[Sidenote: Orthodoxy of the Franks.]
The Franks alone of all the barbarians who swept over Europe at the
time of the decay of the Western Empire, were Catholic from their first
conversion to Christianity; and to this circumstance the French kings
owed their title of Eldest Sons of the Church. It was by the influence
of a French princess, Bertha, the Christian wife of Ethelbert, king of
Kent, that St. Augustine and his companions were favourably received in
England; whilst another princess of the same race, Ingunda, who married
the son of the Visigoth king of Spain, is said to have brought about
the conversion of her husband from Arianism to the Catholic faith, by
her own constancy under persecution. [Sidenote: The Church under
Charlemagne.] During the reign of the Emperor Charlemagne (A.D.
768-A.D. 814), the French monasteries became seats of learning, and
amongst the learned men who assisted the Emperor in his efforts for the
religious and intellectual improvement of his people, may be mentioned
the English Alcuin, who held an honourable position at the French court
as the instructor and adviser of the monarch and his sons. [Sidenote:
The French Liturgy.] The Gallican Liturgy, a branch of the Primitive
Liturgy of Ephesus, was entirely disused by order of Charlemagne, and
the Roman service used in its stead. [Sidenote: Conversion of the
Northmen.] From about A.D. 870 the Northmen, who had long been a
scourge to France, began to settle down in that country, and were
gradually converted to the Christian Faith, their chief, Rollo,
marrying a Christian princess, A.D. 911, and being baptized in the
following year. [Sidenote: The Crusades.] A French {125} hermit, Peter
of Auvergne, was the instigator of the First Crusade, which was
preached by him at Clermont, and joined by a large number of French
nobles, the command of the expedition being given to Godfrey de
Bouillon, Duke of Lorraine. The system of Crusades thus inaugurated
for the defence of Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land, and the winning
back of the Holy Places from the hands of the Mahometans, was turned to
a cruel and unjustifiable use in the thirteenth century, when Innocent
III. proclaimed a Crusade against the Albigenses in the South of
France, in which multitudes of these unhappy and misguided men were
slaughtered.
[Sidenote: Rupture between France and the Pope.]
During the reign of Philip IV. (A.D. 1285-A.D. 1314) a collision took
place for the first time, between the Church and Kingdom of France and
the authority of the Pope. Hitherto the disputes between the Popes and
the French monarchs had been on personal rather than on political
grounds, and had given no opportunity for defining the exact limits of
papal authority in France. [Sidenote: Comparative independence of
French Church.] But meanwhile the French Clergy had not lost their
feeling of nationality, and the kings of France had been able to use
much more independent action in the appointment of Bishops than was the
case in other countries. Hence the Bishops and Clergy joined with the
king in resisting the sentence of excommunication pronounced by the
Pope on Philip and his kingdom. Neither King nor Pope appear to have
been influenced by any religious feeling in their contest, and after
the miserable death of Boniface VIII. (A.D. 1303), and the murder of
his successor, Philip's unprincipled interference in the {126} election
of Clement V. was productive of great evils. [Sidenote: Evil results
of the conduct of Philip IV.] The cruel massacre of the Knights
Templars, the corruptions of the Papal Court in France, and more
indirectly the Great Schism in which the Church of France espoused the
cause of the anti-Popes, may all be traced to the conduct of Philip IV.