The sword and the Gospel went together in Germany, as the sword and the Koran in Asia. Monasteries, those asylums of peace, amidst the storms of the middle ages, were founded in Germany by the labours of Boniface.

England.

In the pontificate of Gregory the Great, the Gospel was preached to the Anglo-Saxons by Augustine and his companions sent by the zealous pontiff from Rome with that design. Their first efforts were in the kingdom of Kent, whose king, Ethelbert, was married to a Christian princess of the house of Meroveus. The king and his nobles embraced the new faith, which was gradually extended to the other kingdoms into which the AngloSaxons had partitioned the island. It is a remarkable feature in the character and piety of the Anglo-Saxon princes, that continually the world was edified by the sight of one of them quitting his throne, and all the pomps and cares of royalty, and retiring to pass the evening of his days in the shade of a monastery, or in the holy city of the supreme pontiff.

CHAP. III.

THE TIMES OF CHARLEMAGNE AND HAROON-ER-RASHEED.

Italy.

AMONG other practices of the ancient heathenism which had gradually crept into the church of Christ, was that of the worship of images. When Leo, the Isaurian, mounted the imperial throne, either guided by reason, or by early prejudices, he warmly espoused the side of the Iconoclasts, image-breakers, who opposed their worship, and a council assembled at Constantinople pronounced it to be heretical. When the imperial edict arrived in Italy, obedience to it was refused; and, at the exhort

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728. ation of Pope Gregory II., all Italy, save Naples, rose in arms to oppose the profane emperor: his troops were massacred when they landed in that country; and the pope, in the plenitude of his power, was about to direct the election of a new emperor.

The authority of the Byzantine emperors in Rome was little more than nominal: the city had nearly returned to its republican form; the bishop was considered as the first magistrate; and thus the temporal power of the popes was founded on the best of grounds, the free choice of the people. A series of able, enterprising, and dignified pontiffs, the three Gregories, Zachary, Stephen, Paul, firmly established this sacerdotal dominion.

Lütprand, king of the Lombards, took Ravenna, and menaced Rome. This prince aimed at uniting all Italy under one sovereign; but the policy of the popes, and the resistance of the princes and states, prevented the execution of his designs. The iron crown passed, 744. after the death of his nephew and successor Hildebrand, to Rachis duke of Friuli, who shortly after, with his wife and daughter, abandoned the cares of royalty, and retired 749. to the monastery of Monte Casino. The choice of the

nation fell on his brother Astolfo (Aistulf). This prince made the final conquest of the exarchate of Ravenna, and summoned Rome to acknowledge his sovereignty. The pride of Rome and the pope disdained submission; but their strength was unequal to the conflict: they turned their eyes for aid beyond the Alps; and Stephen III. in person crossed those mountains to implore the compassion of the pious Franks, and of Pepin, the illustrious son of Charles Martel. He implored not in vain: an army, led by Pepin in person, entered Italy, and Astolfo swore to respect the possessions of the church; but hardly was Pepin gone, when the Lombard forgot his vow. Pepin was again called on, and Astolfo was again reduced to 756. submission.

Astolfo was succeeded by Desiderius, duke of Tuscany. Falling into a dispute about their frontiers with

pope Hadrian II., the latter called on his powerful ally, Charlemagne, son of Pepin: the passes of the Alps were betrayed, the vassals fell off, the Lombard king was shut up in Pavia, his capital, his valiant son Adelgis A. D. vainly implored, in person, aid at Byzantium. After a 774. siege of two years, treachery gave Pavia to the French, and Lombardy became a part of the empire of the son of Pepin. A grateful pope (Leo) crowned the French 800. monarch emperor of the West. Rome did homage to his power: the duke of Benevento, whose duchy embraced the modern kingdom of Naples, acknowledged himself his vassal; the Venetians, who, since the days of Attila, had dwelt in their isles and lagunes, revered his authority.

The Lombards retained their laws and usages; each person and each district of Italy was governed by local or adopted laws. The great cities were governed by dukes, aided by a council of bishops, abbots, counts, knights, and gentlemen. The pope exercised at Rome the power possessed by the dukes in the other cities. He was chosen by the clergy and people, and the choice confirmed by the emperor.

Empire of Charlemagne.

On the death of Charles Martel the kingdom of the Franks was thrown into some confusion. The German provinces armed in favour of his son Grypho, against his brothers Carloman and Pepin. The latter were victorious in the contest, and an end was put to the duchy of Allemannia. Chilperic occupied the seat of Clovis; the power of the monarchy was wielded by Pepin. Pope Zachary pronounced that it was lawful for the title to follow the power; and at Soissons, where, 266 years before, the empire of the Franks had been founded by Clovis, his last descendant was formally deposed in an assembly 752. of the nation, and sent to end his days in a convent, and Pepin crowned in his place. The new monarch quickly destroyed his brother Carloman, and humbled the great. His chief exploits were against the Lom

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768. bards in defence of the popes. At his death he divided his dominions between his sons Charles and Carloman. The latter lived but three years, and suspicion of having 771. hastened his end fell upon his brother.

Charles, called afterwards Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, early in his reign overturned the kingdom of the Lombards. During thirty years he carried on an obstinate war against the Saxons, on whom he sought to impose his yoke and Christianity. Headed by Wittikind, a second Arminius, the gallant nation resisted with vigour and perseverance. Gottfried, king of Denmark, aided and gave refuge to them; but the Obotrites of Mecklenburg joined the Franks, and Wittikind and his people were at last forced to receive the religion and the law of Charlemagne. Several abandoned their country and took refuge in Denmark, whence their descendants united with the Northmen issued, and avenged the blood of their fathers on the descendants of their oppressors. In Spain, Charles appeared as the ally of the emir of Zaragoza, and established the Spanish March, extending from the Ebro to the Pyrenees. Barcelona was the residence of the French governor. In Germany, he extended the French dominion to the Elbe, and added the kingdom of Bohemia to the Germanic body. A conflict of eight years against the Avars of Pannonia gave him the possession of that country. His empire thus extended from the Ebro to the Elbe, from the ocean to the Vistula, and the Teyss and Save. The duke of Benevento acknowledged his supremacy; the king of England was his friend; the Christian princes of Spain regarded him as a patron. Haroon-er-Rasheed honoured him by gifts as an equal. Master of twothirds of the Western Roman empire, he was crowned emperor of the Romans by Leo, on the festival of Christmas, A. D. 800, in the sacred temple of St. Peter. His dynasty, called the Carlovingian, from Charles Martel, formed the second in France. After a long and victorious reign he left his empire, which he had widely

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extended, and to which he had given a code of laws, to 814. his son Louis the Debonair.

Feudal System.

As France was the chief seat of this celebrated system, the present period seems not unsuitable for giving a slight view of it.

The Franks, like the Burgundians, Lombards, and others of the barbarous nations, carried their original Germanic ideas with them into the countries they conquered. The land was divided into a number of districts, over each of which was a count to administer justice and collect the revenue in peace, to lead the military contingent in war. Several of these counties were under a duke. These offices were originally precarious, but gradually became hereditary in families, and the foundation of power and independence.

At the conquest, the lands which had been seized were distributed into portions, according to the rank of the occupant. That of the king was considerable, and those of the principal officers proportionably large. These lands were allodial, held in propriety on the sole condition of serving in the defence of the country. The owner of three mansi* was obliged to serve in person; where there were three possessors of single mansi, one served, the others contributed to equip him. All served at their own expense, and the period of service was limited.

Of the Romans, or original inhabitants, some retained their lands in propriety; others farmed those of the Franks. They were governed by their own laws. But the Franks stood higher in the eye of the law, and the Weregild, or composition for homicide, was always much greater in the case of a Frank than of a Roman.

The demesne lands of the crown were very extensive. They were the private estate of the sovereign, whence

* A mansus contained twelve jugera of land. Ducange.