The patronage of letters, which distinguished this accomplished

sovereign, is not the least of his titles to renown. No prince ever

sought out books and manuscripts with greater assiduity, or more

strenuously endeavored, by the bestowal of scholastic honors and

pecuniary emoluments, to attract the learned to his court. Nationality,

creed, partisanship, feudal enmity, private grudges, were alike

forgotten in the friendly contest for literary pre-eminence. In the

royal antechambers, in the halls of the University, no student was

entitled to precedence, save only through his established claim to

mental superiority. The incessant rivalry of many acute and highly

cultivated intellects, stimulated by rewards and unhampered by

restrictions, was productive of results most important for the revival

of letters and the future benefit of humanity. Great advances were

made in all departments of knowledge,--chemistry, natural history,

botany, poetry, mathematics. The famous scholar, Michael Scott, whose

rare attainments contemporaneous ignorance attributed to magic, and

whose simple tomb in Melrose Abbey awakens to-day the veneration

of every educated and appreciative traveller, was employed by the

Emperor as a translator of the classics, and carried to Palermo vast

stores of learning acquired in the schools of the Spanish Moslems.

Theodore, called “The Philosopher,” published treatises on geometry and

astrology; John of Palermo wrote on arithmetical problems; Leonardo

Fibouacci brought to the general notice of Europe the science of

algebra as known and used in modern schools; the versatile Pietro de

Vinea, statesman, jurist, orator, amused his leisure in the composition

of the first Italian lyric poetry, and of epistolary correspondence

unsurpassed, in any age, for perspicuity, ease, and elegance of

diction. Frederick himself wrote amorous sonnets, and published in

Latin a work on hawking and birds of prey, which is even now an

authority on the subject. The apocryphal book, De Tribus Impostoribus,

an alleged compendium of blasphemy and vileness, attributed to him by

the clergy of the Middle Ages, is now known to have been an invention

of ecclesiastical malice to blacken a character only too vulnerable

to such attacks. At the Sicilian court was formed that melodious and

graceful idiom afterwards employed with such success by Petrarch,

Dante, and Boccaccio. The political, social, and literary revolutions

of seven centuries have not materially altered the grammatical

construction or orthography of the beautiful language spoken and sung

by the knights and ladies of Palermo. The enduring fame of such an

achievement far exceeds in value and utility the temporary and barren

distinctions obtained by the gaining of battles, the sack of cities,

the plunder of baronial strongholds, and the humiliation of popes.

Such was the Emperor Frederick II., and such the civilization which,

inspired by Moslem precept, tradition, and example, his commanding

genius established in Southern Europe. Not only was he the most

intelligent, but he was the most powerful and illustrious sovereign of

his age. In addition to the imperial dignity, he possessed the titles

of King of Naples and Sicily, of Lombardy, of Poland, of Bohemia, of

Hungary, of Denmark, of Sardinia, of Arles, and of Jerusalem. In birth

and affinity he was first among the great potentates of the earth. He

was the grandson of the famous Barbarossa and of King Roger of Sicily.

He was the uncle of Jaime I. of Aragon, Lo Conquerador. He was the

father-in-law of the Greek Emperor of Nicea. He was the son-in-law of

the Latin Emperor of Constantinople. He was the brother-in-law of the

King of England. His relations with the Sultan of Egypt, dictated,

in a measure, by state policy, but for the most part prompted by

personal admiration, were of the most social and friendly character. He

exchanged gifts with the chief of the execrated Ismailian sect known as

the “Old Man of the Mountain.” Community of ideas, tastes, languages,

and mercantile interests, which he shared with Mohammedan rulers,

confirmed the intimacy already long existing between the Kingdom of

Sicily and the fragments of the Hispano-Arab empire. His authority

was respected from the Mediterranean to the Baltic; his matrimonial

connections made his influence felt from the banks of the Nile to the

Pillars of Hercules. It was this power, exercised over a territory

of vast extent and unlimited resources, added to a consciousness

of pre-eminent ability, that suggested to Frederick a renewal of

the ancient Carlovingian jurisdiction, and the daring but imprudent

attempt, by usurping the prerogatives of the Papacy, to realize a dream

of more than imperial ambition.

That dream contemplated the foundation of a national, schismatical

church, of which he was to be the head and Pietro de Vinea the vicar.

The Pope was to be restricted to the exercise of spiritual functions,

and finally deposed. In the Emperor were to be centred all the

glory, the majesty, the sanctity, of an omnipotent ruler, presumably

responsible only to the Almighty; really the sole arbiter of the

religious professions and the actions of mankind. How the demands of

such a system, which must necessarily be maintained, to a certain

extent, by intellectual coercion, could be reconciled with the broad

and equitable tolerance which was for the most part the distinguishing

characteristic of the policy of Frederick, does not appear. The claim

was, as has already been mentioned, that ecclesiastical supremacy was

vested in the secular power of the empire, and dated from the time

of the Roman emperors. They were the Supreme Pontiffs from whom the

Pope derived his title, but not his authority. That office was merged

into, and was inferior to, the imperial dignity. Its inheritance by the

monarch of Italy rested upon a more secure basis than the ambiguous and

disputed commission alleged to have been conferred upon the fisherman

of Galilee. Its validity had been strengthened by centuries of

prescription. It had been exercised by many generations of sovereigns.

The ministrations of the chief priest of a sect embracing millions of

worshippers, the revered intermediary between the devotee and Heaven,

are only too easily confounded with the attributes of divinity.

These advantages were early recognized and diligently improved by

Constantine. The Byzantine emperor was the head of the Greek Church. In

Mohammed temporal and spiritual functions were united. Such examples,

constantly present to the mind of Frederick, exerted no small influence

in determining his course. In the eyes of his Sicilian subjects, the

claim of the Imperial Crown to religious supremacy was regarded as a

royal prerogative, which had been suspended but never relinquished.

The usurpation of the Papal power was a favorite project of European

monarchs in succeeding ages. It was seriously meditated by Philippe le

Bel in France during the fourteenth century. It was effected by Henry

VIII. in England during the sixteenth century. The defiance of the Pope

by the great German Emperor was, even at the distance of three hundred

years, one of the inspiring causes of the Reformation. The spirit of

intellectual liberty, oppressed at first, was victorious in the end.

The genius of Frederick II. was five centuries in advance of his time.

His most intelligent contemporaries were incapable of understanding

his motives or of appreciating his efforts for the regeneration

of humanity. No individual of that age accomplished so much for

civilization. He improved the condition of every class of society

in his dominions. He diffused the learning of the Arabs throughout

Europe. He imparted a new impulse to the cause of education in distant

countries not subject to his sway; an impulse which, while it was often

impeded, was never wholly suppressed. His liberal ideas excited the

abhorrence of the devout. His superstitions evoked the anathemas of the

clergy. In his expedition for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, his

guards and councillors were Mohammedans. He attended service in the

mosques. He knighted the Emir Fakr-al-Din at Acre. He feasted the envoy

of the Sheik of the Assassins at Amalfi. At his court the astrologer

was a more important personage than the logothete.

Under the administration of this great prince personal merit was the

best title to official promotion. His most eminent ministers were

of plebeian origin. From them he exacted unremitting attention to

their duties. His suggestions to his ambassadors recall the maxims of

Machiavelli. As a negotiator, he had no rivals in an age of shrewd and

crafty politicians. His erudition was vast, varied, and profound. To

aid the study of natural history he collected extensive menageries.

He read medical works and prescribed rules of hygiene for his family

and household. With his own hands he drew the plans for his palace at

Capua. Magnificent hospitals, aqueducts, bridges, castles, arsenals,

arose in the imperial domains of Sicily and Italy.

With all his accomplishments, Frederick was singularly deficient in

military ability and generalship. He cared more for the pomp than for

the victories of war. His crusade was a campaign of diplomacy. The

defeat he sustained at the hands of the Parmesans, and which shook the

foundations of his throne, was effected by a rabble of peasants and

women who attacked his camp while he was absent on a hunting excursion.

The gorgeous court of Palermo, with its stately ceremonial, its

heterodox opinions, its intellectual atmosphere, and the predominant

Moslem influence which controlled its policy, prescribed its customs,

and contributed largely to its importance, was at once the envy and the

scandal of Christendom. The bulk of the imperial armies was composed of

Saracens. Philosophers and statesmen of the latter nationality often

engrossed, to the exclusion of all others, the confidence and intimacy

of the Emperor. His different consorts, in turn, subjected to Oriental

restrictions, were attended by guards of African eunuchs, colossal

in stature, hideous in feature, splendidly apparelled. His harems,

luxuriant establishments, not confined to Palermo, but scattered

through the cities of Southern Italy, were filled with Moorish beauties

from Syria, Egypt, Morocco, and Spain. A number of their occupants

always formed part of his retinue in both peace and war. They journeyed

after the fashion of the East, in closed litters borne by gayly

caparisoned camels. Arab ladies, as remarkable for wit and learning as

for their personal charms, mingled freely with the brilliant society

of the capital. Among the diversions of the court were the dances

of the East, feats of jugglers and buffoons, amatory improvisations

of minnesinger and troubadour, games, falconry, literary contests,

magnificent banquets. In these merry assemblies, where pleasure reigned

supreme, the sensual was, however, never permitted to prevail over

the intellectual; they were enlivened by philosophical discussions,

by the application of proverbs, by the stories of travellers, by the

recitation of ballads.

The personal aspect of Frederick did not correspond to the

expectations of those who had formed an ideal from the fame of his

talents and the extent of his erudition. His stature was short,

his shoulders bent, his form ungainly and corpulent. He was bald

and near-sighted. His reddish beard indicated the lineage of the

Hohenstaufens. So insignificant was his appearance, that an Arab

writer, who saw him at Jerusalem, asserts, with astonishment and

contempt, that if he had been exposed for sale as a slave he would

not have brought two hundred drachms of silver. The general lustre of

his character was marred by many serious and fatal defects. He was

tyrannical, perfidious, hypocritical, superstitious, and inordinately

dissolute, even in a licentious age. The domestic relations of the

greatest of mediæval emperors were the reproach of the Papacy and the

horror of Christian Europe. Like the infamous Marquis de Sade, he

considered tears and suffering the most desirable prelude to libidinous

pleasures. The festivals of the imperial palace of Palermo were

enlivened by the performances of the singing- and dancing-girls of the

East. European females of the same profession, during the Crusade,

travelled in the royal train to Acre, where the novelty of their

appearance and costume amused the idle moments of the Moslem princes of

Egypt and Syria. Nothing in the career of Frederick provoked the ire of

the clergy more than this concession to infidel curiosity. The gigantic

Nubians who watched over the Empress, and whose faces were compared to

“ancient masks,” awakened the amazement of foreign travellers at the

Sicilian court.

The most frightful torments, whose ingenious cruelty was long

remembered with fear and hatred, were inflicted on his victims. Many

were dismembered by wild horses; some were crushed by ponderous cloaks

of lead; others were slowly roasted by fire applied to brazen helmets

in which their heads had been encased. The special objects of these

punishments were the partisans of the Pope, who were charged with

the offences of both heresy and rebellion. In the orders issued to

his agents, he showed that he was an adept in the arts of deception.

Devoted to the forbidden science of astrology, he became the dupe

of charlatans; and even the consummation of his marriage with the

Princess of England was deferred until the position of the planets

was declared to be favorable. His genius was essentially Italian.

From early childhood he had been familiar with the arts, the schemes,

the casuistry, of unprincipled priests and politicians. In the

formation of his character these associations had exercised a most

pernicious influence. His education and experience had led him to

doubt the existence of the virtues of truth, patriotism, integrity.

He never forgave an injury to himself or an insult to his dignity. He

sacrificed, without compunction, ministers who had long served him in

the most responsible employments, who had profited by his generosity,

who had shared his confidence. His utter want of feeling is revealed by

a saying attributed to him which is more remarkable for its energy than

its elegance, “I have never fattened a hog except to obtain its lard.”

His philosophical indifference to religion did not prevent him from

posing as the representative of the orthodox faith and the restorer of

primitive Christianity. He compared himself to Elias and to Christ.

He humbly solicited enrolment among the monks of Casamara. In a

communication to the successor of St. Francis of Assis, he declared

his belief in the Scriptures and his hope of eternal salvation.

He presided over important religious festivals and assumed the

most prominent part in the celebration of their ceremonies. On his

death-bed, he wished, in token of his pretended reverence for the

humblest ministers of the Gospel, to be clothed with the cowl of a

Cistercian friar. Policy caused him to thus profess allegiance to the

Church, but there is little doubt that he was an unbeliever, perhaps an

atheist. In unguarded moments he scoffed at all religion. One of his

favorite jests was in ridicule of the Eucharist. He criticised Divine

Wisdom for the selection of the barren land of Palestine, instead of

the rich and fertile Sicily, as the abode of the chosen people. In

the very cradle of Christianity, at the spot once sanctified by the

presence of the Saviour, he edified his Moslem hosts by comparing

the throngs of pilgrims who crowded to the shrine to droves of the

most stupid and unclean of animals. His unflinching antagonism to the

Papacy caused the clergy and the rabble to regard him as Antichrist.

He was deposed by the Council of Lyons; was four times excommunicated

by the Pope; and was repeatedly disciplined by inferior prelates. In

the implacable contest which broke his power and destroyed his house,

the ecclesiastical autocracy of Rome, for the moment, triumphed. The

civilization he had fostered was checked and obscured. His treasures

were scattered. His libraries disappeared. The last of his race

perished ignominiously on the scaffold. But the spirit of independent

thought which he promoted, and whose exercise he bequeathed to

posterity, survived the attack of intolerance and tyranny, to be

revived in a better and a more auspicious age.

The South of France, not as yet incorporated into the monarchy, but

existing as a semi-independent state, and governed by the Count of

Toulouse, one of the most powerful feudatories in Europe, was the

scene of another great mediæval revolt of the human mind against Papal

despotism and intellectual servitude. From a period so remote that

its beginning is lost in tradition, that region had been the seat

of a splendid civilization, at once the exemplar and the pride of

antiquity. The Phœnicians had early established trading-posts on its

shores, and had introduced, with the commercial policy and enterprise

of their race, the arts, the learning, and the culture which had laid

the foundation of the wealth and renown of Carthage. To the Phœnicians

succeeded the Greeks of Phocæa, that flourishing Ionian seaport which,

for dignity, elegance of manners, and erudition, ranked among the most

famous cities of the Grecian name. Its principal colony, Massilia,

exercised dominion over nearly all of the territory south of the

Loire; a territory already rich and populous, and containing, among

the twenty-five important cities subject to its jurisdiction, such

great and opulent communities as Monaco, Nice, Arles, Nîmes, Béziers,

Avignon. Unaided by extraneous support, the people of Massilia, in

spite of the efforts of barbarian neighbors and jealous rivals,

preserved their political and mercantile importance until their

conquest by Cæsar degraded their commonwealth to a subordinate rank

among the provinces composing the gigantic fabric of the Roman Empire.

The policy of that great soldier despoiled them of their dependencies,

crippled their resources, and turned to letters and the arts the

restless spirit which had formerly been engrossed by the pursuits of

commerce and the exercise of arms. Before its political annihilation,

the colony of Massilia, in extent, in population, in wealth, and

in intelligence, ranked higher than any Grecian republic that had

ever existed, save Athens alone. Its possessions were not acquired

by conquest. They were gradually absorbed through the imperceptible

influence of superior knowledge, the example of prosperity and luxury,

the acuteness of sagacious and aggressive rulers, the exhibition of

magnificent monuments of artistic genius. Under the Romans, this

region, designated as Narbonnese Gaul, was one of the most flourishing

provinces of the empire. Its literary culture was proverbial. Its

schools were famous. It is mentioned by Livy as having preserved

without contamination the arts, the manners, and the laws of Greece.

The ancient polity of Massilia is eulogized by Cicero as a scheme of

almost ideal perfection. The philosophers of that city enjoyed such

a reputation for learning, that the patronage of such of the Roman

youth as were ambitious of the most finished education was equally

divided between it and Athens. The first three professors of Latin

rhetoric at Rome were Gauls educated at Massilia. Its intellectual

progress was greatly assisted by the mercantile spirit of its citizens,

whose faculties were developed and enlarged by constant and familiar

intercourse with other nations. Its navigators possessed all the

skill and activity of their Phœnician ancestors. Their vessels were

seen on the western coast of Africa, in the Euxine, in the Baltic, in

the distant fjords of Norway. Their factories and their agents were

established in Germany and Britain. Their internal trade was most

extensive and important. They traversed the course of the Rhone and

the Loire from their sources to the sea. Every tribe in communication

with those waterways paid tribute to their shrewdness and shared the

benefits of their experience. The Greek language was familiar to the

inhabitants of Gaul; it was even adopted and used by the Druidical

priesthood, and eventually became the general medium of commercial

and social intercourse. The dark and cruel superstitions and legends

of the country were supplanted by the elegant and graceful fictions

of Paganism; by the songs, the dances, the floral games, the pomp of

sacrifice, the joyous festivals, which characterized the religious

ceremonials of Greece and Italy. The existence of such conditions

could not fail to exert a marked effect upon the minds of a people,

barbarous indeed, yet highly susceptible to impressions which appealed

equally to its imagination and its interest. Narbonnese Gaul, under

the emperors, maintained the literary and artistic pre-eminence which

had, from time immemorial, distinguished it among the provinces of

Western Europe. The most copious, elegant, and euphonic of languages

was still spoken throughout the various municipalities that formerly

acknowledged the jurisdiction of the Massilian Republic. The capital

was especially renowned for its philosophers and physicians; for its

patronage of letters; for the refinement of its society; and for the

number and excellence of its educational institutions, which, in

the estimation of many distinguished Romans, took precedence of the

schools of Greece. Imperial favor bestowed upon the Narbonnese province

monuments whose perfection was eminently worthy of the taste and

splendor of the Augustan age. Its cities were adorned with beautiful

temples, porticos, and theatres. In the gardens were peristyles of

precious marble, mosaic pavements, superb fountains, vases filled with

flowers, and statues of gilded bronze. Sumptuous baths administered to

the luxury of the populace. In the circus, the chariot race displayed a

pomp but little inferior to that exhibited by the imperial spectacles

of Rome. Aqueducts of colossal dimensions brought, for a distance of

many leagues, the water demanded by the requirements of an immense

population. In no portion of the Roman world have such a variety of

the architectural memorials of classic elegance survived as in the

district of Provence and Languedoc. From the magnificent ruins that

still remain, we are enabled to form a grand but inadequate idea of

the structures created by imperial munificence and Grecian taste which

have perished by the neglect and the violence of thirteen centuries.

After the Roman came the Goth, and then the Arab, himself at first

but a marauder. By degrees, however, his nobler instincts obtained

the mastery over his love of rapine; his predatory strongholds were

transformed into centres of trade; and with the habits and religion

of the Orient were introduced all the benefits and all the vices of

its voluptuous existence. The Moorish principality of Narbonne was

subject to the Western Emirate only forty years; yet, during that short

period, the impressions produced by Moorish occupancy were so deeply

stamped upon the mental and physical characteristics of the population

that no subsequent revolutions have ever been able to entirely efface

them. The practical genius of the Arab, which considered utility

as the first and most valuable of all the objects of civilization,

was again exhibited in the improvements applied to all the arts and

avocations of life which sprang up in the track of his victorious

armies. The Oriental principles of agriculture, with its painstaking

tillage of the soil, its perfect irrigating system, its introduction of

foreign plants, were applied with wonderful success to the delightful

region watered by the Rhone and the Garonne. Many varieties of grain,

including the buckwheat, originally brought from Persia, and which at

that time obtained its significant name of sarrasin, were imported

from Spain. The bark of the cork-tree, still one of the greatest

sources of wealth to Catalonia and Provence, was then first made

known to Europe. The boundless evergreen forests on the slopes of

the Pyrenees were utilized for the manufacture of pitch and rosin.

In every district, the breed of horses was improved by crosses with

the best blood of Arabia. Innumerable articles of luxury preserved in

museums and private collections--beautiful objects of silver, ivory,

and crystal, damascened armor, and silken robes--attest the variety

and excellence of the Moorish manufactures. The popular dances and

other amusements of Southern France are also striking reminiscences of

the Moslem ascendency. While Arabic literature must have exercised an

important influence upon the public mind of Provence and Languedoc,

no historical information has been transmitted to us relative to

its character, and even its existence during this period is largely

a matter of conjecture. There is no doubt, however, concerning the

effects subsequently produced by familiarity with Moorish civilization,

established by conquest and perpetuated by the aid of merchants and

travellers. The learning, the elegance, the refinement, and the

infidelity of the court of Cordova were carried beyond the Pyrenees.

The writings of Averroes and other Arabian philosophers were studied

with pleasure by the scholars of Southern France. That entire region

was more Mohammedan than Christian and more infidel than either. The

nobles adopted polygamous habits and maintained harems filled with

concubines. A thriving trade in eunuchs was carried on with the Spanish

Arabs, whose profits, it was notorious, were principally engrossed by

ecclesiastics. A passionate love of poetry developed the troubadour,

a most important factor of European intellectual progress, and the

counterpart and representative of the Arab bard, whose improvisations

had, from time immemorial, been the delight of the emotional tribes

of the Desert. A language infinitely sweeter and more melodious than

modern French, and exhibiting a strong similarity to the Italian formed

at the court of Frederick II., became the vehicle of charming poetical

compositions, which satirized the lives of the priesthood, recounted

the achievements of the tournament and the foray, and celebrated,

in graceful and rhythmic hyperbole, the beauty and fascinations of

woman. This tongue, known as the Langue d’Oc, while indirectly derived

from the Latin, owed, in fact, nothing to classic associations or

influence. It was the first of the numerous family of languages and

dialects of Roman origin which, during mediæval times, attained to

any marked degree of perfection in grammatical construction or in

elegance of expression. It is a significant fact that it only obtained

a permanent foothold in countries once subject to Arab domination.

It spread eventually all over the South of Europe. It was spoken in

Valencia, Barcelona, and the Balearic Isles, whose dialects are now

corrupted forms of the ancient Limousin. The productions of which it

formed the medium were read in Italy, Germany, Sicily, and England.

It adapted itself with such ease to the purposes of the poet that it

almost seemed constructed especially for that variety of composition.

It early incurred the hostility of the Church on account of the

Albigensian heresy; and in 1248, Innocent IV., by a special bull,

forbade its study to all good Catholics. The rapidity with which it was

perfected, the extent of its distribution, the number of provincial

dialects to which it gave rise, the richness of the literature which

adopted it, and the suddenness and completeness of its extinction

constitute one of the most interesting and extraordinary phenomena in

the annals of linguistics.

The literary and social condition of Southern France was, with the

single exception of Sicily, which bore to it a remarkable resemblance,

anomalous among the countries of civilized Europe. Its population was

singularly cosmopolitan; half a score of races had contributed to its

formation; it had inherited the culture of the Greek, the Roman, the

Arab; mixture of blood and comparison of creeds had produced universal

toleration of belief and widespread and uncompromising skepticism.

In its courts, its schools, its learned professions, Semitic ideas,

traditions, and influence preponderated. Not a few Moslems had

established themselves in the cities of Nîmes, Narbonne, and Toulouse,

and the Jews abounded in every community which afforded encouragement

to scientific attainments or facilities for traffic. The system of

public instruction was essentially Hebrew; the faculty of the famous

medical school of Montpellier, the successful competitor of that of

Salerno, was at first principally composed of Jews and Mohammedans,

and retained for centuries, amidst foreign conquest and domestic

convulsion, the impress derived from the character of its founders. The

closest relations were maintained between the academies of Languedoc

and those of imperial Sicily and Moorish Spain. This intimacy was

strengthened by the multiplicity of mercantile transactions arising

from a constant interchange of commodities dependent upon a vast and

profitable trade. The capitals of Cordova, Seville, and Palermo were

better known to the people of Provence than any of the Mediterranean

cities to the inland towns of continental Europe; now, great centres of

wealth, commerce, and civilization; then, despised as semi-barbarous

and rarely visited. The continuance of this friendly intercourse with

Mohammedan countries, confirmed at once by congenial pursuits and by

the powerful influence of pecuniary advantage, was portentous in its

effects, and boded ill to the propagation of Christianity and the

maintenance of ecclesiastical discipline. The succession of numerous

forms of worship, distinct in their origin, unlike in their ceremonial,

irreconcilably hostile in their polity, each asserting divine

infallibility, yet each, in turn, overthrown by a new and more popular

belief, was not favorable to the existence of any religion. Strongly

attached to the cheerful festivals of Paganism, the inhabitants

of Southern France had embraced the precepts of the Gospel with

insincerity and reluctance. Their disposition, their traditions, the

souvenirs of classic magnificence and beauty which surrounded them, all

contributed to confirm the deeply grounded affection they entertained

for the creed of their fathers. Nowhere else in Christendom was such a

spectacle presented of all that is attractive to the luxurious, and all

that is admired by the intellectual, as that disclosed by the life of

the polished and corrupt society of Southern France. That entire region

was subjected to the highest cultivation of which the soil, naturally

fertile and improved by every resource of scientific agriculture, was

susceptible. The cities, large and populous, enjoyed every advantage

of wealth which could be derived from an extensive traffic. Béziers

had sixty thousand inhabitants, a larger number than any town in

England. Nîmes, Arles, Carcassonne, were but little inferior in size

and grandeur. Every commercial device was familiar to the people. Their

shrewdness was proverbial. Their trade was enormous. A knowledge of

banking and bills of exchange, with many important fiscal regulations,

had been introduced by the Jews of Barcelona.

Toulouse, one of the most beautiful and licentious of mediæval

capitals, was the focus of this splendid civilization. It was the seat

of the Muses, the home of chivalry, the goal of every devotee of love

and of ambition. There the knightly adventurer sought distinction in

the tournament and the tilt of reeds, martial amusements borrowed from

the Moor. Thither journeyed the troubadour and the jongleur, sure of

hospitality and reward in palace and castle, in the comfortable home of

the merchant, in the humble dwelling of the laborer. There was crowned

the poet, successful in the literary contest, two hundred years before

the laurel was placed upon the brow of Petrarch in the Capitol at Rome.

There were held the Courts of Love, where women argued and determined,

with all the grave impartiality of a judicial tribunal, questions

involving the laws of gallantry, their observance and their violation.

The potentate, who, under the modest title of count, governed this

great and opulent realm, enjoyed a larger measure of authority than

most representatives of the royal houses of Europe. His family was

of high antiquity, and its rank dated back for many centuries. The

rich fiefs of Béziers, Foix, Quercy, Montpellier, and Narbonne, with

their numerous important dependencies, acknowledged his authority

as suzerain. Wealthier than any of his Christian contemporaries, he

was more powerful in all the attributes of monarchical dignity than

the King of France. His dominions included the greater part of the

territory south of the Loire, and embraced the fertile and flourishing

districts bounded by the Garonne, the Isère, the Mediterranean, and the

Alps. He had achieved renown in the Crusades. His sword had won for him

the principality of Tripoli. He had been an unsuccessful but prominent

competitor for the throne of Jerusalem. In his public relations

he was the soul of chivalric courtesy; in his personal habits a

fastidious voluptuary; in belief a skeptic; in tastes a Mohammedan. The

conspicuous valor he displayed on the fields of Palestine was, in some

degree, neutralized by a moral cowardice which instinctively shrank

from a conflict involving the dearest privileges for which humanity

can contend,--the preservation of political integrity and the exercise

of the right of intellectual freedom. Brave, impetuous, sensual,

vacillating, and insincere, such was Raymond VI., Count of Toulouse,

the representative of the most polished and dissolute state in Europe.

The political organization of the various cities and provinces

composing the County of Toulouse presented a strange anomaly. Some

were, in all but name, republican; their magistrates, under the

title of consuls, administered the affairs of government, and were

elected by the public voice of the people. The civil regulations of

others partook rather of the nature of feudal tenures in which the

most oppressive privileges had been relaxed or entirely discharged.

But neither the feeble copy of the institutions of ancient Rome nor

the barbarous laws of mediæval tyranny were sufficient to compel

the obedience of such a heterogeneous population. The authority of

the elective magistracy was frequently defied. The fealty of the

great vassals was but nominal. The jurisdiction of the suzerain was,

under various, and sometimes under frivolous, pretexts, questioned

or ignored. There was no organized military power to enforce the

mandates of the ruling authority. Enervated by pleasure, the people

of Languedoc and Provence passed their existence in a constant round

of intellectual diversions and refined sensuality. The martial sports

of the chase and the tourney did little but recall the profession of

arms, once the only occupation worthy of the dignity of the mediæval

cavalier. Thus, broken up into semi-independent communities, destitute

of military resources, and incapable of systematic defence or united

action, the power of the Count of Toulouse was ready to crumble

at the approach of the first resolute aggressor. The civilization

represented by that power lacked the indispensable essentials of every

permanent government,--loyalty and religion. Want of centralization,

and a multiplicity of rulers, weakened the patriotic attachment of

the people, and discouraged the growth of an enlightened and healthy

public sentiment. National pride could not exist when there was no

royal personage to whom all could appeal, no common country to exalt

and defend. In addition to these serious impediments to durability and

progress was added an absolute want of religious feeling. Numerous

causes had combined to produce this condition. Comparisons of many

forms of faith had exposed their defects and inconsistencies, and led

to a general rejection of them all. The Crusaders had familiarized

all Europe, and especially France, with the manners and religion of

the Mussulmans. Hundreds of enterprising merchants had assumed the

cross, much less for the piety it was presumed to indicate and the

sacred privileges it conferred, than for the worldly advantages to be

procured by traffic with distant, and otherwise inaccessible, regions.

Their glowing reports of Oriental civilization had dissipated the

remaining prejudices of a people whose intercourse with the Moslem

kingdoms beyond the Pyrenees had long predisposed them in favor of a

race held in peculiar abhorrence by the See of Rome. The silks and

gold of Syria and Egypt appealed far more eloquently to the passions

of the multitude than the genuflexions of the priest or the rosary

and cowl of the friar. Even the sacred profession was invaded by

the prevailing spirit of toleration, itself dependent on material

interests; the inferior clergy dealt as brokers in the money of the

East, and from the mints of bishops and metropolitans were issued

coins impressed with Mohammedan texts and symbols. In addition to

this extraordinary partiality for infidel customs, and the practical

renunciation of the vow of poverty, which were calculated to arouse,

especially among the vulgar, a suspicion of heterodoxy, the entire body

of the Provençal clergy had become thoroughly debased and profligate.

Those of high rank vied with the nobles in prodigal and ostentatious

luxury. Prelates constantly abandoned the duties of their office for

the fascinations of the chase and the licentious pleasures of intrigue.

They travelled in state with numerous trains of ladies and attendants,

the richness of whose appointments rivalled that of a royal equipage.

The Archbishop of Narbonne kept in his pay a band of foreign outlaws

who levied blackmail on opulent citizens, and who, protected by their

ecclesiastical patron, defied the weak and disorganized civil power

of the land. In every gay assembly where the song of the troubadour

recounted the triumphs of love and gallantry, or aimed its satirical

shafts at the failings of the priesthood, the bishop was foremost in

laughter and applause. It was a common saying among the people that

while the apostles were poor, their successors, plunged in luxury,

“loved fine horses and splendid garments, white women and red wine.”

The vices of the higher class, confirmed by the possession of great

wealth and secure from the censure of ecclesiastical tribunals,

surpassed, in turpitude and effrontery, the excesses of any other

society then existing in Christendom.

The episcopal dignitaries were usually of noble blood and connected

with the most ancient and distinguished families of France. Not so,

however, with the inferior members of the hierarchy. The avarice,

the extortion, the hypocrisy, the drunkenness, and the debauchery

universally imputed to all included in that sacred profession had made

it infamous. The prelates, indeed, enjoyed all that could be purchased

or exacted by eminent birth, boundless opulence, and irresistible

power. The priests, however, were nearer the people, and were taken

from the lowest ranks of society. Such was their degradation, that it

had passed into a proverb. The populace, by way of imprecation, were

accustomed to say, “May I become a priest before I do such a thing!”

Livings were filled exclusively from the ranks of the coarse and brutal

peasantry, for no citizen of the middle class would permit his son to

be disgraced by the assumption of the tonsure. Even respectable vassals

recoiled from the equivocal honors of the Church, and the lords, who

regarded the tithes as a portion of their legal perquisites, were

forced to select as candidates for holy orders the most ignorant and

degraded of their dependents and slaves. The rude manners and vicious

tastes engendered by a debased and plebeian origin increased the hatred

and contempt of the scoffing multitude. In some parts of Languedoc

public feeling ran so high against the clergy, that priests, to avoid

personal violence, were forced to conceal from the passers-by all

outward evidences of their calling.

The Pope, long aware of the insults offered to his dignity and of the

evils which threatened the faith of Rome, had frequently condemned in

unmeasured terms the conditions which imperilled the existence of all

religion in the South of France. Ecclesiastical fulminations, however,

possessed no terrors for the blithe and careless inhabitants of

Provence and Languedoc. The Papal bulls only furnished another amusing

theme for the sarcasm of the poet. Interdicts, elsewhere so potent,

in that land, alone of all those subject to Christian authority, were

treated with derision. The pretensions of the legate of the Apostolic

See were ridiculed in his very presence, and even the Holy Father

himself was not able to escape the raillery and censure of those whom

experience had made acquainted with the shocking venality and license

of the Roman court. Every vestige of moral influence upon which rested

public consideration for the clergy had disappeared. The churches were

all but deserted. Latin, the language of the altar, had been discarded

for the Langue d’Oc, the idiom of the skeptical and the dissolute. In

many parishes bells had ceased to announce the hour of worship, for

no one heeded them. The priest, intent on his pleasures, was only too

ready to abandon the duties enjoined by his calling, especially when

there were few to listen and still fewer to contribute. The revenues of

the Church, greatly diminished, were diverted into channels entirely

foreign to the purpose for which they had nominally been collected.

Some were appropriated by the nobles, whose vassals had been presented

to livings. Vast sums were squandered by licentious prelates in vices

whose enormity appalled every sincere Christian. The greatest profits

which enured to the benefit of the clergy were derived from the

uncanonical and prohibited practices of simony and usury. No effort was

made to conceal the existence of these abuses, and the ecclesiastical

residence was generally recognized as the head-quarters of brokerage in

bills and benefices.

Thus had the Roman Catholic Church, by the corruption and effrontery

of its ministers, forfeited the respect of mankind. Its edicts were

disregarded. Its lessons were unheard. The pious turned with loathing

from the hypocritical exhortations of religious teachers whose lives

were stained with every crime, and whose conduct presented examples

of flagrant iniquity, which fortunately had few parallels outside of

their profession. The reverence once attaching to the Vatican was

sensibly impaired. While its policy encouraged the promotion of the

humble, its authority necessarily suffered through the enrolment into

the priesthood of men without education, refinement, honor, decency,

or independence. Public respect could not be retained by a class

degraded by servile associations and still subject to the arbitrary

caprices of a secular lord. As in every community are to be found many

individuals to whom religion is a necessity, so in the Provençal cities

and villages devout persons turned from the ancient and discredited

hierarchy to other quarters for the inestimable consolations of

forgiveness and hope. Such conditions infallibly generate heresy, and

the eagerness and unanimity with which heterodox opinions were adopted

in that populous region demonstrated at once the extent of the evil

and the necessity for the radical measures by which its removal was

accomplished.

The centre of intellectual culture in Southern France was the

University of Montpellier. It has been well said that the history of

the faculty of that famous institution is to a great extent the history

of medicine in Europe. During the early part of the twelfth century,

Montpellier was the most important emporium of France. The trade of the

entire country converged to that point. Its commercial establishments

were upon a colossal scale. Its population was cosmopolitan. The

conquests of Ferdinand and Jaime, the occupation of Cordova, Seville,

Majorca, and Valencia had attracted to Languedoc, and especially to its

most thriving city, tens of thousands of Mohammedan refugees. The Jews

had long been numerous in that region, and were already conspicuous for

wealth, intelligence, and power.

From that epoch dates, in reality, the foundation of the University. A

school of medicine had existed there for nearly a century, but to the

influx of Moorish and Hebrew learning must be attributed the reputation

soon obtained by that institution throughout Europe. The majority of

its professors belonged to those two nationalities. They brought with

them the experience, the methods, the remedies, and the instruments of

the most eminent and successful practitioners of the Peninsula. Many of

them from time to time visited the colleges of Granada and Toledo for

the purpose of adding to their stock of information, and of profiting

by the superior facilities those schools afforded. A broad and catholic

spirit controlled the organization and the policy of the University.

Sectarian prejudice was unknown. Teacher and scholar were free to

worship according to their belief, or to entertain and express the most

radical philosophical opinions. Intellectual attainments and marked

ability were the principal qualifications for admission to the Faculty.

The Lords of Montpellier, and subsequently the Kings of France, were

the patrons of the school. They conferred upon it at different times

great and extraordinary privileges. The rights it had enjoyed under

the Count were confirmed by the sovereign. Philip of Valois, in 1331,

by a special edict placed its doctors under the royal protection.

Charles VI., in 1350, granted its beadles permission to carry silver

maces as symbols of its dignity. The Duke of Aragon, in 1364, exempted

it from taxation. The patents of Charles VIII., in 1484, transferred

all causes in which the professors and students were interested to the

jurisdiction of the Governor of Montpellier. The execution of legal

process could only be made in the presence of the Chancellor. To the

officers of the Faculty were committed the supervision and inspection

of the apothecary shops of the city, in order to insure the purity of

the medicines dispensed.

At Montpellier were performed the first public anatomical

demonstrations of Christian Europe. The surgical investigations of the

School of Salerno had been principally confined to the lower animals.

Moorish and Hebrew operators carried into France the advanced ideas of

Mohammedan Spain, which, in defiance of ancient prejudice and mediæval

superstition, sought for the knowledge of the location and functions of

the human organs in the intelligent and systematic dissection of the

human body. In the thirteenth century, the corpse of a criminal was

every year given to the Faculty of Montpellier for this purpose. Two

hundred years elapsed before similar demonstrations were authorized by

the University of Paris.

The Medical Academy of Montpellier inherited the energetic and

progressive spirit of its prototype, the University of Cordova. It

absorbed all the available learning of antiquity. It adopted the maxims

and the methods of the great Arab surgeons and physicians of the

Peninsula. Among its most celebrated professors were graduates of the

School of Salerno. It utilized the talents and experience of famous

practitioners of every country and of every creed. There the works of

Hippocrates and Galen were translated from the Arabic, in which idiom

they had been preserved, into the Latin, by which they were to be

transmitted to posterity. There the learned disquisitions of Averroes,

Avicenna, Rhazes, and Abulcasis were enriched with voluminous and

invaluable commentaries.

A long and thorough course of study was required to obtain the title of

Doctor. The office of Chancellor was one of great dignity, and carried

with it many privileges. It may well be imagined that ecclesiastical

imposture could not flourish in the shadow of such an institution. Such

was its influence, even with a class naturally hostile, that as early

as the last half of the twelfth century the First and Second Councils

of Montpellier prohibited all members of the clergy from teaching

medicine, under severe penalties. The scientific character of the

studies pursued in that city, and the success of those who profited by

them, discredited the practice of shrine-cure and the imposition of

relics. The theological odium attaching to the University was not less

than that which had stigmatized kindred seats of learning among the

Arabian infidels. Many works of its professors were publicly burned by

the Inquisition.

And yet no class of men was more highly esteemed by the orthodox

sovereigns of Christendom than the graduates of the University of

Montpellier. They were the friends and confidants of popes and kings.

Their heretical principles were forgotten at the bedside of the sick

and the afflicted. Arnold de Villanova was the physician of Clement

V., of Peter III., King of Aragon, of Frederick II., Emperor of

Germany. Guy de Chauliac was the regular medical adviser of Clement

VI., of Innocent VI., of Urban V. While its greatest reputation is

derived from its influence on medicine, the labors of the School of

Montpellier were not confined to that science. They gave rise to

many valuable contributions to various branches of literature. The

astronomical researches of the Spanish Jew, Profatius, in 1300,--his

tables of longitude; his calculations, which established the

declination of the sun and the inclination of the earth’s axis, by

means of which terrestrial motion was conclusively demonstrated, have

not lost their authority in our time.

The treatises of Gordonius on Diseases of the Kidneys, of Gerard de

Solo on Hygiene, of Raymond de Vinario on the Plague, indicate to the

medical scholar the extraordinary accomplishments of the members of the

Faculty of Montpellier. The great work of Guy de Chauliac on General

Surgery was the main reliance of European operators for two hundred and

fifty years.

The mad extravagance of the Provençal nobility, their lavish

expenditures, the pomp of their retinues, their efforts to surpass

in prodigality and luxury the splendid festivals of imperial Rome,

aroused the wonder of Europe. Their chargers were shod with silver.

Their dogs wore collars set with precious jewels. It was an ordinary

occurrence for a wealthy lord to scatter great sums to be scrambled for

by the populace. One sowed like seed thirty thousand gold crowns in

the neighborhood of his castle. Another enriched his noble guests by

the bestowal of gifts of incalculable value. A third sacrificed upon

a funeral pyre, in the presence of an immense assemblage, thirty of

his finest horses. There was apparently no limit to the intoxication

produced by the pride, the opulence. and the voluptuousness of

Provençal society. In that society differences in rank were not so

sharply defined as in those of other countries. The serf, indeed,

retained his degradation; but the ordinarily intermediate class of

burghers were practically the equals of the feudal aristocracy. Many

of them boasted a purer and a more distinguished lineage. They used

coats of arms. They had their mansions, their embattled castles, their

bodies of organized retainers. They excelled in martial exercises, and

it was no unusual occurrence for knights who had crossed swords with

the infidels of Palestine to be worsted by them in the tournament. The

title to noble rank was thus to a considerable extent connected with

municipal residence. In the cities all was splendor, gayety, courtesy.

Outside of them, the inhabitants were for the most part condemned

to villeinage. In the Courts of Love, whose absurdity has caused

them to be regarded as mythical by many subsequent writers, judicial

decisions were rendered on every point of amorous casuistry. The mock

solemnity with which such matters were propounded and determined was

only exceeded by the dissolute tendency of the customs that governed

the proceedings of these extraordinary tribunals. No greater proof of

the prevalent laxity of morals could be desired than that furnished by

their canons. They encouraged the violation of the marriage vow. They

defined with minute and curious particularity the rules of intrigue.

The nature of the questions debated by high-born ladies in the

presence of a numerous auditory was such as cannot be even designated,

still less described, in a modern book. The brazen coarseness which

characterized these ridiculous controversies afforded a remarkable

contrast to the refinement of manners otherwise displayed by those

who participated in them. The popularity of this unique system of

jurisprudence was so great, that, at the time of the Albigensian

crusade, it was on the point of being generally established in every

part of France. No institution, even in those times of heresy and

unbelief, was so fatal to religion. It undermined the vital principles

by which society is held together. It defied the injunctions and

ridiculed the dogmas of the Church. The Virgin, as the object of

adoration, was supplanted by the mistress of the cavalier, often a

woman of dissolute character and the recipient of the adulation of a

score of favored lovers.

A charming picture of mediæval society is presented by the life of the

educated classes of Languedoc and Provence. Everywhere was dispensed

the most elegant and lavish hospitality. The table was spread before

the open door of the castle. Marked attention was shown to the guest,

whether merchant, knight, pilgrim, minstrel, or troubadour. He was

welcomed with unaffected cordiality. He was tendered the use of the

hot-air bath. A wreath of flowers was placed upon his brow. The ladies

themselves ministered to his necessities. In accordance with a custom

borrowed from the Arabs, the choicest morsels were placed in his

mouth by dainty white and jewelled fingers perfumed with lavender and

rose. The diversions of the day were feats of strength and displays

of horsemanship, the game of chess, the chase with the falcon, the

contest for the prize of knightly dexterity in the lists of the

tournament. In winter, the company gathered about the huge fireplace

of the banqueting hall; in summer, under the rustling foliage of the

park. The evening was spent with song and dance, with the recital of

the story-teller, with the improvisations of the poet. The feast was

enlivened by wit, by jest, by sparkling repartee. The returned crusader

related his adventures in the Holy Land,--the bloody encounters of the

siege of Acre; the quarrels of the Christian chieftains; the events

in which were displayed the dignity, the valor, the noble generosity

of Saladin. The trader, just from the Moorish cities of Spain,--then,

indeed, sadly fallen from their first estate, but still exhibiting

in their fading splendor no unworthy image of their former grandeur

and power,--described in glowing language the beauties of Cordova,

Valencia, and Seville. Between cavalier and mistress communication was

constantly maintained unobserved, through the silent and pantomimic

medium of the language of flowers.

In this brilliant company the troubadour was pre-eminently conspicuous.

Although often the butt of the equivocal speeches and practical jokes

of his companions of both sexes,--attentions which he did not fail to

repay with interest in the cutting satire of his verse,--his opinions,

generally authoritative, were always heard with respect. He determined

points of precedence and etiquette. He gave wholesome advice to young

ladies on the care of their persons, on their behavior at table, on

their treatment of lovers. His principal duties were, however, the

glorification of the family of his patron and the celebration of the

charms of his mistress. All courted his favor. Few were rash enough to

provoke his enmity. In the society of Languedoc, whether the dependent

of a noble house or a careless wanderer from court to court, he was

always the central figure.

Among the inmates of the baronial palace, if an intrigue existed, it

was concealed by the mask of decency. The poet, in the burning verses

which enumerated the charms of his lady-love, never mentioned her name,

or betrayed the slightest indication of her identity. His attachment he

regarded in the same light as the tribute paid by a Pagan worshipper

to his tutelary goddess. The laws of his code demanded impenetrable

reserve. The object of his devotion was, to all appearances, an

imaginary personage, an ideal of feminine perfection.

The highest development of splendor, taste, intelligence, and luxury

was to be found in the feudal castle. In the cities, it is true, great

pomp and extravagance, the results of the accumulation of incredible

wealth, were constantly displayed. The mansions of many opulent

merchants far surpassed in the magnificence of their interiors the

palaces of the King of France. On occasions of festivity priceless

hangings of brocade and velvet, of silken tapestry and cloth of gold,

were suspended over the streets. The households of these powerful

citizens were on a scale commensurate with the dignity of their

masters. Hundreds of retainers obeyed their bidding. Their apartments

were full of singers, dancers, buffoons, and eunuchs. There was no

delicacy not to be found upon their tables; no means of sensual

enjoyment which did not contribute to the stimulation of their blunted

appetites; no vice with which they were not familiar.

Thus in the courts of the numerous principalities of Southern France,

amidst the delights of a society gay, skeptical, licentious, the

troubadour was the arbiter of taste, the oracle of the populace, the

idol of women. Public opinion was far from discouraging the practice

of gallantry in an age which scoffed alike at the maxims of social

morality and the ceremonies of religion. The mistress of the vagrant

bard was always the wife of a noble, not infrequently a princess of the

highest dignity. To her was addressed his passionate homage, often in

strains whose expressions are too bold and ardent for translation into

a modern language. The adoration they convey, unsurpassed in fervency

by any vows ever offered at the shrine of a celestial divinity,

affords a key to both the influence of the poet and the relaxation

of manners. The life of the latter was passed in an intoxicating

atmosphere of music, flattery, and amorous intrigue. His power over

society was not less important than that formerly exercised by the

repudiated clergy, and was, morally speaking, fully as pernicious. The

adulation he lavished upon the object of his affections, represented

as the personification of every physical grace and every mental

accomplishment, could not fail to fire the romantic imagination of

the goddess in whose veins coursed the hot blood of the South, and

whose vanity caused her to recognize in this extravagant flattery and

devotion the highest tribute to her charms. Around the bard, in the

brilliant circles of Arles or Carcassonne, was grouped a mirthful and

appreciative auditory,--ladies in brocades and jewels, knights in

burnished armor, pages in silk and gold. In that animated assemblage

the restraints of rank, never rendered irksome by the exactions

of pompous ceremonial, were for the moment entirely suspended.

The conversation sparkled with epigram, equivocal allusions, and

good-humored satire. Its character, formed by the dissolute customs of

the age, often transgressed the rules of propriety which govern modern

social intercourse. Inspired by such surroundings, the troubadour arose

and began the recital of an impromptu amatory ode. Young, slender,

and handsome, his physical appearance alone might well elicit female

admiration. His long, dark locks fell in ringlets upon his shoulders. A

golden chain hung about his neck. His fingers glittered with gems. From

his belt an enamelled poniard was suspended. His picturesque costume of

brilliant colors, his silken doublet, his velvet cloak, set off to the

best advantage the graces of his person, and revealed the popularity

which he enjoyed with his patrons. All eyes were turned upon him, for

his talents were of the highest order, and the object of his admiration

was present, perchance in the person of the chatelaine herself. As

he chanted his verses in accents, now ardent, now pathetic, now

humorous, the enraptured audience, swayed by conflicting emotions,

broke forth alternately into tears and laughter. His ambiguous

expressions, his licentious images,--whose boldness the severity of

modern criticism would reject as offensive to decency,--were received

with every manifestation of approval by his delighted hearers. The

nature of the entertainment was often varied by the performances of

the jongleur. That personage, who, as a retainer of the troubadour,

occupied a position analogous to that of esquire to knight, united

in his calling the office of minstrel, juggler, story-teller, and

buffoon. Sometimes he accompanied the song of the poet upon the harp

or the guitar; sometimes, with expressive gesticulation, he recounted

the legends, the martial exploits, and the popular romances whose

relation was a favorite diversion of mediæval society. His rank was

ordinarily far beneath that of his companion; yet it was not unusual

for the two professions to be combined; and there were instances when

their positions were reversed through the vicissitudes of success or

misfortune.

The extraordinary privileges enjoyed by these vagrant sonneteers

were by no means entirely attributable to the amusement which their

talents afforded. Their compositions were the sole medium by which

public opinion could be aroused and the abuse of power and the

excesses of social depravity restrained. The influence of the pulpit,

long omnipotent in the regulation of morals, had declined; in some

localities it had wholly disappeared. Centuries were destined to elapse

before the press, the most formidable weapon of political censure,

could become available. The satire of the poet, whose verses, carried

from place to place, in a fortnight became familiar to a hundred

communities, was recognized as the instrument of moral correction,

the dread of the tyrant, the scourge of the shamelessly dissolute. Its

potent effects were feared by wrong-doers of every class, and by none

so much as by those of exalted position.

The fierceness and rancor displayed by the troubadours in their attacks

upon obnoxious personages, in an age of irresponsible authority, can

only be explained upon the hypothesis that they were encouraged and

protected by the force of overwhelming public sentiment. Their poems

were composed in the Langue d’Oc, the first perfected and the most

important of the Romance languages,--an idiom of great compass and

power, and beyond the Loire used by the educated and polished members

of society alone. The finest of these productions frequently owed their

origin to authors destitute of literary culture; many troubadours

could not even read. They evinced no admiration of the beauties of

nature. The stanzas were isolated, often absolutely without continuity.

A common similarity of type and resemblance of ideas pervaded all.

It is a singular circumstance, that in form and metrical arrangement

the last poem of a troubadour was not, in any important particular,

superior to the oldest, at present, known; there was no improvement in

two hundred years. In delicacy of sentiment, in vigor of expression, in

sweetness of melody, these compositions are not excelled by the lyrics

of any nation. Their analogy to those of the Spanish Mohammedans is

striking and self-evident. There is the same play of words, the same

predominating class of subjects, the same far-fetched and extravagant

similes, the same incessant obtrusion of the author’s personality. The

Langue d’Oc contains a greater number of rhyming terminations than

any other language except Arabic; a coincidence to be attributed to

imitation or a common poetic taste, and certainly not the result of

accident. In the productions of both idioms the prevailing rhyme is

by distichs, and occurs throughout the entire poem, the second verse

of every distich always ending with the same sound; and the meaning

is often obscured or sacrificed to preserve continuous harmony of

versification.

The taste for letters was introduced into France partly as a

consequence of the Moslem occupation, but principally by the Jews, who

remained after their allies had been driven back over the Pyrenees.

The similarity of taste and expression existing between the poets of

these two branches of the Semitic race is apparent to every one who

has compared the Bible and the Koran. Many of the Hebrew colonists of

Narbonne and Marseilles had been educated at Cordova, and all spoke

the Arabic language with fluency. Not a few were scholars of marked

ability, gifted with poetic talents, the possessors of large libraries.

These superior advantages had great weight with a semi-barbarous people

steeped in ignorance, with no mental resources except the interchange

of gossip, and the exhortations of a priest, who often could not

understand his breviary. The ferocious and intolerant spirit with

which the Jew was generally regarded, counteracted, in a measure, the

effect of his influence, but the power of intellect and culture finally

prevailed. The Hebrews familiarized the population of Languedoc and

Provence with the art, the science, and the literature of the Arabs.

Through their agency an acquaintance with the Arabic language and

literature became in Southern France and in Sicily indispensable to

the education of a scholar. Another factor of great importance in the

intellectual development of Southern Europe was the number of Moslem

refugees who sought safety in foreign lands from the influx of African

barbarism and from the perils incident to constant revolution. A

large proportion of these were philosophers, whose high attainments

had made them dangerously conspicuous, and whose heretical doctrines

were obnoxious to the stern fanaticism of the Almoravides. Such an

immigration could not fail to produce a profound impression upon the

mental characteristics and literary habits of any people.

The intercourse of all classes of the population in Southern France

was distinguished by every manifestation of courtesy. The degrees

of precedence, the style of dress, the order of amusements, the

arrangement of the banquet, were governed by established rules of

etiquette.

Nor was this life by any means devoted to frivolous pursuits. The

great hall of the castle was often the scene of debate between famous

scholars and ecclesiastics. There, too, were performed the burlesque

miracle-plays of the age. An expensive library was the pride of

the count. The philosopher was frequently, the astrologer almost

invariably, a member of his household. In the secret vaults of the

laboratory, surrounded by crucibles and alembics, the adept sought for

the secret of potable gold; from the summit of the keep the astronomer

held nightly communion with the stars.

An inclination to dialectical controversy, inherited from their

Greek ancestry; the subtle arguments of Arab metaphysicians and

natural philosophers; commercial intercourse with the Orient, which

familiarized them with the religious theories and principles of

various heretical beliefs; and the corrupt and debauched lives of the

clergy, which excited the universal abhorrence of all, predisposed

the piously inclined to the acceptance of new forms of faith. Among

the heterodox sects which arose in the early ages of Christianity,

that of the Paulicians was the most numerous, the most popular, and

the most enduring. Its tenets were partly borrowed from those of the

Gnostics, but largely derived from the ancient Persian doctrine of the

two antagonistic Principles of Good and Evil, ever contending for the

mastery of the universe and the empire of mankind. The peculiar ideas

of this Manichean sect had, from the first, awakened the apprehensions

and called forth the anathemas of the Church. The mysticism which

characterized them, the ascetic life which they inculcated, appealed

powerfully to the superstitions and devout impulses which most

strongly influence the human mind. From Armenia the belief of the

Paulicians rapidly invaded every province of the Byzantine Empire,

and then, following the lines of trade, made innumerable proselytes

in Germany, Italy, Spain, and France. It gave rise to the Waldenses

and the Albigenses, names of sad and ominous import in the religious

annals of Europe. In no country were these false doctrines embraced

with such enthusiasm as in Provence and Languedoc. Their adoption was

not confined to the ignorant and the obscure, for many personages of

the most exalted rank openly avowed their adherence to this dangerous

heresy. Simplicity of creed and purity of manners distinguished the new

sectaries from the subjects of the ancient hierarchy. They denied the

real presence in the Eucharist; the value of baptism as a ceremony;

the efficacy of absolution granted by a priest whose calling was not

unfrequently dishonored by acts of the most glaring profligacy. Their

ministers discarded the splendid vestments of the Roman Catholic

priesthood for simple robes of black. They rejected the Old Testament,

as inspired by the Spirit of Evil, because of the sanguinary deeds

authorized by a superior power, which, by the extermination of

populous communities, indicated irreconcilable enmity to the human

race. Bells and images of every kind alike shared their animadversion.

They advocated benevolence, abstinence, chastity, celibacy. In

self-abnegation many of them exceeded the discipline of the most

exacting of the monastic orders. They denounced as one of the most

grievous offences against morality the practice of every form of lying

and deceit. In their creed the sacerdotal office and the ceremonial

of the Church were invested with no sanctity, and could confer no

benefits, if not associated with honesty of purpose and purity of life.

Their very existence was a protest against Papal infallibility and an

assertion of the right of individual judgment. Their liberal opinions,

their charity, the persuasive eloquence with which they promulgated

their doctrines, obtained for them the respect of the nobility and the

ardent devotion of the multitude. The name of the obnoxious sect was to

every consistent member of the Catholic communion a term of peculiar

infamy and reproach.

Throughout the region tainted with this heresy, which derived its name

from the diocese of Albi, where its professors were most numerous,

the authority of the Vatican was undermined or entirely destroyed.

The habits of the clergy had prejudiced all classes against them. The

churches were empty. Payment of tithes had ceased. Vassals subject

to ecclesiastical jurisdiction refused obedience and withheld their

tribute. In certain districts it was unsafe for a priest to appear upon

the highway. The public exhortations of friars, whose extraordinary

influence was now for the first time disclosed, were interrupted by

shouts of derision and flying missiles. At Toulouse, the centre of

the Albigensian doctrines, a renegade prelate, usurping the functions

of the Pope, convoked at intervals councils of heretic bishops. The

recalcitrant sectaries possessed houses of worship, ecclesiastical

residences, cemeteries. The piety or fears of the devout bestowed

upon their clergy valuable estates and great sums in legacies. That

portion of the community which did not accept the new belief--which

probably equalled the rest in numbers, and certainly surpassed it in

wealth and social importance, infected with the theories of Arabic

philosophy--was thoroughly infidel. Against such rebels the thunders

of the Vatican availed nothing. Apostolic admonitions were treated

with ridicule. Interdicts had lost their power. Even the Papal legate

was treated with scant courtesy. The missionary efforts of Dominic,

whose fiery zeal now began to raise him to eminence, met with signal

and ignominious failure. The Church--menaced at the same time by this

serious defection, by rebellion in her own temporal dependencies, and

by the aspiring genius of the youthful emperor, Frederick II.--was in

great distress. At no time in her history had she been confronted with

such powerful enemies or been exposed to more deadly perils. And yet

this beautiful land, now under the ban of the Papal See, had scarcely

a century before been regarded as one of the bulwarks of the Christian

faith. It was at Clermont that the first Crusade was proclaimed by

the Languedocian Bishop of Puy, as the representative of the Pope.

A hundred thousand persons from Southern France followed Peter the

Hermit to Palestine. The famous Order of Hospitallers was a Provençal

institution. A large proportion of its Grand Masters were natives of

Languedoc. The treasure contributed by its people to the prosecution

of these chimerical expeditions of Rome was far from inconsiderable.

Such a radical change had increased intelligence and the untrammelled

exercise of reason wrought in the minds of the inhabitants of the most

civilized country of Christian Europe.

The malignant genius of Innocent III. was, however, equal to the

emergency. In spite of the fact that ecclesiastical corruption was

principally responsible for the widespread revolt against Papal

authority, the Count of Toulouse and his feudatories were, in

exquisite irony, appointed the ministers of apostolic vengeance. The

mandate was issued by the Vatican that the Provençal nobility should

become the persecutors of their vassals and lay waste their own

possessions with fire and sword. No family ties, no considerations of

friendship or intimacy, no hereditary connections, were exempted from

the operation of this atrocious decree. When it had failed, as it was

certain to do, as a last decisive expedient, a bull was promulgated

announcing a crusade against the infidels of France. Their lands and

their lives were declared forfeited for the crime of heresy; all good

Catholics were called to arms; and the property of the rebellious

sectaries was promised as a reward to the faithful champions of the

Holy See. Every resource of Papal ingenuity and power was invoked.

From twelve hundred monasteries, bands of fanatics issued to preach

the crusade in all the states of Christendom. Plenary indulgence was

granted to the warrior who donned his armor in the cause of the Church.

Excommunication and the withdrawal of ecclesiastical protection were

denounced against any guilty of hesitation or lukewarmness. In addition

to the general absolution authorized by the Pope, the Crusaders were

during the continuance of this Holy War released from the payment

of all pecuniary obligations contracted prior to their enlistment,

a concession which was practically equivalent to the repudiation of

their debts. The answer to the summons of the Vatican was ready and

unanimous. Every absorbing passion and every ignoble impulse--love of

fame, religious zeal, national prejudice, desire of novelty, insatiable

cupidity, private malice--attracted the roving, the licentious, and the

unprincipled to the standard of the Cross. At that time Europe swarmed

with military adventurers, some of whom had served in Palestine, in the

trains of eminent personages; others, the refuse of disbanded armies,

were outlaws and criminals who subsisted by plunder and extortion.

To men like these, the announcement of such an enterprise appeared a

singular stroke of good fortune. Provence and Languedoc embraced the

richest territory, of its dimensions, west of Constantinople. Its

luxury and its opulence, its elegant civilization, the magnificence of

its cities, the vast treasures of its warehouses, the beauty of its

women, were well known to its envious and ambitious neighbors. It was

also known that no adequate means of defence existed, and that the

hands, which had in the midst of barbarism evoked these marvels, lacked

both the power and the resolution to protect them. The frontier was

exposed to the invader. No efficient military force could be assembled

to successfully resist a hostile advance. The stern qualifications of

a soldier were not to be obtained in the effeminate atmosphere of the

Provençal court, devoted to dancing, poetry, and amorous indulgence.

Physically as well as morally the soft and idle population of the

South was not fitted to cope with hardy adventurers accustomed to arms

from childhood, tried in a hundred battles, and exercised daily in the

broils and contests inseparable from the society of a turbulent and

lawless age.

No incentive was wanting to arouse the enthusiasm of every rank,--from

the king to the villain, from the archbishop to the monk. The monarchy

of France, whose feudal obligations nominally included the powerful

states of the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean, was, in fact, unable to

enforce its mandates beyond the Loire. The sovereignty of that rich

country, now abandoned to conquest, could not fail to immeasurably

augment the power and consequence of the crown. Ecclesiastical avarice

and revenge looked longingly upon the wealthy benefices usurped and

administered by heretics, the prospect of enormous forfeitures,

the certainty of a fearful retribution entailed by religious errors

and impious defiance of the admonitions of the Pope. Hope of the

unbridled indulgence of every brutal passion appealed to the baser and

more selfish instincts of the rabble,--the beggars, the robbers, the

soldiers of fortune. The popularity of the enterprise is shown by the

numbers who assumed the cross. It is estimated that from three hundred

thousand to half a million engaged in the war, of whom nearly a hundred

thousand were fighting men who had seen military service. There was not

a government in Europe at that time able to withstand the onslaught

of such a force. Appalled by the frightful prospect of impending

destruction, the Count of Toulouse consented to observe unconditionally

the requirements of the Holy See, in the delusive hope of averting from

his dominions the tempest which must involve all his subjects in one

common ruin. His punishment was inflicted with every circumstance of

public ignominy and personal degradation. His excommunication, long

since pronounced for heretical opinions which he did not entertain,

was not revoked. Summoned before an ecclesiastical council at Valence,

he acknowledged his sins and promised future obedience. Stripped naked

to the girdle, he was conducted, in the presence of a great multitude,

to the front of the principal church, where he abjured his errors,

and, his hands placed in those of the Legate, he swore allegiance to

the Pope. He conveyed to the clergy, as security for his obligations,

seven of the strongest castles in his dominions,--a fatal step, which

rendered his downfall, hitherto scarcely doubtful, now a matter of

absolute certainty. Then, a rope having been passed about his neck,

he was dragged through the aisle to the altar, where he was scourged

like the vilest criminal. His recantation was repeated, and absolution

was finally pronounced under condition of implicit submission, and

with the promise that he would assist in the prosecution of a war

which involved the devastation of his country and the extermination

of his subjects. These humiliating sacrifices, made with the implied

understanding that future immunity would be granted his vassals in case

they submitted to pontifical authority, proved unavailing. The clergy

placed their own construction upon matters in which they were at once

prosecutors and judges. Although the Count of Toulouse observed as

far as possible the degrading conditions through whose performance he

became reconciled to the Church, it was not the policy of Innocent to

deal leniently with those who had disobeyed her canons, questioned her

inspiration, or intercepted her revenues. Pretexts were easily found

under which Raymond was accused of having violated his covenants.

His castles were declared escheated to the Papacy. His actions were

carefully observed, and it became evident that his presence with the

Crusaders was enforced rather than voluntary. The great army which had

assembled to vindicate the outraged majesty of the Vicar of Christ now

clamored to be led to battle. Their irresistible numbers darkened the

plains of Lyons and spread consternation among the peasantry, whose

women they insulted and whose substance they consumed. The eminent

prelates of the French hierarchy sanctioned by their presence and their

example the most awful of outrages on human rights and intellectual

liberty. The religious character of the enterprise was indicated by

the predominance of the sacerdotal order; by the omnipresence of holy

emblems,--crosiers, censers, banners, relics; by the mitre of the

metropolitan; by the scallop-shell of the pilgrim; by the cowl and the

knotted cord of the friar; by the tattered garb and emaciated form of

the hermit. The clergy were headed by Arnold, Abbot of Citeaux, the

Papal Legate. Four archbishops and ten bishops, in their official

vestments, were conspicuous in the van. Monkish zealots, whose untaught

eloquence had inflamed the worst passions of the ignorant populace

of Europe, brandishing crucifix and sword, and calling for vengeance

against the abhorred sectaries whom divine justice had delivered as

a prey to the elect, foaming at the mouth, and uttering maledictions

and inarticulate cries, rushed to and fro through the maddened and

tumultuous throng. All wore the cross embroidered upon the breast,

in contradistinction to the Crusaders of Palestine, who wore it upon

the shoulder. In the train of the higher clergy were numerous priests

and thousands of dependents and retainers. The Archdeacon of Paris,

a distinguished member of the church militant, was present in the

capacity of chief engineer. Despite his pacific calling, he proved

himself, in the discharge of the seemingly incongruous duties of his

new profession, one of the most talented soldiers of the age. The

shrewd and politic Philip Augustus, while anxious to secure for the

Crown of France the substantial benefits certain to result from the

conquest and spoliation of the great feudatories of the South, yet

unwilling to share the ignominy attaching to the undertaking, promoted

it in secret, but refused to openly employ the resources of his kingdom

in such a cause. The French nobility also, for the most part, held

aloof; but the names of the Duke of Burgundy and the Counts of Nevers

and St. Pol have come down to us as instruments of the apostolic wrath

which extirpated the Albigensian heresy.

Of all the leaders, spiritual or secular, Simon de Montfort, Earl

of Leicester, was the most zealous and distinguished. An English

adventurer, of ancient and illustrious lineage, he had long followed

the exciting career of a soldier of fortune, and had won a high

reputation for courage and military capacity among the Christian

warriors who contended with the infidel in the wars of the Holy Land.

In his political and social relations, De Montfort was a man of

exceptional probity, courtesy, and honor; but in matters that involved

the maintenance of ecclesiastical supremacy, he was a monster of

savage brutality, a remorseless persecutor, an incarnate fiend. His

bravery, his fanaticism, and his talents for war early secured for him

the admiration of the clergy, whose influence eventually raised him

to the supreme command of the motley host which their exhortations

had assembled. The infamy of the Albigensian crusade is inseparably

associated with his name, which has descended to posterity as the

synonym of all that is merciless, base, and treacherous in the history

of religious persecution. Attendant upon their feudal lords were long

retinues of vassals, resplendent in sumptuous armor and gaudy liveries,

and the sturdy yeomanry, now beginning to assert their importance

in the mailed armies of Europe. The promise of booty and glory, of

pardon for past offences and of immunity for future crimes, had, as in

former Crusades, drawn from every quarter the dregs of the city and

the camp, the footpad and the outlaw, the merciless slaves of rapine,

lust, and superstition. This mob was for the most part unarmed, but

many were provided with scythes and other implements of husbandry,

impotent against the armor of the knight, but amply sufficient for the

destruction of those whom age, infirmity, or the disadvantages of sex

rendered incapable of defence. Confident in their immense superiority

in numbers, this fanatical and disorderly rabble swept like a tornado

over the smiling and fertile territory of the Rhone. The authority of

the Count of Toulouse, who, incapacitated from hostile action by his

humiliating compact with the Pope, was forced to aid the invaders,

had been assumed by his nephew, Raymond Roger. The latter, relying

upon the strength of his principal cities, Béziers and Carcassonne,

two of the best-fortified fortresses in Europe, awaited the approach

of the enemy with the calm intrepidity born of the consciousness of

right and the resolution of despair. While the Crusaders were pitching

their camp, they were surprised by a sally of the besieged. Overwhelmed

by numbers, the latter were driven back; the gateways, choked by the

fugitives, permitted the ingress of the enemy, and almost in an instant

the fate of the populous and thriving city of Béziers was decided. In

the horrible butchery that ensued no quarter was shown. The old and

the young, the strong and the weak, perished alike under the weapons

of the infuriated assailants. Catholics obtained no immunity by reason

of their belief, but fell by the side of their Albigensian neighbors.

When the soldiers, in the heat of the massacre, demanded of the Papal

Legate how they might distinguish the orthodox believer from the

heretic, that pious monster replied, “Kill them all; God will know

His own!” In the Roman Catholic cathedral seven thousand corpses were

counted after the assault. Priests, clad in their sacred vestments,

fell at the very foot of the altar. The population of the city had

been greatly increased by the neighboring peasantry, who had sought

protection behind its ramparts. Of all this multitude, not a single

person escaped alive. The estimates of those thus devoted to slaughter

are variously given by different writers at from twelve to sixty

thousand. The city was pillaged and set on fire, and even the churches

and monasteries belonging to the See of Rome disappeared in the

indiscriminate destruction. The invading army, flushed with triumph,

and not yet satiated with blood, next invested Carcassonne, whose

fortifications, still stronger than those of Béziers, offered some

hope of successful resistance. Its resources, however, were seriously

impaired by the number of refugees who had fled thither for safety. In

a few days the water gave out. Defective sanitary conditions, increased

by great masses of human beings crowded together in a limited space,

produced a pestilence. A surrender was agreed upon, by which the

inhabitants were permitted to depart, leaving behind them all their

effects. In consequence of these rigorous measures, the entire country

was filled with starving beggars, many of whom, but a week before, had

been living in affluence and luxury. The Viscount, Raymond Roger, whose

safe-conduct had been perfidiously violated, was imprisoned and died

suddenly, probably of poison.

The examples of Béziers and Carcassonne were not lost upon the

terror-stricken people of Languedoc. Strongholds and villages submitted

by the hundred without resistance; the garrisons of those castles

which held out were massacred to a man; the lands of the heretic

were parcelled out among the crusaders, under the suzerainty of that

faithful and consistent servant of the Papacy, the Earl of Leicester.

The establishment of the Inquisition, under the auspices of the

Dominican order of friars, completed the ruin of the country, whose

civilization had long been a shining beacon amidst the intellectual

darkness of Christendom. The classic monuments which had escaped

the violence of former ages were broken to pieces or defaced. The

destruction of great cities, the dread of mysterious tribunals,

whose victims, immured in filthy dungeons or devoted, in the name of

religion, to awful tortures and a lingering death, never saw again the

light of day, the insatiable rapacity of the clergy, the tyranny of

alien masters, depopulated entire districts and turned the commerce

upon which the prosperity of Southern France principally depended into

foreign channels, where the property and person of the merchant could

be reasonably secure. The beautiful and melodious language of the

troubadours, the parent of the modern idioms of Latin derivation, which

seemed about to be adopted by all the people of French extraction, was

abandoned, and degraded to a patois which, much corrupted, is still

spoken by the Gascon and Catalan peasantry. The gay diversions, the

dances, the literary contests, the musical chants of the jongleur, the

passionate and satirical verses of the poet, the banquets, the Courts

of Love, the hunting parties, the tournaments, disappeared forever.

The Albigensian crusade is one of the darkest blots upon the religious

history of Rome. It gave rise to the infamous maxim, then first

officially promulgated by Papal authority, that no contract made with

heretics was binding upon a member of the Roman Catholic faith. Then

the civil power was for the first time employed in the systematic and

unrelenting suppression of independent thought. Then was organized and

set in motion the most gigantic and effective engine of persecution

that the world has ever known. Then was perfected that grand and

imposing fabric of government which, begun and improved by the genius

of many successive pontiffs, rose to such a towering height during

the administration of Innocent III.,--a system in whose policy the

religious and the secular powers, while theoretically separate, were,

in fact, closely co-ordinated and combined; which, while draining

of its revenues every kingdom within its grasp, extolled beyond all

virtues the merit of evangelical poverty; which, while discouraging

philosophical studies, endeavored to secure a monopoly of learning,

thus adding to the superiority attaching to a sacred character and

profession the influence derived from mental attainments and unusual

erudition; which fastened upon Europe an intolerable despotism, under

which it was doomed to suffer for more than three hundred years,

and which brought to the prosecution of its ambitious designs every

device of intrigue and every method of intimidation, enforced by the

infliction of punishments whose ingenious and merciless atrocity had

been hitherto unknown to the political oppression of ancient or of

mediæval times.

In this way was the absolute power of the Papal system consolidated by

one of the greatest of the Supreme Pontiffs, through the extirpation of

two grand civilizations which for more than a century had represented

the intelligence, the culture, and the science of Christian Europe.

I have thus related--not in their chronological order, but in the

order of their importance--the events growing out of the rise,

development, and suppression of the intellectual revolutions which,

in the thirteenth century, appeared in Sicily and Southern France,

for the reason that they were the direct and legitimate results of

Arab conquest and the subsequent promulgation of Arab philosophical

opinions. A striking analogy exists between the circumstances

respectively connected with these two great movements of the human

mind. Both arose in regions which had been subject to Moslem

domination. In both, after the extinction of Saracen rule, the

customs of the vanquished race long maintained their influence over

the ruder conquerors, who insensibly adopted and diligently observed

them. Commercial relations strengthened the bonds already existing

between Christian master and Moslem tributary. In the heyday of their

prosperity, the courts of Toulouse and Palermo were, in all but name

and costume, Mohammedan. Indeed, one of these exceptions scarcely

applied to the Sicilian capital, where the ample robes and spotless

turbans of the Moorish philosophers suggested at every step the habits

and traditions of the Orient. In Sicily, the Arabic language was

almost universally used by the nobility and the mercantile classes; in

Provence and Languedoc, intercourse with the Moorish principalities

of Spain rendered its adoption necessary to a large portion of the

community; in both countries its study formed an essential part of a

learned education. The general trend of scientific thought, and its

practical adaptation to the intellectual requirements of the people, is

disclosed by the establishment of those two great literary foundations,

the medical colleges of Salerno and Montpellier. In the curriculums

of these magnificent schools, which were by no means confined to

instruction in the art of healing, Arabic and Hebrew literature,

taught by professors of those nationalities, predominated. The Romance

idiom, more widely diffused than any other tongue spoken in Europe

since the dissolution of the Roman Empire, has, in a measure, survived

the calamities of conquest and revolution; still indicates its Arabic

derivation by words daily heard upon the banks of the Seine and the

Danube; and forms no inconsiderable portion of the language of the

English-speaking world. In Italy, it made greater progress than in any

other country, advancing simultaneously through the North from France

and through the South from Sicily, superseding the unformed dialects

of the Latin Peninsula, and, through its adoption by the potentates

of Ferrara and Montferrat, it reached even the Greek principality

of Thessalonica; its impress is to-day apparent in Portuguese, in

Castilian, and in the numerous soft and guttural dialects of Spain.

From Moorish sources, through intercourse with the Hispano-Arabs and

the medium of French and Sicilian conquest, were derived those maxims

of chivalry which modified the turbulent barbarism of feudal Europe,

the courteous gallantry of the tournament, idolatrous devotion to the

female character, a high sense of honor and personal dignity, and the

refining amenities of social life.

From these originals sprang the germ of modern literature and the

earliest models of modern poetry. The Arabs were unrivalled masters

of improvisation, an art which attained an extraordinary degree of

popularity in the Middle Ages; and the employment of rhyme, the most

important and striking characteristic of modern versification, was

familiar to the Bedouin centuries before the appearance of Mohammed.

The vagrant bard of the Desert was the literary progenitor of the

troubadour, as was the Arabian buffoon and story-teller the prototype

of his companion the jongleur, whose broad pleasantry and suggestive

antics diverted the appreciative and not over-delicate assemblies of

the Provençal and Sicilian courts. Through the schools of Montpellier

and Salerno, contemporaneous seats of learning and both dominated

by Arabian influence, the philosophy of Averroes, the botany of

Ibn-Beithar, the surgery of Abulcasis, the agriculture of Ibn-al-Awam,

the histories of Ibn-al-Khatib, became familiar to the benighted and

priest-ridden people of Europe.

It was, however, in the impetus it gave to the assertion of the right

of private interpretation in religious matters that Moorish influence

was most marked and permanent. One of the principal tenets of the

Moslem creed was toleration. On the other hand, the first duty of the

Christian was unquestioning obedience to his spiritual advisers. The

rapid and almost miraculous development of the human mind during the

thirteenth century was the inevitable consequence of a policy based

upon those principles whose application had promoted the wonderful

progress of every nation ruled by the enlightened successors of

Mohammed.

The parallel existing between the Sicilian and Languedocian

civilizations in origin, in progress, in thought, in education, in

skepticism, in the repudiation of ecclesiastical interference, is

continued even in the date and the method of their extirpation. Both

reached their climax during the pontificate of Innocent III., the

exemplar of Papal autocracy, the ruthless foe of religious freedom, the

evil genius of the thirteenth century. Each was destroyed by a crusade

which under the mask of piety appealed to the most sordid impulses

and degrading instincts of humanity. Both were followed by conflicts,

seditions, and persecutions which endured for centuries. But the

fires, while apparently quenched, still smouldered under the ashes of

their victims. The principles advocated by philosophical thinkers at

the courts of Raymond and Frederick formed the basis of the creeds of

Lollard, Huguenot, Puritan. All of the blessings of civil and religious

liberty now enjoyed by the enlightened nations of the earth, all of

the wonderful mechanical contrivances which lighten toil, diminish

suffering, facilitate communication, encourage commerce, promote

manufactures, and conduce to the general happiness of the human race,

are indirectly derived from the impulse given to philosophical inquiry

and scientific progress by the Norman kings of Sicily, the Emperor

Frederick II., and the Counts of Provence, animated by the spirit and

emulous of the achievements of Arab civilization. These inestimable

benefits are inseparable from the innate right of every individual to

freely exercise and profit by his mental faculties. That right the

Church has always denied as subversive of her alleged prescriptive

title to universal sovereignty over the opinions of mankind. In Europe

it was first publicly asserted upon the banks of the Guadalquivir, and

the advantages its untrammelled practice affords the present generation

are a priceless legacy of the founders of the Moslem empire in Spain.