churches were destined at last to be completely torn asunder, and the
truth of our Lord's words, "Who is not for Me, is against Me," was again
to be proved. The Greek schism places strikingly before our eyes the
fate of such churches as supinely yield their rights and independence,
and submit willingly to State tyranny. In the year 857 the wicked
Bardas, uncle to the reigning Emperor, who wielded an almost absolute
power and disregarded all laws, human and divine, unjustly banished from
his See, Ignatius, the rightful patriarch of Constantinople, and placed
in his stead the learned, but worthless, Photius. Such bishops as
refused to recognize the intruder (who had received all the orders in
six days from an excommunicated bishop) were deposed, imprisoned and
exiled.
Photius tried, by cruel ill-treatment, to force the aged Ignatius to
abdicate, and by a well-contrived fabrication endeavored to obtain the
support of Pope Nicholas I. When, however, this great Pope learned the
true facts of the case from the imprisoned Ignatius, he assembled a
synod in Rome in 864, by which Photius and all the bishops whom he had
consecrated were deposed. Fired by ambition, Photius now threw off all
concealments. He summoned the bishops of his own party, laid various
charges against the Roman Church, and in his inconsiderate rage ended by
anathematising the holy Father. Pope Nicholas, in a most powerful
letter, exhorted the Emperor Michael III to set bounds to the disorders
of Photius, warning him that a fearful judgment would await him if the
faithful were misled and so many believers caused to swerve from the
right path. It was not, however, till the reign of his successor that
Photius was banished and the much-tried St. Ignatius restored to his
rights.
To remedy the evil brought about by Photius, the eighth general council
was held in Constantinople, at the desire of St. Ignatius and the
Emperor, and presided over by the legates of Pope Adrian. Photius, when
called upon to answer for himself, having nothing to say in his own
defence, excused his silence by the example of our Lord, who also was
silent when accused. The fathers were filled with indignation at this
blasphemous speech, and his guilt having been fully proved, they cried
unanimously: "Anathema on Photius, promoted through court favor!
Anathema to the tyrant Photius, to the inventor of lies, to the new
Judas! Anathema on all his followers and protectors! Everlasting glory
to the most holy Roman Pope Nicholas! Long life to Adrian, the holy
Father in Rome!" At the next sitting of the council, a collection of
spurious and falsified writings, together with the acts of the synod
which Photius had held against Pope Nicholas, and which were filled with
lies and invective and had forged signatures appended to them, were
publicly burned in the church. But hardly had Ignatius died in the year
879, when the crafty Photius, who knew well how to ingratiate himself
with the Emperor, reascended the ill-fated chair and began afresh his
old courses. His rule did not last long. He was again deposed and
banished to a monastery, where he died about the year 891. His death,
however, in nowise healed the wounds which he had inflicted on the
Eastern Church. His party survived him. He had filled most of the Greek
sees with men of his own cast, and had illegally bestowed benefices on
great numbers of priests. These all harbored a deep-seated dislike
towards Rome, and only awaited a favorable opportunity to renew the
breach with her. Thus that sectarian spirit which Photius had kindled
continued to smoulder on like a spark beneath the ashes, and spread
itself wider and wider, as well among the worst sort of the clergy as
among the fickle and discontented population.
It was after all this that the patriarchs of Constantinople attempted to
make themselves fully independent of the West. The splendor of the
imperial city of Byzantium was a constant incitement to their desire for
freedom, and they were certain for the most part of being supported in
their endeavors by the emperors. As early as the time of Pope Gregory
the Great, the patriarch John the Faster had taken on himself the title
of "Oecumenical," or universal bishop, whilst Gregory, in apostolic
humility, chose that of "Servant of the servants of God." It was in the
middle of the eleventh century that a complete separation was
accomplished. The universally recognized precedence of the See of Peter
was intolerable to the ambitious spirit of the patriarch Michael
Cerularius. To aid him in casting off the hated yoke, he circulated,
like Photius, a document in which the Western Church was loaded with
invective and all manner of accusations laid to her charge. The celibacy
of the secular clergy, the use of unleavened bread for the sacrifice,
fasting on Saturdays, the shaving of beards, the omission of the
Alleluia in Lent, were all brought forward as causes of offence. These
complaints were at once answered by Pope St. Leo IX, who tried, in a
most eloquent letter, to bring the deluded patriarch to reason. He
reminded him of the sanctity and inviolability of the unity of Christ's
Church, the folly and presumption of his attempting to direct the
successor of Peter, whom Christ had Himself confirmed in the faith, and
pointed out to him with what ingratitude and contempt he was treating
the Roman Church, the mother and guardian of all the churches. Lastly,
he urged upon the patriarch to set aside all discord and pride, and to
allow divine mercy and peace to prevail instead of strife. But the
paternal words were spoken in vain, and the legates also who were sent
by the Pope to Constantinople were powerless to move the obduracy of the
patriarch. He persistently refused all communication with them by speech
or writing. Having therefore formally laid their complaints in the most
distinct terms before the Emperor and Senate, they proceeded to
extremities. On the 16th of July, 1054, they appeared in the church of
St. Sophia at the beginning of divine service, and declared solemnly
that all their endeavors to re-establish peace and union had been
defeated by Cerularius. They then laid the bull of excommunication on
the high altar and left the church, shaking, as they did so, the dust
from off their feet, and exclaiming in the deepest grief, "God sees it;
He will judge." Thus was the unhappy schism between the East and the
West accomplished.
NORMAN CONQUEST OF ENGLAND
BATTLE OF HASTINGS
A.D. 1066
SIR EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY
(Toward the end of the reign of Edward the Confessor the claims of three
rival competitors for the English crown were persistently urged. These
claimants were Harald Hardrada, King of Norway, whose claim was based
upon an alleged compact of King Hardicanute with King Magnus, Harald's
predecessor; Duke William of Normandy, and the Saxon Harold, son of
Godwin, Earl of Wessex. This Harold, born about 1022, became Earl of
East Anglia about 1045; was banished with his father by Edward the
Confessor in 1051, and restored with his father in 1052; succeeded his
father as Earl of Wessex in 1053--relinquishing the earldom of East
Anglia--and from 1053 to 1066 was chief minister of Edward.
Harold--probably in 1064--being shipwrecked on the coast of Normandy,
became a guest and virtual prisoner of William, Duke of Normandy, by
whom the Saxon was forced to take an oath that he would marry William's
daughter and assist him in obtaining the crown of England; William then
allowed Harold to return to his country. Upon the death of Edward the
Confessor--January 5, 1066--an assembly of thanes and prelates and
leading citizens of London declared that Harold should be their king.
His accession as Harold II dates from the day after Edward's death.
Harold justified himself on the ground that his oath to William of
Normandy was taken under constraint.
William published his protest against what he called the bad faith of
Harold, and proclaimed his purpose to assert his rights by the sword. He
also obtained the countenance of the Pope, whose authority Harold
refused to recognize. A banner, blessed by the Pope for the invasion of
England, was sent to William from the Holy See, and the clergy of the
Continent upheld his enterprise as being the Cause of God. Thus
supported by the spiritual power, then wielding vast influence, William
proceeded to gather "the most remarkable and formidable armament which
the western nations had witnessed." With this following he entered upon
an undertaking the speedy and complete success of which, in the single
and decisive battle of Hastings, was fruitful in historic results such
as are seldom so traceable to definite causes and events. "No one who
appreciates the influence of England and her empire upon the destinies
of the world will ever rank that victory as one of secondary
importance.")
All the adventurous spirits of Christendom flocked to the holy banner,
under which Duke William, the most renowned knight and sagest general of
the age, promised to lead them to glory and wealth in the fair domains
of England. His army was filled with the chivalry of Continental Europe,
all eager to save their souls by fighting at the Pope's bidding, eager
to signalize their valor in so great an enterprise, and eager also for
the pay and the plunder which William liberally promised. But the
Normans themselves were the pith and the flower of the army, and William
himself was the strongest, the sagest, and the fiercest spirit of them
all.
Throughout the spring and summer of 1066 all the seaports of Normandy,
Picardy, and Brittany rang with the busy sound of preparation. On the
opposite side of the Channel King Harold collected the army and the
fleet with which he hoped to crush the southern invaders. But the
unexpected attack of King Harald Hardrada of Norway upon another part of
England disconcerted the skilful measures which the Saxon had taken
against the menacing armada of Duke William.
Harold's renegade brother, Earl Tostig, had excited the Norse King to
this enterprise, the importance of which has naturally been eclipsed by
the superior interest attached to the victorious expedition of Duke
William, but which was on a scale of grandeur which the Scandinavian
ports had rarely, if ever, before witnessed. Hardrada's fleet consisted
of two hundred warships and three hundred other vessels, and all the
best warriors of Norway were in his host. He sailed first to the
Orkneys, where many of the islanders joined him, and then to Yorkshire.
After a severe conflict near York he completely routed Earls Edwin and
Morcar, the governors of Northumbria. The city of York opened its gates,
and all the country, from the Tyne to the Humber, submitted to him.
The tidings of the defeat of Edwin and Morcar compelled Harold to leave
his position on the southern coast and move instantly against the
Norwegians. By a remarkably rapid march he reached Yorkshire in four
days, and took the Norse King and his confederates by surprise.
Nevertheless, the battle which ensued, and which was fought near
Stamford Bridge, was desperate, and was long doubtful. Unable to break
the ranks of the Norwegian phalanx by force, Harold at length tempted
them to quit their close order by a pretended flight. Then the English
columns burst in among them, and a carnage ensued the extent of which
may be judged of by the exhaustion and inactivity of Norway for a
quarter of a century afterward. King Harald Hardrada and all the flower
of his nobility perished on the 25th of September, 1066, at Stamford
Bridge, a battle which was a Flodden to Norway.
Harold's victory was splendid; but he had bought it dearly by the fall
of many of his best officers and men, and still more dearly by the
opportunity which Duke William had gained of effecting an unopposed
landing on the Sussex coast. The whole of William's shipping had
assembled at the mouth of the Dive, a little river between the Seine and
the Orne, as early as the middle of August. The army which he had
collected amounted to fifty thousand knights and ten thousand soldiers
of inferior degree. Many of the knights were mounted, but many must have
served on foot, as it is hardly possible to believe that William could
have found transports for the conveyance of fifty thousand war-horses
across the Channel.
For a long time the winds were adverse, and the Duke employed the
interval that passed before he could set sail in completing the
organization in and improving the discipline of his army, which he seems
to have brought into the same state of perfection as was seven centuries
and a half afterward the boast of another army assembled on the same
coast, and which Napoleon designed for a similar descent upon England.
It was not till the approach of the equinox that the wind veered from
the northeast to the west, and gave the Normans an opportunity of
quitting the weary shores of the Dive. They eagerly embarked and set
sail, but the wind soon freshened to a gale, and drove them along the
French coast to St. Valery, where the greater part of them found
shelter; but many of their vessels were wrecked, and the whole coast of
Normandy was strewn with the bodies of the drowned.
William's army began to grow discouraged and averse to the enterprise,
which the very elements thus seemed to fight against; though, in
reality, the northeast wind, which had cooped them so long at the mouth
of the Dive, and the western gale, which had forced them into St.
Valery, were the best possible friends to the invaders. They prevented
the Normans from crossing the Channel until the Saxon King and his army
of defence had been called away from the Sussex coast to encounter
Harald Hardrada in Yorkshire; and also until a formidable English fleet,
which by King Harold's orders had been cruising in the Channel to
intercept the Normans, had been obliged to disperse temporarily for the
purpose of refitting and taking in fresh stores of provisions.
Duke William used every expedient to reanimate the drooping spirits of
his men at St. Valery; and at last he caused the body of the patron
saint of the place to be exhumed and carried in solemn procession, while
the whole assemblage of soldiers, mariners, and appurtenant priests
implored the saint's intercession for a change of wind. That very night
the wind veered, and enabled the mediaeval Agamemnon to quit his Aulis.
With full sails, and a following southern breeze, the Norman armada left
the French shores and steered for England. The invaders crossed an
undefended sea, and found an undefended coast. It was in Pevensey Bay,
in Sussex, at Bulverhithe, between the castle of Pevensey and Hastings,
that the last conquerors of this island landed on the 29th of September,
1066.
Harold was at York, rejoicing over his recent victory, which had
delivered England from her ancient Scandinavian foes, and resettling the
government of the counties which Harald Hardrada had overrun, when the
tidings reached him that Duke William of Normandy and his host had
landed on the Sussex shore. Harold instantly hurried southward to meet
this long-expected enemy. The severe loss which his army had sustained
in the battle with the Norwegians must have made it impossible for many
of his veteran troops to accompany him in his forced march to London,
and thence to Sussex. He halted at the capital only six days, and during
that time gave orders for collecting forces from the southern and
midland counties, and also directed his fleet to reassemble off the
Sussex coast. Harold was well received in London, and his summons to
arms was promptly obeyed by citizen, by thane, by socman, and by ceorl,
for he had shown himself, during his brief reign, a just and wise king,
affable to all men, active for the good of his country, and, in the
words of the old historian, sparing himself from no fatigue by land or
by sea. He might have gathered a much more numerous army than that of
William; but his recent victory had made him overconfident, and he was
irritated by the reports of the country being ravaged by the invaders.
As soon, therefore, as he had collected a small army in London he
marched off toward the coast, pressing forward as rapidly as his men
could traverse Surrey and Sussex, in the hope of taking the Normans
unawares, as he had recently, by a similar forced march, succeeded in
surprising the Norwegians. But he had now to deal with a foe equally
brave with Harald Hardrada and far more skilful and wary.
The old Norman chroniclers describe the preparations of William on his
landing with a graphic vigor, which would be wholly lost by transfusing
their racy Norman couplets and terse Latin prose into the current style
of modern history. It is best to follow them closely, though at the
expense of much quaintness and occasional uncouthness of expression.
They tell us how Duke William's own ship was the first of the Norman
fleet. It was called the _Mora_, and was the gift of his duchess
Matilda. On the head of the ship, in the front, which mariners call the
prow, there was a brazen child bearing an arrow with a bended bow. His
face was turned toward England, and thither he looked, as though he was
about to shoot. The breeze became soft and sweet, and the sea was smooth
for their landing. The ships ran on dry land, and each ranged by the
other's side. There you might see the good sailors, the sergeants, and
squires sally forth and unload the ships; cast the anchors, haul the
ropes, bear out shields and saddles, and land the war-horses and the
palfreys. The archers came forth and touched land the first, each with
his bow strung, and with his quiver full of arrows slung at his side.
All were shaven and shorn; and all clad in short garments, ready to
attack, to shoot, to wheel about and skirmish. All stood well equipped
and of good courage for the fight; and they scoured the whole shore, but
found not an armed man there. After the archers had thus gone forth, the
knights landed all armed, with their hauberks on, their shields slung at
their necks, and their helmets laced. They formed together on the shore,
each armed and mounted on his war-horse; all had their swords girded on,
and rode forward into the country with their lances raised. Then the
carpenters landed, who had great axes in their hands, and planes and
adzes hung at their sides. They took counsel together, and sought for a
good spot to place a castle on. They had brought with them in the fleet
three wooden castles from Normandy in pieces, all ready for framing
together, and they took the materials of one of these out of the ships,
all shaped and pierced to receive the pins which they had brought cut
and ready in large barrels; and before evening had set in they had
finished a good fort on the English ground, and there they placed their
stores. All then ate and drank enough, and were right glad that they
were ashore.
When Duke William himself landed, as he stepped on the shore he slipped
and fell forward upon his two hands. Forthwith all raised a loud cry of
distress. "An evil sign," said they, "is here." But he cried out
lustily: "See, my lords, by the splendor of God,[26] I have taken
possession of England with both my hands. It is now mine, and what is
mine is yours."
[Footnote 26: William's customary oath.]
The next day they marched along the sea-shore to Hastings. Near that
place the Duke fortified a camp, and set up the two other wooden
castles. The foragers, and those who looked out for booty, seized all
the clothing and provisions they could find, lest what had been brought
by the ships should fail them. And the English were to be seen fleeing
before them, driving off their cattle, and quitting their houses. Many
took shelter in burying-places, and even there they were in grievous
alarm.
Besides the marauders from the Norman camp, strong bodies of cavalry
were detached by William into the country, and these, when Harold and
his army made their rapid march from London southward, fell back in good
order upon the main body of the Normans, and reported that the Saxon
King was rushing on like a madman. But Harold, when he found that his
hopes of surprising his adversary were vain, changed his tactics, and
halted about seven miles from the Norman lines. He sent some spies, who
spoke the French language, to examine the number and preparations of the
enemy, who, on their return, related with astonishment that there were
more priests in William's camp than there were fighting men in the
English army. They had mistaken for priests all the Norman soldiers who
had short hair and shaven chins, for the English laymen were then
accustomed to wear long hair and mustaches. Harold, who knew the Norman
usages, smiled at their words, and said, "Those whom you have seen in
such numbers are not priests, but stout soldiers, as they will soon make
us feel."
Harold's army was far inferior in number to that of the Normans, and
some of his captains advised him to retreat upon London and lay waste
the country, so as to starve down the strength of the invaders. The
policy thus recommended was unquestionably the wisest, for the Saxon
fleet had now reassembled, and intercepted all William's communications
with Normandy; and as soon as his stores of provisions were exhausted,
he must have moved forward upon London, where Harold, at the head of the
full military strength of the kingdom, could have defied his assault,
and probably might have witnessed his rival's destruction by famine and
disease, without having to strike a single blow. But Harold's bold blood
was up, and his kindly heart could not endure to inflict on the South
Saxon subjects even the temporary misery of wasting the country. "He
would not burn houses and villages, neither would he take away the
substance, of his people."
Harold's brothers, Gurth and Leofwine, were with him in the camp, and
Gurth endeavored to persuade him to absent himself from the battle. The
incident shows how well devised had been William's scheme of binding
Harold by the oath on the holy relics.
"My brother," said the young Saxon prince, "thou canst not deny that
either by force or free will thou hast made Duke William an oath on the
bodies of saints. Why then risk thyself in the battle with a perjury
upon thee? To us, who have sworn nothing, this is a holy and a just war,
for we are fighting for our country. Leave us then alone to fight this
battle, and he who has the right will win."
Harold replied that he would not look on while others risked their lives
for him. Men would hold him a coward, and blame him for sending his best
friends where he dared not go himself. He resolved, therefore, to fight,
and to fight in person; but he was still too good a general to be the
assailant in the action; and he posted his army with great skill along a
ridge of rising ground which opened southward, and was covered on the
back by an extensive wood. He strengthened his position by a palisade of
stakes and osier hurdles, and there he said he would defend himself
against whoever should seek him.
The ruins of Battle Abbey at this hour attest the place where Harold's
army was posted; and the high altar of the abbey stood on the very spot
where Harold's own standard was planted during the fight, and where the
carnage was the thickest. Immediately after his victory William vowed to
build an abbey on the site; and a fair and stately pile soon rose there,
where for many ages the monks prayed and said masses for the souls of
those who were slain in the battle, whence the abbey took its name.
Before that time the place was called Senlac. Little of the ancient
edifice now remains; but it is easy to trace in the park and the
neighborhood the scenes of the chief incidents in the action; and it is
impossible to deny the generalship shown by Harold in stationing his
men, especially when we bear in mind that he was deficient in cavalry,
the arm in which his adversary's main strength consisted.
William's only chance of safety lay in bringing on a general engagement;
and he joyfully advanced his army from their camp on the hill over
Hastings, nearer to the Saxon position. But he neglected no means of
weakening his opponent, and renewed his summonses and demands on Harold
with an ostentatious air of sanctity and moderation.