History of the Middle Ages

HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES

Victor Duruy

ENDYMION PRESS

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Copyright © 2016 by Victor Duruy

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE BARBARIAN WORLD IN THE FOURTH AND FIFTH CENTURIES

PRINCIPAL BARBARIAN KINGDOMS. THE EASTERN EMPIRE

CLOVIS AND THE MEROVINGIANS (481-752)

MOHAMMED AND THE ARAB INVASION

THE EMPIRE OF THE FRANKS. EFFORTS TO INTRODUCE UNITY IN CHURCH AND STATE

THE LAST CARLOVINGIANS AND THE NORTHMEN

THE THIRD INVASION

FEUDALISM

THE GERMAN EMPIRE. STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE PAPACY AND THE EMPIRE

THE CRUSADES IN THE EAST AND IN THE WEST

SOCIETY IN THE TWELFTH AND THIRTEENTH CENTURIES

FORMATION OF THE KINGDOM OF FRANCE (987-1328)

FORMATION OF THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION

FIRST PERIOD OF THE HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR (1328-1380)

SECOND PERIOD OF THE HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR (1380-1453)

SPAIN AND ITALY FROM 1250 TO 1453

GERMANY. THE SCANDINAVIAN, SLAVIC AND TURKISH STATES (1250-1453)

SUMMARY OF THE MIDDLE AGES

THE BARBARIAN WORLD IN THE FOURTH AND FIFTH CENTURIES

Definition of the Middle Ages. — The term Middle Ages indicates the period which elapsed between the ruin of the Roman Empire and the establishment of the great modern monarchies. It extends from the German invasion at the beginning of the fifth century to the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks ten centuries later in 1453.

In this period, situated between ancient and modern times, the cultivation of arts and letters was suspended, although a new and magnificent architecture was developed. In place of the republics of antiquity and the monarchies of our day there grew up a special organization called feudalism. This domination of the feudal lords, the product of many centuries, was finally overthrown by Louis XI, the Tudors and the princes contemporary with them. Although there were kings in all countries, the military and ecclesiastical chiefs were the real sovereigns from the ninth to the twelfth century. The central power had no force, local powers had no overseer or guide, the frontiers had no fixed limits. The sovereign and owner parcelled out the territory into a multitude of petty states where the sentiment of nationality could not exist. Nevertheless above this condition of many lords hovered the idea of Christianity represented by the pope, and of a certain political unity represented by the emperor in comparison with whom all the kings of Europe were provincial. Thus the great wars of those times were religious wars, as were the crusades against the Mussulmans of Palestine, the Moors of Spain, the Albigensian hereties or the pagans of the Baltic, or were a struggle between the two powers which aspired to rule the world, a quarrel between Papacy and the Empire. Hence there is a wide difference between this period and those periods which preceded or followed. Hence of necessity it has a name and a place apart in universal history.

The Northern Barbarians: their Habits and Religion. During the military anarchy which drained the last resources of the Roman Empire, peoples, hitherto concealed in the depths of the north, south and east, were setting themselves in motion beyond its boundaries, to which they daily drew nearer. In the north were three layers of humanity, placed at intervals in the following order: Germans, Slavs and Turanian tribes. On the east were the Persians, a settled and stationary people, who had often made war on the empire but had no thought of invading it. On the south in the deserts of their great peninsula were the Arabs, who as yet caused no fear; and in the wastes of Africa the Moorish populations, who had been touched rather than permeated by Roman civilization.

At the death of Theodosius (395) there was no serious danger except from the north. Driven forward by the Asiatic hordes from the banks of the Volga, the Germans were pressing upon the frontiers of the empire. The Suevi or Suabians, Alemanni and Bavarians were in the south between the Main and Lake Constance. The Marcomanni, Quadi, Heruli and the great Gothic nation controlled the left bank of the Danube. In the west along the Rhine extended the confederation of the Franks, formed as early as the middle of the third century, and toward the mouth of the Ems, the Frisii, a remnant of the Batavi. In the north were the Vandals, Burgundi, Rugii, Longobardi or Lombards; between the Elbe and the Eyder, the Angles and Saxons; farther north, the Scandinavians, Jutes and Danes in Sweden and Denmark, whence they emerged to join the second invasion; and lastly in the immense plains of the east and at many points of the Danubian valley, the Slavs, who were to follow the Germanic invasion but only to enter into history later on, first through the Poles and then through the Russians.

A spirit totally different from that of the inhabitants of the Roman Empire animated these barbarians. Among them reigned the love of individual independence, the devotion of the warrior to his chieftain and a passion for wars of adventure. As soon as the young man had received in the public assembly his buckler and lance, he was a warrior and a citizen. He immediately attached himself to some famous chieftain, whom he followed to battle with other warriors, his leudes or henchmen, always ready to die in his behalf. The government of the Germans was simple. The affairs of the tribe were administered in an assembly in which all took part. The warriors gathered there together in arms. The clash of shields denoted applause; a violent murmur, disapproval. The same assembly exercised judicial power. Each canton had its magistrate, the graf, and the whole nation had a könig, or king, elected from among the members of one special family which held hereditary possession of that title. For combat the warriors chose the leader, or herzog, whom they wished to follow.

The Olympus or heaven of these peoples presented a mixture of terrible and graceful conceptions. At the side of Odin, who gave victory and who by night rode through the air with the dead warriors; of Donar, the Hercules of the Germans; and of the fierce joys of Walhalla, — appeared the goddesses Freja and Holda, the Venus and the Diana of the north, who everywhere diffused peace and the arts. The Germans also adored Herta, the earth, Sunna, the sun, and her brother Mani, the moon, who was pursued by two wolves. The bards were their poets and encouraged them to brave death. It was their glory to die with a laugh.

The Germans cultivated the soil but little. They possessed no domain as private property, and every year the magistrates distributed to each village and each family the plot which they were to cultivate. They had no towns but scattered earthen huts far distant from each other, each surrounded by the plot which the proprietor cultivated. Their habits were tolerably pure. Polygamy was authorized only for the kings and the nobles. But drunkenness and bloody quarrels generally terminated their Homeric feasts, and they had a passion for gambling.

Arrival of the Huns in Europe. — Behind this Germanic family which was destined to occupy the greater part of the empire, pressed two other barbarous races: the Slavs whose turn did not come until later, and the Huns who were an object of fear to the people of the west. Their lives were passed in enormous chariots or in the saddle. Their bony faces, pierced with little eyes, their broad flat noses, their enormous wide-spread ears and swarthy tattooed skins made them seem hardly human. At the end of the fourth century they had convulsed the whole barbaric world and precipitated the Germans upon the Empire of the West. In consequence of intestine discords a part of the nation of the Huns, driven on toward Europe, crossed the Volga, carrying with them the Alani. They dashed themselves against the great Gothic empire in which Hermanric had united the three branches of the nation: the Ostrogoths or Oriental Goths east of the Dnieper; the Visigoths or western Goths; the Gepidæ or Laggards farther to the north. The Ostrogoths submitted. The Visigoths fled toward the Danube and obtained from the Emperor Valens an asylum on the lands of the empire. They revolted soon after against their benefactor and slew him at the battle of Adrianople (378). But they were arrested by Theodosius who established many of them in Thrace, where at first they faithfully defended that frontier against the Huns.

Invasion of the Visigoths. Alaric. The Great Invasion of 406. — When at the death of Theodosius his two sons divided their heritage (395), Honorius received the West. His provinces bore the full brunt of the invasion from the north. In the course of half a century this empire endured the four terrible assaults of Alaric, Radagaisus, Genseric and Attila. Hardly had it fallen, when the Franks of Clovis wrested the finest portion from its invaders, which they still retain. The Visigoths under the lead of their king Alaric first tried their forces against the Empire of the East. They ravaged Thrace and Macedonia, passed Thermopylæ where there was no longer a Leonidas, devastated Attica, but respected Athens, and penetrated into the Peloponnesus. The Vandal Stilicho, general of Honorius, surrounded them on Mount Pholoe, but they escaped. Arcadius, who reigned at Constantinople, only rid himself of their dangerous presence by pointing out the Empire of the West. They hastened thither, but found at Polentia in Liguria (403) the same Stilicho, who defeated them and forced them to evacuate Italy. Honorius, to celebrate this victory of his lieutenant, enjoyed a triumph at Rome and offered the people the last sanguinary games of the circus. Then he hid himself at Ravenna behind the marshes at the south of the Po, disdaining his ancient capital, and no longer daring to reside in Milan where Alaric had nearly surprised him.

The ostensible consent of the empire had admitted upon its territory the Visigoths, who rewarded it badly. But now four peoples, the Suevi, Alani, Vandals and Burgundians, at two points forced their way across the frontier. One of their divisions passed the Alps under Radagaisus, but was annihilated at Fiesole by Stilicho. Another crossed the Rhine (406) and for two years laid waste the whole of Gaul. Afterward the Burgundians founded on the banks of the Rhone a kingdom which Honorius recognized in 413, and the Alani, the Suevi and the Vandals proceeded to inundate Spain. The great invasion had begun.

Capture of Rome by Alaric (410). Kingdoms of the Visigoths, Suevi and Vandals. — But Alaric returned to the charge. No longer was he confronted by Stilicho, who had been sacrificed to the jealousy of Honorius. He captured Rome, delivered it over to the fury of his barbarians who respected the Christian churches, and died some time later in Calabria at Cosenza (410). The Visigoths hollowed out a tomb for him in the bed of a river whose waters had been diverted, and then restored the natural course of the stream after having slain the prisoners who had done the work.

The power of the Visigoths did not expire with Alaric. Notwithstanding their sack of Rome this people, who had been so long in contact with the empire,