a Divine right to kings, independent of the wishes of the people, has been one of the most enduring and most potent of superstitions, and it has even now not wholly vanished from the world.1

Mere isolated political events have, however, rarely or never this profound influence, unless they have been preceded and prepared by other agencies. The first predisposing cause of the ready reception of the doctrine of the Divine character of authority, may probably be found in the prominence of the monastic system. I have already observed that this system represents in its extreme form that exaltation of the virtues of humility and of obedience which so broadly distinguishes the Christian from the Pagan type of excellence. I have also noticed that, owing to the concurrence of many causes, it had acquired such dimensions and influence as to supply the guiding ideal of the Christian world. Controlling or monopolising all education and literature, furnishing most of the legislators and many of the statesmen of the age, attracting to themselves all moral enthusiasm and most intellectual ability, the monks soon left their impress on the character of nations. Habits of obedience and dispositions of humility were diffused, revered, and idealised, and a Church which rested mainly on tradition fostered a deep sense of the sanctity of antiquity, and a natural disposition to observe traditional customs. In this

There are some good remarks upon the way in which, among the free Franks, the bishops taught the duty of passive obedience, in Mably, Obs. sur l'Histoire de France, livre i. ch. iii. Gregory of Tours, in his address to Chilperic, had said: If any of us, O king, transgress the boundaries of justice, thou art at hand to correct us; but if thou shouldest exceed them, who is to condemn thee? We address thee, and if it please

thee thou listenest to us; but if it please thee not, who is to condemn thee save He who has proclaimed Himself Justice.'- Greg. Tur. v. 19. On the other hand, Hinçmar, Archbishop of Rheims, strongly asserted the obligation of kings to observe the law, and denounced as diabolical the doctrine that they are subject to none but God. (Allen, On the Royal Prerogative (1849), pp. 171–172.)

manner a tone of feeling was gradually formed that assimilated with the monarchical and aristocratical institutions of feudalism, which flourished chiefly because they corresponded with the moral feelings of the time.

In the next place, a series of social and political causes diminished the personal independence for which the barbarians had been noted. The king had at first been, not the sovereign of a country, but the chief of a tribe. Gradually, however, with more settled habits, the sovereignty assumed a territorial character, and we may soon discover the rudiments of a territorial aristocracy. The kings gave their leading chiefs portions of conquered land or of the royal domains, under the name of benefices. The obligation of military service was attached to these benefices, and by slow and perhaps insensible stages, each of which has been the subject of fierce controversy, they were made irrevocable, and ultimately hereditary. While society was still disorganised, small landlords purchased the protection of the Church, or of some important chief, by surrendering their estates, which they received back as tenants, subject to the condition of the payment of rent, or of military service. Others, without making such surrender, placed themselves under the care of a neighbouring lord, and offered, in return, homage or military aid. At the same time, through causes to which I have already adverted, the free peasants for the most part sank into serfs, subject to and protected by the landowners. In this manner a hierarchy of ranks was gradually formed, of which the sovereign was the apex and the serf the basis. The complete legal organisation of this hierarchy belongs to

1 The exact degree of the authority of the barbarian kings, and the different stages by which their power was increased, are matters of great controversy. The reader may consult Thierry's Lettres sur

l'Hist. de France (let. 9); Guizot's Hist. de la Civilisation; Mably, Observ. sur l'Hist. de France; Freeman's Hist. of the Norman Conquest, vol. i.

the period of feudalism, which is not within the scope of the present volume; but the chief elements of feudalism existed before Charlemagne, and the moral results flowing from them may be already discerned. Each rank, except the very highest, was continually brought into contact with a superior, and a feeling of constant dependence and subordination was accordingly fostered. To the serf, who depended for all things upon the neighbouring noble, to the noble, who held all his dignities on the condition of frequent military service under his sovereign, the idea of secular rank became indissolubly connected with that of supreme greatness.

It will appear evident, from the foregoing observations, that in the period before Charlemagne the moral and political causes were already in action, which at a much later period produced the organisation of chivalry-an organisation which was founded on the combination and the glorification of secular rank and military prowess. But, in order that the tendencies I have described should acquire their full force, it was necessary that they should be represented or illustrated in some great personage, who, by the splendour and the beauty of his career, could fascinate the imaginations of men. It is much easier to govern great masses of men through their imagination than through their reason. Moral principles rarely act powerfully upon the world, except by way of example or ideals. When the course of events has been to glorify the ascetic or monarchical or military spirit, a great saint, or sovereign, or soldier will arise, who will concentrate in one dazzling focus the blind tendencies of his time, kindle the enthusiasm and fascinate the imagination of the people. But for the prevailing tendency, the great man would not have arisen, or would not have exercised his great influence. But for the great man, whose career appealed vividly to the imagination, the prevailing tendency would never have acquired its full intensity.

This typical figure appeared in Charlemagne, whose

colossal form towers with a majestic grandeur both in history and in romance. Of all the great rulers of men, there has probably been no other who was so truly many-sided, whose influence pervaded so completely all the religious, intellectual, and political modes of thought existing in his time. Rising in one of the darkest periods of European history, this great emperor resuscitated, with a brief but dazzling splendour, the faded glories of the Empire of the West, conducted, for the most part in person, numerous expeditions against the barbarous nations around him, promulgated a vast system of legislation, reformed the discipline of every order of the Church, and reduced all classes of the clergy to subservience to his will, while, by legalising tithes, he greatly increased their material prosperity. He at the same time contributed, in a measure, to check the intellectual decadence by founding schools and libraries, and drawing around him all the scattered learning of Europe. He reformed the coinage, extended commerce, influenced religious controversies, and convoked great legislative assemblies, which ultimately contributed largely to the organisation of feudalism. In all these spheres the traces of his vast, organising, and far-seeing genius may be detected, and the influence which he exercised over the imaginations of men is shown by the numerous legends of which he is the hero. In the preceding ages the supreme ideal had been the ascetic. When the popular imagination embodied in legends its conception of humanity in its noblest and most attractive form, it instinctively painted some hermit-saint of many penances and many miracles. In the Romances of Charlemagne and of Arthur we may trace the dawning of a new type of greatness. The hero of the imagination of Europe was no longer a hermit, but a king, a warrior, a knight. The long train of influences I have reviewed, culminating in Charlemagne, had done their work. The age of the ascetics began to fade. The age of the crusades and of chivalry succeeded it.

It is curious to observe the manner in which, under the influence of the prevailing tendency, the career of Charlemagne was transfigured by the popular imagination. His military enterprises had been chiefly directed against the Saxons, against whom he had made not less than thirty-two expeditions. With the Mohammedans he had but little contact. It was Charles Martel, not his grandson, who, by the great battle of Poitiers, had checked their career. Charlemagne made, in person, but a single expedition against them in Spain, and that expedition was on a small scale, and was disastrous in its issue. But in the Carlovingian romances, which arose at a time when the enthusiasm of the Crusades was permeating Christendom, events were represented in a wholly different light. Charles Martel has no place among the ideal combatants of the Church. He had appeared too early, his figure was not sufficiently great to fascinate the popular imagination, and by confiscating ecclesiastical property, and refusing to assist the Pope against the Lombards, he had fallen under the ban of the clergy. Charlemagne, on the other hand, was represented as the first and greatest of the crusaders. His wars with the Saxons were scarcely noticed. His whole life was said to have been spent in heroic and triumphant combats with the followers of Mohammed.1 Among the achievements attributed to him was an expedition to rescue Nismes and Carcassonne from their grasp, which was, in fact, a dim tradition of the victories of Charles Martel.2 He is even said to have carried his victorious arms into the heart of Palestine, and he is the hero of what are probably the three earliest extant romances of the Crusades. In fiction, as in history, his reign forms the

1 Fauriel, Hist. de la Poésie provençale, tome ii. p. 252. 2 Ibid, p. 258.

3 Le Grand D'Aussy, Fabliaux,

VOL. II.

Τ

préf. p. xxiv. These romances were accounts of his expeditions to Spain, to Languedoc, and to Palestine.