Lecture XIV.: The French Revolution.

I endeavored, at our last meeting, to ascertain the true character and political object of the English revolution. We have seen that it was the first collision of the two great facts to which, in the course of the sixteenth century, all the civilization of primitive Europe tended,—monarchy on the one hand, and free inquiry on the other. These two powers came to blows, if I may use the expression, for the first time in England. It has been attempted, from this circumstance, to reduce a radical difference between the social state of England and that of the Continent; it has been contended that no comparison could be made between countries so differently situated; and it has been affirmed, that the English people had lived in a sort of moral separation from the rest of Europe, analogous to its physical isolation.

It is true that between the civilization of England, and that of the continental states, there has been a material difference which it is important that we should rightly understand. You have already had a glimpse of it in the course of these lectures. The development of the different principles, the different elements of society, took place, in some measure, at the same time, at least much more simultaneously than upon the Continent. When I endeavored to determine the complexion of European civilization as compared with the civilization of ancient and Asiatic nations, I showed that the former was varied, rich, and complex, and that it had never fallen under the influence of any exclusive principle; that, in it, the different elements of the social state had combined, contended with, and modified each other, and had continually been obliged to come to an accommodation, and to subsist together. This fact, which forms the general character of European civilization, has in an especial manner been that of the civilization of England; it is in that country that it has appeared most evidently and uninterruptedly; it is there that the civil and religious orders, aristocracy, democracy, monarchy, local and central institutions, moral and political development, have proceeded and grown up together, if not with equal rapidity, at least but at a little distance from each other. Under the reign of the Tudors, for example, in the midst of the most remarkable progress of pure monarchy, we have seen the democratic principle, the popular power, make its way and gain strength almost at the same time. The revolution of the seventeenth century broke out; it was at the same time religious and political. The feudal aristocracy appeared in it in a very enfeebled state, and with all the symptoms of decay; it was, however, still in a condition to preserve its place in this revolution, and to have some share in its results. The same thing has been the case in the whole course of English history; no ancient element has ever entirely perished, nor any new element gained a total ascendancy; no particular principle has ever obtained an exclusive influence. There has always been a simultaneous development of the different forces, and a sort of negotiation or compromise between their pretensions and interests.

On the Continent the march of civilization had been less complex and complete. The different elements of society, the civil and religious orders, monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, have developed themselves, not together, and abreast, as it were, but successively. Every principle, every system, has in some measure had its turn. One age, for example, has belonged, I shall not say exclusively, but with a decided predominance, to the feudal aristocracy; another to the principle of monarchy; another to the principle of democracy. Compare the middle ages in France, with the middle ages in England; the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries of our history with the corresponding centuries on the other side of the channel; you will find in France, at that epoch, feudalism in a state of almost absolute sovereignty, while monarchy and the democratic principle scarcely had an existence. But turn to England, and you will find, that although the feudal aristocracy greatly predominated, monarchy and democracy possessed, at the same time, strength and importance. Monarchy triumphed in England under Elizabeth, as in France under Louis XIV; but what precautions it was constrained to take! how many restrictions, sometimes aristocratic, sometimes democratic, it was obliged to submit to! In England every system, every principle, has had its time of strength and success; but never so completely and exclusively as on the Continent: the conqueror has always been constrained to tolerate the presence of his rivals, and to leave them a certain share of influence.

To this difference in the march of these two civilizations there are attached advantages and inconveniences which are apparent in the history of the two countries. There is no doubt, for example, that the simultaneous development of the different social elements has greatly contributed to make England arrive more quickly than any of the continental states, at the end and aim of all society, that is to say, the establishment of a government at once regular and free. It is the very nature of a government to respect all the interests, all the powers of the state, to conciliate them and make them live and prosper in common: now such was, beforehand, and by the concurrence of a multitude of causes, the despotism and mutual relation of the different elements of English society; and, therefore, a general and somewhat regular government had the less difficulty in establishing itself. In like manner the essence of liberty is the simultaneous manifestation and action of every interest, every kind of right, every force, every social element. England, therefore, had made a nearer approach to liberty than most other states. From the same causes, national good sense and intelligence of public affairs must have formed themselves more quickly than elsewhere; political good sense consists in understanding and appreciating every fact, and in assigning to each its proper part; in England it has been a necessary consequence of the state of society, a natural result of the course of civilization.

In the states of the Continent, on the contrary, every system, every principle, having had its turn, and having had a more complete and exclusive ascendency, the development took place on a larger scale, and with more striking circumstances. Monarchy and feudal aristocracy, for example, appeared on the continental stage with more boldness, extent, and freedom. Every political experiment, so to speak, was broader and more complete. The result was, that political ideas—I speak of general ideas, and not of good sense applied to the conduct of affairs; that political ideas and doctrines took a greater elevation, and displayed themselves with much greater rational vigor. Every system having, in some sort, presented itself singly, and having remained a long time on the stage people could contemplate it in its general aspect, ascend to its first principles, pursue it into its remotest consequences, and lay bare its entire theory. Whoever observes with some degree of attention the genius of the English nation, will be struck with a double fact; on the one hand, its steady good sense and practical ability; on the other, its want of general ideas, and of elevation of thought upon theoretical questions. Whether we open an English work on history, jurisprudence, or any other subject, we rarely find the great and fundamental reason of things. In every subject, and especially in the political sciences, pure philosophical doctrines—science properly so called—have prospered much more on the Continent, than in England; their flights, at least, have been bolder and more vigorous. Indeed, it cannot be doubted that the different character of the development of civilization in the two countries has greatly contributed to this result.

At all events, whatever may be thought of the inconveniences or advantages which have been produced by this difference, it is a real and incontestable fact, and that which most essentially distinguishes England from the Continent. But, though the different principles, the different social elements, have developed themselves more simultaneously there, and more successively in France, it does not follow that, at bottom, the road and the goal have not been the same. Considered generally, the Continent and England have gone through the same great phases of civilization; events have followed the same course; similar causes have led to similar effects. You may have convinced yourselves of this by the view I have given you of civilization down to the sixteenth century; you will remark it no less in studying the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The development of free inquiry, and that of pure monarchy, almost simultaneous in England, were accomplished on the Continent at pretty long intervals; but they were accomplished; and these two powers, after having successively exercised a decided predominance, came also into collision. The general march of society, then, on the whole, has been the same; and, though the differences are real, the resemblance is still greater. A rapid sketch of modern times will leave you no doubt on this subject.

The moment we cast our eyes on the history of Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, we cannot fail to perceive that France marches at the head of European civilization. At the beginning of this course, I strongly affirmed this fact, and endeavored to point out its cause. We shall now find it more strikingly displayed than it has ever been before.

The principle of pure and absolute monarchy had predominated in Spain, under Charles V and Philip II, before its development in France under Louis XIV. In like manner the principle of free inquiry had reigned in England in the seventeenth century, before its development in France in the eighteenth. Pure monarchy, however, did not go forth from Spain, nor free inquiry from England, to make the conquest of Europe. The two principles or systems remained, in some sort, confined within the countries in which they sprang up. They required to pass through France to extend their dominion; pure monarchy and liberty of inquiry were compelled to become French before they could become European. That communicative character of French civilization, that social genius of France, which has displayed itself at every period, was peculiarly conspicuous at the period which now engages our attention. I shall not dwell upon this fact; it has been expounded to you, with equal force of argument and brilliancy, in the lectures in which your attention has been directed to the influence of the literature and philosophy of France in the eighteenth century. You have seen how the philosophy of France had, in regard to liberty, more influence on Europe than the liberty of England. You have seen how French civilization showed itself much more active and contagious than that of any other country. I have no occasion, therefore, to dwell upon the details of this fact; I avail myself of it only in order to make it my ground for using French civilization as the picture of modern European civilization. There were, no doubt, between French civilization at this period, and that of the other states of Europe, differences on which I ought to lay great stress, if it were my intention at present to enter fully into this subject; but I must proceed so rapidly that I am obliged to pass over whole nations, and whole ages. I think it better to confine your attention to the course of French civilization, as being an image, though an imperfect one, of the general course of things in Europe.

The influence of France in Europe, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, appears under very different aspects. In the first of these centuries, it was the French government which acted upon Europe, and took the lead in the march of general civilization. In the second, it was no longer to the French government, but to the French society, to France herself, that the preponderance belonged. It was at first Louis XIV and his court, and then France herself, and her public opinion, that attracted the attention, and swayed the minds of the rest of Europe. There were, in the seventeenth century, nations, who, as such, made a more prominent appearance on the stage, and took a greater share in the course of events, than the French nation. Thus, during the Thirty Years’ War, the German nation, and during the revolution in England, the English nation played, within their respective spheres, a much greater part than the French nation, at that period, played within theirs. In the eighteenth century, in like manner, there were stronger, more respected, and more formidable governments than that of France. There is no doubt that Frederick II and Maria Theresa had more activity and weight in Europe than Louis XV. Still, at both of these periods, France was at the head of European civilization, first through her government, and afterwards through herself; at one time through the political action of her rulers, at another through her own intellectual development. To understand thoroughly the predominant influence on the course of civilization in France, and consequently in Europe, we must therefore study, in the seventeenth century, the French government, and in the eighteenth, the French nation. We must change our ground and our objects of view, according as time changes the scene and the actors.

Whenever the government of Louis XIV is spoken of, whenever we attempt to appreciate the causes of his power and influence in Europe, we have little to consider beyond his splendor, his conquests, his magnificence, and the literary glory of his time. We must resort to exterior causes in order to account for the preponderance of the French government in Europe.

But this preponderance, in my opinion, was derived from causes more deeply seated, from motives of a more serious kind. We must not believe that it was entirely by means of victories, festivals, or even master-pieces of genius, that Louis XIV and his government played, at that period, the part which no one can deny them.

Many of you may remember, and all of you have heard of the effect which, twenty-nine years ago, was produced by the Consular government in France, and the state in which it found our country. Abroad, foreign invasion impending, and continual disasters in our armies; at home, the elements of government and society in a state of dissolution; no revenues, no public order; in short, a people beaten, humbled, and disorganized—such was France at the accession of the consular government. Who is there that does not remember the prodigious and successful activity of that government, an activity which, in a short time, secured the independence of our territory, revived our national honor, reorganized the administration of government, remodelled our legislation, in short, gave society, as it were, a new life under the hand of power?

Well—the government of Louis XIV, when it began, did something of the same kind for France; with great differences of times, of proceedings, and of forms, it prosecuted and attained very nearly the same results.

Remember the state into which France had fallen after the government of Cardinal Richelieu, and during the minority of Louis XIV: the Spanish armies always on the frontiers, and sometimes in the interior; continual danger of invasion; internal dissensions carried to the extremity of civil war, the government weak, and decried both at home and abroad. There never was a more miserable policy, more despised in Europe, or more powerless in France, than that of Cardinal Mazarin. In a word, society was in a state, less violent perhaps, but very analogous to ours before the 18th of Brumaire. It was from that state that the government of Louis XIV delivered France. His earliest victories had the effect of the victory of Marengo; they secured the French territory and revived the national honor. I am going to consider this government under its various aspects, in its wars, its foreign relations, its administration, and its legislation; and you will see, I believe, that the comparison which I speak of, and to which I do not wish to attach a puerile importance (for I care very little about historical comparisons), you will see, I say, that this comparison has a real foundation, and that I am fully justified in making it.

I shall first speak of the wars of Louis XIV. European wars were originally (as you know, and as I have several times had occasion to remind you) great popular movements; impelled by want, by some fancy, or any other cause, whole populations, sometimes numerous, sometimes consisting of mere bands, passed from one territory to another. This was the general character of European wars, till after the Crusades, at the end of the thirteenth century.

After this another kind of war arose, but almost equally different from the wars of modern times: these were distant wars, undertaken, not by nations, but by their governing powers, who went, at the head of their armies, to seek, at a distance, states and adventures. They quitted their country, abandoned their own territory, and penetrated, some into Germany, others into Italy, and others into Africa, with no other motive save their individual fancy. Almost all the wars of the fifteenth, and even a part of the sixteenth century, are of this character. What interest—and I do not speak of a legitimate interest—but what motive had France for wishing that Charles VIII should possess the kingdom of Naples? It was evidently a war dictated by no political considerations; the king thought he had personal claims on the kingdom of Naples; and, for this personal object, to satisfy his own personal desire, he undertook the conquest of a distant country, which was by no means adapted to the territorial conveniences of his kingdom, but which, on the contrary, only endangered his power abroad and his repose at home. Such, again, was the case with regard to the expedition of Charles V into Africa. The last war of this kind was the expedition of Charles XII against Russia.

The wars of Louis XIV were not of this description; they were the wars of a regular government—a government fixed in the center of its dominions, endeavoring to extend its conquests around, to increase or consolidate its territory; in short, they were political wars. They may have been just or unjust, they may have cost France too dear;—they may be objected to on many grounds—on the score of morality or excess; but, in fact, they were of a much more rational character than the wars which preceded them; they were no longer fanciful adventures; they were dictated by serious motives; their objects were to reach some natural boundary, some population who spoke the same language, and might be annexed to the kingdom, some point of defence against a neighboring power. Personal ambition, no doubt, had a share in them; but examine the wars of Louis XIV, one after the other, especially those of the early part of his reign, and you will find that their motives were really political; you will see that they were conceived with a view to the power and safety of France.

This fact has been proved by results. France, at the present day, in many respects, is what the wars of Louis XIV made her. The provinces which he conquered, Franche-Comté, Flanders, and Alsace, have remained incorporated with France. There are rational conquests as well as foolish ones: those of Louis XIV were rational; his enterprises have not that unreasonable, capricious character, till then so general; their policy was able, if not always just and prudent.

If I pass from the wars of Louis XIV to his relations with foreign states, to his diplomacy properly so called, I find an analogous result. I have already spoken of the origin of diplomacy at the end of the fifteenth century. I have endeavored to show how the mutual relations of governments and states, previously accidental, rare, and transient, had at that period become more regular and permanent, how they had assumed a character of great public interest; how, in short, at the end of the fifteenth and during the first half of the sixteenth century, diplomacy had begun to perform a part of immense importance in the course of events. Still, however, it was not till the seventeenth century that it became really systematic; before then, it had not brought about long alliances, great combinations, and especially combinations of a durable nature, directed by fixed principles, with a steady object, and with that spirit of consistency which forms the true character of established governments. During the course of the religious revolution, the foreign relations of states had been almost completely under the influence of religious interests; the Protestant and Catholic leagues had divided Europe between them. It was in the seventeenth century, under the influence of the government of Louis XIV, that diplomacy changed its character. On the one hand, it got rid of the exclusive influence of the religious principle; alliances and political combinations took place from other considerations. At the same time it became much more systematic and regular, and was always directed towards a certain object, according to permanent principles. The regular birth of the system of the balance of power in Europe, took place at this period. It was under the government of Louis XIV that this system, with all the considerations attached to it, really took possession of the politics of Europe. When we inquire what was, on this subject, the general idea, or ruling principle of the policy of Louis XIV, the following seems to be the result.

I have spoken of the great struggle which took place in Europe between the pure monarchy of Louis XIV, pretending to establish itself as the universal system of monarchy, and civil and religious liberty, and the independence of states, under the command of the Prince of Orange, William III. You have seen that the great European fact, at that epoch, was the division of the powers of Europe under these two banners. But this fact was not then understood as I now explain it; it was hidden, and unknown even to those by whom it was accomplished. The repression of the system of pure monarchy, and the consecration of civil and religious liberty, was necessarily, at bottom, the result of the resistance of Holland and her allies to Louis XIV; but the question between absolute power and liberty was not then thus absolutely laid down. It has been frequently said that the propagation of absolute power was the ruling principle in the diplomacy of Louis XIV. I do not think so. It was at a late period, and in his old age, that this consideration assumed a great part in his policy. The power of France, her preponderance in Europe, the depression of rival powers,—in short, the political interest and strength of the state, was the object which Louis XIV always had in view, whether he was contending against Spain, the Emperor of Germany, or England. He was much less actuated by a wish for the propagation of absolute power than by a desire for the aggrandizement of France and his own government. Among many other proofs of this, there is one which emanates from Louis XIV himself. We find in his Memoirs, for the year 1666, if I remember rightly, a note conceived nearly in these terms:—

“This morning I had a conversation with Mr. Sidney, an English gentleman, who spoke to me of the possibility of reviving the republican party in England. Mr. Sidney asked me for £400,000 for this purpose. I told him I could not give him more than £200,000. He prevailed on me to send to Switzerland for another English gentleman, called Mr. Ludlow, that I might converse with him upon the same subject.”

We find accordingly, in Ludlow’s Memoirs, about the same date, a paragraph to the following import:—

“I have received from the French government an invitation to go to Paris, to have some discussion on the affairs of my country; but I distrust this government.”

And, in fact, Ludlow did remain in Switzerland.

You see that the object of Louis XIV at that time was to weaken the royal power of England. He fomented internal dissensions, he labored to revive the republican party, in order to hinder Charles II from becoming too powerful in his own country. In the course of Barillon’s embassy to England, the same fact is constantly apparent. As often as the authority of Charles II seems to be gaining the ascendancy, and the national party on the point of being overpowered, the French ambassador turns his influence in that direction, gives money to the leaders of the opposition, and, in short, contends against absolute power, as soon as that becomes the means of weakening a rival of France. Whenever we attentively examine the conduct of foreign relations under Louis XIV, this is the fact which we are struck with.

We are also surprised at the capacity and ability of the French diplomacy at this period. The names of Torcy, d’Avaux, and de Bonrepos, are known to all well-informed persons. When we compare the despatches, the memorials, the skill, the management of these counsellors of Louis XIV, with those of the Spanish, Portuguese, and German negotiators, we are struck with the superiority of the French ministers; not only with their serious activity and application to business, but with their freedom of thought. These courtiers of an absolute king judge of foreign events, of parties, of the demands for freedom, and of popular revolutions, much more soundly than the greater part of the English themselves of that period. There is no diplomacy in Europe in the seventeenth century which appears equal to the diplomacy of France, except perhaps that of Holland. The ministers of John De Witt and William of Orange, those illustrious leaders of the party of civil and religious liberty, are the only ones who appear to have been in a condition to contend with the servants of the great absolute king.

You see, that, whether we consider the wars of Louis XIV, or his diplomatic relations, we arrive at the same results. We can easily conceive how a government which conducted in such a manner its wars and negotiations, must have acquired great solidity in Europe, and assumed not only a formidable, but an able and imposing aspect.

Let us now turn our eyes to the interior of France, and the administration and legislation of Louis XIV; we shall everywhere find new explanations of the strength and splendor of his government.

It is difficult to determine precisely what ought to be understood by administration in the government of a state. Still, when we endeavor to come to a distinct understanding on this subject, we acknowledge, I believe, that, under the most general point of view, administration consists in an assemblage of means destined to transmit, as speedily and surely as possible, the will of the central power into all departments of society, and, under the same conditions, to make the powers of society return to the central power, either in men or money. This, if I am not mistaken, is the true object, the prevailing character, of administration. From this we may perceive that, in times where it is especially necessary to establish union and order in society, administration is the great means of accomplishing it,—of bringing together, cementing, and uniting scattered and incoherent elements. Such, in fact, was the work of the administration of Louis XIV. Till his time, nothing had been more difficult, in France as well as in the rest of Europe, than to cause the action of the central power to penetrate into all the parts of society, and to concentrate into the heart of the central power the means of strength possessed by the society at large. This was the object of Louis’s endeavors, and he succeeded in it to a certain extent, incomparably better, at least, than preceding governments had done. I cannot enter into any details; but take a survey of every kind of public service, the taxes, the highways, industry, the military administration, and the various establishments which belong to any branch of administration whatever; there is hardly any of them which you will not find to have either been originated, developed, or greatly meliorated, under the reign of Louis XIV. It was as administrators that the greatest men of his time, such as Colbert and Louvois, displayed their genius and exercised their ministerial functions; it was thus that his government acquired a comprehensiveness, a decision, and a consistency, which were wanting in all the European governments around him.

The same fact holds with respect to this government, as regards its legislative capacity. I will again refer to the comparison I made in the outset to the legislative activity of the Consular government, and its prodigious labor in revising and remodelling the laws. A labor of the same kind was undertaken under Louis XIV. The great ordinances which he passed and promulgated,—the ordinances on the criminal law, on forms of procedure, on commerce, on the navy, on waters and forests,—are real codes of law, which were constructed in the same manner as our codes, having been discussed in the Council of State, sometimes under the presidency of Lamoignon. There are men whose glory it is to have taken a share in this labor and those discussions,—M. Pussort, for example. If we had to consider it simply in itself, we should have a great deal to say against the legislation of Louis XIV. It is full of faults which are now evident, and which nobody can dispute; it was not conceived in the spirit of justice and true liberty, but with a view to public order, and to give regularity and stability to the laws. But even that alone was a great progress; and it cannot be doubted that the legislative acts of Louis XIV, very superior to the previous state of legislation, powerfully contributed to the advancement of French society in the career of civilization.

Under whatever point of view, then, we regard this government, we can at once discover the means of its strength and influence. It was, in truth, the first government which presented itself to the eyes of Europe as a power sure of its position, which had not to dispute for its existence with domestic enemies, which was tranquil in regard to its territory and its people, and had nothing to think of but the care of governing. Till then, all the European governments had been incessantly plunged into wars which deprived them of security as well as leisure, or so assailed by parties and enemies at home, that they passed their time in fighting for their existence. The government of Louis XIV appeared to be the first that was engaged solely in managing its affairs like a power at once definitive and progressive, which was not afraid of making innovations, because it reckoned upon the future. In fact, few governents have been more given to innovation. Compare it with a government of the same nature, with the pure monarchy of Philip II in Spain, which was more absolute than that of Louis XIV, and yet was less regular and tranquil. How did Philip II succeed in establishing absolute power in Spain? By stifling every kind of activity in the country; by refusing his sanction to every kind of improvement, and thus rendering the state of Spain completely stationary. The government of Louis XIV, on the contrary, was active in every kind of innovation, and favorable to the progress of letters, arts, riches—favorable, in a word, to civilization. These were the true causes of its preponderance in Europe—a preponderance so great, that it was, on the Continent, during the seventeenth century, not only for sovereigns, but even for nations, the type and model of governments.

It is frequently asked, and it is impossible to avoid asking, how a power so splendid and well established—to judge from the circumstances I have pointed out to you, should have fallen so quickly into a state of decay? how, after having played so great a part in Europe, it became in the following century so inconsiderable, so weak, and so little respected? The fact is undeniable: in the seventeenth century, the French government stood at the head of European civilization. In the eighteenth century it disappeared; it was the society of France, separated from its government, and often in a hostile position towards it, which led the way and guided the progress of the European world.

It is here that we discover the incorrigible vice and infallible effect of absolute power. I shall not enter into any detail respecting the faults of the government of Louis XIV; and there were great ones. I shall not speak either of the war of the succession in Spain, or the revocation of the edict of Nantes, or the excessive expenditure, or many other fatal measures which affected its character. I will take the merits of the government, such as I have described them. I will admit that, probably, there never was an absolute power more completely acknowledged by its age and nation, or which has rendered more real services to the civilization of its country as well as to Europe in general. It followed, indeed, from the single circumstance, that this government had no other principle than absolute power, and rested entirely on this basis, that its decay was so sudden and deserved. What was essentially wanting to France in Louis XIV’s time were institutions, political powers, which were independent and self-existent, capable, in short, of spontaneous action and resistance. The ancient French institutions, if they deserve the name, no longer subsisted; Louis XIV completed their destruction. He took care not to replace them by new institutions; they would have constrained him, and he did not choose constraint. The will and action of the central power were all that appeared with splendor at that epoch. The government of Louis XIV is a great fact, a powerful and brilliant fact, but it was built upon sand. Free institutions are a guarantee, not only for the prudence of governments, but also for their stability. No system can endure otherwise than by institutions. Wherever absolute power has been permanent, it has been based upon, and supported by, real institutions; sometimes by the division of society into castes, distinctly separated, and sometimes by a system of religious institutions. Under the reign of Louis XIV, power, as well as liberty, needed institutions. There was nothing in France, at that time, to protect either the country from the illegitimate action of the government, or the government itself against the inevitable action of time. Thus, we behold the government assisting its own decay. It was not Louis XIV only who grew old, and became feeble, at the end of his reign; it was the whole system of absolute power. Pure monarchy was as much worn out in 1712, as the monarch himself. And the evil was so much the more serious, in that Louis XIV had destroyed political habits as well as political institutions. There can be no political habits without independence. He only who feels that he is strong in himself, is always capable either of serving the ruling power, or of contending with it. Energetic characters disappear along with independent situations, and a free and high spirit arises from the security of rights.

We may, then, describe in the following terms the state in which the French nation and the power of the government were left by Louis XIV: in society there was a great development of wealth, strength, and intellectual activity of every kind; and, along with this progressive society, there was a government essentially stationary, and without means to adapt itself to the movement of the people; devoted, after half a century of great splendor, to immobility and weakness, and already fallen, even in the lifetime of its founder, into a decay almost resembling dissolution. Such was the situation of France at the expiration of the seventeenth century, and which impressed upon the subsequent period so different a direction and character.

It is hardly necessary for me to remark that a great movement of the human mind, that a spirit of free inquiry, was the predominant feature, the essential fact of the eighteenth century. You have already heard from this chair a great deal on this topic; you have already heard this momentous period characterized, by the voices of a philosophic orator and an eloquent philosopher. I cannot pretend, in the small space of time which remains to me, to follow all the phases of the great revolution which was then accomplished; neither, however, can I leave you without calling your attention to some of its features which perhaps have been too little remarked.

The first, which occurs to me in the outset, and which, indeed, I have already pointed out, is the almost entire disappearance (so to speak) of the government in the course of the eighteenth century, and the appearance of the human mind as the principal and almost sole actor. Excepting in what concerned foreign relations, under the ministry of the Duke de Choiseul, and in some great concessions made to the general bent of the public mind, in the American war, for example;—excepting, I say, in some events of this kind, there perhaps never was a government so inactive, apathetic, and inert, as the French government of that time. In place of the ambitious and active government of Louis XIV, which was everywhere, and at the head of everything, you have a power whose only endeavor, so much did it tremble for its own safety, was to slink from public view—to hide itself from danger. It was the nation which, by its intellectual movement, interfered with everything, and alone possessed moral authority, the only real authority.

A second characteristic which strikes me in the state of the human mind in the eighteenth century, is the universality of the spirit of free inquiry. Till then, and particularly in the sixteenth century, free inquiry had been exercised in a very limited field; its object had been sometimes religious questions, and sometimes religious and political questions conjoined; but its pretensions did not extend much further. In the eighteenth century, on the contrary, free inquiry became universal in its character and objects: religion, politics, pure philosophy, man and society, moral and physical science—everything became, at once, the subject of study, doubt, and system; the ancient sciences were overturned; new sciences sprang up. It was a movement which proceeded in every direction, though emanating from one and the same impulse.

This movement, moreover, had one peculiarity, which perhaps can be met with at no other time in the history of the world; that of being purely speculative. Until that time, in all great human revolutions, action had promptly mingled itself with speculation. Thus, in the sixteenth century, the religious revolution had begun by ideas and discussions purely intellectual; but it had, almost immediately, led to events. The leaders of the intellectual parties had very speedily become leaders of political parties; the realities of life had mingled with the workings of the intellect. The same thing had been the case, in the seventeenth century, in the English revolution. In France, in the eighteenth century, we see the human mind exercising itself upon all subjects,—upon ideas which, from their connection with the real interests of life, necessarily had the most prompt and powerful influence upon events. And yet the promoters of, and partakers in, these great discussions, continued to be strangers to every kind of practical activity, pure speculators, who observed, judged, and spoke without ever proceeding to practice. There never was a period in which the government of facts, and external realities, was so completely distinct from the government of thought. The separation of spiritual from temporal affairs has never been real in Europe, except in the eighteenth century. For the first time, perhaps, the spirtual world developed itself quite separately from the temporal world; a fact of the greatest importance, and which had a great influence on the course of events. It gave a singular character of pride and inexperience to the mode of thinking of the time: philosophy was never more ambitious of governing the world, and never more completely failed in its object. This necessarily led to results; the intellectual movement necessarily gave, at last, an impulse to external events; and, as they had been totally separated, their meeting was so much the more difficult, and their collision so much the more violent.

We can hardly now be surprised at another character of the human mind at this epoch, I mean its extreme boldness. Prior to this, its greatest activity had always been restrained by certain barriers; man had lived in the midst of facts, some of which inspired him with caution, and repressed, to a certain degree, his tendency to movement. In the eighteenth century, I should really be at a loss to say what external facts were respected by the human mind, or exercised any influence over it; it entertained nothing but hatred or contempt for the whole social system; it considered itself called upon to reform all things; it looked upon itself as a sort of creator; institutions, opinions, manners, society, even man himself,—all seemed to require to be remodelled, and human reason undertook the task. Whenever, before, had the human mind displayed such daring boldness?

Such, then, was the power which, in the course of the eighteenth century, was confronted with what remained of the government of Louis XIV. It is clear to us all that a collision between these two unequal forces was unavoidable. The leading fact of the English revolution, the struggle between free inquiry and pure monarchy, was therefore sure to be repeated in France. The differences between the two cases, undoubtedly, were great, and necessarily perpetuated themselves in the results of each; but, at bottom, the general situation of both was similar, and the event itself must be explained in the same manner.

I by no means intend to exhibit the infinite consequences of this collision in France. I am drawing towards the close of this course of lectures, and must hasten to conclude. I wish, however, before leaving you, to call your attention to the gravest, and, in my opinion, the most instructive fact which this great spectacle has revealed to us. It is the danger, the evil, the insurmountable vice of absolute power, wheresoever it may exist, whatsoever name it may bear, and for whatever object it may be exercised. We have seen that the government of Louis XIV perished almost from this single cause. The power which succeeded it, the human mind, the real sovereign of the eighteenth century, underwent the same fate; in its turn, it possessed almost absolute power; in its turn its confidence in itself became excessive. Its movement was noble, good, and useful; and, were it necessary for me to give a general opinion on the subject, I should readily say that the eighteenth century appears to me one of the grandest epochs in the history of the world, that perhaps which has done the greatest service to mankind, and has produced the greatest and most general improvement. If I were called upon to pass judgment upon its ministry (if I may use such an expression), I should pronounce sentence in its favor. It is not the less true, however, that the absolute power exercised at this period by the human mind corrupted it, and that it entertained an illegitimate aversion to the subsisting state of things, and to all opinions which differed from the prevailing one;—an aversion which led to error and tyranny. The proportion of error and tyranny, indeed, which mingled itself in the triumph of human reason at the end of the century—a proportion, the greatness of which cannot be dissembled, and which ought to be exposed instead of being passed over—this infusion of error and tyranny, I say, was a consequence of the delusion into which the human mind was led at that period by the extent of its power. It is the duty, and will be, I believe, the peculiar event of our time, to acknowledge that all power, whether intellectual or temporal, whether belonging to governments or people, to philosophers or ministers, in whatever cause it may be exercised—that all human power, I say, bears within itself a natural vice, a principle of feebleness and abuse, which renders it necessary that it should be limited. Now, there is nothing but the general freedom of every right, interest, and opinion, the free manifestation and legal existence of all these forces—there is nothing, I say, but a system which ensures all this, can restrain every particular force or power within its legitimate bounds, and prevent it from encroaching on the others, so as to produce the real and beneficial subsistence of free inquiry. For us, this is the great result, the great moral of the struggle which took place at the close of the eighteenth century, between what may be called temporal absolute power and spiritual absolute power.

I have now arrived at the end of the task which I undertook. You will remember, that, in beginning this course, I stated that my object was to give you a general view of the development of European civilization, from the fall of the Roman empire to the present time. I have passed very rapidly over this long career; so rapidly that it has been quite out of my power even to touch upon everything of importance, or to bring proofs of those facts to which I have drawn your attention. I hope, however, that I have attained my end, which was to mark the great epochs of the development of modern society. Allow me to add a word more. I endeavored, at the outset, to define civilization, to describe the fact which bears that name. Civilization appeared to me to consist of two principal facts, the development of human society and that of man himself; on the one hand, his political and social, and on the other, his internal and moral, advancement. This year I have confined myself to the history of society. I have exhibited civilization only in its social point of view. I have said nothing of the development of man himself. I have made no attempt to give you the history of opinions,—of the moral progress of human nature. I intend, when we meet again here, next season, to confine myself especially to France; to study with you the history of French civilization, but to study it in detail and under its various aspects. I shall try to make you acquainted not only with the history of society in France, but also with that of man; to follow, along with you, the progress of institutions, opinions, and intellectual labors of every sort, and thus to arrive at a comprehension of what has been, in the most complete and general sense, the development of our glorious country. In the past, as well as in the future, she has a right to our warmest affections.

This dispute turns upon the greater or less extension given to the term. Civilization may be taken to signify merely the multiplication of artificial wants, and of the means and refinements of physical enjoyment. It may also be taken to imply both a state of physical well being and a state of superior intellectual and moral culture. It is only in the former sense that it can be alleged that civilization is an evil.

Civilization is properly a relative term. It refers to a certain state of mankind as distinguished from barbarism.

Man is formed for society. Isolated and solitary, his reason would remain perfectly undeveloped. Against the total defeat of his destination for rational development God has provided by the domestic relations. Yet without a further extension of the social ties, man would still remain comparatively rude and uncultivated—never emerging from barbarism. In proportion as the social relations are extended, regulated and perfected, man is softened, ameliorated, cultivated. To this improvement various social conditions combine; but as the political organization of society—the state—is that which first gives security and permanence to all the others, it holds the most important place. Hence it is from the political organization of society, from the establishment of the state (in Latin civitas), that the word civilization is taken.

Civilization, therefore, in its most general idea, is an improved condition of man resulting from the establishment of social order in place of the individual independence and lawlessness of the savage or barbarous life. It may exist in various degrees: it is susceptible of continual progress: and hence the history of civilization is the history of the progress of the human race towards realizing the idea of humanity, through the extension and perfection of the social relations, and as affected, advanced or retarded, by the character of the various political and civil institutions which have existed. II.

The term “civilization” has two distinct meanings, signifying either a force at work upon and among mankind, or a particular condition or state of human society. In the former sense it denotes the forces by which and the process through which mankind as a whole, or in some of its branches, is uplifted and developed in its internal spirit and external relations. It sums up all the humanizing forces that have raised man and are now carrying him higher in his thoughts, his deeds, his aspirations. In its other meaning the word is used to denote an advanced condition of humanity or human society, marked by political, social, and industrial order and organization, and a high degree of knowledge and culture. In this sense we may properly compare and contrast different civilizations, meaning thereby different conditions or types of human society.

When the author speaks of the “progress of civilization,” he is thinking of civilization as a force or group of forces. When he examines civilization as it was at the downfall of the Roman empire, he is regarding it as a particular condition or state in which European society was at that epoch, as a product of previously operative forces. When we speak of the civilization of to-day we may mean either (1) the actual state of mankind and society to-day as the product of past tendencies, or (2) the forces and tendencies themselves which are to-day operative and which will produce a different and more advanced condition of human society hereafter. It is only by keeping both ideas in mind that the student will get the full force of the author’s lectures. The history of civilization is obviously a history of the various causes and forces—intellectual, moral, political, social, industrial—which, working in the past, have made man and society what they are to-day; it is more than a mere account of the successive conditions or states in which past generations of men have lived.

In this passage the author seems, for the moment at least, inclined to make the term “civilization” almost synonymous with “intellectual development.” Mere intellectual advancement, especially where it is found only among a limited group, or peculiarly favored class, where its effects and influence do not extend downwards through the masses, does not necessarily indicate the highest type of civilization. The progress of civilization, as the author in other passages appreciates, must always be marked not merely by the intellectual and moral advancement of the individual, but also by improvement in his environment, in his social, political, and industrial condition and possibilities.

To-day civilization must be judged not merely by its best features and products, but by its bad features and results. The half century since these lectures were written has made it more evident than ever before that the progress of man can only be continuous when society—the social state, as M. Guizot calls it—is progressing, and that social conditions can only be permanently improved by the advancement of the individual.

It is true that Christianity was addressed primarily not to the social condition of man, to the social class relations, but to “the interior condition of man”; yet it has from the very first, by the fundamental principle on which it is based—the law of love—demanded justice as between classes and individuals. It has ever insisted on justice and charity by the rich towards the poor, by the strong towards the weak.

“It is impossible not to feel the incompleteness of any statement of the influence of Christianity upon civilization. Some of the more obvious and apparent results can be mentioned, but its full work cannot be traced. . . . Its operation lies in the realm of the silent and unobserved forces which act upon the individual character and the springs of action, but which can, in the nature of the case, leave no record of themselves for later time.”—Adams, Civilization during the Middle Ages, p. 64.

Opinion de Royer Collard, sur le Projet de Loi rélatif au Sacrilége, pp. 7 et 17.

Man can be comprehended only as a free moral being, that is, as a rational being: but as a rational being it is impossible to comprehend his existence, if it be limited to the present world. In the very nature of human reason and of the relations of the human race to it, lies the idea of the destination of the race for a supermundane and eternal sphere. Reason is the germ of a development which is not and cannot be reached here below. To doubt that it is destined for development, and that there is a corresponding sphere, is contradictory: it is to doubt whether the fruit, unfolding from the blossom, is destined by its constitution to ripen.

Herein, while the delusion of certain philosophical theories respecting Human Perfectibility is made apparent, may be seen nevertheless the correct idea of man’s earthly life. It is that of a continual progress, a reaching towards that perfection, the notion and desire of which lies in the nature of his reason.

Humanity in all its social efforts has always been governed by the idea of a perfection never yet attained. All human history may in one view be regarded as a series of attempts to realize this idea.

As individual man can attain the ideal perfection of his nature only as a rational being, by the harmony of all his powers with his reason; so it is equally clear that humanity can realize the idea of social perfection only as a rational society, by the union and brotherhood of the human family, and the harmony of all individuals with the Divine reason. How far it may be in the intentions of Divine Providence that the human race shall realize this perfection, it may be impossible to determine. Certain it is, that it can never be brought about by any mere political institutions, by checks and counterchecks of interest, by any balance of international powers. Only Christianity can effect this universal brotherhood of nations, and bind the human family together in a rational, that is, a free moral society. H.

The last half century is filled with suggestive facts and tendencies bearing on this point. If one examines merely external conditions and phenomena, he may think that classes have become more sharply defined during that time, and that the clash of supposed interests between classes and countries has become fiercer. It is, however, easy to note the prevalence as never before of a deep concern for the “common interest of humanity.” The spirit of philanthropy, the increasing effort to put an end to strife, to substitute reason for force of arms in the settlement of international disputes, to reconcile rather than set in antagonism the social and industrial classes—all these are evidences of the consciousness that the true civilization of the individual is attained only in the advance and betterment of society—the human family. The solidarity of the human race is recognized to-day. The universality of human brotherhood is more and more seen to be the only basis for that civilization which is the ultimate aim of individual and society.

It is impossible completely to separate these two parts of the history of civilization. Political institutions and social facts and forces are always in part the product of intellectual conditions, while the intellectual development of a people, hence of individuals, is always dependent on political, social—even at times industrial—environment. Institutions and ideas are not completely separable. The subsequent lectures are conclusive evidence of this.

“There is a pleasure in viewing from the shore the difficulties of another tossed on the sea in the tumbling waves and howling winds.”

The theocratic form of government was common in the early days of the human race. Its characteristic principle is the superhuman or divine nature of the ruler or ruling class in the state. Usually a priestly caste held the highest rank and exercised the supreme authority, political as well as religious, though often there was a king, who was at the same time chief priest, ruling in the name of the gods, or by virtue of his descent from the gods. In Egypt, for example, the kings were held to be of divine descent, and all power was in their hands and those of a priestly caste. In Ethiopia, Persia, and India other types of theocracy existed in ancient times. The Mosaic law established a pure theocratic government over the Jews. In some of the Asiatic states theocracy still exists. The complete subordination of all other classes to the priest-king, or priestly caste, has nowhere produced marked intellectual or political advancement. For a good description of theocracy, see Bluntschli’s Theory of the State.

The essence, the strength of Greek civilization lay in the domain of the intellect. The Greek mind was speculative, as is shown by her philosophy, and æsthetic, as is abundantly proved by her literature and her art. On the practical side the Greeks were deficient. The Greek power and the Greek state disappeared under the rising power of material, practical Rome, while the Greek civilization was taken over into and made a part of the Roman. In a word, the Greek state fell, but Greek civilization lived on.

Modern civilization is the product of what has gone before it. Each age, each institution, each civilization preceding, has contributed some idea, force, or fact which finds place in our civilization. Greece, Rome, Christianity, the barbarian, even the Orient, has had a share in this. The varied sources explain in part the diversity so strongly emphasized by the author. The widened intellectual range of to-day also permits, in fact demands, a greatly diversified activity.

This diversity must not be mistaken for discord. The unity of modern civilization, so far as its purpose and ideal are concerned, is not less perfect than that of the ancient. Allowance must also be made for the fact that we are so far removed in point of time from the ancient world that only the larger, the dominant ideas of that age, impress us; while of the later civilization we see and hear all of the varied movements and thoughts, and in contemplating these separate and partial phases of the life of to-day we do not always correctly note their relations to the whole movement—the civilization of the age.

This statement may easily be misunderstood. During the middle ages, and especially during the so-called dark ages, from the sixth to the tenth century, civilization was “in a state of progression” only in the general sense that it was not absolutely stagnant. There were many changes, but little actual progress. During these centuries the chaos in which Europe was seemingly left by the barbarian inroads was becoming less chaotic, the darkness less black. Professor G. B. Adams says: “It is a transition age. Lying as it does between two ages, in each of which there is an especially rapid advance of civilization, it is not itself primarily an age of progress. As compared with either ancient or modern history, the additions which were made during the middle ages to the common stock of civilization are few and unimportant. . . . Progress, however much there may have been, is not its distinctive characteristic.”—Civilization during the Middle Ages, p. 4.

Diocletian, a. c. 284, must be regarded as the first who attempted to substitute a regularly organized system of Oriental monarchy, with its imposing ceremonial, and its long gradation of dignities, proceeding from the throne as the center of all authority and the source of all dignity, in place of the former military despotism, supported only upon, and therefore always at the mercy of, the pretorian guards.

This system was still further perfected by Constantine the Great, ad 306—337, who introduced several important changes into the constitution of the empire.

He divided the empire into four great prefectures; the East; Illyricum; Italy; and Gaul.

The four pretorian prefects created by Diocletian were retained by Constantine; but with a very material change in their powers. He deprived them of all military command, and made them merely civil governors in the four prefectures.

He consolidated still more his monarchical system by an organization of ecclesiastical dignities corresponding with the gradations of the civil administration. This system continued substantially unchanged at the division of the empire, ad 395, and was perpetuated after that period.

Each of the empires was divided into two prefectures, and the prefectures into dioceses, in the following manner:

Rome and Constantinople constituted each a diocese by itself.

Each of these dioceses was divided into provinces, of which in both empires there were one hundred and twenty; and the provinces into cities.

Imperial Administration.

Household.—The court officers were: the Grand Chamberlain; two Captains of the Guard; Master of the Offices; Quæstor or Chancellor; Keeper of the Privy Purse (comes rerum privatarum), whose functions are to be distinguished from those of the Minister of the public treasury.

Provincial Administration.—In each prefecture a Prefectus pretorio, at the head of the civil administration. In each diocese a Vicar of the prefect. In each province a President. The cities were governed by Duumvirs and a Defensor.

Military Organization.—After the Guards and Household troops, ranked the legions and the auxiliaries. These were commanded in each prefecture by a Major General of the Militia; a commander of the cavalry, a commander of the infantry; military dukes and counts, legionary prefects, etc.

Judiciary.—Cases of special importance reserved for the emperor were decided by the quæstor; ordinary matters by various magistrates, according to their relative magnitude. An appeal lay from the defensor to the duumvirs, from the duumvirs to the president, from the president to the vicar, from the vicar to the prefectus pretorio.

Finances.—The revenues were passed, by the collectors of cities, into the hands of the provincial receivers, and thence, through a higher grade of treasurers, to the minister of the public treasury. H.

For fuller accounts of Constantine’s innovations, consult Bury’s History of the Later Roman Empire; Gibbon’s Roman Empire, chapters xiii and xvii. Duruy’s History of the Middle Ages has also a brief account.

Vienne, the two Aquitaines, Novempopulana, the two Narbonnes, and the province of the Maritime Alps.

Constantine the Great was singularly partial to Arles; it was he who made it the seat of the prefecture of the Gauls; he desired also that it should bear his name; but custom was more powerful than his will.

Petronius was Prefect of the Gauls between 402 and 408.

The municipal corps of the Roman cities were called curiae, and the members of these bodies, who were very numerous, curiales.

Constantine the Second, husband of Placidia, whom Honorius had taken for his colleague in 421.

The researches of later scholars have brought to light some facts and views slightly at variance with those of the author. By the middle of the third century before our era (bc 266) Rome had extended her conquests over the entire Italian peninsula. The cities of Italy were not, however, made mere subject municipalities, paying tribute to a city in whose privileges they had no share. Most of them were left in control of their own local affairs, while their residents were given full or partial rights of citizens of Rome. Whenever they were present in Rome they participated as fully in the affairs of the government of Rome as did the resident. This was strictly in harmony with the prevalent idea that Rome was the mistress of Italy, and not merely the capital of a state embracing all Italy. The social war (bc 90) was a revolt of the Italian cities against Roman domination, and resulted in the granting of complete Roman citizenship to all the Italian citizens. A little later this was extended to the citizens of southern Gaul. From this time forth, while the municipalities retained their separate life and laws as hitherto, the political union of Italy was in large degree a fact, and there was at least a partial identity of interest between Rome and all the cities of Italy.

It was manifestly more difficult to extend a system of this sort over the provinces outside of Italy with any certainty that the bond would be a strong one. The establishment of a central representative government at Rome, to which each of the provinces and cities should send representatives, was never tried—probably never thought of—by the Romans. During the period of the republic the provinces were governed for Rome by proconsuls and proprætors, over whom she herself had no real control while they were in the provinces, and whom, on the other hand, the provincial municipalities could not control. The irregularities of these governments raised the necessity for some sort of government over the cities which should stop the disintegration which was setting in. When the empire was established came a real head for the state, and a growing centralization of the provincial municipalities in the hands of officers responsible to the emperor alone. Gradually the provincial cities and towns lost more and more of their local rights, including that of choosing their own magistrates. They were all united to Rome through the prefects and other representatives of the emperor. When the empire fell the bond was broken that held them together, but the local governments were revived or continued in the municipalities. For further discussions of this subject the student may with profit consult Arnold, Roman Provincial Administration; Guizot, History of Representative Government in Europe, Lectures XXII and XXIII; Adams, Civilization in the Middle Ages, chap. ii; Woodrow Wilson, The State.

It was something more than the mere “remembrance of the empire” that survived its downfall. The idea, the possibility of a world-empire was created by the attempts of Rome at such an empire; the influence of this idea was felt throughout the early middle ages, and there is a constant recurrence to it. It gave the motive for Charlemagne’s policy; it found expression in the later Holy Roman Empire. It sunk only when the establishment of national states instead of one world-empire became the creative idea of European statecraft. During the chaotic centuries of the early middle ages there seems little doubt that the memory of the Roman empire, and of the political unity which it at one time implied, was a conservative force in preventing the complete disintegration of political society.

It is impossible to state with positiveness what were the differences, if any, between the functions of the πρεσβύτεροι and the ἐπίσκοποι, in this period.

Upon almost no point connected with the history of the Christian church is there a wider difference of opinion, and a greater mass of controversial literature, than upon the form of the early Church organization. The whole subject is wrapped in mists which are rather increased than dissipated by the statements and counterstatements of various partisans who too often, upon a slender basis of known fact, build a vast superstructure of doubtful theory. The statements of the author contain one theory as to the organization of the Church. The theory most radically opposed to this—and the student will always remember that there is but one set of facts underlying all of these theories—maintains that from the very beginning there has been a definite organization of the Church, authoritatively, almost divinely, established, and consequently there has been no period of the Church without its established constitution and government. The early Christians attached themselves to this organization, which was created and ordained as to its forms as well as its beliefs by an outside, superior authority.

The other view—that presented in the text—represents the Church organization as an evolution, growing in distinctness and completeness and definiteness of official stations and powers, as the adherents increased in numbers, and necessity demanded. All the members of the early groups of Christians had a voice in determining the forms and discipline of the Church.

The origin of these differences of view, which no amount of argument at this day can probably reconcile, is easily explicable. Of the three periods or states of the early Church, as indicated by the author, the boundaries are shadowy. The first certainly did not extend beyond the middle of the first century, while the third had been entered upon by the close of the second century or early in the following. As to the general constitution and organization of the Church in the third period there is substantial agreement, because the facts are known. Of the status of affairs during the first two periods far less is known, hence there is room for dispute as to whether what was true in the third period was also true in the preceding, or whether the third was merely the orderly evolution from the more primitive organization of the first two. Absolutely to prove either theory is impossible unless new facts are disclosed. Many of the wide differences in the organization and polity of various branches of the modern Christian church are due to the controversy above indicated.

Whatever may have been the organization of the primitive Church, by the time of Constantine there was a distinctly marked separation of the clergy from the laity, and a gradation of the former into various ranks and classes, while the laity possessed little, and thereafter continually less, voice in the administration of the Church or the selection of its officials. The Church had, in fact, become a vast organized system—an institution.

It must be remembered that at the outset Christianity was the religious belief of but a few uneducated persons; that it spread quietly but rapidly throughout the empire, but hardly touched the upper and official classes; that by the second century the adherents of this faith had become so numerous as to provoke persecution at the hands of the pagan emperors. The last of these systematic persecutions was that ordered by Diocletian at the close of the third century. In 311 the Emperor Constantine became an adherent, or supporter, of Christianity, and in 312 it was given complete toleration throughout the empire, while under Theodosius (379-395) it became the only religion allowed in the state. Between the middle of the third century and the fall of the Western empire the Church was the recipient of much wealth and many favors from the empire, and the ecclesiastical officials came into many positions of power and influence in municipal affairs.

The laws of the Roman Government, embodied in treatises and decrees running back over several centuries, were first codified in the fourth century in the Gregorian and Hermogenian codes, which were made by private individuals and were very imperfect. In 438 was published the Theodosian code, compiled under authority of the emperor by a commission of lawyers. This contained most of the statute law, or imperial decrees, down to that time.

The last and most important of the codifications of the Roman law was the Justinian Code, made in 528-529. This was a collection, in condensed form, of all the decrees and edicts then in force. This constituted the statute law of the empire. In 533 appeared the Digest, or Pandects, which was a collection of legal opinions, not unlike in nature the decisions of modern courts and the treatises of legal writers. In the same year appeared the Institutes of Justinian, a text-book for law schools, containing a summary of the principles of Roman jurisprudence. Lastly came the Novellæ, or decrees of Justinian issued after the code had been published.

The Justinian Code, Pandects, and Institutes, with the Novellæ, constitute the Corpus Juris Civilis, or Roman Civil Law—“the last will and testament of Roman jurisprudence.” This highly developed system of law was thus preserved during the dark ages, and forms the basis of the system of jurisprudence in most of the continental European states of to-day. It is one of the most important contributions of Rome to modern civilization. See Encyclopædia Britannica, articles on Justinian and Roman Law, and the authorities there cited.

The student will note that the author is here discussing the influence of the ecclesiastical system, the governmental machinery of the Church as an organization.

Christianity as a religious belief, permeating society in the closing centuries of the ancient world, gave to mediæval, and hence to modern, civilization certain ideas that have had a tremendous influence both on man and on society. A new conception of the nature of God and of man’s direct and personal relation to him; a new ideal of life as typified in Christ, the attainment to which was the supreme law of conduct; the future life as dependent upon character and conduct in this world; the equality of all men from the Divine standpoint—all these ideas, fundamental to Christianity, have been forces the power of which has not been relaxed in the subsequent ages. All took their beginning in these early centuries.

The author’s opinion that the preservation of the Christian religion in these troublous times was due to the power of the Church as an organization in the fifth century merits a word. That the Church defended, protected, and promoted the Christian religion is of course true; that was its purpose; but that the religious belief, already in the fifth century so widespread, would have disappeared had the ecclesiastical organization been less powerful, it would be difficult to maintain.

For an excellent statement of the additions made to civilization by Christianity, see Adams’s Civilization in the Middle Ages, chap. iii.

In the earlier centuries of her history the Christian church labored for the separation of the spiritual and temporal authority, in order to protect herself from the control of the state. The older religions were a part of the state, and the Church now protested against the idea that the temporal rulers should control the religious and ecclesiastical affairs of Christianity. In this protest she was successful. Later, when the Church itself had become powerful and the state weaker, she attempted to assume control over the temporal affairs of Europe, and to establish her position as supreme temporal as well as ecclesiastical and spiritual ruler. These two seemingly inconsistent attitudes of the Church on the relation of the spiritual and temporal authority were separated by a considerable interval of time.

Since these lectures were delivered, a flood of light has been poured upon early Teutonic society by the researches of scholars, especially of the Germans. Waitz, Maurer, Sohm, Arnold, and others in Germany, Stubbs and others in England, have made valuable contributions to our knowledge on this subject.

Brief accounts, based on these researches, are given in Lewis’s History of Germany, Church’s Beginning of the Middle Ages, Emerton’s Introduction to the Middle Ages, Duruy’s History of the Middle Ages. Andrews’s Institutes of General History contains suggestive bibliographies. One of the best and most trustworthy accounts in English of both political and social institutions is in Stubbs’s Constitutional History of England, chaps. ii and iii.

The influence of at least two of the political ideas or institutions of the Germans has been especially marked in our later civilization. These two are the elective monarchy, based on the right exercised by the freemen of the German tribes of electing their leader or king, and the public or popular assembly, in which the freemen met for legislative and judicial purposes. See Stubbs’s Constitutional History, as cited in the last note.

The custom or institution referred to here is the comitatus. This was a band of warriors united by voluntary bonds of fidelity to a military chieftain, whom they were bound to follow to war whenever called upon. They lived with their leader and were equipped and maintained by him. The bond was purely a personal one, and might be dissolved at pleasure. The great body of the military forces of the Germans was composed of these bands. This was a forerunner of the feudal system, but is not generally regarded by the best modern authorities on feudal history as in any important sense the source or origin of feudalism.

The fall of the Roman empire is dated in 476, when the last emperor was deposed. For five centuries the Romans and the Germans had been in conflict. At first the Romans had striven to conquer the Germans, later they struggled to defend their own borders from the inroads of the barbarians, and finally they were overcome on Roman soil by the conquering hordes.

In the last century before our era Julius Cæsar extended the Roman boundaries to the Rhine, and expelled the Germans from Gallic territory. During the reign of Augustus expeditions were made into the territory of the Germans, until in 9 ad the German leader Hermann (Arminius) defeated the Romans and practically freed the German soil from Roman hold. In the middle of the second century the Marcomanni attempted to cross the upper Danube into Roman territory. The Roman empire was now on the defensive. The invaders were defeated, but during the next hundred years German irruptions were frequently made. The Roman troops were kept busy guarding the long stretches of the imperial frontier from the incursions of a people whom overpopulation and the lack of room for the primitive agricultural methods of the time were impelling to seek larger areas for habitation.

At that time all of Europe north and east of the Danube and the Rhine was occupied by the German tribes, save in the northeast, where the Slavs dwelt. The Germans included the Saxons in the northwest, the Franks along the Rhine, the Alemanni in the valley of the upper Rhine, east of them the Burgundians and Marcomanni, and still farther east the Goths divided into the Visigoths and Ostrogoths, the latter on the lower Danube and along the Black Sea. The Goths had set up a kingdom about the middle of the fourth century, and were the most advanced and dangerous foes of the empire.

Towards the end of the fourth century the Teutonic peoples were forced upon the empire by the pressure of a race until then unknown in Europe—the Huns, a Mongolian or Tartar race from the north of Asia. In 376, the Huns, invading Europe, fell upon and subdued the Ostrogoths, established a kingdom of their own, and attacked the Visigoths, who begged and received admission into the Roman empire south of the Danube, where they were assigned a definite territory. Trouble soon arose, and in 378 the Visigoths revolted, and at Adrianople defeated the Roman army and killed the Emperor Valens. This German victory over Roman forces was the beginning of the end. The next emperor, Theodosius, checked the Visigoths by leaving them in possession of the Danube valley and treating them as allies. At his death, in 395, the Visigoths under Alaric again attacked the empire, ravaged Thrace, and took possession of Greece, from which they were induced by the Roman general Stilicho to withdraw to Illyria. In 400, Alaric invaded Italy, but was defeated by Stilicho in 402. The movement of the barbarians along the border was now general. In 406 the Vandals and Suevi burst into Gaul and pushed on into Spain, while the Burgundians settled in eastern Gaul. In 408 Alaric again invaded Italy, and sacked Rome (410), but died shortly after. His successor allied himself with the Romans, went north into Gaul and Spain, subdued the other German invaders except the Vandals, and founded in Spain the kingdom of the Visigoths. This ended the Roman dominion in Spain.

In 429 the Vandals crossed from Spain into Africa, overran the northern coast, plundered the Mediterranean, and in 455, under Gaiseric, crossed into Italy, and took and sacked Rome, whence they retired again to Africa.

The Huns north of the Danube, in 449, under the leadership of Attila, advanced into northern Gaul. There they came into contact with the combined Roman forces and German tribes, were defeated in 451 at the battle of Chalons, which freed western Europe from fear of Hunnish conquest. In 452 Alaric invaded Italy, but was turned back, and on his death, in 454, the Hunnish power, which had precipitated all the movements of the barbarians for nearly a century, disappeared.

In 410 the Romans abandoned Britain, and in 449 the Anglo-Saxons began to take possession of the island.

Thus by the middle of the fifth century all the provinces were lost to the empire, while Italy itself was in the hands of German mercenary troops, who were her only protectors. After the death of the Emperor Valentinian III, in 455, a series of puppets were set up and deposed by the leaders of the army. The last one, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed in 476 by Odoacer, leader of the German mercenaries (Heruli). Odoacer decided to appoint no new emperor, but to rule himself as representative of Zeno, the Eastern emperor, though the latter declined to recognize him as such representative. In 493 Odoacer was slain by Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, who established the Ostrogothic kingdom of Italy.

Thus at the downfall of the Roman empire the territory was in the actual occupancy of several fairly well-defined kingdoms or groups of Germans, some of which had been in possession for many years. The Vandals were masters of Africa; the Suevi, of a part of Spain; the Visigoths of the rest, together with a large part of Gaul; the Burgundians, of that part of Gaul lying on the Rhone and Saône; the Ostrogoths of nearly all Italy; while the Franks under Clovis had begun (481-496) the career of conquest, which in the next and following centuries resulted in the overthrow of those kingdoms, the establishment of the Frankish dominion, and the formation for a time of a new center of gravity for Europe under Charlemagne.

The dominant people everywhere were Germans. The problem of the middle ages was to settle whether all former civilization should be overturned by the German, or the German people should be Romanized and Christianized. Modern civilization is the result of the interplay of these forces.

The best account in English of the conquest of the Roman empire by the Germans is Hodgkin’s Italy and Her Invaders. Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is, of course, of great importance. Emerton’s Introduction to the Study of the Middle Ages, and Adams’s Civilization in the Middle Ages, contain excellent brief accounts of the conquest.

Henri de Boulainvilliers (1658-1722), an eminent French historical writer.

Jean Baptiste Dubos (1670-1742), a prominent student of politics and law, and an historical writer.

Gabriel Bonnot de Mably (1709-1785), a French historian.

The oldest and smallest independent republic in the world; situated in eastern central Italy. Area thirty-three square miles; population about eight thousand. It dates from the fourth century.

By political legitimacy is meant the right of a government to exist and to exercise the powers which it undertakes to wield. What constitutes the true source of legitimate government is a matter of contention. The prevalent American theory, for example, is, for America at least, that all government, to be legitimate, must be founded on the consent of the governed, either expressed or implied. The longer a government continues in existence, the greater the presumption of its legitimacy, no matter what may have been the actual circumstances of its establishment. Those governments which have been clearly established by force, or have been founded on a political revolution, have subsequently justified their lawfulness not by the manner of their establishment, but on the acquiescence of the governed in the acts of authority, and on their recognition as lawful by other governments.

These terms are applied to those who, under the custom of the comitatus, already described, attached themselves to another person to whom, by virtue of their oath of attachment, they owed certain services. According to Secretan (Essai sur la Féodalité), antrustion was the name given to members of the king’s comitatus, while fideles and leudes were terms applied to members of the comitatus of a nobleman. It must be remembered that the author is here attempting to describe the society of a period five centuries in length, and his descriptions are of necessity not exactly applicable to the entire period, for society and institutions were constantly changing.

Allodial proprietors held their lands in absolute ownership, subject to no control by a superior. The term benefice was applied to lands granted to another, to be used and enjoyed by the grantee on condition of performing certain specified services for the one granting the land. The term appears first to have come into frequent use after the Carlovingian dynasty was established over the Franks (752).

The formal beginning of the right of inheritance as applied to benefices is usually traced to an edict of Charles the Bald in 877. It is too much to affirm, as the author does, that there was nothing like regularity in the terms for which benefices were granted. In the earliest period they were almost certainly not hereditary; in the later period they were rarely for a limited term of years. Researches made since M. Guizot wrote have overthrown several statements in this and the following chapter.

The student will no doubt easily recall periods in mediæval history concerning which these statements seem hardly exact.

The following chronological indications may assist in recalling a more distinct view of the invasions, conquests, and revolutions of this stormy period:

The death of Charlemagne and the breaking up of his vast system likewise opened the barriers of the empire to the incursions of the Saracens, the Northmen, the Slavonians, and the Hungarians: it was not until the close of the tenth century that the barbarian invasions can be said to have definitely ceased.

It must not be forgotten that “the Germans, at the time of their emergence from their original seats and their occupation of the Roman lands, were not mere wandering groups of freebooters, but well-organized nations, with a very distinct sense of political organization” (Emerton). The earlier writers have misrepresented the Germans in this regard, and even the statements and implications of the author are not entirely reconcilable with modern views.

One great fact of mediæval history was, however, that the dominant people, the Germans, were not at the beginning of the era sufficiently civilized to appreciate, take up, and carry forward the political and social ideas which Roman civilization had produced. During the dark ages civilization was waiting while the German peoples fitted themselves to carry forward the work. Time was needed for this, and until that time had elapsed the state of Europe was not far removed from barbarism.

Most of these codes were written out, within a century of the conquest of the Roman empire, in the Latin language. They cover civil and criminal law, and, in general, the relations of man to man. Like the Roman codes which undoubtedly inspired them, they contain little new legislation, but bring together the customs and usages and edicts which up to that time had been unwritten. The legal system which they embody was not that “of a society which no longer existed,” for many of the German legal ideas found in these codes influenced the social and legal order of Europe almost till modern times. Of these codes the Salic and the Visigothic are among the most mportant. They have all been published with annotations by German scholars during the past half century. A good brief sketch is given in Emerton’s Introduction to the Middle Ages, chap. viii, where a bibliography is also given. See also the Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. xxi, article “Salic Law and Other Barbarian Laws.”

The later laws and proclamations of the Frankish kings were known as capitularies, and are of the highest importance in tracing the legal development of the Frankish government and customs. They have been published in Pertz, Monumenta Germanica, and elsewhere. An excellent analysis of their contents is given in Guizot’s History of Civilization in France, Lectures XXI and XXV.

Among the peculiarities by which most of these laws are distinguished from modern legislation, the most striking is perhaps the fact that all offences were punished with fines, This is significant of the barbarian sentiment of individuality, of personal independence. The barbarian will not suffer his life or liberty to be affected by his actions.

The code of the Visigoths, as sanctioned by the Council of Toledo in 633, was only a revision and amendment of the code of Alaric, published in 506.

Theories as to the origin of the feudal system have been radically reconstructed since these lectures were written. While there is not yet complete agreement upon all points, it is no longer maintained by the most careful investigators that the feudal system was entirely due to the Germanic element, and “was the offspring of German society.” The forms of feudalism were essentially Roman, the spirit German. See note at the end of Lecture IV.

In this lecture the author had in mind the entire period from the fifth to the tenth century, and his statements are based on the general character and import of the whole time. In order to an appreciation of the discussion it is essential that the events of this chaotic period be well known. The chronological suggestions already given will serve as a help to those familiar with the general outlines. The student will find excellent sketches of the period in Duruy’s History of the Middle Ages, and in Emerton’s Introduction to the Middle Ages. For the reign of Charlemagne, consult Eginhard’s Life of Charlemagne, and Mombert, History of Charles the Great.

The important factor in Europe during this period was the Frankish kingdom. Of all the Germanic kingdoms set up during the era of the invasions and wanderings it alone developed such stability and approach to unity as made it markedly influential in both that and later periods. Established on a firmer basis by Clovis, it absorbed the Alemanni (496) and the Visigothic kingdom in Gaul (507). Clovis himself was baptized into the orthodox Catholic faith in 496, and thereby brought the kingdom into friendly relations with the pope, between whom and the other Teutonic kingdoms there was discord, owing to their adherence to Arianism, a theological heresy of this period. The Franks with far less difficulty than the other Teutons seemed able to combine the three elements, Roman, barbarian, Christian, the fusion of which has in large measure produced modern civilization. At the death of Clovis, in 511, the Frankish kingdom was a decently ordered barbarian state. Under his successors family quarrels weakened the kingdom, but in 530 Thuringia, in 534 Burgundy, and a little later certain territory east of the Rhine, was annexed. The kingdom was several times divided among sons of the rulers, but in 613 was reunited under Lothaire II, and during the reign of his son, Dagobert I (628-638), the Merovingian family attained its highest power. During all of this period there had been a division, now openly indicated by separate rulers, now nominal, between the eastern part (Austrasia) and the western part (Neustria) of the kingdom. Austrasia was more Teutonic, less centralized; Neustria more centralized and more Roman.

Under the weak successors of Dagobert the real power in each branch of the kingdom was wielded by the chief officer of state, the mayor of the palace. In 687 the Austrasian mayor of the palace, Pippin of Heristal, leading the nobles of his country, overcame the king and mayor of the palace of Neustria and became the real dictator of the entire kingdom. His victory was in one sense the ascendancy of the Teutonic over the Roman ideas in the kingdom. The office of the mayor of the palace continued in Pippin’s family until in 752 the last of the Merovingian kings was set aside and Pippin the Short was crowned by the pope king of the Franks, thus establishing the Carlovingian dynasty.

Under the weak Merovingian rulers the Frankish nobles had assumed a virtual independence, and the Carlovingian mayors of the palace had striven to rebuild the central power thus weakened. The alliance between Pippin the Short and the pope gave the new Frankish ruler the moral support of the papal authority.

In 768, Charlemagne, the greatest of the Carlovingians, came to the throne. Two motives seem to have guided his acts: (1) to strengthen the central government of the kingdom, and (2) to revive the Roman empire by consolidating Christian Europe into a single government. His conquests in Germany and Italy, his coronation in 800 as the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, were the carrying out of this idea. Though his statesmanship was broad and his acts were wise, his attempt did not suit the conditions of Germanic Europe, nor did his effort at a strong central government accord with the growing independence of the landed nobility throughout the continent. With his death it became evident that only the personal force and statesmanship of a strong ruler could make headway against these disintegrating tendencies. His immediate successors were unequal to the task, and though the name of the empire continued, it was unable to maintain the position established for it by Charlemagne. The family quarrels between his descendants, sons of Louis the Pious, culminated in the treaty of Verdun in 843, by which Lothaire, with the title of emperor, received Italy and a strip along the Rhine to the North Sea, Louis the German received the territory from the Rhine to the Elbe, and Charles the Bold received France west of the strip given to Lothaire. This was the beginning of modern France as a separate kingdom, the throne of which was held by the Carlovingians till 987, when Hugh Capet, Duke of France, one of the feudal nobility, took the throne and founded the dynasty that ruled France till the present century. At this time France was hardly more than a group of separate sovereign states, under the nominal suzerainty of the king. Germany also soon became split into several large districts, each under the control of a practically independent duke, while in Italy the government rapidly disintegrated after the treaty of Verdun, already mentioned.

Thus, in the course of two centuries after Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Empire had so declined that, except under Otho I (962) and a few of his successors, it represented an idea rather than a fact. At the same time lines of cleavage, linguistic and governmental, were becoming apparent, substantially those marking the later nationalities of the Germans, the French, and the Italians. A turbulent, chaotic state was again prevalent over Europe, but it was not the rude, barbarous chaos of the fifth century. Some advance had been made; but the Teutonic peoples were not yet by the tenth century fully ready for the restraint of orderly government, which meant, as they felt, a lessening of that individual liberty which was so strong a trait in the German life. The feudal system was first to have its course before political order should overcome unrestrained personal independence.

An appreciative brief study of the real significance of Charlemagne’s reign and the first centuries of the Holy Roman Empire is contained in Adams’s Civilization during the Middle Ages, pp. 137-193. Of very great value is also Bryce’s Holy Roman Empire.

The detailed accounts of the origin and character of feudalism given in Hallam’s Middle Ages and Guizot’s History of Civilization in France, second course, were for a long time the only ones available in English. The views of neither of these writers, especially as to the origin, are now accepted as satisfactory, though the student who desires to know the earlier theories will always consult them. Adams’s Civilization during the Middle Ages, chapter ix, is highly valuable; hardly less so are chapter xv of Emerton’s Introduction to the Middle Ages, on the origin, and chapter xiv of the same author’s Mediæval Europe, on the character of the feudal institutions. Andrews’s Institutes of General History, chapter vi, is suggestive as a summary, and contains an excellent bibliography. Stubbs’s Constitutional History of England, chapter ix, may also be profitably consulted. All of these later works are based on the researches and conclusions of the German scholars and historians, Waitz, Roth, and Brunner, whose works may perhaps be considered the ultimate authority to-day.

Even when feudalism was at its height, and disunity in the state seemed the greatest, the theory was preserved of a central power, the king, exercising the sovereign authority to which all other elements in the feudal state were directly or indirectly subject. This idea never entirely disappeared, however faint and obscure it may seem at times to have been.

This little group is the unit, but the “feudal system” included also the idea of a bond connecting the various units or groups. Each possessor of a fief was bound by personal and property ties to the person from whom he held his fief, and in turn often had other lesser vassals attached to himself by a similar tie. Between vassals of the same suzerain there was always much of common interest. To speak of a single group, such as is described in the lecture, as constituting or typifying the “feudal system,” is not entirely accurate.

It must always be understood, of course, that all of the importance and power that attached to him was by virtue of his proprietorship of the fief, and disappeared with the loss of the fief.

The primitive Germans undoubtedly had an extremely high respect for women, though it cannot be shown that they surpassed other races of the Aryan family in this regard.

When the system became generally established these duties and obligations were definitely fixed. The vassal owed service; the lord owed protection. The vassal’s duty consisted in military service, personally and with a definite retinue, for a fixed period, not usually exceeding forty days; attendance upon the lord’s court and council; the payment to the lord for particular purposes, of certain special sums of money, known as “aids,” “fines,” and “reliefs.” Refusal or omission by the vassal to fulfil these duties rendered the fief liable to forfeiture. The obligations of the lord were to protect the vassal from outside enemies, to refrain from violence against him, and to grant him lawful justice. Failure in these obligations released the vassal permanently or temporarily from his allegiance.

Each possessor of a fief, of course, “had the power to enforce his will upon others”—i. e., his villeins and serfs; but over these possessors themselves, who were at once vassals of those above and suzerains of those below them, there was no one powerful enough to assert and enforce his will. The weakness of this central or general power in the state was the strength of feudalism. When the central political and social force arose the feudal system fell.

The fundamentals of chivalry are traceable to the early German ideas of personal bravery, fondness for feats of arms, and respect for woman, together with regard for the oppressed and unfortunate, inculcated by Christianity. It became a formal institution wherever feudalism existed, while the Crusades aided its development by giving opportunity for its practice. Sons of noblemen were trained in its ceremonies and ideas, and at the age of twenty-one were knighted. Its bad feature was that it fostered aristocracy, and that its external forms covered many excesses and vices. Its spirit, its ideal of life, manners, and character, have had a large subsequent influence in the development of modern manhood.

To say that the progress of society was opposed by feudalism is but to affirm that the German peoples of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries were not ready for more advanced political and social institutions, for the establishment of any government that would materially lessen their individual liberty. The feudal system gave scope for that liberty; it was suited to the condition of the people. On the other hand, centralized government was not an original Teutonic institution. The Teutonic mind had to be made ready for it. That very process of preparation constituted social progress. The feudal system was not so much an obstacle to the progress of society as it was a necessary intermediate stage before the more evident and rapid progress toward orderly government and society that came in the following centuries.

The feudal system as a fully organized institution was hardly found outside of the limits of the empire established by Charlemagne, which included France, Germany, and Italy; it was carried, with modifications, into England. In France and Germany it attained its fullest development, and its effects continued there longer than elsewhere. From the ninth to the twelfth century it flourished in its completest form, but the germs of the system are found several centuries earlier.

Feudalism was a governmental and social system based upon three essential ideas, and marked by one universal peculiarity. The latter was the absence of any strong central power in the state; the former were: (1) a peculiar kind of land tenure, (2) a peculiar personal relation existing between different classes in society, and (3) special rights and powers of government and sovereignty exercised by the holders of land over those residing on it. The first two of these are separately traceable to a far earlier period; their union was the special characteristic of the feudal system.

The disorders of the eighth and ninth centuries in the Frankish monarchy and the Holy Roman Empire gave cause for the establishment of feudalism. Royalty could not fulfill the duties which it undertook, and the protection which the nominal head of the state could not give was sought elsewhere. On the verge of complete disintegration society seized hold of certain customs that had existed for centuries, organized them into a rough system, and thus established a new kind of government. The absence of a strong central power occasioned the feudal system. Until that central power was made strong, feudalism lasted; with its upbuilding, feudalism fell. The two were incompatible.

The real basis of the system was the form of land tenure upon which were built certain rights, duties, and powers of individuals. The origin of the fief, as an estate held by feudal tenure was called, is found in the Roman custom, by which, in the later days of the empire, the owner of a small estate surrendered it to a more powerful neighbor, and received it back without rent and for an indefinite period, on a sort of lease that was terminable at the will of the owner. This tenure was known as the precarium, and later as a benefice. Under it, while the title of the occupant was not that of an owner, he was yet more amply protected against violence in turbulent times and secured in his occupancy by the superior influence and power of the one from whom he held the land. The German conquerors, in overrunning the empire, took a large part of the soil to their own use and granted it to their followers. In doing so they applied this Roman custom of the precarium, which they found in the territory. At the outset and for a long time thereafter this land tenure carried no personal relation, and involved no obligation of personal service in return.

The second feature in feudalism was the personal relation between different classes—the relation between lord and vassals. The vassal was bound to render fealty and personal service to the lord in return for protection on his part. This relationship, which was a voluntary one, seems also to have been traceable to a Roman institution, that of patron and client, the patrocinium. According to that custom, the wealthy and powerful patron took the weak and landless client under his protection, his patronage, in return for services rendered by the client. The relationship was purely a personal one of protection and service, not altogether unlike that of the German comitatus already described. So long as these two independent customs, traceable to Roman originals, continued separate, as they did for two or three centuries, feudalism was not established. When, however, the holder of a benefice became also a vassal; when the relationship growing from the landholding was united with that growing out of personal fealty, the feudal tenure became established.

During the time of the Merovingians it does not appear that the two ideas were joined, so that while the factors of feudalism existed the system itself had not been produced. Under the Carlovingians many lands were granted as benefices, or fiefs, and these appear to have been made hereditary before the close of the ninth century. During the same period many of the administrative officers, such as dukes and counts, appointed by the kings, impelled thereto by the weakness of the central power, claimed their offices as hereditary, and their respective duchies and counties as fiefs, thus splitting up the state. In these same confused and anarchical times many free proprietors of allodial estates, for the sake of the protection of a stronger authority, since the central government was unequal to the task, gave up their lands to more powerful neighbors and received them back as fiefs. The Church, which had become possessed of vast estates, granted and held many of its lands and offices in this way.

It was during the Carlovingian period, or at least while the Carlovingians were mayors of the palace, that the idea of personal service was connected with the holding of fiefs. Large armies were needed, and in the absence of state revenues the habit grew of granting benefices on condition of military service rendered in return.

Finally, in the same period, the custom was established of granting to the holders of great fiefs complete jurisdiction or sovereignty for civil purposes over their estates. This was commonly done by grants of immunity, as they were called, by which the owner of a fief took the place of the officers of state on his own domain, and administered laws and dispensed justice as an almost independent sovereign. Probably, also, many strong feudal lords usurped the sovereignty without the formality of a grant from the nominal king. When this had become general, and when the custom of subinfeudation had been adopted, a general decentralized system of government built on land tenure had been substituted for the centralized monarchy which Charlemagne had attempted.

It is now possible to see that the essential forms of feudalism were derived from Roman originals, but the force that applied them, modified them, and organized them into a system was the German spirit of independence, and love of individual liberty. Instead of building up a strong central government, the Germans aimed at the establishment of a social system based on the personal relation of man to man, that should permit the fullest freedom to the individual members so far as they possessed land.

The good features of feudalism were beneficial to the feudal lords only, while, as indicated in the lecture, the villeins and entire body of the lower classes were harshly treated. Had a strong, united, central government been possible, feudalism would have been unnecessary; its merit was in keeping society from complete disintegration in theory and in fact, at a time when the tendency was all in that direction.

It began to lose force in the eleventh century, but continued in England until the Wars of the Roses, in Spain till the fifteenth century, while many remnants were left in France till 1789, and in Germany until the present century. The causes of its downfall were the growth of royalty, and of the cities, the development of trade and commerce, and the modification in methods of warfare; in short, it disappeared when civilization advanced beyond the feudal stage. Cf. page 94, note.

A brief sketch of the organization of the Church, and of its growth from the fifth to the twelfth century, is given in the note appended to this lecture, page 151.

This phrase signified the conferring or bestowing by a bishop upon one of the lower order of the clergy of a position, such as the charge of a parish church, to which was attached a fixed income payable from Church funds or lands. Such a position was an ecclesiastical benefice; the act of conferring it was the collation.

The distinction between the power of conferring the authority to exercise the spiritual functions of an ecclesiastical office, and the right of designating the person upon whom the authority shall be conferred for any particular place, should be borne in mind. The former, by the established constitution of the Church and by universal practice, always belonged exclusively to the bishops: they alone ordained the inferior clergy; they alone consecrated the bishops. In regard to the latter the practice varied: sometimes, the person designated was elected by the clergy and people, which was the primitive mode; sometimes by the clergy; sometimes by the temporal sovereign. But in no case did the people or the prince imagine themselves competent to consecrate, to confer upon the person they had selected for bishop, the spiritual powers pertaining to the functions of the see or benefice. This was always referred to the bishops, with whom it rested to confer or withhold those powers, without which the designation by people or prince was of no effect. This remark, of course, applies only to the sacred or spiritual orders; the authority of priors, abbots, etc., was derived from their election.

H.

The doctrinal belief or dogma of the Church had at that period to be accepted by all without question, and almost without examination. “Belief was in the middle ages not a matter of choice or of conviction, but of duty. The individual had no rights in the matter, but must submit himself without question to the dictates of the Church.”—Emerton, Mediæval Europe, p. 589.

Many of the leaders of early Christian thought were opposed to compulsion in matters of faith. Heresy was treated and punished as a civil offense only after the Christian religion came to be the official religion of the Roman empire. St. Hilary (301-366), St. Martin (319-400), and St. Ambrose (340-397) were, as the text states, opposed to persecutions, while Augustine (383-430) was among the early advocates. Theodosius I, Emperor of the East (379-395), issued decrees against those who would not accept the orthodox faith. The usurping Emperor Maximus (383-388) was the first to put any one to death for heresy. From that time till the seventeenth century punishment for heresy was common. Noted thirteenth century instances were the persecutions of the Waldenses and Albigenses.

The term “heresy” admits of various definitions, but its usual application is to doctrines held by nominal Christians in conflict with one of the articles of faith or fundamental doctrines of the Church. No age in Christianity has been without sects and heresies, from the Gnostics, Manichæans, Novatians, Donatists, to the Waldenses, Albigenses, and Protestant Reformers. Still, the very fact that the holders of these so-called heretical views were usually driven out of the Church, or punished, shows that there was not room in the Church for the free exercise of individual reason.

Four grades of councils were recognized in the early and mediæval Church: Diocesan, composed of all the clergy under one bishop; provincial, consisting of all the bishops in one ecclesiastical province, under the metropolitan or archbishop; national, where all the bishops of a nation met under the patriarch or first metropolitan; general or œcumenical, at which the whole Church was regarded as represented. The famous Councils of Nicæa, Constance, and Trent are examples of the last, of which there have been but twenty to the present time, as recognized by the Roman Catholic Church.

There are several things in the foregoing paragraphs not quite accurately put.

The assumption of the right, or the exercise of the power to coerce faith, to punish physically for religious opinions, cannot indeed be too strongly condemned. It was a monstrous tyranny exercised by the Church at this period. The right of separating from its society such as rejected the fundamental articles of its constitution, is entirely a different thing—being a right inherent in every association, not to advert here to any grounds on which the obligation to do so was thought to rest.

Again, in regard to the authority of the Church and the “rights of individual reason”—here undoubtedly, in the corrupt ages of the Church, monstrous abuses grew up; yet these abuses should be distinguished from the primitive principle, from the perversion of which they sprang—the principle which required implicit faith in all matters divinely revealed. . . .

Nor, again, does the Church deserve the praise given to it in the text of acting in its councils in opposition to its principles. In the councils, the Church no doubt exercised to a certain extent the right inherent in all ordinary associations of legislating for itself. In all matters relating to rites, ceremonies, and doctrines, not considered to be definitively settled by Divine appointment, these councils exercised the power of determining by their own authority. In all such matters there was scope for “discussion, deliberation,” and arbitrary preference. But when the question was concerning any fundamental article of faith, the statement that “one might fancy one’s self in the midst of the philosophical schools of Greece,” is anything but true. They never dreamed of settling any such question by excogitation, speculation, reasoning. The appeal was to the sacred Scriptures as the ultimate and absolute authority. It was a matter of interpretation. If the sacred writings were not clear and decisive in themselves of the point in question, the next and only inquiry was, what could be historically ascertained to have been the interpretation sanctioned by the universal consent of the Church from the Apostolic age downwards,—and that was held to be decisive. Such was always the theory of the Church as to the authority of its councils: it was never imagined that the ascertained consent of the Church universal from the primitive age, in regard to a question of interpretation bearing on an article of faith, could be set aside, by any discussion or vote, by any speculation or reasoning.

Thus, from not distinguishing things quite distinct, the author’s censure on the one hand, and his praise on the other, may convey an erroneous impression. H.

Some of the barbarians had embraced Christianity before their invasion of the Roman empire. Among these were the Goths, converted in the fourth century by their bishops Theophilus and Ulphilas; the Heruli, the Suevi, the Vandals, and perhaps the Lombards. They were converted by Arian missionaries, and embraced that form of Christianity. In the sixth and seventh centuries the Suevi, Visigoths, and Lombards adopted the orthodox faith; the Heruli, Vandals, and Ostrogoths adhered to Arianism.

The remarks of the text can therefore be applied literally only to the Burgundians, Franks, etc., by whom the first conquerors of the empire were swept away. Still, the Church had much to do even in bringing under her full influence the first barbarians. H.

The introduction of the imposing ceremonial and spectacular display in the worship of the Church was not merely to attract the “barbarians” into the Church, but also due to the influence of the barbarians and their customs and ceremonials on the Church after they entered it.

See note at the end of this lecture.

The quarrel respecting investitures between Gregory VII and the Emperor Henry IV arose from the former’s attempt to establish the complete supremacy of the pope by destroying the control of feudal lords and princes over the lands and offices of the Church. Gregory’s decree was that no officer of the Church should do homage under the feudal system to any temporal lord for his office or estate, but that he should receive the symbols of his investiture from the pope. As these officers of the Church possessed at the time under feudal tenure more than one third the lands of Europe, the significance of the papal claim can be understood. After a long struggle the quarrel on this particular point was compromised. Stephen’s Hildebrand and His Times may be consulted with profit on this contest.

We have seen (page 47, note) that by the fifth century the Church had become a vast institution with an organized government, constituting a regular hierarchy. The clergy had become separated from the laity; over the clergy of a city, with its outlying territory, was a bishop, elected, in the early days, by the clergy and people, the bishop in the chief city of a province ranking above the others, and known as the metropolitan (later archbishop), while in the West the Bishop of Rome and in the East the Bishop of Constantinople had come to outrank all others in the Church.

The supremacy of the Bishop of Rome had been built up by several forces: the pre-eminence of Rome as the one time mistress of the world; the fact that the Church at Rome was the only Apostolic Church in the West; that she had sent out and planted many churches; that her bishops had maintained a neutral attitude in the doctrinal controversies of the third and fourth centuries; that by the Council of Sardica, in 343, appeals were allowed to the Bishop of Rome in certain cases.

To reinforce these influences were the greatness of one or two of the bishops of this period (notably Leo I and Gregory the Great), and the theory by that time definitely held that the Bishop of Rome was the successor of Peter, and that, as Peter had had supremacy by divine authority over other apostles, so the Bishop of Rome had authority over other bishops and churches. After the time of the Emperor Constantine the connection between Church and state was close, and the emperors exercised considerable control over ecclesiastical affairs, although the removal of the capital to Constantinople left the Bishop of Rome a great degree of independence.

In 445 the Emperor Valentinian III declared the Bishop of Rome the supreme judicial and administrative officer of the Church in the empire. Thus, by the time of the downfall of the Western empire not only had the organization of the Church become well established, but the supremacy of the pope was well recognized. After the fall of the empire (476) the Church alone, and the pope as its head, represented the unity for which the empire had stood.

At this time it was that the Church and the pope, in order to protect themselves against the barbarians, as indicated by the author, set up the principle of the complete separation and independence of Church and state, of the spiritual and temporal power.

Pope Gregory I (590-604), the foremost incumbent of the papal chair during the early dark ages, appears at the head of the ecclesiastical organization, directing its movements, extending its force, guiding its clergy. When the Lombards had conquered northern Italy, and the Exarchate of Ravenna only feebly upheld the authority of the Eastern emperor in Italy, the Bishop of Rome had, of necessity, assumed and exercised temporal powers in the city, and this power was augmented by Gregory, who ignored, or claimed superiority over, the exarch. Thus began the authority of the pope as a temporal ruler.

During the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries the most important event in the history of the papacy and the Church was the alliance between the pope and Pippin the Short, Mayor of the Palace under the Merovingians. The pope was in danger from the Lombards; he invited the protection of the Franks under Pippin. Pippin wished to become King of the Franks by the overthrow of the Merovingians; he wished the sanction of the religious power for his usurpation. The alliance was easily struck; the Carlovingian dynasty in France was established and the position of the pope was much strengthened.

We have seen the establishment of the Holy Roman Empire by Charlemagne. His conquest of the Lombards freed the papacy from absorption by the Lombards, and the coronation of Charlemagne as emperor by the pope established a close relationship between the two powers. Its exact nature was in doubt during the entire middle ages. On one hand it seemed to imply, by the act of coronation, the supremacy of the pope over the temporal ruler—“the bestowal of the empire by gift of the Church.” On the other hand, the imperial idea was that the emperor was the successor of the former Roman emperors to whom the pope, as Bishop of Rome, had been subject. The struggle of the middle ages was between the two ideas—the papacy and the empire—to settle which, if either, was supreme, or whether both were equal—joint rulers of God on earth, one spiritual, the other temporal. The Church had forgotten or now ignored its contention of the fourth and fifth centuries for the separation and mutually complete independence of spiritual and temporal power.

The weakness of the empire after the death of Charlemagne, its decline until the coronation of Otho I (962), the Donation of Constantine and the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals—two remarkable documents whose genuineness was accepted for several centuries, though now proved to be baseless forgeries—and the talents of two or three strong men, who in the ninth century occupied the papal chair, established the theory of papal supremacy over the empire. During the tenth century, the squabbles of Italian politics and the corrupt characters of the popes lost the papacy power and respect, while in the last half of the century the empire was revived by Otho I and his two successors; so that the year 1000 saw the world-monarchy, represented by the Holy Roman Empire, and the world-church, the Holy Catholic Church, again claiming position as joint rulers of the earth. But a bitter struggle was again imminent, since neither power was long willing to admit the supremacy or indeed the equality of the other.

In the eleventh century, Gregory VII sought to carry into effect his idea of the supremacy of the pope in all temporal as well as spiritual affairs (see page 181). He sought to reform the Church within and to destroy the feudal authority of laymen over ecclesiastical vassals, and thus to make the Church in all its parts independent and dominant.

The struggle between Gregory and the Emperor Henry IV added to the papal prestige, and during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the authority of the pope reached its height, with nearly all the kings of Europe acknowledging fealty to him for their possessions. About the middle of the thirteenth century, the temporary ascendency of Frederick II was followed by the unrivaled papal domination for a time. In the fourteenth century the rise of independent states, the removal of the papal seat to Avignon, the great Schism, resulting in two popes, two capitals, and a divided Church, practically destroyed the temporal power of the pope save in central Italy, and weakened his spiritual authority.

For an excellent detailed account of the papacy and its relation to the state, its rise and downfall as a temporal power, see Emerton, Mediæval Europe; Bryce’s Holy Roman Empire is also especially valuable.

The legislative body of France, the States-General, was not summoned between 1614 and 1789. During that time the laws were mere royal edicts. The term “parliament” in French usage means not a legislative body, but a law court.

In the fifth century the schools of the Roman empire, modeled on the secular schools of earlier pagan Greece and Rome, were swept away. In their place the Church established schools in connection with cathedrals and monasteries. These taught only what was needed for the clerical and monastic life. Until the eighth century there were no schools for the education of the laity, as indeed there was little opportunity for the use of education by a layman. In England and France, in the eighth and ninth centuries, there was a revival of education due largely to Alcuin and the fostering care of Charlemagne and Alfred the Great. Both monastic and cathedral schools were improved, while new schools were established. Amid the anarchy of the tenth century there was again a relapse, from which came a revival in the eleventh century leading to the establishment of the mediæval universities. Cf. West’s Alcuin and the Rise of the Christian Schools; Mullinger’s Schools of Charles the Great.

The rise of Christianity improved the condition of the slave by inculcating more humane ideas regarding his treatment. The Roman emperors under the influence of the Church softened many of the harsh features of the system, and the clergy at the same time advocated manumission as a religious duty. During the middle ages the attitude of the Church was pretty steadily that of opposition to slavery. It must not, however, be a matter of surprise that an institution so closely connected with the industrial life of the world was not removed until a change could be made in general economic habits. It has even been held by some that the amelioration of the condition of the slave and serf without manumission, was better for society and the slave than complete emancipation would have been during some portions of this period.

The wager of battle was an appeal to arms to determine the truth as between two parties, in the belief that divine power would give the victory to the right man. The ordeals were of various kinds—lot, walking over hot iron, immersing the hand in hot water. If an accused person appealed to one of these and escaped injury, he was cleared. Under the oath of compurgation, the accused was freed if on oath he declared himself innocent and produced a certain number of other persons to swear that they believed his statement. All through the middle ages the Church was endeavoring to replace these and other Teutonic laws with laws and ideas drawn from the old Roman law. Consult the admirable account of the German legal ideas in Chapter VIII of Emerton’s Introduction to the Middle Ages.

The Roman law had never entirely disappeared from use in Europe. It influenced the formation of the canon law, and some of its principles had early modified the Teutonic law. With the rise of the universities its study was renewed, and gradually it supplanted German law in continental Europe. While the Church did much to preserve and to spread the principles of Roman law, it is too much to affirm that but for the Church it would have perished. One of the two great gifts of the ancient world to the modern was the Roman law.

Penance included sorrow for sin, reformation, and the doing of expiatory works. The sacrament of penance in the Church embraced the granting of forgiveness of sins, by the absolution of a priest, to those who repented, confessed, and performed satisfaction. In the early days public confession and penance was common, but after the time of the crusades almsdoing, fasts, and pilgrimages were usually enjoined in place of public penance.

See especially Bentham’s Principles of Morals and Legislation, chaps. xii-xiv.

The Truce of God was a regulation of the Church enjoining the suspension of all private warfare from Wednesday evening to Monday morning in each week, also during the seasons of Advent and Lent, and on the great feasts. It was also binding at all times in certain places, as churches and convents, and for the protection of certain classes, as pilgrims, women, bishops, monks, clerks, merchants. This regulation appears first to have been introduced at a synod in Roussillon, in 1027, whence it spread over Aquitaine, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and England. It was enjoined by numerous councils of the Church. Excommunication and banishment were its penalties. Its greatest force was in the twelfth century. Emerton, noting that many churchmen wished to do away entirely with private warfare as a means of settling differences, adds, “The demand not to fight at all was too much for mediæval human nature.” The Truce was all that was practicable in that period.

It must not be forgotten that true advance in knowledge and in scientific methods came only in opposition to, and by the breakdown of, the authority of the Church over the intellect. Independent thinking even in philosophy was not permitted in the middle ages. The influence of the Church and also of the scholastic system was to train and develop the intellect, but not to add to knowledge.

What is stated in this paragraph is more exactly true of the influence of the Christian religion—of Christianity as an uplifting force than of the Church as an institution. The true spirit of Christianity and the authority and influence of the organized Church have not always pointed or moved in one and the same direction.

These barbarians, it will be remembered, followed the Arian heresy, both those who embraced Christianity before the invasion of the empire and those who did so after that event. The Burgundians, converted by Arian missionaries in 433, adopted the Catholic faith about 517. The Franks, following the example of Clovis, embraced the orthodox faith in 497.

H.

It cannot be truly affirmed that the Church as a whole had any such object. This is too sweeping a generalization.

Gregory of Tours (540-594) was the father of mediæval French history. His Historia Ecclesiastica Francorum covers the fifth and sixth centuries, and is almost the only source of information for this period. His avowed aim was to recount “the wars of kings with hostile nations, of martyrs with pagans, of churches with heretics.”

Monasticism, or monachism—a life of religious retirement—is of pre-Christian origin, and is found in connection with most of the leading religions. St. Anthony of Egypt, born in 251, is generally regarded as the founder of Christian monachism. He lived, a hermit, in the Egyptian desert, whither many, attracted by his holiness, followed and adopted the ascetic life. Pachomius of the Thebaid built a monastery in the fourth century where the ascetics dwelt together cœnobites); he was the first to form rules for the organization, thus giving a government to the system. St. Basil in the same century spent several years in monastic life, and after he became Bishop of Cæsarea published a code of rules for the regulation of the cœnobitic monachism, substantially as they remain to-day for the Greek Church.

Among the earliest communities of monks in Gaul was that established about 375 by St. Martin of Tours, at Marmoutiers, where he built a convent. About 415 John Cassian founded a large monastery near Marseilles, and by his writings did much to spread through the West a knowledge of Eastern monachism.

The first regular order with monastic vows and a complete organization was established by St. Benedict of Nursia, who in 529 founded the famous convent of Monte Casino near Naples, whence went forth the order of the Benedictines. The strict rules laid down by him were adopted in all the European convents. The monks were to take the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience; their rules of discipline required them to devote their time to study, and to manual labor, mainly agricultural. Asceticism of a moderate type was enjoined.

By the influence of Gregory the Great monasticism first entered upon the field of missionary work among the barbarians. During the dark period from the sixth century to the ninth the monks rendered great services to the cause of religion, letters, and civilization. By their industrious hands waste forests and barren lands were converted into rich and productive gardens; in the convents were preserved all the remains of ancient learning; there missionaries were educated.

At first monks were laymen, but before the tenth century they formed a class of the clergy. During the earlier period the monasteries and their inhabitants had been subject to thebishop of the diocese, but by the twelfth century they had been made immediately subject to papal jurisdiction.

Reverence for these institutions, and gratitude for the benefits they conferred, led to gifts and endowments on the part of the pious laity, until at length the monasteries became as notorious for riches, luxury, and corruption, as they were at first for simplicity, devotion, and industry.

Gregory VII (Hildebrand) succeeded Alexander II in the papal chair in 1073. He virtually governed the Church during the time of his predecessor, and was indeed the real author of the decree of Nicholas II, 1059, by which the power of nominating and confirming the pope was taken from the German emperors and vested in the cardinals. His whole life was devoted to aggrandizing the power of the Holy See. His talents were great, and his energy indomitable. He died in 1085. For the rise and progress of the papal power, see Hallam’s Middle Ages, chap. vii; Ranke’s History of the Popes; [Bryce’s Holy Roman Empire; Duruy’s History of the Middle Ages; and Emerton’s Mediæval Europe.]

The papal power was at its height from the time of Innocent III, 1194, to that of Boniface VIII, 1294, after which it sensibly declined. H.

The reform of Cluny started from the establishment of a monastery at Cluny, in Aquitaine, in 910. Here the Benedictine rules were vigorously enforced, and monastic life brought back to its power form of extreme asceticism. Beyond this, however, was the idea that monasticism had a wider mission in reforming the outside world. Other monasteries in Europe caught the idea, and an association was organized known as the Congregation of Cluny, that included numbers throughout all Europe. The Abbot of Cluny was regarded as the real head of the organization. The influence of this movement was to give a purer tone to all monastic life, and to affect the religious life outside the monastery. Hildebrand (Gregory VII) was a monk at Cluny, and his reforms were in line with the “Cluny movement.” Later, but, in many respects, not greater, was the reform of St. Bernard, and the founding by him of the Cistercian community at Clairvaux (1115).

Abelard was one of the most prominent founders of Scholasticism. The significance of the quarrel between Abelard and St. Bernard was that it exemplified the whole struggle between freedom of thought and inquiry, and the authoritative rule of the Church as enforced by the extremists.

The centralization of the power of administering local affairs in France, begun in the thirteenth century, was completed under Louis XIV (1643-1715). An agent of the king, the intendant, was absolute ruler in each of the provinces into which France was divided; in each town or commune within the province there was a subagent of the intendant, who exercised by authority of the king all the powers of local government. In many communes the people ceased even to elect local officers, either legislative or administrative. In others they continued to elect, but the power and activity of the king’s subagent left nothing for the elected officers to do. Thus all local government was centered in the king.

All this was swept away by the Revolution of 1780. Today, the residents of each commune and city elect a council, and the council chooses the mayor and his assistants. The local government is vested in and exercised by the council and mayor, but the latter is responsible to the central government of France and is removable by the President.

Of these, Frederick Karl von Savigny (1779-1861) is the only one of first rank. As a university professor in Germany and a writer on Roman law and institutions he exercised a great influence. His most important work in this connection is Geschichte des römischen Rechts im Mittelalter.

In the Roman municipality the curia, or senate, whose membership was based on a land qualification, deliberated on the affairs of the city and chose the magistrates.

These statements must be taken as only approximately exact. Conditions differed widely in different parts of Europe. In Italy and southern France the old municipalities appear to have retained during this entire period much of their old form and vitality. Further north the cities succumbed more readily to the mediæval influences, and lost power and activity; indeed, almost disappeared between the fifth and the tenth century.

The most potent cause of the revival of the old cities and the planting and growth of new ones in the tenth, eleventh, and later centuries, was the revival of industry and of commerce. So long as the unsettled life of the dark ages continued, so long as agriculture was almost the sole occupation, there were few reasons for the existence of cities. As soon, however, as the trade and commerce which had been wiped out by the barbarian inroads began again to be demanded by the improving civilization, cities sprang into life everywhere, and not least in northern France, in Germany, and in England, where in ancient times there had been few. Some of the monasteries had been granted the right of holding annual or more frequent fairs or markets, to which merchants resorted from wide distances. Gradually around such monasteries where market rights existed arose cities of artisans and traders. Again, on the feudal domains were artisans dependent upon the lord or suzerain, to whom the product of their labor belonged. These artisans grouped themselves in communities and villages, organized themselves into industrial associations (craft or artisan gilds), which came in various ways to exercise powers over industrial matters and to protect its members. The exact relation of these gilds to the towns and cities is not entirely clear, nor was it uniform throughout Europe. It is certain, however, that whether the gilds became in time cities, or remained subordinate to the municipalities, the towns and cities were a part of the feudal system in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and were subject to feudal exactions and dues.

Thus industry and trade account for the revival of city life, the planting of new cities, and the growth of old ones. The causes for this development were substantially the same throughout western Europe. The reasons and the methods of their enfranchisement were widely variant in different countries.

The growth and enfranchisement of the cities, and especially the industrial organization and its connection with municipal life, have been the subject of the most scholarly investigations during recent years. Most of these studies are unavailable for English readers. The following contain brief accounts of value: Duruy, History of the Middle Ages; Emerton, Mediæval Europe; Ashley, English Economic History; Gross, The Gild Merchant; Cunningham, English Industry and Commerce; Stubbs, Constitutional History of England.

The continuity of city life and municipal institutions from Roman time to modern was not so great, in all probability, as is assumed in the lecture. The rise of the free city was rather the rise of a new institution than the restoration of an old one, save in southern France and Italy.

To describe the exact relations of the cities to the feudal lords would demand too much space. In general it may be said that the inhabitants were individually or collectively liable for all the services and obligations which were due from vassals to their superiors, including allegiance, tribute, and aid. The burdensome nature of these exactions, the desire for more power over their own lives and affairs, led to the insurrection, the successful outcome of which constitutes “the enfranchisement of the towns.”

It was mainly in France that the enfranchisement of the cities was attended with great violence and war. In Germany, England, and even in Italy while the results attained were similar, the process involved more of purchase and less of war. See page 214, note.

Like all other treaties of peace, they stood until broken by one or both parties. The charters were frequently violated by the lords, or revoked by the king, in order that, as the price of their renewal, large payments of money might be obtained from the cities.

The first French commune was at Le Mans (1067), which was abolished after two years. After this, Cambrai (1076), Noyon, Beauvais, St. Quentin, and Laon (1106) followed in the order named, though they did not obtain charters until dates slightly later.

The apparent vacillation in the policy of the French kings until the latter part of the twelfth century was due in large degree to their uncertainty of their own power; they hesitated to favor the enfranchisement of the cities at the risk of the hostility of the large feudal lords, including especially the Church. Later, the policy of the monarch was consistently favorable to the cities.

There was great variety in the charters, but the privileges granted to the cities in the middle ages were in general these: the right of corporate property; a common seal; exemption from the more ignominious or oppressive tokens of feudal subjection, and the defined regulation of the rest; settled rules as to succession and private rights of property; and lastly, and of the greatest value, exemption from the royal jurisdiction, as well as from that of the territorial judges, and the right of being governed by magistrates of their own, either wholly, or (in some cases) partly chosen by themselves.

H.

The class here referred to is the great middle class—the bourgeoisie of France and the continent generally, the commons of England—made up of the merchants and traders, distinguished on the one hand from the nobility, on the other from the laborers and peasants.

See p. 35 et seq.

There were two general types of government in the cities, communal and consular. In the former, the government was vested in a select body of from twelve to one hundred citizens. This body was probably elected by the citizens. It chose from its own number the chief executive officer of the commune, who, with the select body, exercised the administrative and judicial power of the city, subject to such control as still remained in the feudal lord whose vassal the commune was. In the consular cities a board of twelve consuls wielded the executive power, assisted by a council of not more than one hundred. For special purposes a larger assembly representing the entire body of citizens was summoned. The cities of Italy and southern France were of the latter class; those of northern France and parts of Germany were of the former. Many points concerning these governments are still buried in obscurity. M. Guizot’s discussion throughout the lecture has special referrence to the French communes and cities.

The origin of these “trading companies”—the merchant and artisan gilds—and their exact connection with municipal life is still somewhat obscure, notwithstanding recent researches. The student may with profit consult Brentano’s History and Development of Gilds, Gross’s Gild Merchant, or Lambert’s Two Thousand Years of Gild Life.

As the population of a town or city increased, the desire for and tendency towards self-government were natural. In France, as already stated, this was obtained, as a rule, only after a struggle between the city and the feudal lord upon whose domain the city stood. Later, the cities often obtained their charters or gained additional rights by purchase or on the gift of large sums of money to the suzerain or king. Whether it came as the result of war or of bargain, the end attained was the same: the commune or city received a charter from the feudal lord, by which the future relations of the lord and the commune were determined. Usually a regular, fixed payment by the commune was substituted for the irregular feudal exactions, and the amount and character of the military service due from the commune was fixed. Thereafter the lord’s dealings were with the commune as a corporation, and not with the individual inhabitants. On the other hand, the commune gained the right of managing in great degree its own affairs. The charters varied, however, in the grant of powers. In some there was a mere substitution of corporate for individual relations to the suzerain, in others almost complete freedom from demands of the lord.

Each communal or city charter was a grant of rights; to just the extent that the city gained power and privilege, by just so much was the authority of the lord diminished. This diminution of the power of the feudal baronage was welcomed by the king. Hence the cities often found ready aid from the monarch, in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Note especially the policy of Louis VII (1137-1180). Later, however, the king, having established his own power more firmly, began to break down that of the cities by imposing upon them his own judicial and administrative officers. Thus, in France, the communes helped to break down feudalism, gained some rights of self-government, but instead of becoming and remaining entirely self-governing in their local affairs, were left in the end closely dependent on the monarch.

In Italy, so far as the enfranchisement was involved, much the same course was run by the cities. There was, however, no strong central government in Italy, hence the cities were able to take one step further and establish their complete independence, forming the city-republics that occupy so prominent a place in the later mediæval and early modern history of Italy. By the middle of the twelfth century the cities of Lombardy, with Milan at their head, had become extremely rich and powerful; they formed a confederation among themselves—the Lombard League—and maintained an obstinate struggle for more than thirty years with Frederick Barbarossa, Emperor of Germany, which terminated in 1183 by the treaty of Constance, wherein the emperor renounced all legal privileges in the interior of the cities, acknowledged the right of the confederated cities to levy armies, erect fortifications, exercise criminal and civil jurisdiction by officers of their own appointment.

In Germany, the majority of the cities were of mediæval origin. Their development and enfranchisement resulted as in Italy. In the absence of any strong central power in Germany which could either compel their allegiance or protect their interests, they were obliged to rely on their own resources for defence.

Among the German cities, confederations were also formed; of these the most celebrated was the Hanseatic League, which originated in 1239-1241, from a convention between Lübeck, Hamburg, and one or two other cities, by which they agreed to defend each other against all oppression and violence, particularly of the nobles. The number of towns united in this league rapidly increased; it included at one time eighty-five cities. Regular diets were held every third year at Lübeck, the chief city of the confederacy. This league was at various times confirmed by kings and princes, and in the fourteenth century exercised a powerful political as well as commercial influence. It made treaties with other states, and maintained a fleet to protect its commercial rights. The league was dissolved in the seventeenth century. The League of the Rhine was a similar confederation. During the later middle ages the majority of these cities were absorbed into the states near them.

In England the feudal system never held so complete sway, and the cities gained rights of self-government by a more orderly process of development, through purchase from the lords of the manors and by charters from the kings, beginning with that of London.

The influence of the crusades in all these countries facilitated the enfranchisement of the cities.

The literature of the subject in foreign languages is abundant. In English it is mainly confined to special chapters in general works. In addition to those already cited, see Adams, Civilization during the Middle Ages, chap. xii. Hallam’s Middle Ages has been made less valuable by later researches. Zimmern, The Hansa Towns, contains some useful information.

On the history of the crusades the following may be consulted: Cox, The Crusades; Michaud, History of the Crusades; Gray, The Children’s Crusade; Pears, The Fall of Constantinople; Von Sybel, The History and Literature of the Crusades; Mombert, A Short History of the Crusades.

A. G. P. de Barante, Histoire des Dues de Bourgogne de la Maison de Valois, 1364-1477. This work, in eight volumes, has never been translated into English. Other and later works dwell on the same facts. The turbulence noted was not mere disorder, but was in large part a struggle for the realization of better ideals and forms.

In the third period society utilized and gave definiteness and form to what had been begun in the second. In this sense the second period did produce something “durable”; it laid the foundations of modern government and society.

By the victory of Charles Martel at the battle of Tours (732).

Later scholarship has proved the stories of the visions and sufferings of Peter the Hermit to have been the invention of a later age. The pope, not Peter the Hermit, was the moving influence towards the first crusade. It is doubtful if the latter was in the Holy Land before the first crusade.

One should remember, also, as a possible additional cause, that pilgrimages were a Christian duty, and a recognized

The chronicles of William of Tyre and James de Vitry are of the highest value for the thorough study of this period.

Mémoires sur les Relations Politiques des Princes Chrétiens avec les Empereurs Mongols. Deuxième Mémoire, pp. 154, 157.

“Many men of religious orders, Italians, French, and Flemings, were charged with diplomatic missions to the court of the Great Khan. Mongols of distinction came to Rome, Barcelona, Valentia, Lyons, Paris, London, and Northampton; and a Franciscan of the kingdom of Naples was archbishop of Pekin. His successor was a professor of theology in the university of Paris. But how many other people followed in the train of those personages, either as slaves, or attracted by the desire of profit, or led by curiosity into regions hitherto unknown! Chance has preserved the names of some of these. The first envoy who visited the King of Hungary on the part of the Tartars was an Englishman, who had been banished from his country for certain crimes, and who, after having wandered over Asia, at last entered into the service of the Mongols. A Flemish friar, in the heart of Tartary, fell in with a woman of Metz, called Paquette, who had been carried off into Hungary; a Parisian goldsmith and a young man from the neighborhood of Rouen, who had been at the taking of Belgrade. In the same country he fell in also with Russians, Hungarians, and Flemings. A singer, called Robert, after having travelled through Eastern Asia, returned to end his days in the cathedral of Chartres. A Tartar was a furnisher of helmets in the armies of Philip the Fair. Jean de Plancarpin fell in, near Gayouk, with a Russian gentleman whom he calls Temer, and who acted as an interpreter; and many merchants of Breslau, Poland, and Austria, accompanied him in his journey into Tartary. Others returned with him through Russia; they were Genoese, Pisans, and Venetians. Two Venetians, merchants, whom chance had brought to Bokhara, followed a Mongol ambassador, sent by Houlagou to Khoubilaī. They remained many years in China and Tartary, returned with letters from the Great Khan to the pope, and afterwards went back to the Khan, taking with them the son of one of their number, the celebrated Marco Polo, and once more left the court of Khoubilaī to return to Venice. Travels of this nature were not less frequent in the following century. Of this number are those of John Mandeville, an English physician; Oderic de Frioul, Pegoletti, Guilleaume de Bouldeselle, and several others. It may well be supposed, that those travels of which the memory is preserved, form but a small part of those which were undertaken, and there were in those days many more people who were able to perform those long journeys than to write accounts of them. Many of those adventurers must have remained and died in the countries they went to visit. Others returned home, as obscure as before, but having their imagination full of the things they had seen, relating them to their families, with much exaggeration no doubt, but leaving behind them, among many ridiculous fables, useful recollections and traditions capable of bearing fruit. Thus, in Germany, Italy, and France, in the monasteries, among the nobility, and even down to the lowest classes of society, there were deposited many precious seeds destined to bud at a somewhat later period. All these unknown travellers, carrying the arts of their own country into distant regions, brought back other pieces of knowledge not less precious, and, without being aware of it, made exchanges more advantageous than those of commerce. By these means, not only the traffic in the silks, porcelain, and other commodities of Hindostan, became more extensive and practicable, and new paths were opened to commercial industry and enterprise; but, what was more valuable still, foreign manners, unknown nations, extraordinary productions, presented themselves in abundance to the minds of the Europeans, which, since the fall of the Roman empire, had been confined within too narrow a circle. Men began to attach some importance to the most beautiful, the most populous, and the most anciently civilized of the four quarters of the world. They began to study the arts, the religions, the languages, of the nations by whom it was inhabited; and there was even an intention of establishing a professorship of the Tartar language in the university of Paris. The accounts of travellers, strange and exaggerated, indeed, but soon discussed and cleared up, diffused more correct and varied notions of those distant regions. The world seemed to open, as it were, towards the East; geography made an immense stride; and ardor for discovery became the new form assumed by European spirit of adventure. The idea of another hemisphere, when our own came to be better known, no longer seemed an improbable paradox, and it was when in search of the Zipangri of Marco Polo that Christopher Columbus discovered the New World.”

More exact would it be to say that the feudal barons as a class lost their importance as a political factor. Feudalism as a system did not long survive the crusades. The king, on the one hand, notably in France, and the people—the Third Estate—on the other, succeeded to the feudal power. The crusades re-enforced the influence of the cities in breaking down feudalism.

Probably the greatest direct effect of the crusades was the stimulation given to commerce, through the knowledge they brought to Europe of Oriental and other products. With the knowledge came the desire to possess. The cities of Italy date their commercial importance from this time. They retained it until the discovery of oceanic routes to the Orient carried the stream of commerce away from the Mediterranean.

One of the outgrowths of the crusades is worthy of note here. Between the first and second crusades were formed in the Holy Land three great military orders: the Knights of St. John or of the Hospital, the Knights of the Temple, and the Teutonic Knights. The first was organized to care for and defend sick and wounded pilgrims; the second, to defend the pilgrims to the Holy Land; the third, to succor German pilgrims. Their services to Christianity made them the recipients of large estates, and other wealth, to be used for the purposes of the order. After the era of the crusades they established themselves in Europe, where they obtained great wealth and influence. See Woodhouse, Military Religious Orders of the Middle Ages.

The following chronological table may serve to put before the student’s eye a connected outline of the principal facts. Eight crusades are enumerated.

First Crusade—ad 1096-1099. Urban II, Pope.

Interval, 1100-1147. Baldwin I succeeds his brother Godfrey as king of Jerusalem. A new army of crusaders destroyed by the Saracens in Asia Minor, and the remnant of the first army cut to pieces at Rama. Acre (Ptolemais), Berytus, and Sidon taken. Later, the Christian army unsuccessful; Edessa taken by the Turks in 1144; continued ill success of the Christians leads to a new crusade.

Second Crusade—1147-1149. Eugene III, Pope.

Leaders of this expedition, Conrad III, emperor of Germany, and Louis VII, king of France, who set out separately on their march. Both armies destroyed in Asia Minor by famine and the sword. The fugitives assemble at Jerusalem. Conrad, Louis, and Baldwin III, king of Jerusalem, lay siege to Damascus; the enterprise fails; Conrad and Louis return to Europe.

Interval, 1149-1189. Saladin takes possession of Egypt and founds a dynasty in 1175. Makes war upon the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem; defeats Guy of Lusignan at the battle of Tiberias; Guy taken prisoner; Acre and Jerusalem taken (1187). Conrad of Montferrat lays claim to the crown of Jerusalem, and rallies the remains of the Christian forces at Tyre.

Third Crusade—1189-1192. Clement III, Pope.

Leaders, Frederick I (Barbarossa), emperor of Germany, Philip Augustus, king of France, and Richard I, of England.

Frederick departs first with an army of 100,000 men, which is entirely destroyed in Asia Minor. The emperor himself is drowned in Cilicia, 1190. His son Frederick of Swabia afterwards killed at Acre.

Fourth Crusade—1202-1204. Innocent III, Pope.

Leaders, Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders; Boniface II, Marquis of Montferrat; Henry Dandolo, Doge of Venice, and others. The kings of Europe could not be aroused to engage in this crusade, notwithstanding all the urgency of the Holy See. The chief command was conferred by the crusaders on Boniface of Montferrat. This expedition, however, never reached the Holy Land, but engaged in putting down a usurpation at Constantinople, which finally led to the taking and plundering of that city by the crusaders, and the division of the empire among the conquerors, of whom Baldwin was raised to the imperial dignity. The Latin empire of Constantinople was destroyed in 1261 by Michael Paleologus.

Interval, 1204-1217. Meantime the Christians in the East, though despoiled of most of their possessions, and weakened by divisions, bravely defended themselves against the sultans of Egypt. They continually invoked aid from Europe; but more powerful interests at home made the European princes regardless of their calls. Only those of more exalted imaginations could be influenced. There was a crusade of children in 1212.

Fifth Crusade—1218-1221. Honorius III, Pope.

Three kings, John de Brienne, titular king of Jerusalem, Andrew II, king of Hungary, and Hugh of Lusignan, king of Cyprus, united their forces at Acre. The king of Hungary was soon recalled by troubles at home; Hugh of Lusignan died; and John de Brienne went to attack Egypt alone. In 1221 the crusaders, after many reverses, submitted to a humiliating peace; John of Brienne, returning to Europe, gave his daughter in marriage to Frederick II, emperor of Germany, who thereby became titular king of Jerusalem.

Sixth Crusade—1228-1229. Gregory IX, Pope.

Leader, Frederick II. This emperor had taken the vows of the cross five years before, and, though anathematized by the pope, had failed to fulfil his engagement. At length he set out, and the Sultan Kameel yielded Jerusalem to him by treaty without battle. Frederick crowned himself king of Jerusalem. Threatened with the loss of his Italian dominions, he returned to Europe.

Seventh Crusade—1248-1254. Innocent IV, Pope.

Leaders, St. Louis (IX) and the French princes. The king of France engaged in this crusade in consequence of a vow made during a dangerous illness. Most of the princes of the blood and great vassals accompanied him. He turned his arms first against Egypt, and took Damietta in 1250; but his army, surprised by a sudden rising of the Nile, and carried off in great numbers by pestilence, was surrounded, and Louis himself, with 20,000 of his army, was made prisoner. He obtained his liberty, by payment of a heavy ransom and the surrender of Damietta. He remained four years in Palestine, repairing the fortifications of the towns which yet remained in the hands of the Christians (Ptolemais, Jaffa, Sidon, etc.), and mediating between the Christian and Mohammedan princes.

Eighth Crusade—1270. Clement IV, Pope.

Leaders, Louis IX; Charles of Anjou; Edward, prince of England, afterwards Edward I. This expedition was first directed to the coast of Africa; Louis deparked before Tunis and laid siege to that city; but the army was cut down by the plague, to which Louis himself and one of his sons fell victims. Charles of Anjou, his brother, made peace with the Mohammedans, and renounced the expedition to the Holy Land. This was the last crusade. H.

The nobility of England had been much weakened by the Wars of the Roses in the fifteenth century, and with the accession of Henry VII, the first of the Tudors (1485), was begun the policy of upbuilding the power of the king by breaking down that of the nobles, and by rendering the commons subservient. This policy characterized the entire Tudor dynasty (1485-1603). Respect for the public authority was greatly increased during this period.

Henri Benjamin Constant de Rebecque (1757—1830), French publicist and statesman, an ardent admirer and advocate of constitutional government, and especially monarchy; the author of many political essays and pamphlets in favor of constitutionalism, which were published collectively under the title Cours de Politique Constitutionelle.

The constitution of Brazil, sworn to by the first emperor, Dom Pedro I, March 25, 1824, was variously modified during the ensuing ten years.

The present century has witnessed a decided tendency away from monarchy towards even extreme democracy. The necessity of a strong central administrative power in each government is admitted, but that this must take the form of monarchy is not claimed by modern political scientists. That the legislative power should be in the hands of the people is generally conceded. Possibly it may be affirmed that at present (1896) there is a slight tendency towards reaction from extreme democracy.

See page 90, note.

Nevertheless the right to elect whomsoever they pleased remained in the people—the tribe. The establishment of hereditary succession in a given tribe depended more upon the personal character of the descendants in a family once elected, than upon any deliberate change of custom on the part of the tribe.

It was in form rather than in reality that even the first emperors ruled as representatives of the people. Myers, in his History of Rome (p. 119), has the following neat statement of the matter: “Octavius carefully veiled his really absolute sovereignty under the forms of the old republican state. The senate still existed, but so completely subjected were its members to the influence of the conqueror, that the only function it really exercised was the conferring of honors and titles and abject flatteries on its master. All the republican officials remained, but Octavius absorbed and exercised their chief powers and functions. He had the powers of consul, tribune, censor, and Pontifix Maximus. All the republican magistrates—the consuls, the tribunes, the prætors—were elected as usual, but they were simply the nominees and creatures of the emperor. They were the effigies and figure-heads to delude the people into believing that the republic still existed. Never did a people seem more content with the shadow after the loss of the substance.”

See page 37, note.

Forum judicum, i, lib. 2; tit. i, l. 2, l. 4.

The Merovingian dynasty, 481-751.

Marcus Aurelius Cassiodorus (468(?)-568), Roman historian and statesman, whose writings, Variarum Epistolarum Libri XII, are the principal source of information on Italy and the Ostrogothic kingdom in the sixth century.

The Church Councils of Toledo constituted the legislative assembly in the Visigothic kingdom. See page 85.

See page 60, note, and 90, note.

Louis VI (the Fat) came to the throne in 1108.

Suger was Abbot of St. Denis and minister of Louis VI (the Fat). His idea of monarchy is well, if not completely, expressed in his own words: “It is the duty of kings to repress, by their power and the innate right of their office, the audacity of the nobles who rend the state by ceaseless wars, desolate the poor, and destroy the churches.”

This is true of constitutional monarchy, but hardly of such forms of monarchy as existed on the continent of Europe prior to the nineteenth century. The monarchy of Louis XIV was a revival of the fact, if not of the theory, of imperial monarchy, which centered in the rulers all powers by absorption, not by any representative functions.

For a good account of the facts of French history underlying this lecture, consult Duruy’s History of France.

See page 29.

See Lectures V and VI.

See page 49 et seq.

See page 171.

This was especially true of the Gallican church. The statement as it stands is too broad. For some of the more important disputes between the councils and the popes, see page 305 et seq.

See page 181.

The reference here is to the Dictatus Papæ, a document among the papers of Gregory, containing a brief statement of his theory of the papacy and its superiority to all other earthly powers. There is, however, no evidence that this document was ever made public in Gregory’s time, hence the statement of the lecture is not well founded. For a copy of this document, see Matthews, Select Mediæval Documents, or Emerton’s Mediæval Europe, page 244.

There is abundant room for difference of opinion here. Certain it is that during the next century the papacy most nearly attained the supremacy which it sought. That this was due in great part to Gregory VII is generally admitted.

The Hohenstaufens occupied the imperial throne from 1138 to 1254. Frederick I (Barbarossa), 1152-1190, and Frederick II, 1212-1250, were the most noted members. Under Pope Innocent III, 1198-1216, the papacy reached its height, and the Hohenstaufens were humbled, though the empire temporarily recovered under Frederick II.

Louis IX (St. Louis) reigned in France from 1226 to 1270; during this time the royal power was greatly increased. The Pragmatic Sanction referred to, bearing date March, 1268, is now commonly believed to have been a later forgery. However that may be, St. Louis was strenuous and persistent in upholding the independence of the king in temporal affairs, and in its right to supervise ecclesiastical matters in France. See Guizot, History of France, chap. xviii.

The term Pragmatic Sanction is commonly applied to four ordinanees published at a subsequent date: 1. That of Charles VII, of France, issued at Bourges, in 1438, by which the papal power was limited, and the independence of the French Church in various particulars declared—conformably to the canons of the Council of Basel. This council commenced in 1431 and closed in 1449. It passed a great many canons declaring the pope subject to the decrees of general councils, limiting his powers, and decreeing the reformation of various abuses and corruptions of discipline and practice. The history of this council, as well as that of the earlier council held at Constance in 1414-’18, is deeply interesting. 2. The decree passed by Charles VI, emperor of Germany, in 1439, confirming the canons of the Council of Basel, is also called a Pragmatic Sanction. 3. The decree of Charles VI (1713) respecting the succession to the imperial throne. 4. The law of succession proclaimed by Charles III, of Spain, in 1759. H.

The attempt of Boniface VIII (1294-1303) to interfere in the government of France was met by the denial and nullification, from the French monarch (Philip the Fair) and States-General, of the pope’s supremacy over the state.

A bull of Boniface VIII (1296), Clericis Laicos, forbade the clergy to pay taxes to the secular power. Edward I outlawed all clergy in England who undertook to obey the bull. The statute of mortmain in England (1279) was also aimed at the power of the Church.

Ostrogothic kingdom, 493-555; Lombard kingdom, 568-774.

The struggles with the emperors of Germany began with the reign of Otho I (936-973), who revived the Holy Roman Empire and again extended its authority over Italy.

Professor Emerton gives the following admirable summary of Italian institutional history: “(1) Under the Carolingian system the city became in Italy the natural unit of administration. It fell under the control of the count, and most often this person was also the bishop. . . . (2) From the eleventh century on, an organized popular movement is visible and becomes more and more of a force until it displaces the episcopal government and puts in its place a democracy with elective magistrates, and a strong aristocratic element. (3) From the thirteenth century we notice the rise to power within the democracies of this aristocracy based upon certain well-marked families. (4) From the fifteenth century some one among the great families in each community forces its way to leadership, and produces a series of tyrants who carry on the business of the state, until they finally bring it out (5) into the petty ‘legitimate’ monarchy of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.”—Mediæval Europe, page 522. For the history of Italy during the period covered by the lecture, consult Hunt, History of Italy, or Sismondi, History of the Italian Republics.

Since this lecture was delivered the unification of Italy has been accomplished, so far as outward form goes, and the process of actual fusion of the various states that existed in Guizot’s time into one real Italy is rapidly progressing. One of the marked characteristics of the present century has been the tendency to consolidation and unification of national states, and Italy is a conspicuous example.

It is, of course, obvious that Guizot does less than exact justice to republican government here, as he does more than justice to monarchy in the preceding lecture. That a republic is likely to exhibit less fixedness of purpose and policy, and less firmness and force in administration, than is a monarchy, is true; but that the idea, the principle, of monarchy is essential to orderly government, the present century seems to have disproved.

The crusade against the Albigenses was twofold in its cause and its purpose: first, religious, to put down a growing heresy or tendency against conformity to the beliefs of the Church; second, political, to destroy the power of the lords of the south, notably Raymond of Toulouse, in whose territories the Albigenses were. That there was wide diversity of interest between the north and the south of France; that the municipalities of the south were numerous, prosperous, and powerful; that the outcome of the crusade was the absorption of the southern regions into dependence on the crown—all this is true. To regard the movement, however, as primarily or fundamentally a crusade against republican institutions as typified in the municipalities of southern France, is to miss much of its meaning.

According to the formerly accepted story—which seems to have been adopted by Guizot—the confederacy of the Swiss cantons took its origin in the united revolt (1307) of the three forest cantons, Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden, against the encroachments of Albert of Austria, a Hapsburg ruler. This account, first found in documents written at least two centuries after the supposed event, is now regarded as unhistorical. The essential known facts are these: The three cantons were in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries substantially in feudal dependence on the non-resident Hapsburg counts. Throughout the thirteenth century they were seeking to release themselves from this dependence. In 1231, Canton Uri, in 1240, Schwyz, were granted charters by the emperor releasing them from Hapsburg domination, and establishing their direct feudal dependence on the empire. In 1291 these two cantons and Unterwalden formed a permanent league; in 1309 their charters were confirmed by the Emperor Henry VII; in 1316 these charters were recognized by Emperor Ludwig. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the confederation grew, and the authority of the empire weakened. After 1340 no representative of the empire remained regularly in the cantons. The establishment of the independent republican governments was thus not a sudden process, but a gradual growth.

The first States-General of France, in the proper meaning of the word, as including the clergy, nobility, and commons or deputies from the towns, was convoked by Philip the Fair in 1302. The feudal nobility had before this time submitted to the appellant jurisdiction of the crown, exercised by the royal tribunals; they had also lost the legislative supremacy in their fiefs; and now, when the commons became a co-ordinate branch of the national legislature, they lost their last privilege of territorial independence. H.

The eities of Castile were early invested with chartered privileges, including civil rights and extensive property, on condition of protecting their country. The deputies of the cities are not, however, mentioned as composing a branch of the Cortes or general legislative council of the nation until 1169, and then in only one case. But from the year 1189 they became a regular and essential part of that assembly. Subsequently, through the exercise of the royal prerogative in withholding the writ of summons, and through the neglect of many cities in sending deputies, the representation became extremely limited, and the privilege itself was gradually lost; so that in 1480 only seventeen cities retained the right of sending representatives. The concurrence of the Cortes of Castile was necessary to all taxation and grants of money, and also to legislation in general, as well as to the determination of all great and weighty affairs. The nobles and clergy formed the two other estates of the Cortes; but they seem to have been less regularly summoned than even the deputies of the towns.

In the kingdom of Aragon, no law could be enacted or repealed without the consent of the Cortes; and by the “General Privilege,” a sort of Magna Charta, granted in 1283, this body was to be assembled every year at Saragossa—though it was afterwards summoned once in two years, and the place of assembling left to the discretion of the king. The Cortes of this kingdom consisted of four estates: the prelates; the commanders of military orders, who were reckoned as ecclesiastics; the barons; the knights or infanzones; and the deputies of the royal towns. This body by itself, when in session, and by a commission during its recess, exercised very considerable powers, both legislative and administrative. Valencia and Catalonia had also each its separate Cortes both before and after their union with Aragon. See Hallam, Middle Ages, vol. i, chap. iv. H.

For the history of the period covered by this lecture, see Duruy’s Middle Ages, and special histories of the several countries.

The Hundred Years’ War (1336-1453) between France and England was a contest due (1) to rivalry over certain feudal possessions in France and Flanders, and (2) to the claim of the English king, Edward III (1327-1377), to the French throne. The first period (1336-1360), in which the English gained victories at Crecy (1346) and Poitiers (1356), ended in the treaty of Bretigny, by which Edward obtained feudal possession of Aquitaine and a few other provinces, and gave up all claim to the French crown. In the second period (1360-1420) Aquitaine was overrun by the French, the war renewed by Henry V (1413-1422) of England, and the French humiliated through internal quarrels and English victories, notably Agincourt (1415). By the treaty of Troyes (1420) the crowns of the two countries were to be united on the head of the English king after the death of the reigning French sovereign (Charles VI). The war was renewed (third period, 1420-1453) because the French people refused to carry out the treaty, and on the death of Charles VI (1422) recognized his son, Charles VII, as king. The French, inspired by Jeanne d’Arc, finally drove out the English, who at the end of the war, in 1453, retained on the Continent only Calais.

Philip VI, the first king of the house of Valois, came to the throne in 1328. H.

The insanity of Charles VI, the dissensions among the nobility, and the success of the English in the Hundred Years’ War, were all contributory causes to this.

The general term taille, or tax, seems here appropriated to the particular tax made perpetual in the reign of Charles VII, who frequently levied money by his own authority. In general the kings did not claim the absolute prerogative of imposing taxes without the consent of the States-General; though they often in emergencies violently stretched their power. The taille was commonly assessed by respectable persons chosen by the advice of the parish priests—a privilege of importance to the tax-payers, who were allowed some voice in the repartition of the tax. This is, however, entirely distinct from that consent of the people to the tax which the theory of the French constitution made requisite. It is asserted that this perpetual taille was granted by the States-General in 1439, but this does not appear in the terms of any ordinance.

One thing is certain, that this tax, whether at first established with or without the concurrence of the States-General, was perpetual, and managed without any check upon the crown. The two acts of the reign of Charles VII, the establishment of a standing military force, and a perpetual tax for its support, were the great events of the period, and fatal to the liberties of France. There was henceforth but little check to the increasing power of the crown. The nobles lost their political influence; the people gained nothing. The precedent was improved by succeeding monarchs, until the absolute despotism of the crown was completely established.

H.

The taille was a land tax, but, instead of falling uniformly on all lands, was levied only on land held by commoners.

The parliament of Grenoble was established in 1453; that of Dijon in 1479. The term parliament in French history denotes always a judicial and not a legislative body. For a long time there was but a single parliament, that of Paris, the organization of which was defined by Philip the Fair in 1302. The first division came when the provincial parliament at Toulouse was created in 1443. The other provincial parliaments are indicated above.

Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, was defeated and slain at Nancy (1477), and Burgundy was annexed to France, thus ending a long rivalry and contest.

For an excellent sketch of French history during the period of this chapter, see Duruy’s History of France, pages 148-283.

The Inquisition was an organization under authority of the Church for the detection, punishment, and suppression of heresy. The idea that it was a duty of the Church to ferret out and punish heresy had been common from the early days. The outburst of heretical ideas in southern France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries—for example, the Albigenses—occasioned a more definite organization of inquisitorial processes. The name was borrowed from the duties of certain civil officers of France touching taxation. A formal tribunal was created, and by papal authority it soon became the special function of the Dominicans to carry on the work. It found strongest foothold in Spain. There it had a political function in part, but only because the unorthodox in matters of religion—the Jews, the Moors, and, later, the Protestants—were also usually independent in their political thinking, and hence were regarded as a menace to the government.

The house of Hapsburg (Austria) occupied the throne of Austria and of the Holy Roman Empire of Germany from 1438 to 1740.

The Hundred Years’ War, 1336-1453; the Wars of the Roses, 1455-1485.

See page 380, note.

The same idea is recognized in the constitutions of all free republics. The treaty-making power, and the conduct of international and diplomatic business, are placed in the hands of the executive. The attempt of the people, or even of the legislature, to dictate or guide matters in this field generally produces confusion and international discord. When, however, the question of war and its expenses is involved, modern ideas demand that the people, or their representatives, should be consulted.

Allowance should be made for the fact that the parliament did not have full confidence in James, and that he did not give unqualified assent to their desire for war.

The quarrel between Boniface VIII (1294-1303) and Philip IV of France resulted in the election of a Frenchman as pope in 1305 (Clement V), who transferred the papal throne to Avignon (1309), where it was under the domination of the French king until 1376, when it was restored to Rome. During this period of “Babylonian captivity” the papacy lost authority with other nations, and even, at last, with some of the clergy. In 1378, upon the death of Gregory XI, a dispute arose between the French and the Italian cardinals over the election of his successor. Each party elected a pope, one of whom sat at Rome, the other at Avignon. Two popes, two capitals, and a divided Church were fatal to papal authority.

See page 273, note. This Pragmatic Sanction recognized the authority of general councils as superior to that of the pope, restored to churches and abbeys the right of electing their heads, forbade the payment of annates, and permitted the reception and publication in France of papal bulls only after the king’s approval.

The Concordat increased both papal and kingly power by placing the selection of bishops and abbots in the hands of the king, by giving the pope the annates or first year’s revenue of every ecclesiastical benefice within the king’s nomination. The principle that the pope was subordinate to the general council was given up.

The Jansenists and the Gallicans differed on points of theology, but were at one in opposing the claims of supremacy in the Church contended for and exercised by the pope.

These propositions, drawn up by Bossuet, were decreed by a convocation of the French clergy assembled by Louis XIV, in 1682, and are called the Quatuor Propositiones Cleri Gallicani. They declare that power and authority are given by God to the Vicar of Christ in spiritual, but not in temporal things; that this power is limited and restrained by the laws of the Church and general councils; and that the sentence of the pope is not unchangeable unless sanctioned by the Church Catholic; [and that the rules and usages received in France and in the Gallican Church shall remain unchangeable]. These decrees are the foundation of the independence of the Gallican Church. H.

The fundamental feature marking the views of Huss was the placing of the Scriptures above the ordinances and dogmas of the Church as a basis for theological opinion. This, carried to its logical conclusion, was necessarily a repudiation of the final authority of both Church and pope as interpreters of theological belief.

The influence of the revival of learning on the subsequent civilization of Europe is too important to be discussed in a few words. The fact that the lecturer at the outset limited himself to “the history of the exterior events of the visible and social world” is his excuse for not tracing the development of the human mind during these momentous centuries. The revival of classical study was but one phase of the Renaissance. It is possible to trace the development of the movement. The nature and various stages in the progress of the revival are seen in (1) the Arabian schools in Spain, (2) scholasticism, (3) the growth and spread of schools and universities in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, (4) the rise of modern languages and literatures of Europe, (5) the humanists and the revival of classic learning, (6) the spread of Greek learning after the fall of Constantinople, (7) new scientific methods, (8) printing, and the spread of literature.

Pietro Bembo (1470-1547), Italian scholar and cardinal; loose in his life; princely in his method of living; a devotee of literature, and a writer of pure and classic taste. See Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, ii, page 409.

This act may be considered as the logical consequence of social forces set in motion by the posting of the ninety-five theses in 1517. For a carefully prepared translation of these theses, and of other documents connected with this period, see Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History (University of Pennsylvania), vol. ii, No. 6.

Henry, Duke of Guise, organized the Holy League (1576), of which the ostensible purpose was to resist the Huguenots, but the real purpose was to aid the duke in gaining the crown. His death, and also that of the king, in 1589, not only dissolved the league, but made certain the accession of Henry of Navarre.

Consult Lecture XIII.

Richelieu’s policy in the Thirty Years’ War was dictated purely by political motives.

The Fronde, a political party and insurrection whose chief aim was to stir up strife against the government, bears a superficial resemblance to the Great Rebellion in England. They were alike so far as both made absolutism the prime object of attack, but utterly different in the spirit underlying each. The religious element was entirely wanting to the Fronde.

See page 306.

Especially was this the case in Germany. In England and Spain, commerce and colonization are prominent facts of the period, while in France the upbuilding of the monarchy stands out in high relief.

See pages 304, 310ff.

The reappearance of the religious reform movement connects itself closely with the revival of learning, the two chief phenomena of which are (1) the founding of universities in Germany and (2) the multiplication of books. These factors forbade the dissolution of reform ideas. Books preserved the thoughts of Wycliffe and Huss. The printing press disseminated those of Erasmus and Luther.

It is manifestly impossible within the space of a brief note to attempt any historical sketch of this great period. A good knowledge of the events is, however, essential to the appreciation of M. Guizot’s discussion. In addition to the brief accounts given in the general histories ordinarily accessible, the following works may be used with advantage by the student who desires a more comprehensive idea of the scope and meaning of the period: Seebohm, Protestant Reformation (contains a brief but good bibliography); Ranke, History of the Popes; Häusser, The Period of the Reformation; Fisher, History of the Reformation; D’Aubigne, History of the Reformation (intensely Protestant); Spalding, History of the Protestant Reformation (strongly Roman Catholic); Köstlin’s Martin Luther will also be found of value. Fisher, Outlines of Universal History, p. 450, and Andrews, Institutes of General History, p. 256, give brief bibliographies. (that is, of the confession and satisfaction which are performed under the ministry of priests).”

“(4) The penalty thus continues as long as the hatred of self (that is, true inward penitence); namely, till our entrance into the kingdom of heaven.”

“(35) They preach no Christian doctrine who teach that contrition is not necessary for those who buy souls out of purgatory or buy confessional licenses.

“(36) Every Christian who feels true compunction has of right plenary remission of punishment and guilt, even without letters of pardon.”

“(81) This license in the preaching of pardons makes it no easy thing, even for learned men, to protect the reverence due to the pope against the calumnies, or, at all events, the keen questionings of the laity.” Translations and Reprints, vol. ii, No. 6.

The sale of indulgences in general, and by Tetzel and his colleagues in particular, constitutes a most important feature of the movement. The theory of indulgences as preached by Tetzel is shown in a pattern sermon to be used by the priests in his district around Leipzig: “With these confessional letters you will be able at any time in life to obtain full indulgence for all penalties imposed upon you, in all cases except in the four reserved to the Apostolic See. Throughout your whole life, whenever you wish to make confession, you may receive the same remission, except in cases reserved to the pope, and afterwards, at the hour of death, a full indulgence as to all penalties and sins, and your share of all spiritual blessings that exist in the Church militant and all its members. . . . Are you not willing, then, for the fourth part of a florin, to obtain these letters, by virtue of which you may bring, not your money, but your divine and immortal soul, safe and sound into the land of Paradise?”

That the practice was grossly abused at this time admits of no question. Tetzel’s appearance at Jüterbogk, but a few miles from Wittenberg, aroused Luther to action. His views (subject to revision on convicion) are expressed in the following, among the ninety-five theses: “(1) Our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, in saying ‘Repent ye,’ etc., intended that the whole life of believers should be penitence.

“(2) This word cannot be understood of sacramental penance

With the rise of scholasticism there sprang up independent, free associations of students, after the ancient Greek order. These free associations became formal organizations afterwards, with a single recognized head, called the “rector.” Municipalities and princes, as well as the papacy, granted them charters, and they became permanent institutions equally with the monasteries and communes. Each school had its specialty, as: Paris, theology; Bologna, law; Salerno, medicine. Later, other faculties were added to each, and modern universities were born.

The Edict of Nantes (1598) guaranteed to the Huguenots liberty of conscience; freedom of worship; right to all public offices equally with Catholics; exclusive political control for eight years over Nîmes, Montauban, La Rochelle, and a few other towns; and the right to assemble by deputies every three years in order to present to the government their complaints. The latter clause, constituting them a veritable imperium in imperio, afforded a sufficient pretext for the revocation of the entire edict by Louis XIV.

Jacques Bénigne Bossuet (1627-1704), a famous French orator and Roman Catholic theologian, author of several books in exposition of Roman Catholic doctrines. Jean Claude (1619-1687), a prominent French Protestant preacher and theologian. Bossuet and Claude were engaged in frequent theological controversy; in 1678 occurred their noted conference or discussion on the authority of the Church; both claimed the victory. This freedom of discussion ceased with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

Climatic conditions as well as political considerations must not be overlooked.

This statement is more exact than the passage on page 328, with which it is not easily harmonized.

No doubt the assertion of this principle of absolute independence, or the unlimited right of private judgment in religion, became and has continued to be the great characteristic result of the religious revolution. But the Reformation did not at the outset (any more than many other great revolutions) generalize itself, define and enunciate the principles on which it proceeded. It began with opposition to special abuses and corruptions. Neither Luther nor his associates comprehended at first how far they should be carried. It was only in the sequel that the right of private judgment in religion was brought out, asserted, and contended for as a principle. Luther himself and the earliest reformers did not contend for it as an absolute principle. This is evident from the continual offers of Luther to submit himself implicitly to the decision of a general council. It is evident, moreover, from the fact that the reformers, just as much as the papists, held it right to inflict coercion, physical pains, and death upon those who denied what they regarded as the essential faith.

From the point of view of our age, the inconsistency of the Reformation is glaring, when one recalls the intolerance of the reformers.

Now whether the principle of independence of all authority, the absolutely unlimited right of private judgment in matters of religious faith, be or be not a correct principle, it will not be disputed at the present day that absolute independence of all human authority, and so far forth the unlimited right of private judgment, is a correct principle, and that all coercion or physical punishment is a monstrous absurdity and a monstrous crime. Yet nothing is clearer from history than that the reformers did not understand, did not act upon this principle; it was a century and a half before Protestants learned definitively that they had no right to inflict death, imprisonment, stripes or fines upon heretics, and no right beyond that of simply separating from their communion.

Intellectual authority is doubtless included, respect for which rests on the double basis (1) of recognition of equality and superiority in others, and (2) a profound regard for the truth as revealed in the experience of others.

Rose, Ignatius Loyola and the Rise of the Jesuits, may be consulted. An excellent sketch of the rise of the Jesuits is given in Sir James Stephens’s essay on Loyola, in his Ecclesiastical Essays. The literature of the subject is abundant.

Since the time of Henry VIII the power of the Church over legislation and administration has been gradually decreasing. Since Archbishop Laud (1645), the advisers and ministers of the sovereign have, almost without exception, been laymen.

The French revolution of 1789.

Perhaps there is no epoch in the world’s history where one can find more diversified interests and conflicting motives than in the Reformation. It has a separate history for each nation and a separate history for the various classes of society. To the German peasant it seemed to offer an escape from the burdens of feudalism; to the noble, an opportunity for gain; to the emperor, another force to check the the papacy; to the scholar, it meant intellectual emancipation. The Reformation cannot be separated from the period which preceded it. The new spirit, which in Italy produced its magic effects in art, literature, and culture, in Germany awoke the religious fervor of the people. As one has said, “This new spirit in Italy emancipated the human intelligence by the classics; in Germany it emancipated the human intelligence by the Bible.” The struggle was between Teutonic freedom and Latin authority, between the spirit of Saxon and Roman law. It was, in fact, the last Germanic invasion of the sacred soil of Rome. It prepared the way for the political revolutions which followed.

A distinction may be made between the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth and those of James and Charles; the former rested on the fact of power, the latter on the pretense of prerogative. The reigns of Edward I and III, on the other hand, were based on a constitutional right. They recognized the king as a part of the nation; the Stuarts sought to be the state.

The wholesale dissolution of monasteries and gilds restored about one fourth of the lands of England to individual ownership, while the breaking up of the three-field system and the inclosure of the commons produced a revolution in methods of agriculture. See Cunningham’s Growth of English Industry and Commerce.

The formation of the House of Commons dates from the first appearance of the third estate as a permanent factor in legislation. This was in the Model Parliament of 1295.

The Acts of Parliament leading up to the separation of the Church of England from the Church of Rome are: (1) Act of 1533, prohibiting appeals to Rome; (2) Act of 1534, ordering all payments to Rome stopped; (3) Act of Supremacy, 1534, declaring Henry the supreme head on earth, under God, of the Church of England. By the Act of the Six Articles, 1539, Parliament sanctions the first creed of the new Church.

The division of parties as given in the lecture is somewhat arbitrary.

His name at this time was Edward Hyde; he was created first Earl of Clarendon by Charles II.

The Grand Remonstrance (1641) shows, perhaps better than anything else, the formation of party lines in England. This document, drawn by Pym and Hampden, had, as its object, an appeal to the nation to support the parliament against the king. Its two hundred and six clauses may be divided into, (1) the political clauses which asserted the power and prerogative of parliament, and (2) the religious clauses which advocated, in indefinite terms, the “peace and good government of the Church.” The former were subscribed to even by Falkland and Hyde, while the contest over the latter was so fierce that it threw the Episcopalians into the ranks of the Royalists, and thus left the Presbyterians as the champions of the parliamentary principles. Later, however (1647), the Presbyterians were divided by the excesses of the radical element (Independents), and the right wing was driven to join with the Royalists.

The cause of this success was rather the possession of military power than the promulgation of popular principles.

Views are apt to differ widely in making comparisons. Following is that of Goldwin Smith: “The chief (Cromwell) was not a Cæsar; much less was he a Bonaparte, an unprincipled soldier of fortune, vaulting on the back of a Revolution to make himself an emperor. The relation of Cromwell to the English Revolution was not that of a Napoleon, but, if it is not blasphemy to mention the two names together, that of a Robespierre. The chief of the Rousseauists was the leader of the most religious and the deepest part of the French movement.”

Cromwell’s fondness for power may well be admitted, but not to the extent that it was his “darling ambition.” That he desired “to place the crown on his own head and keep it in his family” is without historic proof. Although he was privately and officially pressed to take the title of king, his answer was final: “I cannot undertake this government with the title of king. And that is mine answer to this great and weighty business.” The sincerity of his refusal can be judged only by his other acts.

Cromwell’s vigilance, as well as the success he attained, disarmed opposition and prevented the formation during his lifetime of any organized effort for his overthrow.

The Restoration was a restoration of Parliament as well as of monarchy. The years which followed brought about a combination of the two, which culminated in the Bill of Rights (1687).

The title Prime Minister was first applied to Robert Walpole, but was not used in any official document until the Congress of Berlin (1870).

Two causes working together account for the fall of Clarendon: (1) The inherent weakness of his political theory; (2) his outspoken disapproval of the king’s conduct and life. The latter cause initiated his dismissal, the former made it popular.

The Cabal ministry consisted simply of a few members of the Privy Council, whom the king chose as his advisers. They did not constitute a ministry in the modern sense, since they were responsible to the king and not to parliament. Their sole bond of agreement was religious toleration. The statements in this passage of the lecture are too sweeping to be exact.

By the treaty of Nimwegen (1678), the integrity of Holland was practically guaranteed, and the dream of France of a boundary on the Rhine partially realized.

But to Louis the treaty was only a truce. He continued his armies on a war footing and strengthened his fortresses. By the words of the treaty, the ceded towns were to be surrendered “with their dependencies.” Courts, called Chambers of Reunion, were organized by Louis (1679) to adjudge what territories in Alsace, Franche-Comté, and the three bishoprics were included in the term “dependencies.” These courts were well instructed. They awarded all of Alsace, Zweibrücken, and Saarbrück to France. With Alsace went Strasburg, through the influence of French arms and money. This alienated the emperor, as the occupation of Zweibrücken alienated Sweden. A quarrel with the pope turned many Catholics against Louis, as did the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) the Protestants. Poland, Spain, and the Turks were alienated. The result was the secret formation of the League of Augsburg under the leadership of William of Orange for the maintenance of the Treaty of Nimwegen. Two years later William landed in England, unhindered by France. French troops were then moved to the Rhine and the Palatinate occupied. War was now begun along the whole frontier. The expulsion of James gave William the power and support he sought to fight Louis. At first the victories were all with the French. In 1696 the tide began to turn. England regained control of the sea. France was exhausted. “Half the kingdom,” Vauban wrote, “lived on the charity of the other half.” Peace was made at Ryswick, 1697. William III was acknowledged as King of England; all conquests made by France since 1678, with but few exceptions, were restored to the empire; and the Dutch were allowed to garrison the barrier fortresses between France and Holland. Thus did Louis XIV renounce his claim to be the dictator of Europe, and the Protestant succession in England was made secure.

Louis’s policy towards England accounts in large measure for the success of Charles II and for the failure of James. Towards Charles, Louis played a double game, furnishing money in vast sums to secure a dissolution of parliament when it seemed inclined to peace with Holland (as in 1674 and 1682), and assisting the opposition party to attack the king if he became too independent.

Towards James his tactics were altered somewhat. James’s open avowal of Catholicism made it certain in Louis’s mind that James would not ally himself with Holland, but would find sufficient employment with parliament at home. Consequently French gold flowed less and less frequently northward, and Louis made up the lack in “moral support.” Parliament, however, which had been greatly strengthened by the conduct of Charles, saw in Catholic Louis the dictator of the royal policy and religion for England, and looked to William of Orange as their deliverer at once from Catholicism and from foreign corruption.

The following summary of the events in this period may be helpful:

Authorities on this period are numerous and easily accessible. Ranke, Hallam, Gardiner, are standard works. The Epochs of Modern History are handy and helpful, while Montague, Elements of English Constitutional History, supplies information on many of the constitutional points. Bright, History of England, Green, Short History of the English People, and Ransome, History of England, are among the best of the shorter histories.

This lecture might perhaps with greater appropriateness be termed either Absolute Monarchy in France or The Philosophical Revolution.

The following works will help the student more fully to comprehend the lecture: Kitchin, History of France; Duruy, History of France; Perkins, France under Richelieu and Mazarin; Perkins, France under the Regency; Buckle, History of Civilization in England, chap. viii-xiv.

See Lecture II.

Such development, when clearly successive, is usually revolutionary. The contemporaneous growth of varying elements in the same general society indicates a more steady form of progress.

One must not forget that the communes and free cities of France had, by the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, made a decided break in the feudal system and an encroachment upon the sway of feudalism.

This is one of the author’s sweeping statements on a point where there is room for difference of opinion.

One notable exception to this is England’s experiment in constitutional monarchy. A liberal view would assert that this began with the reign of Edward I (1272), and, with the exception of the period of the Tudors (1485-1603), when a relapse occurred, has been continuous to our time. The more conservative view would show constitutional monarchy, broad and substantially complete, from the seventeenth century.

It may be doubted whether such names as those of John Locke (1632-1704) in political philosophy, Isaac Newton (1642-1727) in mathematics, or Edward Gibbon (1734-1794) in history (to whom M. Guizot is largely indebted), will not always be ranked with those of the great continental writers.

Comparing the statement in the text with what the author says on page 392, one is led to think that England in the latter half of the sixteenth century had attained as influential a spirit of free inquiry as France in the early part of the seventeenth century. The influence of Locke in political and Bacon in speculative philosophy made the advance of French philosophy in Europe possible.

The cause for this is, in part, the language. French having taken the place of Latin as the common language of courts and schools, it was but natural that it should become a medium for science and philosophy. The fact that Louis XIV was a great patron of arts and letters also accounts for much. This does not, however, necessarily denote the leadership of French thought in Europe.

The lectures of M. Cousin on philosophy, and of M. Villemain on French literature, delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, at the same time with the lectures of M. Guizot, constituting the present volume.

From 1795 to 1799 the government of the Directory was in power in France, but during its later years became weak and inefficient. On the 9th of October, 1799, Bonaparte returned unannounced from Egypt. On the 16th he was in Paris; on the 22d his brother Lucien was elected President of the Council of Five Hundred; and on the 9th of November (18th Brumaire), by a coup d’état, the execution of which was left to Bonaparte, the government of the Directory was swept away, and Bonaparte was master of the situation. A provisional government of three consuls was agreed upon. A committee, headed by Sieyès, was appointed to draw up a constitution, which, after important modification by Bonaparte, was accepted by the people of France by a vote of 3,011,107 to 1,567. The Consulate was proclaimed on the 24th of December, with Bonaparte as First Consul. The internal policy of the Consulate was (1) one of general reconciliation of all the warring elements under the Directory; (2) general amnesty and freedom for those who had emigrated during the previous years; (3) enforcement of the Constitution; (4) restoration of credit; (5) the codification of the law. The external policy was (1) war with Austria; (2) feigned friendship with Russia. The effect of both policies was magical in restoring confidence and order.

The death of Richelieu occurred in 1642, six months before that of his sovereign, Louis XIII (1643). Louis XIV was but five years of age. His mother, Anne of Austria, became Regent, and appointed Cardinal Mazarin as her prime minister. Abroad, Mazarin showed unmistakable signs of genius; at home, his political dishonesty clouded every good he accomplished. Spain, an hereditary enemy, encouraged uprisings in the provinces and formed alliances with ambitious generals, like Prince Condé. The uprising of the Fronde disturbed the country; the Parliament of Paris, though primarily a judicial body, undertook to turn back the tide flowing towards centralized monarchy, and finally, in 1652, the king, then barely fifteen, declared he “forbade the assumption by Parliament hereafter of any cognizance of the general affairs of the state and of the direction of the finances.” Thus Louis, at the age of fifteen, was on the high road to absolutism.

Battle of Marengo, fought against the Austrians June 14, 1800, is one of Bonaparte’s most brilliant successes. In the short space of five weeks, it is said, he transported thirty-five thousand men, with artillery and baggage, across the Alps, defeated the enemy, restored French supremacy in northern Italy, and returned to Paris.

The states of Italy were, during the years 1494 to 1516, the prey of France and Spain. Charles VIII, as a member of the house of Anjou, revived its claims to the throne of Naples. The time was ripe. The other European powers were otherwise engaged. Turin, Genoa, Pavia, Florence, and Rome opened thir gates as if to a deliverer. Ferdinand II, king of Naples, was defeated. Charles was crowned king. Possession of the kingdom was soon lost; was regained by his son Louis XII in 1501, and again finally lost in the same year.

Charles V’s expeditions to Africa (1535 and 1541) were rather expeditions sent against pirates in the pay of the Porte; and since Charles was at war with the Sultan, these expeditions seemed as necessary as they were unsuccessful.

The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-’71 restored Alsace to Germany.

See page 362.

Algernon Sidney, beheaded for conspiracy in 1683.

Ludlow was one of the few who were not pardoned by the Act of Grace of William III (1690).

He was ambassador to England during the reign of James II, and was ordered to leave by William of Orange.

“The dominating trait of the government of Louis XIV was an immense effort to bring back into the hands of the prince all the forces of the country, doubtless to dispose of them in the interest of the country, but more especially for the interest of the king. Hence, that excessive centralization which enveloped the commerce, the industry, the political life, even the moral life, of France; and the thousand bonds of a minute regulation, so that the initiation of the ministers was almost universally substituted for individual and communal action.”—Duruy, History of Modern Times, p. 330.

Without Colbert and Louvois, Louis XIV would probably have lacked the two essential elements on which he relied, namely, money and arms. Colbert’s fame rests on his administration of finances. He created the budget, and shifted 22,000,000 francs from the shoulders of the peasantry to the privileged nobility, and increased the revenues by 27,000,000; instituted a protective system (1667), drained marshes, built roads, encouraged manufactures of wood, tin, crockery, etc.; established councils of arbitration and boards of trade; encouraged commerce by granting privileges to five great trading companies; built up a vast merchant marine and a navy; expanded the colonial power by settling old and acquiring new colonies. France to-day enjoys the fruits of Colbert’s great work. Louvois was almost equally great in military administration. He created corps of engineers, schools of artillery, cadet schools; reformed the army throughout; introduced a regular order of promotion; published new tactics; and established hospitals, notably the Hôtel des Invalides in Paris.

“These ordinances are the greatest work of codification which was executed, from Justinian’s time to Napoleon’s. A portion of them are still in force; the ordinance of the marine composes almost all the second book of the present French code of commerce.”—Duruy, History of France, Translation, p. 429.

Sometimes the character of a sovereign colors a reign and defines its history. The character of Philip II stands in strong contrast to that of Louis XIV. The former was phlegmatic, melancholy, and mastered by a fatalistic passivity; the latter was full of restless activity.

In the war of the Spanish Succession (1701—1714) the aim of Louis was to secure for his grandson Philip, Duke of Anjou, the throne of Spain. Charles II of Spain died without issue, leaving the throne of Spain vacant. Leopold I of Austria, cousin of Charles, claimed it; while Louis, by right of his wife, the eldest sister of Charles II, claimed it for his grandson Philip. Charles, just before he died, made a will, naming Philip as his heir. Leopold would not consent, and war was inevitable. England, the Netherlands, Prussia, and Portugal were drawn in against France for reasons connected mainly with the maintenance of the balance of power, and the Grand Alliance was formed against Louis. France was thoroughly humiliated and weakened in the war, but by the treaty of Utrecht (1713) Philip was permitted to ascend the throne of Spain.

The lectures of Villemain and Cousin are meant.

See page 339, note.

Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Diderot, D’Alembert, Condillac, Helvetius, Mably, Condorcet, etc., are the great philosophic speculators of the eighteenth century in France.

This expectation was fulfilled. Consult the author’s History of Civilization in france.

The author stood, perhaps, too near the eighteenth century to judge correctly the relative influence of French and English civilization. Duruy, in his Modern History, takes an opposite view. He leaves the impression that the “free mind” of the period arose in England. Voltaire himself said, “I went to England to learn how to think,” and he brought back to France the ideas of Locke, Newton, and Shakespere. Diderot freely acknowledges his obligation to Bacon, as Condorcet does to Locke.