Before the end of the tenth century, Europe had reached a point of
darkness and degradation beyond which it seemed impossible to go.
Though long nominally converted to the Christian religion, the nations
of Europe may be said to have scarcely exhibited, up to this period, a
single distinctive mark of what men understand by Christian
civilization. ‘The barbarous nations,’ says Dr. Robertson, ‘when
converted to Christianity, changed the object, not the spirit of their
religious worship. They endeavored to conciliate the favor of the true
God by means not unlike to those which they had employed in order to
appease their false deities. Instead of aspiring to sanctity and
virtue, which alone can render men acceptable to the great Author of
order and of excellence, they imagined that they satisfied every
obligation of duty by a scrupulous observance of external ceremonies.
Religion, according to their conception of it, comprehended nothing
else; and the rites by which they persuaded themselves that they
should gain the favor of Heaven, were of such a nature as might have
been expected from the rude ideas of the ages which devised and
introduced them. They were either so unmeaning as to be altogether
unworthy of the Being to whose honor they were consecrated, or so
absurd as to be a disgrace to reason and humanity. Charlemagne in
France, and Alfred the Great in England, endeavored to dispel this
darkness, and gave their subjects a slight glimpse of light and
knowledge. But the ignorance of the age was too powerful for their
efforts and institutions. The darkness returned, and settled over
Europe more thick and heavy than before.’ The clergy were the only
body of men among whom any knowledge or learning now remained; and
this superiority they employed to continue, if not to deepen, the
degradation into which society had fallen. The superstitious belief
that moral crimes could be expiated by presents to the Deity, if not
originated by them, at least found them its strenuous defenders, for
the reason that a gift to God meant, in plainer language, a _solatium_
to the church. The priests would have made men believe that avarice
was the first attribute of the Deity, and that the saints made a
traffic of their influence with Heaven. Hence Clovis is said to have
jocularly remarked, that ‘though St. Martin served his friends very
well, he also made them pay well for his trouble.’
Persons in the highest ranks and most exalted stations could neither
read nor write. Of the clergy themselves, many of them did not
understand the Breviary which it was their duty to recite; and some of
them, it is asserted, could scarcely read it. Those among the laity
who had to express their assent in writing, did so by a sign of the
cross attached to the document (sometimes also by a seal); and to this
day, in consequence, we speak of _signing_ a document when we
subscribe our names.
The evils of the feudal system, too, had by this time become excessive
and insupportable. Every petty chief was a king in his own dominions,
and his vassals were his subjects, if indeed they should not be called
slaves. These barons made laws of their own, held courts of their own,
coined money in their own names, and levied war at their own pleasure
against their enemies; and these enemies were not unfrequently their
kings. Indeed the kings of these times can be looked upon in no other
light than as superior lords, receiving a nominal and empty homage for
lands which, in the fictitious language of feudal law, were said to be
held of the crown. In these circumstances, what might we expect to be
the condition of the great body of the people? They were either actual
slaves, or exposed to so many miseries, arising from pillage and
oppression, that many of them made a voluntary surrender of their
liberty in exchange for bread and protection from the feudal lords.
There _was_ no people, as that term is now understood. ‘There was
nothing morally in common,’ says Guizot, ‘between the lord and the
serfs; they formed part of his domains, and were his property; under
which designation were comprised all the rights that we at present
call rights of public sovereignty, as well as the privileges of
private property; he having the right of giving laws, of imposing
taxes, and of inflicting punishment, as well as that of disposing and
selling. In fact, as between the lord and the laborers on his domain,
there were no recognized laws, no guarantees, no society, at least so
far as may be predicated of any state in which men are brought into
contact.’ In what way society rose above so many accumulated evils,
and light sprang from so much darkness, we shall now endeavor to show.
The most remarkable and the most lasting influence, beyond all
question, was that exerted by the Crusades.