to yield to the entreaties of his friends to remain in the
city where he was to begin his renowned efforts in the cause
of reform. Geneva had been from ancient times one of the most
flourishing imperial cities of the Burgundian territory; it
was situated on the frontiers of several countries where the
cross roads of various nationalities met. The city, which in
itself was remarkable, belonged originally to the German
empire; the language of its inhabitants was Romanic; it was
bounded on one side by Burgundy, on the other by German
Switzerland. ... Geneva was apparently in a state of
political, ecclesiastical, and moral decay. With the
puritanical strictness of Geneva, as it afterwards became,
before the mind's eye, it is difficult to picture the Geneva
of that day. An unbridled love of pleasure, a reckless
wantonness, a licentious frivolity had taken possession of
Genevan life, while the State was the plaything of intestine
and foreign feuds. ... Reformers had already appeared in the
city: Vinet, Farel, Theodore Beza; they were Frenchmen, Farel
a near neighbour of Geneva. These French Reformers are of
quite a different stamp from our Germans, who, according as
Luther or Melancthon is taken as their type, have either a
plebeian popular, or learned theological character. They are
either popular orators of great power and little polish, or
they belong to the learned circles, and keep strictly to this
character. In France they were mostly men belonging not to the
lower, but to the middle and higher ranks of society, refined
and cultivated; and in this fact lay the weakness of
Calvinism, which knew well how to rule the masses, but never
to gain their affection. ...
{1418}
His [Calvin's] greatness ... was shown in the fanatical zeal
with which he entered the city, ready to stake his life for
his cause. He began to teach, to found a school, to labour on
the structure which was the idea of his life, to introduce
reforms in doctrine, worship, the constitution and discipline
of the Church, and he preached with that powerful eloquence
only possessed by those in whom character and teaching are in
unison. The purified worship was to take place within bare,
unadorned walls; no picture of Christ, nor pomp of any kind,
was to disturb the aspirations of the soul. Life outside the
temple was also to be a service of God; games, swearing,
dancing, singing, worldly amusements, and pleasure were
regarded by him as sins, as much as real vice and crime. He
began to form little congregations, like those in the early
ages of the Church, and it need scarcely be said that even in
this worldly and pleasure-loving city the apparition of this
man, in the full vigour of life, all conviction and
determination, half prophet and half tribune, produced a
powerful impression. The number of his outward followers
increased, but they were outward followers only. Most of them
thought it would be well to make use of the bold Reformer to
oppose the bishop, and that he would find means of
establishing a new and independent Church, but they seemed to
regard freedom as libertinism. Calvin therefore regarded the
course things were taking with profound dissatisfaction. ...
So he delivered some extremely severe sermons, which half
frightened and half estranged his hearers; and at Easter,
1538, when the congregation came to partake of the Lord's
Supper, he took the unheard-of step of sending them all back
from the altar, saying, 'You are not worthy to partake of the
Lord's body; you are just what you were before; your
sentiments, your morals, and your conduct are unchanged.' This
was more than could be hazarded without peril to his life. The
effect was indescribable; his own friends disapproved of the
step. But that did not dismay him. He had barely time to flee
for his life, and he had to leave Geneva in a state of
transition--a chaos which justified a saying of his own, that
defection from one Church is not renovation by another. He was
now once more an exile. He wandered about on the frontiers of
his country, in the German cities of Strasburg, Basle, &c.,
and we several times meet with him in the religious
discussions between 1540 and 1550. ... But a time came when
they wished him back at Geneva. ... In September, 1541, he
returned and began his celebrated labours. Endowed with
supreme power, like Lycurgus at Sparta, he set to work to make
Geneva a city of the Lord--to found an ecclesiastical state in
which religion, public life, government, and the worship of
God were to be all of a piece, and an extraordinary task it
was. Calvinistic Geneva became the school of reform for
western Europe, and scattered far and wide the germs of
similar institutions. In times when Protestantism elsewhere
had become cool, this school carried on the conflict with the
mediæval Church. Calvin was implacable in his determination to
purify the worship of God of all needless adjuncts. All that
was calculated to charm and affect the senses was abolished;
spiritual worship should be independent of all earthly things,
and should consist of edification by the word, and simple
spiritual songs. All the traditional externals that Luther had
retained--altars, pictures, ceremonials, and decorations of
every kind--were dispensed with. ... Calvin next established a
system of Church discipline which controlled the individual in
every relation of life, and ruled him from the cradle to the
grave. He retained all the means by which ecclesiastical
authority enforced obedience on the faithful in the Middle
Ages--baptism, education up to confirmation, penance, penal
discipline, and excommunication. ... Calvin began his labours
late in the autumn of 1541, and he acquired and maintained
more power than was ever exercised by the most powerful popes.
He was indeed only the 'preacher of the word,' but through his
great influence he was the lawgiver, the administrator, the
dictator of the State of Geneva. There was nothing in the
commonwealth that had not been ordained by him, and this
indicates a remarkable aspect of his character. The
organization of the State of Geneva began with the ordinances
of the 2nd of January, 1542. There were four orders of
officials--pastors, teachers, elders, and deacons. The
Consistory was formed of the pastors and elders. ... It was
the special duty of the Consistory, which was composed of the
clergy and twelve laymen, to see that the ordinances were duly
observed, and it was the supreme tribunal of morals. The
twelve laymen were elected for a year, by the council of two
hundred, on the nomination by the clergy. The Consistory met
every Thursday to see that everything in the church was in
order. They had the power of excommunication, but this only
consisted in exclusion from the community of the faithful, and
the loss of the privilege of partaking of the Lord's Supper.
It also decided questions relating to marriage. The deacons
had the care of the poor and of almsgiving. Calvin himself was
the soul of the whole organization. But he was a cold, stiff,
almost gloomy being, and his character produces a very
different impression from the genial warmth of Luther, who
could be cheerful and merry with his family. Half Old
Testament prophet, half Republican demagogue, Calvin could do
anything in his State, but it was by means of his personal
influence, the authority of his words, 'the majesty of his
character,' as was said by a magistrate of Geneva after his
death. He was to the last the simple minister, whose frugal
mode of life appeared to his enemies like niggardliness. After
a reign of twenty-three years, he left behind him the
possessions of a mendicant monk. ... No other reformer
established so rigid a church discipline. ... All noisy games,
games of chance, dancing, singing of profane songs, cursing
and swearing, were forbidden, and ... church-going and
Sabbath-keeping were strictly enjoined. The moral police took
account of everything. Every citizen had to be at home by nine
o'clock, under heavy penalties. Adultery, which had previously
been punished by a few days' imprisonment and a small fine,
was now punished by death. ... At a time when Europe had no
solid results of reform to show, this little State of Geneva
stood up as a great power; year by year it sent forth apostles
into the world, who preached its doctrines everywhere, and it
became the most dreaded counterpoise to Rome, when Rome no
longer had any bulwark to defend her. ... It formed a weighty
counterpoise to the desperate efforts which the ancient Church
and monarchical power were making to crush the spirit of the
Reformation.
{1419}
It was impossible to oppose Caraffa, Philip II., and the
Stuarts, with Luther's passive resistance; men were wanted who
were ready to wage war to the knife, and such was the
Calvinistic school. It everywhere accepted the challenge;
throughout all the conflicts for political and religious
liberty, up to the time of the first emigration to America, in
France, the Netherlands, England, and Scotland, we recognise
the Genevan school. A little bit of the world's history was
enacted in Geneva, which forms the proudest portion of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries."
_L. Häusser,
The Period of the Reformation,
chapter 18._
ALSO IN:
_P. Henry,
Life and Times of Calvin,
parts 2-3._
_J. H. Merle D'Aubigne,
History of the Reformation in the time of Calvin,
books 9 and 11._
_F. P. Guizot,
Calvin,
chapters 12-22._
_L. von Ranke,
Civil Wars and Monarchy in France, 16th-17th Centuries,
chapter 8._
GENEVA: A. D. 1570.
Treaty with the Duke of Savoy.
Agreement of non-molestation.
See SAVOY: A. D. 1559-1580.
GENEVA: A. D. 1602-1603.
The escalade of the Savoyards and its repulse.
Treaty of St. Julien.
Finding a pretext in some hostile manifestations which had
appeared among the Genevese during a conflict between the
French king and himself, Charles Emanuel I., duke of Savoy,
chose to consider himself at war with Geneva, and "determined
to fight out his quarrel without further notice. The night of
the 11th to the 12th of December, 1602.. is forever memorable
in the annals of Geneva. 4,000 Savoyards, aided by darkness,
attempted the escalade of its walls; an unforeseen accident
disconcerted them; the citizens exhibited the most heroic
presence of mind; the ladders by which the aggressors ascended
were shot down by a random cannon-ball; the troops outside
fell into confusion; those who had already entered the town
were either mowed down in fight or hung on the scaffold on the
morrow; thus the whole enterprise miscarried. It was in vain
that the Duke came forward with his whole host, and tried to
prevail by open force where stratagem had failed. He was
thwarted by the intervention of the French and Swiss, and
compelled by their threats to sign the Treaty of St. Julien
(July 21st, 1603), which secured the independence of the
Genevese. Charles nevertheless did not, to his last day, give
up his designs upon that city."
_A. Gallenga,
History of Piedmont,
volume 3, chapter 2._
GENEVA: A. D. 1798.
Forcibly united to the French Republic.
See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1792-1798.
GENEVA: A. D. 1814.
United with the Swiss Confederation.
See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1803-1848.
GENEVA: A. D. 1815.
United as a canton to the Swiss Confederation, by the Congress
of Vienna.
See VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF.
----------GENEVA: End----------
GENEVA CONVENTION, The.
See RED CROSS.
GENEVA TRIBUNAL OF ARBITRATION.
See ALABAMA CLAIMS: A. D. 1871, and 1871-1872.
GENEVOIS, The.
See SAVOY AND PIEDMONT: 11TH-15TH CENTURIES.
GENGHIS KHAN, The conquests of.
See MONGOLS: A. D. 1153-1227.
GENOA:
Origin and rise of the city.
"Genoa, anciently Genua, was the chief maritime city of
Liguria, and afterwards a Roman municipium. Under the Lombards
the constant invasions of the Saracens united the professions
of trade and war, and its greatest merchants became also its
greatest generals, while its naval captains were also
merchants. The Crusades were of great advantage to Genoa [see
CRUSADES: A. D. 1104-1111] in enabling it to establish trading
settlements as far as the Black Sea; but the power of Pisa in
the East, as well as its possession of Corsica and Sardinia,
led to wars between it and Genoa, in which the Genoese took
Corsica [see CORSICA: EARLY HISTORY] and drove the Pisans out
of Sardinia. By land the Genoese territory was extended to
Nice on one side and to Spezia on the other."
_A. J. C. Hare,
Cities of Northern and Central Italy,
volume 1, page 30._
GENOA: A. D. 1256-1257.
Battles with the Venetians at Acre.
See VENICE: A. D. 1256-1257.
GENOA: A. D. 1261-1299.
The supplanting of Venice at Constantinople and in the Black
Sea trade.
Colonies in the Crimea.
Wars with Venice.
Victory at Curzola and favorable treaty of peace.
During the Latin dynasty in Constantinople the Genoese never
gained the first place in the commerce of the Black Sea. ...
It was Venice who held the key of all this commerce, at
Constantinople; when, after diverting the whole course of the
fourth Crusade, she induced Christendom to waste its energies
on subduing the Greek empire for her benefit [see BYZANTINE
EMPIRE: A.D. 1203-1204]. With the exiled Greek dynasty,
however, the Genoese were always on the best of terms, at
Trebizond, Nicea, and in Roumania; and recognizing that as
long as the Latins were all-powerful in Constantinople she
would have to relinquish the cream of the Black Sea commerce
to the Queen of the Adriatic, she at length determined to
strike a bold stroke and replace a Greek again on the throne."
This was accomplished in 1261, when Baldwin II. fled from the
Byzantine capital and Michael Paleologus took possession of
his throne and crown (see GREEK EMPIRE OF NICÆA: A. D.
1204-1261). For the assistance given in that revolution, the
Genoese obtained the treaty of Ninfeo, "which firmly
established their influence in the Black Sea. ... Thus did the
brave mariner-town of Genoa turn the scale of the vast, but
rotten, Eastern Empire; and her reward was manifold. The
grateful emperor gave her streets and quays in Constantinople,
immunity from tribute, and a free passage for her commerce.
... In addition to these excellent terms in the treaty of
Ninfeo, the emperor conceded to various Genoese private
families numerous islands in the Archipelago. ... But the
great nucleus of this power was the streets, churches, and
quays in Constantinople which were allotted to the Genoese,
and formed a vast emporium of strength and commerce, which
must have eventually led to entire possession of
Constantinople, had not the 'podesta,' or ruler of the Genoese
colony there, thought fit, from personal motives, or from large
offers made him by the Venetians, to attempt a restoration of
the Latin line. ... His conspiracy was discovered, and the
Genoese were sent away in a body to Eraclea. However, on
representation from home that it was none of their doing, and
that Guercio had been acting entirely on his own account, the
emperor yielded in perpetuity to the Genoese the town of Pera,
on the sole condition that the governors should do him homage
[see, also, CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1261-1453]. ...
{1420}
Thus were the Genoese established in this commanding position;
here they had a separate government of their own, from here
they ruled the road of commerce from China to Europe; and,
taking advantage of the weakness of the emperors, they were
able to do much as they wished about building fortresses and
palaces, with gardens to the water's edge; and thus from Pera,
with its citadel of Galata behind it, they were enabled to
dictate what terms they pleased to ships passing to and from
the Bosphorus." In the Black Sea, "from time immemorial, the
small tongue of land now known as the Crimea, then as the
Tauric Chersonese, was the mart towards which all the caravan
trade of Asia was directed by this northern road, and upon
this tongue of land sprang up a group of noble cities which,
until finally seized by the Turks, were without exception
Genoese property. Of these, Caffa was the chief. When this
city was built on the ruins of Theodosia, and by whom, is
somewhat shrouded in mystery. Certain it is that Genoa had a
colony here soon after the first Crusade. ... Second only to
Caffa in importance, and better known to us by name, was the
town of Crim, which gave its name eventually to the whole
peninsula, which originally it had got from the Crim Tatars.
... Prior to its cession to the Genoese, it had been the
residence of a Tatar emperor. ... Here, then, in this narrow
tongue of land, which we now call the Crimea, was the kernel
of Genoese prosperity. As long as she flourished here she
flourished at home. And when at length the Turkish scourge
swept over this peninsula and swallowed up her colonies, the
Ligurian Republic, by a process of slow decay, withered like a
sapless tree." The supplanting of the Venetians at
Constantinople by the Genoese, and the great advantages gained
by the latter in the commerce of the Black Sea, led
necessarily to war between the rival republics. "To maintain
her newly acquired influence in the East, Genoa sent forth a
fleet under the joint command of Pierino Grimaldi, a noble,
and Perchelto Mallone, the people's representative. They
encountered the Venetian squadron at Malvasia [1263] which was
greatly inferior to their own. But as the combatants were just
warming to their work, Mallone, actuated by party spirit,
withdrew his ships and sailed away. The Venetians could
scarcely believe what they saw; they anticipated some deep
laid stratagem, and withdrew for a while from the contest.
When however they beheld Mallone's galleys fairly under sail,
they wonderingly attacked Grimaldi and his 13 ships and
obtained an easy victory. Grimaldi fell at his post. ... This
fatal day of Malvasia [sometimes called the battle of Sette
Pozzi] might easily have secured Venice her lost place in the
Black Sea had she been able to follow up her victory, but with
inexplicable want of vigour she remained inactive." Genoa,
meantime, recovered from the disaster and sent out another
fleet which captured a rich squadron of Venetian merchant
ships in the Adriatic, taking large booty. "It surprises us
immensely to find how for the next thirty years Genoa was able
to keep up a desultory warfare with Venice, when she was at
the height of her struggle with Pisa; and it surprises us
still more that Venice raised not a hand to assist Pisa,
though she was on most friendly terms with her, and when by so
doing she could have ruined Genoa. ... After the fall of Pisa
at Meloria, in 1296 [1284], Genoa could transfer her attention
with all the greater vigour to her contest against Venice.
Four years after this victory men's minds were again bent on
war. Venice cared not to pay a tax to her rival on all ships
which went to Caffa, Genoa resented the treatment she had
received in Cyprus, and thus the rivals prepared for another
and more determined contest for supremacy." The Venetians sent
a fleet to operate in the Black Sea. "Fire was set to the
houses of Galata, irreparable damage was done to Caffa, and in
the Archipelago everything Genoese was burnt, and then off
they sailed for Cyprus, whilst the Genoese were squabbling
amongst themselves. With much trouble the many rulers of Genoa
succeeded at length in adjusting their difference, and a
goodly array of 76 galleys was entrusted to the care of Lamba
D'Oria to punish the Venetians for their depredations. ...
Much larger was the force Venice produced for the contest, and
when the combatants met off Curzola, amongst the Dalmatian
islands, the Genoese were anxious to come to terms, and sought
them, but the Venetians haughtily refused. ... This battle of
Curzola [September 8, 1298] was a sharp and vehement struggle,
and resulted in terrible loss to the Venetians, four of whose
galleys alone escaped to tell the tale. ... Had Lamba D'Oria
but driven the contest home, Venice was ill-prepared to meet
him; as it was, he determined to sail off to Genoa, taking
with him the Venetian admiral ... Dandolo. Chained to the mast
of his own vessel, and unable to sustain the effects of his
humiliation, there, as he stood, Dandolo dashed his head
against the mast and died. ... The natural result of such a
victory was a most favourable peace for Genoa, signed under
the direction of Matteo Visconti, lord of Milan, in 1299; and
thus the century closed on Genoa as without doubt the most
powerful state in Italy, and unquestionably the mistress of
the Mediterranean. ... The next outbreak of war between the
two Republics had its origin in the occupation of the island
of Chios, in 1349," and Genoa in that struggle encountered not
the Venetians alone, but the Greeks and Catalans in alliance
with them.
See CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1348-1355.
_J. T. Bent,
Genoa: How the Republic rose and fell,
chapters 6 and 8._
ALSO IN:
_W. C. Hazlitt,
History of the Venetian Republic,
chapter 11 (volume 2)._
GENOA: A. D. 1282-1290.
War with Pisa.
The great victory of Meloria.
Capture of the chain of the Pisan harbor.
See PISA: A. D. 1063-1293.
GENOA: A. D. 1313.
Alliance with the Emperor Henry VII. against Naples.
See ITALY: A. D. 1310-1313.
GENOA: A. D. 1318-1319.
Feuds of the four great families.
Siege of the city by the exiles and the Lombard princes, and
its defense by the King of Naples.
See ITALY: A. D. 1313-1330.
GENOA: A. D. 1348-1355.
War with the Greeks, Venetians and Aragonese.
See CONSTANTINOPLE: AD. 1348-1355.
GENOA: A. D. 1353.
Annexed by the Visconti to their Milanese principality.
See MILAN: A. D. 1277-1447.
GENOA: A. D. 1378-1379.
Renewed war with Venice.
The victory at Pola.
See VENICE: A. D. 1378-1379.
{1421}
GENOA: A. D. 1379-1381.
The disastrous war of Chioggia.
Venice triumphant.
See VENICE: A. D. 1379-1381.
GENOA: A. D. 1381-1422.
A succession of foreign masters.
The King of France, the Marquis of Monferrat
and the Duke of Milan.