Westward empire

by Elias Lyman Magoon

Prominent in the early scenes of that great act in the drama of human history which appropriately is characterized by the name of a pope, stood Gregory, the first of the name, who, from the year 590 to 604, occupied the sacred seat. God, to whom all his works are known from eternity, raised up this instrument so well fitted to guide the church in the West, in the midst of numerous and fearful storms. Up to his fortieth year he had filled an important civil office; and afterward in the calm consecration of monastic life he acquired the power and stability of extraordinary self-control. Depreciating literary critics have charged that Gregory expelled from Rome the mathematical studies; that he burned the Palatine library, first collected by Augustus Cæsar; that himself despised classical learning, which he forbade others to pursue; and that he destroyed many profane monuments of art, with which the city had been embellished. But the appellation of Great, by which he is commonly distinguished, attests the opinion which was entertained of his general character, and doubtless was in good part deserved.

It chanced that certain Anglo-Saxons, being exposed for sale in the slave-market of Rome, attracted the attention of the mighty pope just named. He at once resolved that Christianity should be preached to the nation to which these beautiful captives belonged, and never perhaps was a resolution adopted whence more important results ensued. Augustin, attended by forty Italian assistants, planted the doctrines of the Holy See among the Germanic Britons at Canterbury, and thence spread their influence through all the ranks of our pagan ancestors. It was not long before intelligent converts transplanted their sentiments to the continent, and filled the whole empire of the Franks with their creed. Boniface, the apostle of the Germans, was an Anglo-Saxon, whose great influence was exerted to perfect and extend civilization among the German tribes of the West. While other realms were sinking together into one common ruin, and the world seemed about to become the prey of the Moslem, the house of Pepin of Heristal, afterward called the Carlovingian, arose to blend regal with papal resistance, by which means the first effectual resistance was offered to the Mohammedan conquerors.

Christianity was scornfully trampled on by southern infidels and northern barbarians, but her invulnerable spirit was subdued by neither. Like her founders, she was seemingly conquered for a time, but in apparent defeat, death gave her positive victory. Bending her heavenly form to the tempest, she paused meekly till its utmost fury had passed, and then raised her captivating countenance to woo the savage foes who held her captive. Awe-struck, they reverently removed her chains, adored at her shrine, and swore fidelity to her cause. Refined into enthusiasm, they turned their energies toward more useful channels, and the subsequent history of chivalry and the crusades recorded its mighty results. Divine truth came not to avenge, but to console; it did not promise peace on earth, but retribution in heaven, and was not so ambitious to break the chains of the slave, as to share them with him. If the church could not destroy feudalism, she created chivalry; to quench the thirst for battles, she invented processions and masses. To the victims of injustice, she opened the asylum of the sanctuary; for blasted hopes and exposed honor, she proffered the silence of cloisters; and against imperial ambition, she wielded the thunders of the Vatican. Through a long and gloomy period, popery and the monasteries doubtless preserved the social system from utter ruin; and it is to be regretted that no sooner had the new system triumphed, than the seeds of corruption appeared. We dwell with most interest upon the period when the brilliant ardor of western valor breathed a new life into the contemplative and ascetic virtues of eastern Christianity; when the red cross shone on the breast-plate of European warriors, and their lance was couched in a holy war. It was then that the militant church developed, if she did not perfect, that spirit which the soothing influence of religious love would substitute for the violated empire of the law, and for the laxity of social disorder—the spirit of chivalry. Hence arose that noble school of loyalty and truth, of devotion and gallantry, of humanity and liberality, which was the right arm of Christianity in her sacred mission of peace and righteousness. Thus it was that, unable for a long period to disarm the ferocity of those warlike ages, religion directed it to a nobler end, and by inscrutable ways, transformed it into one of its most efficacious instruments.

It was on the shores of Palestine that the different orders of knighthood were first established, in which military ardor was combined with religious enthusiasm, and graduated distinctions in the ranks of chivalry became the rewards of distinguished deeds. The power of these incentives was unparalleled in human history. They gave the first check to the brilliant success of Saracenic arms, and secured to an earl of Boulogne the crown of Jerusalem. Men of all tempers and most diversified dispositions imbibed motives for their ambition at a common source, which simultaneously fed the lion energy of Richard, the calmer fortitude of Edward, and the more enlightened mind of St. Louis.

The same blending of secular and sacred zeal, which had animated the crusaders to defend unprotected pilgrims in the East, incited them to promote improvement in the West, and educated them for the task. While absent, their ideas had been enlarged by an acquaintance with Roman jurisprudence, which still ruled in the eastern empire. They had witnessed with astonished admiration the excellence attained by several of the Italian states, through the agencies of commerce and manufactures; and on their return, they were not only sensible of the imperfect administration of justice under the feudal rule, but also of the need of an improved productive system. The crusades were beneficial, because they occasioned a revolution in the intellectual state of Europe by introducing a preparatory change of feelings and habits which no other agency could produce. The great good they conferred was none the less valuable for being mediate and progressive. No radical change in the condition of man, thus wrought, has ever transpired without resulting in the most salutary effects upon the character of all his intellectual operations. Doubtless, the crusades were not so much a cause of actual knowledge, introduced directly under their influence, as of those aroused faculties and improved habits by which both the useful and elegant arts were greatly promoted. No single event, however startling, and no one age, however prolific of suggestions, could effectually have restored the mental energies of the West after so many centuries of brutal ignorance, but the successive crusades did all to this end, and as successfully, that could be achieved. The twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries teemed with the direct and multifarious results.

As the noble grandeur of Olympus, the fertile plains of Thessaly, the gloomy recesses of the rock-crowned Pytho, and a thousand co-operative causes tended to swell the romantic harmony of legendary song in ancient Greece, giving a favorite deity to each particular province; while the great emigration to the coast of Asia Minor enhanced the copiousness of their religious rites, by engrafting on their legend much of the frenzied excitement of the Asiatic race, so Europe in the middle ages had its patron saints, and around the altar of supreme worship were concentrated the reminiscences of every preceding age and clime. According to Colonel Tod's statement of oriental customs, the martial Rajpoots are not strangers to armorial bearings, now so indiscriminately used in the West. The great banner of Mewar exhibits a golden sun on a crimson field, those of the chiefs bear a dagger. Amber displays the five-colored flag. The lion rampant on an argent field, is extinct with the state of Chanderi. In Europe, these customs were not introduced till the period of the crusades, and were copied from the Saracens, while the use of them among the remote eastern tribes can be traced to a period anterior to the war of Troy. Every royal house had its palladium, which was frequently borne to battle at the saddle-bow of the prince.

From Pliny's letters to Trajan, and from other sources, we learn that ancient idolaters were in the habit of so consecrating spots and buildings destined for religious purposes, as forever to withdraw them from secular uses. Ere they began their accustomed rites, they sprinkled the place and the assistants with lustral water, which from the priest's hands was supposed to have conferred peculiar sanctity. The Romans burned frankincense, and other perfumes, in honor of their gods; and celebrated, at the entrance into the winter solstice, a festival to the goddess Strenna. The return of spring was celebrated with garlands, and the dance around a tall May-pole; and with kindred solemnities they entered into the summer solstice, with which they began the year. The Christians adopted similar consecrations with a like design. Hence the use of holy water, the practice of burning lamps and candles on altars and at tombs, together with incense burned in honor of the saints. Christmas, and the festival of St. John, correspond with the pagan rites they displaced, while the presents common to one, and the bonfires which illuminate the other, are mementoes of their origin. The idolatrous priestesses, who were vowed to perpetual virginity, were reproduced in the mediæval church, as soon as the Christian ranks were ample enough to spare certain members for that purpose, both male and female. In fact, the very tunic of the priest, the lituus of the augur, and cap of the flamin of pagan antiquity, were preserved in the dalmatic, the mitre, the staff, and the crosier of Christian bishops. Still more important similarities crept in, and a supposed virgin became the object of enthusiastic worship in the age of Leo X., as in the foregoing ages of Augustus and Pericles. Among the Asiatic Greeks, Diana was supreme; with the European Greeks and Romans, Minerva was first; and Catholicism at length found its highest love in Mary, the immaculate Mother of God. True, "Christianity had conquered Paganism, but Paganism had infected Christianity. * * * The rites of the Pantheon had passed into her worship, the subtilties of the Academy into her creed." This was evident from the symbols which were freely adopted from the Romans in the decoration of the new churches. The typical use of the cross was, of course, entirely original; but the vine and palm-branch of Bacchus, the corn of Ceres, Venus's dove, Diana's stag, Juno's peacock, Jupiter's eagle, Cybele's lion, and Cupids changed into cherubs, were all copied from the pagans, and made emblematic of Christian doctrines.

Such were the facts of the case, when the kingdom of Catholicism had come with power, and was seated on a throne, not according to this world, yet possessing a larger territory, and exercising a higher dominion, than had ever been given to sword or sceptre.

How wonderful is Providence in perpetually eliciting light and progress from the East! Charlemagne gave the popedom its supremacy beyond the Alps, A.D. 800; and before the close of that century, a small body of spiritual Christians, near the Euphrates, were persecuted for combining the adoption of the Scriptures as their sole guide with the most resolute refusal to bow down to images. The emperor Constantine, who sympathized with their views, caused them to pass into Europe. Those Paulicians were the original reformers, the remnant of Judah, who came forth by royal command, to rebuild the temple of the faith, and restore the walls of their desecrated Jerusalem. Under the various names of Bulgarians, Cathari, Waldenses, and Albigenses, those exiles were the first founders of Protestantism. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were the zenith of Catholic supremacy, yet at that period Germany gave a fatal blow to the temporal power of the popedom. The emperor Henry IV., in the twelfth century, had begun the quarrel, on the right of investing bishops, the first effects of which were to drive Gregory VII. into exile, where this mighty pontiff died. From the close of the thirteenth century the papal sovereignty over Europe sank rapidly, and was almost annihilated by the schism of Avignon. Subsequently, it regained a portion of former power, but the empire of Innocent and Boniface was ended forever.

The church educated disciples to see her faults, and supplied them with weapons as well as occasions for attack. There were reformers long before the "Reformation," like Arnold in Brescia, Waldo in France, John Huss at Constance, and Wickliff in England.