more than one great barbaric warrior, he admired the Roman Empire that
had fallen, its vastness all in one, and its powerful organization under
the hand of a single master. He thought he could resuscitate it,
durably, through the victory of a new people and a new faith, by the
hand of Franks and Christians. With this view he labored to conquer,
convert, and govern. He tried to be, at one and the same time, Cæsar,
Augustus, and Constantine. And for a moment he appeared to have
succeeded; but the appearance passed away with himself. The unity of the
empire and the absolute power of the emperor were buried in his grave.
The Christian religion and human liberty set to work to prepare for
Europe other governments and other destinies.
EGBERT BECOMES KING OF THE ANGLO-SAXON HEPTARCHY
A.D. 827
DAVID HUME
From the time that the Britons called upon the Saxons to assist
them against the Picts and Scots, about A.D. 410, the domination of
the hardy Teutonic people in England was a foregone conclusion. The
Britons had become exhausted through their long exposure to Roman
influences, and in their state of enfeeblement were unable to
resist the attacks of the rude highland tribes.
The Saxons rescued the Britons from their plight, but themselves
became masters of the country which they had delivered. They were
joined by the Angles and Jutes, and divided the territory into the
kingdoms known in history as the Saxon Heptarchy,[73] which had an
existence of about two hundred and fifty years. The various members
were involved in endless controversies with each other, often
breaking out into savage wars, and the Saxons were also exposed to
conflicts with their common enemies, the Britons. Their power was
greatly impaired by the civil strifes which distracted them.
This condition continued until it became essential that under a
strong hand a more solid union of the Saxons should be formed. And
it was to Egbert, King of the West Saxons, the son of Ealhmund,
King of Kent, that this great constructive task was committed. He
took the throne of Wessex in 802, for twelve years enjoyed a
peaceful reign, then became involved in wars, first with the
Cornish and afterward with the Mercians. His victories in these
wars resulted in the final establishment of his authority over the
entire heptarchy, and this made him in fact, though not in name,
the first real king of England.
When Brithric obtained possession of the government of Wessex, he
enjoyed not that dignity without inquietude. Eoppa, nephew to King Ina,
by his brother Ingild, who died, before that prince, had begot Eata,
father to Alchmond, from whom sprung Egbert, a young man of the most
promising hopes, who gave great jealousy to Brithric, the reigning
prince, both because he seemed by his birth better entitled to the crown
and because he had acquired, to an eminent degree, the affections of the
people. Egbert, sensible of his danger from the suspicions of Brithric,
secretly withdrew into France, where he was well received by
Charlemagne. By living in the court, and serving in the armies of that
prince, the most able and most generous that had appeared in Europe
during several ages, he acquired those accomplishments which afterward
enabled him to make such a shining figure on the throne. And
familiarizing himself to the manners of the French, who, as Malmesbury
observes, were eminent both for valor and civility above all the western
nations, he learned to polish the rudeness and barbarity of the Saxon
character; his early misfortunes thus proved of singular advantage to
him.
It was not long ere Egbert had opportunities of displaying his natural
and acquired talents. Brithric, King of Wessex, had married Eadburga,
natural daughter of Offa, King of Mercia, a profligate woman, equally
infamous for cruelty and for incontinence. Having great influence over
her husband, she often instigated him to destroy such of the nobility as
were obnoxious to her; and where this expedient failed, she scrupled not
being herself active in traitorous attempts against them. She had mixed
a cup of poison for a young nobleman, who had acquired her husband's
friendship, and had on that account become the object of her jealousy;
but unfortunately the King drank of the fatal cup along with his
favorite, and soon after expired. This tragical incident, joined to her
other crimes, rendered Eadburga so odious that she was obliged to fly
into France; whence Egbert was at the same time recalled by the
nobility, in order to ascend the throne of his ancestors. He attained
that dignity in the last year of the eighth century.
In the kingdoms of the heptarchy, an exact rule of succession was either
unknown or not strictly observed; and thence the reigning prince was
continually agitated with jealousy against all the princes of the blood,
whom he still considered as rivals, and whose death alone could give him
entire security in his possession of the throne. From this fatal cause,
together with the admiration of the monastic life, and the opinion of
merit attending the preservation of chastity even in a married state,
the royal families had been entirely extinguished in all the kingdoms
except that of Wessex; and the emulations, suspicions, and conspiracies,
which had formerly been confined to the princes of the blood alone, were
now diffused among all the nobility in the several Saxon states. Egbert
was the sole descendant of those first conquerors who subdued Britain,
and who enhanced their authority by claiming a pedigree from Woden, the
supreme divinity of their ancestors. But that prince, though invited by
this favorable circumstance to make attempts on the neighboring Saxons,
gave them for some time no disturbance, and rather chose to turn his
arms against the Britons in Cornwall, whom he defeated in several
battles. He was recalled from the conquest of that country by an
invasion made upon his dominions by Bernulf, King of Mercia.
The Mercians, before the accession of Egbert, had very nearly attained
the absolute sovereignty in the heptarchy: they had reduced the East
Angles under subjection, and established tributary princes in the
kingdoms of Kent and Essex. Northumberland was involved in anarchy; and
no state of any consequence remained but that of Wessex, which, much
inferior in extent to Mercia, was supported solely by the great
qualities of its sovereign. Egbert led his army against the invaders;
and encountering them at Ellandun, in Wiltshire, obtained a complete
victory, and, by the great slaughter which he made of them in their
flight, gave a mortal blow to the power of the Mercians. While he
himself, in prosecution of his victory, entered their country on the
side of Oxfordshire, and threatened the heart of their dominions, he
sent an army into Kent, commanded by Ethelwulf, his eldest son, and,
expelling Baldred, the tributary King, soon made himself master of that
country.
The kingdom of Essex was conquered with equal facility, and the East
Angles, from their hatred of the Mercian government, which had been
established over them by treachery and violence, and probably exercised
with tyranny, immediately rose in arms and craved the protection of
Egbert. Bernulf, the Mercian King, who marched against them, was
defeated and slain; and two years after, Ludican, his successor, met
with the same fate. These insurrections and calamities facilitated the
enterprises of Egbert, who advanced into the centre of the Mercian
territories and made easy conquests over a dispirited and divided
people. In order to engage them more easily to submission, he allowed
Wiglef, their countryman, to retain the title of king, while he himself
exercised the real powers of sovereignty. The anarchy which prevailed in
Northumberland tempted him to carry still further his victorious arms;
and the inhabitants, unable to resist his power, and desirous of
possessing some established form of government, were forward, on his
first appearance, to send deputies, who submitted to his authority and
swore allegiance to him as their sovereign. Egbert, however, still
allowed to Northumberland, as he had done to Mercia and East Anglia, the
power of electing a king, who paid him tribute and was dependent on him.
Thus were united all the kingdoms of the heptarchy in one great state,
near four hundred years after the first arrival of the Saxons in
Britain; and the fortunate arms and prudent policy of Egbert at last
effected what had been so often attempted in vain by so many princes.
Kent, Northumberland, and Mercia, which had successfully aspired to
general dominion, were now incorporated in his empire; and the other
subordinate kingdoms seemed willingly to share the same fate. His
territories were nearly of the same extent with what is now properly
called England; and a favorable prospect was afforded to the
Anglo-Saxons of establishing a civilized monarchy, possessed of
tranquillity within itself, and secure against foreign invasion. This
great event happened in the year 827.
The Saxons, though they had been so long settled in the island, seem not
as yet to have been much improved beyond their German ancestors, either
in arts, civility, knowledge, humanity, justice, or obedience to the
laws. Even Christianity, though it opened the way to connections between
them and the more polished states of Europe, had not hitherto been very
effectual in banishing their ignorance or softening their barbarous
manners. As they received that doctrine through the corrupted channels
of Rome, it carried along with it a great mixture of credulity and
superstition, equally destructive to the understanding and to morals.
The reverence toward saints and relics seems to have almost supplanted
the adoration of the Supreme Being; monastic observances were esteemed
more meritorious than the active virtues; the knowledge of natural
causes was neglected, from the universal belief of miraculous
interpositions and judgments; bounty to the Church atoned for every
violence against society; and the remorses for cruelty, murder,
treachery, assassination, and the more robust vices, were appeased, not
by amendment of life, but by penances, servility to the monks, and an
abject and illiberal devotion.[74] The reverence for the clergy had been
carried to such a height that wherever a person appeared in a sacerdotal
habit, though on the highway, the people flocked around him, and,
showing him all marks of profound respect, received every word he
uttered as the most sacred oracle. Even the military virtues, so
inherent in all the Saxon tribes, began to be neglected; and the
nobility, preferring the security and sloth of the cloister to the
tumults and glory of war, valued themselves chiefly on endowing
monasteries, of which they assumed the government. The several kings,
too, being extremely impoverished by continual benefactions to the
Church, to which the states of their kingdoms had weakly assented, could
bestow no rewards on valor or military services, and retained not even
sufficient influence to support their government.
Another inconvenience which attended this corrupt species of
Christianity was the superstitious attachment to Rome, and the gradual
subjection of the kingdom to a foreign jurisdiction. The Britons, having
never acknowledged any subordination to the Roman pontiff, had conducted
all ecclesiastical government by their domestic synods and councils; but
the Saxons, receiving their religion from Roman monks, were taught at
the same time a profound reverence for that see, and were naturally led
to regard it as the capital of their religion. Pilgrimages to Rome were
represented as the most meritorious acts of devotion. Not only noblemen
and ladies of rank undertook this tedious journey, but kings themselves,
abdicating their crowns, sought for a secure passport to heaven at the
feet of the Roman pontiff. New relics, perpetually sent from that
inexhaustible mint of superstition, and magnified by lying miracles,
invented in convents, operated on the astonished minds of the multitude.
And every prince has attained the eulogies of the monks, the only
historians of those ages, not in proportion to his civil and military
virtues, but to his devoted attachment toward their order, and his
superstitious reverence for Rome.
The sovereign pontiff, encouraged by this blindness and submissive
disposition of the people, advanced every day in his encroachments on
the independence of the English churches. Wilfrid, bishop of
Lindisferne, the sole prelate of the Northumbrian kingdom, increased
this subjection in the eighth century, by his making an appeal to Rome
against the decisions of an English synod, which had abridged his
diocese by the erection of some new bishoprics. Agatho, the pope,
readily embraced this precedent of an appeal to his court; and Wilfrid,
though the haughtiest and most luxurious prelate of his age, having
obtained with the people the character of sanctity, was, thus able to
lay the foundation of this papal pretension.
The great topic by which Wilfrid confounded the imaginations of men was
that St. Peter, to whose custody the keys of heaven were intrusted,
would certainly refuse admittance to everyone who should be wanting in
respect to his successor. This conceit, well suited to vulgar
conceptions, made great impression on the people during several ages,
and has not even at present lost all influence in the Catholic
countries.
Had this abject superstition produced general peace and tranquillity, it
had made some atonement for the ills attending it; but besides the usual
avidity of men for power and riches, frivolous controversies in theology
were engendered by it, which were so much the more fatal as they
admitted not, like the others, of any final determination from
established possession. The disputes, excited in Britain, were of the
most ridiculous kind, and entirely worthy of those ignorant and
barbarous ages. There were some intricacies, observed by all the
Christian churches, in adjusting the day of keeping Easter, which
depended on a complicated consideration of the course of the sun and
moon; and it happened that the missionaries who had converted the Scots
and Britons had followed a different calendar from that which was
observed at Rome, in the age when Augustine converted the Saxons.
The priests also of all the Christian churches were accustomed to shave
part of their head; but the form given to this tonsure was different in
the former from what was practised in the latter. The Scots and Britons
pleaded the antiquity of _their_ usages; the Romans and their disciples,
the Saxons, insisted on the universality of _theirs_. That Easter must
necessarily be kept by a rule which comprehended both the day of the
year and age of the moon, was agreed by all; that the tonsure of a
priest could not be omitted without the utmost impiety was a point
undisputed; but the Romans and Saxons called their antagonists
schismatics, because they celebrated Easter on the very day of the full
moon in March, if that day fell on a Sunday, instead of waiting till the
Sunday following; and because they shaved the fore part of their head
from ear to ear, instead of making that tonsure on the crown of the
head, and in a circular form. In order to render their antagonists
odious they affirmed that once in seven years they concurred with the
Jews in the time of celebrating that festival: and that they might
recommend their own form of tonsure they maintained that it imitated
symbolically the crown of thorns worn by Christ in his passion; whereas
the other form was invented by Simon Magus, without any regard to that
representation.
These controversies had from the beginning excited such animosity
between the British and Romish priests that, instead of concurring in
their endeavors to convert the idolatrous Saxons, they refused all
communion together, and each regarded his opponent as no better than a
pagan. The dispute lasted more than a century, and was at last finished,
not by men's discovering the folly of it, which would have been too
great an effort for human reason to accomplish, but by the entire
prevalence of the Romish ritual over the Scotch and British. Wilfrid,
bishop of Lindisferne, acquired great merit, both with the court of
Rome and with all the southern Saxons, by expelling the "quartodeciman"
schism, as it was called, from the Northumbrian kingdom, into which the
neighborhood of the Scots had formerly introduced it.
Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, called, in the year 680, a synod at
Hatfield, consisting of all the bishops in Britain, where was accepted
and ratified the decree of the Lateran council, summoned by Martin,
against the heresy of the Monothelites. The council and synod
maintained, in opposition to these heretics, that, though the divine and
human nature in Christ made but one person, yet had they different
inclinations, wills, acts, and sentiments, and that the unity of the
person implied not any unity in the consciousness. This opinion it seems
somewhat difficult to comprehend; and no one, unacquainted with the
ecclesiastical history of those ages, could imagine the height of zeal
and violence with which it was then inculcated. The decree of the
Lateran council calls the Monothelites impious, execrable, wicked,
abominable, and even diabolical, and curses and anathematizes them to
all eternity.
The Saxons, from the first introduction of Christianity among them, had
admitted the use of images; and perhaps that religion, without some of
those exterior ornaments, had not made so quick a progress with these
idolaters; but they had not paid any species of worship or address to
images; and this abuse never prevailed among Christians till it received
the sanction of the second council of Nice.
The kingdoms of the heptarchy, though united by so recent a conquest,
seemed to be firmly cemented into one state under Egbert; and the
inhabitants of the several provinces had lost all desire of revolting
from that monarch or of restoring their former independent governments.
Their language was everywhere nearly the same, their customs, laws,
institutions, civil and religious; and as the race of the ancient kings
was totally extinct in all the subjected states, the people readily
transferred their allegiance to a prince who seemed to merit it by the
splendor of his victories, the vigor of his administration, and the
superior nobility of his birth. A union also in government opened to
them the agreeable prospect of future tranquillity; and it appeared more
probable that they would thenceforth become formidable to their
neighbors than be exposed to their inroads and devastations. But these
flattering views were soon overcast by the appearance of the Danes, who,
during some centuries, kept the Anglo-Saxons in perpetual inquietude,
committed the most barbarous ravages upon them, and at last reduced them
to grievous servitude.
FOOTNOTES:
[73] The seven kingdoms founded in England by seven different Saxon
invaders. They were Kent, Sussex, Wessex, Essex, Northumbria, East
Anglia, and Mercia.
[74] These abuses were common to all the European churches; but the
priests in Italy, Spain, and Gaul made some atonement for them by other
advantages which they rendered society. For several ages they were
almost all Romans, or, in other words, the ancient natives; and they
preserved the Roman language and laws, with some remains of the former
civility. But the priests in the heptarchy, after the first
missionaries, were wholly Saxons, and almost as ignorant and barbarous
as the laity. They contributed, therefore, little to the improvement of
society in knowledge or the arts.
CHRONOLOGY OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY
EMBRACING THE PERIOD COVERED IN THIS VOLUME
A.D. 410-842
JOHN RUDD, LL.D.
Events treated at length are here indicated in large type; the numerals
following give volume and page.
Separate chronologies of the various nations, and of the careers of
famous persons, will be found in the INDEX VOLUME, with volume and page
references showing where the several events are fully treated.
A.D.
410. Britain is abandoned by the Roman Empire. Franks join in the
Barbarian attack on Gaul.
Siege, capture, and pillage of Rome by Alaric; he dies and is succeeded
by Adolphus. See "VISIGOTHS PILLAGE ROME," iv, I.
411. Count Gerontius makes Constans prisoner and slays him; he besieges
Constantine in Aries, where he, is put to flight by Constantius,
Honorius' general, and, after being deserted by his soldiers, he stabs
himself. Constantine surrenders to Constantius, is sent to Ravenna and
beheaded.
Jovinus revolts at Mainz.
Conference between Catholics and Donatists at Carthage, after which more
severe laws are enacted against the latter.
412. Jovinus makes his brother Sebastian his colleague. The Visigoths
enter Gaul.
413. Adolphus overcomes Jovinus and Sebastian and sends their heads to
Honorius.
Title of augusta taken by Pulcheria at Constantinople; she governs in
the East in the name of her brother Theodosius.
415. Adolphus lays the foundation of the Visigoth dominion in Spain.
Brutal murder of Hypatia, a lovely woman and a Neo-Platonic philosopher
of Alexandria.
Persecution of Jews at Alexandria.
Adolphus assassinated at Barcelona by Sigeric, who usurps the throne,
but is killed seven days afterward, and Wallia chosen king by the
Visigoths.
418. Wallia relinquishes a part of his conquests in Spain to Honorius,
and receives the province of Aquitaine in Gaul.
420. St. Jerome dies in Palestine.
A persecution of the Christians in Persia leads to war between that
nation and the Eastern Empire.
422. Peace concluded with Persia. Incursion of the Huns into Thrace.
423. Death of Honorius; usurpation of Joannes the Notary.
425. Joannes is beheaded. The young Valentinian is proclaimed emperor,
and his mother, Placidia, regent.
A synod at Carthage forbids appeals to the Bishop of Rome. The revenues
of the Church are become very large.
428. Conquests of the Vandals in Spain.
Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, founds the sect of Nestorians,
which still subsists in Persia and Turkey.
429. Wild Moors join the Vandals who have invaded Africa.
430. Bonifacius unsuccessfully opposes the Vandals in Africa; they
besiege Hippo Regius. St. Augustine dies there in the third month of the
siege.
431. Hippo Regius falls.
Third general council of the Church, held at Ephesus; one of the most
turbulent in history.
432. Bonifacius, although victorious, perishes in the conflict with his
rival Aetius.
433. Attila, King of the Huns, begins his reign.[75] St. Patrick
preaches in Ireland.
435. Nestorius exiled to the Libyan desert.
439. The Vandals, under Genseric, take Carthage.
440. Leo the Great elected pope.
441. Attila and his Huns pass the Danube; they invade Illyricum. See
"HUNS INVADE THE EASTERN ROMAN EMPIRE," iv, 28.
442. Valentinian by a treaty of peace cedes Africa to Genseric. A comet
is visible.
444. Attila murders his brother, Bleda, and rules alone over the Huns.
446. Britons in vain apply to Aetius for aid against the Picts and
Scots.
Thermopylæ passed by the Huns; the Eastern Emperor makes humiliating
terms of peace with Attila. See "HUNS INVADE THE EASTERN ROMAN EMPIRE,"
iv, 28.
Pope Leo assumes a tone of high authority, and asserts the supremacy of
the Roman Pontiff over all other bishops.
449. Landing of the Jutes under Hengist and Horsa in Britain, called
there to repel the Picts and Scots. See "THE ENGLISH CONQUEST OF
BRITAIN," iv, 55.
The "Robber Synod" meets at Ephesus. It reinstates Eutyches in the
office of priest and archimandrite, from which he had been expelled, and
exposes Flavian, Patriarch of Constantinople, who is so roughly attacked
that he dies soon afterward of his injuries.
A synod at Rome reverses the acts at Ephesus.
450. Death of Theodosius II; by a nominal marriage his sister Pulcheria
raises Marcian to the throne.
Attila demands the princess Honoria in marriage.
451. Gaul invaded by Attila; battle of Châlons. See "ATTILA INVADES
WESTERN EUROPE," iv, 72.
Fourth general council of the Church, held at Chalcedon; the acts of the
"Robber Synod" are annulled.