History Of The Decline And Fall Of The
Edward Gibbon, Esq.
With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman
Vol. 5
1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of
Part I.
Introduction,
Worship, And Persecution Of Images. - Revolt
Of
Of
And Coronation Of Charlemagne. - Restoration And Decay Of
The
Of The Germanic Body.
In the
connection of the church and state, I have considered
the former as subservient only, and relative, to the
latter; a
salutary maxim, if in fact, as well as in narrative, it
had ever
been held sacred.
The Oriental philosophy of the Gnostics, the
dark abyss of predestination and grace, and the strange
transformation of the Eucharist from the sign to the
substance of
Christ's body, ^1 I have purposely abandoned to the
curiosity of
speculative divines.
But I have reviewed, with diligence and
pleasure, the objects of ecclesiastical history, by which
the
decline and fall of the
the propagation of Christianity, the constitution of the
Catholic
church, the ruin of Paganism, and the sects that arose
from the
mysterious controversies concerning the Trinity and
incarnation.
At the head of this class, we may justly rank the worship
of
images, so fiercely disputed in the eighth and ninth
centuries;
since a question of popular superstition produced the
revolt of
the
[Footnote 1: The learned
transubstantiation in a comprehensive and pithy sentence:
"This
opinion is only rhetoric turned into logic," (his
Works, vol.
iii. p. 2037, in his Table-Talk.)]
The primitive
Christians were possessed with an
unconquerable repugnance to the use and abuse of images;
and this
aversion may be ascribed to their descent from the Jews,
and
their enmity to the Greeks. The Mosaic law had severely
proscribed all representations of the Deity; and that
precept was
firmly established in the principles and practice of the
chosen
people. The wit of
the Christian apologists was pointed against
the foolish idolaters, who bowed before the workmanship
of their
own hands; the images of brass and marble, which, had
they been
endowed with sense and motion, should have started rather
from
the pedestal to adore the creative powers of the artist.
^2
Perhaps some recent and imperfect converts of the Gnostic
tribe
might crown the statues of Christ and
honors which they paid to those of Aristotle and
Pythagoras; ^3
but the public religion of the Catholics was uniformly
simple and
spiritual; and the first notice of the use of pictures is
in the
censure of the council of Illiberis, three hundred years
after
the Christian aera.
Under the successors of
peace and luxury of the triumphant church, the more
prudent
bishops condescended to indulge a visible superstition,
for the
benefit of the multitude; and, after the ruin of
Paganism, they
were no longer restrained by the apprehension of an
odious
parallel. The
first introduction of a symbolic worship was in
the veneration of the cross, and of relics. The saints and
martyrs, whose intercession was implored, were seated on
the
right hand if God; but the gracious and often supernatural
favors, which, in the popular belief, were showered round
their
tomb, conveyed an unquestionable sanction of the devout
pilgrims,
who visited, and touched, and kissed these lifeless
remains, the
memorials of their merits and sufferings. ^4 But a
memorial, more
interesting than the skull or the sandals of a departed
worthy,
is the faithful copy of his person and features,
delineated by
the arts of painting or sculpture. In every age, such copies, so
congenial to human feelings, have been cherished by the
zeal of
private friendship, or public esteem: the images of the
Roman
emperors were adored with civil, and almost religious,
honors; a
reverence less ostentatious, but more sincere, was
applied to the
statues of sages and patriots; and these profane virtues,
these
splendid sins, disappeared in the presence of the holy
men, who
had died for their celestial and everlasting
country. At first,
the experiment was made with caution and scruple; and the
venerable pictures were discreetly allowed to instruct
the
ignorant, to awaken the cold, and to gratify the
prejudices of
the heathen proselytes.
By a slow though inevitable progression,
the honors of the original were transferred to the copy:
the
devout Christian prayed before the image of a saint; and
the
Pagan rites of genuflection, luminaries, and incense,
again stole
into the Catholic church.
The scruples of reason, or piety, were
silenced by the strong evidence of visions and miracles;
and the
pictures which speak, and move, and bleed, must be endowed
with a
divine energy, and may be considered as the proper
objects of
religious adoration.
The most audacious pencil might tremble in
the rash attempt of defining, by forms and colors, the
infinite
Spirit, the eternal Father, who pervades and sustains the
universe. ^5 But the superstitious mind was more easily
reconciled to paint and to worship the angels, and, above
all,
the Son of God, under the human shape, which, on earth,
they have
condescended to assume.
The second person of the Trinity had
been clothed with a real and mortal body; but that body
had
ascended into heaven: and, had not some similitude been
presented
to the eyes of his disciples, the spiritual worship of
Christ
might have been obliterated by the visible relics and
representations of the saints. A similar indulgence was
requisite and propitious for the Virgin Mary: the place
of her
burial was unknown; and the assumption of her soul and
body into
heaven was adopted by the credulity of the Greeks and
Latins.
The use, and even the worship, of images was firmly
established
before the end of the sixth century: they were fondly
cherished
by the warm imagination of the Greeks and Asiatics: the
Pantheon
and Vatican were adorned with the emblems of a new
superstition;
but this semblance of idolatry was more coldly
entertained by the
rude Barbarians and the Arian clergy of the West. The bolder
forms of sculpture, in brass or marble, which peopled the
temples
of antiquity, were offensive to the fancy or conscience
of the
Christian Greeks: and a smooth surface of colors has ever
been
esteemed a more decent and harmless mode of imitation. ^6
[Footnote 2: Nec intelligunt homines ineptissimi, quod si
sentire
simulacra et moveri possent, adoratura hominem fuissent a
quo
sunt expolita.
(Divin. Institut. l. ii. c. 2.) Lactantius is the
last, as well as the most eloquent, of the Latin
apologists.
Their raillery of idols attacks not only the object, but
the form
and matter.]
[Footnote 3: See Irenaeus, Epiphanius, and Augustin,
(Basnage,
Hist. des Eglises Reformees, tom. ii. p. 1313.) This
Gnostic
practice has a singular affinity with the private worship
of
Alexander Severus, (Lampridius, c. 29. Lardner, Heathen
Testimonies, vol. iii. p. 34.)]
[Footnote 4: See this History, vol. ii. p. 261; vol. ii.
p. 434;
vol. iii. p. 158 - 163.]
[Footnote 5: (Concilium Nicenum, ii. in Collect. Labb.
tom. viii.
p. 1025, edit. Venet.) Il seroit peut-etre a-propos de ne
point
souffrir d'images de la Trinite ou de la Divinite; les
defenseurs
les plus zeles des images ayant condamne celles-ci, et le
concile
de Trente ne parlant que des images de Jesus Christ et
des
Saints, (Dupin, Bibliot. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 154.)]
[Footnote 6: This general history of images is drawn from
the
xxiid book of the Hist. des Eglises Reformees of Basnage,
tom.
ii. p. 1310 - 1337.
He was a Protestant, but of a manly spirit;
and on this head the Protestants are so notoriously in
the right,
that they can venture to be impartial. See the perplexity
of poor
Friar Pagi, Critica, tom. i. p. 42.]
The merit and effect of a copy depends on its
resemblance
with the original; but the primitive Christians were
ignorant of
the genuine features of the Son of God, his mother, and
his
apostles: the statue of Christ at Paneas in Palestine ^7
was more
probably that of some temporal savior; the Gnostics and
their
profane monuments were reprobated; and the fancy of the
Christian
artists could only be guided by the clandestine imitation
of some
heathen model. In
this distress, a bold and dexterous invention
assured at once the likeness of the image and the
innocence of
the worship. A new
super structure of fable was raised on the
popular basis of a Syrian legend, on the correspondence
of Christ
and Abgarus, so famous in the days of Eusebius, so
reluctantly
deserted by our modern advocates. The bishop of Caesarea ^8
records the epistle, ^9 but he most strangely forgets the
picture
of Christ; ^10 the perfect impression of his face on a
linen,
with which he gratified the faith of the royal stranger
who had
invoked his healing power, and offered the strong city of
Edessa
to protect him against the malice of the Jews. The ignorance of
the primitive church is explained by the long
imprisonment of the
image in a niche of the wall, from whence, after an
oblivion of
five hundred years, it was released by some prudent
bishop, and
seasonably presented to the devotion of the times. Its first and
most glorious exploit was the deliverance of the city
from the
arms of Chosroes Nushirvan; and it was soon revered as a
pledge
of the divine promise, that Edessa should never be taken
by a
foreign enemy. It is true, indeed, that the text of
Procopius
ascribes the double deliverance of Edessa to the wealth
and valor
of her citizens, who purchased the absence and repelled
the
assaults of the Persian monarch. He was ignorant, the profane
historian, of the testimony which he is compelled to
deliver in
the ecclesiastical page of Evagrius, that the Palladium
was
exposed on the rampart, and that the water which had been
sprinkled on the holy face, instead of quenching, added
new fuel
to the flames of the besieged. After this important service, the
image of Edessa was preserved with respect and gratitude;
and if
the Armenians rejected the legend, the more credulous
Greeks
adored the similitude, which was not the work of any
mortal
pencil, but the immediate creation of the divine
original. The
style and sentiments of a Byzantine hymn will declare how
far
their worship was removed from the grossest
idolatry. "How can
we with mortal eyes contemplate this image, whose
celestial
splendor the host of heaven presumes not to behold? He who
dwells in heaven, condescends this day to visit us by his
venerable image; He who is seated on the cherubim, visits
us this
day by a picture, which the Father has delineated with
his
immaculate hand, which he has formed in an ineffable
manner, and
which we sanctify by adoring it with fear and love."
Before the
end of the sixth century, these images, made without
hands, (in
Greek it is a single word, ^11) were propagated in the
camps and
cities of the Eastern empire: ^12 they were the objects
of
worship, and the instruments of miracles; and in the hour
of
danger or tumult, their venerable presence could revive
the hope,
rekindle the courage, or repress the fury, of the Roman
legions.
Of these pictures, the far greater part, the transcripts
of a
human pencil, could only pretend to a secondary likeness
and
improper title: but there were some of higher descent,
who
derived their resemblance from an immediate contact with
the
original, endowed, for that purpose, with a miraculous
and
prolific virtue.
The most ambitious aspired from a filial to a
fraternal relation with the image of Edessa; and such is
the
veronica of Rome, or Spain, or Jerusalem, which Christ in
his
agony and bloody sweat applied to his face, and delivered
to a
holy matron. The
fruitful precedent was speedily transferred to
the Virgin Mary, and the saints and martyrs. In the church of
Diospolis, in Palestine, the features of the Mother of
God ^13
were deeply inscribed in a marble column; the East and
West have
been decorated by the pencil of St. Luke; and the
Evangelist, who
was perhaps a physician, has been forced to exercise the
occupation of a painter, so profane and odious in the
eyes of the
primitive Christians. The Olympian Jove, created by the
muse of
Homer and the chisel of Phidias, might inspire a
philosophic mind
with momentary devotion; but these Catholic images were
faintly
and flatly delineated by monkish artists in the last
degeneracy
of taste and genius. ^14
[Footnote 7: After removing some rubbish of miracle and
inconsistency, it may be allowed, that as late as the
year 300,
Paneas in Palestine was decorated with a bronze statue,
representing a grave personage wrapped in a cloak, with a
grateful or suppliant female kneeling before him, and
that an
inscription was perhaps inscribed on the pedestal. By the
Christians, this group was foolishly explained of their
founder
and the poor woman whom he had cured of the bloody flux,
(Euseb.
vii. 18, Philostorg. vii. 3, &c.) M. de Beausobre
more reasonably
conjectures the philosopher Apollonius, or the emperor
Vespasian:
in the latter supposition, the female is a city, a
province, or
perhaps the queen Berenice, (Bibliotheque Germanique,
tom. xiii.
p. 1 - 92.)]
[Footnote 8: Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. i. c. 13. The learned
Assemannus has brought up the collateral aid of three
Syrians,
St. Ephrem, Josua Stylites, and James bishop of Sarug;
but I do
not find any notice of the Syriac original or the archives
of
Edessa, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p. 318, 420, 554;)
their vague
belief is probably derived from the Greeks.]
[Footnote 9: The evidence for these epistles is stated
and
rejected by the candid Lardner, (Heathen Testimonies,
vol. i. p.
297 - 309.) Among the herd of bigots who are forcibly
driven from
this convenient, but untenable, post, I am ashamed, with
the
Grabes, Caves, Tillemonts, &c., to discover Mr.
Addison, an
English gentleman, (his Works, vol. i. p. 528,
Baskerville's
edition;) but his superficial tract on the Christian
religion
owes its credit to his name, his style, and the
interested
applause of our clergy.]
[Footnote 10: From the silence of James of Sarug,
(Asseman.
Bibliot. Orient. p. 289, 318,) and the testimony of
Evagrius,
(Hist. Eccles. l. iv. c. 27,) I conclude that this fable
was
invented between the years 521 and 594, most probably
after the
siege of Edessa in 540, (Asseman. tom. i. p. 416.
Procopius, de
Bell. Persic. l. ii.) It is the sword and buckler of,
Gregory
II., (in Epist. i. ad. Leon. Isaur. Concil. tom. viii. p.
656,
657,) of John Damascenus, (Opera, tom. i. p. 281, edit.
Lequien,)
and of the second Nicene Council, (Actio v. p. 1030.) The
most
perfect edition may be found in Cedrenus, (Compend. p.
175 -
178.)]
[Footnote 11: See Ducange, in Gloss. Graec. et Lat. The subject
is treated with equal learning and bigotry by the Jesuit
Gretser,
(Syntagma de Imaginibus non Manu factis, ad calcem Codini
de
Officiis, p. 289 - 330,) the ass, or rather the fox, of
Ingoldstadt, (see the Scaligerana;) with equal reason and
wit by
the Protestant Beausobre, in the ironical controversy
which he
has spread through many volumes of the Bibliotheque
Germanique,
(tom. xviii. p. 1 - 50, xx. p. 27 - 68, xxv. p. 1 - 36,
xxvii. p.
85 - 118, xxviii. p. 1 - 33, xxxi. p. 111 - 148, xxxii.
p. 75 -
107, xxxiv. p. 67 - 96.)]
[Footnote 12: Theophylact Simocatta (l. ii. c. 3, p. 34,
l. iii.
c. 1, p. 63) celebrates it; yet it was no more than a
copy, since
he adds (of Edessa). See Pagi, tom. ii. A.D. 588 No. 11.]
[Footnote 13: See, in the genuine or supposed works of
John
Damascenus, two passages on the Virgin and St. Luke,
which have
not been noticed by Gretser, nor consequently by
Beausobre,
(Opera Joh. Damascen. tom. i. p. 618, 631.)]
[Footnote 14: "Your scandalous figures stand quite
out from the
canvass: they are as bad as a group of statues!" It
was thus that
the ignorance and bigotry of a Greek priest applauded the
pictures of Titian, which he had ordered, and refused to
accept.]
The worship of
images had stolen into the church by
insensible degrees, and each petty step was pleasing to
the
superstitious mind, as productive of comfort, and
innocent of
sin. But in the
beginning of the eighth century, in the full
magnitude of the abuse, the more timorous Greeks were
awakened by
an apprehension, that under the mask of Christianity,
they had
restored the religion of their fathers: they heard, with
grief
and impatience, the name of idolaters; the incessant
charge of
the Jews and Mahometans, ^15 who derived from the Law and
the
Koran an immortal hatred to graven images and all
relative
worship. The
servitude of the Jews might curb their zeal, and
depreciate their authority; but the triumphant
Mussulmans, who
reigned at Damascus, and threatened Constantinople, cast
into the
scale of reproach the accumulated weight of truth and
victory.
The cities of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt had been
fortified with
the images of Christ, his mother, and his saints; and
each city
presumed on the hope or promise of miraculous defence. In
a rapid
conquest of ten years, the Arabs subdued those cities and
these
images; and, in their opinion, the Lord of Hosts
pronounced a
decisive judgment between the adoration and contempt of
these
mute and inanimate idols. ^* For a while Edessa had
braved the
Persian assaults; but the chosen city, the spouse of
Christ, was
involved in the common ruin; and his divine resemblance
became
the slave and trophy of the infidels. After a servitude of three
hundred years, the Palladium was yielded to the devotion
of
Constantinople, for a ransom of twelve thousand pounds of
silver,
the redemption of two hundred Mussulmans, and a perpetual
truce
for the territory of Edessa. ^16 In this season of
distress and
dismay, the eloquence of the monks was exercised in the
defence
of images; and they attempted to prove, that the sin and
schism
of the greatest part of the Orientals had forfeited the
favor,
and annihilated the virtue, of these precious
symbols. But they
were now opposed by the murmurs of many simple or
rational
Christians, who appealed to the evidence of texts, of
facts, and
of the primitive times, and secretly desired the
reformation of
the church. As the
worship of images had never been established
by any general or positive law, its progress in the
Eastern
empire had been retarded, or accelerated, by the
differences of
men and manners, the local degrees of refinement, and the
personal characters of the bishops. The splendid devotion was
fondly cherished by the levity of the capital, and the inventive
genius of the Byzantine clergy; while the rude and remote
districts of Asia were strangers to this innovation of
sacred
luxury. Many large congregations of Gnostics and Arians
maintained, after their conversion, the simple worship
which had
preceded their separation; and the Armenians, the most
warlike
subjects of Rome, were not reconciled, in the twelfth
century, to
the sight of images. ^17 These various denominations of
men
afforded a fund of prejudice and aversion, of small
account in
the villages of Anatolia or Thrace, but which, in the
fortune of
a soldier, a prelate, or a eunuch, might be often
connected with
the powers of the church and state.
[Footnote 15: By Cedrenus, Zonaras, Glycas, and Manasses,
the
origin of the Aconoclcasts is imprinted to the caliph
Yezid and
two Jews, who promised the empire to Leo; and the
reproaches of
these hostile sectaries are turned into an absurd
conspiracy for
restoring the purity of the Christian worship, (see
Spanheim,
Hist. Imag. c. 2.)]
[Footnote *: Yezid, ninth caliph of the race of the
Ommiadae,
caused all the images in Syria to be destroyed about the
year
719; hence the orthodox reproaches the sectaries with
following
the example of the Saracens and the Jews Fragm. Mon.
Johan.
Jerosylym. Script.
Byzant. vol. xvi. p. 235. Hist. des Repub.
Ital. par M. Sismondi, vol. i. p. 126. - G.]
[Footnote 16: See Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 267,)
Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 201,) and Abulfeda, (Annal.
Moslem. p.
264,), and the criticisms of Pagi, (tom. iii. A.D. 944.)
The
prudent Franciscan refuses to determine whether the image
of
Edessa now reposes at Rome or Genoa; but its repose is
inglorious, and this ancient object of worship is no
longer
famous or fashionable.]
[Footnote 17: (Nicetas, l. ii. p. 258.) The Armenian
churches are
still content with the Cross, (Missions du Levant, tom.
iii. p.
148;) but surely the superstitious Greek is unjust to the
superstition of the Germans of the xiith century.]
Of such
adventurers, the most fortunate was the emperor Leo
the Third, ^18 who, from the mountains of Isauria,
ascended the
throne of the East. He was ignorant of sacred and profane
letters; but his education, his reason, perhaps his
intercourse
with the Jews and Arabs, had inspired the martial peasant
with a
hatred of images; and it was held to be the duty of a
prince to
impose on his subjects the dictates of his own
conscience. But
in the outset of an unsettled reign, during ten years of
toil and
danger, Leo submitted to the meanness of hypocrisy, bowed
before
the idols which he despised, and satisfied the Roman
pontiff with
the annual professions of his orthodoxy and zeal. In the
reformation of religion, his first steps were moderate
and
cautious: he assembled a great council of senators and
bishops,
and enacted, with their consent, that all the images
should be
removed from the sanctuary and altar to a proper height
in the
churches where they might be visible to the eyes, and
inaccessible to the superstition, of the people. But it was
impossible on either side to check the rapid through
adverse
impulse of veneration and abhorrence: in their lofty
position,
the sacred images still edified their votaries, and
reproached
the tyrant. He was
himself provoked by resistance and invective;
and his own party accused him of an imperfect discharge
of his
duty, and urged for his imitation the example of the
Jewish king,
who had broken without scruple the brazen serpent of the
temple.
By a second edict, he proscribed the existence as well as
the use
of religious pictures; the churches of Constantinople and
the
provinces were cleansed from idolatry; the images of
Christ, the
Virgin, and the saints, were demolished, or a smooth
surface of
plaster was spread over the walls of the edifice. The sect of
the Iconoclasts was supported by the zeal and despotism
of six
emperors, and the East and West were involved in a noisy
conflict
of one hundred and twenty years. It was the design of Leo the
Isaurian to pronounce the condemnation of images as an
article of
faith, and by the authority of a general council: but the
convocation of such an assembly was reserved for his son
Constantine; ^19 and though it is stigmatized by
triumphant
bigotry as a meeting of fools and atheists, their own
partial and
mutilated acts betray many symptoms of reason and piety.
The
debates and decrees of many provincial synods introduced
the
summons of the general council which met in the suburbs
of
Constantinople, and was composed of the respectable
number of
three hundred and thirty-eight bishops of Europe and
Anatolia;
for the patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria were the
slaves of
the caliph, and the Roman pontiff had withdrawn the
churches of
Italy and the West from the communion of the Greeks. This
Byzantine synod assumed the rank and powers of the
seventh
general council; yet even this title was a recognition of
the six
preceding assemblies, which had laboriously built the
structure
of the Catholic faith. After a serious deliberation of
six
months, the three hundred and thirty-eight bishops
pronounced and
subscribed a unanimous decree, that all visible symbols
of
Christ, except in the Eucharist, were either blasphemous
or
heretical; that image-worship was a corruption of
Christianity
and a renewal of Paganism; that all such monuments of
idolatry
should be broken or erased; and that those who should
refuse to
deliver the objects of their private superstition, were
guilty of
disobedience to the authority of the church and of the
emperor.
In their loud and loyal acclamations, they celebrated the
merits
of their temporal redeemer; and to his zeal and justice
they
intrusted the execution of their spiritual censures. At
Constantinople, as in the former councils, the will of
the prince
was the rule of episcopal faith; but on this occasion, I
am
inclined to suspect that a large majority of the prelates
sacrificed their secret conscience to the temptations of
hope and
fear. In the long
night of superstition, the Christians had
wandered far away from the simplicity of the gospel: nor
was it
easy for them to discern the clew, and tread back the
mazes, of
the labyrinth. The
worship of images was inseparably blended, at
least to a pious fancy, with the Cross, the Virgin, the
Saints
and their relics; the holy ground was involved in a cloud
of
miracles and visions; and the nerves of the mind,
curiosity and
scepticism, were benumbed by the habits of obedience and
belief.
Constantine himself is accused of indulging a royal
license to
doubt, or deny, or deride the mysteries of the Catholics,
^20 but
they were deeply inscribed in the public and private
creed of his
bishops; and the boldest Iconoclast might assault with a
secret
horror the monuments of popular devotion, which were
consecrated
to the honor of his celestial patrons. In the reformation of the
sixteenth century, freedom and knowledge had expanded all
the
faculties of man: the thirst of innovation superseded the
reverence of antiquity; and the vigor of Europe could
disdain
those phantoms which terrified the sickly and servile
weakness of
the Greeks.
[Footnote 18: Our original, but not impartial, monuments
of the
Iconoclasts must be drawn from the Acts of the Councils,
tom.
viii. and ix. Collect. Labbe, edit. Venet. and the
historical
writings of Theophanes, Nicephorus, Manasses, Cedrenus,
Zonoras,
&c. Of the
modern Catholics, Baronius, Pagi, Natalis Alexander,
(Hist. Eccles. Seculum viii. and ix.,) and Maimbourg,
(Hist. des
Iconoclasts,) have treated the subject with learning,
passion,
and credulity. The
Protestant labors of Frederick Spanheim
(Historia Imaginum restituta) and James Basnage (Hist.
des
Eglises Reformees, tom. ii. l. xxiiii. p. 1339 - 1385)
are cast
into the Iconoclast scale. With this mutual aid, and opposite
tendency, it is easy for us to poise the balance with
philosophic
indifference.
Note: Compare
Schlosser, Geschichte der Bilder-sturmender
Kaiser, Frankfurt am-Main 1812 a book of research and
impartiality - M.]
[Footnote 19: Some flowers of rhetoric. By Damascenus is styled
, (Opera, tom. i. p. 623.) Spanheim's Apology for the
Synod of
Constantinople (p. 171, &c.) is worked up with truth
and
ingenuity, from such materials as he could find in the
Nicene
Acts, (p. 1046, &c.) The witty John of Damascus
converts it into
slaves of their belly, &c. Opera, tom. i. p. 806]
[Footnote 20: He is accused of proscribing the title of
saint;
styling the Virgin, Mother of Christ; comparing her after
her
delivery to an empty purse of Arianism, Nestorianism,
&c. In his
defence, Spanheim (c. iv. p. 207) is somewhat embarrassed
between
the interest of a Protestant and the duty of an orthodox
divine.]
The scandal of
an abstract heresy can be only proclaimed to
the people by the blast of the ecclesiastical trumpet;
but the
most ignorant can perceive, the most torpid must feel,
the
profanation and downfall of their visible deities. The first
hostilities of Leo were directed against a lofty Christ
on the
vestibule, and above the gate, of the palace. A ladder had been
planted for the assault, but it was furiously shaken by a
crowd
of zealots and women: they beheld, with pious transport,
the
ministers of sacrilege tumbling from on high and dashed
against
the pavement: and the honors of the ancient martyrs were
prostituted to these criminals, who justly suffered for
murder
and rebellion. ^21 The execution of the Imperial edicts
was
resisted by frequent tumults in Constantinople and the
provinces:
the person of Leo was endangered, his officers were
massacred,
and the popular enthusiasm was quelled by the strongest
efforts
of the civil and military power. Of the Archipelago, or Holy
Sea, the numerous islands were filled with images and
monks:
their votaries abjured, without scruple, the enemy of
Christ, his
mother, and the saints; they armed a fleet of boats and
galleys,
displayed their consecrated banners, and boldly steered
for the
harbor of Constantinople, to place on the throne a new
favorite
of God and the people.
They depended on the succor of a miracle:
but their miracles were inefficient against the Greek
fire; and,
after the defeat and conflagration of the fleet, the
naked
islands were abandoned to the clemency or justice of the
conqueror. The son
of Leo, in the first year of his reign, had
undertaken an expedition against the Saracens: during his
absence, the capital, the palace, and the purple, were occupied
by his kinsman Artavasdes, the ambitious champion of the
orthodox
faith. The worship of images was triumphantly restored:
the
patriarch renounced his dissimulation, or dissembled his
sentiments and the righteous claims of the usurper was
acknowledged, both in the new, and in ancient, Rome.
Constantine
flew for refuge to his paternal mountains; but he
descended at
the head of the bold and affectionate Isaurians; and his
final
victory confounded the arms and predictions of the
fanatics. His
long reign was distracted with clamor, sedition,
conspiracy, and
mutual hatred, and sanguinary revenge; the persecution of
images
was the motive or pretence, of his adversaries; and, if
they
missed a temporal diadem, they were rewarded by the
Greeks with
the crown of martyrdom.
In every act of open and clandestine
treason, the emperor felt the unforgiving enmity of the
monks,
the faithful slaves of the superstition to which they
owed their
riches and influence.
They prayed, they preached, they absolved,
they inflamed, they conspired; the solitude of Palestine
poured
forth a torrent of invective; and the pen of St. John
Damascenus,
^22 the last of the Greek fathers, devoted the tyrant's
head,
both in this world and the next. ^23 ^* I am not at
leisure to
examine how far the monks provoked, nor how much they
have
exaggerated, their real and pretended sufferings, nor how
many
lost their lives or limbs, their eyes or their beards, by
the
cruelty of the emperor. ^! From the chastisement of
individuals,
he proceeded to the abolition of the order; and, as it
was
wealthy and useless, his resentment might be stimulated
by
avarice, and justified by patriotism. The formidable name
and
mission of the Dragon, ^24 his visitor-general, excited
the
terror and abhorrence of the black nation: the religious
communities were dissolved, the buildings were converted
into
magazines, or bar racks; the lands, movables, and cattle
were
confiscated; and our modern precedents will support the
charge,
that much wanton or malicious havoc was exercised against
the
relics, and even the books of the monasteries. With the habit
and profession of monks, the public and private worship
of images
was rigorously proscribed; and it should seem, that a
solemn
abjuration of idolatry was exacted from the subjects, or
at least
from the clergy, of the Eastern empire. ^25
[Footnote 21: The holy confessor Theophanes approves the
principle of their rebellion, (p. 339.) Gregory II. (in
Epist. i.
ad Imp. Leon. Concil. tom. viii. p. 661, 664) applauds
the zeal
of the Byzantine women who killed the Imperial officers.]
[Footnote 22: John, or Mansur, was a noble Christian of
Damascus,
who held a considerable office in the service of the
caliph. His
zeal in the cause of images exposed him to the resentment
and
treachery of the Greek emperor; and on the suspicion of a
treasonable correspondence, he was deprived of his right
hand,
which was miraculously restored by the Virgin. After this
deliverance, he resigned his office, distributed his
wealth, and
buried himself in the monastery of St. Sabas, between
Jerusalem
and the Dead Sea. The legend is famous; but his learned
editor,
Father Lequien, has a unluckily proved that St. John
Damascenus
was already a monk before the Iconoclast dispute, (Opera,
tom. i.
Vit. St. Joan. Damascen. p. 10 - 13, et Notas ad loc.)]
[Footnote 23: After sending Leo to the devil, he
introduces his
heir, (Opera, Damascen. tom. i. p. 625.) If the
authenticity of
this piece be suspicious, we are sure that in other
works, no
longer extant, Damascenus bestowed on Constantine the
titles.
(tom. i. p. 306.)]
[Footnote *: The patriarch Anastasius, an Iconoclast
under Leo,
an image worshipper under Artavasdes, was scourged, led
through
the streets on an ass, with his face to the tail; and,
reinvested
in his dignity, became again the obsequious minister of
Constantine in his Iconoclastic persecutions. See Schlosser p.
211. - M.]
[Footnote !: Compare Schlosser, p. 228 - 234. - M.]
[Footnote 24: In the narrative of this persecution from
Theophanes and Cedreves, Spanheim (p. 235 - 238) is happy
to
compare the Draco of Leo with the dragoons (Dracones) of
Louis
XIV.; and highly solaces himself with the controversial
pun.]
[Footnote 25: (Damascen.
Op. tom. i. p. 625.) This oath and
subscription I do not remember to have seen in any modern
compilation]
The patient
East abjured, with reluctance, her sacred
images; they were fondly cherished, and vigorously
defended, by
the independent zeal of the Italians. In ecclesiastical rank and
jurisdiction, the patriarch of Constantinople and the
pope of
Rome were nearly equal.
But the Greek prelate was a domestic
slave under the eye of his master, at whose nod he
alternately
passed from the convent to the throne, and from the
throne to the
convent. A distant
and dangerous station, amidst the Barbarians
of the West, excited the spirit and freedom of the Latin
bishops.
Their popular election endeared them to the Romans: the
public
and private indigence was relieved by their ample
revenue; and
the weakness or neglect of the emperors compelled them to
consult, both in peace and war, the temporal safety of
the city.
In the school of adversity the priest insensibly imbibed
the
virtues and the ambition of a prince; the same character
was
assumed, the same policy was adopted, by the Italian, the
Greek,
or the Syrian, who ascended the chair of St. Peter; and,
after
the loss of her legions and provinces, the genius and
fortune of
the popes again restored the supremacy of Rome. It is agreed,
that in the eighth century, their dominion was founded on
rebellion, and that the rebellion was produced, and
justified, by
the heresy of the Iconoclasts; but the conduct of the
second and
third Gregory, in this memorable contest, is variously
interpreted by the wishes of their friends and enemies. The
Byzantine writers unanimously declare, that, after a
fruitless
admonition, they pronounced the separation of the East
and West,
and deprived the sacrilegious tyrant of the revenue and
sovereignty of Italy.
Their excommunication is still more
clearly expressed by the Greeks, who beheld the
accomplishment of
the papal triumphs; and as they are more strongly
attached to
their religion than to their country, they praise,
instead of
blaming, the zeal and orthodoxy of these apostolical men.
^26 The
modern champions of Rome are eager to accept the praise
and the
precedent: this great and glorious example of the
deposition of
royal heretics is celebrated by the cardinals Baronius
and
Bellarmine; ^27 and if they are asked, why the same
thunders were
not hurled against the Neros and Julians of antiquity,
they
reply, that the weakness of the primitive church was the
sole
cause of her patient loyalty. ^28 On this occasion the
effects of
love and hatred are the same; and the zealous
Protestants, who
seek to kindle the indignation, and to alarm the fears,
of
princes and magistrates, expatiate on the insolence and
treason
of the two Gregories against their lawful sovereign. ^29
They are
defended only by the moderate Catholics, for the most
part, of
the Gallican church, ^30 who respect the saint, without
approving
the sin. These
common advocates of the crown and the mitre
circumscribe the truth of facts by the rule of equity,
Scripture,
and tradition, and appeal to the evidence of the Latins,
^31 and
the lives ^32 and epistles of the popes themselves.
[Footnote 26: Theophanes. (Chronograph. p. 343.) For this
Gregory
is styled by Cedrenus . (p. 450.) Zonaras specifies the
thunder,
(tom. ii. l. xv. p. 104, 105.) It may be observed, that
the
Greeks are apt to confound the times and actions of two
Gregories.]
[Footnote 27: See Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 730, No. 4, 5;
dignum exemplum!
Bellarmin. de Romano Pontifice, l. v. c. 8:
mulctavit eum parte imperii. Sigonius, de Regno Italiae, l. iii.
Opera, tom. ii. p. 169.
Yet such is the change of Italy, that
Sigonius is corrected by the editor of Milan, Philipus
Argelatus,
a Bolognese, and subject of the pope.]
[Footnote 28: Quod si Christiani olim non deposuerunt
Neronem aut
Julianum, id fuit quia deerant vires temporales
Christianis,
(honest Bellarmine, de Rom. Pont. l. v. c. 7.) Cardinal
Perron
adds a distinction more honorable to the first
Christians, but
not more satisfactory to modern princes - the treason of
heretics
and apostates, who break their oath, belie their coin,
and
renounce their allegiance to Christ and his vicar,
(Perroniana,
p. 89.)]
[Footnote 29: Take, as a specimen, the cautious Basnage
(Hist.
d'Eglise, p. 1350, 1351) and the vehement Spanheim,
(Hist.
Imaginum,) who, with a hundred more, tread in the
footsteps of
the centuriators of Magdeburgh.]
[Footnote 30: See Launoy, (Opera, tom. v. pars ii. epist.
vii. 7,
p. 456 - 474,) Natalis Alexander, (Hist. Nov. Testamenti,
secul.
viii. dissert. i. p. 92 - 98,) Pagi, (Critica, tom. iii.
p. 215,
216,) and Giannone, (Istoria Civile Napoli, tom. i. p.
317 -
320,) a disciple of the Gallican school In the field of
controversy I always pity the moderate party, who stand
on the
open middle ground exposed to the fire of both sides.]
[Footnote 31: They appeal to Paul Warnefrid, or Diaconus,
(de
Gestis Langobard. l. vi. c. 49, p. 506, 507, in Script.
Ital.
Muratori, tom. i. pars i.,) and the nominal Anastasius,
(de Vit.
Pont. in Muratori, tom. iii. pars i. Gregorius II. p.
154.
Gregorius III. p. 158.
Zacharias, p. 161. Stephanus III. p. 165.
Paulus, p. 172.
Stephanus IV. p. 174. Hadrianus,
p. 179. Leo
III. p. 195.) Yet I may remark, that the true Anastasius
(Hist.
Eccles. p. 134, edit. Reg.) and the Historia Miscella,
(l. xxi.
p. 151, in tom. i. Script. Ital.,) both of the ixth century,
translate and approve the Greek text of Theophanes.]
[Footnote 32: With some minute difference, the most
learned
critics, Lucas Holstenius, Schelestrate, Ciampini,
Bianchini,
Muratori, (Prolegomena ad tom. iii. pars i.,) are agreed
that the
Liber Pontificalis was composed and continued by the
apostolic
librarians and notaries of the viiith and ixth centuries;
and
that the last and smallest part is the work of
Anastasius, whose
name it bears. The
style is barbarous, the narrative partial,
the details are trifling - yet it must be read as a
curious and
authentic record of the times. The epistles of the popes are
dispersed in the volumes of Councils.]
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.
Part II.
Two original
epistles, from Gregory the Second to the
emperor Leo, are still extant; ^33 and if they cannot be
praised
as the most perfect models of eloquence and logic, they
exhibit
the portrait, or at least the mask, of the founder of the
papal
monarchy.
"During ten pure and fortunate years," says Gregory to
the emperor, "we have tasted the annual comfort of
your royal
letters, subscribed in purple ink, with your own hand,
the sacred
pledges of your attachment to the orthodox creed of our
fathers.
How deplorable is the change! how tremendous the scandal! You
now accuse the Catholics of idolatry; and, by the
accusation, you
betray your own impiety and ignorance. To this ignorance
we are
compelled to adapt the grossness of our style and
arguments: the
first elements of holy letters are sufficient for your
confusion;
and were you to enter a grammar-school, and avow yourself
the
enemy of our worship, the simple and pious children would
be
provoked to cast their horn-books at your head."
After this
decent salutation, the pope attempts the usual
distinction
between the idols of antiquity and the Christian images.
The
former were the fanciful representations of phantoms or
daemons,
at a time when the true God had not manifested his person
in any
visible likeness.
The latter are the genuine forms of Christ,
his mother, and his saints, who had approved, by a crowd
of
miracles, the innocence and merit of this relative
worship. He
must indeed have trusted to the ignorance of Leo, since
he could
assert the perpetual use of images, from the apostolic
age, and
their venerable presence in the six synods of the
Catholic
church. A more
specious argument is drawn from present
possession and recent practice the harmony of the
Christian world
supersedes the demand of a general council; and Gregory
frankly
confesses, than such assemblies can only be useful under
the
reign of an orthodox prince. To the impudent and inhuman Leo,
more guilty than a heretic, he recommends peace, silence,
and
implicit obedience to his spiritual guides of Constantinople
and
Rome. The limits
of civil and ecclesiastical powers are defined
by the pontiff. To
the former he appropriates the body; to the
latter, the soul: the sword of justice is in the hands of
the
magistrate: the more formidable weapon of excommunication
is
intrusted to the clergy; and in the exercise of their
divine
commission a zealous son will not spare his offending
father: the
successor of St. Peter may lawfully chastise the kings of
the
earth. "You
assault us, O tyrant! with a carnal and
military
hand: unarmed and naked we can only implore the Christ,
the
prince of the heavenly host, that he will send unto you a
devil,
for the destruction of your body and the salvation of
your soul.
You declare, with foolish arrogance, I will despatch my
orders to
Rome: I will break in pieces the image of St. Peter; and
Gregory,
like his predecessor Martin, shall be transported in
chains, and
in exile, to the foot of the Imperial throne. Would to God that
I might be permitted to tread in the footsteps of the
holy
Martin! but may
the fate of Constans serve as a warning to the
persecutors of the church! After his just condemnation by the
bishops of Sicily, the tyrant was cut off, in the
fullness of his
sins, by a domestic servant: the saint is still adored by
the
nations of Scythia, among whom he ended his banishment
and his
life. But it is our duty to live for the edification and
support
of the faithful people; nor are we reduced to risk our
safety on
the event of a combat. Incapable as you are of defending
your
Roman subjects, the maritime situation of the city may
perhaps
expose it to your depredation but we can remove to the
distance
of four-and-twenty stadia, to the first fortress of the
Lombards,
and then - you may pursue the winds. Are you ignorant that the
popes are the bond of union, the mediators of peace,
between the
East and West? The
eyes of the nations are fixed on our
humility; and they revere, as a God upon earth, the
apostle St.
Peter, whose image you threaten to destroy. ^35 The
remote and
interior kingdoms of the West present their homage to
Christ and
his vicegerent; and we now prepare to visit one of their
most
powerful monarchs, who desires to receive from our hands
the
sacrament of baptism. ^36 The Barbarians have submitted
to the
yoke of the gospel, while you alone are deaf to the voice
of the
shepherd. These pious Barbarians are kindled into rage:
they
thirst to avenge the persecution of the East. Abandon your rash
and fatal enterprise; reflect, tremble, and repent. If you
persist, we are innocent of the blood that will be spilt
in the
contest; may it fall on your own head!"
[Footnote 33: The two epistles of Gregory II. have been
preserved
in the Acta of the Nicene Council, (tom. viii. p. 651 -
674.)
They are without a date, which is variously fixed, by
Baronius in
the year 726, by Muratori (Annali d'Italia, tom. vi. p.
120) in
729, and by Pagi in 730.
Such is the force of prejudice, that
some papists have praised the good sense and moderation
of these
letters.]
[Footnote 34: (Epist. i. p. 664.) This proximity of the
Lombards
is hard of digestion.
Camillo Pellegrini (Dissert. iv. de Ducatu
Beneventi, in the Script. Ital. tom. v. p. 172, 173)
forcibly
reckons the xxivth stadia, not from Rome, but from the
limits of
the Roman duchy, to the first fortress, perhaps Sora, of
the
Lombards. I rather
believe that Gregory, with the pedantry of
the age, employs stadia for miles, without much inquiry
into the
genuine measure.]
[Footnote 35: {Greek}]
[Footnote 36: (p. 665.) The pope appears to have imposed
on the
ignorance of the Greeks: he lived and died in the
Lateran; and in
his time all the kingdoms of the West had embraced
Christianity.
May not this unknown Septetus have some reference to the
chief of
the Saxon Heptarchy, to Ina king of Wessex, who, in the
pontificate of Gregory the Second, visited Rome for the
purpose,
not of baptism, but of pilgrimage! Pagi. A., 89, No. 2. A.D.
726, No. 15.)]
The first
assault of Leo against the images of
Constantinople had been witnessed by a crowd of strangers
from
Italy and the West, who related with grief and
indignation the
sacrilege of the emperor.
But on the reception of his
proscriptive edict, they trembled for their domestic
deities: the
images of Christ and the Virgin, of the angels, martyrs,
and
saints, were abolished in all the churches of Italy; and
a strong
alternative was proposed to the Roman pontiff, the royal
favor as
the price of his compliance, degradation and exile as the
penalty
of his disobedience. Neither zeal nor policy allowed him
to
hesitate; and the haughty strain in which Gregory
addressed the
emperor displays his confidence in the truth of his
doctrine or
the powers of resistance.
Without depending on prayers or
miracles, he boldly armed against the public enemy, and
his
pastoral letters admonished the Italians of their danger
and
their duty. ^37 At this signal, Ravenna, Venice, and the
cities
of the Exarchate and Pentapolis, adhered to the cause of
religion; their military force by sea and land consisted,
for the
most part, of the natives; and the spirit of patriotism
and zeal
was transfused into the mercenary strangers. The Italians
swore
to live and die in the defence of the pope and the holy
images;
the Roman people was devoted to their father, and even
the
Lombards were ambitious to share the merit and advantage
of this
holy war. The most
treasonable act, but the most obvious
revenge, was the destruction of the statues of Leo
himself: the
most effectual and pleasing measure of rebellion, was the
withholding the tribute of Italy, and depriving him of a
power
which he had recently abused by the imposition of a new
capitation. ^38 A form of administration was preserved by
the
election of magistrates and governors; and so high was
the public
indignation, that the Italians were prepared to create an
orthodox emperor, and to conduct him with a fleet and
army to the
palace of Constantinople.
In that palace, the Roman bishops, the
second and third Gregory, were condemned as the authors
of the
revolt, and every attempt was made, either by fraud or
force, to
seize their persons, and to strike at their lives. The city was
repeatedly visited or assaulted by captains of the
guards, and
dukes and exarchs of high dignity or secret trust; they
landed
with foreign troops, they obtained some domestic aid, and
the
superstition of Naples may blush that her fathers were
attached
to the cause of heresy.
But these clandestine or open attacks
were repelled by the courage and vigilance of the Romans;
the
Greeks were overthrown and massacred, their leaders
suffered an
ignominious death, and the popes, however inclined to
mercy,
refused to intercede for these guilty victims. At
Ravenna, ^39
the several quarters of the city had long exercised a
bloody and
hereditary feud; in religious controversy they found a
new
aliment of faction: but the votaries of images were
superior in
numbers or spirit, and the exarch, who attempted to stem
the
torrent, lost his life in a popular sedition. To punish this
flagitious deed, and restore his dominion in Italy, the
emperor
sent a fleet and army into the Adriatic Gulf. After suffering
from the winds and waves much loss and delay, the Greeks
made
their descent in the neighborhood of Ravenna: they
threatened to
depopulate the guilty capital, and to imitate, perhaps to
surpass, the example of Justinian the Second, who had
chastised a
former rebellion by the choice and execution of fifty of
the
principal inhabitants.
The women and clergy, in sackcloth and
ashes, lay prostrate in prayer: the men were in arms for the
defence of their country; the common danger had united
the
factions, and the event of a battle was preferred to the
slow
miseries of a siege.
In a hard-fought day, as the two armies
alternately yielded and advanced, a phantom was seen, a
voice was
heard, and Ravenna was victorious by the assurance of
victory.
The strangers retreated to their ships, but the populous
sea-coast poured forth a multitude of boats; the waters
of the Po
were so deeply infected with blood, that during six years
the
public prejudice abstained from the fish of the river;
and the
institution of an annual feast perpetuated the worship of
images,
and the abhorrence of the Greek tyrant. Amidst the triumph of
the Catholic arms, the Roman pontiff convened a synod of
ninety-three bishops against the heresy of the
Iconoclasts. With
their consent, he pronounced a general excommunication
against
all who by word or deed should attack the tradition of
the
fathers and the images of the saints: in this sentence
the
emperor was tacitly involved, ^40 but the vote of a last
and
hopeless remonstrance may seem to imply that the anathema
was yet
suspended over his guilty head. No sooner had they confirmed
their own safety, the worship of images, and the freedom
of Rome
and Italy, than the popes appear to have relaxed of their
severity, and to have spared the relics of the Byzantine
dominion. Their
moderate councils delayed and prevented the
election of a new emperor, and they exhorted the Italians
not to
separate from the body of the Roman monarchy. The exarch
was
permitted to reside within the walls of Ravenna, a
captive rather
than a master; and till the Imperial coronation of
Charlemagne,
the government of Rome and Italy was exercised in the
name of the
successors of Constantine. ^41
[Footnote 37: I shall transcribe the important and
decisive
passage of the Liber Pontificalis. Respiciens ergo pius vir
profanam principis jussionem, jam contra Imperatorem
quasi contra
hostem se armavit, renuens haeresim ejus, scribens ubique
se
cavere Christianos, eo quod orta fuisset impietas talis.
Igitur
permoti omnes Pentapolenses, atque Venetiarum exercitus
contra
Imperatoris jussionem restiterunt; dicentes se nunquam in
ejusdem
pontificis condescendere necem, sed pro ejus magis
defensione
viriliter decertare, (p. 156.)]
[Footnote 38: A census, or capitation, says Anastasius,
(p. 156;)
a most cruel tax, unknown to the Saracens themselves,
exclaims
the zealous Maimbourg, (Hist. des Iconoclastes, l. i.,)
and
Theophanes, (p. 344,) who talks of Pharaoh's numbering
the male
children of Israel.
This mode of taxation was familiar to the
Saracens; and, most unluckily for the historians, it was
imposed
a few years afterwards in France by his patron Louis
XIV.]
[Footnote 39: See the Liber Pontificalis of Agnellus, (in
the
Scriptores Rerum Italicarum of Muratori, tom. ii. pars
i.,) whose
deeper shade of barbarism marks the difference between
Rome and
Ravenna. Yet we
are indebted to him for some curious and
domestic facts - the quarters and factions of Ravenna,
(p. 154,)
the revenge of Justinian II, (p. 160, 161,) the defeat of
the
Greeks, (p. 170, 171,) &c.]
[Footnote 40: Yet Leo was undoubtedly comprised in the si
quis
.... imaginum sacrarum .... destructor .... extiterit,
sit
extorris a cor pore D. N. Jesu Christi vel totius
ecclesiae
unitate. The
canonists may decide whether the guilt or the name
constitutes the excommunication; and the decision is of
the last
importance to their safety, since, according to the
oracle
(Gratian, Caus. xxiii. q. 5, 47, apud Spanheim, Hist.
Imag. p.
112) homicidas non esse qui excommunicatos trucidant.]
[Footnote 41: Compescuit tale consilium Pontifex, sperans
conversionem principis, (Anastas. p. 156.) Sed ne
desisterent ab
amore et fide R. J. admonebat, (p. 157.) The popes style
Leo and
Constantine Copronymus, Imperatores et Domini, with the
strange
epithet of Piissimi.
A famous Mosaic of the Lateran (A.D. 798)
represents Christ, who delivers the keys to St. Peter and
the
banner to Constantine V. (Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom.
vi. p.
337.)]
The liberty of
Rome, which had been oppressed by the arms
and arts of Augustus, was rescued, after seven hundred
and fifty
years of servitude, from the persecution of Leo the
Isaurian. By
the Caesars, the triumphs of the consuls had been annihilated:
in
the decline and fall of the empire, the god Terminus, the
sacred
boundary, had insensibly receded from the ocean, the
Rhine, the
Danube, and the Euphrates; and Rome was reduced to her
ancient
territory from Viterbo to Terracina, and from Narni to
the mouth
of the Tyber. ^42 When the kings were banished, the
republic
reposed on the firm basis which had been founded by their
wisdom
and virtue. Their
perpetual jurisdiction was divided between two
annual magistrates: the senate continued to exercise the
powers
of administration and counsel; and the legislative
authority was
distributed in the assemblies of the people, by a
well-proportioned scale of property and service. Ignorant of the
arts of luxury, the primitive Romans had improved the
science of
government and war: the will of the community was
absolute: the
rights of individuals were sacred: one hundred and thirty
thousand citizens were armed for defence or conquest; and
a band
of robbers and outlaws was moulded into a nation
deserving of
freedom and ambitious of glory. ^43 When the sovereignty
of the
Greek emperors was extinguished, the ruins of Rome
presented the
sad image of depopulation and decay: her slavery was a
habit, her
liberty an accident; the effect of superstition, and the
object
of her own amazement and terror. The last vestige of the
substance, or even the forms, of the constitution, was
obliterated from the practice and memory of the Romans;
and they
were devoid of knowledge, or virtue, again to build the
fabric of
a commonwealth.
Their scanty remnant, the offspring of slaves
and strangers, was despicable in the eyes of the
victorious
Barbarians. As often as the Franks or Lombards expressed
their
most bitter contempt of a foe, they called him a Roman;
"and in
this name," says the bishop Liutprand, "we
include whatever is
base, whatever is cowardly, whatever is perfidious, the
extremes
of avarice and luxury, and every vice that can prostitute
the
dignity of human nature." ^44 ^* By the necessity of
their
situation, the inhabitants of Rome were cast into the
rough model
of a republican government: they were compelled to elect
some
judges in peace, and some leaders in war: the nobles
assembled to
deliberate, and their resolves could not be executed
without the
union and consent of the multitude. The style of the Roman
senate and people was revived, ^45 but the spirit was
fled; and
their new independence was disgraced by the tumultuous
conflict
of vicentiousness and oppression. The want of laws could only be
supplied by the influence of religion, and their foreign
and
domestic counsels were moderated by the authority of the
bishop.
His alms, his sermons, his correspondence with the kings
and
prelates of the West, his recent services, their
gratitude, and
oath, accustomed the Romans to consider him as the first
magistrate or prince of the city. The Christian humility of the
popes was not offended by the name of Dominus, or Lord;
and their
face and inscription are still apparent on the most
ancient
coins. ^46 Their temporal dominion is now confirmed by
the
reverence of a thousand years; and their noblest title is
the
free choice of a people, whom they had redeemed from
slavery.
[Footnote 42: I have traced the Roman duchy according to
the
maps, and the maps according to the excellent dissertation
of
father Beretti, (de Chorographia Italiae Medii Aevi,
sect. xx. p.
216-232.) Yet I must nicely observe, that Viterbo is of
Lombard
foundation, (p. 211,) and that Terracina was usurped by
the
Greeks.]
[Footnote 43: On the extent, population, &c., of the
Roman
kingdom, the reader may peruse, with pleasure, the
Discours
Preliminaire to the Republique Romaine of M. de Beaufort,
(tom.
i.,) who will not be accused of too much credulity for
the early
ages of Rome.]
[Footnote 44: Quos (Romanos) nos, Longobardi scilicet,
Saxones,
Franci, Locharingi, Bajoarii, Suevi, Burgundiones, tanto
dedignamur ut inimicos nostros commoti, nil aliud
contumeliarum
nisi Romane, dicamus: hoc solo, id est Romanorum nomine,
quicquid
ignobilitatis, quicquid timiditatis, quicquid avaritiae,
quicquid
luxuriae, quicquid mendacii, immo quicquid vitiorum est
comprehendentes, (Liutprand, in Legat Script. Ital. tom.
ii. para
i. p. 481.) For the sins of Cato or Tully Minos might
have
imposed as a fit penance the daily perusal of this
barbarous
passage.]
[Footnote *: Yet this contumelious sentence, quoted by
Robertson
(Charles V note 2) as well as Gibbon, was applied by the
angry
bishop to the Byzantine Romans, whom, indeed, he admits
to be the
genuine descendants of Romulus. - M.]
[Footnote 45: Pipino regi Francorum, omnis senatus, atque
universa populi generalitas a Deo servatae Romanae urbis.
Codex
Carolin. epist. 36, in Script. Ital. tom. iii. pars ii.
p. 160.
The names of senatus and senator were never totally
extinct,
(Dissert. Chorograph. p. 216, 217;) but in the middle
ages they
signified little more than nobiles, optimates, &c.,
(Ducange,
Gloss. Latin.)]
[Footnote 46: See Muratori, Antiquit. Italiae Medii Aevi,
tom.
ii. Dissertat xxvii. p. 548. On one of these coins we read
Hadrianus Papa (A.D. 772;) on the reverse, Vict. Ddnn.
with the
word Conob, which the Pere Joubert (Science des
Medailles, tom.
ii. p. 42) explains by Constantinopoli Officina B
(secunda.)]
In the
quarrels of ancient Greece, the holy people of Elis
enjoyed a perpetual peace, under the protection of
Jupiter, and
in the exercise of the Olympic games. ^47 Happy would it
have
been for the Romans, if a similar privilege had guarded
the
patrimony of St. Peter from the calamities of war; if the
Christians, who visited the holy threshold, would have
sheathed
their swords in the presence of the apostle and his
successor.
But this mystic circle could have been traced only by the
wand of
a legislator and a sage: this pacific system was
incompatible
with the zeal and ambition of the popes the Romans were
not
addicted, like the inhabitants of Elis, to the innocent
and
placid labors of agriculture; and the Barbarians of
Italy, though
softened by the climate, were far below the Grecian
states in the
institutions of public and private life. A memorable example of
repentance and piety was exhibited by Liutprand, king of
the
Lombards. In arms,
at the gate of the Vatican, the conqueror
listened to the voice of Gregory the Second, ^48 withdrew
his
troops, resigned his conquests, respectfully visited the
church
of St. Peter, and after performing his devotions, offered
his
sword and dagger, his cuirass and mantle, his silver
cross, and
his crown of gold, on the tomb of the apostle. But this
religious fervor was the illusion, perhaps the artifice,
of the
moment; the sense of interest is strong and lasting; the
love of
arms and rapine was congenial to the Lombards; and both
the
prince and people were irresistibly tempted by the
disorders of
Italy, the nakedness of Rome, and the unwarlike
profession of her
new chief. On the
first edicts of the emperor, they declared
themselves the champions of the holy images: Liutprand
invaded
the province of Romagna, which had already assumed that
distinctive appellation; the Catholics of the Exarchate
yielded
without reluctance to his civil and military power; and a
foreign
enemy was introduced for the first time into the
impregnable
fortress of Ravenna.
That city and fortress were speedily
recovered by the active diligence and maritime forces of
the
Venetians; and those faithful subjects obeyed the
exhortation of
Gregory himself, in separating the personal guilt of Leo
from the
general cause of the Roman empire. ^49 The Greeks were
less
mindful of the service, than the Lombards of the injury:
the two
nations, hostile in their faith, were reconciled in a
dangerous
and unnatural alliance: the king and the exarch marched
to the
conquest of Spoleto and Rome: the storm evaporated
without
effect, but the policy of Liutprand alarmed Italy with a
vexatious alternative of hostility and truce. His successor
Astolphus declared himself the equal enemy of the emperor
and the
pope: Ravenna was subdued by force or treachery, ^50 and
this
final conquest extinguished the series of the exarchs,
who had
reigned with a subordinate power since the time of
Justinian and
the ruin of the Gothic kingdom. Rome was summoned to acknowledge
the victorious Lombard as her lawful sovereign; the
annual
tribute of a piece of gold was fixed as the ransom of
each
citizen, and the sword of destruction was unsheathed to
exact the
penalty of her disobedience. The Romans hesitated; they
entreated; they complained; and the threatening
Barbarians were
checked by arms and negotiations, till the popes had
engaged the
friendship of an ally and avenger beyond the Alps. ^51
[Footnote 47: See West's Dissertation on the Olympic
Games,
(Pindar. vol. ii. p. 32-36, edition in 12mo.,) and the
judicious
reflections of Polybius (tom. i. l. iv. p. 466, edit
Gronov.)]
[Footnote 48: The speech of Gregory to the Lombard is
finely
composed by Sigonius, (de Regno Italiae, l. iii. Opera,
tom. ii.
p. 173,) who imitates the license and the spirit of
Sallust or
Livy.]
[Footnote 49: The Venetian historians, John Sagorninus,
(Chron.
Venet. p. 13,) and the doge Andrew Dandolo, (Scriptores
Rer.
Ital. tom. xii. p. 135,) have preserved this epistle of
Gregory.
The loss and recovery of Ravenna are mentioned by Paulus
Diaconus, (de Gest. Langobard, l. vi. c. 42, 54, in
Script. Ital.
tom. i. pars i. p. 506, 508;) but our chronologists,
Pagi,
Muratori, &c., cannot ascertain the date or
circumstances]
[Footnote 50: The option will depend on the various
readings of
the Mss. of Anastasius - deceperat, or decerpserat,
(Script.
Ital. tom. iii. pars i. p. 167.)]
[Footnote 51: The Codex Carolinus is a collection of the
epistles
of the popes to Charles Martel, (whom they style
Subregulus,)
Pepin, and Charlemagne, as far as the year 791, when it
was
formed by the last of these princes. His original and authentic
Ms. (Bibliothecae Cubicularis) is now in the Imperial
library of
Vienna, and has been published by Lambecius and Muratori,
(Script. Rerum Ital. tom. iii. pars ii. p. 75, &c.)]
In his
distress, the first ^* Gregory had implored the aid
of the hero of the age, of Charles Martel, who governed
the
French monarchy with the humble title of mayor or duke;
and who,
by his signal victory over the Saracens, had saved his
country,
and perhaps Europe, from the Mahometan yoke. The ambassadors of
the pope were received by Charles with decent reverence;
but the
greatness of his occupations, and the shortness of his
life,
prevented his interference in the affairs of Italy,
except by a
friendly and ineffectual mediation. His son Pepin, the heir of
his power and virtues, assumed the office of champion of
the
Roman church; and the zeal of the French prince appears
to have
been prompted by the love of glory and religion. But the danger
was on the banks of the Tyber, the succor on those of the
Seine,
and our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant
misery.
Amidst the tears of the city, Stephen the Third embraced
the
generous resolution of visiting in person the courts of
Lombardy
and France, to deprecate the injustice of his enemy, or
to excite
the pity and indignation of his friend. After soothing the
public despair by litanies and orations, he undertook
this
laborious journey with the ambassadors of the French
monarch and
the Greek emperor.
The king of the Lombards was inexorable; but
his threats could not silence the complaints, nor retard
the
speed of the Roman pontiff, who traversed the Pennine
Alps,
reposed in the abbey of St. Maurice, and hastened to
grasp the
right hand of his protector; a hand which was never
lifted in
vain, either in war or friendship. Stephen was entertained as
the visible successor of the apostle; at the next
assembly, the
field of March or of May, his injuries were exposed to a
devout
and warlike nation, and he repassed the Alps, not as a
suppliant,
but as a conqueror, at the head of a French army, which
was led
by the king in person.
The Lombards, after a weak resistance,
obtained an ignominious peace, and swore to restore the
possessions, and to respect the sanctity, of the Roman
church.
But no sooner was Astolphus delivered from the presence
of the
French arms, than he forgot his promise and resented his
disgrace. Rome was
again encompassed by his arms; and Stephen,
apprehensive of fatiguing the zeal of his Transalpine
allies
enforced his complaint and request by an eloquent letter
in the
name and person of St. Peter himself. ^52 The apostle
assures his
adopted sons, the king, the clergy, and the nobles of
France,
that, dead in the flesh, he is still alive in the spirit;
that
they now hear, and must obey, the voice of the founder
and
guardian of the Roman church; that the Virgin, the
angels, the
saints, and the martyrs, and all the host of heaven,
unanimously
urge the request, and will confess the obligation; that
riches,
victory, and paradise, will crown their pious enterprise,
and
that eternal damnation will be the penalty of their
neglect, if
they suffer his tomb, his temple, and his people, to fall
into
the hands of the perfidious Lombards. The second expedition of
Pepin was not less rapid and fortunate than the first:
St. Peter
was satisfied, Rome was again saved, and Astolphus was
taught the
lessons of justice and sincerity by the scourge of a
foreign
master. After this
double chastisement, the Lombards languished
about twenty years in a state of languor and decay. But their
minds were not yet humbled to their condition; and
instead of
affecting the pacific virtues of the feeble, they
peevishly
harassed the Romans with a repetition of claims,
evasions, and
inroads, which they undertook without reflection, and
terminated
without glory. On
either side, their expiring monarchy was
pressed by the zeal and prudence of Pope Adrian the
First, the
genius, the fortune, and greatness of Charlemagne, the
son of
Pepin; these heroes of the church and state were united
in public
and domestic friendship, and while they trampled on the
prostrate, they varnished their proceedings with the
fairest
colors of equity and moderation. ^53 The passes of the
Alps, and
the walls of Pavia, were the only defence of the
Lombards; the
former were surprised, the latter were invested, by the
son of
Pepin; and after a blockade of two years, ^* Desiderius,
the last
of their native princes, surrendered his sceptre and his
capital.
Under the dominion of a foreign king, but in the
possession of
their national laws, the Lombards became the brethren,
rather
than the subjects, of the Franks; who derived their
blood, and
manners, and language, from the same Germanic origin. ^54
[Footnote *: Gregory I. had been dead above a century;
read
Gregory III. - M]
[Footnote 52: See this most extraordinary letter in the
Codex
Carolinus, epist iii. p. 92. The enemies of the popes have
charged them with fraud and blasphemy; yet they surely
meant to
persuade rather than deceive. This introduction of the dead, or
of immortals, was familiar to the ancient orators, though
it is
executed on this occasion in the rude fashion of the
age.]
[Footnote 53: Except in the divorce of the daughter of
Desiderius, whom Charlemagne repudiated sine aliquo
crimine.
Pope Stephen IV. had most furiously opposed the alliance
of a
noble Frank - cum perfida, horrida nec dicenda,
foetentissima
natione Longobardorum - to whom he imputes the first
stain of
leprosy, (Cod. Carolin. epist. 45, p. 178, 179.) Another
reason
against the marriage was the existence of a first wife,
(Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. vi. p. 232, 233, 236,
237.) But
Charlemagne indulged himself in the freedom of polygamy
or
concubinage.]
[Footnote *: Of fifteen months. James, Life of Charlemagne, p.
187. - M.]
[Footnote 54: See the Annali d'Italia of Muratori, tom.
vi., and
the three first Dissertations of his Antiquitates Italiae
Medii
Aevi, tom. i.]
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.
Part III.
The mutual
obligations of the popes and the Carlovingian
family form the important link of ancient and modern, of
civil
and ecclesiastical, history. In the conquest of Italy,
the
champions of the Roman church obtained a favorable
occasion, a
specious title, the wishes of the people, the prayers and
intrigues of the clergy.
But the most essential gifts of the
popes to the Carlovingian race were the dignities of king
of
France, ^55 and of patrician of Rome. I.
Under the sacerdotal
monarchy of St. Peter, the nations began to resume the
practice
of seeking, on the banks of the Tyber, their kings, their
laws,
and the oracles of their fate. The Franks were perplexed between
the name and substance of their government. All the
powers of
royalty were exercised by Pepin, mayor of the palace; and
nothing, except the regal title, was wanting to his
ambition.
His enemies were crushed by his valor; his friends were
multiplied by his liberality; his father had been the
savior of
Christendom; and the claims of personal merit were
repeated and
ennobled in a descent of four generations. The name and image of
royalty was still preserved in the last descendant of
Clovis, the
feeble Childeric; but his obsolete right could only be
used as an
instrument of sedition: the nation was desirous of
restoring the
simplicity of the constitution; and Pepin, a subject and
a
prince, was ambitious to ascertain his own rank and the
fortune
of his family. The
mayor and the nobles were bound, by an oath
of fidelity, to the royal phantom: the blood of Clovis
was pure
and sacred in their eyes; and their common ambassadors
addressed
the Roman pontiff, to dispel their scruples, or to
absolve their
promise. The
interest of Pope Zachary, the successor of the two
Gregories, prompted him to decide, and to decide in their
favor:
he pronounced that the nation might lawfully unite in the
same
person the title and authority of king; and that the
unfortunate
Childeric, a victim of the public safety, should be
degraded,
shaved, and confined in a monastery for the remainder of
his
days. An answer so
agreeable to their wishes was accepted by the
Franks as the opinion of a casuist, the sentence of a
judge, or
the oracle of a prophet: the Merovingian race disappeared
from
the earth; and Pepin was exalted on a buckler by the
suffrage of
a free people, accustomed to obey his laws and to march
under his
standard. His coronation was twice performed, with the
sanction
of the popes, by their most faithful servant St.
Boniface, the
apostle of Germany, and by the grateful hands of Stephen
the
Third, who, in the monastery of St. Denys placed the
diadem on
the head of his benefactor. The royal unction of the kings of
Israel was dexterously applied: ^56 the successor of St.
Peter
assumed the character of a divine ambassador: a German
chieftain
was transformed into the Lord's anointed; and this Jewish
rite
has been diffused and maintained by the superstition and
vanity
of modern Europe. The Franks were absolved from their
ancient
oath; but a dire anathema was thundered against them and
their
posterity, if they should dare to renew the same freedom
of
choice, or to elect a king, except in the holy and
meritorious
race of the Carlovingian princes. Without apprehending the
future danger, these princes gloried in their present
security:
the secretary of Charlemagne affirms, that the French
sceptre was
transferred by the authority of the popes; ^57 and in
their
boldest enterprises, they insist, with confidence, on
this signal
and successful act of temporal jurisdiction.
[Footnote 55: Besides the common historians, three French
critics, Launoy, (Opera, tom. v. pars ii. l. vii. epist.
9, p.
477-487,) Pagi, (Critica, A.D. 751, No. 1-6, A.D. 752,
No. 1-10,)
and Natalis Alexander, (Hist. Novi Testamenti, dissertat,
ii. p.
96-107,) have treated this subject of the deposition of
Childeric
with learning and attention, but with a strong bias to
save the
independence of the crown. Yet they are hard pressed by the
texts which they produce of Eginhard, Theophanes, and the
old
annals, Laureshamenses, Fuldenses, Loisielani]
[Footnote 56: Not absolutely for the first time. On a less
conspicuous theatre it had been used, in the vith and
viith
centuries, by the provincial bishops of Britain and
Spain. The
royal unction of Constantinople was borrowed from the
Latins in
the last age of the empire. Constantine Manasses mentions
that of
Charlemagne as a foreign, Jewish, incomprehensible
ceremony. See
Selden's Titles of Honor, in his Works, vol. iii. part i.
p.
234-249.]
[Footnote 57: See Eginhard, in Vita Caroli Magni, c. i.
p. 9,
&c., c. iii. p. 24.
Childeric was deposed - jussu, the
Carlovingians were established - auctoritate, Pontificis
Romani.
Launoy, &c., pretend that these strong words are
susceptible of a
very soft interpretation.
Be it so; yet Eginhard understood the
world, the court, and the Latin language.]
II. In the change of manners and language the
patricians of
Rome ^58 were far removed from the senate of Romulus, on
the
palace of Constantine, from the free nobles of the
republic, or
the fictitious parents of the emperor. After the recovery of
Italy and Africa by the arms of Justinian, the importance
and
danger of those remote provinces required the presence of
a
supreme magistrate; he was indifferently styled the
exarch or the
patrician; and these governors of Ravenna, who fill their
place
in the chronology of princes, extended their jurisdiction
over
the Roman city. Since the revolt of Italy and the loss of
the
Exarchate, the distress of the Romans had exacted some
sacrifice
of their independence.
Yet, even in this act, they exercised the
right of disposing of themselves; and the decrees of the
senate
and people successively invested Charles Martel and his
posterity
with the honors of patrician of Rome. The leaders of a powerful
nation would have disdained a servile title and
subordinate
office; but the reign of the Greek emperors was
suspended; and,
in the vacancy of the empire, they derived a more
glorious
commission from the pope and the republic. The Roman ambassadors
presented these patricians with the keys of the shrine of
St.
Peter, as a pledge and symbol of sovereignty; with a holy
banner
which it was their right and duty to unfurl in the
defence of the
church and city. ^59 In the time of Charles Martel and of
Pepin,
the interposition of the Lombard kingdom covered the
freedom,
while it threatened the safety, of Rome; and the
patriciate
represented only the title, the service, the alliance, of
these
distant protectors. The power and policy of Charlemagne
annihilated an enemy, and imposed a master. In his first visit
to the capital, he was received with all the honors which
had
formerly been paid to the exarch, the representative of
the
emperor; and these honors obtained some new decorations
from the
joy and gratitude of Pope Adrian the First. ^60 No sooner
was he
informed of the sudden approach of the monarch, than he
despatched the magistrates and nobles of Rome to meet
him, with
the banner, about thirty miles from the city. At the distance of
one mile, the Flaminian way was lined with the schools,
or
national communities, of Greeks, Lombards, Saxons,
&c.: the Roman
youth were under arms; and the children of a more tender
age,
with palms and olive branches in their hands, chanted the
praises
of their great deliverer.
At the aspect of the holy crosses, and
ensigns of the saints, he dismounted from his horse, led
the
procession of his nobles to the Vatican, and, as he
ascended the
stairs, devoutly kissed each step of the threshold of the
apostles. In the
portico, Adrian expected him at the head of his
clergy: they embraced, as friends and equals; but in
their march
to the altar, the king or patrician assumed the right
hand of the
pope. Nor was the
Frank content with these vain and empty
demonstrations of respect. In the twenty-six years that
elapsed
between the conquest of Lombardy and his Imperial
coronation,
Rome, which had been delivered by the sword, was subject,
as his
own, to the sceptre of Charlemagne. The people swore allegiance
to his person and family: in his name money was coined,
and
justice was administered; and the election of the popes
was
examined and confirmed by his authority. Except an original and
self-inherent claim of sovereignty, there was not any
prerogative
remaining, which the title of emperor could add to the
patrician
of Rome. ^61
[Footnote 58: For the title and powers of patrician of
Rome, see
Ducange, (Gloss. Latin. tom. v. p. 149-151,) Pagi,
(Critica, A.D.
740, No. 6-11,) Muratori, (Annali d'Italia, tom. vi. p.
308-329,)
and St. Marc, (Abrege Chronologique d'Italie, tom. i. p.
379-382.) Of these the Franciscan Pagi is the most
disposed to
make the patrician a lieutenant of the church, rather
than of the
empire.]
[Footnote 59: The papal advocates can soften the symbolic
meaning
of the banner and the keys; but the style of ad regnum
dimisimus,
or direximus, (Codex Carolin. epist. i. tom. iii. pars
ii. p.
76,) seems to allow of no palliation or escape. In the Ms. of
the Vienna library, they read, instead of regnum, rogum,
prayer
or request (see Ducange;) and the royalty of Charles
Martel is
subverted by this important correction, (Catalani, in his
Critical Prefaces, Annali d'Italia, tom. xvii. p.
95-99.)]
[Footnote 60: In the authentic narrative of this
reception, the
Liber Pontificalis observes - obviam illi ejus sanctitas
dirigens
venerabiles cruces, id est signa; sicut mos est ad
exarchum, aut
patricium suscipiendum, sum cum ingenti honore suscipi
fecit,
(tom. iii. pars i. p. 185.)]
[Footnote 61: Paulus Diaconus, who wrote before the
empire of
Charlemagne describes Rome as his subject city - vestrae
civitates (ad Pompeium Festum) suis addidit sceptris, (de
Metensis Ecclesiae Episcopis.) Some Carlovingian medals,
struck
at Rome, have engaged Le Blanc to write an elaborate,
though
partial, dissertation on their authority at Rome, both as
patricians and emperors, (Amsterdam, 1692, in 4to.)]
The gratitude
of the Carlovingians was adequate to these
obligations, and their names are consecrated, as the
saviors and
benefactors of the Roman church. Her ancient patrimony of farms
and houses was transformed by their bounty into the
temporal
dominion of cities and provinces; and the donation of the
Exarchate was the first-fruits of the conquests of Pepin.
^62
Astolphus with a sigh relinquished his prey; the keys and
the
hostages of the principal cities were delivered to the
French
ambassador; and, in his master's name, he presented them
before
the tomb of St. Peter.
The ample measure of the Exarchate ^63
might comprise all the provinces of Italy which had
obeyed the
emperor and his vicegerent; but its strict and proper
limits were
included in the territories of Ravenna, Bologna, and
Ferrara: its
inseparable dependency was the Pentapolis, which
stretched along
the Adriatic from Rimini to Ancona, and advanced into the
midland- country as far as the ridges of the Apennine. In
this
transaction, the ambition and avarice of the popes have
been
severely condemned.
Perhaps the humility of a Christian priest
should have rejected an earthly kingdom, which it was not
easy
for him to govern without renouncing the virtues of his
profession.
Perhaps a faithful subject, or even a generous
enemy, would have been less impatient to divide the
spoils of the
Barbarian; and if the emperor had intrusted Stephen to
solicit in
his name the restitution of the Exarchate, I will not
absolve the
pope from the reproach of treachery and falsehood. But in the
rigid interpretation of the laws, every one may accept,
without
injury, whatever his benefactor can bestow without
injustice.
The Greek emperor had abdicated, or forfeited, his right
to the
Exarchate; and the sword of Astolphus was broken by the
stronger
sword of the Carlovingian. It was not in the cause of the
Iconoclast that Pepin has exposed his person and army in
a double
expedition beyond the Alps: he possessed, and might
lawfully
alienate, his conquests: and to the importunities of the
Greeks
he piously replied that no human consideration should
tempt him
to resume the gift which he had conferred on the Roman
Pontiff
for the remission of his sins, and the salvation of his
soul.
The splendid donation was granted in supreme and absolute
dominion, and the world beheld for the first time a
Christian
bishop invested with the prerogatives of a temporal
prince; the
choice of magistrates, the exercise of justice, the
imposition of
taxes, and the wealth of the palace of Ravenna. In the
dissolution of the Lombard kingdom, the inhabitants of
the duchy
of Spoleto ^64 sought a refuge from the storm, shaved
their heads
after the Roman fashion, declared themselves the servants
and
subjects of St. Peter, and completed, by this voluntary
surrender, the present circle of the ecclesiastical
state. That
mysterious circle was enlarged to an indefinite extent,
by the
verbal or written donation of Charlemagne, ^65 who, in
the first
transports of his victory, despoiled himself and the
Greek
emperor of the cities and islands which had formerly been
annexed
to the Exarchate.
But, in the cooler moments of absence and
reflection, he viewed, with an eye of jealousy and envy,
the
recent greatness of his ecclesiastical ally. The execution of
his own and his father's promises was respectfully
eluded: the
king of the Franks and Lombards asserted the inalienable
rights
of the empire; and, in his life and death, Ravenna, ^66
as well
as Rome, was numbered in the list of his metropolitan
cities.
The sovereignty of the Exarchate melted away in the hands
of the
popes; they found in the archbishops of Ravenna a
dangerous and
domestic rival: ^67 the nobles and people disdained the
yoke of a
priest; and in the disorders of the times, they could
only retain
the memory of an ancient claim, which, in a more
prosperous age,
they have revived and realized.
[Footnote 62: Mosheim (Institution, Hist. Eccles. p. 263)
weighs
this donation with fair and deliberate prudence. The original
act has never been produced; but the Liber Pontificalis
represents, (p. 171,) and the Codex Carolinus supposes,
this
ample gift. Both
are contemporary records and the latter is the
more authentic, since it has been preserved, not in the
Papal,
but the Imperial, library.]
[Footnote 63: Between the exorbitant claims, and narrow
concessions, of interest and prejudice, from which even
Muratori
(Antiquitat. tom. i. p. 63-68) is not exempt, I have been
guided,
in the limits of the Exarchate and Pentapolis, by the
Dissertatio
Chorographica Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. x. p. 160-180.]
[Footnote 64: Spoletini deprecati sunt, ut eos in
servitio B.
Petri receperet et more Romanorum tonsurari faceret,
(Anastasius,
p. 185.) Yet it may be a question whether they gave their
own
persons or their country.]
[Footnote 65: The policy and donations of Charlemagne are
carefully examined by St. Marc, (Abrege, tom. i. p.
390-408,) who
has well studied the Codex Carolinus. I believe, with him, that
they were only verbal.
The most ancient act of donation that
pretends to be extant, is that of the emperor Lewis the
Pious,
(Sigonius, de Regno Italiae, l. iv. Opera, tom. ii. p.
267-270.)
Its authenticity, or at least its integrity, are much
questioned,
(Pagi, A.D. 817, No. 7, &c. Muratori, Annali, tom. vi. p. 432,
&c. Dissertat.
Chorographica, p. 33, 34;) but I see no
reasonable objection to these princes so freely disposing
of what
was not their own.]
[Footnote 66: Charlemagne solicited and obtained from the
proprietor, Hadrian I., the mosaics of the palace of
Ravenna, for
the decoration of Aix-la-Chapelle, (Cod. Carolin. epist.
67, p.
223.)]
[Footnote 67: The popes often complain of the usurpations
of Leo
of Ravenna, (Codex Carolin, epist. 51, 52, 53, p.
200-205.) Sir
corpus St. Andreae fratris germani St. Petri hic
humasset,
nequaquam nos Romani pontifices sic subjugassent,
(Agnellus,
Liber Pontificalis, in Scriptores Rerum Ital. tom. ii.
pars. i.
p. 107.)]
Fraud is the
resource of weakness and cunning; and the
strong, though ignorant, Barbarian was often entangled in
the net
of sacerdotal policy. The Vatican and Lateran were an
arsenal and
manufacture, which, according to the occasion, have
produced or
concealed a various collection of false or genuine, of
corrupt or
suspicious, acts, as they tended to promote the interest
of the
Roman church.
Before the end of the eighth century, some
apostolic scribe, perhaps the notorious Isidore, composed
the
decretals, and the donation of Constantine, the two magic
pillars
of the spiritual and temporal monarchy of the popes. This
memorable donation was introduced to the world by an
epistle of
Adrian the First, who exhorts Charlemagne to imitate the
liberality, and revive the name, of the great
Constantine. ^68
According to the legend, the first of the Christian
emperors was
healed of the leprosy, and purified in the waters of
baptism, by
St. Silvester, the Roman bishop; and never was physician
more
gloriously recompensed.
His royal proselyte withdrew from the
seat and patrimony of St. Peter; declared his resolution
of
founding a new capital in the East; and resigned to the
popes the
free and perpetual sovereignty of Rome, Italy, and the
provinces
of the West. ^69 This fiction was productive of the most
beneficial effects.
The Greek princes were convicted of the
guilt of usurpation; and the revolt of Gregory was the
claim of
his lawful inheritance. The popes were delivered from
their debt
of gratitude; and the nominal gifts of the Carlovingians
were no
more than the just and irrevocable restitution of a
scanty
portion of the ecclesiastical state. The sovereignty of Rome no
longer depended on the choice of a fickle people; and the
successors of St. Peter and Constantine were invested
with the
purple and prerogatives of the Caesars. So deep was the
ignorance and credulity of the times, that the most
absurd of
fables was received, with equal reverence, in Greece and
in
France, and is still enrolled among the decrees of the
canon law.
^70 The emperors, and the Romans, were incapable of
discerning a
forgery, that subverted their rights and freedom; and the
only
opposition proceeded from a Sabine monastery, which, in
the
beginning of the twelfth century, disputed the truth and
validity
of the donation of Constantine. ^71 In the revival of
letters and
liberty, this fictitious deed was transpierced by the pen
of
Laurentius Valla, the pen of an eloquent critic and a
Roman
patriot. ^72 His contemporaries of the fifteenth century
were
astonished at his sacrilegious boldness; yet such is the
silent
and irresistible progress of reason, that, before the end
of the
next age, the fable was rejected by the contempt of
historians
^73 and poets, ^74 and the tacit or modest censure of the
advocates of the Roman church. ^75 The popes themselves
have
indulged a smile at the credulity of the vulgar; ^76 but
a false
and obsolete title still sanctifies their reign; and, by
the same
fortune which has attended the decretals and the
Sibylline
oracles, the edifice has subsisted after the foundations
have
been undermined.
[Footnote 68: Piissimo Constantino magno, per ejus
largitatem S.
R. Ecclesia elevata et exaltata est, et potestatem in his
Hesperiae partibus largiri olignatus est .... Quia ecce
novus
Constantinus his temporibus, &c., (Codex Carolin.
epist. 49, in
tom. iii. part ii. p. 195.) Pagi (Critica, A.D. 324, No.
16)
ascribes them to an impostor of the viiith century, who
borrowed
the name of St. Isidore: his humble title of Peccator was
ignorantly, but aptly, turned into Mercator: his
merchandise was
indeed profitable, and a few sheets of paper were sold
for much
wealth and power.]
[Footnote 69: Fabricius (Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p. 4-7)
has
enumerated the several editions of this Act, in Greek and
Latin.
The copy which Laurentius Valla recites and refutes,
appears to
be taken either from the spurious Acts of St. Silvester
or from
Gratian's Decree, to which, according to him and others,
it has
been surreptitiously tacked.]
[Footnote 70: In the year 1059, it was believed (was it
believed?) by Pope Leo IX. Cardinal Peter Damianus,
&c. Muratori
places (Annali d'Italia, tom. ix. p. 23, 24) the
fictitious
donations of Lewis the Pious, the Othos, &c., de
Donatione
Constantini. See a
Dissertation of Natalis Alexander, seculum
iv. diss. 25, p. 335-350.]
[Footnote 71: See a large account of the controversy
(A.D. 1105)
which arose from a private lawsuit, in the Chronicon
Farsense,
(Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. ii. pars ii. p. 637,
&c.,) a
copious extract from the archives of that Benedictine
abbey.
They were formerly accessible to curious foreigners, (Le
Blanc
and Mabillon,) and would have enriched the first volume
of the
Historia Monastica Italiae of Quirini. But they are now
imprisoned (Muratori, Scriptores R. I. tom. ii. pars ii.
p. 269)
by the timid policy of the court of Rome; and the future
cardinal
yielded to the voice of authority and the whispers of
ambition,
(Quirini, Comment. pars ii. p. 123-136.)]
[Footnote 72: I have read in the collection of Schardius
(de
Potestate Imperiali Ecclesiastica, p. 734-780) this
animated
discourse, which was composed by the author, A.D. 1440,
six years
after the flight of Pope Eugenius IV. It is a most vehement
party pamphlet: Valla justifies and animates the revolt
of the
Romans, and would even approve the use of a dagger against
their
sacerdotal tyrant.
Such a critic might expect the persecution of
the clergy; yet he made his peace, and is buried in the
Lateran,
(Bayle, Dictionnaire Critique, Valla; Vossius, de
Historicis
Latinis, p. 580.)]
[Footnote 73: See Guicciardini, a servant of the popes,
in that
long and valuable digression, which has resumed its place
in the
last edition, correctly published from the author's Ms.
and
printed in four volumes in quarto, under the name of
Friburgo,
1775, (Istoria d'Italia, tom. i. p. 385-395.)]
[Footnote 74: The Paladin Astolpho found it in the moon,
among
the things that were lost upon earth, (Orlando Furioso,
xxxiv.
80.)
Di vari fiore
ad un grand monte passa,
Ch'ebbe gia
buono odore, or puzza forte:
Questo era il
dono (se pero dir lece)
Che
Constantino al buon Silvestro fece.
Yet this incomparable poem has been approved by a bull of
Leo X.]
[Footnote 75: See Baronius, A.D. 324, No. 117-123, A.D.
1191, No.
51, &c. The cardinal wishes to suppose that Rome was
offered by
Constantine, and refused by Silvester. The act of donation he
considers strangely enough, as a forgery of the Greeks.]
[Footnote 76: Baronius n'en dit guerres contre; encore en
a-t'il
trop dit, et l'on vouloit sans moi, (Cardinal du Perron,)
qui
l'empechai, censurer cette partie de son histoire. J'en devisai
un jour avec le Pape, et il ne me repondit autre chose
"che
volete? i Canonici
la tengono," il le disoit en riant,
(Perroniana, p. 77.)]
While the
popes established in Italy their freedom and
dominion, the images, the first cause of their revolt,
were
restored in the Eastern empire. ^77 Under the reign of
Constantine the Fifth, the union of civil and
ecclesiastical
power had overthrown the tree, without extirpating the
root, of
superstition. The
idols (for such they were now held) were
secretly cherished by the order and the sex most prone to
devotion; and the fond alliance of the monks and females
obtained
a final victory over the reason and authority of
man. Leo the
Fourth maintained with less rigor the religion of his
father and
grandfather; but his wife, the fair and ambitious Irene,
had
imbibed the zeal of the Athenians, the heirs of the
Idolatry,
rather than the philosophy, of their ancestors. During the life
of her husband, these sentiments were inflamed by danger
and
dissimulation, and she could only labor to protect and
promote
some favorite monks whom she drew from their caverns, and
seated
on the metropolitan thrones of the East. But as soon as she
reigned in her own name and that of her son, Irene more
seriously
undertook the ruin of the Iconoclasts; and the first step
of her
future persecution was a general edict for liberty of
conscience.
In the restoration of the monks, a thousand images were
exposed
to the public veneration; a thousand legends were
inverted of
their sufferings and miracles. By the opportunities of death or
removal, the episcopal seats were judiciously filled the
most
eager competitors for earthly or celestial favor
anticipated and
flattered the judgment of their sovereign; and the
promotion of
her secretary Tarasius gave Irene the patriarch of
Constantinople, and the command of the Oriental
church. But the
decrees of a general council could only be repealed by a
similar
assembly: ^78 the Iconoclasts whom she convened were bold
in
possession, and averse to debate; and the feeble voice of
the
bishops was reechoed by the more formidable clamor of the
soldiers and people of Constantinople. The delay and
intrigues of
a year, the separation of the disaffected troops, and the
choice
of Nice for a second orthodox synod, removed these
obstacles; and
the episcopal conscience was again, after the Greek
fashion, in
the hands of the prince.
No more than eighteen days were allowed
for the consummation of this important work: the
Iconoclasts
appeared, not as judges, but as criminals or penitents:
the scene
was decorated by the legates of Pope Adrian and the
Eastern
patriarchs, ^79 the decrees were framed by the president
Taracius, and ratified by the acclamations and subscriptions
of
three hundred and fifty bishops. They unanimously pronounced,
that the worship of images is agreeable to Scripture and
reason,
to the fathers and councils of the church: but they
hesitate
whether that worship be relative or direct; whether the
Godhead,
and the figure of Christ, be entitled to the same mode of
adoration. Of this
second Nicene council the acts are still
extant; a curious monument of superstition and ignorance,
of
falsehood and folly.
I shall only notice the judgment of the
bishops on the comparative merit of image-worship and
morality.
A monk had concluded a truce with the daemon of
fornication, on
condition of interrupting his daily prayers to a picture
that
hung in his cell.
His scruples prompted him to consult the
abbot. "Rather
than abstain from adoring Christ and his Mother
in their holy images, it would be better for you,"
replied the
casuist, "to enter every brothel, and visit every
prostitute, in
the city." ^80 For the honor of orthodoxy, at least
the orthodoxy
of the Roman church, it is somewhat unfortunate, that the
two
princes who convened the two councils of Nice are both
stained
with the blood of their sons. The second of these assemblies was
approved and rigorously executed by the despotism of
Irene, and
she refused her adversaries the toleration which at first
she had
granted to her friends. During the five succeeding
reigns, a
period of thirty-eight years, the contest was maintained,
with
unabated rage and various success, between the
worshippers and
the breakers of the images; but I am not inclined to
pursue with
minute diligence the repetition of the same events.
Nicephorus
allowed a general liberty of speech and practice; and the
only
virtue of his reign is accused by the monks as the cause
of his
temporal and eternal perdition. Superstition and weakness formed
the character of Michael the First, but the saints and
images
were incapable of supporting their votary on the
throne. In the
purple, Leo the Fifth asserted the name and religion of
an
Armenian; and the idols, with their seditious adherents,
were
condemned to a second exile. Their applause would have
sanctified the murder of an impious tyrant, but his
assassin and
successor, the second Michael, was tainted from his birth
with
the Phrygian heresies: he attempted to mediate between
the
contending parties; and the intractable spirit of the
Catholics
insensibly cast him into the opposite scale. His moderation was
guarded by timidity; but his son Theophilus, alike
ignorant of
fear and pity, was the last and most cruel of the
Iconoclasts.
The enthusiasm of the times ran strongly against them;
and the
emperors who stemmed the torrent were exasperated and
punished by
the public hatred. After the death of Theophilus, the
final
victory of the images was achieved by a second female,
his widow
Theodora, whom he left the guardian of the empire. Her measures
were bold and decisive.
The fiction of a tardy repentance
absolved the fame and the soul of her deceased husband;
the
sentence of the Iconoclast patriarch was commuted from
the loss
of his eyes to a whipping of two hundred lashes: the
bishops
trembled, the monks shouted, and the festival of
orthodoxy
preserves the annual memory of the triumph of the
images. A
single question yet remained, whether they are endowed
with any
proper and inherent sanctity; it was agitated by the
Greeks of
the eleventh century; ^81 and as this opinion has the
strongest
recommendation of absurdity, I am surprised that it was
not more
explicitly decided in the affirmative. In the West, Pope Adrian
the First accepted and announced the decrees of the
Nicene
assembly, which is now revered by the Catholics as the
seventh in
rank of the general councils. Rome and Italy were docile to the
voice of their father; but the greatest part of the Latin
Christians were far behind in the race of
superstition. The
churches of France, Germany, England, and Spain, steered
a middle
course between the adoration and the destruction of
images, which
they admitted into their temples, not as objects of
worship, but
as lively and useful memorials of faith and history. An angry
book of controversy was composed and published in the
name of
Charlemagne: ^82 under his authority a synod of three
hundred
bishops was assembled at Frankfort: ^83 they blamed the
fury of
the Iconoclasts, but they pronounced a more severe
censure
against the superstition of the Greeks, and the decrees
of their
pretended council, which was long despised by the
Barbarians of
the West. ^84 Among them the worship of images advanced
with a
silent and insensible progress; but a large atonement is
made for
their hesitation and delay, by the gross idolatry of the
ages
which precede the reformation, and of the countries, both
in
Europe and America, which are still immersed in the gloom
of
superstition.
[Footnote 77: The remaining history of images, from Irene
to
Theodora, is collected, for the Catholics, by Baronius
and Pagi,
(A.D. 780-840.) Natalis Alexander, (Hist. N. T. seculum
viii.
Panoplia adversus Haereticos p. 118- 178,) and Dupin,
(Bibliot.
Eccles. tom. vi. p. 136-154;) for the Protestants, by
Spanheim,
(Hist. Imag. p. 305-639.) Basnage, (Hist. de l'Eglise,
tom. i. p.
556-572, tom. ii. p. 1362-1385,) and Mosheim, (Institut.
Hist.
Eccles. secul. viii. et ix.) The Protestants, except
Mosheim, are
soured with controversy; but the Catholics, except Dupin,
are
inflamed by the fury and superstition of the monks; and
even Le
Beau, (Hist. du Bas Empire,) a gentleman and a scholar,
is
infected by the odious contagion.]
[Footnote 78: See the Acts, in Greek and Latin, of the
second
Council of Nice, with a number of relative pieces, in the
viiith
volume of the Councils, p. 645-1600. A faithful version, with
some critical notes, would provoke, in different readers,
a sigh
or a smile.]
[Footnote 79: The pope's legates were casual messengers,
two
priests without any special commission, and who were
disavowed on
their return. Some vagabond monks were persuaded by the
Catholics
to represent the Oriental patriarchs. This curious
anecdote is
revealed by Theodore Studites, (epist. i. 38, in Sirmond.
Opp.
tom. v. p. 1319,) one of the warmest Iconoclasts of the
age.]
[Footnote 80: These visits could not be innocent since
the daemon
of fornication, &c. Actio iv. p. 901, Actio v. p.
1081]
[Footnote 81: See an account of this controversy in the
Alexius
of Anna Compena, (l. v. p. 129,) and Mosheim, (Institut.
Hist.
Eccles. p. 371, 372.)]
[Footnote 82: The Libri Carolini, (Spanheim, p. 443 -
529,)
composed in the palace or winter quarters of Charlemagne,
at
Worms, A.D. 790, and sent by Engebert to Pope Hadrian I.,
who
answered them by a grandis et verbosa epistola, (Concil.
tom.
vii. p. 1553.) The Carolines propose 120 objections
against the
Nicene synod and such words as these are the flowers of
their
rhetoric - Dementiam .... priscae Gentilitatis obsoletum
errorem
.... argumenta insanissima et absurdissima .... derisione
dignas
naenias, &c., &c.]
[Footnote 83: The assemblies of Charlemagne were
political, as
well as ecclesiastical; and the three hundred members, (Nat.
Alexander, sec. viii. p. 53,) who sat and voted at
Frankfort,
must include not only the bishops, but the abbots, and
even the
principal laymen.]
[Footnote 84: Qui supra sanctissima patres nostri
(episcopi et
sacerdotes) omnimodis servitium et adorationem imaginum
renuentes
contempserunt, atque consentientes condemnaverunt,
(Concil. tom.
ix. p. 101, Canon. ii. Franckfurd.) A polemic must be
hard-hearted indeed, who does not pity the efforts of
Baronius,
Pagi, Alexander, Maimbourg, &c., to elude this unlucky
sentence.]
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.
Part IV.
It was after
the Nycene synod, and under the reign of the
pious Irene, that the popes consummated the separation of
Rome
and Italy, by the translation of the empire to the less
orthodox
Charlemagne. They
were compelled to choose between the rival
nations: religion was not the sole motive of their
choice; and
while they dissembled the failings of their friends, they
beheld,
with reluctance and suspicion, the Catholic virtues of
their
foes. The
difference of language and manners had perpetuated the
enmity of the two capitals; and they were alienated from
each
other by the hostile opposition of seventy years. In that schism
the Romans had tasted of freedom, and the popes of sovereignty:
their submission would have exposed them to the revenge
of a
jealous tyrant; and the revolution of Italy had betrayed
the
impotence, as well as the tyranny, of the Byzantine
court. The
Greek emperors had restored the images, but they had not
restored
the Calabrian estates ^85 and the Illyrian diocese, ^86
which the
Iconociasts had torn away from the successors of St.
Peter; and
Pope Adrian threatens them with a sentence of
excommunication
unless they speedily abjure this practical heresy. ^87 The
Greeks
were now orthodox; but their religion might be tainted by
the
breath of the reigning monarch: the Franks were now
contumacious;
but a discerning eye might discern their approaching
conversion,
from the use, to the adoration, of images. The name of
Charlemagne was stained by the polemic acrimony of his
scribes;
but the conqueror himself conformed, with the temper of a
statesman, to the various practice of France and
Italy. In his
four pilgrimages or visits to the Vatican, he embraced
the popes
in the communion of friendship and piety; knelt before
the tomb,
and consequently before the image, of the apostle; and
joined,
without scruple, in all the prayers and processions of
the Roman
liturgy. Would
prudence or gratitude allow the pontiffs to
renounce their benefactor? Had they a right to alienate his gift
of the Exarchate? Had they power to abolish his
government of
Rome? The title of
patrician was below the merit and greatness
of Charlemagne; and it was only by reviving the Western
empire
that they could pay their obligations or secure their
establishment. By
this decisive measure they would finally
eradicate the claims of the Greeks; from the debasement
of a
provincial town, the majesty of Rome would be restored:
the Latin
Christians would be united, under a supreme head, in
their
ancient metropolis; and the conquerors of the West would
receive
their crown from the successors of St. Peter. The Roman church
would acquire a zealous and respectable advocate; and,
under the
shadow of the Carlovingian power, the bishop might
exercise, with
honor and safety, the government of the city. ^88
[Footnote 85: Theophanes (p. 343) specifies those of
Sicily and
Calabria, which yielded an annual rent of three talents
and a
half of gold, (perhaps 7000l. sterling.) Liutprand more
pompously
enumerates the patrimonies of the Roman church in Greece,
Judaea,
Persia, Mesopotamia Babylonia, Egypt, and Libya, which
were
detained by the injustice of the Greek emperor, (Legat.
ad
Nicephorum, in Script. Rerum Italica rum, tom. ii. pars
i. p.
481.)]
[Footnote 86: The great diocese of the Eastern Illyricum,
with
Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, (Thomassin, Discipline de
l'Eglise,
tom. i. p. 145: ) by the confession of the Greeks, the
patriarch
of Constantinople had detached from Rome the
metropolitans of
Thessalonica, Athens Corinth, Nicopolis, and Patrae,
(Luc.
Holsten. Geograph. Sacra, p. 22) and his spiritual
conquests
extended to Naples and Amalphi (Istoria Civile di Napoli,
tom. i.
p. 517-524, Pagi, A. D 780, No. 11.)]
[Footnote 87: In hoc ostenditur, quia ex uno capitulo ab
errore
reversis, in aliis duobus, in eodem (was it the same?)
permaneant
errore .... de diocessi S. R. E. seu de patrimoniis
iterum
increpantes commonemus, ut si ea restituere noluerit
hereticum
eum pro hujusmodi errore perseverantia decernemus,
(Epist.
Hadrian. Papae ad
Carolum Magnum, in Concil. tom. viii. p.
1598;) to which he adds a reason, most directly opposite
to his
conduct, that he preferred the salvation of souls and
rule of
faith to the goods of this transitory world.]
[Footnote 88: Fontanini considers the emperors as no more
than
the advocates of the church, (advocatus et defensor S. R.
E. See
Ducange, Gloss Lat. tom. i. p. 297.) His antagonist
Muratori
reduces the popes to be no more than the exarchs of the
emperor.
In the more equitable view of Mosheim, (Institut. Hist.
Eccles.
p. 264, 265,) they held Rome under the empire as the most
honorable species of fief or benefice - premuntur nocte
caliginosa!]
Before the
ruin of Paganism in Rome, the competition for a
wealthy bishopric had often been productive of tumult and
bloodshed. The
people was less numerous, but the times were more
savage, the prize more important, and the chair of St.
Peter was
fiercely disputed by the leading ecclesiastics who
aspired to the
rank of sovereign.
The reign of Adrian the First ^89 surpasses
the measure of past or succeeding ages; ^90 the walls of
Rome,
the sacred patrimony, the ruin of the Lombards, and the
friendship of Charlemagne, were the trophies of his fame:
he
secretly edified the throne of his successors, and
displayed in a
narrow space the virtues of a great prince. His memory was
revered; but in the next election, a priest of the
Lateran, Leo
the Third, was preferred to the nephew and the favorite
of
Adrian, whom he had promoted to the first dignities of
the
church. Their
acquiescence or repentance disguised, above four
years, the blackest intention of revenge, till the day of
a
procession, when a furious band of conspirators dispersed
the
unarmed multitude, and assaulted with blows and wounds
the sacred
person of the pope. But their enterprise on his life or
liberty
was disappointed, perhaps by their own confusion and
remorse.
Leo was left for dead on the ground: on his revival from
the
swoon, the effect of his loss of blood, he recovered his
speech
and sight; and this natural event was improved to the
miraculous
restoration of his eyes and tongue, of which he had been
deprived, twice deprived, by the knife of the assassins.
^91 From
his prison he escaped to the Vatican: the duke of Spoleto
hastened to his rescue, Charlemagne sympathized in his
injury,
and in his camp of Paderborn in Westphalia accepted, or
solicited, a visit from the Roman pontiff. Leo repassed the Alps
with a commission of counts and bishops, the guards of
his safety
and the judges of his innocence; and it was not without
reluctance, that the conqueror of the Saxons delayed till
the
ensuing year the personal discharge of this pious
office. In his
fourth and last pilgrimage, he was received at Rome with
the due
honors of king and patrician: Leo was permitted to purge
himself
by oath of the crimes imputed to his charge: his enemies
were
silenced, and the sacrilegious attempt against his life
was
punished by the mild and insufficient penalty of
exile. On the
festival of Christmas, the last year of the eighth
century,
Charlemagne appeared in the church of St. Peter; and, to
gratify
the vanity of Rome, he had exchanged the simple dress of
his
country for the habit of a patrician. ^92 After the
celebration
of the holy mysteries, Leo suddenly placed a precious
crown on
his head, ^93 and the dome resounded with the
acclamations of the
people, "Long life and victory to Charles, the most
pious
Augustus, crowned by God the great and pacific emperor of
the
Romans!" The head and body of Charlemagne were
consecrated by the
royal unction: after the example of the Caesars, he was
saluted
or adored by the pontiff: his coronation oath represents
a
promise to maintain the faith and privileges of the
church; and
the first-fruits were paid in his rich offerings to the
shrine of
his apostle. In
his familiar conversation, the emperor protested
the ignorance of the intentions of Leo, which he would
have
disappointed by his absence on that memorable day. But the
preparations of the ceremony must have disclosed the
secret; and
the journey of Charlemagne reveals his knowledge and
expectation:
he had acknowledged that the Imperial title was the
object of his
ambition, and a Roman synod had pronounced, that it was
the only
adequate reward of his merit and services. ^94
[Footnote 89: His merits and hopes are summed up in an
epitaph of
thirty-eight-verses, of which Charlemagne declares
himself the
author, (Concil. tom. viii. p. 520.)
Post patrem lacrymans
Carolus haec carmina scripsi.
Tu mihi dulcis
amor, te modo plango pater ...
Nomina jungo
simul titulis, clarissime, nostra
Adrianus,
Carolus, rex ego, tuque pater.
The poetry might be supplied by Alcuin; but the tears,
the most
glorious tribute, can only belong to Charlemagne.]
[Footnote 90: Every new pope is admonished - "Sancte
Pater, non
videbis annos Petri," twenty-five years. On the whole series the
average is about eight years - a short hope for an
ambitious
cardinal.]
[Footnote 91: The assurance of Anastasius (tom. iii. pars
i. p.
197, 198) is supported by the credulity of some French
annalists;
but Eginhard, and other writers of the same age, are more
natural
and sincere.
"Unus ei oculus paullulum est laesus," says John
the deacon of Naples, (Vit. Episcop. Napol. in Scriptores
Muratori, tom. i. pars ii. p. 312.) Theodolphus, a
contemporary
bishop of Orleans, observes with prudence (l. iii. carm.
3.)
Reddita
sunt? mirum est: mirum est auferre
nequtsse.
Est tamen in dubio, hinc mirer an inde magis.]
[Footnote 92: Twice, at the request of Hadrian and Leo,
he
appeared at Rome, - longa tunica et chlamyde amictus, et
calceamentis quoque Romano more formatis. Eginhard (c.
xxiii. p.
109 - 113) describes, like Suetonius the simplicity of
his dress,
so popular in the nation, that when Charles the Bald
returned to
France in a foreign habit, the patriotic dogs barked at
the
apostate, (Gaillard, Vie de Charlemagne, tom. iv. p.
109.)]
[Footnote 93: See Anastasius (p. 199) and Eginhard,
(c.xxviii. p.
124 - 128.) The unction is mentioned by Theophanes, (p.
399,) the
oath by Sigonius, (from the Ordo Romanus,) and the Pope's
adoration more antiquorum principum, by the Annales
Bertiniani,
(Script. Murator. tom. ii. pars ii. p. 505.)]
[Footnote 94: This great event of the translation or
restoration
of the empire is related and discussed by Natalis
Alexander,
(secul. ix. dissert. i. p. 390 - 397,) Pagi, (tom. iii.
p. 418,)
Muratori, (Annali d'Italia, tom. vi. p. 339 - 352,)
Sigonius, (de
Regno Italiae, l. iv. Opp. tom. ii. p. 247 - 251,)
Spanheim, (de
ficta Translatione Imperii,) Giannone, (tom. i. p. 395 -
405,)
St. Marc, (Abrege Chronologique, tom. i. p. 438 - 450,)
Gaillard,
(Hist. de Charlemagne, tom. ii. p. 386 - 446.) Almost all
these
moderns have some religious or national bias.]
The
appellation of great has been often bestowed, and
sometimes deserved; but Charlemagne is the only prince in
whose
favor the title has been indissolubly blended with the
name.
That name, with the addition of saint, is inserted in the
Roman
calendar; and the saint, by a rare felicity, is crowned
with the
praises of the historians and philosophers of an
enlightened age.
^95 His real merit is doubtless enhanced by the barbarism
of the
nation and the times from which he emerged: but the
apparent
magnitude of an object is likewise enlarged by an unequal
comparison; and the ruins of Palmyra derive a casual
splendor
from the nakedness of the surrounding desert. Without injustice
to his fame, I may discern some blemishes in the sanctity
and
greatness of the restorer of the Western empire. Of his moral
virtues, chastity is not the most conspicuous: ^96 but
the public
happiness could not be materially injured by his nine
wives or
concubines, the various indulgence of meaner or more
transient
amours, the multitude of his bastards whom he bestowed on
the
church, and the long celibacy and licentious manners of
his
daughters, ^97 whom the father was suspected of loving
with too
fond a passion. ^* I shall be scarcely permitted to
accuse the
ambition of a conqueror; but in a day of equal
retribution, the
sons of his brother Carloman, the Merovingian princes of
Aquitain, and the four thousand five hundred Saxons who
were
beheaded on the same spot, would have something to allege
against
the justice and humanity of Charlemagne. His treatment of the
vanquished Saxons ^98 was an abuse of the right of
conquest; his
laws were not less sanguinary than his arms, and in the
discussion of his motives, whatever is subtracted from
bigotry
must be imputed to temper. The sedentary reader is amazed by his
incessant activity of mind and body; and his subjects and
enemies
were not less astonished at his sudden presence, at the
moment
when they believed him at the most distant extremity of
the
empire; neither peace nor war, nor summer nor winter,
were a
season of repose; and our fancy cannot easily reconcile
the
annals of his reign with the geography of his
expeditions. ^! But
this activity was a national, rather than a personal,
virtue; the
vagrant life of a Frank was spent in the chase, in
pilgrimage, in
military adventures; and the journeys of Charlemagne were
distinguished only by a more numerous train and a more
important
purpose. His military renown must be tried by the
scrutiny of his
troops, his enemies, and his actions. Alexander conquered
with
the arms of Philip, but the two heroes who preceded
Charlemagne
bequeathed him their name, their examples, and the
companions of
their victories.
At the head of his veteran and superior armies,
he oppressed the savage or degenerate nations, who were
incapable
of confederating for their common safety: nor did he ever
encounter an equal antagonist in numbers, in discipline,
or in
arms The science of war has been lost and revived with
the arts
of peace; but his campaigns are not illustrated by any
siege or
battle of singular difficulty and success; and he might
behold,
with envy, the Saracen trophies of his grandfather. After the
Spanish expedition, his rear-guard was defeated in the
Pyrenaean
mountains; and the soldiers, whose situation was
irretrievable,
and whose valor was useless, might accuse, with their
last
breath, the want of skill or caution of their general.
^99 I
touch with reverence the laws of Charlemagne, so highly
applauded
by a respectable judge.
They compose not a system, but a series,
of occasional and minute edicts, for the correction of
abuses,
the reformation of manners, the economy of his farms, the
care of
his poultry, and even the sale of his eggs. He wished to improve
the laws and the character of the Franks; and his
attempts,
however feeble and imperfect, are deserving of praise:
the
inveterate evils of the times were suspended or mollified
by his
government; ^100 but in his institutions I can seldom
discover
the general views and the immortal spirit of a
legislator, who
survives himself for the benefit of posterity. The union and
stability of his empire depended on the life of a single
man: he
imitated the dangerous practice of dividing his kingdoms
among
his sons; and after his numerous diets, the whole
constitution
was left to fluctuate between the disorders of anarchy
and
despotism. His
esteem for the piety and knowledge of the clergy
tempted him to intrust that aspiring order with temporal
dominion
and civil jurisdiction; and his son Lewis, when he was
stripped
and degraded by the bishops, might accuse, in some
measure, the
imprudence of his father. His laws enforced the
imposition of
tithes, because the daemons had proclaimed in the air
that the
default of payment had been the cause of the last
scarcity. ^101
The literary merits of Charlemagne are attested by the
foundation
of schools, the introduction of arts, the works which
were
published in his name, and his familiar connection with
the
subjects and strangers whom he invited to his court to
educate
both the prince and people. His own studies were tardy,
laborious, and imperfect; if he spoke Latin, and
understood
Greek, he derived the rudiments of knowledge from
conversation,
rather than from books; and, in his mature age, the
emperor
strove to acquire the practice of writing, which every
peasant
now learns in his infancy. ^102 The grammar and logic,
the music
and astronomy, of the times, were only cultivated as the
handmaids of superstition; but the curiosity of the human
mind
must ultimately tend to its improvement, and the
encouragement of
learning reflects the purest and most pleasing lustre on
the
character of Charlemagne. ^103 The dignity of his person,
^104
the length of his reign, the prosperity of his arms, the
vigor of
his government, and the reverence of distant nations,
distinguish
him from the royal crowd; and Europe dates a new aera
from his
restoration of the Western empire.
[Footnote 95: By Mably, (Observations sur l'Histoire de
France,)
Voltaire, (Histoire Generale,) Robertson, (History of
Charles
V.,) and Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix, l. xxxi. c. 18.)
In the
year 1782, M. Gaillard published his Histoire de
Charlemagne, (in
4 vols. in 12mo.,) which I have freely and profitably
used. The
author is a man of sense and humanity; and his work is
labored
with industry and elegance. But I have likewise examined the
original monuments of the reigns of Pepin and
Charlemagne, in the
5th volume of the Historians of France.]
[Footnote 96: The vision of Weltin, composed by a monk,
eleven
years after the death of Charlemagne, shows him in
purgatory,
with a vulture, who is perpetually gnawing the guilty
member,
while the rest of his body, the emblem of his virtues, is
sound
and perfect, (see Gaillard tom. ii. p. 317 - 360.)]
[Footnote 97: The marriage of Eginhard with Imma,
daughter of
Charlemagne, is, in my opinion, sufficiently refuted by
the
probum and suspicio that sullied these fair damsels,
without
excepting his own wife, (c. xix. p. 98 - 100, cum Notis
Schmincke.) The husband must have been too strong for the
historian.]
[Footnote *: This charge of incest, as Mr. Hallam justly
observes, "seems to have originated in a
misinterpreted passage
of Eginhard." Hallam's Middle Ages, vol.i. p. 16. -
M.
[Footnote 98: Besides the massacres and transmigrations,
the pain
of death was pronounced against the following crimes: 1.
The
refusal of baptism.
2. The false pretence of baptism.
3. A
relapse to idolatry.
4. The murder of a priest or bishop.
5.
Human sacrifices.
6. Eating meat in Lent. But every
crime might
be expiated by baptism or penance, (Gaillard, tom. ii. p.
241 -
247;) and the Christian Saxons became the friends and
equals of
the Franks, (Struv. Corpus Hist. Germanicae, p.133.)]
[Footnote !: M. Guizot (Cours d'Histoire Moderne, p. 270,
273)
has compiled the following statement of Charlemagne's
military
campaigns: -
1. Against the
Aquitanians.
18. "
the Saxons.
5. "
the Lombards.
7. "
the Arabs in Spain.
1. "
the Thuringians.
4. "
the Avars.
2. "
the Bretons.
1. "
the Bavarians.
4. "
the Slaves beyond the Elbe
5. "
the Saracens in Italy.
3. "
the Danes.
2. "
the Greeks.
___
53 total. -
M.]
[Footnote 99: In this action the famous Rutland, Rolando,
Orlando, was slain - cum compluribus aliis. See the truth in
Eginhard, (c. 9, p. 51 - 56,) and the fable in an
ingenious
Supplement of M. Gaillard, (tom. iii. p. 474.) The Spaniards
are
too proud of a victory, which history ascribes to the
Gascons,
and romance to the Saracens.
Note: In fact,
it was a sudden onset of the Gascons,
assisted by the Beaure mountaineers, and possibly a few
Navarrese. - M.]
[Footnote 100: Yet Schmidt, from the best authorities,
represents
the interior disorders and oppression of his reign,
(Hist. des
Allemands, tom. ii. p. 45 - 49.)]
[Footnote 101: Omnis homo ex sua proprietate legitimam
decimam ad
ecclesiam conferat.
Experimento enim didicimus, in anno, quo
illa valida fames irrepsit, ebullire vacuas annonas a
daemonibus
devoratas, et voces exprobationis auditas. Such is the decree
and assertion of the great Council of Frankfort, (canon
xxv. tom.
ix. p. 105.) Both Selden (Hist. of Tithes; Works, vol.
iii. part
ii. p. 1146) and Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xxxi.
c. 12)
represent Charlemagne as the first legal author of
tithes. Such
obligations have country gentlemen to his memory!]
[Footnote 102: Eginhard (c. 25, p. 119) clearly affirms,
tentabat
et scribere ... sed parum prospere successit labor
praeposterus
et sero inchoatus.
The moderns have perverted and corrected this
obvious meaning, and the title of M. Gaillard's
dissertation
(tom. iii. p. 247 - 260) betrays his partiality.
Note: This
point has been contested; but Mr. Hallam and
Monsieur Sismondl concur with Gibbon. See Middle Ages, iii. 330
Histoire de Francais, tom. ii. p. 318. The sensible observations
of the latter are quoted in the Quarterly Review, vol.
xlviii. p.
451. Fleury, I may
add, quotes from Mabillon a remarkable
evidence that Charlemagne "had a mark to himself
like an honest,
plain-dealing man." Ibid. - M.]
[Footnote 103: See Gaillard, tom. iii. p. 138 - 176, and
Schmidt,
tom. ii. p. 121 - 129.]
[Footnote 104: M. Gaillard (tom. iii. p. 372) fixes the
true
stature of Charlemagne (see a Dissertation of Marquard
Freher ad
calcem Eginhart, p. 220, &c.) at five feet nine
inches of French,
about six feet one inch and a fourth English,
measure. The
romance writers have increased it to eight feet, and the
giant
was endowed with matchless strength and appetite: at a
single
stroke of his good sword Joyeuse, he cut asunder a
horseman and
his horse; at a single repast, he devoured a goose, two
fowls, a
quarter of mutton, &c.]
That empire
was not unworthy of its title; ^105 and some of
the fairest kingdoms of Europe were the patrimony or
conquest of
a prince, who reigned at the same time in France, Spain,
Italy,
Germany, and Hungary. ^106 I. The Roman province of Gaul had
been transformed into the name and monarchy of France;
but, in
the decay of the Merovingian line, its limits were
contracted by
the independence of the Britons and the revolt of
Aquitain.
Charlemagne pursued, and confined, the Britons on the
shores of
the ocean; and that ferocious tribe, whose origin and
language
are so different from the French, was chastised by the
imposition
of tribute, hostages, and peace. After a long and evasive
contest, the rebellion of the dukes of Aquitain was
punished by
the forfeiture of their province, their liberty, and
their lives.
Harsh and rigorous would have been such treatment of
ambitious
governors, who had too faithfully copied the mayors of
the
palace. But a
recent discovery ^107 has proved that these
unhappy princes were the last and lawful heirs of the
blood and
sceptre of Clovis, and younger branch, from the brother
of
Dagobert, of the Merovingian house. Their ancient kingdom
was
reduced to the duchy of Gascogne, to the counties of
Fesenzac and
Armagnac, at the foot of the Pyrenees: their race was
propagated
till the beginning of the sixteenth century; and after
surviving
their Carlovingian tyrants, they were reserved to feel
the
injustice, or the favors, of a third dynasty. By the reunion of
Aquitain, France was enlarged to its present boundaries,
with the
additions of the Netherlands and Spain, as far as the
Rhine. II.
The Saracens had been expelled from France by the
grandfather and
father of Charlemagne; but they still possessed the
greatest part
of Spain, from the rock of Gibraltar to the
Pyrenees. Amidst
their civil divisions, an Arabian emir of Saragossa
implored his
protection in the diet of Paderborn. Charlemagne undertook the
expedition, restored the emir, and, without distinction
of faith,
impartially crushed the resistance of the Christians, and
rewarded the obedience and services of the
Mahometans. In his
absence he instituted the Spanish march, ^108 which
extended from
the Pyrenees to the River Ebro: Barcelona was the
residence of
the French governor: he possessed the counties of
Rousillon and
Catalonia; and the infant kingdoms of Navarre and Arragon
were
subject to his jurisdiction. III.
As king of the Lombards, and
patrician of Rome, he reigned over the greatest part of
Italy,
^109 a tract of a thousand miles from the Alps to the
borders of
Calabria. The
duchy of Beneventum, a Lombard fief, had spread,
at the expense of the Greeks, over the modern kingdom of
Naples.
But Arrechis, the reigning duke, refused to be included
in the
slavery of his country; assumed the independent title of
prince;
and opposed his sword to the Carlovingian monarchy. His defence
was firm, his submission was not inglorious, and the
emperor was
content with an easy tribute, the demolition of his
fortresses,
and the acknowledgement, on his coins, of a supreme lord.
The
artful flattery of his son Grimoald added the appellation
of
father, but he asserted his dignity with prudence, and
Benventum
insensibly escaped from the French yoke. ^110 IV. Charlemagne
was the first who united Germany under the same
sceptre. The
name of Oriental France is preserved in the circle of
Franconia;
and the people of Hesse and Thuringia were recently
incorporated
with the victors, by the conformity of religion and
government.
The Alemanni, so formidable to the Romans, were the
faithful
vassals and confederates of the Franks; and their country
was
inscribed within the modern limits of Alsace, Swabia, and
Switzerland. The
Bavarians, with a similar indulgence of their
laws and manners, were less patient of a master: the
repeated
treasons of Tasillo justified the abolition of their
hereditary
dukes; and their power was shared among the counts, who
judged
and guarded that important frontier. But the north of Germany,
from the Rhine and beyond the Elbe, was still hostile and
Pagan;
nor was it till after a war of thirty-three years that
the Saxons
bowed under the yoke of Christ and of Charlemagne. The idols and
their votaries were extirpated: the foundation of eight
bishoprics, of Munster, Osnaburgh, Paderborn, and Minden,
of
Bremen, Verden, Hildesheim, and Halberstadt, define, on
either
side of the Weser, the bounds of ancient Saxony these
episcopal
seats were the first schools and cities of that savage
land; and
the religion and humanity of the children atoned, in some
degree,
for the massacre of the parents. Beyond the Elbe, the Slavi, or
Sclavonians, of similar manners and various
denominations,
overspread the modern dominions of Prussia, Poland, and
Bohemia,
and some transient marks of obedience have tempted the
French
historian to extend the empire to the Baltic and the
Vistula.
The conquest or conversion of those countries is of a
more recent
age; but the first union of Bohemia with the Germanic
body may be
justly ascribed to the arms of Charlemagne. V. He
retaliated on
the Avars, or Huns of Pannonia, the same calamities which
they
had inflicted on the nations. Their rings, the wooden
fortifications which encircled their districts and
villages, were
broken down by the triple effort of a French army, that
was
poured into their country by land and water, through the
Carpathian mountains and along the plain of the
Danube. After a
bloody conflict of eight years, the loss of some French
generals
was avenged by the slaughter of the most noble Huns: the
relics
of the nation submitted the royal residence of the chagan
was
left desolate and unknown; and the treasures, the rapine
of two
hundred and fifty years, enriched the victorious troops,
or
decorated the churches of Italy and Gaul. ^111 After the
reduction of Pannonia, the empire of Charlemagne was
bounded only
by the conflux of the Danube with the Teyss and the Save:
the
provinces of Istria, Liburnia, and Dalmatia, were an
easy, though
unprofitable, accession; and it was an effect of his
moderation,
that he left the maritime cities under the real or
nominal
sovereignty of the Greeks. But these distant possessions added
more to the reputation than to the power of the Latin
emperor;
nor did he risk any ecclesiastical foundations to reclaim
the
Barbarians from their vagrant life and idolatrous
worship. Some
canals of communication between the rivers, the Saone and
the
Meuse, the Rhine and the Danube, were faintly attempted.
^112
Their execution would have vivified the empire; and more
cost and
labor were often wasted in the structure of a cathedral.
^*
[Footnote 105: See the concise, but correct and original,
work of
D'Anville, (Etats Formes en Europe apres la Chute de
l'Empire
Romain en Occident, Paris, 1771, in 4to.,) whose map
includes the
empire of Charlemagne; the different parts are
illustrated, by
Valesius (Notitia Galliacum) for France, Beretti
(Dissertatio
Chorographica) for Italy, De Marca (Marca Hispanica) for
Spain.
For the middle geography of Germany, I confess myself
poor and
destitute.]
[Footnote 106: After a brief relation of his wars and
conquests,
(Vit. Carol. c. 5 - 14,) Eginhard recapitulates, in a few
words,
(c. 15,) the countries subject to his empire. Struvius, (Corpus
Hist. German. p. 118 - 149) was inserted in his Notes the
texts
of the old Chronicles.]
[Footnote 107: On a charter granted to the monastery of
Alaon
(A.D. 845) by Charles the Bald, which deduces this royal
pedigree. I doubt
whether some subsequent links of the ixth and
xth centuries are equally firm; yet the whole is approved
and
defended by M. Gaillard, (tom. ii. p.60 - 81, 203 - 206,)
who
affirms that the family of Montesquiou (not of the
President de
Montesquieu) is descended, in the female line, from
Clotaire and
Clovis - an innocent pretension!]
[Footnote 108: The governors or counts of the Spanish
march
revolted from Charles the Simple about the year 900; and
a poor
pittance, the Rousillon, has been recovered in 1642 by
the kings
of France, (Longuerue, Description de la France, tom i.
p. 220 -
222.) Yet the Rousillon contains 188,900 subjects, and
annually
pays 2,600,000 livres, (Necker, Administration des
Finances, tom.
i. p. 278, 279;) more people, perhaps, and doubtless more
money
than the march of Charlemagne.]
[Footnote 109: Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, tom. ii. p.
200,
&c.]
[Footnote 110: See Giannone, tom. i. p 374, 375, and the
Annals
of Muratori.]
[Footnote 111: Quot praelia in eo gesta! quantum sanguinis
effusum sit! Testatur vacua omni habitatione Pannonia, et
locus
in quo regia Cagani fuit ita desertus, ut ne vestigium
quidem
humanae habitationis appareat. Tota in hoc bello Hunnorum
nobilitas periit, tota gloria decidit, omnis pecunia et
congesti
ex longo tempore thesauri direpti sunt. Eginhard, cxiii.]
[Footnote 112: The junction of the Rhine and Danube was
undertaken only for the service of the Pannonian war,
(Gaillard,
Vie de Charlemagne, tom. ii. p. 312-315.) The canal,
which would
have been only two leagues in length, and of which some
traces
are still extant in Swabia, was interrupted by excessive
rains,
military avocations, and superstitious fears,
(Schaepflin, Hist.
de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xviii. p. 256. Molimina
fluviorum, &c., jungendorum, p. 59-62.)]
[Footnote *: I should doubt this in the time of
Charlemagne, even
if the term "expended" were substituted for
"wasted." - M.]
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.
Part V.
If we retrace
the outlines of this geographical picture, it
will be seen that the empire of the Franks extended,
between east
and west, from the Ebro to the Elbe or Vistula; between
the north
and south, from the duchy of Beneventum to the River
Eyder, the
perpetual boundary of Germany and Denmark. The personal
and
political importance of Charlemagne was magnified by the
distress
and division of the rest of Europe. The islands of Great Britain
and Ireland were disputed by a crowd of princes of Saxon
or
Scottish origin: and, after the loss of Spain, the
Christian and
Gothic kingdom of Alphonso the Chaste was confined to the
narrow
range of the Asturian mountains. These petty sovereigns revered
the power or virtue of the Carlovingian monarch, implored
the
honor and support of his alliance, and styled him their
common
parent, the sole and supreme emperor of the West. ^113 He
maintained a more equal intercourse with the caliph Harun
al
Rashid, ^114 whose dominion stretched from Africa to
India, and
accepted from his ambassadors a tent, a water-clock, an
elephant,
and the keys of the Holy Sepulchre. It is not easy to conceive
the private friendship of a Frank and an Arab, who were
strangers
to each other's person, and language, and religion: but
their
public correspondence was founded on vanity, and their
remote
situation left no room for a competition of
interest. Two thirds
of the Western empire of Rome were subject to
Charlemagne, and
the deficiency was amply supplied by his command of the
inaccessible or invincible nations of Germany. But in the choice
of his enemies, ^* we may be reasonably surprised that he
so
often preferred the poverty of the north to the riches of
the
south. The
three-and-thirty campaigns laboriously consumed in
the woods and morasses of Germany would have sufficed to
assert
the amplitude of his title by the expulsion of the Greeks
from
Italy and the Saracens from Spain. The weakness of the Greeks
would have insured an easy victory; and the holy crusade
against
the Saracens would have been prompted by glory and
revenge, and
loudly justified by religion and policy. Perhaps, in his
expeditions beyond the Rhine and the Elbe, he aspired to
save his
monarchy from the fate of the Roman empire, to disarm the
enemies
of civilized society, and to eradicate the seed of future
emigrations. But
it has been wisely observed, that, in a light
of precaution, all conquest must be ineffectual, unless
it could
be universal, since the increasing circle must be
involved in a
larger sphere of hostility. ^115 The subjugation of
Germany
withdrew the veil which had so long concealed the
continent or
islands of Scandinavia from the knowledge of Europe, and
awakened
the torpid courage of their barbarous natives. The fiercest of
the Saxon idolaters escaped from the Christian tyrant to
their
brethren of the North; the Ocean and Mediterranean were
covered
with their piratical fleets; and Charlemagne beheld with
a sigh
the destructive progress of the Normans, who, in less
than
seventy years, precipitated the fall of his race and
monarchy.
[Footnote 113: See Eginhard, c. 16, and Gaillard, tom.
ii. p. 361
- 385, who mentions, with a loose reference, the
intercourse of
Charlemagne and Egbert, the emperor's gift of his own
sword, and
the modest answer of his Saxon disciple. The anecdote, if
genuine, would have adorned our English histories.]
[Footnote 114: The correspondence is mentioned only in
the French
annals, and the Orientals are ignorant of the caliph's
friendship
for the Christian dog - a polite appellation, which Harun
bestows
on the emperor of the Greeks.]
[Footnote *: Had he the choice? M. Guizot has eloquently
described the position of Charlemagne towards the
Saxons. Il y
fit face par le conquete; la guerre defensive prit la
forme
offensive: il transporta la lutte sur le territoire des
peuples
qui voulaient envahir le sien: il travailla a asservir
les races
etrangeres, et extirper les croyances ennemies. De la son mode
de gouvernement et la fondation de son empire: la guerre
offensive et la conquete voulaient cette vaste et
redoutable
unite. Compare
observations in the Quarterly Review, vol.
xlviii., and James's Life of Charlemagne. - M.]
[Footnote 115: Gaillard, tom. ii. p. 361 - 365, 471 -
476, 492.
I have borrowed his judicious remarks on Charlemagne's
plan of
conquest, and the judicious distinction of his enemies of
the
first and the second enceinte, (tom. ii. p. 184, 509,
&c.)]
Had the pope
and the Romans revived the primitive
constitution, the titles of emperor and Augustus were
conferred
on Charlemagne for the term of his life; and his
successors, on
each vacancy, must have ascended the throne by a formal
or tacit
election. But the
association of his son Lewis the Pious asserts
the independent right of monarchy and conquest, and the
emperor
seems on this occasion to have foreseen and prevented the
latent
claims of the clergy.
The royal youth was commanded to take the
crown from the altar, and with his own hands to place it
on his
head, as a gift which he held from God, his father, and
the
nation. ^116 The same ceremony was repeated, though with
less
energy, in the subsequent associations of Lothaire and
Lewis the
Second: the Carlovingian sceptre was transmitted from
father to
son in a lineal descent of four generations; and the
ambition of
the popes was reduced to the empty honor of crowning and
anointing these hereditary princes, who were already
invested
with their power and dominions. The pious Lewis survived his
brothers, and embraced the whole empire of Charlemagne;
but the
nations and the nobles, his bishops and his children,
quickly
discerned that this mighty mass was no longer inspired by
the
same soul; and the foundations were undermined to the
centre,
while the external surface was yet fair and entire. After
a war,
or battle, which consumed one hundred thousand Franks,
the empire
was divided by treaty between his three sons, who had
violated
every filial and fraternal duty. The kingdoms of Germany and
France were forever separated; the provinces of Gaul,
between the
Rhone and the Alps, the Meuse and the Rhine, were
assigned, with
Italy, to the Imperial dignity of Lothaire. In the
partition of
his share, Lorraine and Arles, two recent and transitory
kingdoms, were bestowed on the younger children; and
Lewis the
Second, his eldest son, was content with the realm of
Italy, the
proper and sufficient patrimony of a Roman emperor. On his death
without any male issue, the vacant throne was disputed by
his
uncles and cousins, and the popes most dexterously seized
the
occasion of judging the claims and merits of the
candidates, and
of bestowing on the most obsequious, or most liberal, the
Imperial office of advocate of the Roman church. The dregs of
the Carlovingian race no longer exhibited any symptoms of
virtue
or power, and the ridiculous epithets of the bard, the
stammerer,
the fat, and the simple, distinguished the tame and
uniform
features of a crowd of kings alike deserving of
oblivion. By the
failure of the collateral branches, the whole inheritance
devolved to Charles the Fat, the last emperor of his
family: his
insanity authorized the desertion of Germany, Italy, and
France:
he was deposed in a diet, and solicited his daily bread
from the
rebels by whose contempt his life and liberty had been
spared.
According to the measure of their force, the governors,
the
bishops, and the lords, usurped the fragments of the
falling
empire; and some preference was shown to the female or
illegitimate blood of Charlemagne. Of the greater part, the
title and possession were alike doubtful, and the merit
was
adequate to the contracted scale of their dominions. Those who
could appear with an army at the gates of Rome were
crowned
emperors in the Vatican; but their modesty was more
frequently
satisfied with the appellation of kings of Italy: and the
whole
term of seventy-four years may be deemed a vacancy, from
the
abdication of Charles the Fat to the establishment of
Otho the
First.
[Footnote 116: Thegan, the biographer of Lewis, relates
this
coronation: and Baronius has honestly transcribed it,
(A.D. 813,
No. 13, &c.
See Gaillard, tom. ii. p. 506, 507, 508,) howsoever
adverse to the claims of the popes. For the series of the
Carlovingians, see the historians of France, Italy, and
Germany;
Pfeffel, Schmidt, Velly, Muratori, and even Voltaire,
whose
pictures are sometimes just, and always pleasing.]
Otho ^117 was
of the noble race of the dukes of Saxony; and
if he truly descended from Witikind, the adversary and
proselyte
of Charlemagne, the posterity of a vanquished people was
exalted
to reign over their conquerors. His father, Henry the
Fowler, was
elected, by the suffrage of the nation, to save and
institute the
kingdom of Germany.
Its limits ^118 were enlarged on every side
by his son, the first and greatest of the Othos. A portion of
Gaul, to the west of the Rhine, along the banks of the
Meuse and
the Moselle, was assigned to the Germans, by whose blood
and
language it has been tinged since the time of Caesar and
Tacitus.
Between the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Alps, the
successors of
Otho acquired a vain supremacy over the broken kingdoms
of
Burgundy and Arles.
In the North, Christianity was propagated by
the sword of Otho, the conqueror and apostle of the
Slavic
nations of the Elbe and Oder: the marches of Brandenburgh
and
Sleswick were fortified with German colonies; and the
king of
Denmark, the dukes of Poland and Bohemia, confessed
themselves
his tributary vassals. At the head of a victorious army,
he
passed the Alps, subdued the kingdom of Italy, delivered
the
pope, and forever fixed the Imperial crown in the name
and nation
of Germany. From
that memorable aera, two maxims of public
jurisprudence were introduced by force and ratified by
time. I.
That the prince, who was elected in the German diet,
acquired,
from that instant, the subject kingdoms of Italy and
Rome. II.
But that he might not legally assume the titles of
emperor and
Augustus, till he had received the crown from the hands
of the
Roman pontiff. ^119
[Footnote 117: He was the son of Otho, the son of
Ludolph, in
whose favor the Duchy of Saxony had been instituted, A.D.
858.
Ruotgerus, the biographer of a St. Bruno, (Bibliot.
Bunavianae
Catalog. tom. iii. vol. ii. p. 679,) gives a splendid
character
of his family.
Atavorum atavi usque ad hominum memoriam omnes
nobilissimi; nullus in eorum stirpe ignotus, nullus
degener
facile reperitur, (apud Struvium, Corp. Hist. German. p.
216.)
Yet Gundling (in Henrico Aucupe) is not satisfied of his
descent
from Witikind.]
[Footnote 118: See the treatise of Conringius, (de
Finibus
Imperii Germanici, Francofurt. 1680, in 4to.: ) he
rejects the
extravagant and improper scale of the Roman and
Carlovingian
empires, and discusses with moderation the rights of
Germany, her
vassals, and her neighbors.]
[Footnote 119: The power of custom forces me to number
Conrad I.
and Henry I., the Fowler, in the list of emperors, a
title which
was never assumed by those kings of Germany. The Italians,
Muratori for instance, are more scrupulous and correct,
and only
reckon the princes who have been crowned at Rome.]
The Imperial
dignity of Charlemagne was announced to the
East by the alteration of his style; and instead of
saluting his
fathers, the Greek emperors, he presumed to adopt the
more equal
and familiar appellation of brother. ^120 Perhaps in his
connection with Irene he aspired to the name of husband:
his
embassy to Constantinople spoke the language of peace and
friendship, and might conceal a treaty of marriage with
that
ambitious princess, who had renounced the most sacred
duties of a
mother. The
nature, the duration, the probable consequences of
such a union between two distant and dissonant empires,
it is
impossible to conjecture; but the unanimous silence of
the Latins
may teach us to suspect, that the report was invented by
the
enemies of Irene, to charge her with the guilt of
betraying the
church and state to the strangers of the West. ^121 The
French
ambassadors were the spectators, and had nearly been the
victims,
of the conspiracy of Nicephorus, and the national hatred.
Constantinople was exasperated by the treason and
sacrilege of
ancient Rome: a proverb, "That the Franks were good
friends and
bad neighbors," was in every one's mouth; but it was
dangerous to
provoke a neighbor who might be tempted to reiterate, in
the
church of St. Sophia, the ceremony of his Imperial
coronation.
After a tedious journey of circuit and delay, the
ambassadors of
Nicephorus found him in his camp, on the banks of the
River Sala;
and Charlemagne affected to confound their vanity by
displaying,
in a Franconian village, the pomp, or at least the pride,
of the
Byzantine palace. ^122 The Greeks were successively led
through
four halls of audience: in the first they were ready to
fall
prostrate before a splendid personage in a chair of
state, till
he informed them that he was only a servant, the
constable, or
master of the horse, of the emperor. The same mistake, and the
same answer, were repeated in the apartments of the count
palatine, the steward, and the chamberlain; and their
impatience
was gradually heightened, till the doors of the
presence-chamber
were thrown open, and they beheld the genuine monarch, on
his
throne, enriched with the foreign luxury which he
despised, and
encircled with the love and reverence of his victorious
chiefs.
A treaty of peace and alliance was concluded between the
two
empires, and the limits of the East and West were defined
by the
right of present possession. But the Greeks ^123 soon forgot
this humiliating equality, or remembered it only to hate
the
Barbarians by whom it was extorted. During the short union of
virtue and power, they respectfully saluted the august
Charlemagne, with the acclamations of basileus, and
emperor of
the Romans. As
soon as these qualities were separated in the
person of his pious son, the Byzantine letters were
inscribed,
"To the king, or, as he styles himself, the emperor
of the Franks
and Lombards." When both power and virtue were
extinct, they
despoiled Lewis the Second of his hereditary title, and
with the
barbarous appellation of rex or rega, degraded him among
the
crowd of Latin princes. His reply ^124 is expressive of
his
weakness: he proves, with some learning, that, both in
sacred and
profane history, the name of king is synonymous with the
Greek
word basileus: if, at Constantinople, it were assumed in
a more
exclusive and imperial sense, he claims from his
ancestors, and
from the popes, a just participation of the honors of the
Roman
purple. The same controversy was revived in the reign of
the
Othos; and their ambassador describes, in lively colors,
the
insolence of the Byzantine court. ^125 The Greeks
affected to
despise the poverty and ignorance of the Franks and Saxons;
and
in their last decline refused to prostitute to the kings
of
Germany the title of Roman emperors.
[Footnote 120: Invidiam tamen suscepti nominis (C. P.
imperatoribus super hoc indignantibus) magna tulit
patientia,
vicitque eorum contumaciam ... mittendo ad eos crebras
legationes, et in epistolis fratres eos appellando.
Eginhard, c.
28, p. 128.
Perhaps it was on their account that, like Augustus,
he affected some reluctance to receive the empire.]
[Footnote 121: Theophanes speaks of the coronation and
unction of
Charles (Chronograph. p. 399,) and of his treaty of
marriage with
Irene, (p. 402,) which is unknown to the Latins. Gaillard
relates his transactions with the Greek empire, (tom. ii.
p. 446
- 468.)]
[Footnote 122: Gaillard very properly observes, that this
pageant
was a farce suitable to children only; but that it was
indeed
represented in the presence, and for the benefit, of
children of
a larger growth.]
[Footnote 123: Compare, in the original texts collected
by Pagi,
(tom. iii. A.D. 812, No. 7, A.D. 824, No. 10, &c.,)
the contrast
of Charlemagne and his son; to the former the ambassadors
of
Michael (who were indeed disavowed) more suo, id est
lingua
Graeca laudes dixerunt, imperatorem eum et appellantes;
to the
latter, Vocato imperatori Francorum, &c.]
[Footnote 124: See the epistle, in Paralipomena, of the
anonymous
writer of Salerno, (Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars ii. p.
243 - 254,
c. 93 - 107,) whom Baronius (A.D. 871, No. 51 - 71)
mistook for
Erchempert, when he transcribed it in his Annals.]
[Footnote 125: Ipse enim vos, non imperatorem, id est sua
lingua,
sed ob indignationem, id est regem nostra vocabat,
Liutprand, in
Legat. in Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars i. p. 479. The pope had
exhorted Nicephorus, emperor of the Greeks, to make peace
with
Otho, the august emperor of the Romans - quae inscriptio
secundum
Graecos peccatoria et temeraria ... imperatorem inquiunt,
universalem, Romanorum, Augustum, magnum, solum,
Nicephorum, (p.
486.)]
These
emperors, in the election of the popes, continued to
exercise the powers which had been assumed by the Gothic
and
Grecian princes; and the importance of this prerogative
increased
with the temporal estate and spiritual jurisdiction of
the Roman
church. In the
Christian aristocracy, the principal members of
the clergy still formed a senate to assist the
administration,
and to supply the vacancy, of the bishop. Rome was divided into
twenty-eight parishes, and each parish was governed by a
cardinal
priest, or presbyter, a title which, however common or
modest in
its origin, has aspired to emulate the purple of
kings. Their
number was enlarged by the association of the seven
deacons of
the most considerable hospitals, the seven palatine
judges of the
Lateran, and some dignitaries of the church. This ecclesiastical
senate was directed by the seven cardinal-bishops of the
Roman
province, who were less occupied in the suburb dioceses
of Ostia,
Porto, Velitrae, Tusculum, Praeneste, Tibur, and the
Sabines,
than by their weekly service in the Lateran, and their
superior
share in the honors and authority of the apostolic
see. On the
death of the pope, these bishops recommended a successor
to the
suffrage of the college of cardinals, ^126 and their
choice was
ratified or rejected by the applause or clamor of the
Roman
people. But the
election was imperfect; nor could the pontiff be
legally consecrated till the emperor, the advocate of the
church,
had graciously signified his approbation and
consent. The royal
commissioner examined, on the spot, the form and freedom
of the
proceedings; nor was it till after a previous scrutiny
into the
qualifications of the candidates, that he accepted an
oath of
fidelity, and confirmed the donations which had
successively
enriched the patrimony of St. Peter. In the frequent schisms,
the rival claims were submitted to the sentence of the
emperor;
and in a synod of bishops he presumed to judge, to
condemn, and
to punish, the crimes of a guilty pontiff. Otho the First
imposed
a treaty on the senate and people, who engaged to prefer
the
candidate most acceptable to his majesty: ^127 his
successors
anticipated or prevented their choice: they bestowed the
Roman
benefice, like the bishoprics of Cologne or Bamberg, on
their
chancellors or preceptors; and whatever might be the
merit of a
Frank or Saxon, his name sufficiently attests the
interposition
of foreign power.
These acts of prerogative were most speciously
excused by the vices of a popular election. The competitor who
had been excluded by the cardinals appealed to the passions
or
avarice of the multitude; the Vatican and the Lateran
were
stained with blood; and the most powerful senators, the
marquises
of Tuscany and the counts of Tusculum, held the apostolic
see in
a long and disgraceful servitude. The Roman pontiffs, of the
ninth and tenth centuries, were insulted, imprisoned, and
murdered, by their tyrants; and such was their indigence,
after
the loss and usurpation of the ecclesiastical
patrimonies, that
they could neither support the state of a prince, nor
exercise
the charity of a priest. ^128 The influence of two sister
prostitutes, Marozia and Theodora, was founded on their
wealth
and beauty, their political and amorous intrigues: the
most
strenuous of their lovers were rewarded with the Roman
mitre, and
their reign ^129 may have suggested to the darker ages
^130 the
fable ^131 of a female pope. ^132 The bastard son, the
grandson,
and the great-grandson of Marozia, a rare genealogy, were
seated
in the chair of St. Peter, and it was at the age of
nineteen
years that the second of these became the head of the
Latin
church. ^* His youth and manhood were of a suitable
complexion;
and the nations of pilgrims could bear testimony to the
charges
that were urged against him in a Roman synod, and in the
presence
of Otho the Great.
As John XII. had renounced the dress and
decencies of his profession, the soldier may not perhaps
be
dishonored by the wine which he drank, the blood that he
spilt,
the flames that he kindled, or the licentious pursuits of
gaming
and hunting. His
open simony might be the consequence of
distress; and his blasphemous invocation of Jupiter and
Venus, if
it be true, could not possibly be serious. But we read, with
some surprise, that the worthy grandson of Marozia lived
in
public adultery with the matrons of Rome; that the
Lateran palace
was turned into a school for prostitution, and that his
rapes of
virgins and widows had deterred the female pilgrims from
visiting
the tomb of St. Peter, lest, in the devout act, they
should be
violated by his successor. ^133 The Protestants have
dwelt with
malicious pleasure on these characters of Antichrist; but
to a
philosophic eye, the vices of the clergy are far less
dangerous
than their virtues.
After a long series of scandal, the
apostolic see was reformed and exalted by the austerity
and zeal
of Gregory VII.
That ambitious monk devoted his life to the
execution of two projects. I. To
fix in the college of
cardinals the freedom and independence of election, and
forever
to abolish the right or usurpation of the emperors and
the Roman
people. II. To bestow and resume the Western empire as a
fief
or benefice ^134 of the church, and to extend his
temporal
dominion over the kings and kingdoms of the earth. After a
contest of fifty years, the first of these designs was
accomplished by the firm support of the ecclesiastical
order,
whose liberty was connected with that of their
chief. But the
second attempt, though it was crowned with some partial
and
apparent success, has been vigorously resisted by the
secular
power, and finally extinguished by the improvement of
human
reason.
[Footnote 126: The origin and progress of the title of
cardinal
may be found in Themassin, (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom.
i. p.
1261 - 1298,) Muratori, (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii Aevi,
tom. vi.
Dissert. lxi. p. 159 - 182,) and Mosheim, (Institut.
Hist.
Eccles. p. 345 - 347,) who accurately remarks the form
and
changes of the election.
The cardinal-bishops so highly exalted
by Peter Damianus, are sunk to a level with the rest of
the
sacred college.]
[Footnote 127: Firmiter jurantes, nunquam se papam
electuros aut
audinaturos, praeter consensum et electionem Othonis et
filii
sui. (Liutprand, l. vi. c. 6, p. 472.) This important
concession
may either supply or confirm the decree of the clergy and
people
of Rome, so fiercely rejected by Baronius, Pagi, and
Muratori,
(A.D. 964,) and so well defended and explained by St.
Marc,
(Abrege, tom. ii. p. 808 - 816, tom. iv. p. 1167 - 1185.)
Consult
the historical critic, and the Annals of Muratori, for
for the
election and confirmation of each pope.]
[Footnote 128: The oppression and vices of the Roman
church, in
the xth century, are strongly painted in the history and
legation
of Liutprand, (see p. 440, 450, 471 - 476, 479, &c.;)
and it is
whimsical enough to observe Muratori tempering the
invectives of
Baronius against the popes. But these popes had been
chosen, not
by the cardinals, but by lay-patrons.]
[Footnote 129: The time of Pope Joan (papissa Joanna) is
placed
somewhat earlier than Theodora or Marozia; and the two
years of
her imaginary reign are forcibly inserted between Leo IV.
and
Benedict III. But
the contemporary Anastasius indissolubly links
the death of Leo and the elevation of Benedict, (illico,
mox, p.
247;) and the accurate chronology of Pagi, Muratori, and
Leibnitz, fixes both events to the year 857.]
[Footnote 130: The advocates for Pope Joan produce one
hundred
and fifty witnesses, or rather echoes, of the xivth,
xvth, and
xvith centuries.
They bear testimony against themselves and the
legend, by multiplying the proof that so curious a story
must
have been repeated by writers of every description to
whom it was
known. On those of
the ixth and xth centuries, the recent event
would have flashed with a double force. Would Photius have
spared such a reproach?
Could Liutprand have missed such
scandal? It is
scarcely worth while to discuss the various
readings of Martinus Polonus, Sigeber of Gamblours, or
even
Marianus Scotus; but a most palpable forgery is the
passage of
Pope Joan, which has been foisted into some Mss. and
editions of
the Roman Anastasius.]
[Footnote 131: As false, it deserves that name; but I
would not
pronounce it incredible.
Suppose a famous French chevalier of
our own times to have been born in Italy, and educated in
the
church, instead of the army: her merit or fortune might
have
raised her to St. Peter's chair; her amours would have
been
natural: her delivery in the streets unlucky, but not
improbable.]
[Footnote 132: Till the reformation the tale was repeated
and
believed without offence: and Joan's female statue long
occupied
her place among the popes in the cathedral of Sienna,
(Pagi,
Critica, tom. iii. p. 624 - 626.) She has been
annihilated by two
learned Protestants, Blondel and Bayle, (Dictionnaire
Critique,
Papesse, Polonus, Blondel;) but their brethren were
scandalized
by this equitable and generous criticism. Spanheim and Lenfant
attempt to save this poor engine of controversy, and even
Mosheim
condescends to cherish some doubt and suspicion, (p.
289.)]
[Footnote *: John XI. was the son of her husband Alberic,
not of
her lover, Pope Sergius III., as Muratori has distinctly
proved,
Ann. ad ann. 911, tom. p. 268. Her grandson Octavian, otherwise
called John XII., was pope; but a great-grandson cannot
be
discovered in any of the succeeding popes; nor does our
historian
himself, in his subsequent narration, (p. 202,) seem to
know of
one. Hobhouse,
Illustrations of Childe Harold, p. 309. - M.]
[Footnote 133: Lateranense palatium ... prostibulum
meretricum
... Testis omnium gentium, praeterquam Romanorum,
absentia
mulierum, quae sanctorum apostolorum limina orandi gratia
timent
visere, cum nonnullas ante dies paucos, hunc audierint
conjugatas, viduas, virgines vi oppressisse, (Liutprand,
Hist. l.
vi. c. 6, p. 471.
See the whole affair of Johu XII., p. 471 -
476.)]
[Footnote 134: A new example of the mischief of
equivocation is
the beneficium (Ducange, tom. i. p. 617, &c.,) which
the pope
conferred on the emperor Frederic I., since the Latin
word may
signify either a legal fief, or a simple favor, an
obligation,
(we want the word bienfait.) (See Schmidt, Hist. des
Allemands,
tom. iii. p. 393 - 408.
Pfeffel, Abrege Chronologique, tom. i.
p. 229, 296, 317, 324, 420, 430, 500, 505, 509, &c.)]
In the revival
of the empire of empire of Rome, neither the
bishop nor the people could bestow on Charlemagne or Otho
the
provinces which were lost, as they had been won, by the
chance of
arms. But the
Romans were free to choose a master for
themselves; and the powers which had been delegated to
the
patrician, were irrevocably granted to the French and
Saxon
emperors of the West.
The broken records of the times ^135
preserve some remembrance of their palace, their mint,
their
tribunal, their edicts, and the sword of justice, which,
as late
as the thirteenth century, was derived from Caesar to the
praefect of the city. ^136 Between the arts of the popes
and the
violence of the people, this supremacy was crushed and
annihilated.
Content with the titles of emperor and Augustus,
the successors of Charlemagne neglected to assert this
local
jurisdiction. In
the hour of prosperity, their ambition was
diverted by more alluring objects; and in the decay and
division
of the empire, they were oppressed by the defence of
their
hereditary provinces. Amidst the ruins of Italy, the
famous
Marozia invited one of the usurpers to assume the
character of
her third husband; and Hugh, king of Burgundy was
introduced by
her faction into the mole of Hadrian or Castle of St.
Angelo,
which commands the principal bridge and entrance of
Rome. Her
son by the first marriage, Alberic, was compelled to
attend at
the nuptial banquet; but his reluctant and ungraceful
service was
chastised with a blow by his new father. The blow was productive
of a revolution.
"Romans," exclaimed the youth, "once you were
the masters of the world, and these Burgundians the most
abject
of your slaves.
They now reign, these voracious and brutal
savages, and my injury is the commencement of your
servitude."
^137 The alarum bell rang to arms in every quarter of the
city:
the Burgundians retreated with haste and shame; Marozia
was
imprisoned by her victorious son, and his brother, Pope
John XI.,
was reduced to the exercise of his spiritual
functions. With the
title of prince, Alberic possessed above twenty years the
government of Rome; and he is said to have gratified the
popular
prejudice, by restoring the office, or at least the
title, of
consuls and tribunes.
His son and heir Octavian assumed, with
the pontificate, the name of John XII.: like his
predecessor, he
was provoked by the Lombard princes to seek a deliverer
for the
church and republic; and the services of Otho were
rewarded with
the Imperial dignity.
But the Saxon was imperious, the Romans
were impatient, the festival of the coronation was
disturbed by
the secret conflict of prerogative and freedom, and Otho
commanded his sword-bearer not to stir from his person,
lest he
should be assaulted and murdered at the foot of the
altar. ^138
Before he repassed the Alps, the emperor chastised the
revolt of
the people and the ingratitude of John XII. The pope was
degraded in a synod; the praefect was mounted on an ass,
whipped
through the city, and cast into a dungeon; thirteen of
the most
guilty were hanged, others were mutilated or banished;
and this
severe process was justified by the ancient laws of
Theodosius
and Justinian. The voice of fame has accused the second
Otho of a
perfidious and bloody act, the massacre of the senators,
whom he
had invited to his table under the fair semblance of
hospitality
and friendship. ^139 In the minority of his son Otho the
Third,
Rome made a bold attempt to shake off the Saxon yoke, and
the
consul Crescentius was the Brutus of the republic. From the
condition of a subject and an exile, he twice rose to the
command
of the city, oppressed, expelled, and created the popes,
and
formed a conspiracy for restoring the authority of the
Greek
emperors. ^* In the fortress of St. Angelo, he maintained
an
obstinate siege, till the unfortunate consul was betrayed
by a
promise of safety: his body was suspended on a gibbet,
and his
head was exposed on the battlements of the castle. By a reverse
of fortune, Otho, after separating his troops, was
besieged three
days, without food, in his palace; and a disgraceful
escape saved
him from the justice or fury of the Romans. The senator Ptolemy
was the leader of the people, and the widow of
Crescentius
enjoyed the pleasure or the fame of revenging her
husband, by a
poison which she administered to her Imperial lover. It was the
design of Otho the Third to abandon the ruder countries
of the
North, to erect his throne in Italy, and to revive the
institutions of the Roman monarchy. But his successors only once
in their lives appeared on the banks of the Tyber, to
receive
their crown in the Vatican. ^140 Their absence was
contemptible,
their presence odious and formidable. They descended from
the
Alps, at the head of their barbarians, who were strangers
and
enemies to the country; and their transient visit was a scene
of
tumult and bloodshed. ^141 A faint remembrance of their
ancestors
still tormented the Romans; and they beheld with pious
indignation the succession of Saxons, Franks, Swabians,
and
Bohemians, who usurped the purple and prerogatives of the
Caesars.
[Footnote 135: For the history of the emperors in Rome
and Italy,
see Sigonius, de Regno Italiae, Opp. tom. ii., with the
Notes of
Saxius, and the Annals of Muratori, who might refer more
distinctly to the authors of his great collection.]
[Footnote 136: See the Dissertations of Le Blanc at the
end of
his treatise des Monnoyes de France, in which he produces
some
Roman coins of the French emperors.]
[Footnote 137: Romanorum aliquando servi, scilicet
Burgundiones,
Romanis imperent? .... Romanae urbis dignitas ad tantam
est
stultitiam ducta, ut meretricum etiam imperio pareat?
(Liutprand, l. iii. c. 12, p. 450.) Sigonius (l. vi. p.
400)
positively affirms the renovation of the consulship; but
in the
old writers Albericus is more frequently styled princeps
Romanorum.]
[Footnote 138: Ditmar, p. 354, apud Schmidt, tom. iii. p.
439.]
[Footnote 139: This bloody feast is described in Leonine
verse in
the Pantheon of Godfrey of Viterbo, (Script. Ital. tom.
vii. p.
436, 437,) who flourished towards the end of the xiith
century,
(Fabricius Bibliot. Latin. Med. et Infimi Aevi, tom. iii.
p. 69,
edit. Mansi;) but his evidence, which imposed on
Sigonius, is
reasonably suspected by Muratori (Annali, tom. viii. p.
177.)]
[Footnote *: The Marquis Maffei's gallery contained a
medal with
Imp. Caes August. P. P. Crescentius. Hence Hobhouse infers that
he affected the empire. Hobhouse, Illustrations of Childe
Harold,
p. 252. - M.]
[Footnote 140: The coronation of the emperor, and some
original
ceremonies of the xth century are preserved in the
Panegyric on
Berengarius, (Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars i. p. 405 -
414,)
illustrated by the Notes of Hadrian Valesius and
Leibnitz.
Sigonius has related the whole process of the Roman
expedition,
in good Latin, but with some errors of time and fact, (l.
vii. p.
441 - 446.)]
[Footnote 141: In a quarrel at the coronation of Conrad
II.
Muratori takes leave to observe - doveano ben essere
allora,
indisciplinati, Barbari, e bestials Tedeschi. Annal. tom. viii.
p. 368.]
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.
Part VI.
There is
nothing perhaps more adverse to nature and reason
than to hold in obedience remote countries and foreign
nations,
in opposition to their inclination and interest. A torrent of
Barbarians may pass over the earth, but an extensive
empire must
be supported by a refined system of policy and
oppression; in the
centre, an absolute power, prompt in action and rich in
resources; a swift and easy communication with the
extreme parts;
fortifications to check the first effort of rebellion; a
regular
administration to protect and punish; and a
well-disciplined army
to inspire fear, without provoking discontent and
despair. Far
different was the situation of the German Caesars, who
were
ambitious to enslave the kingdom of Italy. Their patrimonial
estates were stretched along the Rhine, or scattered in
the
provinces; but this ample domain was alienated by the
imprudence
or distress of successive princes; and their revenue,
from minute
and vexatious prerogative, was scarcely sufficient for
the
maintenance of their household. Their troops were formed
by the
legal or voluntary service of their feudal vassals, who
passed
the Alps with reluctance, assumed the license of rapine
and
disorder, and capriciously deserted before the end of the
campaign. Whole
armies were swept away by the pestilential
influence of the climate: the survivors brought back the
bones of
their princes and nobles, ^142 and the effects of their
own
intemperance were often imputed to the treachery and
malice of
the Italians, who rejoiced at least in the calamities of
the
Barbarians. This
irregular tyranny might contend on equal terms
with the petty tyrants of Italy; nor can the people, or
the
reader, be much interested in the event of the
quarrel. But in
the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Lombards
rekindled the
flame of industry and freedom; and the generous example
was at
length imitated by the republics of Tuscany. ^* In the
Italian
cities a municipal government had never been totally
abolished;
and their first privileges were granted by the favor and
policy
of the emperors, who were desirous of erecting a plebeian
barrier
against the independence of the nobles. But their rapid
progress, the daily extension of their power and
pretensions,
were founded on the numbers and spirit of these rising
communities. ^143 Each city filled the measure of her
diocese or
district: the jurisdiction of the counts and bishops, of
the
marquises and counts, was banished from the land; and the
proudest nobles were persuaded or compelled to desert
their
solitary castles, and to embrace the more honorable
character of
freemen and magistrates.
The legislative authority was inherent
in the general assembly; but the executive powers were
intrusted
to three consuls, annually chosen from the three orders
of
captains, valvassors, ^144 and commons, into which the
republic
was divided. Under
the protection of equal law, the labors of
agriculture and commerce were gradually revived; but the
martial
spirit of the Lombards was nourished by the presence of
danger;
and as often as the bell was rung, or the standard ^145
erected,
the gates of the city poured forth a numerous and
intrepid band,
whose zeal in their own cause was soon guided by the use
and
discipline of arms.
At the foot of these popular ramparts, the
pride of the Caesars was overthrown; and the invincible
genius of
liberty prevailed over the two Frederics, the greatest
princes of
the middle age; the first, superior perhaps in military
prowess;
the second, who undoubtedly excelled in the softer
accomplishments of peace and learning.
[Footnote 142: After boiling away the flesh. The caldrons for
that purpose were a necessary piece of travelling
furniture; and
a German who was using it for his brother, promised it to
a
friend, after it should have been employed for himself,
(Schmidt,
tom. iii. p. 423, 424.) The same author observes that the
whole
Saxon line was extinguished in Italy, (tom. ii. p. 440.)]
[Footnote *: Compare Sismondi, Histoire des Republiques
Italiannes. Hallam
Middle Ages. Raumer, Geschichte der
Hohenstauffen.
Savigny, Geschichte des Romischen Rechts, vol.
iii. p. 19 with the authors quoted. - M.]
[Footnote 143: Otho, bishop of Frisingen, has left an
important
passage on the Italian cities, (l. ii. c. 13, in Script.
Ital.
tom. vi. p. 707 - 710: ) and the rise, progress, and
government
of these republics are perfectly illustrated by Muratori,
(Antiquitat. Ital. Medii Aevi, tom. iv. dissert xlv. -
lii. p. 1
- 675. Annal. tom.
viii. ix. x.)]
[Footnote 144: For these titles, see Selden, (Titles of
Honor,
vol. iii. part 1 p. 488.) Ducange, (Gloss. Latin. tom.
ii. p.
140, tom. vi. p. 776,) and St. Marc, (Abrege
Chronologique, tom.
ii. p. 719.)]
[Footnote 145: The Lombards invented and used the
carocium, a
standard planted on a car or wagon, drawn by a team of
oxen,
(Ducange, tom. ii. p. 194, 195. Muratori Antiquitat tom.
ii. dis.
xxvi. p. 489 - 493.)]
Ambitious of
restoring the splendor of the purple, Frederic
the First invaded the republics of Lombardy, with the
arts of a
statesman, the valor of a soldier, and the cruelty of a
tyrant.
The recent discovery of the Pandects had renewed a
science most
favorable to despotism; and his venal advocates
proclaimed the
emperor the absolute master of the lives and properties
of his
subjects. His
royal prerogatives, in a less odious sense, were
acknowledged in the diet of Roncaglia; and the revenue of
Italy
was fixed at thirty thousand pounds of silver, ^146 which
were
multiplied to an indefinite demand by the rapine of the
fiscal
officers. The
obstinate cities were reduced by the terror or the
force of his arms: his captives were delivered to the
executioner, or shot from his military engines; and.
after the
siege and surrender of Milan, the buildings of that
stately
capital were razed to the ground, three hundred hostages
were
sent into Germany, and the inhabitants were dispersed in
four
villages, under the yoke of the inflexible conqueror.
^147 But
Milan soon rose from her ashes; and the league of
Lombardy was
cemented by distress: their cause was espoused by Venice,
Pope
Alexander the Third, and the Greek emperor: the fabric of
oppression was overturned in a day; and in the treaty of
Constance, Frederic subscribed, with some reservations,
the
freedom of four-and-twenty cities. His grandson contended with
their vigor and maturity; but Frederic the Second ^148
was
endowed with some personal and peculiar advantages. His birth
and education recommended him to the Italians; and in the
implacable discord of the two factions, the Ghibelins
were
attached to the emperor, while the Guelfs displayed the
banner of
liberty and the church.
The court of Rome had slumbered, when
his father Henry the Sixth was permitted to unite with
the empire
the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily; and from these
hereditary
realms the son derived an ample and ready supply of
troops and
treasure. Yet
Frederic the Second was finally oppressed by the
arms of the Lombards and the thunders of the Vatican: his
kingdom
was given to a stranger, and the last of his family was
beheaded
at Naples on a public scaffold. During sixty years, no emperor
appeared in Italy, and the name was remembered only by
the
ignominious sale of the last relics of sovereignty.
[Footnote 146: Gunther Ligurinus, l. viii. 584, et seq.,
apud
Schmidt, tom. iii. p. 399.]
[Footnote 147: Solus imperator faciem suam firmavit ut
petram,
(Burcard. de Excidio Mediolani, Script. Ital. tom. vi. p.
917.)
This volume of Muratori contains the originals of the
history of
Frederic the First, which must be compared with due
regard to the
circumstances and prejudices of each German or Lombard
writer.
Note: Von
Raumer has traced the fortunes of the Swabian
house in one of the ablest historical works of modern
times. He
may be compared with the spirited and independent
Sismondi. - M.]
[Footnote 148: For the history of Frederic II. and the
house of
Swabia at Naples, see Giannone, Istoria Civile, tom. ii.
l. xiv.
- xix.]
The Barbarian
conquerors of the West were pleased to
decorate their chief with the title of emperor; but it
was not
their design to invest him with the despotism of
Constantine and
Justinian. The
persons of the Germans were free, their conquests
were their own, and their national character was animated
by a
spirit which scorned the servile jurisprudence of the new
or the
ancient Rome. It would have been a vain and dangerous
attempt to
impose a monarch on the armed freemen, who were impatient
of a
magistrate; on the bold, who refused to obey; on the
powerful,
who aspired to command.
The empire of Charlemagne and Otho was
distributed among the dukes of the nations or provinces,
the
counts of the smaller districts, and the margraves of the
marches
or frontiers, who all united the civil and military
authority as
it had been delegated to the lieutenants of the first
Caesars.
The Roman governors, who, for the most part, were
soldiers of
fortune, seduced their mercenary legions, assumed the
Imperial
purple, and either failed or succeeded in their revolt,
without
wounding the power and unity of government. If the dukes,
margraves, and counts of Germany, were less audacious in
their
claims, the consequences of their success were more
lasting and
pernicious to the state.
Instead of aiming at the supreme rank,
they silently labored to establish and appropriate their
provincial independence.
Their ambition was seconded by the
weight of their estates and vassals, their mutual example
and
support, the common interest of the subordinate nobility,
the
change of princes and families, the minorities of Otho
the Third
and Henry the Fourth, the ambition of the popes, and the
vain
pursuit of the fugitive crowns of Italy and Rome. All the
attributes of regal and territorial jurisdiction were
gradually
usurped by the commanders of the provinces; the right of
peace
and war, of life and death, of coinage and taxation, of
foreign
alliance and domestic economy. Whatever had been seized
by
violence, was ratified by favor or distress, was granted
as the
price of a doubtful vote or a voluntary service; whatever
had
been granted to one could not, without injury, be denied
to his
successor or equal; and every act of local or temporary
possession was insensibly moulded into the constitution
of the
Germanic kingdom.
In every province, the visible presence of the
duke or count was interposed between the throne and the
nobles;
the subjects of the law became the vassals of a private
chief;
and the standard which he received from his sovereign,
was often
raised against him in the field. The temporal power of the
clergy was cherished and exalted by the superstition or
policy of
the Carlovingian and Saxon dynasties, who blindly
depended on
their moderation and fidelity; and the bishoprics of
Germany were
made equal in extent and privilege, superior in wealth and
population, to the most ample states of the military
order. As
long as the emperors retained the prerogative of
bestowing on
every vacancy these ecclesiastic and secular benefices,
their
cause was maintained by the gratitude or ambition of
their
friends and favorites. But in the quarrel of the
investitures,
they were deprived of their influence over the episcopal
chapters; the freedom of election was restored, and the
sovereign
was reduced, by a solemn mockery, to his first prayers,
the
recommendation, once in his reign, to a single prebend in
each
church. The
secular governors, instead of being recalled at the
will of a superior, could be degraded only by the
sentence of
their peers. In
the first age of the monarchy, the appointment
of the son to the duchy or county of his father, was
solicited as
a favor; it was gradually obtained as a custom, and
extorted as a
right: the lineal succession was often extended to the
collateral
or female branches; the states of the empire (their
popular, and
at length their legal, appellation) were divided and
alienated by
testament and sale; and all idea of a public trust was
lost in
that of a private and perpetual inheritance. The emperor could
not even be enriched by the casualties of forfeiture and
extinction: within the term of a year, he was obliged to
dispose
of the vacant fief; and, in the choice of the candidate,
it was
his duty to consult either the general or the provincial
diet.
After the
death of Frederic the Second, Germany was left a
monster with a hundred heads. A crowd of princes and prelates
disputed the ruins of the empire: the lords of
innumerable
castles were less prone to obey, than to imitate, their
superiors; and, according to the measure of their
strength, their
incessant hostilities received the names of conquest or
robbery.
Such anarchy was the inevitable consequence of the laws
and
manners of Europe; and the kingdoms of France and Italy
were
shivered into fragments by the violence of the same
tempest. But
the Italian cities and the French vassals were divided
and
destroyed, while the union of the Germans has produced,
under the
name of an empire, a great system of a federative
republic. In
the frequent and at last the perpetual institution of
diets, a
national spirit was kept alive, and the powers of a
common
legislature are still exercised by the three branches or
colleges
of the electors, the princes, and the free and Imperial
cities of
Germany. I. Seven
of the most powerful feudatories were
permitted to assume, with a distinguished name and rank,
the
exclusive privilege of choosing the Roman emperor; and
these
electors were the king of Bohemia, the duke of Saxony,
the
margrave of Brandenburgh, the count palatine of the
Rhine, and
the three archbishops of Mentz, of Treves, and of Cologne. II.
The college of princes and prelates purged themselves of
a
promiscuous multitude: they reduced to four
representative votes
the long series of independent counts, and excluded the
nobles or
equestrian order, sixty thousand of whom, as in the Polish
diets,
had appeared on horseback in the field of election. III.
The
pride of birth and dominion, of the sword and the mitre,
wisely
adopted the commons as the third branch of the
legislature, and,
in the progress of society, they were introduced about the
same
aera into the national assemblies of France England, and
Germany.
The Hanseatic League commanded the trade and navigation
of the
north: the confederates of the Rhine secured the peace
and
intercourse of the inland country; the influence of the
cities
has been adequate to their wealth and policy, and their
negative
still invalidates the acts of the two superior colleges
of
electors and princes. ^149
[Footnote 149: In the immense labyrinth of the jus
publicum of
Germany, I must either quote one writer or a thousand;
and I had
rather trust to one faithful guide, than transcribe, on
credit, a
multitude of names and passages. That guide is M. Pfeffel, the
author of the best legal and constitutional history that
I know
of any country, (Nouvel Abrege Chronologique de
l'Histoire et du
Droit public Allemagne; Paris, 1776, 2 vols. in 4to.) His
learning and judgment have discerned the most interesting
facts;
his simple brevity comprises them in a narrow space. His
chronological order distributes them under the proper
dates; and
an elaborate index collects them under their respective
heads.
To this work, in a less perfect state, Dr. Robertson was
gratefully indebted for that masterly sketch which traces
even
the modern changes of the Germanic body. The Corpus Historiae
Germanicae of Struvius has been likewise consulted, the
more
usefully, as that huge compilation is fortified in every
page
with the original texts.
Note: For the
rise and progress of the Hanseatic League,
consult the authoritative history by Sartorius;
Geschichte des
Hanseatischen Bandes & Theile, Gottingen, 1802. New and improved
edition by Lappenberg Elamburg, 1830. The original Hanseatic
League comprehended Cologne and many of the great cities
in the
Netherlands and on the Rhine. - M.]
It is in the
fourteenth century that we may view in the
strongest light the state and contrast of the Roman
empire of
Germany, which no longer held, except on the borders of
the Rhine
and Danube, a single province of Trajan or
Constantine. Their
unworthy successors were the counts of Hapsburgh, of
Nassau, of
Luxemburgh, and Schwartzenburgh: the emperor Henry the
Seventh
procured for his son the crown of Bohemia, and his
grandson
Charles the Fourth was born among a people strange and
barbarous
in the estimation of the Germans themselves. ^150 After
the
excommunication of Lewis of Bavaria, he received the gift
or
promise of the vacant empire from the Roman pontiffs,
who, in the
exile and captivity of Avignon, affected the dominion of
the
earth. The death
of his competitors united the electoral
college, and Charles was unanimously saluted king of the
Romans,
and future emperor; a title which, in the same age, was
prostituted to the Caesars of Germany and Greece. The German
emperor was no more than the elective and impotent
magistrate of
an aristocracy of princes, who had not left him a village
that he
might call his own.
His best prerogative was the right of
presiding and proposing in the national senate, which was
convened at his summons; and his native kingdom of
Bohemia, less
opulent than the adjacent city of Nuremberg, was the
firmest seat
of his power and the richest source of his revenue. The army
with which he passed the Alps consisted of three hundred
horse.
In the cathedral of St. Ambrose, Charles was crowned with
the
iron crown, which tradition ascribed to the Lombard
monarchy; but
he was admitted only with a peaceful train; the gates of
the city
were shut upon him; and the king of Italy was held a
captive by
the arms of the Visconti, whom he confirmed in the
sovereignty of
Milan. In the
Vatican he was again crowned with the golden crown
of the empire; but, in obedience to a secret treaty, the
Roman
emperor immediately withdrew, without reposing a single
night
within the walls of Rome.
The eloquent Petrarch, ^151 whose
fancy revived the visionary glories of the Capitol,
deplores and
upbraids the ignominious flight of the Bohemian; and even
his
contemporaries could observe, that the sole exercise of
his
authority was in the lucrative sale of privileges and
titles.
The gold of Italy secured the election of his son; but
such was
the shameful poverty of the Roman emperor, that his
person was
arrested by a butcher in the streets of Worms, and was
detained
in the public inn, as a pledge or hostage for the payment
of his
expenses.
[Footnote 150: Yet, personally, Charles IV. must not be
considered as a Barbarian. After his education at Paris, he
recovered the use of the Bohemian, his native, idiom; and
the
emperor conversed and wrote with equal facility in
French, Latin,
Italian, and German, (Struvius, p. 615, 616.) Petrarch
always
represents him as a polite and learned prince.]
[Footnote 151: Besides the German and Italian historians,
the
expedition of Charles IV. is painted in lively and
original
colors in the curious Memoires sur la Vie de Petrarque,
tom. iii.
p. 376 - 430, by the Abbe de Sade, whose prolixity has
never been
blamed by any reader of taste and curiosity.]
From this
humiliating scene, let us turn to the apparent
majesty of the same Charles in the diets of the
empire. The
golden bull, which fixes the Germanic constitution, is
promulgated in the style of a sovereign and
legislator. A
hundred princes bowed before his throne, and exalted
their own
dignity by the voluntary honors which they yielded to
their chief
or minister. At the royal banquet, the hereditary great
officers,
the seven electors, who in rank and title were equal to
kings,
performed their solemn and domestic service of the
palace. The
seals of the triple kingdom were borne in state by the
archbishops of Mentz, Cologne, and Treves, the perpetual
arch-chancellors of Germany, Italy, and Arles. The great
marshal, on horseback, exercised his function with a
silver
measure of oats, which he emptied on the ground, and immediately
dismounted to regulate the order of the guests The great
steward,
the count palatine of the Rhine, place the dishes on the
table.
The great chamberlain, the margrave of Brandenburgh,
presented,
after the repast, the golden ewer and basin, to wash. The king
of Bohemia, as great cup-bearer, was represented by the
emperor's
brother, the duke of Luxemburgh and Brabant; and the
procession
was closed by the great huntsmen, who introduced a boar
and a
stag, with a loud chorus of horns and hounds. ^152 Nor
was the
supremacy of the emperor confined to Germany alone: the
hereditary monarchs of Europe confessed the preeminence
of his
rank and dignity: he was the first of the Christian
princes, the
temporal head of the great republic of the West: ^153 to
his
person the title of majesty was long appropriated; and he
disputed with the pope the sublime prerogative of
creating kings
and assembling councils. The oracle of the civil law, the
learned
Bartolus, was a pensioner of Charles the Fourth; and his
school
resounded with the doctrine, that the Roman emperor was
the
rightful sovereign of the earth, from the rising to the
setting
sun. The contrary opinion was condemned, not as an error,
but as
a heresy, since even the gospel had pronounced, "And
there went
forth a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world
should be
taxed." ^154
[Footnote 152: See the whole ceremony in Struvius, p.
629]
[Footnote 153: The republic of Europe, with the pope and
emperor
at its head, was never represented with more dignity than
in the
council of Constance.
See Lenfant's History of that assembly.]
[Footnote 154: Gravina, Origines Juris Civilis, p. 108.]
If we
annihilate the interval of time and space between
Augustus and Charles, strong and striking will be the
contrast
between the two Caesars; the Bohemian who concealed his
weakness
under the mask of ostentation, and the Roman, who
disguised his
strength under the semblance of modesty. At the head of his
victorious legions, in his reign over the sea and land,
from the
Nile and Euphrates to the Atlantic Ocean, Augustus
professed
himself the servant of the state and the equal of his
fellow-citizens.
The conqueror of Rome and her provinces assumed
a popular and legal form of a censor, a consul, and a
tribune.
His will was the law of mankind, but in the declaration
of his
laws he borrowed the voice of the senate and people; and
from
their decrees their master accepted and renewed his
temporary
commission to administer the republic. In his dress, his
domestics, ^155 his titles, in all the offices of social
life,
Augustus maintained the character of a private Roman; and
his
most artful flatterers respected the secret of his
absolute and
perpetual monarchy.
[Footnote 155: Six thousand urns have been discovered of
the
slaves and freedmen of Augustus and Livia. So minute was the
division of office, that one slave was appointed to weigh
the
wool which was spun by the empress's maids, another for
the care
of her lap-dog, &c., (Camera Sepolchrale, by
Bianchini. Extract
of his work in the Bibliotheque Italique, tom. iv. p.
175. His
Eloge, by Fontenelle, tom. vi. p. 356.) But these
servants were
of the same rank, and possibly not more numerous than
those of
Pollio or Lentulus. They only prove the general riches of
the
city.]
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.
Part I.
Description Of
Arabia And Its Inhabitants. - Birth,
Character, And Doctrine Of Mahomet. - He Preaches At
Mecca. -
Flies To Medina. - Propagates His Religion By The Sword.
-
Voluntary Or Reluctant Submission Of The Arabs. - His
Death And
Successors. - The Claims And Fortunes Of All And His
Descendants.
After pursuing
above six hundred years the fleeting Caesars
of Constantinople and Germany, I now descend, in the
reign of
Heraclius, on the eastern borders of the Greek
monarchy. While
the state was exhausted by the Persian war, and the
church was
distracted by the Nestorian and Monophysite sects,
Mahomet, with
the sword in one hand and the Koran in the other, erected
his
throne on the ruins of Christianity and of Rome. The genius of
the Arabian prophet, the manners of his nation, and the
spirit of
his religion, involve the causes of the decline and fall
of the
Eastern empire; and our eyes are curiously intent on one
of the
most memorable revolutions, which have impressed a new
and
lasting character on the nations of the globe. ^1
[Footnote 1: As in this and the following chapter I shall
display
much Arabic learning, I must profess my total ignorance
of the
Oriental tongues, and my gratitude to the learned
interpreters,
who have transfused their science into the Latin, French,
and
English languages.
Their collections, versions, and histories, I
shall occasionally notice.]
In the vacant
space between Persia, Syria, Egypt, and
Aethiopia, the Arabian peninsula ^2 may be conceived as a
triangle of spacious but irregular dimensions. From the northern
point of Beles ^3 on the Euphrates, a line of fifteen
hundred
miles is terminated by the Straits of Bebelmandel and the
land of
frankincense. About half this length may be allowed for the
middle breadth, from east to west, from Bassora to Suez,
from the
Persian Gulf to the Red Sea. ^4 The sides of the triangle
are
gradually enlarged, and the southern basis presents a
front of a
thousand miles to the Indian Ocean. The entire surface of the
peninsula exceeds in a fourfold proportion that of
Germany or
France; but the far greater part has been justly
stigmatized with
the epithets of the stony and the sandy. Even the wilds
of
Tartary are decked, by the hand of nature, with lofty
trees and
luxuriant herbage; and the lonesome traveller derives a
sort of
comfort and society from the presence of vegetable life.
But in
the dreary waste of Arabia, a boundless level of sand is
intersected by sharp and naked mountains; and the face of
the
desert, without shade or shelter, is scorched by the
direct and
intense rays of a tropical sun. Instead of refreshing
breezes,
the winds, particularly from the south-west, diffuse a
noxious
and even deadly vapor; the hillocks of sand which they
alternately raise and scatter, are compared to the
billows of the
ocean, and whole caravans, whole armies, have been lost
and
buried in the whirlwind.
The common benefits of water are an
object of desire and contest; and such is the scarcity of
wood,
that some art is requisite to preserve and propagate the
element
of fire. Arabia is
destitute of navigable rivers, which
fertilize the soil, and convey its produce to the
adjacent
regions: the torrents that fall from the hills are imbibed
by the
thirsty earth: the rare and hardy plants, the tamarind or
the
acacia, that strike their roots into the clefts of the
rocks, are
nourished by the dews of the night: a scanty supply of
rain is
collected in cisterns and aqueducts: the wells and springs
are
the secret treasure of the desert; and the pilgrim of
Mecca, ^5
after many a dry and sultry march, is disgusted by the
taste of
the waters which have rolled over a bed of sulphur or
salt. Such
is the general and genuine picture of the climate of Arabia. The
experience of evil enhances the value of any local or
partial
enjoyments. A
shady grove, a green pasture, a stream of fresh
water, are sufficient to attract a colony of sedentary
Arabs to
the fortunate spots which can afford food and refreshment
to
themselves and their cattle, and which encourage their
industry
in the cultivation of the palmtree and the vine. The high lands
that border on the Indian Ocean are distinguished by
their
superior plenty of wood and water; the air is more
temperate, the
fruits are more delicious, the animals and the human race
more
numerous: the fertility of the soil invites and rewards
the toil
of the husbandman; and the peculiar gifts of frankincense
^6 and
coffee have attracted in different ages the merchants of
the
world. If it be
compared with the rest of the peninsula, this
sequestered region may truly deserve the appellation of
the
happy; and the splendid coloring of fancy and fiction has
been
suggested by contrast, and countenanced by distance. It was for
this earthly paradise that Nature had reserved her
choicest
favors and her most curious workmanship: the incompatible
blessings of luxury and innocence were ascribed to the
natives:
the soil was impregnated with gold ^7 and gems, and both
the land
and sea were taught to exhale the odors of aromatic
sweets. This
division of the sandy, the stony, and the happy, so
familiar to
the Greeks and Latins, is unknown to the Arabians
themselves; and
it is singular enough, that a country, whose language and
inhabitants have ever been the same, should scarcely
retain a
vestige of its ancient geography. The maritime districts of
Bahrein and Oman are opposite to the realm of
Persia. The
kingdom of Yemen displays the limits, or at least the
situation,
of Arabia Felix: the name of Neged is extended over the
inland
space; and the birth of Mahomet has illustrated the
province of
Hejaz along the coast of the Red Sea. ^8
[Footnote 2: The geographers of Arabia may be divided
into three
classes: 1. The Greeks and Latins, whose progressive
knowledge
may be traced in Agatharcides, (de Mari Rubro, in Hudson,
Geograph. Minor. tom. i.,) Diodorus Siculus, (tom. i. l.
ii. p.
159 - 167, l. iii. p. 211 - 216, edit. Wesseling,)
Strabo, (l.
xvi. p. 1112 - 1114, from Eratosthenes, p. 1122 - 1132,
from
Artemidorus,) Dionysius, (Periegesis, 927 - 969,) Pliny,
(Hist.
Natur. v. 12, vi. 32,) and Ptolemy, (Descript. et Tabulae
Urbium,
in Hudson, tom. iii.) 2. The Arabic writers, who have
treated the
subject with the zeal of patriotism or devotion: the
extracts of
Pocock (Specimen Hist. Arabum, p. 125 - 128) from the
Geography
of the Sherif al Edrissi, render us still more
dissatisfied with
the version or abridgment (p. 24 - 27, 44 - 56, 108,
&c., 119,
&c.) which the Maronites have published under the absurd
title of
Geographia Nubiensis, (Paris, 1619;) but the Latin and
French
translators, Greaves (in Hudson, tom. iii.) and Galland,
(Voyage
de la Palestine par La Roque, p. 265 - 346,) have opened
to us
the Arabia of Abulfeda, the most copious and correct
account of
the peninsula, which may be enriched, however, from the
Bibliotheque Orientale of D'Herbelot, p. 120, et alibi
passim.
3. The European travellers; among whom Shaw (p. 438 -
455) and
Niebuhr (Description, 1773; Voyages, tom. i. 1776)
deserve an
honorable distinction: Busching (Geographie par Berenger,
tom.
viii. p. 416 - 510) has compiled with judgment, and
D'Anville's
Maps (Orbis Veteribus Notus, and 1re Partie de l'Asie)
should lie
before the reader, with his Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii.
p. 208
- 231.
Note: Of
modern travellers may be mentioned the adventurer
who called himself Ali Bey; but above all, the
intelligent, the
enterprising the accurate Burckhardt. - M.]
[Footnote 3: Abulfed. Descript. Arabiae, p. 1. D'Anville,
l'Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 19, 20. It was in this place, the
paradise or garden of a satrap, that Xenophon and the
Greeks
first passed the Euphrates, (Anabasis, l. i. c. 10, p.
29, edit.
Wells.)]
[Footnote 4: Reland has proved, with much superfluous
learning,
1. That our
Red Sea (the Arabian Gulf) is no more than a
part of the Mare Rubrum, which was extended to the
indefinite
space of the Indian Ocean.
2. That the
synonymous words, allude to the color of the
blacks or negroes, (Dissert Miscell. tom. i. p. 59 -
117.)]
[Footnote 5: In the thirty days, or stations, between
Cairo and
Mecca, there are fifteen destitute of good water. See the route
of the Hadjees, in Shaw's Travels, p. 477.]
[Footnote 6: The aromatics, especially the thus, or
frankincense,
of Arabia, occupy the xiith book of Pliny. Our great poet
(Paradise Lost, l. iv.) introduces, in a simile, the
spicy odors
that are blown by the north- east wind from the Sabaean
coast: -
- Many a
league,
Pleased with
the grateful scent, old Ocean smiles.
(Plin. Hist. Natur. xii. 42.)]
[Footnote 7: Agatharcides affirms, that lumps of pure
gold were
found, from the size of an olive to that of a nut; that
iron was
twice, and silver ten times, the value of gold, (de Mari
Rubro,
p. 60.) These real or imaginary treasures are vanished;
and no
gold mines are at present known in Arabia, (Niebuhr,
Description,
p. 124.)
Note: A
brilliant passage in the geographical poem of
Dionysius Periegetes embodies the notions of the ancients
on the
wealth and fertility of Yemen. Greek mythology, and the
traditions of the "gorgeous east," of India as
well as Arabia,
are mingled together in indiscriminate splendor. Compare
on the
southern coast of Arabia, the recent travels of Lieut.
Wellsted -
M.]
[Footnote 8: Consult, peruse, and study the Specimen
Hostoriae
Arabum of Pocock, (Oxon. 1650, in 4to.) The thirty pages
of text
and version are extracted from the Dynasties of Gregory
Abulpharagius, which Pocock afterwards translated, (Oxon.
1663,
in 4to.;) the three hundred and fifty- eight notes form a
classic
and original work on the Arabian antiquities.]
The measure of
population is regulated by the means of
subsistence; and the inhabitants of this vast peninsula
might be
outnumbered by the subjects of a fertile and industrious
province. Along the shores of the Persian Gulf, of the
ocean, and
even of the Red Sea, the Icthyophagi, ^9 or fish eaters,
continued to wander in quest of their precarious
food. In this
primitive and abject state, which ill deserves the name
of
society, the human brute, without arts or laws, almost
without
sense or language, is poorly distinguished from the rest
of the
animal creation.
Generations and ages might roll away in silent
oblivion, and the helpless savage was restrained from multiplying
his race by the wants and pursuits which confined his
existence
to the narrow margin of the seacoast. But in an early period of
antiquity the great body of the Arabs had emerged from
this scene
of misery; and as the naked wilderness could not maintain
a
people of hunters, they rose at once to the more secure
and
plentiful condition of the pastoral life. The same life is
uniformly pursued by the roving tribes of the desert; and
in the
portrait of the modern Bedoweens, we may trace the
features of
their ancestors, ^10 who, in the age of Moses or Mahomet,
dwelt
under similar tents, and conducted their horses, and
camels, and
sheep, to the same springs and the same pastures. Our toil is
lessened, and our wealth is increased, by our dominion
over the
useful animals; and the Arabian shepherd had acquired the
absolute possession of a faithful friend and a laborious
slave.
^11 Arabia, in the opinion of the naturalist, is the
genuine and
original country of the horse; the climate most
propitious, not
indeed to the size, but to the spirit and swiftness, of
that
generous animal.
The merit of the Barb, the Spanish, and the
English breed, is derived from a mixture of Arabian
blood: ^12
the Bedoweens preserve, with superstitious care, the
honors and
the memory of the purest race: the males are sold at a
high
price, but the females are seldom alienated; and the
birth of a
noble foal was esteemed among the tribes, as a subject of
joy and
mutual congratulation.
These horses are educated in the tents,
among the children of the Arabs, with a tender
familiarity, which
trains them in the habits of gentleness and
attachment. They are
accustomed only to walk and to gallop: their sensations
are not
blunted by the incessant abuse of the spur and the whip:
their
powers are reserved for the moments of flight and
pursuit: but no
sooner do they feel the touch of the hand or the stirrup,
than
they dart away with the swiftness of the wind; and if
their
friend be dismounted in the rapid career, they instantly
stop
till he has recovered his seat. In the sands of Africa and
Arabia, the camel is a sacred and precious gift. That strong and
patient beast of burden can perform, without eating or
drinking,
a journey of several days; and a reservoir of fresh water
is
preserved in a large bag, a fifth stomach of the animal,
whose
body is imprinted with the marks of servitude: the larger
breed
is capable of transporting a weight of a thousand pounds;
and the
dromedary, of a lighter and more active frame, outstrips
the
fleetest courser in the race. Alive or dead, almost every part
of the camel is serviceable to man: her milk is plentiful
and
nutritious: the young and tender flesh has the taste of
veal: ^13
a valuable salt is extracted from the urine: the dung
supplies
the deficiency of fuel; and the long hair, which falls
each year
and is renewed, is coarsely manufactured into the
garments, the
furniture, and the tents of the Bedoweens. In the rainy seasons,
they consume the rare and insufficient herbage of the
desert:
during the heats of summer and the scarcity of winter,
they
remove their encampments to the sea-coast, the hills of
Yemen, or
the neighborhood of the Euphrates, and have often
extorted the
dangerous license of visiting the banks of the Nile, and
the
villages of Syria and Palestine. The life of a wandering Arab is
a life of danger and distress; and though sometimes, by
rapine or
exchange, he may appropriate the fruits of industry, a
private
citizen in Europe is in the possession of more solid and
pleasing
luxury than the proudest emir, who marches in the field
at the
head of ten thousand horse.
[Footnote 9: Arrian remarks the Icthyophagi of the coast
of
Hejez, (Periplus Maris Erythraei, p. 12,) and beyond
Aden, (p.
15.) It seems probable that the shores of the Red Sea (in
the
largest sense) were occupied by these savages in the
time,
perhaps, of Cyrus; but I can hardly believe that any
cannibals
were left among the savages in the reign of
Justinian. (Procop.
de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 19.)]
[Footnote 10: See the Specimen Historiae Arabum of
Pocock, p. 2,
5, 86, &c. The journey of M. d'Arvieux, in 1664, to
the camp of
the emir of Mount Carmel, (Voyage de la Palestine,
Amsterdam,
1718,) exhibits a pleasing and original picture of the
life of
the Bedoweens, which may be illustrated from Niebuhr
(Description
de l'Arabie, p. 327 - 344) and Volney, (tom. i. p. 343 -
385,)
the last and most judicious of our Syrian travellers.]
[Footnote 11: Read (it is no unpleasing task) the
incomparable
articles of the Horse and the Camel, in the Natural
History of M.
de Buffon.]
[Footnote 12: For the Arabian horses, see D'Arvieux (p.
159 -
173) and Niebuhr, (p. 142 - 144.) At the end of the
xiiith
century, the horses of Neged were esteemed sure-footed,
those of
Yemen strong and serviceable, those of Hejaz most
noble. The
horses of Europe, the tenth and last class, were
generally
despised as having too much body and too little spirit,
(D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 339: ) their strength
was
requisite to bear the weight of the knight and his armor]
[Footnote 13: Qui carnibus camelorum vesci solent odii
tenaces
sunt, was the opinion of an Arabian physician, (Pocock,
Specimen,
p. 88.) Mahomet himself, who was fond of milk, prefers
the cow,
and does not even mention the camel; but the diet of
Mecca and
Medina was already more luxurious, (Gagnier Vie de
Mahomet, tom.
iii. p. 404.)]
Yet an
essential difference may be found between the hordes
of Scythia and the Arabian tribes; since many of the
latter were
collected into towns, and employed in the labors of trade
and
agriculture. A
part of their time and industry was still devoted
to the management of their cattle: they mingled, in peace
and
war, with their brethren of the desert; and the Bedoweens
derived
from their useful intercourse some supply of their wants,
and
some rudiments of art and knowledge. Among the forty-two cities
of Arabia, ^14 enumerated by Abulfeda, the most ancient
and
populous were situate in the happy Yemen: the towers of
Saana,
^15 and the marvellous reservoir of Merab, ^16 were
constructed
by the kings of the Homerites; but their profane lustre
was
eclipsed by the prophetic glories of Medina ^17 and
Mecca, ^18
near the Red Sea, and at the distance from each other of
two
hundred and seventy miles. The last of these holy places
was
known to the Greeks under the name of Macoraba; and the
termination of the word is expressive of its greatness,
which has
not, indeed, in the most flourishing period, exceeded the
size
and populousness of Marseilles. Some latent motive, perhaps of
superstition, must have impelled the founders, in the
choice of a
most unpromising situation. They erected their
habitations of mud
or stone, in a plain about two miles long and one mile
broad, at
the foot of three barren mountains: the soil is a rock;
the water
even of the holy well of Zemzem is bitter or brackish;
the
pastures are remote from the city; and grapes are
transported
above seventy miles from the gardens of Tayef. The fame and
spirit of the Koreishites, who reigned in Mecca, were
conspicuous
among the Arabian tribes; but their ungrateful soil
refused the
labors of agriculture, and their position was favorable
to the
enterprises of trade.
By the seaport of Gedda, at the distance
only of forty miles, they maintained an easy
correspondence with
Abyssinia; and that Christian kingdom afforded the first
refuge
to the disciples of Mahomet. The treasures of Africa were
conveyed over the Peninsula to Gerrha or Katif, in the
province
of Bahrein, a city built, as it is said, of rock-salt, by
the
Chaldaean exiles; ^19 and from thence with the native
pearls of
the Persian Gulf, they were floated on rafts to the mouth
of the
Euphrates. Mecca
is placed almost at an equal distance, a
month's journey, between Yemen on the right, and Syria on
the
left hand. The former
was the winter, the latter the summer,
station of her caravans; and their seasonable arrival
relieved
the ships of India from the tedious and troublesome
navigation of
the Red Sea. In
the markets of Saana and Merab, in the harbors
of Oman and Aden, the camels of the Koreishites were
laden with a
precious cargo of aromatics; a supply of corn and
manufactures
was purchased in the fairs of Bostra and Damascus; the
lucrative
exchange diffused plenty and riches in the streets of
Mecca; and
the noblest of her sons united the love of arms with the
profession of merchandise. ^20
[Footnote 14: Yet Marcian of Heraclea (in Periplo, p. 16,
in tom.
i. Hudson, Minor. Geograph.) reckons one hundred and
sixty-four
towns in Arabia Felix. The size of the towns might be
small - the
faith of the writer might be large.]
[Footnote 15: It is compared by Abulfeda (in Hudson, tom.
ii. p.
54) to Damascus, and is still the residence of the Iman
of Yemen,
(Voyages de Niebuhr, tom. i. p. 331 - 342.) Saana is
twenty-four
parasangs from Dafar, (Abulfeda, p. 51,) and sixty-eight
from
Aden, (p. 53.)]
[Footnote 16: Pocock, Specimen, p. 57. Geograph. Nubiensis, p.
52. Meriaba, or Merab, six miles in circumference, was
destroyed
by the legions of Augustus, (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 32,) and
had
not revived in the xivth century, (Abulfed. Descript.
Arab. p.
58.)
Note: See note
2 to chap. i. The destruction of Meriaba
by
the Romans is doubtful.
The town never recovered the inundation
which took place from the bursting of a large reservoir
of water
- an event of great importance in the Arabian annals, and
discussed at considerable length by modern Orientalists.
- M.]
[Footnote 17: The name of city, Medina, was appropriated,
to
Yatreb. (the Iatrippa of the Greeks,) the seat of the prophet.
The distances from Medina are reckoned by Abulfeda in
stations,
or days' journey of a caravan, (p. 15: ) to Bahrein, xv.;
to
Bassora, xviii.; to Cufah, xx.; to Damascus or Palestine,
xx.; to
Cairo, xxv.; to Mecca. x.; from Mecca to Saana, (p. 52,)
or Aden,
xxx.; to Cairo, xxxi. days, or 412 hours, (Shaw's
Travels, p.
477;) which, according to the estimate of D'Anville,
(Mesures
Itineraires, p. 99,) allows about twenty-five English
miles for a
day's journey.
From the land of frankincense (Hadramaut, in
Yemen, between Aden and Cape Fartasch) to Gaza in Syria,
Pliny
(Hist. Nat. xii. 32) computes lxv. mansions of
camels. These
measures may assist fancy and elucidate facts.]
[Footnote 18: Our notions of Mecca must be drawn from the
Arabians, (D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 368 -
371.
Pocock, Specimen, p. 125 - 128. Abulfeda, p. 11 - 40.) As no
unbeliever is permitted to enter the city, our travellers
are
silent; and the short hints of Thevenot (Voyages du
Levant, part
i. p. 490) are taken from the suspicious mouth of an
African
renegado. Some Persians counted 6000 houses, (Chardin.
tom. iv.
p. 167.)
Note: Even in
the time of Gibbon, Mecca had not been so
inaccessible to Europeans. It had been visited by Ludovico
Barthema, and by one Joseph Pitts, of Exeter, who was
taken
prisoner by the Moors, and forcibly converted to
Mahometanism.
His volume is a curious, though plain, account of his
sufferings
and travels. Since
that time Mecca has been entered, and the
ceremonies witnessed, by Dr. Seetzen, whose papers were
unfortunately lost; by the Spaniard, who called himself
Ali Bey;
and, lastly, by Burckhardt, whose description leaves
nothing
wanting to satisfy the curiosity. - M.]
[Footnote 19: Strabo, l. xvi. p. 1110. See one of these salt
houses near Bassora, in D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p.
6.]
[Footnote 20: Mirum dictu ex innumeris populis pars aequa
in
commerciis aut in latrociniis degit, (Plin. Hist. Nat.
vi. 32.)
See Sale's Koran, Sura. cvi. p. 503. Pocock, Specimen, p. 2.
D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 361. Prideaux's Life of
Mahomet,
p. 5. Gagnier, Vie
de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 72, 120, 126, &c.]
The perpetual
independence of the Arabs has been the theme
of praise among strangers and natives; and the arts of
controversy transform this singular event into a prophecy
and a
miracle, in favor of the posterity of Ismael. ^21 Some
exceptions, that can neither be dismissed nor eluded,
render this
mode of reasoning as indiscreet as it is superfluous; the
kingdom
of Yemen has been successively subdued by the
Abyssinians, the
Persians, the sultans of Egypt, ^22 and the Turks; ^23
the holy
cities of Mecca and Medina have repeatedly bowed under a
Scythian
tyrant; and the Roman province of Arabia ^24 embraced the
peculiar wilderness in which Ismael and his sons must
have
pitched their tents in the face of their brethren. Yet these
exceptions are temporary or local; the body of the nation
has
escaped the yoke of the most powerful monarchies: the
arms of
Sesostris and Cyrus, of Pompey and Trajan, could never
achieve
the conquest of Arabia; the present sovereign of the
Turks ^25
may exercise a shadow of jurisdiction, but his pride is
reduced
to solicit the friendship of a people, whom it is
dangerous to
provoke, and fruitless to attack. The obvious causes of their
freedom are inscribed on the character and country of the
Arabs.
Many ages before Mahomet, ^26 their intrepid valor had
been
severely felt by their neighbors in offensive and
defensive war.
The patient and active virtues of a soldier are
insensibly nursed
in the habits and discipline of a pastoral life. The care of the
sheep and camels is abandoned to the women of the tribe;
but the
martial youth, under the banner of the emir, is ever on
horseback, and in the field, to practise the exercise of
the bow,
the javelin, and the cimeter. The long memory of their
independence is the firmest pledge of its perpetuity and
succeeding generations are animated to prove their
descent, and
to maintain their inheritance. Their domestic feuds are
suspended on the approach of a common enemy; and in their
last
hostilities against the Turks, the caravan of Mecca was
attacked
and pillaged by fourscore thousand of the confederates.
When they
advance to battle, the hope of victory is in the front;
in the
rear, the assurance of a retreat. Their horses and camels, who,
in eight or ten days, can perform a march of four or five
hundred
miles, disappear before the conqueror; the secret waters
of the
desert elude his search, and his victorious troops are
consumed
with thirst, hunger, and fatigue, in the pursuit of an
invisible
foe, who scorns his efforts, and safely reposes in the
heart of
the burning solitude.
The arms and deserts of the Bedoweens are
not only the safeguards of their own freedom, but the
barriers
also of the happy Arabia, whose inhabitants, remote from
war, are
enervated by the luxury of the soil and climate. The legions of
Augustus melted away in disease and lassitude; ^27 and it
is only
by a naval power that the reduction of Yemen has been
successfully attempted.
When Mahomet erected his holy standard,
^28 that kingdom was a province of the Persian empire;
yet seven
princes of the Homerites still reigned in the mountains;
and the
vicegerent of Chosroes was tempted to forget his distant
country
and his unfortunate master. The historians of the age of
Justinian represent the state of the independent Arabs,
who were
divided by interest or affection in the long quarrel of
the East:
the tribe of Gassan was allowed to encamp on the Syrian
territory: the princes of Hira were permitted to form a
city
about forty miles to the southward of the ruins of
Babylon.
Their service in the field was speedy and vigorous; but
their
friendship was venal, their faith inconstant, their
enmity
capricious: it was an easier task to excite than to
disarm these
roving barbarians; and, in the familiar intercourse of
war, they
learned to see, and to despise, the splendid weakness
both of
Rome and of Persia.
From Mecca to the Euphrates, the Arabian
tribes ^29 were confounded by the Greeks and Latins,
under the
general appellation of Saracens, ^30 a name which every
Christian
mouth has been taught to pronounce with terror and
abhorrence.
[Footnote 21: A nameless doctor (Universal Hist. vol. xx.
octavo
edition) has formally demonstrated the truth of
Christianity by
the independence of the Arabs. A critic, besides the exceptions
of fact, might dispute the meaning of the text (Gen. xvi.
12,)
the extent of the application, and the foundation of the
pedigree.
Note: See note
3 to chap. xlvi. The atter point is
probably
the least contestable of the three. - M.]
[Footnote 22: It was subdued, A.D. 1173, by a brother of
the
great Saladin, who founded a dynasty of Curds or
Ayoubites,
(Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 425. D'Herbelot, p. 477.)]
[Footnote 23: By the lieutenant of Soliman I. (A.D. 1538)
and
Selim II., (1568.) See Cantemir's Hist. of the Othman
Empire, p.
201, 221. The
pacha, who resided at Saana, commanded twenty-one
beys; but no revenue was ever remitted to the Porte,
(Marsigli,
Stato Militare dell' Imperio Ottomanno, p. 124,) and the
Turks
were expelled about the year 1630, (Niebuhr, p. 167,
168.)]
[Footnote 24: Of the Roman province, under the name of
Arabia and
the third Palestine, the principal cities were Bostra and
Petra,
which dated their aera from the year 105, when they were
subdued
by Palma, a lieutenant of Trajan, (Dion. Cassius, l.
lxviii.)
Petra was the capital of the Nabathaeans; whose name is
derived
from the eldest of the sons of Ismael, (Gen. xxv. 12,
&c., with
the Commentaries of Jerom, Le Clerc, and Calmet.)
Justinian
relinquished a palm country of ten days' journey to the
south of
Aelah, (Procop. de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 19,) and the
Romans
maintained a centurion and a custom-house, (Arrian in
Periplo
Maris Erythraei, p. 11, in Hudson, tom. i.,) at a place
(Pagus
Albus, Hawara) in the territory of Medina, (D'Anville,
Memoire
sur l'Egypte, p. 243.) These real possessions, and some
naval
inroads of Trajan, (Peripl. p. 14, 15,) are magnified by
history
and medals into the Roman conquest of Arabia.
Note: On the
ruins of Petra, see the travels of Messrs. Irby
and Mangles, and of Leon de Laborde. - M.]
[Footnote 25: Niebuhr (Description de l'Arabie, p. 302,
303, 329
- 331) affords the most recent and authentic intelligence
of the
Turkish empire in Arabia.
Note:
Niebuhr's, notwithstanding the multitude of later
travellers, maintains its ground, as the classical work
on
Arabia. - M.]
[Footnote 26: Diodorus Siculus (tom. ii. l. xix. p. 390 -
393,
edit. Wesseling) has clearly exposed the freedom of the
Nabathaean Arabs, who resisted the arms of Antigonus and
his
son.]
[Footnote 27: Strabo, l. xvi. p. 1127 - 1129. Plin. Hist. Natur.
vi. 32. Aelius Gallus landed near Medina, and marched near
a
thousand miles into the part of Yemen between Mareb and
the
Ocean. The non
ante devictis Sabeae regibus, (Od. i. 29,) and
the intacti Arabum thesanri (Od. iii. 24) of Horace,
attest the
virgin purity of Arabia.]
[Footnote 28: See the imperfect history of Yemen in
Pocock,
Specimen, p. 55 - 66, of Hira, p. 66 - 74, of Gassan, p.
75 - 78,
as far as it could be known or preserved in the time of
ignorance.
Note: Compare
the Hist. Yemanae, published by Johannsen at
Bonn 1880 particularly the translator's preface. - M.]
[Footnote 29: They are described by Menander, (Excerpt.
Legation
p. 149,) Procopius, (de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 17, 19, l.
ii. c.
10,) and, in the most lively colors, by Ammianus
Marcellinus, (l.
xiv. c. 4,) who had spoken of them as early as the reign
of
Marcus.]
[Footnote 30: The name which, used by Ptolemy and Pliny
in a more
confined, by Ammianus and Procopius in a larger, sense,
has been
derived, ridiculously, from Sarah, the wife of Abraham,
obscurely
from the village of Saraka, (Stephan. de Urbibus,) more
plausibly
from the Arabic words, which signify a thievish
character, or
Oriental situation, (Hottinger, Hist. Oriental. l. i. c.
i. p. 7,
8. Pocock,
Specimen, p. 33, 35. Asseman. Bibliot.
Orient. tom.
iv. p. 567.) Yet the last and most popular of these
etymologies
is refuted by Ptolemy, (Arabia, p. 2, 18, in Hudson, tom.
iv.,)
who expressly remarks the western and southern position
of the
Saracens, then an obscure tribe on the borders of
Egypt. The
appellation cannot therefore allude to any national
character;
and, since it was imposed by strangers, it must be found,
not in
the Arabic, but in a foreign language.
Note: Dr.
Clarke, (Travels, vol. ii. p. 491,) after
expressing contemptuous pity for Gibbon's ignorance,
derives the
word from Zara, Zaara, Sara, the Desert, whence Saraceni,
the
children of the Desert.
De Marles adopts the derivation from
Sarrik, a robber, (Hist. des Arabes, vol. i. p. 36, S.L.
Martin
from Scharkioun, or Sharkun, Eastern, vol. xi. p. 55. -
M.]
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.
Part II.
The slaves of
domestic tyranny may vainly exult in their
national independence: but the Arab is personally free;
and he
enjoys, in some degree, the benefits of society, without
forfeiting the prerogatives of nature. In every tribe,
superstition, or gratitude, or fortune, has exalted a
particular
family above the heads of their equals. The dignities of sheick
and emir invariably descend in this chosen race; but the
order of
succession is loose and precarious; and the most worthy
or aged
of the noble kinsmen are preferred to the simple, though
important, office of composing disputes by their advice,
and
guiding valor by their example. Even a female of sense
and spirit
has been permitted to command the countrymen of Zenobia.
^31 The
momentary junction of several tribes produces an army:
their more
lasting union constitutes a nation; and the supreme
chief, the
emir of emirs, whose banner is displayed at their head,
may
deserve, in the eyes of strangers, the honors of the
kingly name.
If the Arabian princes abuse their power, they are
quickly
punished by the desertion of their subjects, who had been
accustomed to a mild and parental jurisdiction. Their spirit is
free, their steps are unconfined, the desert is open, and
the
tribes and families are held together by a mutual and
voluntary
compact. The
softer natives of Yemen supported the pomp and
majesty of a monarch; but if he could not leave his
palace
without endangering his life, ^32 the active powers of
government
must have been devolved on his nobles and
magistrates. The
cities of Mecca and Medina present, in the heart of Asia,
the
form, or rather the substance, of a commonwealth. The
grandfather of Mahomet, and his lineal ancestors, appear
in
foreign and domestic transactions as the princes of their
country; but they reigned, like Pericles at Athens, or
the Medici
at Florence, by the opinion of their wisdom and
integrity; their
influence was divided with their patrimony; and the
sceptre was
transferred from the uncles of the prophet to a younger
branch of
the tribe of Koreish.
On solemn occasions they convened the
assembly of the people; and, since mankind must be either
compelled or persuaded to obey, the use and reputation of
oratory
among the ancient Arabs is the clearest evidence of
public
freedom. ^33 But their simple freedom was of a very
different
cast from the nice and artificial machinery of the Greek
and
Roman republics, in which each member possessed an
undivided
share of the civil and political rights of the
community. In the
more simple state of the Arabs, the nation is free,
because each
of her sons disdains a base submission to the will of a
master.
His breast is fortified by the austere virtues of
courage,
patience, and sobriety; the love of independence prompts
him to
exercise the habits of self-command; and the fear of
dishonor
guards him from the meaner apprehension of pain, of
danger, and
of death. The
gravity and firmness of the mind is conspicuous in
his outward demeanor; his speech is low, weighty, and
concise; he
is seldom provoked to laughter; his only gesture is that
of
stroking his beard, the venerable symbol of manhood; and
the
sense of his own importance teaches him to accost his
equals
without levity, and his superiors without awe. ^34 The
liberty of
the Saracens survived their conquests: the first caliphs
indulged
the bold and familiar language of their subjects; they
ascended
the pulpit to persuade and edify the congregation; nor
was it
before the seat of empire was removed to the Tigris, that
the
Abbasides adopted the proud and pompous ceremonial of the
Persian
and Byzantine courts.
[Footnote 31: Saraceni ... mulieres aiunt in eos regnare,
(Expositio totius Mundi, p. 3, in Hudson, tom. iii.) The
reign of
Mavia is famous in ecclesiastical story Pocock, Specimen,
p. 69,
83.]
[Footnote 32: The report of Agatharcides, (de Mari Rubro,
p. 63,
64, in Hudson, tom. i.) Diodorus Siculus, (tom. i. l.
iii. c. 47,
p. 215,) and Strabo, (l. xvi. p. 1124.) But I much suspect
that
this is one of the popular tales, or extraordinary
accidents,
which the credulity of travellers so often transforms
into a
fact, a custom, and a law.]
[Footnote 33: Non gloriabantur antiquitus Arabes, nisi
gladio,
hospite, et eloquentia (Sephadius apud Pocock, Specimen,
p. 161,
162.) This gift of speech they shared only with the
Persians; and
the sententious Arabs would probably have disdained the
simple
and sublime logic of Demosthenes.]
[Footnote 34: I must remind the reader that D'Arvieux,
D'Herbelot, and Niebuhr, represent, in the most lively
colors,
the manners and government of the Arabs, which are
illustrated by
many incidental passages in the Life of Mahomet.
Note: See,
likewise the curious romance of Antar, the most
vivid and authentic picture of Arabian manners. - M.]
In the study
of nations and men, we may observe the causes
that render them hostile or friendly to each other, that
tend to
narrow or enlarge, to mollify or exasperate, the social
character. The
separation of the Arabs from the rest of mankind
has accustomed them to confound the ideas of stranger and
enemy;
and the poverty of the land has introduced a maxim of
jurisprudence, which they believe and practise to the
present
hour. They
pretend, that, in the division of the earth, the rich
and fertile climates were assigned to the other branches
of the
human family; and that the posterity of the outlaw Ismael
might
recover, by fraud or force, the portion of inheritance of
which
he had been unjustly deprived. According to the remark of Pliny,
the Arabian tribes are equally addicted to theft and
merchandise;
the caravans that traverse the desert are ransomed or
pillaged;
and their neighbors, since the remote times of Job and
Sesostris,
^35 have been the victims of their rapacious spirit. If a
Bedoween discovers from afar a solitary traveller, he
rides
furiously against him, crying, with a loud voice,
"Undress
thyself, thy aunt (my wife) is without a garment." A
ready
submission entitles him to mercy; resistance will provoke
the
aggressor, and his own blood must expiate the blood which
he
presumes to shed in legitimate defence. A single robber, or a
few associates, are branded with their genuine name; but
the
exploits of a numerous band assume the character of
lawful and
honorable war. The
temper of a people thus armed against mankind
was doubly inflamed by the domestic license of rapine,
murder,
and revenge. In
the constitution of Europe, the right of peace
and war is now confined to a small, and the actual
exercise to a
much smaller, list of respectable potentates; but each
Arab, with
impunity and renown, might point his javelin against the
life of
his countrymen.
The union of the nation consisted only in a
vague resemblance of language and manners; and in each
community,
the jurisdiction of the magistrate was mute and
impotent. Of the
time of ignorance which preceded Mahomet, seventeen
hundred
battles ^36 are recorded by tradition: hostility was
imbittered
with the rancor of civil faction; and the recital, in
prose or
verse, of an obsolete feud, was sufficient to rekindle
the same
passions among the descendants of the hostile
tribes. In private
life every man, at least every family, was the judge and
avenger
of his own cause.
The nice sensibility of honor, which weighs
the insult rather than the injury, sheds its deadly venom
on the
quarrels of the Arabs: the honor of their women, and of
their
beards, is most easily wounded; an indecent action, a
contemptuous word, can be expiated only by the blood of
the
offender; and such is their patient inveteracy, that they
expect
whole months and years the opportunity of revenge. A fine or
compensation for murder is familiar to the Barbarians of
every
age: but in Arabia the kinsmen of the dead are at liberty
to
accept the atonement, or to exercise with their own hands
the law
of retaliation.
The refined malice of the Arabs refuses even the
head of the murderer, substitutes an innocent for the
guilty
person, and transfers the penalty to the best and most
considerable of the race by whom they have been
injured. If he
falls by their hands, they are exposed, in their turn, to
the
danger of reprisals, the interest and principal of the
bloody
debt are accumulated: the individuals of either family
lead a
life of malice and suspicion, and fifty years may
sometimes
elapse before the account of vengeance be finally
settled. ^37
This sanguinary spirit, ignorant of pity or forgiveness,
has been
moderated, however, by the maxims of honor, which require
in
every private encounter some decent equality of age and
strength,
of numbers and weapons.
An annual festival of two, perhaps of
four, months, was observed by the Arabs before the time
of
Mahomet, during which their swords were religiously
sheathed both
in foreign and domestic hostility; and this partial truce
is more
strongly expressive of the habits of anarchy and warfare.
^38
[Footnote 35: Observe the first chapter of Job, and the
long wall
of 1500 stadia which Sesostris built from Pelusium to
Heliopolis,
(Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. l. i. p. 67.) Under the name of
Hycsos,
the shepherd kings, they had formerly subdued Egypt,
(Marsham,
Canon. Chron. p. 98 - 163) &c.)
Note: This
origin of the Hycsos, though probable, is by no
means so certain here is some reason for supposing them
Scythians. - M]
[Footnote 36: Or, according to another account, 1200,
(D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 75: ) the two
historians
who wrote of the Ayam al Arab, the battles of the Arabs,
lived in
the 9th and 10th century.
The famous war of Dahes and Gabrah was
occasioned by two horses, lasted forty years, and ended
in a
proverb, (Pocock, Specimen, p. 48.)]
[Footnote 37: The modern theory and practice of the Arabs
in the
revenge of murder are described by Niebuhr, (Description,
p. 26 -
31.) The harsher features of antiquity may be traced in
the
Koran, c. 2, p. 20, c. 17, p. 230, with Sale's
Observations.]
[Footnote 38: Procopius (de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 16)
places the
two holy months about the summer solstice. The Arabians
consecrate four months of the year - the first, seventh,
eleventh, and twelfth; and pretend, that in a long series
of ages
the truce was infringed only four or six times, (Sale's
Preliminary Discourse, p. 147 - 150, and Notes on the
ixth
chapter of the Koran, p. 154, &c. Casiri, Bibliot.
Hispano-Arabica, tom. ii. p. 20, 21.)]
But the spirit
of rapine and revenge was attempered by the
milder influence of trade and literature. The solitary peninsula
is encompassed by the most civilized nations of the
ancient
world; the merchant is the friend of mankind; and the
annual
caravans imported the first seeds of knowledge and
politeness
into the cities, and even the camps of the desert.
Whatever may
be the pedigree of the Arabs, their language is derived
from the
same original stock with the Hebrew, the Syriac, and the
Chaldaean tongues; the independence of the tribes was
marked by
their peculiar dialects; ^39 but each, after their own,
allowed a
just preference to the pure and perspicuous idiom of
Mecca. In
Arabia, as well as in Greece, the perfection of language
outstripped the refinement of manners; and her speech
could
diversify the fourscore names of honey, the two hundred
of a
serpent, the five hundred of a lion, the thousand of a
sword, at
a time when this copious dictionary was intrusted to the
memory
of an illiterate people.
The monuments of the Homerites were
inscribed with an obsolete and mysterious character; but
the
Cufic letters, the groundwork of the present alphabet,
were
invented on the banks of the Euphrates; and the recent invention
was taught at Mecca by a stranger who settled in that
city after
the birth of Mahomet.
The arts of grammar, of metre, and of
rhetoric, were unknown to the freeborn eloquence of the
Arabians;
but their penetration was sharp, their fancy luxuriant,
their wit
strong and sententious, ^40 and their more elaborate
compositions
were addressed with energy and effect to the minds of
their
hearers. The
genius and merit of a rising poet was celebrated by
the applause of his own and the kindred tribes. A solemn banquet
was prepared, and a chorus of women, striking their
tymbals, and
displaying the pomp of their nuptials, sung in the
presence of
their sons and husbands the felicity of their native
tribe; that
a champion had now appeared to vindicate their rights;
that a
herald had raised his voice to immortalize their renown.
The
distant or hostile tribes resorted to an annual fair,
which was
abolished by the fanaticism of the first Moslems; a
national
assembly that must have contributed to refine and harmonize
the
Barbarians. Thirty
days were employed in the exchange, not only
of corn and wine, but of eloquence and poetry. The prize was
disputed by the generous emulation of the bards; the
victorious
performance was deposited in the archives of princes and
emirs;
and we may read in our own language, the seven original
poems
which were inscribed in letters of gold, and suspended in
the
temple of Mecca. ^41 The Arabian poets were the
historians and
moralists of the age; and if they sympathized with the
prejudices, they inspired and crowned the virtues, of
their
countrymen. The
indissoluble union of generosity and valor was
the darling theme of their song; and when they pointed
their
keenest satire against a despicable race, they affirmed,
in the
bitterness of reproach, that the men knew not how to
give, nor
the women to deny. ^42 The same hospitality, which was
practised
by Abraham, and celebrated by Homer, is still renewed in
the
camps of the Arabs. The ferocious Bedoweens, the terror
of the
desert, embrace, without inquiry or hesitation, the
stranger who
dares to confide in their honor and to enter their
tent. His
treatment is kind and respectful: he shares the wealth,
or the
poverty, of his host; and, after a needful repose, he is
dismissed on his way, with thanks, with blessings, and
perhaps
with gifts. The
heart and hand are more largely expanded by the
wants of a brother or a friend; but the heroic acts that
could
deserve the public applause, must have surpassed the
narrow
measure of discretion and experience. A dispute had arisen, who,
among the citizens of Mecca, was entitled to the prize of
generosity; and a successive application was made to the
three
who were deemed most worthy of the trial. Abdallah, the son of
Abbas, had undertaken a distant journey, and his foot was
in the
stirrup when he heard the voice of a suppliant, "O
son of the
uncle of the apostle of God, I am a traveller, and in
distress!"
He instantly dismounted to present the pilgrim with his
camel,
her rich caparison, and a purse of four thousand pieces
of gold,
excepting only the sword, either for its intrinsic value,
or as
the gift of an honored kinsman. The servant of Kais
informed the
second suppliant that his master was asleep: but he
immediately
added, "Here is a purse of seven thousand pieces of
gold, (it is
all we have in the house,) and here is an order, that
will
entitle you to a camel and a slave;" the master, as
soon as he
awoke, praised and enfranchised his faithful steward,
with a
gentle reproof, that by respecting his slumbers he had
stinted
his bounty. The
third of these heroes, the blind Arabah, at the
hour of prayer, was supporting his steps on the shoulders
of two
slaves.
"Alas!" he replied, "my coffers are empty! but these
you may sell; if you refuse, I renounce them." At
these words,
pushing away the youths, he groped along the wall with
his staff.
The character of Hatem is the perfect model of Arabian
virtue:
^43 he was brave and liberal, an eloquent poet, and a
successful
robber; forty camels were roasted at his hospitable
feast; and at
the prayer of a suppliant enemy he restored both the
captives and
the spoil. The
freedom of his countrymen disdained the laws of
justice; they proudly indulged the spontaneous impulse of
pity
and benevolence.
[Footnote 39: Arrian, in the second century, remarks (in
Periplo
Maris Erythraei, p. 12) the partial or total difference
of the
dialects of the Arabs.
Their language and letters are copiously
treated by Pocock, (Specimen, p. 150 - 154,) Casiri,
(Bibliot.
Hispano-Arabica, tom. i. p. 1, 83, 292, tom. ii. p. 25,
&c.,) and
Niebuhr, (Description de l'Arabie, p. 72 - 36) I pass
slightly; I
am not fond of repeating words like a parrot.]
[Footnote 40: A familiar tale in Voltaire's Zadig (le
Chien et le
Cheval) is related, to prove the natural sagacity of the
Arabs,
(D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 120, 121. Gagnier, Vie de
Mahomet, tom. i. p. 37 - 46: ) but D'Arvieux, or rather
La Roque,
(Voyage de Palestine, p. 92,) denies the boasted
superiority of
the Bedoweens. The
one hundred and sixty-nine sentences of Ali
(translated by Ockley, London, 1718) afford a just and
favorable
specimen of Arabian wit.
Note: Compare
the Arabic proverbs translated by Burckhardt.
London. 1830 - M.]
[Footnote 41: Pocock (Specimen, p. 158 - 161) and Casiri
(Bibliot. Hispano- Arabica, tom. i. p. 48, 84, &c.,
119, tom. ii.
p. 17, &c.) speak of the Arabian poets before
Mahomet; the seven
poems of the Caaba have been published in English by Sir
William
Jones; but his honorable mission to India has deprived us
of his
own notes, far more interesting than the obscure and
obsolete
text.]
[Footnote 42: Sale's Preliminary Discourse, p. 29, 30]
[Footnote 43: D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 458. Gagnier, Vie
de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 118. Caab and Hesnus (Pocock, Specimen,
p. 43, 46, 48) were likewise conspicuous for their
liberality;
and the latter is elegantly praised by an Arabian poet:
"Videbis
eum cum accesseris exultantem, ac si dares illi quod ab
illo
petis."
Note: See the
translation of the amusing Persian romance of
Hatim Tai, by Duncan Forbes, Esq., among the works
published by
the Oriental Translation Fund. - M.]
The religion
of the Arabs, ^44 as well as of the Indians,
consisted in the worship of the sun, the moon, and the
fixed
stars; a primitive and specious mode of
superstition. The bright
luminaries of the sky display the visible image of a
Deity: their
number and distance convey to a philosophic, or even a
vulgar,
eye, the idea of boundless space: the character of
eternity is
marked on these solid globes, that seem incapable of
corruption
or decay: the regularity of their motions may be ascribed
to a
principle of reason or instinct; and their real, or
imaginary,
influence encourages the vain belief that the earth and
its
inhabitants are the object of their peculiar care. The science
of astronomy was cultivated at Babylon; but the school of
the
Arabs was a clear firmament and a naked plain. In their
nocturnal marches, they steered by the guidance of the
stars:
their names, and order, and daily station, were familiar
to the
curiosity and devotion of the Bedoween; and he was taught
by
experience to divide, in twenty-eight parts, the zodiac
of the
moon, and to bless the constellations who refreshed, with
salutary rains, the thirst of the desert. The reign of the
heavenly orbs could not be extended beyond the visible
sphere;
and some metaphysical powers were necessary to sustain
the
transmigration of souls and the resurrection of bodies: a
camel
was left to perish on the grave, that he might serve his
master
in another life; and the invocation of departed spirits
implies
that they were still endowed with consciousness and
power. I am
ignorant, and I am careless, of the blind mythology of
the
Barbarians; of the local deities, of the stars, the air,
and the
earth, of their sex or titles, their attributes or
subordination.
Each tribe, each family, each independent warrior,
created and
changed the rites and the object of his fantastic
worship; but
the nation, in every age, has bowed to the religion, as
well as
to the language, of Mecca. The genuine antiquity of the Caaba
ascends beyond the Christian aera; in describing the
coast of the
Red Sea, the Greek historian Diodorus ^45 has remarked,
between
the Thamudites and the Sabaeans, a famous temple, whose
superior
sanctity was revered by all the Arabians; the linen or
silken
veil, which is annually renewed by the Turkish emperor,
was first
offered by a pious king of the Homerites, who reigned
seven
hundred years before the time of Mahomet. ^46 A tent, or
a
cavern, might suffice for the worship of the savages, but
an
edifice of stone and clay has been erected in its place;
and the
art and power of the monarchs of the East have been
confined to
the simplicity of the original model. ^47 A spacious portico
encloses the quadrangle of the Caaba; a square chapel,
twenty-four cubits long, twenty-three broad, and
twenty-seven
high: a door and a window admit the light; the double
roof is
supported by three pillars of wood; a spout (now of gold)
discharges the rain-water, and the well Zemzen is
protected by a
dome from accidental pollution. The tribe of Koreish, by fraud
and force, had acquired the custody of the Caaba: the
sacerdotal
office devolved through four lineal descents to the
grandfather
of Mahomet; and the family of the Hashemites, from whence
he
sprung, was the most respectable and sacred in the eyes
of their
country. ^48 The precincts of Mecca enjoyed the rights of
sanctuary; and, in the last month of each year, the city
and the
temple were crowded with a long train of pilgrims, who
presented
their vows and offerings in the house of God. The same rites
which are now accomplished by the faithful Mussulman,
were
invented and practised by the superstition of the
idolaters. At
an awful distance they cast away their garments: seven
times,
with hasty steps, they encircled the Caaba, and kissed
the black
stone: seven times they visited and adored the adjacent
mountains; seven times they threw stones into the valley
of Mina;
and the pilgrimage was achieved, as at the present hour,
by a
sacrifice of sheep and camels, and the burial of their
hair and
nails in the consecrated ground. Each tribe either found or
introduced in the Caaba their domestic worship: the
temple was
adorned, or defiled, with three hundred and sixty idols
of men,
eagles, lions, and antelopes; and most conspicuous was
the statue
of Hebal, of red agate, holding in his hand seven arrows,
without
heads or feathers, the instruments and symbols of profane
divination. But
this statue was a monument of Syrian arts: the
devotion of the ruder ages was content with a pillar or a
tablet;
and the rocks of the desert were hewn into gods or
altars, in
imitation of the black stone ^49 of Mecca, which is
deeply
tainted with the reproach of an idolatrous origin. From Japan to
Peru, the use of sacrifice has universally prevailed; and
the
votary has expressed his gratitude, or fear, by
destroying or
consuming, in honor of the gods, the dearest and most
precious of
their gifts. The
life of a man ^50 is the most precious oblation
to deprecate a public calamity: the altars of Phoenicia
and
Egypt, of Rome and Carthage, have been polluted with
human gore:
the cruel practice was long preserved among the Arabs; in
the
third century, a boy was annually sacrificed by the tribe
of the
Dumatians; ^51 and a royal captive was piously
slaughtered by the
prince of the Saracens, the ally and soldier of the
emperor
Justinian. ^52 A parent who drags his son to the altar,
exhibits
the most painful and sublime effort of fanaticism: the
deed, or
the intention, was sanctified by the example of saints
and
heroes; and the father of Mahomet himself was devoted by
a rash
vow, and hardly ransomed for the equivalent of a hundred
camels.
In the time of ignorance, the Arabs, like the Jews and
Egyptians,
abstained from the taste of swine's flesh; ^53 they
circumcised
^54 their children at the age of puberty: the same
customs,
without the censure or the precept of the Koran, have
been
silently transmitted to their posterity and
proselytes. It has
been sagaciously conjectured, that the artful legislator
indulged
the stubborn prejudices of his countrymen. It is more simple to
believe that he adhered to the habits and opinions of his
youth,
without foreseeing that a practice congenial to the climate
of
Mecca might become useless or inconvenient on the banks
of the
Danube or the Volga.
[Footnote 44: Whatever can now be known of the idolatry
of the
ancient Arabians may be found in Pocock, (Specimen, p. 89
- 136,
163, 164.) His profound erudition is more clearly and
concisely
interpreted by Sale, (Preliminary Discourse, p. 14 - 24;)
and
Assemanni (Bibliot. Orient tom. iv. p. 580 - 590) has
added some
valuable remarks.]
[Footnote 45: (Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. l. iii. p. 211.)
The
character and position are so correctly apposite, that I
am
surprised how this curious passage should have been read
without
notice or application. Yet this famous temple had been
overlooked
by Agatharcides, (de Mari Rubro, p. 58, in Hudson, tom.
i.,) whom
Diodorus copies in the rest of the description. Was the Sicilian
more knowing than the Egyptian? Or was the Caaba built between
the years of Rome 650 and 746, the dates of their
respective
histories?
(Dodwell, in Dissert. ad tom. i. Hudson, p. 72.
Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec. tom. ii. p. 770.)
Note: Mr.
Forster (Geography of Arabia, vol. ii. p. 118, et
seq.) has raised an objection, as I think, fatal to this
hypothesis of Gibbon.
The temple, situated in the country of the
Banizomeneis, was not between the Thamudites and the
Sabaeans,
but higher up than the coast inhabited by the
former. Mr.
Forster would place it as far north as Moiiah. I am not quite
satisfied that this will agree with the whole description
of
Diodorus - M. 1845.]
[Footnote 46: Pocock, Specimen, p. 60, 61. From the death of
Mahomet we ascend to 68, from his birth to 129, years
before the
Christian aera.
The veil or curtain, which is now of silk and
gold, was no more than a piece of Egyptian linen,
(Abulfeda, in
Vit. Mohammed. c. 6, p. 14.)]
[Footnote 47: The original plan of the Caaba (which is
servilely
copied in Sale, the Universal History, &c.) was a
Turkish
draught, which Reland (de Religione Mohammedica, p. 113 -
123)
has corrected and explained from the best
authorities. For the
description and legend of the Caaba, consult Pocock,
(Specimen,
p. 115 - 122,) the Bibliotheque Orientale of D'Herbelot,
(Caaba,
Hagir, Zemzem, &c.,) and Sale (Preliminary Discourse,
p. 114 -
122.)]
[Footnote 48: Cosa, the fifth ancestor of Mahomet, must
have
usurped the Caaba A.D. 440; but the story is differently
told by
Jannabi, (Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 65 - 69,)
and by
Abulfeda, (in Vit. Moham. c. 6, p. 13.)]
[Footnote 49: In the second century, Maximus of Tyre
attributes
to the Arabs the worship of a stone, (Dissert. viii. tom.
i. p.
142, edit. Reiske;) and the reproach is furiously
reechoed by the
Christians, (Clemens Alex. in Protreptico, p. 40. Arnobius
contra Gentes, l. vi. p. 246.) Yet these stones were no
other
than of Syria and Greece, so renowned in sacred and
profane
antiquity, (Euseb. Praep. Evangel. l. i. p. 37. Marsham,
Canon.
Chron. p. 54 - 56.)]
[Footnote 50: The two horrid subjects are accurately
discussed by
the learned Sir John Marsham, (Canon. Chron. p. 76 - 78,
301 -
304.) Sanchoniatho derives the Phoenician sacrifices from
the
example of Chronus; but we are ignorant whether Chronus
lived
before, or after, Abraham, or indeed whether he lived at
all.]
[Footnote 51: The reproach of Porphyry; but he likewise
imputes
to the Roman the same barbarous custom, which, A. U. C.
657, had
been finally abolished. Dumaetha, Daumat al Gendai, is
noticed by
Ptolemy (Tabul. p. 37, Arabia, p. 9 - 29) and Abulfeda,
(p. 57,)
and may be found in D'Anville's maps, in the mid-desert
between
Chaibar and Tadmor.]
[Footnote 52: Prcoopius, (de Bell. Persico, l. i. c. 28,)
Evagrius, (l. vi. c. 21,) and Pocock, (Specimen, p. 72,
86,)
attest the human sacrifices of the Arabs in the vith
century.
The danger and escape of Abdallah is a tradition rather
than a
fact, (Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 82 - 84.)]
[Footnote 53: Suillis carnibus abstinent, says Solinus,
(Polyhistor. c. 33,) who copies Pliny (l. viii. c. 68) in
the
strange supposition, that hogs can not live in
Arabia. The
Egyptians were actuated by a natural and superstitious
horror for
that unclean beast, (Marsham, Canon. p. 205.) The old
Arabians
likewise practised, post coitum, the rite of ablution,
(Herodot.
l. i. c. 80,) which is sanctified by the Mahometan law,
(Reland,
p. 75, &c., Chardin, or rather the Mollah of Shah
Abbas, tom. iv.
p. 71, &c.)]
[Footnote 54: The Mahometan doctors are not fond of the
subject;
yet they hold circumcision necessary to salvation, and
even
pretend that Mahomet was miraculously born without a
foreskin,
(Pocock, Specimen, p. 319, 320. Sale's Preliminary
Discourse, p.
106, 107.)]
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.
Part III.
Arabia was
free: the adjacent kingdoms were shaken by the
storms of conquest and tyranny, and the persecuted sects
fled to
the happy land where they might profess what they
thought, and
practise what they professed. The religions of the
Sabians and
Magians, of the Jews and Christians, were disseminated
from the
Persian Gulf to the Red Sea. In a remote period of antiquity,
Sabianism was diffused over Asia by the science of the
Chaldaeans
^55 and the arms of the Assyrians. From the observations of two
thousand years, the priests and astronomers of Babylon
^56
deduced the eternal laws of nature and providence. They adored
the seven gods or angels, who directed the course of the
seven
planets, and shed their irresistible influence on the
earth. The
attributes of the seven planets, with the twelve signs of
the
zodiac, and the twenty-four constellations of the
northern and
southern hemisphere, were represented by images and
talismans;
the seven days of the week were dedicated to their
respective
deities; the Sabians prayed thrice each day; and the
temple of
the moon at Haran was the term of their pilgrimage. ^57
But the
flexible genius of their faith was always ready either to
teach
or to learn: in the tradition of the creation, the
deluge, and
the patriarchs, they held a singular agreement with their
Jewish
captives; they appealed to the secret books of Adam,
Seth, and
Enoch; and a slight infusion of the gospel has
transformed the
last remnant of the Polytheists into the Christians of
St. John,
in the territory of Bassora. ^58 The altars of Babylon
were
overturned by the Magians; but the injuries of the
Sabians were
revenged by the sword of Alexander; Persia groaned above
five
hundred years under a foreign yoke; and the purest
disciples of
Zoroaster escaped from the contagion of idolatry, and
breathed
with their adversaries the freedom of the desert. ^59
Seven
hundred years before the death of Mahomet, the Jews were
settled
in Arabia; and a far greater multitude was expelled from
the Holy
Land in the wars of Titus and Hadrian. The industrious exiles
aspired to liberty and power: they erected synagogues in
the
cities, and castles in the wilderness, and their Gentile
converts
were confounded with the children of Israel, whom they
resembled
in the outward mark of circumcision. The Christian missionaries
were still more active and successful: the Catholics
asserted
their universal reign; the sects whom they oppressed,
successively retired beyond the limits of the Roman
empire; the
Marcionites and Manichaeans dispersed their fantastic
opinions
and apocryphal gospels; the churches of Yemen, and the
princes of
Hira and Gassan, were instructed in a purer creed by the
Jacobite
and Nestorian bishops. ^60 The liberty of choice was
presented to
the tribes: each Arab was free to elect or to compose his
private
religion: and the rude superstition of his house was
mingled with
the sublime theology of saints and philosophers. A fundamental
article of faith was inculcated by the consent of the
learned
strangers; the existence of one supreme God who is
exalted above
the powers of heaven and earth, but who has often
revealed
himself to mankind by the ministry of his angels and
prophets,
and whose grace or justice has interrupted, by seasonable
miracles, the order of nature. The most rational of the Arabs
acknowledged his power, though they neglected his
worship; ^61
and it was habit rather than conviction that still
attached them
to the relics of idolatry. The Jews and Christians were the
people of the Book; the Bible was already translated into
the
Arabic language, ^62 and the volume of the Old Testament
was
accepted by the concord of these implacable enemies. In the
story of the Hebrew patriarchs, the Arabs were pleased to
discover the fathers of their nation. They applauded the birth
and promises of Ismael; revered the faith and virtue of
Abraham;
traced his pedigree and their own to the creation of the
first
man, and imbibed, with equal credulity, the prodigies of
the holy
text, and the dreams and traditions of the Jewish rabbis.
[Footnote 55: Diodorus Siculus (tom. i. l. ii. p. 142 -
145) has
cast on their religion the curious but superficial glance
of a
Greek. Their
astronomy would be far more valuable: they had
looked through the telescope of reason, since they could
doubt
whether the sun were in the number of the planets or of
the fixed
stars.]
[Footnote 56: Simplicius, (who quotes Porphyry,) de
Coelo, l. ii.
com. xlvi p. 123, lin. 18, apud Marsham, Canon. Chron. p.
474,
who doubts the fact, because it is adverse to his
systems. The
earliest date of the Chaldaean observations is the year
2234
before Christ.
After the conquest of Babylon by Alexander, they
were communicated at the request of Aristotle, to the
astronomer
Hipparchus. What a
moment in the annals of science!]
[Footnote 57: Pocock, (Specimen, p. 138 - 146,)
Hottinger, (Hist.
Orient. p. 162 - 203,) Hyde, (de Religione Vet. Persarum,
p. 124,
128, &c.,) D'Herbelot, (Sabi, p. 725, 726,) and Sale,
(Preliminary Discourse, p. 14, 15,) rather excite than
gratify
our curiosity; and the last of these writers confounds
Sabianism
with the primitive religion of the Arabs.]
[Footnote 58: D'Anville (l'Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 130 -
137)
will fix the position of these ambiguous Christians;
Assemannus
(Bibliot. Oriental. tom. iv. p. 607 - 614) may explain
their
tenets. But it is
a slippery task to ascertain the creed of an
ignorant people afraid and ashamed to disclose their
secret
traditions.
Note: The
Codex Nasiraeus, their sacred book, has been
published by Norberg whose researches contain almost all
that is
known of this singular people. But their origin is almost as
obscure as ever: if ancient, their creed has been so
corrupted
with mysticism and Mahometanism, that its native
lineaments are
very indistinct. - M.]
[Footnote 59: The Magi were fixed in the province of B
hrein,
(Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 114,) and mingled
with the
old Arabians, (Pocock, Specimen, p. 146 - 150.)]
[Footnote 60: The state of the Jews and Christians in
Arabia is
described by Pocock from Sharestani, &c., (Specimen,
p. 60, 134,
&c.,) Hottinger, (Hist. Orient. p. 212 - 238,)
D'Herbelot,
(Bibliot. Orient. p. 474 - 476,) Basnage, (Hist. des
Juifs, tom.
vii. p. 185, tom. viii. p. 280,) and Sale, (Preliminary
Discourse, p. 22, &c., 33, &c.)]
[Footnote 61: In their offerings, it was a maxim to
defraud God
for the profit of the idol, not a more potent, but a more
irritable, patron, (Pocock, Specimen, p. 108, 109.)]
[Footnote 62: Our versions now extant, whether Jewish or
Christian, appear more recent than the Koran; but the
existence
of a prior translation may be fairly inferred, - 1. From
the
perpetual practice of the synagogue of expounding the
Hebrew
lesson by a paraphrase in the vulgar tongue of the
country; 2.
From the analogy of the Armenian, Persian, Aethiopic
versions,
expressly quoted by the fathers of the fifth century, who
assert
that the Scriptures were translated into all the Barbaric
languages, (Walton, Prolegomena ad Biblia Polyglot, p.
34, 93 -
97. Simon, Hist.
Critique du V. et du N. Testament, tom. i. p.
180, 181, 282 - 286, 293, 305, 306, tom. iv. p. 206.)]
The base and
plebeian origin of Mahomet is an unskilful
calumny of the Christians, ^63 who exalt instead of
degrading the
merit of their adversary. His descent from Ismael was a
national
privilege or fable; but if the first steps of the
pedigree ^64
are dark and doubtful, he could produce many generations
of pure
and genuine nobility: he sprung from the tribe of Koreish
and the
family of Hashem, the most illustrious of the Arabs, the
princes
of Mecca, and the hereditary guardians of the Caaba. The
grandfather of Mahomet was Abdol Motalleb, the son of
Hashem, a
wealthy and generous citizen, who relieved the distress
of famine
with the supplies of commerce. Mecca, which had been fed by the
liberality of the father, was saved by the courage of the
son.
The kingdom of Yemen was subject to the Christian princes
of
Abyssinia; their vassal Abrahah was provoked by an insult
to
avenge the honor of the cross; and the holy city was
invested by
a train of elephants and an army of Africans. A treaty was
proposed; and, in the first audience, the grandfather of
Mahomet
demanded the restitution of his cattle. "And why," said Abrahah,
"do you not rather implore my clemency in favor of
your temple,
which I have threatened to destroy?"
"Because," replied the
intrepid chief, "the cattle is my own; the Caaba
belongs to the
gods, and they will defend their house from injury and
sacrilege." The want of provisions, or the valor of
the Koreish,
compelled the Abyssinians to a disgraceful retreat: their
discomfiture has been adorned with a miraculous flight of
birds,
who showered down stones on the heads of the infidels;
and the
deliverance was long commemorated by the aera of the
elephant.
^65 The glory of Abdol Motalleb was crowned with domestic
happiness; his life was prolonged to the age of one hundred
and
ten years; and he became the father of six daughters and
thirteen
sons. His best beloved Abdallah was the most beautiful
and modest
of the Arabian youth; and in the first night, when he
consummated
his marriage with Amina, ^! of the noble race of the
Zahrites,
two hundred virgins are said to have expired of jealousy
and
despair. Mahomet,
or more properly Mohammed, the only son of
Abdallah and Amina, was born at Mecca, four years after
the death
of Justinian, and two months after the defeat of the Abyssinians,
^66 whose victory would have introduced into the Caaba
the
religion of the Christians. In his early infancy, he was
deprived
of his father, his mother, and his grandfather; his
uncles were
strong and numerous; and, in the division of the inheritance,
the
orphan's share was reduced to five camels and an
Aethiopian
maid-servant. At
home and abroad, in peace and war, Abu Taleb,
the most respectable of his uncles, was the guide and
guardian of
his youth; in his twenty-fifth year, he entered into the
service
of Cadijah, a rich and noble widow of Mecca, who soon
rewarded
his fidelity with the gift of her hand and fortune. The marriage
contract, in the simple style of antiquity, recites the
mutual
love of Mahomet and Cadijah; describes him as the most
accomplished of the tribe of Koreish; and stipulates a
dowry of
twelve ounces of gold and twenty camels, which was
supplied by
the liberality of his uncle. ^67 By this alliance, the
son of
Abdallah was restored to the station of his ancestors;
and the
judicious matron was content with his domestic virtues,
till, in
the fortieth year of his age, ^68 he assumed the title of
a
prophet, and proclaimed the religion of the Koran.
[Footnote 63: In eo conveniunt omnes, ut plebeio vilique
genere
ortum, &c, (Hottinger, Hist. Orient. p. 136.) Yet
Theophanes, the
most ancient of the Greeks, and the father of many a lie,
confesses that Mahomet was of the race of Ismael, (Chronograph.
p. 277.)]
[Footnote 64: Abulfeda (in Vit. Mohammed. c. 1, 2) and
Gagnier
(Vie de Mahomet, p. 25 - 97) describe the popular and
approved
genealogy of the prophet.
At Mecca, I would not dispute its
authenticity: at Lausanne, I will venture to observe, 1.
That
from Ismael to Mahomet, a period of 2500 years, they
reckon
thirty, instead of seventy five, generations: 2. That the
modern
Bedoweens are ignorant of their history, and careless of
their
pedigree, (Voyage de D'Arvieux p. 100, 103.)
Note: The most
orthodox Mahometans only reckon back the
ancestry of the prophet for twenty generations, to
Adnan. Weil,
Mohammed der Prophet, p. 1. - M. 1845.]
[Footnote 65: The seed of this history, or fable, is
contained in
the cvth chapter of the Koran; and Gagnier (in Praefat.
ad Vit.
Moham. p. 18, &c.) has translated the historical
narrative of
Abulfeda, which may be illustrated from D'Herbelot
(Bibliot.
Orientale, p. 12) and Pocock, (Specimen, p. 64.) Prideaux
(Life
of Mahomet, p. 48) calls it a lie of the coinage of
Mahomet; but
Sale, (Koran, p. 501 - 503,) who is half a Mussulman,
attacks the
inconsistent faith of the Doctor for believing the
miracles of
the Delphic Apollo.
Maracci (Alcoran, tom. i. part ii. p. 14,
tom. ii. p. 823) ascribes the miracle to the devil, and
extorts
from the Mahometans the confession, that God would not
have
defended against the Christians the idols of the Caaba.
Note: Dr. Weil
says that the small-pox broke out in the army
of Abrahah, but he does not give his authority, p. 10. -
M.
1845.]
[Footnote !: Amina, or Emina, was of Jewish birth. V. Hammer,
Geschichte der Assass. p. 10. - M.]
[Footnote 66: The safest aeras of Abulfeda, (in Vit. c.
i. p. 2,)
of Alexander, or the Greeks, 882, of Bocht Naser, or
Nabonassar,
1316, equally lead us to the year 569. The old Arabian calendar
is too dark and uncertain to support the Benedictines,
(Art. de
Verifer les Dates, p. 15,) who, from the day of the month
and
week, deduce a new mode of calculation, and remove the
birth of
Mahomet to the year of Christ 570, the 10th of
November. Yet
this date would agree with the year 882 of the Greeks,
which is
assigned by Elmacin (Hist. Saracen. p. 5) and
Abulpharagius,
(Dynast. p. 101, and Errata, Pocock's version.) While we
refine
our chronology, it is possible that the illiterate
prophet was
ignorant of his own age.
Note: The date
of the birth of Mahomet is not yet fixed with
precision. It is only known from Oriental authors that he
was
born on a Monday, the 10th Reby 1st, the third month of
the
Mahometan year; the year 40 or 42 of Chosroes Nushirvan,
king of
Persia; the year 881 of the Seleucidan aera; the year
1316 of the
aera of Nabonassar.
This leaves the point undecided between the
years 569, 570, 571, of J. C. See the Memoir of M. Silv. de
Sacy, on divers events in the history of the Arabs before
Mahomet, Mem. Acad. des Loscript. vol. xlvii. p. 527,
531. St.
Martin, vol. xi. p. 59. - M.
Dr. Weil
decides on A.D. 571. Mahomet died in
632, aged 63;
but the Arabs reckoned his life by lunar years, which
reduces his
life nearly to 61 (p. 21.) - M. 1845]
[Footnote 67: I copy the honorable testimony of Abu Taleb
to his
family and nephew.
Laus Dei, qui nos a stirpe Abrahami et semine
Ismaelis constituit, et nobis regionem sacram dedit, et
nos
judices hominibus statuit. Porro Mohammed filius Abdollahi
nepotis mei (nepos meus) quo cum ex aequo librabitur e
Koraishidis quispiam cui non praeponderaturus est,
bonitate et
excellentia, et intellectu et gloria, et acumine etsi
opum inops
fuerit, (et certe opes umbra transiens sunt et depositum
quod
reddi debet,) desiderio Chadijae filiae Chowailedi
tenetur, et
illa vicissim ipsius, quicquid autem dotis vice
petieritis, ego
in me suscipiam, (Pocock, Specimen, e septima parte libri
Ebn
Hamduni.)]
[Footnote 68: The private life of Mahomet, from his birth
to his
mission, is preserved by Abulfeda, (in Vit. c. 3 - 7,)
and the
Arabian writers of genuine or apocryphal note, who are
alleged by
Hottinger, (Hist. Orient. p. 204 - 211) Maracci, (tom. i.
p. 10 -
14,) and Gagnier, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 97 - 134.)]
According to the
tradition of his companions, Mahomet ^69
was distinguished by the beauty of his person, an outward
gift
which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has
been
refused. Before he
spoke, the orator engaged on his side the
affections of a public or private audience. They
applauded his
commanding presence, his majestic aspect, his piercing
eye, his
gracious smile, his flowing beard, his countenance that
painted
every sensation of the soul, and his gestures that
enforced each
expression of the tongue.
In the familiar offices of life he
scrupulously adhered to the grave and ceremonious
politeness of
his country: his respectful attention to the rich and
powerful
was dignified by his condescension and affability to the
poorest
citizens of Mecca: the frankness of his manner concealed
the
artifice of his views; and the habits of courtesy were
imputed to
personal friendship or universal benevolence. His memory
was
capacious and retentive; his wit easy and social; his
imagination
sublime; his judgment clear, rapid, and decisive. He
possessed
the courage both of thought and action; and, although his
designs
might gradually expand with his success, the first idea
which he
entertained of his divine mission bears the stamp of an
original
and superior genius.
The son of Abdallah was educated in the
bosom of the noblest race, in the use of the purest
dialect of
Arabia; and the fluency of his speech was corrected and
enhanced
by the practice of discreet and seasonable silence. With
these
powers of eloquence, Mahomet was an illiterate Barbarian:
his
youth had never been instructed in the arts of reading
and
writing; ^70 the common ignorance exempted him from shame
or
reproach, but he was reduced to a narrow circle of
existence, and
deprived of those faithful mirrors, which reflect to our
mind the
minds of sages and heroes. Yet the book of nature and of man was
open to his view; and some fancy has been indulged in the
political and philosophical observations which are
ascribed to
the Arabian traveller. ^71 He compares the nations and
the
regions of the earth; discovers the weakness of the
Persian and
Roman monarchies; beholds, with pity and indignation, the
degeneracy of the times; and resolves to unite under one
God and
one king the invincible spirit and primitive virtues of
the
Arabs. Our more
accurate inquiry will suggest, that, instead of
visiting the courts, the camps, the temples, of the East,
the two
journeys of Mahomet into Syria were confined to the fairs
of
Bostra and Damascus; that he was only thirteen years of
age when
he accompanied the caravan of his uncle; and that his
duty
compelled him to return as soon as he had disposed of the
merchandise of Cadijah.
In these hasty and superficial
excursions, the eye of genius might discern some objects
invisible to his grosser companions; some seeds of
knowledge
might be cast upon a fruitful soil; but his ignorance of
the
Syriac language must have checked his curiosity; and I
cannot
perceive, in the life or writings of Mahomet, that his
prospect
was far extended beyond the limits of the Arabian
world. From
every region of that solitary world, the pilgrims of
Mecca were
annually assembled, by the calls of devotion and
commerce: in the
free concourse of multitudes, a simple citizen, in his
native
tongue, might study the political state and character of
the
tribes, the theory and practice of the Jews and
Christians. Some
useful strangers might be tempted, or forced, to implore
the
rights of hospitality; and the enemies of Mahomet have
named the
Jew, the Persian, and the Syrian monk, whom they accuse
of
lending their secret aid to the composition of the Koran.
^72
Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is
the
school of genius; and the uniformity of a work denotes
the hand
of a single artist.
From his earliest youth Mahomet was addicted
to religious contemplation; each year, during the month
of
Ramadan, he withdrew from the world, and from the arms of
Cadijah: in the cave of Hera, three miles from Mecca, ^73
he
consulted the spirit of fraud or enthusiasm, whose abode
is not
in the heavens, but in the mind of the prophet. The faith which,
under the name of Islam, he preached to his family and
nation, is
compounded of an eternal truth, and a necessary fiction,
That
there is only one God, and that Mahomet is the apostle of
God.
[Footnote 69: Abulfeda, in Vit. c. lxv. lxvi. Gagnier,
Vie de
Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 272 - 289. The best traditions of the
person and conversation of the prophet are derived from
Ayesha,
Ali, and Abu Horaira, (Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 267. Ockley's Hist.
of the Saracens, vol. ii. p. 149,) surnamed the Father of
a Cat,
who died in the year 59 of the Hegira.
Note: Compare,
likewise, the new Life of Mahomet (Mohammed
der prophet) by Dr. Weil, (Stuttgart, 1843.) Dr. Weil has
a new
tradition, that Mahomet was at one time a shepherd. This
assimilation to the life of Moses, instead of giving
probability
to the story, as Dr. Weil suggests, makes it more
suspicious.
Note, p. 34. - M. 1845.]
[Footnote 70: Those who believe that Mahomet could read
or write
are incapable of reading what is written with another
pen, in the
Suras, or chapters of the Koran, vii. xxix. xcvi. These texts,
and the tradition of the Sonna, are admitted, without
doubt, by
Abulfeda, (in Vit. vii.,) Gagnier, (Not. ad Abulfed. p.
15,)
Pocock, (Specimen, p. 151,) Reland, (de Religione
Mohammedica, p.
236,) and Sale, (Preliminary Discourse, p. 42.) Mr.
White, almost
alone, denies the ignorance, to accuse the imposture, of
the
prophet. His arguments are far from satisfactory. Two
short
trading journeys to the fairs of Syria were surely not
sufficient
to infuse a science so rare among the citizens of Mecca:
it was
not in the cool, deliberate act of treaty, that Mahomet
would
have dropped the mask; nor can any conclusion be drawn from
the
words of disease and delirium. The lettered youth, before
he
aspired to the prophetic character, must have often
exercised, in
private life, the arts of reading and writing; and his
first
converts, of his own family, would have been the first to
detect
and upbraid his scandalous hypocrisy, (White's Sermons,
p. 203,
204, Notes, p. xxxvi. - xxxviii.)
Note: (Academ.
des Inscript. I. p. 295) has observed that
the text of the seveth Sura implies that Mahomet could
read, the
tradition alone denies it, and, according to Dr. Weil,
(p. 46,)
there is another reading of the tradition, that "he
could not
read well." Dr. Weil is not quite so successful in
explaining
away Sura xxix. It
means, he thinks that he had not read any
books, from which he could have borrowed. - M. 1845.]
[Footnote 71: The count de Boulainvilliers (Vie de
Mahomet, p.
202 - 228) leads his Arabian pupil, like the Telemachus
of
Fenelon, or the Cyrus of Ramsay. His journey to the court of
Persia is probably a fiction nor can I trace the origin
of his
exclamation, "Les Grecs sont pour tant des
hommes." The two
Syrian journeys are expressed by almost all the Arabian
writers,
both Mahometans and Christians, (Gagnier Abulfed. p.
10.)]
[Footnote 72: I am not at leisure to pursue the fables or
conjectures which name the strangers accused or suspected
by the
infidels of Mecca, (Koran, c. 16, p. 223, c. 35, p. 297,
with
Sale's Remarks.
Prideaux's Life of Mahomet, p. 22 - 27.
Gagnier, Not. ad Abulfed. p. 11, 74. Maracci, tom. ii. p. 400.)
Even Prideaux has observed, that the transaction must
have been
secret, and that the scene lay in the heart of Arabia.]
[Footnote 73: Abulfeda in Vit. c. 7, p. 15. Gagnier, tom. i. p.
133, 135. The situation of Mount Hera is remarked by
Abulfeda
(Geograph. Arab p. 4.) Yet Mahomet had never read of the
cave of
Egeria, ubi nocturnae Numa constituebat amicae, of the
Idaean
Mount, where Minos conversed with Jove, &c.]
It is the
boast of the Jewish apologists, that while the
learned nations of antiquity were deluded by the fables
of
polytheism, their simple ancestors of Palestine preserved
the
knowledge and worship of the true God. The moral
attributes of
Jehovah may not easily be reconciled with the standard of
human
virtue: his metaphysical qualities are darkly expressed;
but each
page of the Pentateuch and the Prophets is an evidence of
his
power: the unity of his name is inscribed on the first
table of
the law; and his sanctuary was never defiled by any
visible image
of the invisible essence.
After the ruin of the temple, the
faith of the Hebrew exiles was purified, fixed, and
enlightened,
by the spiritual devotion of the synagogue; and the
authority of
Mahomet will not justify his perpetual reproach, that the
Jews of
Mecca or Medina adored Ezra as the son of God. ^74 But
the
children of Israel had ceased to be a people; and the
religions
of the world were guilty, at least in the eyes of the
prophet, of
giving sons, or daughters, or companions, to the supreme
God. In
the rude idolatry of the Arabs, the crime is manifest and
audacious: the Sabians are poorly excused by the
preeminence of
the first planet, or intelligence, in their celestial
hierarchy;
and in the Magian system the conflict of the two
principles
betrays the imperfection of the conqueror. The Christians of the
seventh century had insensibly relapsed into a semblance
of
Paganism: their public and private vows were addressed to
the
relics and images that disgraced the temples of the East:
the
throne of the Almighty was darkened by a cloud of martyrs,
and
saints, and angels, the objects of popular veneration;
and the
Collyridian heretics, who flourished in the fruitful soil
of
Arabia, invested the Virgin Mary with the name and honors
of a
goddess. ^75 The mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation
appear
to contradict the principle of the divine unity. In their
obvious sense, they introduce three equal deities, and
transform
the man Jesus into the substance of the Son of God: ^76
an
orthodox commentary will satisfy only a believing mind:
intemperate curiosity and zeal had torn the veil of the
sanctuary; and each of the Oriental sects was eager to
confess
that all, except themselves, deserved the reproach of
idolatry
and polytheism.
The creed of Mahomet is free from suspicion or
ambiguity; and the Koran is a glorious testimony to the
unity of
God. The prophet
of Mecca rejected the worship of idols and men,
of stars and planets, on the rational principle that
whatever
rises must set, that whatever is born must die, that
whatever is
corruptible must decay and perish. ^77 In the Author of
the
universe, his rational enthusiasm confessed and adored an
infinite and eternal being, without form or place,
without issue
or similitude, present to our most secret thoughts,
existing by
the necessity of his own nature, and deriving from
himself all
moral and intellectual perfection. These sublime truths, thus
announced in the language of the prophet, ^78 are firmly
held by
his disciples, and defined with metaphysical precision by
the
interpreters of the Koran. A philosophic theist might subscribe
the popular creed of the Mahometans; ^79 a creed too
sublime,
perhaps, for our present faculties. What object remains
for the
fancy, or even the understanding, when we have abstracted
from
the unknown substance all ideas of time and space, of
motion and
matter, of sensation and reflection? The first principle
of
reason and revolution was confirmed by the voice of
Mahomet: his
proselytes, from India to Morocco, are distinguished by
the name
of Unitarians; and the danger of idolatry has been
prevented by
the interdiction of images. The doctrine of eternal decrees and
absolute predestination is strictly embraced by the
Mahometans;
and they struggle, with the common difficulties, how to
reconcile
the prescience of God with the freedom and responsibility
of man;
how to explain the permission of evil under the reign of
infinite
power and infinite goodness.
[Footnote 74: Koran, c. 9, p. 153. Al Beidawi, and the other
commentators quoted by Sale, adhere to the charge;