But turn to another side. Here we see that the first sparks of European imagination, that the first attempts of poetry, of literature, that the first intellectual gratifications which Europe tasted in emerging from barbarism, sprung up under the protection, under the wings, of feudalism. It was in the baronial hall that they were born, and cherished, and protected. It is to the feudal times that we trace back the earliest literary monuments of England, France, and Germany, the earliest intellectual enjoyments of modern Europe.

As a set-off to this, if we question history respecting the influence of feudalism upon the social system, its reply is, though still in accordance with our conjectures, that the feudal system has everywhere opposed not only the establishment of general order, but at the same time the extension of general liberty. Under whatever point of view we consider the progress of society, the feudal system always appears as an obstacle in its way. Hence, from the earliest existence of feudalism, the two powers which have been the prime movers in the progress of order and liberty-monarchical power on the one hand, and popular power on the other—that is to say, the king and the people-have both attacked it, and struggled against it continually. What few attempts were made at different periods to regulate it, to impart to it somewhat of a legal, a general character- -as was done in England, by William the Conqueror and his sons; in France, by St. Louis; and by several of the German Emperors-all these endeavors, all these attempts failed. The very nature itself of feudality is opposed to order and legality. In the last century, some writers of talent attempted to dress out feudalism as a social system; they endeavored to make it appear a legitimate, well-ordered, progressive state of society, and represented it as a golden age. Ask them, however, where it existed: summon them to assign it a locality, and a time, and they will be found wanting. It is a Utopia without date, a drama, for which we find, in the past, neither theatre nor actors. The cause of this error is noways difficult to discover; and it accounts as well for the error of the opposite class, who cannot pronounce the name of feudalism without coupling to it an absolute anathema. Both these parties have looked at it, as the two knights did at the statue of Janus, only on one side. They have not considered the two different points of view from which feudalism may be surveyed,

They do not distinguish, on one hand, its influence upon the progress of the individual man, upon his feelings, his faculties, his disposition and passions; nor, on the other, its influence upon the social condition. One party could not imagine that a social system in which were to be found so many noble sentiments, so many virtues, in which were seen sprouting forth the earliest buds of literature and science; in which manners became not only more refined, but attained a certain elevation and grandeur; in such a system they could not imagine that the evil was so great or so fatal as it was made to appear. The other party, seeing but the misery which feudalism inflicted on the great body of the people—the obstacles which it opposed to the establishment of order and liberty-would not believe that it could produce noble characters, great virtues, or any improvement whatsoever. Both these parties have misunderstood the twofold principle of civilization they have not been aware that it consists of two movements, one of which for a time may advance independently of the other; although after a lapse of centuries, and perhaps a long series of events, they must at last reciprocally recall and bring forward each other.

To conclude, feudalism, in its character and influence, was just what its nature would lead us to expect. Individualism, the energy of personal existence, was the prevailing principle among the vanquishers of the Roman world; and the development of the individual man, of his mind, and faculties, might above all be expected to result from the social system, founded by them and for them. That which man himself carries into a social system, his intellectual moral disposition at the time he enters it, has a powerful influence upon the situation in which he establishes himself-upon all around him. This situation in its turn reacts upon his dispositions, strengthens and improves them. The individual prevailed in German society; and the influence of the feudal system, the offspring of German society, displayed itself in the improvement and advance of the individual. We shall find the same fact to recur in the other elements of our civilization: they all hold faithful to their original principle; they have advanced and pushed the world in that same road by which they first entered. The subject of the next lecture-the history of the Church, and its influence upon European civilization, from the fifth to the twelfth cen

tury-will furnish us with a new and striking example of this fact, 10

10 To appreciate the views taken in the foregoing lecture, a knowledge of the peculiar institutions and customs of the Feudal System, and of the historical facts connected with its rise and progress, is requisite. The lecture might, within the same space, have been more full and instructive in these respects, with advantage to the disquisitions here presented. The needful information must be supplied by the lecturer, or the student must seek it for himself. The second chapter of Hallam's Middle Ages will perhaps best furnish within a brief compass all that is necessary.

The Feudal System, as a completely organized institution, cannot be said to have extended much beyond the limits of the empire founded by Charlemagne, which it will be remembered included France, Germany, Italy, and part of Spain. In France and Germany its working is best displayed.

The germs of the system existed, without doubt, long before the time of Charlemagne; but its full development is dated from the tenth century. Previous to this time, an important step in the progress of the system had been taken by the conversion of benefices (or lands granted by the kngs to their vassals upon condition of military service) into hereditary fiefs. But the event which completely established the Feudal System, subverting in the sequel the royal authority, and destroying the Carlovingian dynasty, was the act of Charles the Bold, who, in 879, made the governments of the counties hereditary. These provinces thus became great fiefs, the dukes and counts rendering homage indeed to the crown, but as to the rest exercising independent authority, and controlling all the lesser feudatories within their former jurisdiction.

It must be borne in mind that the Feudal System was both cause and effect of the wretched state of society during the times when it prevailed; whatever has been said of its benefits must be taken with great qualifications, and at all events applies almost wholly to the feudal proprietors; the lower classes, the mass of the people, were subject to every species of lawless oppression. By the year 1300, the system was substantially overthrown, although a great many of the odious and oppressive exactions which it entailed upon the peasantry, the cultivators of the soil, were perpetuated down to the French Revolution. The causes of its decline were the growth of the royal power, the increase of commerce-the rise of the free cities-and the formation of a middle class.

LECTURE V.

THE CHURCH.

HAVING investigated the nature and influence of the feudal system, I shall take the Christian Church, from the fifth to the twelfth century, as the subject of the present lecture. I say the Christian Church, because, as I have observed once before, it is not about Christianity itself, Christianity as a religious system, that I shall occupy your attention, but the church as an ecclesiastical society-the Christian hierarchy.

This society was almost completely organized before the close of the fifth century. Not that it has not undergone many and important changes since that period, but from this time the church, considered as a corporation, as the government of the Christian world, may be said to have attained a complete and independent existence.

A single glance will be sufficient to convince us, that there existed, in the fifth century, an immense difference between the state of the church and that of the other elements of European civilization. You will remember that I have pointed out, as primary elements of our civilization, the municipal system, the feudal system, monarchy, and the church. The municipal system, in the fifth century, was no more than a fragment of the Roman empire, a shadow without life, or definite form. The feudal system was still a chaos. Monarchy existed only in name. All the civil elements of modern society were either in their decline or infancy. The church alone possessed youth and vigor; she alone possessed at the same time a definite form, with activity and strength; she alone possessed at once movement and order, energy and system, that is to say, the two greatest means of influence. Is it not, let me ask you, by mental vigor, by intellectual movement on one side, and by order and discipline on the other, that all institutions acquire their power and influence over society? The church, moreover, awakened attention to, and agitated all the great

questions which interest man; she busied herself with all the great problems of his nature, with all he had to hope or fear for futurity. Hence her influence upon modern civilization has been so powerful-more powerful, perhaps, than its most violent adversaries, or its most zealous defenders, have supposed. They, eager to advance or abuse her, have only regarded the church in a contentious point of view; and with that contracted spirit which controversy engenders, how could they do her justice, or grasp the full scope of her sway?

To us, the church, in the fifth century, appears as an organized and independent society, interposed between the masters of the world, the sovereigns, the possessors of temporal power, and the people, serving as a connecting link between them, and exercising its influence over all.

To know and completely understand its agency, then, we must consider it from three different points of view: we must consider it first in itself—we must see what it really was, what was its internal constitution, what the principles which there bore sway, what its nature. We must next consider it in its relations with temporal rulers-kings, lords, and others; and, finally, in its relations with the people. And when by this threefold investigation we have formed a complete picture of the church, of its principles, its situation, and the influence which it exercised, we will verify this picture by history; we will see whether facts, whether what we properly call events, from the fifth to the twelfth century, agree with the conclusions which our threefold examination of the church, of its own nature, of its relations with the masters of the world, and with the people, had previously led us to come to respecting it.

Let us first consider the church in itself, its internal condition, its own nature.

The first, and perhaps the most important fact that demands our attention here, is its existence; the existence of a government of religion, of a priesthood, of an ecclesiastical corporation.

In the opinion of many enlightened persons, the very notion of a religious corporation, of a priesthood, of a government of religion, is absurd. They believe that a religion, whose object is the establishment of a clerical body, of a priesthood