as if the secular power had won the victory; but, in fact, throughout
the twelfth century; the claims which Gregory had put forward were
becoming practically effective partly from the great influence exercised
through the Crusades. These Papal pretensions reached their climax in
the great Pope Innocent III., who asserted with practical success the
right to pronounce absolutely on all disputes between princes or between
princes and their subjects, and to depose those who rejected his
authority. Throughout the thirteenth century Rome was once more mistress
of the world.
The Church derived great influence from the institution of mendicant
orders, especially those of St. Dominic and St. Francis which recovered
much of the esteem forfeited by the old Monastic orders. Another
instrument of Papal influence was the power of granting dispensations
both with regard to marriages and as to the keeping of oaths. If the
clergy were free for the most part from civil taxation, they were
nevertheless severely mulcted by the Papacy. The ecclesiastical
jurisdiction encroached upon the secular tribunals; the classes of
persons with respect to whom it claimed exclusive authority were
persistently extended, in spite of the opposition of such Princes as
Henry II. and Edward I.
At last, however, the Papal aggressor met his match in Philip the Fair.
When Boniface VIII. died, his successors first submitted to the French
monarchy and then became its nominees; while they resided at Avignon,
virtually under French control. The restoration of the pontificate to
Rome in 1375 was shortly followed by the Great Schism. For some years
there were two rival Popes, each of whom was recognised by one or the
other half of Western Christendom. This was terminated by the Council of
Constance, which incidentally affirmed the supremacy of general councils
over the Pope. The following council at Basle was distinctly anti-papal;
but the Papacy had the better of the contest.
_IV.--England_
The Anglo-Saxon polity limited the succession of the Crown to a
particular house but allowed a latitude of choice within that house. The
community was divided into Thames or gentry, Ceorls or freemen, and
serfs. The ceorls tended to sink to the position known later as
villeinage. The composition of the king's great council called the
Witenagemot is doubtful. The country was divided into shires, the shire
into districts called hundreds, and the hundreds into tithings. There
appears to be no adequate authority for the idea that trial by jury was
practised; the prevailing characteristic of justice was the system of
penalty by fine, and the responsibility of the tithing for the misdeeds
of any of its members. There is no direct evidence as to the extent to
which feudal tenures were beginning to be established before the Norman
conquest.
The Norman conquest involved a vast confiscation of property and the
exclusion of the native English from political privileges. The feudal
system of land tenure was established; but its political aspect here and
in France was quite different. There were no barons with territories
comparable to those of the great French feudataries. That the government
was extremely tyrannical is certain. The Crown derived its revenues from
feudal dues, customs duties, tallages--that is, special charges on
particular towns,--and the war tax called the Danegelt; all except the
first being arbitrary taxes. The violence of King John led to the demand
of the barons for the Great Charter, the keystone of English liberty,
securing the persons and property of all freemen from arbitrary
imprisonment or spoliation. Thenceforth no right of general taxation is
claimed. The barons held themselves warranted in refusing supplies.
The King's Court was gradually separated into three branches, King's
Bench, Exchequer, and Common Pleas. The advance in the study of law had
the definite effect of establishing a fixed rule of succession to the
Crown. One point must still be noticed which distinguishes England from
other European countries; that the law recognises no distinction of
class among freemen who stand between the peers and villeins.
The reign of Edward I. forms an epoch. The Confirmation of the Charters
put an end to all arbitrary taxation; and the type of the English
Parliament was fixed. In the Great Councils the prelates and greater
barons had assembled, and the lesser barons were also summoned; the term
baron being equivalent to tenant in chief. A system of representation is
definitely formulated in Montfort's Parliament of 1265. Whether the
knights were elected by the freemen of the shire or only by the tenants
in chief, is not clear. Many towns were self governing--independent,
that is, of local magnates--under charters from the Crown. Montfort's
Parliament is the first to which towns sent representatives. Edward
established the practice in his Model Parliament; probably in order to
ensure that his demands for money from the towns might in appearance at
least receive their formal assent.
Parliament was not definitely divided into two houses until the reign of
Edward III. In this reign the Commons succeeded in establishing the
illegality of raising money without consent; the necessity that the two
houses should concur for any alterations in the law; and the right of
the Commons to enquire into public abuses and to impeach public
counsellors. Under the second heading is introduced a distinction
between statutes and ordinances; the latter being of a temporary
character, and requiring to be confirmed by Parliament before they
acquire permanent authority. In the next reign the Commons assert the
right of examining the public expenditure. Moreover the Parliaments more
openly and boldly expressed resentment at the acts of the king's
ministers and claimed rights of control. For a time, however, the king
secured supremacy by a coup d'état; which in turn brought about his
deposition, and the accession of Henry IV., despite the absurd weakness
of his title to the inheritance of the Crown.
The rights thus acquired developed until the War of the Roses. Notably
redress of grievances became the condition of supply; and the
inclination of the Crown to claim a dispensing power is resolutely
combated. It is also to be remarked that the king's foreign policy of
war or peace is freely submitted to the approval of Parliament.
This continues during the minority of Henry VI.; but the revival of
dissatisfaction with the government leads to a renewed activity in the
practice of impeachments; and Parliament begins to display a marked
sensitiveness on the question of its privileges. The Commons further
definitely express their exclusive right of originating money bills.
At this time it is clear that at least all freeholders were entitled to
vote in the election of the knights of the shire. The selection of the
towns which sent up members, and the franchise under which their members
were elected, seems to have been to a considerable extent arbitrary. Nor
can we be perfectly certain of the principles on which writs were issued
for attendance in the upper house. We find that for some time the lower
clergy as well as the higher were summoned to attend Parliament; but
presently, sitting in a separate chamber, they ceased to take part in
Parliamentary business.
We have seen the King's Court divided into three courts of justice. The
court itself, however, as the king's Council, continued to exercise a
juridical as well as a deliberative and administrative function. In
spite of the charter, it possessed an effective if illegal power of
arbitrary imprisonment.
So far the essential character of our constitution appears to be a
monarchy greatly limited by law but swerving continually into irregular
courses which there was no constraint adequate to correct. There is
absolutely no warrant for the theory that the king was merely a
hereditary executive magistrate, the first officer of the State. The
special advantage enjoyed by England lay in the absence of an
aristocracy with interests antagonistic to those of the people. It would
be truer to say that the liberties of England were bought by money than
by the blood of our forefathers.
The process by which the villein became a hired labourer is obscure and
an attempt was made to check it by the Statute of Labourers at the time
of the Black Death. This was followed by the peasant's revolt of 1382,
which corresponded to the far worse horrors of the French Jacquerie.
Sharply though this was suppressed, the real object of the rising seemed
to have been accomplished. Of the period of the Wars of the Roses it is
here sufficient to say that it established the principle embodied in a
statute of Henry VII. that obedience to the _de facto_ government is not
to be punished on the ground that government is not also _de jure_.
_V.--Europe_
In spite of the Teutonic incursion, Latin remained the basis of language
as it survived in Italy, France, and Spain. But the pursuit of letters
was practically confined to the clergy and was by them employed almost
exclusively in the interests of clerical authority. To this end a
multitude of superstitions were encouraged; superstitions which were the
cause of not a few strange and irrational outbursts of fanaticism. The
monasteries served indeed a useful purpose as sanctuaries in days of
general lawlessness and rapine; but the huge weight of evidence is
conclusive as to the general corruption of morals among the clergy as
among the laity. The common diversion of the upper classes, lay and
clerical, when not engaged in actual war, was hunting. An extended
commerce was impossible when robbery was a normal occupation of the
great.
Gradually, however, a more orderly society emerged. Maritime commerce
developed in two separate areas, the northern and western, and the
Mediterranean. The first great commerce in the north arises from the
manufacture in Flanders of the wool exported from England. And in the
fourteenth century England herself began to compete in the woollen
manufacture. The German free manufacturing towns established the Great
Hanseatic League; but maritime commerce between the Northern and
Southern areas was practically non-existent till the fifteenth century,
by which time English ships were carrying on a fairly extensive traffic
in the Mediterranean. In that area the great seaports of Italy, and in a
less degree, of Catalonia and the French Mediterranean seaboard,
developed a large commerce. Naturally, however, the law which it was
sufficiently difficult to enforce by land was even more easily defied on
the sea, and piracy was extremely prevalent.
Governments as well as private persons were under a frequent necessity
of borrowing, and for a long time the great money lenders were the Jews.
They, however, were later to a great extent displaced by the merchants
of Lombardy, and the fifteenth century witnesses the rise of the great
bankers, Italian and German.
The structure and furniture of all buildings for private purposes made
exceedingly little provision for comfort, offering an extreme contrast
to the dignity of the public buildings and the sublimity of
ecclesiastical architecture.
During the last three hundred years of our period it is clear that there
was a great diminution of the status of servitude and a great increase
in the privileges extended to corporate towns. Private warfare was
checked and lawless robbery to a considerable extent restrained. It is
tolerably clear that the rise of heretical sects were both the cause and
the result of moral dissatisfaction, tending to the adoption of higher
moral standards. Some of these sects were cruelly crushed by merciless
persecution, as in the case of the Albigenses. The doctrines of
Wickliffe, however, were never stamped out in England; and the form
which they took in Bohemia among the followers of the martyred John Huss
had little about them that was beneficial.
The great moral school of the Middle Ages was the institution of
chivalry, which existed to animate and cherish the principle of honour.
To this a strong religious flavor was superadded, perhaps by the
Crusades. To valour and devotion was added the law of service to
womanhood, and chivalry may fairly claim to have developed generally the
three virtues essential to it, of loyalty, courtesy, and liberality.
Resting, however, as it did on the personal prowess and skill of the
individual in single combat, the whole system of chivalry was destroyed
by the introduction on an extensive scale of the use of firearms.
We turn lastly to the intellectual improvement which may be referred to
four points: the study of civil laws the institution of universities;
the application of modern languages to literature, and especially to
poetry; and the revival of ancient learning. Education may almost be
said to have begun with the establishment of the great schools by
Charlemagne out of which sprang the European universities. For a long
time of course all studies were dominated by that of theology, and the
scholastic philosophy which pertained to it. Barren as these pursuits
were, they kept alive an intellectual activity which ultimately found
fresh channels. The Romance languages developed a new literature first
on the tongues of the troubadours and then in Italy--the Italy which
gave birth to Dante and Petrarch. It was about the fourteenth century
that a new enthusiasm was born for the study of classical authors,
though Greek was still unknown. And the final and decisive impulse was
given when the invention of printing made the great multiplication of
books possible.
* * * * *
STANLEY LANE-POOLE
Egypt in the Middle Ages
Stanley Lane-Poole, born on December 18, 1845, studied Arabic
under his great-uncle, Lane, the Orientalist, and, before
going up to Oxford for his degree, began his "Catalogue of
Oriental Coins in the British Museum," which appeared in
fourteen volumes between 1875 and 1892, and founded his
reputation as the first living authority on Arabic
numismatics. In 1883, 1896, and 1897 he was at Cairo
officially employed by the British Government upon the
Mohammedan antiquities, and published his treatise on "The Art
of the Saracens in Egypt" in 1886, in which year he visited
Stockholm, Helsingfors, St. Petersburg, Moscow, and
Constantinople to examine their Oriental collections. He has
written histories of the "Moors in Spain," "Turkey," "The
Barbary Corsairs," and "Mediæval India," which have run to
many editions; and biographies of Saladin, Babar, Aurangzib;
of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, and Sir Harry Parkes. He has
also published a miniature Koran in the "Golden Treasury"
series, and written "Studies in a Mosque," besides editing
three volumes of Lane's "Arabic Lexicon." For five years he
held the post of Professor of Arabic at Trinity College,
Dublin, of which he is Litt.D. Mohammedan Egypt, his special
subject, he has treated in several books on Cairo, the latest
being "The Story of Cairo." But his most complete work on this
subject is "The History of Egypt in the Middle Ages," here
epitomised by the author.
_I.--A Province of the Caliphate_
Ever since the Arab conquest in 641 Egypt has been ruled by Mohammedans,
and for more than half the time by men of Turkish race. Though now and
again a strong man has gathered all the reins of control into his own
hands and been for a time a personal monarch, as a rule the government
has been, till recent years, a military bureaucracy.
The people, of course, had no voice in the government. The Egyptians
have never been a self-governing race, and such a dream as
constitutional democracy was never heard of until a few years ago. By
the Arab conquest in the seventh century the people merely changed
masters. They were probably not indisposed to welcome the Moslems as
their deliverers from the tyranny of the Orthodox Church of the East
Roman or Byzantine Empire, invincibly intolerant of the native
monophysite heresy; and when the conquest was complete they found
themselves, on the whole, better off than before. They paid their taxes
to officials with Arabic instead of Greek titles, but the taxes were
lighter and the amount was strictly laid down by law.
The land-tax of about a pound per acre was not excessive on so fertile a
soil, and the poll-tax on nonconformity, of the same amount, was a
moderate price to pay for entire liberty of conscience and freedom in
public worship guaranteed by solemn treaty. The other taxes were
comparatively insignificant, and the total revenue in the eighth century
was about £7,000,000. The surplus went to the caliph, the head of the
vast Mohammedan empire, which then stretched from Seville to Samarkand,
whose capital was first Damascus and afterwards Baghdad.
For over 200 years (till 868) Egypt was a mere province of this huge
caliphate, and was governed, like other provinces, with a sole view to
revenue. "Milk till the udder be dry and let blood to the last drop" was
a caliph's instructions to a governor of Egypt. As these governors were
constantly changed--there were sixty-seven in 118 years under the
Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad--and as a governor's main object was to "make
hay while the sun shines," the process of milking the Egyptian cow was
often accelerated by illegal extortion, and the governor's harvest was
reaped before it was due. Illegality was, however, checked to some
extent by the generally wise and just influence of the chief justice, or
kadi, whose probity often formed the best feature of the Arab government
in Egypt.
Nor did the caliphs extort taxes without giving something in return. The
development of irrigation works was always a main consideration with the
early Mohammedan rules, from Spain to India, and in Egypt, where
irrigation is the country's very life, it was specially cared for, with
a corresponding increase in the yield. Moreover, the governors usually
held to the agreement that the Christians should have liberty of
conscience, and protected them from the Moslem soldiery. As time went
on, this toleration abated, partly because the Moslems had gradually
become the predominant population. At the beginning the caliphs had
taken anxious precautions against the colonising of Egypt; they held it
by an army, but they were insistent that the army should not take root,
but be always free to join the caliph's standard. But it was inevitable
that the Arabs should settle in so fertile and pleasant a land. Each
governor brought a small army as his escort, and these Arab troops
naturally intermarried with Egyptian women, who were constitutionally
inclined to such alliances. A few Arab tribes also settled in Egypt.
This gradual and undesigned Arabising of the country would lead to
oppression of the Christians, to the "squeezing" of wealthy natives, and
occasionally to the institution of humiliating distinctions of dress and
other vexations, and even to the spoiling of Coptic churches. Then
sometimes the Copts, as the Egyptian Christians are called, would rebel.
Their last and greatest rebellion, which occurred in the Delta in
830-832, was ruthlessly trampled out by Turkish troops under Mamun, the
only Abbasid caliph who made a visit to Egypt. Many Copts now
apostatised, and from this time dates the predominance of the Moslem
population and the settling of Arabs in the villages and on the land,
instead of as heretofore only in the two or three large towns.
The coming of the Turkish troops with the caliph Mamun was an ominous
event for the country. Up to 846 all the successive governors had been
Arabs, and many of them were related to the caliphs themselves. With
some unfortunate exceptions, they seem to have been men of simple
habits--the Arabs were never luxurious--and usually of strict Mohammedan
principles. They made money, honestly if possible, during their brief
tenure; but they did not harass the people much by their personal
interference, and left the local officials to manage matters in their
own way, as had always been the custom. They lived at the new capital,
Fustat, which grew up on the site of the conqueror's camp, and very near
the modern Cairo; for Alexandria, the symbol of Roman domination, was
dismantled in 645 after the Emperor Manuel's attempt at reconquest. If
they did not do much active good, they did little harm, and Egypt
pursued her immemorial ways.
The last Arab governor, Anbasa, was a man of fine character, and his
term of office was distinguished by the building of the fort of
Damietta, as a protection against Roman raids, and by a defeat of the
tributary Sudanis near Dongola.
_II.--Turkish Governors_
The Arabs have neither the ferocity nor the luxuriousness, nor, it
should be added, the courage and the genius for administration of the
Turkish race. In the arrival of Turkish troops in 830 we see a symptom
of what was going on all over the eastern caliphate. Turks were taking
the place of Arabs in the army and the provincial governments, just as
the Persians were filling up the civil appointments. The caliph's
Turkish bodyguard was the beginning of the dismemberment of the
caliphate. It became the habit of the caliphs to grant the government of
Egypt, as a sort of fief, to a leading Turkish officer, who usually
appointed a deputy to do his work and to pay him the surplus revenue.
Such a deputy was Ahmad-ibn-Tulun (868-884), the first of the many
Turkish despots of Egypt. Ibn-Tulun was the first ruler to raise Egypt
from a mere tax-paying appendage of the caliphate to a kingdom,
independent save for the recognition of the caliph on the coinage, and
he was the first to found a Moslem dynasty there. A man of fair
Mohammedan education, iron will, and ubiquitous personal attention to
affairs, he added Syria to his dominions, defeated the East Romans with
vast slaughter near Tarsus (883), kept an army of 30,000 Turkish slaves
and a fleet of a hundred fighting ships.
He beautified his capital by building a sumptuous palace and his
well-known mosque, which still stands in his new royal suburb of Katai;
he encouraged the small farmers and reduced the taxation, yet he left
five millions in the treasury when he died in 884. His son maintained
his power, and more than his luxury and artistic extravagance; but there
were no elements of stability in the dynasty, which depended solely upon
the character of the ruler. The next generation saw Egypt once more
(905) a mere province of the caliphate, but with this difference, that
its governors were now Turks, generally under the control of their own
soldiery, and much less dependent upon the ever-weakening power of the
Caliph of Baghdad. One of them, the Ikhshid, in 935 emulated Ibn-Tulun
and united part of Syria to Egypt; but the sons he left were almost
children, and the power fell into the hands of the regent Kafur, a black
eunuch from the Sudan, bought for £25, who combined a luxurious and
cultivated court with some military successes and real administrative
capacity.
_III.--The Fatimid Caliphs_
The Mohammedan world is roughly divided into Sunnis and Shia. The Shia
are the idealists, the mystics of Islam; the Sunnis are the formalists,
the schoolmen. The Shia trace an apostolic succession from Ali, the
husband of the prophet Mohammed's daughter Fatima, hold doctrines of
immanence and illumination, adopt an allegorical interpretation of
scripture, and believe in the coming of a Mahdi or Messiah. The Sunnis
adhere to the elective historical caliphate descended from Mohammed's
uncle, maintain the eternal uncreated sufficiency of the Koran,
literally interpreted, and believe in no Messiah save Mohammed.