wealthy bishopric had often been productive of tumult and
bloodshed. The people was less numerous, but the times were more
savage, the prize more important, and the chair of St. Peter was
fiercely disputed by the leading ecclesiastics who aspired to the
rank of sovereign. The reign of Adrian the First 89 surpasses the
measure of past or succeeding ages; 90 the walls of Rome, the
sacred patrimony, the ruin of the Lombards, and the friendship of
Charlemagne, were the trophies of his fame: he secretly edified
the throne of his successors, and displayed in a narrow space the
virtues of a great prince. His memory was revered; but in the
next election, a priest of the Lateran, Leo the Third, was
preferred to the nephew and the favorite of Adrian, whom he had
promoted to the first dignities of the church. Their acquiescence
or repentance disguised, above four years, the blackest intention
of revenge, till the day of a procession, when a furious band of
conspirators dispersed the unarmed multitude, and assaulted with
blows and wounds the sacred person of the pope. But their
enterprise on his life or liberty was disappointed, perhaps by
their own confusion and remorse. Leo was left for dead on the
ground: on his revival from the swoon, the effect of his loss of
blood, he recovered his speech and sight; and this natural event
was improved to the miraculous restoration of his eyes and
tongue, of which he had been deprived, twice deprived, by the
knife of the assassins. 91 From his prison he escaped to the
Vatican: the duke of Spoleto hastened to his rescue, Charlemagne
sympathized in his injury, and in his camp of Paderborn in
Westphalia accepted, or solicited, a visit from the Roman
pontiff. Leo repassed the Alps with a commission of counts and
bishops, the guards of his safety and the judges of his
innocence; and it was not without reluctance, that the conqueror
of the Saxons delayed till the ensuing year the personal
discharge of this pious office. In his fourth and last
pilgrimage, he was received at Rome with the due honors of king
and patrician: Leo was permitted to purge himself by oath of the
crimes imputed to his charge: his enemies were silenced, and the
sacrilegious attempt against his life was punished by the mild
and insufficient penalty of exile. On the festival of Christmas,
the last year of the eighth century, Charlemagne appeared in the
church of St. Peter; and, to gratify the vanity of Rome, he had
exchanged the simple dress of his country for the habit of a
patrician. 92 After the celebration of the holy mysteries, Leo
suddenly placed a precious crown on his head, 93 and the dome
resounded with the acclamations of the people, “Long life and
victory to Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned by God the
great and pacific emperor of the Romans!” The head and body of
Charlemagne were consecrated by the royal unction: after the
example of the Caesars, he was saluted or adored by the pontiff:
his coronation oath represents a promise to maintain the faith
and privileges of the church; and the first-fruits were paid in
his rich offerings to the shrine of his apostle. In his familiar
conversation, the emperor protested the ignorance of the
intentions of Leo, which he would have disappointed by his
absence on that memorable day. But the preparations of the
ceremony must have disclosed the secret; and the journey of
Charlemagne reveals his knowledge and expectation: he had
acknowledged that the Imperial title was the object of his
ambition, and a Roman synod had pronounced, that it was the only
adequate reward of his merit and services. 94
89 (return) [ His merits and hopes are summed up in an epitaph of
thirty-eight-verses, of which Charlemagne declares himself the
author, (Concil. tom. viii. p. 520.) Post patrem lacrymans
Carolus haec carmina scripsi. Tu mihi dulcis amor, te modo plango
pater... Nomina jungo simul titulis, clarissime, nostra Adrianus,
Carolus, rex ego, tuque pater. The poetry might be supplied by
Alcuin; but the tears, the most glorious tribute, can only belong
to Charlemagne.]
90 (return) [ Every new pope is admonished—“Sancte Pater, non
videbis annos Petri,” twenty-five years. On the whole series the
average is about eight years—a short hope for an ambitious
cardinal.]
91 (return) [ The assurance of Anastasius (tom. iii. pars i. p.
197, 198) is supported by the credulity of some French annalists;
but Eginhard, and other writers of the same age, are more natural
and sincere. “Unus ei oculus paullulum est laesus,” says John the
deacon of Naples, (Vit. Episcop. Napol. in Scriptores Muratori,
tom. i. pars ii. p. 312.) Theodolphus, a contemporary bishop of
Orleans, observes with prudence (l. iii. carm. 3.) Reddita sunt?
mirum est: mirum est auferre nequtsse. Est tamen in dubio, hinc
mirer an inde magis.]
92 (return) [ Twice, at the request of Hadrian and Leo, he
appeared at Rome,—longa tunica et chlamyde amictus, et
calceamentis quoque Romano more formatis. Eginhard (c. xxiii. p.
109-113) describes, like Suetonius the simplicity of his dress,
so popular in the nation, that when Charles the Bald returned to
France in a foreign habit, the patriotic dogs barked at the
apostate, (Gaillard, Vie de Charlemagne, tom. iv. p. 109.)]
93 (return) [ See Anastasius (p. 199) and Eginhard, (c.xxviii. p.
124-128.) The unction is mentioned by Theophanes, (p. 399,) the
oath by Sigonius, (from the Ordo Romanus,) and the Pope’s
adoration more antiquorum principum, by the Annales Bertiniani,
(Script. Murator. tom. ii. pars ii. p. 505.)]
94 (return) [ This great event of the translation or restoration
of the empire is related and discussed by Natalis Alexander,
(secul. ix. dissert. i. p. 390-397,) Pagi, (tom. iii. p. 418,)
Muratori, (Annali d’Italia, tom. vi. p. 339-352,) Sigonius, (de
Regno Italiae, l. iv. Opp. tom. ii. p. 247-251,) Spanheim, (de
ficta Translatione Imperii,) Giannone, (tom. i. p. 395-405,) St.
Marc, (Abrege Chronologique, tom. i. p. 438-450,) Gaillard,
(Hist. de Charlemagne, tom. ii. p. 386-446.) Almost all these
moderns have some religious or national bias.]
The appellation of great has been often bestowed, and sometimes
deserved; but Charlemagne is the only prince in whose favor the
title has been indissolubly blended with the name. That name,
with the addition of saint, is inserted in the Roman calendar;
and the saint, by a rare felicity, is crowned with the praises of
the historians and philosophers of an enlightened age. 95 His
real merit is doubtless enhanced by the barbarism of the nation
and the times from which he emerged: but the apparent magnitude
of an object is likewise enlarged by an unequal comparison; and
the ruins of Palmyra derive a casual splendor from the nakedness
of the surrounding desert. Without injustice to his fame, I may
discern some blemishes in the sanctity and greatness of the
restorer of the Western empire. Of his moral virtues, chastity is
not the most conspicuous: 96 but the public happiness could not
be materially injured by his nine wives or concubines, the
various indulgence of meaner or more transient amours, the
multitude of his bastards whom he bestowed on the church, and the
long celibacy and licentious manners of his daughters, 97 whom
the father was suspected of loving with too fond a passion. 971 I
shall be scarcely permitted to accuse the ambition of a
conqueror; but in a day of equal retribution, the sons of his
brother Carloman, the Merovingian princes of Aquitain, and the
four thousand five hundred Saxons who were beheaded on the same
spot, would have something to allege against the justice and
humanity of Charlemagne. His treatment of the vanquished Saxons
98 was an abuse of the right of conquest; his laws were not less
sanguinary than his arms, and in the discussion of his motives,
whatever is subtracted from bigotry must be imputed to temper.
The sedentary reader is amazed by his incessant activity of mind
and body; and his subjects and enemies were not less astonished
at his sudden presence, at the moment when they believed him at
the most distant extremity of the empire; neither peace nor war,
nor summer nor winter, were a season of repose; and our fancy
cannot easily reconcile the annals of his reign with the
geography of his expeditions. 981 But this activity was a
national, rather than a personal, virtue; the vagrant life of a
Frank was spent in the chase, in pilgrimage, in military
adventures; and the journeys of Charlemagne were distinguished
only by a more numerous train and a more important purpose. His
military renown must be tried by the scrutiny of his troops, his
enemies, and his actions. Alexander conquered with the arms of
Philip, but the two heroes who preceded Charlemagne bequeathed
him their name, their examples, and the companions of their
victories. At the head of his veteran and superior armies, he
oppressed the savage or degenerate nations, who were incapable of
confederating for their common safety: nor did he ever encounter
an equal antagonist in numbers, in discipline, or in arms The
science of war has been lost and revived with the arts of peace;
but his campaigns are not illustrated by any siege or battle of
singular difficulty and success; and he might behold, with envy,
the Saracen trophies of his grandfather. After the Spanish
expedition, his rear-guard was defeated in the Pyrenaean
mountains; and the soldiers, whose situation was irretrievable,
and whose valor was useless, might accuse, with their last
breath, the want of skill or caution of their general. 99 I touch
with reverence the laws of Charlemagne, so highly applauded by a
respectable judge. They compose not a system, but a series, of
occasional and minute edicts, for the correction of abuses, the
reformation of manners, the economy of his farms, the care of his
poultry, and even the sale of his eggs. He wished to improve the
laws and the character of the Franks; and his attempts, however
feeble and imperfect, are deserving of praise: the inveterate
evils of the times were suspended or mollified by his government;
100 but in his institutions I can seldom discover the general
views and the immortal spirit of a legislator, who survives
himself for the benefit of posterity. The union and stability of
his empire depended on the life of a single man: he imitated the
dangerous practice of dividing his kingdoms among his sons; and
after his numerous diets, the whole constitution was left to
fluctuate between the disorders of anarchy and despotism. His
esteem for the piety and knowledge of the clergy tempted him to
intrust that aspiring order with temporal dominion and civil
jurisdiction; and his son Lewis, when he was stripped and
degraded by the bishops, might accuse, in some measure, the
imprudence of his father. His laws enforced the imposition of
tithes, because the daemons had proclaimed in the air that the
default of payment had been the cause of the last scarcity. 101
The literary merits of Charlemagne are attested by the foundation
of schools, the introduction of arts, the works which were
published in his name, and his familiar connection with the
subjects and strangers whom he invited to his court to educate
both the prince and people. His own studies were tardy,
laborious, and imperfect; if he spoke Latin, and understood
Greek, he derived the rudiments of knowledge from conversation,
rather than from books; and, in his mature age, the emperor
strove to acquire the practice of writing, which every peasant
now learns in his infancy. 102 The grammar and logic, the music
and astronomy, of the times, were only cultivated as the
handmaids of superstition; but the curiosity of the human mind
must ultimately tend to its improvement, and the encouragement of
learning reflects the purest and most pleasing lustre on the
character of Charlemagne. 103 The dignity of his person, 104 the
length of his reign, the prosperity of his arms, the vigor of his
government, and the reverence of distant nations, distinguish him
from the royal crowd; and Europe dates a new aera from his
restoration of the Western empire.
95 (return) [ By Mably, (Observations sur l’Histoire de France,)
Voltaire, (Histoire Generale,) Robertson, (History of Charles
V.,) and Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix, l. xxxi. c. 18.) In the
year 1782, M. Gaillard published his Histoire de Charlemagne, (in
4 vols. in 12mo.,) which I have freely and profitably used. The
author is a man of sense and humanity; and his work is labored
with industry and elegance. But I have likewise examined the
original monuments of the reigns of Pepin and Charlemagne, in the
5th volume of the Historians of France.]
96 (return) [ The vision of Weltin, composed by a monk, eleven
years after the death of Charlemagne, shows him in purgatory,
with a vulture, who is perpetually gnawing the guilty member,
while the rest of his body, the emblem of his virtues, is sound
and perfect, (see Gaillard tom. ii. p. 317-360.)]
97 (return) [ The marriage of Eginhard with Imma, daughter of
Charlemagne, is, in my opinion, sufficiently refuted by the
probum and suspicio that sullied these fair damsels, without
excepting his own wife, (c. xix. p. 98-100, cum Notis Schmincke.)
The husband must have been too strong for the historian.]
971 (return) [ This charge of incest, as Mr. Hallam justly
observes, “seems to have originated in a misinterpreted passage
of Eginhard.” Hallam’s Middle Ages, vol.i. p. 16.—M.]
98 (return) [ Besides the massacres and transmigrations, the pain
of death was pronounced against the following crimes: 1. The
refusal of baptism. 2. The false pretence of baptism. 3. A
relapse to idolatry. 4. The murder of a priest or bishop. 5.
Human sacrifices. 6. Eating meat in Lent. But every crime might
be expiated by baptism or penance, (Gaillard, tom. ii. p.
241-247;) and the Christian Saxons became the friends and equals
of the Franks, (Struv. Corpus Hist. Germanicae, p.133.)]
981 (return) [ M. Guizot (Cours d’Histoire Moderne, p. 270, 273)
has compiled the following statement of Charlemagne’s military
campaigns:—
1. Against the Aquitanians.
18. ” the Saxons.
5. ” the Lombards.
7. ” the Arabs in Spain.
1. ” the Thuringians.
4. ” the Avars.
2. ” the Bretons.
1. ” the Bavarians.
4. ” the Slaves beyond the Elbe
5. ” the Saracens in Italy.
3. ” the Danes.
2. ” the Greeks. ___
53 total.—M.]
99 (return) [ In this action the famous Rutland, Rolando,
Orlando, was slain—cum compluribus aliis. See the truth in
Eginhard, (c. 9, p. 51-56,) and the fable in an ingenious
Supplement of M. Gaillard, (tom. iii. p. 474.) The Spaniards are
too proud of a victory, which history ascribes to the Gascons,
and romance to the Saracens. * Note: In fact, it was a sudden
onset of the Gascons, assisted by the Beaure mountaineers, and
possibly a few Navarrese.—M.]
100 (return) [ Yet Schmidt, from the best authorities, represents
the interior disorders and oppression of his reign, (Hist. des
Allemands, tom. ii. p. 45-49.)]
101 (return) [ Omnis homo ex sua proprietate legitimam decimam ad
ecclesiam conferat. Experimento enim didicimus, in anno, quo illa
valida fames irrepsit, ebullire vacuas annonas a daemonibus
devoratas, et voces exprobationis auditas. Such is the decree and
assertion of the great Council of Frankfort, (canon xxv. tom. ix.
p. 105.) Both Selden (Hist. of Tithes; Works, vol. iii. part ii.
p. 1146) and Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xxxi. c. 12)
represent Charlemagne as the first legal author of tithes. Such
obligations have country gentlemen to his memory!]
102 (return) [ Eginhard (c. 25, p. 119) clearly affirms, tentabat
et scribere... sed parum prospere successit labor praeposterus et
sero inchoatus. The moderns have perverted and corrected this
obvious meaning, and the title of M. Gaillard’s dissertation
(tom. iii. p. 247-260) betrays his partiality. * Note: This point
has been contested; but Mr. Hallam and Monsieur Sismondl concur
with Gibbon. See Middle Ages, iii. 330, Histoire de Francais,
tom. ii. p. 318. The sensible observations of the latter are
quoted in the Quarterly Review, vol. xlviii. p. 451. Fleury, I
may add, quotes from Mabillon a remarkable evidence that
Charlemagne “had a mark to himself like an honest, plain-dealing
man.” Ibid.—M.]
103 (return) [ See Gaillard, tom. iii. p. 138-176, and Schmidt,
tom. ii. p. 121-129.]
104 (return) [ M. Gaillard (tom. iii. p. 372) fixes the true
stature of Charlemagne (see a Dissertation of Marquard Freher ad
calcem Eginhart, p. 220, &c.) at five feet nine inches of French,
about six feet one inch and a fourth English, measure. The
romance writers have increased it to eight feet, and the giant
was endowed with matchless strength and appetite: at a single
stroke of his good sword Joyeuse, he cut asunder a horseman and
his horse; at a single repast, he devoured a goose, two fowls, a
quarter of mutton, &c.]
That empire was not unworthy of its title; 105 and some of the
fairest kingdoms of Europe were the patrimony or conquest of a
prince, who reigned at the same time in France, Spain, Italy,
Germany, and Hungary. 106 I. The Roman province of Gaul had been
transformed into the name and monarchy of France; but, in the
decay of the Merovingian line, its limits were contracted by the
independence of the Britons and the revolt of Aquitain.
Charlemagne pursued, and confined, the Britons on the shores of
the ocean; and that ferocious tribe, whose origin and language
are so different from the French, was chastised by the imposition
of tribute, hostages, and peace. After a long and evasive
contest, the rebellion of the dukes of Aquitain was punished by
the forfeiture of their province, their liberty, and their lives.
Harsh and rigorous would have been such treatment of ambitious
governors, who had too faithfully copied the mayors of the
palace. But a recent discovery 107 has proved that these unhappy
princes were the last and lawful heirs of the blood and sceptre
of Clovis, and younger branch, from the brother of Dagobert, of
the Merovingian house. Their ancient kingdom was reduced to the
duchy of Gascogne, to the counties of Fesenzac and Armagnac, at
the foot of the Pyrenees: their race was propagated till the
beginning of the sixteenth century; and after surviving their
Carlovingian tyrants, they were reserved to feel the injustice,
or the favors, of a third dynasty. By the reunion of Aquitain,
France was enlarged to its present boundaries, with the additions
of the Netherlands and Spain, as far as the Rhine. II.
The Saracens had been expelled from France by the grandfather and
father of Charlemagne; but they still possessed the greatest part
of Spain, from the rock of Gibraltar to the Pyrenees. Amidst
their civil divisions, an Arabian emir of Saragossa implored his
protection in the diet of Paderborn. Charlemagne undertook the
expedition, restored the emir, and, without distinction of faith,
impartially crushed the resistance of the Christians, and
rewarded the obedience and services of the Mahometans. In his
absence he instituted the Spanish march, 108 which extended from
the Pyrenees to the River Ebro: Barcelona was the residence of
the French governor: he possessed the counties of Rousillon and
Catalonia; and the infant kingdoms of Navarre and Arragon were
subject to his jurisdiction. III. As king of the Lombards, and
patrician of Rome, he reigned over the greatest part of Italy,
109 a tract of a thousand miles from the Alps to the borders of
Calabria. The duchy of Beneventum, a Lombard fief, had spread, at
the expense of the Greeks, over the modern kingdom of Naples. But
Arrechis, the reigning duke, refused to be included in the
slavery of his country; assumed the independent title of prince;
and opposed his sword to the Carlovingian monarchy. His defence
was firm, his submission was not inglorious, and the emperor was
content with an easy tribute, the demolition of his fortresses,
and the acknowledgement, on his coins, of a supreme lord. The
artful flattery of his son Grimoald added the appellation of
father, but he asserted his dignity with prudence, and Benventum
insensibly escaped from the French yoke. 110 IV. Charlemagne was
the first who united Germany under the same sceptre. The name of
Oriental France is preserved in the circle of Franconia; and the
people of Hesse and Thuringia were recently incorporated with the
victors, by the conformity of religion and government. The
Alemanni, so formidable to the Romans, were the faithful vassals
and confederates of the Franks; and their country was inscribed
within the modern limits of Alsace, Swabia, and Switzerland. The
Bavarians, with a similar indulgence of their laws and manners,
were less patient of a master: the repeated treasons of Tasillo
justified the abolition of their hereditary dukes; and their
power was shared among the counts, who judged and guarded that
important frontier. But the north of Germany, from the Rhine and
beyond the Elbe, was still hostile and Pagan; nor was it till
after a war of thirty-three years that the Saxons bowed under the
yoke of Christ and of Charlemagne. The idols and their votaries
were extirpated: the foundation of eight bishoprics, of Munster,
Osnaburgh, Paderborn, and Minden, of Bremen, Verden, Hildesheim,
and Halberstadt, define, on either side of the Weser, the bounds
of ancient Saxony these episcopal seats were the first schools
and cities of that savage land; and the religion and humanity of
the children atoned, in some degree, for the massacre of the
parents. Beyond the Elbe, the Slavi, or Sclavonians, of similar
manners and various denominations, overspread the modern
dominions of Prussia, Poland, and Bohemia, and some transient
marks of obedience have tempted the French historian to extend
the empire to the Baltic and the Vistula. The conquest or
conversion of those countries is of a more recent age; but the
first union of Bohemia with the Germanic body may be justly
ascribed to the arms of Charlemagne. V. He retaliated on the
Avars, or Huns of Pannonia, the same calamities which they had
inflicted on the nations. Their rings, the wooden fortifications
which encircled their districts and villages, were broken down by
the triple effort of a French army, that was poured into their
country by land and water, through the Carpathian mountains and
along the plain of the Danube. After a bloody conflict of eight
years, the loss of some French generals was avenged by the
slaughter of the most noble Huns: the relics of the nation
submitted the royal residence of the chagan was left desolate and
unknown; and the treasures, the rapine of two hundred and fifty
years, enriched the victorious troops, or decorated the churches
of Italy and Gaul. 111 After the reduction of Pannonia, the
empire of Charlemagne was bounded only by the conflux of the
Danube with the Teyss and the Save: the provinces of Istria,
Liburnia, and Dalmatia, were an easy, though unprofitable,
accession; and it was an effect of his moderation, that he left
the maritime cities under the real or nominal sovereignty of the
Greeks. But these distant possessions added more to the
reputation than to the power of the Latin emperor; nor did he
risk any ecclesiastical foundations to reclaim the Barbarians
from their vagrant life and idolatrous worship. Some canals of
communication between the rivers, the Saone and the Meuse, the
Rhine and the Danube, were faintly attempted. 112 Their execution
would have vivified the empire; and more cost and labor were
often wasted in the structure of a cathedral. 1121
105 (return) [ See the concise, but correct and original, work of
D’Anville, (Etats Formes en Europe apres la Chute de l’Empire
Romain en Occident, Paris, 1771, in 4to.,) whose map includes the
empire of Charlemagne; the different parts are illustrated, by
Valesius (Notitia Galliacum) for France, Beretti (Dissertatio
Chorographica) for Italy, De Marca (Marca Hispanica) for Spain.
For the middle geography of Germany, I confess myself poor and
destitute.]
106 (return) [ After a brief relation of his wars and conquests,
(Vit. Carol. c. 5-14,) Eginhard recapitulates, in a few words,
(c. 15,) the countries subject to his empire. Struvius, (Corpus
Hist. German. p. 118-149) was inserted in his Notes the texts of
the old Chronicles.]
107 (return) [ On a charter granted to the monastery of Alaon
(A.D. 845) by Charles the Bald, which deduces this royal
pedigree. I doubt whether some subsequent links of the ixth and
xth centuries are equally firm; yet the whole is approved and
defended by M. Gaillard, (tom. ii. p.60-81, 203-206,) who affirms
that the family of Montesquiou (not of the President de
Montesquieu) is descended, in the female line, from Clotaire and
Clovis—an innocent pretension!]
108 (return) [ The governors or counts of the Spanish march
revolted from Charles the Simple about the year 900; and a poor
pittance, the Rousillon, has been recovered in 1642 by the kings
of France, (Longuerue, Description de la France, tom i. p.
220-222.) Yet the Rousillon contains 188,900 subjects, and
annually pays 2,600,000 livres, (Necker, Administration des
Finances, tom. i. p. 278, 279;) more people, perhaps, and
doubtless more money than the march of Charlemagne.]
109 (return) [ Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, tom. ii. p. 200,
&c.]
110 (return) [ See Giannone, tom. i. p 374, 375, and the Annals
of Muratori.]
111 (return) [ Quot praelia in eo gesta! quantum sanguinis
effusum sit! Testatur vacua omni habitatione Pannonia, et locus
in quo regia Cagani fuit ita desertus, ut ne vestigium quidem
humanae habitationis appareat. Tota in hoc bello Hunnorum
nobilitas periit, tota gloria decidit, omnis pecunia et congesti
ex longo tempore thesauri direpti sunt. Eginhard, cxiii.]
112 (return) [ The junction of the Rhine and Danube was
undertaken only for the service of the Pannonian war, (Gaillard,
Vie de Charlemagne, tom. ii. p. 312-315.) The canal, which would
have been only two leagues in length, and of which some traces
are still extant in Swabia, was interrupted by excessive rains,
military avocations, and superstitious fears, (Schaepflin, Hist.
de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xviii. p. 256. Molimina
fluviorum, &c., jungendorum, p. 59-62.)]
1121 (return) [ I should doubt this in the time of Charlemagne,
even if the term “expended” were substituted for “wasted.”—M.]
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part V.
If we retrace the outlines of this geographical picture, it will
be seen that the empire of the Franks extended, between east and
west, from the Ebro to the Elbe or Vistula; between the north and
south, from the duchy of Beneventum to the River Eyder, the
perpetual boundary of Germany and Denmark. The personal and
political importance of Charlemagne was magnified by the distress
and division of the rest of Europe. The islands of Great Britain
and Ireland were disputed by a crowd of princes of Saxon or
Scottish origin: and, after the loss of Spain, the Christian and
Gothic kingdom of Alphonso the Chaste was confined to the narrow
range of the Asturian mountains. These petty sovereigns revered
the power or virtue of the Carlovingian monarch, implored the
honor and support of his alliance, and styled him their common
parent, the sole and supreme emperor of the West. 113 He
maintained a more equal intercourse with the caliph Harun al
Rashid, 114 whose dominion stretched from Africa to India, and
accepted from his ambassadors a tent, a water-clock, an elephant,
and the keys of the Holy Sepulchre. It is not easy to conceive
the private friendship of a Frank and an Arab, who were strangers
to each other’s person, and language, and religion: but their
public correspondence was founded on vanity, and their remote
situation left no room for a competition of interest. Two thirds
of the Western empire of Rome were subject to Charlemagne, and
the deficiency was amply supplied by his command of the
inaccessible or invincible nations of Germany. But in the choice
of his enemies, 1141 we may be reasonably surprised that he so
often preferred the poverty of the north to the riches of the
south. The three-and-thirty campaigns laboriously consumed in the
woods and morasses of Germany would have sufficed to assert the
amplitude of his title by the expulsion of the Greeks from Italy
and the Saracens from Spain. The weakness of the Greeks would
have insured an easy victory; and the holy crusade against the
Saracens would have been prompted by glory and revenge, and
loudly justified by religion and policy. Perhaps, in his
expeditions beyond the Rhine and the Elbe, he aspired to save his
monarchy from the fate of the Roman empire, to disarm the enemies
of civilized society, and to eradicate the seed of future
emigrations. But it has been wisely observed, that, in a light of
precaution, all conquest must be ineffectual, unless it could be
universal, since the increasing circle must be involved in a
larger sphere of hostility. 115 The subjugation of Germany
withdrew the veil which had so long concealed the continent or
islands of Scandinavia from the knowledge of Europe, and awakened
the torpid courage of their barbarous natives. The fiercest of
the Saxon idolaters escaped from the Christian tyrant to their
brethren of the North; the Ocean and Mediterranean were covered
with their piratical fleets; and Charlemagne beheld with a sigh
the destructive progress of the Normans, who, in less than
seventy years, precipitated the fall of his race and monarchy.
113 (return) [ See Eginhard, c. 16, and Gaillard, tom. ii. p.
361-385, who mentions, with a loose reference, the intercourse of
Charlemagne and Egbert, the emperor’s gift of his own sword, and
the modest answer of his Saxon disciple. The anecdote, if
genuine, would have adorned our English histories.]
114 (return) [ The correspondence is mentioned only in the French
annals, and the Orientals are ignorant of the caliph’s friendship
for the Christian dog—a polite appellation, which Harun bestows
on the emperor of the Greeks.]
1141 (return) [ Had he the choice? M. Guizot has eloquently
described the position of Charlemagne towards the Saxons. Il y
fit face par le conquete; la guerre defensive prit la forme
offensive: il transporta la lutte sur le territoire des peuples
qui voulaient envahir le sien: il travailla a asservir les races
etrangeres, et extirper les croyances ennemies. De la son mode de
gouvernement et la fondation de son empire: la guerre offensive
et la conquete voulaient cette vaste et redoutable unite. Compare
observations in the Quarterly Review, vol. xlviii., and James’s
Life of Charlemagne.—M.]
115 (return) [ Gaillard, tom. ii. p. 361-365, 471-476, 492. I
have borrowed his judicious remarks on Charlemagne’s plan of
conquest, and the judicious distinction of his enemies of the
first and the second enceinte, (tom. ii. p. 184, 509, &c.)]
Had the pope and the Romans revived the primitive constitution,
the titles of emperor and Augustus were conferred on Charlemagne
for the term of his life; and his successors, on each vacancy,
must have ascended the throne by a formal or tacit election. But
the association of his son Lewis the Pious asserts the
independent right of monarchy and conquest, and the emperor seems
on this occasion to have foreseen and prevented the latent claims
of the clergy. The royal youth was commanded to take the crown
from the altar, and with his own hands to place it on his head,
as a gift which he held from God, his father, and the nation. 116
The same ceremony was repeated, though with less energy, in the
subsequent associations of Lothaire and Lewis the Second: the
Carlovingian sceptre was transmitted from father to son in a
lineal descent of four generations; and the ambition of the popes
was reduced to the empty honor of crowning and anointing these
hereditary princes, who were already invested with their power
and dominions. The pious Lewis survived his brothers, and
embraced the whole empire of Charlemagne; but the nations and the
nobles, his bishops and his children, quickly discerned that this
mighty mass was no longer inspired by the same soul; and the
foundations were undermined to the centre, while the external
surface was yet fair and entire. After a war, or battle, which
consumed one hundred thousand Franks, the empire was divided by
treaty between his three sons, who had violated every filial and
fraternal duty. The kingdoms of Germany and France were forever
separated; the provinces of Gaul, between the Rhone and the Alps,
the Meuse and the Rhine, were assigned, with Italy, to the
Imperial dignity of Lothaire. In the partition of his share,
Lorraine and Arles, two recent and transitory kingdoms, were
bestowed on the younger children; and Lewis the Second, his
eldest son, was content with the realm of Italy, the proper and
sufficient patrimony of a Roman emperor. On his death without any
male issue, the vacant throne was disputed by his uncles and
cousins, and the popes most dexterously seized the occasion of
judging the claims and merits of the candidates, and of bestowing
on the most obsequious, or most liberal, the Imperial office of
advocate of the Roman church. The dregs of the Carlovingian race
no longer exhibited any symptoms of virtue or power, and the
ridiculous epithets of the bard, the stammerer, the fat, and the
simple, distinguished the tame and uniform features of a crowd of
kings alike deserving of oblivion. By the failure of the
collateral branches, the whole inheritance devolved to Charles
the Fat, the last emperor of his family: his insanity authorized
the desertion of Germany, Italy, and France: he was deposed in a
diet, and solicited his daily bread from the rebels by whose
contempt his life and liberty had been spared. According to the
measure of their force, the governors, the bishops, and the
lords, usurped the fragments of the falling empire; and some
preference was shown to the female or illegitimate blood of
Charlemagne. Of the greater part, the title and possession were
alike doubtful, and the merit was adequate to the contracted
scale of their dominions. Those who could appear with an army at
the gates of Rome were crowned emperors in the Vatican; but their
modesty was more frequently satisfied with the appellation of
kings of Italy: and the whole term of seventy-four years may be
deemed a vacancy, from the abdication of Charles the Fat to the
establishment of Otho the First.
116 (return) [ Thegan, the biographer of Lewis, relates this
coronation: and Baronius has honestly transcribed it, (A.D. 813,
No. 13, &c. See Gaillard, tom. ii. p. 506, 507, 508,) howsoever
adverse to the claims of the popes. For the series of the
Carlovingians, see the historians of France, Italy, and Germany;
Pfeffel, Schmidt, Velly, Muratori, and even Voltaire, whose
pictures are sometimes just, and always pleasing.]
Otho 117 was of the noble race of the dukes of Saxony; and if he
truly descended from Witikind, the adversary and proselyte of
Charlemagne, the posterity of a vanquished people was exalted to
reign over their conquerors. His father, Henry the Fowler, was
elected, by the suffrage of the nation, to save and institute the
kingdom of Germany. Its limits 118 were enlarged on every side by
his son, the first and greatest of the Othos. A portion of Gaul,
to the west of the Rhine, along the banks of the Meuse and the
Moselle, was assigned to the Germans, by whose blood and language
it has been tinged since the time of Caesar and Tacitus.
Between the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Alps, the successors of
Otho acquired a vain supremacy over the broken kingdoms of
Burgundy and Arles. In the North, Christianity was propagated by
the sword of Otho, the conqueror and apostle of the Slavic
nations of the Elbe and Oder: the marches of Brandenburgh and
Sleswick were fortified with German colonies; and the king of
Denmark, the dukes of Poland and Bohemia, confessed themselves
his tributary vassals. At the head of a victorious army, he
passed the Alps, subdued the kingdom of Italy, delivered the
pope, and forever fixed the Imperial crown in the name and nation
of Germany. From that memorable aera, two maxims of public
jurisprudence were introduced by force and ratified by time. I.
That the prince, who was elected in the German diet, acquired,
from that instant, the subject kingdoms of Italy and Rome. II.
But that he might not legally assume the titles of emperor and
Augustus, till he had received the crown from the hands of the
Roman pontiff. 119
117 (return) [ He was the son of Otho, the son of Ludolph, in
whose favor the Duchy of Saxony had been instituted, A.D. 858.
Ruotgerus, the biographer of a St. Bruno, (Bibliot. Bunavianae
Catalog. tom. iii. vol. ii. p. 679,) gives a splendid character
of his family. Atavorum atavi usque ad hominum memoriam omnes
nobilissimi; nullus in eorum stirpe ignotus, nullus degener
facile reperitur, (apud Struvium, Corp. Hist. German. p. 216.)
Yet Gundling (in Henrico Aucupe) is not satisfied of his descent
from Witikind.]
118 (return) [ See the treatise of Conringius, (de Finibus
Imperii Germanici, Francofurt. 1680, in 4to.: ) he rejects the
extravagant and improper scale of the Roman and Carlovingian
empires, and discusses with moderation the rights of Germany, her
vassals, and her neighbors.]
119 (return) [ The power of custom forces me to number Conrad I.
and Henry I., the Fowler, in the list of emperors, a title which
was never assumed by those kings of Germany. The Italians,
Muratori for instance, are more scrupulous and correct, and only
reckon the princes who have been crowned at Rome.]
The Imperial dignity of Charlemagne was announced to the East by
the alteration of his style; and instead of saluting his fathers,
the Greek emperors, he presumed to adopt the more equal and
familiar appellation of brother. 120 Perhaps in his connection
with Irene he aspired to the name of husband: his embassy to
Constantinople spoke the language of peace and friendship, and
might conceal a treaty of marriage with that ambitious princess,
who had renounced the most sacred duties of a mother. The nature,
the duration, the probable consequences of such a union between
two distant and dissonant empires, it is impossible to
conjecture; but the unanimous silence of the Latins may teach us
to suspect, that the report was invented by the enemies of Irene,
to charge her with the guilt of betraying the church and state to
the strangers of the West. 121 The French ambassadors were the
spectators, and had nearly been the victims, of the conspiracy of
Nicephorus, and the national hatred. Constantinople was
exasperated by the treason and sacrilege of ancient Rome: a
proverb, “That the Franks were good friends and bad neighbors,”
was in every one’s mouth; but it was dangerous to provoke a
neighbor who might be tempted to reiterate, in the church of St.
Sophia, the ceremony of his Imperial coronation. After a tedious
journey of circuit and delay, the ambassadors of Nicephorus found
him in his camp, on the banks of the River Sala; and Charlemagne
affected to confound their vanity by displaying, in a Franconian
village, the pomp, or at least the pride, of the Byzantine
palace. 122 The Greeks were successively led through four halls
of audience: in the first they were ready to fall prostrate
before a splendid personage in a chair of state, till he informed
them that he was only a servant, the constable, or master of the
horse, of the emperor. The same mistake, and the same answer,
were repeated in the apartments of the count palatine, the
steward, and the chamberlain; and their impatience was gradually
heightened, till the doors of the presence-chamber were thrown
open, and they beheld the genuine monarch, on his throne,
enriched with the foreign luxury which he despised, and encircled
with the love and reverence of his victorious chiefs. A treaty of
peace and alliance was concluded between the two empires, and the
limits of the East and West were defined by the right of present
possession. But the Greeks 123 soon forgot this humiliating
equality, or remembered it only to hate the Barbarians by whom it
was extorted. During the short union of virtue and power, they
respectfully saluted the august Charlemagne, with the
acclamations of basileus, and emperor of the Romans. As soon as
these qualities were separated in the person of his pious son,
the Byzantine letters were inscribed, “To the king, or, as he
styles himself, the emperor of the Franks and Lombards.” When
both power and virtue were extinct, they despoiled Lewis the
Second of his hereditary title, and with the barbarous
appellation of rex or rega, degraded him among the crowd of Latin
princes. His reply 124 is expressive of his weakness: he proves,
with some learning, that, both in sacred and profane history, the
name of king is synonymous with the Greek word basileus: if, at
Constantinople, it were assumed in a more exclusive and imperial
sense, he claims from his ancestors, and from the popes, a just
participation of the honors of the Roman purple. The same
controversy was revived in the reign of the Othos; and their
ambassador describes, in lively colors, the insolence of the
Byzantine court. 125 The Greeks affected to despise the poverty
and ignorance of the Franks and Saxons; and in their last decline
refused to prostitute to the kings of Germany the title of Roman
emperors.
120 (return) [ Invidiam tamen suscepti nominis (C. P.
imperatoribus super hoc indignantibus) magna tulit patientia,
vicitque eorum contumaciam... mittendo ad eos crebras legationes,
et in epistolis fratres eos appellando. Eginhard, c. 28, p. 128.
Perhaps it was on their account that, like Augustus, he affected
some reluctance to receive the empire.]
121 (return) [ Theophanes speaks of the coronation and unction of
Charles (Chronograph. p. 399,) and of his treaty of marriage with
Irene, (p. 402,) which is unknown to the Latins. Gaillard relates
his transactions with the Greek empire, (tom. ii. p. 446-468.)]
122 (return) [ Gaillard very properly observes, that this pageant
was a farce suitable to children only; but that it was indeed
represented in the presence, and for the benefit, of children of
a larger growth.]
123 (return) [ Compare, in the original texts collected by Pagi,
(tom. iii. A.D. 812, No. 7, A.D. 824, No. 10, &c.,) the contrast
of Charlemagne and his son; to the former the ambassadors of
Michael (who were indeed disavowed) more suo, id est lingua
Graeca laudes dixerunt, imperatorem eum et appellantes; to the
latter, Vocato imperatori Francorum, &c.]
124 (return) [ See the epistle, in Paralipomena, of the anonymous
writer of Salerno, (Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars ii. p. 243-254,
c. 93-107,) whom Baronius (A.D. 871, No. 51-71) mistook for
Erchempert, when he transcribed it in his Annals.]
125 (return) [ Ipse enim vos, non imperatorem, id est sua lingua,
sed ob indignationem, id est regem nostra vocabat, Liutprand, in
Legat. in Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars i. p. 479. The pope had
exhorted Nicephorus, emperor of the Greeks, to make peace with
Otho, the august emperor of the Romans—quae inscriptio secundum
Graecos peccatoria et temeraria... imperatorem inquiunt,
universalem, Romanorum, Augustum, magnum, solum, Nicephorum, (p.
486.)]
These emperors, in the election of the popes, continued to
exercise the powers which had been assumed by the Gothic and
Grecian princes; and the importance of this prerogative increased
with the temporal estate and spiritual jurisdiction of the Roman
church. In the Christian aristocracy, the principal members of
the clergy still formed a senate to assist the administration,
and to supply the vacancy, of the bishop. Rome was divided into
twenty-eight parishes, and each parish was governed by a cardinal
priest, or presbyter, a title which, however common or modest in
its origin, has aspired to emulate the purple of kings. Their
number was enlarged by the association of the seven deacons of
the most considerable hospitals, the seven palatine judges of the
Lateran, and some dignitaries of the church. This ecclesiastical
senate was directed by the seven cardinal-bishops of the Roman
province, who were less occupied in the suburb dioceses of Ostia,
Porto, Velitrae, Tusculum, Praeneste, Tibur, and the Sabines,
than by their weekly service in the Lateran, and their superior
share in the honors and authority of the apostolic see. On the
death of the pope, these bishops recommended a successor to the
suffrage of the college of cardinals, 126 and their choice was
ratified or rejected by the applause or clamor of the Roman
people. But the election was imperfect; nor could the pontiff be
legally consecrated till the emperor, the advocate of the church,
had graciously signified his approbation and consent. The royal
commissioner examined, on the spot, the form and freedom of the
proceedings; nor was it till after a previous scrutiny into the
qualifications of the candidates, that he accepted an oath of
fidelity, and confirmed the donations which had successively
enriched the patrimony of St. Peter. In the frequent schisms, the
rival claims were submitted to the sentence of the emperor; and
in a synod of bishops he presumed to judge, to condemn, and to
punish, the crimes of a guilty pontiff. Otho the First imposed a
treaty on the senate and people, who engaged to prefer the
candidate most acceptable to his majesty: 127 his successors
anticipated or prevented their choice: they bestowed the Roman
benefice, like the bishoprics of Cologne or Bamberg, on their
chancellors or preceptors; and whatever might be the merit of a
Frank or Saxon, his name sufficiently attests the interposition
of foreign power. These acts of prerogative were most speciously
excused by the vices of a popular election. The competitor who
had been excluded by the cardinals appealed to the passions or
avarice of the multitude; the Vatican and the Lateran were
stained with blood; and the most powerful senators, the marquises
of Tuscany and the counts of Tusculum, held the apostolic see in
a long and disgraceful servitude. The Roman pontiffs, of the
ninth and tenth centuries, were insulted, imprisoned, and
murdered, by their tyrants; and such was their indigence, after
the loss and usurpation of the ecclesiastical patrimonies, that
they could neither support the state of a prince, nor exercise
the charity of a priest. 128 The influence of two sister
prostitutes, Marozia and Theodora, was founded on their wealth
and beauty, their political and amorous intrigues: the most
strenuous of their lovers were rewarded with the Roman mitre, and
their reign 129 may have suggested to the darker ages 130 the
fable 131 of a female pope. 132 The bastard son, the grandson,
and the great-grandson of Marozia, a rare genealogy, were seated
in the chair of St. Peter, and it was at the age of nineteen
years that the second of these became the head of the Latin
church. 1321 His youth and manhood were of a suitable complexion;
and the nations of pilgrims could bear testimony to the charges
that were urged against him in a Roman synod, and in the presence
of Otho the Great. As John XII. had renounced the dress and
decencies of his profession, the soldier may not perhaps be
dishonored by the wine which he drank, the blood that he spilt,
the flames that he kindled, or the licentious pursuits of gaming
and hunting. His open simony might be the consequence of
distress; and his blasphemous invocation of Jupiter and Venus, if
it be true, could not possibly be serious. But we read, with some
surprise, that the worthy grandson of Marozia lived in public
adultery with the matrons of Rome; that the Lateran palace was
turned into a school for prostitution, and that his rapes of
virgins and widows had deterred the female pilgrims from visiting
the tomb of St. Peter, lest, in the devout act, they should be
violated by his successor. 133 The Protestants have dwelt with
malicious pleasure on these characters of Antichrist; but to a
philosophic eye, the vices of the clergy are far less dangerous
than their virtues. After a long series of scandal, the apostolic
see was reformed and exalted by the austerity and zeal of Gregory
VII. That ambitious monk devoted his life to the execution of two
projects. I. To fix in the college of cardinals the freedom and
independence of election, and forever to abolish the right or
usurpation of the emperors and the Roman people. II. To bestow
and resume the Western empire as a fief or benefice 134 of the
church, and to extend his temporal dominion over the kings and
kingdoms of the earth. After a contest of fifty years, the first
of these designs was accomplished by the firm support of the
ecclesiastical order, whose liberty was connected with that of
their chief. But the second attempt, though it was crowned with
some partial and apparent success, has been vigorously resisted
by the secular power, and finally extinguished by the improvement
of human reason.
126 (return) [ The origin and progress of the title of cardinal
may be found in Themassin, (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. p.
1261-1298,) Muratori, (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. vi.
Dissert. lxi. p. 159-182,) and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles.
p. 345-347,) who accurately remarks the form and changes of the
election. The cardinal-bishops so highly exalted by Peter
Damianus, are sunk to a level with the rest of the sacred
college.]
127 (return) [ Firmiter jurantes, nunquam se papam electuros aut
audinaturos, praeter consensum et electionem Othonis et filii
sui. (Liutprand, l. vi. c. 6, p. 472.) This important concession
may either supply or confirm the decree of the clergy and people
of Rome, so fiercely rejected by Baronius, Pagi, and Muratori,
(A.D. 964,) and so well defended and explained by St. Marc,
(Abrege, tom. ii. p. 808-816, tom. iv. p. 1167-1185.) Consult the
historical critic, and the Annals of Muratori, for for the
election and confirmation of each pope.]
128 (return) [ The oppression and vices of the Roman church, in
the xth century, are strongly painted in the history and legation
of Liutprand, (see p. 440, 450, 471-476, 479, &c.;) and it is
whimsical enough to observe Muratori tempering the invectives of
Baronius against the popes. But these popes had been chosen, not
by the cardinals, but by lay-patrons.]
129 (return) [ The time of Pope Joan (papissa Joanna) is placed
somewhat earlier than Theodora or Marozia; and the two years of
her imaginary reign are forcibly inserted between Leo IV. and
Benedict III. But the contemporary Anastasius indissolubly links
the death of Leo and the elevation of Benedict, (illico, mox, p.
247;) and the accurate chronology of Pagi, Muratori, and
Leibnitz, fixes both events to the year 857.]
130 (return) [ The advocates for Pope Joan produce one hundred
and fifty witnesses, or rather echoes, of the xivth, xvth, and
xvith centuries. They bear testimony against themselves and the
legend, by multiplying the proof that so curious a story must
have been repeated by writers of every description to whom it was
known. On those of the ixth and xth centuries, the recent event
would have flashed with a double force. Would Photius have spared
such a reproach? Could Liutprand have missed such scandal? It is
scarcely worth while to discuss the various readings of Martinus
Polonus, Sigeber of Gamblours, or even Marianus Scotus; but a
most palpable forgery is the passage of Pope Joan, which has been
foisted into some Mss. and editions of the Roman Anastasius.]
131 (return) [ As false, it deserves that name; but I would not
pronounce it incredible. Suppose a famous French chevalier of our
own times to have been born in Italy, and educated in the church,
instead of the army: her merit or fortune might have raised her
to St. Peter’s chair; her amours would have been natural: her
delivery in the streets unlucky, but not improbable.]
132 (return) [ Till the reformation the tale was repeated and
believed without offence: and Joan’s female statue long occupied
her place among the popes in the cathedral of Sienna, (Pagi,
Critica, tom. iii. p. 624-626.) She has been annihilated by two
learned Protestants, Blondel and Bayle, (Dictionnaire Critique,
Papesse, Polonus, Blondel;) but their brethren were scandalized
by this equitable and generous criticism. Spanheim and Lenfant
attempt to save this poor engine of controversy, and even Mosheim
condescends to cherish some doubt and suspicion, (p. 289.)]
1321 (return) [ John XI. was the son of her husband Alberic, not
of her lover, Pope Sergius III., as Muratori has distinctly
proved, Ann. ad ann. 911, tom. p. 268. Her grandson Octavian,
otherwise called John XII., was pope; but a great-grandson cannot
be discovered in any of the succeeding popes; nor does our
historian himself, in his subsequent narration, (p. 202,) seem to
know of one. Hobhouse, Illustrations of Childe Harold, p.
309.—M.]
133 (return) [ Lateranense palatium... prostibulum meretricum ...
Testis omnium gentium, praeterquam Romanorum, absentia mulierum,
quae sanctorum apostolorum limina orandi gratia timent visere,
cum nonnullas ante dies paucos, hunc audierint conjugatas,
viduas, virgines vi oppressisse, (Liutprand, Hist. l. vi. c. 6,
p. 471. See the whole affair of John XII., p. 471-476.)]
134 (return) [ A new example of the mischief of equivocation is
the beneficium (Ducange, tom. i. p. 617, &c.,) which the pope
conferred on the emperor Frederic I., since the Latin word may
signify either a legal fief, or a simple favor, an obligation,
(we want the word bienfait.) (See Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands,
tom. iii. p. 393-408. Pfeffel, Abrege Chronologique, tom. i. p.
229, 296, 317, 324, 420, 430, 500, 505, 509, &c.)]
In the revival of the empire of empire of Rome, neither the
bishop nor the people could bestow on Charlemagne or Otho the
provinces which were lost, as they had been won, by the chance of
arms. But the Romans were free to choose a master for themselves;
and the powers which had been delegated to the patrician, were
irrevocably granted to the French and Saxon emperors of the West.
The broken records of the times 135 preserve some remembrance of
their palace, their mint, their tribunal, their edicts, and the
sword of justice, which, as late as the thirteenth century, was
derived from Caesar to the praefect of the city. 136 Between the
arts of the popes and the violence of the people, this supremacy
was crushed and annihilated. Content with the titles of emperor
and Augustus, the successors of Charlemagne neglected to assert
this local jurisdiction. In the hour of prosperity, their
ambition was diverted by more alluring objects; and in the decay
and division of the empire, they were oppressed by the defence of
their hereditary provinces. Amidst the ruins of Italy, the famous
Marozia invited one of the usurpers to assume the character of
her third husband; and Hugh, king of Burgundy was introduced by
her faction into the mole of Hadrian or Castle of St. Angelo,
which commands the principal bridge and entrance of Rome. Her son
by the first marriage, Alberic, was compelled to attend at the
nuptial banquet; but his reluctant and ungraceful service was
chastised with a blow by his new father. The blow was productive
of a revolution. “Romans,” exclaimed the youth, “once you were
the masters of the world, and these Burgundians the most abject
of your slaves. They now reign, these voracious and brutal
savages, and my injury is the commencement of your servitude.”
137 The alarum bell rang to arms in every quarter of the city:
the Burgundians retreated with haste and shame; Marozia was
imprisoned by her victorious son, and his brother, Pope John XI.,
was reduced to the exercise of his spiritual functions. With the
title of prince, Alberic possessed above twenty years the
government of Rome; and he is said to have gratified the popular
prejudice, by restoring the office, or at least the title, of
consuls and tribunes. His son and heir Octavian assumed, with the
pontificate, the name of John XII.: like his predecessor, he was
provoked by the Lombard princes to seek a deliverer for the
church and republic; and the services of Otho were rewarded with
the Imperial dignity. But the Saxon was imperious, the Romans
were impatient, the festival of the coronation was disturbed by
the secret conflict of prerogative and freedom, and Otho
commanded his sword-bearer not to stir from his person, lest he
should be assaulted and murdered at the foot of the altar. 138
Before he repassed the Alps, the emperor chastised the revolt of
the people and the ingratitude of John XII. The pope was degraded
in a synod; the praefect was mounted on an ass, whipped through
the city, and cast into a dungeon; thirteen of the most guilty
were hanged, others were mutilated or banished; and this severe
process was justified by the ancient laws of Theodosius and
Justinian. The voice of fame has accused the second Otho of a
perfidious and bloody act, the massacre of the senators, whom he
had invited to his table under the fair semblance of hospitality
and friendship. 139 In the minority of his son Otho the Third,
Rome made a bold attempt to shake off the Saxon yoke, and the
consul Crescentius was the Brutus of the republic. From the
condition of a subject and an exile, he twice rose to the command
of the city, oppressed, expelled, and created the popes, and
formed a conspiracy for restoring the authority of the Greek
emperors. 1391 In the fortress of St. Angelo, he maintained an
obstinate siege, till the unfortunate consul was betrayed by a
promise of safety: his body was suspended on a gibbet, and his
head was exposed on the battlements of the castle. By a reverse
of fortune, Otho, after separating his troops, was besieged three
days, without food, in his palace; and a disgraceful escape saved
him from the justice or fury of the Romans. The senator Ptolemy
was the leader of the people, and the widow of Crescentius
enjoyed the pleasure or the fame of revenging her husband, by a
poison which she administered to her Imperial lover. It was the
design of Otho the Third to abandon the ruder countries of the
North, to erect his throne in Italy, and to revive the
institutions of the Roman monarchy. But his successors only once
in their lives appeared on the banks of the Tyber, to receive
their crown in the Vatican. 140 Their absence was contemptible,
their presence odious and formidable. They descended from the
Alps, at the head of their barbarians, who were strangers and
enemies to the country; and their transient visit was a scene of
tumult and bloodshed. 141 A faint remembrance of their ancestors
still tormented the Romans; and they beheld with pious
indignation the succession of Saxons, Franks, Swabians, and
Bohemians, who usurped the purple and prerogatives of the
Caesars.
135 (return) [ For the history of the emperors in Rome and Italy,
see Sigonius, de Regno Italiae, Opp. tom. ii., with the Notes of
Saxius, and the Annals of Muratori, who might refer more
distinctly to the authors of his great collection.]
136 (return) [ See the Dissertations of Le Blanc at the end of
his treatise des Monnoyes de France, in which he produces some
Roman coins of the French emperors.]
137 (return) [ Romanorum aliquando servi, scilicet Burgundiones,
Romanis imperent?.... Romanae urbis dignitas ad tantam est
stultitiam ducta, ut meretricum etiam imperio pareat? (Liutprand,
l. iii. c. 12, p. 450.) Sigonius (l. vi. p. 400) positively
affirms the renovation of the consulship; but in the old writers
Albericus is more frequently styled princeps Romanorum.]
138 (return) [ Ditmar, p. 354, apud Schmidt, tom. iii. p. 439.]
139 (return) [ This bloody feast is described in Leonine verse in
the Pantheon of Godfrey of Viterbo, (Script. Ital. tom. vii. p.
436, 437,) who flourished towards the end of the xiith century,
(Fabricius Bibliot. Latin. Med. et Infimi Aevi, tom. iii. p. 69,
edit. Mansi;) but his evidence, which imposed on Sigonius, is
reasonably suspected by Muratori (Annali, tom. viii. p. 177.)]
1391 (return) [ The Marquis Maffei’s gallery contained a medal
with Imp. Caes August. P. P. Crescentius. Hence Hobhouse infers
that he affected the empire. Hobhouse, Illustrations of Childe
Harold, p. 252.—M.]
140 (return) [ The coronation of the emperor, and some original
ceremonies of the xth century are preserved in the Panegyric on
Berengarius, (Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars i. p. 405-414,)
illustrated by the Notes of Hadrian Valesius and Leibnitz.
Sigonius has related the whole process of the Roman expedition,
in good Latin, but with some errors of time and fact, (l. vii. p.
441-446.)]
141 (return) [ In a quarrel at the coronation of Conrad II.
Muratori takes leave to observe—doveano ben essere allora,
indisciplinati, Barbari, e bestials Tedeschi. Annal. tom. viii.
p. 368.]
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part VI.
There is nothing perhaps more adverse to nature and reason than
to hold in obedience remote countries and foreign nations, in
opposition to their inclination and interest. A torrent of
Barbarians may pass over the earth, but an extensive empire must
be supported by a refined system of policy and oppression; in the
centre, an absolute power, prompt in action and rich in
resources; a swift and easy communication with the extreme parts;
fortifications to check the first effort of rebellion; a regular
administration to protect and punish; and a well-disciplined army
to inspire fear, without provoking discontent and despair. Far
different was the situation of the German Caesars, who were
ambitious to enslave the kingdom of Italy. Their patrimonial
estates were stretched along the Rhine, or scattered in the
provinces; but this ample domain was alienated by the imprudence
or distress of successive princes; and their revenue, from minute
and vexatious prerogative, was scarcely sufficient for the
maintenance of their household. Their troops were formed by the
legal or voluntary service of their feudal vassals, who passed
the Alps with reluctance, assumed the license of rapine and
disorder, and capriciously deserted before the end of the
campaign. Whole armies were swept away by the pestilential
influence of the climate: the survivors brought back the bones of
their princes and nobles, 142 and the effects of their own
intemperance were often imputed to the treachery and malice of
the Italians, who rejoiced at least in the calamities of the
Barbarians. This irregular tyranny might contend on equal terms
with the petty tyrants of Italy; nor can the people, or the
reader, be much interested in the event of the quarrel. But in
the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Lombards rekindled the
flame of industry and freedom; and the generous example was at
length imitated by the republics of Tuscany. 1421 In the Italian
cities a municipal government had never been totally abolished;
and their first privileges were granted by the favor and policy
of the emperors, who were desirous of erecting a plebeian barrier
against the independence of the nobles. But their rapid progress,
the daily extension of their power and pretensions, were founded
on the numbers and spirit of these rising communities. 143 Each
city filled the measure of her diocese or district: the
jurisdiction of the counts and bishops, of the marquises and
counts, was banished from the land; and the proudest nobles were
persuaded or compelled to desert their solitary castles, and to
embrace the more honorable character of freemen and magistrates.
The legislative authority was inherent in the general assembly;
but the executive powers were intrusted to three consuls,
annually chosen from the three orders of captains, valvassors,
144 and commons, into which the republic was divided. Under the
protection of equal law, the labors of agriculture and commerce
were gradually revived; but the martial spirit of the Lombards
was nourished by the presence of danger; and as often as the bell
was rung, or the standard 145 erected, the gates of the city
poured forth a numerous and intrepid band, whose zeal in their
own cause was soon guided by the use and discipline of arms. At
the foot of these popular ramparts, the pride of the Caesars was
overthrown; and the invincible genius of liberty prevailed over
the two Frederics, the greatest princes of the middle age; the
first, superior perhaps in military prowess; the second, who
undoubtedly excelled in the softer accomplishments of peace and
learning.
142 (return) [ After boiling away the flesh. The caldrons for
that purpose were a necessary piece of travelling furniture; and
a German who was using it for his brother, promised it to a
friend, after it should have been employed for himself, (Schmidt,
tom. iii. p. 423, 424.) The same author observes that the whole
Saxon line was extinguished in Italy, (tom. ii. p. 440.)]
1421 (return) [ Compare Sismondi, Histoire des Republiques
Italiannes. Hallam Middle Ages. Raumer, Geschichte der
Hohenstauffen. Savigny, Geschichte des Romischen Rechts, vol.
iii. p. 19 with the authors quoted.—M.]
143 (return) [ Otho, bishop of Frisingen, has left an important
passage on the Italian cities, (l. ii. c. 13, in Script. Ital.
tom. vi. p. 707-710: ) and the rise, progress, and government of
these republics are perfectly illustrated by Muratori,
(Antiquitat. Ital. Medii Aevi, tom. iv. dissert xlv.—lii. p.
1-675. Annal. tom. viii. ix. x.)]
144 (return) [ For these titles, see Selden, (Titles of Honor,
vol. iii. part 1 p. 488.) Ducange, (Gloss. Latin. tom. ii. p.
140, tom. vi. p. 776,) and St. Marc, (Abrege Chronologique, tom.
ii. p. 719.)]
145 (return) [ The Lombards invented and used the carocium, a
standard planted on a car or wagon, drawn by a team of oxen,
(Ducange, tom. ii. p. 194, 195. Muratori Antiquitat tom. ii. dis.
xxvi. p. 489-493.)]
Ambitious of restoring the splendor of the purple, Frederic the
First invaded the republics of Lombardy, with the arts of a
statesman, the valor of a soldier, and the cruelty of a tyrant.
The recent discovery of the Pandects had renewed a science most
favorable to despotism; and his venal advocates proclaimed the
emperor the absolute master of the lives and properties of his
subjects. His royal prerogatives, in a less odious sense, were
acknowledged in the diet of Roncaglia; and the revenue of Italy
was fixed at thirty thousand pounds of silver, 146 which were
multiplied to an indefinite demand by the rapine of the fiscal
officers. The obstinate cities were reduced by the terror or the
force of his arms: his captives were delivered to the
executioner, or shot from his military engines; and. after the
siege and surrender of Milan, the buildings of that stately
capital were razed to the ground, three hundred hostages were
sent into Germany, and the inhabitants were dispersed in four
villages, under the yoke of the inflexible conqueror. 147 But
Milan soon rose from her ashes; and the league of Lombardy was
cemented by distress: their cause was espoused by Venice, Pope
Alexander the Third, and the Greek emperor: the fabric of
oppression was overturned in a day; and in the treaty of
Constance, Frederic subscribed, with some reservations, the
freedom of four-and-twenty cities. His grandson contended with
their vigor and maturity; but Frederic the Second 148 was endowed
with some personal and peculiar advantages. His birth and
education recommended him to the Italians; and in the implacable
discord of the two factions, the Ghibelins were attached to the
emperor, while the Guelfs displayed the banner of liberty and the
church. The court of Rome had slumbered, when his father Henry
the Sixth was permitted to unite with the empire the kingdoms of
Naples and Sicily; and from these hereditary realms the son
derived an ample and ready supply of troops and treasure. Yet
Frederic the Second was finally oppressed by the arms of the
Lombards and the thunders of the Vatican: his kingdom was given
to a stranger, and the last of his family was beheaded at Naples
on a public scaffold. During sixty years, no emperor appeared in
Italy, and the name was remembered only by the ignominious sale
of the last relics of sovereignty.
146 (return) [ Gunther Ligurinus, l. viii. 584, et seq., apud
Schmidt, tom. iii. p. 399.]
147 (return) [ Solus imperator faciem suam firmavit ut petram,
(Burcard. de Excidio Mediolani, Script. Ital. tom. vi. p. 917.)
This volume of Muratori contains the originals of the history of
Frederic the First, which must be compared with due regard to the
circumstances and prejudices of each German or Lombard writer. *
Note: Von Raumer has traced the fortunes of the Swabian house in
one of the ablest historical works of modern times. He may be
compared with the spirited and independent Sismondi.—M.]
148 (return) [ For the history of Frederic II. and the house of
Swabia at Naples, see Giannone, Istoria Civile, tom. ii. l. xiv.
-xix.]
The Barbarian conquerors of the West were pleased to decorate
their chief with the title of emperor; but it was not their
design to invest him with the despotism of Constantine and
Justinian. The persons of the Germans were free, their conquests
were their own, and their national character was animated by a
spirit which scorned the servile jurisprudence of the new or the
ancient Rome. It would have been a vain and dangerous attempt to
impose a monarch on the armed freemen, who were impatient of a
magistrate; on the bold, who refused to obey; on the powerful,
who aspired to command. The empire of Charlemagne and Otho was
distributed among the dukes of the nations or provinces, the
counts of the smaller districts, and the margraves of the marches
or frontiers, who all united the civil and military authority as
it had been delegated to the lieutenants of the first Caesars.
The Roman governors, who, for the most part, were soldiers of
fortune, seduced their mercenary legions, assumed the Imperial
purple, and either failed or succeeded in their revolt, without
wounding the power and unity of government. If the dukes,
margraves, and counts of Germany, were less audacious in their
claims, the consequences of their success were more lasting and
pernicious to the state. Instead of aiming at the supreme rank,
they silently labored to establish and appropriate their
provincial independence. Their ambition was seconded by the
weight of their estates and vassals, their mutual example and
support, the common interest of the subordinate nobility, the
change of princes and families, the minorities of Otho the Third
and Henry the Fourth, the ambition of the popes, and the vain
pursuit of the fugitive crowns of Italy and Rome. All the
attributes of regal and territorial jurisdiction were gradually
usurped by the commanders of the provinces; the right of peace
and war, of life and death, of coinage and taxation, of foreign
alliance and domestic economy. Whatever had been seized by
violence, was ratified by favor or distress, was granted as the
price of a doubtful vote or a voluntary service; whatever had
been granted to one could not, without injury, be denied to his
successor or equal; and every act of local or temporary
possession was insensibly moulded into the constitution of the
Germanic kingdom. In every province, the visible presence of the
duke or count was interposed between the throne and the nobles;
the subjects of the law became the vassals of a private chief;
and the standard which he received from his sovereign, was often
raised against him in the field. The temporal power of the clergy
was cherished and exalted by the superstition or policy of the
Carlovingian and Saxon dynasties, who blindly depended on their
moderation and fidelity; and the bishoprics of Germany were made
equal in extent and privilege, superior in wealth and population,
to the most ample states of the military order. As long as the
emperors retained the prerogative of bestowing on every vacancy
these ecclesiastic and secular benefices, their cause was
maintained by the gratitude or ambition of their friends and
favorites. But in the quarrel of the investitures, they were
deprived of their influence over the episcopal chapters; the
freedom of election was restored, and the sovereign was reduced,
by a solemn mockery, to his first prayers, the recommendation,
once in his reign, to a single prebend in each church. The
secular governors, instead of being recalled at the will of a
superior, could be degraded only by the sentence of their peers.
In the first age of the monarchy, the appointment of the son to
the duchy or county of his father, was solicited as a favor; it
was gradually obtained as a custom, and extorted as a right: the
lineal succession was often extended to the collateral or female
branches; the states of the empire (their popular, and at length
their legal, appellation) were divided and alienated by testament
and sale; and all idea of a public trust was lost in that of a
private and perpetual inheritance. The emperor could not even be
enriched by the casualties of forfeiture and extinction: within
the term of a year, he was obliged to dispose of the vacant fief;
and, in the choice of the candidate, it was his duty to consult
either the general or the provincial diet.
After the death of Frederic the Second, Germany was left a
monster with a hundred heads. A crowd of princes and prelates
disputed the ruins of the empire: the lords of innumerable
castles were less prone to obey, than to imitate, their
superiors; and, according to the measure of their strength, their
incessant hostilities received the names of conquest or robbery.
Such anarchy was the inevitable consequence of the laws and
manners of Europe; and the kingdoms of France and Italy were
shivered into fragments by the violence of the same tempest. But
the Italian cities and the French vassals were divided and
destroyed, while the union of the Germans has produced, under the
name of an empire, a great system of a federative republic. In
the frequent and at last the perpetual institution of diets, a
national spirit was kept alive, and the powers of a common
legislature are still exercised by the three branches or colleges
of the electors, the princes, and the free and Imperial cities of
Germany. I. Seven of the most powerful feudatories were permitted
to assume, with a distinguished name and rank, the exclusive
privilege of choosing the Roman emperor; and these electors were
the king of Bohemia, the duke of Saxony, the margrave of
Brandenburgh, the count palatine of the Rhine, and the three
archbishops of Mentz, of Treves, and of Cologne. II. The college
of princes and prelates purged themselves of a promiscuous
multitude: they reduced to four representative votes the long
series of independent counts, and excluded the nobles or
equestrian order, sixty thousand of whom, as in the Polish diets,
had appeared on horseback in the field of election. III. The
pride of birth and dominion, of the sword and the mitre, wisely
adopted the commons as the third branch of the legislature, and,
in the progress of society, they were introduced about the same
aera into the national assemblies of France England, and Germany.
The Hanseatic League commanded the trade and navigation of the
north: the confederates of the Rhine secured the peace and
intercourse of the inland country; the influence of the cities
has been adequate to their wealth and policy, and their negative
still invalidates the acts of the two superior colleges of
electors and princes. 149
149 (return) [ In the immense labyrinth of the jus publicum of
Germany, I must either quote one writer or a thousand; and I had
rather trust to one faithful guide, than transcribe, on credit, a
multitude of names and passages. That guide is M. Pfeffel, the
author of the best legal and constitutional history that I know
of any country, (Nouvel Abrege Chronologique de l’Histoire et du
Droit public Allemagne; Paris, 1776, 2 vols. in 4to.) His
learning and judgment have discerned the most interesting facts;
his simple brevity comprises them in a narrow space. His
chronological order distributes them under the proper dates; and
an elaborate index collects them under their respective heads. To
this work, in a less perfect state, Dr. Robertson was gratefully
indebted for that masterly sketch which traces even the modern
changes of the Germanic body. The Corpus Historiae Germanicae of
Struvius has been likewise consulted, the more usefully, as that
huge compilation is fortified in every page with the original
texts. * Note: For the rise and progress of the Hanseatic League,
consult the authoritative history by Sartorius; Geschichte des
Hanseatischen Bandes & Theile, Gottingen, 1802. New and improved
edition by Lappenberg Elamburg, 1830. The original Hanseatic
League comprehended Cologne and many of the great cities in the
Netherlands and on the Rhine.—M.]
It is in the fourteenth century that we may view in the strongest
light the state and contrast of the Roman empire of Germany,
which no longer held, except on the borders of the Rhine and
Danube, a single province of Trajan or Constantine. Their
unworthy successors were the counts of Hapsburgh, of Nassau, of
Luxemburgh, and Schwartzenburgh: the emperor Henry the Seventh
procured for his son the crown of Bohemia, and his grandson
Charles the Fourth was born among a people strange and barbarous
in the estimation of the Germans themselves. 150 After the
excommunication of Lewis of Bavaria, he received the gift or
promise of the vacant empire from the Roman pontiffs, who, in the
exile and captivity of Avignon, affected the dominion of the
earth. The death of his competitors united the electoral college,
and Charles was unanimously saluted king of the Romans, and
future emperor; a title which, in the same age, was prostituted
to the Caesars of Germany and Greece. The German emperor was no
more than the elective and impotent magistrate of an aristocracy
of princes, who had not left him a village that he might call his
own. His best prerogative was the right of presiding and
proposing in the national senate, which was convened at his
summons; and his native kingdom of Bohemia, less opulent than the
adjacent city of Nuremberg, was the firmest seat of his power and
the richest source of his revenue. The army with which he passed
the Alps consisted of three hundred horse. In the cathedral of
St. Ambrose, Charles was crowned with the iron crown, which
tradition ascribed to the Lombard monarchy; but he was admitted
only with a peaceful train; the gates of the city were shut upon
him; and the king of Italy was held a captive by the arms of the
Visconti, whom he confirmed in the sovereignty of Milan. In the
Vatican he was again crowned with the golden crown of the empire;
but, in obedience to a secret treaty, the Roman emperor
immediately withdrew, without reposing a single night within the
walls of Rome. The eloquent Petrarch, 151 whose fancy revived the
visionary glories of the Capitol, deplores and upbraids the
ignominious flight of the Bohemian; and even his contemporaries
could observe, that the sole exercise of his authority was in the
lucrative sale of privileges and titles. The gold of Italy
secured the election of his son; but such was the shameful
poverty of the Roman emperor, that his person was arrested by a
butcher in the streets of Worms, and was detained in the public
inn, as a pledge or hostage for the payment of his expenses.
150 (return) [ Yet, personally, Charles IV. must not be
considered as a Barbarian. After his education at Paris, he
recovered the use of the Bohemian, his native, idiom; and the
emperor conversed and wrote with equal facility in French, Latin,
Italian, and German, (Struvius, p. 615, 616.) Petrarch always
represents him as a polite and learned prince.]
151 (return) [ Besides the German and Italian historians, the
expedition of Charles IV. is painted in lively and original
colors in the curious Memoires sur la Vie de Petrarque, tom. iii.
p. 376-430, by the Abbe de Sade, whose prolixity has never been
blamed by any reader of taste and curiosity.]
From this humiliating scene, let us turn to the apparent majesty
of the same Charles in the diets of the empire. The golden bull,
which fixes the Germanic constitution, is promulgated in the
style of a sovereign and legislator. A hundred princes bowed
before his throne, and exalted their own dignity by the voluntary
honors which they yielded to their chief or minister. At the
royal banquet, the hereditary great officers, the seven electors,
who in rank and title were equal to kings, performed their solemn
and domestic service of the palace. The seals of the triple
kingdom were borne in state by the archbishops of Mentz, Cologne,
and Treves, the perpetual arch-chancellors of Germany, Italy, and
Arles. The great marshal, on horseback, exercised his function
with a silver measure of oats, which he emptied on the ground,
and immediately dismounted to regulate the order of the guests.
The great steward, the count palatine of the Rhine, place the
dishes on the table. The great chamberlain, the margrave of
Brandenburgh, presented, after the repast, the golden ewer and
basin, to wash. The king of Bohemia, as great cup-bearer, was
represented by the emperor’s brother, the duke of Luxemburgh and
Brabant; and the procession was closed by the great huntsmen, who
introduced a boar and a stag, with a loud chorus of horns and
hounds. 152 Nor was the supremacy of the emperor confined to
Germany alone: the hereditary monarchs of Europe confessed the
preeminence of his rank and dignity: he was the first of the
Christian princes, the temporal head of the great republic of the
West: 153 to his person the title of majesty was long
appropriated; and he disputed with the pope the sublime
prerogative of creating kings and assembling councils. The oracle
of the civil law, the learned Bartolus, was a pensioner of
Charles the Fourth; and his school resounded with the doctrine,
that the Roman emperor was the rightful sovereign of the earth,
from the rising to the setting sun. The contrary opinion was
condemned, not as an error, but as a heresy, since even the
gospel had pronounced, “And there went forth a decree from Caesar
Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.” 154
152 (return) [ See the whole ceremony in Struvius, p. 629]
153 (return) [ The republic of Europe, with the pope and emperor
at its head, was never represented with more dignity than in the
council of Constance. See Lenfant’s History of that assembly.]
154 (return) [ Gravina, Origines Juris Civilis, p. 108.]
If we annihilate the interval of time and space between Augustus
and Charles, strong and striking will be the contrast between the
two Caesars; the Bohemian who concealed his weakness under the
mask of ostentation, and the Roman, who disguised his strength
under the semblance of modesty. At the head of his victorious
legions, in his reign over the sea and land, from the Nile and
Euphrates to the Atlantic Ocean, Augustus professed himself the
servant of the state and the equal of his fellow-citizens. The
conqueror of Rome and her provinces assumed a popular and legal
form of a censor, a consul, and a tribune. His will was the law
of mankind, but in the declaration of his laws he borrowed the
voice of the senate and people; and from their decrees their
master accepted and renewed his temporary commission to
administer the republic. In his dress, his domestics, 155 his
titles, in all the offices of social life, Augustus maintained
the character of a private Roman; and his most artful flatterers
respected the secret of his absolute and perpetual monarchy.
155 (return) [ Six thousand urns have been discovered of the
slaves and freedmen of Augustus and Livia. So minute was the
division of office, that one slave was appointed to weigh the
wool which was spun by the empress’s maids, another for the care
of her lap-dog, &c., (Camera Sepolchrale, by Bianchini. Extract
of his work in the Bibliotheque Italique, tom. iv. p. 175. His
Eloge, by Fontenelle, tom. vi. p. 356.) But these servants were
of the same rank, and possibly not more numerous than those of
Pollio or Lentulus. They only prove the general riches of the
city.]
Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part I.
Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Birth, Character, And
Doctrine Of Mahomet.—He Preaches At Mecca.— Flies To
Medina.—Propagates His Religion By The Sword.— Voluntary Or
Reluctant Submission Of The Arabs.—His Death And Successors.—The
Claims And Fortunes Of Ali And His Descendants.
After pursuing above six hundred years the fleeting Caesars of
Constantinople and Germany, I now descend, in the reign of
Heraclius, on the eastern borders of the Greek monarchy. While
the state was exhausted by the Persian war, and the church was
distracted by the Nestorian and Monophysite sects, Mahomet, with
the sword in one hand and the Koran in the other, erected his
throne on the ruins of Christianity and of Rome. The genius of
the Arabian prophet, the manners of his nation, and the spirit of
his religion, involve the causes of the decline and fall of the
Eastern empire; and our eyes are curiously intent on one of the
most memorable revolutions, which have impressed a new and
lasting character on the nations of the globe. 1
1 (return) [ As in this and the following chapter I shall display
much Arabic learning, I must profess my total ignorance of the
Oriental tongues, and my gratitude to the learned interpreters,
who have transfused their science into the Latin, French, and
English languages. Their collections, versions, and histories, I
shall occasionally notice.]
In the vacant space between Persia, Syria, Egypt, and Aethiopia,
the Arabian peninsula 2 may be conceived as a triangle of
spacious but irregular dimensions. From the northern point of
Beles 3 on the Euphrates, a line of fifteen hundred miles is
terminated by the Straits of Bebelmandel and the land of
frankincense. About half this length may be allowed for the
middle breadth, from east to west, from Bassora to Suez, from the
Persian Gulf to the Red Sea. 4 The sides of the triangle are
gradually enlarged, and the southern basis presents a front of a
thousand miles to the Indian Ocean. The entire surface of the
peninsula exceeds in a fourfold proportion that of Germany or
France; but the far greater part has been justly stigmatized with
the epithets of the stony and the sandy. Even the wilds of
Tartary are decked, by the hand of nature, with lofty trees and
luxuriant herbage; and the lonesome traveller derives a sort of
comfort and society from the presence of vegetable life. But in
the dreary waste of Arabia, a boundless level of sand is
intersected by sharp and naked mountains; and the face of the
desert, without shade or shelter, is scorched by the direct and
intense rays of a tropical sun. Instead of refreshing breezes,
the winds, particularly from the south-west, diffuse a noxious
and even deadly vapor; the hillocks of sand which they
alternately raise and scatter, are compared to the billows of the
ocean, and whole caravans, whole armies, have been lost and
buried in the whirlwind. The common benefits of water are an
object of desire and contest; and such is the scarcity of wood,
that some art is requisite to preserve and propagate the element
of fire. Arabia is destitute of navigable rivers, which fertilize
the soil, and convey its produce to the adjacent regions: the
torrents that fall from the hills are imbibed by the thirsty
earth: the rare and hardy plants, the tamarind or the acacia,
that strike their roots into the clefts of the rocks, are
nourished by the dews of the night: a scanty supply of rain is
collected in cisterns and aqueducts: the wells and springs are
the secret treasure of the desert; and the pilgrim of Mecca, 5
after many a dry and sultry march, is disgusted by the taste of
the waters which have rolled over a bed of sulphur or salt. Such
is the general and genuine picture of the climate of Arabia. The
experience of evil enhances the value of any local or partial
enjoyments. A shady grove, a green pasture, a stream of fresh
water, are sufficient to attract a colony of sedentary Arabs to
the fortunate spots which can afford food and refreshment to
themselves and their cattle, and which encourage their industry
in the cultivation of the palmtree and the vine. The high lands
that border on the Indian Ocean are distinguished by their
superior plenty of wood and water; the air is more temperate, the
fruits are more delicious, the animals and the human race more
numerous: the fertility of the soil invites and rewards the toil
of the husbandman; and the peculiar gifts of frankincense 6 and
coffee have attracted in different ages the merchants of the
world. If it be compared with the rest of the peninsula, this
sequestered region may truly deserve the appellation of the
happy; and the splendid coloring of fancy and fiction has been
suggested by contrast, and countenanced by distance. It was for
this earthly paradise that Nature had reserved her choicest
favors and her most curious workmanship: the incompatible
blessings of luxury and innocence were ascribed to the natives:
the soil was impregnated with gold 7 and gems, and both the land
and sea were taught to exhale the odors of aromatic sweets. This
division of the sandy, the stony, and the happy, so familiar to
the Greeks and Latins, is unknown to the Arabians themselves; and
it is singular enough, that a country, whose language and
inhabitants have ever been the same, should scarcely retain a
vestige of its ancient geography. The maritime districts of
Bahrein and Oman are opposite to the realm of Persia. The kingdom
of Yemen displays the limits, or at least the situation, of
Arabia Felix: the name of Neged is extended over the inland
space; and the birth of Mahomet has illustrated the province of
Hejaz along the coast of the Red Sea. 8
2 (return) [ The geographers of Arabia may be divided into three
classes: 1. The Greeks and Latins, whose progressive knowledge
may be traced in Agatharcides, (de Mari Rubro, in Hudson,
Geograph. Minor. tom. i.,) Diodorus Siculus, (tom. i. l. ii. p.
159-167, l. iii. p. 211-216, edit. Wesseling,) Strabo, (l. xvi.
p. 1112-1114, from Eratosthenes, p. 1122-1132, from Artemidorus,)
Dionysius, (Periegesis, 927-969,) Pliny, (Hist. Natur. v. 12, vi.
32,) and Ptolemy, (Descript. et Tabulae Urbium, in Hudson, tom.
iii.) 2. The Arabic writers, who have treated the subject with
the zeal of patriotism or devotion: the extracts of Pocock
(Specimen Hist. Arabum, p. 125-128) from the Geography of the
Sherif al Edrissi, render us still more dissatisfied with the
version or abridgment (p. 24-27, 44-56, 108, &c., 119, &c.) which
the Maronites have published under the absurd title of Geographia
Nubiensis, (Paris, 1619;) but the Latin and French translators,
Greaves (in Hudson, tom. iii.) and Galland, (Voyage de la
Palestine par La Roque, p. 265-346,) have opened to us the Arabia
of Abulfeda, the most copious and correct account of the
peninsula, which may be enriched, however, from the Bibliotheque
Orientale of D’Herbelot, p. 120, et alibi passim. 3. The European
travellers; among whom Shaw (p. 438-455) and Niebuhr
(Description, 1773; Voyages, tom. i. 1776) deserve an honorable
distinction: Busching (Geographie par Berenger, tom. viii. p.
416-510) has compiled with judgment, and D’Anville’s Maps (Orbis
Veteribus Notus, and 1re Partie de l’Asie) should lie before the
reader, with his Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 208-231. *
Note: Of modern travellers may be mentioned the adventurer who
called himself Ali Bey; but above all, the intelligent, the
enterprising the accurate Burckhardt.—M.]
3 (return) [ Abulfed. Descript. Arabiae, p. 1. D’Anville,
l’Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 19, 20. It was in this place, the
paradise or garden of a satrap, that Xenophon and the Greeks
first passed the Euphrates, (Anabasis, l. i. c. 10, p. 29, edit.
Wells.)]
4 (return) [ Reland has proved, with much superfluous learning,
1. That our Red Sea (the Arabian Gulf) is no more than a part of
the Mare Rubrum, which was extended to the indefinite space of
the Indian Ocean.
2. That the synonymous words, allude to the color of the blacks
or negroes, (Dissert Miscell. tom. i. p. 59-117.)]
5 (return) [ In the thirty days, or stations, between Cairo and
Mecca, there are fifteen destitute of good water. See the route
of the Hadjees, in Shaw’s Travels, p. 477.]
6 (return) [ The aromatics, especially the thus, or frankincense,
of Arabia, occupy the xiith book of Pliny. Our great poet
(Paradise Lost, l. iv.) introduces, in a simile, the spicy odors
that are blown by the north-east wind from the Sabaean
coast:——Many a league, Pleased with the grateful scent, old Ocean
smiles. (Plin. Hist. Natur. xii. 42.)]
7 (return) [ Agatharcides affirms, that lumps of pure gold were
found, from the size of an olive to that of a nut; that iron was
twice, and silver ten times, the value of gold, (de Mari Rubro,
p. 60.) These real or imaginary treasures are vanished; and no
gold mines are at present known in Arabia, (Niebuhr, Description,
p. 124.) * Note: A brilliant passage in the geographical poem of
Dionysius Periegetes embodies the notions of the ancients on the
wealth and fertility of Yemen. Greek mythology, and the
traditions of the “gorgeous east,” of India as well as Arabia,
are mingled together in indiscriminate splendor. Compare on the
southern coast of Arabia, the recent travels of Lieut.
Wellsted—M.]
8 (return) [ Consult, peruse, and study the Specimen Hostoriae
Arabum of Pocock, (Oxon. 1650, in 4to.) The thirty pages of text
and version are extracted from the Dynasties of Gregory
Abulpharagius, which Pocock afterwards translated, (Oxon. 1663,
in 4to.;) the three hundred and fifty-eight notes form a classic
and original work on the Arabian antiquities.]
The measure of population is regulated by the means of
subsistence; and the inhabitants of this vast peninsula might be
outnumbered by the subjects of a fertile and industrious
province. Along the shores of the Persian Gulf, of the ocean, and
even of the Red Sea, the Icthyophagi, 9 or fish eaters, continued
to wander in quest of their precarious food. In this primitive
and abject state, which ill deserves the name of society, the
human brute, without arts or laws, almost without sense or
language, is poorly distinguished from the rest of the animal
creation. Generations and ages might roll away in silent
oblivion, and the helpless savage was restrained from multiplying
his race by the wants and pursuits which confined his existence
to the narrow margin of the seacoast. But in an early period of
antiquity the great body of the Arabs had emerged from this scene
of misery; and as the naked wilderness could not maintain a
people of hunters, they rose at once to the more secure and
plentiful condition of the pastoral life. The same life is
uniformly pursued by the roving tribes of the desert; and in the
portrait of the modern Bedoweens, we may trace the features of
their ancestors, 10 who, in the age of Moses or Mahomet, dwelt
under similar tents, and conducted their horses, and camels, and
sheep, to the same springs and the same pastures. Our toil is
lessened, and our wealth is increased, by our dominion over the
useful animals; and the Arabian shepherd had acquired the
absolute possession of a faithful friend and a laborious slave.
11 Arabia, in the opinion of the naturalist, is the genuine and
original country of the horse; the climate most propitious, not
indeed to the size, but to the spirit and swiftness, of that
generous animal. The merit of the Barb, the Spanish, and the
English breed, is derived from a mixture of Arabian blood: 12 the
Bedoweens preserve, with superstitious care, the honors and the
memory of the purest race: the males are sold at a high price,
but the females are seldom alienated; and the birth of a noble
foal was esteemed among the tribes, as a subject of joy and
mutual congratulation. These horses are educated in the tents,
among the children of the Arabs, with a tender familiarity, which
trains them in the habits of gentleness and attachment. They are
accustomed only to walk and to gallop: their sensations are not
blunted by the incessant abuse of the spur and the whip: their
powers are reserved for the moments of flight and pursuit: but no
sooner do they feel the touch of the hand or the stirrup, than
they dart away with the swiftness of the wind; and if their
friend be dismounted in the rapid career, they instantly stop
till he has recovered his seat. In the sands of Africa and
Arabia, the camel is a sacred and precious gift. That strong and
patient beast of burden can perform, without eating or drinking,
a journey of several days; and a reservoir of fresh water is
preserved in a large bag, a fifth stomach of the animal, whose
body is imprinted with the marks of servitude: the larger breed
is capable of transporting a weight of a thousand pounds; and the
dromedary, of a lighter and more active frame, outstrips the
fleetest courser in the race. Alive or dead, almost every part of
the camel is serviceable to man: her milk is plentiful and
nutritious: the young and tender flesh has the taste of veal: 13
a valuable salt is extracted from the urine: the dung supplies
the deficiency of fuel; and the long hair, which falls each year
and is renewed, is coarsely manufactured into the garments, the
furniture, and the tents of the Bedoweens. In the rainy seasons,
they consume the rare and insufficient herbage of the desert:
during the heats of summer and the scarcity of winter, they
remove their encampments to the sea-coast, the hills of Yemen, or
the neighborhood of the Euphrates, and have often extorted the
dangerous license of visiting the banks of the Nile, and the
villages of Syria and Palestine. The life of a wandering Arab is
a life of danger and distress; and though sometimes, by rapine or
exchange, he may appropriate the fruits of industry, a private
citizen in Europe is in the possession of more solid and pleasing
luxury than the proudest emir, who marches in the field at the
head of ten thousand horse.
9 (return) [ Arrian remarks the Icthyophagi of the coast of
Hejez, (Periplus Maris Erythraei, p. 12,) and beyond Aden, (p.
15.) It seems probable that the shores of the Red Sea (in the
largest sense) were occupied by these savages in the time,
perhaps, of Cyrus; but I can hardly believe that any cannibals
were left among the savages in the reign of Justinian. (Procop.
de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 19.)]
10 (return) [ See the Specimen Historiae Arabum of Pocock, p. 2,
5, 86, &c. The journey of M. d’Arvieux, in 1664, to the camp of
the emir of Mount Carmel, (Voyage de la Palestine, Amsterdam,
1718,) exhibits a pleasing and original picture of the life of
the Bedoweens, which may be illustrated from Niebuhr (Description
de l’Arabie, p. 327-344) and Volney, (tom. i. p. 343-385,) the
last and most judicious of our Syrian travellers.]
11 (return) [ Read (it is no unpleasing task) the incomparable
articles of the Horse and the Camel, in the Natural History of M.
de Buffon.]
12 (return) [ For the Arabian horses, see D’Arvieux (p. 159-173)
and Niebuhr, (p. 142-144.) At the end of the xiiith century, the
horses of Neged were esteemed sure-footed, those of Yemen strong
and serviceable, those of Hejaz most noble. The horses of Europe,
the tenth and last class, were generally despised as having too
much body and too little spirit, (D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p.
339: ) their strength was requisite to bear the weight of the
knight and his armor]
13 (return) [ Qui carnibus camelorum vesci solent odii tenaces
sunt, was the opinion of an Arabian physician, (Pocock, Specimen,
p. 88.) Mahomet himself, who was fond of milk, prefers the cow,
and does not even mention the camel; but the diet of Mecca and
Medina was already more luxurious, (Gagnier Vie de Mahomet, tom.
iii. p. 404.)]
Yet an essential difference may be found between the hordes of
Scythia and the Arabian tribes; since many of the latter were
collected into towns, and employed in the labors of trade and
agriculture. A part of their time and industry was still devoted
to the management of their cattle: they mingled, in peace and
war, with their brethren of the desert; and the Bedoweens derived
from their useful intercourse some supply of their wants, and
some rudiments of art and knowledge. Among the forty-two cities
of Arabia, 14 enumerated by Abulfeda, the most ancient and
populous were situate in the happy Yemen: the towers of Saana, 15
and the marvellous reservoir of Merab, 16 were constructed by the
kings of the Homerites; but their profane lustre was eclipsed by
the prophetic glories of Medina 17 and Mecca, 18 near the Red
Sea, and at the distance from each other of two hundred and
seventy miles. The last of these holy places was known to the
Greeks under the name of Macoraba; and the termination of the
word is expressive of its greatness, which has not, indeed, in
the most flourishing period, exceeded the size and populousness
of Marseilles. Some latent motive, perhaps of superstition, must
have impelled the founders, in the choice of a most unpromising
situation. They erected their habitations of mud or stone, in a
plain about two miles long and one mile broad, at the foot of
three barren mountains: the soil is a rock; the water even of the
holy well of Zemzem is bitter or brackish; the pastures are
remote from the city; and grapes are transported above seventy
miles from the gardens of Tayef. The fame and spirit of the
Koreishites, who reigned in Mecca, were conspicuous among the
Arabian tribes; but their ungrateful soil refused the labors of
agriculture, and their position was favorable to the enterprises
of trade. By the seaport of Gedda, at the distance only of forty
miles, they maintained an easy correspondence with Abyssinia; and
that Christian kingdom afforded the first refuge to the disciples
of Mahomet. The treasures of Africa were conveyed over the
Peninsula to Gerrha or Katif, in the province of Bahrein, a city
built, as it is said, of rock-salt, by the Chaldaean exiles; 19
and from thence with the native pearls of the Persian Gulf, they
were floated on rafts to the mouth of the Euphrates. Mecca is
placed almost at an equal distance, a month’s journey, between
Yemen on the right, and Syria on the left hand. The former was
the winter, the latter the summer, station of her caravans; and
their seasonable arrival relieved the ships of India from the
tedious and troublesome navigation of the Red Sea. In the markets
of Saana and Merab, in the harbors of Oman and Aden, the camels
of the Koreishites were laden with a precious cargo of aromatics;
a supply of corn and manufactures was purchased in the fairs of
Bostra and Damascus; the lucrative exchange diffused plenty and
riches in the streets of Mecca; and the noblest of her sons
united the love of arms with the profession of merchandise. 20
14 (return) [ Yet Marcian of Heraclea (in Periplo, p. 16, in tom.
i. Hudson, Minor. Geograph.) reckons one hundred and sixty-four
towns in Arabia Felix. The size of the towns might be small—the
faith of the writer might be large.]
15 (return) [ It is compared by Abulfeda (in Hudson, tom. ii. p.
54) to Damascus, and is still the residence of the Imam of Yemen,
(Voyages de Niebuhr, tom. i. p. 331-342.) Saana is twenty-four
parasangs from Dafar, (Abulfeda, p. 51,) and sixty-eight from
Aden, (p. 53.)]
16 (return) [ Pocock, Specimen, p. 57. Geograph. Nubiensis, p.
52. Meriaba, or Merab, six miles in circumference, was destroyed
by the legions of Augustus, (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 32,) and had
not revived in the xivth century, (Abulfed. Descript. Arab. p.
58.) * Note: See note 2 to chap. i. The destruction of Meriaba by
the Romans is doubtful. The town never recovered the inundation
which took place from the bursting of a large reservoir of
water—an event of great importance in the Arabian annals, and
discussed at considerable length by modern Orientalists.—M.]
17 (return) [ The name of city, Medina, was appropriated, to
Yatreb. (the Iatrippa of the Greeks,) the seat of the prophet.
The distances from Medina are reckoned by Abulfeda in stations,
or days’ journey of a caravan, (p. 15: ) to Bahrein, xv.; to
Bassora, xviii.; to Cufah, xx.; to Damascus or Palestine, xx.; to
Cairo, xxv.; to Mecca. x.; from Mecca to Saana, (p. 52,) or Aden,
xxx.; to Cairo, xxxi. days, or 412 hours, (Shaw’s Travels, p.
477;) which, according to the estimate of D’Anville, (Mesures
Itineraires, p. 99,) allows about twenty-five English miles for a
day’s journey. From the land of frankincense (Hadramaut, in
Yemen, between Aden and Cape Fartasch) to Gaza in Syria, Pliny
(Hist. Nat. xii. 32) computes lxv. mansions of camels. These
measures may assist fancy and elucidate facts.]
18 (return) [ Our notions of Mecca must be drawn from the
Arabians, (D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 368-371.
Pocock, Specimen, p. 125-128. Abulfeda, p. 11-40.) As no
unbeliever is permitted to enter the city, our travellers are
silent; and the short hints of Thevenot (Voyages du Levant, part
i. p. 490) are taken from the suspicious mouth of an African
renegado. Some Persians counted 6000 houses, (Chardin. tom. iv.
p. 167.) * Note: Even in the time of Gibbon, Mecca had not been
so inaccessible to Europeans. It had been visited by Ludovico
Barthema, and by one Joseph Pitts, of Exeter, who was taken
prisoner by the Moors, and forcibly converted to Mahometanism.
His volume is a curious, though plain, account of his sufferings
and travels. Since that time Mecca has been entered, and the
ceremonies witnessed, by Dr. Seetzen, whose papers were
unfortunately lost; by the Spaniard, who called himself Ali Bey;
and, lastly, by Burckhardt, whose description leaves nothing
wanting to satisfy the curiosity.—M.]
19 (return) [ Strabo, l. xvi. p. 1110. See one of these salt
houses near Bassora, in D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 6.]
20 (return) [ Mirum dictu ex innumeris populis pars aequa in
commerciis aut in latrociniis degit, (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 32.)
See Sale’s Koran, Sura. cvi. p. 503. Pocock, Specimen, p. 2.
D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 361. Prideaux’s Life of Mahomet,
p. 5. Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 72, 120, 126, &c.]
The perpetual independence of the Arabs has been the theme of
praise among strangers and natives; and the arts of controversy
transform this singular event into a prophecy and a miracle, in
favor of the posterity of Ismael. 21 Some exceptions, that can
neither be dismissed nor eluded, render this mode of reasoning as
indiscreet as it is superfluous; the kingdom of Yemen has been
successively subdued by the Abyssinians, the Persians, the
sultans of Egypt, 22 and the Turks; 23 the holy cities of Mecca
and Medina have repeatedly bowed under a Scythian tyrant; and the
Roman province of Arabia 24 embraced the peculiar wilderness in
which Ismael and his sons must have pitched their tents in the
face of their brethren. Yet these exceptions are temporary or
local; the body of the nation has escaped the yoke of the most
powerful monarchies: the arms of Sesostris and Cyrus, of Pompey
and Trajan, could never achieve the conquest of Arabia; the
present sovereign of the Turks 25 may exercise a shadow of
jurisdiction, but his pride is reduced to solicit the friendship
of a people, whom it is dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to
attack. The obvious causes of their freedom are inscribed on the
character and country of the Arabs. Many ages before Mahomet, 26
their intrepid valor had been severely felt by their neighbors in
offensive and defensive war. The patient and active virtues of a
soldier are insensibly nursed in the habits and discipline of a
pastoral life. The care of the sheep and camels is abandoned to
the women of the tribe; but the martial youth, under the banner
of the emir, is ever on horseback, and in the field, to practise
the exercise of the bow, the javelin, and the cimeter. The long
memory of their independence is the firmest pledge of its
perpetuity and succeeding generations are animated to prove their
descent, and to maintain their inheritance. Their domestic feuds
are suspended on the approach of a common enemy; and in their
last hostilities against the Turks, the caravan of Mecca was
attacked and pillaged by fourscore thousand of the confederates.
When they advance to battle, the hope of victory is in the front;
in the rear, the assurance of a retreat. Their horses and camels,
who, in eight or ten days, can perform a march of four or five
hundred miles, disappear before the conqueror; the secret waters
of the desert elude his search, and his victorious troops are
consumed with thirst, hunger, and fatigue, in the pursuit of an
invisible foe, who scorns his efforts, and safely reposes in the
heart of the burning solitude. The arms and deserts of the
Bedoweens are not only the safeguards of their own freedom, but
the barriers also of the happy Arabia, whose inhabitants, remote
from war, are enervated by the luxury of the soil and climate.
The legions of Augustus melted away in disease and lassitude; 27
and it is only by a naval power that the reduction of Yemen has
been successfully attempted. When Mahomet erected his holy
standard, 28 that kingdom was a province of the Persian empire;
yet seven princes of the Homerites still reigned in the
mountains; and the vicegerent of Chosroes was tempted to forget
his distant country and his unfortunate master. The historians of
the age of Justinian represent the state of the independent
Arabs, who were divided by interest or affection in the long
quarrel of the East: the tribe of Gassan was allowed to encamp on
the Syrian territory: the princes of Hira were permitted to form
a city about forty miles to the southward of the ruins of
Babylon. Their service in the field was speedy and vigorous; but
their friendship was venal, their faith inconstant, their enmity
capricious: it was an easier task to excite than to disarm these
roving barbarians; and, in the familiar intercourse of war, they
learned to see, and to despise, the splendid weakness both of
Rome and of Persia. From Mecca to the Euphrates, the Arabian
tribes 29 were confounded by the Greeks and Latins, under the
general appellation of Saracens, 30 a name which every Christian
mouth has been taught to pronounce with terror and abhorrence.
21 (return) [ A nameless doctor (Universal Hist. vol. xx. octavo
edition) has formally demonstrated the truth of Christianity by
the independence of the Arabs. A critic, besides the exceptions
of fact, might dispute the meaning of the text (Gen. xvi. 12,)
the extent of the application, and the foundation of the
pedigree. * Note: See note 3 to chap. xlvi. The atter point is
probably the least contestable of the three.—M.]
22 (return) [ It was subdued, A.D. 1173, by a brother of the
great Saladin, who founded a dynasty of Curds or Ayoubites,
(Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 425. D’Herbelot, p. 477.)]
23 (return) [ By the lieutenant of Soliman I. (A.D. 1538) and
Selim II., (1568.) See Cantemir’s Hist. of the Othman Empire, p.
201, 221. The pacha, who resided at Saana, commanded twenty-one
beys; but no revenue was ever remitted to the Porte, (Marsigli,
Stato Militare dell’ Imperio Ottomanno, p. 124,) and the Turks
were expelled about the year 1630, (Niebuhr, p. 167, 168.)]
24 (return) [ Of the Roman province, under the name of Arabia and
the third Palestine, the principal cities were Bostra and Petra,
which dated their aera from the year 105, when they were subdued
by Palma, a lieutenant of Trajan, (Dion. Cassius, l. lxviii.)
Petra was the capital of the Nabathaeans; whose name is derived
from the eldest of the sons of Ismael, (Gen. xxv. 12, &c., with
the Commentaries of Jerom, Le Clerc, and Calmet.) Justinian
relinquished a palm country of ten days’ journey to the south of
Aelah, (Procop. de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 19,) and the Romans
maintained a centurion and a custom-house, (Arrian in Periplo
Maris Erythraei, p. 11, in Hudson, tom. i.,) at a place (Pagus
Albus, Hawara) in the territory of Medina, (D’Anville, Memoire
sur l’Egypte, p. 243.) These real possessions, and some naval
inroads of Trajan, (Peripl. p. 14, 15,) are magnified by history
and medals into the Roman conquest of Arabia. * Note: On the
ruins of Petra, see the travels of Messrs. Irby and Mangles, and
of Leon de Laborde.—M.]
25 (return) [ Niebuhr (Description de l’Arabie, p. 302, 303,
329-331) affords the most recent and authentic intelligence of
the Turkish empire in Arabia. * Note: Niebuhr’s, notwithstanding
the multitude of later travellers, maintains its ground, as the
classical work on Arabia.—M.]
26 (return) [ Diodorus Siculus (tom. ii. l. xix. p. 390-393,
edit. Wesseling) has clearly exposed the freedom of the
Nabathaean Arabs, who resisted the arms of Antigonus and his
son.]
27 (return) [ Strabo, l. xvi. p. 1127-1129. Plin. Hist. Natur.
vi. 32. Aelius Gallus landed near Medina, and marched near a
thousand miles into the part of Yemen between Mareb and the
Ocean. The non ante devictis Sabeae regibus, (Od. i. 29,) and the
intacti Arabum thesanri (Od. iii. 24) of Horace, attest the
virgin purity of Arabia.]
28 (return) [ See the imperfect history of Yemen in Pocock,
Specimen, p. 55-66, of Hira, p. 66-74, of Gassan, p. 75-78, as
far as it could be known or preserved in the time of ignorance. *
Note: Compare the Hist. Yemanae, published by Johannsen at Bonn
1880 particularly the translator’s preface.—M.]