universal. The whole nation seemed to rise, in the first
wide-spread aggressive popular revolt that the Church of Rome
had yet been called upon to encounter. In 1419 there was an
armed assembly of 40,000 men, on a mountain which they called
Tabor, who placed themselves under the leadership of John
Ziska, a nobleman, one of Huss' friends. The followers of
Ziska soon displayed a violence of temper and a radicalism
which repelled the more moderate Hussites, or Reformers, and
two parties appeared, one known as the Taborites, the other as
the Calixtines, or Utraquists. The former insisted on entire
separation from the Church of Rome; the latter confined their
demands to four reforms, namely: Free preaching of the Word of
God; the giving of the Eucharistic cup to the laity; the
taking of secular powers and of worldly goods from the clergy;
the enforcing of Christian discipline by all authorities. So much
stress was laid by the Calixtines on their claim to the
chalice or cup (communion in both kinds) that it gave them
their name. The breach between these parties widened until
they were as hostile to each other as to the Catholics, and
the Bohemian reform movement was ruined in the end by their
division.
In 1419, the deposed Emperor Wenceslaus, who had still
retained his kingdom of Bohemia, was murdered in his palace,
at Prague. His brother, the Emperor Sigismund, was his heir;
but the Hussites refused the crown to him, and resisted his
pretensions with arms. This added a political conflict to the
religious one, and Bohemia was afflicted with a frightful
civil war for fifteen years. Ziska fortified mount Tabor and
took possession of Prague. The Emperor and the Pope allied
themselves, to crush an insurrection which was aimed against
both. They summoned Christendom to a new crusade, and
Sigismund led 100,000 men against Prague, in 1420. Ziska met
him and defeated him, and drove him, with his crusaders, from
the country. The Taborites were now maddened by their success,
and raged over the land, destroying convents and burning
priests. Their doctrines, moreover, began to take on a
socialistic and republican character, threatening property in
general and questioning monarchy, too. The well-to-do and
conservative classes were more and more repelled from them.
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In 1421 a second crusading army, 200,000 strong, invaded
Bohemia and was scattered like chaff by Ziska (now blind) and
his peasant soldiery. The next year they defeated the Emperor
again; but in 1424 Ziska died, and a priest called Procopius
the Great took his place. Under their new leader, the fierce
Taborites were as invincible as they had been under Ziska.
They routed an imperial army in 1426, and then carried the war
into Austria and Silesia, committing fearful ravages. Still
another crusade was set in motion against them by the Pope,
and still another disastrous failure was made of it. Then
Germany again suffered a more frightful visitation from the
vengeful Hussites than before. Towns and villages were
destroyed by hundreds, and wide tracks of ruin and death were
marked on the face of the land, to its very center. Once more,
and for the last time, in 1431, the Germans rallied a great force
to retaliate these attacks, and they met defeat, as in all
previous encounters, but more completely than ever before.
Then the Pope and the Emperor gave up hope of putting down the
indomitable revolutionists by force, and opened parleyings.
The Pope called a council at Basel for the discussion of
questions with the Hussites, and, finally, in 1433, their
moderate party was prevailed upon to accept a compromise which
really conceded nothing to them except the use of the cup in
the communion. The Taborites refused the terms, and the two
parties grappled each other in a fierce struggle for the
control of the state. But the extremists had lost much of
their old strength, and the Utraquists vanquished them in a
decisive battle at Lipan, in May, 1434. Two years later
Sigismund was formally acknowledged King of Bohemia and
received in Prague. In 1437 he died. His son-in-law, Albert of
Austria, who succeeded him, lived but two years, and the heir
to the throne then was a son, Ladislaus, born after his
father's death. This left Bohemia in a state of great
confusion and disorder for several years, until a strong man,
George Podiebrad, acquired the control of affairs.
Meantime, the Utraquists had organized a National Church of
Bohemia, considerably divergent from Rome. It failed to
satisfy the deeper religious feelings that were widely current
among the Bohemians in that age, and there grew up a sect
which took the name of "Unitas Fratrum," or "Unity of the
Brethren," but which afterwards became incorrectly known as
the Moravian Brethren. This sect, still existing, has borne an
important part in the missionary history of the Christian
world.
The Papacy.--The Great Schism.
The Papacy, at the time of its conflict with the Hussites, in
Bohemia, was rapidly sinking to that lowest level of
debasement which it reached in the later part of the fifteenth
century. Its state was not yet so abhorrent as it came to be
under the Borgias; but it had been brought even more into
contempt, perhaps, by the divisions and contentions of "the
Great Schism." The so-called "Babylonish Captivity" of the
series of popes who resided for seventy years at Avignon
(1305-1376), and who were under French influence, had been
humiliating to the Church; but the schism which immediately
followed (1378-1417), when a succession of rival popes, or
popes and antipopes, thundered anathemas and excommunications
at one another, from Rome and from Avignon, was even more
scandalous and shameful. Christendom was divided by the
quarrel. France, Spain, Scotland, and some lesser states, gave
their allegiance to the pope at Avignon; England, Germany and
the northern kingdoms adhered to the pope at Rome. In 1402, an
attempt to heal the schism was made by a general Council of
the Church convened at Pisa. It decreed the deposition of both
the contending pontiffs, and elected a third; but its
authority was not recognized, and the confusion of the Church
was only made worse by bringing three popes into the quarrel,
instead of two. Twelve years later, another Council, held at
Constance,--the same which burned Huss,--had more success.
Europe had now grown so tired of the scandal, and so disgusted
with the three pretenders to spiritual supremacy, that the
action of the Council was backed by public opinion, and they
were suppressed. A fourth pope, Martin V., whom the Council
then seated in the chair of St. Peter (1417), was universally
acknowledged, and the Great Schism was at an end.
But other scandals and abuses in the Church, which public
opinion in Europe had already begun to cry loudly against,
were untouched by these Councils. A subsequent Council at
Basel, which met in 1431, attempted some restraints upon papal
extortion (ignoring the more serious moral evils that claimed
attention); but was utterly beaten in the conflict with Pope
Eugenius IV., which this action brought on, and its decrees
lost all effect. So the religious autocracy at Rome, sinking
stage by stage below the foulest secular courts of the time,
continued without check to insult and outrage, more and more,
the piety, the common sense, and the decent feeling of
Christendom, until the habit of reverence was quite worn out
in the minds of men throughout the better half of Europe.
Rome and the last Tribune, Rienzi.
The city of Rome had fallen from all greatness of its own when
it came to be dependent on the fortunes of the popes. Their
departure to Avignon had reduced it to a lamentable state.
They took with them, in reality, the sustenance of the city;
for it lived, in the main, on the revenues of the Papacy, and
knew little of commerce beyond the profitable traffic in
indulgences, absolutions, benefices, relics and papal
blessings, which went to Avignon with the head of the Church.
Authority, too, departed with the Pope, and the wretched city
was given up to anarchy almost uncontrolled. A number of
powerful families--the Colonna, the Orsini, and
others--perpetually at strife with one another, fought out
their feuds in the streets, and abused and oppressed their
neighbors with impunity. Their houses were impregnable
castles, and their retainers were a formidable army.
{1046}
It was while this state of things was at its worst that the
famous Cola di Rienzi, "last of the Tribunes," accomplished a
revolution which was short-lived but extraordinary. He roused
the people to action against their oppressors and the
disturbers of their peace. He appealed to them to restore the
republican institutions of ancient Rome, and when they
responded, in 1347, by conferring on him the title and
authority of a Tribune, he actually succeeded in expelling the
turbulent nobles, or reducing them to submission, and
established in Rome, for a little time, what he called "the
Good Estate." But his head was quickly turned by his success;
he was inflated with conceit and vanity; he became arrogant
and despotic; the people tired of him, and after a few months
of rule he was driven from Rome. In 1354 he came back as a
Senator, appointed by the Pope, who thought to use him for the
restoration of papal authority; but his influence was gone,
and he was slain by a-riotous mob.
The return of the Pope to Rome in 1376 was an event so long
and ardently desired by the Roman people that they submitted
themselves eagerly to his government. But his sovereignty over
the States of the Church was substantially lost, and the
regaining of it was the principal object of the exertions of
the popes for a long subsequent period.
The Two Sicilies.
In Southern Italy and Sicily, since the fall of the
Hohenstaufens (1268), the times had been continuously evil.
The rule of the French conqueror, Charles of Anjou, was hard
and unmerciful, and the power he established became
threatening to the Papacy, which gave the kingdom to him. In
1282, Sicily freed itself, by the savage massacre of Frenchmen
which bears the name of the Sicilian Vespers. The King of
Aragon, Peter III., whose queen was the Hohenstaufen heiress,
supported the insurrection promptly and vigorously, took
possession of the island, and was recognized by the people as
their king. A war of twenty years' duration ensued. Both
Charles and Peter died and their sons continued the battle. In
the end, the Angevin house held the mainland, as a separate
kingdom, with Naples for its capital, and a younger branch of
the royal family of Aragon reigned in the island. But both
sovereigns called themselves Kings of Sicily, so that History,
ever since, has been forced to speak puzzlingly of "Two
Sicilies." For convenience it seems best to distinguish them
by calling one the kingdom of Naples and the other the kingdom
of Sicily. On the Neapolitan throne there came one estimable
prince, in Robert, who reigned from 1309 to 1343, and who was
a friend of peace and a patron of arts and letters. But after
him the throne was befouled by crimes and vices, and the
kingdom was made miserable by civil wars. His grand-daughter
Joanna, or Jane, succeeded him. Robert's elder brother
Caribert had become King of Hungary, and Joanna now married
one of that king's sons--her cousin Andrew. At the end of two
years he was murdered (1345) and the queen, a notoriously
vicious woman, was accused of the crime. Andrew's brother,
Louis, who had succeeded to the throne in Hungary, invaded
Naples to avenge his death, and Joanna was driven to flight.
The country then suffered from the worst form of civil war--a
war carried on by the hireling ruffians of the "free
companies" who roamed about Italy in that age, selling their
swords to the highest bidders. In 1351 a peace was brought
about which restored Joanna to the throne. The Hungarian
King's son, known as Charles of Durazzo, was her recognized
heir, but she saw fit to disinherit him and adopt Louis, of
the Second House of Anjou, brother of Charles V. in France.
Charles of Durazzo invaded Naples, took the queen prisoner and
put her to death. Louis of Anjou attempted to displace him, but
failed. In 1383 Louis died, leaving his claims to his son.
Charles of Durazzo was called to Hungary, after a time, to
take the crown of that kingdom, and left his young son,
Ladislaus, on the Neapolitan throne. The Angevin claimant,
Louis II., was then called in by his partisans, and civil war
was renewed for years. When Ladislaus reached manhood he
succeeded in expelling Louis, and he held the kingdom until
his death, in 1414. He was succeeded by his sister, Joanna
II., who proved to be as wicked and dissolute a woman as her
predecessor of the same name. She incurred the enmity of the
Pope, who persuaded Louis III., son of Louis II., to renew the
claims of his house. The most renowned "condottiere" (or
military contractor, as the term might be translated), of the
day, Atteridolo Sforza, was engaged to make war on Queen
Joanna in the interest of Louis. On her side she obtained a
champion by promising her dominions to Alfonso V., of Aragon
and Sicily. The struggle went on for years, with varying
fortunes. The fickle and treacherous Joanna revoked her
adoption of Alfonso, after a time, and made Louis her heir.
When Louis died, she bequeathed her crown to his brother René,
Duke of Lorraine. Her death occurred in 1435, but still the
war continued, and nearly all Italy was involved in it, taking
one side or the other. Alfonso succeeded at last (1442) in
establishing himself at Naples, and René practically gave up
the contest, although he kept the title of King of Naples. He
was the father of the famous English Queen Margaret of Anjou,
who fought for her weak-minded husband and her son in the Wars
of the Roses.
While the Neapolitan kingdom was passing through these endless
miseries of anarchy, civil war, and evil government, the
Sicilian kingdom enjoyed a more peaceful and prosperous
existence. The crown, briefly held by a cadet branch of the
House of Aragon, was soon reunited to that of Aragon; and
under Alfonso, as we have seen, it was once more joined with
that of Naples, in a "Kingdom of the Two Sicilies." But both
these unions were dissolved on the death of Alfonso, who
bequeathed Aragon and Sicily to his legitimate heir, and
Naples to a bastard son.
The Despots of Northern Italy.
In Northern Italy a great change in the political state of
many among the formerly free commonwealths had been going on
since the thirteenth century. The experience of the Greek
city-republics had been repeated in them. In one way and
another, they had fallen under the domination of powerful
families, who had established a despotic rule over them,
sometimes gathering several cities and their surrounding
territory into a considerable dominion, and obtaining from the
Emperor or the Pope a formally conferred and hereditary title.
Thus the Visconti had established themselves at Milan, and had
become a ducal house. After a few generations they gave way to
the military adventurer, Francesco Sforza, son of the Sforza
who made war for Louis III. of Anjou on Joanna II. of Naples.
In Verona, the Della Scala family reigned for a time, until
Venice overcame them; at Modena and Ferrara, the Estes; at
Mantua, the Gonzagas; at Padua, the Carraras.
{1047}
The Italian Republics.
In other cities, the political changes were of a different
character. Venice, which grew rich and powerful with
extraordinary rapidity, was tyrannically governed by a haughty
and exclusive aristocracy. In commerce and in wealth she
surpassed all her rivals, and her affairs were more shrewdly
conducted. She held large possessions in the East, and she was
acquiring an extensive dominion on the Italian mainland. The
Genoese, who were the most formidable competitors of Venice in
commerce, preserved their democracy, but at some serious
expense to the administrative efficiency of their government.
They were troubled by a nobility which could only be turbulent
and could not control. They fought a desperate but losing
fight with the Venetians, and were several times in subjection
to the dukes of Milan and the kings of France. Pisa, which had
led both Venice and Genoa in the commercial race at the
beginning, was ruined by her wars with the latter, and with
Florence, and sank, in the fourteenth century, under the rule
of the Visconti, who sold their rights to the Florentines.
Florence.
The wonderful Florentine republic was the one which preserved
its independence under popular institutions the longest, and
in which they bore the most splendid fruit. For a period that
began in the later part of the thirteenth century, the
government of Florence was so radically democratic that the
nobles (grandi) were made ineligible to office, and could only
qualify themselves for election to any place in the magistracy
by abandoning their order and engaging in the labor of some
craft or art. The vocations of skilled industry were all
organized in gilds, called Arti, and were divided into two
classes, one representing what were recognized as the superior
arts (Arti Major, embracing professional and mercantile callings,
with some others); the other including the commoner
industries, known as the Arti Minori. From the heads, or
Priors, of the Arti were chosen a Signory, changed every two
months, which was entrusted with the government of the
republic. This popular constitution was maintained in its
essential features through the better part of a century, but
with continual resistance and disturbance from the excluded
nobles, on one side, and from the common laboring people, on
the other, who belonged to no art-gild and who, therefore,
were excluded likewise from participation in political
affairs. Between these two upper and lower discontents, the
bourgeois constitution gave way at last. The mob got control
for a time; but only, as always happens, to bring about a
reactionary revolution, which placed an oligarchy in power;
and the oligarchy made smooth the way for a single family of
great wealth and popular gifts and graces to rise to supremacy
in the state. This was the renowned family which began to rule
in Florence in 1435, when Cosimo de' Medici entered on the
office of Gonfaloniere. The Medici were not despots, of the
class of the Visconti, or the Sforzas, or the Estes. They
governed under the old constitutional forms, with not much
violation of anything except the spirit of them. They acquired
no princely title, until the late, declining days of the
house. Their power rested on influence and prestige, at first,
and finally on habit. They developed, and enlisted in their
own support, as something reflected from themselves, the pride
of the city in itself,--in its magnificence,--in its great and
liberal wealth,--in its patronage of letters and art,--in its
fame abroad and the admiration with which men looked upon it.
Through all the political changes in Florence there ran an
unending war of factions, the bitterest and most inveterate in
history. The control of the city belonged naturally to the
Guelfs, for it was the head and front of the Guelfic party in
Italy. "Without Florence," says one historian, "there would
have been no Guelfs." But neither party scrupled to call armed
help from the outside into its quarrels, and the Ghibellines
were able, nearly as often as the Guelfs, to drive their
opponents from the city. For the ascendancy of one faction
meant commonly the flight or expulsion of every man in the
other who had importance enough to be noticed. It was thus
that Dante, an ardent Ghibelline, became an exile from his
beloved Florence during the later years of his life. But the
strife of Guelfs with Ghibellines did not suffice for the
partisan rancor of the Florentines, and they complicated it
with another split of factions, which bore the names of the
Bianchi and the Neri, 01' the Whites and the Blacks.
For two or three centuries the annals of Florence are naught,
one thinks in reading them, but an unbroken tale of strife
within, or war without--of tumult, riot, revolution,
disorder. And yet, underneath, there is an amazing story to be
found, of thrift, industry, commerce, prosperity, wealth, on
one side, and of the sublimest genius, on another, giving
itself, in pure devotion, to poetry and art. The contradiction
of circumstances seems irreconcilable to our modern
experience, and we have to seek an explanation of it in the
very different conditions of mediæval life. It is with
certainty a fact that Florence, in its democratic time, was
phenomenal in genius, and in richness of life,--in prosperity
both material and intellectual; and it is reasonable to credit
to that time the planting and the growing of fruits which
ripened surpassingly in the Medicean age.
The Ottomans and the Eastern Empire.
So little occasion has arisen for any mention of the lingering
Eastern Empire, since Michael Palæologus, the Greek, recovered
Constantinople from the Franks (1261), that its existence
might easily be forgotten. It had no importance until it fell,
and then it loomed large again, in history, not only by the
tragic impression of its fall upon the imaginations of men,
but by the potent consequences of it.
For nearly two hundred years, the successors of Palæologus,
still calling themselves "Emperors of the Romans," and ruling
a little Thracian and Macedonian corner of the old dominion of
the Eastern Cæsars, struggled with a new race of Turks, who
had followed the Seljuk horde out of the same Central Asian
region. One of the first known leaders of this tribe was
Osman, or Othman, after whom they are sometimes called
Osmanlis, but more frequently Ottoman Turks. They appeared in
Asia Minor about the middle of the thirteenth century,
attacking both Christian and Mahometan states, and gradually
extending their conquest over the whole. About the end of the
first century of their career, they passed the straits and won
a footing in Europe. In 1361, they took Hadrianople and made
it their capital. Their sultan at this time was Amurath.
{1048}
As yet, they did not attack Constantinople. The city itself
was too strong in its fortifications; but beyond the walls of
the capital there was no strength in the little fragment of
Empire that remained. It appealed vainly to Western Europe for
help. It sought to make terms with the Church of Rome. Nothing
saved it for the moment but the evident disposition of the
Turk to regard it as fruit which would drop to his hand in due
time, and which he might safely leave waiting while he turned
his arms against its more formidable neighbors. He contented
himself with exacting tribute from the emperors, and
humiliating them by commands which they dared not disobey. In
the Servians, the Bosnians, and the Bulgarians, Amurath found
worthier foes. He took Sophia, their principal city, from the
latter, in 1382; in 1389 he defeated the two former nations in
the great battle of Kossova. At the moment of victory he was
assassinated, and his son Bajazet mounted the Ottoman throne.
The latter, at Nicopolis (1396), overwhelmed and destroyed the
one army which Western Europe sent to oppose the conquering
march of his terrible race. Six years later, he himself was
vanquished and taken prisoner in Asia by a still more terrible
conqueror,--the fiendish Timour or Tamerlane, then scourging
the eastern Continent. For some years the Turks were paralyzed
by a disputed succession; but under Amurath II., who came to
the throne in 1421, their advance was resumed, and in a few
years more their long combat with the Hungarians began.
Hungary and the Turks.