true character of such a downfall. France and England in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries still boasted many high-bred knights. They
exchanged the most superb defiances, the most audacious challenges, and
proceeded from one country to another to run each other through the body
proudly. The Beaumanoirs, who drank their blood, abounded. It was a
question who would engage himself in the most incredible pranks; who
would commit the most daring folly! They tell us afterward of the
beautiful passages of arms, the grand feats performed, and the
inimitable Froissart is the most charming of all these narrators, who
make their readers as chivalrous as themselves.
But we must tell everything: among these knights in beautiful armor
there was a band of adventurers who never observed, and who could not
understand, certain commandments of the ancient chivalry. The laxity of
luxury had everywhere replaced the rigorous enactments of the old
manliness, and even warriors themselves loved their ease too much. The
religious sentiment was not the dominant one in their minds, in which
the idea of a crusade now never entered. They had not sufficient respect
for the weakness of the Church nor for other failings. They no longer
felt themselves the champions of the good and the enemies of evil. Their
sense of justice had become warped, as had love for their great native
land.
Again, what they termed "the license of camps" had grown very much
worse; and we know in what condition Joan of Arc found the army of the
King. Blasphemy and ribaldry in every quarter. The noble girl swept away
these pests, but the effect of her action was not long-lived. She was
the person to reestablish chivalry, which in her found the purity of its
now-effaced type; but she died too soon, and had not sufficient
imitators.
There were, after her time, many chivalrous souls, and, thank heaven,
there are still some among us; but the old institution is no longer with
us. The events which we have had the misfortune to witness do not give
us any ground to hope that chivalry, extinct and dead, will rise again
to-morrow to light and life.
In St. Louis' time, caricature and parody--they were low-class forces,
but forces nevertheless--had already commenced the work of destruction.
We are in possession of an abominable little poem of the thirteenth
century, which is nothing but a scatological pamphlet directed against
chivalry. This ignoble _Audigier_, the author of which is the basest of
men, is not the only attack which one may disinter from amid the
literature of that period. If one wishes to draw up a really complete
list it would be necessary to include the _jabliaux_--the _Renart_ and
the _Rose_, which constitute the most anti-chivalrous--I had nearly
written the most Voltairian--works that I am acquainted with. The thread
is easy enough to follow from the twelfth century down to the author of
_Don Quixote_--which I do not confound with its infamous predecessors--
to Cervantes, whose work has been fatal, but whose mind was elevated.
However that may be, parody and the parodists were themselves a cause of
decay. They weakened morals. Gallic-like, they popularized little
_bourgeois_ sentiments, narrow-minded, satirical sentiments; they
inoculated manly souls with contempt for such great things as one
performs disinterestedly. This disdain is a sure element of decay, and
we may regard it as an announcement of death.
Against the knights who, here and there, showed themselves unworthy and
degenerate, was put in practice the terrible apparatus of degradation.
Modern historians of chivalry have not failed to describe in detail all
the rites of this solemn punishment, and we have presented to us a scene
which is well calculated to excite the imagination of the most
matter-of-fact, and to make the most timid heart swell.
The knight judicially condemned to submit to this shame was first
conducted to a scaffold, where they broke or trod under foot all his
weapons. He saw his shield, with device effaced, turned upside down and
trailed in the mud. Priests, after reciting prayers for the vigil of the
dead, pronounced over his head the psalm, "_Deus laudem meam_," which
contains terrible maledictions against traitors. The herald of arms who
carried out this sentence took from the hands of the pursuivant of arms
a basin full of dirty water, and threw it all over the head of the
recreant knight in order to wash away the sacred character which had
been conferred upon him by the accolade. The guilty one, degraded in
this way, was subsequently thrown upon a hurdle, or upon a stretcher,
covered with a mortuary cloak, and finally carried to the church, where
they repeated the same prayers and the same ceremonies as for the dead.
This was really terrible, even if somewhat theatrical, and it is easy to
see that this complicated ritual contained only a very few ancient
elements. In the twelfth century the ceremonial of degradation was
infinitely more simple. The spurs were hacked off close to the heels of
the guilty knight. Nothing could be more summary or more significant.
Such a person was publicly denounced as unworthy to ride on horseback,
and consequently quite unworthy to be a knight. The more ancient and
chivalrous, the less theatrical is it. It is so in many other
institutions in the histories of all nations.
That such a penalty may have prevented a certain number of treasons and
forfeitures we willingly admit, but one cannot expect it to preserve all
the whole body of chivalry from that decadence from which no institution
of human establishment can escape.
Notwithstanding inevitable weaknesses and accidents, the Decalogue of
Chivalry has none the less been regnant in some millions of souls which
it has made pure and great. These ten commandments have been the rules
and the reins of youthful generations, who without them would have been
wild and undisciplined. This legislation, in fact--which, to tell the
truth, is only one of the chapters of the great Catholic Code--has
raised the moral level of humanity.
Besides, chivalry is not yet quite dead. No doubt, the ritual of
chivalry, the solemn reception, the order itself, and the ancient oaths,
no longer exist. No doubt, among these grand commandments there are many
which are known only to the erudite, and which the world is unacquainted
with. The Catholic Faith is no longer the essence of modern chivalry;
the Church is no longer seated on the throne around which the old
knights stand with their drawn swords; Islam is no longer the hereditary
enemy; we have another which threatens us nearer home; widows and
orphans have need rather of the tongues of advocates than of the iron
weapon of the knights; there are no more duties toward liege-lords to be
fulfilled; and we even do not want any kind of superior lord at all;
_largesse_ is now confounded with charity; and the becoming hatred of
evil-doing is no longer our chief, our best, passion!
But whatever we may do there still remains to us, in the marrow, a
certain leaven of chivalry which preserves us from death. There are
still in the world an immense number of fine souls--strong and upright
souls--who hate all that is small and mean, who know and who practise
all the delicate promptings of honor, and who prefer death to an
unworthy action or to a lie!
That is what we owe to chivalry, that is what it has bequeathed to us.
On the day when these last vestiges of such a grand past are effaced
from our souls--we shall cease to exist!
CONVERSION OF VLADIMIR THE GREAT
INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY INTO RUSSIA
A.D. 988-1015
A. N. MOURAVIEFF
(According to early Greek and Roman writers, Russia in their time was
inhabited by Scythians and Sarmatians. The Greeks established commercial
relations with the most southerly tribes. In the fourth and fifth
centuries, during the migrations of the nations, Russia was invaded by
Goths, Alans, Huns, Avars, and Bulgarians, who, however, made no
settlements. They were followed by the Slavs, who are looked upon as the
Sarmatians already mentioned.
The Slavs settled as far north as the upper Volga. The chief settlements
were Novgorod and Kieff, which became the capitals of independent
principalities, Novgorod especially becoming an important commercial and
trading centre.
The commerce northward through the Baltic was subject to the attacks of
the Scandinavian Northmen, known as Varangians. They demanded tribute of
the Slavs, and on its refusal attacked and captured Novgorod. A little
later Novgorod established its independence as a republic; but within a
few years we find this section controlled by a Varangian tribe from Rus,
a district of Sweden. This tribe was led by three brothers, Ruric the
Peaceful, Sineous the Victorious, and Trouvor the Faithful, who settled
and ruled in different parts of the country.
In 864, on the death of his brothers, Ruric consolidated their
territories with his, assumed the title of grand prince, peaceably took
possession of Novgorod and made it his capital, naming the country
Russia, after his native place.
With the advent of the Varangians the authentic history of Russia
begins. The millenary of that event was celebrated in 1862 at Novgorod,
as the foundation of the Russian empire.
Ruric died in 879. In the next hundred years his successors conquered
many neighboring lands and added them to the empire. Kieff became the
capital. Numerous invasions into the territory of the Greek empire were
made and Constantinople was frequently attacked, resulting sometimes in
repulse, and at others in exacting heavy tribute from the Eastern
Emperor. Treaties were executed and a gradual growth of commerce and
intercourse between the Greeks and Russians took place. Olga, the famous
and popular widow of Ruric's son, Igor, became a Christian and was
baptized in Constantinople in 955, and during the rest of her life lent
her powerful influence to the spread of the faith. And though her son,
the emperor Sviatoslaf, remained a pagan throughout his reign,
Christianity continued to grow, and the general Christianization of
Russia during the reign of her grandson, Vladimir, was aided materially
by the great example of the good queen Olga.
In 970 Sviatoslaf divided his empire among his three sons, Iaropolk I,
Oleg, and Vladimir. After the death of Sviatoslaf in 972 civil war began
between the three brothers. Oleg was killed and Vladimir fled to Sweden.
In 980, supported by a force of Varangians, Vladimir returned, captured
Novgorod and Kieff, and put Iaropolk to death. Under Vladimir, later
known as Vladimir the Great, Russia increased in importance, and
civilization was enhanced by the spread of Christianity through the
missionary efforts of the Greek Church, now the Holy, Orthodox,
Catholic, Apostolic, Oriental Church. It is, therefore, not strange that
the Russian prelates were distinguished by their loyalty and fidelity to
the Greek Church throughout the continued conflicts between it and the
Roman Church which resulted in their separation in 1054.
In the fifteenth century, with the consent of the patriarchate of
Constantinople, the Orthodox Graeco-Russian Church assumed national
independence, and became the state church; and after the establishment
of Mahometanism in Constantinople, since its capture by Mahomet II in
1453, the reigning Czar of Russia has come to be regarded not only as
the temporal and spiritual head of the Greek Church by the great mass of
adherents which form the bulk of the population in Russia, but also as
the champion of all the followers of the church in Greece and throughout
the orient.
The story of the introduction of Christianity into Russia presents an
interesting psychological study of the growth and development of the
religious sentiment inherent in man--be he never so brutalized and
barbarous. Notwithstanding its display of national pride and bias,
pardonable in a native historian, Mouravieff's account is exceedingly
interesting.)
The Russian Church, like the other orthodox churches of the East, had an
apostle for its founder. St. Andrew, the first called of the Twelve,
hailed with his blessing long beforehand the destined introduction of
Christianity into our country; ascending up and penetrating by the
Dnieper into the deserts of Scythia, he planted the first cross on the
hills of Kieff. "See you," said he to his disciples, "these hills? On
these hills shall shine the light of divine grace. There shall be here a
great city, and God shall have in it many churches to his name."
Such are the words of the holy Nestor, the monk and annalist of the
Pechersky monastery, that point from whence Christian Russia has sprung.
But it was only after an interval of nine centuries that the rays of
divine light beamed upon Russia from the walls of Byzantium, in which
city the same apostle, St. Andrew, had appointed Stachys to be the first
bishop, and so committed, as it were, to him and to his successors, in
the spirit of prescience, the charge of that wide region in which he had
himself preached Christ. Hence the indissoluble connection of the
Russian with the Greek Church, and the dependence of her metropolitans
during six centuries upon the patriarchal throne of Constantinople,
until, with its consent, she obtained her own equality and independence
in that which was accorded to her native primates.
The Bulgarians of the Danube, the Moravians, and the Slavonians of
Illyria had been already enlightened by holy baptism about the middle of
the ninth century, during the reign of the Greek emperor Michael and the
patriarchate of the illustrious Photius. St. Cyril and St. Methodius,
two learned Greek brothers, translated into the Slavonic the New
Testament and the books used in divine service, and according to some
accounts even the whole Bible.
This translation of the Word of God became afterward a most blessed
instrument for the conversion of the Russians, for the missionaries were
by it enabled to expound the truths of the Gospel to the heathens in
their native dialect, and so win for them a readier entrance to their
hearts.
Oskold and Dir, two princes of Kieff and the companions of Ruric, were
the first of the Russians who embraced Christianity. In the year 866
they made their appearance in armed vessels before the walls of
Constantinople when the Emperor was absent, and threw the Greek capital
into no little alarm and confusion. Tradition reports that "The
patriarch Photius took the virginal robe of the Mother of God from the
Blachern Church, and plunged it beneath the waves of the strait, when
the sea immediately boiled up from underneath and wrecked the vessels of
the heathen. Struck with awe, they believed in that God who had smitten
them, and became the first-fruits of their people to the Lord." The hymn
of victory of the Greek Church, "To the protecting Conductress," in
honor of the most holy Virgin, has remained a memorial of this triumph,
and even now concludes the _Office for the First Hour_ in the daily
_Matins_; for that was, indeed, the first hour of salvation to the land
of Russia.
It is probable that on their return to their own country the princes of
Kieff sowed there the seeds of Christianity; for, eighty years
afterward, on occasion of a conference for peace between the prince Igor
and certain Byzantine ambassadors, we find mention already of a "Church
of the Prophet Elias" in Kieff where the Christian Varangians swore to
the observance of the treaty. Constantine Porphyrogenitus and other
Greek annalists even relate that in the lifetime of Oskold there was a
bishop sent to the Russians by the emperor Basil the Macedonian, and the
patriarch St. Ignatius, and that he made many converts, chiefly "in
consequence of the miraculous preservation of a volume of the Gospels,
which was thrown publicly into the flames and taken out after some time
unconsumed." Also in Condinus, _Catalogue of Sees Subject to the
Patriarch of Constantinople_, the metropolitical see of Russia appears
as early as the year 891.
Lastly, it is certain that many of the Varangians who served in the
imperial bodyguard were Christians, and that the Greek sovereigns never
lost sight of any opportunity of converting them to their own faith, by
which they hoped to soften their savage manners. When the emperor Leo
was concluding a peace with Oleg, he showed not only his own treasures
to the ambassadors of the Russian prince, but also the splendor of the
churches, the holy relics, the precious _icons_, and the "Instruments of
the Passion of our Lord," if by any means they might catch from them the
spirit of the faith.
Some such influences as these, while Christianity as yet was only
struggling for an uncertain existence at Kieff, produced in good time
their effect on the wisest of the daughters of the Slavonians, the
widowed princess Olga, who governed Russia during the minority of her
son Sviatoslaf. She undertook a voyage to Constantinople for no other
end than to obtain a knowledge of the true God, and there she received
baptism at the hands of the patriarch Polyeuctes; the emperor
Constantine Porphyrogenitus himself, who admired her wisdom, being her
godfather. Nestor draws an affecting picture of the patriarch
foretelling to the newly illumined princess the blessings which were to
descend by her means on future generations of the Russians, while Olga,
now become Helena by baptism--that she might resemble both in name and
deed the mother of Constantine the Great--stood meekly bowing down her
head and drinking in, as a sponge that is thirsty of moisture, the
instructions of the prelate concerning the canons of the Church,
fasting, prayer, almsgiving, and continence, all which she observed with
exactness on her return to her own country.
Although, in spite of all her entreaties, the fierce and warlike prince
Sviatoslaf persisted in refusing to humble his proud heart under the
meek yoke of Christ, he had still so much affection for his mother as
not to persecute such as agreed with her in religion, but even to allow
them freely to make open profession of their faith under the protection
of that princess. He confided his children to her care during his
incessant military expeditions, and so enabled her to confirm the saving
impressions of Christianity among the people who respected her, and to
instil them into the mind of her young grandson Vladimir; for nothing
sinks so deep into the heart as the simple-and affectionate words of a
mother. The princess had with her a priest named Gregory, whom she had
brought from Constantinople, and by him she was buried after her death
in the spot which she had herself appointed, without any of the usual
pagan ceremonies. The people, by whom she had been surnamed "the Wise"
during life, began to bless her for a saint after her death, when they
came themselves to follow the example of this "Morning Star" which had
risen and gone before to lead Russia into the path of salvation.
Nowhere has Christianity ever been less persecuted at its first
introduction than in our own country. The _Chronicle_ speaks of only two
Christian martyrs, the Varangians Theodore and John, who were put to
death by the fury of the people because one of them, from natural
affection, had refused to give up his son when he had been devoted by
the prince Vladimir to be offered as a sacrifice to Peroun.
Probably the very zeal of this prince for the heathen deities, to whom
he set up statues and multiplied altars, may have inspired the
neighboring nations with the desire of converting so powerful a ruler to
their respective creeds; and thus his blind impulse toward the Deity,
which was unknown to him, received a true direction. The Mahometan
Bulgarians were the first to send ambassadors to him, with the offer of
their faith; but the mercy of Providence--for so it plainly
was--inspired him to give them a decided refusal on the ground that he
did not choose to comply with some of their regulations; though else a
sensual religion might well have enticed a man who was given up to the
indulgence of his passions.
The Chazarian Jews flattered themselves with the hope of attracting the
Prince by boasting of their religion and the ancient glory of Jerusalem.
"But where," demanded the wise grandson of Olga, "is your country?"
"It is ruined by the wrath of God for the sins of our fathers," was
their answer. Vladimir then said that he had no mind to embrace the law
of a people whom God had abandoned. There came also western doctors from
Germany, who would have persuaded Vladimir to embrace Christianity, but
their Christianity seemed strange to him; for Russia had hitherto no
acquaintance but with Byzantium.
"Return home," he said; "our ancestors did not receive this religion
from you."
A Greek embassy had the best success of them all. A certain philosopher,
a monk named Constantine, after having exposed the insufficiency of
other religions, eloquently set before the Prince those judgments of God
which are in the world, the redemption of the human race by the blood of
Christ, and the retribution of the life to come. His discourse
powerfully affected the heathen monarch, who was burdened with the heavy
sins of a tumultuous youth; and this was particularly the case when the
monk pointed out to him on an icon, which represented the last judgment,
the different lot of the just and of the wicked.
"Good to these on the right hand, but woe to those on the left!"
exclaimed Vladimir, deeply affected. But sensual nature still struggled
in him against heavenly truth. Having dismissed the missionary, or
ambassador, with presents, he still hesitated to decide, and wished
first to examine further concerning the faith, in concert with the
elders of his council, that all Russia might have a share in his
conversion. The council of the Prince decided to send chosen men to make
their observations on each religion on the spot where it was professed;
and this public agreement explains in some degree the sudden and general
acceptance of Christianity which shortly after followed in Russia. It is
probable that not only the chiefs, but the common people also, were
expecting and ready for the change.
The Greek emperors did not fail to profit by this favorable opportunity,
and the patriarch himself in person celebrated the divine liturgy in the
Church of St. Sophia with the utmost possible magnificence before the
astonished ambassadors of Vladimir. The sublimity and splendor of the
service struck them; but we do not ascribe to the mere external
impression that softening of the hearts of these heathens, on which
depended the conversion of a whole nation. From the very earliest times
of the Church, extraordinary signs of God's power have constantly gone
hand-in-hand with that apparent weakness of man by which the Gospel was
preached; and so also the _Byzantine Chronicle_ relates of the Russian
ambassadors, "That during the Divine liturgy, at the time of carrying
the Holy Gifts in procession to the throne or altar and singing the
cherubic hymn, the eyes of their spirits were opened, and they saw, as
in an ecstasy, glittering youths who joined in singing the hymn of the
'Thrice Holy.'"
Being thus fully persuaded of the truth of the orthodox faith, they
returned to their own country already Christians in heart, and without
saying a word before the Prince in favor of the other religions, they
declared thus concerning the Greek: "When we stood in the temple we did
not know where we were, for there is nothing else like it upon earth:
there in truth God has his dwelling with men; and we can never forget
the beauty we saw there. No one who has once tasted sweets will
afterward take that which is bitter; nor can we now any longer abide in
heathenism."
Then the _boyars_ said to Vladimir: "If the religion of the Greeks had
not been good, your grandmother Olga, who was the wisest of women, would
not have embraced it."
The weight of the name of Olga decided her grandson, and he said no more
in answer than these words: "Where shall we be baptized?"
But Vladimir, led by a sense which had not yet been purged by Greece,
thought it best to follow the custom of his ancestors, who made warlike
descents upon Constantinople, and so win to himself, sword in hand, his
new religion. He embarked his warriors on board their vessels and
attacked Cherson in the Taurid, a city which was subject to the emperors
Basil and Constantine.