It seems hardly needful for the understanding of European history to carry our ecclesiastical survey beyond the limits of the Latin Church. One of the Polish provinces, that of Leopol, has carried us to the borderland of the Eastern and Western Churches, and, if we pass southwards into the Magyar and South-Slavonic lands, we find ourselves still more distinctly on an ecclesiastical march. ♦Hungary.
Strigonium.
Kolocza.♦ The Kingdom of Hungary formed two Latin provinces, those of Strigonium or Gran, and of Kolocza; the latter has a very fluctuating boundary to the south. ♦Dalmatia.♦ The Dalmatian coast, the borderland of all powers and of all religions, formed three Latin provinces. ♦Zara.♦ Jadera or Zara, on her peninsula, was the head of a small province chiefly made up of islands. ♦Spalato.♦ Another metropolitan had his throne in the very mausoleum of Diocletian, and the province of Spalato stretched some way inland over the lands which have so often changed masters. ♦Ragusa.♦ To the south, the see of Ragusa, the furthest outpost of Latin Christendom properly so called, had, besides its own coasts and islands, an indefinite frontier inland. This marks the furthest extent to which it is needful to trace our ecclesiastical map. It is the furthest point at which Latin Christianity can be said to be in any sense at home. The ecclesiastical organization of the crusading and Venetian conquests further to the south and east have but little bearing on historical geography. But, within the bounds of Latin Christendom, the ecclesiastical divisions both of the provinces and dioceses within the older Empire and what we may call the missionary provinces beyond it, are of the highest importance, and they should always be kept in mind alongside of the political geography.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
THE IMPERIAL KINGDOMS.
♦The Kingdom of the East-Franks or of Germany.♦
The division of 887 parted off from the general mass of the Frankish dominions a distinct Kingdom of the East-Franks, the acknowledged head of the Frankish kingdoms, which, as being distinguished from its fellows as the Regnum Teutonicum, may be best spoken of as a Kingdom of Germany. ♦Merging of the Kingdom in the Empire.♦ But the lasting acquisition of the Italian and Imperial crowns by the German kings, and their later acquisition of the kingdom of Burgundy, gradually tended to obscure the notion of a distinct German kingdom. The idea of the Kingdom was merged in the idea of the Empire of which it formed a part. Later events too tended in the same direction. ♦The Emperors lose Italy and Burgundy, but keep Germany.♦ The Italian kingdom gradually fell off from any practical allegiance to its nominal king the Emperor. So did the greater part of the Burgundian kingdom. Meanwhile, though the powers of the Emperors as German kings were constantly lessening, their authority was never wholly thrown off till the present century. The Emperors in short lost their kingdoms of Italy and Burgundy, and kept their kingdom of Germany. In the fifteenth century the coronation of the Emperor at Rome had become a mere ceremony, carrying with it no real authority in Italy. In the sixteenth century the ceremony itself went out of use. ♦Charles the Fourth crowned at Arles, 1365.♦ The Burgundian coronation at Arles became irregular at a very early time, and it is last heard of in the fourteenth century. ♦1792.♦ But the election of the German kings at Frankfurt, their coronation, in earlier times at Aachen, afterwards at Frankfurt, went on regularly till the last years of the eighteenth century. ♦Endurance of the German Diet.♦ So, while the national assemblies of Italy and Burgundy can hardly be said to have been regularly held at all, while they went altogether out of use at an early time, the national assembly of Germany, in one shape or another, never ceased as long as there was any one calling himself Emperor or German King. The tendency in all three kingdoms was to split up into separate principalities and commonwealths. ♦Comparison of Germany, Italy, and Burgundy.♦ But in Germany the principalities and commonwealths always kept up some show of connexion with one another, some show of allegiance to their Imperial head. In Italy and Burgundy they parted off altogether. Some became absolutely independent; were incorporated with other kingdoms or became their distant dependencies; some were even held by the Emperors themselves in some other character, and not by virtue either of their Empire or of their local kingship. ♦The Empire identified with Germany.♦ Thus, as the Empire became more and more nearly coextensive with the German Kingdom, the distinction between the two was gradually forgotten. The small parts of the other kingdoms which kept any trace of their Imperial allegiance came to be looked on as parts of Germany. ♦The Empire becomes a Confederation.♦ In short, the Western Empire became a German kingdom; or rather it became a German Confederation with a royal head, a confederation which still kept up the forms and titles of the Empire. ♦1530.♦ As no German king received an Imperial coronation after Charles the Fifth, it might in strictness be said that the Empire came to an end at his abdication. ♦1556.♦ And in truth from that date the Empire practically became a purely German power. But, as the Imperial forms and titles still went on, the Western Empire must be looked on as surviving, in the form of a German kingdom or confederation, down to its final fall.
♦The German Kingdom represents the Empire.♦
The Kingdom of Germany then may be looked on as representing the Western Empire, as being what was left of the Western Empire after the other parts of it had fallen away. But the German kingdom itself underwent, though in a smaller degree, the same fate as the other two Imperial kingdoms. ♦Separation of parts of the Kingdom.♦ While all Italy and all Burgundy, with some very trifling exceptions, fell away from the Empire, the mass of Germany remained Imperial. Still large parts of Germany were lost to the Empire no less than Italy and Burgundy. A considerable territory on the western and south-western frontier of Germany gradually fell away. Part of this territory has grown into independent states; part has been incorporated with the French kingdom. The Swiss Confederation has grown up on lands partly German, partly Burgundian, partly Italian, but of which the oldest and greatest part belonged to the German kingdom. The Confederation of the United Provinces, represented by the modern kingdom of the Netherlands, lay wholly[12] within the old German kingdom: so did by far the greater part of the modern kingdom of Belgium. ♦Modern Austria.♦ In our own day the same tendency has been shewn in south-eastern as well as south-western Germany; several members of the ancient kingdom have fallen away to form part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. ♦Extension of Germany to the north-east.♦ But on the northern and north-eastern frontier the tendency to extension, with some fluctuations, has gone on from the beginning of the kingdom to our own day. ♦Geographical contrast of the earlier and later Empire.♦ This tendency to lose territory to the west and south, and to gain territory to the east and north, had the effect of gradually cutting off the Western Empire, as represented by the German kingdom, from any close geographical connexion with the earlier Empire of which it was the historical continuation. The Holy Roman Empire, at the time of its final fall, contained but little territory which had formed part of the Empire of Trajan. It contained nothing which had formed part of the Empire of Justinian, save some small scraps of territory in the north-eastern corner of the old Italian kingdom.