WESTERN EUROPE BEFORE THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS
[Sidenote: Extent of the Roman Empire.]
4. No one can hope to understand the Middle Ages who does not first
learn something of the Roman Empire, within whose bounds the Germans set
up their kingdoms and began the long task of creating modern Europe.
At the opening of the fifth century there were no separate, independent
states in western Europe such as we find on the map to-day. The whole
territory now occupied by England, France, Spain, and Italy formed at
that time only a part of the vast realms ruled over by the Roman emperor
and his host of officials. As for Germany, it was still a region of
forests, familiar only to the barbarous and half-savage tribes who
inhabited them. The Romans tried in vain to conquer this part of Europe,
and finally had to content themselves with keeping the German hordes out
of the Empire by means of fortifications and guards along the Rhine and
Danube rivers.
[Sidenote: Great diversity of races included within the Empire.]
The Roman Empire, which embraced southern and western Europe, western
Asia, and even the northern portion of Africa, included the most diverse
peoples and races. Egyptians, Arabs, Jews, Greeks, Germans, Gauls,
Britons, Iberians,--all alike were under the sovereign rule of Rome. One
great state embraced the nomad shepherds who spread their tents on the
borders of Sahara, the mountaineers in the fastnesses of Wales, and the
citizens of Athens, Alexandria, and Rome, heirs to all the luxury and
learning of the ages. Whether one lived in York or Jerusalem, Memphis
or Vienna, he paid his taxes into the same treasury, he was tried by the
same law, and looked to the same armies for protection.
[Illustration: Remains of a Roman Aqueduct, now used as a Bridge, near
Nîmes, Southern France]
[Sidenote: Bonds which held the Empire together.]
At first it seems incredible that this huge Empire, which included
African and Asiatic peoples as well as the most various races of Europe
in all stages of civilization, could have held together for five
centuries instead of falling to pieces, as might have been expected,
long before the barbarians came in sufficient strength to establish
their own kingdoms in its midst. When, however, we consider the bonds of
union which held the state together it is easy to understand the
permanence of the Empire. These were: (1) the wonderfully organized
government which penetrated to every part of the realm and allowed
little to escape it; (2) the worship of the emperor as the incarnation
of the government; (3) the Roman law in force everywhere; (4) the
admirable roads and the uniform system of coinage which encouraged
intercommunication; and, lastly, (5) the Roman colonies and the teachers
maintained by the government, for through them the same ideas and
culture were carried to even the most distant parts of the Empire.
[Sidenote: The Roman government attempted to regulate everything.]
Let us first glance at the government and the emperor. His decrees were
dispatched throughout the length and breadth of the Roman dominions;
whatsoever pleased him became law, according to the well-known principle
of the Roman constitution. While the cities were permitted some freedom
in the regulation of their purely local affairs, the emperor and his
innumerable and marvelously organized officials kept an eye upon even
the humblest citizen. The Roman government, besides maintaining order,
administering justice, and defending the boundaries, assumed many other
responsibilities. It watched the grain dealers, butchers, and bakers;
saw that they properly supplied the public and never deserted their
occupation. In some cases it forced the son to follow the profession of
his father. If it could have had its way, it would have had every one
belong to a definite class of society, and his children after him. It
kept the unruly poorer classes quiet in the towns by furnishing them
with bread, and sometimes with wine, meat, and clothes. It provided
amusement for them by expensive entertainments, such as races and
gladiatorial combats. In a word, the Roman government was not only
wonderfully organized, so that it penetrated to the utmost confines of
its territory, but it attempted to guard and regulate almost every
interest in life.
[Sidenote: The worship of the emperor.]
Every one was required to join in the worship of the emperor because he
stood for the majesty of the Roman dominion. The inhabitants of each
province might revere their particular gods, undisturbed by the
government, but all were obliged as good citizens to join in the
official sacrifices to the deified head of the state. The early
Christians were persecuted, not only because their religion was
different from that of their fellows, but because they refused to offer
homage to the image of the emperor and openly prophesied the downfall of
the Roman state. Their religion was incompatible with what was then
deemed good citizenship, inasmuch as it forbade them to express the
required veneration for the government.
[Sidenote: The Roman law.]
As there was one government, so there was one law for all the civilized
world. Local differences were not considered; the same principles of
reason, justice, and humanity were believed to hold whether the Roman
citizen lived upon the Euphrates or the Thames. The law of the Roman
Empire is its chief legacy to posterity. Its provisions are still in
force in many of the states of Europe to-day, and it is one of the
subjects of study in our American universities. It exhibited a humanity
unknown to the earlier legal codes. The wife, mother, and infant were
protected from the arbitrary power of the head of the house, who, in
earlier centuries, had been privileged to treat the members of his
family as slaves. It held that it was better that a guilty person should
escape than that an innocent person should be condemned. It conceived
humanity, not as a group of nations and tribes, each with its peculiar
institutions and legal customs, but as one people included in one great
empire and subject to a single system of law based upon reason and
equity.
[Illustration: A Fortified Roman Gateway at Treves]
[Sidenote: Roads and public works.]
Magnificent roads were constructed, which enabled the messengers of the
government and its armies to reach every part of the Empire with
incredible speed. These highways made commerce easy and encouraged
merchants and travelers to visit the most distant portions of the realm.
Everywhere they found the same coins and the same system of weights and
measures. Colonies were sent out to the confines of the Empire, and the
remains of great public buildings, of theaters and bridges, of sumptuous
villas and baths at places like Treves, Cologne, Bath, and Salzburg
indicate how thoroughly the influence and civilization of Rome
penetrated to the utmost parts of the territory subject to her rule.
[Sidenote: The same culture throughout the Roman Empire.]
The government encouraged education by supporting at least three
teachers in every town of any considerable importance. They taught
rhetoric and oratory and explained the works of the great writers. The
Romans, who had no marked literary or artistic ability, had adopted the
culture of the Greeks. This was spread abroad by the government teachers
so that an educated man was pretty sure to find, even in the outlying
parts of the great Empire, other educated men with much the same
interests and ideas as his own. Everywhere men felt themselves to be not
mere natives of this or that land but citizens of the world.
[Sidenote: Loyalty to the Empire and conviction that it was eternal.]
During the four centuries from the first emperor, Augustus, to the
barbarian invasions we hear of no attempt on the part of its subjects to
overthrow the Empire or to secede from it. The Roman state, it was
universally believed, was to endure forever. Had a rebellious nation
succeeded in throwing off the rule of the emperor and establishing its
independence, it would only have found itself outside the civilized
world.
[Sidenote: Reasons why the Empire lost its power to defend itself
against the Germans.]
5. Just why the Roman government, once so powerful and so universally
respected, finally became unable longer to defend its borders and gave
way before the scattered attacks of the German peoples, who never
combined in any general alliance against it, is a very difficult
question to answer satisfactorily. The inhabitants of the Empire appear
gradually to have lost their energy and self-reliance and to have become
less and less prosperous. This may be explained partially at least by
the following considerations: (1) the terrible system of taxation, which
discouraged and not infrequently ruined the members of the wealthier
classes; (2) the existence of slavery, which served to discredit honest
labor and demoralized the free workingmen; (3) the steady decrease of
population; (4) the infiltration of barbarians, who prepared the way for
the conquest of the western portion of the Empire by their
fellow-barbarians.
[Sidenote: Oppressive taxation.]
It required a great deal of money to support the luxurious court of the
emperors and their innumerable officials and servants, and to supply
"bread and circuses" for the populace of the towns. All sorts of taxes
and exactions were consequently devised by ingenious officials to make
up the necessary revenue. The crushing burden of the great land tax, the
emperor's chief source of income, was greatly increased by the
pernicious way in which it was collected. The government made a group of
the richer citizens in each of the towns permanently responsible for the
whole amount due from all the landowners within their district. It was
their business to collect the taxes and make up any deficiency, it
mattered not from what cause. This responsibility and the weight of the
taxes themselves ruined so many landowners that the government was
forced to decree that no one should desert his estates in order to
escape the exactions. Only the very rich could stand the drain on their
resources. The middle class sank into poverty and despair, and in this
way the Empire lost just that prosperous class of citizens who should
have been the leaders in business enterprises.
[Sidenote: Slavery.]
The sad plight of the poorer laboring classes was largely due to the
terrible institution of slavery which prevailed everywhere in ancient
times. So soon as the Romans had begun to conquer distant provinces the
number of slaves greatly increased. For six or seven centuries before
the barbarian invasions every kind of labor fell largely into their
hands in both country and town. There were millions of them. A single
rich landholder might own hundreds and even thousands, and it was a poor
man that did not have several at least.
[Sidenote: The villa.]
Land was the only highly esteemed form of wealth in the Roman Empire, in
spite of the heavy taxes imposed upon it. Without large holdings of land
no one could hope to enjoy a high social position or an honorable office
under the government. Consequently the land came gradually into the
hands of the rich and ambitious, and the small landed proprietor
disappeared. Great estates called _villas_ covered Italy, Gaul, and
Britain. These were cultivated and managed by armies of slaves, who not
only tilled the land, but supplied their master, his household, and
themselves with all that was needed on the plantation. The artisans
among them made the tools, garments, and other manufactured articles
necessary for the whole community, or "family," as it was called. Slaves
cooked the food, waited on the proprietor, wrote his letters, and read
to him. To a head slave the whole management of the villa was intrusted.
A villa might be as extensive as a large village, but all its members
were under the absolute control of the proprietor of the estate. A
well-organized villa could supply itself with everything that it needed,
and found little or no reason for buying from any outsider.
[Sidenote: Slavery brings labor into disrepute.]
Quite naturally, freemen came to scorn all manual labor and even trade,
for these occupations were associated in their minds with the despised
slave. Seneca, the philosopher, angrily rejects the suggestion that the
practical arts were invented by a philosopher; they were, he declares,
"thought out by the meanest bondman."
[Sidenote: Competition of slaves fatal to the freeman.]
Slavery did more than bring manual labor into disrepute; it largely
monopolized the market. Each great household where articles of luxury
were in demand relied upon its own host of dexterous and efficient
slaves to produce them. Moreover, the owners of slaves frequently hired
them out to those who needed workmen, or permitted them to work for
wages, and in this way brought them into a competition with the free
workman which was fatal to him.
[Sidenote: Improved condition of the slaves and their emancipation.]
It cannot be denied that a notable improvement in the condition of the
slaves took place during the centuries immediately preceding the
barbarian invasions. Their owners abandoned the horrible subterranean
prisons in which the farm hands were once miserably huddled at night.
The law, moreover, protected the slave from some of the worst forms of
abuse; first and foremost, it deprived his master of the right to kill
him. Slaves began to decrease in numbers before the German invasions. In
the first place, the supply had been cut off after the Roman armies
ceased to conquer new territory. In the second place, masters had for
various reasons begun to emancipate their slaves on a large scale.
[Sidenote: The freedman.]
The freed slave was called a _freedman_, and was by no means in the
position of one who was born free. It is true that he was no longer a
chattel, a mere thing, but he had still to serve his former master,--who
had now become his patron,--for a certain number of days in the year. He
was obliged to pay him a part of his earnings and could not marry
without his patron's consent.
[Sidenote: The coloni.]
[Sidenote: Resemblance between the coloni and the later serfs.]
Yet, as the condition of the slaves improved, and many of them became
freedmen, the state of the poor freeman only became worse. In the towns,
if he tried to earn his living, he was forced to mingle with those
slaves who were permitted to work for wages and with the freedmen, and
he naturally tended to sink to their level. In the country the free
agricultural laborers became _coloni_, a curious intermediate class,
neither slave nor really free. They were bound to the particular bit of
land which some great proprietor permitted them to cultivate and were
sold with it if it changed hands. Like the mediæval _serf_, they could
not be deprived of their fields so long as they paid the owner a certain
part of their crop and worked for him during a period fixed by the
customs of the domain upon which they lived. This system made it
impossible for the farmer to become independent, or for his son to be
better off than he. The coloni and the more fortunate slaves tended to
fuse into a single class; for the law provided that, like the coloni,
certain classes of country slaves were not to be taken from the field
which they had been accustomed to cultivate but were to go with it if it
was sold.[1]
Moreover, it often happened that the Roman proprietor had a number of
dependents among the less fortunate landowners in his neighborhood.
These, in order to escape the taxes and gain his protection as the times
became more disorderly, surrendered their land to their powerful
neighbor with the understanding that he should defend them and permit
them to continue during their lifetime to cultivate the fields, the
title to which had passed to him. On their death their children became
coloni. This arrangement, as we shall find, serves in a measure to
explain the feudalism of later times.
[Sidenote: Depopulation.]
When a country is prosperous the population tends to increase. In the
Roman Empire, even as early as Augustus, a falling off in numbers was
apparent, which was bound to sap the vitality of the state. War, plague,
the evil results of slavery, and the outrageous taxation all combined to
hasten the depopulation; for when it is hard to make a living, men are
deterred from marrying and find it difficult to bring up large families.
[Sidenote: Infiltration of Germans into the Empire.]
In order to replenish the population great numbers of the Germans were
encouraged to settle within the Empire, where they became coloni.
Constantine is said to have called in three hundred thousand of a
single people. Barbarians were enlisted in the Roman legions to keep out
their fellow-Germans. Julius Cæsar was the first to give them a place
among his soldiers. The expedient became more and more common, until,
finally, whole armies were German, entire tribes being enlisted under
their own chiefs. Some of the Germans rose to be distinguished generals;
others attained important positions among the officials of the
government. In this way it came about that a great many of the
inhabitants of the Roman Empire were Germans before the great invasions.
The line dividing the Roman and the barbarian was growing indistinct. It
is not unreasonable to suppose that the influx of barbarians smoothed
the way for the break-up of the western part of the Empire. Although
they had a great respect for the Roman state, they must have kept some
of their German love of individual liberty and could have had little
sympathy for the despotism under which they lived.
[Sidenote: Decline of literature and art.]
6. As the Empire declined in strength and prosperity and was gradually
permeated by the barbarians, its art and literature fell far below the
standard of the great writers and artists of the golden age of Augustus.
The sculpture of Constantine's time was far inferior to that of
Trajan's. Cicero's exquisitely finished style lost its charm for the
readers of the fourth and fifth centuries, and a florid, inferior
species of oratory took its place. Tacitus, who died about A.D. 120, is
perhaps the latest of the Latin authors whose works may be ranked among
the classics. No more great men of letters arose. Few of those who
understand and enjoy Latin literature to-day would think of reading any
of the poetry or prose written after the beginning of the second
century.
[Sidenote: Reliance upon mere compendiums.]
During the three hundred years before the invasions those who read at
all did not ordinarily take the trouble to study the classics, but
relied upon mere collections of quotations; and for what they called
science, upon compendiums and manuals. These the Middle Ages inherited,
and it was not until the time of Petrarch, in the fourteenth century,
that Europe once more reached a degree of cultivation which enabled the
more discriminating scholars to appreciate the best productions of the
great authors of antiquity, both Greek and Latin.[2]
[Sidenote: Preparation for Christianity.]
In spite of the general decline of which we have been speaking, the
Roman world appeared to be making progress in one important respect.
During the first and second centuries a sort of moral revival took place
and a growing religious enthusiasm showed itself, which prepared the way
for the astonishingly rapid introduction of the new Christian religion.
Some of the pagan philosophers had quite given up the old idea which we
find in Homer and Virgil, that there were many gods, and had reached an
elevated conception of the one God and of our duty toward Him. "Our
duty," writes the philosopher Epictetus at the end of the first century,
"is to follow God, ... to be of one mind with Him, to devote ourselves
to the performance of His commands." The emperor Marcus Aurelius (d.
180) expresses similar sentiments in his _Meditations_,[3] the notes
which he wrote for his own guidance. There was a growing abhorrence for
the notorious vices of the great cities, and an ever-increasing demand
for pure and upright conduct. The pagan religions taught that the souls
of the dead continued to exist in Hades; but the life to come was
believed to be a dreary existence at best.
[Sidenote: Promises of Christianity.]
Christianity brought with it a new hope for all those who would escape
from the bondage of sin, of which the serious-minded were becoming more
and more conscious. It promised, moreover, eternal happiness after death
to all who would consistently strive to do right. It appealed to the
desires and needs of all kinds of men and women. For every one who
accepted the Gospel might look forward in the next world to such joy as
he could never hope to experience in this.
[Sidenote: Christianity and paganism tend to merge into one another.]
[Sidenote: Boethius.]
The new religion, as it spread from Palestine among the Gentiles, was
much modified by the religious ideas of those who accepted it. A group
of Christian philosophers, who are known as the early fathers, strove to
show that the Gospel was in accord with the aspirations of the best of
the pagans. In certain ceremonies the former modes of worship were
accepted by the new religion. From simple beginnings the church
developed a distinct priesthood and an elaborate service. In this way
Christianity and the higher forms of paganism tended to come nearer and
nearer to each other as time went on. In one sense, it is true, they met
like two armies in mortal conflict; but at the same time they tended to
merge into one another like two streams which had been following
converging courses. At the confluence of the streams stands Boethius (d.
about 524), the most gifted of the later Roman writers. His beautiful
book, _The Consolation of Philosophy_, was one of the most popular works
during the Middle Ages, when every one believed that its author was a
Christian.[4] Yet there is nothing in the book to indicate that he was
more than a religious pagan, and some scholars doubt if he ever fully
accepted the new religion.
[Sidenote: The primitive, or apostolic, church.]
7. We learn from the letters of St. Paul that the earliest Christian
communities found it necessary to have some organization. They chose
certain officers, the bishops--that is to say, overseers--and the
presbyters or elders, but St. Paul does not tell us exactly what were
the duties of these officers. There were also the deacons, who appear to
have had the care of the poor of the community. The first Christians
looked for the speedy coming of Christ before their own generation
should pass away. Since all were filled with enthusiasm for the Gospel
and eagerly awaited the last day, they did not feel the need of an
elaborate constitution. But as time went on the Christian communities
greatly increased in size, and many joined them who had little or none
of the original fervor and spirituality. It became necessary to develop
a regular system of church government in order to control the erring and
expel those who brought disgrace upon their religion by notoriously bad
conduct.
[Sidenote: The 'catholic', or universal, church.]
A famous little book, _The Unity of the Church_, by Bishop Cyprian (d.
258) gives us a pretty good idea of the Church a few decades before the
Christian religion was legalized by Constantine. This and other sources
indicate that the followers of Christ had already come to believe in a
"Catholic"--i.e., a universal--Church which embraced all the communities
of true believers wherever they might be. To this one universal Church
all must belong who hoped to be saved.[5]
[Sidenote: Organization of the church before Constantine.]
A sharp distinction was already made between the officers of the Church,
who were called the _clergy_, and the people, or _laity_. To the clergy
was committed the government of the Church as well as the instruction of
its members. In each of the Roman cities was a bishop, and at the head
of the country communities, a priest (Latin, _presbyter_), who had
succeeded to the original elders (presbyters) mentioned in the New
Testament. Below the bishop and the priest were the lower orders of the
clergy,--the deacon and sub-deacon,--and below these the so called minor
orders--the acolyte, exorcist, reader, and doorkeeper. The bishop
exercised a certain control over the priests within his territory. It
was not unnatural that the bishops in the chief towns of the Roman
provinces should be especially influential in church affairs. They came
to be called _archbishops_, and might summon the bishops of the
province to a council to decide important matters.
[Sidenote: The first general council, 325. Position of the Bishop of
Rome during this period.]
In 311 the emperor Galerius issued a decree placing the Christian
religion upon the same legal footing as paganism. Constantine, the first
Christian emperor, carefully enforced this edict. In 325 the first
general council of Christendom was called together under his auspices at
Nicæa. It is clear from the decrees of this famous assembly that the
Catholic Church had already assumed the form that it was to retain down
to the present moment, except that there is no explicit recognition of
the Bishop of Rome as the head of the whole church. Nevertheless, there
were a number of reasons--to be discussed later--why the Bishop of Rome
should sometime become the acknowledged ruler of western Christendom.
The first of the Roman bishops to play a really important part in
authentic history was Leo the Great, who did not take office until
440.[6]
[Sidenote: The Church in the Theodosian Code.]
Constantine's successors soon forbade pagan practices and began to issue
laws which gave the Christian clergy important privileges. In the last
book of the Theodosian Code, a great collection of the laws of the
Empire, which was completed in 438, all the imperial decrees are to be
found which relate to the Christian Church and the clergy. We find that
the clergy, in view of their holy duties, were exempted from certain
onerous offices and from some of the taxes which the laity had to pay.
They were also permitted to receive bequests. The emperors themselves
richly endowed the Church. Their example was followed by rulers and
private individuals all through the Middle Ages, so that the Church
became incredibly wealthy and enjoyed a far greater income than any
state of Europe. The clergy were permitted to try certain cases at law,
and they themselves had the privilege of being tried in their own church
courts for minor criminal offenses. This last book of the Code begins
with a definition of the Trinity; and much space is given to a
description of the different kinds of unbelievers and the penalties
attached to a refusal to accept the religion of the government.[7]
[Sidenote: The Church survives the Empire.]
In these provisions of the Theodosian Code the later mediæval Church is
clearly foreshadowed. The imperial government in the West was soon
overthrown by the barbarian conquerors, but the Catholic Church
conquered and absorbed the conquerors. When the officers of the Empire
deserted their posts the bishops stayed to meet the on-coming invader.
They continued to represent the old civilization and ideas of order. It
was the Church that kept the Latin language alive among those who knew
only a rude German dialect. It was the Church that maintained some
little education in even the darkest period of confusion, for without
the ability to read Latin its services could not have been performed and
its officers could not have carried on their correspondence with one
another.
[Sidenote: The Eastern Empire.]
8. Although the Roman Empire remained one in law, government, and
culture until the Germans came in sufficient force to conquer the
western portions of it, a tendency may nevertheless be noticed some time
before the conquest for the eastern and western portions to drift apart.
Constantine, who established his supremacy only after a long struggle
with his rivals, hoped to strengthen the vast state by establishing a
second capital, which should lie far to the east and dominate a region
very remote from Rome. Constantinople was accordingly founded in 330 on
the confines of Europe and Asia.[8] This was by no means supposed to
destroy the unity of the Empire. Even when Theodosius the Great arranged
(395) that both his sons should succeed him, and that one should rule
in the West and one in the East, he did not intend to divide the Empire.
It is true that there continued to be thereafter two emperors, each in
his own capital, but they were supposed to govern one empire conjointly
and in "unanimity." New laws were to be accepted by both. The writers of
the time do not speak of two states but continue to refer to "the
Empire," as if the administration were still in the hands of one ruler.
Indeed the idea of one government for all civilized mankind did not pass
away but continued to influence men during the whole of the Middle Ages.
Although it was in the eastern part of the Empire that the barbarians
first got a permanent foothold, the emperors at Constantinople were able
to keep a portion of the old possessions of the Empire under their rule
for centuries after the Germans had completely conquered the West. When
at last the eastern capital of the Empire fell, it was not into the
hands of the Germans, but into those of the Turks, who have held it
since 1453.
There will be no room in this volume to follow the history of the
Eastern Empire, although it cannot be entirely ignored in studying
western Europe. Its language and civilization had always been Greek, and
owing to this and the influence of the Orient, its culture offers a
marked contrast to that of the Latin West, which was adopted by the
Germans. Learning never died out in the East as it did in the West, nor
did art reach so low an ebb.
[Sidenote: Constantinople the most wealthy and populous city of Europe
during the early Middle Ages.]
For some centuries after the disruption of the Roman Empire in the West,
the capital of the Eastern Empire enjoyed the distinction of being the
largest and most wealthy city of Europe. Within its walls could be found
the indications of a refinement and civilization which had almost
disappeared in the Occident. Its beautiful buildings, its parks and
paved streets, filled the traveler from the West with astonishment.
When, during the Crusades, the western peoples were brought into
contact with the learning and culture of Constantinople they were
greatly and permanently impressed by them.
General Reading.--For an outline of the history of the Roman Empire
during the centuries immediately preceding the barbarian invasions,
see BOTSFORD, _History of Rome_, WEST, _Ancient History to the
Death of Charlemagne_, MYERS, _Rome: Its Rise and Fall_, or MOREY,
_Outlines of Roman History_,--all with plenty of references to
larger works on the subject. The best work in English on the
conditions in the Empire upon the eve of the invasions is DILL,
_Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire_
(Macmillan, $2.00). HATCH, _The Influence of Greek Thought upon the
Christian Church_ (Williams & Norgate, $1.00), and RENAN, _The
Influence of Rome on the Development of the Catholic Church_
(Williams & Norgate, $1.00), are very important for the advanced
student. The best of the numerous editions of Gibbon's great work,
_The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, which covers the whole
history of the Middle Ages, is that edited by Bury (The Macmillan
Company, 7 vols., $14.00).