ITALY. The state of Italy during this period has been already
partially noticed in the preceding section. From the time of Lothaire,
to whom it was nominally assigned as a separate kingdom (843), to that
of Otho the Great (964), the country was ravaged by contending
tyrants. Between the invasions of the Normans on the one hand, and the
claims of the German emperors on the other, it became much distracted,
and was ultimately split up into several independent states. Some of
these, particularly Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and Florence, became
afterwards independent and powerful republics. It was during this
period that the foundation of the temporal power of the popes was
laid.
[Illustration: GIBRALTER.]
[Illustration: TERRACE OF ST. PETER’S, ROME.]
SPAIN. During the period of which we have been treating, Spain seemed
less a part of Europe than any other country in it. The greater part
of it still continued under the dominion of the Moors, and apparently
with advantage. ‘This period,’ says Mr. Tytler, ‘from the middle of
the eight to the middle of the tenth century, is a most brilliant era
of Arabian magnificence. Whilst Haroun al Raschid made Bagdad
illustrious by the splendor of the arts and sciences, the Moors of
Cordova vied with their brethren of Asia in the same honorable
pursuits, and were undoubtly at this period the most enlightened of
the states in Europe. Under a series of able princes, they gained the
highest reputation, both in arts and arms, of all the nations of the
West.’ And yet these Eastern conquerors seem to have had their
troubles as well as others. A race of powerful nobles among them, as
in the other countries of Europe, distracted the country, and made
effective government impossible. The Christian part of the population,
still possessed of several provinces in the north, might have taken
advantage of such a state of things for repossessing themselves of
their lost country; but civil dissension was still greater among
themselves; and Christian princes readily formed alliances with the
Moors, if they saw a prospect of weakening an immediate enemy by that
means, forgetting that the common foe still remained to harass them.
But the detail of these numerous and petty contentions need not detain
us longer; nor does the history of Spain assume any importance till
towards the conclusion of the fifteenth century, when the united arms
of Ferdinand and Isabella expelled the Moors for ever from the
country.