View of the State of Europe During the Middle Ages

Fall of the Roman Empire.-Invasion of Clovis.First race of French Kings-Accession of Pepin.-State of Italy.-Charlemagne.-His Reign and Character.-Louis the Debonair.-His Successors. Calamitous state of the Empire in the ninth and tenth Centuries.-Accession of Hugh Capet. His first Successors. - Louis VII.Philip Augustus.- Conquest of Normandy. War in Languedoc.-Louis IX.-His Character.-Digression upon the Crusades.-Philip III. -Philip IV-Aggrandizement of French Monarchy under his Reign.-Reigns of his Children. -Question of Salique-Law.-Claim of Edward

the remainder was still nominally subject to the Roman empire, and governed by a certain Syagrius, rather with an independent than a deputed authority.

[A. D. 486.] At this time, Clovis, king of the Salian Franks, a tribe of Invasion of Germans long connected with Clovis. Rome, and originally settled upon the right bank of the Rhine, but who had latterly penetrated as far as Tournay and Cambray,* invaded Gaul, and defeated Syagrius at Soissons. The result of this victory was the subjugation of those provinces which had previously been considBEFORE the conclusion of the fifth cen- ered as Roman. But as their allegiance tury, the mighty fabric of empire, which had not been very strict, so their loss was valour and policy had founded upon the not very severely felt; since the empeSubversion of seven hills of Rome, was final-rors of Constantinople were not too proud the Roman ly overthrown, in all the west to confer upon Clovis the titles of consul Empire. of Europe, by the barbarous and patrician, which he was too prudent nations from the north, whose martial to refuse.†

III.

energy and whose numbers were irre

sistible. A race of men, formerly un-ent cities under the rule of their respective bishknown or despised, had not only dismem-ops, which Du Bos has with great ingenuity raised New settle- bered that proud sovereignty, upon very slight historical evidence, and in defiance ments of the but permanently settled them- of the silence of Gregory, whose see of Tours borbarbarous na- selves in its fairest provinces, pothesis is not to be absolutely rejected, because it dered upon the supposed territory. But his hytions. and imposed their yoke upon is by no means deficient in internal probability, and the ancient possessors. The Vandals the early part of Gregory's history is brief and negwere masters of Africa; the Suevi held ligent. Du Bos, Hist. Critique de l'Etablissement part of Spain; the Visigoths possessed des Français dans les Gaules, t. i., p. 253. Gibbon, the remainder, with a large portion of c. 38, after following Du Bos in his text, whispers, Gaul; the Burgundians occupied the provinces watered by the Rhone and Saone; the Ostrogoths almost all Italy. The northwest of Gaul, between the Seine and the Loire, some writers have filled with an Armorican republic; while

* It is impossible not to speak skeptically as to this republic, or rather confederation of independB

as usual, his suspicions in a note.

*The system of Père Daniel, who denies any permanent settlement of the Franks on the left bank of the Rhine before Clovis, seems incapable of being supported. It is difficult to resist the presumption that arises from the discovery of the tomb and skeleton of Childeric, father of Clovis, at Tournay, in 1653. See Montfaucon, Monumens de la Monarchie Française, tome i., p. 10.

The theory of Du Bos, who considers Clovis as a sort of lieutenant of the emperors, and as gov

Some years after this, Clovis defeated the Alemanni, or Swabians, in a great battle at Zulpich, near Cologne. In consequence of a vow, as it is said, made during this engagement, and at the instigation of his wife Clotilda, a princess of Burgundy, he became a convert to Christianity. [A. D. 496.] It would be a fruitless inquiry whether he was sincere in this change; but it is certain, at least, that no policy could have been more successful. The Arian sect, which had been early introduced among the barbarous nations, was predominant, though apparently without intolerance,† in the Burgundian and Visigoth courts; but the clergy of Gaul were strenuously attached to the Catholic side, and even before his conversion had favoured the arms of Clovis. They now became his most zealous supporters; and were rewarded by him with

artful gratitude, and by his descendants with lavish munificence. [A. D. 507.] Upon the pretence of religion, he attacked Alaric, king of the Visigoths, and, by one great victory near Poitiers overthrowing their empire in Gaul, reduced them to the maritime province of Septimania, a narrow strip of coast between the Rhone and the Pyrenees. The exploits of Clovis were the reduction of certain independent chiefs of his own tribe and family, who were settled in the neighbourhood of the Rhine.* All these he put to death by force or treachery; for he was cast in the true mould of conquerors, and may justly be ranked among the first of his class, both for the splendour and the guiltiness of his ambition.†

[A. D. 511.] Clovis left four sons; one illegitimate, born before his His descendconversion; and three by his ants. queen Clotilda. These four made, it is said, an equal partition of his dominions; which comprehended not only France, but the western and central parts of Germany, besides Bavaria, and perhaps Swabia, which were governed by their own dependant, but hereditary, chiefs. Thierry, the eldest, had what was called Austrasia, the eastern or German division, and fixed his capital at Metz; Clodomir, at Orleans; Childebert, at Paris; and Clotaire, at Soissons. During their reigns the monarchy was aggrandized by the

erning the Roman part of his subjects by no other title, has justly seemed extravagant to later critical inquirers into the history of France. But it may nevertheless be true, that the connexion between him and the empire, and the emblems of Roman magistracy which he bore, reconciled the conquered to their new masters. This is judiciously stated by the Duke de Nivernois. Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscript., tome xx., p. 174. In the sixth century, however, the Greeks appear to have been nearly ignorant of Clovis's countrymen. Nothing can be made out of a passage in Procopius, where he seems to mention the Armoricans under the name Apbopvxor; and Agathias gives a strangely romantic account of the Franks, whom he extols for their conformity to Roman laws, TOITEL W Ta Toda xr-conquest of Burgundy. [A. D. 558.Ỉ Clo

ται Ρομαΐκη, και νόμοις τοις αυτοίς, κ. τ. λ. He goes on to commend their mutual union, and observes particularly that, in partitions of the kingdom, which had frequently been made, they had never taken up arms against each other, nor polluted the land with civil bloodshed. One would almost believe him ironical.

* Gregory of Tours makes a very rhetorical story of this famous vow, which, though we cannot disprove, it may be permitted to suspect.-L. ii.,

c. 30.

† Hist. de Languedoc, par Vich et Vaissette, tome i., p. 238. Gibbon, c. 37. A specious objection might be drawn from the history of the Gothic monarchies in Italy, as well as Gaul and Spain, to the great principles of religious toleration. These Arian sovereigns treated their Catholic subjects, it may be said, with tenderness, leaving them in possession of every civil privilege, and were rewarded for it by their defection or sedition. But, in answer to this, it may be observed: 1. That the system of persecution adopted by the Vandals in Africa succeeded no better; the Catholics of that province having risen against them upon the landing of Belisarius: 2. That we do not know what insults and discouragements the Catholics of Gaul and Italy may have endured, especially from the Arian bishops, in that age of bigotry; although the administrations of Alaric and Theodoric were liberal and tolerant : 3. That the distinction of Arian and Catholic was intimately connected with that of Goth and Roman, of conqueror and conquered; so that it is difficult to separate the effects of national, from those of sectarian, animosity.

* Modern historians, in enumerating these reg uli, call one of them King of Mans. But it is difficult to understand how a chieftain, independent of Clovis, could have been settled in that part of France. In fact, Gregory of Tours, our only authority, does not say that this prince, Regnomeris, was King of Mans, but that he was put to death in that city: apud Cenomannis civitatem jussu Chlodovechi interfectus est.

The reader will be gratified with an admirable memoir, by the Duke de Nivernois, on the policy of Clovis, in the twentieth volume of the Academy of Inscriptions.

Quatuor filii regnum accipiunt, et inter se æquâ lance dividunt.-Greg. Tur., l. iii., c. 1. It would rather perplex a geographer to make an equal division of Clovis's empire into portions, of which Paris, Orleans, Metz, and Soissons should be the respective capitals. I apprehend, in fact, that Gregory's expression is not very precise. The kingdom of Soissons seems to have been the least of the four, and that of Austrasia the greatest. But the partitions made by these princes were exceedingly complex; insulated fragments of territory, and even undivided shares of cities, being allotted to the worse provided brothers, by way of compensation, out of the larger kingdoms. It would be very difficult to ascertain the limits of these minor monarchies. But the French empire was always considered as one, whatever might be the number of its inheritors; and from accidental circumstances it was so frequently reunited as fully to keep up this notion.

Grimoald, mayors of Neustria and Austrasia, the western and eastern divisions of the French monarchy.* These, however, met with violent ends; but a more successful usurper of the royal authority was Pepin Heristal, first mayor, and afterward duke, of Austrasia; who united, with almost an avowed sovereignty over that division, a paramount command over the French or Neustrian provinces, where nominal kings of the Merovingian family were still permitted to exist. This authority he transmitted to a more renowned hero, his son, Charles Martel, who, after some less important exploits, was called upon to encounter a new and terrible enemy. The Saracens, after sub

taire, the youngest brother, ultimately reunited all the kingdoms: but upon his death they were again divided among his four sons, and brought together a second time by another Clotaire [A. D. 613], the grandson to the first. It is a weary and unprofitable task to follow these changes in detail, through scenes of tumult and bloodshed, in which the eye meets with no sunshine, nor can rest upon any interesting spot. It would be difficult, as Gibbon has justly observed, to find anywhere more vice or less virtue. The names of two queens are distinguished even at that age for the magnitude of their crimes: Fredegonde, the wife of Chilperic, of whose atrocities none have doubted; and Brunehaut, queen of Aus-jugating Spain, had penetrated into the trasia, who has met with advocates in modern times, less, perhaps, from any fair presumptions of her innocence, than from compassion for the cruel death which she underwent.*

eracy.

[A. D. 628-638.] But after Dagobert, son of Clotaire II., the kings of France Their degen- dwindled into personal insignificance, and are generally treated by later historians as insensati, or idiots. The whole power of the kingMayors of the dom devolved upon the may

palace.

ors of the palace, originally officers of the household, through whom petitions or representations were laid before the king. The weakness of sovereigns rendered this office important, and still greater weakness suffered it to become elective; men of energetic talents and ambition united it with military command; and the history of France, for half a century, presents no names more conspicuous than those of Ebroin and

* Every history will give a sufficient epitome of the Merovingian dynasty. The facts of these times are of little other importance than as they impress on the mind a thorough notion of the extreme wickedness of almost every person concerned in them, and consequently of the state to which society was reduced. But there is no advantage in crowding the memory with barbarian wars and assassinations. For the question about Brunehaut's character, who has had partisans almost as enthusiastic as those of Mary of Scotland, the reader may consult Pasquier, Recherches de la France, 1. viii, or Velly, Hist. de France, tome i., on one side, and a dissertation by Gaillard, in the Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions, tome xxx., on the other. The last is unfavourable to Brunehaut, and perfectly satisfactory to my judgment.

An ingenious attempt is made by the Abbé Vertot, Mem. de l'Académie, tome vi., to rescue these monarchs from this long-established imputation. But the leading fact is irresistible, that all the royal authority was lost during their reigns. However, the best apology seems to be, that, after the victories of Pepin Heristal, the Merovingian kings were, in effect, conquered, and their inefficiency was a matter of necessary submission to a master.

very heart of France. Charles Martel gained a complete victory over them between Tours and Poitiers† [A. D. 732], in which 300,000 Mahometans are hyperbolically asserted to have fallen. The reward of this victory was the province of Septimania, which the Saracens had conquered from the Visigoths.

Such powerful subjects were not likely to remain long contented Change in the without the crown; but the royal family.

* The original kingdoms of Soissons, Paris, and Orleans, were consolidated into that denominated Neustria, to which Burgundy was generally appendant, though distinctly governed by a mayor of its which I do not know, was, from the time of Dagoown election. But Aquitaine, the exact bounds of bert I., separated from the rest of the monarchy, under a ducal dynasty, sprung from Aribert, brother of that monarch.

tiers; but I do not find that any French antiquary Tours is above seventy miles distant from Poihas been able to ascertain the place of this great battle with more precision; which is remarkable, since, after so immense a slaughter, we should expect the testimony of "grandia effossis ossa sepulcris."

The victory of Charles Martel has immortalized his name, and may justly be reckoned among those few battles of which a contrary event would have essentially varied the drama of the world in all its subsequent scenes; with Marathon, Arbela, the Metaurus, Châlons, and Leipsic. Yet do we not judge a little too much by the event, and follow, as usual, in the wake of fortune? Has not more frequent experience condemned those who set the fate of empires upon a single cast, and risk a general battle with invaders, whose greater peril is in delay? Was not this the fatal error by which Roderic had lost his kingdom? Was it possible that the Saracens could have retained any perma. nent possession of France, except by means of a victory? And did not the contest upon the broad campaign of Poitou afford them a considerable prospect of success, which a more cautious policy would have withheld?

This conquest was completed by Pepin in 759. The inhabitants preserved their liberties by treaty; and Vaissette deduces from this solemn assurance the privileges of Languedoc. Hist. de Lang., tome i., p. 412.

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