Till the thirtieth year of his age, Clovis continued to worship the gods

of his ancestors. His disbelief, or rather disregard, of Christianity,

might encourage him to pillage with less remorse the churches of a

hostile territory: but his subjects of Gaul enjoyed the free exercise of

religious worship; and the bishops entertained a more favorable hope

of the idolater, than of the heretics. The Merovingian prince had

contracted a fortunate alliance with the fair Clotilda, the niece of the

king of Burgundy, who, in the midst of an Arian court, was educated in

the profession of the Catholic faith. It was her interest, as well

as her duty, to achieve the conversion of a Pagan husband; and Clovis

insensibly listened to the voice of love and religion. He consented

(perhaps such terms had been previously stipulated) to the baptism of

his eldest son; and though the sudden death of the infant excited some

superstitious fears, he was persuaded, a second time, to repeat the

dangerous experiment. In the distress of the battle of Tolbiac, Clovis

loudly invoked the God of Clotilda and the Christians; and victory

disposed him to hear, with respectful gratitude, the eloquent Remigius,

bishop of Rheims, who forcibly displayed the temporal and spiritual

advantages of his conversion. The king declared himself satisfied of the

truth of the Catholic faith; and the political reasons which might have

suspended his public profession, were removed by the devout or loyal

acclamations of the Franks, who showed themselves alike prepared to

follow their heroic leader to the field of battle, or to the baptismal

font. The important ceremony was performed in the cathedral of Rheims,

with every circumstance of magnificence and solemnity that could impress

an awful sense of religion on the minds of its rude proselytes. The new

Constantine was immediately baptized, with three thousand of his warlike

subjects; and their example was imitated by the remainder of the gentle

Barbarians, who, in obedience to the victorious prelate, adored the

cross which they had burnt, and burnt the idols which they had formerly

adored. The mind of Clovis was susceptible of transient fervor: he was

exasperated by the pathetic tale of the passion and death of Christ;

and, instead of weighing the salutary consequences of that mysterious

sacrifice, he exclaimed, with indiscreet fury, "Had I been present at

the head of my valiant Franks, I would have revenged his injuries." But

the savage conqueror of Gaul was incapable of examining the proofs of

a religion, which depends on the laborious investigation of historic

evidence and speculative theology. He was still more incapable of

feeling the mild influence of the gospel, which persuades and purifies

the heart of a genuine convert. His ambitious reign was a perpetual

violation of moral and Christian duties: his hands were stained with

blood in peace as well as in war; and, as soon as Clovis had dismissed a

synod of the Gallican church, he calmly assassinated all the princes of

the Merovingian race. Yet the king of the Franks might sincerely worship

the Christian God, as a Being more excellent and powerful than his

national deities; and the signal deliverance and victory of Tolbiac

encouraged Clovis to confide in the future protection of the Lord of

Hosts. Martin, the most popular of the saints, had filled the Western

world with the fame of those miracles which were incessantly performed

at his holy sepulchre of Tours. His visible or invisible aid promoted

the cause of a liberal and orthodox prince; and the profane remark of

Clovis himself, that St. Martin was an expensive friend, need not be

interpreted as the symptom of any permanent or rational scepticism. But

earth, as well as heaven, rejoiced in the conversion of the Franks.

On the memorable day when Clovis ascended from the baptismal font, he

alone, in the Christian world, deserved the name and prerogatives of a

Catholic king. The emperor Anastasius entertained some dangerous errors

concerning the nature of the divine incarnation; and the Barbarians of

Italy, Africa, Spain, and Gaul, were involved in the Arian heresy. The

eldest, or rather the only, son of the church, was acknowledged by the

clergy as their lawful sovereign, or glorious deliverer; and the armies

of Clovis were strenuously supported by the zeal and fervor of the

Catholic faction.

Under the Roman empire, the wealth and jurisdiction of the bishops,

their sacred character, and perpetual office, their numerous dependants,

popular eloquence, and provincial assemblies, had rendered them always

respectable, and sometimes dangerous. Their influence was augmented

with the progress of superstition; and the establishment of the French

monarchy may, in some degree, be ascribed to the firm alliance of a

hundred prelates, who reigned in the discontented, or independent,

cities of Gaul. The slight foundations of the Armorican republic had

been repeatedly shaken, or overthrown; but the same people still guarded

their domestic freedom; asserted the dignity of the Roman name; and

bravely resisted the predatory inroads, and regular attacks, of Clovis,

who labored to extend his conquests from the Seine to the Loire. Their

successful opposition introduced an equal and honorable union. The

Franks esteemed the valor of the Armoricans and the Armoricans were

reconciled by the religion of the Franks. The military force which

had been stationed for the defence of Gaul, consisted of one hundred

different bands of cavalry or infantry; and these troops, while they

assumed the title and privileges of Roman soldiers, were renewed by an

incessant supply of the Barbarian youth. The extreme fortifications, and

scattered fragments of the empire, were still defended by their hopeless

courage. But their retreat was intercepted, and their communication

was impracticable: they were abandoned by the Greek princes of

Constantinople, and they piously disclaimed all connection with the

Arian usurpers of Gaul. They accepted, without shame or reluctance, the

generous capitulation, which was proposed by a Catholic hero; and this

spurious, or legitimate, progeny of the Roman legions, was distinguished

in the succeeding age by their arms, their ensigns, and their peculiar

dress and institutions. But the national strength was increased by these

powerful and voluntary accessions; and the neighboring kingdoms dreaded

the numbers, as well as the spirit, of the Franks. The reduction of the

Northern provinces of Gaul, instead of being decided by the chance of

a single battle, appears to have been slowly effected by the gradual

operation of war and treaty and Clovis acquired each object of his

ambition, by such efforts, or such concessions, as were adequate to its

real value. His savage character, and the virtues of Henry IV., suggest

the most opposite ideas of human nature; yet some resemblance may be

found in the situation of two princes, who conquered France by their

valor, their policy, and the merits of a seasonable conversion.

The kingdom of the Burgundians, which was defined by the course of two

Gallic rivers, the Saone and the Rhône, extended from the forest of

Vosges to the Alps and the sea of Marseilles. The sceptre was in the

hands of Gundobald. That valiant and ambitious prince had reduced the

number of royal candidates by the death of two brothers, one of whom

was the father of Clotilda; but his imperfect prudence still permitted

Godegisel, the youngest of his brothers, to possess the dependent

principality of Geneva. The Arian monarch was justly alarmed by the

satisfaction, and the hopes, which seemed to animate his clergy and

people after the conversion of Clovis; and Gundobald convened at Lyons

an assembly of his bishops, to reconcile, if it were possible, their

religious and political discontents. A vain conference was agitated

between the two factions. The Arians upbraided the Catholics with the

worship of three Gods: the Catholics defended their cause by theological

distinctions; and the usual arguments, objections, and replies were

reverberated with obstinate clamor; till the king revealed his secret

apprehensions, by an abrupt but decisive question, which he addressed to

the orthodox bishops. "If you truly profess the Christian religion, why

do you not restrain the king of the Franks? He has declared war against

me, and forms alliances with my enemies for my destruction. A sanguinary

and covetous mind is not the symptom of a sincere conversion: let him

show his faith by his works." The answer of Avitus, bishop of Vienna,

who spoke in the name of his brethren, was delivered with the voice and

countenance of an angel. "We are ignorant of the motives and intentions

of the king of the Franks: but we are taught by Scripture, that the

kingdoms which abandon the divine law are frequently subverted; and that

enemies will arise on every side against those who have made God their

enemy. Return, with thy people, to the law of God, and he will give

peace and security to thy dominions." The king of Burgundy, who was

not prepared to accept the condition which the Catholics considered

as essential to the treaty, delayed and dismissed the ecclesiastical

conference; after reproaching his bishops, that Clovis, their friend and

proselyte, had privately tempted the allegiance of his brother.

Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part II.

The allegiance of his brother was already seduced; and the obedience of

Godegisel, who joined the royal standard with the troops of Geneva, more

effectually promoted the success of the conspiracy. While the Franks and

Burgundians contended with equal valor, his seasonable desertion decided

the event of the battle; and as Gundobald was faintly supported by

the disaffected Gauls, he yielded to the arms of Clovis, and hastily

retreated from the field, which appears to have been situate between

Langres and Dijon. He distrusted the strength of Dijon, a quadrangular

fortress, encompassed by two rivers, and by a wall thirty feet high, and

fifteen thick, with four gates, and thirty-three towers: he abandoned

to the pursuit of Clovis the important cities of Lyons and Vienna; and

Gundobald still fled with precipitation, till he had reached Avignon, at

the distance of two hundred and fifty miles from the field of battle. A

long siege and an artful negotiation, admonished the king of the Franks

of the danger and difficulty of his enterprise. He imposed a tribute on

the Burgundian prince, compelled him to pardon and reward his brother's

treachery, and proudly returned to his own dominions, with the spoils

and captives of the southern provinces. This splendid triumph was soon

clouded by the intelligence, that Gundobald had violated his recent

obligations, and that the unfortunate Godegisel, who was left at Vienna

with a garrison of five thousand Franks, had been besieged, surprised,

and massacred by his inhuman brother. Such an outrage might have

exasperated the patience of the most peaceful sovereign; yet the

conqueror of Gaul dissembled the injury, released the tribute, and

accepted the alliance, and military service, of the king of Burgundy.

Clovis no longer possessed those advantages which had assured the

success of the preceding war; and his rival, instructed by adversity,

had found new resources in the affections of his people. The Gauls or

Romans applauded the mild and impartial laws of Gundobald, which almost

raised them to the same level with their conquerors. The bishops were

reconciled, and flattered, by the hopes, which he artfully suggested, of

his approaching conversion; and though he eluded their accomplishment

to the last moment of his life, his moderation secured the peace, and

suspended the ruin, of the kingdom of Burgundy.

I am impatient to pursue the final ruin of that kingdom, which was

accomplished under the reign of Sigismond, the son of Gundobald. The

Catholic Sigismond has acquired the honors of a saint and martyr; but

the hands of the royal saint were stained with the blood of his innocent

son, whom he inhumanly sacrificed to the pride and resentment of a

step-mother. He soon discovered his error, and bewailed the irreparable

loss. While Sigismond embraced the corpse of the unfortunate youth, he

received a severe admonition from one of his attendants: "It is not his

situation, O king! it is thine which deserves pity and lamentation."

The reproaches of a guilty conscience were alleviated, however, by

his liberal donations to the monastery of Agaunum, or St. Maurice, in

Vallais; which he himself had founded in honor of the imaginary

martyrs of the Thebæan legion. A full chorus of perpetual psalmody

was instituted by the pious king; he assiduously practised the austere

devotion of the monks; and it was his humble prayer, that Heaven would

inflict in this world the punishment of his sins. His prayer was

heard: the avengers were at hand: and the provinces of Burgundy were

overwhelmed by an army of victorious Franks. After the event of an

unsuccessful battle, Sigismond, who wished to protract his life that

he might prolong his penance, concealed himself in the desert in a

religious habit, till he was discovered and betrayed by his subjects,

who solicited the favor of their new masters. The captive monarch, with

his wife and two children, was transported to Orleans, and buried

alive in a deep well, by the stern command of the sons of Clovis; whose

cruelty might derive some excuse from the maxims and examples of their

barbarous age. Their ambition, which urged them to achieve the conquest

of Burgundy, was inflamed, or disguised, by filial piety: and Clotilda,

whose sanctity did not consist in the forgiveness of injuries, pressed

them to revenge her father's death on the family of his assassin. The

rebellious Burgundians (for they attempted to break their chains) were

still permitted to enjoy their national laws under the obligation of

tribute and military service; and the Merovingian princes peaceably

reigned over a kingdom, whose glory and greatness had been first

overthrown by the arms of Clovis.

The first victory of Clovis had insulted the honor of the Goths. They

viewed his rapid progress with jealousy and terror; and the youthful

fame of Alaric was oppressed by the more potent genius of his rival.

Some disputes inevitably arose on the edge of their contiguous

dominions; and after the delays of fruitless negotiation, a personal

interview of the two kings was proposed and accepted. The conference of

Clovis and Alaric was held in a small island of the Loire, near Amboise.

They embraced, familiarly conversed, and feasted together; and separated

with the warmest professions of peace and brotherly love. But

their apparent confidence concealed a dark suspicion of hostile and

treacherous designs; and their mutual complaints solicited, eluded, and

disclaimed, a final arbitration. At Paris, which he already considered

as his royal seat, Clovis declared to an assembly of the princes and

warriors, the pretence, and the motive, of a Gothic war. "It grieves me

to see that the Arians still possess the fairest portion of Gaul. Let

us march against them with the aid of God; and, having vanquished the

heretics, we will possess and divide their fertile provinces." The

Franks, who were inspired by hereditary valor and recent zeal, applauded

the generous design of their monarch; expressed their resolution to

conquer or die, since death and conquest would be equally profitable;

and solemnly protested that they would never shave their beards till

victory should absolve them from that inconvenient vow. The enterprise

was promoted by the public or private exhortations of Clotilda. She

reminded her husband how effectually some pious foundation would

propitiate the Deity, and his servants: and the Christian hero, darting

his battle-axe with a skilful and nervous band, "There, (said he,) on

that spot where my Francisca, shall fall, will I erect a church in honor

of the holy apostles." This ostentatious piety confirmed and justified

the attachment of the Catholics, with whom he secretly corresponded; and

their devout wishes were gradually ripened into a formidable conspiracy.

The people of Aquitain were alarmed by the indiscreet reproaches of

their Gothic tyrants, who justly accused them of preferring the dominion

of the Franks: and their zealous adherent Quintianus, bishop of Rodez,

preached more forcibly in his exile than in his diocese. To resist these

foreign and domestic enemies, who were fortified by the alliance of the

Burgundians, Alaric collected his troops, far more numerous than the

military powers of Clovis. The Visigoths resumed the exercise of arms,

which they had neglected in a long and luxurious peace; a select band of

valiant and robust slaves attended their masters to the field; and the

cities of Gaul were compelled to furnish their doubtful and reluctant

aid. Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, who reigned in Italy, had

labored to maintain the tranquillity of Gaul; and he assumed, or

affected, for that purpose, the impartial character of a mediator. But

the sagacious monarch dreaded the rising empire of Clovis, and he was

firmly engaged to support the national and religious cause of the Goths.

The accidental, or artificial, prodigies which adorned the expedition

of Clovis, were accepted by a superstitious age, as the manifest

declaration of the divine favor. He marched from Paris; and as he

proceeded with decent reverence through the holy diocese of Tours, his

anxiety tempted him to consult the shrine of St. Martin, the sanctuary

and the oracle of Gaul. His messengers were instructed to remark the

words of the Psalm which should happen to be chanted at the precise

moment when they entered the church. Those words most fortunately

expressed the valor and victory of the champions of Heaven, and the

application was easily transferred to the new Joshua, the new Gideon,

who went forth to battle against the enemies of the Lord. Orleans

secured to the Franks a bridge on the Loire; but, at the distance

of forty miles from Poitiers, their progress was intercepted by an

extraordinary swell of the River Vigenna or Vienne; and the opposite

banks were covered by the encampment of the Visigoths. Delay must be

always dangerous to Barbarians, who consume the country through which

they march; and had Clovis possessed leisure and materials, it might

have been impracticable to construct a bridge, or to force a passage,

in the face of a superior enemy. But the affectionate peasants who were

impatient to welcome their deliverer, could easily betray some unknown

or unguarded ford: the merit of the discovery was enhanced by the useful

interposition of fraud or fiction; and a white hart, of singular size

and beauty, appeared to guide and animate the march of the Catholic

army. The counsels of the Visigoths were irresolute and distracted.

A crowd of impatient warriors, presumptuous in their strength, and

disdaining to fly before the robbers of Germany, excited Alaric to

assert in arms the name and blood of the conquerors of Rome. The advice

of the graver chieftains pressed him to elude the first ardor of the

Franks; and to expect, in the southern provinces of Gaul, the veteran

and victorious Ostrogoths, whom the king of Italy had already sent to

his assistance. The decisive moments were wasted in idle deliberation;

the Goths too hastily abandoned, perhaps, an advantageous post; and the

opportunity of a secure retreat was lost by their slow and disorderly

motions. After Clovis had passed the ford, as it is still named, of the

Hart, he advanced with bold and hasty steps to prevent the escape of the

enemy. His nocturnal march was directed by a flaming meteor, suspended

in the air above the cathedral of Poitiers; and this signal, which might

be previously concerted with the orthodox successor of St. Hilary, was

compared to the column of fire that guided the Israelites in the desert.

At the third hour of the day, about ten miles beyond Poitiers, Clovis

overtook, and instantly attacked, the Gothic army; whose defeat was

already prepared by terror and confusion. Yet they rallied in their

extreme distress, and the martial youths, who had clamorously demanded

the battle, refused to survive the ignominy of flight. The two kings

encountered each other in single combat. Alaric fell by the hand of

his rival; and the victorious Frank was saved by the goodness of his

cuirass, and the vigor of his horse, from the spears of two desperate

Goths, who furiously rode against him to revenge the death of their

sovereign. The vague expression of a mountain of the slain, serves to

indicate a cruel though indefinite slaughter; but Gregory has carefully

observed, that his valiant countryman Apollinaris, the son of Sidonius,

lost his life at the head of the nobles of Auvergne. Perhaps these

suspected Catholics had been maliciously exposed to the blind assault

of the enemy; and perhaps the influence of religion was superseded by

personal attachment or military honor.

Such is the empire of Fortune, (if we may still disguise our ignorance

under that popular name,) that it is almost equally difficult to foresee

the events of war, or to explain their various consequences. A bloody

and complete victory has sometimes yielded no more than the possession

of the field and the loss of ten thousand men has sometimes been

sufficient to destroy, in a single day, the work of ages. The decisive

battle of Poitiers was followed by the conquest of Aquitain. Alaric had

left behind him an infant son, a bastard competitor, factious nobles,

and a disloyal people; and the remaining forces of the Goths were

oppressed by the general consternation, or opposed to each other in

civil discord. The victorious king of the Franks proceeded without delay

to the siege of Angoulême. At the sound of his trumpets the walls of

the city imitated the example of Jericho, and instantly fell to the

ground; a splendid miracle, which may be reduced to the supposition,

that some clerical engineers had secretly undermined the foundations of

the rampart. At Bordeaux, which had submitted without resistance, Clovis

established his winter quarters; and his prudent economy transported

from Thoulouse the royal treasures, which were deposited in the capital

of the monarchy. The conqueror penetrated as far as the confines of

Spain; restored the honors of the Catholic church; fixed in Aquitain

a colony of Franks; and delegated to his lieutenants the easy task of

subduing, or extirpating, the nation of the Visigoths. But the Visigoths

were protected by the wise and powerful monarch of Italy. While the

balance was still equal, Theodoric had perhaps delayed the march of

the Ostrogoths; but their strenuous efforts successfully resisted the

ambition of Clovis; and the army of the Franks, and their Burgundian

allies, was compelled to raise the siege of Arles, with the loss, as it

is said, of thirty thousand men. These vicissitudes inclined the fierce

spirit of Clovis to acquiesce in an advantageous treaty of peace. The

Visigoths were suffered to retain the possession of Septimania, a narrow

tract of sea-coast, from the Rhône to the Pyrenees; but the

ample province of Aquitain, from those mountains to the Loire, was

indissolubly united to the kingdom of France.

After the success of the Gothic war, Clovis accepted the honors of the

Roman consulship. The emperor Anastasius ambitiously bestowed on the

most powerful rival of Theodoric the title and ensigns of that eminent

dignity; yet, from some unknown cause, the name of Clovis has not been

inscribed in the Fasti either of the East or West. On the solemn day,

the monarch of Gaul, placing a diadem on his head, was invested, in the

church of St. Martin, with a purple tunic and mantle. From thence he

proceeded on horseback to the cathedral of Tours; and, as he passed

through the streets, profusely scattered, with his own hand, a donative

of gold and silver to the joyful multitude, who incessantly repeated

their acclamations of Consul and Augustus. The actual or legal authority

of Clovis could not receive any new accessions from the consular

dignity. It was a name, a shadow, an empty pageant; and if the conqueror

had been instructed to claim the ancient prerogatives of that high

office, they must have expired with the period of its annual duration.

But the Romans were disposed to revere, in the person of their master,

that antique title which the emperors condescended to assume: the

Barbarian himself seemed to contract a sacred obligation to respect the

majesty of the republic; and the successors of Theodosius, by soliciting

his friendship, tacitly forgave, and almost ratified, the usurpation of

Gaul.

Twenty-five years after the death of Clovis this important concession

was more formally declared, in a treaty between his sons and the emperor

Justinian. The Ostrogoths of Italy, unable to defend their distant

acquisitions, had resigned to the Franks the cities of Arles and

Marseilles; of Arles, still adorned with the seat of a Prætorian

præfect, and of Marseilles, enriched by the advantages of trade and

navigation. This transaction was confirmed by the Imperial authority;

and Justinian, generously yielding to the Franks the sovereignty of the

countries beyond the Alps, which they already possessed, absolved the

provincials from their allegiance; and established on a more lawful,

though not more solid, foundation, the throne of the Merovingians. From

that era they enjoyed the right of celebrating at Arles the games of

the circus; and by a singular privilege, which was denied even to the

Persian monarch, the gold coin, impressed with their name and image,

obtained a legal currency in the empire. A Greek historian of that age

has praised the private and public virtues of the Franks, with a partial

enthusiasm, which cannot be sufficiently justified by their domestic

annals. He celebrates their politeness and urbanity, their regular

government, and orthodox religion; and boldly asserts, that these

Barbarians could be distinguished only by their dress and language from

the subjects of Rome. Perhaps the Franks already displayed the social

disposition, and lively graces, which, in every age, have disguised

their vices, and sometimes concealed their intrinsic merit. Perhaps

Agathias, and the Greeks, were dazzled by the rapid progress of their

arms, and the splendor of their empire. Since the conquest of Burgundy,

Gaul, except the Gothic province of Septimania, was subject, in its

whole extent, to the sons of Clovis. They had extinguished the German

kingdom of Thuringia, and their vague dominion penetrated beyond

the Rhine, into the heart of their native forests. The Alemanni, and

Bavarians, who had occupied the Roman provinces of Rhætia and Noricum,

to the south of the Danube, confessed themselves the humble vassals

of the Franks; and the feeble barrier of the Alps was incapable of

resisting their ambition. When the last survivor of the sons of Clovis

united the inheritance and conquests of the Merovingians, his kingdom

extended far beyond the limits of modern France. Yet modern France,

such has been the progress of arts and policy, far surpasses, in wealth,

populousness, and power, the spacious but savage realms of Clotaire or

Dagobert.

The Franks, or French, are the only people of Europe who can deduce

a perpetual succession from the conquerors of the Western empire. But

their conquest of Gaul was followed by ten centuries of anarchy and

ignorance. On the revival of learning, the students, who had been formed

in the schools of Athens and Rome, disdained their Barbarian ancestors;

and a long period elapsed before patient labor could provide the

requisite materials to satisfy, or rather to excite, the curiosity of

more enlightened times. At length the eye of criticism and philosophy

was directed to the antiquities of France; but even philosophers have

been tainted by the contagion of prejudice and passion. The most extreme

and exclusive systems, of the personal servitude of the Gauls, or of

their voluntary and equal alliance with the Franks, have been rashly

conceived, and obstinately defended; and the intemperate disputants have

accused each other of conspiring against the prerogative of the crown,

the dignity of the nobles, or the freedom of the people. Yet the sharp

conflict has usefully exercised the adverse powers of learning and

genius; and each antagonist, alternately vanquished and victorious has

extirpated some ancient errors, and established some interesting truths.

An impartial stranger, instructed by their discoveries, their disputes,

and even their faults, may describe, from the same original materials,

the state of the Roman provincials, after Gaul had submitted to the arms

and laws of the Merovingian kings.

The rudest, or the most servile, condition of human society, is

regulated, however, by some fixed and general rules. When Tacitus

surveyed the primitive simplicity of the Germans, he discovered some

permanent maxims, or customs, of public and private life, which were

preserved by faithful tradition till the introduction of the art of

writing, and of the Latin tongue. Before the election of the Merovingian

kings, the most powerful tribe, or nation, of the Franks, appointed four

venerable chieftains to compose the Salic laws; and their labors were

examined and approved in three successive assemblies of the people.

After the baptism of Clovis, he reformed several articles that appeared

incompatible with Christianity: the Salic law was again amended by his

sons; and at length, under the reign of Dagobert, the code was revised

and promulgated in its actual form, one hundred years after the

establishment of the French monarchy. Within the same period,

the customs of the Ripuarians were transcribed and published; and

Charlemagne himself, the legislator of his age and country, had

accurately studied the two national laws, which still prevailed among

the Franks. The same care was extended to their vassals; and the rude

institutions of the Alemanni and Bavarians were diligently compiled

and ratified by the supreme authority of the Merovingian kings. The

Visigoths and Burgundians, whose conquests in Gaul preceded those of the

Franks, showed less impatience to attain one of the principal benefits

of civilized society. Euric was the first of the Gothic princes who

expressed, in writing, the manners and customs of his people; and the

composition of the Burgundian laws was a measure of policy rather than

of justice; to alleviate the yoke, and regain the affections, of their

Gallic subjects. Thus, by a singular coincidence, the Germans framed

their artless institutions, at a time when the elaborate system of

Roman jurisprudence was finally consummated. In the Salic laws, and the

Pandects of Justinian, we may compare the first rudiments, and the full

maturity, of civil wisdom; and whatever prejudices may be suggested in

favor of Barbarism, our calmer reflections will ascribe to the Romans

the superior advantages, not only of science and reason, but of humanity

and justice. Yet the laws of the Barbarians were adapted to their

wants and desires, their occupations and their capacity; and they all

contributed to preserve the peace, and promote the improvement, of

the society for whose use they were originally established. The

Merovingians, instead of imposing a uniform rule of conduct on their

various subjects, permitted each people, and each family, of their

empire, freely to enjoy their domestic institutions; nor were the Romans

excluded from the common benefits of this legal toleration. The children

embraced the law of their parents, the wife that of her husband, the

freedman that of his patron; and in all causes where the parties were

of different nations, the plaintiff or accuser was obliged to follow the

tribunal of the defendant, who may always plead a judicial presumption

of right, or innocence. A more ample latitude was allowed, if every

citizen, in the presence of the judge, might declare the law under

which he desired to live, and the national society to which he chose

to belong. Such an indulgence would abolish the partial distinctions

of victory: and the Roman provincials might patiently acquiesce in the

hardships of their condition; since it depended on themselves to assume

the privilege, if they dared to assert the character, of free and

warlike Barbarians.

Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part III.

When justice inexorably requires the death of a murderer, each private

citizen is fortified by the assurance, that the laws, the magistrate,

and the whole community, are the guardians of his personal safety. But

in the loose society of the Germans, revenge was always honorable, and

often meritorious: the independent warrior chastised, or vindicated,

with his own hand, the injuries which he had offered or received; and he

had only to dread the resentment of the sons and kinsmen of the enemy,

whom he had sacrificed to his selfish or angry passions. The magistrate,

conscious of his weakness, interposed, not to punish, but to reconcile;

and he was satisfied if he could persuade or compel the contending

parties to pay and to accept the moderate fine which had been

ascertained as the price of blood. The fierce spirit of the Franks would

have opposed a more rigorous sentence; the same fierceness despised

these ineffectual restraints; and, when their simple manners had been

corrupted by the wealth of Gaul, the public peace was continually

violated by acts of hasty or deliberate guilt. In every just government

the same penalty is inflicted, or at least is imposed, for the murder

of a peasant or a prince. But the national inequality established by the

Franks, in their criminal proceedings, was the last insult and abuse of

conquest. In the calm moments of legislation, they solemnly pronounced,

that the life of a Roman was of smaller value than that of a Barbarian.

The Antrustion, a name expressive of the most illustrious birth or

dignity among the Franks, was appreciated at the sum of six hundred

pieces of gold; while the noble provincial, who was admitted to the

king's table, might be legally murdered at the expense of three hundred

pieces. Two hundred were deemed sufficient for a Frank of ordinary

condition; but the meaner Romans were exposed to disgrace and danger by

a trifling compensation of one hundred, or even fifty, pieces of gold.

Had these laws been regulated by any principle of equity or reason, the

public protection should have supplied, in just proportion, the want of

personal strength. But the legislator had weighed in the scale, not of

justice, but of policy, the loss of a soldier against that of a slave:

the head of an insolent and rapacious Barbarian was guarded by a

heavy fine; and the slightest aid was afforded to the most defenceless

subjects. Time insensibly abated the pride of the conquerors and the

patience of the vanquished; and the boldest citizen was taught, by

experience, that he might suffer more injuries than he could inflict.

As the manners of the Franks became less ferocious, their laws were

rendered more severe; and the Merovingian kings attempted to imitate the

impartial rigor of the Visigoths and Burgundians. Under the empire of

Charlemagne, murder was universally punished with death; and the use of

capital punishments has been liberally multiplied in the jurisprudence

of modern Europe.

The civil and military professions, which had been separated by

Constantine, were again united by the Barbarians. The harsh sound of the

Teutonic appellations was mollified into the Latin titles of Duke,

of Count, or of Præfect; and the same officer assumed, within his

district, the command of the troops, and the administration of justice.

But the fierce and illiterate chieftain was seldom qualified to

discharge the duties of a judge, which required all the faculties of a

philosophic mind, laboriously cultivated by experience and study; and

his rude ignorance was compelled to embrace some simple, and visible,

methods of ascertaining the cause of justice. In every religion, the

Deity has been invoked to confirm the truth, or to punish the falsehood

of human testimony; but this powerful instrument was misapplied and

abused by the simplicity of the German legislators. The party accused

might justify his innocence, by producing before their tribunal a number

of friendly witnesses, who solemnly declared their belief, or assurance,

that he was not guilty. According to the weight of the charge, this

legal number of compurgators was multiplied; seventy-two voices were

required to absolve an incendiary or assassin: and when the chastity

of a queen of France was suspected, three hundred gallant nobles swore,

without hesitation, that the infant prince had been actually begotten

by her deceased husband. The sin and scandal of manifest and frequent

perjuries engaged the magistrates to remove these dangerous temptations;

and to supply the defects of human testimony by the famous experiments

of fire and water. These extraordinary trials were so capriciously

contrived, that, in some cases, guilt, and innocence in others, could

not be proved without the interposition of a miracle. Such miracles were

really provided by fraud and credulity; the most intricate causes

were determined by this easy and infallible method, and the turbulent

Barbarians, who might have disdained the sentence of the magistrate,

submissively acquiesced in the judgment of God.

But the trials by single combat gradually obtained superior credit and

authority, among a warlike people, who could not believe that a brave

man deserved to suffer, or that a coward deserved to live. Both in civil

and criminal proceedings, the plaintiff, or accuser, the defendant, or

even the witness, were exposed to mortal challenge from the antagonist

who was destitute of legal proofs; and it was incumbent on them either

to desert their cause, or publicly to maintain their honor, in the lists

of battle. They fought either on foot, or on horseback, according to

the custom of their nation; and the decision of the sword, or lance,

was ratified by the sanction of Heaven, of the judge, and of the people.

This sanguinary law was introduced into Gaul by the Burgundians; and

their legislator Gundobald condescended to answer the complaints and

objections of his subject Avitus. "Is it not true," said the king of

Burgundy to the bishop, "that the event of national wars, and private

combats, is directed by the judgment of God; and that his providence

awards the victory to the juster cause?" By such prevailing arguments,

the absurd and cruel practice of judicial duels, which had been peculiar

to some tribes of Germany, was propagated and established in all the

monarchies of Europe, from Sicily to the Baltic. At the end of ten

centuries, the reign of legal violence was not totally extinguished; and

the ineffectual censures of saints, of popes, and of synods, may seem to

prove, that the influence of superstition is weakened by its unnatural

alliance with reason and humanity. The tribunals were stained with the

blood, perhaps, of innocent and respectable citizens; the law, which now

favors the rich, then yielded to the strong; and the old, the feeble,

and the infirm, were condemned, either to renounce their fairest claims

and possessions, to sustain the dangers of an unequal conflict, or

to trust the doubtful aid of a mercenary champion. This oppressive

jurisprudence was imposed on the provincials of Gaul, who complained

of any injuries in their persons and property. Whatever might be the

strength, or courage, of individuals, the victorious Barbarians excelled

in the love and exercise of arms; and the vanquished Roman was unjustly

summoned to repeat, in his own person, the bloody contest which had been

already decided against his country.

A devouring host of one hundred and twenty thousand Germans had formerly

passed the Rhine under the command of Ariovistus. One third part of

the fertile lands of the Sequani was appropriated to their use; and the

conqueror soon repeated his oppressive demand of another third, for the

accommodation of a new colony of twenty-four thousand Barbarians, whom

he had invited to share the rich harvest of Gaul. At the distance of

five hundred years, the Visigoths and Burgundians, who revenged the

defeat of Ariovistus, usurped the same unequal proportion of two thirds

of the subject lands. But this distribution, instead of spreading over

the province, may be reasonably confined to the peculiar districts where

the victorious people had been planted by their own choice, or by the

policy of their leader. In these districts, each Barbarian was connected

by the ties of hospitality with some Roman provincial. To this unwelcome

guest, the proprietor was compelled to abandon two thirds of his

patrimony, but the German, a shepherd and a hunter, might sometimes

content himself with a spacious range of wood and pasture, and resign

the smallest, though most valuable, portion, to the toil of the

industrious husbandman. The silence of ancient and authentic testimony

has encouraged an opinion, that the rapine of the Franks was not

moderated, or disguised, by the forms of a legal division; that they

dispersed themselves over the provinces of Gaul, without order or

control; and that each victorious robber, according to his wants, his

avarice, and his strength, measured with his sword the extent of his new

inheritance. At a distance from their sovereign, the Barbarians might

indeed be tempted to exercise such arbitrary depredation; but the firm

and artful policy of Clovis must curb a licentious spirit, which would

aggravate the misery of the vanquished, whilst it corrupted the union

and discipline of the conquerors. The memorable vase of Soissons is a

monument and a pledge of the regular distribution of the Gallic spoils.

It was the duty and the interest of Clovis to provide rewards for a

successful army, settlements for a numerous people; without inflicting

any wanton or superfluous injuries on the loyal Catholics of Gaul. The

ample fund, which he might lawfully acquire, of the Imperial patrimony,

vacant lands, and Gothic usurpations, would diminish the cruel necessity

of seizure and confiscation, and the humble provincials would more

patiently acquiesce in the equal and regular distribution of their loss.

The wealth of the Merovingian princes consisted in their extensive

domain. After the conquest of Gaul, they still delighted in the rustic

simplicity of their ancestors; the cities were abandoned to solitude

and decay; and their coins, their charters, and their synods, are still

inscribed with the names of the villas, or rural palaces, in which they

successively resided. One hundred and sixty of these palaces, a title

which need not excite any unseasonable ideas of art or luxury, were

scattered through the provinces of their kingdom; and if some might

claim the honors of a fortress, the far greater part could be esteemed

only in the light of profitable farms. The mansion of the long-haired

kings was surrounded with convenient yards and stables, for the cattle

and the poultry; the garden was planted with useful vegetables; the

various trades, the labors of agriculture, and even the arts of hunting

and fishing, were exercised by servile hands for the emolument of the

sovereign; his magazines were filled with corn and wine, either for

sale or consumption; and the whole administration was conducted by

the strictest maxims of private economy. This ample patrimony was

appropriated to supply the hospitable plenty of Clovis and his

successors; and to reward the fidelity of their brave companions who,

both in peace and war, were devoted to their persona service. Instead of

a horse, or a suit of armor, each companion, according to his rank, or

merit, or favor, was invested with a benefice, the primitive name,

and most simple form, of the feudal possessions. These gifts might be

resumed at the pleasure of the sovereign; and his feeble prerogative

derived some support from the influence of his liberality. But this

dependent tenure was gradually abolished by the independent and

rapacious nobles of France, who established the perpetual property, and

hereditary succession, of their benefices; a revolution salutary to the

earth, which had been injured, or neglected, by its precarious masters.

Besides these royal and beneficiary estates, a large proportion had been

assigned, in the division of Gaul, of allodial and Salic lands: they

were exempt from tribute, and the Salic lands were equally shared among

the male descendants of the Franks.

In the bloody discord and silent decay of the Merovingian line, a new

order of tyrants arose in the provinces, who, under the appellation of

Seniors, or Lords, usurped a right to govern, and a license to oppress,

the subjects of their peculiar territory. Their ambition might be

checked by the hostile resistance of an equal: but the laws were

extinguished; and the sacrilegious Barbarians, who dared to provoke the

vengeance of a saint or bishop, would seldom respect the landmarks of a

profane and defenceless neighbor. The common or public rights of nature,

such as they had always been deemed by the Roman jurisprudence, were

severely restrained by the German conquerors, whose amusement, or rather

passion, was the exercise of hunting. The vague dominion which Man has

assumed over the wild inhabitants of the earth, the air, and the waters,

was confined to some fortunate individuals of the human species. Gaul

was again overspread with woods; and the animals, who were reserved for

the use or pleasure of the lord, might ravage with impunity the fields

of his industrious vassals. The chase was the sacred privilege of the

nobles and their domestic servants. Plebeian transgressors were legally

chastised with stripes and imprisonment; but in an age which admitted a

slight composition for the life of a citizen, it was a capital crime to

destroy a stag or a wild bull within the precincts of the royal forests.

According to the maxims of ancient war, the conqueror became the lawful

master of the enemy whom he had subdued and spared: and the fruitful

cause of personal slavery, which had been almost suppressed by the

peaceful sovereignty of Rome, was again revived and multiplied by the

perpetual hostilities of the independent Barbarians. The Goth, the

Burgundian, or the Frank, who returned from a successful expedition,

dragged after him a long train of sheep, of oxen, and of human captives,

whom he treated with the same brutal contempt. The youths of an elegant

form and an ingenuous aspect were set apart for the domestic service; a

doubtful situation, which alternately exposed them to the favorable or

cruel impulse of passion. The useful mechanics and servants (smiths,

carpenters, tailors, shoemakers, cooks, gardeners, dyers, and workmen

in gold and silver, &c.) employed their skill for the use, or profit,

of their master. But the Roman captives, who were destitute of art, but

capable of labor, were condemned, without regard to their former rank,

to tend the cattle and cultivate the lands of the Barbarians. The number

of the hereditary bondsmen, who were attached to the Gallic estates, was

continually increased by new supplies; and the servile people, according

to the situation and temper of their lords, was sometimes raised by

precarious indulgence, and more frequently depressed by capricious

despotism. An absolute power of life and death was exercised by

these lords; and when they married their daughters, a train of useful

servants, chained on the wagons to prevent their escape, was sent as a

nuptial present into a distant country. The majesty of the Roman laws

protected the liberty of each citizen, against the rash effects of his

own distress or despair. But the subjects of the Merovingian kings might

alienate their personal freedom; and this act of legal suicide, which

was familiarly practised, is expressed in terms most disgraceful and

afflicting to the dignity of human nature. The example of the poor, who

purchased life by the sacrifice of all that can render life desirable,

was gradually imitated by the feeble and the devout, who, in times of

public disorder, pusillanimously crowded to shelter themselves under

the battlements of a powerful chief, and around the shrine of a popular

saint. Their submission was accepted by these temporal or spiritual

patrons; and the hasty transaction irrecoverably fixed their own

condition, and that of their latest posterity. From the reign of Clovis,

during five successive centuries, the laws and manners of Gaul uniformly

tended to promote the increase, and to confirm the duration, of personal

servitude. Time and violence almost obliterated the intermediate ranks

of society; and left an obscure and narrow interval between the noble

and the slave. This arbitrary and recent division has been transformed

by pride and prejudice into a national distinction, universally

established by the arms and the laws of the Merovingians. The nobles,

who claimed their genuine or fabulous descent from the independent and

victorious Franks, have asserted and abused the indefeasible right of

conquest over a prostrate crowd of slaves and plebeians, to whom they

imputed the imaginary disgrace of Gallic or Roman extraction.

The general state and revolutions of France, a name which was imposed

by the conquerors, may be illustrated by the particular example of

a province, a diocese, or a senatorial family. Auvergne had formerly

maintained a just preeminence among the independent states and cities

of Gaul. The brave and numerous inhabitants displayed a singular trophy;

the sword of Cæsar himself, which he had lost when he was repulsed

before the walls of Gergovia. As the common offspring of Troy, they

claimed a fraternal alliance with the Romans; and if each province had

imitated the courage and loyalty of Auvergne, the fall of the Western

empire might have been prevented or delayed. They firmly maintained the

fidelity which they had reluctantly sworn to the Visigoths, out

when their bravest nobles had fallen in the battle of Poitiers, they

accepted, without resistance, a victorious and Catholic sovereign. This

easy and valuable conquest was achieved and possessed by Theodoric, the

eldest son of Clovis: but the remote province was separated from his

Austrasian dominions, by the intermediate kingdoms of Soissons, Paris,

and Orleans, which formed, after their father's death, the inheritance

of his three brothers. The king of Paris, Childebert, was tempted by

the neighborhood and beauty of Auvergne. The Upper country, which rises

towards the south into the mountains of the Cevennes, presented a rich

and various prospect of woods and pastures; the sides of the hills

were clothed with vines; and each eminence was crowned with a villa or

castle. In the Lower Auvergne, the River Allier flows through the fair

and spacious plain of Limagne; and the inexhaustible fertility of the

soil supplied, and still supplies, without any interval of repose, the

constant repetition of the same harvests. On the false report, that

their lawful sovereign had been slain in Germany, the city and diocese

of Auvergne were betrayed by the grandson of Sidonius Apollinaris.

Childebert enjoyed this clandestine victory; and the free subjects of

Theodoric threatened to desert his standard, if he indulged his private

resentment, while the nation was engaged in the Burgundian war. But the

Franks of Austrasia soon yielded to the persuasive eloquence of their

king. "Follow me," said Theodoric, "into Auvergne; I will lead you into

a province, where you may acquire gold, silver, slaves, cattle, and

precious apparel, to the full extent of your wishes. I repeat my

promise; I give you the people and their wealth as your prey; and you

may transport them at pleasure into your own country." By the execution

of this promise, Theodoric justly forfeited the allegiance of a people

whom he devoted to destruction. His troops, reënforced by the fiercest

Barbarians of Germany, spread desolation over the fruitful face of

Auvergne; and two places only, a strong castle and a holy shrine, were

saved or redeemed from their licentious fury. The castle of Meroliac was

seated on a lofty rock, which rose a hundred feet above the surface of

the plain; and a large reservoir of fresh water was enclosed, with some

arable lands, within the circle of its fortifications. The Franks beheld

with envy and despair this impregnable fortress; but they surprised a

party of fifty stragglers; and, as they were oppressed by the number

of their captives, they fixed, at a trifling ransom, the alternative of

life or death for these wretched victims, whom the cruel Barbarians were

prepared to massacre on the refusal of the garrison. Another detachment

penetrated as far as Brivas, or Brioude, where the inhabitants, with

their valuable effects, had taken refuge in the sanctuary of St. Julian.

The doors of the church resisted the assault; but a daring soldier

entered through a window of the choir, and opened a passage to his

companions. The clergy and people, the sacred and the profane spoils,

were rudely torn from the altar; and the sacrilegious division was made

at a small distance from the town of Brioude. But this act of impiety

was severely chastised by the devout son of Clovis. He punished with

death the most atrocious offenders; left their secret accomplices to the

vengeance of St. Julian; released the captives; restored the plunder;

and extended the rights of sanctuary five miles round the sepulchre of

the holy martyr.

Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part IV.

Before the Austrasian army retreated from Auvergne, Theodoric exacted

some pledges of the future loyalty of a people, whose just hatred could

be restrained only by their fear. A select band of noble youths, the

sons of the principal senators, was delivered to the conqueror, as the

hostages of the faith of Childebert, and of their countrymen. On the

first rumor of war, or conspiracy, these guiltless youths were reduced

to a state of servitude; and one of them, Attalus, whose adventures are

more particularly related, kept his master's horses in the diocese of

Treves. After a painful search, he was discovered, in this unworthy

occupation, by the emissaries of his grandfather, Gregory bishop of

Langres; but his offers of ransom were sternly rejected by the avarice

of the Barbarian, who required an exorbitant sum of ten pounds of gold

for the freedom of his noble captive. His deliverance was effected by

the hardy stratagem of Leo, a slave belonging to the kitchens of the

bishop of Langres. An unknown agent easily introduced him into the same

family. The Barbarian purchased Leo for the price of twelve pieces of

gold; and was pleased to learn that he was deeply skilled in the luxury

of an episcopal table: "Next Sunday," said the Frank, "I shall invite

my neighbors and kinsmen. Exert thy art, and force them to confess,

that they have never seen, or tasted, such an entertainment, even in the

king's house." Leo assured him, that if he would provide a sufficient

quantity of poultry, his wishes should be satisfied. The master who

already aspired to the merit of elegant hospitality, assumed, as his

own, the praise which the voracious guests unanimously bestowed on his

cook; and the dexterous Leo insensibly acquired the trust and management

of his household. After the patient expectation of a whole year, he

cautiously whispered his design to Attalus, and exhorted him to

prepare for flight in the ensuing night. At the hour of midnight, the

intemperate guests retired from the table; and the Frank's son-in-law,

whom Leo attended to his apartment with a nocturnal potation,

condescended to jest on the facility with which he might betray his

trust. The intrepid slave, after sustaining this dangerous raillery,

entered his master's bedchamber; removed his spear and shield; silently

drew the fleetest horses from the stable; unbarred the ponderous gates;

and excited Attalus to save his life and liberty by incessant diligence.

Their apprehensions urged them to leave their horses on the banks of the

Meuse; they swam the river, wandered three days in the adjacent forest,

and subsisted only by the accidental discovery of a wild plum-tree. As

they lay concealed in a dark thicket, they heard the noise of horses;

they were terrified by the angry countenance of their master, and they

anxiously listened to his declaration, that, if he could seize the

guilty fugitives, one of them he would cut in pieces with his sword, and

would expose the other on a gibbet. At length, Attalus and his faithful

Leo reached the friendly habitation of a presbyter of Rheims, who

recruited their fainting strength with bread and wine, concealed them

from the search of their enemy, and safely conducted them beyond the

limits of the Austrasian kingdom, to the episcopal palace of Langres.

Gregory embraced his grandson with tears of joy, gratefully delivered

Leo, with his whole family, from the yoke of servitude, and bestowed on

him the property of a farm, where he might end his days in happiness and

freedom. Perhaps this singular adventure, which is marked with so many

circumstances of truth and nature, was related by Attalus himself, to

his cousin or nephew, the first historian of the Franks. Gregory

of Tours was born about sixty years after the death of Sidonius

Apollinaris; and their situation was almost similar, since each of them

was a native of Auvergne, a senator, and a bishop. The difference of

their style and sentiments may, therefore, express the decay of Gaul;

and clearly ascertain how much, in so short a space, the human mind had

lost of its energy and refinement.

We are now qualified to despise the opposite, and, perhaps, artful,

misrepresentations, which have softened, or exaggerated, the oppression

of the Romans of Gaul under the reign of the Merovingians. The

conquerors never promulgated any universal edict of servitude, or

confiscation; but a degenerate people, who excused their weakness by the

specious names of politeness and peace, was exposed to the arms and

laws of the ferocious Barbarians, who contemptuously insulted their

possessions, their freedom, and their safety. Their personal injuries

were partial and irregular; but the great body of the Romans survived

the revolution, and still preserved the property, and privileges, of

citizens. A large portion of their lands was exacted for the use of the

Franks: but they enjoyed the remainder, exempt from tribute; and the

same irresistible violence which swept away the arts and manufactures

of Gaul, destroyed the elaborate and expensive system of Imperial

despotism. The Provincials must frequently deplore the savage

jurisprudence of the Salic or Ripuarian laws; but their private life,

in the important concerns of marriage, testaments, or inheritance, was

still regulated by the Theodosian Code; and a discontented Roman might

freely aspire, or descend, to the title and character of a Barbarian.

The honors of the state were accessible to his ambition: the education

and temper of the Romans more peculiarly qualified them for the offices

of civil government; and, as soon as emulation had rekindled their

military ardor, they were permitted to march in the ranks, or even at

the head, of the victorious Germans. I shall not attempt to enumerate

the generals and magistrates, whose names attest the liberal policy of

the Merovingians. The supreme command of Burgundy, with the title of

Patrician, was successively intrusted to three Romans; and the last,

and most powerful, Mummolus, who alternately saved and disturbed the

monarchy, had supplanted his father in the station of count of Autun,

and left a treasury of thirty talents of gold, and two hundred and fifty

talents of silver. The fierce and illiterate Barbarians were excluded,

during several generations, from the dignities, and even from the

orders, of the church. The clergy of Gaul consisted almost entirely

of native provincials; the haughty Franks fell at the feet of their

subjects, who were dignified with the episcopal character: and the power

and riches which had been lost in war, were insensibly recovered by

superstition. In all temporal affairs, the Theodosian Code was the

universal law of the clergy; but the Barbaric jurisprudence had

liberally provided for their personal safety; a sub-deacon was

equivalent to two Franks; the antrustion, and priest, were held in

similar estimation: and the life of a bishop was appreciated far above

the common standard, at the price of nine hundred pieces of gold.

The Romans communicated to their conquerors the use of the Christian

religion and Latin language; but their language and their religion had

alike degenerated from the simple purity of the Augustan, and Apostolic

age. The progress of superstition and Barbarism was rapid and universal:

the worship of the saints concealed from vulgar eyes the God of

the Christians; and the rustic dialect of peasants and soldiers was

corrupted by a Teutonic idiom and pronunciation. Yet such intercourse

of sacred and social communion eradicated the distinctions of birth and

victory; and the nations of Gaul were gradually confounded under the

name and government of the Franks.

The Franks, after they mingled with their Gallic subjects, might have

imparted the most valuable of human gifts, a spirit and system of

constitutional liberty. Under a king, hereditary, but limited, the

chiefs and counsellors might have debated at Paris, in the palace of the

Cæsars: the adjacent field, where the emperors reviewed their mercenary

legions, would have admitted the legislative assembly of freemen and

warriors; and the rude model, which had been sketched in the woods of

Germany, might have been polished and improved by the civil wisdom

of the Romans. But the careless Barbarians, secure of their personal

independence, disdained the labor of government: the annual assemblies

of the month of March were silently abolished; and the nation was

separated, and almost dissolved, by the conquest of Gaul. The monarchy

was left without any regular establishment of justice, of arms, or

of revenue. The successors of Clovis wanted resolution to assume, or

strength to exercise, the legislative and executive powers, which the

people had abdicated: the royal prerogative was distinguished only by a

more ample privilege of rapine and murder; and the love of freedom, so

often invigorated and disgraced by private ambition, was reduced, among

the licentious Franks, to the contempt of order, and the desire of

impunity. Seventy-five years after the death of Clovis, his grandson,

Gontran, king of Burgundy, sent an army to invade the Gothic possessions

of Septimania, or Languedoc. The troops of Burgundy, Berry, Auvergne,

and the adjacent territories, were excited by the hopes of spoil. They

marched, without discipline, under the banners of German, or Gallic,

counts: their attack was feeble and unsuccessful; but the friendly

and hostile provinces were desolated with indiscriminate rage. The

cornfields, the villages, the churches themselves, were consumed by

fire: the inhabitants were massacred, or dragged into captivity; and,

in the disorderly retreat, five thousand of these inhuman savages

were destroyed by hunger or intestine discord. When the pious Gontran

reproached the guilt or neglect of their leaders, and threatened to

inflict, not a legal sentence, but instant and arbitrary execution, they

accused the universal and incurable corruption of the people. "No one,"

they said, "any longer fears or respects his king, his duke, or his

count. Each man loves to do evil, and freely indulges his criminal

inclinations. The most gentle correction provokes an immediate tumult,

and the rash magistrate, who presumes to censure or restrain his

seditious subjects, seldom escapes alive from their revenge." It has

been reserved for the same nation to expose, by their intemperate vices,

the most odious abuse of freedom; and to supply its loss by the

spirit of honor and humanity, which now alleviates and dignifies their

obedience to an absolute sovereign.

The Visigoths had resigned to Clovis the greatest part of their Gallic

possessions; but their loss was amply compensated by the easy conquest,

and secure enjoyment, of the provinces of Spain. From the monarchy

of the Goths, which soon involved the Suevic kingdom of Gallicia, the

modern Spaniards still derive some national vanity; but the historian

of the Roman empire is neither invited, nor compelled, to pursue the

obscure and barren series of their annals. The Goths of Spain were

separated from the rest of mankind by the lofty ridge of the Pyrenæan

mountains: their manners and institutions, as far as they were common to

the Germanic tribes, have been already explained. I have anticipated,

in the preceding chapter, the most important of their ecclesiastical

events, the fall of Arianism, and the persecution of the Jews; and it

only remains to observe some interesting circumstances which relate to

the civil and ecclesiastical constitution of the Spanish kingdom.

After their conversion from idolatry or heresy, the Frank and the

Visigoths were disposed to embrace, with equal submission, the inherent

evils and the accidental benefits, of superstition. But the prelates

of France, long before the extinction of the Merovingian race, had

degenerated into fighting and hunting Barbarians. They disdained the use

of synods; forgot the laws of temperance and chastity; and preferred the

indulgence of private ambition and luxury to the general interest of the

sacerdotal profession. The bishops of Spain respected themselves, and

were respected by the public: their indissoluble union disguised their

vices, and confirmed their authority; and the regular discipline of the

church introduced peace, order, and stability, into the government of

the state. From the reign of Recared, the first Catholic king, to that

of Witiza, the immediate predecessor of the unfortunate Roderic, sixteen

national councils were successively convened. The six metropolitans,

Toledo, Seville, Merida, Braga, Tarragona, and Narbonne, presided

according to their respective seniority; the assembly was composed of

their suffragan bishops, who appeared in person, or by their proxies;

and a place was assigned to the most holy, or opulent, of the Spanish

abbots. During the first three days of the convocation, as long as they

agitated the ecclesiastical question of doctrine and discipline, the

profane laity was excluded from their debates; which were conducted,

however, with decent solemnity. But, on the morning of the fourth day,

the doors were thrown open for the entrance of the great officers of the

palace, the dukes and counts of the provinces, the judges of the cities,

and the Gothic nobles, and the decrees of Heaven were ratified by the

consent of the people. The same rules were observed in the provincial

assemblies, the annual synods, which were empowered to hear complaints,

and to redress grievances; and a legal government was supported by the

prevailing influence of the Spanish clergy. The bishops, who, in each

revolution, were prepared to flatter the victorious, and to insult the

prostrate labored, with diligence and success, to kindle the flames of

persecution, and to exalt the mitre above the crown. Yet the national

councils of Toledo, in which the free spirit of the Barbarians was

tempered and guided by episcopal policy, have established some prudent

laws for the common benefit of the king and people. The vacancy of the

throne was supplied by the choice of the bishops and palatines; and

after the failure of the line of Alaric, the regal dignity was still

limited to the pure and noble blood of the Goths. The clergy, who

anointed their lawful prince, always recommended, and sometimes

practised, the duty of allegiance; and the spiritual censures were

denounced on the heads of the impious subjects, who should resist his

authority, conspire against his life, or violate, by an indecent

union, the chastity even of his widow. But the monarch himself, when

he ascended the throne, was bound by a reciprocal oath to God and his

people, that he would faithfully execute this important trust. The real

or imaginary faults of his administration were subject to the control of

a powerful aristocracy; and the bishops and palatines were guarded by

a fundamental privilege, that they should not be degraded, imprisoned,

tortured, nor punished with death, exile, or confiscation, unless by the

free and public judgment of their peers.

One of these legislative councils of Toledo examined and ratified the

code of laws which had been compiled by a succession of Gothic kings,

from the fierce Euric, to the devout Egica. As long as the Visigoths

themselves were satisfied with the rude customs of their ancestors, they

indulged their subjects of Aquitain and Spain in the enjoyment of the

Roman law. Their gradual improvement in arts, in policy, and at length

in religion, encouraged them to imitate, and to supersede, these foreign

institutions; and to compose a code of civil and criminal jurisprudence,

for the use of a great and united people. The same obligations, and

the same privileges, were communicated to the nations of the Spanish

monarchy; and the conquerors, insensibly renouncing the Teutonic idiom,

submitted to the restraints of equity, and exalted the Romans to

the participation of freedom. The merit of this impartial policy was

enhanced by the situation of Spain under the reign of the Visigoths.

The provincials were long separated from their Arian masters by the

irreconcilable difference of religion. After the conversion of Recared

had removed the prejudices of the Catholics, the coasts, both of the

Ocean and Mediterranean, were still possessed by the Eastern emperors;

who secretly excited a discontented people to reject the yoke of the

Barbarians, and to assert the name and dignity of Roman citizens. The

allegiance of doubtful subjects is indeed most effectually secured by

their own persuasion, that they hazard more in a revolt, than they

can hope to obtain by a revolution; but it has appeared so natural

to oppress those whom we hate and fear, that the contrary system well

deserves the praise of wisdom and moderation.

While the kingdom of the Franks and Visigoths were established in Gaul

and Spain, the Saxons achieved the conquest of Britain, the third

great diocese of the Præfecture of the West. Since Britain was already

separated from the Roman empire, I might, without reproach, decline a

story familiar to the most illiterate, and obscure to the most learned,

of my readers. The Saxons, who excelled in the use of the oar, or the

battle-axe, were ignorant of the art which could alone perpetuate the

fame of their exploits; the Provincials, relapsing into barbarism,

neglected to describe the ruin of their country; and the doubtful

tradition was almost extinguished, before the missionaries of Rome

restored the light of science and Christianity. The declamations of

Gildas, the fragments, or fables, of Nennius, the obscure hints of the

Saxon laws and chronicles, and the ecclesiastical tales of the venerable

Bede, have been illustrated by the diligence, and sometimes embellished

by the fancy, of succeeding writers, whose works I am not ambitious

either to censure or to transcribe. Yet the historian of the empire

may be tempted to pursue the revolutions of a Roman province, till

it vanishes from his sight; and an Englishman may curiously trace the

establishment of the Barbarians, from whom he derives his name, his

laws, and perhaps his origin.

About forty years after the dissolution of the Roman government,

Vortigern appears to have obtained the supreme, though precarious

command of the princes and cities of Britain. That unfortunate monarch

has been almost unanimously condemned for the weak and mischievous

policy of inviting a formidable stranger, to repel the vexatious inroads

of a domestic foe. His ambassadors are despatched, by the gravest

historians, to the coast of Germany: they address a pathetic oration to

the general assembly of the Saxons, and those warlike Barbarians resolve

to assist with a fleet and army the suppliants of a distant and unknown

island. If Britain had indeed been unknown to the Saxons, the measure

of its calamities would have been less complete. But the strength of the

Roman government could not always guard the maritime province against

the pirates of Germany; the independent and divided states were exposed

to their attacks; and the Saxons might sometimes join the Scots and the

Picts, in a tacit, or express, confederacy of rapine and destruction.

Vortigern could only balance the various perils, which assaulted on

every side his throne and his people; and his policy may deserve either

praise or excuse, if he preferred the alliance of those Barbarians,

whose naval power rendered them the most dangerous enemies and the most

serviceable allies. Hengist and Horsa, as they ranged along the Eastern

coast with three ships, were engaged, by the promise of an ample

stipend, to embrace the defence of Britain; and their intrepid valor

soon delivered the country from the Caledonian invaders. The Isle of

Thanet, a secure and fertile district, was allotted for the residence

of these German auxiliaries, and they were supplied, according to the

treaty, with a plentiful allowance of clothing and provisions. This

favorable reception encouraged five thousand warriors to embark with

their families in seventeen vessels, and the infant power of Hengist

was fortified by this strong and seasonable reenforcement. The crafty

Barbarian suggested to Vortigern the obvious advantage of fixing, in the

neighborhood of the Picts, a colony of faithful allies: a third fleet

of forty ships, under the command of his son and nephew, sailed from

Germany, ravaged the Orkneys, and disembarked a new army on the coast

of Northumberland, or Lothian, at the opposite extremity of the devoted

land. It was easy to foresee, but it was impossible to prevent, the

impending evils. The two nations were soon divided and exasperated

by mutual jealousies. The Saxons magnified all that they had done

and suffered in the cause of an ungrateful people; while the Britons

regretted the liberal rewards which could not satisfy the avarice of

those haughty mercenaries. The causes of fear and hatred were inflamed

into an irreconcilable quarrel. The Saxons flew to arms; and if they

perpetrated a treacherous massacre during the security of a feast, they

destroyed the reciprocal confidence which sustains the intercourse of

peace and war.

Hengist, who boldly aspired to the conquest of Britain, exhorted his

countrymen to embrace the glorious opportunity: he painted in lively

colors the fertility of the soil, the wealth of the cities, the

pusillanimous temper of the natives, and the convenient situation of a

spacious solitary island, accessible on all sides to the Saxon fleets.

The successive colonies which issued, in the period of a century, from

the mouths of the Elbe, the Weser, and the Rhine, were principally

composed of three valiant tribes or nations of Germany; the Jutes, the

old Saxons, and the Angles. The Jutes, who fought under the peculiar

banner of Hengist, assumed the merit of leading their countrymen in the

paths of glory, and of erecting, in Kent, the first independent kingdom.

The fame of the enterprise was attributed to the primitive Saxons; and

the common laws and language of the conquerors are described by the

national appellation of a people, which, at the end of four hundred

years, produced the first monarchs of South Britain. The Angles were

distinguished by their numbers and their success; and they claimed the

honor of fixing a perpetual name on the country, of which they occupied

the most ample portion. The Barbarians, who followed the hopes of rapine

either on the land or sea, were insensibly blended with this triple

confederacy; the Frisians, who had been tempted by their vicinity to the

British shores, might balance, during a short space, the strength and

reputation of the native Saxons; the Danes, the Prussians, the Rugians,

are faintly described; and some adventurous Huns, who had wandered as

far as the Baltic, might embark on board the German vessels, for the

conquest of a new world. But this arduous achievement was not prepared

or executed by the union of national powers. Each intrepid chieftain,

according to the measure of his fame and fortunes, assembled his

followers; equipped a fleet of three, or perhaps of sixty, vessels;

chose the place of the attack; and conducted his subsequent operations

according to the events of the war, and the dictates of his private

interest. In the invasion of Britain many heroes vanquished and fell;

but only seven victorious leaders assumed, or at least maintained, the

title of kings. Seven independent thrones, the Saxon Heptarchy, were

founded by the conquerors, and seven families, one of which has been

continued, by female succession, to our present sovereign, derived

their equal and sacred lineage from Woden, the god of war. It has

been pretended, that this republic of kings was moderated by a general

council and a supreme magistrate. But such an artificial scheme of

policy is repugnant to the rude and turbulent spirit of the Saxons:

their laws are silent; and their imperfect annals afford only a dark and

bloody prospect of intestine discord.

A monk, who, in the profound ignorance of human life, has presumed to

exercise the office of historian, strangely disfigures the state of

Britain at the time of its separation from the Western empire. Gildas

describes in florid language the improvements of agriculture, the

foreign trade which flowed with every tide into the Thames and the

Severn the solid and lofty construction of public and private edifices;

he accuses the sinful luxury of the British people; of a people,

according to the same writer, ignorant of the most simple arts, and

incapable, without the aid of the Romans, of providing walls of stone,

or weapons of iron, for the defence of their native land. Under the long

dominion of the emperors, Britain had been insensibly moulded into the

elegant and servile form of a Roman province, whose safety was intrusted

to a foreign power. The subjects of Honorius contemplated their new

freedom with surprise and terror; they were left destitute of any civil

or military constitution; and their uncertain rulers wanted either

skill, or courage, or authority, to direct the public force against the

common enemy. The introduction of the Saxons betrayed their internal

weakness, and degraded the character both of the prince and people.

Their consternation magnified the danger; the want of union diminished

their resources; and the madness of civil factions was more solicitous

to accuse, than to remedy, the evils, which they imputed to the

misconduct of their adversaries. Yet the Britons were not ignorant,

they could not be ignorant, of the manufacture or the use of arms; the

successive and disorderly attacks of the Saxons allowed them to recover

from their amazement, and the prosperous or adverse events of the war

added discipline and experience to their native valor.

While the continent of Europe and Africa yielded, without resistance,

to the Barbarians, the British island, alone and unaided, maintained

a long, a vigorous, though an unsuccessful, struggle, against the

formidable pirates, who, almost at the same instant, assaulted the

Northern, the Eastern, and the Southern coasts. The cities which had

been fortified with skill, were defended with resolution; the advantages

of ground, hills, forests, and morasses, were diligently improved by the

inhabitants; the conquest of each district was purchased with blood; and

the defeats of the Saxons are strongly attested by the discreet silence

of their annalist. Hengist might hope to achieve the conquest of

Britain; but his ambition, in an active reign of thirty-five years, was

confined to the possession of Kent; and the numerous colony which he had

planted in the North, was extirpated by the sword of the Britons. The

monarchy of the West Saxons was laboriously founded by the persevering

efforts of three martial generations. The life of Cerdic, one of the

bravest of the children of Woden, was consumed in the conquest of

Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight; and the loss which he sustained in

the battle of Mount Badon, reduced him to a state of inglorious repose.

Kenric, his valiant son, advanced into Wiltshire; besieged Salisbury, at

that time seated on a commanding eminence; and vanquished an army

which advanced to the relief of the city. In the subsequent battle of

Marlborough, his British enemies displayed their military science. Their

troops were formed in three lines; each line consisted of three distinct

bodies, and the cavalry, the archers, and the pikemen, were distributed

according to the principles of Roman tactics. The Saxons charged in

one weighty column, boldly encountered with their short swords the

long lances of the Britons, and maintained an equal conflict till the

approach of night. Two decisive victories, the death of three British

kings, and the reduction of Cirencester, Bath, and Gloucester,

established the fame and power of Ceaulin, the grandson of Cerdic, who

carried his victorious arms to the banks of the Severn.

After a war of a hundred years, the independent Britons still occupied

the whole extent of the Western coast, from the wall of Antoninus to the

extreme promontory of Cornwall; and the principal cities of the inland

country still opposed the arms of the Barbarians. Resistance became

more languid, as the number and boldness of the assailants continually

increased. Winning their way by slow and painful efforts, the Saxons,

the Angles, and their various confederates, advanced from the North,

from the East, and from the South, till their victorious banners were

united in the centre of the island. Beyond the Severn the Britons still

asserted their national freedom, which survived the heptarchy, and even

the monarchy, of the Saxons. The bravest warriors, who preferred

exile to slavery, found a secure refuge in the mountains of Wales: the

reluctant submission of Cornwall was delayed for some ages; and a band

of fugitives acquired a settlement in Gaul, by their own valor, or

the liberality of the Merovingian kings. The Western angle of Armorica

acquired the new appellations of Cornwall, and the Lesser Britain; and

the vacant lands of the Osismii were filled by a strange people, who,

under the authority of their counts and bishops, preserved the laws and

language of their ancestors. To the feeble descendants of Clovis and

Charlemagne, the Britons of Armorica refused the customary tribute,

subdued the neighboring dioceses of Vannes, Rennes, and Nantes, and

formed a powerful, though vassal, state, which has been united to the

crown of France.

Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part V.

In a century of perpetual, or at least implacable, war, much courage,

and some skill, must have been exerted for the defence of Britain. Yet

if the memory of its champions is almost buried in oblivion, we need

not repine; since every age, however destitute of science or virtue,

sufficiently abounds with acts of blood and military renown. The tomb

of Vortimer, the son of Vortigern, was erected on the margin of the

sea-shore, as a landmark formidable to the Saxons, whom he had thrice

vanquished in the fields of Kent. Ambrosius Aurelian was descended from

a noble family of Romans; his modesty was equal to his valor, and his

valor, till the last fatal action, was crowned with splendid success.

But every British name is effaced by the illustrious name of Arthur, the

hereditary prince of the Silures, in South Wales, and the elective king

or general of the nation. According to the most rational account, he

defeated, in twelve successive battles, the Angles of the North, and the

Saxons of the West; but the declining age of the hero was imbittered by

popular ingratitude and domestic misfortunes. The events of his life

are less interesting than the singular revolutions of his fame. During

a period of five hundred years the tradition of his exploits was

preserved, and rudely embellished, by the obscure bards of Wales and

Armorica, who were odious to the Saxons, and unknown to the rest of

mankind. The pride and curiosity of the Norman conquerors prompted them

to inquire into the ancient history of Britain: they listened with fond

credulity to the tale of Arthur, and eagerly applauded the merit of

a prince who had triumphed over the Saxons, their common enemies. His

romance, transcribed in the Latin of Jeffrey of Monmouth, and afterwards

translated into the fashionable idiom of the times, was enriched with

the various, though incoherent, ornaments which were familiar to the

experience, the learning, or the fancy, of the twelfth century. The

progress of a Phrygian colony, from the Tyber to the Thames, was easily

ingrafted on the fable of the Æneid; and the royal ancestors of Arthur

derived their origin from Troy, and claimed their alliance with the

Cæsars. His trophies were decorated with captive provinces and Imperial

titles; and his Danish victories avenged the recent injuries of his

country. The gallantry and superstition of the British hero, his feasts

and tournaments, and the memorable institution of his Knights of

the Round Table, were faithfully copied from the reigning manners

of chivalry; and the fabulous exploits of Uther's son appear less

incredible than the adventures which were achieved by the enterprising

valor of the Normans. Pilgrimage, and the holy wars, introduced into

Europe the specious miracles of Arabian magic. Fairies and giants,

flying dragons, and enchanted palaces, were blended with the more simple

fictions of the West; and the fate of Britain depended on the art,

or the predictions, of Merlin. Every nation embraced and adorned the

popular romance of Arthur, and the Knights of the Round Table: their

names were celebrated in Greece and Italy; and the voluminous tales of

Sir Lancelot and Sir Tristram were devoutly studied by the princes and

nobles, who disregarded the genuine heroes and historians of antiquity.

At length the light of science and reason was rekindled; the talisman

was broken; the visionary fabric melted into air; and by a natural,

though unjust, reverse of the public opinion, the severity of the

present age is inclined to question the existence of Arthur.

Resistance, if it cannot avert, must increase the miseries of conquest;

and conquest has never appeared more dreadful and destructive than in

the hands of the Saxons; who hated the valor of their enemies, disdained

the faith of treaties, and violated, without remorse, the most sacred

objects of the Christian worship. The fields of battle might be traced,

almost in every district, by monuments of bones; the fragments of

falling towers were stained with blood; the last of the Britons, without

distinction of age or sex, was massacred, in the ruins of Anderida; and

the repetition of such calamities was frequent and familiar under the

Saxon heptarchy. The arts and religion, the laws and language, which

the Romans had so carefully planted in Britain, were extirpated by their

barbarous successors. After the destruction of the principal churches,

the bishops, who had declined the crown of martyrdom, retired with the

holy relics into Wales and Armorica; the remains of their flocks

were left destitute of any spiritual food; the practice, and even the

remembrance, of Christianity were abolished; and the British clergy

might obtain some comfort from the damnation of the idolatrous

strangers. The kings of France maintained the privileges of their Roman

subjects; but the ferocious Saxons trampled on the laws of Rome, and of

the emperors. The proceedings of civil and criminal jurisdiction, the

titles of honor, the forms of office, the ranks of society, and even the

domestic rights of marriage, testament, and inheritance, were finally

suppressed; and the indiscriminate crowd of noble and plebeian slaves

was governed by the traditionary customs, which had been coarsely framed

for the shepherds and pirates of Germany. The language of science, of

business, and of conversation, which had been introduced by the Romans,

was lost in the general desolation. A sufficient number of Latin or

Celtic words might be assumed by the Germans, to express their new wants

and ideas; but those illiterate Pagans preserved and established the use

of their national dialect. Almost every name, conspicuous either in

the church or state, reveals its Teutonic origin; and the geography

of England was universally inscribed with foreign characters and

appellations. The example of a revolution, so rapid and so complete, may

not easily be found; but it will excite a probable suspicion, that the

arts of Rome were less deeply rooted in Britain than in Gaul or Spain;

and that the native rudeness of the country and its inhabitants was

covered by a thin varnish of Italian manners.

This strange alteration has persuaded historians, and even philosophers,

that the provincials of Britain were totally exterminated; and that

the vacant land was again peopled by the perpetual influx, and rapid

increase, of the German colonies. Three hundred thousand Saxons are

said to have obeyed the summons of Hengist; the entire emigration of the

Angles was attested, in the age of Bede, by the solitude of their native

country; and our experience has shown the free propagation of the human

race, if they are cast on a fruitful wilderness, where their steps

are unconfined, and their subsistence is plentiful. The Saxon kingdoms

displayed the face of recent discovery and cultivation; the towns

were small, the villages were distant; the husbandry was languid and

unskilful; four sheep were equivalent to an acre of the best land; an

ample space of wood and morass was resigned to the vague dominion of

nature; and the modern bishopric of Durham, the whole territory from the

Tyne to the Tees, had returned to its primitive state of a savage and

solitary forest. Such imperfect population might have been supplied, in

some generations, by the English colonies; but neither reason nor

facts can justify the unnatural supposition, that the Saxons of

Britain remained alone in the desert which they had subdued. After the

sanguinary Barbarians had secured their dominion, and gratified their

revenge, it was their interest to preserve the peasants as well as the

cattle, of the unresisting country. In each successive revolution, the

patient herd becomes the property of its new masters; and the salutary

compact of food and labor is silently ratified by their mutual

necessities. Wilfrid, the apostle of Sussex, accepted from his royal

convert the gift of the peninsula of Selsey, near Chichester, with

the persons and property of its inhabitants, who then amounted to

eighty-seven families. He released them at once from spiritual and

temporal bondage; and two hundred and fifty slaves of both sexes were

baptized by their indulgent master. The kingdom of Sussex, which spread

from the sea to the Thames, contained seven thousand families; twelve

hundred were ascribed to the Isle of Wight; and, if we multiply this

vague computation, it may seem probable, that England was cultivated by

a million of servants, or villains, who were attached to the estates of

their arbitrary landlords. The indigent Barbarians were often tempted

to sell their children, or themselves into perpetual, and even foreign,

bondage; yet the special exemptions which were granted to national

slaves, sufficiently declare that they were much less numerous than the

strangers and captives, who had lost their liberty, or changed their

masters, by the accidents of war. When time and religion had mitigated

the fierce spirit of the Anglo-Saxons, the laws encouraged the frequent

practice of manumission; and their subjects, of Welsh or Cambrian

extraction, assumed the respectable station of inferior freemen,

possessed of lands, and entitled to the rights of civil society. Such

gentle treatment might secure the allegiance of a fierce people, who had

been recently subdued on the confines of Wales and Cornwall. The sage

Ina, the legislator of Wessex, united the two nations in the bands

of domestic alliance; and four British lords of Somersetshire may be

honorably distinguished in the court of a Saxon monarch.

The independent Britons appear to have relapsed into the state of

original barbarism, from whence they had been imperfectly reclaimed.

Separated by their enemies from the rest of mankind, they soon became an

object of scandal and abhorrence to the Catholic world. Christianity was

still professed in the mountains of Wales; but the rude schismatics, in

the form of the clerical tonsure, and in the day of the celebration

of Easter, obstinately resisted the imperious mandates of the Roman

pontiffs. The use of the Latin language was insensibly abolished,

and the Britons were deprived of the art and learning which Italy

communicated to her Saxon proselytes. In Wales and Armorica, the Celtic

tongue, the native idiom of the West, was preserved and propagated;

and the Bards, who had been the companions of the Druids, were still

protected, in the sixteenth century, by the laws of Elizabeth. Their

chief, a respectable officer of the courts of Pengwern, or Aberfraw, or

Caermarthen, accompanied the king's servants to war: the monarchy of the

Britons, which he sung in the front of battle, excited their courage,

and justified their depredations; and the songster claimed for his

legitimate prize the fairest heifer of the spoil. His subordinate

ministers, the masters and disciples of vocal and instrumental music,

visited, in their respective circuits, the royal, the noble, and the

plebeian houses; and the public poverty, almost exhausted by the clergy,

was oppressed by the importunate demands of the bards. Their rank

and merit were ascertained by solemn trials, and the strong belief

of supernatural inspiration exalted the fancy of the poet, and of his

audience. The last retreats of Celtic freedom, the extreme territories

of Gaul and Britain, were less adapted to agriculture than to pasturage:

the wealth of the Britons consisted in their flocks and herds; milk and

flesh were their ordinary food; and bread was sometimes esteemed, or

rejected, as a foreign luxury. Liberty had peopled the mountains of

Wales and the morasses of Armorica; but their populousness has been

maliciously ascribed to the loose practice of polygamy; and the houses

of these licentious barbarians have been supposed to contain ten wives,

and perhaps fifty children. Their disposition was rash and choleric;

they were bold in action and in speech; and as they were ignorant of the

arts of peace, they alternately indulged their passions in foreign and

domestic war. The cavalry of Armorica, the spearmen of Gwent, and the

archers of Merioneth, were equally formidable; but their poverty could

seldom procure either shields or helmets; and the inconvenient weight

would have retarded the speed and agility of their desultory operations.

One of the greatest of the English monarchs was requested to satisfy the

curiosity of a Greek emperor concerning the state of Britain; and Henry

II. could assert, from his personal experience, that Wales was inhabited

by a race of naked warriors, who encountered, without fear, the

defensive armor of their enemies.

By the revolution of Britain, the limits of science, as well as of

empire, were contracted. The dark cloud, which had been cleared by the

Phoenician discoveries, and finally dispelled by the arms of Cæsar,

again settled on the shores of the Atlantic, and a Roman province was

again lost among the fabulous Islands of the Ocean. One hundred and

fifty years after the reign of Honorius, the gravest historian of the

times describes the wonders of a remote isle, whose eastern and western

parts are divided by an antique wall, the boundary of life and death,

or, more properly, of truth and fiction. The east is a fair country,

inhabited by a civilized people: the air is healthy, the waters are pure

and plentiful, and the earth yields her regular and fruitful increase.

In the west, beyond the wall, the air is infectious and mortal; the

ground is covered with serpents; and this dreary solitude is the region

of departed spirits, who are transported from the opposite shores in

substantial boats, and by living rowers. Some families of fishermen, the

subjects of the Franks, are excused from tribute, in consideration of

the mysterious office which is performed by these Charons of the ocean.

Each in his turn is summoned, at the hour of midnight, to hear the

voices, and even the names, of the ghosts: he is sensible of their

weight, and he feels himself impelled by an unknown, but irresistible

power. After this dream of fancy, we read with astonishment, that the

name of this island is Brittia; that it lies in the ocean, against the

mouth of the Rhine, and less than thirty miles from the continent; that

it is possessed by three nations, the Frisians, the Angles, and the

Britons; and that some Angles had appeared at Constantinople, in the

train of the French ambassadors. From these ambassadors Procopius might

be informed of a singular, though not improbable, adventure, which

announces the spirit, rather than the delicacy, of an English heroine.

She had been betrothed to Radiger, king of the Varni, a tribe of Germans

who touched the ocean and the Rhine; but the perfidious lover was

tempted, by motives of policy, to prefer his father's widow, the sister

of Theodebert, king of the Franks. The forsaken princess of the Angles,

instead of bewailing, revenged her disgrace. Her warlike subjects are

said to have been ignorant of the use, and even of the form, of a horse;

but she boldly sailed from Britain to the mouth of the Rhine, with a

fleet of four hundred ships, and an army of one hundred thousand men.

After the loss of a battle, the captive Radiger implored the mercy of

his victorious bride, who generously pardoned his offence, dismissed her

rival, and compelled the king of the Varni to discharge with honor and

fidelity the duties of a husband. This gallant exploit appears to be the

last naval enterprise of the Anglo-Saxons. The arts of navigation, by

which they acquired the empire of Britain and of the sea, were soon

neglected by the indolent Barbarians, who supinely renounced all the

commercial advantages of their insular situation. Seven independent

kingdoms were agitated by perpetual discord; and the British world

was seldom connected, either in peace or war, with the nations of the

Continent.

I have now accomplished the laborious narrative of the decline and fall

of the Roman empire, from the fortunate age of Trajan and the Antonines,

to its total extinction in the West, about five centuries after the

Christian era. At that unhappy period, the Saxons fiercely struggled

with the natives for the possession of Britain: Gaul and Spain were

divided between the powerful monarchies of the Franks and Visigoths, and

the dependent kingdoms of the Suevi and Burgundians: Africa was exposed

to the cruel persecution of the Vandals, and the savage insults of the

Moors: Rome and Italy, as far as the banks of the Danube, were afflicted

by an army of Barbarian mercenaries, whose lawless tyranny was succeeded

by the reign of Theodoric the Ostrogoth. All the subjects of the empire,

who, by the use of the Latin language, more particularly deserved

the name and privileges of Romans, were oppressed by the disgrace and

calamities of foreign conquest; and the victorious nations of Germany

established a new system of manners and government in the western

countries of Europe. The majesty of Rome was faintly represented by

the princes of Constantinople, the feeble and imaginary successors of

Augustus. Yet they continued to reign over the East, from the Danube to

the Nile and Tigris; the Gothic and Vandal kingdoms of Italy and Africa

were subverted by the arms of Justinian; and the history of the Greek

emperors may still afford a long series of instructive lessons, and

interesting revolutions.

Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part VI. General Observations On The

Fall Of The Roman Empire In The West.

The Greeks, after their country had been reduced into a province,

imputed the triumphs of Rome, not to the merit, but to the fortune, of

the republic. The inconstant goddess, who so blindly distributes and

resumes her favors, had now consented (such was the language of envious

flattery) to resign her wings, to descend from her globe, and to fix her

firm and immutable throne on the banks of the Tyber. A wiser Greek, who

has composed, with a philosophic spirit, the memorable history of his

own times, deprived his countrymen of this vain and delusive comfort, by

opening to their view the deep foundations of the greatness of Rome. The

fidelity of the citizens to each other, and to the state, was confirmed

by the habits of education, and the prejudices of religion. Honor,

as well as virtue, was the principle of the republic; the ambitious

citizens labored to deserve the solemn glories of a triumph; and the

ardor of the Roman youth was kindled into active emulation, as often

as they beheld the domestic images of their ancestors. The temperate

struggles of the patricians and plebeians had finally established the

firm and equal balance of the constitution; which united the freedom of

popular assemblies, with the authority and wisdom of a senate, and the

executive powers of a regal magistrate. When the consul displayed the

standard of the republic, each citizen bound himself, by the obligation

of an oath, to draw his sword in the cause of his country, till he had

discharged the sacred duty by a military service of ten years. This wise

institution continually poured into the field the rising generations of

freemen and soldiers; and their numbers were reënforced by the warlike

and populous states of Italy, who, after a brave resistance, had

yielded to the valor and embraced the alliance, of the Romans. The sage

historian, who excited the virtue of the younger Scipio, and beheld the

ruin of Carthage, has accurately described their military system; their

levies, arms, exercises, subordination, marches, encampments; and the

invincible legion, superior in active strength to the Macedonian phalanx

of Philip and Alexander. From these institutions of peace and war

Polybius has deduced the spirit and success of a people, incapable of

fear, and impatient of repose. The ambitious design of conquest, which

might have been defeated by the seasonable conspiracy of mankind, was

attempted and achieved; and the perpetual violation of justice was

maintained by the political virtues of prudence and courage. The arms of

the republic, sometimes vanquished in battle, always victorious in war,

advanced with rapid steps to the Euphrates, the Danube, the Rhine, and

the Ocean; and the images of gold, or silver, or brass, that might serve

to represent the nations and their kings, were successively broken by

the iron monarchy of Rome.

The rise of a city, which swelled into an empire, may deserve, as a

singular prodigy, the reflection of a philosophic mind. But the decline

of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness.

Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the causes of destruction

multiplied with the extent of conquest; and as soon as time or accident

had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to

the pressure of its own weight. The story of its ruin is simple and

obvious; and instead of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed, we

should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long. The victorious

legions, who, in distant wars, acquired the vices of strangers and

mercenaries, first oppressed the freedom of the republic, and afterwards

violated the majesty of the purple. The emperors, anxious for their

personal safety and the public peace, were reduced to the base expedient

of corrupting the discipline which rendered them alike formidable to

their sovereign and to the enemy; the vigor of the military government

was relaxed, and finally dissolved, by the partial institutions

of Constantine; and the Roman world was overwhelmed by a deluge of

Barbarians.

The decay of Rome has been frequently ascribed to the translation of the

seat of empire; but this History has already shown, that the powers

of government were divided, rather than removed. The throne of

Constantinople was erected in the East; while the West was still

possessed by a series of emperors who held their residence in Italy,

and claimed their equal inheritance of the legions and provinces. This

dangerous novelty impaired the strength, and fomented the vices, of a

double reign: the instruments of an oppressive and arbitrary system were

multiplied; and a vain emulation of luxury, not of merit, was introduced

and supported between the degenerate successors of Theodosius. Extreme

distress, which unites the virtue of a free people, imbitters the

factions of a declining monarchy. The hostile favorites of Arcadius and

Honorius betrayed the republic to its common enemies; and the Byzantine

court beheld with indifference, perhaps with pleasure, the disgrace

of Rome, the misfortunes of Italy, and the loss of the West. Under the

succeeding reigns, the alliance of the two empires was restored; but the

aid of the Oriental Romans was tardy, doubtful, and ineffectual; and the

national schism of the Greeks and Latins was enlarged by the perpetual

difference of language and manners, of interests, and even of religion.

Yet the salutary event approved in some measure the judgment of

Constantine. During a long period of decay, his impregnable city

repelled the victorious armies of Barbarians, protected the wealth of

Asia, and commanded, both in peace and war, the important straits

which connect the Euxine and Mediterranean Seas. The foundation of

Constantinople more essentially contributed to the preservation of the

East, than to the ruin of the West.

As the happiness of a future life is the great object of religion, we

may hear without surprise or scandal, that the introduction or at least

the abuse, of Christianity had some influence on the decline and fall

of the Roman empire. The clergy successfully preached the doctrines

of patience and pusillanimity: the active virtues of society were

discouraged; and the last remains of military spirit were buried in the

cloister: a large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated

to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and the soldiers' pay

was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes, who could only

plead the merits of abstinence and chastity. Faith, zeal, curiosity, and

the more earthly passions of malice and ambition, kindled the flame of

theological discord; the church, and even the state, were distracted by

religious factions, whose conflicts were sometimes bloody, and always

implacable; the attention of the emperors was diverted from camps to

synods; the Roman world was oppressed by a new species of tyranny; and

the persecuted sects became the secret enemies of their country. Yet

party spirit, however pernicious or absurd, is a principle of union

as well as of dissension. The bishops, from eighteen hundred pulpits,

inculcated the duty of passive obedience to a lawful and orthodox

sovereign; their frequent assemblies, and perpetual correspondence,

maintained the communion of distant churches; and the benevolent temper

of the gospel was strengthened, though confined, by the spiritual

alliance of the Catholics. The sacred indolence of the monks was

devoutly embraced by a servile and effeminate age; but if superstition

had not afforded a decent retreat, the same vices would have tempted

the unworthy Romans to desert, from baser motives, the standard of

the republic. Religious precepts are easily obeyed, which indulge and

sanctify the natural inclinations of their votaries; but the pure and

genuine influence of Christianity may be traced in its beneficial,

though imperfect, effects on the Barbarian proselytes of the North.

If the decline of the Roman empire was hastened by the conversion of

Constantine, his victorious religion broke the violence of the fall, and

mollified the ferocious temper of the conquerors.

This awful revolution may be usefully applied to the instruction of

the present age. It is the duty of a patriot to prefer and promote the

exclusive interest and glory of his native country: but a philosopher

may be permitted to enlarge his views, and to consider Europe as one

great republic whose various inhabitants have obtained almost the same

level of politeness and cultivation. The balance of power will continue

to fluctuate, and the prosperity of our own, or the neighboring

kingdoms, may be alternately exalted or depressed; but these partial

events cannot essentially injure our general state of happiness,

the system of arts, and laws, and manners, which so advantageously

distinguish, above the rest of mankind, the Europeans and their

colonies. The savage nations of the globe are the common enemies of

civilized society; and we may inquire, with anxious curiosity, whether

Europe is still threatened with a repetition of those calamities, which

formerly oppressed the arms and institutions of Rome. Perhaps the same

reflections will illustrate the fall of that mighty empire, and explain

the probable causes of our actual security.

I. The Romans were ignorant of the extent of their danger, and the

number of their enemies. Beyond the Rhine and Danube, the Northern

countries of Europe and Asia were filled with innumerable tribes of

hunters and shepherds, poor, voracious, and turbulent; bold in arms,

and impatient to ravish the fruits of industry. The Barbarian world was

agitated by the rapid impulse of war; and the peace of Gaul or Italy was

shaken by the distant revolutions of China. The Huns, who fled before a

victorious enemy, directed their march towards the West; and the torrent

was swelled by the gradual accession of captives and allies. The flying

tribes who yielded to the Huns assumed in their turn the spirit of

conquest; the endless column of Barbarians pressed on the Roman empire

with accumulated weight; and, if the foremost were destroyed, the vacant

space was instantly replenished by new assailants. Such formidable

emigrations can no longer issue from the North; and the long repose,

which has been imputed to the decrease of population, is the happy

consequence of the progress of arts and agriculture. Instead of some

rude villages, thinly scattered among its woods and morasses, Germany

now produces a list of two thousand three hundred walled towns:

the Christian kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, and Poland, have been

successively established; and the Hanse merchants, with the Teutonic

knights, have extended their colonies along the coast of the Baltic,

as far as the Gulf of Finland. From the Gulf of Finland to the Eastern

Ocean, Russia now assumes the form of a powerful and civilized empire.

The plough, the loom, and the forge, are introduced on the banks of the

Volga, the Oby, and the Lena; and the fiercest of the Tartar hordes have

been taught to tremble and obey. The reign of independent Barbarism is

now contracted to a narrow span; and the remnant of Calmucks or Uzbecks,

whose forces may be almost numbered, cannot seriously excite the

apprehensions of the great republic of Europe. Yet this apparent

security should not tempt us to forget, that new enemies, and unknown

dangers, may possibly arise from some obscure people, scarcely visible

in the map of the world, The Arabs or Saracens, who spread their

conquests from India to Spain, had languished in poverty and contempt,

till Mahomet breathed into those savage bodies the soul of enthusiasm.

II. The empire of Rome was firmly established by the singular and

perfect coalition of its members. The subject nations, resigning the

hope, and even the wish, of independence, embraced the character of

Roman citizens; and the provinces of the West were reluctantly torn by

the Barbarians from the bosom of their mother country. But this union

was purchased by the loss of national freedom and military spirit; and

the servile provinces, destitute of life and motion, expected their

safety from the mercenary troops and governors, who were directed by the

orders of a distant court. The happiness of a hundred millions depended

on the personal merit of one or two men, perhaps children, whose minds

were corrupted by education, luxury, and despotic power. The deepest

wounds were inflicted on the empire during the minorities of the sons

and grandsons of Theodosius; and, after those incapable princes seemed

to attain the age of manhood, they abandoned the church to the bishops,

the state to the eunuchs, and the provinces to the Barbarians. Europe

is now divided into twelve powerful, though unequal kingdoms, three

respectable commonwealths, and a variety of smaller, though independent,

states: the chances of royal and ministerial talents are multiplied, at

least, with the number of its rulers; and a Julian, or Semiramis, may

reign in the North, while Arcadius and Honorius again slumber on the

thrones of the South. The abuses of tyranny are restrained by the

mutual influence of fear and shame; republics have acquired order and

stability; monarchies have imbibed the principles of freedom, or, at

least, of moderation; and some sense of honor and justice is introduced

into the most defective constitutions by the general manners of the

times. In peace, the progress of knowledge and industry is accelerated

by the emulation of so many active rivals: in war, the European

forces are exercised by temperate and undecisive contests. If a savage

conqueror should issue from the deserts of Tartary, he must repeatedly

vanquish the robust peasants of Russia, the numerous armies of Germany,

the gallant nobles of France, and the intrepid freemen of Britain;

who, perhaps, might confederate for their common defence. Should

the victorious Barbarians carry slavery and desolation as far as the

Atlantic Ocean, ten thousand vessels would transport beyond their

pursuit the remains of civilized society; and Europe would revive

and flourish in the American world, which is already filled with her

colonies and institutions.

III. Cold, poverty, and a life of danger and fatigue, fortify the

strength and courage of Barbarians. In every age they have oppressed the

polite and peaceful nations of China, India, and Persia, who neglected,

and still neglect, to counterbalance these natural powers by the

resources of military art. The warlike states of antiquity, Greece,

Macedonia, and Rome, educated a race of soldiers; exercised their

bodies, disciplined their courage, multiplied their forces by regular

evolutions, and converted the iron, which they possessed, into strong

and serviceable weapons. But this superiority insensibly declined with

their laws and manners; and the feeble policy of Constantine and his

successors armed and instructed, for the ruin of the empire, the rude

valor of the Barbarian mercenaries. The military art has been changed

by the invention of gunpowder; which enables man to command the two

most powerful agents of nature, air and fire. Mathematics, chemistry,

mechanics, architecture, have been applied to the service of war; and

the adverse parties oppose to each other the most elaborate modes of

attack and of defence. Historians may indignantly observe, that the

preparations of a siege would found and maintain a flourishing colony;

yet we cannot be displeased, that the subversion of a city should be

a work of cost and difficulty; or that an industrious people should be

protected by those arts, which survive and supply the decay of military

virtue. Cannon and fortifications now form an impregnable barrier

against the Tartar horse; and Europe is secure from any future irruption

of Barbarians; since, before they can conquer, they must cease to be

barbarous. Their gradual advances in the science of war would always

be accompanied, as we may learn from the example of Russia, with a

proportionable improvement in the arts of peace and civil policy; and

they themselves must deserve a place among the polished nations whom

they subdue.

Should these speculations be found doubtful or fallacious, there still

remains a more humble source of comfort and hope. The discoveries of

ancient and modern navigators, and the domestic history, or tradition,

of the most enlightened nations, represent the human savage, naked both

in body and mind and destitute of laws, of arts, of ideas, and almost

of language. From this abject condition, perhaps the primitive and

universal state of man, he has gradually arisen to command the animals,

to fertilize the earth, to traverse the ocean and to measure the

heavens. His progress in the improvement and exercise of his mental and

corporeal faculties has been irregular and various; infinitely slow in

the beginning, and increasing by degrees with redoubled velocity: ages

of laborious ascent have been followed by a moment of rapid downfall;

and the several climates of the globe have felt the vicissitudes of

light and darkness. Yet the experience of four thousand years should

enlarge our hopes, and diminish our apprehensions: we cannot determine

to what height the human species may aspire in their advances towards

perfection; but it may safely be presumed, that no people, unless the

face of nature is changed, will relapse into their original barbarism.

The improvements of society may be viewed under a threefold aspect. 1.

The poet or philosopher illustrates his age and country by the efforts

of a single mind; but those superior powers of reason or fancy are rare

and spontaneous productions; and the genius of Homer, or Cicero, or

Newton, would excite less admiration, if they could be created by the

will of a prince, or the lessons of a preceptor. 2. The benefits of law

and policy, of trade and manufactures, of arts and sciences, are more

solid and permanent: and many individuals may be qualified, by education

and discipline, to promote, in their respective stations, the interest

of the community. But this general order is the effect of skill and

labor; and the complex machinery may be decayed by time, or injured by

violence. 3. Fortunately for mankind, the more useful, or, at least,

more necessary arts, can be performed without superior talents, or

national subordination: without the powers of one, or the union of many.

Each village, each family, each individual, must always possess both

ability and inclination to perpetuate the use of fire and of metals; the

propagation and service of domestic animals; the methods of hunting and

fishing; the rudiments of navigation; the imperfect cultivation of

corn, or other nutritive grain; and the simple practice of the mechanic

trades. Private genius and public industry may be extirpated; but these

hardy plants survive the tempest, and strike an everlasting root into

the most unfavorable soil. The splendid days of Augustus and Trajan were

eclipsed by a cloud of ignorance; and the Barbarians subverted the laws

and palaces of Rome. But the scythe, the invention or emblem of Saturn,

still continued annually to mow the harvests of Italy; and the human

feasts of the Læstrigons have never been renewed on the coast of

Campania.

Since the first discovery of the arts, war, commerce, and religious

zeal have diffused, among the savages of the Old and New World, these

inestimable gifts: they have been successively propagated; they can

never be lost. We may therefore acquiesce in the pleasing conclusion,

that every age of the world has increased, and still increases, the real

wealth, the happiness, the knowledge, and perhaps the virtue, of the

human race.

End of Vol. 3