Kings of France.
A.D.
PHILIP AUGUSTUS.--(_cont._)
1223. LOUIS VIII.
1226. LOUIS IX., (the Fat.)
1270. PHILIP III., (the Hardy.)
1285. PHILIP IV., (the Handsome.)
Kings of Scotland.
A.D.
WILLIAM.--(_cont._)
1214. ALEXANDER II.
1249. ALEXANDER III.
1286. MARGARET.
1291. JOHN BALIOL, deposed 1296.
Emperors of Constantinople.
A.D.
1203. ISAAC.
1204. ALEXIS IV.
1204. DUCAS, (Usurper,) dethroned by warriors of Fourth Crusade.
_Latin Empire._
1204. BALDWYN, (of Flanders.)
1206. HENRY, (his brother.)
1216. PETER, (of Courtney.)
1219. ROBERT, (his son.)
1228. JOHN, (of Brienne.)
1231. BALDWYN.
_Greek Empire of Nicæa._
1222. JOHN DUCAS.
1255. THEODORUS II.
1261. JOHN LASCARIS--retakes Constantinople.
1261. MICHAEL.
1282. ANDRONICUS II.
Kings of England.
A.D.
JOHN.--(_cont._)
1216. HENRY III.
1276. EDWARD I.
1201. FOURTH CRUSADE.
1217. FIFTH CRUSADE.
1228. SIXTH CRUSADE.
1248. SEVENTH CRUSADE.
1270. EIGHTH AND LAST CRUSADE, by St. Louis against Tunis.
Authors.
ROGER BACON, MATTHEW PARIS, ALEXANDER HALES, (Irrefragable Doctor,)
THOMAS AQUINAS, (the Angelic Doctor.)
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.
FIRST CRUSADE AGAINST HERETICS--THE ALBIGENSES--MAGNA CHARTA--
EDWARD I.
The progress and enlightenment of Europe proceed from this period
at a constantly-increasing rate. The rise of commercial cities,
the weakening of the feudal aristocracy, the introduction of the
learning of the Saracenic schools, and the growth of universities
for the cultivation of science and language, contributed greatly to
the result. Another cause used to be assigned for this satisfactory
advance, in the discovery which had been made in the last century at
Amalfi, of a copy of the long-forgotten Pandects of Justinian, and the
reintroduction of the Roman laws, in displacement of the conflicting
customs and barbarous enactments of the various states; but the fact
of the continued existence of the Roman Institutes is not now denied,
though it is probable that the discovery of the Amalfi manuscript may
have given a fresh impulse to the improvement of the local codes.
But an increase of mental activity had at first its usual regretable
accompaniment in the contemporaneous rise of dangerous and unfounded
opinions. Philosophy, which began with an admiration of the skill and
learning of Aristotle, ended by enthroning him as the uncontrolled
master of human reason. Wherever he was studied, all previous standards
of faith and argument were overthrown. The cleverest intellects of
the time could find themselves no higher task than to reconcile the
Christian Scriptures with the decrees of the Stagyrite, for it was
felt that in the case of an irreconcilable divergence between the
teaching of Christ and of Aristotle the scholars of Christendom would
have pronounced in favour of the Greek. A formulary, indeed, was found
out for the joint reception of both; many statements were declared
to be "true in philosophy though false in religion," so that the
most orthodox of Churchmen could receive the doctrines of the Church
by an act of belief, while he gave his whole affection to Aristotle
by an act of the understanding. When teachers and preachers tamper
with the human conscience, the common feelings of honour and fair
play revolt at the degrading attempt. Men of simple minds, who did
not profess to understand Aristotle and could not be blinded by the
subtleties of logic, endeavoured to discover "the more excellent way"
for themselves, but were bewildered by the novelty of their search
for Truth. There were mystic dreamers who saw God everywhere and in
every thing, and counted human nature itself a portion of the Deity,
or maintained that it was possible for man to attain a share of the
divine by the practice of virtue. This Pantheism gave rise to numerous
displays of popular ignorance and impressibility. Messiahs appeared
in many parts of Europe, and were followed by great multitudes. Some
enthusiasts taught that a new dispensation was opening upon man; that
God was the Governor of the world during the Old Testament period;
that Christ had reigned till now, but that the reign of the Holy
Spirit was about to commence, and all things would be renewed. Others,
more hardy, declared their adhesion to the Persian principle of a
duality of persons in heaven, and revived the old Manichean heresy
that the spirit of Hatred was represented in the Jewish Scriptures and
the spirit of Love in the Christian; that the Good god had created
the soul, and the Evil god the body,--on which were justified the
sufferings they voluntarily inflicted on the workmanship of Satan, and
the starvings and flagellations required to bring it into subjection.
This belief found few followers, and would have died out as rapidly as
it had arisen; but the malignity of the enemies of any change found it
convenient to identify those wild enthusiasts with a very different
class of persons who at this time rose into prominent notice. The rich
counties of the South of France were always distinguished from the rest
of the nation by the possession of greater elegance and freedom. The
old Roman civilization had never entirely deserted the shores of the
Mediterranean or the valleys of Languedoc and Provence. In Languedoc a
sect of strange thinkers had given voice to some startling doctrines,
which at once obtained the general consent. Toulouse was the chief
encourager of these new beliefs, and in its hostility to Rome was
supported by its reigning sovereign, Count Raymond VI. This potentate,
from the position of his States,--abutting upon Barcelona, where the
Spaniards, who remembered their recent emancipation from the Mohammedan
yoke, were famous for their tolerance of religious dissent,--and
deriving the greater portion of his wealth from the trade and industry
of the Jews and Arabs established in his seaport towns, saw no great
evil in the principles professed by his people. Those principles,
indeed, when stripped of the malicious additions of his enemies, were
not different from the creed of Protestantism at the present time. They
consisted merely of a complete denial of the sovereignty of the Pope,
the power of the priesthood, the efficacy of prayers for the dead, and
the existence of purgatory.
The other princes of the South looked on religion as a mere instrument
for the advancement of their own interests, and would have imitated
the greater sovereigns of Europe, several of whom for a very slender
consideration would have gone openly over to the standard of Mohammed.
The inhabitants, therefore, of those opulent regions, by the favour of
Raymond and the indifference of the rest, were left for a long time
to their own devices, and gave intimation of a strong desire to break
off their connection with the hierarchy of Rome. And no wonder they
were tired of their dependence on so grasping and unprincipled a power
as the Church had proved to them. More depraved and more exacting
in this district than in any other part of Europe, the clergy had
contrived to alienate the hearts of the common people without gaining
the friendship of the nobility. Equally hated by both,--despised for
their sensuality, and no longer feared for their spiritual power,--the
priests could offer no resistance to the progress of the new opinions.
Those opinions were in fact as much due to the vices of the clergy as
to the convictions of the congregations. Any thing hostile to Rome was
welcomed by the people. A musical and graceful language had grown up
in Languedoc, which was universally recognised as the fittest vehicle
for descriptions of beauty and declarations of love, and had been
found equally adapted for the declamations of political hatred and
denunciations of injustice. But now the whole guild of troubadours,
ceasing to dedicate their muses to ladies' charms or the quarrels
of princes, poured forth their indignation in innumerable songs on
their clerical oppressors. The infamies of the whole order--the monks
black and white, the deacons, the abbots, the bishops, the ordinary
priests--were now married to immortal verse. Their spoiling of orphans,
their swindling of widows and wards, their gluttony and drunkenness,
were chronicled in every township, and were incapable of denial.
Their dishonesty became proverbial. The simplest peasant, on hearing
of a scandalous action, was in the habit of saying, "I would rather
be a priest than be guilty of such a deed." But there were two men
then alive exactly adapted to meet the exigencies of the time. One
was a noble Castilian of the name of Dominic Guzman, who had become
disgusted with the world, and had taken refuge from temptations and
strife among the brethren of a reformed cathedral in Spain. But
temptations and strife forced their way into the cells of Asma, and the
eloquent friar was torn away from his prayers and penances and brought
prominently forward by the backslidings of the men of Languedoc. The
saturnine and self-sacrificing Spaniard had no sympathy with the joyous
proceedings of the princes and merchants of the South. He saw sin in
their enjoyment even of the gifts of nature,--their gracious air and
beautiful scenery. How much more when the gayety of their meetings was
enlivened by interludes throwing ridicule on the pretensions of the
bishops, by hootings at any ecclesiastic who presented himself in the
street, and by sneers and loud laughter at the predictions and miracles
with which the Church resisted their attack! The unbelieving populace
did not spare the personal dignity of the missionary himself. They
pelted him with mud, and fixed long tails of straw at the back of his
robe; they outraged all the feelings of his heart, his Castilian pride,
his Christian belief, his clerical obedience. There is no denying
the energy with which he exerted himself to recall those wandering
sheep to the true fold. His biographer tells us of the successes of
his eloquence, and of the irresistible effect of the inexhaustible
fountain of tears with which he inundated his face till they formed
a river down to his robes. His writings, we are assured, being found
unanswerable by the heretics, were submitted to the ordeal of fire.
Twice they resisted the hottest flames which could be raised by
wood and brimstone, and still without converting the incredulous
subjects of Count Raymond. His miracles, which were numerous and
undeniable, also had no effect. Even his prayers, which seem to have
moved houses and walls, had no efficacy in moving the obdurate hearts
of the unbelievers; and at last, tired out with their recalcitrancy,
the dreadful word was spoken. He cursed the men of Languedoc, the
inhabitants of its towns, the knights and gentlemen who received his
oratory with insult, and in addition to his own anathemas called in the
spiritual thunder of the Pope.
This was the other man peculiarly fitted for the work he had to do. His
cruelty would have done no dishonour to the blood-stained scutcheon of
Nero, and his ambition transcended that of Gregory the Seventh. His
name was Innocent the Third. [A.D. 1207.] For one-half of the crimes
alleged against those heretics, who, from their principal seat in the
diocese of Albi, were known as Albigenses, he would have turned the
whole of France into a desert; and when, with greedy ear, he heard the
denunciations of Dominic, he declared war on the devoted peasants,--war
on the consenting princes; a holy war--more meritorious than a Crusade
against the Turks and infidels--where no life was to be spared, and
where houses and lands were to be the reward of the assailants. All the
wild spirits of the age were wakened by the call. It was a pilgrimage
where all expenses were paid, without the danger of the voyage to the
East or the sword of the Saracen. Foremost among those who hurried
to this mingled harvest of money and blood, of religious absolution
and military fame, was the notorious Simon de Montfort, a man fitted
for the commission of any wickedness requiring a powerful arm and
unrelenting heart. Forward from all quarters of Europe rushed the
exterminating emissaries of the Pope and soldiers of Dominic. "You
shall ravage every field; you shall slay every human being: strike,
and spare not. The measure of their iniquity is full, and the blessing
of the Church is on your heads." These words, sung in sweet chorus by
the Pope and the Monk, were the instructions on which De Montfort was
prepared to act; and what could the sunny Languedoc, the land of song
and dance, of olive-yard and vineyard, do to repel this hostile inroad?
Suddenly all the music of the troubadours was hushed in dreadful
expectation. Raymond was alarmed, and tried to temporize. [A.D. 1208.]
Promises were made and explanations given, but without any offer of
submission to the yoke of Rome: so the infuriated warriors came on,
burning, slaying, ravaging, in terms of their commission, till Dominic
himself grew ashamed of such blood-stained missionaries; and when their
slaughters went on, when they had murdered half the population in cold
blood, and ridden down the peasantry whom despair had summoned to the
defence of their houses and properties, the saintly-minded Spaniard
could no longer honour their hideous butcheries with his presence.
He contented himself with retiring to a church and praying for the
good cause with such zeal and animation that De Montfort and eleven
hundred of his ruffians put to flight a hundred thousand of the armed
soldiers of the South, who felt themselves overthrown and scattered
by an invisible power. Yet not even the prayers of Dominic could keep
the outraged people in unresisting acquiescence. Simon de Montfort was
expelled from the territories he had usurped, and found a mysterious
death under the walls of Toulouse in 1218.
[A.D. 1223.]
The old family was restored in the person of Raymond the Seventh, and
preparations made for defence. But Louis the Eighth of France came to
the aid of the infuriated Pope. Two hundred thousand men followed in
the holy campaign. All the atrocities of the former time were renewed
and surpassed. Town after town yielded, for all the defenders had died.
Pestilence broke out in the invading force, and Louis himself was
carried off by fever. Champions, however, were ready in all quarters to
carry on the glorious cause. Louis the Ninth was now King of France,
and under the government of his mother, Blanche of Castile, the work
commenced by her countryman was completed. The final victory of the
crusaders and punishment of the rebellious were celebrated by the
introduction of the Inquisition, of which the ferocious Dominic was
the presiding spirit. The fire of persecution under his holy stirrings
burnt up what the sword of the destroyer had left, and from that time
the voice of rejoicing was heard no more in Languedoc: her freedom of
thought and elegance of sentiment were equally crushed into silence
by the heel of persecution. The "gay science" perished utterly; the
very language in which the sonnets of knight and troubadour had been
composed died away from the literatures of the earth; and Rome rejoiced
in the destruction of poetry and the restoration of obedience. This is
a very mark-worthy incident in the thirteenth century, as it is the
first experiment, on a great scale, which the Church made to retain her
supremacy by force of arms. The pagan and infidel, the denier of Christ
and the enemies of his teaching, had hitherto been the objects of the
wrath of Christendom. This is the first instance in which a difference
of opinion between Christians themselves had been the ground for
wholesale extermination; for those unfortunate Albigenses acknowledged
the divinity of the Saviour and professed to be his disciples. It
is the crowning proof of the totally-secularized nature of the
established faith. Its weapons were no longer argument and proof, or
even persuasion and promise. The horse up to his fetlocks in blood, the
sword waved in the air, the trampling of marshalled thousands, were
henceforth the supports of the religion of love and charity; and fires
glowing in every market-place and dungeons gaping in every episcopal
castle were henceforth the true expositors of the truth as it is in
Jesus. Fires, indeed, and dungeons, were required to compensate for the
incompleteness, as it appeared to the truly orthodox, of the vengeance
inflicted on the rebels. The Abbot of Citeaux, who gave his spiritual
and corporeal aid to the assault on Beziers, was for a moment made
uneasy by the difficulty his men experienced in distinguishing between
the heretics and believers at the storm of the town. At last he got
out of the difficulty by saying, "Slay them all! The Lord will know
his own." The same benevolent dignitary, when he wrote an account of
his achievement to the Pope, lamented that he had only been able to
cut the throats of twenty thousand. And Gregory the Ninth would have
been better pleased if it had been twice the number. "His vast revenge
had stomach for them all," and already a quarter of a million of the
population were the victims of his anger. Every thing had prospered
to his hand. Raymond was despoiled of the greater portion of his
estates, the voice of opposition was hushed, the castles of the nobles
confiscated to the Church; and yet, when the treaty of Meaux, in 1229,
by which the war was concluded, came to be considered, it was perceived
that the pacification of Languedoc turned not so much to the profit of
Rome as of the rapidly-coalescing monarchy of France.
Long before this, in 1204, Philip Augustus had found little difficulty
in tearing the continental possessions of the English crown, except
Guienne, from the trembling hands of John. The possession of Normandy
had already made France a maritime power; and now, by the acquisition
of the Narbonnais and Maguelonne from Raymond the Seventh, she not
only extended her limits to the Mediterranean, but, by the extinction
of two such vassals as the Count of Toulouse and the Duke of Normandy,
incalculably strengthened the royal crown. Extinguished, indeed, was
the power of Toulouse; for by the same treaty the unfortunate Raymond
bought his peace with Rome by bestowing the county of Venaissin and
half of Avignon on the Holy See. These sacrifices relieved him from the
sentence of excommunication, and made him the best-loved son of the
Church, and the poorest prince in Christendom.
While monarchy was making such strides in France, a counterbalancing
power was formed in England by the combination of the nobility and
the rise of the House of Commons. The story of Magna Charta is so
well known that it will be sufficient to recall some of its principal
incidents, which could not with propriety be omitted in an account of
the important events of the thirteenth century. No event, indeed, of
equal importance occurred in any other country of Europe. However more
startling a crusade or a victory might be at the time, the results of
no single incident have ever been so enduring or so wide-spread as
those of the meeting of the barons at Runnymede and the summoning of
the burgesses to Parliament.