he was to support his dignity. Portions of these lands were frequently granted by the kings to favourites, under the name of benefices, under the usual condition of military service, which service appears to have differed from that of the allodial proprietors in this, that that of the latter was rather national, that of the former rather due to the monarch personally. These benefices were granted for life, and then returned to the crown; but the son of the beneficiary was generally continued in his benefice, and under the feeble Merovingians the benefices mostly became hereditary. The holders of hereditary benefices now began to bestow portions of their benefices on others to hold of themselves, under a similar tenure of military service. This practice, called sub-infeudation, spread greatly after the death of Charlemagne, and we have here the germ of the whole feudal system, with its burdens and obligations.

The dukes, counts, and marquisses, or margraves, who guarded the marches or frontiers, gradually encroached on the royal dignity. They made their dignities hereditary; they sought to appropriate to themselves the crown lands within their jurisdiction; they oppressed the free proprietors. These last were hitherto the strength of the state, and shared in the legislature, owing no duty but military service against the public enemy. They now were exposed without protection to the tyranny of the count or duke. The protection of a powerful man was the only security; the allodial lands were surrendered and received back as feudal; their owner acknowledged himself the vassal of a suzerain, and took on him the feudal obligations.

These obligations were mutual, as those between patrons and clients at Rome: the vassal was bound to follow his lord to war during a limited period, usually forty days, and that even against a superior lord or the king; he was not to divulge his lord's counsel, to injure his person or fortune, or the honour of his family. In battle he was to give his horse to his lord if dismounted, to give himself as an hostage for him if taken; he was

to attend his lord's courts as a witness or a judge. He was to pay a fine on receiving, and another on alienating his fief; and he was to pay an aid to redeem his lord from captivity, to enable his lord to pay his own fine to his superior lord, on taking possession of his fief, &c. The aids varied in number in different places, and these obligations mostly grew up gradually, as the power of the lords enabled them to encroach. On the part of the lord, the principal obligation was that of protection.

The church, though rich in lands, and hallowed by superstition, did not escape the universal outrage and spoliation. Though the clergy were often martial, they could not meet the feudal lords on equal terms. The rich abbeys, therefore, usually adopted the practice of choosing an advocate in the person of some neighbouring lord, on whom they bestowed sundry privileges, and generally some good fief; and who was, in consequence, bound to defend the interest of his clients in courts of law, and in the field of battle.

The feudal system did not arrive at full maturity during the time of the Carlovingians, and we have here somewhat anticipated. It was confined to the dominions of Charlemagne, and to countries which, like England, borrowed it from them.

England.

Nothing remarkable happened in England during this period, except the union of all the Anglo-Saxon king- A. D. doms, under the sceptre of Egbert, king of Wessex. 827 The Vikingar, or pirates of Scandinavia, now began to send forth those large fleets which were soon to spread devastation on the coasts of Europe, and Charlemagne shed tears at the sight of the first of them that appeared in the Mediterranean.

Constantinople.

Superstition, ignorance, and feebleness increased in

A. D.

742. the eastern empire. Leo the Isaurian was succeeded by his son Constantine V., who carried on the war against the images with apparent rather than real success. The short reign of Leo IV. was terminated by poison, as was supposed; and his widow, Irene, who governed under the name of her infant son Constantine VI., gave 780. a final triumph to the monks by solemnly establishing the worship of the images. This monk-lauded empress stained her hands with the blood of her own son, and then contrived to reign alone, the first sole regnant em802. press; but she lost her throne to the daring courage of Nicephorus. This emperor set himself resolutely but vainly against the image worship; the evil had come to too great a head. His son and son-in-law possessed the throne but three years. A soldier, Leo Bardanes, 813. next ascended the throne; but court intrigues and monkish arts impeded his judicious policy. His successor, Michael of Amorium, was feeble and unfortunate.

The external enemies of the empire during this period were the Arabs under the Abbasside khalifs, who ravaged Lesser Asia, and the Bulgarians, a Slavonian tribe, who advanced southwards towards the Adriatic, where they subsequently occupied Dalmatia. They were now on the southern bank of the Danube, in the country named from them. The emperor Nicephorus lost his 810. life in a battle with this nation.

The Abbasside Khalifs.

The house of Ommiyah failed in gaining the affections of its subjects. The family of the prophet was esteemed best entitled to his throne and pulpit. Of the line of Hashem, the Fatemites, or descendants of Ali by Fatema, the daughter of the prophet, had the prior 746. claim; but they were wanting in courage or talent. The Abbassides, the family of the prophet's uncle, Abbas, were numerous, prudent, and united: their partisans were chiefly in Persia, where Aboo Moslem, their chief support, first gave them dominion by the conquest of

Khorassan. Persia was from east to west a perpetual scene of conflict between the rival parties of the white and the black, as they were styled, from the colours of their ensigns. The Ommiyades unfurled the white banner of the prophet: their rivals displayed the opposite hue. Ibrahim, the chief of the house of Abbas, was waylaid on his pilgrimage to Mecca by the troops of Damascus, and he expired in the dungeons of Haran: his brothers, Saffah and Almansor, escaped to Cufa. Saffah was there proclaimed khalif. Mervan II., the Ommiyade khalif, collected a large army, and met the host of Saffah on the banks of the Zab. The Abbasside troops were least in number; but fortune favoured them. Mervan fled to Egypt; and in another engagement at Busir, on A. D. the banks of the Nile, he lost both life and empire.

750.

The unfortunate race of Ommiyah was now sought out and slaughtered. One youth alone, Abd-er-rahman, escaped the perquisitions of the Abbassides, and he fled to Africa. He was invited over to Spain by the friends and servants of his house. The governor, Yussuf, was forced 755. to yield to his arms; and from the city of Cordova the sceptre of the Ommiyades ruled during 283 years over the eight provinces into which Spain was divided.

After a short reign, Saffah was succeeded by his brother Almansor. The royal residence had at first been Medina Ali transferred it to Cufa; and Moawiyah to Damascus. Persia was the chief seat of the Abbasside power; and Almansor laid, on the eastern bank of the Tigris, the foundations of Bagdad, the royal seat of his 762. posterity for five hundred years. The arms of Almansor were successful against the nomades of Toorkistan ; but his expedition against the Ommiyade khalif of Spain encountered only disgrace and defeat.

The Greeks had taken advantage of the civil dissensions of the Moslems to recover a portion of their dominions. Mohadi, the successor of Almansor, retaliated during the reign of Irene and her son. Haroon, his second son, at the head of 95,000 Persians and Arabs, invaded Lesser Asia; and from the heights of

A. D. 781.

804.

Scutari, within view of the imperial city, dictated the terms of an ignominious peace.

Five years after this war, Haroon-er-Rasheed, or, the Just, ascended the throne of his father and his elder brother. During a reign of twenty-three years, this active prince eight times invaded the Grecian territories. In vain the emperor Nicephorus sent haughty defiances and denials of tribute; in vain he assembled large armies: his troops fled in dismay before the disciplined bands of the commander of the faithful; and the Byzantine gold was annually poured into the treasury of Bagdad. The memory of Haroon is renowned alike in both the East and West, as the hero of history and tale; but it is indelibly stained by the slaughter of the princely and guiltless Barmecides.

On his death his throne was disputed by his three sons; and, in the civil conflict, Al-Mamoon, the son of the filthy slave of the kitchen, triumphed over the issue of the haughty Zobeide. The memory of this prince is dear to literature and science, of which he was the zealous patron; and his peaceful acquisitions eclipse the martial deeds of his father.

Under the first khalifs and the house of Ommiyah no literature was attended to but the Koran and their native

poetry. Almansor began to encourage the acquisition of foreign literature: it was also patronised by Haroon; but Al-Mamoon far outstripped all his predecessors in its cultivation. At his command his agents and his ambassadors collected the best works of Grecian science, and his translators gave them an Arabic dress. The astronomy of Ptolemy, the medicine of Galen, the metaphysics of Aristotle, were read and commented on in the language of Arabia. The Ommiyade khalifs of Cordova, the Fatemites of Africa, vied with those of Bagdad in the collecting of books and the encouragement of science ; and from the schools established by them proceeded chiefly the medicine, physics, and metaphysics of Europe during the middle ages. But the poets, the orators, and the historians of the Grecian republics never learned to speak the language of Mohammedan despotism.