Westward empire

by Elias Lyman Magoon

The first period of Leoine literature arose in the scholastico-romantic epoch, which extended down to the renaissance, or epoch of enthusiasm for pagan antiquity. The temporal supremacy of this was prepared when Pepin the Younger undertook to defend "the Holy Church of the Republic of God" against the Lombards, and compelled them to evacuate the territory held by the Exarchate. He placed the keys of the conquered towns on the altar of St. Peter, and in this act he laid the foundation of the whole temporal power of the popes. Thenceforward the Gallic archbishops and monarchs received both pallium and crown from Rome, and all great powers were exercised in the West. The Merovingian race of kings had perished, and the Carlovingian house ruled with imperial splendor. While all the East was sinking into one common ruin, and the whole world appeared about to become the prey of the Moslem, the founder of this famous family, Pepin of Heristral caused the civil power to coalesce with ecclesiastical dominion under Gregory the Second, and presented the first effectual resistance to the Mahometan conquerors. The alliance between the pope and the emperor which was thus begun, Charlemagne perfected, and received his reward when, on Christmas-eve, A.D. 800, the diadem of the western empire was laid upon his head by the supreme pontiff in the ancient metropolis. Says Guizot, in his History of Representative Government, "Charlemagne desired conquests, in order to extend his renown and dominion; the Franks were unwilling to be without a share in their own government; Charlemagne held frequent national assemblies, and employed the principal members of the territorial aristocracy as dukes, counts, missi-dominici, and in other offices. The clergy were anxious to possess consideration, authority, and wealth. Charlemagne held them in great respect, employed many bishops in the public service, bestowed on them rich endowments, and attached them firmly to him, by proving himself a munificent friend and patron of those studies of which they were almost the only cultivators. In every direction toward which the active and energetic minds of the time turned their attention, Charlemagne was always the first to look; and he proved himself more warlike than the warriors, more careful of the interests of the church than her most devout adherents, a greater friend of literature than the most learned men, always foremost in every career, and thus bringing every thing to a kind of unity, by the single fact that his genius was every where in harmony with his age, because he was its most perfect representative, and that he was capable of ruling it because he was superior to it. But the men who are thus before their age, in every respect, are the only men who can gain followers; Charlemagne's personal superiority was the indispensable condition of the transitory order which he established." This new and wonderful stage of progress in the social relations of men, and this transformation of the popular mind under the auspices of a Christian form of government, marked the seven centuries which elapsed from the reign of Charlemagne to the discovery of the New World, and the commencement of the Reformation.

That vast series of emigrations which planted tribes of Gothic blood over large tracts of Europe, and established that race as sovereigns in remote regions, came also into the British Islands. But the Anglo-Saxon invaders, instead of planting stationary garrisons, like the Romans, merely to overawe, introduced colonies, with an immense stream of active population. The gloom which long covered this field of high designs was that which goes before the dawn, and bright rays were soon observed to shine forth. The fierce savages who fought under Caractacus, Boadicea, or Galgacus, and those Britons who at a later period occupied the stately Roman towns in the south and west of the island, or cultivated the fertile districts that lay around their walls, were succeeded by a much superior race. Here, as elsewhere, literature began to be nourished by the consolidation of the new languages, which were successively developed in all European countries to such a degree that they were fully adequate as instruments for recording and using the results of human advancement. It was the age of Theodoric, Charlemagne, and Alfred, to whose royal influence, probably, together with the dispersion of the Normans, should be accredited the principal occasions, if not causes, of revived intellect.

At the accession of Charlemagne, we are told that no means of education existed in his dominions; but Theodulf of Germany, Alcuin of England, and Clement of Ireland, were the true Paladins who repaired to his court. With the help of these masters, schools were established in all the chief cities; nor was the noble monarch ashamed to be the disciple of that in his own palace under the care of Alcuin. As early as the ninth century, Lyons, Fulda, Corvey, Rheims, and other large towns, enjoyed flourishing establishments of learning. At an earlier period, Pepin requested some books from the pontiff, Paul I. "I have sent to you what books I could find," replied his holiness. To such a benefactor to the apostolic see, the selection, doubtless, was as munificent as gratitude could make it; but, in fact, only seven works were sent, all Greek compositions. From the beginning, however, books fell into the channel common to all progress, and traveled westward only.

In the sixth century lived Gregory of Tours, whose ten volumes of original annals entitle him to be called the father of French and German story. In A.D. 668, Theodore, an Asiatic Greek by birth, was sent to old England by the pope, through whom and his companion, Adrian, some knowledge of the classics was diffused among the Anglo-Saxon race. Early in the eighth century arose the great ornament of that age and island, the Venerable Bede, who surpassed every other name in primitive literature of indigenous growth. The central school of York was established, whence the Anglo-Saxon Alcuin came to be the great luminary at the court of Charlemagne. But during the long wars waged by the successors of that great agent of Providence, all seemed to relapse into utter confusion again, and ignorance stretched its roots deeper down, to the year one thousand of our era, which has been considered as the lowest extreme of degradation, the nadir of human intelligence. It was indeed an iron age, but compared with the seventh and eighth centuries, the tenth possessed superior illumination as a whole. Darkness and calamity were still the concomitants of progress, but the shadows grew fainter as night declined, and the nations rejoiced in the new twilight which reddened into the lustre of a higher day. The intellectual energies of mankind might be impeded, but they were never in an absolutely stationary condition; but nations, as well as individuals, were born in the fitting time and place to advance the landmarks of popular improvement and the general weal. At the moment when the great West lay apparently torpid, in the silent formation of a powerful amalgamation of all old historical elements, a new nation was suddenly produced to gather up whatever valuable relics remained in the East, and bring them across continents to the great fountain of subsequent improvement. Masters of the country of the Magi, and the Chaldeans, whence the first light had shone over mankind; of Egypt, the storehouse of human science; of Asia Minor, that fertile and beautiful land, where poetry and the fine arts had their origin; and of the burning plains of Africa, that dark domain of Ham, the country of impetuous eloquence, and subtle intellect; Arabian adventurers, the splendid bastard progeny of Shem, in a manner combined within themselves the advantages of all the nations which they had subjugated, and laid the invaluable treasures they accumulated at the feet of Japhet, on the throne of the West.

Of the new languages which were produced at the close of the tenth century, one appeared to prevail over all others, and became widely spread. Innumerable writers almost cotemporaneously employed this recent vernacular, which owed nothing of its originality to what is usually termed classical literature. They rapidly spread their reputation from Spain to Italy, and from Germany to England, and as suddenly disappeared. While the nations were yet listening in wonder, the voice of the Troubadours became silent, the Provençal dialect was abandoned, and its productions were ranked among the dead languages. This, too, was a part of that process in the moral world, as in the natural, wherein the fresh germ is hidden beneath decay, and that which we in our short-sightedness deplore, is most essential to the new life already proceeding from death. The greatest excellence is often elaborated amid the severest trials, and the calamities we would gladly avert, have most of all contributed to progress, intellectual and moral.

Simultaneous with the Provençal poetry, chivalry had its rise. It was the soul of the new literature, and gave to it a character generically different from any thing in antiquity. Chivalry is not synonymous with the feudal system; on the contrary, it is the ideal world, such as it existed in the imagination of the romance writers. Devotion to woman, and to honor, constituted its essential character. It is difficult to decide who were the inventors of that chivalric spirit which burned in the mediæval romances; but no one can fail to be astonished as he observes how splendid and sudden was that burst of genius which the Troubadours and Trouvèrs exemplified. That it did not originate in the manners and traditions of the Germans, seems quite evident. Their brave, loyal, but rude habits, could never have contributed to the development of the sentiment and heroism of chivalry. The romance writers of the twelfth century placed the age of chivalry in the time of Charlemagne, and caused the Paladins of his court, as well as the famous emperor himself, to figure in many of the gorgeous fictions of loyalty, virtue, and grace. Chivalry existed rather in gallantry and sentiment, than in imagination; it was a lyric to be sung, and not an epic to be read. Its spirit hovered over the age at large, but the first romances actually composed, were produced in northern France, and especially in Normandy. As the renovating tempest deepened its tumultuous might, heaven came down to mitigate the savageness of earth, and religious gallantry soon made humane gentleness an indispensable accompaniment of true valor. Thus the spirit of chivalry was a consequence of feudal life, as it was an antidote against its evils. By the mediæval poets and romancers, we are carried into an exalted realm, wherein all things are great and marvelous. On every hand we come in contact with feats of prowess, tempered by generosity. The fierce spirit of the northern genius combines with the enthusiastic zeal of courteous bearing common to the south; and the imagination is often elevated to its highest pitch by the tremendous solemnities of Gothic superstition. Revelations of enrapturing beauty are mingled with the most frightful scenes of magical incantation, and such other images of terror as could have originated only in the wild conceptions of Teutonic mind.

In the opinion of many scholars, romance originated in Arabia, and was brought by that imaginative people from the remote East. That Odin came into Saxony out of Asia, is a Scandinavian tradition; and Tacitus mentions in his work on the manners of the Germans, a legend according to which, Ulysses came in the course of his wanderings into central Germany, and there founded the city of Asciburgum. What Solon was to the Homeridæ, Charlemagne was to the primitive bards of his land, for he caused all the popular songs to be collected and committed to writing. The substance of many of those early poems we still possess in the Lay of the Nibelungen, and the Heldenbuck, or Book of Heroes, but these were produced at a period later than well-defined romance in France. Properly speaking, chivalry was a Norman invention, whose heroes were never tired of roving through France, Brittany, England, Scotland, and Ireland. It began far back in the middle age, and was perfected in the thirteenth century.

In the first portion of the mediæval epoch, that of Charlemagne, down to the time of pope Gregory the Seventh, and the convulsive movements of the crusades, the prevailing character of the age was great and simple, earnest, but mild withal. It soon became characterized by a marvelous daring, by lofty enthusiasm, and universal enterprise in real life, as well as in the domain of imagination. The age of chivalry, crusades, romance, and minstrelsy, was a special season of unfolding intellect and mental blossoming; it was the precursor of accelerated progress, the great intellectual spring-tide among all the nations of the West. If the literature of any nation is not preceded by a poetical antiquity before arriving at the period of mature and artistic development, it can never attain a national character, nor breathe the spirit of independent originality. What the heroical period was to the age of Pericles, and again to the age of Augustus, the first centuries of the age of Leo X. were to modern Europe. The fullness of creative fancy was the distinguishing characteristic alike in each successive instance. Legendary literature was exceedingly prevalent and influential from the seventh to the tenth century, that is, just about the time when modern civilization was struggling into existence. Guizot happily expresses the truth on this point. "As after the siege of Troy there were found, in every city of Greece, men who collected the traditions and adventures of heroes, and sung them for the recreation of the people, till these recitals became a national passion, a national poetry; so, at the time of which we speak, the traditions of what may be called the heroic ages of Christianity had the same interest for the nations of Europe. There were men who made it their business to collect them, to transcribe them, to read or recite them aloud, for the edification and delight of the people. And this was the only literature, properly so called, of that time."

The crusades were not less providential in their origin, than they were contagious in their progress, and revolutionary in their consequences. A sudden frenzy took possession of the minds of the western world, and poured itself upon the exhausted realms of the East, to the end that whatever remnants of good might yet remain therein, should be borne as a timely contribution to the new and more auspicious field. This important movement originated in the cultivated mind of Gerbert, in the first year of his pontificate; was accelerated by Hildebrand, and carried into most effectual execution by Urban II. and the eloquent Peter the Hermit. The first army marched A.D. 1096, and in 1099 Jerusalem was taken. The advantages derived from this event, in a literary point of view, were very great. The western champions of the cross in general passed through the great capital of the East; and in their transit the gates of Constantinople, and the palaces and churches, with their sumptuous and splendid decorations, were thrown open to their admiring view. This intercourse with a refined people, however transient, afforded the experience of many social conveniences, fresh conceptions of the refinements of polished letters and arts, together with the partial knowledge of a language in which few could be ignorant that works of immortal renown had been composed. Moreover, many Greek scholars, who could no longer find either employment or Security at home, emigrated into different regions of the West, and contributed largely to the promotion of learning, and to awaken the first feelings of a laudable curiosity which subsequent events more fully satisfied.

It should be also noted as a curious incident in the labyrinth of human affairs, that these crusading armies in their march toward the East, with a religious intent, most effectually promoted the political amelioration of the West. Individuals began to be freely and personally attached to other individuals, while all in common were attached to some particular town or city. This tie, which among the earlier barbarian tribes began under the relationship of chief and companion, at the crusading era was fortified by the relation of sovereign and vassal. Under this latter form, the principle had a wide and mighty influence upon the progress of civilization until its use had ceased, and better agencies supervened. Confusion and disorder prevailed for a while, but man is evermore haunted by a taste for order and improvement. He may be rude, headstrong, and ignorant, but there is within him a still small voice, an instinct which aspires toward another and a higher destiny. Modern liberty is the offspring of feudalism. That system broke into pieces the before unbroken empire of despotism. It contained prolific seeds which took root in a rugged soil, ready to be transplanted where they would grow more stately and gracefully, and bear a better and more abundant fruit. The crusades struck the deathblow to the feudal system, created the only available transition from despotism to monarchy, and thus opened that westward avenue which was the grand arena of struggles for liberty. It was feudalism that gave birth to all that was noble, generous, and faithful, in the sentiments of truth and honor which graced the humble village shrine, or lofty baronial hall. The first literary delights which Europe tasted while emerging from barbarism, sprung up under the protection of feudalism; and it is to the same source that all the intellectual monuments of Germany, France, and England, are to be traced.