LIII. of the West, who stretched beyond their knowledge to the CHAP. shores of the Atlantic Ocean. The vast body had been inspired and united by the soul of Charlemagne; but the division and degeneracy of his race soon annihilated the Imperial power, which would have rivalled the Cæsars of Byzantium, and revenged the indignities of the Christian name. The enemies no longer feared, nor could the subjects any longer trust, the application of a public revenue, the labours of trade and manufactures in the military service, the mutual aid of provinces and armies, and the naval squadrons which were regularly stationed from the mouth of the Elbe to that of the Tyber. In the beginning of the tenth century, the family of Charlemagne had almost disappeared; his monarchy was broken into many hostile and independent states: the regal title was assumed by the most ambitious chiefs; their revolt was imitated in a long subordination of anarchy and discord, and the nobles of every province disobeyed their sovereign, oppressed their vassals, and exercised perpetual hostilities against their equals and neighbours. Their private wars, which overturned the fabric of government, fomented the martial spirit of the nation. In the system of modern Europe, the power of the sword is possessed, at least in fact, by five or six mighty potentates; their operations are conducted on a distant frontier, by an order of men who devote their lives to the study and practice of the military art: the rest of the country and community enjoys in the midst of war the tranquillity of peace, and is only made sensible of the change by the aggravation or decrease of the public taxes. In the disorders of the tenth and eleventh centuries, every peasant was a soldier, and every village a fortification; each wood or valley was a scene of murder and rapine; and the lords of each castle were compelled to assume the character of princes and warriors. To their own courage and policy, they boldly trusted for the safety of their family, the protection of their lands, and the revenge of their injuries; and, like the conquerors of a larger size, they were too apt to transgress the privilege of defensive war. The powers of the mind and body were hardened by the presence of danger and necessity of resolution: the same spirit refused to desert a friend and to forgive an enemy; and, instead of sleeping under the CHAP. guardian care of the magistrate, they proudly disdained the LIII. authority of the laws. In the days of feudal anarchy, the instruments of agriculture and art were converted into the weapons of bloodshed: the peaceful occupations of civil and ecclesiastical society were abolished or corrupted; and the bishop who exchanged his mitre for an helmet, was more forcibly urged by the manners of the times than by the obligation of his tenure." Their character and tactics. The love of freedom and of arms was felt, with conscious pride, by the Franks themselves, and is observed by the Greeks with some degree of amazement and terror. "The "Franks," says the emperor Constantine," are bold and "valiant to the verge of temerity; and their dauntless spirit "is supported by the contempt of danger and death. In the "field and in close onset, they press to the front, and rush "headlong against the enemy, without deigning to compute "either his numbers or their own. Their ranks are formed "by the firm connections of consanguinity and friendship; "and their martial deeds are prompted by the desire of "saving or revenging their dearest companions. In their << eyes, a retreat is a shameful flight; and flight is indelible 66 infamy." A nation endowed with such high and intrepid spirit, must have been secure of victory, if these advantages had not been counterbalanced by many weighty defects. The decay of their naval power left the Greeks and Saracens in possession of the sea, for every purpose of annoyance and supply. In the age which preceded the institution of knighthood, the Franks were rude and unskilful in the service of cavalry;91 and in all perilous emergencies, their warriors were so conscious of their ignorance, that 89 On this subject of ecclesiastical and beneficiary discipline, father Thomassin (tom. iii. L. i. c. 40. 45, 46, 47.) may be usefully consulted. A general law of Charlemague exempted the bishops from personal service; but the opposite practice, which prevailed from the ixth to the xvth century, is countenanced by the example or silence of saints and doctors. ... You justify your cowardice by the holy canons, says Rutherius of Verona; the canons likewise forbid you to whore, and yet....... 90 In the xviiith chapter of his Tactics, the emperor Leo has fairly stated the military vices and virtues of the Franks (whom Meursius ridiculously translates by Galli) and the Lombards, or Langobards. See likewise the xxvith Dissertation of Muratori de Antiquitatibus Italiæ medii Ævi. 91 Domini tui milites (says the proud Nicephorus) equitandi ignari pedestris pugnæ sunt inscii: scutorum magnitudo, loricarum gravitudo, ensium longitudo, galearumque pondus neutrà parte pugnare eos finit; ac subridens, impedit, inquit, ac eos gastrunargia hoc est ventris ingluvies, &c. Liutprand, in Legat. p. 480, 481. LIII. they chose to dismount from their horses and fight on foot. CHAP. Unpractised in the use of pikes, or of missile weapons, they were encumbered by the length of their swords, the weight of their armour, the magnitude of their shields, and, if I may repeat the satire of the meagre Greeks, by their unwieldy intemperance. Their independent spirit disdained the yoke of subordination, and abandoned the standard of their chief, if he attempted to keep the field beyond the term of their stipulation or service. On all sides they were open to the snares of an enemy, less brave, but more artful, than themselves. They might be bribed, for the Barbarians were venal; or surprised in the night, for they neglected the precautions of a close encampment or vigilant centinels. The fatigues of a summer's campaign exhausted their strength and patience, and they sunk in despair if their voracious appetite was disappointed of a plentiful supply of wine and of food. This general character of the Franks was marked with some national and local shades, which I should ascribe to accident, rather than to climate, but which were visible both to natives and to foreigners. An ambassador of the great Otho declared, in the palace of Constantinople, that the Saxons could dispute with swords better than with pens; and that they preferred inevitable death to the dishonour of turning their backs to an enemy.92 It was the glory of the nobles of France, that, in their humble dwellings, war and rapine were the only pleasure, the sole occupation, of their lives. They affected to deride the palaces, the banquets, the polished manners, of the Italians, who, in the estimate of the Greeks themselves, had degenerated from the liberty and valour of the ancient Lombards.93 92 In Saxonia certe scio.... decentius ensibus pugnare quam calamis, et prius mortem obire quam hostibus terga dare (Liutprand, p. 482) 93 Φραγίοι τοίνυν και Λογιβάρδοι λόγον ελευθερίας περι πολλές ποιειται, αλλ' οι μεν Λογιβαρδον το πλέον της τοιαυτης αρετης νυν arwλrav. Leonis Tactica, c. 18. p. 805. The emperor Leo died A. D.911: an historical poem, which ends in 916, and appears to have been composed in 940, by a native of Venetia, discriminates in these verses the manners of Italy and France: ......Quid inertia bello Pectora (Ubertus ait) duris prætenditis armis Non eadem Gallos similis vel cura remordet; Depres CHAP. Oblivion of By the well-known edict of Caracalla, his subjects, from Britain to Egypt, were entitled to the name and privileges of Romans, and their national sovereign might fix his occathe Latin sional or permanent residence in any province of their comlanguage. mon country. In the division of the East and West, an ideal unity was scrupulously preserved, and in their titles, laws, and statutes, the successors of Arcadius and Honorius announced themselves as the inseparable colleagues of the same office, as the joint sovereigns of the Roman world and city, which were bounded by the same limits. After the fall of the Western monarchy, the majesty of the purple resided solely in the princes of Constantinople; and of these Justinian was the first, who after a divorce of sixty years regained the dominion of ancient Rome, and asserted, by the right of conquest, the august title of emperor of the Romans.94 A motive of vanity or discontent solicited one of his successors, Constans the second, to abandon the Thracian Bosphorus, and to restore the pristine honours of the Tyber: an extravagant project (exclaims the malicious Byzantine), as if he had despoiled a beautiful and blooming virgin, to enrich, or rather to expose, the deformity of a wrinkled and decripid matron.95 But the sword of the Lombards opposed his settlement in Italy: he entered Rome, not as a conquerbut as a fugitive, and after a visit of twelve days, he pillaged, and for ever deserted, the ancient capital of the world.9 The final revolt and separation of Italy was accomplished about two centuries after the conquests of Justinian, and or, Depressumque larem spoliis hinc inde coactis (Anonym. Carmen Panegyricum de Laudibus Berengarii Augusti, I. ii. in 94 Justinian, says the historian Agathias (1 v. p. 157.) жрwτos РwμCLIENT αυτοκρατωρ ονοματι και πραγματι. Yet the specific title of emperor of the Romans was not used at Constantinople, till it had been claimed by the French and German emperors of old Rome. 95 Constantine Manasses reprobates this design in his barbarous verse: and it is confirmed by Theophanes, Zonaras, Cedrenus, and the Historia Mis- 96 Paul Diacon. 1. v. c. 11. p. 480. Anastasius in Vitis Pontificum, in Muratori's Collection, tom. iii. pars i. p. 141. LIII. from his reign we may date the gradual oblivion of the Latin CHAP. tongue. That legislator had composed his Institutes, his Code, and his Pandects, in a language which he celebrates as the proper and public style of the Roman government, the consecrated idiom of the palace and senate of Constantinople, of the camps and tribunals of the East." But this foreign dialect was unknown to the people and soldiers of the Asiatic provinces, it was imperfectly understood by the greater part of the interpreters of the laws and the ministers of the state. After a short conflict, nature and habit prevailed over the obsolete institutions of human power: for the general benefit of his subjects, Justinian promulgated his novels in the two languages; the several parts of his volu minous jurisprudence were successively translated:" the original was forgotten, the version was studied, and the Greek, whose intrinsic merit deserved indeed the preference, obtained a legal as well as popular establishment in the Byzantine monarchy. The birth and residence of succeeding princes estranged them from the Roman idiom: Tiberius by the Arabs," and Maurice by the Italians,100 are distinguished as the first of the Greek Cæsars, as the founders of a new dynasty and empire: the silent revolution was accomplished before the death of Heraclius; and the ruins of the Latin speech were darkly preserved in the terms of jurisprudence and the acclamations of the palace. After the restoration of 97 Consult the preface of Ducange (ad Gloss. Græc. medii Ævi), and the novels of Justinian (vii. lxvi). The Greek language was xoves, the Latin was πατριος to himself, κυριώτατος to the πολιτείας σχημα, the system of go vernment. 98. Ον μεν αλλα και Λατινικη λεξις και φρασις εις επι της νομός της συνείναι ταύτην μη δυναμένες απετείχιζε (Matth. Blastares, Hist. Juris, apud Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. xii. p. 369). The Code and Pandects (the latter by Thalelaus) were translated in the time of Justinian (p. 358. 366). Theophilus, one of the original triumvirs, has left an elegant, though diffuse, paraphrase of the Institutes. On the other hand, Julian, antecessor of Con. stantinople (A. D. 570), cxx. Novellas Græcas eleganti Latinitate donavit (Heineccius, Hist. J. R. p. 396.) for the use of Italy and Africa. 99 Abulpharagius assigns the viith Dynasty to the Franks or Romans, the viith to the Greeks, the ixth;to the Arabs. A tempore Augusti Cæsaris donec imperaret Tiberius Cæsar spatio circiter annorum 600 fuerunt Imperatores C. P. Patricii, et præcipua pars exercitûs Romani: extra quod, consiliarii, scribe et populus, omnes Græci fuerunt: deinde regnum etiam Græcan cum factum est (p. 96. vers. Pocock). The Christian and ecclesiastical studies of Abulpharagius gave him some advantage over the more ignorant Moslems. 100 Primus ex Græcorum genere in Imperio confirmatus est; or, according to another MS. of Paulus Diaconus (1. iiii c, 15. p. 443), in Græcorum Imperio. |