a set of regulations for the administration of justice, and enactments
were agreed upon by which the feudal law, which had been long
introduced into Scotland, was strengthened and extended, while the
remains of the ancient municipal customs of the original Celtic
tribes, or the consuetudinary laws of the Scots and Bretts--the
Scotto-Irish and British races--were finally abrogated. This was for
the purpose of promoting a uniformity of laws through the islands.
Sheriffs and other officers were appointed for the administration of
justice. There were provisions also made for a general revision of the
ancient laws and statutes of Scotland.
FIRST GREAT JUBILEE OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
A.D. 1300
FERDINAND GREGOROVIUS
Benedetto Gaetani, born at Anagni, Italy, about 1228--whom
contemporary poets and historians also consigned to
infamy--occupied the pontifical throne but ten years,
1294-1303, but those were years of almost continual strife.
It is indeed likely that partisanship painted him, in some
respects, with colors too black, attributing to him crimes
of which he was not guilty. But even these exaggerations of
dispraise were due to the unquestioned facts of his
character and career. When at length Boniface was worsted in
his quarrel with Philip the Fair, a widespread reaction
began on the part of the laity against ecclesiastical
assumptions, and the great dramatic act by which, under
Hildebrand, the papacy first displayed its power had its
counterpart in the manner of its decline. "The drama of
Anagni is to be set against the drama of Canossa."
But Boniface enjoyed one year of triumph scarcely paralleled
in all the experience of his fellow-pontiffs. This was the
closing year of the thirteenth century. Taking advantage of
a fresh wave of religious enthusiasm which then swept over
Europe, the Pope called upon the Christian world--almost at
peace from long warfare--to celebrate a jubilee. The
institution of the Catholic jubilee is generally considered
as dating from this celebration, though some writers refer
its establishment to the pontificate of Innocent III, a
century earlier.
Boniface VIII inaugurated the fourteenth century with a pilgrimage
festival which has become renowned. The centennial jubilee had been
celebrated in ancient Rome by magnificent games; the recollections of
these games, however, had expired, and no tidings inform us whether
the close or beginning of a century was marked in Christian Rome by
any ecclesiastical festival. The immense processions of pilgrims to
St. Peter's had ceased during the crusades; the crusades ended, the
old longing reawoke among the people and drew them again to the graves
of the apostles. The pious impulse was fostered in no small degree by
the shrewdness of the Roman priests.
About the Christmas of 1299--and with Christmas, according to the
style of the Roman curia, the year ended--crowds flocked both from the
city and country to St. Peter's. A cry, promising remission of sins to
those who made the pilgrimage to Rome, resounded throughout the world
and forced it into movement. Boniface gave form and sanction to the
growing impulse by promulgating the bull of jubilee of February 22,
1300, which promised remission of sins to all who should visit the
basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul during the year. The pilgrimage of
Italians was to last for thirty days, that of foreigners for fifteen.
The enemies of the Church were alone excluded. As such the Pope
designated Frederick of Sicily, the Colonnas and their adherents, and,
curiously enough, all Christians who held traffic with Saracens.
Boniface consequently made use of the jubilee to brand his enemies and
to exclude them from the privileges of Christian grace.
The pressure toward Rome was unexampled. The city presented the aspect
of a camp where crowds of pilgrims, that resembled armies, thronged
incessantly in and out. A spectator standing on one of the heights of
the city might have seen swarms like wandering tribes approach along
the ancient Roman roads from north, south, east, and west; and, had he
mixed among them, might have had difficulty in discovering their home.
Italians, Provençals, Frenchmen, Hungarians, Slavs, Germans,
Spaniards, even Englishmen came.
Italy gave free passage to pilgrims and kept the Truce of God. The
crowds arrived, wearing the pilgrim's mantle or clad in their national
dress, on foot, on horseback, or on cars, leading the ill and weary,
and laden with their luggage. Veterans of a hundred were led by their
grandsons; and youths bore, like Æneas, father or mother on their
shoulders. They spoke in many dialects, but they all sang in the same
language the litanies of the Church, and their longing dreams had but
one and the same object.
On beholding in the sunny distance the dark forest of towers of the
holy city they raised the exultant shout, "Rome, Rome!" like sailors
who after a tedious voyage catch their first glimpse of land. They
threw themselves down in prayer and rose again with the fervent cry,
"St. Peter and St. Paul, have mercy." They were received at the gates
by their countrymen and by guardians appointed by the city to show
them their quarters; nevertheless, they first made their way to St.
Peter's, ascended the steps of the vestibule on their knees, and then
threw themselves in ecstasies on the grave of the apostle.
During an entire year Rome swarmed with pilgrims and was filled with a
perfect babel of tongues. It was said that thirty thousand pilgrims
entered and left the city daily, and that daily two hundred thousand
pilgrims might have been found within it. An exemplary administration
provided for order and for moderate prices. The year was fruitful, the
Campagna and the neighboring provinces sent supplies in abundance. One
of the pilgrims who was a chronicler relates that "bread, wine, meat,
fish, and oats were plentiful and cheap in the market; the hay,
however, was very dear; the inns so expensive that I was obliged to
pay for my bed and the stabling of my horse (beyond the hay and oats)
a Tornese groat a day. As I left Rome on Christmas eve, I saw so large
a party of pilgrims depart that no one could count the number. The
Romans reckon that altogether they have had two millions of men and
women. I frequently saw both sexes trodden under foot, and it was
sometimes with difficulty that I escaped the same fate myself."
The way that led from the city across the bridge of St. Angelo to St.
Peter's was too narrow; a new street was therefore opened in the walls
along the river, not far from the ancient tomb known as Meta Romuli.
The bridge was covered with booths, which divided it in two, and in
order to prevent accidents it was enacted that those going to St.
Peter's should keep to one side of the bridge; those returning, to the
other. Processions went incessantly to St. Paul's without the walls
and to St. Peter's, where the already renowned relic, the handkerchief
of Veronica, was exhibited. Every pilgrim laid an offering on the
altar of the apostle, and the same chronicler of Asti assures us, as
an eye-witness, that two clerics stood by the altar of St. Paul's, day
and night, who with rakes in their hands gathered in untold money.
The marvellous sight of priests, who smilingly shovelled up gold like
hay, caused malicious Ghibellines to assert that the Pope had
appointed the jubilee solely for the sake of gain. Boniface in truth
stood in need of money to defray the expenses of the war with Sicily,
which swallowed up incalculable sums. If instead of copper, the monks
in St. Paul's had lighted on gold florins, they would necessarily have
collected fabulous wealth, but the heaps of money, both in St. Peter's
and St. Paul's, consisted mainly of small coins, the gifts of poor
pilgrims.
Cardinal Jacopo Stefaneschi pointedly comments on the fact, and
laments the change of times, when only the poor gave offerings, and
when kings no longer, like the three magi, brought gifts to the
Saviour. The receipts of the jubilee, which the Pope was able to
devote to the two basilicas for the purchase of estates, were
sufficiently considerable. If in ordinary years the gifts of pilgrims
to St. Peter's amounted to thirty thousand four hundred gold florins,
we may conclude how much greater must have been the gains of the year
of jubilee. "The gifts of pilgrims," wrote the chronicler of Florence,
"yield treasures to the Church, and the Romans all grow wealthy by the
sale of their goods."
The year of jubilee was for them indeed a year of wealth. The Romans,
therefore, treated the pilgrims with kindness, and nothing is heard of
any act of violence. If the fall of the house of Colonna had aroused
enemies to the Pope in Rome, he disarmed them by the immense profits
which accrued to the Romans who have always lived solely on the money
of foreigners. Their senators at this time were Richard Anibaldi of
the Colosseum, from which the Anibaldi had already expelled the
Frangipani, and Gentile Orsini, whose name may still be read on an
inscription in the Capitol. These gentlemen did not permit the pious
enthusiasm of the pilgrimage to prevent them from making war in the
neighborhood. They allowed the pilgrims to pray at the altars, but
they themselves advanced with the Roman banners against Toscanella,
which they subjugated to the Capitol.
We may imagine on how vast a scale Rome sold relics, amulets, and
images of saints, and at the same time how many remains of antiquity,
coins, gems, rings, statues, marble remains, and also manuscripts were
carried back by the pilgrims to their homes. When they had
sufficiently satisfied their religious instincts, these pilgrims
turned with astonished gaze to the monuments of the past.
Ancient Rome, through which they wandered, the book of the _Mirabilia_
in their hand, exercised its profound spell upon them. Besides the
recollections of antiquity other memories of the deeds of popes and
emperors, from the time of Charles the Great, animated this classic
theatre of the world in the year 1300. Every mind, alive to the
language of history, must have felt deeply the influence of the city
at this time, when troops of pilgrims from every country, wandering in
this world of majestic ruins, bore living testimony to the eternal
ties which bound Rome to mankind. It can scarcely be doubted that
Dante beheld the city in these days, and that a ray from them fell on
his immortal poem which begins with Easter week of the year 1300.
The sight of the capital of the world inspired the soul of another
Florentine. "I also found myself," writes Giovanni Villani, "in that
blessed pilgrimage to the holy city of Rome, and as I beheld the great
and ancient things within her, and read the histories and the great
deeds of the Romans--which Vergil, Sallust, Lucan, Titus Livius,
Valerius, Paul Orosius, and other great masters of history have
described--I took style and form from them, although as a pupil I was
not worthy to do so great a work. And thus in 1300, returned from
Rome, I began to write this book to the honor of God and St. John and
to the commendation of our city of Florence." The fruit of Villani's
creative enthusiasm was his history of Florence, the greatest and most
naive chronicle that has been produced in the beautiful Italian
tongue; and it is possible that many other talented men may have
received fruitful impressions from Rome at this time.
For Boniface the jubilee was a real victory. The crowds that streamed
to Rome showed him that men still retained their belief in the city as
the sacred temple of the united world. The monster festival of
reconciliation seemed to flow like a river of grace over its own past,
and to wipe away the hated recollection of Celestine V, of his war
with the Colonnas, and all the accusations of his enemies. In these
days he could revel in a feeling of almost divine power, as scarcely
any pope had been able to do before him. He sat on the highest throne
of the West, adorned by the spoils of empire, as the "vicar of God" on
earth. As the dogmatic ruler of the world, the keys of blessing and
destruction in his hand, he beheld thousands from distant lands come
before his throne and cast themselves in the dust before him as before
a higher being. Kings, however, he did not see. Beyond Charles Martel,
no monarch came to Rome to receive, as a penitent, absolution for his
sins. This shows that the faith, which the battles of Alexander III
and Innocent III had formerly won, was extinguished at royal courts.
Boniface VIII closed the memorable festival on Christmas Eve of the
year 1300. It forms an epoch in the history of the papacy, as in that
of Rome. The year of jubilee and enthusiasm was followed, in terrible
contrast, by the tragic end of the Pope, the fall of the papacy from
its height, and the decline of Rome to a condition of awful solitude.
CHRONOLOGY OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY
EMBRACING THE PERIOD COVERED IN THIS VOLUME
A.D. 1162-1300
JOHN RUDD, LL.D.
CHRONOLOGY OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY
EMBRACING THE PERIOD COVERED IN THIS VOLUME A.D. 1162-1300
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.
1162. Surrender and destruction of the city of Milan; the whole of
Lombardy submits to Frederick.
Thomas Becket, appointed archbishop of Canterbury, resigns the
chancellorship. See "ARCHIEPISCOPATE OF THOMAS BECKET," vi, i. Flight
of Pope Alexander III into France.
1163. Council of Tours; Alexander declares void all the acts of his
opponents; stringent decrees against the heretics of Southern France,
called Manicheans, Paulicians, and afterward Albigenses.
1164. Henry II convokes an assembly of barons and prelates; they enact
the Constitutions of Clarendon. See "ARCHIEPISCOPATE OF THOMAS
BECKET," vi, i.
1165. Pope Alexander returns to Rome.
1166. Emperor Frederick I reenforces his army and again invades Italy.
1167. General league of the Lombard cities formed; Milan rebuilt.
Emperor Frederick Barbarossa defeats the Sicilian auxiliaries of Pope
Alexander, captures Rome, and seats Antipope Paschal.
1168. Success of the Lombard League; they found a new city, named
Alessandria, in honor of the Pope. See "THE PEACE OF CONSTANCE," vi,
28.
Death of Antipope Paschal III; Antipope Callistus III set up.
1169. Richard Strongbow, with other knights, begins the English
conquest of Ireland; Wexford, Waterford, and Dublin captured.
1170. Peter Waldo, a citizen of Lyons, founds a preaching society,
afterward called Waldenses.
Murder of Thomas Becket. See "ARCHIEPISCOPATE OF THOMAS BECKET," vi,
i.
1171. End of the Fatimite dynasty in Egypt; Saladin, acting for
Noureddin, becomes supreme head.
Henry II lands with an army at Waterford, Ireland; his own knights and
many Irish chiefs do homage to him for their lands.
1173. Henry II appears before the papal legates and receives
absolution for Becket's death; his Queen, Eleanor, jealous of Fair
Rosamond, incites her sons to rebel against their father; Louis, King
of France, supports them, and David of Scotland invades England.
1174. Saladin becomes independent sultan of Egypt.
Henry II does penance at Becket's tomb; he defeats and captures the
King of Scotland, and quells the insurrection of his sons. The Leaning
Tower of Pisa commenced.
1175. English conquest of Ireland completed.
1176. Frederick I is defeated at Legnano by the forces of the Lombard
League. See "THE PEACE OF CONSTANCE," vi, 28.
Peter Coleman commences the erection of the first stone bridge across
the Thames at London.
1177. Meeting of Emperor Frederick and Pope Alexander; a treaty is
concluded between them.
Henry II divides England into six circuits, through which he sends
justices twice a year to administer the law in each county.
1178. A fleet is sent by the King of Sicily to assist the Christians
in Palestine.
1179. Eleventh general council, Third of the Lateran, declares that
the true pope must be elected by two-thirds of the cardinals; one of
its canons condemns the Waldenses, and their translation of their
Bible is suppressed.
1180. Death of Louis VII; his son Philip Augustus succeeds to the
French throne.
Henry the Lion, placed under the ban of the empire, has his Bavarian
domains sequestered and his Saxon kingdom partitioned.
About this time the Gothic style of architecture is introduced.
1182. France expels the Jews.
1183. Lombard cities secure their freedom. See "THE PEACE OF
CONSTANCE," vi, 28.
Baldwin IV, disabled by leprosy, resigns the crown of Jerusalem to his
nephew, Baldwin V.
Saladin takes Damascus, Aleppo, and Mosul, and sets aside the Turkish
Sultan.
1184. Diet of Mainz; the functions and dignities of the electors of
Germany settled.
Council of Verona; excommunication of the Roman people and the
Waldenses.
1185. Tumults at Constantinople; Andronicus murdered, which ends the
Comneni dynasty; Isaac Angelus made emperor.
Prince Arthur, grandson of Henry II, born after the death of his
father, Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany.
1186. Marriage of the Emperor's son, Henry, to Constance, heiress of
the throne of the Two Sicilies; they are crowned king and queen of
Italy at Milan.
Revolt of Bulgaria and Wallachia (Roumania); they throw off the
Byzantine yoke.
1187. Battle of Tiberias. See "SALADIN TAKES JERUSALEM FROM THE
CHRISTIANS," vi, 41.
Pope Gregory VIII urges a new crusade. York Minster, England, founded.
1188. Imposition of the "tithe of Saladin," on behalf of the crusaders
in England. King Richard says he "would sell London itself" to aid the
cause. See "THE THIRD CRUSADE," vi, 54.
Pope Clement III again makes Rome the papal residence.
1189. Massacre of Jews in England.
Sancho, King of Portugal, takes Silvas and Beja.
Tancred, natural son of Roger, is invited by the Sicilians to occupy
the throne; he is supported by the Pope against Constance and her
husband.
Frederick Barbarossa sets out on the Third Crusade. See "THE THIRD
CRUSADE," vi, 54.
1190. King Richard of England claims the dowry of his sister, Joan,
widow of the late King of Sicily.
Emperor Frederick is drowned. See "THE THIRD CRUSADE," vi, 54. A
wealthy German, to aid his poor countrymen at Acre, founds the
order of Teutonic Knights. See "THE TEUTONIC KNIGHTS," vi, 68.
1191. Pope Celestin III allows the Romans to destroy Tusculum; the
expelled inhabitants build Frascati.
The city of Bern, Switzerland, built.
1192. The Order of the Garter said to have been originated by Richard
I of England at Acre.
After leaving Palestine, Richard is shipwrecked near Aquileia; he is
imprisoned and held for ransom by Emperor Henry VI.
1193. Pope Celestin III threatens to excommunicate the princes who
hold King Richard in captivity.
John Lackland, brother of Richard, King of England, attempts to usurp
the throne; he is resisted by the barons.
Discord and wars among the municipal republics of Italy.
1194. Richard, after having been a captive for more than a year, is
released for a ransom of 150,000 marks, raised by his subjects. He
returns to England, declares war against Philip Augustus, and invades
Normandy. He pardons his brother John.
Emperor Henry VI puts an end to the Norman line in Sicily; he founds
the Hohenstaufen dynasty there.
1195. Battle of Alarcos; Alfonso the Noble, King of Castile, defeated
by the Moors.
1196. Crusade of German barons to Palestine.
1197. Death of Henry VI of Germany; his heir is an infant son,
Frederick II.
1198. Contest for the crowns of Germany and Italy between Philip of
Swabia, supported by the Ghibellines, and Otho of Brunswick, son of
Henry the Lion, aided by the Guelfs.
Florence becomes an independent republic.
Battle of Gisors, France; Richard Coeur de Lion defeats the French;
his war-cry, "_Dieu et mon droit_" later became the motto to the arms
of England.
1199. Richard Coeur de Lion is slain while contesting with one of his
French vassals. John usurps the throne of England to the exclusion of
Prince Arthur. See "PHILIP OF FRANCE WINS THE FRENCH DOMAINS
OF THE ENGLISH KINGS," vi, 86.
A quarrel between Parma and Placentia inflames a general war among the
cities of Lombardy.
1200. King John and Philip Augustus, the latter forsaking Arthur's
cause, come to terms.
Pope Innocent III compels Philip Augustus to take back his queen, whom
he had divorced.
1201. Fourth Crusade undertaken by Baldwin of Flanders, Simon de
Montfort, and Boniface of Montserrat; treaty of the nobles of France
and Flanders with Venice.
Chartering of the University of Paris, by Philip.
1202. Venice secures the help of the crusaders by agreeing to
transport them to Palestine, in place of a part of the payment, in the
conquest of the city of Zara, then in rebellion.
Prince Arthur made prisoner by his uncle, King John, who murders him.
See "PHILIP OF FRANCE WINS THE FRENCH DOMAINS OF THE ENGLISH KINGS,"
vi, 86.
1203. Constantinople attacked and taken by the Venetians and
crusaders, who restore the emperor Isaac Angelus.
A great Mongol empire raised by Ghengis Khan. See "FOUNDING OF THE
MONGOL EMPIRE BY GHENGIS KHAN," vi, 103.
1204. Constantinople in revolt. See "VENETIANS AND CRUSADERS TAKE
CONSTANTINOPLE," vi, 121.
Loss of Normandy and other French possessions by King John of England.
See "PHILIP OF FRANCE WINS THE FRENCH DOMAINS OF THE ENGLISH KINGS,"
vi, 86.
Foundation of the Latin Empire of the East. See "LATIN EMPIRE OF THE
EAST," vi, 140.
1205. Boniface sells Crete to the Venetians.
1206. Henry of Flanders elected emperor of Constantinople; he vainly
attempts to remedy the civil and ecclesiastical confusion in his
dominions.
Theodore Lascaris, son-in-law of Alexius III, establishes the Greek
empire of Nicaea.
1207. Stephen Langton consecrated archbishop of Canterbury by Innocent
III; resistance of King John. See "INNOCENT III EXALTS THE PAPAL
POWER," vi, 156.
1208. Tuscany ceases to be a separate state, except the republic of
Florence.
A crusade against the Albigenses is proclaimed by Innocent III.
An interdict laid on England as King John persists in rejecting
Stephen Langton. See "INNOCENT III EXALTS THE PAPAL POWER," vi, 156.
Assassination of Philip of Swabia by Otho, Count of Wittelsbach; Otho
IV becomes emperor of Germany in place of his father.
1209. Foundation of the order of Franciscans.
Defeat of the Scots under William I in an invasion of England.
Salinguerra, leader of the Ghibellines at Ferrara, expels the marquis
Azzo and the Guelfs.
Massacre of the Albigenses by the crusaders, at Beziers, France. See
"INNOCENT III EXALTS THE PAPAL POWER," vi, 156.
1210. Emperor Otho IV claims Sicily of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen;
he attempts its conquest. He is excommunicated by the Pope.
Fourteen heretics are condemned to the flames by the Council of Paris;
the works of Aristotle are ordered to be burned, and the future
translation and reading of them forbidden.
1211. Marquis Azzo recovers his influence in Ferrara.
1212. Frederick of Hohenstaufen, supported by Innocent III, wars with
Otho for the German crown.
Battle of Navasde Tolosa; the kings of Castile, Aragon, and Navarre
crush the Moors and destroy the Almohade power in Spain.
Children's Crusade from France and Germany. See "THE SIXTH CRUSADE,"
vi, 208.
1213. King John of England submits to the Pope. See "INNOCENT III
EXALTS THE PAPAL POWER," vi, 156.
Subjugation of the Albigenses by Simon de Montfort, who is awarded the
principality of Toulouse,
1214. Battle of Bouvines; victory of Philip Augustus over Otho IV,
supported by English and Flemish auxiliaries.
1215. Transubstantiation declared, by the twelfth general council, to
be a doctrine of the Church; auricular confession enforced; it
transfers the greater part of the lands of Count Raymond, the late
Albigenses leader, to Simon de Montfort.
Magna Charta signed by King John. See "SIGNING OF MAGNA CHARTA," vi,
175.
In Florence begins the fierce quarrel between the Guelfs and
Ghibellines.
Founding of the order of Dominicans.
China invaded by Ghengis Khan; he captures Peking.