Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading

by George Park Fisher

Reber, History of Ancient Art; Wickoff, Roman Art; see
Dictionaries, p. 122.

PART II. MEDIÆVAL HISTORY.

INTRODUCTION.

CHARACTER OF THE MIDDLE AGES.—The middle ages include the long interval between the first general irruption of the Teutonic nations towards the close of the fourth century, to the middle of the fifteenth century, when the modern era, with a distinctive character of its own, began. Two striking features are observed in the mediæval era. First, there was a mingling of the conquering Germanic nations with the peoples previously making up the Roman Empire, and a consequent effect produced upon both. The Teutonic tribes modified essentially the old society. On the other hand, there was a reaction of Roman civilization upon them. The conquered became the teachers and civilizers of the conquerors. Secondly, the Christian Church, which outlived the wreck of the empire, and was almost the sole remaining bond of social unity, not only educated the new nations, but regulated and guided them, to a large extent, in secular as well as religious affairs. Thus out of chaos, Christendom arose, a single homogeneous society of peoples. It was in the middle ages that the pontifical authority reached its full stature. The Holy See exercised the lofty function of arbiter among contending nations, and of leadership in great public movements, like the Crusades. Civil authority and ecclesiastical authority, emperors and popes, were engaged in a long conflict for predominance. Thus there are three elements which form the essential factors in Mediæval History,-the Barbarian element, the Roman element, with its law and civil polity, and with what was left of ancient arts and culture, and the Christian, or Ecclesiastical, element. As we approach the close of the mediæval era, a signal change occurs. The nations begin to acquire a more defined individuality; the superintendence of the church in civil affairs is more and more renounced or relinquished; there dawns a new era of invention and discovery, of culture and reform.

PERIOD I. FROM THE MIGRATIONS OF THE TEUTONIC TRIBES TO THE CARLOVINGIAN LINE OF FRANK RULERS. (A.D. 375-751.)

CHAPTER I. CAUSES OF THE FALL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE: THE TEUTONIC CONFEDERACIES.

GRADUAL OVERTHROW OF THE EMPIRE.—When we speak of the destruction of the Roman Empire by the barbarians, we must not imagine that it was sudden, as by an earthquake. It was gradual. Had the empire not been undermined from within, it would not have been overthrown from without. The Roman armies were recruited by bringing numerous barbarians into the ranks. At length whole tribes were suffered to form permanent settlements within the boundaries of the empire. A "king" with his entire tribe would engage to do military service in exchange for lands. More and more both the wealth and the weakness of Rome were exposed to the gaze of the Germanic nations. Their cupidity was aroused as their power increased. Meantime the barbarians were learning from their employers the art of war, and were gaining soldierly discipline. Their brave warriors rose to places of command. They made and unmade the rulers, and finally became rulers themselves. Another important circumstance is, that most of the Germanic tribes were converts to Christianity before they made their attacks and subverted the throne of the Cæsars. In fine, there was a long preparation for the great onset of the barbarian peoples in the fifth century.

CAUSES OF THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE.—But the success of the barbarian invasions presupposes an internal decay in the empire. It was one symptom of a conscious decline, that the conquering spirit was chilled, and the policy was adopted of fixing the limits of the Roman dominion at the Rhine and the Danube. Rome now stood on the defensive. The great service of the imperial government, for which it was most valued, was to protect the frontiers. This partly accounts for the consternation of Augustus, when, in the forests of Germany, the legions of Varus were destroyed (p. 172). The essential fact is, that Rome became unable to keep up the strength of its armies. First, there were lacking the men to fill up the legions. The civil wars had reduced the population in Italy and in other countries. The efforts of Augustus to encourage marriage by bounties proved of little avail. Secondly, the class of independent Italian yeomen, which had made up the bone and sinew of the Roman armies, passed away. Slavery supplanted free labor. Thirdly, in the third century terrible plagues swept over the empire. In 166 a frightful pestilence broke out, from which, according to Niebuhr, the ancient world never recovered. It was only the first in a series of like appalling visitations. Fourthly, the death of liberty carried after it a loss of the virtue, the virile energy, by which Rome had won her supremacy. Fifthly, the new imperial system, after Diocletian, effective as it was for maintaining an orderly administration, drained the resources of the people. The municipal government in each town was put into the hands of curiales, or the owners of a certain number of acres. They were made responsible for the taxes, which were levied in a gross amount upon the town. The fiscus, or financial administration of the empire, was so managed that the civil offices became an intolerable burden to those who held them. Yet it was a burden from which there was no escape. One result was, that, while slaves were often made coloni,—that is, tillers or tenants, sharing with the owner the profits of tillage,—and thus had their condition improved, many freeholders sank to the same grade, which was a kind of serfdom. When to the exhausting taxation by government, there were added the disposition of large proprietors to despoil the poorer class of landholders, and from time to time the predatory incursions of barbarians, the small supply of Roman legionaries is easily accounted for.

THREE RACES OF BARBARIANS.—While the empire, as regards the power of self-defense, was sinking, the barbarians were not only profiting by the military skill and experience of the Romans, but were forming military unions among their several tribes. In the East, there was one civilized kingdom, Persia, the successor of the Parthian kingdom, but not powerful enough to be a rival,—certainly not in an aggressive contest. But northward and northeast of the Roman boundaries, there stretched "a vague and unexplored waste of barbarism," "a vast, dimly-known chaos of numberless barbarous tongues and savage races." A commotion among these numerous tribes, the uncounted multitudes spreading far into the plain of Central Asia, had begun as early as the days of Julius Caesar. They were made up of three races,—the Teutons, or Germanic peoples; eastward of them, the Slavonians; and, farther beyond, the Asiatic Scythians. The Slavonians, an Aryan branch, like the Teutons, had their abodes in the space between Germany and the Volga. They were a pastoral and an agricultural race, of whose religion little is known. Their incursions and settlements belong to the sixth and seventh centuries, and to the history of the Eastern Empire.

TEUTONIC CONFEDERACIES.—Of the confederacies of German tribes, the Goths are first to be mentioned. In the third century they had spread over the immense territory between the Baltic and the Black seas. They were divided into the West Goths (Visigoths) and East Goths (Ostrogoths). Their force was augmented by the junction of kindred tribes. To the east of them, towards the Don, was a tribe of mixed race, the Alani. In the third century the Goths had made their terrible inroads into Mæsia and Thrace, and the brave emperor Decius had perished in the combat with them. They had pushed their marauding excursions as far as the coasts of Greece and Ionia. In the middle of the fourth century they were united, with their allied tribes, under the sovereignty of the East Gothic chieftain, Hermanric. A second league of Germanic peoples was the Alemanni, which included the formidable tribes called by Cæsar the Suevi, and who, after various incursions, had established themselves on the Upper Rhine, in what is now Baden, Würtemberg, and north-east in Switzerland, and in the region southward to the summits of the Alps. Their invasion of Italy in 255, when they poured through the passes of the Rhetian Alps, and penetrated as far as Ravenna, was repelled by Aurelian, afterwards emperor. A third confederacy was that of the Franks (or Freemen) on the Lower Rhine and the Weser. In North Germany, between the Elbe and the Rhine, were the Saxons. The Burgundians, between the Saxons and the Alemanni, made their way to the same river near Worms. East of the Franks and Saxons, were the valiant Lombards, who made their way southwards to the center of Europe, and finally to the Danube. The Frisians were situated on the shore of the North Sea and in the adjacent islands. North of the Saxons were the Danes and other peoples of Scandinavia,—Teutons all, but a separate branch of the Teutonic household. To bold and warlike tribes, now banded together, such as were the Franks and the Alemanni, the Rhine, with its line of Roman cities and fortresses, could form no permanent barrier. When they crossed it, they might be driven back; but this was only to renew their expeditions at the first favorable moment. The prey which they saw near by, and of which they dreamed in the distance, was too enticing. No more could the Danube fence off the thronging nations; all of whom had heard, and some of whom had beheld, the wealth and luxury of the civilized lands.