THE CARLOVINGIANS--THE GREAT SIEGE OF PARIS BY THE NORMANS--THE GERMS OF
FEUDALISM
At the head of the establishment of every Merovingian chief was his
mayor, or major domus, who administered his domains and acted as deputy
when his master was non-resident or away at the wars. A similar official
of the king's household, the mayor of the palace, likewise presided over
the royal council and tribunal in the absence or during the minority of
the king.
In 622, when Dagobert became king of Austrasia, one Pepin of Landen,
known as Pepin le Vieux, was made mayor of the palace and, associated
with St. Arnoulf, bishop of Metz, was appointed ward of the young king.
A marriage between Pepin's daughter and the son of St. Arnoulf resulted
in the birth of Pepin of Heristal, who in the anarchy that followed on
Dagobert's death succeeded in crushing Ebroin,[27] the king-maker, mayor
of the palace of Neustria. Pepin then seized the royal treasury,
installed Thierry III. as king of the Franks and himself as mayor of the
palace. Pepin's successor, for the office of mayor had now become
hereditary, was Charles Martel, his son by Alfaide, a fair and noble
concubine. He it was, who by his valour and address saved Western Europe
from the Mussulman at Tours, and made glorious his name in Christendom.
At his death, when crossing the Alps to defend the Pope against the
Arian Lombards, the leadership of the Franks passed to his sons
Carloman and Pepin the Short, of whom the latter, on his brother's
retirement to the cloister at the famous Italian Benedictine monastery
at Monte Cassino, held undivided sway.
Charles Martel, although buried with the Frankish kings at St. Denis,
was content with the title of Duke of the Franks, and hesitated to
proclaim himself king. He, like the other mayors of the palace, ruled
through feeble and pensioned puppets when they did not contemptuously
leave the throne vacant. In 751 Pepin sent two prelates to sound Pope
Zacchary, who, being hard pressed by the Lombards, lent a willing ear to
their suit, agreed that he who was king in fact should be made so in
name, and authorised Pepin to assume the title of king. Chilperic III.,
like a discarded toy, was relegated to a monastery at St. Omer, and
Pepin the Short anointed at Soissons by St. Boniface, bishop of Mayence,
from that sacred "ampul full of chrism" which an angel of Paradise had
brought to St. Rémi wherewith to anoint Clovis at Rheims. In the year
754 Stephen III., the first pope who had honoured Paris by his presence,
came to ask the reward of his predecessor's favour and was lodged at St.
Denis. There he anointed Pepin anew, with his sons Charles and Carloman,
and compelled the Frankish chieftains, under pain of excommunication, to
swear allegiance to them and their descendants.
The city of Lutetia had much changed since the messengers of Pope
Fabianus entered five centuries before. On that southern hill where
formerly stood the Roman camp and cemetery were now the great basilica
and abbey of St. Genevieve. The amphitheatre and probably much of the
palace of the Cæsars were in ruins, all stripped of their marbles to
adorn the new Christian churches. Extensive abbatial buildings and a
church resplendent with marble and gold, on the west, were dedicated to
St. Vincent, and were henceforth to be known as St. Germain of the
Meadows (_des Prés_), for the saint's body had been translated from the
chapel of St. Symphorien in the vestibule to the high altar of the abbey
church a few weeks before the pope's arrival at St. Denis. The Cité[28]
was still held within the decayed Roman walls, and a wooden bridge, the
Petit Pont, crossed the south arm of the Seine. On the site of the old
pagan temple to Jupiter by the market-place stood a new and magnificent
basilica to Our Lady. The devotion of the _Nautæ_ had been transferred
from Apollo to St. Nicholas, patron of shipmen, and Mercury had given
place to St. Michael, and to each of those saints oratories were
erected. Other churches and oratories adorned the island, dedicated to
St. Stephen, St. Gervais, and St. Denis of the Prison (_de la chartre_),
built where the saint was imprisoned by the north wall and where,
abandoned by his followers, he was visited by his divine Lord, who
Himself administered the sacred Host. A nunnery dedicated to St. Eloy,
where three hundred pious nuns diffused the odour of Jesus Christ
through the whole city, occupied a large site opposite the west front of
Notre Dame. Near by stood a hospital, founded and endowed a century
before by St. Landry, bishop of Paris, for the sick poor, which soon
became known as the Hostel of God (_Hôtel Dieu_). The old Roman palace
and basilica had been transformed into the official residence and
tribunal of justice of the Frankish kings. On the south bank stood the
church and monastery of St. Julien le Pauvre. A new Frankish city was
growing on the north bank, bounded on the west by the abbey of St.
Vincent le Rond, later known as St. Germain l'Auxerrois, and on the east
by the abbey of St. Lawrence. Houses clustered around the four great
monasteries, and suburbs were in course of formation. The Cité was still
largely inhabited by opulent merchants of Gallo-Roman descent, who were
seen riding along the streets in richly-decorated chariots drawn by
oxen.
[Illustration: ST. JULIEN LE PAUVRE.]
King Pepin, after proving himself a valiant champion of orthodoxy by
defeating the Arian Lombards, and bestowing Ravenna on the pope in
perpetual sovereignty, died at Paris in 768. The kingdom of France was
then shared by his sons, Charles and Carloman, and on the latter's death
in 771 Charles, surnamed the Great, began his tremendous career during
which the interest of the French Monarchy shifts from Paris to
Aix-la-Chapelle. Charlemagne during his long reign of nearly half a
century was too preoccupied with his noble but ineffectual purpose of
cementing by blood and iron the warring races of Europe into a united
_populus Christianus_, and establishing, under the dual lordship of
emperor and pope, a city of God on earth, to give much attention to
Paris. He did, however, spend a few Christmases there, and was present
at the dedication of the new church of St. Denis, completed in 775 under
Abbot Fulrad. It was a typical Frankish prince whom the Parisians saw
enthroned at St. Denis. He had the abundant fair hair, shaven chin and
long moustache we see in the traditional pictures of Clovis. Above
middle height, with bright piercing eyes and short neck, he impressed
all by the majesty of his bearing in spite of a rather shrill and feeble
voice and a certain asymmetrical rotundity below the belt. Abbot Fulrad
was a sturdy prince and for long disputed the possession of some lands
at Plessis with the bishop of Paris. The decision of the case is
characteristic of the times. Two champions were deputed to act for the
litigants, and met before the Count of Paris[29] in the king's chapel of
St. Nicholas in the Palace of the Cité, and a solemn judgment by the
Cross was held. While the royal chaplain recited psalms and prayers, the
two champions stood forth and held their arms outstretched in the form
of a cross. In this trial of endurance the bishop's deputy was the first
to succumb. His fainting arms drooped and the abbot won his cause.
Paris grew but slowly under the Frankish kings. They lived ill at ease
within city walls. Children of the fields and the forest, whose delight
was in the chase or in war, they were glad to escape from Paris to their
villas at Chelles or Compiègne.
But the civil power of the Church grew apace. In the early sixth century
one-third of the land of France was held and administered by the
monasteries. The abbots of St. Germain des Prés held possession of
nearly 90,000 acres of land, mostly arable, in various provinces of
France. Their annual revenue amounted to about £24,000 of our money:
they ruled over more than 10,000 serfs. From a list of the lands held in
the ninth century by the abbey of St. Pierre des Fossés,[30] founded by
Clovis II. about eight miles from Paris, and published in the _Trésor
des pièces rares ou inédites_, we are able to form some idea of the vast
extent of monastic possessions in the city. The names of the various
properties whose boundaries touch those of the abbey lands are given.
Private owners are mentioned only four times, whereas to ecclesiastical
and monastic domains there are no less than ninety references.
These monastic settlements were veritable garden cities, where most of
our modern fruits, flowers and vegetables were cultivated; where flocks
and herds were bred and all kinds of poultry, including pheasants and
peacocks, reared. Guilds of craftsmen worked and flourished; markets
were held generally on saints' days, and pilgrimages were fostered.
Charlemagne was an honest coiner and a protector of foreign traders; he
was tolerant of the Jews, the only capitalists of the time, and under
him Paris became the "market of the peoples," and Venetian and Syrian
merchants sought her shores.
In Gallo-Roman days few were the churches outside the cities, but in the
great emperor's time every villa[31] is said to have had its chapel or
oratory served by a priest. Charlemagne was a zealous patron of such
learning as the epoch afforded, and sought out scholars in every land.
English, Irish, Scotch, Italian, Goth and Bavarian--all were welcomed.
The English scholar Alcuin, master of the Cloister School at York,
became his chief adviser and tutor. He would have every child in his
empire to know at least his paternoster. Every abbot on election was
required to endow the monastery with some books. The choice of authors
was not a wide one: the Old and New Testaments; the writings of the
Fathers, especially St. Augustine, the emperor's favourite author;
Josephus; the works of Bede; some Latin authors, chiefly Virgil; some
scraps of Plato translated into Latin--a somewhat exiguous and austere
library, but one which reared a noble and valiant line of scholars and
statesmen to rule the minds and bridle the savage lusts of the coming
generations of men. Under Irish and Anglo-Saxon influences the cramped,
minute script of the Merovingian scribes grew in beauty and lucidity:
gold and silver and colour illuminated the pages of their books. The
golden age of the Roman peace seemed dawning again in a new _Imperium
Christianorum_.
Towards the end of his reign the old emperor was dining with his court
in a seaport town in the south of France, when news came that some
strange, black, piratical craft had dared to attack the harbour. They
were soon scattered, but the emperor was seen to rise from the table and
go to a window, where he stood gazing fixedly at the retreating pirates.
Tears trickled down his cheeks and none dared to approach him. At length
he turned and said: "Know ye, my faithful servants, wherefore I weep
thus bitterly? I fear not these wretched pirates, but I am afflicted
that they should dare to approach these shores, and sorely do grieve
when I foresee what evil they will work on my sons and on my people."
His courtiers deemed they were Breton or Saracen pirates, but the
emperor knew better. They were the terrible Northmen, soon to prove a
bloodier scourge to Gaul than Hun or Goth or Saracen; and to meet them
Charlemagne left an empire distracted by civil war and a nerveless,
feeble prince, Louis the Pious, Louis the Forgiving, fitter for the
hermit's cell than for the throne and sword of an emperor.
In 841 the black boats of the sea-rovers for the first time entered the
Seine, and burnt Rouen and Fontenelle. In 845 a fleet of one hundred and
twenty vessels swept up its higher waters and on Easter Eve captured,
plundered and burnt Paris, sacked its monasteries and churches and
butchered their monks and priests. The futile Emperor Charles the Bald
bought them off at St. Denis with seven thousand livres of silver, and
they went back to their Scandinavian homes gorged with plunder--only to
return year by year, increased in numbers and ferocity. Words cannot
picture the terror of the citizens and monks when the dread squadrons,
with the monstrous dragons carved on their prows, their great sails and
three-fold serried ranks of men-of-prey, were sighted. Everyone left his
home and sought refuge in flight. The monks hurried off with the bodies
of the saints, the relics and treasures of the sanctuary, to hide them
in far-away cities. In 852 Charles the Bald's soldiers refused to fight,
and for two hundred and eighty-seven days the pirates ravaged the valley
of the Seine at their will. Never within memory or tradition were such
things known. Rouen, Bayeux, Beauvais, Paris, Meaux, Melun, Chartres,
Evreux, were devastated. The islands of the Seine were whitened by the
bones of the victims. Similar horrors were wrought along the other
rivers of France. Whole districts reverted to paganism. In 858 a body of
the freebooters settled on the island of Oissel, below Rouen, and issued
forth _en excursion_ to spoil and slay and burn at their pleasure. They
made of the once rich city of Paris a cinder heap; the cathedrals of St.
Germain des Prés and of St. Denis alone escaped at the cost of immense
bribes. Charles ordered two fortresses to be built for the defence of
the approaches to the bridges, and continued his feeble policy of paying
blackmail.
[Illustration: PORT DES ORMES.]
In 866 Robert the Strong, Count of Paris, had won the title of the
Maccabeus of France, by daring to stand against the fury of the Northmen
and to defeat them; but having in the heat of battle with the terrible
Hastings taken off his cuirass, he was killed. In 876 began a second
period of raids of even greater ferocity under the Norwegian Rollo the
Gangr[32] (the walker), a colossus so huge that no horse could be found
to bear him. In 884 the whole Christian people seemed doomed to perish.
Flourishing cities and monasteries became heaps of smoking ruins; along
the roads lay the bodies of priests and laymen, noble and peasant,
freeman and serf, women and children and babes at the breast to be
devoured of wolves and vultures. The very sanctuaries[33] were become
the dens of wild beasts, the haunt of serpents and creeping things.
Packs of wolves, three hundred strong, harried Aquitaine.
In 885 a great league of pirates--Danes, Normans, Saxons, Britons and
renegade French--on their way to ravage the rich cities of Burgundy drew
up before Paris; and their leader, Siegfroy, demanded passage to the
higher waters. For Paris had now been put in a state of defence, the
Roman walls repaired, the bridges fortified and protected by towers on
the north and south banks. Bishop Gozlin, in whom great learning was
wedded to incomparable fortitude, defied the pirates, warning them that
the citizens were determined to resist and to hold Paris for a bulwark
to the other cities of France.
Paris, forsaken by her kings and emperors for more than a century,
scarred and bled by three sieges, was now to become a beacon of hope to
the wretched land of France. Of the fourth and most terrible of the
Norman sieges of Paris, we have fuller record. A certain monk of St.
Germain des Prés, Abbo by name, had endured the siege and was one day
sitting in his cell reading his Virgil. Desiring to exercise his Latin,
and give an example to other cities, he determined to sing of a great
siege with happier issue than that of Troy.[34] Abbo saw the black hulls
and horrid prows of the pirates' boats as they turned the arm of the
Seine below Paris, seven hundred strong vessels, and many more of
lighter build. For two leagues and a half the very waters of the Seine
were covered with them, and men asked into what mysterious caves the
river had retreated. On November 26th, the attack began at the
unfinished tower on the north bank. Three leaders stand eminent among
the defenders of the city. Bishop Gozlin, the great warrior priest; his
nephew, Abbot Ebles of St. Denis; and Count Eudes (Hugh) of Paris, son
of Robert the Strong. The air is darkened with javelins and arrows. The
abbot with one shaft spits seven of the besiegers, and mockingly bids
their fellows take them to the kitchen to be cooked. Bishop Gozlin is
wounded by a javelin early in the attack. On the morrow, reinforced by
fresh troops, the assault is renewed, stones are hurled, arrows whistle:
the air is filled with groans and cries. The defenders pour down boiling
oil and melted wax and pitch. The hair of some of the Normans takes
fire: they burn and the Parisians shout--"Jump into the Seine to cool
yourselves." One well-aimed millstone, says Abbo, sends the souls of six
to hell. The baffled Northmen retire, entrench a camp at St. Germain
l'Auxerrois, and prepare rams and other siege artillery.
[Illustration: ST. GERMAIN L'AUXERROIS.]
Abbo now pauses to bewail the state of France: no lord to rule her,
everywhere devastation wrought by fire and sword, God's people paralysed
at the advancing phalanx of death, Paris alone tranquil, erect and
steadfast in the midst of all their thunderbolts, _polis ut regina
micans omnes super urbes_, like a queenly city resplendent above all
towns. The second attack begins with redoubled fury. After battering the
walls of the north tower, monstrous machines on sixteen wheels are
advanced and the besiegers strive to fill the fosse. Trees, shrubs,
slaughtered cattle, wounded horses, the very captives slain before the
eyes of the besieged, are cast in to fill the void. Bishop Gozlin brings
down a Norman chieftain by a well-aimed arrow: his body, too, is flung
into the fosse. The enemy cover the plain with their swords and the
river with their bucklers. Fireships are loosed against the bridge. In
the city women fly to the sanctuaries: they roll their hair in the dust,
beat their breasts and rend their faces. They call on St. Germain:
"Blessed St. Germain, succour thy servants." The fighters on the walls
take up the cry. Bishop Gozlin invokes the Virgin, Mother of the
Redeemer, Star of the Sea, bright above all other stars, to save them
from the cruel Danes.
On February 6th, 886, a sudden flood sweeps away the Petit Pont, and its
tower, with twelve defenders, is isolated. With shouts of triumph the
Northmen cross the river and surround it. The twelve refuse to yield,
and fire is brought. The warriors (a touching detail) fearing lest their
falcons be stifled, cut them loose. There is but one vessel wherewith to
quench the flames and that soon drops from their hands. The little band
rush forth, place themselves against the ruins of the bridge, and
prepare to sell their lives dearly--terrible against terrible foes. The
walls of the city are lined with their kinsmen and friends impotent to
help. The enemies of God, doomed one day to dine at Pluto's cauldron,
press upon them. They fight till Phoebus sinks to the depths of the
sea, so great is the courage of despair. They are promised their lives
if they will yield, are disarmed, then treacherously slain, and their
souls fly to heaven. But one, Hervé, of noble bearing and of great
beauty, deemed a prince, is spared for ransom. With thunderous voice he
refuses to bargain his life for gold, falls unarmed on his foes and is
cut to pieces. "These things," writes Monk Abbo, "I saw with mine eyes."
He gives the names of the heroic twelve who went to receive the palm of
martyrdom. They were exemplars to France and helped to save her by their
desperate courage and noble self-sacrifice. Their names are inscribed on
a tablet on the wing of the Hôtel Dieu in the Place au Petit Pont:
Ermenfroi, Hervé, Herland, Ouacre, Hervi, Arnaud, Seuil, Jobert, Hardre,
Guy, Aimard, Gossouin.
A temporary relief is afforded by the arrival of Henry of Saxony, sent
with supplies by the emperor. Count Eudes sallies forth to meet him, and
in his ardent courage outstrips his men, is surrounded and almost slain.
The little city is revictualled. Henry returns whence he came, and again
the Parisians are left to themselves. On the sixth of April Bishop
Gozlin, their shield, their two-edged axe, whose shaft and bow were
terrible, passes to the Lord. On May 12th, Eudes steals away to implore
further help from the emperor, and as soon as he sees the imperialists
on the march returns and cuts his way into Paris, to share the terrors
of the siege. Henry the Saxon again appears, but is ambushed and slain
and his army melts away. Yet again Paris is abandoned by her emperor and
seeks help of heaven. For the waters are low, the besiegers are able to
get footing on the island, they set fire to the gates and attack the
walls. The body of St. Genevieve is borne about the city, and at night
the ghostly figure of St. Germain is seen by the sentinels to pass along
the ramparts, sprinkling them with holy water and promising salvation.
Charles the Fat, the Lord's anointed, at length appears with a multitude
of a hundred tongues and encamps on Montmartre. While the Parisians are
preparing to second him in crushing their foes, they learn that the
cowardly emperor has bought them off with a bribe and permission to
winter in Burgundy, and for the first time they ravage that opulent
province. Next year, as Gozlin's successor, Bishop Antheric, was sitting
at table with Abbot Ebles, a fearful messenger brought news that the
_acephali_[35] were again in sight. Forgetting the repast, the two
churchmen seized their weapons, called the city to arms, hastened to the
ramparts, and the abbot slew their pilot with a well-aimed shaft. The
Normans are terrified, and at length a treaty is made with their
leaders, who promised not to ravage the Marne and some even entered
Paris. But the ill-disciplined hordes were hard to hold in and bands of
brigands, as soon as the ramparts were passed, began to plunder and slew
a score of Christian men. The Parisians in their indignation sought out
and--_Evax!_ Hurrah!--found five hundred Normans in the city and slew
them. But the bishop protected those that took refuge in his palace,
instead of killing them as he ought to have done--_potius concidere
debens_. For a time Paris had respite. Cowardly Charles the Fat was
deposed, and in 887 Count Eudes was acclaimed king of France after his
return from Aquitaine, whose duke he had brought to subjection. He
counselled a gathering of all the peoples near Paris to make common
cause against the Normans. Abbo saw the proud Franks march in with heads
erect, the skilful and polished Aquitaines, the Burgundians too prone to
flight. But nothing came of it.
At the extreme north-east of Paris the Rue du Crimée leads to a group of
once barren hills, part of which is now made into the Park of the Buttes
Chaumont. Here, by the Mount of the Falcon (Montfaucon[36]) in 892 King
Eudes fell upon an army of Northmen, who had come against Paris, and
utterly routed them. Antheric, the noble pastor, with his virgin-like
face, led three hundred footmen into the fight and slew six hundred of
the _acephali_. But Abbo's muse now fails him. Eudes, noble Eudes, is no
more worthy of his office, and Christ's sheep are perishing. Where is
the ancient prowess of France? Three vices are working her destruction:
pride, the sinful charms of Venus (_foeda venustas veneris_) and love
of sumptuous garments. Her people are arrayed in purple vesture, and
wear cloaks of gold; their loins are cinctured with girdles rich with
precious stones. Monk Abbo wearies not of singing, but the deeds of
noble Eudes are wanting. All the poet craves is another victory to
rejoice Heaven; another defeat of the black host of the enemy.
But the noble Eudes was now a king with rebellious vassals. Paris was
never captured again, but the _acephali_ were devouring the land. The
grim spectres of Famine and Plague made a charnel-house of whole regions
of France, while Eudes was fighting the Count of Flanders, a rival king,
and the ineffectual emperor, Charles the Simple. He it was who after
Eudes' death, by the treaty of St. Claire-sur-Epte in 902, surrendered
to the barbarians the fair province, subsequently to be known as
Normandy. The new prayer in the Litany, "From the fury of the Northmen,
good Lord deliver us," was heard. The dread name of Rollo now vanishes
from history to live again in song, and under the title of Robert,
assumed from his god-father, he reappears to win a dukedom and a king's
daughter. The Normans are broken in to Christianity, law and order;
their land becomes one of the most civilized regions of France; the
fiercest of church levellers are known as the greatest of church
builders in Christendom. They gave their name to a style of Christian
architecture in Europe and a line of kings to England,[37] Naples and
Sicily.
[Illustration: L'INSTITUT DE FRANCE.]
The new empire of Charlemagne had endured less than three generations;
from its wreck were formed the seven kingdoms of France, Navarre, the
two Burgundies, Lorraine, Italy and Germany. The people of France never
forgot the lesson of the dark century of the invasions. A subtle change
had been operating. The empire had decomposed into kingdoms; the
kingdoms were segregating into lordships. Men in their need were
attracted to the few strong and dominant lords whose courage and
resource afforded them a rallying point and shelter against
disintegrating forces: the poor and defenceless huddled for protection
to the seigneurs of strongholds which had withstood the floods of
barbarians that were devastating the land. The seeds of feudalism were
sown in the long winter of the Norman terror.