entertained respecting it, it will be necessary to say a few words.
That the Sovereign is in no way responsible seems in modern times to
be considered an immutable axiom, or rather the first of all axioms in
the science of government; and whenever a monarch in the history of
the middle ages, however vicious he may be and however forgetful of
his dignity, meets with the treatment of the Emperor Henry IV.,
political indignation is raised to the highest pitch. No one can have
the slightest intention of questioning the perfect justness of the
above state-axiom, under certain given circumstances. But, if the
question be a parallel between the middle ages and modern times, we
may oppose to the scandal of the ecclesiastical excommunication
pronounced against this prince during the former period, the still
more fatal example which has occurred within the last three centuries,
of the public execution of several monarchs, and of the assassination
of many others. Thus, in this respect, the history of the middle age
stands purer; and this warns us to decide with less precipitancy on
the superiority of our own standard of political morality, and on the
greater perfection of modern principles of state-policy.[6] According
to the feeling of right, and the prevailing maxims of public law in
that age, a mutual controul and responsibility subsisted between
church and state, and between the heads of either. In the most
esteemed constitutions of modern states, there is also a mutual
dependence and possible controul. Thus the prince may dissolve the
parliament, or resist its enactments by his veto; and, on the
other hand, the parliament, by withholding its sanction to the
imposition of taxes, or refusing the grant of subsidies, may weaken
the sinews of government, and summon, not indeed the king, who seems
to be regarded as a mere cipher, but the ministry to a most severe
reckoning. The government loses all stay and support, when the
Opposition obtains a permanent and decided majority. Whether this
mutual dependence and controul in the modern theory of government be
less dangerous than in the ancient system, is a question which it is
not so easy to decide. As all the institutions of the middle age had a
religious spirit and character, it cannot excite our surprise that
this opposition between the spiritual and temporal power, and this
mutual dependence of the heads of church and state should have been
founded in religion, and in the religious character and purpose of the
Imperial, as well as of the Papal, dignity. It was only by the
excesses of passion and violence, by the exaggerated proceedings of
both the spiritual and temporal powers, as well as by unfortunate
accidents and a human imperfection, by no means inherent in the nature
of the thing itself, that the dispute between church and state grew to
such a fearful magnitude, was so prolonged, and often became almost
incurable. But how easily, even then, peace might be restored between
the spiritual and temporal powers by the wisdom, the prudence, the
good-will, and conciliatory temper of both, is proved by the peaceable
termination of the quarrel respecting investiture under the successor
of Henry IV. In the sequel, indeed, the harsh, stern, inflexible
character of the Ghibelline Emperors, especially Barbarossa, again
perplexed this question; when from the contest growing more and more
violent betwixt the Guelfs and Ghibellines, the political schism
became wider and wider, and discord seemed to be again the mistress of
the world.
[6] In confirmation of what Schlegel asserts in the
text, I shall cite a few passages from some
distinguished Protestant Historians of Germany. To shew
my readers the enlarged, liberal and enlightened views
taken by the Protestant writers of that country on the
political influence of the Papacy in the middle age,
and on the services which at that momentous period the
hierarchy rendered to the cause of social order,
liberty and civilization, it were easy to transcribe
matter more than sufficient to fill a volume. Let a few
examples suffice.--"The Northern nations," says the
celebrated historian of Switzerland, John Muller,
rushing in upon the most beautiful countries of Europe,
trampling under foot, or disturbing and convulsing all
social institutions, menaced the whole Western world
with a barbarism similar to that which, under the
Ottoman sceptre, has obliterated every thing good,
great and beautiful that ancient Greece and Asia had
produced. Yet the Bishops and other Dignitaries
(Versteher) of the church, strong in their authority,
contrived to impose a restraint on those giants of the
North who, as regards intelligence, were but children.
They would not have been more successful than the Greek
prelates, had they been subject to four different
Patriarchs. The Popes of Rome, (whose primitive history
is as obscure and defective as that of the ancient
Roman Republic, since we know little of the first
Popes, except that they devoted their lives for the
faith, as Decius had done for his country,) the Popes,
we say, employed their authority with the same address
which we admire in the ancient Senate, to render their
see independent, subject to its immediate action the
whole Western hierarchy, and establish its sway, far
beyond the boundaries of the ancient empire, on the
ruins of the Northern religions. Thus whoever refused
to honour the Christ, trembled before the Pope; and one
faith and one church were preserved in Europe, amid the
breaking up and subdivision of the newly-founded
kingdoms into a thousand petty principalities. We know
what Pope made Charlemagne the first Emperor; _but who
made the first Pope_? The Pope, they say, was only a
Bishop; yes, but at the same time, the _Holy Father_,
the _Sovereign Pontiff_, the great Caliph, (as he was
called by Ho-Albufreda, Prince of Hamath) of all the
kingdoms and principalities, of all the lordships and
cities of the West. It is he who controuled by the fear
of God the stormy youth of our modern states. At
present even, when his authority is no longer
formidable, he is still very puissant by the
benedictions which he showers; he is still an object of
veneration to innumerable hearts, honoured by the kings
who honour the nations, invested with a power, before
which in the long succession of ages, from the Cæsars
to the House of Hapsburg, a host of nations and all
their great names have vanished.
"We declaim against the Pope! as if it were such a
misfortune that there should exist an authority to
superintend the practice of Christian morality, and to
say to ambition and to despotism, Halt!--so far, and no
further! _Bisher, und nicht weiter_!" So speaks the
illustrious John Muller. The celebrated Herder allows
"that without the hierarchy, Europe in all probability
had become the prey of tyrants, the theatre of eternal
wars, or even a desert."
"The hierarchy," says Beck, "opposed the progress of
despotism in Europe, preserved the elements of
civilization, and upheld in the recollection of men
what is so easily effaced--the ties which bind earth to
Heaven. Those ignorant men, as we affect to call them,
have settled almost all the countries of Europe. The
fruits of that time are the formation of the third
estate, whence dates the true existence of nations--and
the establishment of cities, wherein social life and
true liberty were developed."--_Beck on the Middle
Age_, page 13. _Leipzick_, 1824.
"The weak," says Ruhs, in his Manual of the History of
the Middle Age, "then found in spiritual authority a
better protection against the encroachments of the
powerful than afterwards in the balance of power--a
system which, as it was _a thing purely abstract,
devoid of all external guarantee_, must soon have lost
all influence. The Pope was always present to terminate
the wars which had broken out among Christian princes,
and to protect the people against the injustice and
tyranny of their rulers. The Clergy therefore every
where showed themselves opposed to the power of kings,
when the latter wished to become perfectly
absolute--they wished not to domineer over them, but
confine them within the legitimate bounds of their
authority. The Priesthood was consequently always for
princes, when powerful vassals attacked the rights of
the Sovereign--they were the natural and constant
guardians of the rights and liberty of all
classes."--_Manual of the History of the Middle Age_.
1816.--_Trans._
END OF LECTURE XIII.
LECTURE XIV.
On the struggles of the Guelfs and Ghibellines.--Spirit of the
Ghibelline age.--Origin of romantic poetry and art.--Character
of the scholastic science and the old jurisprudence.--Anarchical
state of Western Europe.
The most rapid sketch of the history of the middle age, if it
contained but a few lively, characteristic and faithful traits on a
subject inexhaustible in itself, would suffice to convince any
reasonable man that great characters, (abounding almost more than in
any other period of history,) important interests, mighty motives, and
lofty feelings and ideas were there in mutual collision; and that in
what is called the anarchy of the middle age we find an active and
stirring life, the most splendid feats of heroism, and many luminous
traces of a higher power. The most careful consideration and profound
investigation of the history of those ages, invariably discovers that
all that was then great and good in the state, as well as in the
church, proceeded from Christianity, and from the wonderful efficacy
of religious principles. Whatever was imperfect, defective, and
hurtful, belonged not to that moral principle which animated society,
and which was itself the best, the noblest, and the soundest; but was
in the character of men, we might almost say, in the character of the
age itself, which, though perhaps not originally and purposely
selfish, had yet become so in the violence of the conflict. And by
selfishness, I do not precisely understand a vulgar self-interest, or
an ordinary ambition, but that absolute will or conduct which springs
from some unalterable resolution, which, hurrying from one extreme to
another, is sure to produce a perpetual alternation of extreme
measures. In some cases this conduct proceeded from a want of
penetration, prudence, and steadiness, which did not always accompany
the deeds of heroic enthusiasm, the astonishing energy of will and
strength of character which distinguished the men of those ages. The
principle then really bad, the principle hostile to good, must be
ascribed to that inclination to discord, innate in man, or which at
least has become his second nature--an inclination which, when united
with those other mighty qualities of the age, assumed indeed the most
formidable shape.
The whole middle age, however, must not by any means be depicted as a
period of universal anarchy; as, from the great difference of times,
and the fact that much in the manners and political institutions of
those ages is now scarcely intelligible, modern writers are but too
apt to indulge in this strain of censure. Above all, we must be
careful to distinguish in the history of the middle ages the variety
of epochs. As long as those religious principles on which church and
state depended, were maintained in their unity and intregrity, the
social stability of that first and happier period is indeed
remarkable, and forms a striking contrast with the succeeding age. For
private feuds, restrained within certain bounds by the manners of
chivalry and the laws of honour, or the more protracted, and
frequently renewed struggles of a warlike nation to repel the inroads
of barbarians, or the aggressions of turbulent neighbours, are no
adequate proofs of general anarchy. But a full knowledge and just
appreciation of the power of principle, which during that better
period was the Christian foundation of the state, is of so much more
importance to our age, as in these times when principle has given way
to the mutable opinion of the moment, and the latter exerts so mighty
an influence on public life; though men have the power to throw off
this ursurped dominion, they will not return to that unity and
stabilty of principle, however strongly they may feel the necessity of
restoring its saving influence. No parallel could be more profitable
and instructive than the comparison between an age and a state, where
principle was predominant, and another where opinion was paramount.
All that was great and good in the history of the middle age, as I
observed at the commencement of this lecture, existed only in
fragments, and this has very much contributed to heighten the
appearance of anarchy throughout the whole of this great period of
human history. Of this the blame must be sought for in a combination
of many injurious causes, and in the resistance of many opposing
elements. That wonderful power of regeneration, by which the whole of
Western Christendom, after every mighty destruction, and reign of
confusion in church and state, has, in a form somewhat modified,
sprung up anew, renovated and exalted, can be ascribed only to that
religion which was in Christian countries the first, and for so many
centuries the apparently almost indestructible support of the social
edifice. In many and memorable periods of regeneration, down to our
own times, this truth has been repeatedly manifested; unless perhaps
this self-renovating power conspicuous in the progress of Christian
Europe, as well as of the particular nations composing it, languishing
and decaying by degrees, become at last utterly extinct.
Among the characteristic, remarkable, and peculiarly Christian
institutions of the middle age, we ought especially to mention that
ecclesiastical truce, or peace of God, which towards the commencement
of the eleventh century, opposed a powerful barrier to the growing and
restless spirit of private warfare. Without its being possible to
specify exactly, how or where this institution first arose, it was at
once proclaimed in several places, and generally received with pious
faith, as a voice of reconciliation from above, an immediate
revelation and benign dispensation of divine Providence; and every
week the tolling of the bell announced the sacred truce from Wednesday
evening to Monday morning, during which time all feuds were to
subside, and all hostilities to cease. It may indeed here be asked in
the spirit of modern times, why were only four, and not the whole
seven days of the week fixed upon, for the cessation of disorder? and
it may be further said that a severe criminal code, and a prompt,
vigorous and enlightened administration of the law, would have
rendered such expedients unnecessary. And it is thus that men speak
and reason without any knowledge of that age; for many feuds,
troubles, and contests then existed, as in all ages have existed and
still exist, which no criminal legislation can reach: and who will not
deem it the part of prudence and a real gain, when peace is not
attainable, to obtain at least a safe and honourable armistice, or to
subtract from the principle of war four sevenths of its baneful
influence and actual duration? And how happy would men have accounted
themselves, if, in other and later times of disorder, when nought was
reverenced or respected, and every thing sacred was an object of
hatred and persecution, they could, amid the general confusion, have
found shelter under such a wall of safety, or been blessed with such a
holiday of peace, though only at particular times of the week! We
should rather admire the power of religion, whereby such a prohibition
without the aid of external force, or secular authority, and running
directly counter to the ruling passion of the age, was received with
such pious faith, and followed with such humble docility.
In the first crusade, religious feeling and enthusiasm was the great
spring of action; and in the outset, at least, it was far more the
glowing eloquence of Peter the hermit, his affecting description of
the Holy Land, and of the holy places groaning under the Saracen yoke,
which contributed to bring about this memorable expedition, than the
pretended policy of the Popes for causing the depression of regal
power, and the promotion of popular freedom. These mighty
consequences, though in fact historically true, became apparent only
at a much later period, and so far from being pre-concerted, were then
not even foreseen. As the first Crusade occurred in the most brilliant
period of Norman glory, the Norman heroes, especially those from
France, took a very active and prominent part in it. The warfare which
the Saracens waged against Christendom was considered (and then
perhaps not without reason,) as a state of permanent and universal
hostility. The chivalrous and defensive wars of Christian nations
against the unbelievers were looked upon in the same light; and if we
may judge from posterior events, Jerusalem and Egypt, in that long and
memorable contest between Europe and Asia, could very well be
regarded, both in a military and political point of view, as the
bulwarks of Christendom. Feats of prodigious, and almost incredible,
heroism were achieved in the Holy Land; and, at the close of the
eleventh century, the victorious cross was planted in the holy city,
and the pious Christian hero, Godfrey, proclaimed King of Jerusalem,
though this title, as suited only to the divine Son of David, he with
all humility renounced.
In this holy city the first two spiritual orders of chivalry sprang
up; the knights of St. John, who took up arms for the defence of
pilgrimage, and in their vows combined the care of the sick pilgrims
with the management of the sword; and the Templars, so called after
the temple of Solomon, and from a recollection of the remarkable
secrets connected with that edifice. Chivalrous institutions of this
kind, wherein Christianity contrived to blend the most opposite
qualities and inclinations of human nature, could not have sprung up
under a mathematical government of reason, or in a state where every
thing is reduced to the level of a dead uniformity, and general
equality, and where all feeling and personality are effaced. But the
voice of ages has decided completely in favour of these marvellous
institutes, and even in our own times, amid all the changes and
fluctuations of opinion, they have preserved the respect, and
obtained the forbearance, of mankind.
Even in the second Crusade which took place about fifty years later,
when the new progress of the Saracen arms appeared to threaten the
safety of the holy city, it was far more the pious eloquence of St.
Bernard than any scheme or calculation of policy, which set the whole
European world in motion. The number of warriors and armed pilgrims
who, under the guidance of the Emperor Conrad, and the King of France,
poured in upon the Holy Land, is computed at more than half a million.
The religious enthusiasm and chivalric heroism which formed the sole
and animating principle of the whole enterprise, were not always
accompanied with sufficient prudence, wisdom and circumspection. The
want of these qualities at least, as regarded the influences of
climate, the physical wants of so vast an army, and a geographical
knowledge of localities, is too often apparent; and in default of this
necessary foresight and preparatory information, many thousands
perished in the second as well as in the first Crusade; a fate which
indeed is not unfrequent in wars, where great bodies of people are
exposed to toil and hardship in a foreign climate. These expeditions
were indeed like new migrations of nations, which took an opposite
direction from the first, and rolled backward from Europe towards
ancient Asia. The great multitude of men engaged, would sufficiently
account for these memorable expeditions, as it proves the redundance
of population in Europe, which sought on this occasion, and by means
of this kind, to disburden itself of its surplus numbers. And if this
numerous population may have given rise to, or afforded materials for,
turbulence and anarchy, still on the other hand, it furnishes a proof
that that anarchy was not of so destructive and depopulating a nature,
as the descriptions of modern historians would sometimes lead us to
suppose.
The real point of transition in German history from good to
evil,--from those Christian principles which were ever predominant in
the earlier period, to the unappeasable contests of the Guelfs and
Ghibellines in the later middle age, must be fixed in the reign of the
Emperor Frederick the First. The hostile treatment of the old Saxon
race, the destruction of that first and greatest of the old national
dutchies of the Germans, was occasioned by the jealousy of the East
Franconians under the dynasty of that race; and this measure, begun
during the reign, (in every respect so mischievous) of Henry the
Fourth, who thus became chargeable with this mighty injustice towards
the whole German nation, was now brought to a head by the Emperor
Barbarossa. And thus, with the most signal ingratitude, was cut off by
the root that noble stem whence German glory and German power had
sprung; for the reigns of the great Saxon Emperors form precisely the
most prosperous and most brilliant period of German history, such
indeed as has never been again witnessed. With the same unrelenting
severity and atrocious cruelty, this Ghibelline Emperor destroyed the
confederate cities of Lombardy, and with them crushed the fair plant
of Italian civilization just then beginning to blossom.
These two great historical parties--the Guelfs and Ghibellines, are
the same which we meet with in other periods of history, and even in
our own times, though under other names, often in a form very
different from that of the present day, and not always in the same
relative position towards each other; but in the middle age they
appeared in the larger and more gigantic proportions of the vigorous,
heroic character belonging to that epoch. There is ever the one party
aspiring after greater freedom, and the other immovably attached to
the ancient faith, and to the principles it inculcates. That the
liberal principles of innovation should, according to the peculiar
complexion which these opinions take in every age, have emanated even
from imperial power, and should have sought to establish their
dominion in the world by force of arms, is not improbable in itself;
and examples of a like kind are not wanting in history. And in this
shape we find these principles in the middle age, where for a long
while they exerted the greatest influence, and at last became almost
predominant. On the other hand the legitimate attachment to the old
permanent principle of faith appeared here in the form of an
ecclesiastical opposition to secular ascendancy. But in the time of
Barbarossa, the solemn reconciliation which took place between this
Emperor and the Pope, restored harmony between the heads of church and
state, and at last composed the long feud. This powerful Emperor,
accompanied by the King of France, and the lion-hearted Richard,
undertook a new crusade, in order to deliver Jerusalem which had been
wrested from the Christians by Saladin; but before he could accomplish
his design, death terminated his active career.
Although the last Ghibelline Emperor Frederick the Second, had been
educated by Pope Innocent III., a Pontiff distinguished by his
enlarged views, and great intellectual endowments, and who had
undertaken the care and guardianship of the Emperor's childhood; yet
the old dispute broke out again under this monarch with more violence
and more implacable animosity than ever. This quarrel was never more
appeased, at least during the sway of Frederick II. and his family;
and it terminated only with the downfal of the Hohenstaufen, the most
powerful of all the princely houses of the middle age. Yet the
Ghibelline name, heretofore stamped in characters of blood upon the
earth, subsisted a long while yet; and for ages after, the Ghibelline
spirit continued to be the prevailing one in Europe. Although the
later Swabian Princes and Emperors of this house, such as Henry VI.
and others, were the patrons of poetry, and of the Provençal
minstrels and German Minnesingers; yet they all resembled one another
in an unbending sternness of character. Henry VI. perpetrated the most
enormous cruelties at Naples; the blood-thirsty Ezzelin, while
Governor of Lombardy under Frederick the Second, has left behind him
so fearful a recollection in Italy, such a character in the pages of
history, that his very name need only be mentioned, and will dispense
with all minuter historical details. The last of this family,
Conradin, was an innocent victim of the public hatred borne to his
ancestors, and he perished on a scaffold at Naples by the hands of
Charles of Anjou, the brother of St. Lewis, who had seized on the
kingdom of the two Sicilies, the lawful patrimony of the royal youth.
The Emperor Frederick the Second--a prince who for his times had
received a most polite education, and was endowed with the greatest
and most original powers of mind,--was not only accused by the Pope in
the excommunication he pronounced against him of a secret but decided
enmity to the Christian religion; but in the general opinion of the
world, laboured under the same suspicion. However, by a prudent peace,
which this prince concluded with the Sultan of Egypt, he terminated
his crusade more successfully than his grandfather had done his own;
for by this he won back the holy places, and placed the crown of
Jerusalem on his head. He was the first who brought into Europe the
Arabic translation of Aristotle's works; and as at this period a
mighty change took place in the science and philosophy of the middle
age, and as even the art and poetry of European nations began to
display new life and energy, it may not be amiss to give here a rapid
sketch of these important changes, as they serve to characterize the
times.