immediate dependence of his office on God's gift, and -holding it every whit as sacred as his rival's. On his first journey -to Rome, he refused to hold the Pope's stirrup[181], as Lothar had -done, till Pope Hadrian the Fourth's threat that he would withhold the -crown enforced compliance. Complaints arising not long after on some -other ground, the Pope exhorted Frederick by letter to shew himself -worthy of the kindness of his mother the Roman Church, who had given -him the imperial crown, and would confer on him, if dutiful, benefits -still greater. This word benefits--_beneficia_--understood in its -usual legal sense of 'fief,' and taken in connection with the picture -which had been set up at Rome to commemorate Lothar's homage, provoked -angry shouts from the nobles assembled in diet at Besancon; and when -the legate answered, 'From whom, then, if not from our Lord the Pope, -does your king hold the Empire?' his life was not safe from their -fury. On this occasion Frederick's vigour and the remonstrances of the -Transalpine prelates obliged Hadrian to explain away the obnoxious -word, and remove the picture. Soon after the quarrel was renewed by -other causes, and came to centre itself round the Pope's demand that -Rome should be left entirely to his government. Frederick, in reply, -appeals to the civil law, and closes with the words, 'Since by the -ordination of God I both am called and am Emperor of the Romans, in -nothing but name shall I appear to be ruler if the control of the -Roman city be wrested from my hands.' That such a claim should need -assertion marks the change since Henry III; how much more that it -could not be enforced. Hadrian's tone rises into defiance; he mingles -the threat of excommunication with references to the time when the -Germans had not yet the Empire. 'What were the Franks till Zacharias -welcomed Pipin? What is the Teutonic king now till consecrated at Rome -by holy hands? The chair of Peter has given, and can withdraw its -gifts.' - -[Sidenote: With Pope Alexander III.] - -The schism that followed Hadrian's death produced a second and more -momentous conflict. Frederick, as head of Christendom, proposed to -summon the bishops of Europe to a general council, over which he -should preside, like Justinian or Heraclius. Quoting the favourite -text of the two swords, 'On earth,' he continues, 'God has placed no -more than two powers: above there is but one God, so here one Pope and -one Emperor. The Divine Providence has specially appointed the Roman -Empire as a remedy against continued schism[182].' The plan failed; -and Frederick adopted the candidate whom his own faction had chosen, -while the rival claimant, Alexander III, appealed, with a confidence -which the issue justified, to the support of sound churchmen -throughout Europe. The keen and long doubtful strife of twenty years -that followed, while apparently a dispute between rival Popes, was in -substance an effort by the secular monarch to recover his command of -the priesthood; not less truly so than that contemporaneous conflict -of the English Henry II and St. Thomas of Canterbury, with which it -was constantly involved. Unsupported, not all Alexander's genius and -resolution could have saved him: by the aid of the Lombard cities, -whose league he had counselled and hallowed, and of the fevers of -Rome, by which the conquering German host was suddenly annihilated, he -won a triumph the more signal, that it was over a prince so wise and -so pious as Frederick. At Venice, who, inaccessible by her position, -maintained a sedulous neutrality, claiming to be independent of the -Empire, yet seldom led into war by sympathy with the Popes, the two -powers whose strife had roused all Europe were induced to meet by the -mediation of the doge Sebastian Ziani. Three slabs of red marble in -the porch of St. Mark's point out the spot where Frederick knelt in -sudden awe, and the Pope with tears of joy raised him, and gave the -kiss of peace. A later legend, to which poetry and painting have given -an undeserved currency[183], tells how the pontiff set his foot on the -neck of the prostrate king, with the words, 'The lion and the dragon -shalt thou trample under feet[184].' It needed not this exaggeration -to enhance the significance of that scene, even more full of meaning -for the future than it was solemn and affecting to the Venetian crowd -that thronged the church and the piazza. For it was the renunciation -by the mightiest prince of his time of the project to which his life -had been devoted: it was the abandonment by the secular power of a -contest in which it had twice been vanquished, and which it could not -renew under more favourable conditions. - -[Sidenote: Revival of the study of the civil law.] - -Authority maintained so long against the successor of Peter would be -far from indulgent to rebellious subjects. For it was in this light -that the Lombard cities appeared to a monarch bent on reviving all the -rights his predecessors had enjoyed: nay, all that the law of ancient -Rome gave her absolute ruler. It would be wrong to speak of a -re-discovery of the civil law. That system had never perished from -Gaul and Italy, had been the groundwork of some codes, and the whole -substance, modified only by the changes in society, of many others. -The Church excepted, no agent did so much to keep alive the memory of -Roman institutions. The twelfth century now beheld the study -cultivated with a surprising increase of knowledge and ardour, -expended chiefly upon the Pandects. First in Italy and the schools of -the South, then in Paris and Oxford, they were expounded, commented -on, extolled as the perfection of human wisdom, the sole, true, and -eternal law. Vast as has been the labour and thought expended from -that time to this in the elucidation of the civil law, the most -competent authorities declare that in acuteness, in subtlety, in all -those branches of learning which can subsist without help from -historical criticism, these so-called Glossatores have been seldom -equalled and never surpassed by their successors. The teachers of the -canon law, who had not as yet become the rivals of the civilian, and -were accustomed to recur to his books where their own were silent, -spread through Europe the fame and influence of the Roman -jurisprudence; while its own professors were led both by their feeling -and their interest to give to all its maxims the greatest weight and -the fullest application. Men just emerging from barbarism, with minds -unaccustomed to create and blindly submissive to authority, viewed -written texts with an awe to us incomprehensible. All that the most -servile jurists of Rome had ever ascribed to their despotic princes -was directly transferred to the Caesarean majesty who inherited their -name. He was 'Lord of the world,' absolute master of the lives and -property of all his subjects, that is, of all men; the sole fountain -of legislation, the embodiment of right and justice. These doctrines, -which the great Bolognese jurists, Bulgarus, Martinus, Hugolinus, and -others who constantly surrounded Frederick, taught and applied, as -matter of course, to a Teutonic, a feudal king, were by the rest of -the world not denied, were accepted in fervent faith by his German and -Italian partisans. 'To the Emperor belongs the protection of the whole -world,' says bishop Otto of Freysing. 'The Emperor is a living law -upon earth[185].' To Frederick, at Roncaglia, the archbishop of Milan -speaks for the assembled magnates of Lombardy: 'Do and ordain -whatsoever thou wilt, thy will is law; as it is written, "Quicquid -principi placuit legis habet vigorem, cum populus ei et in eum omne -suum imperium et potestatem concesserit[186]." The Hohenstaufen -himself was not slow to accept these magnificent ascriptions of -dignity, and though modestly professing his wish to govern according -to law rather than override the law, was doubtless roused by them to a -more vehement assertion of a prerogative so hallowed by age and by -what seemed a divine ordinance. - -[Sidenote: Frederick in Italy.] - -[Sidenote: Rome under Arnold of Brescia.] - -That assertion was most loudly called for in Italy. The Emperors might -appear to consider it a conquered country without privileges to be -respected, for they did not summon its princes to the German diets, -and overawed its own assemblies at Pavia or Roncaglia by the -Transalpine host that followed them. Its crown, too, was theirs -whenever they crossed the Alps to claim it, while the elections on the -banks of the Rhine might be adorned but could not be influenced by the -presence of barons from the southern kingdom[187]. In practice, -however, the imperial power stood lower in Italy than in Germany, for -it had been from the first intermittent, depending on the personal -vigour and present armed support of each invader. The theoretic -sovereignty of the Emperor-king was nowise disputed: in the cities -toll and tax were of right his: he could issue edicts at the Diet, and -require the tenants in chief to appear with their vassals. But the -revival of a control never exercised since Henry IV's time, was felt -as an intolerable hardship by the great Lombard cities, proud of -riches and population equal to that of the duchies of Germany or the -kingdoms of the North, and accustomed for more than a century to a -turbulent independence. For republicanism and popular freedom -Frederick had little sympathy. At Rome the fervent Arnold of Brescia -had repeated, but with far different thoughts and hopes, the part of -Crescentius[188]. The city had thrown off the yoke of its bishop, and -a commonwealth under consuls and senate professed to emulate the -spirit while it renewed the forms of the primitive republic. Its -leaders had written to Conrad III[189], asking him to help them to -restore the Empire to its position under Constantine and Justinian; -but the German, warned by St. Bernard, had preferred the friendship of -the Pope. Filled with a vain conceit of their own importance, they -repeated their offers to Frederick when he sought the crown from -Hadrian the Fourth. A deputation, after dwelling in highflown language -on the dignity of the Roman people, and their kindness in bestowing -the sceptre on him, a Swabian and a stranger, proceeded, in a manner -hardly consistent, to demand a largess ere he should enter the city. -Frederick's anger did not hear them to the end: 'Is this your Roman -wisdom? Who are ye that usurp the name of Roman dignities? Your -honours and your authority are yours no longer; with us are consuls, -senate, soldiers. It was not you who chose us, but Charles and Otto -that rescued you from the Greek and the Lombard, and conquered by -their own might the imperial crown. That Frankish might is still the -same: wrench, if you can, the club from Hercules. It is not for the -people to give laws to the prince, but to obey his mandate[190].' This -was Frederick's version of the 'Translation of the Empire[191].' - -[Sidenote: The Lombard Cities.] - -He who had been so stern to his own capital was not likely to deal -more gently with the rebels of Milan and Tortona. In the contest by -which Frederick is chiefly known to history, he is commonly painted as -the foreign tyrant, the forerunner of the Austrian oppressor[192], -crushing under the hoofs of his cavalry the home of freedom and -industry. Such a view is unjust to a great man and his cause. To the -despot liberty is always licence; yet Frederick was the advocate of -admitted claims; the aggressions of Milan threatened her neighbours; -the refusal, where no actual oppression was alleged, to admit his -officers and allow his regalian rights, seemed a wanton breach of -oaths and engagements, treason against God no less than himself[193]. -Nevertheless our sympathy must go with the cities, in whose victory we -recognize the triumph of freedom and civilization. Their resistance -was at first probably a mere aversion to unused control, and to the -enforcement of imposts less offensive in former days than now, and by -long dereliction apparently obsolete[194]. Republican principles were -not avowed, nor Italian nationality appealed to. But the progress of -the conflict developed new motives and feelings, and gave them clearer -notions of what they fought for. As the Emperor's antagonist, the Pope -was their natural ally: he blessed their arms, and called on the -barons of Romagna and Tuscany for aid; he made 'The Church' ere long -their watchword, and helped them to conclude that league of mutual -support by means whereof the party of the Italian Guelfs was formed. -Another cry, too, began to be heard, hardly less inspiriting than the -last, the cry of freedom and municipal self-government--freedom little -understood and terribly abused, self-government which the cities who -claimed it for themselves refused to their subject allies, yet both of -them, through their divine power of stimulating effort and quickening -sympathy, as much nobler than the harsh and sterile system of a feudal -monarchy as the citizen of republican Athens rose above the slavish -Asiatic or the brutal Macedonian. Nor was the fact that Italians were -resisting a Transalpine invader without its effect; there was as yet -no distinct national feeling, for half Lombardy, towns as well as -rural nobles, fought under Frederick; but events made the cause of -liberty always more clearly the cause of patriotism, and increased -that fear and hate of the Tedescan for which Italy has had such bitter -justification. - -[Sidenote: Temporary success of Frederick.] - -The Emperor was for a time successful: Tortona was taken, Milan razed -to the ground, her name apparently lost: greater obstacles had been -overcome, and a fuller authority was now exercised than in the days of -the Ottos or the Henrys. The glories of the first Frankish conqueror -were triumphantly recalled, and Frederick was compared by his admirers -to the hero whose canonization he had procured, and whom he strove in -all things to imitate[195]. 'He was esteemed,' says one, 'second only -to Charles in piety and justice.' 'We ordain this,' says a decree: 'Ut -ad Caroli imitationem ius ecclesiarum statum reipublicae et legum -integritatem per totum imperium nostrum servaremus[196].' But the hold -the name of Charles had on the minds of the people, and the way in -which he had become, so to speak, an eponym of Empire, has better -witnesses than grave documents. A rhyming poet sings[197]:-- - - 'Quanta sit potentia vel laus Friderici - Cum sit patens omnibus, non est opus dici; - Qui rebelles lancea fodiens ultrici - Repraesentat Karolum dextera victrici.' - -The diet at Roncaglia was a chorus of gratulations over the -re-establishment of order by the destruction of the dens of unruly -burghers. - -[Sidenote: Victory of the Lombard league.] - -This fair sky was soon clouded. From her quenchless ashes uprose -Milan; Cremona, scorning old jealousies, helped to rebuild what she -had destroyed, and the confederates, committed to an all but hopeless -strife, clung faithfully together till on the field of Legnano the -Empire's banner went down before the carroccio[198] of the free city. -Times were changed since Aistulf and Desiderius trembled at the -distant tramp of the Frankish hosts. A new nation had arisen, slowly -reared through suffering into strength, now at last by heroic deeds -conscious of itself. The power of Charles had overleaped boundaries of -nature and language that were too strong for his successor, and that -grew henceforth ever firmer, till they made the Empire itself a -delusive name. Frederick, though harsh in war, and now balked of his -most cherished hopes, could honestly accept a state of things it was -beyond his power to change: he signed cheerfully and kept dutifully -the peace of Constance, which left him little but a titular supremacy -over the Lombard towns. - -[Sidenote: Frederick as German king.] - -At home no Emperor since Henry III had been so much respected and so -generally prosperous. Uniting in his person the Saxon and Swabian -families, he healed the long feud of Welf and Waiblingen: his prelates -were faithful to him, even against Rome: no turbulent rebel disturbed -the public peace. Germany was proud of a hero who maintained her -dignity so well abroad, and he crowned a glorious life with a happy -death, leading the van of Christian chivalry against the Mussulman. -Frederick, the greatest of the Crusaders, is the noblest type of -mediaeval character in many of its shadows, in all its lights. - -[Sidenote: The German cities.] - -Legal in form, in practice sometimes almost absolute, the government -of Germany was, like that of other feudal kingdoms, restrained chiefly -by the difficulty of coercing refractory vassals. All depended on the -monarch's character, and one so vigorous and popular as Frederick -could generally lead the majority with him and terrify the rest. A -false impression of the real strength of his prerogative might be -formed from the readiness with which he was obeyed. He repaired the -finances of the kingdom, controlled the dukes, introduced a more -splendid ceremonial, endeavoured to exalt the central power by -multiplying the nobles of the second rank, afterwards the 'college of -princes,' and by trying to substitute the civil law and Lombard feudal -code for the old Teutonic customs, different in every province. If not -successful in this project, he fared better with another. Since Henry -the Fowler's day towns had been growing up through Southern and -Western Germany, especially where rivers offered facilities for trade. -Cologne, Treves, Mentz, Worms, Speyer, Nuernberg, Ulm, Regensburg, -Augsburg, were already considerable cities, not afraid to beard their -lord or their bishop, and promising before long to counterbalance the -power of the territorial oligarchy. Policy or instinct led Frederick -to attach them to the throne, enfranchising many, granting, with -municipal institutions, an independent jurisdiction, conferring -various exemptions and privileges; while receiving in turn their -good-will and loyal aid, in money always, in men when need should -come. His immediate successors trode in his steps, and thus there -arose in the state a third order, the firmest bulwark, had it been -rightly used, of imperial authority; an order whose members, the Free -Cities, were through many ages the centres of German intellect and -freedom, the only haven from the storms of civil war, the surest hope -of future peace and union. In them national congresses to this day -sometimes meet: from them aspiring spirits strive to diffuse those -ideas of Germanic unity and self-government, which they alone have -kept alive. Out of so many flourishing commonwealths, four[199] have -been spared by foreign conquerors and faithless princes. To the -primitive order of German freemen, scarcely existing out of the towns, -except in Swabia and Switzerland, Frederick further commended himself -by allowing them to be admitted to knighthood, by restraining the -licence of the nobles, imposing a public peace, making justice in -every way more accessible and impartial. To the south-west of the -green plain that girdles in the rock of Salzburg, the gigantic mass of -the Untersberg frowns over the road which winds up a long defile to -the glen and lake of Berchtesgaden. There, far up among its limestone -crags, in a spot scarcely accessible to human foot, the peasants of -the valley point out to the traveller the black mouth of a cavern, and -tell him that within Barbarossa lies amid his knights in an enchanted -sleep[200], waiting the hour when the ravens shall cease to hover -round the peak, and the pear-tree blossom in the valley, to descend -with his Crusaders and bring back to Germany the golden age of peace -and strength and unity. Often in the evil days that followed the fall -of Frederick's house, often when tyranny seemed unendurable and -anarchy endless, men thought on that cavern, and sighed for the day -when the long sleep of the just Emperor should be broken, and his -shield be hung aloft again as of old in the camp's midst, a sign of -help to the poor and the oppressed. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[181] A great deal of importance seems to have been attached to this -symbolic act of courtesy. See Art. I of the Sachsenspiegel. - -[182] Letter to the German bishops in Radewic; Mur., _S. R. I._, t. -vi. p. 833. - -[183] A picture in the great hall of the ducal palace (the Sala del -Maggio Consiglio) represents the scene. See Rogers' Italy. - -[184] Psalm xci. - -[185] Document of 1230, quoted by Von Raumer, v. p. 81. - -[186] Speech of archbishop of Milan, in Radewic; Mur. vi. - -[187] Frederick's election (at Frankfort) was made 'non sine quibusdam -Italiae baronibus.'--Otto Fris. i. But this was the exception. - -[188] See also _post_, Chapter XVI. - -[189] 'Senatus Populusque Romanus urbis et orbis totius domino -Conrado.' - -[190] Otto of Freysing. - -[191] Later in his reign, Frederick condescended to negotiate with -these Roman magistrates against a hostile Pope, and entered into a -sort of treaty by which they were declared exempt from all -jurisdiction but his own. - -[192] See the first note to Shelley's _Hellas_. Sismondi is mainly -answerable for this conception of Barbarossa's position. - -[193] They say rebelliously, says Frederick, 'Nolumus hunc regnare -super nos ... at nos maluimus honestam mortem quam ut,' &c.--Letter in -Pertz. _M. G. H._ legg. ii. - -[194] - - 'De tributo Caesaris nemo cogitabat; - Omnes erant Caesares, nemo censum dabat; - Civitas Ambrosii, velut Troia, stabat, - Deos parum, homines minus formidabat.' - -Poems relating to the Emperor Frederick of Hohenstaufen, published by -Grimm. - -[195] Charles the Great was canonized by Frederick's anti-pope and -confirmed afterwards. - -[196] _Acta Concil. Hartzhem._ iii., quoted by Von Raumer, ii. 6. - -[197] Poems relating to Frederick I, _ut supra_. - -[198] The carroccio was a waggon with a flagstaff planted on it, which -served the Lombards for a rallying-point in battle. - -[199] Luebeck, Hamburg, Bremen, and Frankfort. - -[Since this was first written Frankfort has been annexed by Prussia, -and her three surviving sisters have, by their entrance into the North -German confederation, lost something of their independence.] - -[200] The legend is one which appears under various forms in many -countries. - - - - -CHAPTER XII. - -IMPERIAL TITLES AND PRETENSIONS. - - -The era of the Hohenstaufen is perhaps the fittest point at which to -turn aside from the narrative history of the Empire to speak shortly -of the legal position which it professed to hold to the rest of -Europe, as well as of certain duties and observances which throw a -light upon the system it embodied. This is not indeed the era of its -greatest power: that was already past. Nor is it conspicuously the era -when its ideal dignity stood highest: for that remained scarcely -impaired till three centuries had passed away. But it was under the -Hohenstaufen, owing partly to the splendid abilities of the princes of -that famous line, partly to the suddenly-gained ascendancy of the -Roman law, that the actual power and the theoretical influence of the -Empire most fully coincided. There can therefore be no better -opportunity for noticing the titles and claims by which it announced -itself the representative of Rome's universal dominion, and for -collecting the various instances in which they were (either before or -after Frederick's time) more or less admitted by the other states of -Europe. - -The territories over which Barbarossa would have declared his -jurisdiction to extend may be classed under four heads:-- - -First, the German lands, in which, and in which alone, the Emperor -was, up till the death of Frederick the Second, effective sovereign. - -Second, the non-German districts of the Holy Empire, where the Emperor -was acknowledged as sole monarch, but in practice little regarded. - -Third, certain outlying countries, owing allegiance to the Empire, but -governed by kings of their own. - -Fourth, the other states of Europe, whose rulers, while in most cases -admitting the superior rank of the Emperor, were virtually independent -of him. - -[Sidenote: Limits of the Empire.] - -Thus within the actual boundaries of the Holy Empire were included -only districts coming under the first and second of the above classes, -i.e. Germany, the northern half of Italy, and the kingdom of Burgundy -or Arles--that is to say, Provence, Dauphine, the Free County of -Burgundy (Franche Comte), and Western Switzerland. Lorraine, Alsace, -and a portion of Flanders were of course parts of Germany. To the -north-east, Bohemia and the Slavic principalities in Mecklenburg and -Pomerania were as yet not integral parts of its body, but rather -dependent outliers. Beyond the march of Brandenburg, from the Oder to -the Vistula, dwelt pagan Lithuanians or Prussians[201], free till the -establishment among them of the Teutonic knights. - -[Sidenote: Hungary.] - -Hungary had owed a doubtful allegiance since the days of Otto I. -Gregory VII had claimed it as a fief of the Holy See; Frederick wished -to reduce it completely to subjection, but could not overcome the -reluctance of his nobles. After Frederick II, by whom it was recovered -from the Mongol hordes, no imperial claims were made for so many years -that at last they became obsolete, and were confessed to be so by the -Constitution of Augsburg, A.D. 1566[202]. - -[Sidenote: Poland.] - -Under Duke Misico, Poland had submitted to Otto the Great, and -continued, with occasional revolts, to obey the Empire, till the -beginning of the Great Interregnum (as it is called) in 1254. Its duke -was present at the election of Richard, A.D. 1258. Thereafter -Primislas called himself king, in token of emancipation, and the -country became independent, though some of its provinces were long -afterwards reunited to the German state. Silesia, originally Polish, -was attached to Bohemia by Charles IV, and so became part of the -Empire; Posen and Galicia were seized by Prussia and Austria, A.D. -1772. Down to her partition in that year, the constitution of Poland -remained a copy of that which had existed in the German kingdom in the -twelfth century[203]. - -[Sidenote: Denmark.] - -Lewis the Pious had received the homage of the Danish king Harold, on -his baptism at Mentz, A.D. 826; Otto the Great's victories over Harold -Blue Tooth made the country regularly subject, and added the march of -Schleswig to the immediate territory of the Empire: but the boundary -soon receded to the Eyder, on whose banks might be seen the -inscription,-- - - 'Eidora Romani terminus imperii.' - -King Peter[204] attended at Frederick I's coronation, to do homage, -and receive from the Emperor, as suzerain, his own crown. Since the -Interregnum Denmark has been always free[205]. - -[Sidenote: France.] - -Otto the Great was the last Emperor whose suzerainty the French kings -had admitted; nor were Henry VI and Otto IV successful in their -attempts to enforce it. Boniface VIII, in his quarrel with Philip the -Fair, offered the French throne, which he had pronounced vacant, to -Albert I; but the wary Hapsburg declined the dangerous prize. The -precedence, however, which the Germans continued to assert, irritated -Gallic pride, and led to more than one contest. Blondel denies the -Empire any claim to the Roman name; and in A.D. 1648 the French envoys -at Muenster refused for some time to admit what no other European state -disputed. Till recent times the title of the Archbishop of Treves, -'Archicancellarius per Galliam atque regnum Arelatense,' preserved the -memory of an obsolete supremacy which the constant aggressions of -France might seem to have reversed. - -[Sidenote: Sweden.] - -No reliance can be placed on the author who tells us that Sweden was -granted by Frederick I to Waldemar the Dane[206]; the fact is -improbable, and we do not hear that such pretensions were ever put -forth before or after. - -[Sidenote: Spain.] - -Nor does it appear that authority was ever exercised by any Emperor in -Spain. Nevertheless the choice of Alfonso X by a section of the German -electors, in A.D. 1258, may be construed to imply that the Spanish -kings were members of the Empire. And when, A.D. 1053, Ferdinand the -Great of Castile had, in the pride of his victories over the Moors, -assumed the title of 'Hispaniae Imperator,' the remonstrance of Henry -III declared the rights of Rome over the Western provinces indelible, -and the Spaniard, though protesting his independence, was forced to -resign the usurped dignity[207]. - -[Sidenote: England.] - -No act of sovereignty is recorded to have been done by any of the -Emperors in England, though as heirs of Rome they might be thought to -have better rights over it than over Poland or Denmark[208]. There -was, however, a vague notion that the English, like other kingdoms, -must depend on the Empire: a notion which appears in Conrad III's -letter to John of Constantinople[209]; and which was countenanced by -the submissive tone in which Frederick I was addressed by the -Plantagenet Henry II[210]. English independence was still more -compromised in the next reign, when Richard I, according to Hoveden, -'Consilio matris suae deposuit se de regno Angliae et tradidit illud -imperatori (Henrico VIto) sicut universorum domino.' But as Richard -was at the same time invested with the kingdom of Arles by Henry VI, -his homage may have been for that fief only; and it was probably in -that capacity that he voted, as a prince of the Empire, at the -election of Frederick II. The case finds a parallel in the claims of -England over the Scottish king, doubtful, to say the least, as regards -the domestic realm of the latter, certain as regards Cumbria, which he -had long held from the Southern crown[211]. But Germany had no Edward -I. Henry VI is said at his death to have released Richard from his -submission (this too may be compared with Richard's release to the -Scottish William the Lion), and Edward II declared, 'regnum Angliae ab -omni subiectione imperiali esse liberrimum[212].' Yet the idea -survived: the Emperor Lewis the Bavarian, when he named Edward III his -vicar in the great French war, demanded, though in vain, that the -English monarch should kiss his feet[213]. Sigismund[214], visiting -Henry V at London, before the meeting of the council of Constance, was -met by the Duke of Gloucester, who, riding into the water to the ship -where the Emperor sat, required him, at the sword's point, to declare -that he did not come purposing to infringe on the king's authority in -the realm of England[215]. One curious pretension of the imperial -crown called forth many protests. It was declared by civilians and -canonists that no public notary could have any standing, or attach any -legality to the documents he drew, unless he had received his diploma -from the Emperor or the Pope. A strenuous denial of a doctrine so -injurious was issued by the parliament of Scotland under James -III[216]. - -[Sidenote: Naples.] - -The kingdom of Naples and Sicily, although of course claimed as a part -of the Empire, was under the Norman dynasty (A.D. 1060-1189) not -merely independent, but the most dangerous enemy of the German power -in Italy. Henry VI, the son and successor of Barbarossa, obtained -possession of it by marrying Constantia the last heiress of the Norman -kings. But both he and Frederick II treated it as a separate -patrimonial state, instead of incorporating it with their more -northerly dominions. After the death of Conradin, the last of the -Hohenstaufen, it passed away to an Angevin, then to an Aragonese -dynasty, continuing under both to maintain itself independent of the -Empire, nor ever again, except under Charles V, united to the Germanic -crown. - -[Sidenote: Venice.] - -One spot in Italy there was whose singular felicity of situation -enabled her through long centuries of obscurity and weakness, slowly -ripening into strength, to maintain her freedom unstained by any -submission to the Frankish and Germanic Emperors. Venice glories in -deducing her origin from the fugitives who escaped from Aquileia in -the days of Attila: it is at least probable that her population never -received an intermixture of Teutonic settlers, and continued during -the ages of Lombard and Frankish rule in Italy to regard the Byzantine -sovereigns as the representatives of their ancient masters. In the -tenth century, when summoned to submit by Otto, they had said, 'We -wish to be the servants of the Emperors of the Romans' (the -Constantinopolitan), and though they overthrew this very Eastern -throne in A.D. 1204, the pretext had served its turn, and had aided -them in defying or evading the demands of obedience made by the -Teutonic princes. Alone of all the Italian republics, Venice never, -down to her extinction by France and Austria in A.D. 1796, recognized -within her walls any secular authority save her own. - -[Sidenote: The East.] - -The kings of Cyprus and Armenia sent to Henry VI to confess themselves -his vassals and ask his help. Over remote Eastern lands, where -Frankish foot had never trod, Frederick Barbarossa asserted the -indestructible rights of Rome, mistress of the world. A letter to -Saladin, amusing from its absolute identification of his own Empire -with that which had sent Crassus to perish in Parthia, and had blushed -to see Mark Antony 'consulum nostrum'[217] at the feet of Cleopatra, -is preserved by Hoveden: it bids the Soldan withdraw at once from the -dominions of Rome, else will she, with her new Teutonic defenders, of -whom a pompous list follows, drive him from them with all her ancient -might. - -[Sidenote: The Byzantine Emperors.] - -[Sidenote: Rivalry of the two Empires.] - -Unwilling as were the great kingdoms of Western Europe to admit the -territorial supremacy of the Emperor, the proudest among them never -refused, until the end of the Middle Ages, to recognize his precedence -and address him in a tone of respectful deference. Very different was -the attitude of the Byzantine princes, who denied his claim to be an -Emperor at all. The separate existence of the Eastern Church and -Empire was not only, as has been said above, a blemish in the title of -the Teutonic sovereigns; it was a continuing and successful protest -against the whole system of an Empire Church of Christendom, centering -in Rome, ruled by the successor of Peter and the successor of -Augustus. Instead of the one Pope and one Emperor whom mediaeval theory -presented as the sole earthly representatives of the invisible head of -the Church, the world saw itself distracted by the interminable feud -of rivals, each of whom had much to allege on his behalf. It was easy -for the Latins to call the Easterns schismatics and their Emperor an -usurper, but practically it was impossible to dethrone him or reduce -them to obedience: while even in controversy no one could treat the -pretensions of communities who had been the first to embrace -Christianity and retained so many of its most ancient forms, with the -contempt which would have been felt for any Western sectaries. -Seriously, however, as the hostile position of the Greeks seems to us -to affect the claims of the Teutonic Empire, calling in question its -legitimacy and marring its pretended universality, those who lived at -the time seem to have troubled themselves little about it, finding -themselves in practice seldom confronted by the difficulties it -raised. The great mass of the people knew of the Greeks not even by -name; of those who did, the most thought of them only as perverse -rebels, Samaritans who refused to worship at Jerusalem, and were -little better than infidels. The few ecclesiastics of superior -knowledge and insight had their minds preoccupied by the established -theory, and accepted it with too intense a belief to suffer anything -else to come into collision with it: they do not seem to have even -apprehended all that was involved in this one defect. Nor, what is -still stranger, in all the attacks made upon the claims of the -Teutonic Empire, whether by its Papal or its French antagonists, do we -find the rival title of the Greek sovereigns adduced in argument -against it. Nevertheless, the Eastern Church was then, as she is to -this day, a thorn in the side of the Papacy; and the Eastern Emperors, -so far from uniting for the good of Christendom with their Western -brethren, felt towards them a bitter though not unnatural jealousy, -lost no opportunity of intriguing for their evil, and never ceased to -deny their right to the imperial name. The coronation of Charles was -in their eyes an act of unholy rebellion; his successors were -barbarian intruders, ignorant of the laws and usages of the ancient -state, and with no claim to the Roman name except that which the -favour of an insolent pontiff might confer. The Greeks had themselves -long since ceased to use the Latin tongue, and were indeed become more -than half Orientals in character and manners. But they still continued -to call themselves Romans, and preserved most of the titles and -ceremonies which had existed in the time of Constantine or Justinian. -They were weak, although by no means so weak as modern historians have -been till lately wont to paint them, and the weaker they grew the -higher rose their conceit, and the more did they plume themselves upon -the uninterrupted legitimacy of their crown, and the ceremonial -splendour wherewith custom had surrounded its wearer. It gratified -their spite to pervert insultingly the titles of the Frankish princes. -Basil the Macedonian reproached Lewis II with presuming to use the -name of 'Basileus,' to which Lewis retorted that he was as good an -emperor as Basil himself, but that, anyhow, _Basileus_ was only the -Greek for _rex_, and need not mean 'Emperor' at all. Nicephorus would -not call Otto I anything but 'King of the Lombards[218],' Conrad III -was addressed by Calo-Johannes as 'amice imperii mei Rex[219];' Isaac -Angelus had the impudence to style Frederick I 'chief prince of -Alemannia[220].' The great Emperor, half-resentful, half-contemptuous, -told the envoys that he was 'Romanorum imperator,' and bade their -master call himself 'Romaniorum' from his Thracian province. Though -these ebullitions were the most conclusive proof of their weakness, -the Byzantine rulers sometimes planned the recovery of their former -capital, and seemed not unlikely to succeed under the leadership of -the conquering Manuel Comnenus. He invited Alexander III, then in the -heat of his strife with Frederick, to return to the embrace of his -rightful sovereign, but the prudent pontiff and his synod courteously -declined[221]. The Greeks were, however, too unstable and too much -alienated from Latin feeling to have held Rome, could they even have -seduced her allegiance. A few years later they were themselves the -victims of the French and Venetian crusaders. - -[Sidenote: Dignities and titles.] - -[Sidenote: The four crowns.] - -Though Otto the Great and his successors had dropped all titles save -their highest (the tedious lists of imperial dignities were happily -not yet in being), they did not therefore endeavour to unite their -several kingdoms, but continued to go through four distinct -coronations at the four capitals of their Empire[222]. These are -concisely given in the verses of Godfrey of Viterbo, a notary of -Frederick's household[223]:-- - - 'Primus Aquisgrani locus est, post haec Arelati, - Inde Modoetiae regali sede locari - Post solet Italiae summa corona dari: - Caesar Romano cum vult diademate fungi - Debet apostolicis manibus reverenter inungi.' - -By the crowning at Aachen, the old Frankish capital, the monarch -became 'king;' formerly 'king of the Franks,' or, 'king of the Eastern -Franks;' now, since Henry II's time, 'king of the Romans, always -Augustus.' At Monza, (or, more rarely, at Milan) in later times, at -Pavia in earlier times, he became king of Italy, or of the -Lombards[224]; at Rome he received the double crown of the Roman -Empire, 'double,' says Godfrey, as 'urbis et orbis:'-- - - 'Hoc quicunque tenet, summus in orbe sedet;' - -though others hold that, uniting the mitre to the crown, it typifies -spiritual as well as secular authority. The crown of Burgundy[225] or -the kingdom of Arles, first gained by Conrad II, was a much less -splendid matter, and carried with it little effective power. Most -Emperors never assumed it at all, Frederick I not till late in life, -when an interval of leisure left him nothing better to do. These four -crowns[226] furnish matter of endless discussion to the old writers; -they tell us that the Roman was golden, the German silver, the Italian -iron, the metal corresponding to the dignity of each realm[227]. -Others say that that of Aachen is iron, and the Italian silver, and -give elaborate reasons why it should be so[228]. There seems to be no -doubt that the allegory created the fact, and that all three crowns -were of gold, though in that of Italy there was and is inserted a -piece of iron, a nail, it was believed, of the true Cross. - -[Sidenote: Meaning of the four coronations.] - -Why, it may well be asked, seeing that the Roman crown made the -Emperor ruler of the whole habitable globe, was it thought necessary -for him to add to it minor dignities which might be supposed to have -been already included in it? The reason seems to be that the imperial -office was conceived of as something different in kind from the regal, -and as carrying with it not the immediate government of any particular -kingdom, but a general suzerainty over and right of controlling all. -Of this a pertinent illustration is afforded by an anecdote told of -Frederick Barbarossa. Happening once to inquire of the famous jurists -who surrounded him whether it was really true that he was 'lord of the -world,' one of them simply assented, another, Bulgarus, answered, 'Not -as respects ownership.' In this dictum, which is evidently conformable -to the philosophical theory of the Empire, we have a pointed -distinction drawn between feudal sovereignty, which supposes the -prince original owner of the soil of his whole kingdom, and imperial -sovereignty, which is irrespective of place, and exercised not over -things but over men, as God's rational creatures. But the Emperor, as -has been said already, was also the East Frankish king, uniting in -himself, to use the legal phrase, two wholly distinct 'persons,' and -hence he might acquire more direct and practically useful rights over -a portion of his dominions by being crowned king of that portion, just -as a feudal monarch was often duke or count of lordships whereof he -was already feudal superior; or, to take a better illustration, just -as a bishop may hold livings in his own diocese. That the Emperors, -while continuing to be crowned at Milan and Aachen, did not call -themselves kings of the Lombards and of the Franks, was probably -merely because these titles seemed insignificant compared to that of -Roman Emperor. - -[Sidenote: 'Emperor' not assumed till the Roman coronation.] - -[Sidenote: Origin and results of this practice.] - -In this supreme title, as has been said, all lesser honours were blent -and lost, but custom or prejudice forbade the German king to assume it -till actually crowned at Rome by the Pope[229]. Matters of phrase and -title are never unimportant, least of all in an age ignorant and -superstitiously antiquarian: and this restriction had the most -important consequences. The first barbarian kings had been -tribe-chiefs; and when they claimed a dominion which was universal, -yet in a sense territorial, they could not separate their title from -the spot which it was their boast to possess, and by virtue of whose -name they ruled. 'Rome,' says the biographer of St. Adalbert, 'seeing -that she both is and is called the head of the world and the mistress -of cities, is alone able to give to kings imperial power, and since -she cherishes in her bosom the body of the Prince of the Apostles, she -ought of right to appoint the Prince of the whole earth[230].' The -crown was therefore too sacred to be conferred by any one but the -supreme Pontiff, or in any city less august than the ancient capital. -Had it become hereditary in any family, Lothar I's, for instance, or -Otto's, this feeling might have worn off; as it was, each successive -transfer, to Guido, to Otto, to Henry II, to Conrad the Salic, -strengthened it. The force of custom, tradition, precedent, is -incalculable when checked neither by written rules nor free -discussion. What sheer assertion will do is shewn by the success of a -forgery so gross as the Isidorian decretals. No arguments are needed -to discredit the alleged decree of Pope Benedict VIII[231], which -prohibited the German prince from taking the name or office of Emperor -till approved and consecrated by the pontiff, but a doctrine so -favourable to papal pretensions was sure not to want advocacy; Hadrian -IV proclaims it in the broadest terms, and through the efforts of the -clergy and the spell of reverence in the Teutonic princes, it passed -into an unquestioned belief. That none ventured to use the title till -the Pope conferred it, made it seem in some manner to depend on his -will, enabled him to exact conditions from every candidate, and gave a -colour to his pretended suzerainty. Since by feudal theory every -honour and estate is held from some superior, and since the divine -commission has been without doubt issued directly to the Pope, must -not the whole earth be his fief, and he the lord paramount, to whom -even the Emperor is a vassal? This argument, which derived -considerable plausibility from the rivalry between the Emperor and -other monarchs, as compared with the universal and undisputed[232] -authority of the Pope, was a favourite with the high sacerdotal party: -first distinctly advanced by Hadrian IV, when he set up the -picture[233] representing Lothar's homage, which had so irritated the -followers of Barbarossa, though it had already been hinted at in -Gregory VII's gift of the crown to Rudolf of Suabia, with the line,-- - - 'Petra dedit Petro, Petrus diadema Rudolfo.' - -Nor was it only by putting him at the pontiff's mercy that this -dependence of the imperial name on a coronation in the city injured -the German sovereign[234]. With strange inconsistency it was not -pretended that the Emperor's rights were any narrower before he -received the rite: he could summon synods, confirm papal elections, -exercise jurisdiction over the citizens: his claim of the crown itself -could not, at least till the times of the Gregorys and the Innocents, -be positively denied. For no one thought of contesting the right of -the German nation to the Empire, or the authority of the electoral -princes, strangers though they were, to give Rome and Italy a master. -The republican followers of Arnold of Brescia might murmur, but they -could not dispute the truth of the proud lines in which the poet who -sang the glories of Barbarossa[235], describes the result of the -conquest of Charles the Great:-- - - 'Ex quo Romanum nostra virtute redemptum - Hostibus expulsis, ad nos iustissimus ordo - Transtulit imperium, Romani gloria regni - Nos penes est. Quemcunque sibi Germania regem - Praeficit, hunc dives summisso vertice Roma - Suscipit, et verso Tiberim regit ordine Rhenus.' - -But the real strength of the Teutonic kingdom was wasted in the -pursuit of a glittering toy: once in his reign each Emperor undertook -a long and dangerous expedition, and dissipated in an inglorious and -ever to be repeated strife the forces that might have achieved -conquest elsewhere, or made him feared and obeyed at home. - -[Sidenote: The title 'Holy Empire.'] - -At this epoch appears another title, of which more must be said. To -the accustomed 'Roman Empire' Frederick Barbarossa adds the epithet of -'Holy.' Of its earlier origin, under Conrad II (the Salic), which some -have supposed[236], there is no documentary trace, though there is -also no proof to the contrary[237]. So far as is known it occurs first -in the famous Privilege of Austria, granted by Frederick in the fourth -year of his reign, the second of his empire, 'terram Austriae quae -clypeus et cor sacri imperii esse dinoscitur[238]:' then afterwards, -in other manifestos of his reign; for example, in a letter to Isaac -Angelus of Byzantium[239], and in the summons to the princes to help -him against Milan: 'Quia ... urbis et orbis gubernacula tenemus ... -sacro imperio et divae reipublicae consulere debemus[240];' where the -second phrase is a synonym explanatory of the first. Used occasionally -by Henry VI and Frederick II, it is more frequent under their -successors, William, Richard, Rudolf, till after Charles IV's time it -becomes habitual, for the last few centuries indispensable. Regarding -the origin of so singular a title many theories have been advanced. -Some declared it a perpetuation of the court style of Rome and -Byzantium, which attached sanctity to the person of the monarch: thus -David Blondel, contending for the honour of France, calls it a mere -epithet of the Emperor, applied by confusion to his government[241]. -Others saw in it a religious meaning, referring to Daniel's prophecy, -or to the fact that the Empire was contemporary with Christianity, or -to Christ's birth under it[242]. Strong churchmen derived it from the -dependence of the imperial crown on the Pope. There were not wanting -persons to maintain that it meant nothing more than great or splendid. -We need not, however, be in any great doubt as to its true meaning and -purport. The ascription of sacredness to the person, the palace, the -letters, and so forth, of the sovereign, so common in the later ages -of Rome, had been partly retained in the German court. Liudprand calls -Otto 'imperator sanctissimus[243].' Still this sanctity, which the -Greeks above all others lavished on their princes, is something -personal, is nothing more than the divinity that always hedges a king. -Far more intimate and peculiar was the relation of the revived Roman -Empire to the church and religion. As has been said already, it was -neither more nor less than the visible Church, seen on its secular -side, the Christian society organized as a state under a form divinely -appointed, and therefore the name 'Holy Roman Empire' was the needful -and rightful counterpart to that of 'Holy Catholic Church.' Such had -long been the belief, and so the title might have had its origin as -far back as the tenth or ninth century, might even have emanated from -Charles himself. Alcuin in one of his letters uses the phrase -'imperium Christianum.' But there was a further reason for its -introduction at this particular epoch. Ever since Hildebrand had -claimed for the priesthood exclusive sanctity and supreme -jurisdiction, the papal party had not ceased to speak of the civil -power as being, compared with that of their own chief, merely secular, -earthly, profane. It may be conjectured that to meet this reproach, no -less injurious than insulting, Frederick or his advisers began to use -in public documents the expression 'Holy Empire;' thereby wishing to -assert the divine institution and religious duties of the office he -held. Previous Emperors had called themselves 'Catholici,' -'Christiani,' 'ecclesiae defensores[244];' now their State itself is -consecrated an earthly theocracy. 'Deus Romanum imperium adversus -schisma ecclesiae praeparavit[245],' writes Frederick to the English -Henry II. The theory was one which the best and greatest Emperors, -Charles, Otto the Great, Henry III, had most striven to carry out; it -continued to be zealously upheld when it had long ceased to be -practicable. In the proclamations of mediaeval kings there is a -constant dwelling on their Divine commission. Power in an age of -violence sought to justify while it enforced its commands, to make -brute force less brutal by appeals to a higher sanction. This is seen -nowhere more than in the style of the German sovereigns: they delight -in the phrases 'maiestas sacrosancta[246],' 'imperator divina -ordinante providentia,' 'divina pietate,' 'per misericordiam Dei;' -many of which were preserved till, like those used now by other -European kings, like our own 'Defender of the Faith,' they had become -at last more grotesque than solemn. The Emperor Joseph II, at the end -of the eighteenth century, was 'Advocate of the Christian Church,' -'Vicar of Christ,' 'Imperial head of the faithful,' 'Leader of the -Christian army,' 'Protector of Palestine, of general councils, of the -Catholic faith[247].' - -The title, if it added little to the power, yet certainly seems to -have increased the dignity of the Empire, and by consequence the -jealousy of other states, of France especially. This did not, however, -go so far as to prevent its recognition by the Pope and the French -king[248], and after the sixteenth century it would have been a breach -of diplomatic courtesy to omit it. Nor have imitators been -wanting[249]: witness such titles as 'Most Christian king,' 'Catholic -king,' 'Defender of the Faith[250].' - -FOOTNOTES: - -[201] 'Pruzzi,' says the biographer of St. Adalbert, 'quorum Deus est -venter et avaritia iuncta cum morte.'--_M. G. H._ t. iv. - -It is curious that this non-Teutonic people should have given their -name to the great German kingdom of the present. - -[202] Conring, _De Finibus Imperii_. It is hardly necessary to observe -that the connection of Hungary with the Hapsburgs is of comparatively -recent origin, and of a purely dynastic nature. The position of the -archdukes of Austria as kings of Hungary had nothing to do legally -with the fact that many of them were also chosen Emperors, although -practically their possession of the imperial crown had greatly aided -them in grasping and retaining the thrones of Hungary and Bohemia. - -[203] Cf. Pfeffel, _Abrege Chronologique_. - -[204] Letter of Frederick I to Otto of Freising, prefixed to the -latter's History. This king is also called Sweyn. - -[205] See Appendix, Note B. - -[206] Albertus Stadensis apud Conringium, _De Finibus Imperii_. - -[207] There is an allusion to this in the poems of the Cid. Arthur -Duck, _De Usu et Authoritate Iuris Civilis_, quotes the view of some -among the older jurists, that Spain having been, as far as the Romans -were concerned, a _res derelicta_, recovered by the Spaniards -themselves from the Moors, and thus acquired by _occupatio_, ought not -to be subject to the Emperors. - -[208] One of the greatest of English kings appears performing an act -of courtesy to the Emperor which was probably construed into an -acknowledgment of his own inferior position. Describing the Roman -coronation of the Emperor Conrad II, Wippo (c. 16) tells us 'His ita -peractis in duorum regum praesentia Ruodolfi regis Burgundiae et -Chnutonis regis Anglorum divino officio finito imperator duorum regum -medius ad cubiculum suum honorifice ductus est.' - -[209] Letter in Otto Fris. i.: 'Nobis submittuntur Francia et -Hispania, Anglia et Dania.' - -[210] Letter in Radewic says, 'Regnum nostrum vobis exponimus.... -Vobis imperandi cedat auctoritas, nobis non deerit voluntas -obsequendi.' - -[211] The alleged instances of homage by the Scots to the Saxon and -early Norman kings are almost all complicated in some such way. They -had once held also the earldom of Huntingdon from the English crown, -and some have supposed (but on no sufficient grounds) that homage was -also done by them for Lothian. - -[212] Selden, _Titles of Honour_, part i. chap. ii. - -[213] Edward refused upon the ground that he was '_rex inunctus_.' - -[214] Sigismund had shortly before given great offence in France by -dubbing knights. - -[215] Sigismund answered, 'Nihil se contra superioritatem regis -praetexere.' - -[216] Selden, _Titles of Honour_, part i. chap. ii. Nevertheless, -notaries in Scotland, as elsewhere, continued for a long time to style -themselves 'Ego M. auctoritate imperiali (or papali) notarius.' - -[217] It is not necessary to prove this letter to have been the -composition of Frederick or his ministers. If it be (as it doubtless -is) contemporary, it is equally to the purpose as an evidence of the -feelings and ideas of the age. As a reviewer of a former edition of -this book has questioned its authenticity, I may mention that it is to -be found not only in Hoveden, but also in the 'Itinerarium regis -Ricardi,' in Ralph de Diceto, and in the 'Chronicon Terrae Sanctae.' -[See Mr. Stubbs' edition of Hoveden, vol. ii. p. 356.] - -[218] Liutprand, _Legatio Constantinopolitana_. Nicephorus says, 'Vis -maius scandalum quam quod se imperatorem vocat.' - -[219] Otto of Freising, i. - -[220] 'Isaachius a Deo constitutus Imperator, sacratissimus, -excellentissimus, potentissimus, moderator Romanorum, Angelus totius -orbis, heres coronae magni Constantini, dilecto fratri imperii sui, -maximo principi Alemanniae.' A remarkable speech of Frederick's to the -envoys of Isaac, who had addressed a letter to him as 'Rex Alemaniae' -is preserved by Ansbert (_Historia de Expeditione Friderici -Imperatoris_):--'Dominus Imperator divina se illustrante gratia -ulterius dissimulare non valens temerarium fastum regis (_sc._ -Graecorum) et usurpantem vocabulum falsi imperatoris Romanorum, haec -inter caetera exorsus est:--"Omnibus qui sanae mentis sunt constat, quia -unus est Monarchus Imperator Romanorum, sicut et unus est pater -universitatis, pontifex videlicet Romanus; ideoque cum ego Romani -imperii sceptrum plusquam per annos XXX absque omnium regum vel -principum contradictione tranquille tenuerim et in Romana urbe a summo -pontifice imperiali benedictione unctus sim et sublimatus, quia -denique Monarchiam praedecessores mei imperatores Romanorum plusquam -per CCCC annos etiam gloriose transmiserint, utpote a Constantinopolitana -urbe ad pristinam sedem imperii, caput orbis Romam, acclamatione -Romanorum et principum imperii, auctoritate quoque summi pontificis et -S. catholicae ecclesiae translatam, propter tardum et infructuosum -Constantinopolitani imperatoris auxilium contra tyrannos ecclesiae, -mirandum est admodum cur frater meus dominus vester Constantinopolitanus -imperator usurpet inefficax sibi idem vocabulum et glorietur stulte -alieno sibi prorsus honore, cum liquido noverit me et nomine dici et -re esse Fridericum Romanorum imperatorem semper Augustum."' - -Isaac was so far moved by Frederick's indignation that in his next -letter he addressed him as 'generosissimum imperatorem Alemaniae,' and -in a third thus:-- - -'Isaakius in Christo fidelis divinitus coronatus, sublimis, potens, -excelsus, haeres coronae magni Constantini et Moderator Romeon Angelus -nobilissimo Imperatori antiquae Romae, regi Alemaniae et dilecto fratri -imperii sui, salutem,' &c., &c. (Ansbert, _ut supra_.) - -[221] Baronius, ad ann. - -[222] See Appendix, Note C. - -[223] Godefr. Viterb., _Pantheon_, in Mur., _S. R. I._, tom. vii. - -[224] Doenniges, _Deutsches Staatsrecht_, thinks that the crown of -Italy, neglected by the Ottos, and taken by Henry II, was a -recognition of the separate nationality of Italy. But Otto I seems to -have been crowned king of Italy, and Muratori (_Ant. It._ Dissert. -iii.) believes that Otto II and Otto III were likewise. - -[225] See Appendix, note A. - -[226] Some add a fifth crown, of Germany (making that of Aachen -Frankish), which they say belonged to Regensburg--Marquardus Freherus. - -[227] 'Dy erste ist tho Aken: dar kronet men mit der Yseren Krone, so -is he Konig over alle Dudesche Ryke. Dy andere tho Meylan, de is -Sulvern, so is he Here der Walen. Dy druedde is tho Rome; dy is guldin, -so is he Keyser over alle dy Werlt.'--Gloss to the _Sachsenspiegel_, -quoted by Pfeffinger. Similarly Peter de Andlo. - -[228] Cf. Gewoldus, _De Septemviratu imperii Romani_. One would expect -some ingenious allegorizer to have discovered that the crown of -Burgundy must be, and therefore is, of copper or bronze, making the -series complete, like the four ages of men in Hesiod. But I have not -been able to find any such. - -[229] Hence the numbers attached to the names of the Emperors are -often different in German and Italian writers, the latter not -reckoning Henry the Fowler nor Conrad I. So Henry III (of Germany) -calls himself 'Imperator Henricus Secundus;' and all distinguish the -years of their _regnum_ from those of the _imperium_. Cardinal -Baronius will not call Henry V anything but Henry III, not recognizing -Henry IV's coronation, because it was performed by an antipope. - -[230] Life of S. Adalbert (written at Rome early in the eleventh -century, probably by a brother of the monastery of SS. Boniface and -Alexius) in Pertz, _M. G. H._ iv. - -[231] Given by Glaber Rudolphus. It is on the face of it a most -impudent forgery: 'Ne quisquam audacter Romani Imperii sceptrum -praepostere gestare princeps appetat neve Imperator dici aut esse -valeat nisi quem Papa Romanus morum probitate aptum elegerit, eique -commiserit insigne imperiale.' - -[232] Universal and undisputed in the West, which, for practical -purposes, meant the world. The denial of the supreme jurisdiction of -Peter's chair by the eastern churches affected very slightly the -belief of Latin Christendom, just as the existence of a rival emperor -at Constantinople with at least as good a legal title as the Teutonic -Caesar, was readily forgotten or ignored by the German and Italian -subjects of the latter. - -[233] Odious especially for the inscription,-- - - 'Rex venit ante fores nullo prius urbis honore; - Post homo fit Papae, sumit quo dante coronam.'--Radewic. - -[234] Mediaeval history is full of instances of the superstitious -veneration attached to the rite of coronation (made by the Church -almost a sacrament), and to the special places where, or even utensils -with which it was performed. Everyone knows the importance in France -of Rheims and its sacred _ampulla_; so the Scottish king must be -crowned at Scone, an old seat of Pictish royalty--Robert Bruce risked -a great deal to receive his crown there; so no Hungarian coronation -was valid unless made with the crown of St. Stephen; the possession -whereof is still accounted so valuable by the Austrian court. - -Great importance seems to have been attached to the imperial globe -(Reichsapfel) which the Pope delivered to the Emperor at his -coronation. - -[235] Whether the poem which passes under the name of Gunther -Ligurinus be his work or that of some scholar in a later age is for -the present purpose indifferent. - -[236] Zedler, _Universal Lexicon_, s. v. _Reich_. - -[237] It does not occur before Frederick I's time in any of the -documents printed by Pertz; and this is the date which Boeclerus also -assigns in his treatise, _De Sacro Imperio Romano_, vindicating the -terms 'sacrum' and 'Romanum' against the aspersions of Blondel. - -[238] Pertz, _M. G. H._, tom. iv. (legum ii.) - -[239] Ibid. iv. - -[240] Radewic. _ap._ Pertz. - -[241] Blondellus adv. Chiffletium. Most of these theories are stated -by Boeclerus. Jordanes (_Chronica_) says, 'Sacri imperii quod non est -dubium sancti Spiritus ordinatione, secundum qualitatem ipsam et -exigentiam meritorum humanorum disponi.' - -[242] Marquard Freher's notes to Peter de Andlo, book i. chap. vii. - -[243] So in the song on the capture of the Emperor Lewis II by -Adalgisus of Benevento, we find the words, 'Ludhuicum comprenderunt -sancto, pio, Augusto.' (Quoted by Gregorovius, _Geschichte der Stadt -Rom im Mittelalter_, iii. p. 185.) - -[244] Goldast, _Constitutiones_. - -[245] Pertz, _M. G. H._, legg. ii. - -[246] 'Apostolic majesty' was the proper title of the king of Hungary. -The Austrian court has recently revived it. - -[247] Moser, _Roemische Kayser_. - -[248] Urban IV used the title in 1259: Francis I (of France) calls the -Empire 'sacrosanctum.' - -[249] Cf. 'Holy Russia.' - -[250] It is almost superfluous to observe that the beginning of the -title 'Holy' has nothing to do with the beginning of the Empire -itself. Essentially and substantially, the Holy Roman Empire was, as -has been shewn already, the creation of Charles the Great. Looking at -it more technically, as the monarchy, not of the whole West, like that -of Charles, but of Germany and Italy, with a claim, which was never -more than a claim, to universal sovereignty, its beginning is fixed by -most of the German writers, whose practice has been followed in the -text, at the coronation of Otto the Great. But the title was at least -one, and probably two centuries later. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII. - -FALL OF THE HOHENSTAUFEN. - - -In the three preceding chapters the Holy Empire has been described in -what is not only the most brilliant but the most momentous period of -its history; the period of its rivalry with the Popedom for the chief -place in Christendom. For it was mainly through their relations with -the spiritual power, by their friendship and protection at first, no -less than by their subsequent hostility, that the Teutonic Emperors -influenced the development of European politics. The reform of the -Roman Church which went on during the reigns of Otto I and his -successors down to Henry III, and which was chiefly due to the efforts -of those monarchs, was the true beginning of the grand period of the -Middle Ages, the first of that long series of movements, changes, and -creations in the ecclesiastical system of Europe which was, so to -speak, the master current of history, secular as well as religious, -during the centuries which followed. The first result of Henry III's -purification of the Papacy was seen in Hildebrand's attempt to subject -all jurisdiction to that of his own chair, and in the long struggle of -the Investitures, which brought out into clear light the opposing -pretensions of the temporal and spiritual powers. Although destined in -the end to bear far other fruit, the immediate effect of this struggle -was to evoke in all classes an intense religious feeling; and, in -opening up new fields of ambition to the hierarchy, to stimulate -wonderfully their power of political organization. It was this impulse -that gave birth to the Crusades, and that enabled the Popes, stepping -forth as the rightful leaders of a religious war, to bend it to serve -their own ends: it was thus too that they struck the alliance--strange -as such an alliance seems now--with the rebellious cities of Lombardy, -and proclaimed themselves the protectors of municipal freedom. But the -third and crowning triumph of the Holy See was reserved for the -thirteenth century. In the foundation of the two great orders of -ecclesiastical knighthood, the all-powerful all-pervading Dominicans -and Franciscans, the religious fervour of the Middle Ages culminated: -in the overthrow of the only power which could pretend to vie with her -in antiquity, in sanctity, in universality, the Papacy saw herself -exalted to rule alone over the kings of the earth. Of that overthrow, -following with terrible suddenness on the days of strength and glory -which we have just been witnessing, this chapter has now to speak. - -[Sidenote: Henry VI, 1190-1197.] - -[Sidenote: Philip, 1198-1208.] - -[Sidenote: Innocent III and Otto IV.] - -[Sidenote: Otto IV, 1208 (1198)-1212.] - -It happened strangely enough that just while their ruin was preparing, -the house of Swabia gained over their ecclesiastical foes what seemed -likely to prove an advantage of the first moment. The son and -successor of Barbarossa was Henry VI, a man who had inherited all his -father's harshness with none of his father's generosity. By his -marriage with Constance, the heiress of the Norman kings, he had -become master of Naples and Sicily. Emboldened by the possession of -what had been hitherto the stronghold of his predecessors' bitterest -enemies, and able to threaten the Pope from south as well as north, -Henry conceived a scheme which might have wonderfully changed the -history of Germany and Italy. He proposed to the Teutonic magnates to -lighten their burdens by uniting these newly-acquired countries to the -Empire, to turn their feudal lands into allodial, and to make no -further demands for money on the clergy, on condition that they should -pronounce the crown hereditary in his family. Results of the highest -importance would have followed this change, which Henry advocated by -setting forth the perils of interregna, and which he doubtless meant -to be but part of an entirely new system of polity. Already so strong -in Germany, and with an absolute command of their new kingdom, the -Hohenstaufen might have dispensed with the renounced feudal services, -and built up a firm centralized system, like that which was already -beginning to develope itself in France. First, however, the Saxon -princes, then some ecclesiastics headed by Conrad of Mentz, opposed -the scheme; the pontiff retracted his consent, and Henry had to -content himself with getting his infant son Frederick the Second -chosen king of the Romans. On Henry's untimely death the election was -set aside, and the contest which followed between Otto of Brunswick -and Philip of Hohenstaufen, brother of Henry the Sixth, gave the -Popedom, now guided by the genius of Innocent the Third, an -opportunity of extending its sway at the expense of its antagonist. -The Pope moved heaven and earth on behalf of Otto, whose family had -been the constant rivals of the Hohenstaufen, and who was himself -willing to promise all that Innocent required; but Philip's personal -merits and the vast possessions of his house gave him while he lived -the ascendancy in Germany. His death by the hand of an assassin, while -it seemed to vindicate the Pope's choice, left the Swabian party -without a head, and the Papal nominee was soon recognized over the -whole Empire. But Otto IV became less submissive as he felt his throne -more secure. If he was a Guelf by birth, his acts in Italy, whither he -had gone to receive the imperial crown, were those of a Ghibeline, -anxious to reclaim the rights he had but just forsworn. The Roman -Church at last deposed and excommunicated her ungrateful son, and -Innocent rejoiced in a second successful assertion of pontifical -supremacy, when Otto was dethroned by the youthful Frederick the -Second, whom a tragic irony sent into the field of politics as the -champion of the Holy See, whose hatred was to embitter his life and -extinguish his house. - -[Sidenote: Frederick the Second, 1212-1250.] - -Upon the events of that terrific strife, for which Emperor and Pope -girded themselves up for the last time, the narrative of Frederick the -Second's career, with its romantic adventures, its sad picture of -marvellous powers lost on an age not ripe for them, blasted as by a -curse in the moment of victory, it is not necessary, were it even -possible, here to enlarge. That conflict did indeed determine the -fortunes of the German kingdom no less than of the republics of Italy, -but it was upon Italian ground that it was fought out and it is to -Italian history that its details belong. So too of Frederick himself. -Out of the long array of the Germanic successors of Charles, he is, -with Otto III, the only one who comes before us with a genius and a -frame of character that are not those of a Northern or a Teuton[251]. -There dwelt in him, it is true, all the energy and knightly valour of -his father Henry and his grandfather Barbarossa. But along with these, -and changing their direction, were other gifts, inherited perhaps from -his Italian mother and fostered by his education among the -orange-groves of Palermo--a love of luxury and beauty, an intellect -refined, subtle, philosophical. Through the mist of calumny and fable -it is but dimly that the truth of the man can be discerned, and the -outlines that appear serve to quicken rather than appease the -curiosity with which we regard one of the most extraordinary -personages in history. A sensualist, yet also a warrior and a -politician; a profound lawgiver and an impassioned poet; in his youth -fired by crusading fervour, in later life persecuting heretics while -himself accused of blasphemy and unbelief; of winning manners and -ardently beloved by his followers, but with the stain of more than one -cruel deed upon his name, he was the marvel of his own generation, and -succeeding ages looked back with awe, not unmingled with pity, upon -the inscrutable figure of the last Emperor who had braved all the -terrors of the Church and died beneath her ban, the last who had ruled -from the sands of the ocean to the shores of the Sicilian sea. But -while they pitied they condemned. The undying hatred of the Papacy -threw round his memory a lurid light; him and him alone of all the -imperial line, Dante, the worshipper of the Empire, must perforce -deliver to the flames of hell[252]. - -[Sidenote: Struggle of Frederick with the Papacy.] - -Placed as the Empire was, it was scarcely possible for its head not to -be involved in war with the constantly aggressive Popedom--aggressive -in her claims of territorial dominion in Italy as well as of -ecclesiastical jurisdiction throughout the world. But it was -Frederick's peculiar misfortune to have given the Popes a hold over -him which they well knew how to use. In a moment of youthful -enthusiasm he had taken the cross from the hands of an eloquent monk, -and his delay to fulfil the vow was branded as impious neglect. -Excommunicated by Gregory IX for not going to Palestine, he went, and -was excommunicated for going: having concluded an advantageous peace, -he sailed for Italy, and was a third time excommunicated for -returning. To Pope Gregory he was at last after a fashion reconciled, -but with the accession of Innocent IV the flame burst out afresh. Upon -the special pretexts which kindled the strife it is not worth while to -descant: the real causes were always the same, and could only be -removed by the submission of one or other combatant. Chief among them -was Frederick's possession of Sicily. Now were seen the fruits which -Barbarossa had stored up for his house when he gained for Henry his -son the hand of the Norman heiress. Naples and Sicily had been for -some two hundred years recognized as a fief of the Holy See, and the -Pope, who felt himself in danger while encircled by the powers of his -rival, was determined to use his advantage to the full and make it the -means of extinguishing imperial authority throughout Italy. But -although the struggle was far more of a territorial and political one -than that of the previous century had been, it reopened every former -source of strife, and passed into a contest between the civil and the -spiritual potentate. The old war-cries of Henry and Hildebrand, of -Barbarossa and Alexander, roused again the unquenchable hatred of -Italian factions: the pontiff asserted the transference of the Empire -as a fief, and declared that the power of Peter, symbolized by the two -keys, was temporal as well as spiritual: the Emperor appealed to law, -to the indelible rights of Caesar; and denounced his foe as the -antichrist of the New Testament, since it was God's second vicar whom -he was resisting. The one scoffed at anathema, upbraided the avarice -of the Church, and treated her soldiery, the friars, with a severity -not seldom ferocious. The other solemnly deposed a rebellious and -heretical prince, offered the imperial crown to Robert of France, to -the heir of Denmark, to Haco the Norse king; succeeded at last in -raising up rivals in Henry of Thuringia and William of Holland. Yet -throughout it is less the Teutonic Emperor who is attacked than the -Sicilian king, the unbeliever and friend of Mohammedans, the -hereditary enemy of the Church, the assailant of Lombard independence, -whose success must leave the Papacy defenceless. And as it was from -the Sicilian kingdom that the strife chiefly arose, so was the -possession of the Sicilian kingdom a source rather of weakness than of -strength, for it distracted Frederick's forces and put him in the -false position of a liegeman resisting his lawful suzerain. Truly, as -the Greek proverb says, the gifts of foes are no gifts, and bring no -profit with them. The Norman kings were more terrible in their death -than in their life: they had sometimes baffled the Teutonic Emperor; -their heritage destroyed him. - -[Sidenote: Conrad IV, 1250-1254.] - -With Frederick fell the Empire. From the ruin that overwhelmed the -greatest of its houses it emerged, living indeed, and destined to a -long life, but so shattered, crippled, and degraded, that it could -never more be to Europe and to Germany what it once had been. In the -last act of the tragedy were joined the enemy who had now blighted its -strength and the rival who was destined to insult its weakness and at -last blot out its name. The murder of Frederick's grandson Conradin--a -hero whose youth and whose chivalry might have moved the pity of any -other foe--was approved, if not suggested, by Pope Clement; it was -done by the minions of Charles of France. - -[Sidenote: Italy lost to the Empire.] - -The Lombard league had successfully resisted Frederick's armies and -the more dangerous Ghibeline nobles: their strong walls and swarming -population made defeats in the open field hardly felt; and now that -South Italy too had passed away from a German line--first to an -Angevin, afterwards to an Aragonese dynasty--it was plain that the -peninsula was irretrievably lost to the Emperors. Why, however, should -they not still be strong beyond the Alps? was their position worse -than that of England when Normandy and Aquitaine no longer obeyed a -Plantagenet? The force that had enabled them to rule so widely would -be all the greater in a narrower sphere. - -[Sidenote: Decline of imperial power in Germany.] - -[Sidenote: The Great Interregnum] - -[Sidenote: Double election, of Richard of England and Alfonso of -Castile.] - -[Sidenote: State of Germany during the Interregnum.] - -[Sidenote: Rudolf of Hapsburg, 1272-1292.] - -So indeed it might once have been, but now it was too late. The German -kingdom broke down beneath the weight of the Roman Empire. To be -universal sovereign Germany had sacrificed her own political -existence. The necessity which their projects in Italy and disputes -with the Pope laid the Emperors under of purchasing by concessions the -support of their own princes, the ease with which in their absence the -magnates could usurp, the difficulty which the monarch returning found -in resuming the privileges of his crown, the temptation to revolt and -set up pretenders to the throne which the Holy See held out, these -were the causes whose steady action laid the foundation of that -territorial independence which rose into a stable fabric at the era of -the Great Interregnum[253]. Frederick II had by two Pragmatic -Sanctions, A.D. 1220 and 1232, granted, or rather confirmed, rights -already customary, such as to give the bishops and nobles legal -sovereignty in their own towns and territories, except when the -Emperor should be present; and thus his direct jurisdiction became -restricted to his narrowed domain, and to the cities immediately -dependent on the crown. With so much less to do, an Emperor became -altogether a less necessary personage; and hence the seven magnates of -the realm, now by law or custom sole electors, were in no haste to -fill up the place of Conrad IV, whom the supporters of his father -Frederick had acknowledged. William of Holland was in the field, but -rejected by the Swabian party: on his death a new election was called -for, and at last set on foot. The archbishop of Cologne advised his -brethren to choose some one rich enough to support the dignity, not -strong enough to be feared by the electors: both requisites met in the -Plantagenet Richard, earl of Cornwall, brother of the English Henry -III. He received three, eventually four votes, came to Germany, and -was crowned at Aachen. But three of the electors, finding that his -bribe to them was lower than to the others, seceded in disgust, and -chose Alfonso X of Castile[254], who, shrewder than his competitor, -continued to watch the stars at Toledo, enjoying the splendours of his -title while troubling himself about it no further than to issue now -and then a proclamation. Meantime the condition of Germany was -frightful. The new Didius Julianus, the chosen of princes baser than -the praetorians whom they copied, had neither the character nor the -outward power and resources to make himself respected. Every floodgate -of anarchy was opened: prelates and barons extended their domains by -war: robber-knights infested the highways and the rivers: the misery -of the weak, the tyranny and violence of the strong, were such as had -not been seen for centuries. Things were even worse than under the -Saxon and Franconian Emperors; for the petty nobles who had then been -in some measure controlled by their dukes were now, after the -extinction of the great houses, left without any feudal superior. Only -in the cities was shelter or peace to be found. Those of the Rhine had -already leagued themselves for mutual defence, and maintained a -struggle in the interests of commerce and order against universal -brigandage. At last, when Richard had been some time dead, it was felt -that such things could not go on for ever: with no public law, and no -courts of justice, an Emperor, the embodiment of legal government, was -the only resource. The Pope himself, having now sufficiently improved -the weakness of his enemy, found the disorganization of Germany -beginning to tell upon his revenues, and threatened that if the -electors did not appoint an Emperor, he would. Thus urged, they chose, -in A.D. 1272, Rudolf, count of Hapsburg, founder of the house of -Austria[255]. - -[Sidenote: Change in the position of the Empire.] - -From this point there begins a new era. We have seen the Roman Empire -revived in A.D. 800, by a prince whose vast dominions gave ground to -his claim of universal monarchy; again erected, in A.D. 962, on the -narrower but firmer basis of the German kingdom. We have seen Otto the -Great and his successors during the three following centuries, a line -of monarchs of unrivalled vigour and abilities, strain every nerve to -make good the pretensions of their office against the rebels in Italy -and the ecclesiastical power. Those efforts had now failed signally -and hopelessly. Each successive Emperor had entered the strife with -resources scantier than his predecessors, each had been more -decisively vanquished by the Pope, the cities, and the princes. The -Roman Empire might, and, so far as its practical utility was -concerned, ought now to have been suffered to expire; nor could it -have ended more gloriously than with the last of the Hohenstaufen. -That it did not so expire, but lived on six hundred years more, till -it became a piece of antiquarianism hardly more venerable than -ridiculous--till, as Voltaire said, all that could be said about it -was that it was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire--was owing -partly indeed to the belief, still unshaken, that it was a necessary -part of the world's order, yet chiefly to its connection, which was by -this time indissoluble, with the German kingdom. The Germans had -confounded the two characters of their sovereign so long, and had -grown so fond of the style and pretensions of a dignity whose -possession appeared to exalt them above the other peoples of Europe, -that it was now too late for them to separate the local from the -universal monarch. If a German king was to be maintained at all, he -must be Roman Emperor; and a German king there must still be. Deeply, -nay, mortally wounded as the event proved his power to have been by -the disasters of the Empire to which it had been linked, the time was -by no means come for its extinction. In the unsettled state of -society, and the conflict of innumerable petty potentates, no force -save feudalism was able to hold society together; and its efficacy for -that purpose depended, as the anarchy of the recent interregnum -shewed, upon the presence of the recognized feudal head. - -[Sidenote: Decline of the regal power in Germany as compared with -France and England.] - -That head, however, was no longer what he had been. The relative -position of Germany and France was now exactly the reverse of that -which they had occupied two centuries earlier. Rudolf was as -conspicuously a weaker sovereign than Philip III of France, as the -Franconian Emperor Henry III had been stronger than the Capetian -Philip I. In every other state of Europe the tendency of events had -been to centralize the administration and increase the power of the -monarch, even in England not to diminish it: in Germany alone had -political union become weaker, and the independence of the princes -more confirmed. The causes of this change are not far to seek. They -all resolve themselves into this one, that the German king attempted -too much at once. The rulers of France, where manners were less rude -than in the other Transalpine lands, and where the Third Estate rose -into power more quickly, had reduced one by one the great feudataries -by whom the first Capetians had been scarcely recognized. The English -kings had annexed Wales, Cumbria, and part of Ireland, had obtained a -prerogative great if not uncontrolled, and exercised no doubtful sway -through every corner of their country. Both had won their successes by -the concentration on that single object of their whole personal -activity, and by the skilful use of every device whereby their feudal -rights, personal, judicial, and legislative, could be applied to -fetter the vassal. Meantime the German monarch, whose utmost efforts -it would have needed to tame his fierce barons and maintain order -through wide territories occupied by races unlike in dialect and -customs, had been struggling with the Lombard cities and the Normans -of South Italy, and had been for full two centuries the object of the -unrelenting enmity of the Roman pontiff. And in this latter contest, -by which more than by any other the fate of the Empire was decided, he -fought under disadvantages far greater than his brethren in England -and France. William the Conqueror had defied Hildebrand, William Rufus -had resisted Anselm; but the Emperors Henry the Fourth and Barbarossa -had to cope with prelates who were Hildebrand and Anselm in one; the -spiritual heads of Christendom as well as the primates of their -special realm, the Empire. And thus, while the ecclesiastics of -Germany were a body more formidable from their possessions than those -of any other European country, and enjoying far larger privileges, the -Emperor could not, or could with far less effect, win them over by -invoking against the Pope that national feeling which made the cry of -Gallican liberties so welcome even to the clergy of France. - -[Sidenote: Relations of the Papacy and the Empire.] - -After repeated defeats, each more crushing than the last, the imperial -power, so far from being able to look down on the papal, could not -even maintain itself on an equal footing. Against no pontiff since -Gregory VII had the monarch's right to name or confirm a pope, -undisputed in the days of the Ottos and of Henry III, been made good. -It was the turn of the Emperor to repel a similar claim of the Holy -See to the function of reviewing his own election, examining into his -merits, and rejecting him if unsound, that is to say, impatient of -priestly tyranny. A letter of Innocent III, who was the first to make -this demand in terms, was inserted by Gregory IX in his digest of the -Canon Law, the inexhaustible armoury of the churchman, and continued -to be quoted thence by every canonist till the end of the sixteenth -century[256]. It was not difficult to find grounds on which to base -such a doctrine. Gregory VII deduced it with characteristic boldness -from the power of the keys, and the superiority over all other -dignities which must needs appertain to the Pope as arbiter of eternal -weal or woe. Others took their stand on the analogy of clerical -ordination, and urged that since the Pope in consecrating the Emperor -gave him a title to the obedience of all Christian men, he must have -himself the right of approving or rejecting the candidate according to -his merits. Others again, appealing to the Old Testament, shewed how -Samuel discarded Saul and anointed David in his room, and argued that -the Pope now must have powers at least equal to those of the Hebrew -prophets. But the ascendancy of the doctrine dates from the time of -Pope Innocent III, whose ingenuity discovered for it an historical -basis. It was by the favour of the Pope, he declared, that the Empire -was taken away from the Greeks and given to the Germans in the person -of Charles[257], and the authority which Leo then exercised as God's -representative must abide thenceforth and for ever in his successors, -who can therefore at any time recall the gift, and bestow it on a -person or a nation more worthy than its present holders. This is the -famous theory of the Translation of the Empire, which plays so large a -part in controversy down till the seventeenth century[258], a theory -with plausibility enough to make it generally successful, yet one -which to an impartial eye appears far removed from the truth of the -facts[259]. Leo III did not suppose, any more than did Charles -himself, that it was by his sole pontifical authority that the crown -was given to the Frank; nor do we find such a notion put forward by -any of his successors down to the twelfth century. Gregory VII in -particular, in a remarkable letter dilating on his prerogative, -appeals to the substitution by papal interference of Pipin for the -last Merovingian king, and even goes back to cite the case of -Theodosius humbling himself before St. Ambrose, but says never a word -about this 'translatio,' excellently as it would have served his -purpose. - -Sound or unsound, however, these arguments did their work, for they -were urged skilfully and boldly, and none denied that it was by the -Pope alone that the crown could be lawfully imposed[260]. In some -instances the rights claimed were actually made good. Thus Innocent -III withstood Philip and overthrew Otto IV; thus another haughty -priest commanded the electors to choose the Landgrave of Thuringia -(A.D. 1246), and was by some of them obeyed; thus Gregory X compelled -the recognition of Rudolf. The further pretensions of the Popes to the -vicariate of the Empire during interregna the Germans never -admitted[261]. Still their place was now generally felt to be higher -than that of the monarch, and their control over the three spiritual -electors and the whole body of the clergy was far more effective than -his. A spark of national feeling was at length kindled by the -exactions and shameless subservience to France of the papal court at -Avignon[262]; and the infant democracy of industry and intelligence -represented by the cities and by the English Franciscan Occam, -supported Lewis IV in his conflict with John XXII, till even the -princes who had risen by the help of the Pope were obliged to oppose -him. The same sentiment dictated the reforms of Constance, but the -imperial power which might have floated onwards and higher on the -turning tide of popular opinion lacked men equal to the occasion: the -Hapsburg Frederick the Third, timid and superstitious, abased himself -before the Romish court, and his house has generally adhered to the -alliance then struck. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[251] I quote from the Liber Augustalis printed among Petrarch's works -the following curious description of Frederick: 'Fuit armorum -strenuus, linguarum peritus, rigorosus, luxuriosus, epicurus, nihil -curans vel credens nisi temporale: fuit malleus Romanae ecclesiae.' - -As Otto III had been called 'mirabilia mundi,' so Frederick II is -often spoken of in his own time as 'stupor mundi Fridericus.' - -[252] 'Qua entro e lo secondo Federico.'--_Inferno_, canto x. - -[253] The interregnum is by some reckoned as the two years before -Richard's election; by others, as the whole period from the death of -Frederick II or that of his son Conrad IV till Rudolf's accession in -1273. - -[254] Surnamed, from his scientific tastes, 'the Wise.' - -[255] Hapsburg is a castle in the Aargau on the banks of the Aar, and -near the line of railway from Olten to Zuerich, from a point on which a -glimpse of it may be had. 'Within the ancient walls of Vindonissa,' -says Gibbon, 'the castle of Hapsburg, the abbey of Koenigsfeld, and the -town of Bruck have successively arisen. The philosophic traveller may -compare the monuments of Roman conquests, of feudal or Austrian -tyranny, of monkish superstition, and of industrious freedom. If he be -truly a philosopher, he will applaud the merit and happiness of his -own time.' - -[256] _Corpus Iuris Canonici_, Decr. Greg. i. 6, cap. 34, -_Venerabilem_: 'Ius et authoritas examinandi personam electam in regem -et promovendam ad imperium, ad nos spectat, qui eum inungimus, -consecramus, et coronamus.' - -[257] 'Illis principibus,' writes Innocent, 'ius et potestatem -eligendi regem [Romanorum] in imperatorem postmodum promovendum -recognoscimus, ad quos de iure ac antiqua consuetudine noscitur -pertinere, praesertim quum ad eos ius et potestas huiusmodi ab -apostolica sede pervenerit, quae Romanum imperium in persona magnifici -Caroli a Graecis transtulit in Germanos.'--Decr. Greg. i. 6, cap. 34, -_Venerabilem_. - -[258] Its influence, however, as Doellinger (_Das Kaiserthum Karls des -Grossen und seiner Nachfolger_) remarks, first became great when this -letter, some forty or fifty years after Innocent wrote it, was -inserted in the digest of the canon law. - -[259] Vid. supra, pp. 52-58. - -[260] Upon this so-called 'Translation of the Empire,' many books -remain to us: many more have probably perished. A good although far -from impartial summary of the controversy may be found in Vagedes, _De -Ludibriis Aulae Romanae in transferendo Imperio Romano_. - -[261] 'Vacante imperio Romano, cum in illo ad saecularem iudicem -nequeat haberi recursus, ad summum pontificem, cui in persona B. Petri -terreni simul et coelestis imperii iura Deus ipse commisit, imperii -praedicti iurisdictio regimen et dispositio devolvitur.'--Bull _Si -fratrum_ (of John XXI, in A.D. 1316), in _Bullar. Rom._ So again: -'Attendentes quod Imperii Romani regimen cura et administratio tempore -quo illud vacare contingit ad nos pertinet, sicut dignoscitur -pertinere.' So Boniface VIII, refusing to recognize Albert I, because -he was ugly and one-eyed ('est homo monoculus et vultu sordido, non -potest esse Imperator'), and had taken a wife from the serpent brood -of Frederick II ('de sanguine viperali Friderici'), declared himself -Vicar of the Empire, and assumed the crown and sword of Constantine. - -[262] Avignon was not yet in the territory of France: it lay within -the bounds of the kingdom of Arles. But the French power was nearer -than that of the Emperor; and pontiffs many of them French by -extraction sympathized, as was natural, with princes of their own -race. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV. - -THE GERMANIC CONSTITUTION: THE SEVEN ELECTORS. - - -[Sidenote: Territorial Sovereignty of the Princes.] - -[Sidenote: Adolf, 1292-1298.] - -[Sidenote: Albert I, 1298-1308.] - -[Sidenote: Henry VII, 1308-1314.] - -[Sidenote: Lewis IV, 1314-1347.] - -The reign of Frederick the Second was not less fatal to the domestic -power of the German king than to the European supremacy of the -Emperor. His two Pragmatic Sanctions had conferred rights that made -the feudal aristocracy almost independent, and the long anarchy of the -Interregnum had enabled them not only to use but to extend and fortify -their power. Rudolf of Hapsburg had striven, not wholly in vain, to -coerce their insolence, but the contest between his son Albert and -Adolf of Nassau which followed his death, the short and troubled reign -of Albert himself, the absence of Henry the Seventh in Italy, the -civil war of Lewis of Bavaria and Frederick duke of Austria, rival -claimants of the imperial throne, the difficulties in which Lewis, the -successful competitor, found himself involved with the Pope--all these -circumstances tended more and more to narrow the influence of the -crown and complete the emancipation of the turbulent nobles. They now -became virtually supreme in their own domains, enjoying full -jurisdiction, certain appeals excepted, the right of legislation, -privileges of coining money, of levying tolls and taxes: some were -without even a feudal bond to remind them of their allegiance. The -numbers of the immediate nobility--those who held directly of the -crown--had increased prodigiously by the extinction of the dukedoms of -Saxony, Franconia, and Swabia: along the Rhine the lord of a single -tower was usually a sovereign prince. The petty tyrants whose boast it -was that they owed fealty only to God and the Emperor, shewed -themselves in practice equally regardless of both powers. Pre-eminent -were the three great houses of Austria, Bavaria, and Luxemburg, this -last having acquired Bohemia, A.D. 1309; next came the electors, -already considered collectively more important than the Emperor, and -forming for themselves the first considerable principalities. -Brandenburg and the Rhenish Palatinate are strong independent states -before the end of this period: Bohemia and the three archbishoprics -almost from its beginning. - -[Sidenote: Policy of the Emperors.] - -The chief object of the magnates was to keep the monarch in his -present state of helplessness. Till the expenses which the crown -entailed were found ruinous to its wearer, their practice was to -confer it on some petty prince, such as were Rudolf and Adolf of -Nassau and Gunther of Schwartzburg, seeking when they could to keep it -from settling in one family. They bound the newly-elected to respect -all their present immunities, including those which they had just -extorted as the price of their votes; they checked all his attempts to -recover lost lands or rights: they ventured at last to depose their -anointed head, Wenzel of Bohemia. Thus fettered, the Emperor sought -only to make the most of his short tenure, using his position to -aggrandize his family and raise money by the sale of crown estates and -privileges. His individual action and personal relation to the subject -was replaced by a merely legal and formal one: he represented order -and legitimate ownership, and so far was still necessary to the -political system. But progresses through the country were abandoned: -unlike his predecessors, who had resigned their patrimony when they -assumed the sceptre, he lived mostly in his own states, often without -the Empire's bounds. Frederick III never entered it for twenty-seven -years. - -[Sidenote: Power of the cities.] - -[Sidenote: Financial distress.] - -How thoroughly the national character of the office was gone is shewn -by the repeated attempts to bestow it on foreign potentates, who could -not fill the place of a German king of the good old vigorous type. Not -to speak of Richard and Alfonso, Charles of Valois was proposed -against Henry VII, Edward III of England actually elected against -Charles IV (his parliament forbade him to accept), George Podiebrad, -king of Bohemia, against Frederick III. Sigismund was virtually a -Hungarian king. The Emperor's only hope would have been in the support -of the cities. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries they had -increased wonderfully in population, wealth, and boldness: the -Hanseatic confederacy was the mightiest power of the North, and cowed -the Scandinavian kings: the towns of Swabia and the Rhine formed great -commercial leagues, maintained regular wars against the -counter-associations of the nobility, and seemed at one time, by an -alliance with the Swiss, on the point of turning West Germany into a -federation of free municipalities. Feudalism, however, was still too -strong; the cavalry of the nobles was irresistible in the field, and -the thoughtless Wenzel let slip a golden opportunity of repairing the -losses of two centuries. After all, the Empire was perhaps past -redemption, for one fatal ailment paralyzed all its efforts. The -Empire was poor. The crown lands, which had suffered heavily under -Frederick II, were further usurped during the confusion that followed; -till at last, through the reckless prodigality of sovereigns who -sought only their immediate interest, little was left of the vast and -fertile domains along the Rhine from which the Saxon and Franconian -Emperors had drawn the chief part of their revenue. Regalian rights, -the second fiscal resource, had fared no better--tolls, customs, -mines, rights of coining, of harbouring Jews, and so forth, were -either seized or granted away: even the advowsons of churches had been -sold or mortgaged; and the imperial treasury depended mainly on an -inglorious traffic in honours and exemptions. Things were so bad under -Rudolf that the electors refused to make his son Albert king of the -Romans, declaring that, while Rudolf lived, the public revenue which -with difficulty supported one monarch, could much less maintain two at -the same time[263]. Sigismund told his Diet, 'Nihil esse imperio -spoliatius, nihil egentius, adeo ut qui sibi ex Germaniae principibus -successurus esset, qui praeter patrimonium nihil aliud habuerit, apud -eum non imperium sed potius servitium sit futurum[264].' Patritius, -the secretary of Frederick III, declared that the revenues of the -Empire scarcely covered the expenses of its ambassadors[265]. Poverty -such as these expressions point to, a poverty which became greater -after each election, not only involved the failure of the attempts -which were sometimes made to recover usurped rights[266], but put -every project of reform within or war without at the mercy of a -jealous Diet. The three orders of which that Diet consisted, electors, -princes, and cities, were mutually hostile, and by consequence -selfish; their niggardly grants did no more than keep the Empire from -dying of inanition. - -[Sidenote: Charles IV (A.D. 1347-1378), and his electoral -constitution.] - -The changes thus briefly described were in progress when Charles the -Fourth, king of Bohemia, son of that blind king John of Bohemia who -fell at Cressy, and grandson of the Emperor Henry VII, was chosen to -ascend the throne. His skilful and consistent policy aimed at settling -what he perhaps despaired of reforming, and the famous instrument -which, under the name of the Golden Bull, became the corner-stone of -the Germanic constitution, confessed and legalized the independence of -the electors and the powerlessness of the crown. The most conspicuous -defect of the existing system was the uncertainty of the elections, -followed as they usually were by a civil war. It was this which -Charles set himself to redress. - -[Sidenote: German kingdom not originally elective.] - -The kingdoms founded on the ruins of the Roman Empire by the Teutonic -invaders presented in their original form a rude combination of the -elective with the hereditary principle. One family in each tribe had, -as the offspring of the gods, an indefeasible claim to rule, but from -among the members of such a family the warriors were free to choose -the bravest or the most popular as king[267]. That the German crown -came to be purely elective, while in France, Castile, Aragon, England, -and most other European states, the principle of strict hereditary -succession established itself, was due to the failure of heirs male in -three successive dynasties; to the restless ambition of the nobles, -who, since they were not, like the French, strong enough to disregard -the royal power, did their best to weaken it; to the intrigues of the -churchmen, zealous for a method of appointment prescribed by their own -law and observed in capitular elections; to the wish of the Popes to -gain an opening for their own influence and make effective the veto -which they claimed; above all, to the conception of the imperial -office as one too holy to be, in the same manner as the regal, -transmissible by blood. Had the German, like other feudal kingdoms, -remained merely local, feudal, and national, it would without doubt -have ended by becoming a hereditary monarchy. Transformed as it was by -the Roman Empire, this could not be. The headship of the human race -being, like the Papacy, the common inheritance of all mankind, could -not be confined to any family, nor pass like a private estate by the -ordinary rules of descent. - -[Sidenote: Electoral body in primitive times.] - -The right to choose the war-chief belonged, in the earliest ages, to -the whole body of freemen. Their suffrage, which must have been very -irregularly exercised, became by degrees vested in their leaders, but -the assent of the multitude, although ensured already, was needed to -complete the ceremony. It was thus that Henry the Fowler, and St. -Henry, and Conrad the Franconian duke were chosen[268]. Though even -tradition might have commemorated what extant records place beyond a -doubt, it was commonly believed, till the end of the sixteenth -century, that the elective constitution had been established, and the -privilege of voting confined to seven persons, by a decree of Gregory -V and Otto III, which a famous jurist describes as 'lex a pontifice de -imperatorum comitiis lata, ne ius eligendi penes populum Romanum in -posterum esset[269].' St. Thomas says, 'Election ceased from the times -of Charles the Great to those of Otto III, when Pope Gregory V -established that of the seven princes, which will last as long as the -holy Roman Church, who ranks above all other powers, shall have judged -expedient for Christ's faithful people[270].' Since it tended to exalt -the papal power, this fiction was accepted, no doubt honestly -accepted, and spread abroad by the clergy. And indeed, like so many -other fictions, it had a sort of foundation in fact. The death of Otto -III, the fourth of a line of monarchs among whom son had regularly -succeeded to father, threw back the crown into the gift of the nation, -and was no doubt one of the chief causes why it did not in the end -become hereditary[271]. - -[Sidenote: Encroachments of the great nobles.] - -Thus, under the Saxon and Franconian sovereigns, the throne was -theoretically elective, the assent of the chiefs and their followers -being required, though little more likely to be refused than it was to -an English or a French king; practically hereditary, since both of -these dynasties succeeded in occupying it for four generations, the -father procuring the son's election during his own lifetime. And so it -might well have continued, had the right of choice been retained by -the whole body of the aristocracy. But at the election of Lothar II, -A.D. 1125, we find a certain small number of magnates exercising the -so-called right of praetaxation; that is to say, choosing alone the -future monarch, and then submitting him to the rest for their -approval. A supreme electoral college, once formed, had both the will -and the power to retain the crown in their own gift, and still further -exclude their inferiors from participation. So before the end of the -Hohenstaufen dynasty, two great changes had passed upon the ancient -constitution. It had become a fundamental doctrine that the Germanic -throne, unlike the thrones of other countries, was purely -elective[272]: nor could the influence and the liberal offers of Henry -VI prevail on the princes to abandon what they rightly judged the -keystone of their powers. And at the same time the right of -praetaxation had ripened into an exclusive privilege of election, -vested in a small body[273]: the assent of the rest of the nobility -being at first assumed, finally altogether dispensed with. On the -double choice of Richard and Alfonso, A.D. 1264, the only question was -as to the majority of votes in the electoral college: neither then nor -afterwards was there a word of the rights of the other princes, counts -and barons, important as their voices had been two centuries earlier. - -[Sidenote: The Seven Electors.] - -[Sidenote: Golden Bull of Charles IV, A.D. 1356.] - -The origin of that college is a matter somewhat intricate and obscure. -It is mentioned A.D. 1152, and in somewhat clearer terms in 1198, as a -distinct body; but without anything to shew who composed it. First in -A.D. 1265 does a letter of Pope Urban IV say that by immemorial custom -the right of choosing the Roman king belonged to seven persons, the -seven who had just divided their votes on Richard of Cornwall and -Alfonso of Castile. Of these seven, three, the archbishops of Mentz, -Treves, and Cologne, pastors of the richest Transalpine sees, -represented the German church: the other four ought, according to the -ancient constitution, to have been the dukes of the four nations, -Franks, Swabians, Saxons, Bavarians, to whom had also belonged the -four great offices of the imperial household. But of these dukedoms -the two first named were now extinct, and their place and power in the -state, as well as the household offices they had held, had descended -upon two principalities of more recent origin, those, namely, of the -Palatinate of the Rhine and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. The Saxon -duke, though with greatly narrowed dominions, retained his vote and -office of arch-marshal, and the claim of his Bavarian compeer would -have been equally indisputable had it not so happened that both he and -the Palsgrave of the Rhine were members of the great house of -Wittelsbach. That one family should hold two votes out of seven seemed -so dangerous to the state that it was made a ground of objection to -the Bavarian duke, and gave an opening to the pretensions of the king -of Bohemia, who, though not properly a Teutonic prince[274], might on -the score of rank and power assert himself the equal of any one of the -electors. The dispute between these rival claimants, as well as all -the rules and requisites of the election, were settled by Charles the -Fourth in the Golden Bull, thenceforward a fundamental law of the -Empire. He decided in favour of Bohemia, of which he was then king; -fixed Frankfort as the place of election; named the archbishop of -Mentz convener of the electoral college; gave to Bohemia the first, to -the Count Palatine the second place among the secular electors. A -majority of votes was in all cases to be decisive. As to each -electorate there was attached a great office, it was supposed that -this was the title by which the vote was possessed; though it was in -truth rather an effect than a cause. The three prelates were -archchancellors of Germany, Gaul and Burgundy, and Italy respectively: -Bohemia cupbearer, the Palsgrave seneschal, Saxony marshal, and -Brandenburg chamberlain[275]. - -[Sidenote: Eighth Electorate.] - -[Sidenote: Ninth Electorate.] - -These arrangements, under which disputed elections became far less -frequent, remained undisturbed till A.D. 1618, when on the breaking -out of the Thirty Years' War the Emperor Ferdinand II by an -unwarranted stretch of prerogative deprived the Palsgrave Frederick -(king of Bohemia, and husband of Elizabeth, the daughter of James I of -England) of his electoral vote, and transferred it to his own -partisan, Maximilian of Bavaria. At the peace of Westphalia the -Palsgrave was reinstated as an eighth elector, Bavaria retaining her -place. The sacred number having been once broken through, less scruple -was felt in making further changes. In A.D. 1692, the Emperor Leopold -I conferred a ninth electorate on the house of Brunswick Lueneburg, -which was then in possession of the duchy of Hanover, and succeeded to -the throne of Great Britain in 1714; and in A.D. 1708, the assent of -the Diet thereto was obtained. It was in this way that English kings -came to vote at the election of a Roman Emperor. - -It is not a little curious that the only potentate who still continues -to entitle himself Elector[276] should be one who never did (and of -course never can now) join in electing an Emperor, having been under -the arrangements of the old Empire a simple Landgrave. In A.D. 1803, -Napoleon, among other sweeping changes in the Germanic constitution, -procured the extinction of the electorates of Cologne and Treves, -annexing their territories to France, and gave the title of Elector, -as the highest after that of king, to the duke of Wuertemburg, the -Margrave of Baden, the Landgrave of Hessen-Cassel, and the archbishop -of Salzburg. Three years afterwards the Empire itself ended, and the -title became meaningless. - -As the Germanic Empire is the most conspicuous example of a monarchy -not hereditary that the world has ever seen, it may not be amiss to -consider for a moment what light its history throws upon the character -of elective monarchy in general, a contrivance which has always had, -and will probably always continue to have, seductions for a certain -class of political theorists. - -[Sidenote: Objects of an elective monarchy: how far attained in -Germany.] - -[Sidenote: Choice of the fittest.] - -First of all then it deserves to be noticed how difficult, one might -almost say impossible, it was found to maintain in practice the -elective principle. In point of law, the imperial throne was from the -tenth century to the nineteenth absolutely open to any orthodox -Christian candidate. But as a matter of fact, the competition was -confined to a few very powerful families, and there was always a -strong tendency for the crown to become hereditary in some one of -these. Thus the Franconian Emperors held it from A.D. 1024 till 1125, -the Hohenstaufen, themselves the heirs of the Franconians, for a -century or more; the house of Luxemburg (kings of Bohemia) enjoyed it -through three successive reigns, and when in the fifteenth century it -fell into the tenacious grasp of the Hapsburgs, they managed to retain -it thenceforth (with but one trifling interruption) till it vanished -out of nature altogether. Therefore the chief benefit which the scheme -of elective sovereignty seems to promise, that of putting the fittest -man in the highest place, was but seldom attained, and attained even -then rather by good fortune than design. - -[Sidenote: Restraint of the sovereign.] - -No such objection can be brought against the second ground on which an -elective system has sometimes been advocated, its operation in -moderating the power of the crown, for this was attained in the -fullest and most ruinous measure. We are reminded of the man in the -fable, who opened a sluice to water his garden, and saw his house -swept away by the furious torrent. The power of the crown was not -moderated but destroyed. Each successful candidate was forced to -purchase his title by the sacrifice of rights which had belonged to -his predecessors, and must repeat the same shameful policy later in -his reign to procure the election of his son. Feeling at the same time -that his family could not make sure of keeping the throne, he treated -it as a life-tenant is apt to treat his estate, seeking only to make -out of it the largest present profit. And the electors, aware of the -strength of their position, presumed upon it and abused it to assert -an independence such as the nobles of other countries could never have -aspired to. - -[Sidenote: Recognition of the popular will.] - -[Sidenote: Conception of the electoral function.] - -Modern political speculation supposes the method of appointing a ruler -by the votes of his subjects, as opposed to the system of hereditary -succession, to be an assertion by the people of their own will as the -ultimate fountain of authority, an acknowledgment by the prince that -he is no more than their minister and deputy. To the theory of the -Holy Empire nothing could be more repugnant. This will best appear -when the aspect of the system of election at different epochs in its -history is compared with the corresponding changes in the composition -of the electoral body which have been described as in progress from -the ninth to the fourteenth century. In very early times, the tribe -chose a war chief, who was, even if he belonged to the most noble -family, no more than the first among his peers, with a power -circumscribed by the will of his subjects. Several ages later, in the -tenth and eleventh centuries, the right of choice had passed into the -hands of the magnates, and the people were only asked to assent. In -the same measure had the relation of prince and subject taken a new -aspect. We must not expect to find, in such rude times, any very clear -apprehension of the technical quality of the process, and the throne -had indeed become for a season so nearly hereditary that the election -was often a mere matter of form. But it seems to have been regarded, -not as a delegation of authority by the nobles and people, with a -power of resumption implied, but rather as their subjection of -themselves to the monarch who enjoys, as of his own right, a wide and -ill-defined prerogative. In yet later times, when, as has been shewn -above, the assembly of the chieftains and the applauding shout of the -host had been superseded by the secret conclave of the seven electoral -princes, the strict legal view of election became fully established, -and no one was supposed to have any title to the crown except what a -majority of votes might confer upon him. Meantime, however, the -conception of the imperial office itself had been thoroughly -penetrated by religious ideas, and the fact that the sovereign did -not, like other princes, reign by hereditary right, but by the choice -of certain persons, was supposed to be an enhancement and consecration -of his dignity. The electors, to draw what may seem a subtle, but is -nevertheless a very real distinction, selected, but did not create. -They only named the person who was to receive what it was not theirs -to give. God, say the mediaeval writers, not deigning to interfere -visibly in the affairs of this world, has willed that these seven -princes of Germany should discharge the function which once belonged -to the senate and people of Rome, that of choosing his earthly viceroy -in matters temporal. But it is immediately from Himself that the -authority of this viceroy comes, and men can have no relation towards -him except that of obedience. It was in this period, therefore, when -the Emperor was in practice the mere nominee of the electors, that the -belief in this divine right stood highest, to the complete exclusion -of the mutual responsibility of feudalism, and still more of any -notion of a devolution of authority from the sovereign people. - -[Sidenote: General results of Charles IV's policy.] - -Peace and order appeared to be promoted by the institutions of Charles -IV, which removed one fruitful cause of civil war. But these seven -electoral princes acquired, with their extended privileges, a marked -and dangerous predominance in Germany. They were to enjoy full -regalian rights in their territories[277]; causes were not to be -evoked from their courts, save when justice should have been denied: -their consent was necessary to all public acts of consequence. Their -persons were held to be sacred, and the seven mystic luminaries of the -Holy Empire, typified by the seven lamps of the Apocalypse, soon -gained much of the Emperor's hold on popular reverence, as well as -that actual power which he lacked. To Charles, who viewed the German -Empire much as Rudolf had viewed the Roman, this result came not -unforeseen. He saw in his office a means of serving personal ends, and -to them, while appearing to exalt by elaborate ceremonies its ideal -dignity, he deliberately sacrificed what real strength was left. The -object which he sought steadily through life was the prosperity of the -Bohemian kingdom, and the advancement of his own house. In the Golden -Bull, whose seal bears the legend,-- - - 'Roma caput mundi regit orbis frena rotundi[278],' - -there is not a word of Rome or of Italy. To Germany he was indirectly -a benefactor, by the foundation of the University of Prague, the -mother of all her schools: otherwise her bane. He legalized anarchy, -and called it a constitution. The sums expended in obtaining the -ratification of the Golden Bull, in procuring the election of his son -Wenzel, in aggrandizing Bohemia at the expense of Germany, had been -amassed by keeping a market in which honours and exemptions, with what -lands the crown retained, were put up openly to be bid for. In Italy -the Ghibelines saw, with shame and rage, their chief hasten to Rome -with a scanty retinue, and return from it as swiftly, at the mandate -of an Avignonese Pope, halting on his route only to traffic away the -last rights of his Empire. The Guelf might cease to hate a power he -could now despise. - -Thus, alike at home and abroad, the German king had become practically -powerless by the loss of his feudal privileges, and saw the authority -that had once been his parcelled out among a crowd of greedy and -tyrannical nobles. Meantime how had it fared with the rights which he -claimed by virtue of the imperial crown? - -FOOTNOTES: - -[263] Quoted by Moser, _Roemische Kayser_, from _Chron. Hirsang._: -'Regni vires temporum iniuria nimium contritae vix uni alendo regi -sufficerent, tantum abesse ut sumptus in duos reges ferre queant.' - -[264] At Rupert's death, under whom the mischief had increased -greatly, there were, we are told, many bishops better off than the -Emperor. - -[265] 'Proventus Imperii ita minimi sunt ut legationibus vix -suppetant.'--Quoted by Moser. - -[266] Albert I tried in vain to wrest the tolls of the Rhine from the -grasp of the Rhenish electors. - -[267] The AEthelings of the line of Cerdic, among the West Saxons, and -the Bavarian Agilolfings, may thus be compared with the Achaemenids of -Persia or the heroic houses of early Greece. - -[268] Wippo, describing the election of Conrad the Franconian, says, -'Inter confinia Moguntiae et Wormatiae convenerunt cuncti primates et, -ut ita dicam, vires et viscera regni.' So Bruno says that Henry IV was -elected by the '_populus_.' So Gunther Ligurinus of Frederick I's -election:-- - - 'Acturi sacrae de successione coronae - Conveniunt proceres, totius viscera regni.' - -So Amandus, secretary of Frederick Barbarossa, in describing his -election, says, 'Multi illustres heroes ex Lombardia, Tuscia, Ianuensi -et aliis Italiae dominiis, ac maior et potior pars principum ex -Transalpino regno.'--Quoted by Mur. _Antiq._ Diss. iii. And see many -other authorities to the same effect, collected by Pfeffinger, -_Vitriarius illustratus_. - -[269] Alciatus, _De Formula Romani Imperii_. He adds that the Gauls -and Italians were incensed at the preference shewn to Germany. So too -Radulfus de Columna. - -[270] Quoted by Gewoldus, _De Septemviratu Sacri Imperii Romani_, -himself a violent advocate of Gregory's decree, though living as late -as the days of Ferdinand II. As late as A.D. 1648 we find Pope -Innocent X maintaining that the sacred number _Seven_ of the electors -was 'apostolica auctoritate olim praefinitus.' Bull _Zelo domus_ in -_Bullar. Rom._ - -[271] Sometimes we hear of a decree made by Pope Sergius IV and his -cardinals (of course equally fabulous with Otto's). So John Villani, -iv. 2. - -[272] In 1152 we read, 'Id iuris Romani Imperii apex habere dicitur ut -non per sanguinis propaginem sed per principum electionem reges -creentur.'--Otto Fris. Gulielmus Brito, writing not much later, says -(quoted by Freher),-- - - 'Est etenim talis dynastia Theutonicorum - Ut nullus regnet super illos, ni prius illum - Eligat unanimis cleri populique voluntas.' - -[273] Innocent III, during the contest between Philip and Otto IV, -speaks of 'principes ad quos principaliter spectat regis Romani -electio.' - -[274] 'Rex Bohemiae non eligit, quia non est Teutonicus,' says a writer -early in the fourteenth century. - -[275] The names and offices of the seven are concisely given in these -lines, which appear in the treatise of Marsilius of Padua, _De Imperio -Romano_:-- - - 'Moguntinensis, Trevirensis, Coloniensis, - Quilibet Imperii sit Cancellarius horum; - Et Palatinus dapifer, Dux portitor ensis, - Marchio praepositus camerae, pincerna Bohemus, - Hi statuunt dominum cunctis per saecula summum.' - -It is worth while to place beside this the first stanza of Schiller's -ballad, _Der Graf von Hapsburg_, in which the coronation feast of -Rudolf is described:-- - - 'Zu Aachen in seiner Kaiserpracht - Im alterthuemlichen Saale, - Sass Koenig Rudolphs heilige Macht - Beim festlichen Kroenungsmahle. - Die Speisen trug der Pfalzgraf des Rheins, - Es schenkte der Boehme des perlenden Weins, - Und alle die Waehler, die Sieben, - Wie der Sterne Chor um die Sonne sich stellt, - Umstanden geschaeftig den Herrscher der Welt, - Die Wuerde des Amtes zu ueben.' - -It is a poetical licence, however (as Schiller himself admits), to -bring the Bohemian there, for King Ottocar was far away at home, -mortified at his own rejection, and already meditating war. - -[276] The electoral prince (Kurfuerst) of Hessen-Cassel. His retention -of the title has this advantage, that it enables the Germans readily -to distinguish electoral Hesse (Kur-Hessen) from the Grand Duchy -(Hessen-Darmstadt) and the landgraviate (Hessen Homburg). [Since the -above was written (in 1865) this last relic of the electoral system -has passed away, the Elector of Hessen having been dethroned in 1866, -and his territories (to the great satisfaction of the inhabitants, -whom he had worried by a long course of petty tyrannies) annexed to -the Prussian kingdom, along with Hanover, Nassau, and the free city of -Frankfort. Count Bismarck, as he raises his master nearer and nearer -to the position of a Germanic Emperor, destroys one by one the -historical memorials of that elder Empire which people had learned to -associate with the Austrian house.] - -[277] Goethe, whose imagination was wonderfully attracted by the -splendours of the old Empire, has given in the second part of _Faust_ -a sort of fancy sketch of the origin of the great offices and the -territorial independence of the German princes. Two lines express -concisely the fiscal rights granted by the Emperor to the electors:-- - - 'Dann Steuer Zins und Beed, Lehn und Geleit und Zoll, - Berg-, Salz- und Muenz-regal euch angehoeren soll.' - -[278] This line is said to be as old as the time of Otto III. - - - - -CHAPTER XV. - -THE EMPIRE AS AN INTERNATIONAL POWER. - - -[Sidenote: Theory of the Roman Empire in the fourteenth and fifteenth -centuries.] - -That the Roman Empire survived the seemingly mortal wound it had -received at the era of the Great Interregnum, and continued to put -forth pretensions which no one was likely to make good where the -Hohenstaufen had failed, has been attributed to its identification -with the German kingdom, in which some life was still left. But this -was far from being the only cause which saved it from extinction. It -had not ceased to be upheld in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries -by the same singular theory which had in the ninth and tenth been -strong enough to re-establish it in the West. The character of that -theory was indeed somewhat changed, for if not positively less -religious, it was less exclusively so. In the days of Charles and -Otto, the Empire, in so far as it was anything more than a tradition -from times gone by, rested solely upon the belief that with the -visible Church there must be coextensive a single Christian state -under one head and governor. But now that the Emperor's headship had -been repudiated by the Pope, and his interference in matters of -religion denounced as a repetition of the sin of Uzziah; now that the -memory of mutual injuries had kindled an unquenchable hatred between -the champions of the ecclesiastical and those of the civil power, it -was natural that the latter, while they urged, fervently as ever, the -divine sanction given to the imperial office, should at the same time -be led to seek some further basis whereon to establish its claims. -What that basis was, and how they were guided to it, will best appear -when a word or two has been said on the nature of the change that had -passed on Europe in the course of the three preceding centuries, and -the progress of the human mind during the same period. - -[Sidenote: Revival of learning and literature, A.D. 1100-1400.] - -Such has been the accumulated wealth of literature, and so rapid the -advances of science among us since the close of the Middle Ages, that -it is not now possible by any effort fully to enter into the feelings -with which the relics of antiquity were regarded by those who saw in -them their only possession. It is indeed true that modern art and -literature and philosophy have been produced by the working of new -minds upon old materials: that in thought, as in nature, we see no new -creation. But with us the old has been transformed and overlaid by the -new till its origin is forgotten: to them ancient books were the only -standard of taste, the only vehicle of truth, the only stimulus to -reflection. Hence it was that the most learned man was in those days -esteemed the greatest: hence the creative energy of an age was exactly -proportioned to its knowledge of and its reverence for the written -monuments of those that had gone before. For until they can look -forward, men must look back: till they should have reached the level -of the old civilization, the nations of mediaeval Europe must continue -to live upon its memories. Over them, as over us, the common dream of -all mankind had power; but to them, as to the ancient world, that -golden age which seems now to glimmer on the horizon of the future was -shrouded in the clouds of the past. It is to the fifteenth and -sixteenth centuries that we are accustomed to assign that new birth of -the human spirit--if it ought not rather to be called a renewal of its -strength and quickening of its sluggish life--with which the modern -time begins. And the date is well chosen, for it was then first that -the transcendently powerful influence of Greek literature began to -work upon the world. But it must not be forgotten that for a long time -previous there had been in progress a great revival of learning, and -still more of zeal for learning, which being caused by and directed -towards the literature and institutions of Rome, might fitly be called -the Roman Renaissance. The twelfth century saw this revival begin with -that passionate study of the legislation of Justinian, whose influence -on the doctrines of imperial prerogative has been noticed already. The -thirteenth witnessed the rapid spread of the scholastic philosophy, a -body of systems most alien, both in subject and manner, to anything -that had arisen among the ancients, yet one to whose development Greek -metaphysics and the theology of the Latin fathers had largely -contributed, and the spirit of whose reasonings was far more free than -the presumed orthodoxy of its conclusions suffered to appear. In the -fourteenth century there arose in Italy the first great masters of -painting and song; and the literature of the new languages, springing -into the fulness of life in the Divina Commedia, adorned not long -after by the names of Petrarch and Chaucer, assumed at once its place -as a great and ever-growing power in the affairs of men. - -[Sidenote: Growing freedom of spirit.] - -[Sidenote: Influence of thought upon the arrangements of society.] - -Now, along with the literary revival, partly caused by, partly causing -it, there had been also a wonderful stirring and uprising in the mind -of Europe. The yoke of church authority still pressed heavily on the -souls of men; yet some had been found to shake it off, and many more -murmured in secret. The tendency was one which shewed itself in -various and sometimes apparently opposite directions. The revolt of -the Albigenses, the spread of the Cathari and other so-called -heretics, the excitement created by the writings of Wickliffe and -Huss, witnessed to the fearlessness wherewith it could assail the -dominant theology. It was present, however skilfully disguised, among -those scholastic doctors who busied themselves with proving by natural -reason the dogmas of the Church: for the power which can forge fetters -can also break them. It took a form more dangerous because of a more -direct application to facts, in the attacks, so often repeated from -Arnold of Brescia downwards, upon the wealth and corruptions of the -clergy, and above all of the papal court. For the agitation was not -merely speculative. There was beginning to be a direct and rational -interest in life, a power of applying thought to practical ends, which -had not been seen before. Man's life among his fellows was no longer a -mere wild beast struggle; man's soul no more, as it had been, the -victim of ungoverned passion, whether it was awed by supernatural -terrors or captivated by examples of surpassing holiness. Manners were -still rude, and governments unsettled; but society was learning to -organize itself upon fixed principles; to recognize, however faintly, -the value of order, industry, equality; to adapt means to ends, and -conceive of the common good as the proper end of its own existence. In -a word, Politics had begun to exist, and with them there had appeared -the first of a class of persons whom friends and enemies may both, -though with different meanings, call ideal politicians; men who, -however various have been the doctrines they have held, however -impracticable many of the plans they have advanced, have been -nevertheless alike in their devotion to the highest interests of -humanity, and have frequently been derided as theorists in their own -age to be honoured as the prophets and teachers of the next. - -[Sidenote: Separation of the peoples of Europe into hostile kingdoms: -consequent need of an international power.] - -Now it was towards the Roman Empire that the hopes and sympathies of -these political speculators as well as of the jurists and poets of the -fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were constantly directed. The cause -may be gathered from the circumstances of the time. The most -remarkable event in the history of the last three hundred years had -been the formation of nationalities, each distinguished by a peculiar -language and character, and by steadily increasing differences of -habits and institutions. And as upon this national basis there had -been in most cases established strong monarchies, Europe was broken up -into disconnected bodies, and the cherished scheme of a united -Christian state appeared less likely than ever to be realized. Nor was -this all. Sometimes through race-hatred, more often by the jealousy -and ambition of their sovereigns, these countries were constantly -involved in war with one another, violating on a larger scale and with -more destructive results than in time past the peace of the religious -community; while each of them was at the same time torn within by -frequent insurrections, and desolated by long and bloody civil wars. -The new nationalities were too fully formed to allow the hope that by -their extinction a remedy might be applied to these evils. They had -grown up in spite of the Empire and the Church, and were not likely to -yield in their strength what they had won in their weakness. But it -still appeared possible to soften, if not to overcome, their -antagonism. What might not be looked for from the erection of a -presiding power common to all Europe, a power which, while it should -oversee the internal concerns of each country, not dethroning the -king, but treating him as an hereditary viceroy, should be more -especially charged to prevent strife between kingdoms, and to maintain -the public order of Europe by being not only the fountain of -international law, but also the judge in its causes and the enforcer -of its sentences? - -[Sidenote: The Popes as international Judges.] - -To such a position had the Popes aspired. They were indeed excellently -fitted for it by the respect which the sacredness of their office -commanded; by their control of the tremendous weapons of -excommunication and interdict; above all, by their exemption from -those narrowing influences of place, or blood, or personal interest, -which it would be their chiefest duty to resist in others. And there -had been pontiffs whose fearlessness and justice were worthy of their -exalted office, and whose interference was gratefully remembered by -those who found no other helpers. Nevertheless, judging the Papacy by -its conduct as a whole, it had been tried and found wanting. Even when -its throne stood firmest and its purposes were most pure, one motive -had always biassed its decisions--a partiality to the most submissive. -During the greater part of the fourteenth century it was at Avignon -the willing tool of France: in the pursuit of a temporal principality -it had mingled in and been contaminated by the unhallowed politics of -Italy; its supreme council, the college of cardinals, was distracted -by the intrigues of two bitterly hostile factions. And while the power -of the Popes had declined steadily, though silently, since the days of -Boniface the Eighth, the insolence of the great prelates and the vices -of the inferior clergy had provoked throughout Western Christendom a -reaction against the pretensions of all sacerdotal authority. As there -is no theory at first sight more attractive than that which entrusts -all government to a supreme spiritual power, which, knowing what is -best for man, shall lead him to his true good by appealing to the -highest principles of his nature, so there is no disappointment more -bitter than that of those who find that the holiest office may be -polluted by the lusts and passions of its holder; that craft and -hypocrisy lead while fanaticism follows; that here too, as in so much -else, the corruption of the best is worst. Some such disappointment -there was in Europe now, and with it a certain disposition to look -with favour on the secular power: a wish to escape from the unhealthy -atmosphere of clerical despotism to the rule of positive law, harsher, -it might be, yet surely less corrupting. Espousing the cause of the -Roman Empire as the chief opponent of priestly claims, this tendency -found it, with shrunken territory and diminished resources, fitter in -some respects for the office of an international judge and mediator -than it had been as a great national power. For though far less widely -active, it was losing that local character which was fast gathering -round the Papacy. With feudal rights no longer enforcible, and -removed, except in his patrimonial lands, from direct contact with the -subject, the Emperor was not, as heretofore, conspicuously a German -and a feudal king, and occupied an ideal position far less marred by -the incongruous accidents of birth and training, of national and -dynastic interests. - -[Sidenote: Duties attributed to the Empire by the developed theory.] - -[Sidenote: Divine right of the Emperor.] - -To that position three cardinal duties were attached. He who held it -must typify spiritual unity, must preserve peace, must be a fountain -of that by which alone among imperfect men peace is preserved and -restored, law and justice. The first of these three objects was sought -not only on religious grounds, but also from that longing for a wider -brotherhood of humanity towards which, ever since the barrier between -Jew and Gentile, Greek and barbarian, was broken down, the aspirations -of the higher minds of the world have been constantly directed. Placed -in the midst of Europe, the Emperor was to bind its tribes into one -body, reminding them of their common faith, their common blood, their -common interest in each other's welfare. And he was therefore above -all things, professing indeed to be upon earth the representative of -the Prince of Peace, bound to listen to complaints, and to redress the -injuries inflicted by sovereigns or people upon each other; to punish -offenders against the public order of Christendom; to maintain through -the world, looking down as from a serene height upon the schemes and -quarrels of meaner potentates, that supreme good without which neither -arts nor letters, nor the gentler virtues of life, can rise and -flourish. The mediaeval Empire was in its essence what the modern -despotisms that mimic it profess themselves: the Empire was -peace[279]: the oldest and noblest title of its head was 'Imperator -pacificus[280].' And that he might be the peacemaker, he must be the -expounder of justice and the author of its concrete embodiment, -positive law; chief legislator and supreme judge of appeal, like his -predecessor the compiler of the Corpus Iuris, the one and only source -of all legitimate authority. In this sense, as governor and -administrator, not as owner, is he, in the words of the jurists, Lord -of the world; not that its soil belongs to him in the same sense in -which the soil of France or England belongs to their respective kings: -he is the steward of Him who has received the heathen for his -possession and the uttermost parts of the earth for his inheritance. -It is, therefore, by him alone that the idea of pure right, acquired -not by force but by legitimate devolution from those whom God himself -had set up, is visibly expressed upon earth. To find an external and -positive basis for that idea is a problem which it has at all times -been more easy to evade than to solve, and one peculiarly distressing -to those who could neither explain the phenomena of society by -reducing it to its original principles, nor inquire historically how -its existing arrangements had grown up. Hence the attempt to represent -human government as an emanation from divine: a view from which all -the similar but far less logically consistent doctrines of divine -right which have prevailed in later times are borrowed. As has been -said already, there is not a trace of the notion that the Emperor -reigns by an hereditary right of his own or by the will of the people, -for such a theory would have seemed to the men of the middle ages an -absurd and wicked perversion of the true order. Nor do his powers come -to him from those who choose him, but from God, who uses the electoral -princes as mere instruments of nomination. Having such an origin, his -rights exist irrespective of their actual exercise, and no voluntary -abandonment, not even an express grant, can impair them. Boniface the -Eighth[281] reminds the king of France, and imperialist lawyers till -the seventeenth century repeated the claim, that he, like other -princes, is of right and must ever remain subject to the Roman -Emperor. And the sovereigns of Europe long continued to address the -Emperor in language, and yield to him a precedence, which admitted the -inferiority of their own position[282]. - -There was in this theory nothing that was absurd, though much that was -impracticable. The ideas on which it rested are still unapproached in -grandeur and simplicity, still as far in advance of the average -thought of Europe, and as unlikely to find men or nations fit to apply -them, as when they were promulgated five hundred years ago. The -practical evil which the establishment of such a universal monarchy -was intended to meet, that of wars and hardly less ruinous -preparations for war between the states of Europe, remains what it was -then. The remedy which mediaeval theory proposed has been in some -measure applied by the construction and reception of international -law; the greater difficulty of erecting a tribunal to arbitrate and -decide, with the power of enforcing its decisions, is as far from a -solution as ever. - -[Sidenote: Roman Empire why an international power.] - -It is easy to see how it was to the Roman Emperor, and to him only, -that the duties and privileges above mentioned could be attributed. -Being Roman, he was of no nation, and therefore fittest to judge -between contending states, and appease the animosities of race. His -was the imperial tongue of Rome, not only the vehicle of religion and -law, but also, since no other was understood everywhere in Europe, the -necessary medium of diplomatic intercourse. As there was no Church but -the Holy Roman Church, and he its temporal head, it was by him that -the communion of the saints in its outward form, its secular side, was -represented, and to his keeping that the sanctity of peace must be -entrusted. As direct heir of those who from Julius to Justinian had -shaped the existing law of Europe[283], he was, so to speak, legality -personified[284]; the only sovereign on earth who, being possessed of -power by an unimpeachable title, could by his grant confer upon others -rights equally valid. And as he claimed to perpetuate the greatest -political system the world had known, a system which still moves the -wonder of those who see before their eyes empires as much wider than -the Roman as they are less symmetrical, and whose vast and complex -machinery far surpassed anything the fourteenth century possessed or -could hope to establish, it was not strange that he and his government -(assuming them to be what they were entitled to be) should be taken as -the ideal of a perfect monarch and a perfect state. - -[Sidenote: Illustrations.] - -[Sidenote: Right of creating Kings.] - -Of the many applications and illustrations of these doctrines which -mediaeval documents furnish, it will suffice to adduce two or three. No -imperial privilege was prized more highly than the power of creating -kings, for there was none which raised the Emperor so much above them. -In this, as in other international concerns, the Pope soon began to -claim a jurisdiction, at first concurrent, then separate and -independent. But the older and more reasonable view assigned it, as -flowing from the possession of supreme secular authority, to the -Emperor; and it was from him that the rulers of Burgundy, Bohemia, -Hungary, perhaps Poland and Denmark, received the regal title[285]. -The prerogative was his in the same manner in which that of conferring -titles is still held to belong to the sovereign in every modern -kingdom. And so when Charles the Bold, last duke of French Burgundy, -proposed to consolidate his wide dominions into a kingdom, it was from -Frederick III that he sought permission to do so. The Emperor, -however, was greedy and suspicious, the Duke uncompliant; and when -Frederick found that terms could not be arranged between them, he -stole away suddenly, and left Charles to carry back, with -ill-concealed mortification, the crown and sceptre which he had -brought ready-made to the place of interview. - -[Sidenote: Chivalry.] - -In the same manner, as representing what was common to and valid -throughout all Europe, nobility, and more particularly knighthood, -centred in the Empire. The great Orders of Chivalry were international -institutions, whose members, having consecrated themselves a military -priesthood, had no longer any country of their own, and could -therefore be subject to no one save the Emperor and the Pope. For -knighthood was constructed on the analogy of priesthood, and knights -were conceived of as being to the world in its secular aspect exactly -what priests, and more especially the monastic orders, were to it in -its religious aspect: to the one body was given the sword of the -flesh, to the other the sword of the spirit; each was universal, each -had its autocratic head[286]. Singularly, too, were these notions -brought into harmony with the feudal polity. Caesar was lord paramount -of the world: its countries great fiefs whose kings were his tenants -in chief, the suitors of his court, owing to him homage, fealty, and -military service against the infidel. - -[Sidenote: Persons eligible as Emperors.] - -One illustration more of the way in which the empire was held to be -something of and for all mankind, cannot be omitted. Although from the -practical union of the imperial with the German throne none but -Germans were chosen to fill it[287], it remained in point of law -absolutely free from all restrictions of country or birth. In an age -of the most intense aristocratic exclusiveness, the highest office in -the world was the only secular one open to all Christians. The old -writers, after debating at length the qualifications that are or may -be desirable in an Emperor, and relating how in pagan times Gauls and -Spaniards, Moors and Pannonians, were thought worthy of the purple, -decide that two things, and no more, are required of the candidate for -Empire: he must be free-born, and he must be orthodox[288]. - -[Sidenote: The Empire and the new learning.] - -[Sidenote: The doctrine of the Empire's rights and functions never -carried out in fact.] - -It is not without a certain surprise that we see those who were -engaged in the study of ancient letters, or felt indirectly their -stimulus, embrace so fervently the cause of the Roman Empire. Still -more difficult is it to estimate the respective influence exerted by -each of the three revivals which it has been attempted to distinguish. -The spirit of the ancient world by which the men who led these -movements fancied themselves animated, was in truth a pagan, or at -least a strongly secular spirit, in many respects inconsistent with -the associations which had now gathered round the imperial office. And -this hostility did not fail to shew itself when at the beginning of -the sixteenth century, in the fulness of the Renaissance, a direct and -for the time irresistible sway was exercised by the art and literature -of Greece, when the mythology of Euripides and Ovid supplanted that -which had fired the imagination of Dante and peopled the visions of -St. Francis; when men forsook the image of the saint in the cathedral -for the statue of the nymph in the garden; when the uncouth jargon of -scholastic theology was equally distasteful to the scholars who formed -their style upon Cicero and the philosophers who drew their -inspiration from Plato. That meanwhile the admirers of antiquity did -ally themselves with the defenders of the Empire, was due partly -indeed to the false notions that were entertained regarding the early -Caesars, yet still more to the common hostility of both sects to the -Papacy. It was as successor of old Rome, and by virtue of her -traditions, that the Holy See had established so wide a dominion; yet -no sooner did Arnold of Brescia and his republicans arise, claiming -liberty in the name of the ancient constitution of the republic, than -they found in the Popes their bitterest foes, and turned for help to -the secular monarch against the clergy. With similar aversion did the -Romish court view the revived study of the ancient jurisprudence, so -soon as it became, in the hands of the school of Bologna and -afterwards of the jurists of France, a power able to assert its -independence and resist ecclesiastical pretensions. In the ninth -century, Pope Nicholas the First had himself judged in the famous case -of Teutberga, wife of Lothar, according to the civil law: in the -thirteenth, his successors[289] forbade its study, and the canonists -strove to expel it from Europe[290]. And as the current of educated -opinion among the laity was beginning, however imperceptibly at first, -to set against sacerdotal tyranny, it followed that the Empire would -find sympathy in any effort it could make to regain its lost position. -Thus the Emperors became, or might have become had they seen the -greatness of the opportunity and been strong enough to improve it, the -exponents and guides of the political movement, the pioneers, in part -at least, of the Reformation. But the revival came too late to arrest, -if not to adorn, the decline of their office. The growth of a national -sentiment in the several countries of Europe, which had already gone -too far to be arrested, and was urged on by forces far stronger than -the theories of Catholic unity which opposed it, imprinted on the -resistance to papal usurpation, and even on the instincts of political -freedom, that form of narrowly local patriotism which they still -retain. It can hardly be said that upon any occasion, except the -gathering of the council of Constance by Sigismund, did the Emperor -appear filling a truly international place. For the most part he -exerted in the politics of Europe no influence greater than that of -other princes. In actual resources he stood below the kings of France -and England, far below his vassals the Visconti of Milan[291]. Yet -this helplessness, such was men's faith or their timidity, and such -their unwillingness to make prejudice bend to facts, did not prevent -his dignity from being extolled in the most sonorous language by -writers whose imaginations were enthralled by the halo of traditional -glory which surrounded it. - -[Sidenote: Attitude of the men of letters.] - -We are thus brought back to ask, What was the connection between -imperialism and the literary revival? - -[Sidenote: Petrarch.] - -To moderns who think of the Roman Empire as the heathen persecuting -power, it is strange to find it depicted as the model of a Christian -commonwealth. It is stranger still that the study of antiquity should -have made men advocates of arbitrary power. Democratic Athens, -oligarchic Rome, suggest to us Pericles and Brutus: the moderns who -have striven to catch their spirit have been men like Algernon Sidney, -and Vergniaud, and Shelley. The explanation is the same in both -cases[292]. The ancient world was known to the earlier middle ages by -tradition, freshest for what was latest, and by the authors of the -Empire. Both presented to them the picture of a mighty despotism and a -civilization brilliant far beyond their own. Writings of the fourth -and fifth centuries, unfamiliar to us, were to them authorities as -high as Tacitus or Livy; yet Virgil and Horace too had sung the -praises of the first and wisest of the Emperors. To the enthusiasts of -poetry and law, Rome meant universal monarchy[293]; to those of -religion, her name called up the undimmed radiance of the Church under -Sylvester and Constantine. Petrarch, the apostle of the dawning -Renaissance, is excited by the least attempt to revive even the shadow -of imperial greatness: as he had hailed Rienzi, he welcomes Charles IV -into Italy, and execrates his departure. The following passage is -taken from his letter to the Roman people asking them to receive back -Rienzi:--'When was there ever such peace, such tranquillity, such -justice, such honour paid to virtue, such rewards distributed to the -good and punishments to the bad, when was ever the state so wisely -guided, as in the time when the world had obtained one head, and that -head Rome; the very time wherein God deigned to be born of a virgin -and dwell upon earth. To every single body there has been given a -head; the whole world therefore also, which is called by the poet a -great body, ought to be content with one temporal head. For every -two-headed animal is monstrous; how much more horrible and hideous a -portent must be a creature with a thousand different heads, biting and -fighting against one another! If, however, it is necessary that there -be more heads than one, it is nevertheless evident that there ought to -be one to restrain all and preside over all, that so the peace of the -whole body may abide unshaken. Assuredly both in heaven and in earth -the sovereignty of one has always been best.' - -[Sidenote: Dante.] - -His passion for the heroism of Roman conquest and the ordered peace to -which it brought the world, is the centre of Dante's political hopes: -he is no more an exiled Ghibeline, but a patriot whose fervid -imagination sees a nation arise regenerate at the touch of its -rightful lord. Italy, the spoil of so many Teutonic conquerors, is the -garden of the Empire which Henry is to redeem: Rome the mourning -widow, whom Albert is denounced for neglecting[294]. Passing through -purgatory, the poet sees Rudolf of Hapsburg seated gloomily apart, -mourning his sin in that he left unhealed the wounds of Italy[295]. In -the deepest pit of hell's ninth circle lies Lucifer, huge, -three-headed; in each mouth a sinner whom he crunches between his -teeth, in one mouth Iscariot the traitor to Christ, in the others the -two traitors to the first Emperor of Rome, Brutus and Cassius[296]. To -multiply illustrations from other parts of the poem would be an -endless task; for the idea is ever present in Dante's mind, and -displays itself in a hundred unexpected forms. Virgil himself is -selected to be the guide of the pilgrim through hell and purgatory, -not so much as being the great poet of antiquity, as because he 'was -born under Julius and lived beneath the good Augustus;' because he was -divinely charged to sing of the Empire's earliest and brightest -glories. Strange, that the shame of one age should be the glory of -another. For Virgil's melancholy panegyrics upon the destroyer of the -republic are no more like Dante's appeals to the coming saviour of -Italy than is Caesar Octavianus to Henry count of Luxemburg. - -[Sidenote: Attitude of the Jurists.] - -The visionary zeal of the man of letters was seconded by the more -sober devotion of the lawyer. Conqueror, theologian, and jurist, -Justinian is a hero greater than either Julius or Constantine, for his -enduring work bears him witness. Absolutism was the civilian's -creed[297]: the phrases 'legibus solutus,' 'lex regia,' whatever else -tended in the same direction, were taken to express the prerogative of -him whose official style of Augustus, as well as the vernacular name -of 'Kaiser,' designated the legitimate successor of the compiler of -the Corpus Juris. Since it was upon that legitimacy that his claim to -be the fountain of law rested, no pains were spared to seek out and -observe every custom and precedent by which old Rome seemed to be -connected with her representative. - -[Sidenote: Imitations of old Rome.] - -Of the many instances that might be collected, it would be tedious to -enumerate more than a few. The offices of the imperial household, -instituted by Constantine the Great, were attached to the noblest -families of Germany. The Emperor and Empress, before their coronation -at Rome, were lodged in the chambers called those of Augustus and -Livia[298]; a bare sword was borne before them by the praetorian -prefect; their processions were adorned by the standards, eagles, -wolves and dragons, which had figured in the train of Hadrian or -Theodosius[299]. The constant title of the Emperor himself, according -to the style introduced by Probus, was 'semper Augustus,' or -'perpetuus Augustus,' which erring etymology translated 'at all times -increaser of the Empire[300].' Edicts issued by a Franconian or -Swabian sovereign were inserted as Novels[301] in the Corpus Juris, in -the latest editions of which custom still allows them a place. The -_pontificatus maximus_ of his pagan predecessors was supposed to be -preserved by the admission of each Emperor as a canon of St. Peter's -at Rome and St. Mary's at Aachen[302]. Sometimes we even find him -talking of his consulship[303]. Annalists invariably number the place -of each sovereign from Augustus downwards[304]. The notion of an -uninterrupted succession, which moves the stranger's wondering smile -as he sees ranged round the magnificent Golden Hall of Augsburg the -portraits of the Caesars, laurelled, helmeted, and periwigged, from -Julius the conqueror of Gaul to Joseph the partitioner of Poland, was -to those generations not an article of faith only because its denial -was inconceivable. - -[Sidenote: Reverence for ancient forms and phrases in the Middle -Ages.] - -[Sidenote: Absence of the idea of change or progress.] - -And all this historical antiquarianism, as one might call it, which -gathers round the Empire, is but one instance, though the most -striking, of that eager wish to cling to the old forms, use the old -phrases, and preserve the old institutions to which the annals of -mediaeval Europe bear witness. It appears even in trivial expressions, -as when a monkish chronicler says of evil bishops deposed, _Tribu moti -sunt_, or talks of the 'senate and people of the Franks,' when he -means a council of chiefs surrounded by a crowd of half-naked -warriors. So throughout Europe charters and edicts were drawn up on -Roman precedents; the trade-guilds, though often traceable to a -different source, represented the old _collegia_; villenage was the -offspring of the system of _coloni_ under the later Empire. Even in -remote Britain, the Teutonic invaders used Roman ensigns, and stamped -their coins with Roman devices; called themselves 'Basileis' and -'Augusti[305].' Especially did the cities perpetuate Rome through her -most lasting boon to the conquered, municipal self-government; those -of later origin emulating in their adherence to antique style others -who, like Nismes and Cologne, Zuerich and Augsburg, could trace back -their institutions to the _coloniae_ and _municipia_ of the first -centuries. On the walls and gates of hoary Nuernberg[306] the traveller -still sees emblazoned the imperial eagle, with the words 'Senatus -populusque Norimbergensis,' and is borne in thought from the quiet -provincial town of to-day to the stirring republic of the middle ages: -thence to the Forum and the Capitol of her greater prototype. For, in -truth, through all that period which we call the Dark and Middle Ages, -men's minds were possessed by the belief that all things continued as -they were from the beginning, that no chasm never to be recrossed lay -between them and that ancient world to which they had not ceased to -look back. We who are centuries removed can see that there had passed -a great and wonderful change upon thought, and art, and literature, -and politics, and society itself: a change whose best illustration is -to be found in the process whereby there arose out of the primitive -basilica the Romanesque cathedral, and from it in turn the endless -varieties of Gothic. But so gradual was the change that each -generation felt it passing over them no more than a man feels that -perpetual transformation by which his body is renewed from year to -year; while the few who had learning enough to study antiquity through -its contemporary records, were prevented by the utter want of -criticism and of that which we call historical feeling, from seeing -how prodigious was the contrast between themselves and those whom they -admired. There is nothing more modern than the critical spirit which -dwells upon the difference between the minds of men in one age and in -another; which endeavours to make each age its own interpreter, and -judge what it did or produced by a relative standard. Such a spirit -was, before the last century or two, wholly foreign to art as well as -to metaphysics. The converse and the parallel of the fashion of -calling mediaeval offices by Roman names, and supposing them therefore -the same, is to be found in those old German pictures of the siege of -Carthage or the battle between Porus and Alexander, where in the -foreground two armies of knights, mailed and mounted, are charging -each other like Crusaders, lance, in rest, while behind, through the -smoke of cannon, loom out the Gothic spires and towers of the -beleaguered city. And thus, when we remember that the notion of -progress and development, and of change as the necessary condition -thereof, was unwelcome or unknown in mediaeval times, we may better -understand, though we do not cease to wonder, how men, never doubting -that the political system of antiquity had descended to them, modified -indeed, yet in substance the same, should have believed that the -Frank, the Saxon, and the Swabian ruled all Europe by a right which -seems to us not less fantastic than that fabled charter whereby -Alexander the Great[307] bequeathed his empire to the Slavic race for -the love of Roxolana. - -It is a part of that perpetual contradiction of which the history of -the Middle Ages is full, that this belief had hardly any influence on -practical politics. The more abjectly helpless the Emperor becomes, so -much the more sonorous is the language in which the dignity of his -crown is described. His power, we are told, is eternal, the provinces -having resumed their allegiance after the barbarian irruptions[308]; -it is incapable of diminution or injury: exemptions and grants by him, -so far as they tend to limit his own prerogative, are invalid[309]: -all Christendom is still of right subject to him, though it may -contumaciously refuse obedience[310]. The sovereigns of Europe are -solemnly warned that they are resisting the power ordained of -God[311]. No laws can bind the Emperor, though he may choose to live -according to them: no court can judge him, though he may condescend to -be sued in his own: none may presume to arraign the conduct or -question the motives of him who is answerable only to God[312]. So -writes AEneas Sylvius, while Frederick the Third, chased from his -capital by the Hungarians, is wandering from convent to convent, an -imperial beggar; while the princes, whom his subserviency to the Pope -has driven into rebellion, are offering the imperial crown to -Podiebrad the Bohemian king. - -[Sidenote: Henry VII, A.D. 1308-1313.] - -[Sidenote: Death of Henry VII.] - -But the career of Henry the Seventh in Italy is the most remarkable -illustration of the Emperor's position: and imperialist doctrines are -set forth most strikingly in the treatise which the greatest spirit of -the age wrote to herald the advent of that hero, the _De Monarchia_ of -Dante[313]. Rudolf, Adolf of Nassau, Albert of Hapsburg, none of them -crossed the Alps or attempted to aid the Italian Ghibelines who -battled away in the name of their throne. Concerned only to restore -order and aggrandize his house, and thinking apparently that nothing -more was to be made of the imperial crown, Rudolf was content never to -receive it, and purchased the Pope's goodwill by surrendering his -jurisdiction in the capital, and his claims over the bequest of the -Countess Matilda. Henry the Luxemburger ventured on a bolder course; -urged perhaps only by his lofty and chivalrous spirit, perhaps in -despair at effecting anything with his slender resources against the -princes of Germany. Crossing from his Burgundian dominions with a -scanty following of knights, and descending from the Cenis upon Turin, -he found his prerogative higher in men's belief after sixty years of -neglect than it had stood under the last Hohenstaufen. The cities of -Lombardy opened their gates; Milan decreed a vast subsidy; Guelf and -Ghibeline exiles alike were restored, and imperial vicars appointed -everywhere: supported by the Avignonese pontiff, who dreaded the -restless ambition of his French neighbour, king Philip IV, Henry had -the interdict of the Church as well as the ban of the Empire at his -command. But the illusion of success vanished as soon as men, -recovering from their first impression, began to be again governed by -their ordinary passions and interests, and not by an imaginative -reverence for the glories of the past. Tumults and revolts broke out -in Lombardy; at Rome the king of Naples held St. Peter's, and the -coronation must take place in St. John Lateran, on the southern bank -of the Tiber. The hostility of the Guelfic league, headed by the -Florentines, Guelfs even against the Pope, obliged Henry to depart -from his impartial and republican policy, and to purchase the aid of -the Ghibeline chiefs by granting them the government of cities. With -few troops, and encompassed by enemies, the heroic Emperor sustained -an unequal struggle for a year longer, till, in A.D. 1313, he sank -beneath the fevers of the deadly Tuscan summer. His German followers -believed, nor has history wholly rejected the tale, that poison was -given him by a Dominican monk, in sacramental wine. - -[Sidenote: Later Emperors in Italy.] - -Others after him descended from the Alps, but they came, like Lewis -the Fourth, Rupert, Sigismund, at the behest of a faction, which found -them useful tools for a time, then flung them away in scorn; or like -Charles the Fourth and Frederick the Third, as the humble minions of a -French or Italian priest. With Henry the Seventh ends the history of -the Empire in Italy, and Dante's book is an epitaph instead of a -prophecy. A sketch of its argument will convey a notion of the -feelings with which the noblest Ghibelines fought, as well as of the -spirit in which the Middle Age was accustomed to handle such subjects. - -[Sidenote: Dante's feelings and theories.] - -Weary of the endless strife of princes and cities, of the factions -within every city against each other, seeing municipal freedom, the -only mitigation of turbulence, vanish with the rise of domestic -tyrants, Dante raises a passionate cry for some power to still the -tempest, not to quench liberty or supersede local self-government, but -to correct and moderate them, to restore unity and peace to hapless -Italy. His reasoning is throughout closely syllogistic: he is -alternately the jurist, the theologian, the scholastic metaphysician: -the poet of the Divina Commedia is betrayed only by the compressed -energy of diction, by his clear vision of the unseen, rarely by a -glowing metaphor. - -[Sidenote: The 'De Monarchia.'] - -Monarchy is first proved to be the true and rightful form of -government. Men's objects are best attained during universal peace: -this is possible only under a monarch. And as he is the image of the -Divine unity, so man is through him made one, and brought most near to -God. There must, in every system of forces, be a 'primum mobile;' to -be perfect, every organization must have a centre, into which all is -gathered, by which all is controlled[314]. Justice is best secured by -a supreme arbiter of disputes, himself unsolicited by ambition, since -his dominion is already bounded only by ocean. Man is best and -happiest when he is most free; to be free is to exist for one's own -sake. To this grandest end does the monarch and he alone guide us; -other forms of government are perverted[315], and exist for the -benefit of some class; he seeks the good of all alike, being to that -very end appointed[316]. - -Abstract arguments are then confirmed from history. Since the world -began there has been but one period of perfect peace, and but one of -perfect monarchy, that, namely, which existed at our Lord's birth, -under the sceptre of Augustus; since then the heathen have raged, and -the kings of the earth have stood up; they have set themselves against -their Lord, and his anointed the Roman prince[317]. The universal -dominion, the need for which has been thus established, is then proved -to belong to the Romans. Justice is the will of God, a will to exalt -Rome shewn through her whole history[318]. Her virtues deserved -honour: Virgil is quoted to prove those of AEneas, who by descent and -marriage was the heir of three continents: of Asia through Assaracus -and Creusa; of Africa by Electra (mother of Dardanus and daughter of -Atlas) and Dido; of Europe by Dardanus and Lavinia. God's favour was -approved in the fall of the shields to Numa, in the miraculous -deliverance of the capital from the Gauls, in the hailstorm after -Cannae. Justice is also the advantage of the state: that advantage was -the constant object of the virtuous Cincinnatus, and the other heroes -of the republic. They conquered the world for its own good, and -therefore justly, as Cicero attests[319]; so that their sway was not -so much 'imperium' as 'patrocinium orbis terrarum.' Nature herself, -the fountain of all right, had, by their geographical position and by -the gift of a genius so vigorous, marked them out for universal -dominion:-- - - 'Excudent alii spirantia mollius aera, - Credo equidem: vivos ducent de marmore vultus; - Orabunt causas melius, coelique meatus - Describent radio, et surgentia sidera dicent: - Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento; - Hae tibi erunt artes; pacisque imponere morem, - Parcere subiectis, et debellare superbos.' - -Finally, the right of war asserted, Christ's birth, and death under -Pilate, ratified their government. For Christian doctrine requires -that the procurator should have been a lawful judge[320], which he was -not unless Tiberius was a lawful Emperor. - -The relations of the imperial and papal power are then examined, and -the passages of Scripture (tradition being rejected), to which the -advocates of the Papacy appeal, are elaborately explained away. The -argument from the sun and moon[321] does not hold, since both lights -existed before man's creation, and at a time when, as still sinless, -he needed no controlling powers. Else _accidentia_ would have preceded -_propria_ in creation. The moon, too, does not receive her being nor -all her light from the sun, but so much only as makes her more -effective. So there is no reason why the temporal should not be aided -in a corresponding measure by the spiritual authority. This difficult -text disposed of, others fall more easily; Levi and Judah, Samuel and -Saul, the incense and gold offered by the Magi[322]; the two swords, -the power of binding and loosing given to Peter. Constantine's -donation was illegal: no single Emperor nor Pope can disturb the -everlasting foundations of their respective thrones: the one had no -right to bestow, nor the other to receive, such a gift. Leo the Third -gave the Empire to Charles wrongfully: '_usurpatio iuris non facit -ius_.' It is alleged that all things of one kind are reducible to one -individual, and so all men to the Pope. But Emperor and Pope differ in -kind, and so far as they are men, are reducible only to God, on whom -the Empire immediately depends; for it existed before Peter's see, and -was recognized by Paul when he appealed to Caesar. The temporal power -of the Papacy can have been given neither by natural law, nor divine -ordinance, nor universal consent: nay, it is against its own Form and -Essence, the life of Christ, who said, 'My kingdom is not of this -world.' - -Man's nature is twofold, corruptible and incorruptible: he has -therefore two ends, active virtue on earth, and the enjoyment of the -sight of God hereafter; the one to be attained by practice conformed -to the precepts of philosophy, the other by the theological virtues. -Hence two guides are needed, the pontiff and the Emperor, the latter -of whom, in order that he may direct mankind in accordance with the -teachings of philosophy to temporal blessedness, must preserve -universal peace in the world. Thus are the two powers equally ordained -of God, and the Emperor, though supreme in all that pertains to the -secular world, is in some things dependent on the pontiff, since -earthly happiness is subordinate to eternal. 'Let Caesar, therefore, -shew towards Peter the reverence wherewith a firstborn son honours his -father, that, being illumined by the light of his paternal favour, he -may the more excellently shine forth upon the whole world, to the rule -of which he has been appointed by Him alone who is of all things, both -spiritual and temporal, the King and Governor.' So ends the treatise. - -Dante's arguments are not stranger than his omissions. No suspicion is -breathed against Constantine's donation; no proof is adduced, for no -doubt is felt, that the Empire of Henry the Seventh is the legitimate -continuation of that which had been swayed by Augustus and Justinian. -Yet Henry was a German, sprung from Rome's barbarian foes, the elected -of those who had neither part nor share in Italy and her capital. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[279] See esp. AEgidi, _Der Fuerstenrath nach dem Luneviller Frieden_, -and the passages by him quoted. - -[280] The archbishop of Mentz addresses Conrad II on his election -thus: 'Deus quum a te multa requirat tum hoc potissimum desiderat ut -facias iudicium et iustitiam et pacem patriae quae respicit ad te, ut -sis defensor ecclesiarum et clericorum, tutor viduarum et -orphanorum.'--Wippo, Vita Chuonradi, c. 3, _ap._ Pertz. So Pope Urban -IV writes to Richard: 'Ut consternatis Imperii Romani inimicis, in -pacis pulchritudine sedeat populus Christianus et requie opulenta -quiescat.' Compare also the 'Edictum de crimine laesae maiestatis' -issued by Henry VII in Italy: 'Ad reprimenda multorum facinora qui -ruptis totius debitae fidelitatis habenis adversus Romanum imperium, in -cuius tranquillitate totius orbis regularitas requiescit, hostili -animo armati conentur nedum humana, verum etiam divina praecepta, -quibus iubetur quod omnis anima Romanorum principi sit subiecta, -scelestissimis facinoribus et rebellionibus demoliri,' &c.--Pertz, _M. -G. H._, legg. ii. p. 544. - -See also a curious passage in the Life of St. Adalbert, describing the -beginning of the reign at Rome of the Emperor Otto III, and his cousin -and nominee Pope Gregory V: 'Laetantur cum primatibus minores -civitatis: cum afflicto paupere exultant agmina viduarum, quia novus -imperator dat iura populis; dat iura novus papa.' - -[281] 'Imperator est monarcha omnium regum et principum terrenorum ... -nec insurgat superbia Gallicorum quae dicat quod non recognoscit -superiorem, mentiuntur, quia de iure sunt et esse debent sub rege -Romanorum et Imperatore.'--Speech of Boniface VIII. It is curious to -compare with this the words addressed nearly five centuries earlier by -Pope John VIII to Lewis, king of Bavaria: 'Si sumpseritis Romanum -imperium, omnia regna vobis subiecta existent.' - -[282] So Alfonso, king of Naples, writes to Frederick III: 'Nos reges -omnes debemus reverentiam Imperatori, tanquam summo regi, qui est -Caput et Dux regum.'--Quoted by Pfeffinger, _Vitriarius illustratus_, -i. 379. And Francis I (of France), speaking of a proposed combined -expedition against the Turks, says, 'Caesari nihilominus principem ea -in expeditione locum non gravarer ex officio cedere.'--For a long time -no European sovereign save the Emperor ventured to use the title of -'Majesty.' The imperial chancery conceded it in 1633 to the kings of -England and Sweden; in 1641 to the king of France.--Zedler, _Universal -Lexicon_, _s. v._ Majestaet. - -[283] For with the progress of society and the growth of commerce the -old feudal customs were through the greater part of Western Europe, -and especially in Germany, either giving way to or being remodelled -and supplemented by the civil law. - -[284] 'Imperator est animata lex in terris.'--Quoted by Von Raumer, v. -81. - -[285] Thus we are told of the Emperor Charles the Bald, when he -confirmed the election of Boso, king of Burgundy and Provence, 'Dedit -Bosoni Provinciam (_sc._ Carolus Calvus), et corona in vertice capitis -imposita, eum regem appellari iussit, ut more priscorum imperatorum -regibus videretur dominari.'--_Regin. Chron._ Frederick II made his -son Enzio (that famous Enzio whose romantic history every one who has -seen Bologna will remember) king of Sardinia, and also erected the -duchy of Austria into a kingdom, although for some reason the title -seems never to have been used; and Lewis IV gave to Humbert of -Dauphine the title of King of Vienne, A.D. 1336. - -[286] It is probably for this reason that the _Ordo Romanus_ directs -the Emperor and Empress to be crowned (in St. Peter's) at the altar of -St. Maurice, the patron saint of knighthood. - -[287] See especially Gerlach Buxtorff, _Dissertatio ad Auream Bullam_; -and Augustinus Stenchus, _De Imperio Romano_; quoted by Marquard -Freher. It was keenly debated, while Charles V and Francis I (of -France) were rival candidates, whether any one but a German was -eligible. By birth Charles was either a Spaniard or a Fleming; but -this difficulty his partisans avoided by holding that he had been, -according to the civil law, _in potestate_ of Maximilian his -grandfather. However, to say nothing of the Guidos and Berengars of -earlier days, the examples of Richard and Alfonso are conclusive as to -the eligibility of others than Germans. Edward III of England was, as -has been said, actually elected; Henry VIII was a candidate. And -attempts were frequently made to elect the kings of France. - -[288] The mediaeval practice seems to have been that which still -prevails in the Roman Catholic Church--to presume the doctrinal -orthodoxy and external conformity of every citizen, whether lay or -clerical, until the contrary be proved. Of course when heresy was rife -it went hard with suspected men, unless they could either clear -themselves or submit to recant. But no one was required to pledge -himself beforehand, as a qualification for any office, to certain -doctrines. And thus, important as an Emperor's orthodoxy was, he does -not appear to have been subjected to any test, although the Pope -pretended to the right of catechizing him in the faith and rejecting -him if unsound. In the _Ordo Romanus_ we find a long series of -questions which the Pontiff was to administer, but it does not appear, -and is in the highest degree unlikely, that such a programme was ever -carried out. - -The charge of heresy was one of the weapons used with most effect -against Frederick II. - -[289] Honorius II in 1229 forbade it to be studied or taught in the -University of Paris. Innocent IV published some years later a still -more sweeping prohibition. - -[290] See Von Savigny, _History of Roman Law in the Middle Ages_, vol. -iii. pp. 81, 341-347. - -[291] Charles the Bold of Burgundy was a potentate incomparably -stronger than the Emperor Frederick III from whom he sought the regal -title. - -[292] Cf. Sismondi, _Republiques Italiennes_, iv. chap. xxvii. - -[293] See Dante, _Paradiso_, canto vi. - -[294] - - 'Vieni a veder la tua Roma, che piange - Vedova, sola, e di e notte chiama: - "Cesare mio, perche non m' accompagne?"' - _Purgatorio_, canto vi. - -[295] _Purgatorio_, canto vii. - -[296] _Inferno_, canto xxxiv. - -[297] Not that the doctors of the civil law were necessarily political -partisans of the Emperors. Savigny says that there were on the -contrary more Guelfs than Ghibelines among the jurists of -Bologna.--_Roman Law in the Middle Ages_, vol. iii. p. 80. - -[298] Cf. Palgrave, _Normandy and England_, vol. ii. (of Otto and -Adelheid). The _Ordo Romanus_ talks of a 'Camera Iuliae' in the Lateran -palace, reserved for the Empress. - -[299] See notes to _Chron. Casin._ in Muratori, _S. R. I._ iv. 515. - -[300] Zu aller Zeiten Mehrer des Reichs. - -[301] _Novellae Constitutiones_. - -[302] Marquard Freher. The question whether the seven electors vote as -_singuli_ or as a _collegium_, is solved by shewing that they have -stepped into the place of the senate and people of Rome, whose duty it -was to choose the Emperor, though (it is naively added) the soldiers -sometimes usurped it.--Peter de Andlo, _De Imperio Romano_. - -[303] Thus Charles, in a capitulary added to a revised edition of the -Lombard law issued in A.D. 801, says, 'Anno consulatus nostri primo.' -So Otto III calls himself 'Consul Senatus populique Romani.' - -[304] Francis II, the last Emperor, was one hundred and twentieth from -Augustus. Some chroniclers call Otto the Great Otto II, counting in -Salvius Otho, the successor of Galba. - -[305] See p. 45 and note to p. 143. - -[306] Nuernberg herself was not of Roman foundation. But this makes the -imitation all the more curious. The fashion even passed from the -cities to rural communities like some of the Swiss cantons. Thus we -find 'Senatus populusque Uronensis.' - -[307] See Palgrave, _Normandy and England_, i. p. 379. - -[308] AEneas Sylvius, _De Ortu et Authoritate Imperii Romani_. - -[309] Thus some civilians held Constantine's Donation null; but the -canonists, we are told, were clear as to its legality. - -[310] 'Et idem dico de istis aliis regibus et principibus, qui negant -se esse subditos regi Romanorum, ut rex Franciae, Angliae, et similes. -Si enim fatentur ipsum esse Dominum universalem, licet ab illo -universali domino se subtrahant ex privilegio vel ex praescriptione vel -consimili, non ergo desunt esse cives Romani, per ea quae dicta sunt. -Et per hoc omnes gentes quae obediunt S. matri ecclesiae sunt de populo -Romano. Et forte si quis diceret dominum Imperatorem non esse dominum -et monarcham totius orbis, esset haereticus, quia diceret contra -determinationem ecclesiae et textum S. evangelii, dum dicit, "Exivit -edictum a Caesare Augusto ut describeretur universus orbis." Ita et -recognovit Christus Imperatorem ut dominum.'--Bartolus, _Commentary on -the Pandects_, xlviii. i. 24; _De Captivis et postliminio reversis_. - -[311] Peter de Andlo, _multis locis_ (see esp. cap. viii.), and other -writings of the time. Cf. Dante's letter to Henry VII: 'Romanorum -potestas nec metis Italiae nec tricornis Siciliae margine coarctatur. -Nam etsi vim passa in angustum gubernacula sua contraxit undique, -tamen de inviolabili iure fluctus Amphitritis attingens vix ab inutili -unda Oceani se circumcingi dignatur. Scriptum est enim - - "Nascetur pulchra Troianus origine Caesar, - Imperium Oceano, famam qui terminet astris."' - -So Fr. Zoannetus, in the sixteenth century, declares it to be a mortal -sin to resist the Empire, as the power ordained of God. - -[312] AEneas Sylvius Piccolomini (afterwards Pope Pius II), _De Ortu et -Authoritate Imperii Romani_. Cf. Gerlach Buxtorff, _Dissertatio ad -Auream Bullam_. - -[313] It has hitherto been the common opinion that the _De Monarchia_ -was written in the view of Henry's expedition. But latterly weighty -reasons have been advanced for believing that its date must be placed -some years later. - -[314] Suggesting the celestial hierarchies of Dionysius the -Areopagite. - -[315] Quoting Aristotle's _Politics_. - -[316] 'Non enim cives propter consules nec gens propter regem, sed e -converso consules propter cives, rex propter gentem.' - -[317] 'Reges et principes in hoc unico concordantes, ut adversentur -Domino suo et uncto suo Romano Principi,' having quoted 'Quare -fremuerunt gentes.' - -[318] Especially in the opportune death of Alexander the Great. - -[319] Cic., _De Off._, ii. 'Ita ut illud patrocinium orbis terrarum -potius quam imperium poterat nominari.' - -[320] 'Si Pilati imperium non de iure fuit, peccatum in Christo non -fuit adeo punitum.' - -[321] There is a curious seal of the Emperor Otto IV (figured in J. M. -Heineccius, _De veteribus Germanorum atque aliarum nationum -sigillis_), on which the sun and moon are represented over the head of -the Emperor. Heineccius says he cannot explain it, but there seems to -be no reason why we should not take the device as typifying the accord -of the spiritual and temporal powers which was brought about at the -accession of Otto, the Guelfic leader, and the favoured candidate of -Pope Innocent III. - -The analogy between the lights of heaven and the princes of earth is -one which mediaeval writers are very fond of. It seems to have -originated with Gregory VII. - -[322] Typifying the spiritual and temporal powers. Dante meets this by -distinguishing the homage paid to Christ from that which his Vicar can -rightfully demand. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI. - -THE CITY OF ROME IN THE MIDDLE AGES. - - -'It is related,' says Sozomen in the ninth book of his Ecclesiastical -History, 'that when Alaric was hastening against Rome, a holy monk of -Italy admonished him to spare the city, and not to make himself the -cause of such fearful ills. But Alaric answered, "It is not of my own -will that I do this; there is One who forces me on, and will not let -me rest, bidding me spoil Rome[323]."' - -Towards the close of the tenth century the Bohemian Woitech, famous in -after legend as St. Adalbert, forsook his bishopric of Prague to -journey into Italy, and settled himself in the Roman monastery of -Sant' Alessio. After some few years passed there in religious -solitude, he was summoned back to resume the duties of his see, and -laboured for awhile among his half-savage countrymen. Soon, however, -the old longing came over him: he resought his cell upon the brow of -the Aventine, and there, wandering among the ancient shrines, and -taking on himself the menial offices of the convent, he abode happily -for a space. At length the reproaches of his metropolitan, the -archbishop of Mentz, and the express commands of Pope Gregory the -Fifth, drove him back over the Alps, and he set off in the train of -Otto the Third, lamenting, says his biographer, that he should no more -enjoy his beloved quiet in the mother of martyrs, the home of the -Apostles, golden Rome. A few months later he died a martyr among the -pagan Lithuanians of the Baltic[324]. - -Nearly four hundred years later, and nine hundred after the time of -Alaric, Francis Petrarch writes thus to his friend John Colonna:-- - -'Thinkest thou not that I long to see that city to which there has -never been any like nor ever shall be; which even an enemy called a -city of kings; of whose people it hath been written, "Great is the -valour of the Roman people, great and terrible their name;" concerning -whose unexampled glory and incomparable empire, which was, and is, and -is to be, divine prophets have sung; where are the tombs of the -apostles and martyrs and the bodies of so many thousands of the saints -of Christ[325]?' - -It was the same irresistible impulse that drew the warrior, the monk, -and the scholar towards the mystical city which was to mediaeval Europe -more than Delphi had been to the Greek or Mecca to the Islamite, the -Jerusalem of Christianity, the city which had once ruled the earth, -and now ruled the world of disembodied spirits[326]. For there was -then, as there is now, something in Rome to attract men of every -class. The devout pilgrim came to pray at the shrine of the Prince of -the Apostles, too happy if he could carry back to his monastery in the -forests of Saxony or by the bleak Atlantic shore the bone of some holy -martyr; the lover of learning and poetry dreamed of Virgil and Cicero -among the shattered columns of the Forum; the Germanic kings, in spite -of pestilence, treachery and seditions, came with their hosts to seek -in the ancient capital of the world the fountain of temporal dominion. -Nor has the spell yet wholly lost its power. To half the Christian -nations Rome is the metropolis of religion, to all the metropolis of -art. In her streets, and hers alone among the cities of the world, may -every form of human speech be heard: she is more glorious in her decay -and desolation than the stateliest seats of modern power. - -But while men thought thus of Rome, what was Rome herself? - -The modern traveller, after his first few days in Rome, when he has -looked out upon the Campagna from the summit of St. Peter's, paced the -chilly corridors of the Vatican, and mused under the echoing dome of -the Pantheon, when he has passed in review the monuments of regal and -republican and papal Rome, begins to seek for some relics of the -twelve hundred years that lie between Constantine and Pope Julius the -Second. 'Where,' he asks, 'is the Rome of the Middle Ages, the Rome of -Alberic and Hildebrand and Rienzi? the Rome which dug the graves of so -many Teutonic hosts; whither the pilgrims flocked; whence came the -commands at which kings bowed? Where are the memorials of the -brightest age of Christian architecture, the age which reared Cologne -and Rheims and Westminster, which gave to Italy the cathedrals of -Tuscany and the wave-washed palaces of Venice?' - -To this question there is no answer. Rome, the mother of the arts, has -scarcely a building to commemorate those times, for to her they were -times of turmoil and misery, times in which the shame of the present -was embittered by recollections of a brighter past. Nevertheless a -minute scrutiny may still discover, hidden in dark corners or -disguised under an unbecoming modern dress, much that carries us back -to the mediaeval town, and helps us to realize its social and political -condition. Therefore a brief notice of the state of Rome during the -Middle Ages, with especial reference to those monuments which the -visitor may still examine for himself, may not be without its use, and -is at any rate no unfitting pendant to an account of the institution -which drew from the city its name and its magnificent pretensions. -Moreover, as will appear more fully in the sequel, the history of the -Roman people is an instructive illustration of the influence of those -ideas upon which the Empire itself rested, as well in their weakness -as in their strength[327]. - -[Sidenote: Causes of the rapid decay of the city.] - -It is not from her capture by Alaric, nor even from the more -destructive ravages of the Vandal Genseric, that the material and -social ruin of Rome must be dated, but rather from the repeated sieges -which she sustained in the war of Belisarius with the Ostrogoths. This -struggle however, long and exhausting as it was, would not have proved -so fatal had the previous condition of the city been sound and -healthy. Her wealth and population in the middle of the fifth century -were probably little inferior to what they had been in the most -prosperous days of the imperial government. But this wealth was -entirely gathered into the hands of a small and effeminate -aristocracy. The crowd that filled her streets was composed partly of -poor and idle freemen, unaccustomed to arms and debarred from -political rights; partly of a far more numerous herd of slaves, -gathered from all parts of the world, and morally even lower than -their masters. There was no middle class, and no system of municipal -institutions, for although the senate and consuls with many of the -lesser magistracies continued to exist, they had for centuries enjoyed -no effective power, and were nowise fitted to lead and rule the -people. Hence it was that when the Gothic war and the subsequent -inroads of the Lombards had reduced the great families to beggary, the -framework of society dissolved and could not be replaced. In a state -rotten to the core there was no vital force left for reconstruction. -The old forms of political activity had been too long dead to be -recalled to life: the people wanted the moral force to produce new -ones, and all the authority that could be said to exist in the midst -of anarchy tended to centre itself in the chief of the new religious -society. - -[Sidenote: Peculiarities in the position of Rome.] - -So far Rome's condition was like that of the other great towns of -Italy and Gaul. But in two points her case differed from theirs, and -to these the difference of her after fortunes may be traced. Her -bishop had no temporal potentate to overshadow his dignity or check -his ambition, for the vicar of the Eastern court lived far away at -Ravenna, and seldom interfered except to ratify a papal election or -punish a more than commonly outrageous sedition. Her population -received an all but imperceptible infusion of that Teutonic blood and -those Teutonic customs by whose stern discipline the inhabitants of -northern Italy were in the end renovated. Everywhere the old -institutions had perished of decay: in Rome alone there was nothing -except the ecclesiastical system out of which new ones could arise. -Her condition was therefore the most pitiable in which a community can -find itself, one of struggle without purpose or progress. The citizens -were divided into three orders: the military class, including what was -left of the ancient aristocracy; the clergy, a host of priests, monks -and nuns, attached to the countless churches and convents; and the -people or _plebs_, as they are called, a poverty-stricken rabble -without trade, without industry, without any municipal organization to -bind them together. Of these two latter classes the Pope was the -natural leader, the first was divided into factions headed by some -three or four of the great families, whose quarrels kept the town in -incessant bloodshed. The internal history of Rome from the sixth to -the twelfth century is an obscure and tedious record of the contest of -these factions with each other, and of the aristocracy as a whole with -the slowly growing power of the Church. - -[Sidenote: Her condition in the ninth and tenth centuries.] - -The revolt of the Romans from the Iconoclastic Emperors of the East, -followed as it was by the reception of the Franks as patricians and -emperors, is an event of the highest importance in the history of -Italy and of the popedom. In the domestic constitution of Rome it made -little change. With the instinct of a profound genius, Charles the -Great saw that Rome, though it might be ostensibly the capital, could -not be the real centre of his dominions. He continued to reside in -Germany, and did not even build a palace at Rome. For a time the awe -of his power, the presence of his _missus_ or lieutenant, and the -occasional visits of his successors Lothar and Lewis II to the city, -repressed her internal disorders. But after the death of the prince -last named, and still more after the dissolution of the Carolingian -Empire itself, Rome relapsed into a state of profligacy and barbarism -to which, even in that age, Europe supplied no parallel, a barbarism -which had inherited all the vices of civilization without any of its -virtues. The papal office in particular seems to have lost its -religious character, as it had certainly lost all claim to moral -purity. For more than a century the chief priest of Christendom was no -more than a tool of some ferocious faction among the nobles. Criminal -means had raised him to the throne; violence, sometimes going the -length of mutilation or murder, deprived him of it. The marvel is, a -marvel in which papal historians have not unnaturally discovered a -miracle, that after sinking so low, the Papacy should ever have risen -again. Its rescue and exaltation to the pinnacle of glory was -accomplished not by the Romans but by the efforts of the Transalpine -Church, aiding and prompting the Saxon and Franconian Emperors. Yet -even the religious reform did not abate intestine turmoil, and it was -not till the twelfth century that a new spirit began to work in -politics, which ennobled if it could not heal the sufferings of the -Roman people. - -[Sidenote: Growth of a republican feeling: hostility to the Popes.] - -[Sidenote: Arnold of Brescia.] - -[Sidenote: Short-sighted policy of the Emperors.] - -Ever since the time of Alberic their pride had revolted against the -haughty behaviour of the Teutonic emperors. From still earlier times -they had been jealous of sacerdotal authority, and now watched with -alarm the rapid extension of its influence. The events of the twelfth -century gave these feelings a definite direction. It was the time of -the struggle of the Investitures, in which Hildebrand and his -disciples had been striving to draw all the things of this world as -well as of the next into their grasp. It was the era of the revived -study of Roman law, by which alone the extravagant pretensions of the -decretalists could be resisted. The Lombard and Tuscan towns had -become flourishing municipalities, independent of their bishops, and -at open war with their Emperor. While all these things were stirring -the minds of the Romans, Arnold of Brescia came preaching reform, -denouncing the corrupt life of the clergy, not perhaps, like some -others of the so-called schismatics of his time, denying the need of a -sacerdotal order, but at any rate urging its restriction to purely -spiritual duties. On the minds of the Romans such teaching fell like -the spark upon dry grass; they threw off the yoke of the Pope[328], -drove out the imperial prefect, reconstituted the senate and the -equestrian order, appointed consuls, struck their own coins, and -professed to treat the German Emperors as their nominees and -dependants. To have successfully imitated the republican constitution -of the cities of northern Italy would have been much, but with this -they were not content. Knowing in a vague ignorant way that there had -been a Roman republic before there was a Roman empire, they fed their -vanity with visions of a renewal of all their ancient forms, and saw -in fancy their senate and people sitting again upon the Seven Hills -and ruling over the kings of the earth. Stepping, as it were, into the -arena where Pope and Emperor were contending for the headship of the -world, they rejected the one as a priest, and declaring the other to -be only their creature, they claimed as theirs the true and lawful -inheritance of the world-dominion which their ancestors had won. -Antiquity was in one sense on their side, and to us now it seems less -strange that the Roman people should aspire to rule the earth than -that a German barbarian should rule it in their name. But practically -the scheme was absurd, and could not maintain itself against any -serious opposition. As a modern historian aptly expresses it, 'they -were setting up ruins:' they might as well have raised the broken -columns that strewed their Forum and hoped to rear out of them a -strong and stately temple. The reverence which the men of the Middle -Ages felt for Rome was given altogether to the name and to the place, -nowise to the people. As for power, they had none: so far from holding -Italy in subjection, they could scarcely maintain themselves against -the hostility of Tusculum. But it would have been well worth the while -of the Teutonic Emperors to have made the Romans their allies, and -bridled by their help the temporal ambition of the Popes. The offer -was actually made to them, first to Conrad the Third, who seems to -have taken no notice of it; and afterwards, as has been already -stated, to Frederick the First, who repelled in the most contumelious -fashion the envoys of the senate. Hating and fearing the Pope, he -always respected him: towards the Romans he felt all the contempt of a -feudal king for burghers, and of a German warrior for Italians. At the -demand of Pope Hadrian, whose foresight thought no heresy so dangerous -as one which threatened the authority of the clergy, Arnold of Brescia -was seized by the imperial prefect, put to death, and his ashes cast -into the Tiber, lest the people should treasure them up as relics. But -the martyrdom of their leader did not quench the hopes of his -followers. The republican constitution continued to exist, and rose -from time to time, during the weakness or the absence of the Popes, -into a brief and fitful activity[329]. Once awakened, the idea, -seductive at once to the imagination of the scholar and the vanity of -the Roman citizen, could not wholly disappear, and two centuries after -Arnold's time it found a more brilliant if less disinterested exponent -in the tribune Nicholas Rienzi. - -[Sidenote: Character and career of the tribune Rienzi.] - -The career of this singular personage is misunderstood by those who -suppose him to have been possessed of profound political insight, a -republican on modern principles. He was indeed, despite his -overweening conceit, and what seems to us his charlatanry, both a -patriot and a man of genius, in temperament a poet, filled with -soaring ideas. But those ideas, although dressed out in gaudier -colours by his lively fancy, were after all only the old ones, -memories of the long-faded glories of the heathen republic, and a -series of scornful contrasts levelled at her present oppressors, both -of them shewing no vista of future peace except through the revival of -those ancient names to which there were no things to correspond. It -was by declaiming on old texts and displaying old monuments that the -tribune enlisted the support of the Roman populace, not by any appeal -to democratic principles; and the whole of his acts and plans, though -they astonished men by their boldness, do not seem to have been -regarded as novel or impracticable[330]. In the breasts of men like -Petrarch, who loved Rome even more than they hated her people, the -enthusiasm of Rienzi found a sympathetic echo: others scorned and -denounced him as an upstart, a demagogue, and a rebel. Both friends -and enemies seem to have comprehended and regarded as natural his -feelings and designs, which were altogether those of his age. Being, -however, a mere matter of imagination, not of reason, having no -anchor, so to speak, in realities, no true relation to the world as it -then stood, these schemes of republican revival were as transient and -unstable as they were quick of growth and gay of colour. As the -authority of the Popes became consolidated, and free municipalities -disappeared elsewhere throughout Italy, the dream of a renovated Rome -at length withered up and fell and died. Its last struggle was made in -the conspiracy of Stephen Porcaro, in the time of Pope Nicholas the -Fifth; and from that time onward there was no question of the -supremacy of the bishop within his holy city. - -[Sidenote: Causes of the failure of the struggle for independence.] - -It is never without a certain regret that we watch the disappearance -of a belief, however illusive, around which the love and reverence for -mankind once clung. But this illusion need be the less regretted that -it had only the feeblest influence for good on the state of mediaeval -Rome. During the three centuries that lie between Arnold of Brescia -and Porcaro, the disorders of Rome were hardly less violent than they -had been in the Dark Ages, and to all appearance worse than those of -any other European city. There was a want not only of fixed authority, -but of those elements of social stability which the other cities of -Italy possessed. In the greater republics of Lombardy and Tuscany the -bulk of the population were artizans, hard working orderly people; -while above them stood a prosperous middle class, engaged mostly in -commerce, and having in their system of trade-guilds an organization -both firm and flexible. It was by foreign trade that Genoa, Venice, -and Pisa became great, as it was the wealth acquired by manufacturing -industry that enabled Milan and Florence to overcome and incorporate -the territorial aristocracies which surrounded them. - -[Sidenote: Internal condition of the city.] - -[Sidenote: The people.] - -[Sidenote: The nobility.] - -[Sidenote: The bishop.] - -Rome possessed neither source of riches. She was ill-placed for trade; -having no market she produced no goods to be disposed of, and the -unhealthiness which long neglect had brought upon her Campagna made -its fertility unavailable. Already she stood as she stands now, lonely -and isolated, a desert at her very gates. As there was no industry, so -there was nothing that deserved to be called a citizen class. The -people were a mere rabble, prompt to follow the demagogue who -flattered their vanity, prompter still to desert him in the hour of -danger. Superstition was with them a matter of national pride, but -they lived too near sacred things to feel much reverence for them: -they ill-treated the Pope and fleeced the pilgrims who crowded to -their shrines: they were probably the only community in Europe who -sent no recruit to the armies of the Cross. Priests, monks, and all -the nondescript hangers on of an ecclesiastical court formed a large -part of the population; while of the rest many were supported in a -state of half mendicancy by the countless religious foundations, -themselves enriched by the gifts or the plunder of Latin Christendom. -The noble families were numerous, powerful, ferocious; they were -surrounded by bands of unruly retainers, and waged a constant war -against each other from their castles in the adjoining country or in -the streets of the city itself. Had things been left to take their -natural course, one of these families, the Colonna, for instance, or -the Orsini, would probably have ended by overcoming its rivals, and -have established, as was the case in the republics of Romagna and -Tuscany, a 'signoria' or local tyranny, like those which had once -prevailed in the cities of Greece. But the presence of the sacerdotal -power, as it had hindered the growth of feudalism, so also it stood in -the way of such a development as this, and in so far aggravated the -confusion of the city. Although the Pope was not as yet recognized as -legitimate sovereign, he was not only the most considerable person in -Rome, but the only one whose authority had anything of an official -character. But the reign of each pontiff was short; he had no military -force, he was frequently absent from his see. He was, moreover, very -often a member of one of the great families, and, as such, no better -than a faction leader at home, while venerated by the rest of Europe -as the universal priest. - -[Sidenote: The Emperor.] - -[Sidenote: Visits of the Emperors to Rome.] - -It remains only to speak of the person who should have been to Rome -what the national king was to the cities of France, or England, or -Germany, that is to say, of the Emperor. As has been said already, his -power was a mere chimera, chiefly important as furnishing a pretext to -the Colonna and other Ghibeline chieftains for their opposition to the -papal party. Even his abstract rights were matter of controversy. The -Popes, whose predecessors had been content to govern as the -lieutenants of Charles and Otto, now maintained that Rome as a -spiritual city could not be subject to any temporal jurisdiction, and -that she was therefore no part of the Roman Empire, though at the same -time its capital. Not only, it was urged, had Constantine yielded up -Rome to Sylvester and his successors, Lothar the Saxon had at his -coronation formally renounced his sovereignty by doing homage to the -pontiff and receiving the crown as his vassal. The Popes felt then as -they feel now, that their dignity and influence would suffer if they -should even appear to admit in their place of residence the -jurisdiction of a civil potentate, and although they could not secure -their own authority, they were at least able to exclude any other. -Hence it was that they were so uneasy whenever an Emperor came to them -to be crowned, that they raised up difficulties in his path, and -endeavoured to be rid of him as soon as possible. And here something -must be said of the programme, as one may call it, of these imperial -visits to Rome, and of the marks of their presence which the Germans -left behind them, remembering always that after the time of Frederick -the Second it was rather the exception than the rule for an Emperor to -be crowned in his capital at all. - -[Sidenote: Their approach.] - -The traveller who enters Rome now, if he comes, as he most commonly -does, by way of Civita Vecchia, slips in by the railway before he is -aware, is huddled into a vehicle at the terminus, and set down at his -hotel in the middle of the modern town before he has seen anything at -all. If he comes overland from Tuscany along the bleak road that -passes near Veii and crosses the Milvian bridge, he has indeed from -the slopes of the Ciminian range a splendid prospect of the sea-like -Campagna, girdled in by glittering hills, but of the city he sees no -sign, save the pinnacle of St. Peter's, until he is within the walls. -Far otherwise was it in the Middle Ages. Then travellers of every -grade, from the humble pilgrim to the new-made archbishop who came in -the pomp of a lengthy train to receive from the Pope the pallium of -his office, approached from the north or north-east side; following a -track along the hilly ground on the Tuscan side of the Tiber until -they halted on the brow of Monte Mario[331]--the Mount of Joy--and saw -the city of their solemnities lie spread before them, from the great -pile of the Lateran far away upon the Coelian hill, to the basilica of -St. Peter's at their feet. They saw it not, as now, a sea of billowy -cupolas, but a mass of low red-roofed houses, varied by tall brick -towers, and at rarer intervals by masses of ancient ruin, then larger -far than now; while over all rose those two monuments of the best of -the heathen Emperors, monuments that still look down, serenely -changeless, on the armies of new nations and the festivals of a new -religion--the columns of Marcus Aurelius and Trajan. - -[Sidenote: Their entrance.] - -[Sidenote: Hostility of Pope and people to the Germans.] - -From Monte Mario the Teutonic host descended, when they had paid their -orisons, into the Neronian field, the piece of flat land that lies -outside the gate of St. Angelo. Here it was the custom for the elders -of the Romans to meet the elected Emperor, present their charters for -confirmation, and receive his oath to preserve their good -customs[332]. Then a procession was formed: the priests and monks, who -had come out with hymns to greet the Emperor, led the way; the knights -and soldiers of Rome, such as they were, came next; then the monarch, -followed by a long array of Transalpine chivalry. Passing into the -city they advanced to St. Peter's, where the Pope, surrounded by his -clergy, stood on the great staircase of the basilica to welcome and -bless the Roman king. On the next day came the coronation, with -ceremonies too elaborate for description[333], ceremonies which, we -may well believe, were seldom duly completed. Far more usual were -other rites, of which the book of ritual makes no mention, unless they -are to be counted among the 'good customs of the Romans;' the clang of -war bells, the battle cry of German and Italian combatants. The Pope, -when he could not keep the Emperor from entering Rome, required him to -leave the bulk of his host without the walls, and if foiled in this, -sought his safety in raising up plots and seditions against his too -powerful friend. The Roman people, on the other hand, violent as they -often were against the Pope, felt nevertheless a sort of national -pride in him. Very different were their feelings towards the Teutonic -chieftain, who came from a far land to receive in their city, yet -without thanking them for it, the ensign of a power which the prowess -of their forefathers had won. Despoiled of their ancient right to -choose the universal bishop, they clung all the more desperately to -the belief that it was they who chose the universal prince; and were -mortified afresh when each successive sovereign contemptuously scouted -their claims, and paraded before their eyes his rude barbarian -cavalry. Thus it was that a Roman sedition was the all but invariable -accompaniment of a Roman coronation. The three revolts against Otto -the Great have been already described. His grandson Otto the Third, in -spite of his passionate fondness for the city, was met by the same -faithlessness and hatred, and departed at last in despair at the -failure of his attempts at conciliation[334]. A century afterwards -Henry the Fifth's coronation produced violent tumults, which ended in -his seizing the Pope and cardinals in St. Peter's, and keeping them -prisoners till they submitted to his terms. Remembering this, Pope -Hadrian the Fourth would fain have forced the troops of Frederick -Barbarossa to remain without the walls, but the rapidity of their -movements disconcerted his plans and anticipated the resistance of the -Roman populace. Having established himself in the Leonine city[335], -Frederick barricaded the bridge over the Tiber, and was duly crowned -in St. Peter's. But the rite was scarcely finished when the Romans, -who had assembled in arms on the Capitol, dashed over the bridge, fell -upon the Germans, and were with difficulty repulsed by the personal -efforts of Frederick. Into the city he did not venture to pursue them, -nor was he at any period of his reign able to make himself master of -the whole of it. Finding themselves similarly baffled, his successors -at last accepted their position, and were content to take the crown on -the Pope's conditions and depart without further question. - -[Sidenote: Memorials of the Germanic Emperors in Rome.] - -[Sidenote: Of Otto the Third.] - -Coming so seldom and remaining for so short a time, it is not -wonderful that the Teutonic Emperors should, in the seven centuries -from Charles the Great to Charles the Fifth, have left fewer marks of -their presence in Rome than Titus or Hadrian alone have done; fewer -and less considerable even than those which tradition attributes to -those whom it calls Servius Tullius and the elder Tarquin. Those -monuments which do exist are just sufficient to make the absence of -all others more conspicuous. The most important dates from the time of -Otto the Third, the only Emperor who attempted to make Rome his -permanent residence. Of the palace, probably nothing more than a -tower, which he built on the Aventine, no trace has been discovered; -but the church, founded by him to receive the ashes of his friend the -martyred St. Adalbert, may still be seen upon the island in the Tiber. -Having received from Benevento relics supposed to be those of -Bartholomew the Apostle[336], it became dedicated to that saint, and -is now the church of San Bartolommeo in Isola, whose quaintly -picturesque bell-tower of red brick, now grey with extreme age, looks -out from among the orange trees of a convent garden over the -swift-eddying yellow waters of the Tiber. - -[Sidenote: Of Otto the Second.] - -[Sidenote: Of Frederick the Second.] - -Otto the Second, son of Otto the Great, died at Rome, and lies buried -in the crypt of St. Peter's, the only Emperor who has found a -resting-place among the graves of the Popes[337]. His tomb is not far -from that of his nephew Pope Gregory the Fifth: it is a plain one of -roughly chiselled marble. The lid of the superb porphyry sarcophagus -in which he lay for a time now serves as the great font of St. -Peter's, and may be seen in the baptismal chapel, on the left of the -entrance of the church, not far from the tombs of the Stuarts. Last of -all must be mentioned a curious relic of the Emperor Frederick the -Second, the prince whom of all others one would least expect to see -honoured in the city of his foes. It is an inscription in the palace -of the Conservators upon the Capitoline hill, built into the wall of -the great staircase, and relates the victory of Frederick's army over -the Milanese, and the capture of the carroccio[338] of the rebel city, -which he sends as a trophy to his faithful Romans. These are all or -nearly all the traces of her Teutonic lords that Rome has preserved -till now. Pictures indeed there are in abundance, from the mosaic of -the Scala Santa at the Lateran[339] and the curious frescoes in the -church of Santi Quattro Incoronati[340], down to the paintings of the -Sistine antechapel and the Stanze of Raphael in the Vatican, where the -triumphs of the Popedom over all its foes are set forth with matchless -art and equally matchless unveracity. But these are mostly long -subsequent to the events they describe, and these all the world knows. - -Associations of the highest interest would have attached to the -churches in which the imperial coronation was performed--a ceremony -which, whether we regard the dignity of the performers or the -splendour of the adjuncts, was probably the most imposing that modern -Europe has known. But old St. Peter's disappeared in the end of the -fifteenth century, not long after the last Roman coronation, that of -Frederick the Third, while the basilica of St. John Lateran, in which -Lothar the Saxon and Henry the Seventh were crowned, has been so -wofully modernized that we can hardly figure it to ourselves as the -same building[341]. - -[Sidenote: Causes of the want of mediaeval monuments in Rome.] - -[Sidenote: Barbarism of the aristocracy.] - -Bearing in mind what was the social condition of Rome during the -middle ages, it becomes easier to understand the architectural -barrenness which at first excites the visitor's surprise. Rome had no -temporal sovereign, and there were therefore only two classes who -could build at all, the nobles and the clergy. Of these, the former -had seldom the wealth, and never the taste, which would have enabled -them to construct palaces graceful as the Venetian or massively grand -as the Florentine and Genoese. Moreover, the constant practice of -domestic war made defence the first object of a house, beauty and -convenience the second. The nobility, therefore, either adapted -ancient edifices to their purpose or built out of their materials -those huge square towers of brick, a few of which still frown over the -narrow streets in the older parts of Rome. We may judge of their -number from the statement that the senator Brancaleone destroyed one -hundred and forty of them. With perhaps no more than one exception, -that of the so-called House of Rienzi, these towers are the only -domestic buildings in the city older than the middle of the fifteenth -century. The vast palaces to which strangers now flock for the sake of -the picture galleries they contain, have been most of them erected in -the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries, some even later. Among the -earliest is that Palazzo Cenci[342], whose gloomy low-browed arch so -powerfully affected the imagination of Shelley. - -[Sidenote: Ambition, weakness, and corruption of the clergy.] - -It was no want of wealth that hampered the architectural efforts of -the clergy, for vast revenues flowed in upon them from every corner of -Christendom. A good deal was actually spent upon the erection or -repairs of churches and convents, although with a less liberal hand -than that of such great Transalpine prelates as Hugh of Lincoln or -Conrad of Cologne. But the Popes always needed money for their -projects of ambition, and in times when disorder or corruption were at -their height the work of building stopped altogether. Thus it was that -after the time of the Carolingians scarcely a church was erected until -the beginning of the twelfth century, when the reforms of Hildebrand -had breathed new zeal into the priesthood. The Babylonish captivity of -Avignon, as it was called, with the great schism of the West that -followed upon it, was the cause of a second similar intermission, -which lasted nearly a century and a half. - -[Sidenote: Tendency of the Roman builders to adhere to the ancient -manner.] - -[Sidenote: Absence of Gothic in Rome.] - -At every time, however, even when his work went on most briskly, the -labours of the Roman architect took the direction of restoring and -readorning old churches rather than of erecting new ones. While the -Transalpine countries, except in a few favoured spots, such as -Provence and part of the Rhineland, remained during several ages with -few and rudely built stone churches, Rome possessed, as the -inheritance of the earlier Christian centuries, a profusion of houses -of worship, some of them still unsurpassed in splendour, and far more -than adequate to the needs of her diminished population. In repairing -these from time to time, their original form and style of work were -usually as far as possible preserved, while in constructing new ones, -the abundance of models beautiful in themselves and hallowed as well -by antiquity as by religious feeling, enthralled the invention of the -workman, bound him down to be at best a faithful imitator, and forbade -him to deviate at pleasure from the old established manner. Thus it -befel that while his brethren throughout the rest of Europe were -passing by successive steps from the old Roman and Byzantine styles to -Romanesque, and from Romanesque to Gothic, the Roman architect -scarcely departed from the plan and arrangements of the primitive -basilica. This is one chief reason why there is so little of Gothic -work in Rome, so little even of Romanesque like that of Pisa. What -there is appears chiefly in the pointed window, more rarely in the -arch, seldom or never in spire or tower or column. Only one of the -existing churches of Rome is Gothic throughout, and that, the -Dominican church of S. Maria sopra Minerva, was built by foreign -monks. In some of the other churches, and especially in the cloisters -of the convents, instances may be observed of the same style: in -others slight traces, by accident or design almost obliterated[343]. - -[Sidenote: Destruction and alteration of the old buildings:] - -[Sidenote: By invaders.] - -[Sidenote: By the Romans of the Middle Ages.] - -[Sidenote: By modern restorers of churches.] - -The mention of obliteration suggests a third cause of the comparative -want of mediaeval buildings in the city--the constant depredations and -changes of which she has been the subject. Ever since the time of -Constantine Rome has been a city of destruction, and Christians have -vied with pagans, citizens with enemies, in urging on the fatal work. -Her siege and capture by Robert Guiscard[344], the ally of Hildebrand -against Henry the Fourth, was far more ruinous than the attacks of the -Goths or Vandals: and itself yields in atrocity to the sack of Rome in -A.D. 1526 by the soldiers of the Catholic king and most pious Emperor -Charles the Fifth[345]. Since the days of the first barbarian -invasions the Romans have gone on building with materials taken from -the ancient temples, theatres, law-courts, baths and villas, stripping -them of their gorgeous casings of marble, pulling down their walls for -the sake of the blocks of travertine, setting up their own hovels on -the top or in the midst of these majestic piles. Thus it has been with -the memorials of paganism: a somewhat different cause has contributed -to the disappearance of the mediaeval churches. What pillage, or -fanaticism, or the wanton lust of destruction did in the one case, the -ostentatious zeal of modern times has done in the other. The era of -the final establishment of the Popes as temporal sovereigns of the -city, is also that of the supremacy of the Renaissance style in -architecture. After the time of Nicholas the Fifth, the pontiff -against whom, it will be remembered, the spirit of municipal freedom -made its last struggle in the conspiracy of Porcaro, nothing was built -in Gothic, and the prevailing enthusiasm for the antique produced a -corresponding dislike to everything mediaeval, a dislike conspicuous in -men like Julius the Second and Leo the Tenth, from whom the grandeur -of modern Rome may be said to begin. Not long after their time the -great religious movement of the sixteenth century, while triumphing in -the north of Europe, was in the south met and overcome by a -counter-reformation in the bosom of the old church herself, and the -construction or restoration of ecclesiastical buildings became again -the passion of the devout[346]. No employment, whether it be called an -amusement or a duty, could have been better suited to the court and -aristocracy of Rome. They were indolent; wealthy, and fond of -displaying their wealth; full of good taste, and anxious, especially -when advancing years had chased away youth's pleasures, to be full of -good works also. Popes and cardinals and the heads of the great -families vied with one another in building new churches and restoring -or enlarging those they found till little of the old was left; raising -over them huge cupolas, substituting massive pilasters for the -single-shafted columns, adorning the interior with a profusion of rare -marbles, of carving and gilding, of frescoes and altar-pieces by the -best masters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. None but a -bigoted mediaevalist can refuse to acknowledge the warmth of tone, the -repose, the stateliness, of the churches of modern Rome; but even in -the midst of admiration the sated eye turns away from the wealth of -ponderous ornament, and we long for the clear pure colour, the simple -yet grand proportions that give a charm to the buildings of an earlier -age. - -[Sidenote: Existing relics of the Dark and Middle Ages.] - -[Sidenote: The Mosaics.] - -[Sidenote: The Bell-towers.] - -Few of the ancient churches have escaped untouched; many have been -altogether rebuilt. There are also some, however, in which the -modernizers of the sixteenth and subsequent centuries have spared two -features of the old structure, its round apse or tribune and its -bell-tower. The apse has its interior usually covered with mosaics, -exceedingly interesting, both from the ideas they express and as the -only monuments of pictorial art that remain to us from the Dark Ages. -To speak of them, however, as they deserve to be spoken of, would -involve a digression for which there is no space here. The campanile -or bell-tower is a quaint little square brick tower, of no great -height, usually standing detached from the church, and having in its -topmost, sometimes also in its other upper stories, several arcade -windows, divided by tiny marble pillars[347]. What with these -campaniles, then far more numerous than they are now, and with the -huge brick fortresses of the nobles, towers must have held in the -landscape of the mediaeval city very much the part which domes do now. -Although less imposing, they were probably more picturesque, the -rather as in the earlier part of the Middle Ages the houses and -churches, which are now mostly crowded together on the flat of the -Campus Martius, were scattered over the heights and slopes of the -Coelian, Aventine, and Esquiline hills[348]. Modern Rome lies chiefly -on the opposite or north-eastern side of the Capitol, and the change -from the old to the new site of the city, which can hardly be said to -have distinctly begun before the destruction of the south-western part -of the town by Robert Guiscard, was not completed until the sixteenth -century. In A.D. 1536 the Capitol was rebuilt by Michael Angelo, in -anticipation of the entry of Charles the Fifth, upon foundations that -had been laid by the first Tarquin; and the palace of the Senator, the -greatest municipal edifice of Rome, which had hitherto looked towards -the Forum and the Coliseum, was made to front in the direction of St. -Peter's and the modern town. - -[Sidenote: Changed aspect of the city of Rome.] - -[Sidenote: Analogy between her architecture and her civil and -ecclesiastical constitution.] - -[Sidenote: Preservation of an antique character in both.] - -The Rome of to-day is no more like the city of Rienzi than she is to -the city of Trajan; just as the Roman church of the nineteenth century -differs profoundly, however she may strive to disguise it, from the -church of Hildebrand. But among all their changes, both church and -city have kept themselves wonderfully free from the intrusion of -foreign, at least of Teutonic, elements, and have faithfully preserved -at all times something of an old Roman character. Latin Christianity -inherited from the imperial system of old that firmly knit yet -flexible organization, which was one of the grand secrets of its -power: the great men whom mediaeval Rome gave to or trained up for the -Papacy were, like their progenitors, administrators, legislators, -statesmen; seldom enthusiasts themselves, but perfectly understanding -how to use and guide the enthusiasm of others--of the French and -German crusaders, of men like Francis of Assisi and Dominic and -Ignatius. Between Catholicism in Italy and Catholicism in Germany or -England there was always, as there is still, a very perceptible -difference. So also, if the analogy be not too fanciful, was it with -Rome the city. Socially she seemed always drifting towards feudalism; -yet she never fell into its grasp. Materially, her architecture was at -one time considerably influenced by Gothic forms, yet Gothic never -became, as in the rest of Europe, the dominant style. It approached -Rome late, and departed from her early, so that we scarcely notice its -presence, and seem to pass almost without a break from the old -Romanesque[349] to the Graeco-Roman of the Renaissance. Thus regarded, -the history of the city, both in her political state and in her -buildings, is seen to be intimately connected with that of the Holy -Empire itself. The Empire in its title and its pretensions expressed -the idea of the permanence of the institutions of the ancient world; -Rome the city had, in externals at least, carefully preserved their -traditions: the names of her magistracies, the character of her -buildings, all spoke of antiquity, and gave it a strange and shadowy -life in the midst of new races and new forms of faith. - -[Sidenote: Relation of the City and the Empire.] - -In its essence the Empire rested on the feeling of the unity of -mankind; it was the perpetuation of the Roman dominion by which the -old nationalities had been destroyed, with the addition of the -Christian element which had created a new nationality that was also -universal. By the extension of her citizenship to all her subjects -heathen Rome had become the common home, and, figuratively, even the -local dwelling-place of the civilized races of man. By the theology of -the time Christian Rome had been made the mystical type of humanity, -the one flock of the faithful scattered over the whole earth, the holy -city whither, as to the temple on Moriah, all the Israel of God should -come up to worship. She was not merely an image of the mighty world, -she was the mighty world itself in miniature. The pastor of her local -church is also the universal bishop; the seven suffragans who -consecrate him are the overseers of petty sees in Ostia, Antium, and -the like, towns lying close round Rome: the cardinal priests and -deacons who join these seven in electing him derive their title to be -princes of the Church, the supreme spiritual council of the Christian -world, from the incumbency of a parochial cure within the precincts of -the city. Similarly, her ruler, the Emperor, is ruler of mankind; he -is chosen by the acclamations of her people[350]: he can be lawfully -crowned nowhere but in one of her basilicas. She is, like Jerusalem of -old, the mother of us all. - -[Sidenote: Extinction of the Florentine republic, A.D. 1530.] - -There is yet another way in which the record of the domestic contests -of Rome throws light upon the history of the Empire. From the eleventh -century to the fifteenth her citizens ceased not to demand in the name -of the old republic their freedom from the tyranny of the nobles and -the Pope, and their right to rule over the world at large. These -efforts--selfish and fantastic we may call them, yet men like Petrarch -did not disdain to them their sympathy--issued from the same theories -and were directed to the same ends as those which inspired Otto the -Third and Frederick Barbarossa and Dante himself. They witness to the -same incapacity to form any ideal for the future except a revival of -the past; the same belief that one universal state is both desirable -and possible, but possible only through the means of Rome: the same -refusal to admit that a right which has once existed can ever be -extinguished. In the days of the Renaissance these notions were -passing silently away: the succeeding century brought with it -misfortunes that broke the spirit of the nation. Italy was the -battle-field of Europe: her wealth became the prey of a rapacious -soldiery: the last and greatest of her republics was enslaved by an -unfeeling Emperor, and handed over as the pledge of amity to a selfish -Medicean Pope. When the hope of independence had been lost, the people -turned away from politics to live for art and literature, and found, -before many generations had passed, how little such exclusive devotion -could compensate for the departure of freedom, and a national spirit, -and the activity of civic life. A century after the golden days of -Ariosto and Raphael, Italian literature had become frigid and -affected, while Italian art was dying of mannerism. - -[Sidenote: Feelings of the modern Italians towards Rome.] - -At length, after long ages of sloth, the stagnant waters were -troubled. The Romans, who had lived in listless contentment under the -paternal sway of the Popes, received new ideas from the advent of the -revolutionary armies of France, and have found the Papal system, since -its re-establishment fifty years ago as a modern bureaucratic -despotism, far less tolerable than it was of yore. Our own days have -seen the name of Rome become again a rallying-cry for the patriots of -Italy, but in a sense most unlike the old one. The contemporaries of -Arnold and Rienzi desired freedom only as a step to universal -domination: their descendants, more wisely, yet not more from -patriotism than from a pardonable civic pride, seek only to be the -capital of the Italian kingdom. Dante prayed for a monarchy of the -world, a reign of peace and Christian brotherhood: those who invoke -his name as the earliest prophet of their creed strive after an idea -that never crossed his mind--the national union of Italy[351]. - -Plain common-sense politicians in other countries do not understand -this passion for Rome as a capital, and think it their duty to lecture -the Italians on their flightiness. The latter do not themselves -pretend that the shores of the Tiber are a suitable site for a -capital: Rome is lonely, unhealthy, and in a bad strategical position; -she has no particular facilities for trade: her people, with some fine -qualities, are less orderly and industrious than the Tuscans or the -Piedmontese. Nevertheless all Italy cries with one voice for Rome, -firmly believing that national life can never thrill with a strong and -steady pulsation till the ancient capital has become the nation's -heart. They feel that it is owing to Rome--Rome pagan as well as -Christian--that they once played so grand a part in the drama of -European history, and that they have now been able to attain that -fervid sentiment of unity which has brought them at last together -under one government. Whether they are right, whether if right they -are likely to be successful, need not be inquired here. But it -deserves to be noted that this enthusiasm for a famous name--for it is -nothing more--is substantially the same feeling as that which created -and hallowed the Holy Empire of the Middle Ages. The events of the -last few years on both sides of the Atlantic have proved that men are -not now, any more than they ever were, chiefly governed by -calculations of material profit and loss. Sentiments, fancies, -theories, have not lost their power; the spirit of poetry has not -wholly passed away from politics. And strange as seems to us the -worship paid to the name of mediaeval Rome by those who saw the sins -and the misery of her people, it can hardly have been an intenser -feeling than is the imaginative reverence wherewith the Italians of -to-day look on the city whence, as from a fountain, all the streams of -their national life have sprung, and in which, as in an ocean, they -are all again to mingle. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[323] Hist. Eccl. l. ix. c. 6: [Greek: ton de phanai, hos ouch hekon -tade epicheirei, alla tis synechos enochlon auton biazetai, kai -epitattei ten Rhomen porthein.] - -[324] See the two Lives of St. Adalbert in Pertz, _M. G. H._, iv., -evidently compiled soon after his death. - -[325] Another letter of Petrarch's to John Colonna, written -immediately after his arrival in the city, deserves to be quoted, it -is so like what a stranger would now write off after his first day in -Rome:--'In praesens nihil est quod inchoare ausim, miraculo rerum -tantarum et stuporis mole obrutus ... praesentia vero, mirum dictu, -nihil imminuit sed auxit omnia: vere maior fuit Roma maioresque sunt -reliquiae quam rebar: iam non orbem ab hac urbe domitum sed tam sero -domitum miror. Vale.' - -[326] The idea of the continuance of the sway of Rome under a new -character is one which mediaeval writers delight to illustrate. In -Appendix, Note D, there is quoted as a specimen a poem upon Rome, by -Hildebert (bishop of Le Mans, and afterwards archbishop of Tours), -written in the beginning of the twelfth century. - -[327] In writing this chapter I have derived much assistance from the -admirable work of Ferdinand Gregorovius, _Geschichte der Stadt Rom im -Mittelalter_. Unfortunately no English translation of it exists; but I -am informed by the author that one is likely ere long to appear. - -[328] Republican forms of some sort had existed before Arnold's -arrival, but we hear the name of no other leader mentioned; and -doubtless it was by him chiefly that the spirit of hostility to the -clerical power was infused into the minds of the Romans. - -[329] The series of papal coins is interrupted (with one or two slight -exceptions) from A.D. 984 (not long after the time of Alberic) to A.D. -1304. In their place we meet with various coins struck by the -municipal authorities, some of which bear on the obverse the head of -the Apostle Peter, with the legend Roman. Pricipe: on the reverse the -head of the Apostle Paul, legend, Senat. Popul. Q. R. Gregorovius, _ut -supra_. - -[330] Rienzi called himself Augustus as well as tribune; 'tribuno -Augusto de Roma.' (He pretended, or his friends pretended for him--it -was at any rate believed--that he was an illegitimate son of the -Emperor Henry the Seventh.) He cited, on his appointment, the Pope and -cardinals to appear before the people of Rome and give an account of -their conduct; and after them the Emperor. 'Ancora citao lo Bavaro -(Lewis the Fourth). Puoi citao li elettori de lo imperio in Alemagna, -e disse "Voglio vedere che rascione haco nella elettione," che -trovasse scritto che passato alcuno tempo la elettione recadeva a li -Romani.'--_Vita di Cola di Rienzi_, c. xxvi (written by a -contemporary). I give the spelling as it stands in Muratori's edition. - -[331] The Germans called this hill, which is the highest in or near -Rome, conspicuous from a beautiful group of stone-pines upon its brow, -Mons Gaudii; the origin of the Italian name, Monte Mario, is not -known, unless it be, as some think, a corruption of Mons Malus. - -It was on this hill that Otto the Third hanged Crescentius and his -followers. - -[332] I quote this from the _Ordo Romanus_ as it stands in Muratori's -third Dissertation in the _Antiquitates Italiae medii aevi_. - -[333] Great stress was laid on one part of the procedure,--the holding -by the Emperor of the Pope's stirrup for him to mount, and the leading -of his palfrey for some distance. Frederick Barbarossa's omission of -this mark of respect when Pope Hadrian IV met him on his way to Rome, -had nearly caused a breach between the two potentates, Hadrian -absolutely refusing the kiss of peace until Frederick should have gone -through the form, which he was at last forced to do in a somewhat -ignominious way. - -[334] A remarkable speech of expostulation made by Otto III to the -Roman people (after one of their revolts) from the tower of his house -on the Aventine has been preserved to us. It begins thus: 'Vosne estis -mei Romani? Propter vos quidem meam patriam, propinquos quoque -reliqui; amore vestro Saxones et cunctos Theotiscos, sanguinem meum, -proieci; vos in remotas partes imperii nostri adduxi, quo patres -vestri cum orbem ditione premerent numquam pedem posuerunt; scilicet -ut nomen vestrum et gloriam ad fines usque dilatarem; vos filios -adoptavi: vos cunctis praetuli.'--_Vita S. Bernwardi_; in Pertz, _M. G. -H._, t. iv. - -(It is from this form 'Theotiscus' that the Italian 'Tedesco' seems to -have been derived.) - -[335] The Leonine city, so called from Pope Leo IV, lay between the -Vatican and St. Peter's and the river. - -[336] It would seem that Otto was deceived, and that in reality they -are the bones of St. Paulinus of Nola. - -[337] The only other of the Teutonic Emperors buried in Italy were, so -far as I know, Lewis the Second (whose tomb, with an inscription -commemorating his exploits, is built into the wall of the north aisle -of the famous church of S. Ambrose at Milan), Henry the Sixth and -Frederick the Second, who lie at Palermo, Conrad IV, buried at Foggia, -and Henry the Seventh, whose sarcophagus may be seen in the Campo -Santo of Pisa, a city always conspicuous for her zeal on the imperial -side. - -Six Emperors lie buried at Speyer, three or four at Prague, two at -Aachen, two at Bamberg, one at Innsbruck, one at Magdeburg, one at -Quedlinburg, two at Munich, and most of the later ones at Vienna. - -[338] See note 198, p. 178. - -[339] See p. 117. - -[340] These highly curious frescoes are in the chapel of St. Sylvester -attached to the very ancient church of Quattro Santi on the Coelian -hill, and are supposed to have been executed in the time of Pope -Innocent III. They represent scenes in the life of the Saint, more -particularly the making of the famous donation to him by Constantine, -who submissively holds the bridle of his palfrey. - -[341] The last imperial coronation, that of Charles the Fifth, took -place in the church of St. Petronius at Bologna, Pope Clement VII -being unwilling to receive Charles in Rome. It is a grand church, but -the choir, where the ceremony took place, seems to have been -'restored,' that is to say modernized, since Charles' time. - -[342] The name of Cenci is a very old one at Rome: it is supposed to -be an abbreviation of Crescentius. We hear in the eleventh century of -a certain Cencius, who on one occasion made Gregory VII prisoner. - -[343] Thus in the church of San Lorenzo without the walls there are -several pointed windows, now bricked up; and similar ones may be seen -in the church of Ara Coeli on the summit of the Capitol. So in the apse -of St. John Lateran there are three or four windows of Gothic form: -and in its cloister, as well as in that of St. Paul without the walls, -a great deal of beautiful Lombard work. The elegant porch of the -church of Sant' Antonio Abate is Lombard. In the apse of the church of -San Giovanni e Paolo on the Coelian hill there is an external arcade -exactly like those of the Duomo at Pisa. Nor are these the only -instances. - -The ruined chapel attached to the fortress of the Caetani family--the -family to which Boniface the Eighth belonged, and whose head is now -the first of the Roman nobility--is a pretty little building, more -like northern Gothic than anything within the walls of Rome. It stands -upon the Appian Way, opposite the tomb of Caecilia Metella, which the -Caetani used as a stronghold. - -[344] A good deal of the mischief done by Robert Guiscard, from which -the parts of the city lying beyond the Coliseum towards the river and -St. John Lateran never recovered, is attributed to the Saracenic -troops in his service. Saracen pirates are said to have once before -sacked Rome. Genseric was not a heathen, but he was a furious Arian, -which, as far as respect to the churches of the orthodox went, was -nearly the same thing. He is supposed to have carried off the -seven-branched candlestick and other vessels of the Temple, which -Titus had brought from Jerusalem to Rome. - -[345] We are told that one cause of the ferocity of the German part of -the army of Charles was their anger at the ruinous condition of the -imperial palace. - -[346] Under the influence, partly of this anti-pagan spirit, partly of -his own restless vanity, partly of a passion to be doing something, -Pope Sixtus the Fifth did a great deal of mischief in the way of -destroying or spoiling the monuments of antiquity. - -[347] These campaniles are generally supposed to date from the ninth -and tenth centuries. I am informed, however, by Mr. J. H. Parker, of -Oxford, whose antiquarian skill is well known, that he is led to -believe by an examination of their mouldings that few or none, unless -it be that of San Prassede, are older than the twelfth century. - -This of course applies only to the existing buildings. The type of -tower may be, and indeed no doubt is, older. - -Somewhat similar towers may be observed in many parts of the Italian -Alps, especially in the wonderful mountain land north of Venice, where -such towers are of all dates from the eleventh or twelfth down to the -nineteenth century, the ancient type having in these remote valleys -been adhered to because the builder had no other models before him. In -the valley of Cimolais I have seen such a campanile in course of -erection, precisely similar to others in the neighbouring villages -some eight centuries old. - -The very curious round towers of Ravenna, some four or five of which -are still standing, seem to have originally had similar windows, -though these have been all, or nearly all, stopped up. The Roman -towers are all square. - -[348] The Palatine hill seems to have been then, as it is for the most -part now, a waste of stupendous ruins. In the great imperial palace -upon its northern and eastern sides was the residence of an official -of the Eastern court in the beginning of the eighth century. In the -time of Charles, some seventy years later, this palace was no longer -habitable. - -[349] Such as we see it in the later and lesser churches of basilica -form. - -[350] It was thus that most of the earlier Teutonic Emperors, and -notably Charles and Otto, professed to have obtained the crown; -although practically it was partly a matter of conquest and partly of -private arrangement with the Pope. In later times, the seven Germanic -princes were recognized as the legally qualified electoral body, but -their appearance on the stage was a result of the confusion of the -German kingdom with the Roman Empire, and in strictness they had -nothing to do with the Roman crown at all. The right to bestow it -could only--on principle--belong to some Roman authority, and those -who felt the difficulty were driven to suppose a formal cession of -their privilege by the Roman people to the seven electors. See p. 227 -_supra_: and cf. Matthew Villani (iv. 77), 'Il popolo Romano, non da -se, ma la chiesa per lui, concedette la elezione degli Imperadori a -sette principi della Magna.' - -[351] That which Dante, Arnold of Brescia, and the rest really have in -common with the modern Italian 'party of movement' is their hostility -to the temporal power of the Popes. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII. - -THE RENAISSANCE: CHANGE IN THE CHARACTER OF THE EMPIRE. - - -[Sidenote: Wenzel, 1378-1400.] - -[Sidenote: Rupert, 1400-1410.] - -[Sidenote: Sigismund, 1410-1438.] - -[Sidenote: Council of Constance.] - -In Frederick the Third's reign the Empire sank to its lowest point. It -had shot forth a fitful gleam under Sigismund, who in convoking and -presiding over the council of Constance had revived one of the highest -functions of his predecessors. The precedents of the first great -oecumenical councils, and especially of the council of Nicaea, had -established the principle that it belonged to the Emperor, even more -properly than to the Pope, to convoke ecclesiastical assemblies from -the whole Christian world[352]. The tenet commended itself to the -reforming party in the church, headed by Gerson, the chancellor of -Paris, whose aim it was, while making no changes in matters of faith, -to correct the abuses which had grown up in discipline and government, -and limit the power of the Popes by exalting the authority of general -councils, to whom there was now attributed an immunity from error -superior even to that which resided in the successor of Peter. And -although it was only the sacerdotal body, not the whole Christian -people, who were thus made the exponents of the universal religious -consciousness, the doctrine was nevertheless a foreshadowing of that -fuller freedom which was soon to follow. The existence of the Holy -Empire and the existence of general councils were, as has been already -remarked, necessary parts of one and the same theory[353], and it was -therefore more than a coincidence that the last occasion on which the -whole of Latin Christendom met to deliberate and act as a single -commonwealth[354] was also the last on which that commonwealth's -lawful temporal head appeared in the exercise of his international -functions. Never afterwards was he, in the eyes of Europe, anything -more than a German monarch. - -[Sidenote: Weakness of Germany as compared with the other states of -Europe.] - -[Sidenote: Albert II. 1438-1440. Frederick III. 1440-1493.] - -It might seem doubtful whether he would long remain a monarch at all. -When in A.D. 1493 the calamitous reign of Frederick the Third ended, -it was impossible for the princes to see with unconcern the condition -into which their selfishness and turbulence had brought the Empire. -The time was indeed critical. Hitherto the Germans had been protected -rather by the weakness of their enemies than by their own strength. -From France there had been little to fear while the English menaced -her on one side and the Burgundian dukes on the other: from England -still less while she was torn by the strife of York and Lancaster. But -now throughout Western Europe the power of the feudal oligarchies was -broken; and its chief countries were being, by the establishment of -fixed rules of succession and the absorption of the smaller into the -larger principalities, rapidly built up into compact and aggressive -military monarchies. Thus Spain became a great state by the union of -Castile and Aragon, and the conquest of the Moors of Granada. Thus in -England there arose the popular despotism of the Tudors. Thus France, -enlarged and consolidated under Lewis the Eleventh and his successors, -began to acquire that predominant influence on the politics of Europe -which her commanding geographical position, the martial spirit of her -people, and, it must be added, the unscrupulous ambition of her -rulers, have secured to her in every succeeding century. Meantime -there had appeared in the far East a foe still more terrible. The -capture of Constantinople gave Turks a firm hold on Europe, and -inspired them with the hope of effecting in the fifteenth century what -Abderrahman and his Saracens had so nearly effected in the eighth--of -establishing the faith of Islam through all the provinces that obeyed -the Western as well as the Eastern Caesars. The navies of the Ottoman -Sultans swept the Mediterranean; their well-appointed armies pierced -Hungary and threatened Vienna. - -[Sidenote: Loss of imperial territories.] - -Nor was it only that formidable enemies had arisen without: the -frontiers of Germany herself were exposed by the loss of those -adjoining territories which had formerly owned allegiance to the -Emperors. Poland, once tributary, had shaken off the yoke at the -interregnum, and had recently wrested Prussia and Lusatz from the -Teutonic knights. Bohemia, where German culture had struck deeper -roots, remained a member of the Empire; but the privileges she had -obtained from Charles the Fourth, and the subsequent acquisition of -Silesia and Moravia, made her virtually independent. The restless -Hungarians avenged their former vassalage to Germany by frequent -inroads on her eastern border. - -[Sidenote: Italy.] - -Imperial power in Italy ended with the life of Henry the Seventh. -Rupert did indeed cross the Alps, but it was as the hireling of -Florence; Frederick the Third received the Lombard crown, but it no -longer conveyed the slightest power. In the beginning of the -fourteenth century Dante still hopes the renovation of his country -from the action of the Teutonic Emperors. Some fifty years later -Matthew Villani sees clearly that they do not and cannot reign to any -purpose south of the Alps[355]. Nevertheless the phantom of imperial -authority lingers on for a time. It is put forward by the Ghibeline -tyrants of the cities to justify their attacks on their Guelfic -neighbours: even resolute republicans like the Florentines do not yet -venture altogether to reject it, however unwilling to permit its -exercise. Before the middle of the fifteenth century, the names of -Guelf and Ghibeline had ceased to have any sense or meaning; the Pope -was no longer the protector nor the Emperor the assailant of municipal -freedom, for municipal freedom itself had well-nigh disappeared. But -the old war-cries of the Church and the Empire were still repeated as -they had been three centuries before, and the rival principles that -had once enlisted the noblest spirits of Italy on one or other side -had now sunk into a pretext for wars of aggrandizement or of mere -unmeaning hate. That which had been remarked long before in Greece was -seen to be true here; the spirit of faction outlived the cause of -faction, and became itself the new and prolific source of a useless, -endless strife. - -[Sidenote: Burgundy.] - -After Frederick the Third no Emperor was crowned in Rome, and almost -the only trace of that connection between Germany and Italy to -maintain which so much had been risked and lost, was to be found in -the obstinate belief of the Hapsburg Emperors, that their own claims, -though often purely dynastic and personal, could be enforced by an -appeal to the imperial rights of their predecessors. Because -Barbarossa had overrun Lombardy with a Transalpine host they fancied -themselves entitled to demand duchies for themselves and their -relatives, and to entangle the Empire in wars wherein no interest but -their own was involved. - -The kingdom of Arles, if it had never added much strength to the -Empire, had been useful as an outwork against France. And thus its -loss--Dauphine passing over, partly in A.D. 1350, finally in 1457, -Provence in 1486--proved a serious calamity, for it brought the French -nearer to Switzerland, and opened to them a tempting passage into -Italy. The Emperors did not for a time expressly renounce their feudal -suzerainty over these lands, but if it was hard to enforce a feudal -claim over a rebellious landgrave in Germany, how much harder to -control a vassal who was also the mightiest king in Europe. - -On the north-west frontier, the fall in A.D. 1477 of the great -principality which the dukes of French Burgundy were building up, was -seen with pleasure by the Rhinelanders whom Charles the last duke had -incessantly alarmed. But the only effect of its fall was to leave -France and Germany directly confronting each other, and it was soon -seen that the balance of strength lay on the side of the less numerous -but better organized and more active nation. - -[Sidenote: Switzerland.] - -Switzerland, too, could no longer be considered a part of the Germanic -realm. The revolt of the Forest Cantons, in A.D. 1313, was against the -oppressions practised in the name of Albert count of Hapsburg, rather -than against the legitimate authority of Albert the Emperor. But -although several subsequent sovereigns, and among them conspicuously -Henry the Seventh and Sigismund, favoured the Swiss liberties, yet -while the antipathy between the Confederates and the territorial -nobility gave a peculiar direction to their policy, the accession of -new cantons to their body, and their brilliant success against Charles -the Bold in A.D. 1477, made them proud of a separate national -existence, and not unwilling to cast themselves loose from the -stranded hulk of the Empire. Maximilian tried to reconquer them, but -after a furious struggle, in which the valleys of Western Tyrol were -repeatedly laid waste by the peasants of the Engadin, he was forced to -give way, and in A.D. 1500 recognized them by treaty as practically -independent. Not, however, till the peace of Westphalia, in A.D. 1648, -was the Swiss Confederation in the eye of public law a sovereign -state, and even after that date some of the towns continued to stamp -their coins with the double eagle of the Empire. - -[Sidenote: Internal weakness.] - -If those losses of territory were serious, far more serious was the -plight in which Germany herself lay. The country had now become not so -much an empire as an aggregate of very many small states, governed by -sovereigns who would neither remain at peace with each other nor -combine against a foreign enemy, under the nominal presidency of an -Emperor who had little lawful authority, and could not exert what he -had[356]. - -[Sidenote: Influence of the theory of the Empire as an international -power upon the Germanic constitution.] - -[Sidenote: Position of the Emperor in Germany, compared with that of -his predecessors in Europe.] - -There was another cause, besides those palpable and obvious ones -already enumerated, to which this state of things must be ascribed. -That cause is to be found in the theory which regarded the Empire as -an international power, supreme among Christian states. From the day -when Otto the Great was crowned at Rome, the characters of German king -and Roman Emperor were united in one person, and it has been shewn how -that union tended more and more to become a fusion. If the two -offices, in their nature and origin so dissimilar, had been held by -different persons, the Roman Empire would most probably have soon -disappeared, while the German kingdom grew into a robust national -monarchy. Their connection gave a longer life to the one and a feebler -life to the other, while at the same time it transformed both. So long -as Germany was only one of the many countries that bowed beneath their -sceptre it was possible for the Emperors, though we need not suppose -they troubled themselves with speculations on the matter, to -distinguish their imperial authority, as international and more than -half religious, from their royal, which was, or was meant to be, -exclusively local and feudal. But when within the narrowed bounds of -Germany these international functions had ceased to have any meaning, -when the rulers of England, Spain, France, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, -Italy, Burgundy, had in succession repudiated their control, and the -Lord of the World found himself obeyed by none but his own people, he -would not sink from being lord of the world into a simple Teutonic -king, but continued to play in the more contracted theatre the part -which had belonged to him in the wider. Thus did Germany instead of -Europe become the sphere of his international jurisdiction; and her -electors and princes, originally mere vassals, no greater than a Count -of Champagne in France, or an Earl of Chester in England, stepped into -the place which it had been meant that the several monarchs of -Christendom should fill. If the power of their head had been what it -was in the eleventh century, the additional dignity so assigned to -them might have signified very little. But coming in to confirm and -justify the liberties already won, this theory of their relation to -the sovereign had a great though at the time scarcely perceptible -influence in changing the German Empire, as we may now begin to call -it, from a state into a sort of confederation or body of states, -united indeed for some of the purposes of government, but separate and -independent for others more important. Thus, and that in its -ecclesiastical as well as its civil organization, Germany became a -miniature of Christendom[357]. The Pope, though he retained the wider -sway which his rival had lost, was in an especial manner the head of -the German clergy, as the Emperor was of the laity: the three Rhenish -prelates sat in the supreme college beside the four temporal electors: -the nobility of prince-bishops and abbots was as essential a part of -the constitution and as influential in the deliberations of the Diet -as were the dukes, counts, and margraves of the Empire. The -world-embracing Christian state was to have been governed by a -hierarchy of spiritual pastors, whose graduated ranks of authority -should exactly correspond with those of the temporal magistracy, who -were to be like them endowed with worldly wealth and power, and to -enjoy a jurisdiction co-ordinate although distinct. This system, which -it was in vain attempted to establish in Europe during the eleventh -and twelfth centuries, was in its main features that which prevailed -in the Germanic Empire from the fourteenth century onwards. And -conformably to the analogy which may be traced between the position of -the archdukes of Austria in Germany and the place which the four Saxon -and the two first Franconian Emperors had held in Europe, both being -recognized as leaders and presidents in all that concerned the common -interest, in the one case of the Christian, in the other of the whole -German people, while neither of them had any power of direct -government in the territories of local kings and lords; so the plan by -which those who chose Maximilian emperor sought to strengthen their -national monarchy was in substance that which the Popes had followed -when they conferred the crown of the world on Charles and Otto. The -pontiffs then, like the electors now, finding that they could not give -with the title the power which its functions demanded, were driven to -the expedient of selecting for the office persons whose private -resources enabled them to sustain it with dignity. The first Frankish -and the first Saxon Emperors were chosen because they were already the -mightiest potentates in Europe; Maximilian because he was the -strongest of the German princes. The parallel may be carried one step -further. Just as under Otto and his successors the Roman Empire was -Teutonized, so now under the Hapsburg dynasty, from whose hands the -sceptre departed only once thenceforth, the Teutonic Empire tends more -and more to lose itself in an Austrian monarchy. - -[Sidenote: Beginning of the Hapsburg influence in Germany.] - -Of that monarchy and of the power of the house of Hapsburg, Maximilian -was, even more than Rudolph his ancestor, the founder[358]. Uniting in -his person those wide domains through Germany which had been dispersed -among the collateral branches of his house, and claiming by his -marriage with Mary of Burgundy most of the territories of Charles the -Bold, he was a prince greater than any who had sat on the Teutonic -throne since the death of Frederick the Second. But it was as archduke -of Austria, count of Tyrol, duke of Styria and Carinthia, feudal -superior of lands, in Swabia, Alsace, and Switzerland, that he was -great, not as Roman Emperor. For just as from him the Austrian -monarchy begins, so with him the Holy Empire in its old meaning ends. -That strange system of doctrines, half religious half political, which -had supported it for so many ages, was growing obsolete, and the -theory which had wrought such changes on Germany and Europe, passed -ere long so completely from remembrance that we can now do no more -than call up a faint and wavering image of what it must once have -been. - -[Sidenote: Character of the epoch of Maximilian.] - -[Sidenote: The discovery of America.] - -For it is not only in imperial history that the accession of -Maximilian is a landmark. That time--a time of change and movement in -every part of human life, a time when printing had become common, and -books were no longer confined to the clergy, when drilled troops were -replacing the feudal militia, when the use of gunpowder was changing -the face of war--was especially marked by one event, to which the -history of the world offers no parallel before or since, the discovery -of America. The cloud which from the beginning of things had hung -thick and dark round the borders of civilization was suddenly lifted: -the feeling of mysterious awe with which men had regarded the firm -plain of earth and her encircling ocean ever since the days of Homer, -vanished when astronomers and geographers taught them that she was an -insignificant globe, which, so far from being the centre of the -universe, was itself swept round in the motion of one of the least of -its countless systems. The notions that had hitherto prevailed -regarding the life of man and his relations to nature and the -supernatural, were rudely shaken by the knowledge that was soon gained -of tribes in every stage of culture and living under every variety of -condition, who had developed apart from all the influences of the -Eastern hemisphere. In A.D. 1453 the capture of Constantinople and -extinction of the Eastern Empire had dealt a fatal blow to the -prestige of tradition and an immemorial name: in A.D. 1492 there was -disclosed a world whither the eagles of all-conquering Rome had never -winged their flight. No one could now have repeated the arguments of -the _De Monarchia_. - -[Sidenote: The Renaissance.] - -Another movement, too, widely different, but even more momentous, was -beginning to spread from Italy beyond the Alps. Since the barbarian -tribes settled in the Roman provinces, no change had come to pass in -Europe at all comparable to that which followed the diffusion of the -new learning in the latter half of the fifteenth century. Enchanted by -the beauty of the ancient models of art and poetry, more particularly -those of the Greeks, men came to regard with aversion and contempt all -that had been done or produced from the days of Trajan to those of -Pope Nicholas the Fifth. The Latin style of the writers who lived -after Tacitus was debased: the architecture of the Middle Ages was -barbarous: the scholastic philosophy was an odious and unmeaning -jargon: Aristotle himself, Greek though he was, Aristotle who had been -for three centuries more than a prophet or an apostle, was hurled from -his throne, because his name was associated with the dismal quarrels -of Scotists and Thomists. That spirit, whether we call it analytical -or sceptical, or earthly, or simply secular, for it is more or less -all of these--the spirit which was the exact antithesis of mediaeval -mysticism, had swept in and carried men away, with all the force of a -pent-up torrent. People were content to gratify their tastes and their -senses, caring little for worship, and still less for doctrine: their -hopes and ideas were no longer such as had made their forefathers -crusaders or ascetics: their imagination was possessed by associations -far different from those which had inspired Dante: they did not revolt -against the church, but they had no enthusiasm for her, and they had -enthusiasm for whatever was fresh and graceful and intelligible. From -all that was old and solemn, or that seemed to savour of feudalism or -monkery, they turned away, too indifferent to be hostile. And so, in -the midst of the Renaissance, so, under the consciousness that former -things were passing from the earth, and a new order opening, so, with -the other beliefs and memories of the Middle Age, the shadowy rights -of the Roman Empire melted away in the fuller modern light. Here and -there a jurist muttered that no neglect could destroy its universal -supremacy, or a priest declaimed to listless hearers on its duty to -protect the Holy See; but to Germany it had become an ancient device -for holding together the discordant members of her body, to its -possessors an engine for extending the power of the house of Hapsburg. - -[Sidenote: Empire henceforth German.] - -Henceforth, therefore, we must look upon the Holy Roman Empire as lost -in the German; and after a few faint attempts to resuscitate -old-fashioned claims, nothing remains to indicate its origin save a -sounding title and a precedence among the states of Europe. It was not -that the Renaissance exerted any direct political influence either -against the Empire or for it; men were too busy upon statues and coins -and manuscripts to care what befel Popes or Emperors. It acted rather -by silently withdrawing the whole system of doctrines upon which the -Empire had rested, and thus leaving it, since it had previously no -support but that of opinion, without any support at all. - -[Sidenote: Attempts to reform the Germanic Constitution.] - -[Sidenote: Causes of the failure of the projects of reform.] - -During Maximilian's eventful reign several efforts were made to -construct a new constitution, but it is to German, rather than to -imperial history that they properly belong. Here, indeed, the history -of the Holy Empire might close, did not the title unchanged beckon us -on, and were it not that the events of these later centuries may in -their causes be traced back to times when the name of Roman was not -wholly a mockery. It may be enough to remark that while the -preservation of peace and the better administration of justice were in -some measure attained by the Public Peace and Imperial Chamber, -established in A.D. 1495, schemes still more important failed through -the bad constitution of the Diet, and the unconquerable jealousy of -the Emperor and the Estates. Maximilian refused to have his -prerogative, indefinite though weak, restricted by the appointment of -an administrative council[359], and when the Estates extorted it from -him, did his best to ensure its failure. In the Diet, which consisted -of three colleges, electors, princes, and cities, the lower nobility -and knights of the Empire were unrepresented, and resented every -decree that affected their position, refusing to pay taxes in voting -which they had no voice. The interests of the princes and the cities -were often irreconcilable, while the strength of the crown would not -have been sufficient to make its adhesion to the latter of any effect. -The policy of conciliating the commons, which Sigismund had tried, -succeeding Emperors seldom cared to repeat, content to gain their -point by raising factions among the territorial magnates, and so to -stave off the unwelcome demand for reform. After many earnest attempts -to establish a representative system, such as might resist the -tendency to local independence and cure the evils of separate -administration, the hope so often baffled died away. Forces were too -nearly balanced: the sovereign could not extend his personal control, -nor could the reforming party limit him by a strong council of -government, for such a measure would have equally trenched on the -independence of the states. So ended the first great effort for German -unity, interesting from its bearing on the events and aspirations of -our own day; interesting, too, as giving the most convincing proof of -the decline of the imperial office. For the projects of reform did not -propose to effect their objects by restoring to Maximilian the -authority his predecessors had once enjoyed, but by setting up a body -which would resemble far more nearly the senate of a federal state -than the administrative council which surrounds a monarch. The -existing system developed itself further: relieved from external -pressure, the princes became more despotic in their own territories: -distinct codes were framed, and new systems of administration -introduced: the insurgent peasantry were crushed down with more -confident harshness. Already had leagues of princes and cities been -formed[360] (that of Swabia was one of the strongest forces in -Germany, and often the monarch's firmest support); now alliances begin -to be contracted with foreign powers, and receive a direction of -formidable import from the rivalry which the pretensions on Naples and -Milan of Charles the Eighth and Lewis the Twelfth of France kindled -between their house and the Austrian. It was no slight gain to have -friends in the heart of the enemy's country, such as French intrigue -found in the Elector Palatine and the count of Wuertemberg. - -[Sidenote: Germanic nationality.] - -[Sidenote: Change of Titles.] - -[Sidenote: The title 'Imperator Electus.'] - -Nevertheless this was also the era of the first conscious feeling of -German nationality, as distinct from imperial. Driven in on all hands, -with Italy and the Slavic lands and Burgundy hopelessly lost, -Teutschland learnt to separate itself from Welschland[361]. The Empire -became the representative of a narrower but more practicable national -union. It is not a mere coincidence that at this date there appear -several notable changes of style. 'Nationis Teutonicae' (Teutscher -Nation) is added to the simple 'sacrum imperium Romanum.' The title of -'Imperator electus,' which Maximilian obtains leave from Pope Julius -the Second to assume, when the Venetians prevent him from reaching his -capital, marks the severance of Germany from Rome. No subsequent -Emperor received his crown in the ancient capital (Charles the Fifth -was indeed crowned by the Pope's hands, but the ceremony took place at -Bologna, and was therefore of at least questionable validity); each -assumed after his German coronation[362] the title of Emperor -Elect[363], and employed this in all documents issued in his name. But -the word 'elect' being omitted when he was addressed by others, partly -from motives of courtesy, partly because the old rules regarding the -Roman coronation were forgotten, or remembered only by antiquaries, he -was never called, even when formality was required, anything but -Emperor. The substantial import of another title now first introduced -is the same. Before Otto the First, the Teutonic king had called -himself either 'rex' alone, or 'Francorum orientalium rex,' or -'Francorum atque Saxonum rex:' after A.D. 962, all lesser dignities -had been merged in the 'Romanorum Imperator[364].' To this Maximilian -appended 'Germaniae rex,' or, adding Frederick the Second's -bequest[365], 'Koenig in Germanien und Jerusalem.' It has been thought -that from a mixture of the title King of Germany, and that of Emperor, -has been formed the phrase 'German Emperor,' or less correctly, -'Emperor of Germany[366].' But more probably the terms 'German -Emperor' and 'Emperor of Germany' are nothing but convenient -corruptions of the technical description of the Germanic -sovereign[367]. - -That the Empire was thus sinking into a merely German power cannot be -doubted. But it was only natural that those who lived at the time -should not discern the tendency of events. Again and again did the -restless and sanguine Maximilian propose the recovery of Burgundy and -Italy,--his last scheme was to adjust the relations of Papacy and -Empire by becoming Pope himself: nor were successive Diets less -zealous to check private war, still the scandal of Germany, to set -right the gear of the imperial chamber, to make the imperial officials -permanent, and their administration uniform throughout the country. -But while they talked the heavens darkened, and the flood came and -destroyed them all. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[352] See Dean Stanley's _Lectures on the History of the Eastern -Church_, Lecture II. - -[353] It is not without interest to observe that the council of Basel -shewed signs of reciprocating imperial care by claiming those very -rights over the Empire to which the Popes were accustomed to pretend. - -[354] The councils of Basel and Florence were not recognized from -first to last by all Europe, as was the council of Constance. When the -assembly of Trent met, the great religious schism had already made a -general council, in the true sense of the word, impossible. - -[355] 'E pero venendo gl'imperadori della Magna col supremo titolo, e -volendo col senno e colla forza della Magna reggiere gli Italiani, non -lo fanno e non lo possono fare.'--M. Villani, iv. 77. - -Matthew Villani's etymology of the two great faction names of Italy is -worth quoting, as a fair sample of the skill of mediaevals in such -matters:--'La Italia tutta e divisa mistamente in due parti, l'una che -seguita ne' fatti del mondo la santa chiesa--e questi son dinominati -Guelfi; cioe, guardatori di fe. E l'altra parte seguitano lo 'mperio o -fedele o enfedele che sia delle cose del mondo a santa chiesa. E -chiamansi Ghibellini, quasi guida belli; cioe, guidatori di -battaglie.' - -[356] 'Nam quamvis Imperatorem et regem et dominum vestrum esse -fateamini, precario tamen ille imperare videtur: nulla ei potentia -est; tantum ei paretis quantum vultis, vultis autem minimum.'--AEneas -Sylvius to the princes of Germany, quoted by Hippolytus a Lapide. - -[357] See AEgidi, _Der Fuerstenrath nach dem Luneviller Frieden_; a book -which throws more light than any other with which I am acquainted on -the inner nature of the Empire. - -[358] The two immediately preceding Emperors, Albert II (1438-1439) -and Frederick III, father of Maximilian (1439-1493), had been -Hapsburgs. It is nevertheless from Maximilian that the ascendancy of -that family must be dated. - -[359] Reichsregiment. - -[360] Wenzel had encouraged the leagues of the cities, and incurred -thereby the hatred of the nobles. - -[361] The Germans, like our own ancestors, called foreign, _i. e._ -non-Teutonic nations, Welsh. Yet apparently not all such nations, but -only those which they in some way associated with the Roman Empire, -the Cymry of Roman Britain, the Romanized Kelts of Gaul, the Italians, -the Roumans or Wallachs of Transylvania and the Principalities. It -does not appear that either the Magyars or any Slavonic people were -called by any form of the name Welsh. - -[362] The German crown was received at Aachen, the ancient Frankish -capital, where may still be seen, in the gallery of the basilica, the -marble throne on which the Emperors from the days of Charles to those -of Ferdinand I were crowned. It was upon this chair that Otto III had -found the body of Charles seated, when he opened his tomb in A.D. -1001. After Ferdinand I, the coronation as well as the election took -place at Frankfort. An account of the ceremony may be found in -Goethe's _Wahrheit und Dichtung_. Aachen, though it remained and -indeed is still a German town, lay in too remote a corner of the -country to be a convenient capital, and was moreover in dangerous -proximity to the West Franks, as stubborn old Germans continue to call -them. As early as A.D. 1353 we find bishop Leopold of Bamberg -complaining that the French had arrogated to themselves the honours of -the Frankish name, and called themselves 'reges Franciae,' instead of -'reges Franciae occidentalis.'--Lupoldus Bebenburgensis, apud -Schardium, _Sylloge Tractatuum_. - -[363] Erwaehlter Kaiser. See Appendix, Note C. - -[364] Romanorum rex (after Henry II) till the coronation at Rome. - -[365] But the Emperor was only one of many claimants to this kingdom; -they multiplied as the prospect of regaining it died away. - -[366] The latter does not occur, even in English books, till -comparatively recent times. English writers of the seventeenth century -always call him 'The Emperor,' pure and simple, just as they -invariably say 'the French king.' But the phrase 'Empereur d'Almayne' -may be found in very early French writers. - -[367] See Moser, _Roemische Kayser_; Goldast's and other collections of -imperial edicts and proclamations. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII. - -THE REFORMATION AND ITS EFFECTS UPON THE EMPIRE. - - -The Reformation falls to be mentioned here, of course not as a -religious movement, but as the cause of political changes, which still -further rent the Empire, and struck at the root of the theory by which -it had been created and upheld. Luther completed the work of -Hildebrand. Hitherto it had seemed not impossible to strengthen the -German state into a monarchy, compact if not despotic; the very Diet -of Worms, where the monk of Wittenberg proclaimed to an astonished -church and Emperor that the day of spiritual tyranny was past, had -framed and presented a fresh scheme for the construction of a central -council of government. The great religious schism put an end to all -such hopes, for it became a source of political disunion far more -serious and permanent than any that had existed before, and it taught -the two factions into which Germany was henceforth divided to regard -each other with feelings more bitter than those of hostile nations. - -[Sidenote: Accession of Charles V (1519-1558).] - -The breach came at the most unfortunate time possible. After an -election, more memorable than any preceding, an election in which -Francis the First of France and Henry the Eighth of England had been -his competitors, a prince had just ascended the imperial throne who -united dominions vaster than any Europe had seen since the days of his -great namesake. Spain and Naples, Flanders, and other parts of the -Burgundian lands, as well as large regions in Eastern Germany, obeyed -Charles: he drew inexhaustible revenues from a new empire beyond the -Atlantic. Such a power, directed by a mind more resolute and profound -than that of Maximilian his grandfather, might have well been able, -despite the stringency of his coronation engagements[368], and the -watchfulness of the electors[369], to override their usurped -privileges, and make himself practically as well as officially the -head of the nation. Charles the Fifth, though from the coldness of his -manner[370] and his Flemish speech never a favourite among the -Germans, was in point of fact far stronger than Maximilian or any -other Emperor who had reigned for three centuries. In Italy he -succeeded, after long struggles with the Pope and the French, in -rendering himself supreme: England he knew how to lead, by flattering -Henry and cajoling Wolsey: from no state but France had he serious -opposition to fear. To this strength his imperial dignity was indeed a -mere accident: its sources were the infantry of Spain, the looms of -Flanders, the sierras of Peru. But the conquest once achieved, might -could lose itself in right; and as an earlier Charles had veiled the -terror of the Frankish sword under the mask of Roman election, so -might his successor sway a hundred provinces with the sole name of -Roman Emperor, and transmit to his race a dominion as wide and more -enduring. - -[Sidenote: Attitude of Charles towards the religious movement.] - -One is tempted to speculate as to what might have happened had Charles -espoused the reforming cause. His reverence for the Pope's person is -sufficiently seen in the sack of Rome and the captivity of Clement; -the traditions of his office might have led him to tread in the steps -of the Henrys and the Fredericks, into which even the timid Lewis the -Fourth and the unstable Sigismund had sometimes ventured; the -awakening zeal of the German people, exasperated by the exactions of -the Romish court, would have strengthened his hands, and enabled him, -while moderating the excesses of change, to fix his throne on the deep -foundations of national love. It may well be doubted--Englishmen at -least have reason for the doubt--whether the Reformation would not -have lost as much as it could have gained by being entangled in the -meshes of royal patronage. But, setting aside Charles's personal -leaning to the old faith, and forgetting that he was king of the most -bigoted race of Europe, his position as Emperor made him almost -perforce the Pope's ally. The Empire had been called into being by -Rome, had vaunted the protection of the Apostolic See as its highest -earthly privilege, had latterly been wont, especially in Hapsburg -hands, to lean on the papacy for support. Itself founded entirely on -prescription and the traditions of immemorial reverence, how could it -abandon the cause which the longest prescription and the most solemn -authority had combined to consecrate? With the German clergy, despite -occasional quarrels, it had been on better terms than with the lay -aristocracy; their heads had been the chief ministers of the crown; -the advocacies of their abbeys were the last source of imperial -revenue to disappear. To turn against them now, when furiously -assailed by heretics; to abrogate claims hallowed by antiquity and a -hundred laws, would be to pronounce its own sentence, and the fall of -the eternal city's spiritual dominion must involve the fall of what -still professed to be her temporal. Charles would have been glad to -see some abuses corrected; but a broad line of policy was called for, -and he cast in his lot with the Catholics[371]. - -[Sidenote: Ultimate failure of the repressive policy of Charles.] - -[Sidenote: Ferdinand I, 1558-1564.] - -[Sidenote: Maximilian II, 1564-1576.] - -[Sidenote: Destruction of the Germanic state-system.] - -Of many momentous results only a few need be noticed here. The -reconstruction of the old imperial system, upon the basis of Hapsburg -power, proved in the end impossible. Yet for some years it had seemed -actually accomplished. When the Smalkaldic league had been dissolved -and its leaders captured, the whole country lay prostrate before -Charles. He overawed the Diet at Augsburg by the Spanish soldiery: he -forced formularies of doctrine upon the vanquished Protestants: he set -up and pulled down whom he would throughout Germany, amid the muttered -discontent of his own partisans. Then, as in the beginning of the year -1552, he lay at Innsbruck, fondly dreaming that his work was done, -waiting the spring weather to cross to Trent, where the Catholic -fathers had again met to settle the world's faith for it, news was -suddenly brought that North Germany was in arms, and that the revolted -Maurice of Saxony had seized Donauwerth, and was hurrying through the -Bavarian Alps to surprise his sovereign. Charles rose and fled -southwards over the snows of the Brenner, then eastwards, under the -blood-red cliffs of dolomite that wall in the Pusterthal, far away -into the valleys of Carinthia: the council of Trent broke up in -consternation: Europe saw and the Emperor acknowledged that in his -fancied triumph over the spirit of revolution he had done no more than -block up for the moment an irresistible torrent. When this last effort -to produce religious uniformity by violence had failed as hopelessly -as the previous devices of holding discussions of doctrine and calling -a general council, a sort of armistice was agreed to in 1554, which -lasted in mutual fear and suspicion for more than sixty years. Four -years after this disappointment of the hopes and projects which had -occupied his busy life, Charles, weighed down by cares and with the -shadow of coming death already upon him, resigned the sovereignty of -Spain and the Indies, of Flanders and Naples, into the hands of his -son Philip the Second; while the imperial sceptre passed to his -brother Ferdinand, who had been some time before chosen King of the -Romans. Ferdinand was content to leave things much as he found them, -and the amiable Maximilian II, who succeeded him, though personally -well inclined to the Protestants, found himself fettered by his -position and his allies, and could do little or nothing to quench the -flame of religious and political hatred. Germany remained divided into -two omnipresent factions, and so further than ever from harmonious -action, or a tightening of the long-loosened bond of feudal -allegiance. The states of either creed being gathered into a league, -there could no longer be a recognized centre of authority for judicial -or administrative purposes. Least of all could a centre be sought in -the Emperor, the leader of the papal party, the suspected foe of every -Protestant. Too closely watched to do anything of his own authority, -too much committed to one party to be accepted as a mediator by the -other, he was driven to attain his own objects by falling in with the -schemes and furthering the selfish ends of his adherents, by becoming -the accomplice or the tool of the Jesuits. The Lutheran princes -addressed themselves to reduce a power of which they had still an -over-sensitive dread, and found when they exacted from each successive -sovereign engagements more stringent than his predecessor's, that in -this, and this alone, their Catholic brethren were not unwilling to -join them. Thus obliged to strip himself one by one of the ancient -privileges of his crown, the Emperor came to have little influence on -the government except that which his intrigues might exercise. Nay, it -became almost impossible to maintain a government at all. For when the -Reformers found themselves outvoted at the Diet, they declared that in -matters of religion a majority ought not to bind a minority. As the -measures were few which did not admit of being reduced to this -category, for whatever benefited the Emperor or any other Catholic -prince injured the Protestants, nothing could be done save by the -assent of two bitterly hostile factions. Thus scarce anything was -done; and even the courts of justice were stopped by the disputes that -attended the appointment of every judge or assessor. - -[Sidenote: Alliance of the Protestants with France.] - -In the foreign politics of Germany another result followed. Inferior -in military force and organization, the Protestant princes at first -provided for their safety by forming leagues among themselves. The -device was an old one, and had been employed by the monarch himself -before now, in despair at the effete and cumbrous forms of the -imperial system. Soon they began to look beyond the Vosges, and found -that France, burning heretics at home, was only too happy to smile on -free opinions elsewhere. The alliance was easily struck; Henry the -Second assumed in 1552 the title of 'Protector of the Germanic -liberties,' and a pretext for interference was never wanting in -future. - -[Sidenote: The Reformation spirit, and its influence upon the Empire.] - -[Sidenote: Effect of the Reformation on the doctrines regarding the -Visible Church.] - -These were some of the visible political consequences of the great -religious schism of the sixteenth century. But beyond and above them -there was a change far more momentous than any of its immediate -results. There is perhaps no event in history which has been represented -in so great a variety of lights as the Reformation. It has been called -a revolt of the laity against the clergy, or of the Teutonic races -against the Italians, or of the kingdoms of Europe against the -universal monarchy of the Popes. Some have seen in it only a burst of -long-repressed anger at the luxury of the prelates and the manifold -abuses of the ecclesiastical system; others a renewal of the youth of -the church by a return to primitive forms of doctrine. All these -indeed to some extent it was; but it was also something more profound, -and fraught with mightier consequences than any of them. It was in its -essence the assertion of the principle of individuality--that is to -say, of true spiritual freedom. Hitherto the personal consciousness -had been a faint and broken reflection of the universal; obedience had -been held the first of religious duties; truth had been conceived as a -something external and positive, which the priesthood who were its -stewards were to communicate to the passive layman, and whose saving -virtue lay not in its being felt and known by him to be truth, but in -a purely formal and unreasoning acceptance. The great principles which -mediaeval Christianity still cherished were obscured by the limited, -rigid, almost sensuous forms which had been forced on them in times of -ignorance and barbarism. That which was in its nature abstract, had -been able to survive only by taking a concrete expression. The -universal consciousness became the Visible Church: the Visible Church -hardened into a government and degenerated into a hierarchy. Holiness -of heart and life was sought by outward works, by penances and -pilgrimages, by gifts to the poor and to the clergy, wherein there -dwelt often little enough of a charitable mind. The presence of divine -truth among men was symbolized under one aspect by the existence on -earth of an infallible Vicar of God, the Pope; under another, by the -reception of the present Deity in the sacrifice of the mass; in a -third, by the doctrine that the priest's power to remit sins and -administer the sacraments depended upon a transmission of miraculous -gifts which can hardly be called other than physical. All this system -of doctrine, which might, but for the position of the church as a -worldly and therefore obstructive power, have expanded, renewed, and -purified itself during the four centuries that had elapsed since its -completion[372], and thus remained in harmony with the growing -intelligence of mankind, was suddenly rent in pieces by the convulsion -of the Reformation, and flung away by the more religious and more -progressive peoples of Europe. That which was external and concrete, -was in all things to be superseded by that which was inward and -spiritual. It was proclaimed that the individual spirit, while it -continued to mirror itself in the world-spirit, had nevertheless an -independent existence as a centre of self-issuing force, and was to be -in all things active rather than passive. Truth was no longer to be -truth to the soul until it should have been by the soul recognized, -and in some measure even created; but when so recognized and felt, it -is able under the form of faith to transcend outward works and to -transform the dogmas of the understanding; it becomes the living -principle within each man's breast, infinite itself, and expressing -itself infinitely through his thoughts and acts. He who as a spiritual -being was delivered from the priest, and brought into direct relation -with the Divinity, needed not, as heretofore, to be enrolled a member -of a visible congregation of his fellows, that he might live a pure -and useful life among them. Thus by the Reformation the Visible Church -as well as the priesthood lost that paramount importance which had -hitherto belonged to it, and sank from being the depositary of all -religious tradition, the source and centre of religious life, the -arbiter of eternal happiness or misery, into a mere association of -Christian men, for the expression of mutual sympathy and the better -attainment of certain common ends. Like those other doctrines which -were now assailed by the Reformation, this mediaeval view of the nature -of the Visible Church had been naturally, and so, it may be said, -necessarily developed between the third and the twelfth century, and -must therefore have represented the thoughts and satisfied the wants -of those times. By the Visible Church the flickering lamp of knowledge -and literary culture, as well as of religion, had been fed and tended -through the long night of the Dark Ages. But, like the whole -theological fabric of which it formed a part, it was now hard and -unfruitful, identified with its own worst abuses, capable apparently -of no further development, and unable to satisfy minds which in -growing stronger had grown more conscious of their strength. Before -the awakened zeal of the northern nations it stood a cold and lifeless -system, whose organization as a hierarchy checked the free activity of -thought, whose bestowal of worldly power and wealth on spiritual -pastors drew them away from their proper duties, and which by -maintaining alongside of the civil magistracy a co-ordinate and rival -government, maintained also that separation of the spiritual element -in man from the secular, which had been so complete and so pernicious -during the Middle Ages, which debases life, and severs religion from -morality. - -[Sidenote: Consequent effect upon the Empire.] - -The Reformation, it may be said, was a religious movement: and it is -the Empire, not the Church, that we have here to consider. The -distinction is only apparent. The Holy Empire is but another name for -the Visible Church. It has been shewn already how mediaeval theory -constructed the State on the model of the Church; how the Roman Empire -was the shadow of the Popedom--designed to rule men's bodies as the -pontiff ruled their souls. Both alike claimed obedience on the ground -that Truth is One, and that where there is One faith there must be One -government[373]. And, therefore, since it was this very principle of -Formal Unity that the Reformation overthrew, it became a revolt -against despotism of every kind; it erected the standard of civil as -well as of religious liberty, since both of them are needed, though -needed in a different measure, for the worthy development of the -individual spirit. The Empire had never been conspicuously the -antagonist of popular freedom, and was, even under Charles the Fifth, -far less formidable to the commonalty than were the petty princes of -Germany. But submission, and submission on the ground of indefeasible -transmitted right, upon the ground of Catholic traditions and the duty -of the Christian magistrate to suffer heresy and schism as little as -the parallel sins of treason and rebellion, had been its constant -claim and watchword. Since the days of Julius Caesar it had passed -through many phases, but in none of them had it ever been a -constitutional monarchy, pledged to the recognition of popular rights. -And hence the indirect tendency of the Reformation to narrow the -province of government and exalt the privileges of the subject was as -plainly adverse to the Empire as the Protestant claim of the right of -private judgment was to the pretensions of the Papacy and the -priesthood. - -[Sidenote: Immediate influence of the Reformation on political and -religious liberty.] - -[Sidenote: Conduct of the Protestant States.] - -The remark must not be omitted in passing, how much less than might -have been expected the religious movement did at first actually effect -in the way of promoting either political progress or freedom of -conscience. The habits of centuries were not to be unlearnt in a few -years, and it was natural that ideas struggling into existence and -activity should work erringly and imperfectly for a time. By a few -inflammable minds liberty was carried into antinomianism, and produced -the wildest excesses of life and doctrine. Several fantastic sects -arose, refusing to conform to the ordinary rules without which human -society could not subsist. But these commotions neither spread widely -nor lasted long. Far more pervading and more remarkable was the other -error, if that can be called an error which was the almost unavoidable -result of the circumstances of the time. The principles which had led -the Protestants to sever themselves from the Roman Church, should have -taught them to bear with the opinions of others, and warned them from -the attempt to connect agreement in doctrine or manner of worship with -the necessary forms of civil government. Still less ought they to have -enforced that agreement by civil penalties; for faith, upon their own -shewing, had no value save when it was freely given. A church which -does not claim to be infallible is bound to allow that some part of -the truth may possibly be with its adversaries: a church which permits -or encourages human reason to apply itself to revelation has no right -first to argue with people and then to punish them if they are not -convinced. But whether it was that men only half saw what they had -done, or that finding it hard enough to unrivet priestly fetters, they -welcomed all the aid a temporal prince could give, the result was that -religion, or rather religious creeds, began to be involved with -politics more closely than had ever been the case before. Through the -greater part of Christendom wars of religion raged for a century or -more, and down to our own days feelings of theological antipathy -continue to affect the relations of the powers of Europe. In almost -every country the form of doctrine which triumphed associated itself -with the state, and maintained the despotic system of the Middle Ages, -while it forsook the grounds on which that system had been based. It -was thus that there arose National Churches, which were to be to the -several countries of Europe that which the Church Catholic had been to -the world at large; churches, that is to say, each of which was to be -co-extensive with its respective state, was to enjoy landed wealth and -exclusive political privilege, and was to be armed with coercive -powers against recusants. It was not altogether easy to find a set of -theoretical principles on which such churches might be made to rest, -for they could not, like the old church, point to the historical -transmission of their doctrines; they could not claim to have in any -one man or body of men an infallible organ of divine truth; they could -not even fall back upon general councils, or the argument, whatever it -may be worth, '_Securus iudicat orbis terrarum_.' But in practice -these difficulties were soon got over, for the dominant party in each -state, if it was not infallible, was at any rate quite sure that it -was right, and could attribute the resistance of other sects to -nothing but moral obliquity. The will of the sovereign, as in England, -or the will of the majority, as in Holland, Scandinavia, and Scotland, -imposed upon each country a peculiar form of worship, and kept up the -practices of mediaeval intolerance without their justification. -Persecution, which might be at least excused in an infallible Catholic -and Apostolic Church, was peculiarly odious when practised by those -who were not catholic, who were no more apostolic than their -neighbours, and who had just revolted from the most ancient and -venerable authority in the name of rights which they now denied to -others. If union with the visible church by participation in a -material sacrament be necessary to eternal life, persecution may be -held a duty, a kindness to perishing souls. But if the kingdom of -heaven be in every sense a kingdom of the spirit, if saving faith be -possible out of one visible body and under a diversity of external -forms, persecution becomes at once a crime and a folly. Therefore the -intolerance of Protestants, if the forms it took were less cruel than -those practised by the Roman Catholics, was also far less defensible; -for it had seldom anything better to allege on its behalf than motives -of political expediency, or, more often, the mere headstrong passion -of a ruler or a faction to silence the expressions of any opinions but -their own. To enlarge upon this theme, did space permit it, would not -be to digress from the proper subject of this narrative. For the -Empire, as has been said more than once already, was far less an -institution than a theory or doctrine. And hence it is not too much to -say, that the ideas which have but recently ceased to prevail -regarding the duty of the magistrate to compel uniformity in doctrine -and worship by the civil arm, may all be traced to the relation which -that doctrine established between the Roman Church and the Roman -Empire; to the conception, in fact, of an Empire Church itself. - -[Sidenote: Influence of the Reformation on the name and associations -of the Empire.] - -Two of the ways in which the Reformation affected the Empire have been -now described: its immediate political results, and its far more -profound doctrinal importance, as implanting new ideas regarding the -nature of freedom and the province of government. A third, though -apparently almost superficial, cannot be omitted. Its name and its -traditions, little as they retained of their former magic power, were -still such as to excite the antipathy of the German reformers. The -form which the doctrine of the supreme importance of one faith and one -body of the faithful had taken was the dominion of the ancient capital -of the world through her spiritual head, the Roman bishop, and her -temporal head, the Emperor. As the names of Roman and Christian had -been once convertible, so long afterwards were those of Roman and -Catholic. The Reformation, separating into its parts what had hitherto -been one conception, attacked Romanism but not Catholicity, and formed -religious communities which, while continuing to call themselves -Christian, repudiated the form with which Christianity had been so -long identified in the West. As the Empire was founded upon the -assumption that the limits of Church and State are exactly -co-extensive, a change which withdrew half of its subjects from the -one body while they remained members of the other, transformed it -utterly, destroyed the meaning and value of its old arrangements, and -forced the Emperor into a strange and incongruous position. To his -Protestant subjects he was merely the head of the administration, to -the Catholics he was also the Defender and Advocate of their church. -Thus from being chief of the whole state he became the chief of a -party within it, the Corpus Catholicorum, as opposed to the Corpus -Evangelicorum; he lost what had been hitherto his most holy claim to -the obedience of the subject; the awakened feeling of German -nationality was driven into hostility to an institution whose title -and history bound it to the centre of foreign tyranny. After exulting -for seven centuries in the heritage of Roman rule, the Teutonic -nations cherished again the feelings with which their ancestors had -resisted Julius Caesar and Germanicus. Two mutually repugnant systems -could not exist side by side without striving to destroy one another. -The instincts of theological sympathy overcame the duties of political -allegiance, and men who were subjects both of the Empire and of their -local prince, gave all their loyalty to him who espoused their -doctrines and protected their worship. For in North Germany, princes -as well as people were mostly Lutheran: in the southern and especially -the south-eastern lands, where the magnates held to the old faith, -Protestants were scarcely to be found except in the free cities. The -same causes which injured the Emperor's position in Germany swept away -the last semblance of his authority through other countries. In the -great struggle which followed, the Protestants of England and France, -of Holland and Sweden, thought of him only as the ally of Spain, of -the Vatican, of the Jesuits; and he of whom it had been believed a -century before that by nothing but his existence was the coming of -Antichrist on earth delayed, was in the eyes of the northern divines -either Antichrist himself or Antichrist's foremost champion. The -earthquake that opened a chasm in Germany was felt through Europe; its -states and peoples marshalled themselves under two hostile banners, -and with the Empire's expiring power vanished that united Christendom -it had been created to lead[374]. - -[Sidenote: Troubles of Germany.] - -[Sidenote: Rudolf II, 1576-1612.] - -[Sidenote: Matthias, 1612-1619.] - -Some of the effects thus sketched began to shew themselves as early as -that famous Diet of Worms, from Luther's appearance at which, in A.D. -1521, we may date the beginning of the Reformation. But just as the -end of the religious conflict in England can hardly be placed earlier -than the Revolution of 1688, nor in France than the Revocation of the -Edict of Nantes in 1685, so it was not till after more than a century -of doubtful strife that the new order of things was fully and finally -established in Germany. The arrangements of Augsburg, like most -treaties on the basis of _uti possidetis_, were no better than a -hollow truce, satisfying no one, and consciously made to be broken. -The church lands which Protestants had seized, and Jesuit confessors -urged the Catholic princes to reclaim, furnished an unceasing ground -of quarrel: neither party yet knew the strength of its antagonists -sufficiently to abstain from insulting or persecuting their modes of -worship, and the smouldering hate of half a century was kindled by the -troubles of Bohemia into the Thirty Years' War. - -[Sidenote: Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648.] - -[Sidenote: Ferdinand II, A.D. 1619-37.] - -[Sidenote: Plans of Ferdinand II.] - -[Sidenote: Gustavus Adolphus.] - -[Sidenote: Ferdinand III, 1637-1658.] - -[Sidenote: The peace of Westphalia.] - -The imperial sceptre had now passed from the indolent and vacillating -Rudolf II (1576-1612), the corrupt and reckless policy of whose -ministers had done much to exasperate the already suspicious minds of -the Protestants, into the firmer grasp of Ferdinand the Second[375]. -Jealous, bigoted, implacable, skilful in forming and concealing his -plans, resolute to obstinacy in carrying them out in action, the house -of Hapsburg could have had no abler and no more unpopular leader in -their second attempt to turn the German Empire into an Austrian -military monarchy. They seemed for a time as near to the -accomplishment of the project as Charles the Fifth had been. Leagued -with Spain, backed by the Catholics of Germany, served by such a -leader as Wallenstein, Ferdinand proposed nothing less than the -extension of the Empire to its old limits, and the recovery of his -crown's full prerogative over all its vassals. Denmark and Holland -were to be attacked by sea and land: Italy to be reconquered with the -help of Spain: Maximilian of Bavaria and Wallenstein to be rewarded -with principalities in Pomerania and Mecklenburg. The latter general -was all but master of Northern Germany when the successful resistance -of Stralsund turned the wavering balance of the war. Soon after (A.D. -1630), Gustavus Adolphus crossed the Baltic, and saved Europe from an -impending reign of the Jesuits. Ferdinand's high-handed proceedings -had already alarmed even the Catholic princes. Of his own authority he -had put the Elector Palatine and other magnates to the ban of the -Empire: he had transferred an electoral vote to Bavaria; had treated -the districts overrun by his generals as spoil of war, to be portioned -out at his pleasure; had unsettled all possession by requiring the -restitution of church property occupied since A.D. 1555. The -Protestants were helpless; the Catholics, though they complained of -the flagrant illegality of such conduct, did not dare to oppose it: -the rescue of Germany was the work of the Swedish king. In four -campaigns he destroyed the armies and the prestige of the Emperor; -devastated his lands, emptied his treasury, and left him at last so -enfeebled that no subsequent successes could make him again -formidable. Such, nevertheless, was the selfishness and apathy of the -Protestant princes, divided by the mutual jealousy of the Lutheran and -the Calvinist party--some, like the Saxon elector, most inglorious of -his inglorious house, bribed by the cunning Austrian; others afraid to -stir lest a reverse should expose them unprotected to his -vengeance--that the issue of the long protracted contest would have -gone against them but for the interference of France. It was the -leading principle of Richelieu's policy to depress the house of -Hapsburg and keep Germany disunited: hence he fostered Protestantism -abroad while trampling it down at home. The triumph he did not live to -see was sealed in A.D. 1648, on the utter exhaustion of all the -combatants, and the treaties of Muenster and Osnabrueck were -thenceforward the basis of the Germanic constitution. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[368] The so-called 'Wahlcapitulation.' - -[369] The electors long refused to elect Charles, dreading his great -hereditary power, and were at last induced to do so only by their -overmastering fear of the Turks. - -[370] Nearly all the Hapsburgs seem to have wanted that sort of genial -heartiness which, apt as it is to be stifled by education in the -purple, has nevertheless been possessed by several other royal lines, -greatly contributing to their vitality; as for instance by more than -one prince of the houses of Brunswick and Hohenzollern. - -[371] See this brought out with great force in the very interesting -work of Padre Tosti, _Prolegomeni alla Storia Universale della -Chiesa_, from which I quote one passage, which bears directly on the -matter in hand: 'Il grido della riforma clericale aveva un eco -terribile in tutta la compagnia civile dei popoli: essa percuoteva le -cime del laicale potere, e rimbalzava per tutta la gerarchia sociale. -Se l'imperadore Sigismondo nel concilio di Costanza non avesse -fiutate queste consequenze nella eresia di Hus e di Girolamo di Praga, -forse non avrebbe con tanto zelo mandati alle fiamme que' novatori. -Rotto da Lutero il vincolo di suggezione al Papa ed ai preti in fatti -di religione, avvenne che anche quello che sommetteva il vassallo al -barone, il barone al imperadore si allentasse. Il popolo con la Bibbia -in mano era prete, vescovo, e papa; e se prima contristato della -prepotenza di chi gli soprastava, ricorreva al successore di San -Pietro, ora ricorreva a se stesso, avendogli commesse Fra Martino le -chiavi del regno dei Cieli.'--vol. ii. pp. 398, 9. - -[372] It was not till the end of the eleventh century that -transubstantiation was definitely established as a dogma. - -[373] See the passages quoted in note 113, p. 98; and note 132, p. 110. - -[374] Henry VIII of England when he rebelled against the Pope called -himself King of Ireland (his predecessors had used only the title -'Dominus Hiberniae') without asking the Emperor's permission, in order -to shew that he repudiated the temporal as well as the spiritual -dominion of Rome. - -So the Statute of Appeals is careful to deny and reject the authority -of 'other foreign potentates,' meaning, no doubt, the Emperor as well -as the Pope. - -[375] Matthias, brother of Rudolf II, reigned from 1612 till 1619. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX. - -THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA: LAST STAGE IN THE DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE. - - -The Peace of Westphalia is the first, and, with the exception perhaps -of the Treaties of Vienna in 1815, the most important of those -attempts to reconstruct by diplomacy the European states-system which -have played so large a part in modern history. It is important, -however, not as marking the introduction of new principles, but as -winding up the struggle which had convulsed Germany since the revolt -of Luther, sealing its results, and closing definitively the period of -the Reformation. Although the causes of disunion which the religious -movement called into being had now been at work for more than a -hundred years, their effects were not fully seen till it became -necessary to establish a system which should represent the altered -relations of the German states. It may thus be said of this famous -peace, as of the other so-called 'fundamental law of the Empire,' the -Golden Bull, that it did no more than legalize a condition of things -already in existence, but which by being legalized acquired new -importance. To all parties alike the result of the Thirty Years' War -was thoroughly unsatisfactory: to the Protestants, who had lost -Bohemia, and still were obliged to hold an inferior place in the -electoral college and in the Diet: to the Catholics, who were forced -to permit the exercise of heretical worship, and leave the church -lands in the grasp of sacrilegious spoilers: to the princes, who could -not throw off the burden of imperial supremacy: to the Emperor, who -could turn that supremacy to no practical account. No other conclusion -was possible to a contest in which every one had been vanquished and -no one victorious; which had ceased because while the reasons for war -continued the means of war had failed. Nevertheless, the substantial -advantage remained with the German princes, for they gained the formal -recognition of that territorial independence whose origin may be -placed as far back as the days of Frederick the Second, and the -maturity of which had been hastened by the events of the last -preceding century. It was, indeed, not only recognized but justified -as rightful and necessary. For while the political situation, to use a -current phrase, had changed within the last two hundred years, the -eyes with which men regarded it had changed still more. Never by their -fiercest enemies in earlier times, not once by the Popes or Lombard -republicans in the heat of their strife with the Franconian and -Swabian Caesars, had the Emperors been reproached as mere German kings, -or their claim to be the lawful heirs of Rome denied. The Protestant -jurists of the sixteenth or rather of the seventeenth century were the -first persons who ventured to scoff at the pretended lordship of the -world, and declare their Empire to be nothing more than a German -monarchy, in dealing with which no superstitious reverence need -prevent its subjects from making the best terms they could for -themselves, and controlling a sovereign whose religious predilections -made him the friend of their enemies. - -[Sidenote: The treatise of Hippolytus a Lapide.] - -[Sidenote: Rights of the Emperor and the Diet, as settled in A.D. -1648.] - -It is very instructive to turn suddenly from Dante or Peter de Andlo -to a book published shortly before A.D. 1648, under the name of -Hippolytus a Lapide[376], and notice the matter-of-fact way, the -almost contemptuous spirit in which, disregarding the traditional -glories of the Empire, he comments on its actual condition and -prospects. Hippolytus, the pseudonym which the jurist Chemnitz -assumed, urges with violence almost superfluous, that the Germanic -constitution must be treated entirely as a native growth: that the -'lex regia' (so much discussed and so often misunderstood) and the -whole system of Justinianean absolutism which the Emperor had used so -dexterously, were in their applications to Germany not merely -incongruous but positively absurd. With eminent learning, Chemnitz -examines the early history of the Empire, draws from the unceasing -contests of the monarch with the nobility the unexpected moral that -the power of the former has been always dangerous, and is now more -dangerous than ever, and then launches out into a long invective -against the policy of the Hapsburgs, an invective which the ambition -and harshness of the late Emperor made only too plausible. The one -real remedy for the evils that menace Germany he states -concisely--'domus Austriacae extirpatio:' but, failing this, he would -have the Emperor's prerogative restricted in every way, and provide -means for resisting or dethroning him. It was by these views, which -seem to have made a profound impression in Germany, that the states, -or rather France and Sweden acting on their behalf, were guided in the -negotiations of Osnabrueck and Muenster. By extorting a full recognition -of the sovereignty of all the princes, Catholics and Protestants -alike, in their respective territories, they bound the Emperor from -any direct interference with the administration, either in particular -districts or throughout the Empire. All affairs of public importance, -including the rights of making war or peace, of levying contributions, -raising troops, building fortresses, passing or interpreting laws, -were henceforth to be left entirely in the hands of the Diet. The -Aulic Council, which had been sometimes the engine of imperial -oppression, and always of imperial intrigue, was so restricted as to -be harmless for the future. The 'reservata' of the Emperor were -confined to the rights of granting titles and confirming tolls. In -matters of religion, an exact though not perfectly reciprocal equality -was established between the two chief ecclesiastical bodies, and the -right of 'Itio in partes,' that is to say, of deciding questions in -which religion was involved by amicable negotiations between the -Protestant and Catholic states, instead of by a majority of votes in -the Diet, was definitely conceded. Both Lutherans and Calvinists were -declared free from all jurisdiction of the Pope or any Catholic -prelate. Thus the last link which bound Germany to Rome was snapped, -the last of the principles by virtue of which the Empire had existed -was abandoned. For the Empire now contained and recognized as its -members persons who formed a visible body at open war with the Holy -Roman Church; and its constitution admitted schismatics to a full -share in all those civil rights which, according to the doctrines of -the early Middle Age, could be enjoyed by no one who was out of the -communion of the Catholic Church. The Peace of Westphalia was -therefore an abrogation of the sovereignty of Rome, and of the theory -of Church and State with which the name of Rome was associated. And in -this light was it regarded by Pope Innocent the Tenth, who commanded -his legate to protest against it, and subsequently declared it void by -the bull 'Zelo domus Dei[377].' - -[Sidenote: Loss of imperial territories.] - -The transference of power within the Empire, from its head to its -members, was a small matter compared with the losses which the Empire -suffered as a whole. The real gainers by the treaties of Westphalia -were those who had borne the brunt of the battle against Ferdinand the -Second and his son. To France were ceded Brisac, the Austrian part of -Alsace, and the lands of the three bishoprics in Lorraine--Metz, Toul, -and Verdun, which her armies had seized in A.D. 1552: to Sweden, -northern Pomerania, Bremen, and Verden. There was, however, this -difference between the position of the two, that whereas Sweden became -a member of the German Diet for what she received (as the king of -Holland was, until 1866-7, a member for Dutch Luxemburg, and as the -kings of Denmark, up till the accession of the present sovereign, were -for Holstein), the acquisitions of France were delivered over to her -in full sovereignty, and for ever severed from the Germanic body. And -as it was by their aid that the liberties of the Protestants had been -won, these two states obtained at the same time what was more valuable -than territorial accessions--the right of interfering at imperial -elections, and generally whenever the provisions of the treaties of -Osnabrueck and Muenster, which they had guaranteed, might be supposed to -be endangered. The bounds of the Empire were further narrowed by the -final separation of two countries, once integral parts of Germany, and -up to this time legally members of her body. Holland and Switzerland -were, in A.D. 1648, declared independent. - -[Sidenote: Germany after the Peace.] - -[Sidenote: Number of petty independent states: effects of such a -system on Germany.] - -The Peace of Westphalia is an era in imperial history not less clearly -marked than the coronation of Otto the Great, or the death of -Frederick the Second. As from the days of Maximilian it had borne a -mixed or transitional character, well expressed by the name -Romano-Germanic, so henceforth it is in everything but title purely -and solely a German Empire. Properly, indeed, it was no longer an -Empire at all, but a Confederation, and that of the loosest sort. For -it had no common treasury, no efficient common tribunals[378], no -means of coercing a refractory member[379]; its states were of -different religions, were governed according to different forms, were -administered judicially and financially without any regard to each -other. The traveller in Central Germany now is amused to find, every -hour or two, by the change in the soldiers' uniforms, and the colour -of the stripes on the railway fences, that he has passed out of one -and into another of its miniature kingdoms. Much more surprised and -embarrassed would he have been a century ago, when, instead of the -present thirty-two there were three hundred petty principalities -between the Alps and the Baltic, each with its own laws, its own -courts (in which the ceremonious pomp of Versailles was faintly -reproduced), its little armies, its separate coinage, its tolls and -custom-houses on the frontier, its crowd of meddlesome and pedantic -officials, presided over by a prime minister who was generally the -unworthy favourite of his prince and the pensioner of some foreign -court. This vicious system, which paralyzed the trade, the literature, -and the political thought of Germany, had been forming itself for some -time, but did not become fully established until the Peace of -Westphalia, by emancipating the princes from imperial control, had -made them despots in their own territories. The impoverishment of the -inferior nobility and the decline of the commercial cities caused by a -war that had lasted a whole generation, removed every counterpoise to -the power of the electors and princes, and made absolutism supreme -just where absolutism wants all its justification, in states too small -to have any public opinion, states in which everything depends on the -monarch, and the monarch depends on his favourites. After A.D. 1648 -the provincial estates or parliaments became obsolete in most of these -principalities, and powerless in the rest. Germany was forced to drink -to its very dregs the cup of feudalism, feudalism from which all the -feelings that once ennobled it had departed. - -[Sidenote: Feudalism in France, England, Germany.] - -It is instructive to compare the results of the system of feudality in -the three chief countries of modern Europe. In France, the feudal head -absorbed all the powers of the state, and left to the aristocracy only -a few privileges, odious indeed, but politically worthless. In -England, the mediaeval system expanded into a constitutional monarchy, -where the oligarchy was still strong, but the commons had won the full -recognition of equal civil rights. In Germany, everything was taken -from the sovereign, and nothing given to the people; the -representatives of those who had been fief-holders of the first and -second rank before the Great Interregnum were now independent -potentates; and what had been once a monarchy was now an aristocratic -federation. The Diet, originally an assembly of magnates meeting from -time to time like our early English Parliaments, became in A.D. 1654 a -permanent body, at which the electors, princes, and cities were -represented by their envoys. In other words, it was now not a national -council, but an international congress of diplomatists. - -[Sidenote: Causes of the continuance of the Empire.] - -Where the sacrifice of imperial, or rather federal, rights to state -rights was so complete, we may wonder that the farce of an Empire -should have been retained at all. A mere German Empire would probably -have perished; but the Teutonic people could not bring itself to -abandon the venerable heritage of Rome. Moreover, the Germans were of -all European peoples the most slow-moving and long-suffering; and as, -if the Empire had fallen, something must have been erected in its -place, they preferred to work on with the clumsy machine so long as it -would work at all. Properly speaking, it has no history after this; -and the history of the particular states of Germany which takes its -place is one of the dreariest chapters in the annals of mankind. It -would be hard to find, from the Peace of Westphalia to the French -Revolution, a single grand character or a single noble enterprise; a -single sacrifice made to great public interests, a single instance in -which the welfare of nations was preferred to the selfish passions of -their princes. The military history of those times will always be read -with interest; but free and progressive countries have a history of -peace not less rich and varied than that of war; and when we ask for -an account of the political life of Germany in the eighteenth century, -we hear nothing but the scandals of buzzing courts, and the wrangling -of diplomatists at never-ending congresses. - -[Sidenote: The Empire and the Balance of power.] - -Useless and helpless as the Empire had become, it was not without its -importance to the neighbouring countries, with whose fortunes it had -been linked by the Peace of Westphalia. It was the pivot on which the -political system of Europe was to revolve: the scales, so to speak, -which marked the equipoise of power that had become the grand object -of the policy of all states. This modern caricature of the plan by -which the theorists of the fourteenth century had proposed to keep the -world at peace, used means less noble and attained its end no better -than theirs had done. No one will deny that it was and is desirable to -prevent a universal monarchy in Europe. But it may be asked whether a -system can be considered successful which allowed Frederick of Prussia -to seize Silesia, which did not check the aggressions of Russia and -France upon their neighbours, which was for ever bartering and -exchanging lands in every part of Europe without thought of the -inhabitants, which permitted and has never been able to redress that -greatest of public misfortunes, the partitionment of Poland. And if it -be said that bad as things have been under this system, they would -have been worse without it, it is hard to refrain from asking whether -any evils could have been greater than those which the people of -Europe have suffered through constant wars with each other, and -through the withdrawal, even in time of peace, of so large a part of -their population from useful labour to be wasted in maintaining a -standing army. - -[Sidenote: Position of the Empire in Europe.] - -[Sidenote: Weakness and stagnation of Germany.] - -The result of the extended relations in which Germany now found -herself to Europe, with two foreign kings never wanting an occasion, -one of them never the wish, to interfere, was that a spark from her -set the Continent ablaze, while flames kindled elsewhere were sure to -spread hither. Matters grew worse as her princes inherited or created -so many thrones abroad. The Duke of Holstein acquired Denmark, the -Count Palatine Sweden, the Elector of Saxony Poland, the Elector of -Hanover England, the Archduke of Austria Hungary and Bohemia, while -the Elector (originally Margrave) of Brandenburg obtained, on the -strength of non-imperial territories to the north-eastward which had -come into his hands, the style and title of King of Prussia. Thus the -Empire seemed again about to embrace Europe; but in a sense far -different from that which those words would have expressed under -Charles and Otto. Its history for a century and a half is a dismal -list of losses and disgraces. The chief external danger was from -French influence, for a time supreme, always menacing. For though -Lewis the Fourteenth, on whom, in A.D. 1658, half the electoral -college wished to confer the imperial crown, was before the end of his -life an object of intense hatred, officially entitled 'Hereditary -enemy of the Holy Empire[380],' France had nevertheless a strong party -among the princes always at her beck. The Rhenish and Bavarian -electors were her favourite tools. The '_reunions_' begun in A.D. -1680, a pleasant euphemism for robbery in time of peace, added -Strasburg and other places in Alsace, Lorraine, and Franche Comte to -the monarchy of Lewis, and brought him nearer the heart of the Empire; -his ambition and cruelty were witnessed to by repeated wars, and by -the devastation of the Rhine countries; the ultimate though -short-lived triumph of his policy was attained when Marshal Belleisle -dictated the election of Charles VII in A.D. 1742. In the Turkish -wars, when the princes left Vienna to be saved by the Polish Sobieski, -the Empire's weakness appeared in a still more pitiable light. There -was, indeed, a complete loss of hope and interest in the old system. -The princes had been so long accustomed to consider themselves the -natural foes of a central government, that a request made by it was -sure to be disregarded; they aped in their petty courts the pomp and -etiquette of Vienna or Paris, grumbling that they should be required -to garrison the great frontier fortresses which alone protected them -from an encroaching neighbour. The Free Cities had never recovered the -famines and sieges of the Thirty Years' War: Hanseatic greatness had -waned, and the southern towns had sunk into languid oligarchies. All -the vigour of the people in a somewhat stagnant age either found its -sphere in rising states like the Prussia of Frederick the Great, or -turned away from politics altogether into other channels. The Diet had -become contemptible from the slowness with which it moved, and its -tedious squabbles on matters the most frivolous. Many sittings were -consumed in the discussion of a question regarding the time of keeping -Easter, more ridiculous than that which had distracted the Western -churches in the seventh century, the Protestants refusing to reckon by -the reformed calendar because it was the work of a Pope. Collective -action through the old organs was confessed impossible, when the -common object of defence against France was sought by forming a league -under the Emperor's presidency, and when at European congresses the -Empire was not represented at all[381]. No change could come from the -Emperor, whom the capitulation of A.D. 1658 deposed _ipso facto_ if he -violated its provisions. As Dohm[382] said, to keep him from doing -harm, he was kept from doing anything. - -[Sidenote: Leopold I, 1658-1705.] - -[Sidenote: Joseph I, 1705-1711.] - -[Sidenote: Charles VI, 1711-1742.] - -[Sidenote: The Hapsburg Emperors and their policy.] - -[Sidenote: Causes of the long retention of the throne by Austria.] - -[Sidenote: Charles VII, 1742-1745.] - -[Sidenote: Francis I, 1745-1765.] - -[Sidenote: Seven Years' War.] - -[Sidenote: Joseph II, 1765-1790.] - -[Sidenote: Leopold II, 1790-1792. Last phase of the Empire.] - -[Sidenote: The Diet.] - -Yet little was lost by his inactivity, for what could have been hoped -from his action? From the election of Albert the Second, A.D. 1437, to -the death of Charles the Sixth, A.D. 1742, the sceptre had remained in -the hands of one family. So far from being fit subjects for -undistinguishing invective, the Hapsburg Emperors may be contrasted -favourably with the contemporary dynasties of France, Spain, or -England. Their policy, viewed as a whole from the days of Rudolf -downwards, had been neither conspicuously tyrannical, nor faltering, -nor dishonest. But it had been always selfish. Entrusted with an -office which might, if there be any power in those memories of the -past to which the champions of hereditary monarchy so constantly -appeal, have stirred their sluggish souls with some enthusiasm for the -heroes on whose throne they sat, some wish to advance the glory and -the happiness of Germany, they had cared for nothing, sought nothing, -used the Empire as an instrument for nothing but the attainment of -their own personal or dynastic ends. Placed on the eastern verge of -Germany, the Hapsburgs had added to their ancient lands in Austria -proper and Tyrol, non-German territories far more extensive, and had -thus become the chiefs of a separate and independent state. They -endeavoured to reconcile its interests with the interests of the -Empire, so long as it seemed possible to recover part of the old -imperial prerogative. But when such hopes were dashed by the defeats -of the Thirty Years' War, they hesitated no longer between an elective -crown and the rule of their hereditary states, and comported -themselves thenceforth in European politics not as the representatives -of Germany, but as heads of the great Austrian monarchy. There would -have been nothing culpable in this had they not at the same time -continued to entangle Germany in wars with which she had no concern: -to waste her strength in tedious combats with the Turks, or plunge her -into a new struggle with France, not to defend her frontiers or -recover the lands she had lost, but that some scion of the house of -Hapsburg might reign in Spain or Italy. Watching the whole course of -their foreign policy, marking how in A.D. 1736 they had bartered away -Lorraine for Tuscany, a German for a non-German territory, and seeing -how at home they opposed every scheme of reform which could in the -least degree trench upon their own prerogative, how they strove to -obstruct the imperial chamber lest it should interfere with their own -Aulic council, men were driven to separate the body of the Empire from -the imperial office and its possessors[383], and when plans for -reinvigorating the one failed, to leave the others to their fate. -Still the old line clung to the crown with that Hapsburg gripe which -has almost passed into a proverb. Odious as Austria was, no one could -despise her, or fancy it easy to shake her commanding position in -Europe. Her alliances were fortunate: her designs were steadily -pursued: her dismembered territories always returned to her. Though -the throne continued strictly elective, it was impossible not to be -influenced by long prescription. Projects were repeatedly formed to -set the Hapsburgs aside by electing a prince of some other line[384], -or by passing a law that there should never be more than two, or four, -successive Emperors of the same house. France[385] ever and anon -renewed her warnings to the electors, that their freedom was passing -from them, and the sceptre becoming hereditary in one haughty family. -But it was felt that a change would be difficult and disagreeable, and -that the heavy expense and scanty revenues of the Empire required to -be supported by larger patrimonial domains than most German princes -possessed. The heads of states like Prussia and Hanover, states whose -size and wealth would have made them suitable candidates, were -Protestants, and so excluded both by the connexion of the imperial -office with the Church, and by the majority of Roman Catholics in the -electoral college[386], who, however jealous they might be of Austria, -were led both by habit and sympathy to rally round her in moments of -peril. The one occasion on which these considerations were disregarded -shewed their force. On the extinction of the male line of Hapsburg in -the person of Charles the Sixth, the intrigues of the French envoy, -Marshal Belleisle, procured the election of Charles Albert of Bavaria, -who stood first among the Catholic princes. His reign was a succession -of misfortunes and ignominies. Driven from Munich by the Austrians, -the head of the Holy Empire lived in Frankfort on the bounty of -France, cursed by the country on which his ambition had brought the -miseries of a protracted war[387]. The choice in 1745 of Duke Francis -of Lorraine, husband of the archduchess of Austria and queen of -Hungary, Maria Theresa, was meant to restore the crown to the only -power capable of wearing it with dignity: in Joseph the Second, her -son, it again rested on the brow of a Hapsburg[388]. In the war of the -Austrian succession, which followed on the death of Charles the Sixth, -the Empire as a body took no part; in the Seven Years' War its whole -might broke in vain against one resolute member. Under Frederick the -Great Prussia approved herself at least a match for France and Austria -leagued against her, and the semblance of unity which the predominance -of a single power had hitherto given to the Empire was replaced by the -avowed rivalry of two military monarchies. The Emperor Joseph the -Second, a sort of philosopher-king, than whom few have more narrowly -missed greatness, made a desperate effort to set things right, -striving to restore the disordered finances, to purge and vivify the -Imperial Chamber. Nay, he renounced the intolerant policy of his -ancestors, quarrelled with the Pope[389], and presumed to visit Rome, -whose streets heard once more the shout that had been silent for three -centuries, 'Evviva il nostro imperatore! Siete a casa vostra: siete il -padrone[390].' But his indiscreet haste was met by a sullen -resistance, and he died disappointed in plans for which the time was -not yet ripe, leaving no result save the league of princes which -Frederick the Great had formed to oppose his designs on Bavaria. His -successor, Leopold the Second, abandoned the projected reforms, and a -calm, the calm before the hurricane, settled down again upon Germany. -The existence of the Empire was almost forgotten by its subjects: -there was nothing to remind them of it but a feudal investiture now -and then at Vienna (real feudal rights were obsolete[391]); a -concourse of solemn old lawyers at Wetzlar puzzling over interminable -suits[392]; and some thirty diplomatists at Regensburg[393], the -relics of that Imperial Diet where once a hero-king, a Frederick or a -Henry, enthroned amid mitred prelates and steel-clad barons, had -issued laws for every tribe from the Mediterranean to the Baltic[394]. -The solemn triflings of this so-called 'Diet of Deputation' have -probably never been equalled elsewhere[395]. Questions of precedence -and title, questions whether the envoys of princes should have chairs -of red cloth like those of the electors, or only of the less -honourable green, whether they should be served on gold or on silver, -how many hawthorn boughs should be hung up before the door of each on -May-day; these, and such as these, it was their chief employment not -to settle but to discuss. The pedantic formalism of old Germany passed -that of Spaniards or Turks; it had now crushed under a mountain of -rubbish whatever meaning or force its old institutions had contained. -It is the penalty of greatness that its form should outlive its -substance: that gilding and trappings should remain when that which -they were meant to deck and clothe has departed. So our sloth or our -timidity, not seeing that whatever is false must be also bad, -maintains in being what once was good long after it has become -helpless and hopeless: so now at the close of the eighteenth century, -strings of sounding titles were all that was left of the Empire which -Charles had founded, and Frederick adorned, and Dante sung. - -[Sidenote: Feelings of the German people.] - -The German mind, just beginning to put forth the blossoms of its -wondrous literature, turned away in disgust from the spectacle of -ceremonious imbecility more than Byzantine. National feeling seemed -gone from princes and people alike. Lessing, who did more than any one -else to create the German literary spirit, says, 'Of the love of -country I have no conception: it appears to me at best a heroic -weakness which I am right glad to be without[396].' The Emperor Joseph -II writes to his brother of France: 'You must know that the -annihilation of German nationality is a necessary leading principle of -my policy[397].' There were nevertheless persons who saw how fatal -such a system was, lying like a nightmare on the people's soul. -Speaking of the union of princes formed by Frederick of Prussia to -preserve the existing condition of things, Johannes von Mueller -writes[398]: 'If the German Union serves for nothing better than to -maintain the _status quo_, it is against the eternal order of God, by -which neither the physical nor the moral world remains for a moment in -the _status quo_, but all is life and motion and progress. To exist -without law or justice, without security from arbitrary imposts, -doubtful whether we can preserve from day to day our honours, our -liberties, our rights, our lives, helpless before superior force, -without a beneficial connexion between our states, without a national -spirit at all, this is the _status quo_ of our nation. And it was this -that the Union was meant to confirm. If it be this and nothing more, -then bethink you how when Israel saw that Rehoboam would not hearken, -the people gave answer to the king and spake, "What portion have we in -David, or what inheritance in the son of Jesse? to your tents, O -Israel: David, see to thine own house." See then to your own houses, -ye princes.' - -Nevertheless, though the Empire stood like a corpse brought forth from -some Egyptian sepulchre, ready to crumble at a touch, there seemed no -reason why it should not stand so for centuries more. Fate was kind, -and slew it in the light. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[376] _De Ratione Status in Imperio nostro Romano-Germanico_. - -[377] Even then the Roman pontiffs had lapsed into that scolding, -anile tone (so unlike the fiery brevity of Hildebrand, or the stern -precision of Innocent III) which is now seldom absent from their -public utterances. Pope Innocent the Tenth pronounces the provisions -of the treaty, 'ipso iure nulla, irrita, invalida, iniqua, iniusta, -damnata, reprobata, inania, viribusque et effectu vacua, omnino -fuisse, esse, et perpetuo fore.' In spite of which they were observed. - -This bull may be found in vol. xvii. of the _Bullarium_. It bears date -Nov. 20th, A.D. 1648. - -[378] The Imperial Chamber (Kammergericht) continued, with frequent -and long interruptions, to sit while the Empire lasted. But its -slowness and formality passed that of any other legal body the world -has yet seen, and it had no power to enforce its sentences. The Aulic -council was little more efficient, and was generally disliked as the -tool of imperial intrigue. - -[379] The 'matricula' specifying the quota of each state to the -imperial army could not be any longer employed. - -[380] _Erbfeind des heiligen Reichs._ - -[381] Only the envoys of the several states were present at Utrecht in -1713. - -[382] Quoted by Ludwig Hauesser, _Deutsche Geschichte_. - -[383] The distinction is well expressed by the German 'Reich' and -'Kaiserthum,' to which we have unfortunately no terms to correspond. - -[384] So the Elector of Saxony proposed in 1532 that Albert II, -Frederick III, and Maximilian having been all of one house, Charles -V's successor should be chosen from some other.--Moser, _Roemische -Kayser_. See the various attempts of France in Moser. The coronation -engagements (Wahlcapitulation) of every Emperor bound him not to -attempt to make the throne hereditary in his family. - -[385] In 1658 France offered to subsidize the Elector of Bavaria if he -would become Emperor. - -[386] Whether an Evangelical was eligible for the office of Emperor -was a question often debated, but never actually raised by the -candidature of any but a Roman Catholic prince. The 'exacta aequalitas' -conceded by the Peace of Westphalia might appear to include so -important a privilege. But when we consider that the peculiar relation -in which the Emperor stood to the Holy Roman Church was one which no -heretic could hold, and that the coronation oaths could not have been -taken by, nor the coronation ceremonies (among which was a sort of -ordination) performed upon a Protestant, the conclusion must be -unfavourable to the claims of any but a Catholic. - -[387] - - 'The bold Bavarian, in a luckless hour, - Tries the dread summits of Caesarian power. - With unexpected legions bursts away, - And sees defenceless realms receive his sway.... - The baffled prince in honour's flattering bloom - Of hasty greatness finds the fatal doom; - His foes' derision and his subjects' blame, - And steals to death from anguish and from shame.' - JOHNSON, _Vanity of Human Wishes_. - -[388] The following nine reasons for the long continuance of the -Empire in the House of Hapsburg are given by Pfeffinger (_Vitriarius -Illustratus_), writing early in the eighteenth century:-- - - 1. The great power of Austria. - - 2. Her wealth, now that the Empire was so poor. - - 3. The majority of Catholics among the electors. - - 4. Her fortunate matrimonial alliances. - - 5. Her moderation. - - 6. The memory of benefits conferred by her. - - 7. The example of evils that had followed a departure from - the blood of former Caesars. - - 8. The fear of the confusion that would ensue if she were - deprived of the crown. - - 9. Her own eagerness to have it. - -[389] The Pope undertook a journey to Vienna to mollify Joseph, and -met with a sufficiently cold reception. When he saw the famous -minister Kaunitz and gave him his hand to kiss, Kaunitz took it and -shook it. - -[390] 'You are in your own house: be the master.' - -[391] Joseph II was foiled in his attempt to assert them. - -[392] Goethe spent some time in studying law at Wetzlar among those -who practised in the Kammergericht. - -[393] Cf. Puetter, _Historical Developement of the Political -Constitution of the German Empire_, vol. iii. - -[394] Frederick the Great said of the Diet, 'Es ist ein Schattenbild, -eine Versammlung aus Publizisten die mehr mit Formalien als mit Sachen -sich beschaeftigen, und, wie Hofhunde, den Mond anbellen.' - -[395] Cf. Hauesser, _Deutsche Geschichte_; Introduction. - -[396] Quoted by Hauesser. - -[397] Rotteck and Welcker, _Staats Lexikon_, s. v. 'Deutsches Reich.' - -[398] _Deutschlands Erwartungen vom Fuerstenbunde_, quoted in the -_Staats Lexikon_. - - - - -CHAPTER XX. - -FALL OF THE EMPIRE. - - -[Sidenote: Francis II, 1792-1806.] - -[Sidenote: Napoleon, Emperor of the West.] - -[Sidenote: Belief of Napoleon that he was the successor of -Charlemagne.] - -[Sidenote: Attitude of the Papacy towards Napoleon.] - -Goethe has described the uneasiness with which, in the days of his -childhood, the burghers of his native Frankfort saw the walls of the -Roman Hall covered with the portraits of Emperor after Emperor, till -space was left for few, at last for one[399]. In A.D. 1792 Francis the -Second mounted the throne of Augustus, and the last place was filled. -Three years before there had arisen on the western horizon a little -cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, and now the heaven was black with -storms of ruin. There was a prophecy[400], dating from the first days -of the Empire's decline, that when all things were falling to ruin, -and wickedness rife in the world, a second Frankish Charles should -rise as Emperor to purge and heal, to bring back peace and purify -religion. If this was not exactly the mission of the new ruler of the -West Franks, he was at least anxious to tread in the steps and revive -the glories of the hero whose crown he professed to have inherited. It -were a task superfluously easy to shew how delusive is that minute -historical parallel of which every Parisian was full in A.D. 1804, the -parallel between the heir of a long line of fierce Teutonic -chieftains, whose vigorous genius had seized what it could of the -monkish learning of the eighth century, and the son of the Corsican -lawyer, with all the brilliance of a Frenchman and all the resolute -profundity of an Italian, reared in, yet only half believing, the -ideas of the Encyclopaedists, swept up into the seat of absolute power -by the whirlwind of a revolution. Alcuin and Talleyrand are not more -unlike than are their masters. But though in the characters and temper -of the men there is little resemblance, though their Empires agree in -this only, and hardly even in this, that both were founded on -conquest, there is nevertheless a sort of grand historical similarity -between their positions. Both were the leaders of fiery and warlike -nations, the one still untamed as the creatures of their native woods, -the other drunk with revolutionary fury. Both aspired to found, and -seemed for a time to have succeeded in founding, universal monarchies. -Both were gifted with a strong and susceptible imagination, which if -it sometimes overbore their judgment, was yet one of the truest and -highest elements of their greatness. As the one looked back to the -kings under the Jewish theocracy and the Emperors of Christian Rome, -so the other thought to model himself after Caesar and Charlemagne. -For, useful as was the fancied precedent of the title and career of -the great Carolingian to a chief determined to be king, yet unable to -be king after the fashion of the Bourbons, and seductive as was such a -connexion to the imaginative vanity of the French people, it was no -studied purpose or simulating art that led Napoleon to remind his -subjects so frequently of the hero he claimed to represent. No one who -reads the records of his life can doubt that he believed, as fully as -he believed anything, that the same destiny which had made France the -centre of the modern world had also appointed him to sit on the throne -and carry out the projects of Charles the Frank, to rule all Europe -from Paris, as the Caesars had ruled it from Rome[401]. It was in this -belief that he went to the ancient capital of the Frankish Emperors to -receive there the Austrian recognition of his imperial title: that he -talked of 'revendicating' Catalonia and Aragon, because they had -formed a part of the Carolingian realm, though they had never obeyed -the descendants of Hugh Capet: that he undertook a journey to -Nimeguen, where he had ordered the ancient palace to be restored, and -inscribed on its walls his name below that of Charles: that he -summoned the Pope to attend his coronation as Stephen had come ten -centuries before to instal Pipin in the throne of the last -Merovingian[402]. The same desire to be regarded as lawful Emperor of -the West shewed itself in his assumption of the Lombard crown at -Milan; in the words of the decree by which he annexed Rome to the -Empire, revoking 'the donations which my predecessors, the French -Emperors, have made[403];' in the title 'King of Rome,' which he -bestowed on his ill-fated son, in imitation of the German 'King of the -Romans[404].' We are even told that it was at one time his intention -to eject the Hapsburgs, and be chosen Roman Emperor in their stead. -Had this been done, the analogy would have been complete between the -position which the French ruler held to Austria now, and that in which -Charles and Otto had stood to the feeble Caesars of Byzantium. It was -curious to see the head of the Roman church turning away from his -ancient ally to the reviving power of France--France, where the -Goddess of Reason had been worshipped eight years before--just as he -had sought the help of the first Carolingians against his Lombard -enemies[405]. The difference was indeed great between the feelings -wherewith Pius the Seventh addressed his 'very dear son in Christ,' -and those that had pervaded the intercourse of Pope Hadrian the First -with the son of Pipin; just as the contrast is strange between the -principles that shaped Napoleon's policy and the vision of a theocracy -that had floated before the mind of Charles. Neither comparison is -much to the advantage of the modern; but Pius might be pardoned for -catching at any help in his distress, and Napoleon found that the -protectorship of the church strengthened his position in France, and -gave him dignity in the eyes of Christendom[406]. - -[Sidenote: The French Empire.] - -[Sidenote: Napoleon in Germany.] - -[Sidenote: The Confederation of the Rhine.] - -[Sidenote: Abdication of the Emperor Francis II.] - -[Sidenote: End of the Empire.] - -A swift succession of triumphs had left only one thing still -preventing the full recognition of the Corsican warrior as sovereign -of Western Europe, and that one was the existence of the old -Romano-Germanic Empire. Napoleon had not long assumed his new title -when he began to mark a distinction between 'la France' and 'l'Empire -Francaise.' France had, since A.D. 1792, advanced to the Rhine, and, -by the annexation of Piedmont, had overstepped the Alps; the French -Empire included, besides the kingdom of Italy, a mass of dependent -states, Naples, Holland, Switzerland, and many German principalities, -the allies of France in the same sense in which the 'socii populi -Romani' were allies of Rome[407]. When the last of Pitt's coalitions -had been destroyed at Austerlitz, and Austria had made her submission -by the peace of Presburg, the conqueror felt that his hour was come. -He had now overcome two Emperors, those of Austria and Russia, -claiming to represent the old and the new Rome respectively, and had -in eighteen months created more kings than the occupants of the -Germanic throne in as many centuries. It was time, he thought, to -sweep away obsolete pretensions, and claim the sole inheritance of -that Western Empire, of which the titles and ceremonies of his court -presented a grotesque imitation[408]. The task was an easy one after -what had been already accomplished. Previous wars and treaties had so -redistributed the territories and changed the constitution of the -Germanic Empire that it could hardly be said to exist in anything but -name. In French history Napoleon appears as the restorer of peace, the -rebuilder of the shattered edifice of social order: the author of a -code and an administrative system which the Bourbons who dethroned him -were glad to preserve. Abroad he was the true child of the Revolution, -and conquered only to destroy. It was his mission--a mission more -beneficent in its result than in its means[409]--to break up in -Germany and Italy the abominable system of petty states, to reawaken -the spirit of the people, to sweep away the relics of an effete -feudalism, and leave the ground clear for the growth of newer and -better forms of political life. Since A.D. 1797, when Austria at Campo -Formio perfidiously exchanged the Netherlands for Venetia, the work of -destruction had gone on apace. All the German sovereigns west of the -Rhine had been dispossessed, and their territories incorporated with -France, while the rest of the country had been revolutionized by the -arrangements of the peace of Luneville and the 'Indemnities,' dictated -by the French to the Diet in February 1803. New kingdoms were erected, -electorates created and extinguished, the lesser princes mediatized, -the free cities occupied by troops and bestowed on some neighbouring -potentate. More than any other change, the secularization of the -dominions of the prince-bishops and abbots proclaimed the fall of the -old constitution, whose principles had required the existence of a -spiritual alongside of the temporal aristocracy. The Emperor Francis, -partly foreboding the events that were at hand, partly in order to -meet Napoleon's assumption of the imperial name by depriving that name -of its peculiar meaning, began in A.D. 1805 to style himself -'Hereditary Emperor of Austria,' while retaining at the same time his -former title[410]. The next act of the drama was one in which we may -more readily pardon the ambition of a foreign conqueror than the -traitorous selfishness of the German princes, who broke every tie of -ancient friendship and duty to grovel at his throne. By the Act of the -Confederation[411] of the Rhine, signed at Paris, July 12th, 1806, -Bavaria, Wuertemberg, Baden, and several other states, sixteen in all, -withdrew from the body and repudiated the laws of the Empire, while on -August 1st the French envoy at Regensburg announced to the Diet that -his master, who had consented to become Protector of the Confederate -princes, no longer recognized the existence of the Empire. Francis the -Second resolved at once to anticipate this new Odoacer, and by a -declaration, dated August 6th, 1806, resigned the imperial dignity. -His deed states that finding it impossible, in the altered state of -things, to fulfil the obligations imposed by his capitulation, he -considers as dissolved the bonds which attached him to the Germanic -body, releases from their allegiance the states who formed it, and -retires to the government of his hereditary dominions under the title -of 'Emperor of Austria[412].' Throughout, the term 'German Empire' -(_Deutsches Reich_) is employed. But it was the crown of Augustus, of -Constantine, of Charles, of Maximilian, that Francis of Hapsburg laid -down, and a new era in the world's history was marked by the fall of -its most venerable institution. One thousand and six years after Leo -the Pope had crowned the Frankish king, eighteen hundred and -fifty-eight years after Caesar had conquered at Pharsalia, the Holy -Roman Empire came to its end. - -[Sidenote: Congress of Vienna.] - -There was a time when this event would have been thought a sign that -the last days of the world were at hand. But in the whirl of change -that had bewildered men since A.D. 1789, it passed almost unnoticed. -No one could yet fancy how things would end, or what sort of a new -order would at last shape itself out of chaos. When Napoleon's -universal monarchy had dissolved, and old landmarks shewed themselves -again above the receding waters, it was commonly supposed that the -Empire would be re-established on its former footing[413]. Such was -indeed the wish of many states, and among them of Hanover, -representing Great Britain[414]. Though a simple revival of the old -Romano-Germanic Empire was plainly out of the question, it still -appeared to them that Germany would be best off under the presidency -of a single head, entrusted with the ancient office of maintaining -peace among the members of the confederation. But the new kingdoms, -Bavaria especially, were unwilling to admit a superior; Prussia, -elated at the glory she had won in the war of independence, would have -disputed the crown with Austria; Austria herself cared little to -resume an office shorn of much of its dignity, with duties to perform -and no resources to enable her to discharge them. Use was therefore -made of an expression in the Peace of Paris which spoke of uniting -Germany by a federative bond[415], and the Congress of Vienna was -decided by the wishes of Austria to establish a Confederation. Thus -was brought about the present German federal constitution, which is -itself confessed, by the attempts so often made to reform it, to be a -mere temporary expedient, oppressive in the hands of the strong, and -useless for the protection of the weak. Of late years, one school of -liberal politicians, justly indignant at their betrayal by the princes -after the enthusiastic uprising of A.D. 1814, has aspired to the -restoration of the Empire, either as an hereditary kingdom in the -Prussian or some other family, or in a more republican fashion under a -head elected by the people[416]. The obstacles in the way of such -plans are evidently very great; but even were the horizon more clear -than it is, this would not be the place from which to scan it[417]. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[399] _Wahrheit und Dichtung_, book i. The Roemer Saal is still one of -the sights of Frankfort. The portraits, however, which one now sees in -it, seem to be all or nearly all of them modern; and few have any -merit as works of art. - -[400] _Jordanis Chronica_, ap. Schardium, _Sylloge Tractatuum_. - -[401] In an address by Napoleon to the Senate in 1804, bearing date -10th Frimaire (1st Dec.), are the words, 'Mes descendans conserveront -longtemps ce trone, le premier de l'univers.' Answering a deputation -from the department of the Lippe, Aug. 8th, 1811, 'La Providence, qui -a voulu que je retablisse le trone de Charlemagne, vous a fait -naturellement rentrer, avec la Hollande et les villes anseatiques, -dans le sein de l'Empire.'--_Oeuvres de Napoleon_, tom. v. p. 521. - -'Pour le Pape, je suis Charlemagne, parce que, comme Charlemagne, je -reunis la couronne de France a celle des Lombards, et que mon Empire -confine avec l'Orient.' (Quoted by Lanfrey, _Vie de Napoleon_, iii. -417.) - -'Votre Saintete est souveraine de Rome, mais j'en suis l'Empereur.' -(Letter of Napoleon to Pope Pius, Feb. 13th, 1806. Lanfrey.) - -'Dites bien,' says Napoleon to Cardinal Fesch, 'que je suis -Charlemagne, leur Empereur [of the Papal Court] que je dois etre -traite de meme. Je fais connaitre au Pape mes intentions en peu de -mots, s'il n'y acquiesce pas, je le reduirai a la meme condition qu'il -etait avant Charlemagne.' (Lanfrey, _Vie de Napoleon_, iii. 420.) - -[402] Napoleon said on one occasion, 'Je n'ai pas succede a Louis -Quatorze, mais a Charlemagne.'--Bourrienne, _Vie de Napoleon_, iv. In -1804, shortly before he was crowned, he had the imperial insignia of -Charles brought from the old Frankish capital, and exhibited them in a -jeweller's shop in Paris, along with those which had just been made -for his own coronation;--(Bourrienne, _ut supra_.) Somewhat in the -same spirit in which he displayed the Bayeux tapestry, in order to -incite his subjects to the conquest of England. - -[403] 'Je n'ai pu concilier ces grands interets (of political order -and the spiritual authority of the Pope) qu'en annulant les donations -des Empereurs Francais, mes predecesseurs, et en reunissant les etats -romains a la France.'--Proclamation issued in 1809: _Oeuvres_, iv. - -[404] See Appendix, Note C. - -[405] Pope Pius VII wrote to the First Consul, 'Carissime in Christo -Fili noster ... tam perspecta sunt nobis tuae voluntatis studia erga -nos, ut _quotiescunque_ ope aliqua in rebus nostris indigemus, eam a -te fidenter petere non dubitare debeamus.'--Quoted by AEgidi. - -[406] Let us place side by side the letters of Hadrian to Charles in -the _Codex Carolinus_, and the following preamble to the Concordat of -A.D. 1801, between the First Consul and the Pope (which I quote from -the _Bullarium Romanum_), and mark the changes of a thousand years. - -'Gubernium reipublicae [Gallicae] recognoscit religionem Catholicam -Apostolicam Romanam eam esse religionem quam longe maxima pars civium -Gallicae reipublicae profitetur. - -'Summus pontifex pari modo recognoscit eandem religionem maximam -utilitatem maximumque decus percepisse et hoc quoque tempore -praestolari ex catholico cultu in Gallia constituto, necnon ex -peculiari eius professione quam faciunt reipublicae consules.' - -[407] Cf. Heeren, _Political System_, vol. iii. 273. - -[408] He had arch-chancellors, arch-treasurers, and so forth. The -Legion of Honour, which was thought important enough to be mentioned -in the coronation oath, was meant to be something like the mediaeval -orders of knighthood: whose connexion with the Empire has already been -mentioned. - -[409] Napoleon's feelings towards Germany may be gathered from the -phrase he once used, 'Il faut depayser l'Allemagne.' - -[410] Thus in documents issued by the Emperor during these two years -he is styled 'Roman Emperor Elect, Hereditary Emperor of Austria' -(erwaehlter Roemischer Kaiser, Erbkaiser von Oesterreich). - -[411] This Act of Confederation of the Rhine (Rheinbund) is printed in -Koch's _Traites_ (continued by Schoell), vol. viii., and Meyer's -_Corpus Iuris Confoederationis Germanicae_, vol. i. It has every -appearance of being a translation from the French, and was no doubt -originally drawn up in that language. Napoleon is called in one place -'Der naemliche Monarch, dessen Absichten sich stets mit den wahren -Interessen Deutschlands uebereinstimmend gezeigt haben.' The phrase -'Roman Empire' does not occur: we hear only of the 'German Empire,' -'body of German states' (Staatskoerper), and so forth. This -Confederation of the Rhine was eventually joined by every German State -except Austria, Prussia, Electoral Hesse, and Brunswick. - -[412] _Histoire des Traites_, vol. viii. The original may be found in -Meyer's _Corpus Iuris Confoederationis Germanicae_, vol. i. p. 70. It is -a document in no way remarkable, except from the ludicrous resemblance -which its language suggests to the circular in which a tradesman, -announcing the dissolution of an old partnership, solicits, and hopes -by close attention to merit, a continuance of his customers' patronage -to his business, which will henceforth be carried on under the name -of, &c., &c. - -[413] Koch (Schoell), _Histoire des Traites_, vol. xi. p. 257, sqq.; -Hauesser, _Deutsche Geschichte_, vol. iv. - -[414] Great Britain had refused in 1806 to recognize the dissolution -of the Empire. And it may indeed be maintained that in point of law -the Empire was never extinguished at all, but lives on as a -disembodied spirit to this day. For it is clear that, technically -speaking, the abdication of a sovereign can destroy only his own -rights, and does not dissolve the state over which he presides. - -[415] 'Les etats d'Allemagne seront independans et unis par un lien -federatif.'--_Histoire des Traites_, xi. p. 257. - -[416] The late king of Prussia was actually elected Emperor by the -revolutionary Diet at Frankfort in 1848. He refused the crown. - -[417] [Since the above was written (in A.D. 1865) sudden and momentous -changes have been effected in Germany by the war of 1866; the Prussian -kingdom has been enlarged by the annexation of Hanover, Hessen-Cassel, -Nassau, and Frankfort; the establishment of the North German -Confederation has brought all the states north of the Main under -Prussian control; while even the potentates of the south have -virtually accepted the hegemony of the house of Hohenzollern. It was -the author's intention to have added here a chapter examining these -changes by the light of the past history of Germany and the Empire, -and tracing out the causes to which the success of Prussia is to be -ascribed. But at this moment (July 15th, 1870) the French Emperor -declares war against Prussia, and there rises to meet the challenge an -united German people,--united for the time, at least, by the folly of -the enemy who has so long plotted for and profited by its disunion. -Whatever the result of the struggle may be, it is almost certain to -alter still further the internal constitution of Germany; and there is -therefore little use in discussing the existing system, and tracing -the progress hitherto of a development which, if not suddenly -arrested, is likely to be greatly accelerated by the events which we -see passing.] - - - - -CHAPTER XXI. - -CONCLUSION. - - -[Sidenote: General summary.] - -[Sidenote: Perpetuation of the name of Rome.] - -After the attempts already made to examine separately each of the -phases of the Empire, little need be said, in conclusion, upon its -nature and results in general. A general character can hardly help -being either vague or false. For the aspects which the Empire took are -as many and as various as the ages and conditions of society during -which it continued to exist. Among the exhausted peoples around the -Mediterranean, whose national feeling had died out, whose faith was -extinct or turned to superstition, whose thought and art was a faint -imitation of the Greek, there arises a huge despotism, first of a -city, then of an administrative system, which presses with equal -weight on all its subjects, and becomes to them a religion as well as -a government. Just when the mass is at length dissolving, the tribes -of the North come down, too rude to maintain the institutions they -found subsisting, too few to introduce their own, and a weltering -confusion follows, till the strong hand of the first Frankish Emperor -raises the fallen image and bids the nations bow down to it once more. -Under him it is for some brief space a theocracy; under his German -successors the first of feudal kingdoms, the centre of European -chivalry. As feudalism wanes, it is again transformed, and after -promising for a time to become an hereditary Hapsburg monarchy, sinks -at last into the presidency, not more dignified than powerless, of an -international league. To us moderns, a perpetuation under conditions -so diverse of the same name and the same pretensions, appears at first -sight absurd, a phantom too vain to impress the most superstitious -mind. Closer examination will correct such a notion. No power was ever -based on foundations so sure and deep as those which Rome laid during -three centuries of conquest and four of undisturbed dominion. If her -empire had been an hereditary or local kingdom, it might have fallen -with the extinction of the royal line, the conquest of the tribe, the -destruction of the city to which it was attached. But it was not so -limited. It was imperishable because it was universal; and when its -power had ceased, it was remembered with awe and love by the races -whose separate existence it had destroyed, because it had spared the -weak while it smote down the strong; because it had granted equal -rights to all, and closed against none of its subjects the path of -honourable ambition. When the military power of the conquering city -had departed, her sway over the world of thought began: by her the -theories of the Greeks had been reduced to practice; by her the new -religion had been embraced and organized; her language, her theology, -her laws, her architecture made their way where the eagles of war had -never flown, and with the spread of civilization have found new homes -on the Ganges and the Mississippi. - -[Sidenote: Parallel instances.] - -[Sidenote: Claims to represent the Roman Empire.] - -[Sidenote: Austria.] - -[Sidenote: France.] - -[Sidenote: Russia.] - -[Sidenote: Greece.] - -[Sidenote: The Turks.] - -Nor is such a claim of government prolonged under changed conditions -by any means a singular phenomenon. Titles sum up the political -history of nations, and are as often causes as effects: if not -insignificant now, how much less so in ages of ignorance and unreason. -It would be an instructive, if it were not a tedious task, to examine -the many pretensions that are still put forward to represent the -Empire of Rome, all of them baseless, none of them effectless. Austria -clings to a name which seems to give her a sort of precedence in -Europe, and was wont, while she held Lombardy, to justify her position -there by invoking the feudal rights of the Hohenstaufen. With no more -legal right than the prince of Reuss or the landgrave of Homburg might -pretend to, she has assumed the arms and devices of the old Empire, -and being almost the youngest of European monarchies, is respected as -the oldest and most conservative. Bonapartean France, as the -self-appointed heir of the Carolingians, grasped for a time the -sceptre of the West, and still aspires to hold the balance of European -politics, and be recognized as the leader and patron of the so-called -Latin races on both sides of the Atlantic[418]. Professing the creed -of Byzantium, Russia claims the crown of the Byzantine Caesars, and -trusts that the capital which prophecy has promised for a thousand -years will not be long withheld. The doctrine of Panslavism, under an -imperial head of the whole Eastern church, has become a formidable -engine of aggression in the hands of a crafty and warlike despotism. -Another testimony to the enduring influence of old political -combinations is supplied by the eagerness with which modern Hellas has -embraced the notion of gathering all the Greek races into a revived -Empire of the East, with its capital on the Bosphorus. Nay, the -intruding Ottoman himself, different in faith as well as in blood, has -more than once declared himself the representative of the Eastern -Caesars, whose dominion he extinguished. Solyman the Magnificent -assumed the name of Emperor, and refused it to Charles the Fifth: his -successors were long preceded through the streets of Constantinople by -twelve officers, bearing straws aloft, a faint semblance of the -consular fasces that had escorted a Quinctius or a Fabius through the -Roman forum. Yet in no one of these cases has there been that apparent -legality of title which the shouts of the people and the benediction -of the pontiff conveyed to Charles and Otto[419]. - -[Sidenote: Parallel of the Papacy.] - -These examples, however, are minor parallels: the complement and -illustration of the history of the Empire is to be found in that of -the Holy See. The Papacy, whose spiritual power was itself the -offspring of Rome's temporal dominion, evoked the phantom of her -parent, used it, obeyed it, rebelled and overthrew it, in its old age -once more embraced it, till in its downfall she has heard the knell of -her own approaching doom[420]. - -Both Papacy and Empire rose in an age when the human spirit was -utterly prostrated before authority and tradition, when the exercise -of private judgment was impossible to most and sinful to all. Those -who believed the miracles recorded in the _Acta Sanctorum_, and did -not question the Isidorian decretals, might well recognize as ordained -of God the twofold authority of Rome, founded, as it seemed to be, on -so many texts of Scripture, and confirmed by five centuries of -undisputed possession. - -Both sanctioned and satisfied the passion of the Middle Ages for -unity. Ferocity, violence, disorder, were the conspicuous evils of -that time: hence all the aspirations of the good were for something -which, breaking the force of passion and increasing the force of -sympathy, should teach the stubborn wills to sacrifice themselves in -the view of a common purpose. To those men, moreover, unable to rise -above the sensuous, not seeing the true connexion or the true -difference of the spiritual and the secular, the idea of the Visible -Church was full of awful meaning. Solitary thought was helpless, and -strove to lose itself in the aggregate, since it could not create for -itself that which was universal. The schism that severed a man from -the congregation of the faithful on earth was hardly less dreadful -than the heresy which excluded him from the company of the blessed in -heaven. He who kept not his appointed place in the ranks of the church -militant had no right to swell the rejoicing anthems of the church -triumphant. Here, as in so many other cases, the continued use of -traditional language seems to have prevented us from seeing how great -is the difference between our own times and those in which the phrases -we repeat were first used, and used in full sincerity. Whether the -world is better or worse for the change which has passed upon its -feelings in these matters is another question: all that it is -necessary to note here is that the change is a profound and pervading -one. Obedience, almost the first of mediaeval virtues, is now often -spoken of as if it were fit only for slaves or fools. Instead of -praising, men are wont to condemn the submission of the individual -will, the surrender of the individual belief, to the will or the -belief of the community. Some persons declare variety of opinion to be -a positive good. The great mass have certainly no longing for an -abstract unity of faith. They have no horror of schism. They do not, -cannot, understand the intense fascination which the idea of one -all-pervading church exercised upon their mediaeval forefathers. A life -in the church, for the church, through the church; a life which she -blessed in mass at morning and sent to peaceful rest by the vesper -hymn; a life which she supported by the constantly recurring stimulus -of the sacraments, relieving it by confession, purifying it by -penance, admonishing it by the presentation of visible objects for -contemplation and worship,--this was the life which they of the Middle -Ages conceived of as the rightful life for man; it was the actual life -of many, the ideal of all. The unseen world was so unceasingly pointed -to, and its dependence on the seen so intensely felt, that the barrier -between the two seemed to disappear. The church was not merely the -portal to heaven; it was heaven anticipated; it was already -self-gathered and complete. In one sentence from a famous mediaeval -document may be found a key to much which seems strangest to us in the -feelings of the Middle Ages: 'The church is dearer to God than heaven. -For the church does not exist for the sake of heaven, but conversely, -heaven for the sake of the church[421].' - -Again, both Empire and Papacy rested on opinion rather than on -physical force, and when the struggle of the eleventh century came, -the Empire fell, because its rival's hold over the souls of men was -firmer, more direct, enforced by penalties more terrible than the -death of the body. The ecclesiastical body under Alexander and -Innocent was animated by a loftier spirit and more wholly devoted to a -single aim than the knights and nobles who followed the banner of the -Swabian Caesars. Its allegiance was undivided; it comprehended the -principles for which it fought: they trembled at even while they -resisted the spiritual power. - -[Sidenote: Papacy and Empire compared as perpetuations of a name.] - -Both sprang from what might be called the accident of name. The power -of the great Latin patriarchate was a Form: the ghost, it has been -said, of the older Empire, favoured in its growth by circumstances, -but really vital because capable of wonderful adaptation to the -character and wants of the time. So too, though far less perfectly, -was the Empire. Its Form was the tradition of the universal rule of -Rome; it met the needs of successive centuries by civilizing barbarous -peoples, by maintaining unity in confusion and disorganization, by -controlling brute violence through the sanctions of a higher power, by -being made the keystone of a gigantic feudal arch, by assuming in its -old age the presidency of a European confederation. And the history of -both, as it shews the power of ancient names and forms, shews also -within what limits such a perpetuation is possible, and how it -sometimes deceives men, by preserving the shadow while it loses the -substance. This perpetuation itself, what is it but the expression of -the belief of mankind, a belief incessantly corrected yet never -weakened, that their old institutions do and may continue to subsist -unchanged, that what has served their fathers will do well enough for -them, that it is possible to make a system perfect and abide in it for -ever? Of all political instincts this is perhaps the strongest; often -useful, often grossly abused, but never so natural and so fitting as -when it leads men who feel themselves inferior to their predecessors, -to save what they can from the wreck of a civilization higher than -their own. It was thus that both Papacy and Empire were maintained by -the generations who had no type of greatness and wisdom save that -which they associated with the name of Rome. And therefore it is that -no examples shew so convincingly how hopeless are all such attempts to -preserve in life a system which arose out of ideas and under -conditions that have passed away. Though it never could have existed -save as a prolongation, though it was and remained through the Middle -Ages an anachronism, the Empire of the tenth century had little in -common with the Empire of the second. Much more was the Papacy, though -it too hankered after the forms and titles of antiquity, in reality a -new creation. And in the same proportion as it was new, and -represented the spirit not of a past age but of its own, was it a -power stronger and more enduring than the Empire. More enduring, -because younger, and so in fuller harmony with the feelings of its -contemporaries: stronger, because at the head of the great -ecclesiastical body, in and through which, rather than through secular -life, all the intelligence and political activity of the Middle Ages -sought its expression. The famous simile of Gregory the Seventh is -that which best describes the Empire and the Popedom. They were indeed -the 'two lights in the firmament of the militant church,' the lights -which illumined and ruled the world all through the Middle Ages. And -as moonlight is to sunlight, so was the Empire to the Papacy. The rays -of the one were borrowed, feeble, often interrupted: the other shone -with an unquenchable brilliance that was all her own. - -[Sidenote: In what sense was the Empire Roman?] - -The Empire, it has just been said, was never truly mediaeval. Was it -then Roman in anything but name? and was that name anything better -than a piece of fantastic antiquarianism? It is easy to draw a -comparison between the Antonines and the Ottos which should shew -nothing but unlikeness. What the Empire was in the second century -every one knows. In the tenth it was a feudal monarchy, resting on a -strong territorial oligarchy. Its chiefs were barbarians, the sons of -those who had destroyed Varus and baffled Germanicus, sometimes unable -even to use the tongue of Rome. Its powers were limited. It could -scarcely be said to have a regular organization at all, whether -judicial or administrative. It was consecrated to the defence, nay, it -existed by virtue of the religion which Trajan and Marcus had -persecuted. Nevertheless, when the contrast has been stated in the -strongest terms, there will remain points of resemblance. The -thoroughly Roman idea of universal denationalization survived, and -drew with it that of a certain equality among all free subjects. It -has been remarked already, that the world's highest dignity was for -many centuries the only civil office to which any free-born Christian -was legally eligible. And there was also, during the earlier ages, -that indomitable vigour which might have made Trajan or Severus seek -their true successors among the woods of Germany rather than in the -palaces of Byzantium, where every office and name and custom had -floated down from the court of Constantine in a stream of unbroken -legitimacy. The ceremonies of Henry the Seventh's coronation would -have been strange indeed to Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus; -but how much nobler, how much more Roman in force and truth than the -childish and unmeaning forms with which a Palaeologus was installed! It -was not in purple buskins that the dignity of the Luxemburger -lay[422]. To such a boast the Germanic Empire had long ere its death -lost right: it had lived on, when honour and nature bade it die: it -had become what the Empire of the Moguls was, and that of the Ottomans -is now, a curious relic of antiquity, over which the imaginative might -muse, but which the mass of men would push aside with impatient -contempt. But institutions, like men, should be judged by their prime. - -[Sidenote: 'Imperialism:' Roman, French, and mediaeval.] - -[Sidenote: Political character of the Teutonic and Gallic races.] - -The comparison of the old Roman Empire with its Germanic -representative raises a question which has been a good deal canvassed -of late years. That wonderful system which Julius Caesar and his subtle -nephew erected upon the ruins of the republican constitution of Rome -has been made the type of a certain form of government and of a -certain set of social as well as political arrangements, to which, or -rather to the theory whereof they are a part, there has been given the -name of Imperialism. The sacrifice of the individual to the mass, the -concentration of all legislative and judicial powers in the person of -the sovereign, the centralization of the administrative system, the -maintenance of order by a large military force, the substitution of -the influence of public opinion for the control of representative -assemblies, are commonly taken, whether rightly or wrongly, to -characterize that theory. Its enemies cannot deny that it has before -now given and may again give to nations a sudden and violent access of -aggressive energy; that it has often achieved the glory (whatever that -may be) of war and conquest; that it has a better title to respect in -the ease with which it may be made, as it was by the Flavian and -Antonine Caesars of old, and at the beginning of this century by -Napoleon in France, the instrument of comprehensive reforms in law and -government. The parallel between the Roman world under the Caesars and -the French people now is indeed less perfect than those who dilate -upon it fancy. That equalizing despotism which was a good to a medley -of tribes, the force of whose national life had spent itself and left -them languid, yet restless, with all the evils of isolation and none -of its advantages, is not necessarily a good to a country already the -strongest and most united in Europe, a country where the -administration is only too perfect, and the pressure of social -uniformity only too strong. But whether it be a good or an evil, no -one can doubt that France represents, and has always represented, the -imperialist spirit of Rome far more truly than those whom the Middle -Ages recognized as the legitimate heirs of her name and dominion. In -the political character of the French people, whether it be the result -of the five centuries of Roman rule in Gaul, or rather due to the -original instincts of the Gallic race, is to be found their claim, a -claim better founded than any which Napoleon put forward, to be the -Romans[423] of the modern world. The tendency of the Teuton was and is -to the independence of the individual life, to the mutual repulsion, -if the phrase may be permitted, of the social atoms, as contrasted -with Keltic and so-called Romanic peoples, among which the unit is -more completely absorbed in the mass, who live possessed by a common -idea which they are driven to realize in the concrete. Teutonic states -have been little more successful than their neighbours in the -establishment of free constitutions. Their assemblies meet, and vote, -and are dissolved, and nothing comes of it: their citizens endure -without greatly resenting outrages that would raise the more excitable -French or Italians in revolt. But, whatever may have been the form of -government, the body of the people have in Germany always enjoyed a -freedom of thought which has made them comparatively careless of -politics; and the absolutism of the Elbe is at this day no more like -that of the Seine than a revolution at Dresden is to a revolution at -Paris. The rule of the Hohenstaufen had nothing either of the good or -the evil of the imperialism which Tacitus painted, or of that which -the panegyrists of the present system in France paint in colours -somewhat different from his. - -[Sidenote: Essential principles of the mediaeval Empire.] - -There was, nevertheless, such a thing as mediaeval imperialism, a -theory of the nature of the state and the best form of government, -which has been described once already, and need not be described -again. It is enough to say, that from three leading principles all its -properties may be derived. The first and the least essential was the -existence of the state as a monarchy. The second was the exact -coincidence of the state's limits, and the perfect harmony of its -workings with the limits and the workings of the church. The third was -its universality. These three were vital. Forms of political -organization, the presence or absence of constitutional checks, the -degree of liberty enjoyed by the subject, the rights conceded to local -authorities, all these were matters of secondary importance. But -although there brooded over all the shadow of a despotism, it was a -despotism not of the sword but of law; a despotism not chilling and -blighting, but one which, in Germany at least, looked with favour on -municipal freedom, and everywhere did its best for learning, for -religion, for intelligence; a despotism not hereditary, but one which -constantly maintained in theory the principle that he should rule who -was found the fittest. To praise or to decry the Empire as a despotic -power is to misunderstand it altogether. We need not, because an -unbounded prerogative was useful in ages of turbulence, advocate it -now; nor need we, with Sismondi, blame the Frankish conqueror because -he granted no 'constitutional charter' to all the nations that obeyed -him. Like the Papacy, the Empire expressed the political ideas of a -time, and not of all time: like the Papacy, it decayed when those -ideas changed; when men became more capable of rational liberty; when -thought grew stronger, and the spiritual nature shook itself more free -from the bonds of sense. - -[Sidenote: Influence of the Holy Empire on Germany.] - -The influence of the Empire upon Germany is a subject too wide to be -more than glanced at here. There is much to make it appear altogether -unfortunate. For many generations the flower of Teutonic chivalry -crossed the Alps to perish by the sword of the Lombards, or the -deadlier fevers of Rome. Italy terribly avenged the wrongs she -suffered. Those who destroyed the national existence of another people -forfeited their own: the German kingdom, crushed beneath the weight of -the Roman Empire, could never recover strength enough to form a -compact and united monarchy, such as arose elsewhere in Europe: the -race whom their neighbours had feared and obeyed till the fourteenth -century saw themselves, down even to our own day, the prey of -intestine feuds and their country the battlefield of Europe. Spoiled -and insulted by a neighbour restlessly aggressive and superior in all -the arts of success, they came to regard France as the persecuted -Slave regards them. The want of national union and political liberty -from which Germany has suffered, and to some extent suffers still, -cannot be attributed to the differences of her races; for, conspicuous -as that difference was in the days of Otto the Great, it was no -greater than in France, where intruding Franks, Goths, Burgundians, -and Northmen were mingled with primitive Kelts and Basques; not so -great as in Spain, or Italy, or Britain. Rather is it due to the -decline of the central government, which was induced by its strife -with the Popedom, its endless Italian wars, and the passion for -universal dominion which made it the assailant of all the neighbouring -countries. The absence or the weakness of the monarch enabled his -feudal vassals to establish petty despotisms, debarring the nation -from united political action, and greatly retarding the emancipation -of the commons. Thus, while the princes became shamelessly selfish, -justifying their resistance to the throne as the defence of their own -liberty--liberty to oppress the subject--and ready on the least -occasion to throw themselves into the arms of France, the body of the -people were deprived of all political training, and have found the -lack of such experience impede their efforts to this day. - -For these misfortunes, however, there has not been wanting some -compensation. The inheritance of the Roman Empire made the Germans the -ruling race of Europe, and the brilliance of that glorious dawn can -never fade entirely from their name. A peaceful people now, peaceful -in sentiment even now when they have become a great military power, -submissive to paternal government, and given to the quiet enjoyments -of art, music, and meditation, they delight themselves with memories -of the time when their conquering chivalry was the terror of the Gaul -and the Slave, the Lombard and the Saracen. The national life received -a keen stimulus from the sense of exaltation which victory brought, -and from the intercourse with countries where the old civilization had -not wholly perished. It was this connexion with Italy that raised the -German lands out of barbarism, and did for them the work which Roman -conquest had performed in Gaul, Spain, and Britain. From the Empire -flowed all the richness of their mediaeval life and literature: it -first awoke in them a consciousness of national existence; its history -has inspired and served as material to their poetry; to many ardent -politicians the splendours of the past have become the beacon of the -future[424]. There is a bright side even to their political disunion. -When they complain that they are not a nation, and sigh for the -harmony of feeling and singleness of aim which their great rival -displays, the example of the Greeks may comfort them. To the variety -which so many small governments have produced may be partly attributed -the breadth of development in German thought and literature, by virtue -of which it transcends the French hardly less than the Greek surpassed -the Roman. Paris no doubt is great, but a country may lose as well as -gain by the predominance of a single city; and Germany need not mourn -that she alone among modern states has not and never has had a -capital. - -[Sidenote: Austria as heir of the Holy Empire.] - -The merits of the old Empire were not long since the subject of a -brisk controversy among several German professors of history[425]. The -spokesmen of the Austrian or Roman Catholic party, a party which ten -years ago was not less powerful in some of the minor South German -States than in Vienna, claimed for the Hapsburg monarchy the honour of -being the legitimate representative of the mediaeval Empire, and -declared that only by again accepting Hapsburg leadership could -Germany win back the glory and the strength that once were hers. The -North German liberals ironically applauded the comparison. 'Yes,' they -replied, 'your Austrian Empire, as it calls itself, is the true -daughter of the old despotism: not less tyrannical, not less -aggressive, not less retrograde; like its progenitor, the friend of -priests, the enemy of free thought, the trampler upon the national -feeling of the peoples that obey it. It is you whose selfish and -anti-national policy blasts the hope of German unity now, as Otto and -Frederick blasted it long ago by their schemes of foreign conquest. -The dream of Empire has been our bane from first to last.' It is -possible, one may hope, to escape the alternative of admiring the -Austrian Empire or denouncing the Holy Roman. Austria has indeed, in -some things, but too faithfully reproduced the policy of the Saxon and -Swabian Caesars. Like her, they oppressed and insulted the Italian -people: but it was in the defence of rights which the Italians -themselves admitted. Like her, they lusted after a dominion over the -races on their borders, but that dominion was to them a means of -spreading civilization and religion in savage countries, not of -pampering upon their revenues a hated court and aristocracy. Like her, -they strove to maintain a strong government at home, but they did it -when a strong government was the first of political blessings. Like -her, they gathered and maintained vast armies; but those armies were -composed of knights and barons who lived for war alone, not of -peasants torn away from useful labour and condemned to the cruel task -of perpetuating their own bondage by crushing the aspirations of -another nationality. They sinned grievously, no doubt, but they sinned -in the dim twilight of a half-barbarous age, not in the noonday blaze -of modern civilization. The enthusiasm for mediaeval faith and -simplicity which was so fervid some years ago has run its course, and -is not likely soon to revive. He who reads the history of the Middle -Ages will not deny that its heroes, even the best of them, were in -some respects little better than savages. But when he approaches more -recent times, and sees how, during the last three hundred years, kings -have dealt with their subjects and with each other, he will forget the -ferocity of the Middle Ages, in horror at the heartlessness, the -treachery, the injustice all the more odious because it sometimes -wears the mask of legality, which disgraces the annals of the military -monarchies of Europe. With regard, however, to the pretensions of -modern Austria, the truth is that this dispute about the worth of the -old system has no bearing upon them at all. The day of imperial -greatness was already past when Rudolf the first Hapsburg reached the -throne; while during what may be called the Austrian period, from -Maximilian to Francis II, the Holy Empire was to Germany a mere clog -and incumbrance, which the unhappy nation bore because she knew not -how to rid herself of it. The Germans are welcome to appeal to the old -Empire to prove that they were once a united people. Nor is there any -harm in their comparing the politics of the twelfth century with those -of the nineteenth, although to argue from the one to the other seems -to betray a want of historical judgment. But the one thing which is -wholly absurd is to make Francis Joseph of Austria the successor of -Frederick of Hohenstaufen, and justify the most sordid and ungenial of -modern despotisms by the example of the mirror of mediaeval chivalry, -the noblest creation of mediaeval thought. - -[Sidenote: Bearing of the Empire upon the progress of European -civilization.] - -[Sidenote: Influence upon modern jurisprudence.] - -We are not yet far enough from the Empire to comprehend or state -rightly its bearing on European progress. The mountain lies behind us, -but miles must be traversed before we can take in at a glance its -peaks and slopes and buttresses, picture its form, and conjecture its -height. Of the perpetuation among the peoples of the West of the arts -and literature of Rome it was both an effect and a cause, a cause only -less powerful than the church. It would be endless to shew in how many -ways it affected the political institutions of the Middle Ages, and -through them of the whole civilized world. Most of the attributes of -modern royalty, to take the most obvious instance, belonged originally -and properly to the Emperor, and were borrowed from him by other -monarchs. The once famous doctrine of divine right had the same -origin. To the existence of the Empire is chiefly to be ascribed the -prevalence of Roman law through Europe, and its practical importance -in our own days. For while in Southern France and Central Italy, where -the subject population greatly outnumbered their conquerors, the old -system would have in any case survived, it cannot be doubted that in -Germany, as in England, a body of customary Teutonic law would have -grown up, had it not been for the notion that since the German monarch -was the legitimate successor of Justinian, the Corpus Juris must be -binding on all his subjects. This strange idea was received with a -faith so unhesitating that even the aristocracy, who naturally -disliked a system which the Emperors and the cities favoured, could -not but admit its validity, and before the end of the Middle Ages -Roman law prevailed through all Germany[426]. When it is considered -how great are the services which German writers have rendered and -continue to render to the study of scientific jurisprudence, this -result will appear far from insignificant. But another of still wider -import followed. When by the Peace of Westphalia a crowd of petty -principalities were recognized as practically independent states, the -need of a code to regulate their intercourse became pressing. That -code Grotius and his successors formed out of what was then the -private law of Germany, which thus became the foundation whereon the -system of international jurisprudence has been built up during the -last two centuries. That system is, indeed, entirely a German -creation, and could have arisen in no country where the law of Rome -had not been the fountain of legal ideas and the groundwork of -positive codes. In Germany, too, was it first carried out in practice, -and that with a success which is the best, some might say the only, -title of the later Empire to the grateful remembrance of mankind. -Under its protecting shade small princedoms and free cities lived -unmolested beside states like Saxony and Bavaria; each member of the -Germanic body feeling that the rights of the weakest of his brethren -were also his own. - -[Sidenote: Influence of the Empire upon the history of the Church.] - -[Sidenote: Nature of the question at issue between the Emperors and -the Popes.] - -The most important chapter in the history of the Empire is that which -describes its relation to the Church and the Papacy. Of the -ecclesiastical power it was alternately the champion and the enemy. In -the ninth and tenth centuries the Emperors extended the dominion of -Peter's chair: in the tenth and eleventh they rescued it from an abyss -of guilt and shame to be the instrument of their own downfall. The -struggle which Gregory the Seventh began, although it was political -rather than religious, awoke in the Teutonic nations a hostility to -the pretensions of the Romish court. That struggle ended, with the -death of the last Hohenstaufen, in the victory of the priesthood, a -victory whose abuse by the insolent and greedy pontiffs of the -fourteenth and fifteenth centuries made it more ruinous than a defeat. -The anger which had long smouldered in the breasts of the northern -nations of Europe burst out in the sixteenth with a violence which -alarmed those whom it had hitherto defended, and made the Emperors -once more the allies of the Popedom, and the partners of its declining -fortunes. But the nature of that alliance and of the hostility which -had preceded it must not be misunderstood. It is a natural, but not -the less a serious error to suppose, as modern writers often seem to -do, that the pretensions of the Empire and the Popedom were mutually -exclusive; that each claimed all the rights, spiritual and secular, of -a universal monarch. So far was this from being the case, that we find -mediaeval writers and statesmen, even Emperors and Popes themselves, -expressly recognizing a divinely appointed duality of government--two -potentates, each supreme in the sphere of his own activity, Peter in -things eternal, Caesar in things temporal. The relative position of the -two does indeed in course of time undergo a signal alteration. In the -days of Charles, the barbarous age of modern Europe, when men were and -could not but be governed chiefly by physical force, the Emperor was -practically, if not theoretically, the grander figure. Four centuries -later, in the era of Pope Innocent the Third, when the power of ideas -had grown stronger in the world, and was able to resist or to bend to -its service the arms and the wealth of men, we see the balance -inclined the other way. Spiritual authority is conceived of as being -of a nature so high and holy that it must inspire and guide the civil -administration. But it is not proposed to supplant that administration -nor to degrade its head: the great struggle of the eleventh and two -following centuries does not aim at the annihilation of one or other -power, but turns solely upon the character of their connexion. -Hildebrand, the typical representative of the Popedom, requires the -obedience of the Emperor on the ground of his own personal -responsibility for the souls of their common subjects: he demands, not -that the functions of temporal government shall be directly committed -to himself, but that they shall be exercised in conformity with the -will of God, whereof he is the exponent. The imperialist party had no -means of meeting this argument, for they could not deny the spiritual -supremacy of the Pope, nor the transcendant importance of eternal -salvation. They could therefore only protest that the Emperor, being -also divinely appointed, was directly answerable to God, and remind -the Pope that his kingdom was not of this world. There was in truth no -way out of the difficulty, for it was caused by the attempt to sever -things that admit of no severance, life in the soul and life in the -world, life for the future and life in the present. What it is most -pertinent to remark is that neither combatant pushed his theory to -extremities, since he felt that his adversary's title rested on the -same foundations as his own. The strife was keenest at the time when -the whole world believed fervently in both powers; the alliance came -when faith had forsaken the one and grown cold towards the other; from -the Reformation onwards Empire and Popedom fought no longer for -supremacy, but for existence. One is fallen already, the other shakes -with every blast. - -[Sidenote: Ennobling influence of the conception of the World Empire.] - -Nor was that which may be called the inner life of the Empire less -momentous in its influence upon the minds of men than were its outward -dealings with the Roman church upon her greatness and decline. In the -Middle Ages, men conceived of the communion of the saints as the -formal unity of an organized body of worshippers, and found the -concrete realization of that conception in their universal religious -state, which was in one aspect, the Church; in another, the Empire. -Into the meaning and worth of the conception, into the nature of the -connexion which subsists or ought to subsist between the Church and -the State, this is not the place to inquire. That the form which it -took in the Middle Ages was always imperfect and became eventually -rigid and unprogressive was sufficiently proved by the event. But by -it the European peoples were saved from the isolation, and narrowness, -and jealous exclusiveness which had checked the growth of the earlier -civilizations of the world, and which we see now lying like a weight -upon the kingdoms of the East: by it they were brought into that -mutual knowledge and co-operation which is the condition if it be not -the source of all true culture and progress. For as by the Roman -Empire of old the nations were first forced to own a common sway, so -by the Empire of the Middle Ages was preserved the feeling of a -brotherhood of mankind, a commonwealth of the whole world, whose -sublime unity transcended every minor distinction. - -[Sidenote: Principles adverse to the Empire.] - -As despotic monarchs claiming the world for their realm, the Teutonic -Emperors strove from the first against three principles, over all of -which their forerunners of the elder Rome had triumphed,--those of -Nationality, Aristocracy, and Popular Freedom. Their early struggles -were against the first of these, and ended with its victory in the -emancipation, one after another, of England, France, Poland, Hungary, -Denmark, Burgundy, and Italy. The second, in the form of feudalism, -menaced even when seeming to embrace and obey them, and succeeded, -after the Great Interregnum, in destroying their effective strength in -Germany. Aggression and inheritance turned the numerous independent -principalities thus formed out of the greater fiefs, into a few -military monarchies, resting neither on a rude loyalty, like feudal -kingdoms, nor on religious duty and tradition, like the Empire, but on -physical force, more or less disguised by legal forms. That the -hostility to the Empire of the third was accidental rather than -necessary is seen by this, that the very same monarchs who strove to -crush the Lombard and Tuscan cities favoured the growth of the free -towns of Germany. Asserting the rights of the individual in the sphere -of religion, the Reformation weakened the Empire by denying the -necessity of external unity in matters spiritual: the extension of the -same principle to the secular world, whose fulness is still withheld -from the Germans, would have struck at the doctrine of imperial -absolutism had it not found a nearer and deadlier foe in the actual -tyranny of the princes. It is more than a coincidence, that as the -proclamation of the liberty of thought had shaken it, so that of the -liberty of action made by the revolutionary movement, whose beginning -the world saw and understood not in 1789, whose end we see not yet, -should have indirectly become the cause which overthrew the Empire. - -[Sidenote: Change marked by its fall.] - -[Sidenote: Relations of the Empire to the nationalities of Europe.] - -Its fall in the midst of the great convulsion that changed the face of -Europe marks an era in history, an era whose character the events of -every year are further unfolding: an era of the destruction of old -forms and systems and the building up of new. The last instance is the -most memorable. Under our eyes, the work which Theodoric and Lewis the -Second, Guido and Ardoin and the second Frederick essayed in vain, has -been achieved by the steadfast will of the Italian people. The fairest -province of the Empire, for which Franconian and Swabian battled so -long, is now a single monarchy under the Burgundian count, whom -Sigismund created imperial vicar in Italy, and who wants only the -possession of the capital to be able to call himself 'king of the -Romans' more truly than Greek or Frank or Austrian has done since -Constantine forsook the Tiber for the Bosphorus. No longer the prey of -the stranger, Italy may forget the past, and sympathize, as she has -now indeed, since the fortunate alliance of 1866, begun to sympathize, -with the efforts after national unity of her ancient enemy--efforts -confronted by so many obstacles that a few years ago they seemed all -but hopeless. On the new shapes that may emerge in this general -reconstruction it would be idle to speculate. Yet one prediction may -be ventured. No universal monarchy is likely to arise. More frequent -intercourse, and the progress of thought, have done much to change the -character of national distinctions, substituting for ignorant -prejudice and hatred a genial sympathy and the sense of a common -interest. They have not lessened their force. No one who reads the -history of the last three hundred years, no one, above all, who -studies attentively the career of Napoleon, can believe it possible -for any state, however great her energy and material resources, to -repeat in modern Europe the part of ancient Rome: to gather into one -vast political body races whose national individuality has grown more -and more marked in each successive age. Nevertheless, it is in great -measure due to Rome and to the Roman Empire of the Middle Ages that -the bonds of national union are on the whole both stronger and nobler -than they were ever before. The latest historian of Rome, after -summing up the results to the world of his hero's career, closes his -treatise with these words: 'There was in the world as Caesar found it -the rich and noble heritage of past centuries, and an endless -abundance of splendour and glory, but little soul, still less taste, -and, least of all, joy in and through life. Truly it was an old world, -and even Caesar's genial patriotism could not make it young again. The -blush of dawn returns not until the night has fully descended. Yet -with him there came to the much-tormented races of the Mediterranean a -tranquil evening after a sultry day; and when, after long historical -night, the new day broke once more upon the peoples, and fresh nations -in free self-guided movement began their course towards new and higher -aims, many were found among them in whom the seed of Caesar had sprung -up, many who owed him, and who owe him still, their national -individuality[427].' If this be the glory of Julius, the first great -founder of the Empire, so is it also the glory of Charles, the second -founder, and of more than one amongst his Teutonic successors. The -work of the mediaeval Empire was self-destructive; and it fostered, -while seeming to oppose, the nationalities that were destined to -replace it. It tamed the barbarous races of the North, and forced them -within the pale of civilization. It preserved the arts and literature -of antiquity. In times of violence and oppression, it set before its -subjects the duty of rational obedience to an authority whose -watchwords were peace and religion. It kept alive, when national -hatreds were most bitter, the notion of a great European Commonwealth. -And by doing all this, it was in effect abolishing the need for a -centralizing and despotic power like itself: it was making men capable -of using national independence aright: it was teaching them to rise to -that conception of spontaneous activity, and a freedom which is above -law but not against it, to which national independence itself, if it -is to be a blessing at all, must be only a means. Those who mark what -has been the tendency of events since A.D. 1789, and who remember how -many of the crimes and calamities of the past are still but half -redressed, need not be surprised to see the so-called principle of -nationalities advocated with honest devotion as the final and perfect -form of political development. But such undistinguishing advocacy is -after all only the old error in a new shape. If all other history did -not bid us beware the habit of taking the problems and the conditions -of our own age for those of all time, the warning which the Empire -gives might alone be warning enough. From the days of Augustus down to -those of Charles the Fifth the whole civilized world believed in its -existence as a part of the eternal fitness of things, and Christian -theologians were not behind heathen poets in declaring that when it -perished the world would perish with it. Yet the Empire is gone, and -the world remains, and hardly notes the change. - -[Sidenote: Difficulties arising from the nature of the subject.] - -This is but a small part of what might be said upon an almost -inexhaustible theme: inexhaustible not from its extent but from its -profundity: not because there is so much to say, but because, pursue -we it never so far, more will remain unexpressed, since incapable of -expression. For that which it is at once most necessary and least -possible to do, is to look at the Empire as a whole: a single -institution, in which centres the history of eighteen centuries--whose -outer form is the same, while its essence and spirit are constantly -changing. It is when we come to consider it in this light that the -difficulties of so vast a subject are felt in all their force. Try to -explain in words the theory and inner meaning of the Holy Empire, as -it appeared to the saints and poets of the Middle Ages, and that which -we cannot but conceive as noble and fertile in its life, sinks into a -heap of barren and scarcely intelligible formulas. Who has been able -to describe the Papacy in the power it once wielded over the hearts -and imaginations of men? Those persons, if such there still be, who -see in it nothing but a gigantic upas-tree of fraud and superstition, -planted and reared by the enemy of mankind, are hardly further from -entering into the mystery of its being than the complacent political -philosopher, who explains in neat phrases the process of its growth, -analyses it as a clever piece of mechanism, enumerates and measures -the interests it appealed to, and gives, in conclusion, a sort of -tabular view of its results for good and for evil. So, too, is the -Holy Empire above all description or explanation; not that it is -impossible to discover the beliefs which created and sustained it, but -that the power of those beliefs cannot be adequately apprehended by -men whose minds have been differently trained, and whose imaginations -are fired by different ideals. Something, yet still how little, we -should know of it if we knew what were the thoughts of Julius Caesar -when he laid the foundations on which Augustus built: of Charles, when -he reared anew the stately pile: of Barbarossa and his grandson, when -they strove to avert the surely coming ruin. Something more succeeding -generations will know, who will judge the Middle Ages more fairly than -we, still living in the midst of a reaction against all that is -mediaeval, can hope to do, and to whom it will be given to see and -understand new forms of political life, whose nature we cannot so much -as conjecture. Seeing more than we do, they will also see some things -less distinctly. The Empire which to us still looms largely on the -horizon of the past, will to them sink lower and lower as they journey -onwards into the future. But its importance in universal history it -can never lose. For into it all the life of the ancient world was -gathered: out of it all the life of the modern world arose. - -THE END. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[418] See Louis Napoleon's letter to General Forey, explaining the -object of the expedition to Mexico. - -[419] One may also compare the retention of the office of consul at -Rome till the time of Justinian: indeed it even survived his formal -abolition. The relinquishment of the title 'King of Great Britain, -France, and Ireland,' seriously distressed many excellent persons. - -[420] I speak, of course, of the Papacy as an autocratic power -claiming a more than spiritual authority. - -[421] 'Ipsa enim ecclesia charior Deo est quam coelum. Non enim propter -coelum ecclesia, sed e converso propter ecclesiam coelum.' From the -tract entitled 'A Letter of the four Universities to Wenzel and Urban -VIII,' quoted in an earlier chapter. - -[422] Von Raumer, _Geschichte der Hohenstaufen_, v. - -[423] Meaning thereby not the citizens of Rome in her republican days, -but the Italo-Hellenic subjects of the Roman Empire. - -[424] Take, among many instances, those of the preface to Giesebrecht, -_Die Deutsche Kaiserzeit_; and Rotteck and Welcker's _Staats Lexikon_. -The German newspapers are indeed sufficient illustration. - -[425] See especially Von Sybel, _Die Deutsche Nation und das -Kaiserreich_; and the answers of Ficker and Von Wydenbrugk. - -[426] Modified of course by the canon law, and not superseding the -feudal law of land. - -[427] Mommsen, _Roemische Geschichte_, iii. _sub. fin._ - - - - -APPENDIX. - - -NOTE A. - -ON THE BURGUNDIES. - -It would be hard to mention any geographical name which, by its -application at different times to different districts, has caused, and -continues to cause, more confusion than this name Burgundy. There may, -therefore, be some use in a brief statement of the more important of -those applications. Without going into the minutiae of the subject, the -following may be given as the ten senses in which the name is most -frequently to be met with:-- - -I. The kingdom of the Burgundians (_regnum Burgundionum_), founded -A.D. 406, occupying the whole valley of the Saone and lower Rhone, -from Dijon to the Mediterranean, and including also the western half -of Switzerland. It was destroyed by the sons of Clovis in A.D. 534. - -II. The kingdom of Burgundy (_regnum Burgundiae_), mentioned -occasionally under the Merovingian kings as a separate principality, -confined within boundaries apparently somewhat narrower than those of -the older kingdom last named. - -III. The kingdom of Provence or Burgundy (_regnum Provinciae seu -Burgundiae_)--also, though less accurately, called the kingdom of -Cis-Jurane Burgundy--was founded by Boso in A.D. 877, and included -Provence, Dauphine, the southern part of Savoy, and the country -between the Saone and the Jura. - -IV. The kingdom of Trans-Jurane Burgundy (_regnum Iurense_, _Burgundia -Transiurensis_), founded by Rudolf in A.D. 888, recognized in the same -year by the Emperor Arnulf, included the northern part of Savoy, and -all Switzerland between the Reuss and the Jura. - -V. The kingdom of Burgundy or Arles (_regnum Burgundiae_, _regnum -Arelatense_), formed by the union, under Conrad the Pacific, in A.D. -937, of the kingdoms described above as III and IV. On the death, in -1032, of the last independent king, Rudolf III, it came partly by -bequest, partly by conquest, into the hands of the Emperor Conrad II -(the Salic), and thenceforward formed a part of the Empire. In the -thirteenth century, France began to absorb it, bit by bit, and has now -(since the annexation of Savoy in 1861) acquired all except the Swiss -portion of it. - -VI. The Lesser Duchy (_Burgundia Minor_), (Klein Burgund), -corresponded very nearly with what is now Switzerland west of the -Reuss, including the Valais. It was Trans-Jurane Burgundy (IV) _minus_ -the parts of Savoy which had belonged to that kingdom. It disappears -from history after the extinction of the house of Zahringen in the -thirteenth century. Legally it was part of the Empire till A.D. 1648, -though practically independent long before that date. - -VII. The Free County or Palatinate of Burgundy (Franche Comte), -(Freigrafschaft), (called also Upper Burgundy), to which the name of -Cis-Jurane Burgundy originally and properly belonged, lay between the -Saone and the Jura. It formed a part of III and V, and was therefore a -fief of the Empire. The French dukes of Burgundy were invested with it -in A.D. 1384, and in 1678 it was annexed to the crown of France. - -VIII. The Landgraviate of Burgundy (Landgrafschaft) was in Western -Switzerland, on both sides of the Aar, between Thun and Solothurn. It -was a part of the Lesser Duchy (VI), and, like it, is hardly mentioned -after the thirteenth century. - -IX. The Circle of Burgundy (Kreis Burgund), an administrative division -of the Empire, was established by Charles V in 1548; and included the -Free County of Burgundy (VII) and the seventeen provinces of the -Netherlands, which Charles inherited from his grandmother Mary, -daughter of Charles the Bold. - -X. The Duchy of Burgundy (Lower Burgundy), (Bourgogne), the most -northerly part of the old kingdom of the Burgundians, was always a -fief of the crown of France, and a province of France till the -Revolution. It was of this Burgundy that Philip the Good and Charles -the Bold were Dukes. They were also Counts of the Free County (VII). - - * * * * * - -The most copious and accurate information regarding the obscure -history of the Burgundian kingdoms (III, IV, and V) is to be found in -the contributions of Baron Frederic de Gingins la Sarraz, a Vaudois -historian, to the _Archiv fuer Schweizer Geschichte_. See also an -admirable article in the _National Review_ for October 1860, entitled -'The Franks and the Gauls.' - - -NOTE B. - -ON THE RELATIONS TO THE EMPIRE OF THE KINGDOM OF DENMARK, AND THE -DUCHIES OF SCHLESWIG AND HOLSTEIN. - -The history of the relations of Denmark and the Duchies to the -Romano-Germanic Empire is a very small part of the great -Schleswig-Holstein controversy. But having been unnecessarily mixed up -with two questions properly quite distinct,--the first, as to the -relation of Schleswig to Holstein, and of both jointly to the Danish -crown; the second, as to the diplomatic engagements which the Danish -kings have in recent times contracted with the German powers,--it has -borne its part in making the whole question the most intricate and -interminable that has vexed Europe for two centuries and a half. -Setting aside irrelevant matter, the facts as to the Empire are as -follows:-- - -I. The Danish kings began to own the supremacy of the Frankish -Emperors early in the ninth century. Having recovered their -independence in the confusion that followed the fall of the -Carolingian dynasty, they were again subdued by Henry the Fowler and -Otto the Great, and continued tolerably submissive till the death of -Frederick II and the period of anarchy which followed. Since that time -Denmark has been always independent, although her king was, until the -treaty of A.D. 1865, a member of the German Confederation for -Holstein. - -II. Schleswig was in Carolingian times Danish; the Eyder being, as -Eginhard tells us, the boundary between Saxonia Transalbiana -(Holstein), and the Terra Nortmannorum (wherein lay the town of -Sliesthorp), inhabited by the Scandinavian heathen. Otto the Great -conquered all Schleswig, and, it is said, Jutland also, and added the -southern part of Schleswig to the immediate territory of the Empire, -erecting it into a margraviate. So it remained till the days of Conrad -II, who made the Eyder again the boundary, retaining of course his -suzerainty over the kingdom of Denmark as a whole. But by this time -the colonization of Schleswig by the Germans had begun; and ever since -the numbers of the Danish population seem to have steadily declined, -and the mass of the people to have grown more and more disposed to -sympathize with their southern rather than their northern neighbours. - -III. Holstein always was an integral part of the Empire, as it is at -this day of the North German Bund. - - -NOTE C. - -ON CERTAIN IMPERIAL TITLES AND CEREMONIES. - -This subject is a great deal too wide and too intricate to be more -than touched upon here. But a few brief statements may have their use; -for the practice of the Germanic Emperors varied so greatly from time -to time, that the reader becomes hopelessly perplexed without some -clue. And if there were space to explain the causes of each change of -title, it would be seen that the subject, dry as it may appear, is -very far from being a barren or a dull one. - -I. TITLES OF EMPERORS. Charles the Great styled himself 'Carolus -serenissimus Augustus, a Deo coronatus, magnus et pacificus imperator, -Romanum (_or_ Romanorum) gubernans imperium, qui et per misericordiam -Dei rex Francorum et Langobardorum.' - -Subsequent Carolingian Emperors were usually entitled simply -'Imperator Augustus.' Sometimes 'rex Francorum et Langobardorum' was -added[428]. - -Conrad I and Henry I (the Fowler) were only German kings. - -A Saxon Emperor was, before his coronation at Rome, 'rex,' or 'rex -Francorum Orientalium,' or 'Francorum atque Saxonum rex;' after it, -simply 'Imperator Augustus.' Otto III is usually said to have -introduced the form 'Romanorum Imperator Augustus,' but some -authorities state that it occurs in documents of the time of Lewis I. - -Henry II and his successors, not daring to take the title of Emperor -till crowned at Rome (in conformity with the superstitious notion -which had begun with Charles the Bald), but anxious to claim the -sovereignty of Rome, as indissolubly attached to the German crown, -began to call themselves 'reges Romanorum.' The title did not, -however, become common or regular till the time of Henry IV, in whose -proclamations it occurs constantly. - -From the eleventh century till the sixteenth, the invariable practice -was for the monarch to be called 'Romanorum rex semper Augustus,' till -his coronation at Rome by the Pope; after it, 'Romanorum Imperator -semper Augustus.' - -In A.D. 1508, Maximilian I, being refused a passage to Rome by the -Venetians, obtained a bull from Pope Julius II permitting him to call -himself 'Imperator electus' (erwaehlter Kaiser). This title Ferdinand I -(brother of Charles V) and all succeeding Emperors took immediately -upon their German coronation, and it was till A.D. 1806 their strict -legal designation[429], and was always employed by them in -proclamations or other official documents. The term 'elect' was -however omitted, even in formal documents when the sovereign was -addressed or spoken of in the third person; and in ordinary practice -he was simply 'Roman Emperor.' - -Maximilian added the title 'Germaniae rex,' which had never been known -before, although the phrase 'rex Germanorum' may be found employed -once or twice in early times. 'Rex Teutonicorum,' 'regnum -Teutonicum[430],' occur often in the tenth and eleventh centuries. A -great many titles of less consequence were added from time to time. -Charles the Fifth had seventy-five, not, of course, as Emperor, but in -virtue of his vast hereditary possessions[431]. - -It is perhaps worth remarking that the word Emperor has not at all the -same meaning now that it had even so lately as two centuries ago. It -is now a commonplace, not to say vulgar, title, somewhat more pompous -than that of King, and supposed to belong especially to despots. It is -given to all sorts of barbarous princes, like those of China and -Abyssinia, in default of a better name. It is peculiarly affected by -new dynasties; and has indeed grown so fashionable, that what with -Emperors of Brazil, of Hayti, and of Mexico, the good old title of -King seems in a fair way to become obsolete[432]. But in former times -there was, and could be but one Emperor; he was always mentioned with -a certain reverence: his name summoned up a host of thoughts and -associations, which we cannot comprehend or sympathize with. His -office, unlike that of modern Emperors, was by its very nature -elective, and not hereditary; and, so far from resting on conquest or -the will of the people, rested on and represented pure legality. War -could give him nothing which law had not given him already: the people -could delegate no power to him who was their lord and the viceroy of -God. - -II. THE CROWNS. - -Of the four crowns something has been said in the text. They were -those of Germany, taken at Aachen; of Burgundy, at Arles; of Italy, -sometimes at Pavia, more usually at Milan or Monza; of the world, at -Rome. - -The German crown was taken by every Emperor after the time of Otto the -Great; that of Italy by every one, or almost every one, who took the -Roman down to Frederick III, by none after him; that of Burgundy, it -would appear, by four Emperors only, Conrad II, Henry III, Frederick -I, and Charles IV. The imperial crown was received at Rome by most -Emperors till Frederick III; after him by none save Charles V, who -obtained both it and the Italian at Bologna in a somewhat informal -manner. But down to A.D. 1806, every Emperor bound himself by his -capitulation to proceed to Rome to receive it. - -It should be remembered that none of these inferior crowns was -necessarily connected with that of the Roman Empire, which might have -been held by a simple knight without a foot of land in the world. For -as there had been Emperors (Lothar I, Lewis II, Lewis of Provence (son -of Boso), Guy, Lambert, and Berengar) who were not kings of Germany, -so there were several (all those who preceded Conrad II) who were not -kings of Burgundy, and others (Arnulf, for example) who were not kings -of Italy. And it is also worth remarking, that although no crown save -the German was assumed by the successors of Charles V, their wider -rights remained in full force, and were never subsequently -relinquished. There was nothing, except the practical difficulty and -absurdity of such a project, to prevent Francis II from having himself -crowned at Arles[433], Milan, and Rome. - -III. THE KING OF THE ROMANS (ROeMISCHER KOeNIG). - -It has been shewn above how and why, about the time of Henry II, the -German monarch began to entitle himself 'Romanorum rex.' Now it was -not uncommon in the Middle Ages for the heir-apparent to a throne to -be crowned during his father's lifetime, that at the death of the -latter he might step at once into his place. (Coronation, it must be -remembered, which is now merely a spectacle, was in those days not -only a sort of sacrament, but a matter of great political importance.) -This plan was specially useful in an elective monarchy, such as -Germany was after the twelfth century, for it avoided the delays and -dangers of an election while the throne was vacant. But as it seemed -against the order of nature to have two Emperors at once[434], and as -the sovereign's authority in Germany depended not on the Roman but on -the German coronation, the practice came to be that each Emperor -during his own life procured, if he could, the election of his -successor, who was crowned at Aachen, in later times at Frankfort, and -took the title of 'King of the Romans.' During the presence of the -Emperor in Germany he exercised no more authority than a Prince of -Wales does in England, but on the Emperor's death he succeeded at -once, without any second election or coronation, and assumed (after -the time of Ferdinand I) the title of 'Emperor Elect[435].' Before -Ferdinand's time, he would have been expected to go to Rome to be -crowned there. While the Hapsburgs held the sceptre, each monarch -generally contrived in this way to have his son or some other near -relative chosen to succeed him. But many were foiled in their attempts -to do so; and, in such cases, an election was held after the Emperor's -death, according to the rules laid down in the Golden Bull. - -The first person who thus became king of the Romans in the lifetime of -an Emperor seems to have been Henry VI, son of Frederick I. - -It was in imitation of this title that Napoleon called his son king of -Rome. - - -NOTE D. - -LINES CONTRASTING THE PAST AND PRESENT OF ROME. - - Dum simulacra mihi, dum numina vana placebant, - Militia, populo, moenibus alta fui: - At simul effigies arasque superstitiosas - Deiiciens, uni sum famulata Deo, - Cesserunt arces, cecidere palatia divum, - Servivit populus, degeneravit eques. - Vix scio quae fuerim, vix Romae Roma recordor; - Vix sinit occasus vel meminisse mei. - Gratior haec iactura mihi successibus illis; - Maior sum pauper divite, stante iacens: - Plus aquilis vexilla crucis, plus Caesare Petrus, - Plus cinctis ducibus vulgus inerme dedit. - Stans domui terras, infernum diruta pulso, - Corpora stans, animas fracta iacensque rego. - Tunc miserae plebi, modo principibus tenebrarum - Impero: tunc urbes, nunc mea regna polus. - -Written by Hildebert, bishop of Le Mans, and afterwards archbishop of -Tours (born A.D. 1057). Extracted from his works as printed by Migne, -_Patrologiae Cursus Completus_[436]. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[428] Waitz (_Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte_) says that the phrase -'semper Augustus' may be found in the times of the Carolingians, but -not in official documents. - -[429] There is some reason to think that towards the end of the Empire -people had begun to fancy that 'erwaehlter' did not mean 'elect,' but -'elective.' Cf. note 410, p. 362. - -[430] These expressions seem to have been intended to distinguish the -kingdom of the Eastern or Germanic Franks from that of the Western or -Gallicized Franks (Francigenae), which having been for some time -'regnum Francorum Occidentalium,' grew at last to be simply 'regnum -Franciae,' the East Frankish kingdom being swallowed up in the Empire. - -[431] It is right to remark that what is stated here can be taken as -only generally and probably true: so great are the discrepancies among -even the most careful writers on the subject, and so numerous the -forgeries of a later age, which are to be found among the genuine -documents of the early Empire. Goldast's _Collections_, for instance, -are full of forgeries and anachronisms. Detailed information may be -found in Pfeffinger, Moser, and Puetter, and in the host of writers to -whom they refer. - -[432] We in England may be thought to have made some slight movement -in the same direction by calling the united great council of the Three -Kingdoms the Imperial Parliament. - -[433] Although to be sure the Burgundian dominions had all passed from -the Emperor to France, the kingdom of Sardinia, and the Swiss -Confederation. - -[434] Nevertheless, Otto II was crowned Emperor, and reigned for some -time along with his father, under the title of 'Co-Imperator.' So -Lothar I was associated in the Empire with Lewis the Pious, as Lewis -himself had been crowned in the lifetime of Charles. Many analogies to -the practice of the Romano-Germanic Empire in this respect might be -adduced from the history of the old Roman, as well as of the Byzantine -Empire. - -[435] Maximilian had obtained this title, 'Emperor Elect,' from the -Pope. Ferdinand took it as of right, and his successors followed the -example. - -[436] See note 326, p. 270. - - - - -INDEX. - - - A. - - Aachen, 72, 77, 86, 148, 212, 316 note, 403. - - ADALBERT (St.), 245; the church founded at Rome to receive - his ashes, 286. - - ADELHEID (Queen of Italy), account of her adventures, 83. - - ADOLF of Nassau, 221, 222, 262. - - ADSO, his _Vita Antichristi_, 114 note. - - AISTULF the Lombard, 39. - - ALARIC, his desire to preserve the institutions of the - Empire, 17, 19. - - ALBERIC (consul or senator), 83. - - ALBERT I (son of Rudolf of Hapsburg), 221, 224, 262. - - Albigenses, revolt of the, 241. - - ALBOIN, his invasion of Italy, 36. - - ALCUIN of York, 59, 66, 96, 201. - - ALEXANDER III (Pope), Frederick I's contest with, 170; - their meeting at Venice, 171. - - ALFONSO of Castile, his double election with Richard of - England, 212, 229. - - America, discovery of, 311. - - ANASTASIUS, his account of the coronation of Charles, 55. - - ANGELO (Michael), rebuilding of the Capitol by, 295. - - Antichrist, views respecting, in the earlier Middle Ages, - 114 note; in later times, 334. - - Architecture, Roman, 48, 290; analogy between it and the - civil and ecclesiastical constitution, 296; preservation of - an antique character in both, 296. - - ARDOIN (Marquis of Ivrea), 149. - - Aristocracy, barbarism of the, in the Middle Ages, 289; - struggles of the Teutonic Emperors against the, 388. - - Arles; _see_ Burgundy. - - ARNOLD of Brescia, Rome under, 174, 252, 276; put to death - at the instance of Pope Hadrian, 278, 299 note. - - ARNULF (Emperor), 78. - - ATHANARIC, 17. - - ATHANASIUS, the triumph of, 12. - - ATHAULF the Visigoth, his thoughts and purposes respecting - the Roman Empire, 19, 30. - - Augsburg, 259; treaty of, 334. - - AUGUSTINE, 94. - - Aulic Council, the, 340, 342 note. - - Austria, privilege of, 199; her claim to represent the - Roman Empire, 368, 381. - - Austrian succession, war of the, 352. - - Avignon, exactions of the court of, 219; its subservience - to France, 219, 243. - - AVITUS, letter of, on Sigismund's behalf, 18. - - - B. - - Barbarians, feared by the Romans, 14; Roman armies largely - composed of, 14; admitted to Roman titles and honours, 15; - their feelings towards the Roman Empire, 16; their desire - to preserve its institutions, 17; value of the Roman - officials and Christian bishops to the, 19. - - BARTOLOMMEO (San), the church of, 287. - - BASIL the Macedonian and Lewis II, 191. - - 'Basileus,' the title of, 143, 191. - - Basilica, erected at Aachen by Charles the Great, 76 note. - - BELISARIUS, his war with the Ostrogoths, 29, 273. - - Bell-tower, or campanile, in the churches of Rome, 294. - - BENEDICT of Soracte, 51 note. - - BENEDICT VIII (Pope), alleged decree of, 197. - - Benevento, the Annals of, 150. - - BERENGAR of Friuli, 82; his death, 83. - - BERENGAR II (King of Italy), 83. - - BERNARD (St.), 109 note. - - Bible, rights of the Empire proved from the, 112; - perversion of its meaning, 114. - - Bohemia, acquired by Luxemburg A. D. 1309, 222; the king - of, an elector, 230. - - BONIFACE VIII (Pope), his extravagant pretensions, 109, - 247; declares himself Vicar of the Empire, 219 note. - - BOSO, 81, 395. - - Bosphorus, removal of the seat of government to the, 154. - - Britain, abandoned by Imperial Government, 24; Roman Civil - Law not forgotten in, at a late date, 32; Roman ensigns and - devices in, 258. - - Buildings, the old, destruction and alteration of, by - invaders, 291; by the Romans of the Middle Ages, 292; by - modern restorers of churches, 292. - - Bull, the Golden, of Charles IV, 225, 230, 236. - - Burgundy, the kingdom of, Otto's policy towards, 143; added - to the Empire under Conrad II, 151; effect of its loss on - the Empire, 305; confusion caused by the name, 395; ten - senses in which it is met with, 395-7. - - Byzantium, effect of the removal of the seat of power to, - 9; Otto's policy towards, 141; attitude towards Emperor, - 189. - - - C. - - Campanile; _see_ Bell-tower. - - Canon law, correspondence between it and the Corpus Juris - Civilis, 101; its consolidation by Gregory IX, 112, 217. - - CAPET (Hugh), 142. - - Capitol, rebuilding of the, by Michael Angelo, 295. - - Capitulary of A. D. 802, 65. - - CARACALLA (Emperor), effect of his edict, 6. - - Carolingian Emperors, 76. - - Carolingian Empire of the West, its end in A. D. 888, 78; - Florus the Deacon's lament over its dissolution, 85 note. - - Carroccio, the, 178 note, 328. - - Cathari and other heretics, spread of, 241. - - Catholicity or Romanism, 94, 106. - - Celibacy, enforcement of, 158. - - Cenci, name of, 289 note. - - CHARLEMAGNE; _see_ Charles I. - - CHARLES I (the Great), extinguishes the Lombard kingdom, - 41; is received with honours by Pope Hadrian and the - people, 41; his personal ambition, 42; his treatment of - Pope Leo III, 44; title of 'Champion of the Faith and - Defender of the Holy See' conferred upon, 47; crowned at - Rome, 48; important consequences of his coronation, 50, 52; - its real meaning, 52, 80, 81; contemporary accounts, 53, - 64, 65, 84; their uniformity, 56; illegality of the - transaction, 56; three theories respecting it held four - centuries after, 57; was the coronation a surprise? 58; his - reluctance to assume the imperial title, 60; solution - suggested by Doellinger, 60; seeks the hand of Irene, 61; - defect of his imperial title, 61; theoretically the - successor of the whole Eastern line of Emperors, 62, 63; - has nothing to fear from Byzantine Princes, 63; his - authority in matters ecclesiastical, 64; presses Hadrian to - declare Constantine VI a heretic, 64; his spiritual - despotism applauded by subsequent Popes, 64; importance - attached by him to the Imperial name, 65; issues a - Capitulary, 65; draws closer the connexion of Church and - State, 66; new position in civil affairs acquired with the - Imperial title, 67, 68, 69; his position as Frankish king, - 69, 70; partial failure of his attempt to breathe a - Teutonic spirit into Roman forms, 70, 71; his personal - habits and sympathies, 71; groundlessness of the claims of - the modern French to, 71; the conception of his Empire - Roman, not Teutonic, 72; his Empire held together by the - Church, 73; appreciation of his character generally, 73, - 74; impress of his mind on mediaeval society, 74; buried at - Aachen, 74; inscription on his tomb, 74; canonised as a - saint, 75; his plan of Empire, 76. - - CHARLES II (the BALD), 77, 156, 157. - - CHARLES III (the FAT), 78, 81. - - CHARLES IV, 223; his electoral constitution, 225; his - Golden Bull, 225, 236; general results of his policy, 236; - his object through life, 236; the University of Prague - founded by, 237; welcomed into Italy by Petrarch, 254. - - CHARLES V, accession of, 319; casts in his lot with the - Catholics, 321; the momentous results, 322; failure of his - repressive policy, 322. - - CHARLES VI, 348, 351, 352. - - CHARLES VII, his disastrous reign, 351. - - CHARLES VIII (King of France), his pretensions on Naples - and Milan, 315. - - CHARLES MARTEL, 36, 38. - - CHARLES of Valois, 223. - - CHARLES the BOLD and Frederick III, 249. - - CHEMNITZ, his comments on the condition and prospects of - the Empire, 339. - - CHILDERIC, his deposition by the Holy See, 39. - - Chivalry, the orders of, 250. - - Church, the, opposed by the Emperors, 10; growth of, 10; - alliance of, with the State, 10, 66, 107, 387; organization - of, framed on the model of the secular administration, 11; - the Emperor the head of, 12; maintains the Imperial idea, - 13; attitude of Charles the Great towards, 65, 66; the bond - that holds together the Empire of Charles, 73; first gives - men a sense of unity, 92; how regarded in Middle Ages, 92, - 370; draws tighter all bonds of outward union, 94; unity - of, felt to be analogous to that of the Empire, 93; becomes - the exact counterpart of the Empire, 99, 101, 107, 328; - position of, in Germany, 128; Otto's position towards, 129; - effect of the Reformation upon, 327; influence of the - Empire upon the history of, 384. - - Churches, national, 95, 330. - - Churches of Rome, destruction of old buildings by modern - restorers of, 292; mosaics and bell-tower in the, 294. - - Cities, in Lombardy, 175; growth of in Germany, 179; their - power, 223. - - Civil law, revival of the study of, 172; its study - forbidden by the Popes in the thirteenth century, 253. - - CIVILIS, the Batavian, 17. - - Clergy, aversion of the Lombards to the, 37; their idea of - political unity, 96; their power in the eleventh century, - 128; Gregory VII's condemnation of feudal investitures to - the, 158; their ambition and corruption in the later Middle - Age, 290. - - CLOVIS, his desire to preserve the institutions of the - Empire, 17, 30; his unbroken success, 35. - - Coins, papal, 278 note. - - COLONNA (John), Petrarch's letters to, 270 and note; the - family of, 281. - - Commons, the, 132, 314. - - Concordat of Worms, 163. - - Confederation of the Rhine, provisions of the, 362. - - CONRAD I (King of the East Franks), 122, 226. - - CONRAD II, the reign of, 151; comparison between the - prerogative at his accession and at the death of Henry V, - 165; the crown of Burgundy first gained by, 194. - - CONRAD III, 165, 277. - - CONRAD IV, 210. - - CONRADIN (Frederick II's grandson), murder of, 211. - - Constance, the Council of, 220, 253, 301; the peace of, - signed by Frederick I, 178. - - CONSTANTINE, his vigorous policy, 8; the Donation of, 43, - 100, 288 note. - - Constantinople, capture of, 303, 311. - - Coronations, ceremonies at, 112; the four, gone through by - the Emperors, 193, 403; their meaning, 195; churches in - which they were performed, 284, 288. - - Corpus Juris Civilis, correspondence between, and the Canon - Law, 101. - - Councils, General, right of Emperors to summon, 111. - - Counts Palatine, Otto's institution of, 125. - - CRESCENTIUS, 146. - - Crown, the Imperial, the right to confer, 57, 61, 81; not - legally attached to Frankish crown or nation, 81; how - treated by the Popes, 82. - - Crowns, the four, 193, 403. - - Crusades, the, 164, 166, 179, 193, 205, 209. - - - D. - - DANTE, 208; his attitude towards the Empire, 255; his - treatise _De Monarchia_, 262; sketch of its argument, 264 - et seq.; its omissions, 268, 299. - - Dark Ages, existing relics of the, 294. - - Decretals, the False, 156. - - Denmark, and the Slaves, 143; imperial authority in, 184; - its relations to the Empire, 398. - - Diet, the, 126, 314, 353; its rights as settled A. D. 1648, - 340; its altered character A. D. 1654, 344; its triflings, - 353. - - DIOCLETIAN, his vigorous policy, 8. - - Divine right of the Emperor, 246. - - DOeLLINGER (Dr.), 60 note. - - Dominicans, the order of, 205. - - Donation of Constantine, forgery of the, 43, 100, 118 note, - 261 note. - - Dukes, the, in Germany, 125. - - - E. - - East, imperial pretensions in the, 189. - - Eastern Church, the, 191. - - Eastern Empire, its relations with the Western, 24, 25; - decay of its power in the West, 45; how regarded by the - Popes, 46. - - Edict of Caracalla, 6. - - EDWARD II (King of England), his declaration of England's - independence of the Empire, 187. - - EDWARD III (King of England) and Lewis the Bavarian, 187; - his election against Charles IV, 223. - - EGINHARD, his statement respecting Charles's coronation, - 58, 60. - - Elective constitution, the, 227; difficulty of maintaining - the principle in practice, 233; its object the choice of - the fittest man, 233; restraint of the sovereign, 233; - recognition of the popular will, 234. - - Elector, the title of, its advantage, 232 note; personages - upon whom it was conferred by Napoleon, 232. - - Electoral body in primitive times, 226. - - Electoral function, conception of the, 235. - - Electorate, the Eighth, 231; the Ninth, 231. - - Electors, the Seven, 165, 229; their names and offices, 230 - note; the question of their vote, 257 note. - - Emperor, the position of, in the second century, 5, 6; the - head of the Church, 12, 23, 111; sanctity of the name, 22, - 120; correspondence between his position and functions and - those of the Pope, 104; proofs from mediaeval documents, - 109; and from the coronation ceremonies, 112; illustrations - from mediaeval art, 116; nature of his power, 120; fusion of - his functions with those of German King, 127; his office - feudalized, 130; attitude of Byzantine Emperors towards, - 189; his dignities and titles, 193, 257, 261, 400; the - title not assumed till the Roman coronation, 196; origin - and results of this practice, 196; policy of, 222; his - office as peace-maker, 244, 245; divine right of the, 246; - his right of creating kings, 249; his international place - at the Council of Constance, 253; change in titles of, 316; - his rights as settled A.D. 1648, 340; altered meaning of - the word now-a-days, 402. - - Emperors, meaning of their four coronations, 193, 195, 403; - persons eligible as, 251; after Henry VII, 263; their - short-sighted policy towards Rome, 277; their visits to - Rome, 282; their approach, 283; their entrance, 284; - hostility of the Pope and people to the, 284; their - burial-places, 287 note; nature of the question at issue - between the Popes and the, 385; their titles, 400. - - Emperors, Carolingian, 76. - - Emperors, Franconian, 133. - - Emperors, Hapsburg, beginning of their influence in - Germany, 310; their policy, 305, 348; repeated attempts to - set them aside, 350; causes of the long retention of the - throne by the, 349; modern pretensions of, 368, 381. - - Emperors, Italian, 80. - - Emperors, Saxon, 133. - - Emperors, Swabian or Hohenstaufen, 57, 165, 167. - - Emperors, Teutonic, defects in their title, 61; their - short-sighted policy, 277; their memorials in Rome, 286; - names of those buried in Italy, 287 note; their struggles - against nationality, aristocracy, and popular freedom, 388. - - Empire, the Roman, growth of despotism in, 5; obliteration - of national distinctions in, 6; unity of, threatened from - without and from within, 7, 8; preserved for a time by the - policy of Diocletian and Constantine, 8, 9; partition of, - 9; influence of the Church in supporting, 13; armies of, - composed of barbarians, 15; how regarded by the barbarians, - 16; belief in eternity of, 20; reunion of Italy to, 29; its - influence in the Transalpine provinces, 30; influence of - religion and jurisprudence in supporting, 31, 32; belief - in, not extinct in the eighth century, 44; restoration of - by Charles the Great, 48; the 'translation' of the, 52, - 111, 175, 218; divided between the grandsons of Charles, - 77; dissolution of, 78; ideal state supposed to be embodied - in, 99; never, strictly speaking, restored, 102. - - Empire, the Holy Roman, created by Otto the Great, 80, 103; - a prolongation of the Empire of Charles, 80; wherein it - differed therefrom, 80; motives for establishment of, 84; - identical with Holy Roman Church, 106; its rights proved - from the Bible, 112; its anti-national character, 120; its - union with the German kingdom, 122; dissimilarity between - the two, 127; results of the union, 128; its pretensions in - Hungary, 183; in Poland, 184; in Denmark, 184; in France, - 185; in Sweden, 185; in Spain, 185; in England, 186; in - Naples, 188; in Venice, 188; in the East, 189; the epithet - 'Holy' applied by Frederick I, 199; origin and meaning of - epithet, 200; its fall with Frederick II, 210; Italy lost - to, 211; change in its position, 214; its continuance due - to its connexion with the German kingdom, 214; its - relations with the Papacy, 153, 155, 216; its financial - distress, 223; theory of, in the fourteenth and fifteenth - centuries, 238; its duties as an international judge and - mediator, 244; why an international power, 248; - illustrations, 249; attitude of new learning towards, 251, - 254, 256; doctrine of its rights and functions never - carried out in fact, 253; end of its history in Italy, 263, - 304; relation between it and the city, 297; reaches its - lowest point in Frederick III's reign, 301; its loss of - Burgundy, 305, and of Switzerland, 306; change in its - character, 308, 313; effects of the Renaissance upon, 312; - effects of the Reformation upon, 319, 325; its influence - upon the name and associations of, 332; narrowing of its - bounds, 341; causes of the continuance of, 344; its - relation to the balance of power, 345; its position in - Europe, 346; its last phase, 352; signs of its approaching - fall, 356; its end, 363; the desire for its - re-establishment, 364; unwillingness of certain states, - 364; technically never extinguished, 364 note; summary of - its nature and results, 366; claim of Austria to represent, - 368; of France, 368; of Russia, 368; of Greece, 368; of the - Turks, 368; parallel between the Papacy and, 369, 373; - never truly mediaeval, 373; sense in which it was Roman, - 374; its condition in the tenth century, 374; essential - principles of, 377; its influence on Germany, 378; Austria - as heir of, 381; its bearing on the progress of Europe, - 383; ways in which it affected the political institutions - of the Middle Ages, 383; its influence upon modern - jurisprudence, 383; upon the history of the Church, 384; - influence of its inner life on the minds of men, 387; - principles adverse to, 388; change marked by its fall, 389; - its relations to the nationalities of Europe, 390; - difficulty of fully understanding, 392. - - Empire and Papacy, interdependence of, 101; consequences, - 102; struggle between, 153; their relations, 155, 216; - parallel between, 369; compared as perpetuation of a name, - 372. - - Empire Western, last days of the, 24; its extinction by - Odoacer, 26; its restoration, 34. - - Empire, French, under Napoleon, 360. - - ENGELBERT, 113 note. - - England, 45; Otto's position towards, 143; authority not - exercised by any Emperors in, 186; vague notion that it - must depend on the Empire, 186; imperial pretensions - towards, 187; position of the regal power in, as compared - with Germany, 215; feudalism in, 343. - - Estate, Third, did not exist in time of Otto the Great, - 132. - - EUDES (Count of Champagne), 151. - - Europe, bearing of the Empire on the progress of, 383; on - the nationalities of, 390. - - - F. - - False Decretals, the, 156. - - FERDINAND I, 316 note, 323, 401. - - FERDINAND II, accession of, 335; his plans, 335; deprives - the Palsgrave Frederick of his electoral vote, 231. - - Feudal aristocracy, power of the, 221. - - Feudal king, his peculiar relation to his tenants, 124. - - Feudalism, 90, 123; reason of its firm grasp upon society, - 124; hostility between it and imperialism, 131; its results - in France, 343; in England, 343; in Germany, 344; struggles - of the Teutonic Emperors against, 388. - - Financial distress of the Empire, 223. - - FLORUS the Deacon's lament over the dissolution of the - Carolingian Empire, 85 note. - - Fontenay, battle of, 77. - - France, modern, dates from Hugh Capet, 142; imperial - authority exercised in, 185; her irritation at Germany's - precedence, 185; growth of the regal power in, as compared - with Germany, 215; alliance of the Protestants with, 325; - territory gained by treaties of Westphalia, 341; feudalism - in, 343; under Napoleon, 360; her claim to represent the - Roman Empire, 368, 376. - - Francia occidentalis, given to Charles the Bald, 77. - - FRANCIS I, reign of, 351. - - FRANCIS II, accession of, 356; resignation of imperial - crown by, 1, 363. - - Franciscans, the order of, 205. - - Franconia, extinction of the dukedom of, 222. - - Franconian Emperors, 133. - - 'Frank,' sense in which the name was used, 142 note. - - Franks, rise of the, 34; success of their arms, 35; - Catholics from the first, 36; their greatness chiefly due - to the clergy, 36; enter Rome, 48. - - Franks, the West, Otto's policy towards, 142. - - Frankfort, synod held at, 64; coronations at, 316 note, - 404. - - FREDERICK I (Barbarossa), his brilliant reign, 167, 179; - his relations to the Popedom, 167; his contest with Pope - Hadrian IV, 169, 316; incident at their meeting on the way - to Rome, 314 note; his contest with Pope Alexander III, - 170; their meeting at Venice, 171; magnificent ascriptions - of dignity to, 173; assertion of his prerogative in Italy, - 174; his version of the 'Translation of the Empire,' 175; - his dealings with the rebels of Milan and Tortona, 175; his - temporary success, 177; victory of the Lombards over, 178; - his prosperity as German king, 178; his glorious life and - happy death, 179; legend respecting him, 180; extent of his - jurisdiction, 182; his dominion in the East, 189; his - letter to Saladin, 189; anecdote of, 214. - - FREDERICK II, character of, 207; events of his struggle - with the Papacy, 209; results of his reign, 221; the charge - of heresy against, 251 note; memorials left by, in Rome, - 287. - - FREDERICK III, abases himself before the Romish court, 220; - Charles the Bold seeks an arrangement with, 249; his - calamitous reign, 301. - - FREDERICK (Count Palatine and King of Bohemia), deprived by - Ferdinand II of his electoral vote, 231. - - FREDERICK of Prussia (the Great), 347, 352, 353 note. - - Freedom popular, growth of, 240; struggles of the Teutonic - Emperors against, 388. - - - G. - - Gallic race, political character of the, 376. - - Gauverfassung, the so-called, 123. - - GERBERT (Pope Sylvester II), 146. - - 'German Emperor,' the title of, 127, 317. - - Germanic constitution, the, 221; influence upon, of the - theory of the Empire as an international power, 307; - attempted reforms of, 313; means by which it was proposed - to effect them, 314; causes of their failure, 314. - - Germany, beginning of the national existence of, 77; - chooses Arnulf as king, 78; overrun by Hungarians, 79; - establishment of monarchy in, by Henry the Fowler, 79; - desires the restoration of the Carolingian Empire, 86; - position of in the tenth century, 122; union of the Empire - with, 122; results of the union, 128; dissimilarity of the - two systems, 127; feudalism in, 123; the feudal polity of, - generally, 125; nature of the history of, till the twelfth - century, 126; princes of, ally themselves with the Pope - against the Emperor, 162; its hatred of the Romish Court, - 169; the position of under Frederick Barbarossa, 179; - growth of towns in, 179, 223; decline of imperial power in, - 211; state of during Great Interregnum, 213; decline of - regal power in, 215; encroachments of nobles in, 221, 228; - kingdom of, not originally elective, 225; how it ultimately - became elective, 226; changes in the constitution of, 228; - its weakness as compared with other states of Europe, 302; - its loss of imperial territories, 303; its internal - weakness, 306; position of the Emperor in, compared with - that of his predecessors in Europe, 309; beginning of the - Hapsburg influence in, 310; first consciousness of its - nationality, 315; destruction of its State-system, 324; its - troubles, 324; finally severed from Rome, 340; after the - peace of Westphalia, 342; effect of a number of petty - independent states upon, 343; feudalism in, 343; its - political life in the eighteenth century, 345; foreign - thrones acquired by its princes, 346; French aggression - upon, 346; its weakness and stagnation, 347; popular - feeling in at the close of eighteenth century, 354; - Napoleon in, 361; changes in, by war of 1866, 365 note; - influence of the Holy Empire on, 378. - - GERSON, chancellor of Paris, plans of, 301. - - Ghibeline, the name of, 304. - - GOETHE, 236 note, 316 note, 356. - - Golden Bull of Charles IV, 225, 230, 236. - - Goths, wisest and least cruel of the Germanic family, 28; - Arian Goths regarded as enemies by Catholic Italians, 29. - - Greece, her influence in the fifteenth and sixteenth - centuries, 240, 252; her claim to represent the Roman - Empire, 368. - - Greeks and Latins, origin of their separation, 37 note. - - Greeks, effect of their hostility upon the Teutonic Empire, - 210. - - GREGORY THE GREAT, fame of his sanctity and writings, 31; - means by which he advanced Rome's ecclesiastical authority, - 154. - - GREGORY II (Pope), reason of his reluctance to break with - the Byzantine princes, 102. - - GREGORY III (Pope) appeals to Charles Martel for succour - against the Lombards, 39. - - GREGORY V (Pope), 146. - - GREGORY VII (Pope), his condemnation of feudal investitures - to the clergy, 158; war between him and Henry IV, 159; his - letter to William the Conqueror, 160; passage in his second - excommunication of Henry, 161; results of the struggle - between them, 162; his death, 162; his theory as to the - rights of the Pope with respect to the election of - Emperors, 217; his silence about the Translation of the - Empire, 218; his simile between the Empire and the Popedom, - 373; his demands on the Emperor, 386. - - GREGORY IX (Pope), Canon law consolidated by, 102; receives - the title of 'Justinian of the Church,' 102. - - GREGORY X (Pope), 219. - - GROTIUS, 384. - - Guelf, the name of, 304. - - GUIDO, or GUY, of Spoleto, 82. - - GUISCARD, Robert, 292. - - GUNDOBALD the Burgundian, 25. - - GUNTHER of Schwartzburg, 222. - - GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS, 336. - - - H. - - HADRIAN I (Pope), summons Charles (the Great) to resist the - Lombards, 41; motives of his policy, 42; his allusion to - Constantine's Donation, 118 note. - - HADRIAN IV (Pope), Frederick I's contest with, 169, 285; - his pretensions, 197. - - HALLAM, his view of the grant of a Roman dignity to Clovis, - 30 note. - - Hanseatic Confederacy, 223, 347. - - Hapsburg, the castle of, 213 note. - - HAROLD the BLUE-TOOTHED, 143. - - HENRY I (the Fowler), 79, 122, 132, 226. - - HENRY II crowned Emperor, 149. - - HENRY II (King of France), assumes the title of 'Protector - of the German Liberties,' 325. - - HENRY II (King of England), his submissive tone towards - Frederick I, 186. - - HENRY III, power of the Empire at its meridian under, 151; - his reform of the Popedom, 152; fatal results of his - encroachments, 152; his death, 152. - - HENRY IV, election of, 226 note; war between him and - Gregory VII, 159; his humiliation, 159; results of the - struggle, 162; his death, 162. - - HENRY V (Emperor), his claims over ecclesiastics, 163; his - quarrel with Pope Paschal II, 163; his perilous position, - 163; comparison between the prerogative at his death and - that at the accession of Conrad II, 165; tumults produced - by his coronation, 285. - - HENRY V (King of England) refuses submission to the Emperor - Sigismund, 187. - - HENRY VI, 188; his proposal to unite Naples and Sicily to - the Empire, 206; opposition to the scheme, 206; his - untimely death, 206. - - HENRY VII, 221, 223; in Italy, 262; his death, 263. - - HENRY VIII (King of England), 334 note. - - Hessen-Cassel, Elector of, dethroned, 232. - - HILARY, feelings of, towards the Roman Empire, 21 note. - - HILDEBERT (Bishop of Caen), his lines contrasting the past - and present of Rome, 406. - - HILDEBRAND; _see_ Gregory VII. - - HIPPOLYTUS a Lapide, the treatise of, 339. - - Hohenstaufen; _see_ Emperors, Swabian. - - Hohenstaufen, the castle of, 165 note. - - Holland, declared independent, 342. - - Holstein, its relations to the Empire, 398. - - HUGH CAPET, 42. - - HUGH of Burgundy, 83. - - Hungarians, the, 143. - - Hungary, imperial authority exercised in, 183; its - connexion with the Hapsburgs, 184 note. - - HUSS, the writings of, 241. - - - I. - - Iconoclastic controversy, 38. - - 'Imperator electus,' the title of, 316, 405. - - Imperialism, Roman, French, and Mediaeval, 375. - - Imperial titles and ceremonies, 193, 400. - - INNOCENT III (Pope), his exertions on behalf of Otto IV, - 206; his pretensions, 209, 217; his struggle with Frederick - II, 208. - - INNOCENT X and the sacred number Seven of the electors, 227 - note; his protest against the Peace of Westphalia, 341. - - International power, the need of an, 242; why the Roman - Empire an, 248. - - Interregnum, the Great, frightful state of Germany during, - 213; enables the feudal aristocracy to extend their power, - 221. - - Investitures, the struggle of the, 162. - - IRENE (Empress), behaviour of, 47, 61, 68. - - Irminsul, overthrow of, by Charles the Great, 69; meaning - of term, 69 note. - - Italian Emperors, 80. - - Italian nationality, era at which its first rudiments - appeared, 140. - - Italians, modern, their feelings towards Rome, 299. - - Italy, under Odoacer, 26, 27; attempt of Theodoric to - establish a national monarchy in, 27; reconquered by - Justinian, 29; harassed by the Lombards, 37; condition of, - previous to Otto's descent into, 80; Otto the Great's first - expedition into, 84; its connexion with Germany, 87; Otto's - rule in, 139; liberties of the northern cities of, 150; - Frederick I in, 174; Henry VII in, 263; lost to the Empire, - 211, 304; names of Emperors buried in, 287 note; the nation - at the present day, 389. - - Italy, Southern, 150. - - - J. - - JOHN VIII (Pope), 156. - - JOHN XII (Pope), crowns Otto the Great, 87; plots against - him, 134; his reprobate life, 134; Liudprand's list of the - charges against, 135; letter recounting them sent to him, - 136; his reply, 136; Otto's answer, 136; deposed by Otto, - 137; regret of the Romans at his expulsion, 137; his return - and death, 138. - - JOHN XXII (Pope), his conflict with Lewis IV, 220. - - JOSEPH II, reign of, 352. - - JULIUS CAESAR, 390, 392. - - JULIUS II (Pope), 316. - - Jurisprudence, influence of, in supporting the Empire, 31; - aversion of the Romish court to the ancient, 252; influence - of the Empire on modern, 383. - - Jurists, their attitude towards imperialism, 256. - - JUSTINIAN, Italy reconquered by, 29; study of the - legislation of, 240, 256. - - 'Justinian of the Church,' title of, conferred on Gregory - IX, 102. - - Jutland, Otto penetrates into, 143. - - - K. - - Kings, the Emperor's right of creating, 249. - - Knighthood, analogy between priesthood and, 250. - - - L. - - LACTANTIUS, his belief in the eternity of the Roman Empire, - 21. - - LAMBERT (son of Guido of Spoleto), 82. - - Landgrave of Thuringia, choice of the, commanded by the - Pope, 219. - - Lateran Palace at Rome, mosaic of the, 117, 288. - - Latins and Greeks, origin of their separation, 37 note. - - Lauresheim, Annals of, their account of the coronation of - Charles, 53. - - Law, old, the influence exercised by, 32; era of the - revived study of, 276. - - Learning, revival of, 240; connexion between it and - imperialism, 254. - - LEO I (Pope), his assertion of universal jurisdiction, 154. - - LEO the ISAURIAN (Emperor), his attempt to abolish the - worship of images, 38. - - LEO III (Pope), his accession, 43; his adventures, 44; - crowns Charles at Rome on Christmas Day, A.D. 800, 3, 49; - charter of, issued on same day, 106; relation of, to the - act of coronation, 52, 53; lectured by Charles, 64. - - LEO VIII (Pope), 138. - - Leonine city, the, 286 note. - - LEOPOLD I, ninth electorate conferred by, 231. - - LEOPOLD II, 352. - - LEWIS I (the Pious), 76, 77. - - LEWIS II, 77, 104 note, 191, 403. - - LEWIS III (son of Boso), 82. - - LEWIS IV, his conflict with Pope John XXII, 220. - - LEWIS XII (King of France), his pretensions on Naples and - Milan, 315. - - LEWIS XIV (King of France), 346. - - LEWIS (the German) (son of Lewis the Pious), 77. - - LEWIS the CHILD (son of Arnulf), 121. - - Literature, revival of, 240; connexion between it and - imperialism, 254. - - LIUDPRAND (Bishop of Cremona), his list of the accusations - against John XII, 135; account of his embassy to the - princess Theophano, 141. - - LIUDPRAND (King of the Lombards), attacks Rome and the - exarchate, 38. - - Lombard cities, 175; their victory over Frederick I, 178. - - Lombards, arrival of the, A.D. 568, 29, 37; their aversion - to the clergy, 37; the Popes seek help from the Franks - against the, 39; extinction of their kingdom by - Charlemagne, 41. - - LOTHAR I (son of Lewis the Pious), 77, 403. - - LOTHAR II, election of, 165, 228. - - LOTHAR (son of Hugh of Burgundy), 83. - - Lotharingia or Lorraine, 78, 79, 143, 183, 341, 349. - - Luneville, the Peace of, 361. - - LUTHER, 319. - - - M. - - Majesty, the title of, 247 note. - - Mallum, the popular assembly so called, 126. - - MANUEL COMNENUS, 193. - - Mario (Monte), 283. - - MARSILIUS of Padua, his 'de Imperio Romano,' 231 note. - - MAXIMILIAN I, 231, 310; character of his epoch, 310; events - of his reign, 313; his title of 'Imperator electus,' 316, - 405; his proposals to recover Burgundy and Italy, 317. - - MAXIMILIAN II, 323. - - Mayfield, the popular assembly so called, 126. - - Mediaeval art, rights of the Empire set forth in, 116. - - Mediaeval monuments, causes of the want of in Rome, 289. - - MICHAEL, 61. - - MICHAEL ANGELO, capital rebuilt by, 295. - - Middle Ages, the state of the human mind in, 90; theology - of, 95; philosophy of, 97; relations of Church and State - during, 107, 387; mode of interpreting Scriptures in, 114; - art of, 116; opposition of theory and practice in, 133, - 261; real beginning of, 204; reverence for ancient forms - and phrases in, 258; absence of the idea of change or - progress in, 259; the city of Rome in, 269; barbarism of - the aristocracy in, 289; ambition and corruption of the - clergy in the latter, 290; destruction of old buildings by - the Romans of, 292; existing relics of, 294; aspiration for - unity during, 370; the Visible Church in the, 370; ferocity - of the heroes of, 382; ways in which the Empire affected the - political institutions of, 383; idea of the communion of - saints during, 387. - - Milan, Frederick I's dealings with the rebels of, 125; the - rebuilding of, 178; victory of Frederick II over, 287; - pretensions of Charles VIII and Lewis XII of France on, - 315. - - Mahommedanism, rise of, 45. - - Moissac, Chronicle of, its account of the coronation of - Charles, 54, 84. - - MOMMSEN, 390. - - Monarchy, universal, doctrine of, 91, 97. - - Monarchy, elective, 232. - - Mosaics in the churches of Rome, 294. - - MUeLLER, Johannes von, 354. - - Muenster, the treaty of; _see_ Westphalia. - - - N. - - Naples, imperial authority in, 188, 205; pretensions of - Charles VIII and Lewis XII of France on, 315. - - NAPOLEON, as compared with Charles the Great, 74; - extinction of Electorates by, 232; Emperor of the West, - 357; his belief that he was the successor of Charlemagne, - 358; attitude of the Papacy towards, 359; his mission in - Germany, 361. - - Nationalities of Europe, the formation of, 242; relations - of the Empire to the, 390. - - Nationality, struggles of the Teutonic Emperors against, - 388. - - Neo-Platonism, Alexandrian, effect of, 7. - - Nicaea, first council of, 23, 301; second council of, 64. - - NICEPHORUS, 61, 192. - - NICHOLAS I (Pope) and the case of Teutberga, 252. - - NICHOLAS II (Pope), fixes a regular body to elect the Pope, - 158. - - NICHOLAS V (Pope), 279, 292, 312. - - Nobles, the, in feudal times, 125, 221; encroachments of - the, 228. - - Nuernberg, 259. - - - O. - - OCCAM, the English Franciscan, 220. - - ODO, 81. - - ODOACER, extinction of the Western Empire by, A.D. 476, 25; - his original position, 25 note; his assumption of the title - of King, 26; nature of his government, 27. - - OPTATUS (Bishop of Milevis), his treatise _Contra - Donatistas_, 13 note. - - Orsini, the family of, 281. - - Osnabrueck, treaty of; _see_ Westphalia. - - Ostrogoths, 24; war between Belisarius and the, 273. - - OTTO I, the GREAT, appealed to by Adelheid, 83; his first - expedition into Italy, 84; invitation sent by the Pope to, - 84; his victory over the Hungarians, 85; crowned king of - Italy at Rome, 87; his coronation a favourable opening to - sacerdotal claims, 155; causes of the revival of the Empire - under, 84; his coronation feast the inauguration of the - Teutonic realm, 123; consequences of his assumption of the - imperial title, 128; his position towards the Church, 128; - changes in title, 129; his imperial office feudalized, 130; - the Germans made a single people by, 131; incidents which - befel him in Rome, 134; inquires into the character and - manners of Pope John XII, 135; his letters to John, 136; - deposes John, 136; appoints Leo in his stead, 137; his - suppression of the revolts of the Romans on account of - John, 138; his rule in Italy, 139; resumes Charles's plans - of foreign conquest, 140; his policy towards Byzantium, - 141; seeks for his heir the hand of the princess Theophano, - 141; his policy towards the West Franks, 142; his Northern - and Eastern conquests, 143; extent of his empire, 144; - comparison between it and that of Charles, 144; beneficial - results of his rule, 145; how styled by Nicephorus, 211. - - OTTO II, 142; memorials left by, in Rome, 317. - - OTTO III, his plans and ideas, 146, 147, 148; his intense - religious belief in the Emperor's duties, 147; his reason - for using the title 'Romanorum Imperator,' 147; his early - death, 148, 228; his burial at Aachen, 148; respect in - which his life was so memorable, 149; compared with - Frederick II, 207; his expostulation with the Roman people, - 285 note; memorials left by, in Rome, 286. - - OTTO IV, Pope Innocent III's exertions in behalf of, 206; - overthrown by Innocent, 207; explanation of a curious seal - of, 266 note. - - - P. - - PALGRAVE (Sir F.), his view of the grant of a Roman dignity - to Clovis, 30 note. - - PALSGRAVE, deprived of his vote, 231; reinstated, 231. - - Panslavism, Russia's doctrine of, 368. - - Papacy, the Teutonic reform of, 146; Frederick I's bad - relations with, 168; Henry III's purification of, 152, 204; - growth of its power, 153; its relations with the Empire, - 153, 155, 216; its condition after the dissolution of the - Carolingian Empire, 275; its attitude towards Napoleon, - 359. - - Papacy and Empire, interdependence of, 101; its - consequences, 102; struggle between them, 153; their - relations, 155, 216; parallel between, 369; compared as - perpetuation of a name, 372. - - Papal elections, veto of Emperor on, 138, 155. - - Partition treaty of Verdun, 77. - - PASCHAL II (Pope), his quarrel with Henry V, 163. - - Patrician of the Romans, import of the title, 40; date when - it was bestowed on Pipin, 40 note. - - PATRITIUS, secretary of Frederick III, on the poverty of - the Empire, 224. - - Pavia, the Council of, and Charles the Bald, 156. - - Persecution, Protestant, 330. - - Peter's (St.), old, 48. - - PETRARCH, his feelings towards the Empire, 254; towards the - city of Rome, 270. - - PFEFFINGER, 351 note. - - PHILIP of Hohenstaufen, contest between Otto of Brunswick - and, 206; his assassination, 206. - - Philosophy, scholastic, spread of, in the thirteenth - century, 240. - - PIPIN of Herstal, 35. - - PIPIN the SHORT appointed successor to Childeric, 39; twice - rescues Rome from the Lombards, 39; receives the title of - Patrician of the Romans, 40; import of this title, 40; date - at which it was bestowed, 40 note. - - PIUS VII (Pope), 359. - - Placitum, the popular assembly so called, 126. - - PODIEBRAD (George), (King of Bohemia), 223. - - Poland, imperial authority in, 184; partition of, 345. - - Politics, beginning of the existence of, 241. - - Popes, emancipation of the, 27, 37, 281, 282; appeal to the - Franks for succour against the Lombards, 39; their reasons - for desiring the restoration of the Western Empire, 45, 46; - their theory respecting the coronation of Charles, 57; - their profligacy in the tenth century, 82, 85, 275; their - theory respecting the chair of St. Peter, 99; their - position and functions, 104; growth of their pretensions, - 108, 156, 217; and power, 153; their relations to the - Emperor, 155; their temporal power, 157; their position as - international judges, 243; reaction against their - pretensions, 243, 275; their aversion to the study of - ancient jurisprudence, 252; hostility of, to the Germans, - 284; nature of the question at issue between the Emperors - and, 385. - - PORCARO (Stephen), conspiracy of, 279. - - Praetaxation, the so-called right of, 228, 229. - - Pragmatic Sanctions of Frederick II, 212, 221. - - Prague, University of, 237. - - Prerogative, Imperial, contrast of, at accession of Conrad - II and death of Henry V, 165. - - Priesthood, analogy between knighthood and, 250. - - Princes, league of, formed by Frederick the Great, 352. - - Protestant States, their conduct after the Reformation, - 330. - - Protestants of Germany, their alliance with France, 325. - - Public Peace and Imperial Chamber, establishment of the, - 313. - - - R. - - RADULFUS DE COLONNA, his account of the origin of the - separation of Greeks and Latins, 37 note. - - Ravenna, exarch of, 27. - - Reformation, dawnings of the, 240; Charles V's attitude - towards the, 321; influence of its spirit on the Empire, - 319, 325; its real meaning, 325; its effect on the - doctrines regarding the Visible Church, 327; consequent - effect upon the Empire, 328; its small immediate influence - on political and religious liberty, 329; conduct of the - Protestant States after the, 330; its influence on the name - and associations of the Empire, 332. - - Religion, influence of, in supporting the Empire, 31; wars - of, 330. - - Renaissance, the, 240, 311. - - 'Renovatio Romani Imperii,' signification of the seal - bearing legend of, 103. - - Rhine, towns of the, 223; provisions of the Confederation - of the, 362. - - RICHARD I (King of England), pays homage to the Emperor - Henry VI, 186; his release, 187. - - RICHARD (Earl of Cornwall), his double election with - Alfonso X of Castile, 212, 229. - - RICHELIEU, policy of, 336. - - RICIMER (patrician), 25. - - RIENZI, Petrarch's letter to the Roman people respecting, - 255; his character and career, 278. - - Romans, revolts of the, at the expulsion of Pope John XII, - 137, 138; Otto's vigorous measures against the, 138; their - revolt from the Iconoclastic Emperors of the East, 274; the - title of King of the, 404. - - Romanism or Catholicity, 94, 106. - - Rome, commanding position of, in the second century, 7; - prestige of, not destroyed by the partition of the Empire, - 9; lingering influences of her Church and Law, 31, 32; - claim of, to the right of conferring the imperial crown, - 57, 61, 81; republican institutions of, renewed, 83; - profligacy of, in the tenth century, 82, 85; under Arnold - of Brescia, 174; imitations of old, 257; in the Middle - Ages, 269; absence of Gothic in, 271; the modern traveller - in, 271, 283; causes of her rapid decay, 273; peculiarities - of her position, 274; her internal history from the sixth - to the twelfth century, 274; her condition in the ninth and - tenth centuries, 274; growth of a republican feeling in, - 276; short-sighted policy of the Emperors towards, 277; - causes of the failure of the struggle for independence in, - 280; her internal condition, 280; her people, 280; her - nobility, 281; her bishop, 281; relation of the Emperor to, - 282; the Emperors' visits to, 282; dislike of, to the - Germans, 285; memorials of Otto III in, 286; of Otto II, - 287; of Frederick II, 287; causes of the want of mediaeval - monuments in, 289; barbarism of the aristocracy of, 289; - ambition, weakness, and corruption of the clergy of, 290; - tendency of her builders to adhere to the ancient manner, - 290; destruction and alteration of old buildings in, 291; - her modern churches, 293; existing relics of Dark and - Middle Ages in, 291; changed aspect of, 295; analogy - between her architecture and the civil and ecclesiastical - constitution, 296; relation of, to the Empire, 297; - feelings of modern Italians towards, 299; perpetuation of - the name of, 367; parallel instances, 367; Hildebert's - lines contrasting the past and present of, 406. - - ROMULUS AUGUSTULUS, his resignation at Odoacer's bidding, - 25. - - RUDOLF (King of Transjurane), 81. - - RUDOLF of Hapsburg, 213, 219, 221, 222; financial distress - under, 224; Schiller's description of the coronation feast - of, 231 note, 262. - - RUDOLF II, 335. - - RUDOLF III, 151. - - RUDOLF of Swabia, 162. - - RUDOLF III (King of Burgundy), his proposal to bequeath - Burgundy to Henry II, 151. - - Russia, her claim to represent the Roman Empire, 368. - - - S. - - Sachsenspiegel, the, 108 note. - - SALADIN (the Sultan), Frederick I's letter to, 189. - - Santa Maria Novella at Florence, fresco in, 118. - - Saxon Emperors, 133. - - Saxony, extinction of the dukedom of, 222. - - Schleswig, its annexation by Otto, 143; its relation to the - Empire, 398. - - Scholastic philosophy, spread of, in the thirteenth - century, 240. - - Seal, ascribed to A. D. 800, 103. - - SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS, concentration of power in his hands, 5, - 6. - - SERGIUS IV (Pope), 228 note. - - Seven Years' War, 352. - - Sicambri, probably the chief source of the Frankish nation, - 34. - - Sicily, imperial authority in, 188, 205. - - SIGISMUND (the Burgundian king), his desire to preserve the - institutions of the Empire, 18. - - SIGISMUND (Emperor), his visit to Henry V, 187; at the - Council of Constance, 253, 301. - - Simony, measures taken against, 158. - - Slavic races, the, 27, 143, 260, 378. - - Smalkaldic league, the, 322. - - Southern Italy, 150. - - Spain, Otto's position towards, 143; authority not - exercised by any Emperor in, 185; compared with Germany, - 303. - - Speyer, Diet of, 111 note. - - STEPHANIA (widow of Crescentius), 148. - - Swabia, extinction of the dukedom of, 222; the towns of, - 223, 313; theory of the Emperors of the house of, - respecting the coronation of Charles, 57. - - Sweden, improbability of imperial pretensions to, 185. - - Swiss Confederation, the, 306; her gains by treaties of - Westphalia, 341. - - Switzerland lost to the Empire, 306, 342. - - SYLVESTER (Pope), 43. - - - T. - - Taxes, mode of collecting in Roman Empire, 9 note. - - TERTULLIAN, his feelings towards the Roman Emperor, 21 - note, 23 note. - - TEUTBERGA (wife of Lothar), the famous case of, 252. - - Teutonic race, political character of the, 376. - - THEODEBERT (son of Clovis), his desire to preserve the - institutions of the Empire, 18. - - THEODORIC the Ostrogoth, his attempt to establish a - national monarchy in Italy, 27, 28; its failure, 29; his - usual place of residence, 28 note; prosperity under his - reign, 29. - - THEODOSIUS (the Emperor), his abasement before St. Ambrose, - 12. - - THEOPHANO (princess), 141. - - Thirty Years' War, 335; its unsatisfactory results, 336; - its substantial advantage to the German princes, 338. - - THOMAS (St.), his statement respecting the election of - Emperors, 227. - - Tithes, first enforced by Charles the Great, 67. - - Titles, change of, 129, 316, 400. - - Tortona, Frederick I's dealing with the rebels of, 175. - - Transalpine provinces, influence of the Empire in, 30. - - 'Translation of the Empire,' 52, 111, 175, 218. - - Transubstantiation, 326 note. - - Turks, the, 303; their claim to represent the Roman Empire, - 368. - - TURPIN (Archbishop), 51 note. - - - U. - - University of Prague, foundation of, 237. - - Unity, political, idea of, upheld by the clergy, 96. - - URBAN IV (Pope), on the right of choosing the Roman king, - 229. - - - V. - - Venice, her attitude, 171; imperial pretensions towards, - 188; maintains her independence, 188. - - Verdun, partition treaty of, 77. - - VESPASIAN, his dying jest, 23 note. - - Vienna, Congress of, 364. - - VILLANI (Matthew), his idea of the Teutonic Emperors, 304; - his etymology of Guelf and Ghibeline, 304 note. - - Visigothic kings of Spain, the Empire's rights admitted by - the, 30. - - - W. - - WALLENSTEIN, 335. - - WENZEL of Bohemia, 223. - - Western Empire, its last days, 24, 25; its extinction by - Odoacer, 26; its restoration, 34. - - Westphalia, the Peace of, 336; its advantages to France, - 341; to Sweden, 341; its importance in imperial history, - 342. - - WICKLIFFE, excitement caused by his writings, 241. - - WILLIAM the Conqueror, letter of Hildebrand to, 160. - - WIPPO, 227 note. - - WITUKIND, 85 note. - - WOITECH (St. Adalbert), 269. - - World-Monarchy, the idea of a, 91; influence of metaphysics - upon the theory, 97. - - World-Religion, the idea of a, 91; coincides with the - World-Empire, 92. - - Worms, Concordant of, 163; Diet of, 319, 334. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Holy Roman Empire, by James Bryce - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE *** - -***** This file should be named 44101.txt or 44101.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/1/0/44101/ - -Produced by Melissa McDaniel, Stephen Rowland, and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net -(This file was produced from images generously made -available by The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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