A. D. 500-800 which he presided, and whose decisions he assumed the right CHAP. II to confirm. Dying soon afterward, he was interred in the Church of the Holy Apostles, which he had built. The Catholic Church had found in him a son and a champion whose service prepared the way for that mediaeval Empire which was to carry forward the imperial idea to a new period of supremacy. But the realization of the hopes which Catholicism had The mission attached to Clovis was destined to be long deferred. The of the Franks successive partitions of the kingdom he had founded, the family jealousies, the palace intrigues, and the savage crimes of his descendants left little vigor for the great work which still lay before the Frankish kings. And yet this period of internal strife marks a new epoch in the barbarian movements. Up to the time of Clovis the invading hordes of the East had moved steadily westward, each new contingent pressing its predecessors forward until they had been swallowed up and encompassed within the limits of the Empire. Thenceforth that tide was to be turned backward, and conquest was to proceed in the opposite direction. The Franks alone, of all the barbarian races which had invaded the Empire, were not wholly absorbed by it; but kept, as it were, an open channel of communication with the great Germanic background. It was the Franks who, turning their faces eastward, not only checked further advances of the barbarians into Gaul, but carried their conquests into the barbarian world, gradually spreading among its savage tribes the civilization which they themselves had acquired. When, at last, in the eighth century, their three kingdoms -Austrasia, Neustria, and Burgundy - were finally united in one strong monarchy, the Franks were to become the defenders of Christendom against the Avars of the East and the Arabs of the South, who threatened to overwhelm Europe with a new deluge of barbarism. Retaining many of their ancient Germanic ideas and The internal customs, the Franks acquired from their contact with the development Romans a new political organization. Their kingship, which of the Frank ish monarchy CHAP. II A. D. 500-800 had been elective, became hereditary and tended toward a personal despotism. Three causes contributed to the growing power of the Frankish kings, one of which was destined in the course of time to destroy the Merovingian dynasty, so ancient that its origin, derived from a half mythical Merovius, is lost in an unrecorded past. The first of these causes was the extent of the royal domain derived through the appropriation of the old imperial lands in Gaul, which at the time of the conquest became the private property of the Frankish kings, and with the union of the kingdoms furnished a rich revenue to the royal treasury. A second cause of ascendency was the deep reverence for royalty which had become customary to the minds of the Gallo-Roman population under the Empire, and the habit of absolute obedience to a central authority acquired under imperial rule. These qualities of subordination, inborn in the old Roman provincials, gradually modified the strong individualism of the Germanic element and ended in the abolition of those ancient assemblies which had been the chief safeguards of equality and freedom among the German tribes. The third cause of the tendency toward personal despotism was the organization of the royal administration and the concentration of public authority in the hands of the King's personal adherents. Of these there were two classes, those pertaining to the royal household, or palace, and the local governors. The royal household included the Mayor of the Palace, who was originally the King's chief servant, but finally came to be in effect his substitute; the Count Palatine, who acted as legal adviser and assessor; the Royal Secretary, the Treasurer, and the Marshal. These personal servants of the King were intrusted with duties which gave them the quality of public officers exercising a supreme authority. The local governors were the counts and dukes, persons appointed by the King, who administered justice, raised revenue, and commanded the army in the parts of the realm over which they presided. Hardly less serviceable to the cause of royalty were the bishops, who at first supported the monarchy because it was friendly to the Church, but soon received the confirmation of their election at the hands of the King, were eventually even chosen and appointed by him, and found in their direct relation to his person a means of maintaining their own authority when it was menaced or invaded by the counts and dukes. The spirit of the imperial system thus reappeared in the organization of the Frankish monarchy, but not without resistance; for the Frankish aristocracy, inspired by the ancient Germanic sense of independence, often combined to throw restraints about the royal power. It was the commencement of that long struggle between central authority and local sovereignty which forms the principal drama of European history. The most rude and untamed of the Germanic tribes who invaded the Empire were the Lombards. In the second century they had dwelt on the banks of the Oder, but following in the track of the Goths, and in alliance with the Avars, they pressed into Pannonia, and were finally established by Justinian in Noricum, whence they furnished recruits to his army in the reconquest of Italy. So ruthless by nature that they plundered friend and foe alike, in 568, reinforced by { contingents from other tribes, the whole people crossed the Alps and descended into Northern Italy. So undisciplined that for a long period they were without a king, they ravaged the land with merciless ferocity. In the North they met but a feeble resistance, and easily took possession of the country. Choosing a king, and fixing their capital at Pavia, the Lombards divided the Italian peninsula with the Eastern Empire, which left its Italian domain under the charge of an exarch, residing at Ravenna, and the dukes to whom the local control was intrusted. Gradually absorbing the Roman civilization, and at last through the influence of Queen Theodelinda accepting the Catholic religion, the Lombards became great builders, whose monuments still lend a distinctive character to Northern Italy. In the person of their CHAP. II A. D. 500-800 The Lombards in Italy A. D. CHAP. II king Liutprand they at length found a leader who appeared about to conquer and reorganize the whole of the Italian peninsula, when the papal diplomacy suddenly changed the1 situation and gave a new direction to the history of Europe. 500-800 The state of Lombard oc cupation The struggle between the Empire and the Lombards for Italy after the the possession of Italy left the entire country in a state of impoverishment. Placed under the protection of imperial officers sent from Constantinople to govern them, their lands fallen into the possession of an aristocracy that often joined to its ownership of the soil political authority derived from the Eastern Emperor, the Italian people, outside of the cities, fell into a social condition closely bordering upon feudalism. Public authority and private property became almost identified. The few small proprietors who remained, weary of supporting the burden of taxation, worn out and discouraged, sought release from their misfortunes by alienating their little properties and placing themselves under the protection of their stronger neighbors. It was the Church which most largely profited from this general abandonment of life. The peace of the sanctuary and the promised blessings of another world were welcome to men who had been robbed by the invader and the imperial authorities alike, and who had found this life so unfriendly and disappointing. Numbers of small proprietors, and some great ones, eagerly renounced their earthly possessions, gladly confiding them to the care of the Church. Thus the clergy became more and more a dominant force in society, the custodian of its substance and the regulator of its life. Almost everywhere it was the bishops who became the protectors of the people against official rapacity and private greed, nourishing the poor, managing the finances of the municipalities, superintending their public works, and in many cases controlling the whole civil administration. The spread of monasticism Already long practised in the East, monasticism found in the sixth century every favorable condition for its development in the West. In 528, St. Benedict founded the order that bears his name, and erected a monastery at Monte Casino.1 Clothing with sacred authority the old imperial principle of absolute obedience, he created a new world for the troubled mind of his age by the sane industry and simple life of his new order, to which multitudes devoted themselves with absolute consecration. Scattered everywhere throughout Europe, his disciples needed the protection of a 1 central power, and this they found in the papal authority at Rome. In return, a vast army of faithful adherents, truly international in its character, was thus placed at the disposal of the Pope. How great an influence it has had upon the destinies of Europe is shown by the fact that this one monastic order, leading a life of tranquil toil and furnishing to that age an asylum for intellectual culture, is said to have given to the world, besides numberless industrious tillers of the soil, skilful artisans, and patient teachers, twenty-four popes, two hundred cardinals, five thousand six hundred archbishops and bishops, and more than fifteen thousand writers. II. THE REUNIFICATION OF EUROPE BY THE CHURCH CHAP. II A. D. 500-800 All the circumstances of the time tended to strengthen The growth of the influence of the Papacy. Even the miseries of Rome the Papacy during the Lombard invasion, when her churches were pillaged, her priests massacred, and her population nearly exterminated, furnished occasion for enhancing the prestige of her bishop; who, in the person of Gregory I, called the Great, seemed to the people of Rome like a messenger sent from heaven. Descended from an ancient and honorable Roman family, possessing all the culture of his time, and having served as prefect of the city, Gregory had renounced his ample fortune, founded seven monasteries, and retired from the world. From the seclusion of his cell on the Aventine, he was sent, much against his will, as the envoy of Pope 1 For the Rule of St. Benedict, see Henderson, Select Documents, pp. 274, 314; also for the Latin text, Migne, Patrologia, vol. 66, column 215. |