Lectures on the constitution and laws of England / With a commentary on Magna Charta, and illustrations of many of the English statutes

by Francis Stoughton Sullivan

This is as much as I have thought necessary to observe at present, concerning the manners and customs of these people, while they remained beyond the Rhine. It will next be proper to see how far afterwards they retained them, and what alterations were introduced by their new situation.

LECTURE V.

The decline of the Roman empire—The invasions of the Northern nations—The manner in which they settled in the Roman provinces—The changes insensibly introduced among them in consequence of their new situation—The policy and condition of the Franks after they had settled in France—The rise of the feudal law—Estates beneficiary and temporary.

It is full time now to quit the wilds of Germany, to attend these nations in their passage into the Roman dominions, and to take a view of the manner wherein they settled themselves in these new countries. The Roman empire had been long on the decline; but especially, from the time of Severus, it every day grew weaker. This weakness arose, in a great measure, from an excessive luxury, which disqualified not only their great ones, but the bulk of the Roman people for soldiers; and also from the tyrannical jealousy of their emperors, who were afraid of trusting persons of virtue or ability, and had no other method of supporting their authority, than by employing numerous standing armies, that, under them, pillaged and oppressed the defenceless populace; and lastly, from the licentiousness of the soldiery, who made and unmade emperors according to their wild caprices. Hence proceeded many competitions for that dignity, and continual battles and slaughters of their men at arms; the natural consequence of which was, that whoever prevailed in these bloody contests, always found himself less able and powerful to defend the empire from foreign enemies or domestic competitors, than his predecessor was[79].

About the year 200 after Christ, the several nations who had been hitherto cooped up beyond the Rhine and the Danube, and kept in some awe by the terror of the Roman name, began to gather some courage from the weakness of the empire; and from that time few years passed without incursions into, and ravages of, some part of the southern territories, by one or other of these people; and how redoubtable they became to that decaying state, may easily be judged from the particular fondness the emperors of those days had, upon every slight advantage gained over them, for assuming the pompous titles of Gothicus, Vandalicus, Alemannicus, Francicus, &c. not for the conquest, or reducing into subjection those several people, as in antient times, but merely for having checked them, and kept them out of the Roman boundaries[80].

But these invasions of the northern nations were a long time confined to the single views of rapine and plunder; for as yet they were not fully convinced of their own strength, and the enfeebled condition of their enemies. And perhaps they might have longer continued in this ignorance, and within their former bounds, had it not been for an event that happened about the year 370, the like to which hath several times since changed the face of Asia. I mean a vast irruption of the Hunns, and other Tartarian nations into the north of Europe. These people, whether out of their natural desire of rambling, or pressed by a more potent enemy, were determined on a general change of habitation; and, finding the invasion of the Persian empire, which then was in its full grandeur, an enterprize too difficult, they crossed the Tanais, and obliged the Alans and Goths, who lived about the Borysthenes and the Danube, to seek new quarters. The former fled westward to Germany, already overloaded with inhabitants; and the latter begged an asylum from Valens in the eastern empire, which was willingly accorded them. The countries south of the Danube were before almost entirely depopulated by their frequent ravages. Here, therefore, they were permitted to settle, on the condition of embracing the Christian faith; and it was hoped they, in time, would have proved a formidable barrier against the incroaching Hunns, and, by a conformity of religion, be at length melted into one people with the Romans. For the attaining this purpose, they were employed in the armies, where, to their native fierceness and bravery, they added some knowledge of discipline, the only thing they wanted; and many of their kings and great men were in favour at court, and either supported by pensions, or raised to employments in the state[81].

But the injudiciousness of this policy too soon appeared; and indeed it was not to be expected that a people used entirely to war and rapine, and unaccustomed to any other method of subsistance, could in a short time be reduced to the arts of social life, and to the tillage of the earth; or be retained in any moderate bounds, in time of peace, when, by being admitted within the empire, they saw with their own eyes the immense plunder that lay before them, and the inability of the Romans to oppose their becoming masters of it. During the life of Theodosius they remained in perfect quiet, awed by his power and reputation; but when he left two weak minor princes under the guardianship of two interested and odious regents, it was obvious they could not be bridled much longer. Though, if we are to credit the Roman historians, their first irruption was owning to the jealousy Ruffinus, the prime minister of Arcadius, entertained of Stilicho, the guardian of Honorius. This latter, it is said, ambitious of holding the reins of both empires, pretended, that Theodosius had on his death-bed appointed him sole regent of both. For, though Arcadius was now of sufficient age to govern of himself, he was, in truth, for want of capacity, all his life a minor. Ruffinus, we are told, conscious of his rival Stilicho’s superior talents and power, resolved to sacrifice his master’s interest rather than submit to one he so much hated; and, accordingly, by his private emissaries, stirred up both Goths and Hunns, to fall at once on the eastern empire[82].

In the year 406, these nations, so long irreconcileable enemies to each other, poured their swarms in concert into the defenceless dominions of Arcadius. The Hunns passed by the Caspian sea, and with unrelenting cruelty ravaged all Asia to the gates of Antioch; and at the same time the Goths, under the so much dreaded Alarick, with no less fury, committed the like devastations in Illyricum, Macedon, Greece, and Peneloponnesus. Stilicho, thinking that his saving the eastern empire would undoubtedly accomplish for him his long wished-for desire of governing it in the name of Arcadius, as he did the western in that of Honorius, hastened into Greece with a well-appointed army. But, when he had the barbarous enemy cooped up, and, as it were, at his mercy, the weak prince, instigated by his treacherous minister Ruffinus, sent him orders to retire out of his dominions. The Goths returned unmolested to the banks of the Danube, laden with plunder; and Stilicho went bank to Italy boiling with rage and resentment, but he never had an opportunity of wreaking his vengeance on his treacherous rival.