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CHAP. IX.

Towards the

Emperor. They refused him that title altogether; and when the Pope had, in a letter addressed 'Imperatori Graecorum,' asked Nicephorus Phocas, successor of Romanus II and stepfather of Theophano, 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 reviling the citizens of Rome, while he insinuated that Constantinople had no right to take 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 κоσμокрάTopes.' Nicephorus among other demands required the 'theme' or province of Rome as the price of compliance; his successor, and murderer, John Tzimiskes, was more moderate, and Theophano became the bride of Otto II.

Holding the two capitals of Charles the Great, Otto West Franks. 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 the claim by making Eudes, the first king of the line which takes its name from his grand-nephew Hugh Capet, receive the crown as a feudatory: Henry the Fowler had been less. successful. Otto pursued the same course, intriguing with the discontented nobles of the Carolingian Louis d'Outremer, and receiving their fealty as Superior of Roman Gaul. These pretensions, however, could have

iSancti imperii nostri olim servos principes, Beneventanum scilicet, tradat,' &c. — Legatio, c. 15. The epithet is worth noticing.

been made effective only by arms, and the feudal militia CHAP. IX. of the tenth century was no such instrument of conquest as the hosts of Clovis and Charles had been. The star of the Carolingian king upon the fortress-hill of Laon was paling before the rising greatness of the Parisian Capets a Romano-Celtic 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. The modern kingdom of France' may be said to date from the accession of Hugh Capet, A.D. 987, and the claims of the Roman Empire were never afterwards formally admitted.

and Bur

gundy

Of that France, however, Aquitaine was virtually inde- Lorraine pendent. Lotharingia and Burgundy did not belong to it at all. 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 (till the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) 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).

Otto's conquests to the North and East approved him

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 Eastern Emperor included 'sub Francorum nomine tam Latinos quam Teutonicos.' Probably this use dates from the time of Charles.

CHAP. IX.
Denmark
and the
Slaves.

England.

Extent of Otto's Empire.

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 relieved Europe from the fear of Asiatic invasions by strengthening the frontier of Austria. Over more distant lands, Northern 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, and it was perhaps partly with this intent that he gained for Otto the hand of Edith, sister of the English king Athelstan the Victorious. 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,' 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.

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

* Conring, De Finibus Imperii.

1 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. See hereon Freeman, Hist. of Norm. Conquest, vol. i. ch. 3, § 4; who, however, draws from the use of such titles conclusions regarding the rights of the English kings over the whole of Britain which seem unwarranted.

between it

subject but separate kingdoms, Burgundy, Bohemia and CHAP. IX. Moravia, Poland, Denmark, perhaps Hungary. Its char- Comparison acter was less ecclesiastical. Otto exalted indeed the spirit- and that of ual potentates of his realm, and was earnest in spreading Charles. 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, summoned no councils, and did not, like his predecessor, criticise 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 earlier Caesars. He could not speak Latin, though he tried in middle life to learn it, 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 an order 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. The political connection with Italy, while stirring their spirit, brought with it a knowledge and culture hitherto unknown, and gave the newly kindled energy an

CHAP. IX.

Otto II,

Otto III, A.D. 983

1002.

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 RomanoGermanic 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 national and social forces 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. The time of Otto the Great has required a fuller treatA.D. 973-983. ment, 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 Eastern princess Theophano; his perceptor the illustrious Gerbert of Aurillac (who had studied in the schools of Moorish Spain), archbishop, first of Rheims and afterwards of Ravenna through the one he felt himself connected with the legitimacy of the Eastern Empire, and had imbibed its absolutist spirit; 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 birth of Christ 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,

His ideas. Fascination exercised

over him by the name of Rome.

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