History for ready reference, Volume 5, Tunnage to Zyp and Supplement

by J. N. Larned

aroused by Cluny won for itself wider and wider circles even
beyond the pale of the clergy. And in an age like this, so
deeply excited about church matters, fell now the
world-rousing struggle between the papacy and the empire. It
appeared to annihilate the foundations on which church and
state had hitherto been reared. With bitterness men saw those
powers in conflict with each other on whose concord they had
believed the peace and happiness of the world to depend. …
Most impressively of all, as far as the uneducated masses were
concerned, was the wretchedness of the age betokened by the
outward evils and ravagings which the termination of the reign
of Henry IV brought about: by the vanishing of discipline and
order, the utter prostration of law, the loosing even of the
holy ties of family. The vassal broke faith with the feudal
lord, the subject warred with the authorities, the son rose up
against the father. Heavily did the chastening hand of God
rest upon land and people. Everywhere did men suffer from
feuds, robbery and violence; everywhere did the common man
find himself in a position which he felt that he could no
longer endure. In France the rural population was utterly
prostrated under the galling oppressions of the nobles who
were their landlords. In Germany, to add to similar evils,
came the loosing of all bonds of order through the civil war
which had sprung from the conflict concerning the investiture.
… In short, wherever in the Occident one turns his gaze,
everywhere did dissatisfaction and an impulse towards
improvement, or at least towards change, rule the day;
everywhere an eager desire with one stroke to break free from
the uncomfortable, indeed in many cases unbearable, present!
The dissatisfied and revolutionary mood which possessed high
and low in almost all parts of occidental Christendom is one
of the essential reasons why the call to the crusade at once
set hundreds of thousands in motion and called forth a very
wandering of the nations. … Hierarchical ideas and asceticism
ruled the spirit of the age; in mind and in mood they had
prepared Europe for the crusades. Most emphatically was this
made evident by the fact that the crusaders marched out under
the banner of the hierarchical papacy—that same red cross
which Erlembald Cotta, the 'knight of the church' had borne on
his white standard during the religious civil war in Lombardy,
and which in 1066 had been bestowed by the pope on the
conqueror of England. But on the other hand the political,
social and agricultural needs, which were not to be put off
and which kept calling for speedy change, were no less
effective agents in the same direction. Not religious
enthusiasm alone was it that ever anew, at the end of the
eleventh century, impelled hundreds of thousands towards the
Orient; how many would have staid at home quietly if they had
had enough to eat and had otherwise rejoiced in an existence
fit for a human being. But for years one bad harvest had
succeeded another; almost everywhere there was want almost
bordering on famine; to eke out their scanty existence
countless of those of the lower classes had had to squander
their possessions. They stood there now utterly without means;
they were forced to emigrate if they would not starve at home.
From all such oppressions, however, he was released who obeyed
the call to the crusade. Brilliant gains seemed assured to him
so soon as he allowed the red cross to be affixed to his
garment. The serf became free, the debtor shook off his
creditor or at any rate needed to pay him no interest. The
monk escaped from the strict discipline of the monastery, he
who had been under the ban was received again into the
communion of the church. What wonder then if countless numbers
hastened to join the adventurous expedition to the East which
promised them such blessings; and to the outward advantages
that allured the crusaders, to the expectation of the toilless
acquisition of land and subjects, of money and possessions,
must be added still the rich spiritual blessings and
ecclesiastical rewards which were solemnly assured to the
warriors of Christ. … Human nature at that time would have had
to be actually raised out of itself, to have become to a
certain extent untrue to itself if, in contrast to the misery
at home, the alluring prospects which began to show themselves
in the unknown distance had not worked an irresistible charm
on the great masses of the people. Nor did the church have any
scruples in putting in motion exactly these incentives to
action; she declared that the prevailing misery arose from the
thickness of the population in an impoverished land; she
unchained the popular greed by representing what riches would
be captured from the infidels, and even roused the sensual
passions by the seductive praise of Greek female beauty. That
such language should fairly carry away the great masses may
easily be imagined. For we may surely not regard the people as
of better moral fibre, and therefore more susceptible to ideal
motives, than the princes and commanders who led the crusading
armies. Of these, however, only the hot-blooded nobles of
southern France can primarily pass for representatives of that
churchly enthusiasm with which, according to the tradition
well-tinged with legend, the crusaders as a whole are said to
have been seized. And it is well known that their churchly
narrow-mindedness brought the people of southern France, under
Raymond of Toulouse, soon enough into direct opposition to the
other participants in the first crusade. For the majority of
the princes who had taken the cross were by no means willing
to work for the sole advantage of the church, but wished to
further their own worldly interests at least as much as they
did those of the pope. Indeed the Norman princes whose race
had been the first to take up the idea of a holy war against
the infidels had joined the crusade without religious
enthusiasm, after sober consideration and entirely following
out their own selfish, world]y plans. And it was exactly into
their hands that the leadership of the great undertaking
primarily came: the more completely therefore did the worldly,
political and dynastic points of view weigh down the churchly
intentions of the pious fanatics who, under the influence of
asceticism, wished only to serve the hierarchy."
Hans Prutz,
Kulturgeschichte der Kreuzzüge,
(translated from the German)
pages 12-17.
See, also, CRUSADES, page 626.
{3741}
CUMBERLAND ROAD, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1806-1812 (page 3335).
CURIA REGIS.
See LAW (page 1957).
CY PRES DOCTRINE.
See LAW, EQUITY: A. D. 1601 (page 1991).
CYRUS, King, and the Jews.
See JEWS: B. C. 604-536, and 537 (pages 1908-1910).
D.
D'ALBUQUERQUE, Afonso,
and the domination of the Portuguese in the East.
See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE, MODERN.
DARNLEY, Lord, The murder of.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1561-1568 (page 2857).
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE, The.
"Dartmouth College … was originally a charity school for the
instruction of Indians in the Christian religion, founded by
the Rev. Eleazer Wheelock, D. D., about the year 1754, at
Lebanon, in Connecticut. Its success led Dr. Wheelock to
solicit private subscriptions in England, for the purpose of
enlarging it, and of extending its benefits to English
colonists. Funds having been obtained for this purpose from
various contributors, among whom the Earl of Dartmouth,
Secretary for the Colonies, was a large donor, Dr. Wheelock
constituted that nobleman and other persons trustees, with
authority to fix the site of the college. The place selected
was on the Connecticut River, at what is now the town of
Hanover, in New Hampshire, where large donations of land were
made by the neighboring proprietors. A charter for the college
was obtained from the crown, in 1769, creating it a perpetual
corporation. The charter recognized Dr. Wheelock as founder,
appointed him to be the president, and empowered him to name
his successor, subject to the approval of the trustees; to
whom was also imparted the power of filling vacancies in their
own body, and of making laws and ordinances for the government
of the college, not repugnant to the laws of Great Britain or
of the province, and not excluding any person on account of
his religious belief. Under this charter, Dartmouth College
had always existed, unquestioned and undisturbed in its rights
as a corporation, down to the Revolution, and subsequently
until the year 1815. Whether from political or personal
motives springing up outside of the board of trustees of that
period, or from some collisions arising within the body
itself, it appears that … legislative interference with the
chartered rights of this college was threatened. … In the
following year (1816), the difficulties, which had become
mixed with political interests, culminated in a direct
interference by the Legislature. In that year an act was
passed, changing the corporate name from 'The Trustees of
Dartmouth College' to 'The Trustees of Dartmouth University;'
enlarging the number of trustees, vesting the appointment of
some of them in the political bodies of the State, and
otherwise modifying the ancient rights of the corporation as
they existed under its charter derived from the crown of
England. A majority of the existing trustees refused to accept
or to be bound by this act, and brought an action of trover in
the Supreme Court of the State, in the name of the old
corporation, against a gentleman, Mr. W. H. Woodward, who was
in possession of the college seal and other effects, and who
claimed to hold them as one of the officers of the
newly-created 'university.' The argument in this case was made
in the State court, for the college, by Mr. Mason and Mr.
Jeremiah Smith, assisted by Mr. Webster. The decision was
against the claim of the college. It was then determined to
remove the cause, by writ of error, to the Supreme Court of
the United States, under the provisions of the Federal
Constitution and laws creating in that tribunal an appellate
jurisdiction in cases which, although originating in a State
court, involved the construction and operation of the Federal
Constitution. This was supposed to be such a case, because it
was claimed by the college that the act of the Legislature,
modifying its charter, impaired the obligation of a contract;
an exercise of power which the Constitution of the United
States prohibits to the Legislature of a State. As soon as it
was known in New Hampshire that this very interesting cause
was to come before the Supreme Court of the United States, the
friends of the college, including their other counsel in the
State court, unanimously desired to have it committed to the
hands of Mr. Webster. He consented to take charge of it in the
autumn of 1817; but the cause was not argued at Washington
until February, 1818. … Before the case of Dartmouth College
vs. Woodward occurred, there had been no judicial decisions
respecting the meaning and scope of the restraint in regard to
contracts, excepting that it had more than once been
determined by the Supreme Court of the United States that a
grant of lands made by a State is a contract within the
protection of this provision, and is, therefore, irrevocable.
These decisions, however, could go but little way toward the
solution of the questions involved in the case of the college.
… Was the State of New Hampshire—a sovereign in all respects
after the Revolution, and remaining one after the Federal
Constitution, excepting in those respects in which it had
subjected its sovereignty to the restraints of that
instrument—bound by the contracts of the English crown? Is the
grant of a charter of incorporation a contract between the
sovereign power and those on whom the charter is bestowed? If
an act of incorporation is a contract, is it so in any case
but that of a private corporation? Was this college, which was
an institution of learning, established for the promotion of
education, a private corporation, or was it one of those
instruments of government which are at all times under the
control and subject to the direction of the legislative power?
All these questions were involved in the inquiry whether the
legislative power of the State had been so restrained by the
Constitution of the United States that it could not alter the
charter of this institution, against the will of the trustees,
without impairing the obligation of a contract. …
{3742}
On the conclusion of the argument, the Chief Justice intimated
that a decision was not to be expected until the next term. It
was made in February, 1819, fully confirming the grounds on
which Mr. Webster had placed the cause. From this decision,
the principle in our constitutional jurisprudence, which
regards a charter of a private corporation as a contract, and
places it under the protection of the Constitution of the
United States, takes its date."
G. T. Curtis,
Life of Daniel Webster,
volume 1, chapter 8.
See, also, LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1819 (page 1976).
DAVY, Sir Humphrey, and the discovery of the electric arc light.
See ELECTRICAL DISCOVERY: A. D. 1810-1890 (page 772).
DENMARK: Libraries.
See LIBRARIES, MODERN (page 2013).
DENMARK: Schools.
See EDUCATION (page 710).
DESCARTES, and modern physiological Science.
See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 17TH CENTURY (page 2134).
DIPHTHERIA, Appearance of.
See PLAGUE: 18TH CENTURY (page 2543).
DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.
"This body, often called also Christians, was one of the
results of the great revival movement which began in Tennessee
and Kentucky in the early part of the present century. Rev.
Barton W. Stone, a Presbyterian minister who was prominent in
the revival movement, withdrew from the Presbyterian Church,
and in 1804 organized a church with no other creed than the
Bible and with no name but that of Christian. One of his
objects was to find a basis for the union of all Christian
believers. A little later Thomas and Alexander Campbell,
father and son, who came from Ireland, where the former had
been a Presbyterian minister, organized union societies in
Pennsylvania. Changing their views as to baptism, they joined
the Redstone Association of Baptists. Shortly after, when
Alexander Campbell was charged with not being in harmony with
the creed, he followed the Burch Run Church, of which he was
pastor, into the Mahoning Baptist Association, which, leavened
with his teachings, soon ceased to be known as a Baptist
association. In 1827, after some correspondence with Rev. B.
W. Stone and his followers of the Christian Connection, there
was a union with a large number of congregations in Ohio,
Kentucky, and Tennessee, and the organization variously known
as 'Disciples of Christ' and 'Christians' [also, popularly
designated 'Campbellites'] is the result."
H. K. Carroll,
Religious Forces of the United States,
chapter 18.
DUNKARDS, The.
"The Dunkards, or German Baptists, or Brethren, are of German
origin, and trace their beginning back to Alexander Mack, of
Schwartzenau, Germany. Early in the 18th century Mack and
several others formed a habit of meeting together for the
study of the New Testament. They were convinced that its
doctrines and principles of church order were not being
faithfully followed, either by the Lutheran or the Reformed
Church. They therefore resolved to form a society of their
own. Alexander Mack was chosen as their pastor. Persecution
soon arose, and they were scattered. In 1719 most of them got
together and came to the United States, settling in
Pennsylvania, where their first church was organized about
1723."
H. K. Carroll,
Religious Forces of the United States,
chapter 19.
DUTCH, Commerce of the.
See (In this Supplement) COMMERCE, MEDIÆVAL, and MODERN.
DYNAMO-ELECTRIC MACHINES, The invention of.
See ELECTRICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION:
A. D. 1831-1872 (page 774).
E.
EBENEZER AND AMANA COMMUNITIES.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: 1843-1874 (page 2945).
ECCLESIASTICAL LAW.
See LAW, ECCLESIASTICAL (page 1986).
EDISON, Electrical Inventions of.
See ELECTRICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION:
A. D. 1841-1880, and 1876-1892 (pages 775-776).
EDMUNDS ACT, The.
See UTAH: A. D. 1882-1893 (page 3591).
EDUCATION.
See (in addition to pages 673-748),
VERMONT UNIVERSITY (page 3619),
VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY (page 3639),
WISCONSIN UNIVERSITY (page 3655);
and, (in this Supplement)
BOWDOIN COLLEGE, BROWN UNIVERSITY,
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE, HAMILTON COLLEGE,
MINNESOTA UNIVERSITY, OBERLIN COLLEGE,
OHIO UNIVERSITY, PRINCETON COLLEGE,
RUTGERS COLLEGE, TULANE UNIVERSITY, UNION COLLEGE.
EGIBI AND COMPANY, The House of.
See MONEY AND BANKING:
ANCIENT EGYPT AND BABYLONIA (page 2199).
EGYPT, ANCIENT: Chronology.
Modern reckoning of Egyptian Chronology is by two modes: "(1)
that by 'dead reckoning,' or adding the dynasties up one on
another: (2) by certain fixed astronomical data, into the
interpretation and calculation of which various uncertainties
may enter. The more apart these modes can be kept the better,
as then they serve to check each other. The fundamental fact
on which all of our astronomically fixed points depend is the
imperfection of the Egyptian calendar. Using a year of 365
days, it followed that the nominal beginning of each year was
a quarter of a day too soon: just as if we were to neglect the
29th of February in leap years, and go on always from 28th
February direct to 1st March. Thus every four years a day was
slipped, and the nominal months of the year were begun a day
too soon. In 4 x 7 = 28 they began, then, a week too soon. In
4 x 30 = 120 years they began & month too soon; and after
twelve months and five days thus slipped, or in 1,460 years,
they began a year too soon, and so had rotated the nominal
months through all the seasons. … This loss of the day in four
years was … soon known to the Egyptians, and used by them as a
mode of constructing a great cycle, which in Ptolemaic times
became very prominent, and entered into all their fanciful
adjustments of history and myths.
{3743}
Some mode of noting the absolute months, as related to the
seasonal periods, became a necessity; and, of course, the
place of the sun among the stars most truly shows the exact
length of the year. But how to observe both sun and stars,
when without any mode of time-dividing,—such as clepsydra or
clock,—was an essential difficulty. This was got over by
noting on what day a particular star could be first seen, at
its emerging from the glow of the sunlight. In actual practice
they observed Sirius (or Sothis), the dog-star; and as the
stars all rise and set earlier and earlier every night, they
observed what was the first night in the year on which Sirius
could just be seen emerging from the glow of sunlight at dawn,
and this was entitled the heliacal rising. Hence, from using
Sothis for this observation, the whole period during which the
months rotated in the seasons was called the Sothic period of
1,460 years. We have some definite statements as to this in
Roman times. Censorinus, writing in 239 A. D., states that the
Egyptian New Year's day, 1st of Thoth, fell on the 25th of
June; and a hundred years before, in 139 A. D., it fell on the
21st July, 'on which day Sirius regularly rises in Egypt.'
Hence the beginning of a Sothic period of 1,460 years, or the
New Year's day falling on the 21st of July at the heliacal
rising of Sirius, took place in 139 A. D.; likewise in 1322 B.
C., in 2784 B. C., and in 4242 B. C., or thereabouts. From
this it is plain, that, as the nominal months rotated round
all the seasons once In each of these cycles, therefore, if we
only know the day of the nominal month in which any seasonal
event happened,—such as the rising of Sirius, or the
inundation,—we can find on what part of the cycle of 1,460
years such a coincidence can have fallen. It is from data such
as this that Mahler has lately calculated, by the rising of
Sirius, and also the new moons, that Tahutmes III. reigned
from 20th March 1503 B. C., to 14th February 1449. … Merenptah
celebrated in the second year of his reign a festival of the
rising of Sirius on the 29th of the month Thoth. Mahler has
fixed the rising of Sirius, recorded on 28th Epiphi under
Tahutmes III., as in 1470 B. C. From 28th Epiphi to 29th Thoth
is 66 days, which the heliacal rising would change to in the
course of 4 x 66 years, or 264 years. This, from 1470, gives
1206 B. C. for the second year of Merenptah, or 1208 B. C. for
his accession, which is just the date we have reached by the
approximate summing of the reigns. Another datum on the other
side is the calendar of the Ebers papyrus, which records the
rising of Sirius on the 9th of Epiphi in the ninth year of
Amenhotep I. The reading of the king's name has been much
debated; but this is the last, and probable, conclusion. Now,
from the 28th to the 9th of Epiphi is 19 days, which Sirius
would change through in 76 years; so that the rising on the
9th of Epiphi took place in 1470+76 = 1546 B. C.; and the
first year of Amenhotep I. would be thus fixed in 1555 B. C.
The date before reached is 1562 B. C., equal to a difference
of less than 2 days in the time of Sirius' rising. This, at
least, shows that there is no great discrepancy. Thus there
are three data for the rising of Sirius, which agree within a
few years, though at considerably different epochs. … We …
have as a starting-point for our backward reckoning the
accession of the XVIIIth dynasty about 1587 B. C. From this we
can reckon in the dynastic data given by Manetho; following
this account rather than the totals of reigns, as he appears
to have omitted periods when dynasties were contemporary, as
in the 43 years for the XIth after the close of the Xth. Thus,
from the above starting-point of 1587 B. C., we reach the
following results, solely by using material which has been
discussed and settled in this history on its own merits alone,
and without any ulterior reckoning in total periods.
Dynasty Years. B. C.
I. 263 4777
II. 302 4514
III. 214 4212
IV. 277 3998
V. 218 3721
VI. 181 (T. P.) 3503
VII. 70 3322
VIII. 146 3252
IX. 100 3106
X. 185 3006
XI. 43 2821
XII. 213 (T. P.) 2778
XIII. 453 2565
XIV. 184 2112
XVI. 190 1928
XVII. 151 1738
XVIII. 260 1587
XIX. 1327
… In the present rough state of the astronomical data, and the
doubts as to the MS. authorities, we have reached quite as
close an equivalence as we may hope for; and at least there is
enough to show us that we may trust to the nearest century
with fair grounds of belief. These dates then, are what I have
provisionally adopted in this history; and though they are
stated to the nearest year, for the sake of intercomparison,
it must always be remembered that they only profess to go
within a century in the earlier parts of the scale."
W. M. Flinders Petrie,
A History of Egypt from the Earliest Times
to the XVIth Dynasty,
chapter 11.
EGYPT.
Commerce.
See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE: THE EARLIEST RECORDS,
and EGYPT.
EGYPT.
Medical Science, Ancient.
See MEDICAL SCIENCE (page 2120).
EGYPT.
Money and banking.
See MONEY AND BANKING (page 2199).
EJECTMENT, Action of.
See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1499 (page 1966).
ELDON, Lord, and the rules of Equity.
See LAW, EQUITY: A. D. 1801-1827 (page 1993).
ELECTOR, The Great.
See (in this Supplement) GERMANY: A. D. 1618-1700;
also page 309.
ELECTORS, Rise of the German College of.
See (in this Supplement) GERMANY: A. D. 1175-1272.
EMIGRES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (JULY-AUGUST), (AUGUST-OCTOBER),
and 1781-1791 (pages 1264, 1265, and 1268).
EMPLOYER'S LIABILITY.
See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1837 (page 1977).
ENGLAND: Outline sketch of general history.
See EUROPE (page 1014, and after).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1622.
First printed newspaper publication.
See PRINTING AND PRESS: A. D. 1622-1702 (page 2593).
{3744}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1702.
First daily newspaper publication.
See PRINTING AND PRESS: A. D. 1622-1702 (page 2594).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1844.
The Bank Charter Act.
See MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1844 (page 2216).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1881-1882.
The Irish Coercion Bill and Land Act.
Arrest of Irish leaders.
Alleged Kilmainham Treaty and release of Mr. Parnell and others.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1881-1882 (page 1797).
ENGLAND:
Commerce.
See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE, MEDIÆVAL, and MODERN.
ENGLAND:
Libraries.
See LIBRARIES, MODERN (page 2014).
ENGLAND:
Possessions in Africa.
See (in this Supplement) AFRICA.
ENGLAND, Bank of.
See MONEY AND BANKING (page 2209).
EQUITY.
See LAW, EQUITY (page 1988).
ERITREA, The Italian colony of.
See (in this Supplement) AFRICA: 1890-1801.
ESSENES, The.
"Apart from the great high road of Jewish life, there lived in
Palestine in the time of Christ a religious community which,
though it grew up on Jewish soil, differed essentially in many
points from traditional Judaism, and which, though it
exercised no powerful influence upon the development of the
people, deserves our attention as a peculiar problem in the
history of religion. This community, the Essenes or Essaeans,
is generally, after the precedent of Josephus, placed beside
the Pharisees and Sadducees as the third Jewish sect. But it
scarcely needs the remark, that we have here to deal with a
phenomenon of an entirely different kind. While the Pharisees
and Sadducees were large political and religious parties, the
Essenes might far rather be compared to a monastic order.
There is indeed much that is enigmatical in them as to
particulars. Even their name is obscure. … The origin of the
Essenes is as obscure as their name. Josephus first mentions
them in the time of Jonathan the Maccabee, about 150 B. C.,
and speaks expressly of one Judas an Essene in the time of
Aristobulus I. (105-104 B. C.). According to this, the origin
of the order would have to be placed in the second century
before Christ. But it is questionable whether they proceeded
simply from Judaism, or whether foreign and especially
Hellenistic elements had not also an influence in their
organization. … Philo and Josephus agree in estimating the
number of the Essenes in their time at above 4,000. As far as
is known, they lived only in Palestine, at least there are no
certain traces of their occurrence out of Palestine. … For the
sake of living as a community, they had special houses of the
order in which they dwelt together. Their whole community was
most strictly organized as a single body. … The strongest tie
by which the members were united was absolute community of
goods. 'The community among them is wonderful [says Josephus],
one does not find that one possesses more than another. For it
is the law, that those who enter deliver up their property to
the order, so that there is nowhere to be seen, either the
humiliation of poverty or the superfluity of wealth, but on
the contrary one property for all as brethren, formed by the
collection of the possessions of individuals.' 'They neither
buy nor sell among each other; but while one gives to another
what he wants, he receives in return what is useful to
himself, and without anything in return they receive freely
whatever they want.' … 'There is but one purse for all, and
common expenses, common clothes and common food in common
meals. For community of dwelling, of life and of meals is
nowhere so firmly established and so developed as with them.
And this is intelligible. For what they receive daily as wages
for their labour, they do not keep for themselves, but put it
together, and thus make the profits of their work common for
those who desire to make use of it. And the sick are without
anxiety on account of their inability to earn, because the
common purse is in readiness for the care of them, and they
may with all certainty meet their expenses from abundant
stores.' … The daily labour of the Essenes was under strict
regulation. It began with prayer, after which the members were
dismissed to their work by the presidents. They reassembled
for purifying ablutions, which were followed by the common
meal. After this they again went to work, to assemble again
for their evening meal. The chief employment of members of the
order was agriculture. They likewise carried on, however,
crafts of every kind. On the other hand, trading was forbidden
as leading to covetousness, and also the making of weapons or
of any kind of utensils that might injure men. … The Essenes
are described by both Philo and Josephus as very connoisseurs
in morality. … Their life was abstemious, simple and
unpretending. 'They condemn sensual desires as sinful, and
esteem moderation and freedom from passion as of the nature of
virtue.' They only take food and drink till they have had
enough; abstaining from passionate excitement, they are 'just
dispensers of wrath.' At their meals they are 'contented with
the same dish day by day, loving sufficiency and rejecting
great expense as harmful to mind and body.' … There is not a
slave among them, but all are free, mutually working for each
other. All that they say is more certain than an oath. They
forbid swearing, because it is worse than perjury. … Before
every meal they bathe in cold water. They do the same after
performing the functions of nature. … They esteem it seemly to
wear white raiment at all times. … They entirely condemned
marriage. Josephus indeed knew of a branch of the Essenes who
permitted marriage. But these must at all events have formed a
small minority. … A chief peculiarity of the Essenes was their
common meals, which bore the character of sacrificial feasts.
The food was prepared by priests, with the observance probably
of certain rites of purification; for an Essene was not
permitted to partake of any other food than this. … In their
worship, as well as in that of other Jews, the Holy Scriptures
were read and explained; and Philo remarks, that they
specially delighted in allegorical interpretation. They were
extraordinarily strict in the celebration of the Sabbath. They
did not venture on that day to move a vessel from its place,
nor even to perform the functions of nature. In other respects
too they showed themselves to be Jews. Though they were
excluded from the temple they sent gifts of incense there. …
Concerning their doctrine of the soul and of its immortality,
Josephus expresses himself most fully.
{3745}
If we may trust his account, they taught that bodies are
perishable, but souls immortal, and that the latter dwelt
originally in the subtlest aether, but being debased by
sensual pleasures united themselves with bodies as with
prisons; but when they are freed from the fetters of sense
they will joyfully soar on high, as if delivered from long
bondage. To the good (souls) is appointed a life beyond the
ocean. … But to the bad (souls) is appointed a dark cold
region full of unceasing torment."
E. Schürer,
A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ,
volume 2, pages 190-205.
EXEMPTION LAWS.
See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1836 (page 1977).
EXPLORATION, African and Arctic.
For a complete chronological record.
See (in this Supplement) AFRICA; and ARCTIC EXPLORATION.
F.
FAMILISTÈRE OF M. GODIN, The.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1859-1887 (page 2947).
FAURE, François Felix.
Election to the Presidency of the French Republic.
See (in this Supplement) FRANCE: A. D. 1894-1895.
FEDERALIST SECESSION MOVEMENT.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1803-1804 (page 3329).
FEUDAL AIDS.
"In theory the duty of the noble vassal towards his lord was a
purely personal one and to commute it for a money payment was
a degradation of the whole feudal relation. The payment of
money, especially if it were a fixed and regular payment,
carried with it a certain ignoble idea against which, in the
form of state taxation, the feudal spirit rebelled to the
last. When the vassal agreed to pay something to his lord, he
called it, not a tax, but an 'aid' (auxilium), and made it
generally payable, not regularly, like the tax-bill of the
citizen, but only upon certain occasions—a present, as it
were, coming out of his good-will and not from compulsion; e.
g., whenever a fief was newly granted, when it changed its
lord, and sometimes when it changed its vassal, it was from
the beginning customary to acknowledge the investiture by a
small gift to the lord, primarily as a symbol of the grant;
then, as the institution grew and manners became more
luxurious, the gift increased in value and was thought of as
an actual price for the investiture, until finally, at the
close of our period, it suffered the fate of all similar
contributions and was changed into a definite money payment,
still retaining, however, its early name of 'relief.' … The
occasions for levying the aids were various but always, in
theory, of an exceptional sort. The journey of a lord to the
court of his suzerain, or to Rome, or to join a crusade, the
knighting of his eldest son, the marriage of his eldest
daughter and his ransom from imprisonment are among the most
frequent of the feudal 'aids.' The right of the lord to be
entertained and provisioned, together with all his following,
was one of the most burdensome and, at the same time, most
difficult to regulate. Its conversion into a money-tax was,
perhaps for this reason, earlier than that of many other of
the feudal contributions."
E. Emerton,
Mediaeval Europe,
chapter 14.
FEUDAL SYSTEM: Origin.
"The 'benefice,' … emerges from the struggles of the eighth
century as a form of grant originated by the ruling house and
remaining at its disposal. It was a form of grant which was at
all times revocable and which would thus necessarily prompt
the grantee to avoid any act which could displease the
sovereign. It entailed the reversion of the benefice at the
death of the grantee as well as of the person granting. The
benefice … was now chiefly made use of by the Carolingians of
the 8th century to win the military aid of the nobles against
internal and external enemies and especially against the
Saracens. Army commanders and counts or other important
officials would receive wide stretches of ecclesiastical or
royal land. They would organize these into 'manors,' would
collect a large 'following,' and would call in free tenants to
do service in their armies in return for their protection.
Thus they themselves became the stays and props of the new
form of government. As the reorganization of the military
forces went on this process was repeated more and more often,
and as a matter of course the same vital principles which
these holders had carried through with regard to those under
them came to be applied to their own position as regarded
their military duties to the king: namely that they should
become vassals. This accordingly happened. The vassal system
and the benefice system blended together into a new form of
actual and personal union of the nobles with the crown. In
receiving a benefice they swore to the king the special oath
of fidelity of the 'following'; this fidelity on the other
hand seemed assured through the power of the king to revoke
the benefice. Quickly enough did this connection of the vassal
system and the benefice system, which is commonly called
vassalism, become so common that it began to extend downwards
also. It had already become usual for rich landholders no
longer, in the old Germanic manner, to provide for all their
vassals at their own court, but to provide sustenance for them
in various other ways—notably by granting them estates. Now,
after the royal model, it came to be the custom to grant
benefices and thus to found personal responsibilities. The
results of this development were extraordinary. If on the one
hand, in spite of all Charles the Great's measures to the
contrary, the old army organization based on the service of
all freemen fell into decay and the contingents from the land
holders began to constitute the great mass of the army: on the
other hand the bond of vassalism with its different variations
became of prime importance for the administration of the land.
No longer did the king by virtue of his royal ban or
jurisdiction issue his commands to all freemen in common. He
issued his commands to the nobles and they by virtue of their
feudal prerogatives commanded the vassals who were subject to
them. The evenly distributed mass of freemen subject to
military duty had vanished; a high-towering structure of those
bound in vassalage had taken its place. The military
organization had assumed its position under the banner of the
feudal state. The administration, too, was soon to be
undermined by the system of vassalage and to change its
structure from the very foundation."
Lamprecht,
Deutsche Geschichte,
volume 2, pages 104-105.
{3746}
"The latest investigations of Brunner … have established the
proof that feudalism originated in consequence of the
introduction of cavalry service into the military system of
the Frankish kingdom and that it retained its original
character until well on towards the close of the Middle Ages.
The Franks like the Lombards learned the use of cavalry from
the Moors or Saracens. Charles Martel was led by his
experiences after the battle of Poictiers to the conclusion
that only with the help of mounted armies could these enemies
be opposed with lasting success. It was between 732 and 758
that the introduction of cavalry service into the Frankish
army took place; it had hitherto consisted mainly of infantry.
The attempt was first made, and with marked success, in
Aquitaine and Septimania; almost contemporaneously also among
the Lombards. In order to place the secular nobles in
condition to fit out larger masses of cavalry a forced loan
from the church was carried through by Charles Martel and his
sons, it being under the latter that the matter was first
placed upon a legal footing. The nobles received
ecclesiastical benefices from the crown and regranted them in
the way of sub-loans. The custom of having a 'following' and
the old existing relationships of a vassal to his lord
furnished a model for the responsibilities of those receiving
benefices at first and at second hand. The secular nobles
became thus at once vassals of the crown and lords (seigneurs)
of those to whom they themselves in turn made grants. The duty
of the vassals to do cavalry service was based on the
'commendation': their fief was not the condition of their
doing service but their reward for it. Hence the custom of
denominating the fief (Lehn) as a 'fee' (feudum)—a designation
which was first applied in southern France, and which in
Germany, occasionally in the eleventh and ever more frequently
in the twelfth century, is used side by side with the older
term 'benefice,' until in the course of the first half of the
13th century it completely displaces it. With the further
development of cavalry service that of the feudal system kept
regular pace. Already in the later Carolingian period Lorraine
and Burgundy followed southern France and Italy in becoming
feudalized states. To the east of the Rhine on the contrary
the most flourishing time of cavalry service and of the feudal
system falls in the time of the Hohenstaufens, having
undoubtedly been furthered by the crusades. Here even as late
as the middle of the twelfth century the horsemen preferred
dismounting and fighting with the sword because they could not
yet manage their steeds and the regular cavalry weapons, the
shield and the spear, like their western neighbors. But never
in Germany did feudalism make its way into daily life as far
as it did in France where the maxim held true: 'nulle terre
sans seigneur.' There never was here a lack of considerable
allodial possessions, although occasionally, out of respect
for the feudal theory, these were put down as 'fiefs of the
sun.' The principle, too, was firmly maintained that a fief
granted from one's own property was no true fief; for so
thoroughly was feudal law the law governing the realm that a
true fief could only be founded on the fief above it, in such
manner that the king was always the highest feudal lord. That
was the reason why a fief without homage, that is, without the
relationship of vassalage and the need of doing military
service for the state, could not be looked upon as a true
fief. The knight's fee only (feudum militare) was such, and
only a man of knightly character, who united a knightly manner
of living with knightly pedigree, was 'perfect in feudal
law,'—in possession, namely, of full feudal rights or of the
'Heerschild.' Whether or not he had been personally dubbed
knight made no difference; the fief of a man who was still a
squire was also a true fief. … The object of the feudal grant
could be anything which assured a regular
emolument,—especially land, tithes, rents and other sources of
income, tolls and jurisdictions, churches and monasteries;_
above all, offices of state. In course of time the earlier
distinction between the office and the fief which was meant to
go with the office ceased to be made. … The formal course of
procedure when granting was a combination, exactly on the old
plan, of the act of commendation, now called Hulde, which was
the basis of vassalage, and the act of conferring
(investiture) which established the real right of the man to
the fief. … The Hulde consisted in giving the hand (=the
performing of mannschaft, homagium, hominium, Hulde) often
combined with the giving of a kiss and the taking of an oath
(the swearing of fidelitas or Hulde) by which the man swore to
be 'true, loyal and willing' as regarded his lord. The custom
earlier connected with commendation of presenting a weapon had
lost its former significance and had become merged in the
ceremony of investiture: the weapon had become a symbol of
investiture. … These symbols of investiture were in part the
same as in territorial law: the glove, the hat, the cape, the
staff, the twig; occasionally probably also a ring, but quite
especially the sword or spear. As regarded the principalities
it had quite early become the custom to fasten a banner on the
end of the spear in token of the royal rights of supremacy
that were to be conferred. Thus the banner became the sole
symbol of investiture in the granting of secular
principalities and the latter themselves came to be called
'banner fiefs.' The installation of the ecclesiastical princes
by the king took place originally without any distinction
being made between the office and the appanage of the office.
It was done by conferring the pastoral staff (ferula, virga
pastoralis) of the former bishop or abbot; in the case of
bishops since the time of Henry III by handing the ring and
crosier. In the course of the struggle concerning the
ecclesiastical investitures both sides came to the conviction
that a distinction could be made between the appanaging of the
church with secular estates and jurisdictions on the one hand,
and the office itself and the immediate appurtenances of the
church—the so-called 'sacred objects' on the other. A union
was arrived at in the Concordat of Worms which provided that
for the granting of the former (the so-called Regalia) the
secular symbol of the sceptre might replace the purely
ecclesiastical symbols. As this custom was retained even after
the incorporation of the ecclesiastical principalities in the
feudalized state-system the ecclesiastical principalities, as
opposed to the secular banner-fiefs, were distinguished as
'sceptre-fiefs.'"
Schröder,
Lehrbuch der deutschen Rechtsgeschichte (1889),
pages 381-388.
{3747}
"By the time at which we have arrived (the Hohenstaufen
Period) the knights themselves, 'ordo equestris major:' had
come to form a class so distinct and so exclusive that no
outsiders could enter it except in the course of three
generations or by special decree of the king. Only to those
whose fathers and grandfathers were of knightly origin could
fiefs now be granted; only such could engage in judicial
combat, in knightly sports and, above all, in the tournament
or joust. … Feudalism did much to awaken a moral sentiment:
fidelity, truth and sincerity were the suppositions upon which
the whole system rested, and a great solidarity of interests
came to exist between the lord and his vassals. The latter
might bring no public charges against their master in matters
affecting his life, limb or honor; on three grand occasions,
in case of captivity, the knighting of his son, the marriage
of his daughter, they were obliged to furnish him with
pecuniary aid. Knightly honor and knightly graces come in the
twelfth century to be a matter of fashion and custom; a new
and important element, too, the adoration of woman, is
introduced. A whole literature arises that has to do almost
exclusively with knightly prowess and with knightly love.
Altogether we see the dawn of a new social life."
E. F. Henderson,
A History of Germany in the Middle Ages,
page 424-425.
See, also, FEUDALISM (page 1117);
and EUROPE (pages 1019-1020).
FIELD, Cyrus, and the ocean telegraph.
See ELECTRICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION:
A. D. 1854-1866 (page 776).
FINNISH POPULAR POETRY.
See KALEVALA (page 1935).
John Martin Crawford,
Kalevala,
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5186
One of several versions.
FLEMINGS, Commerce of the.
See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE, MEDIÆVAL.
FLORENTINE BANKERS AND MONEY CHANGERS.
See MONEY AND BANKING (pages 2205 and 2206).
FORMOSA.
"Formosa, or Taiwan, as it is called by the Chinese, is about
400 miles south of the mouth of the Yang-tse, and 100 from the
mainland of China. It lies between 25° 20' and 21° 50' north
latitude, is nearly 240 miles long, by an average of 75 miles
wide, and has an area of about 12,000 square miles. It is
remarkable for its beauty and fertility, and also for the
variety of its products. It was formerly attached to the
province of Fohkien, and governed by a resident commissioner;
but since the Franco-Chinese War, during which the French,
under Admiral Courbet, were foiled in their efforts to take
possession of it, it has been erected into an independent
province by imperial decree, and is now [1887] governed by Liu
Ming-Ch'uan, an able and progressive man, with the title and
almost unlimited authority of governor-general. The island was
once in the possession of the Spaniards, who called it Formosa
(beautiful), but did not colonize it. It then passed into the
hands of the Dutch, who built Fort Zealandia, and established
a trading-post on the southwest coast, near the present city
of Taiwan-fu, and another known as the Red Fort, at Tamsui, on
the northwest coast. But the Dutch in turn abandoned the
island about the year 1660, immediately after which it was
occupied and colonized by the Chinese from Amoy and other
points on the coast of Fohkien. The population is now
estimated by the governor-general at 4,000,000 Chinese and
60,000 savages, but the first figures are doubtless much too
large. The savages are a fine race of men of the Malay or
Polynesian type, who hold nearly all the east coast and the
mountain region, covering over one half the island. They live
mostly by hunting and fishing, or upon the natural products of
the forest, and cultivate but little land. They wear scarcely
any clothing, use bows, arrows, and knives, together with a
few old-fashioned matchlocks, and yet withal they have up to
the present time successfully resisted all efforts to
subjugate them or to take possession of their fastnesses. They
are brave, fierce, and active, but have made scarcely any
progress in the arts of civilization. They are naturally kind
and hospitable to Europeans, but look upon the Chinese as
their deadly enemies."
J. H. Wilson,
China,
chapter 18.
In 1874, in order to obtain redress for a murder of Japanese
sailors by savages on the eastern coast of Formosa, the
Japanese Government undertook to take possession of the
southern part of Formosa, "asserting that it did not belong to
China because she either would not or could not govern its
savage inhabitants. … The expedition was called a High
Commission, accompanied by a force sufficient for its
protection, sent to aboriginal Formosa to inquire into the
murder of fifty-four Japanese subjects, and take steps to
prevent the recurrence of such atrocities. A proclamation was
issued April 17, 1874, and another May 19th, stating that
General Saigo was directed to call to an account the persons
guilty of outrages on Japanese subjects. As he knew that China
was not prepared to resist his landing at Liang-kiao, his
chief business was to provide means to house and feed the
soldiers under his command. The Japanese authorities do not
appear very creditably in this affair. No sooner did they
discover the wild and barren nature of this unknown region
than they seemed fain to beat an incontinent and hasty
retreat, nor did the troops landed there stand upon the order
of their going. … The aborigines having fled south after the
first rencontre, the Japanese leader employed his men as best
he could in opening roads through the jungle and erecting
houses. Meanwhile the Peking authorities were making
preparations for the coming struggle, and though they moved
slowly they were much in earnest to protect their territory.
General Shin Pao-chin having been invested with full powers to
direct operations against the Japanese forces, began at once
to draw together men and vessels in Fuhchau and Amoy. The
Japanese consuls at Amoy and Shanghai were allowed to remain
at their posts; and during the year two envoys arrived at
Pelting to treat with the Court. … The probabilities were
strong against any settlement, when the parties were induced
to arrange their quarrel by the intervention and wise counsel
of Sir T. F. Wade, the British minister. The Japanese accepted
500,000 taels for their outlays in Formosa for roads, houses,
and defences; agreeing thereupon to retire and leave the
further punishment of the aborigines to the Chinese
authorities. The two envoys left Peking, and this attempt at
war was happily frustrated. … The civilization of all parts of
Formosa has since rapidly advanced by the extension of tea and
sugar culture, the establishment of Christian missions, and
the better treatment of the native tribes."
S. W. Williams,
The Middle Kingdom,
chapter 26 (volume 2).
FOURIER AND FOURIERISM.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1832-1847,
and 1841-1847 (pages 2939 and 2943).
{3748}
----------FRANCE: Start--------
FRANCE:
Outline Sketch of general history.
See EUROPE (page 1015. and after).
FRANCE: 1ST-5TH CENTURIES.
The early routes and marts of trade.
See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE, ANCIENT.
FRANCE: 12TH-13TH CENTURIES.
Rise of the Privileged Bourgeoisies and the Communes.
The double movement of Urban Emancipation.
"The 12th and 13th centuries saw the production of that
marvelous movement of emancipation which gave liberty to
serfs, created privileged bourgeoisies and independent
communes, caused new cities and fortresses to issue from the
earth, freed the corporations of merchants and artisans, in a
word placed at the first stroke, beside royalty, feudality and

the church, a fourth social force destined to absorb one day
the three others. While the cultivator of the soil passed by
enfranchisement from the category of things sold or given away
into that of the free people (the only ambition permitted to
the defenseless unfortunates who inhabited isolated farms or
unwalled villages), the population grouped in the urban
centers tried to limit or at least to regulate the intolerable
exploitation of which it was the object. The bourgeois, that
is to say the inhabitants of walled cities, born under the
shelter of a donjon or au abbey, and the citoyens of the
ancient episcopal cities, rivaled each other in efforts to
obtain from the seigneurial power a condition more endurable
in point of taxation, and the suppression of the most
embarrassing hindrances to their commerce and manufactures.
These inhabitants of towns and cities constituted, if only by
being grouped together, a force with which feudality was very
soon obliged to reckon. Divided, besides, into merchants'
societies and companies of workmen they found within
themselves the germ of organization which permitted collective
resistance. The seigneur, intimidated, won by an offer of
money, or decided by the thought that his domination would be
more lucrative if the city became more prosperous, made the
concessions which were asked of him. Thanks to a favorable
concurrence of circumstances, charters of franchises were
multiplied in all parts of France. At the end of the 12th
century, the national territory, in the north as well as the
south, was covered with these privileged cities or
bourgeoisies, which, while remaining administered, judicially
and politically, by seigneurial officers, had acquired, in
matters financial, commercial and industrial, the liberties
necessary to their free development. Feudality very soon found
such an advantage in regulating thus the exploitation of the
bourgeois, that it took the initiative itself in creating, in
the uninhabited parts of its domains, privileged cities,
complete in all their parts, designed to become so many
centers of attraction for foreigners. It is the innumerable
bourgeoisies and 'villes neuves' which represent the normal
form of urban emancipation. Certain centers of population
obtained at the first stroke the most extensive civil and
financial liberties; but, in the majority of cases, the
bourgeois could win their franchises only bit by bit, at the
price of heavy pecuniary sacrifices, or as the result of an
admirable perseverance in watching for opportunities and
seizing them. The history of the privileged cities, whose
principal virtue was a long patience, offers nothing moving or
dramatic. … But the spectacle of these laborious masses
persisting, in obscurity and silence, in the demand for their
right to security and well-being, does not the less merit all
our attention. What forces itself upon the meditations of the
historian, in the domain of municipal institutions, is just
the progress slow and obscure, but certain, of the dependent
bourgeoisie. … The development of the seigneurial cities
offers such a variety of aspects, their progressive and
regular conquests were so important in the constitution of our
rights public and private, that too much care and effort
cannot be devoted to retracing minutely their course. This
history is more than any other that of the origin of our third
estate. It was in the privileged cities, to which the great
majority of the urban population belonged, that it began its
political education. The city charters constituted the durable
lower stratum of its first liberties. In other words the third
estate did not issue suddenly from the more or less
revolutionary movement which gave birth to the independent
communes: it owes its formation and its progress above all to
this double pacific evolution: the possessors of fiefs
enfranchising their bourgeoisie and the latter passing little
by little entirely from the seigneurial government under that
of royalty. This was not the opinion which prevailed at the
time when the founder of the science of municipal
institutions, Augustin Thierry, published in the 'Courrier
Français' his admirable 'Lettres ' on the revolutions of the
communes. The commune, a city dowered with judicial and
political privileges, which conferred upon it a certain
independence, administered by its elected magistrates, proud
of its fortified inclosure, of its belfry, of its militia,—the
commune passed at that time as the pre-eminent type of the
free city of the middle ages. That great movement of urban and
rural emancipation which stirred the France of the 12th
century to its very depths was personified in it. So the
commune concentrated historical interest upon itself, leaving
in the shade all other forms of popular evolution. Guizot, who
had the sense of truth rather than that of the picturesque,
tried to combat this exclusive tendency. In the brilliant
lessons that he gave at the Sorbonne on the history of the
origins of the third estate, he showed, with his customary
clearness, that the development of the bourgeois class was not
accomplished by any single method; that the progress realized
in the cities where the communal regime had never succeeded in
establishing itself must also be taken into account. The
impression left by the highly colored and dramatic recitals of
Augustin Thierry remained for a long time the stronger. …
Contemporary science has not only assigned to itself the
mission of completing the work of the historians of the
Restoration: it has desired also to improve it by rectifying,
upon many points, the exaggerated opinions and false judgments
of which the history of our urban institutions was at first
the victim. It has been perceived that the communal movement
properly so called did not have, upon the destinies of the
popular class, the decisive, preponderant influence which was
attributed to it 'a priori.' The commune, a brilliant but
ephemeral form of the emancipation of the bourgeoisie, has
been set back little by little into its true place.
{3749}
It is now no longer regarded as an essential manifestation of
our first democratic aspirations. One might be tempted to see
on the contrary, in that collective seigneury, often hostile
to the other social elements, impregnated with the spirit of
'particularisme,' made for war and agitated without cessation
by warlike passions, an original but tardy product of the
feudal principle. … We must be resigned to a fact in regard to
which nothing can be done: the absence of documents relative
to the municipal constitution of cities and towns during four
hundred years, from the 7th century to the 11th. From all
appearances, this enormous hiatus will never be overcome. …
Facts being lacking, scholars have had recourse to conjecture.
Some among them have supposed that the principal
characteristics of the Gallo-Roman municipalities were
perpetuated during this period. At bottom, their hypothesis
rests principally upon analogies of names. … From the point of
view of positive science, the Germanic origin of the communes
is not more easy of demonstration. … It is even doubtful
whether the essential element of the communal institution, the
confederation formed by the inhabitants, under the guaranty of
the mutual oath, belongs exclusively to the customs of the
Germans. The theory of Augustin Thierry, which made of the
commune a special application of the Scandinavian gilde, has
been judged too narrow by contemporary scholars. They have
reproached him with reason for having localized an institution
which belongs entirely to the Germanic race. But the principle
of association, applied in the cities, is not a fact purely
German. … Association is a fact which is neither Germanic nor
Roman; it is universal, and is produced spontaneously among
all peoples, in all social classes, when circumstances exact
and favor its appearance. The communal revolution then is a
national event. The commune was born, like other forms of
popular emancipation, from the need which the inhabitants of
the cities had of substituting a limited and regulated
exploitation for the arbitrary exploitation of which they were
the victims. Such is the point of departure of the
institution. We must always return to the definition of it
given by Guibert de Nogent. It is true as a basis, although it
does not embrace all the characteristics of the object
defined: 'Commune! new name, detestable name! By it the
censitaires are freed from all service in consideration of a
simple annual tax; by it they are condemned, for the
infraction of the law, only to a penalty legally determined;
by it, they cease to be subjected to the other pecuniary
charges by which the serfs are overwhelmed.' At certain
points, this limitation of the seigneurial power was made
amicably, by pacific transaction between the seigneur and his
bourgeois. Elsewhere, an insurrection, more or less prolonged,
was necessary in order to establish it. When this popular
movement had as a result, not only the assuring to the people
the most necessary liberties which were demanded, but besides
that of abating to their advantage the political position of
the master, by taking from him a part of his seigneurial
prerogatives, there arose not only a free city, but a commune,
a bourgeois seigneury, invested with a certain political and
judicial power. This definition of the commune implies that
originally it was not possible to establish it otherwise than
by a pressure exerted, more or less violently, upon the
seigneurial authority. We have the direct proof of it for some
of our free municipalities, but it is presumable that many
other communes whose primitive history we do not know have
owed equally to force the winning of their first liberties. …
We do not mean that, in the first period of the history of
urban emancipation, all the communes, without exception, were
obliged to pass through the phase of insurrection or of open
resistance. There were some which profited (as the cities of
the Flemish region in 1127) by a combination of exceptional
circumstances to attain political liberty without striking a
blow. Among these circumstances must be mentioned in the first
rank the prolonged vacancy of an episcopal see and the
disappearance of a laic lord, dead without direct heir,
leaving a succession disputed by numerous competitors. But,
ordinarily, the accession of the bourgeoisie to the rank of
political power did not take place pacifically. Either the
seigneur struggled against his rebellious subjects, or he
feared the struggle and bent before the accomplished fact. In
all cases it was necessary that the people were conscious of
their power and imposed their will. This is proven by the
dramatic episodes which the narrations of Augustin Thierry
have forever rendered celebrated. … Later, in the decline of
the 12th century, it must be recognized that the opinion of
the dominant class ceased to be as hostile to the communes.
When the conviction had been acquired that the popular
movement was irresistible, it was tolerated; the best means
even were sought to derive advantage from it. The Church
always remained upon the defensive; but the king and the great
feudal lords perceived that in certain respects the commune
might be a useful instrument. They accepted then the communal
organization, and they even came to create it where it was not
spontaneously established. But it is easy to convince one's
self that the communes of this category, those which owe their
creation to the connivance or even to the initiative of the
seigneur, did not possess the same degree of independence as
the communes of the primitive epoch, founded by insurrection.
On the whole, the communal revolution was only one of the
aspects of the vast movement of political and social reaction
which the excesses of the feudal regime engendered everywhere
from the 11th to the 14th century. … One would like to possess
the text of one of those oaths by which the bourgeois of the
northern communes bound themselves together, for the first
time, with or without the consent of their seigneur, in the
most ancient period of the communal evolution. It would be of
the highest interest for the historian to know how they set
about it, what words were pronounced to form what the
contemporary writers called a 'conjuration,' a 'conspiration,'
a 'confederation.' No document of this nature and of that
primitive epoch has come down to us. … The sum total of the
sworn bourgeois constituted the commune. The commune was most
often called 'communia,' but also, with varying termination,
'communa,' 'communio,' 'communitas.'
{3750}
Properly speaking and especially with reference to the origin,
the name commune was given not to the city, but to the
association of the inhabitants who had taken oath. For this
reason also the expression 'commune jurée' was used. Later the
acceptation of the word was enlarged; it designated the city
itself, considered as a geographical unit. … The members of
the commune, those who formed part of the sworn association,
were properly called 'the sworn of the commune,' 'jurati
communie,' or, by abridgment, 'the sworn,' 'jurati.' They were
designated also by the expression: 'the men of the commune,'
or, 'those who belong to the commune,' 'qui sunt de communia.'
They were also entitled 'bourgeois,' 'burgenses,' more rarely
'bourgeois jurés'; sometimes also 'voisins,' 'vicini,' or even
'friends,' 'amici.' … We are far from having complete light on
the question as to what conditions were exacted from those who
entered the communal association, and to what classes of
persons the access to the bourgeoisie was open or interdicted.
The variety of local usages, and above all the impossibility
of finding texts which apply to the most ancient period of
urban emancipation, will always embarrass the historian. To
find upon these matters clear documents, developed and
precise, we must come down, generally, to the end of the 18th
century or even to the century following, that is to say to
the epoch of the decadence of the communal regime. … The
bourgeois could not be diseased, that is to say, undoubtedly,
tainted with an incurable malady and especially a contagious
malady, as leprosy. … The communal law excluded also bastards.
On this point it was in accord with the customary law of a
very great number of French regions. … They refused also to
receive into their number inhabitants encumbered with debts.
The condition of debtor constituted in effect a kind of
servitude. He no longer belonged to himself; his goods might
become the property of the creditor, and he could be
imprisoned. … With still more reason does it appear
inadmissible that the serf should be called to benefit by the
commune. The question of urban serfdom, in its relations with
the communal institution, is extremely obscure, delicate and
complex. There are however two facts in regard to which
affirmation is allowable. It cannot be doubted that at the
epoch of the formation of the communes, at the opening of the
12th century, there were no longer any serfs in many of the
urban centers. It may be held also as certain that the desire
to bring about the disappearance of this serfdom was one of
the principal motives which urged the inhabitants to claim
their independence. … The inhabitant who united all the
conditions legally required for admission to the bourgeoisie
was besides obliged to pay a town-due, ('droit d'entrée'). …
If it was not always easy to enter a communal body, neither
could one leave it as easily as might have been desired. The
'issue de commune' exacted the performance of a certain number
of troublesome formalities. … So, it was necessary to pay to
become a communist, and to pay yet more in order to cease to
be one. The bourgeois was riveted to his bourgeoisie. … Up to
this point we have examined only half the problem of the
formation of the commune, approaching it on its general side.
There remains the question whether all the popular element
which existed in the city formed part of the body of
bourgeoisie, and whether the privileged class, that of the
nobles and clergy, was not excluded from it. … We shall have
to admit as a general rule, that the nobles and the clergy
while taking oath to the commune, did not in reality enter it.
What must be rejected, is the sort of absolute, inviolable
rule which has been formed on this opinion. In the middle ages
especially there was no rule without exception. … The commune
was an institution rather ephemeral. As a really independent
seigneury, it scarcely endured more than two centuries. The
excesses of the communists, their bad financial
administration, their intestine divisions, the hostility of
the Church, the onerous patronage of the 'haut suzerain,' and
especially of the king: such were the immediate causes of this
rapid decadence. The communes perished victims of their own
faults, but also of the hate of the numerous enemies
interested in their downfall. … The principal cause of the
premature downfall of the communal regime is without any doubt
the considerable development of the monarchical power in
France at the end of the 18th century. The same force which
annihilated feudality, to the profit of the national unit, was
also that which caused the prompt disappearance of the
independence of the bourgeois seigneuries. With its privileges
and its autonomy, the commune impeded the action of the
Capetains. Those quarrelsome and restless republics had no
reason for existence, In the midst of the peaceful and
obedient bourgeoisie upon which royalty had laid its hand. The
commune then was sacrificed to the monarchical interest. In
Italy and in Germany, the free cities enjoyed their
independence much longer, by reason of the absence of the
central power or of its weakness."
Achille Luchaire,
Les Communes Francaises a l'époque des Capétiens directs
(translated from the French),
pages 1-16, 45-56, 65, and 288-290.
FRANCE: A. D. 1226-1270.
The reign of Saint Louis.
The monarchy in his time and its kingdom.
"The fundamental institution upon which all the social edifice
rested, in the time of Saint Louis, was royalty. But this
royalty, from the double point of view of theory and practice,
was very different from what it had been originally. In
principle it was the divine right, that is, it was an
emanation from the Most High, and the king held of no other
seigneur. This is what the feudal maxim expressed after its
fashion; 'The king holds only of God and his sword.' … Royalty
was transmitted by heredity, from father to son, and by
primogeniture. However, this heredity, which had formerly
needed a sort of election to confirm It, or at least popular
acclamation, needed now to be hallowed by the unction of the
church. Consecration, joined to the privilege of being the
eldest of the royal race, made the king. … It must not be
thought however that the ideas of the time attributed to the
hereditary principle a force absolute and superior to all
interests. Theologians could say to kings that the son should
succeed the father if he imitated his probity; that power was
transferred into other hands in punishment of injustice. …
Christian tradition was, in fact, greatly opposed to what was
then called tyranny. … Not only must royalty not be tyranny,
but it must admit the representatives of the nation, in a
certain measure, to a participation in the government. …
{3751}
In practice, without doubt, these salutary principles were
often disregarded; but it is still much that they were
professed, and this fact alone constitutes an enormous
difference between the middle ages and the later centuries.
The royal power, besides, had not yet a material force
sufficiently great to dominate everywhere as absolute master.
Under the two first lines, it was exercised in the same degree
over all points of the territory; from the accession of the
third, on the contrary, it was only a power of two degrees,
having a very unequal action according to the territory and
the locality. A part of France composed the royal domain; it
was the patrimony of the Capetian house, increased by conquest
or successive acquisitions. There, the king exercised an
authority almost without limit; he was on his own ground. All
the rest formed duchies, counties, or seigneuries of different
sorts, possessed hereditarily by great vassals, more or less
independent originally. Here the king was only the suzerain;
he had scarcely any rights excepting to homage, to military
service, to pecuniary assistance in certain stated cases, and
to some privileges called royal, as that of coining money. The
entire royal policy, from Philip Augustus to Louis XI.,
consisted in skilfully increasing the first of these parts by
absorbing little by little the second. … The kingdom of
France, in the time of Saint Louis, was still very nearly as
the treaty of Verdun had established it. On the north and
east, it was bounded by the Empire of Germany. The frontier
line passed a little beyond the cities of Ghent, Audenarde,
Tournai, Douai, Guise, Mézières, Grandpré, Vitry, Joinville,
Fay, Mirabeau; then it followed the course of the Saône and
the Rhône, from which it diverged only in two places in order
to attribute to the Empire the, at least, nominal possession
of part of Lyonnais and Vivarais. On the south, the Pyrenees
formed, as originally, the natural limit; but from the treaty
of Corbeil (1258) Roussillon remained with the king of Aragon,
in exchange for his right over the county of Foix, the
territory of Sault, Fenouilhedès and Narbonnais. On the other
hand, the vast duchy of Guienne, comprising Bearn and the
county of Bigorre, came … under the suzerainty of the king of
France only by virtue of the treaty of Paris (1259). On the
west the kingdom was bounded only by the ocean, Brittany also
having rendered homage to the crown from the time of Philip
Augustus. Thus Saint Louis and his son left it, on the whole,
more extensive than it was before them, and if it was more
limited than the France of the present, on the east, it
reached, on the contrary, farther to the north. The royal
domain embraced in 1226 only the half of this immense
perimeter. It was composed of the primitive nucleus of the
Capetian possessions: that is, of the Isle of France and of
Orleannais; then of French Vexin. Gâtinais and the viscounty
of Bourges, brought by Philip I.; of the county of Corbeil and
the seigneury of Monthléry, acquired by Louis VI.; of Artois,
Vermandois (with the county of Amiens), Valois, Norman Vexin,
of the counties of Evreux, Meulan, Alençon, Perché, Beaumont
sur Oise, acquired by Philip Augustus and Louis VIII.; finally
the territory obtained by the former from John Lackland by war
or by confiscation, that is, all Normandy, Touraine, Perigord,
Limousin, and the viscounty of Turenne. Anjou, Maine, Poitou,
Auvergne, Angoumois, included in the same conquest, had since
been detached from the crown to form princely appanages. The
profitable domain of Perigord of Limousin and of the viscounty
of Turenne, was reconveyed, in 1259, to the king of England, …
in order to bring all the region of the southwest within the
pale of the royal suzerainty. But Saint Louis compensated for
this diminution by acquiring successively the two great
seneschalates of Nîmes and of Carcassonne, the counties of
Clermont, of Mortain, of Macon, and Philip the Bold did more
than redeem it, by realizing the annexation, so skilfully
prepared by Blanche of Castile, of the last domains of the
count of Toulouse, which had become those of Alphonse of
Poitiers, that is, of nearly all Languedoc. The possessions of
the crown thus formed two or three separate groups, cut up in
the most fantastic fashion, and connected only as the result
of long effort. All the rest of the kingdom was composed of
great fiefs escaping the direct action of royalty, and
themselves subdivided into lesser fiefs, which complicated
infinitely the hierarchy of persons and lands. The principal
were the counties of Flanders, Boulogne, Saint Pol, Ponthieu,
Aumale, Eu, Soissons, Dreux, Montford-l'Amaury; the bishoprics
of Tournai, Beauvais, Noyon, Laon, Lisieux, Reims, Langres,
Chalons, the titularies of which were at the same time counts
or seigneurs; the vast county of Champagne, uniting those of
Réthel, Grandpré, Roucy, Brienne, Joigny and the county
Porcien; the duchy of Burgundy, so powerful and so extensive;
the counties of Nevers, Tonnerre, Auxerre, Beaujeu, Forez,
Auvergne; the seigneury of Bourbon; the counties of Blois and
of Chartres; the county or duchy of Brittany; Guienne, and,
before 1271, the county of Toulouse; the bishoprics of Albi,
Cahors, Mende, Lodève, Agde, Maguelonne, belonging temporally
as well as spiritually to their respective bishops; finally
the seigneury of Montpellier, holding of the last of these
bishoprics. To which must yet be added the appanages given by
Louis VIII. to his younger sons, that is, the counties of
Artois, Anjou, Poitiers, with their dependencies. … So when
the government of the kingdom at this epoch is spoken of, it
must be understood to mean that of only the least considerable
part of the territory,—that is, of the part which was directly
submitted to the authority of the king. In this part the
sovereign himself exercised the power, assisted, as ordained
by the theories examined above, by auxiliaries taken from the
nation. There were neither ministers nor a deliberative corps,
properly speaking; however there was very nearly the
equivalent. On one side, the great officers of the crown and
the royal council, on the other the parliament and the chamber
of accounts (exchequer), or at least their primitive nucleus,
constituted the principal machinery of the central government,
and had, each, its special powers. The great officers, of whom
there had at first been five, were only four from the reign of
Philip Augustus, who had suppressed the seneschal owing to the
possibility of his becoming dangerous by reason of the
progressive extension of his jurisdiction; they were the
bouteiller, who had become the administrator of the royal
expenditure; the chambrier, elevated to the care of the
treasury; the connétable, a kind of military superintendent;
and the chancelier, who had the disposition of the royal seal.
{3752}
These four personages represented in a certain degree,
secretaries of state. The two latter had a preponderant
influence, one in time of peace, the other in time of war. To
the chancellor belonged the drawing up and the proper
execution (legalization) of the royal diplomas; this power
alone made him the arbiter of the interests of all private
individuals. As to the constable he had the chief direction of
the army, and all those who composed it, barons, knights, paid
troops, owed him obedience. The king, in person, had the
supreme command; but he frequently allowed the constable to
exercise it, and, in order not to impose too heavy a burden
upon him, or rather to prevent his taking a too exclusive
authority, he had appointed as coadjutors two 'maréchaux de
France' who were second in command. … The king's council had
not yet a very fixed form. Saint Louis submitted important
questions to the persons about him, clerics, knights or men of
the people; but he chose these advisers according to the
nature of the questions, having temporary counsellors rather
than a permanent council. Among these counsellors some were
more especially occupied with justice, others with finance,
others with political affairs. These three categories are the
germ of the parliament, of the exchequer, and of the council
of state; but they then formed an indistinct ensemble, called
simply the king's court. They were not completely separated so
as to form independent institutions until the time of Philippe
le Bel. The first, that which later constituted the
parliament, belongs especially to the judicial department. …
The second, while not yet elevated into a distinct and
permanent body, is already delegated to special duties, being
charged with examining the accounts of the baillis and
seneschals. The 'gentlemen of the accounts' ('gentes quae ad
nostros computos deputantur') began under Saint Louis to meet
periodically in the Temple, at Paris, and to exercise a
regular control over the public finances; so that this new
creation, which was, later, to render services so important,
was an outcome of the scrupulous probity with which the royal
conscience was filled. … The superior jurisdiction is
represented by the parliament. The organization of this famous
body was begun in the lifetime of Philip Augustus. Under the
reign of this prince [Saint Louis] and notably as a result of
his absence, the 'cour du roi' had begun to render more and
more frequent decisions. The section which was occupied with
judicial affairs, appears to have taken on, in the time of
Saint Louis, an individual and independent existence. Instead
of following the sovereign and meeting when he thought it
expedient, it became sedentary. … The date at which the series
of the famous registers of the parliament, known under the
name of Olim begins may be considered that of the definitive
creation of this great institution. It will be remarked that
it coincides with the general reform of the administration of
the kingdom undertaken by the good king on his return from
Syria. … From its birth the parliament tended to become, in
the hands of royalty, a means of domination over the great
vassals. Not only were the seigneurs insensibly eliminated
from it, to the advantage of the clergy, the lawyers, and the
officers of the crown, but by a series of skilful victories,
its action was extended little by little over all the fiefs
situated outside the royal domain, that is over all France. It
is again Saint Louis who caused this great and decisive
advance toward the authority of the suzerain. He brought it
about especially by the abolition of the judicial duel and by
the multiplication of appeals to the parliament. … As for the
appeals the interdiction of 'fausser jugement' (refusal to
submit to the sentence pronounced) was not the only cause of
their multiplication. Many of the great vassals were led to
bring their affairs before the king's court, either on account
of the confidence inspired by the well known equity of Saint
Louis, or by the skill of the royal agents, who neglected no
opportunity to cause the acceptance of the arbitration of the
crown; and those who did not resign themselves to it were
sometimes compelled to do so. The appeals of their subjects
naturally took the same route; however they continued to
employ the medium of the seneschal's court or that of the
bailli, while those of the barons and the princes of the blood
went directly to Paris. No general law was promulgated in
regard to the matter. Royalty was content to recover little by
little, by partial measures, the superior jurisdiction
formerly usurped by the feudality. … Above and outside of the
parliament justice was rendered by the king in person. … Saint
Louis, always thoughtful of the interests of the lowly, had a
liking for this expeditious manner of terminating suits.
Nearly every morning, he sent two or three members of his
council to inquire, at the palace gate, if there were not some
private individuals there wishing to discuss their affairs
before him; from this came the name 'plaids de la porte' given
to this kind of audience. If his counsellors could not bring
the parties to an agreement, he called the latter into his own
room, examined their case with his scrupulous impartiality,
and rendered the final sentence himself on the spot.
Joinville, who took part more than once in these summary
judgments, thus describes to us their very simple mechanism.
'The king had his work regulated in such a way, that
monseigneur de Nesle and the good count de Soissons, and the
rest of us who were about him, who had heard our masses, went
to hear the 'plaids de la porte,' which are now called
'requêtes' (petitions). And when he returned from the
monastery, he sent for us, seated himself at the foot of his
bed, made us all sit around him, and asked us if there were
any cases to despatch which could not be disposed of without
him; and we named them to him, and he sent for the parties and
asked them: Why do you not take what our people offer you? And
they said: Sire, because they offer us little. Then he said to
them: You should take what they are willing to give you. And
the saintly man labored in this way, with all his might to set
them in a just and reasonable path.' Here the great
peace-maker is clearly seen; private individuals as well as
princes, he desired to reconcile all, make all agree. These
patriarchal audiences often had for theater the garden of the
palace or the wood of Vincennes. The legendary oak which
sheltered the modern Solomon remains in all memoirs as the
symbol of his kindly justice and of his popularity, well
acquired."
A. Lecoy de la Marche,
La France sous Saint Louis et sous Philippe le Hardi,
liv. 1, chapter 2, and liv. 2, chapters 1 and 3.
François Guizot,
Great Christians of France: Saint Louis and Calvin,
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62518.
{3753}
FRANCE: A. D. 1423-1429.
The family and circumstances of Jeanne d' Arc.
"What were the worldly circumstances, what was the social
position, of the parents of Jeanne d'Arc? Questioned on these
points, the people of the country, called to testify at the
public inquiry, in the course of the rehabilitation
proceedings, all made the same reply; they said that the
father and mother of the maid were unassuming husbandmen and
possessed with their cottage only a moderate patrimony.
According to a memorandum, made out with the assistance of
papers and family traditions, a memorandum transmitted by the
abbé Mandre, curé of Damvillers (Meuse), who died about 1820,
to his nephew Mr. Villiaumé, father of the historian of Jeanne
d' Arc and of the Revolution, the real estate belonging to
Jacques d'Arc and Isabelle Romée represented about twenty
hectares, of which twelve were cultivated, four were meadow
and four woodland, and in the latter the 'bois Chesnu'; they
had beside their house, their furniture and a reserve of two
or three hundred francs which they kept carefully in view of
the possibility of a flight before some invasion, such as they
had been obliged to take to Neufchâteau. By cultivating,
themselves, what they possessed, they could obtain from it an
annual revenue equivalent to four or five thousand francs of
our money, which permitted them to distribute alms to the
poor, notwithstanding their moderate patrimony, and to give
hospitality to the mendicant friars as well as to the
travelers who often passed through that country. If these
valuations are not rigorously exact, they appear to us at
least quite reasonable, though we are ignorant of the data
upon which they rest. In a parochial register of Domremy,
transcribed in 1490, we read that Jacob d'Arc and Ysabellot,
his wife, had established an annual income of two gros [gros
of Lorraine, coin worth 1/8 oz. of silver] in favor of the
curé of Domremy from a 'fauchée' and a half [day and a half's
mowing] of field situated in the 'ban' of Domremy, above the
bridge, between the heirs Janvrel and the heirs Girardin, on
condition of the celebration of two masses each year during
the week of the Fontaines for anniversary services for the
dead. The property of these honest people constituted, if we
may judge by the different replies of the Maid compared with
one another, what was called then in the Barrois a 'gagnage'
or little farm; now, what distinguished the gagnage from the
simple 'conduit,' was that the first always employed for the
needs of cultivation a certain number of horses. The usage was
at that time, in that region, to attach three or four mares to
the plough, and they even had, at least in the great gagnages,
a special horse to drag the harrow. Besides this property
situated at Domremy, it may be supposed that Jacques d'Arc
possessed in right of his wife some pieces of land at Vouthon,
for we see by a register of the writs of court of the
provostship of Gondrecourt that the eldest of his sons named
Jacquemin made his residence from 1425 in this village of the
Barrois holding where he cultivated undoubtedly the little
patrimony of Isabelle Romée. Jacques d'Arc and Isabelle de
Vouthon had three sons, Jacquemin, Jean and Pierre, and two
daughters, the elder named Catherine, the younger Jeanne or
rather Jeannette, she who was by her heroism to immortalize
her line. Two documents … prove with evidence that Jacques
d'Arc figured in the first rank of the notables of Domremy. In
the first of these, dated Maxey-sur-Meuse, October 7, 1423, he
is styled 'doyen' of that village and by this title comes
immediately after the mayor and alderman. 'In general,' says
M. Edward Bonvalot, speaking of the villages in the region of
the Meuse governed by the famous charter of Beaumont in
Argonne, 'there is but one doyen or sergeant in each village,
who convokes the bourgeois to the electoral assemblies and to
the sittings of the court; it is he also who convokes the
mayor, aldermen and the men of the commune to their reunions
either periodical or special; it is he who cries the municipal
resolutions and ordinances; it is he who commands the day and
night watch; it is he who has charge of prisoners. Among the
privileges which he enjoys must be cited the exemption from
the taxes (deniers) of the bourgeoisie. At Linger, he has the
same territorial advantages as the clerk of the commune.' It
is seen by various documents that the doyens were also charged
with the collection of the 'tailles,' 'rentes' and
'redevances,' and that they were appointed to supervise bread,
wine and other commodities as well as to test weights and
measures. In the second document, drawn up at Vaucouleurs
March 31, 1427, Jacques d'Arc appears as the agent of the
inhabitants of Domremy in a suit of great importance which
they then had to sustain before Robert de Baudricourt, captain
of Vaucouleurs. … The situation of Domremy was privileged,
and, thanks to this situation, humble peasants who had few
needs found even in the soil which they cultivated nearly
everything which was necessary for their subsistence. The
heights crowned with beeches and venerable oaks, which shut in
on the west the valley where the village lies, furnished
fire-wood in abundance; the acorns permitted the fattening of
droves of hogs; the beautiful vineyard of Greux, exposed to
the east and climbing the slopes of these heights since the
14th century, produced that light wine, excessively acid,
which is not the less agreeable to the somewhat harsh palate
of the children of the Meuse; the fields lying at the foot of
these slopes and contiguous to the houses were reserved for
the cultivation of the cereals, of wheat, of rye and of oats;
finally, between these cultivated fields and the course of the
Meuse, over a breadth of more than a kilometer stretched those
verdant meadows whose fertility equals their beauty and from
which is still taken the best and most renowned hay of all
France. The principal wealth of the inhabitants of Domremy was
the cattle which they pastured in these meadows, where each,
after the hay-harvest, had the right to pasture a number of
heads of cattle proportioned to that of the 'fauchées de pré'
[days mowings of field] that he possessed. This is what was
called the 'ban de Domremy' the care of which was confided, by
turns, to a person taken from each 'conduit' or household. It
may be seen by certain replies of Jeanne to her judges at
Rouen that she had been more than once appointed to this
charge, when the turn of her parents came, and her enemies had
not failed to seize upon this circumstance to pretend to see
in her only a shepherdess by profession. …
{3754}
Most of the historians of Jeanne d'Arc have made a great
mistake when they have imagined Domremy an out-of-the-way
corner and isolated, so to speak, from the rest of the world;
on the contrary, a road much frequented toward the end of the
middle ages crossed this village. This was the old Roman road
from Langres to Verdun which passed through Neufchâteau,
Domremy, Vaucouleurs, Void, Commercy and Saint-Mihiel; it had
acquired yet more importance since the marriage of Philip the
Bold and Margaret, daughter of Louis de Male, had brought into
the same hand Flanders, Artois and Burgundy. This marriage had
had the effect of giving increased activity to the exchanges
between the extreme possessions of the Burgundian princes. …
It may be seen by what precedes that, like the legendary beech
of her native village, the childhood of the virgin of Domremy
sprang out of a soil full of vigor and was in the main haunted
by beneficent fairies. Born in a fertile and smiling corner of
the earth, the issue of an honest family, whose laborious
mediocrity was elevated enough to touch nobility when
ennobling itself by alms-giving, and humble enough to remain
in contact with all the poor; endowed by nature with a robust
body, a sound intelligence and an energetic spirit, the little
Jeannette d'Arc became under these gentle influences all
goodness and all love. Certain facts which are related of her
early years show her religiously enamored of country life. She
gave some wool from her sheep to the bell-ringer of Domremy to
render him more zealous in fulfilling his office, so much did
the silvery chiming of his church bell, sounding suddenly in
the quiet of the valley, enchant her ear. And the inspiring
virtue of the cool shadows, of the 'frigus opacum' of Virgil,
who had better felt it than she who replied to her judges at
Rouen: 'If I were in the midst of the woods, I should hear my
voices better.' … One of the consequences of the treaty of
Troyes was the occupation of Champagne by the [English]
invaders.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1417-1422 (page 1175).
It is certain, notwithstanding the assertions to the contrary
of many historians of Jeanne, that from this date the English
were rendered absolutely masters of the bailiwick of Chaumont.
The principal fortresses of Bassigny, notably Nogent-le-Roi
and Montigny-le-Roi, received garrisons of the enemy. The
'registres du Trésor des Chartes,' preserved in our National
Archives, where the acts emanating from the English government
[chancellorship] during this period are registered, are full
of letters of pardon or of remission granted in the name of
Henry V. and Henry VI. to different inhabitants of this
bailiwick, and nothing proves better to what degree the
authority of the king of England was at that time received and
accepted in this region. Some of these letters were given on
account of offenses committed in the provostship of Andelot,
of which the châtellenie of Vaucouleurs held, as is known.
This châtellenie was, in truth, the last fragment of French
soil that Charles VII. had kept at the eastern extremity of
his kingdom, as he had succeeded in keeping Mont-Saint-Michel
at the western extremity. Pressed upon by the
Anglo-Burgundians on the south, by the restless and violent
Robert of Saarbruck, seigneur of Commercy, on the north,
hemmed in, on the east and west, between the possessions of
the dukes of Bar and of Lorraine, who were unceasingly at war
with their neighbors, this little corner of the earth was a
sort of arena where all parties came into collision; and
during the four or five years which immediately preceded the
first apparition of the archangel Michael to the Maid, toward
the middle of 1425, ten or twelve leaders of bands may be
counted who emulated each other, as it were, in ravaging it in
all directions. During the first half of the 15th century, the
men at arms of the marches of Lorraine had the reputation of
being, with the Bretons, the greatest pillagers in the world.
… We know now in all its details a curious episode which
particularly concerns the native village of Jeanne. This
episode had remained completely unknown up to the present day,
and it was a fortunate accident which, in the beginning of our
researches, commenced in 1878, caused us to discover in the
National Archives, in the 'registres du Trésor des Chartes,'
the document in which the relation of it is found. There is
question in this document of a remission of penalty granted by
King Charles VII. to a certain Burthélemy de Clefmont for the
murder of an Anglo-Burgundian band-leader who had carried away
the cattle from two villages of the châtellenie of
Vaucouleurs; now, these two villages are precisely Greux and
Domremy. … Different circumstances of the narrative, compared
with several documents relative to the leader killed by
Barthélemy de Clefmont, do not permit us to place the incident
at any other date than 1425. … The principal, not to say the
only wealth of the inhabitants of Domremy, was the cattle
which they pastured in the meadows of the Meuse. The
configuration of the soil permits the cultivation only of some
fields situated along the border of these meadows, at the foot
of the wooded hill against which the village is set; so, the
little grain that was harvested there would not have sufficed
to feed the population. … We understand then the important
injury done to these unfortunate peasants by taking from them
at one stroke all the communal flock; they were completely
ruined; they were stripped between one day and another of the
most precious of their possessions; they were almost condemned
to die of poverty with very brief delay. Such a disaster would
have cast down a spirit of ordinary temper; it had no other
effect than to exalt the profound faith and to awaken the
already extraordinary energies of the little Jeannette d'Arc.
Endowed, notwithstanding her tender years, with that almost
superhuman moral force of which we read that it transports
mountains, she called Heaven confidently to the assistance of
her people, and our readers already know that Heaven heard her
voice. Jeanne de Joinville, lady of Ogéviller, the good
châtelaine of Domremy, must have been keenly touched by the
unfortunate situation caused to her people, and she had
besides the greatest interest in making the brigands in the
pay of Henri d'Orly disgorge, in order to assure the payment
of her taxes. This is why she complained to her cousin Antoine
de Lorraine, count of Vaudemont, who had in his immediate
tenure the château of Doulevant, occupied by the chief of
these brigands. The count hastened to give satisfaction to the
demands of his relative; he sent Barthélemy de Clefmont, one
of his men at arms, in pursuit of the marauders.
{3755}
The expedition was a complete success. Though the cattle had
already been taken as far as Dommartin-le-Franc, twenty
leagues distant from the shores of the Meuse, they were
recovered. Antoine de Lorraine then caused them to be restored
to the lady of Ogéviller whose people, those of Greux as well
as of Domremy, thus came again into possession of the precious
booty which had been stolen from them and which they believed
irreparably lost. What a signal favor of Providence, a
miracle, these poor people in general and Jeannette d'Arc in
particular must have seen in a restitution so unhoped for! In
the meantime,—we may reasonably suppose this, if not affirm it
with certainty,—the news of a great defeat inflicted on the
English before Mont-Saint-Michel, toward the end of June 1425,
by sea as well as by land, must have arrived at Domremy.
Almost at the same time, that is in the last days of the
following August, they learned that these same English had
just invaded Barrois and that they had burned dwellings at
Revigny as well as in the ban of Chaumont, near Bar-le-Duc.
Never had Jeanne felt more sorrowfully 'the pity it was for
the kingdom of France,' and never also had she had a more
entire faith in God to assure the salvation of her country.
The theft, then the restitution of the cattle of Greux and
Domremy, the victory won by the defenders of
Mont-Saint-Michel, the invasion of Barrois by the English,
here are the three principal occurrences which immediately
preceded and which explain, at least in a certain degree, the
first apparition of the archangel Michael to the little
Jeannette d'Arc."
S. Luce,
Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy
(translated from the French),
chapters 2-3.
FRANCE: A. D. 1582.
Footing secured at the mouth of the Senegal.
See (in this Supplement) AFRICA: 1582.
FRANCE: A. D. 1631.
First printed newspaper publication.
See PRINTING AND PRESS: A. D. 1631 (page 2594).
FRANCE: A. D. 1648-1715.
Relations with Germany and Austria.
See (in this Supplement) GERMANY: A. D. 1648-1715.
FRANCE: A. D. 1682-1693.
Contest of the King and the Gallican Church with the Papacy.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1682-1693 (page 2462).
FRANCE: A. D. 1715-1770.
The fatal policy in Europe which lost to the French their
opportunity for colonial aggrandizement.
"Louis XIV. had made France odious to her neighbors and
suspected by all Europe. Those who succeeded him required much
prudence and wisdom to diminish the feelings of fear and
jealousy which this long reign of wars and conquests had
inspired. They were fortunate in that the moderation demanded
of them was for France the most skilful and advantageous
policy. France kept Alsace, Franche-Comte, Flanders,
Roussillon, and beyond this enlarged frontier she was no
longer menaced by the same enemies. The treaty of Utrecht had
modified the entire balance of power. There is henceforward no
house of Austria excepting in Germany. It is too often
forgotten, in speaking of this house and its rivalry with that
of France, that the most ardent center of hatred was in Spain.
It was Spain which cherished that violent rancor which, for
lack of words as much as of ideas, is placed to the account of
Austria alone. Spain is no longer to be feared; she is
weakened, she is becoming dependent. A cadet of France, a
Bourbon, reigns at Madrid, and the roles, in that direction,
are exchanged. As to Austria even, she has increased
undoubtedly: she has taken the Low Countries, Milan, Naples,
very soon she adds Sicily to them; but she is scattered. In
multiplying her outposts, she presents so many points of
aggression to her adversaries. France has the Low Countries
under her hand: Savoy threatens Milan: and, in Germany,
Prussia, which is growing, groups the opponents of the Empire.
France completes her work by the annexation of Lorraine. The
house of Lorraine is transported to Tuscany, and by the effect
of the same treaty, that of Vienna in 1738, Naples and Sicily
pass to the Spaniards. It seems that henceforward France has
only to conserve on the continent. She presents to it the most
compact power. Her principal enemy in it is greatly reduced.
She is surrounded by states, weaker than she, who defer to her
and fear her; she can resume that fine role of moderator and
guardian of the peace of Europe which Richelieu had prepared
for her, and bear elsewhere, into the other hemisphere, the
superabundance of her forces and that excess of vigor which in
great nations is precisely the condition of health. The future
of her grandeur is henceforward in the colonies. There she
will encounter England. Upon this new stage their rivalry will
be revived, more ardent than in the days of the hundred years
war. To maintain this struggle which extends over the entire
world, France will not be too strong with all her resources.
When she is engaged in Canada and the Indies at the same time,
she will not need to carry her armies across the Rhine. Peace
on the continent is the condition necessary to the magnificent
fortune which awaits her in America and Asia. If she wishes to
obtain it she must renounce continental ambitions. She can do
it; her defense is formidable. No one about her would dare to
fire a gun without her permission. But, alas! she is far
removed from this wisdom, and, in attempting to establish
colonies, and make changes in the kingdoms of Europe at the
same time, she will compromise her power in both worlds at
once. The French desire colonial conquests, but they can not
abstain from European conquests, and England profits by it.
Austria becomes her natural ally against France. These
powerful diversions keep the French on the ground. However,
they can yet curb Austria; they have Prussia, Savoy, Poland
and Turkey if necessary. Diplomacy is sufficient for this
game; but this game is not sufficient for the French
politicians. The hatred of the house of Austria survives the
causes of rivalry. This house seems always 'the monster' of
which Balzac speaks. One is not satisfied to have chained it;
one can cease only after having annihilated it. 'There is
always,' writes Argenson, 'for politicians a fundamental rule
of reducing this power to the point where the Emperor will not
be a greater landholder than the richest elector.' Charles VI.
dies in 1740; he leaves only a daughter; the opportunity seems
favorable, and noisily sounding the death-cry (l'hallali) they
take the field at the head of all the hunters by inheritance.
See AUSTRIA: A. D.1740, and after (pages 212-220).
{3756}
They go 'to make an emperor, to conquer kingdoms!' The
Bavarian whom they crown is a stage emperor, and, as for
conquests, they are considered only too fortunate that Maurice
of Saxe preserves to France those of Louis XIV. The coalition
has no other result than to enlarge Prussia. Meanwhile France
is beaten on the sea and abandons solely to the resources of
his genius Dupleix, who with a handful of men was founding an
empire. There was besides another small matter; after having
exposed Canada in order to conquer Silesia for the king of
Prussia, it was lost in order to have the pleasure of giving
back that province to the queen of Hungary. France had played
the game of England in the war of the succession of Austria,
she played that of Austria in the seven years war.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1755-1756, and after (pages 1495-1502).
Frederic was the most equivocal of allies. In 1755, he
deserted cynically and passed over to the English, who had
just recommenced war against France. England having Prussia,
it was important in order to maintain the equilibrium, that
France have Austria. Maria Theresa offered her alliance and
France accepted it. Thus was concluded the famous treaty of
May 1, 1756. The object of this alliance was entirely
defensive. This is what France did not understand, and she did
not cease to be a dupe for having changed partners. Louis XV.
made himself the defender of Austria with the same blindness
as he had made himself her adversary. The continental war
which was only the accessory became the principal. From a
ruling power, France fell to the rank of a subordinate. She
did not even attain the indirect result to which she
sacrificed her most precious interests. Frederic kept Silesia,
France lost Canada and abandoned Louisiana; the empire of the
Indies passed to the English. Louis XV. had thus directed a
policy the sole reason for which was the defeat of England, in
such a way as to assure the triumph of that country. 'Above
all,' wrote Bernis to Choiseul, then ambassador at Vienna,
'arrange matters in such a way that the king will not remain
in servile dependence on his allies. That state would be the
worst of all.' It was the state of France during the last
years of the reign of Louis XV. The alliance of 1756 which had
been at its beginning and under its first form, a skilful
expedient, became a political system, and the most disastrous
of all. Without gaining anything in territory, France lost her
consideration in Europe. She had formerly grouped around her
all those who were disturbed by the power of Austria; forced
to choose between them and Austria, she allowed the Austrians
to do as they chose. To crown the humiliation, immediately
after a war in which she had lost everything to serve the
hatred of Maria Theresa for Frederic, she saw those
unreconcilable Germans draw together without her knowledge,
come to an understanding at her expense and, in concert with
Russia, divide the spoil of one of the oldest clients of the

French monarchy, Poland. There remained to France but one
ally, Spain. They were united in 1761 by the Family Pact, the
only beneficial work which had been accomplished in these
years of disaster. … To the anger of having felt herself made
use of during the war, to the rancor of having seen herself
duped during the peace, was joined the fear of being despoiled
one day by an ally so greedy and so little scrupulous. 'I
foresee,' wrote Mably some years later, 'that the Emperor will
demand of us again Lorraine, Alsace and everything which may
please him.'—'Who can guaranty France, if she should
experience a complicated and unfortunate war,' said one of the
ministers of Louis XVI., 'that the Emperor would not reclaim
Alsace and even other provinces?' It was in this way that the
abuse made by Austria of the alliance revived all the
traditions of rivalry. Add that Maria Theresa was devout, that
she was known to be a friend of the Jesuits, an enemy of the
philosophers, and that at the King's court, the favorites were
accounted as acquired from Austria: everything thus
contributed to render odious to public opinion the alliance
which, in itself, already seemed detestable. At the time when
they were beginning to style the partisans of new ideas
'patriots,' they were in the habit of confounding all the
adversaries of these ideas with the 'Austrian party.' … The
marriage of Marie Antoinette with the Dauphin was destined to
seal forever the alliance of 1756. The unfortunate princess
accumulated on her head the hatreds and prejudices heaped up
by three centuries of rivalry and excessively stimulated by
the still smarting impression of recent wrongs. Even the cause
of her coming to France rendered her suspected by the French;
they imputed to her as a crime her attachment to the alliance,
which was, notwithstanding, the very reason of her marriage.
To understand the prodigious unpopularity which pursued her in
France, it is necessary to measure the violence of the
passions raised up against her mother and her country; it was
summed up, long before the Revolution, in that word which
became for Marie Antoinette a decree of forfeiture and of
death: the Austrian."
A. Sorel,
L'Europe et la Révolution française
(translated from the French),
part 1, pages 288-297.
FRANCE: A. D. 1776-1778.
Disposition to aid the revolt of the
English colonies in America.
The American embassy.
Dealings of Beaumarchais and Silas Deane.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1776-1778 (pages 3241, 3244).
FRANCE: A. D. 1777.
The first daily newspaper.
See PRINTING AND PRESS: A. D. 1777 (page 2600).
FRANCE: A. D. 1788-1789.
Paris in the Revolution.
The part of the Nobodies.
"The history of the revolution can no more be understood
without understanding the part played in it by Paris, than one
can conceive of the tragedy of Hamlet with the part of Hamlet
left out; and to understand the part played by Paris in the
revolution is equally impossible. … Let us commence at the
bottom with the nobodies. They are no specialty of Paris.
There are many of them in every city, but the larger the city
the greater the percentage. Paris, therefore, has the highest.
They are isolated particles. In the ushering in of the new era
they have no part. The regulations concerning the elections to
the States-General contain no provision in regard to them. …
It was simply a matter of course, that these nobodies went for
nothing in the question at hand. Whether they were likely to
continue to be nothing in it, nobody seems to have asked. …
The existence of this class was partly due to natural causes,
the working of which the wit of man can to a degree mitigate,
but never prevent.
{3757}
In the 'ancien régime,' however, the wit of man had altogether
been bent upon stimulating it. The privilege-bane had also
been extended over the domain of labor. When, in 1776, Turgot
broke down the guilds, the Parliament of Paris strenuously
opposed the government, declaring: all Frenchmen are divided
into established corporations, forming one continuous chain
from the throne down to the lowest handicraft, indispensable
to the existence of the state, and not to be abolished, lest
the whole social order break asunder. That was but too true.
Since the days of Henry III. (1574-1589) the forcing of all
industrial pursuits into the strait-jacket of guildships had
been carried to the extreme of utter absurdity. Here, too, the
chronic financial distress had been the principal cause. At
first the handicrafts, which everybody had been at liberty to
practice, were withdrawn from free competition and sold as a
privilege, and then, when nothing was left to be sold, the old
guilds were split up into a number of guildlets, merely to
have again something to put on the counter. And it was not
only left pretty much to the masters whom they would admit to
the freedom of the guild, but besides the charges for it were
so high that it was often absolutely out of the reach even of
the most skillful journeyman. Even a blood-aristocracy was not
lacking. In a number of guilds only the sons of masters and
the second husbands of masters' widows could become masters.
Thus an immense proletariat was gradually formed, which to a
great extent was a proletariat only because the law
irresistibly forced it into this position. And the city
proletariat proper received constant and ever-increasing
additions from the country. There such distress prevailed,
that the paupers flocked in crowds to the cities. … In 1791,
long before the inauguration of the Reign of Terror, there
were in a population of 650,000, 118,000 paupers (indigents).
Under the 'ancien régime' the immigrant proletariat from the
country was by the law barred out from all ways of earning a
livelihood except as common day-laborers, and the wages of
these were in 1788, on an average, 26 cents for men and 15 for
women, while the price of bread was higher than in our times.
What a gigantic heap of ferment!"
H. von Holst,
The French Revolution,
lecture 2.
FRANCE: A. D. 1789-1792.
Effects of the Revolution in Germany.
See (in this Supplement) GERMANY: A. D. 1789-1792.
FRANCE: A. D. 1789-1794.
Myths of the Revolution.
"The rapid growth and the considerable number of these myths
are one of the most curious features of the Revolution, while
their persistent vitality is a standing warning for historical
students. I claim to show that Cazotte's vision was invented
by Laharpe, that Sombreuil's daughter did not purchase his
liberty by quaffing blood, that the locksmith Gamain was not
poisoned, that Labussière did not save hundreds of prisoners
by destroying the documents incriminating them, that the
Girondins had no last supper, that some famous ejaculations
have been fabricated or distorted, that no attempt was made to
save the last batch of victims, that the boys Barra and Viala
were not heroes, that no leather was made of human skins, that
no Englishmen plied the September assassins with drink, that
the 'Vengeur' crew did not perish rather than surrender, that
the ice-bound Dutch fleet was not captured, that Robespierre's
wound was not the work of Merda, but was self-inflicted, and
that Thomas Paine had no miraculous escape."
J. G. Alger,
Glimpses of the French Revolution,
preface.
FRANCE: A. D. 1789-1796.
The Assignats of the Revolution.
See MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1789-1796 (page 2212).
FRANCE: A. D. 1796-1807.
Napoleon and Germany.
See (in this Supplement) GERMANY: A. D. 1796-1807.
FRANCE: A. D. 1855-1895.
Acquisitions in Africa.
(See in this Supplement)
AFRICA: 1855, 1864, 1876-1880, and after.
FRANCE: A. D. 1858-1886.
Conquest of Tonkin and Cochin China.
See TONKIN (page 3114).
FRANCE: A. D. 1871-1892.
Advance in the policy of Protection.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION: A. D. 1871-1892 (page 3082).
FRANCE: A. D. 1894-1895.
Assassination of President Carnot.
Election and resignation of M. Casimir-Périer.
Election of M. Faure to the Presidency.
"The most startling of all the deeds in the recent revival of
anarchistic activity was the assassination of M. Carnot,
President of the French Republic, on the 24th of June. While
driving through the streets of Lyons, where he was taking part
in the opening ceremonies of an exposition, he was mortally
stabbed by an Italian Anarchist named Santo Caserio. The
assassin was immediately captured, and was executed August 16.
His trial did not reveal any accomplices, though there was
evidence tending to show that the deed was resolved upon by a
band of Anarchists. Caserio boasted of his identification with
the sect. … According to the constitutional prescription, a
joint convention of the two chambers of the legislature was
immediately summoned for a presidential election. The
convention met at Versailles, June 27, M. Challemel-Lacour,
president of the Senate, in the chair, and on the first ballot
chose M. Casimir-Périer by 451 out of a total of 851 votes, M.
Brisson, the Radical candidate, stood second, with 195, and M.
Dupuy third, with 97."
Political Science Quarterly,
December, 1894.
On the 15th of January, 1895, M. Casimir-Périer astonished the
world and threw France into consternation, almost, by suddenly
and peremptorily resigning the Presidency. The reason given
was the intolerable powerlessness and practical inutility of
the President under the existing constitution. The exciting
crisis which this resignation produced was passed through
without disorder, and on the 17th the National Assembly
elected M. François Felix Faure to the office of President.
FRANCE: Libraries.
See LIBRARIES (page 2010).
FRANCE, Bank of.
See MONEY (page 2212).
FRANKLIN, Benjamin,
and the first subscription library.
See LIBRARIES, MODERN (page 2017).
FRANKLIN, Benjamin:
Electrical discovery.
See ELECTRICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION:
A. D. 1745-1747 (page 770).
FRANKLIN, Benjamin:
Examination before Parliament.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1766 (pages 3192-3201).
FRANKLIN, Sir john.
Northern explorations and voyages of.
Loss and search for.
See (in this Supplement)
ARCTIC EXPLORATION: 1819-1822, and after.
{3758}
FREDERICK BARBAROSSA, in Italy.
See (in this Supplement)
GERMANY: A. D. 1154-1190, and 1162-1177;
also, pages 1811-1813.
FREE CITIES OF GERMANY, The.
See (in this Supplement)
GERMANY: 13-15th CENTURIES; also, page 473.
FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE.
See below: TOLERATION, RELIGIOUS.
FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW,
The first.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1793 (page 3305).
The Second.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1850 (pages 3388-3391).
GALEN, and the development of anatomy and physiology.
See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 2d CENTURY (page 2128).
GALVANI'S ELECTRICAL DISCOVERIES.
See ELECTRICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION:
A. D. 1786-1800 (page 771).
GAUL: Ancient commerce.
See (In this Supplement) COMMERCE, ANCIENT.
GENOA: The Bank of St. George.
See MONEY AND BANKING (page 2207).
GENOA: Mediæval Commerce.
See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE, MEDIÆVAL.
GEORGE III.:
Conversation with Governor Hutchinson
on affairs in the colonies.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774 (pages 3210-3213).
His absolute notions of Kingship.
See England: A. D. 1760-1763 (page 927).
GEORGE, Henry, and the Single Tax movement.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1880 (page 2955).
GERM THEORY OF DISEASE, Origin and development of the.
See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 17-18TH CENTURIES,
and 19TH CENTURY (pages 2138, 2144, and after).
----------GERMANY:Start--------
GERMANY:
Outline sketch of general history.
See EUROPE (page 1015, and after).
GERMANY: A. D. 962.
Otto I. and the Restoration of the Empire.
"And now it came about that out of the midst of the Germanic
nations a new monarchy arose which wrested itself free from
the immediate influence of the papacy and its antiquated
pretensions and broke a new path for the idea of the empire,
an idea that seemed to have been fully crushed. This was the
empire of Otto the Great. It was not to be compared with the
old Roman empire, it did not at all come up to what the
Carolingian had been. But it did give strong and irrevocable
expression to the idea of a highest authority in Germany, an
authority bound up with religion, yet independent in itself. …
The foundation of the Germanic empire, that is of an
organization which, resting on the internal development of the
German nations had won a universal position through the
extension of the power of the Ottos over Italy, forms the
event of world-wide importance of the tenth century. … This
Germanic empire had no genealogical origin that was entirely
indisputable, but it did in so far have an advantage over the
Carolingian empire that the right of heredity in the German
monarchy decided of itself the question of succession to the
empire. Besides this it had a sort of overlordship over its
neighbors to maintain which was different from that earlier
one: the attempts at Christianizing and at the same time
reducing to submission took in other regions extending far
beyond the limits of the former ones. It was a resuscitation
of the idea of the old Roman empire but by no means of its
form. On the contrary, through constant struggles new
constitutional forms had developed themselves of which the old
world had as yet no conception. Not that it is the proper
place here to enter more deeply into the question of the
feudal system which gave to public life an altogether changed
aspect. But, in a word or two at least, we must characterize
this transformation. Its essence is that an attempt was made
to adjust the conception of obedience and military service to
the needs of the life of the individual. All the arrangements
of life changed their character so soon as it became the
custom to grant land to local overlords who, in turn, provided
with possessions according to their own several grades, could
only be sure of being able to hold these possessions in so far
as they kept faith and troth with the lord-in-chief of the
land. It was through and through a living organization, which
took in the entire monarchy and bound it together into a
many-membered whole; for the counts and dukes for their own
part entered into a similar relationship with their own
sub-tenants. Therewith the possession of land entered into an
indissoluble connection with the theory of the empire, a
connection which extended also to those border nations which
were in contact with and subordinate to the monarchy. That an
empire so constituted could not reckon on such unconditional
obedience as had been paid to the old Roman empire is clear as
day. Nevertheless the whole order of things in the world
depended on the system of adjusted relationships, the keystone
or rather commanding central point of which was formed by this
same empire. It could scarcely claim any longer to be
universal but it did nevertheless hold the chief place in the
general state-system of Europe, and it proved a powerful
upholder of the independence of the secular power. It was just
this idea of universal power, and altogether of ascendancy
over the Christian world, that was indelibly implanted in the
German empire. But could this idea be actually realized, was
Germany strong enough to carry it through? Otto the Great
originated it, but by no means carried it to its completion.
He passed his life amid constant internal and external
struggles; no lasting form of constitution was he able to
leave behind. That is, one might almost say, what is most
characteristic of great natures: they can originate, indeed,
but they cannot complete."
L. von Ranke,
Weltgeschichte,
(translated from the German),
volume 7, pages. 5-7.
{3759}
"For what else did he (Otto I) wish to found but a
world-monarchy like that of the Caesars? Emperor of the Romans
and Augustus did he call himself and at Rome he had received
his imperial crown. And was not for him the most sacred spot
in the universe the grave of St. Peter at Rome? Was not this
Saxon in armor an equally eager apostle of the Roman church
with that Anglo-Saxon monk who as servant of the pope had
planted Christianity in North German lands? While Otto was
determined to extend the power of his empire as far as to the
most distant peoples of the still unexplored north and east,
he at the same time purposed to bear to the end of the world
Christianity in the form in which Rome had given it him. The
bones of the Roman martyrs he carried over the Alps and
through faith in them he worked wonders; woods were cleared,
marshes dried, cities built, victories won over the most
dangerous enemies. Not only did the language of Rome sound
forth from the altars of Saxony: it became at the same time
the language of affairs in the emperor's chancery, and in it
the commands of the all-powerful Augustus were issued to the
whole world. Thus did Otto, although through and through a
Saxon warrior of the old stamp, live wholly at the same time
in those Roman ideas against which, in times gone by, his
forefathers had struggled. The mightiest contradictions which
have affected the course of the world's history met together
in his personality in full force, and reconciled themselves
there just as they did in the great onward course of events. …
In all the movements of the time Otto took part with force and
with success; the imperial title was now no empty name as it
had been in the last years of the Carolingian period. But not
through laws, not through an artificial state system, not
through a great army of officials did Otto rule Western
Europe, but more than all through the wealth of military
resources which his victories had placed in his hands. Through
the great army of his German vassals who were well versed in
war he overthrew the Slavonians, kept the Danes in check,
compelled the Hungarians to relinquish their nomadic life of
plunder and to seek settled dwelling places in the plains of
the Danube; so that now the gates of the East through which up
till then masses of peoples threatening everything with
destruction had always anew broken in upon the West were
closed forever. The fame of his victories and his feudal
supremacy, extending itself further and further, made him also
protector of the Burgundian and French kingdoms, and finally
lord of Lombardy and of the City of Rome. With the military
resources of Germany he holds in subjection the surrounding
peoples; but through the power thus won, on the other hand, he
himself gains a proud ascendancy over the multitude of his own
vassals. Only for the reason that he wins for himself a truly
royal position in Germany is he enabled to gain the imperial
crown; but this again it is which first really secures and
confirms his own and his family's rule in the German lands. On
this rests chiefly his preeminent position, that he is the
first and mightiest lord of Western Christendom, that as such
he is able at any moment to bring together a numerous military
force with which no people, no prince can any longer cope. But
not on this alone. For the Catholic clergy also, spreading far
and wide over the whole west, serves him as it were like a new
crowd of vassals in stole and cassock. He nominates the
archbishops and bishops in his German and Italian kingdoms as
well as in the newly converted lands of the North and East; he
rules the successor of St. Peter and through him exercises a
decisive influence on church progress even in the western
lands where he does not himself install the dignitaries of the
church. Different as this German empire was from the Frankish,
faulty as was its organization, its resources seemed
nevertheless sufficient in the hand of a competent ruler to
maintain a far-reaching and effectual rule in the West; the
more so as it was upheld by public opinion and supported by
the authority of the church. But one must not be led into
error; these resources were only sufficient in the hands of a
so powerful and active prince as Otto. From the Elbe marshes
he hastened to the Abruzzian Mountains; from the banks of the
Rhine now to the shores of the Adriatic, now to the sand-dunes
of the Baltic. Ceaselessly is he in motion, continually under
arms—first against the Wends and Hungarians, then against the
Greeks and Lombards. No county in his wide realm, no bishopric
in Catholic Christendom but what he fixed his eye upon and
vigilantly watched. And wherever he may tarry and whatever he
may undertake his every act is full of fire, force and vigor
and always hits the mark. With such a representative the
empire is not only the highest power in the Western world but
one which on all its affairs has a deep and active influence—a
power as much venerated as it was dreaded."
W. von Giesebrecht,
Deutsche Kaiserzeit
(translated from the German).
volume 1, pages 476-484.
"He (Otto) now permanently united the Roman empire to the
German nation and this powerful and intelligent people
undertook the illustrious but thankless task of being the
Atlas of universal history. And soon enough did the connection
of Germany with Italy result in the reform of the church and
the revival of the various sciences, while in Italy itself it
was essentially the Germanic element which brought into being
the glorious civic republics. Through a historical necessity,
doubtless, Germany and Italy, the purest representatives of
the antique and the Teutonic types and the fairest provinces
in the kingdom of human thought, were brought into this
long-lasting connection. From this point of view posterity has
no right to complain that the Roman empire was laid like a
visitation of Fate on our Fatherland and compelled it for
centuries to pour out its life-blood in Italy in order to
construct those foundations of general European culture for
which modern humanity has essentially Germany to thank."
Gregorovius,
Geschichte der Stadt Rom
(translated from the German),
volume 3, page 334.
See, also, GERMANY: A. D. 936-973 (pages 1439-1441).
GERMANY: 11-12th Centuries.
The question of the Investitures.
See (in this Supplement) PAPACY: A. D. 11-12TH CENTURIES.
{3760}
GERMANY: A. D. 1125-1272(?).
The Rise of the College of Electors.
"At the election of Rudolph [1272 or 1273?] we meet for the
first time the fully developed college of electors as a single
electoral body; the secondary matter of a doubt regarding what
individuals composed it was definitely settled before
Rudolph's reign had come to an end. How did the college of
electors develop itself? … The problem is made more difficult
at the outset from the fact that, in the older form of
government in Germany there can be no question at all of a
simple electoral right in a modern sense. The electoral right
was amalgamated with a hereditary right of that family which
had happened to come to the throne: it was only a right of
selection from among the heirs available within this family.
Inasmuch now as such selection could,—as well from the whole
character of German kingship as in consequence of its
amalgamation with the empire—take place already during the
lifetime of the ruling member of the family, it is easy to
understand that in ages in which the ruling race did not die
out during many generations, the right came to be at last
almost a mere form. Usually the king, with the consent of
those who had the right of election, would, already during his
lifetime, designate as his successor one of his heirs,—if
possible his oldest son. Such was the rule in the time of the
Ottos and of the Salian emperors. It was a rule which could
not be adhered to in the first half of the 12th century after
the extinction of the Salian line, when free elections, not
determined beforehand by designation, took place in the years
1125, 1138 and 1152. Necessarily the clement of election now
predominated. But had any fixed order of procedure at
elections been handed down from the past? The very principle
of election having been disregarded in the natural course of
events for centuries, was it any wonder that the order of
procedure should also come to be half forgotten? And had not
in the meantime social readjustments in the electoral body so
disturbed this order of procedure, or such part of it as had
been important enough to be preserved, as necessarily to make
it seem entirely antiquated? With these questions the
electoral assemblies of the year 1125 as well as of the year
1138 were brought face to face and they found that practically
only those precedents could be taken from what seemed to have
been the former customary mode of elections which provided
that the archbishop of Mainz as chancellor of the empire
should first solemnly announce the name of the person elected
and the electors present should do homage to the new king.
This was at the end of the whole election, after the choice
had to all intents and purposes been already made. For the
material part of the election, on the other hand, the part
that preceded this announcement, they found an apparently new
expedient. A committee was to draw up an agreement as to the
person to be chosen; in the two cases in question the manner
of constituting this committee differed. Something essential
had now been done towards establishing a mode of procedure at
elections which should accord with the changed circumstances.
One case however had not been provided for in these still so
informal and uncertain regulations; the case, namely, that
those taking part in the election could come to no agreement
at all with regard to the person whose choice was to be
solemnly announced by the archbishop of Mainz. And how could
men have foreseen such a case in the first half of the 12th
century? Up till then double elections had absolutely never
taken place. Anti-kings there had been, indeed, but never two
opposing kings elected at the same time. In the year 1198,
however, this contingency arose; Philip of Suabia and Otto IV
were contemporaneously elected and the final unanimity of
choice that in 1152 had still been counted on as a matter of
course did not come about. As a consequence questions with
regard to the order of procedure now came up which had hardly
ever been touched upon before. First and foremost this one:
can a better right of one of the elected kings be founded on a
majority of the votes obtained? And in connection with it this
other: who on the whole has a right to cast an electoral vote?
Even though men were inclined now to answer the first question
in the affirmative, the second, the presupposition for the
practical application of the principle that had been laid down
in the first, offered all the greater difficulties. Should
one, after the elections of the years 1125 and 1152 and after
the development since 1180 of a more circumscribed class of
princes of the realm, accept the existence of a narrower
electoral committee? Did this have a right to elect
exclusively, or did it only have a simple right of priority in
the matter of casting votes, or perhaps only a certain
precedence when the election was being discussed? And how were
the limits to be fixed for the larger circle of electors below
this electoral committee? These are questions which the German
electors put to themselves less soon and less clearly than did
the pope, Innocent III, whom they had called upon to
investigate the double election of the year 1198. … He speaks
repeatedly of a narrower electoral body with which rests
chiefly the election of the king, and he knows only princes as
the members of this body. And beyond a doubt the repeated
expressions of opinion of the pope, as well as this whole
matter of having two kings, at the beginning of the 13th
century, gave men in Germany cause for reflection with regard
to these weighty questions concerning the constitutional forms
of the empire. One of the most important results of this
reflection on the subject is to be found in the solution given
by the Sachsenspiegel which was compiled about 1230. Eike von
Repgow knows in his law-book only of a precedence at elections
of a smaller committee of princes, but mentions as belonging
to this committee certain particular princes: the three
Rhenish archbishops, the count Palatine of the Rhine, the duke
of Saxony, the margrave of Brandenburg and,—his right being
questionable indeed—the king of Bohemia. … So far, at all
events, did the question with regard to the limitation of the
electors seem to have advanced towards its solution by the
year 1230 that an especial electoral college of particular
persons was looked upon as the nucleus of those electing. But
side by side with this view the old theory still held its own,
that certainly all princes at least had an equal right in the
election. Under Emperor Frederick II, for instance, it was
still energetically upheld. A decision one way or the other
could only be reached according to the way in which the next
elections should actually be carried out. Henry Raspe was
elected in the year 1246 almost exclusively by ecclesiastical
princes, among them the three Rhenish archbishops. He was the
first 'priest-king' (Pfaffenkönig). The second 'priest-king'
was William of Holland. He was chosen by eleven princes, among
whom was only one layman, the duke of Brabant. The others were
bishops; among them, in full force, the archbishops of the
Rhine.
{3761}
Present were also many counts. But William caused himself
still to be subsequently elected by the duke of Saxony and the
margrave of Brandenburg, while the king of Bohemia was also
not behindhand in acknowledging him—that, too, with special
emphasis. What transpired at the double election of Alphonse
and Richard in the year 1257 has not been handed down with
perfect trustworthiness. Richard claimed later to have been
elected by Mainz, Cologne, the Palatinate and Bohemia;
Alphonse by Treves, Saxony, Brandenburg and Bohemia. But in
addition to the princes of these lands, other German princes
also took part,—according to the popular view by assenting,
according to their own view, in part at least, by actually
electing. All the same the lesson taught by all these
elections is clear enough. The general right of election of
the princes disappears almost altogether; a definite electoral
college, which was looked upon as possessing almost
exclusively the sole right of electing, comes into prominence,
and the component parts which made it up correspond in
substance to the theory of the Sachsenspiegel. And whatever in
the year 1257 is not established firmly and completely and in
all directions, stands there as incontrovertible at the
election of Rudolph. The electors, and they only, now elect;
all share of others in the election is done away with.
Although in place of Ottocar of Bohemia who was at war with
Rudolph Bavaria seems to have been given the electoral vote,
yet before Rudolph's reign is out, in the year 1290, Bohemia
at last attains to the dignity which the Sachsenspiegel, even
if with some hesitation, had assigned to it. One of the most
important revolutions in the German form of government was
herewith accomplished. From among the aristocratic class of
the princes an oligarchy had raised itself up, a
representation of the princely provincial powers as opposed to
the king. Unconsciously, as it were, had it come into being,
not exactly desired by anyone as a whole, nor yet the result
of a fixed purpose even as regarded its separate parts. It
must clearly have corresponded to a deep and elementary and
gradually developing need of the time. Undoubtedly from a
national point of view it denotes progress; henceforward at
elections the danger of 'many heads many minds' was avoided;
the era of double elections was practically at an end."
K. Lamprecht,
Deutsche Geschichte
(translated from the German),
volume 4, pages 23-28.
See, also, GERMANY: A. D. 1125-1152 (page 1444).
GERMANY:A. D. 1154-1190.
Frederick Barbarossa in Italy.
See (in this Supplement) ITALY: A. D. 1154-1190.
GERMANY:A. D. 1162-1177.
The Emperor and the Pope.
See (in this Supplement) PAPACY: A. D. 1162-1177.
GERMANY:12th-17th Centuries.
Causes of the Disintegration of the Empire.
"The whole difference between French and German constitutional
history can be summed up in a word: to the ducal power, after
its fall, the crown fell heir in France; the lesser powers,
which had been its own allies, in Germany. The event was the
same, the results were different: in France centralization, in
Germany disintegration. The fall of the power of the
stem-duchies is usually traced to the subjugation of the
mightiest of the dukes, Henry the Lion, who refused military
service to the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa just when the
latter most needed him in the struggle against the Lombards.
See SAXONY: A. D. 1178-1183 (page 2813).
… The emperor not only banned the duke, he not only took away
his duchy to bestow it elsewhere, but he entirely did away
with this whole form of rule. The western part, Westphalia,
went to the archbishops of Cologne; in the East the different
margraves were completely freed from the last remnants of
dependence that might have continued to exist. In the
intervening space the little ecclesiastical and secular lords
came to be directly under the emperor without a trace of an
intermediate power and with the title of bishop or abbot,
imperial count, or prince. If one of these lords, Bernard of
Ascanium, received the title of Saxon duke, that title no
longer betokened the head of a stem or nation but simply an
honorary distinction above other counts and lords. What
happened here had already begun to take place in the other
duchy of the Guelphs, in Bavaria, through the detachment from
it of Austria; sooner or later the same process came about in
all parts of the empire. With the fall of the old stem-duchies
those lesser powers which had been under their shadow or
subject to them gained every where an increase of power:
partly by this acquiring the ducal title as an honorary
distinction by the ruler of a smaller district, partly by
joining rights of the intermediate powers that had just been
removed to their own jurisdictions and thus coming into direct
dependence on the empire. … Such was the origin of the idea of
territorial supremacy. The 'dominus terrae' comes to feel
himself no longer as a person commissioned by the emperor but
as lord in his own land. … As to the cities, behind their
walls remnants of old Germanic liberty had been preserved.
Especially in the residences of the bishops had artisans and
merchants thriven and these classes had gradually thrown off
their bondage, forming, both together, the new civic
community. … The burghers could find no better way to show
their independence of the princes than that the community
itself should exercise the rights of a territorial lord over
its members. Thus did the cities as well as the principalities
come to form separate territories, only that the latter had a
monarchical, the former a republican form of government. … It
is a natural question to ask, on the whole, when this new
formation of territories was completed. … The question ought
really only to be put in a general way: at what period in
German history is it an established fact that there are in the
empire and under the empire separate territorial powers
(principalities and cities)? As such a period we can designate
approximately the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th
centuries. From that time on the double nature of imperial
power and of territorial power is an established fact and the
mutual relations of these two make up the whole internal
history of later times. … The last ruler who had spread abroad
the glory of the imperial name had been Frederick II. For a
long time after him no one had worn the imperial crown at all,
and of those kings who reigned during a whole quarter of a
century not one succeeded in making himself generally
recognized. There came a time when the duties of the state, if
they were fulfilled at all, were fulfilled by the territorial
powers.
{3762}
Those are the years which pass by the name of the interregnum.
… Rudolph of Hapsburgh and his successors, chosen from the
most different houses and pursuing the most different
policies, have quite the same position in two regards: on the
one hand the crown, in the weak state in which it had emerged
from the interregnum, saw itself compelled to make permanent
concessions to the territorial powers in order to maintain
itself from one moment to another; on the other hand it finds
no refuge for itself but in the constant striving to found its
own power on just such privileged territories. When the kings
strive to make the princes and cities more powerful by giving
them numerous privileges, and at the same time by bringing
together a dynastic appanage to gain for themselves an
influential position: this is no policy that wavers between
conceding and maintaining. … The crown can only keep its place
above the territories by first recognizing the territorial
powers and then, through just such a recognized territorial
power by creating for itself the means of upholding its
rights. … The next great step in the onward progress of the
territorial power was the codification of the privileges which
the chief princes had obtained. Of the law called the 'Golden
Bull' only the one provision is generally known, that the
seven electors shall choose the emperor; yet so completely
does the document in question draw the affairs of the whole
empire into the range of its provisions that for centuries it
could pass for that empire's fundamental law. It is true that,
for the most part it did not create a new system of
legislation but only sanctioned what already existed. But for
the position of all the princes it was significant enough that
the seven most considerable among them were granted an
independence which comprised sovereign rights, and this not by
way of a privilege but as a part of the law of the land. A
sharply defined goal, and herein lies the deepest
significance, was thus set up at which the lesser territories
could aim and which, after three centuries, they were to
attain. … This movement was greatly furthered when on the
threshold of modern times the burning question of church
reform, after waiting in vain to be taken up by the emperor,
was taken up by the lower classes, but with revolutionary
excesses. … The mightiest intellectual movement of German
history found at last its only political mainstay in the
territories. … This whole development, finally, found its
political and legal completion through the Thirty Years War
and the treaty of peace which concluded it. The new law which
the Peace of Westphalia now gave to the empire proclaimed
expressly that all territories should retain their rights,
especially the right of making alliances among themselves and
with foreigners so long as it could be done without violating
the oath of allegiance to the emperor and the empire. Herewith
the territories were proclaimed to be what they had really
been for a long time—states under the empire."
I. Jastrow,
Geschichte der deutschen Einheitstraum und seiner Erfüllung
(translated from the German).
pages 30-37.
GERMANY: 13th-15th Centuries.
The rise of the Free Cities and their Leagues.
"Under cities we are to understand fortified places in the
enjoyment of market-jurisdiction (marktrecht), immunity and
corporate self-government. The German as well as the French
cities are a creation of the Middle Ages. They were unknown to
the Frankish as well as to the old Germanic public law; there
was no organic connection with the Roman town-system. … All
cities were in the first place markets; only in
market-jurisdiction are we to seek the starting point for
civic jurisdiction. The market-cross, the same emblem which
already in the Frankish period signified the market-peace
imposed under penalty of the king's ban, became in the Middle
Ages the emblem of the cities. … After the 12th century we
find it to be the custom in most German and many French cities
to erect a monumental town-cross in the market-place or at
different points on the city boundary. Since the 14th century
the place of this was often taken in North-German cities by
the so-called Roland-images. … All those market-places
gradually became cities in which, in addition to yearly
markets, weekly markets and finally daily markets were held.
Here there was need of coins and of scales, of permanent
fortifications for the protection of the market-peace and the
objects of value which were collected together; here merchants
settled permanently in growing numbers, the Jews among them
especially forming an important element. Corporative
associations of the merchants resulted, and especially were
civic and market tribunals established. … From the beginning
such a thing as free cities, which were entirely their own
masters, had not existed. Each city had its lord; who he was
depended on to whom the land belonged on which they stood. If
it belonged to the empire or was under the administration
(vogtei) of the empire the city was a royal or imperial one.
The oldest of these were the Pfalz-cities (Pfalzstädte) which
had developed from the king's places of residence
(Königspfälze). … Beginning with the 12th century and in
course of the 13th century all cities came to have such an
organ [i. e. a body of representatives] called the Stadtrath
(consilium, consules) with one or more burgomasters (magistri
civium) at their head. Herewith did the city first become a
public corporation, a city in the legal sense. … Of the royal
cities many since the time of Frederick II had lost their
direct dependence on the empire (Reichsunmittelbarkeit) and
had become territorial or provincial cities, through having
been sold or pledged by the imperial government. As soon as
the view had gained ground that the king had no right to make
such dispositions and thus to disregard the privileges that
had been granted to the cities, people spoke no longer of
royal cities but of cities of the empire. These had, all of
them, in course of time, even where the chief jurisdiction
remained in the hand of an imperial official, attained a
degree of independence approximating to the territorial
supremacy of the princes. They had their special courts as
corporations before the king. Since the second half of the
13th century they rejoiced in an autonomy modified only by the
laws of the realm; they had the disposal of their own armed
contingents and the sole right of placing garrisons in their
fortresses. They had accordingly also the right of making
leagues and carrying on feuds, the right to lordless lands
(Heimfallsrecht) … and other prerogatives. The cities of the
empire often ruled at the same time over extensive
territories. …
{3763}
Among the cities of the empire were comprised after the 14th
century also various cities of bishoprics which had been able
to protect themselves from subjection to the territorial power
of the bishop, and which only stood to it in a more or less
loose degree of subordination. … For the majority of the
cities of bishoprics which later became cities of the empire
the denomination 'Free Cities' came up in the 14th century
(not till later 'Free Cities of the Empire'). … Among the
leagues of cities, which especially contributed to raise their
prestige and paved the way to their becoming Estates of the
Empire or of the principalities, the great Rhenish civic
confederation (1254-1256) lasted too short a time to have an
enduring effect. The Swabian civic league was for purely
political purposes—the maintenance of the direct dependence on
the empire (Reichsunmittelbarkeit) against the claims of
territorial sovereignty of the princes, and its unfortunate
ending served rather to deteriorate than to improve the
condition of the cities. It was different with the Hansa. This
name, which signified nothing else than gild or brotherhood,
was first applied to the gild of the German merchants in the
'stahlhof' in London. This gild, having originated from the
amalgamation of various national Houses of German merchants in
England, had finally, under the name of 'Hansa of Germany' or
'Gildhall of the Germans in England,' come to comprise all
Germans who carried on trade with England. Similar
associations of the German merchants were the 'German House'
in Venice, the 'German Counting-house' in Bruges and the
German Hansas in Wisby on Gotland, in Schonen, Bergen, Riga
and Novgorod. The chief purpose of these Hansas was the
procuring of a 'House' as a shelter for persons and for wares,
the maintaining of peace among, the Hansa brothers, legal
protection, the acquisition of commercial privileges, etc. The
Hansas were gilds with several elected aldermen at their heads
who represented them in external matters and who administered
the property. … Quarrels among the brothers might not, under
penalty, be brought before external tribunals; they were to be
brought before the Hansa committee as a gild-tribunal. This
committee had also an extended penal jurisdiction over the
members; under certain circumstances they had even the power
of life and death in their hands. An especially effective
punishment was the Hansa Bann, which occasioned, besides
expulsion from the Hansa, a complete boycott on the part of
the Hansa brothers. … The community of interests thus founded
among these cities led repeatedly, already as early as the
second half of the 13th century, to common steps on their
part; so that in Hansa affairs a tacit league existed, even
although it had not been expressly sanctioned. After this had
become more clearly apparent in the troubles with Flanders
(1356-1358) the name Hansa was also applied to this
league-relationship, so that henceforward besides the Hansa of
the German merchants there existed a Hansa of the German
cities. The Hanseatic League received a firm organization
through the Greifswald and Cologne confederations of 1361 and
1367, both of which were at first only entered into for a
single warlike undertaking (against Waldemar of Denmark), but
which were then repeatedly renewed and finally looked upon as
a permanent league. The Hanseatic League … came forward in
external matters, even in international relationships, as an
independent legal entity. It carried on war and entered into
treaties with foreign nations; it had a league army at its
disposal and a league fleet; it acquired whole territorial
districts and saw to the building of fortresses. In itself it
was not a defensive and offensive league; it did not concern
itself with the feuds of single cities with outsiders. The
sphere of activity of the league was essentially confined to
the province of commerce: protection of commerce, … the
closing of commercial treaties, etc. … The head of the League
was and continued to be Lubeck. Its kernel, as it were, was
formed by the Wendish (i. e. Mecklenburg and Pomeranian)
cities which were united under Lubeck. Originally any city of
Lower Germany which asked to be taken in was received into the
League. … Hansa cities which did not fulfil their federal
obligations came under the penalty of the Hansa bann and the
general commercial ostracism consequent upon it. … The federal
power was exercised by civic diets, which were assemblies of
delegates from the members of the council [Rath] of the
individual cities. The summons was sent by Lubeck. The decrees
were passed in the form of 'recesses.' … Within the League
again were narrower leagues with their own common affairs and
their own civic diets. After numerous changes the four
'quarters' were recognized as such: the Wendish under Lubeck
as its head, the Saxon under Brunswick, the Cologne under
Cologne, the Prussian-Livonian under Danzig.
R. Schröder,
Lehrbuch der deutschen Rechtsgeschichte
(translated from the German),
pages 588-609.
See, also, HANSA TOWNS (page 1624),
and CITIES, IMPERIAL AND FREE (page 473).
GERMANY: 15th-17th Centuries.
The decay of the Hansa.
"The complete ruin of the empire in the course of the 15th
century necessarily entailed at last the ruin also of its
members. Nowhere did this elementary truth make itself felt in
a more terrible manner than in northeastern Germany, in those
colonial districts which in consequence of the extraordinary
development of the Hansa had risen in importance to the extent
of having an influence on the whole east and northeast of
Europe. Here the year 1370 had denoted for the Hansa a climax
without a parallel. After a glorious war it had closed with
the Danish king, Waldemar Atterdag, a peace which seemed about
to keep the northern kingdoms, for a long time to come, under
the power of its will. But, soon after, the Lubeck-Hanseatic
policy began to degenerate. … The Hansa had looked on without
interfering at the struggle which began between the Teutonic
Order and Poland. This freed it from the threatening maritime
supremacy of the Order; besides this it had just become
involved, itself, in conflicts in the North. … A long and
tedious war ensued … which ended to the disadvantage of the
Hansa. … Within the Hansa, during the struggle, the divergency
of interests between the Wendish, Prussian and Livonian cities
had for the first time become so pronounced as to amount to
complete disunion, and already in 1431 in Hanseatic circles
the fear could be expressed … 'that the noble confederation of
our Hansa will be dissolved and destroyed.' Such being the
case it soon became evident that the struggle with King Erich
had actually cost the Hansa the 'Dominium maris Baltici.'
{3764}
For one thing the English and the Dutch, more and more
unopposed, began to carry on in the East a commerce which was
hostile to the Hansa. … While the Western enemies of the Hansa
thus appeared in districts on the Baltic, which had hitherto
been reserved for the Hanseatic merchant, the influence on the
North Sea of the Baltic Hansa cities diminished also more and
more. It was possible indeed, for some time to come, still to
hold on to Norway. But further to the southwest the Hansa
ships, in the war which England in union with Burgundy had
been waging with France since the year 1415, saw themselves
attacked on all sides in spite of the neutral flag. It was
well-known that the empire would not protect the German flag.
It was worse still that in England a more and more violent
opposition arose against the Hanseatic privileges, for the
progress of this movement laid bare once and for all the
fundamental contrast between the commercial interests in
England of the Rhenish Hansa cities and those of the
'Osterlings' [Eastern cities]. If the English were prepared
perhaps to further extend the rights of the Hansa in their
land in return for the simultaneous free entry of their flag
in the Baltic, that was a condition which pleased the German
western cities as much as it seemed unacceptable to the
Osterlings, Lubeck at their head. The English had succeeded in
carrying discord into the enemy's camp. Affairs in Flanders
were on a footing equally dangerous to the continued existence
of the Hansa as a whole. … Lubeck, in a diet of the year 1466,
recommended the members of the Hansa to consider the merchants
of Cologne as not belonging to the Hansa when in the lands of
the Duke of Burgundy. A complete breach could not now fail to
come. It occurred, very unfortunately for Cologne and the
western cities, on English territory. In 1468 English ships
were plundered in the 'Sund,' at the bidding, as was claimed,
of the Hansa. The result was that King Edward IV took prisoner
all German merchants who happened to be in England and forbade
commercial intercourse with Germany. From this restriction,
however, the Cologners were able to free themselves through
separate negotiations with the king. It was an inconsiderate
step thus to separate themselves from the rest of the Hansa,
and that, too, in such a question as this. Cologne stood there
fully isolated now even from the western cities. Lubeck at
once profited by the occasion to have Cologne placed under the
Hansa bann and soon after the Hansa, almost entirely united
now except for Cologne, began the war against England. In the
year 1472 a great fleet sailed out against the island-kingdom;
it had complete success. The peace of Utrecht of February 18th
1474 restored once more the old Hanseatic privileges in
England and opened up the prospect of damages amounting to
£10,000. Cologne had to submit; in 1478 it returned to the
Hansa. But all the same there was no complete restoration of
the old unity. The mercantile differences between the west and
the east cities not only continued but increased, and a
dominion over the Baltic, not to mention the North Sea, was,
in spite of the momentary success in England, no longer to be
thought of. … After about 1490 the interests also of the
Wendish cities including, say, Bremen, Hamburg and Lüneburg,
became divided. … Thus towards the end of the 15th century the
Hansa bore the stamp of decline in all directions, … the
political-mercantile preponderance on land, as well as the
'Dominium maris Baltici,' was broken and the league itself was

torn by internal dissensions. In the years from 1476 to 1494
only one common Hansa diet was held; complete ruin was now
only a question of time. The 16th century and a part still of
the 17th century comprise the period of the slow wasting away
of the Hansa. While at the beginning of this period the South
German merchant-princes developed a German world-commerce, the
satiated mercantile houses of the North showed themselves
incapable of progressing even on purely commercial paths. They
remained in the ruts of old-fashioned commerce." In England
"less and less regard was paid to the warnings and plaints of
this antiquated piece of retrogression, until Queen Elisabeth
made use of the incautious promulgation of an imperial edict
forbidding English merchants to settle in the Hansa cities to
simply abrogate the Hanseatic privileges in England. It was
the key-stone on the tomb of the Hanseatic relations with
England, once so close and full of import."
K. Lamprecht,
Deutsche Geschichte
(translated from the German),
volume 4, pages 468-484.
"The unmerciful fate which had overtaken the German nation
[the 30 years war], like a storm wind descending upon the
land, gave also the death-blow to that proud communal system
which when in its prime showed better than any other
institution the greatness of the German power in the Middle
Ages. He who does not know the history of the Hansa does not
know how to estimate the true significance of our people. He
does not know that no goal was too distant for it, no task too
great; that at the same time it could belong to the first
commercial nations of the world and intellectually absorb and
work over the idea of humanism, could offer defiance to the
kings of the Danes and challenge the pope for usurping the
rule of the world. How did things still look on the Thames
when in Dantzig, day after day, four or five hundred ships
were running in and out, when the merchants of Soest, Dortmund
and Osnabrück were opening their counting-houses in the
Warangian city of Novgorod? It is in truth nothing new if the
German nation today again begins to reckon itself among the
naval powers. … In those days it was also the baneful
religious schism which hindered the great commercial centres
on the German northern coast from making use of the favoring
constellations which presented themselves. The evangelical
burghers of Lubeck and Rostock could not make up their minds
for the sake of advantageous trade connections with Spain to
become bailiffs of their brothers of the faith in Holland;
they could put no trust in the brilliant promises with which
the emperor's Jesuits tried to turn them away from the cause
of Denmark and Sweden, and herewith probably the last
opportunity was missed of breathing new life in the already
aging commercial league. The attempt made in 1641 to renew the
league by ten cities remained ineffectual. Lubeck which
already in 1629 had lost 96 ships could no longer keep itself
from ruin; its great commercial houses became bankrupt and
drew down the smaller ones with them in their fall; Dantzig,
which still in 1619 had been able to show an export of grain
to the amount of 102,981 tons, exported in 1655 only 11,361,
and in 1659 not more than 542 tons."
Zwideneck-Sü-denhorst,
Deutsche Geschichte, 1648-1740
(translated from the German),
volume 1, page 50.
{3765}
GERMANY: 16th Century.
At the beginning of the Reformation Movement.
"An increase in pilgrimages first begins to mark a new phase
of religious life which was encouraged by the admonitions of
preachers of repentance like Capistrano. Like an avalanche did
the numbers grow of the pilgrims who streamed together from
all parts of Upper and Central Germany, from the foot of the
Alps to the Harz Mountains. Thirty, even seventy thousand
might have been counted of those who assembled at Niklashausen
to hear the words of the prophet (Boeheim) who was already
reverenced as a saint. … This 'saint' was burned with an Ave
Maria upon his lips. … It might have been supposed that the
sad outcome of these movements would have frightened men away,
but no; one can boldly maintain on the contrary that never,
save during the crusades, were so many pilgrimages made as in
the last 60 or 70 years before the reformation. … If that way
of striving after righteousness before God, vain and mistaken
as it seems to us, may be looked upon as religion, then the
last fifty or sixty years before the reformation show an
exceptionally high degree of religious feeling, or at least of
religions need; a feeling ever increasing through lack of
means to satisfy it. With regard to the clergy, indeed, things
looked dark enough, especially in North and Central Germany.
One does not know which was greater, their lack of knowledge
or their lack of morality. … The most incredible facts were
brought to light by the later visitations. … The result might
have been a complete return to heathenism had such a clergy,
which could show, especially in the larger South German
cities, but few redeeming exceptions, had the whole spiritual
guidance of the people in its hands. But it did not; and the
doings of the secular clergy by no means affected the
religious life of the community as they would have done
to-day. The exponents and fosterers of this religious life at
that time in Germany were the mendicant friars: Franciscans,
Dominicans, Augustinian friars. … Many things in the outer
world, especially at the end of the century, came to aid the
church's efforts: the needs of an age in which so much was
unstable; the anger of Heaven which, as the monks so
drastically preached and the multitude piously believed, so
evidently threatened to vent itself. That period of history,
indeed, might be called a prosperous one by anyone regarding
merely superficially the condition of social and political
affairs. It is well known how German commerce prospered at
that time, extending to all parts of the world and ever having
new paths opened up for it by the new discoveries. Frenchmen
and Italians, astounded at the riches and princely splendor
which the commercial magnates in the South German
trade-centres were able to display, sang the praises of the
prosperity and culture of the land. Industry and commerce were
on the increase and art, realizing its highest aims, found an
abiding-place and self-sacrificing patrons in the houses of
the citizens. With every year the number of high and low-grade
schools on the Rhine and in South Germany increased in number,
and were still scarcely able to do justice to the pressing
educational needs. An undercurrent of fresh and joyous
creative impulse, full of promise for the future, can be
traced among the burghers. But if one regards the age as a
whole one sees everywhere not only a threatening, but actually
a present decline. The abundant popular literature, more even
than the writings of scholars, gives a clear insight into
these matters. … Since the days of antiquity, on the eve of
the French Revolution alone do we find the opposing principles
so sharply contrasted with each other as they were at the end
of the Middle Ages. In the rich commercial cities themselves
there was already an immense proletariat as opposed to the
excessive wealth; and there is reason to believe that never,
even counting the present day, have there been so many beggars
as in those decades. It must be borne in mind that, both
practically and theoretically, beggary was furthered by the
church. Much from her rich table fell into the lap of the poor
man, and actually not only was it no shame to beg but beggary
was a vocation like any other. The man who ate the bread of
beggary stood morally higher than he who toiled to gain a
living. … Men did, on the other hand, have the consciousness
that the great accumulation of capital in the hands of
individuals furthered poverty as it always does. The
complaints are general against 'selfishness'; the pauper, the
town artisan, the noble and the scholar are remarkably in
accord on this one point, that deception, usury and cheating
are the only explanation of the prosperity of the merchant.
When the knight attacked the goods-waggons of the traders he
believed that he was only taking what rightfully belonged to
himself. The merchants and the rich prelates were responsible
to his mind for the deterioration of his own class or estate
which can no longer hold its own against the rich civilians.
All the more does he oppress his own serfs. Only seldom among
the higher classes do we hear a word of pity for the poor man,
a word of blame against the fleecing and harrassing of the
peasants; much oftener bitter scorn and mockery, which
nevertheless is founded on fear; for men know well enough in
their inmost souls that the peasant is only waiting for a
suitable moment in which to strike out and take bloody
vengeance, and anxiously do they await the future. Even among
the citizens themselves those who were without possessions
were filled with hatred against the rich and against those of
high degree. The introduction of Roman law, unintelligible to
the burgher and peasant, made the feeling of being without law
a common one. The more firmly did men pin their faith on that
future in which the Last Judgment of God was to come and
annihilate priests and lords. Such impressions, which were
kept vivid by an ever spreading popular literature, by word of
mouth and by pictorial representations, could only be
heightened by the state of political affairs in the last
decades of the 15th century and the first years of the 16th.
Well known are the many struggles for the firmer organization
of the empire, for the carrying through of the reform-plans of
a Berthold of Mainz. The publicists of the time, and to no
small degree the Emperor Maximilian himself, who, if he wanted
to carry through any measure addressed himself directly to the
people, cast broadside among the populace numerous pamphlets
containing the most unintelligible ideas and promises.
{3766}
And what a host of plans and ideas did this much loved,
knightly emperor not have! How beautifully could he talk of
old German might and glory and draw pictures of a rosy future.
With intense interest did men follow the transactions of the
diets which promised to better affairs. One plan of taxation
followed on the heels of another. What project was left
undiscussed for the better carrying out of the Peace of the
Land! In the end everything remained as it had been save the
want and general discomfort which increased from year to year.
Bad harvests and consequent rise in prices, famine, severe
sicknesses and plagues are once more the stock chapters in the
chronicles. Frightful indeed were the ravages caused by the
first, almost epidemic, appearance of the Syphilis; with
regard to which, during the whole period of the reformation,
the moral judgment wavered. … It is a wondrous, gloomy time,
torn by contradictions, a time in which all is in a ferment,
everything seems to totter. Everything but one institution,
the firmly welded edifice of the Roman church. To Germany also
came the news of the horrible vices with which the popes just
at this time disgraced the Holy See: people knew that no deed
was too black for them when it was a question of satisfying
their greed of power and their lust. But nevertheless they
remained the successors of Peter and the representatives of
Christ, and so little can one speak of a process of
dissolution in the church, that the latter appears on the
contrary the only stable power and the
religious-ecclesiastical idea is rather the one that rules all
things. Although men to a great extent scorn and mock her
servants and long often with burning hatred for their
annihilation, yet it continues always to be the church that
holds the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and that can avert the
wrath of God; the church, to which the anxious soul turns as
the last anchor of hope and tries to outdo itself in her
service. It is not indeed pious reverence for a God who is
holy and yet gracious that draws the sinners to their knees,
but the dread of the tortures of purgatory and of the wrath of
Him who sits above the world to judge it. This causes the
soul, restless, dissatisfied, to be ceaseless in its endeavors
to conciliate the Angry One through sacrificial service—the
whole religious activity being one half-despairing 'Miserere'
called forth by fear. Such was the spirit of the age in which
Martin Luther was born and in which he passed his youth."
Kolde,
Martin Luther
(translated from the German),
volume 1, pages 5-27.
See, also, PAPACY: A. D. 1471-1513, to 1517-1521
(pages 2441-2450).
GERMANY: 16th Century.
The Catholic Reaction.
"Altogether about the year 1570 the spread of protestantism in
Germany and the lands under its influence had reached its
zenith. It had been accepted by the great majority of the
nation—already in 1558 about seven tenths; the gaining over of
the rest also seemed only a question of the near future. Yet
beyond a doubt its lasting success was only legally assured in
places where it had won over the governing power and could
stand on the generally recognized basis of the religious
peace. This was the case in the secular principalities of the
protestant dynasties, but not in the Wittelsbach and Hapsburgh
lands, where its lawful existence depended only on the
personal concessions of the existing ruler, and still less in
the ecclesiastical territories. … To give it here the secure
legal basis which it lacked was the most important problem, as
regarded internal German affairs, of the protestant policy. …
The only way to attain this was to secure the recognition on
the part of the empire of the free right of choosing a
confession in the bishoprics; in other words the renunciation
of the 'Ecclesiastical reservation.' … This goal could only be
attained if the protestants advanced in a solid phalanx. This
is, however, just what they could not do. For they themselves
were torn by bitter contentions with regard to the faith. …
From this point of view it was no boon that Calvinism, the
specifically French form of protestantism, found entrance also
into Germany. … Under its influence, to begin with, the
Saxon-Thuringian church became divided in its interpretation
of the teachings concerning justification and the Lord's
Supper. … The complications were still further increased when
Frederick III of the Palatinate, elector since 1559, disgusted
at the quarrelsomeness of the Lutheran theologians, dismissed
the zealot Tilemann in August 1560, and in 1563 gave over the
recognized church of the Palatinate to Calvinism. Herewith he
completely estranged the Lutherans who did not regard the
Calvinists as holding the same faith. … Germany could no
longer count itself among the great powers and at home the
discord was ever increasing. The motion of the Palatinate in
the electoral diet of October 1575 to incorporate in the
religious peace the so-called 'Declaration of King Ferdinand'
with regard to it, and thus to secure the local option with
regard to a creed in the bishoprics, was opposed not only by
the ecclesiastical members of the electoral college but also
by the electorate of Saxony. In consequence of the same party
strife a similar motion of the Palatinate, made in the diet of
Regensburg, was lost. … On the one hand hostilities grew more
bitter among the German protestants, on the other the Roman
church, supported by the power of the Spanish world-monarchy,
advanced everywhere, within and without the German empire, to
a well-planned attack. … She had won her first victory in the
empire with the refusal in 1576 to grant the local option of
creed, for this was almost equivalent to a recognition on the
protestant side of the 'Ecclesiastical Reservation.' The more
eagerly did Rome, by demanding the oath drawn up in the
council of Trent, strive to chain fast her bishops to her, to
remove those who made opposition even if it had to happen by
disregarding the law of the land and the religious treaties,
to bring zealous catholic men into the episcopal
sees—everywhere to set the reaction in motion. The manner of
proceeding was always the same: the protestant pastors and
teachers were banished; the catholic liturgy, in which the
utmost splendor was unfolded, was reintroduced into the
churches, and competent catholic clergy were put in office.
The members of the community, left without a leader, had now
only the choice allowed to them of joining the catholic church
or of emigrating; the protestant officials were replaced by
catholic ones; new institutions of learning, conducted by
Jesuits, were founded for the purpose of winning the rising
generation, inwardly also, for Catholicism.
{3767}
Beyond a doubt this whole work of restoration put an end in
many cases to a confused and untenable state of affairs, but
at least as often it crushed down by force a healthy, natural
development and wrought havoc in the moral life of the people.
Thus did the reaction gain the ascendancy in most of the
ecclesiastical principalities of the South; in the North the
scale still hung in the balance. … And in this condition of
affairs the discord among the protestants grew worse year by
year! 'Their war is our peace' was the exultant cry of the
Catholics when they looked upon this schism. In order to
preserve pure Lutheranism from any deviation, the electoral
court of Saxony caused the 'Formula of Concord' to be drawn up
by three prominent theologians in the monastery of Bergen near
Madgeburg (20 May 1577), and compelled all pastors and
teachers of the land to accept them under pain of dismissal
from office. As this necessarily accentuated the differences
with the Calvinists, John Casimir of the Palatinate
endeavored, in the Convention of Frankfort on the Main in
1577, to unite the protestants of all denominations and all
lands … in a common effort at defence; but his appeal and the
embassy which he sent to the evangelical princes met with no
very favorable reception. On the contrary in course of time 86
estates of the empire accepted the Formula of Concord which
was now published in Dresden, together with the names of those
who had signed it, on the 25th of June 1580, the 50th
anniversary of handing in the Augsburg Confession. What a pass
had matters come to since that great epoch! … At any rate the
unity of the German protestants was completely at an end, and
especially any joint action between Saxony and the Palatinate
had been rendered impossible. … In 1582 the Roman party opened
a well-planned campaign for the purpose of putting itself in
full possession of the power in the empire. The emperor
belonged as it was to their confession, so all depended on the
manner in which the diet should be made up; and this again
depended on who should be members of the college of princes:
for in the college of electors the votes of the protestants
and catholics were equal inasmuch as the Bohemian vote was
'dormant,' and of the imperial cities only a few were still
catholic. In the electoral college, then, the protestants
possessed the majority so long as the 'administrators' [of the
bishoprics] maintained as hitherto their seat and their vote.
In the first place the catholics succeeded in the diet of 1582
in persuading Magdeburg for the nonce to renounce in favor of
Salzburg its presidency in the assembly of the princes;
herewith, however, a precedent was given, not only for this
ecclesiastical foundation but for all the evangelical
administrators, that permitted of the most fateful conclusions
being drawn to the disadvantage of the protestants. Scarcely
had this happened when the Roman party gave a decisive turn to
affairs on the Lower Rhine. Archbishop Gebhard of Cologne
prepared to follow the example of his predecessor Hermann of
Wied, chiefly induced, it must be said, by the wish to gain
the hand of the fair countess Agnes of Mansfeld. Relying on
the Cologne protestants and the Counts of the Wetterau and
reckoning on help from the Netherlands he formally went over
to the protestant church on the 19th of December 1582,
proclaimed the local option of a creed for his diocese on the
16th of January 1583, and married the Countess Agnes a few
weeks later in Bonn. While on the one hand, now, the diet of
the duchy of Westphalia declared for him and the local option
was here put through, the Cologne diet, on the other, called
together by the cathedral chapter, declared against him, under
pressure as it was from both Spain and Rome. Pope Gregory XIII
deposed him … and on the 23rd of May the pupil of the Jesuits,
Ernest of Bavaria, who already since 1566 had been bishop of
Freisingen, since 1573 of Hildesheim, since 1581 also of
Liege, was placed in the see of Cologne. The war began. On the
one side Spanish and Bavarian troops marched into the land, on
the other forces from the Netherlands and the Palatinate, led
by John Casimir in person under the approval of Louis VI. …
The fortunes of war soon turned completely against him
[Gebhard], … he himself was beaten and compelled to flee to
the Netherlands, and Westphalia was then conquered. This
victory was decisive not only for Northern Germany, but for
the fate of the bishoprics altogether—indeed for the whole
form which the administration of the empire was to take. Had
Gebhard held his own, the majority in the electoral college
would have become protestant; the bishoprics in the northwest
which had not yet taken a decisive stand, and probably others
also, would have followed the example of Cologne and would
never have allowed their seats in the assembly of princes to
be taken from them; the Lower Rhenish-Westphalian provinces
would then have been gained for protestantism. The opposite of
all this now happened. In the first place Archbishop Ernest
restored the Roman church by the most oppressive means in
Westphalia; he called the Jesuits to Bonn, Neuss, Emmerich and
Hildesheim. His election as bishop of Munster (May 1585)
decided the victory in that bishopric also. … The Roman party
succeeded now, actually, in driving the administrators from
the diet. In order not to cause the violent dissolution of the
diet which met in April 1594 for the purpose of granting a tax
which was pressingly needed for the Turkish war, Magdeburg
renounced once more Its presidency in the college of princes;
and when, in December 1597, the diet was again called for the
same purpose, the catholic estates, in spite of all protests
to the contrary, regarded the matter as having been settled by
the precedents of the last two diets. Herewith the
administrators lost their seats in the diet, and in the
college of princes the majority was in the hands of the
catholics. Inasmuch also as the evangelical members of the
college of electors did not hold together, the total majority
of the diet was at the disposal of the catholics. … On the
27th of April 1608 the Palatinate, together with Brandenburg
and nine lesser protestant estates, but without the electorate
of Saxony [Luther's state!], declared to Duke Ferdinand of
Styria, the emperor's representative, that they would leave
the diet but would maintain the possession of the
ecclesiastical estates by force if necessary. The schism with
the church had already paralyzed the judicial system of the
empire; it now paralyzed also its highest political
corporation."
Käemmel,
Deutsche Geschichte
(translated from the German),
pages 701-715.
See, also, PAPACY: A. D. 1537-1563 (page 2458).
{3768}
GERMANY: A. D. 1615.
First newspaper publications.
See PRINTING AND PRESS: A. D. 1612-1650 (page 2592).
GERMANY: A. D. 1618-1700.
The rise of Prussia.
"King Frederick [the Great] has good reason for it when he
says in his memoirs: 'Just as a river first becomes valuable
when it gets to be navigable, so the history of Brandenburg
first gains more serious importance towards the beginning of
the 17th century.' It was under the elector John Sigismund
that three decisive occurrences took place which opened up a
great future for the Marks—a totally different development
from the growth of the other lands of the empire. These were
the joining to Brandenburg of the secularized provinces of the
Teutonic Order, the going over of the ruling house itself to
the reformed church, finally the acquisition of the Lower
Rhenish border lands. Other princes of the empire also,
catholics as well as protestants, had enlarged their power by
means of the lands of the old church. But in the matter of the
territory of the Order the policy of the German protestants
ventured its boldest move; by Luther's advice the Hohenzollern
Albrecht snatched away from the Roman church the largest of
all its clerical belongings. The whole territory of the new
duchy of Prussia was alienated ecclesiastical land; the pope's
anathema and the emperor's ban fell on the head of the
renegade prince. Never was the Roman See willing to recognize
such robbery. In uniting the ducal crown of their Prussian
cousins with their own electoral hat the Hohenzollerns of the
Mark broke forever with the Roman church. Their state stood
and fell henceforward with the fortunes of Protestantism. At
the same time John Sigismund adopted the reformed creed. … At
the same time of thus gaining a firm footing on the Baltic
John Sigismund acquired the duchy of Cleve together with the
counties of Mark and Ravensberg,—a territory narrow in
circumference but highly important for the internal
development as well as for the European policy of the state.
They were lands which were strongholds of old and proven
peasant and civic freedom, richer and of higher capacities for
culture than the needy colonies of the East, outposts of
incalculable value on Germany's weakest frontier. In Vienna
and Madrid it was felt as a severe defeat that a new
evangelical power should establish itself there on the Lower
Rhine where Spaniards and Netherlanders were struggling for
the existence or non-existence of protestantism—right before
the gates of Cologne which was the citadel of Romanism in the
empire. … A power so situated could no longer have its horizon
bounded by the narrow circle of purely territorial policy; it
was a necessity for it to seek to round off its widely
scattered provinces into a consistent whole; it was compelled
to act for the empire and to strike for it, for every attack
of strangers on German ground cut into its own flesh. … For
the House of Brandenburg, too, tempting calls often sounded
from afar, … but a blessed providence, which earnest thinkers
should not regard as a mere chance, compelled the
Hohenzollerns to remain in Germany. They did not need the
foreign crowns, for they owed their independent position among
other states to the possession of Prussia, a land that was
German to the core, a land the very being of which was rooted
in the mother-country, and yet at the same time one that did
not belong to the political organization of the empire. Thus
with one foot in the empire, the other planted outside of it,
the Prussian state won for itself the right to carry on a
European policy which could strive for none but German ends.
It was able to care for Germany without troubling itself about
the empire and its superannuated forms. … The state of the
Hohenzollerns plunged once again headlong from the position of
power which it had so recently attained; it was on the sure
road to ruin so long as John Sigismund's successor looked
sleepily into the world out of his languid eyes. This new
attempt, too, at forming a German state seemed again about to
end in the misery of petty-stateism as had been the case
formerly with the political constellations of the Guelphs, the
Wettiners, the Counts Palatine, which had arisen under
immeasurably more favorable auspices. It was at this juncture
that the elector Frederick William, the greatest German man of
his day, entered the chaos of German life as a prince without
land, armed only with club and sling, and put a new soul into
the slumbering forces of his state by the power of his will.
From that time on the impulse of the royal will, conscious of
its goal, was never lost to the growing chief state of the
Germans. One can imagine English history without William III,
the history of France without Richelieu; the Prussian state is
the work of its princes. … Already in the first years of the
rule of the Great Elector the peculiar character of the new
political creation shows out sharply and clearly. The nephew
of Gustavus Adolphus who leads his army to battle with the old
protestant cry of 'with God' resumes the church policy of his
uncle. He it is who first among the strife of churches cries
out the saving word and demands general and unconditional
amnesty for all three creeds. This was the program of the
Westphalian peace. And far beyond the provisions of this
treaty of peace went the tolerance which the Hohenzollerns
allowed to be exercised within their lands. … While Austria
drives out its best Germans by force, the confines of
Brandenburg are thrown open with unequalled hospitality to
sufferers of every creed. How many thousand times has the song
of praise of the Bohemian exiles sounded forth in the Marks! …
When Louis XIV revokes the Edict of Nantes the little
Brandenburg lord steps forth boldly against him as the
spokesman of the protestant world, and offers through his
Potsdam Edict shelter and protection to the sons of the
martyred church. … Thus year after year an abundance of young
life streamed over into the depopulated East Marks; the German
blood that the Hapsburghs thrust from them fructified the land
of their rivals, and at the death of Frederick II about a
third of the inhabitants of the state consisted of the
descendants of immigrants who had come there since the days of
the Great Elector. … The particularism of all estates and of
all territorial districts heard with horror how the Great
Elector forced his subjects to live as 'members under one
head,' how he subjected the multiplicity of rule in the diets
to the commands of his own territorial jurisdiction and
supported his throne on the two columns of monarchical
absolutism: the miles perpetuus and permanent taxation.
{3769}
In the minds of the people troops and taxes still passed for
an extraordinary state burden to be borne in days of need. But
Frederick William raised the army into a permanent institution
and weakened the power of the territorial estates by
introducing two general taxes in all his provinces. On the
country at large he imposed the general hide-tax
(general-hufenschoss), on the cities the accise, which was a
multiform system of low direct and indirect imposts calculated
with full regard for the impoverished condition of agriculture
and yet attacking the taxable resources at as many points as
possible. In the empire there was but one voice of execration
against these first beginnings of the modern army and finance
system. Prussia remained from the beginning of its history the
most hated of the German states; those imperial lands that
fell to this princely dynasty entered, almost all of them,
with loud complaints and violent opposition into this new
political combination. All of them soon afterwards blessed
their fate. … Frederick William's successor by acquiring the
royal crown gained for his house a worthy place in the society
of the European powers and for his people the common name of
Prussians. Only dire need, only the hope of Prussia's military
aid, induced the imperial court to grant its rival the new
dignity. A spasm of terror went through the theocratic world:
the electorate of Mainz entered a protest; the Teutonic Order
demanded back again its old possession, which now gave the
name to the heretical monarchy while the papal calendar of
states, for nearly a hundred years to come, was to know only a
'margrave of Brandenburg.'"
H. von Treitschke,
Deutsche Geschichte im 19ten Jahrhundert
(translated from the German),
volume 1, pages 26-36.
See, also, GERMANY: A. D. 1608-1618 (page 1466),
and PRUSSIA: A. D. 1700 (page 2613).
GERMANY: A. D. 1648.
The effects of the Thirty Years War.
"The national recollection holds fast to the great German war
as a thirty years continuance of universal warlike ravagings.
As a matter of fact, however, the separate parts of the empire
were directly affected by it in very different degrees; some
parts only seldom and to a small extent, many at frequent
intervals or through long-enduring periods: no part however to
such an extent that during the whole three decades it stood
always under the immediate pressure of military events and of
military burdens. Devastation and exhaustion worked their
immediate results in all directions, but we must not leave out
of consideration that the local differences were naturally
very great. An incalculable number of details concerning the
horrors of the war and concerning its destructive effects lies
before us. … So undoubtedly well-founded as on the whole the
majority of these details may be said to be, impressively as
they are apt to be brought forward, they are none the less not
such as to suffice to enable us to gain from them an
exhaustive representation of the condition of things. We have
hundreds who give testimony to all the ravagings and the
misery of the time, and the voices of such witnesses are
almost the only ones that are heard. It is natural that there
are no equally eloquent reports concerning those periods of
time and those places in which people found themselves in
medium and comparatively bearable circumstances. For the most
part only what was exceptional—although, indeed, that happened
only too often—is depicted in the complaining reports. … It
cannot be denied too that amid the fearful needs of that time
the German language succumbed to a certain propensity for what
is monstrous. In all the writings which speak of war and the
ravages of war one sees an exuberance, which comes to be a
fixed mannerism, of almost whiny tones of complaint. … The
superlative of horror predominates almost exclusively; and
with an exceedingly fertile faculty of invention men surpass
themselves in ever new, ever more blood-curdling variations of
the one theme of blood and arson, of wretchedness and famine.
… The most severe of all evils, indeed, as a matter of fact,
were those to which the peasant element was subjected. … The
profits of all agricultural labor were most perceptibly
diminished on account of the extraordinary highness of wages,
which, a natural result of the lack of workmen, formed the
subject for the chief complaints after the war, especially of
those classes which possessed land. Everywhere we meet with
the fact that those entirely without property, such as serving
men and maids are really better off than the peasant who has
land. They draw the highest wages in money and in natural
products, they must be treated with the greatest consideration
by their employers to prevent them from quitting their
service, for everywhere they are sought after and easily do
they find work. … If the evils hitherto touched upon concerned
chiefly the peasant holdings, there was another and no less
important one which concerned all property holders and
especially the nobles, whether feudatory or directly under the
empire. This was the general burden of debt on landed
property. … The noble as well as the peasant had, from of old,
mortgages resting upon his property; those who made the loans
were chiefly the large and the small capitalists in the
cities. … As a matter of fact, already during the war itself
in large parts of the empire the landed property had been in a
condition of insolvency."
B. Erdmannsdörffer,
Deutsche Geschichte, 1648-1740
(translated from the German),
volume 1, pages 100-109.
"How bitterly the decrease of population was felt in many
regions is proved by a decree of the local diet [kreistag] in
Franconia, transmitted to us by Hormayr, according to which
any man might take two wives, priests (catholic) might marry
and no man under 60 years of age might enter a monastery.
Quite incalculable was the loss of domestic animals; we have
but very incomplete statistics on the subject, but according
to these few the assertion is not unjustifiable that at most
one fifth of the number existing before the war remained. The
lack of working people being so great it was therefore
inevitable that famine should break out in very many regions.
The memoranda in chronicles and diaries contain truly
horrible, heart-breaking representations on the subject. J. J.
Rayser's 'Historischer Schauplatz der Stadt Heidelberg'
reports from the Palatinate: … 'Many rejoiced if they could
only get oxhides, cowhides, the skins of horses, sheep and
other animals, and eat them. Indeed cruel hunger drove them to
other things too, towards which human nature is apt to feel
horror and disgust. They ate dogs, cats, rats, mice, frogs and
other animals in order to appease their bitter hunger.
{3770}
Nor did they refrain from such animals as had already lain for
several weeks on the roads, or in pools and streams and which
gave forth a horrible odor. … The starving people even killed
each other and ate up the corpses; they ransacked the
cemeteries, broke open graves, climbed up on the gallows and
on the wheel and took the dead away to eat them.' … The
reports of single cases of cannibalism from neighborhoods
where otherwise the most friendly and contented people lived,
are too disgusting to allow us to quote any further examples.
… There is no other example of a destruction of civilization
such as the Thirty Years War in Germany produced. There is no
other case where a whole people in all parts of the land was
uniformly exposed to such severe losses, so that in numbers it
was reduced to one half; where, from riches, luxury and
abundance such as had undoubtedly prevailed at the beginning
of the century men had come to poverty and to the want of even
the necessaries of life. … The dissolution of the numerous
military organizations and the dismissal of the regiments had
created an enormous number of tramps of the most dangerous
sort and still continued to do much towards increasing
vagabondage. The grade of intelligence among the people of the
lowlands had decreased most alarmingly; while superstition was
continually on the increase. Witch-trials flourished both in
the city and in the country. Beggary had long ceased to be a
cause for shame; the war, which had brought down to it in a
short time even those who had been formerly the richest,
caused even the most dishonorable trade to be held in honor.
Whoever by daily labor could earn his daily bread might think
himself fortunate. In the place of the horses which war had
carried away, human beings took to dragging carts in the
street. … With the ruin of the trade and of the art industry
of Germany, which in the 16th century would for so many
objects have probably needed to fear no rivalry and which was
only surpassed by that of Italy, went hand in hand the rise
and increase of French industry. This was due in no small part
to the fact that an extensive market was opened up for it in
Germany. From the great and small courts of the secular and
ecclesiastical princes, from the estates of the nobles, where
the plunder of the generals and colonels of all nations and
confessions had at last indeed been unloaded, the money
contributed by the subjects flowed into the strong-boxes of
the Paris manufactories, which dictated the fashions for the
whole continent. Thus did the industrial triumph of France
supplement its political supremacy; thus did Germany's
misfortune become the cause of enriching her western neighbor,
France having known how to secure its existence as a state by
itself three centuries earlier than the Germans had done."
H. von Zwiedineck-Südenhorst,
Deutsche Geschichte, 1648-1740
(translated from the German),
volume 1, pages 45-49.
"Through the complete destruction of its old civilization,
through an unexampled devastation of its prosperity and ruin
of its moral life the fatherland of the Reformation had saved
for that part of the world the freedom of faith. Strangers
played with the strongest people of Europe. That language
which in Luther's and Hutten's time had gloried at once in the
purity of its origin and in the terse power of its national
plainness had become Gallicized and full of flourishes, a
disgusting mixture of flatness and bombast, of artificiality
and coarseness, so servile, so incapable of expressing in
simple grandeur what was high and noble that in answer to the
question what German writings of those times can we read
to-day the honest reply must be, with the exception of some
poems by Simon Dach, Logau and Paul Gerhard, solely the droll
adventures of Simplicissimus and the merry sermons of Father
Abraham a Santa Clara. The terror and need of the time, the
rule of brute force and the intrusion of foreign customs, had
jarred and disturbed the inner life of the nation to its very
depths. Truth and fidelity had vanished, as well as the proud
frankness and bright enjoyment of life of the older
generation. A hideous greed of gold had taken hold of high and
low; the boastful pride of luxurious extravagance continued in
the midst of the general poverty."
Essay by Heinrich von Treitschke,
quoted by Zwiedineck,
page 52.
See, also, GERMANY: A. D. 1648, to 1648-1780
(pages 1484-1489).
GERMANY: A. D. 1648-1715.
Relations of Austria, Germany and France
after the Thirty Years War.
"After 1648 it was the natural policy of the Hapsburgh
emperors to maintain the status quo of the Westphalian
treaties. … After the emperor had once lost the prospect of
gaining for himself the undivided rule over Germany, all his
endeavors were needed at least to hinder it from passing to
another. The efforts of the separate territorial sovereigns to
enlarge and round off their lands, their attempts to extend
their power externally and at the same time to tighten their
hold on their own subjects found henceforward a counterpoise
in Austria."
L. Häusser,
Deutsche Geschichte
(translated from the German),
volume 1, page 21.
"The whole shamefulness of this disintegration of Germany,
showed itself in the defenceless state of the empire. … Right
under the greedy hands of France lay the weakest, the most
unguarded members of the empire. All along that priest-avenue
the Rhine, from Munster and Osnabrück up to Constance,
stretched a confused mass of tiny states, incapable of in any
way seriously arming themselves, compelled to betray their
country through the feeling of their own utter weakness.
Almost all the Rhenish courts held pensions from Versailles. …
Fully one-third of Germany served in the wars of the empire as
a dead burden. … The weakness of Germany was to blame for the
new growth of power in Austria and France; … the foreigners
laughed at the 'querelles allemandes' and the 'misère
allemande'; the Frenchman Bonhours mockingly asked the
question if it was possible that a German could have
intellect. … As the born antagonist of the old order of things
in Europe the basis of which was Germany's weakness, Prussia
stood in a world of enemies whose mutual jealousies formed her
only safeguard. She was without any natural ally, for the
German nation had not yet come to understand this budding
power. … Just as the House of Savoy was able to tread its way
through the superiority of the Hapsburghs on the one hand and
of the Bourbons on the other, so did Prussia, although
immeasurably harder pressed, have to find a path for herself
between Austria and France, between Sweden and Poland, between
the maritime powers and the inert mass of the German empire.
{3771}
She had to use every means of remorseless egoism, always ready
to change front, always with two strings to her bow. The
electorate of Brandenburg felt to the very marrow of its being
how deeply foreign ideas had eaten into Germany. All the
disorganized forces … which opposed the strong lead of the new
monarchy placed their faith in foreign help. Dutch garrisons
were stationed on the Lower Rhine and favored the struggle of
the Cleve estates against their German lords. The diets of
Magdeburg and of the electoral Mark counted on Austria. …
Frederick William breaks down the barriers of the
Netherlanders in the German Northwest; he drives their troops
from Cleve and from East Friesland. … Then he calls out to the
deaf nation his warning words, 'Remember that you are
Germans,' and seeks to drive the Swedes from the soil of the
empire. Twice did the ill-will of France and Austria succeed
in robbing the Brandenburg prince of the reward of his
victories, of the rule in Pomerania: the fame of the day at
Fehrbellin they could not take from him.
See BRANDENBURG: A. D. 1640-1688 (page 310).
… When the republic of the Netherlands threatened to fall
before the attack of Louis XIV Brandenburg caught the raised
arm of the conqueror.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1674-1678 (page 2289).
Frederick William carried on the only serious war that the
empire ventured on for the recovery of Alsace.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1672-1714 (page 209)].
… With the rise of Prussia began the long bloody work of
freeing Germany from foreign rule. … In this one state there
awoke again, still half unconscious as if drunken with long
sleep, the old hearty pride in the fatherland. … The House of
Hapsburgh recognized earlier than the Hohenzollerns did
themselves how hostile this modern North German state was to
the old constitution of the Holy Empire. In Silesia, in
Pomerania, in the Jülich-Cleve war of succession—everywhere
Austria stood and looked with distrust on its dangerous rival.
… Equally dangerous to Hapsburgh and to the German empire were
the French and the Turks; how natural was it for Hapsburgh to
seek support from Germany, to involve the empire in its wars,
to use it as a bulwark towards the west or for diversions
against France in case the Turks threatened the walls of
Vienna. … Only it cannot be denied that in this common action
the Austrian policy, under a more centralized guidance and
backed by a firmer tradition, looked out for its own advantage
better than did the German empire—loose, heavy, and without
consistent leadership. When the might of Louis XIV began to
oppress Germany the policy of the Hapsburghs was to remain for
a long time luke-warm and inactive. This policy led Austria
indeed even to make a league with France and, when she did at
last decide to help the great elector of Brandenburg against
the enemy of the empire, this happened so charily and
equivocally as to give rise to the doubt whether the Austrian
army was not placed there to keep watch over the Brandenburg
forces or even to positively hinder their advance. An Austrian
writer himself assures us that Montecuculi was in secret
commanded only to make a show of using his weapons against the
French. For a long time Austria stood by inactive while the
Reannexations were going on.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1679-1691 (page 1236).
… The whole war as conducted by Austria on the Rhine and in
the West was languid and sleepy;
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1672-1714 (page 209);
the empire and individual warlike princes were left to protect
themselves. What an entirely different display of power did
Austria make when it was a question of fighting for its own
dynastic interests!"
H. von Treitschke,
Deutsche Geschichte im 19ten Jahrhundert
(translated from the German),
volume 1, pages 21-33.
"As in the wars so in the diplomatic negotiations the
separation of the Austrian dynastic interests from the
advantage and needs of the German empire often enough came to
light. It is only necessary to revert to the attitude which
the emperor's diplomacy took at Nimeguen and Ryswick.
See NIMEGUEN (page 2362);
and FRANCE: A. D. 1697 (page 1243)].
… When in the conferences at Gertruidenburg (1710) Louis XIV
was reduced to being willing not only to give up the
'Reannexations' and Strassburg but even to restore Alsace and
the fortress of Valenciennes, it was also not the interests of
the empire but solely those of the House of Hapsburgh which
led to the rejection of these offers and to the continuance of
a war by which, as it turned out eventually, not one of these
demands was gained. No wonder that in Germany, restricted
though the imperial authority already was, men still did not
feel secure so long as the emperor continued to have even the
power of making peace independently of the empire."
L. Häusser,
Deutsche Geschichte
(translated from the German).
volume 1, page 23.
"Louis XIV regarded himself not exactly as enemy of the German
empire and of the imperial power of the House of Hapsburgh,
but rather as a pretendant to the throne. As he explains it in
the political directions meant for his son the empire of the
West, the heritage of Charles the Great, belongs not of right
to the Germans but to the kings who are crowned at Rheims. …
The Germans have ruined the empire, only a ruler with the
power of the French king can bring it again to honor. … If
Louis XIV by means of the Rhine Confederation of 1658 saw
himself bound in a close communion with German princes and
electors, if his troops rushed in at the decisive moment
before Erfurt and at Saint Gothard, if his omnipresent
diplomacy sought to find starting-points everywhere, even in
the Hofburg at Vienna: all this seemed to him activity in a
field which he really felt belonged to himself. The rendering
of the German princes dependent on the French court, the
loosening of the bonds which held the empire together, the
isolation of the Hapsburghs from the rest of the empire: these
were tasks which presented themselves as a matter of course if
taken in connection with those views of the right of the
French to the empire. … Already in Richelieu's time the king's
councillor, Jacques de Cassan, had brought forward the proof,
in a writing dedicated to the cardinal, that the greater part
of the existing European states, including Germany, were lands
which had unjustly been estranged from the French crown. …
This idea d'Auberry now carried further: as a matter of fact
Germans and French were to be considered one people as they
had been under the Merovingians and Carolingians; … the true
ruler, in the sense of the original world-organization was not
the emperor but the French king."
B. Erdmannsdörffer,
Deutsche Geschichte (1648-1740)
(translated from the German),
volume 1, page 509.
{3772}
GERMANY: A. D. 1789-1792.
Germany and the French Revolution.
"What enthusiasm prevailed when France proclaimed the equality
of everything that bears human form, when the prophecies of
Rousseau, who spoke as no other Frenchman could, to the
hearts, to the courage, to the ideals of the German youth,
seemed about to be realized! All the cravings of the time, the
noble eagerness to recognize the dignity of man and the
heaven-storming defiance of the sovereign ego, found
themselves satisfied by the bold sophism of the Genevan
philosopher who declared that, in a condition of absolute
equality, everyone should obey himself only. The sins of the
Revolution appeared to the harmless German spectators as
hardly less seductive than its great deeds. The taste which
had been educated on Plutarch's lives of heroes grew loyally
excited over the broad Catonism of the new apostles of
freedom: the unhistorical abstractions of their political
creed were in keeping with the philosophical self-satisfaction
of the age. The over-zealous youths in whose ears still
sounded the stirring words of the robber Moor felt themselves
drawn along by the rhetorical pathos of the French and
unsuspectingly admired the republican virtue of the Girondists
at the very time when this party with unhallowed frivolity was
instigating a war against Germany. … In Hamburg and several
other cities the festival of confraternity was celebrated and
the liberty pole erected on the anniversary of the storming of
the Bastille. … Even in Berlin women of rank were seen adorned
with the tricolored ribbon and the rector of the Joachimsthal
gymnasium, in a solemn official address held on the occasion
of the king's birthday, praised the glorious Revolution to the
lively applause of Minister Hertzberg. … But this enthusiasm
of the German cultivated world for revolutionary France was
and remained purely theoretical; … the German admirers of the
Revolution never once laid before themselves the question how
their feelings on the subject should take on flesh and blood.
The wise man of Konigsberg [Kant] unconditionally and harshly
rejected all right of resistance. Even Fichte, the most
radical of his disciples, who even in the days of Robespierre
still dared to defend French liberty, warned emphatically
against the carrying out of his own ideas. He saw no bridge
between the 'level high road of natural law' and the 'dark
defile of a half-barbaric policy,' and he closed with the
renunciatory declaration: 'Worthiness to attain liberty can
only come upwards from below; freedom itself, if there is to
be no disturbance, can only descend from above.' … When the
struggle of parties continued to rage ever more fiercely and
with more cruelty, when the fanatic zeal for equality took
upon itself to annihilate even the last aristocracy of all,
that of life itself, then the faithful and unchanging mind of
the German found it impossible any longer to follow the
unaccountable contortions of French passion. The German
enthusiast turned weeping away from the barbarian who had
defiled his sanctuary. … Only in the minor states, which
lacked the sense of justice of a monarchy, did the sins of the
old French regime find an echo. There in the Germany of the
religious foundations (the Rhine bishoprics) there still
flourished the catholic unity of faith and the pride of
cathedral chapters which were recruited from nobles. In the
cities of the empire the haughtiness and corruption of old
civilian confraternity held sway, in the territories of the
princes, counts and imperial knights, the arrogance of little
corner tyrants. The whole existence of these ruined and
ossified forms of government cried shame on the ideas of the
century. Almost solely in these tiniest provinces did a slight
popular ferment show itself when the glad news of the great
peasant emancipation came from France. It chanced that the
abbess of Frauenalbe was hunted from her lands by her
subjects, that the oath of allegiance was refused to her
sister-abbess in Elten. Small peasant revolts broke out here
and there. … All this betokened little; in reality nowhere was
the political slumber of the empire deeper than in these
regions. … The weak and weaponless small states were entirely
without power of resistance against foreign violence. …
Neither was the emperor nor were the Prussian statesmen blind
to the immeasurable dangers of a war in the condition in which
things were. Leopold's cold-blooded, calculating nature
remained long unmoved by the appeals for help written by his
unhappy sister Marie Antoinette, who allowed herself to be
carried to the very verge of betraying her country by her
woman's passion and her princely pride. The Prussian cabinet
was at first very well pleased with the steps taken by the
constitutional parties; its envoy, von der Goltz, made no

secret of acknowledging the righteousness of the cause of the
revolution and showed that he had kept his eyes open to the
accumulated acts of folly of the blinded court. The mad doings
of the emigres were condemned with equal severity in Vienna
and in Berlin. Not until the spring of 1791, not until King
Louis had had to atone for his unsuccessful flight by unheard
of personal humiliations, did the two courts begin to think
seriously of protecting themselves against acts of
revolutionary violence. … Frederick William's chivalrous soul
was aglow with the thought of avenging with his sword the
offended majesty of France. Single clever heads among the
émigrés succeeded after all in gaining secret influence at
court. … In his circular from Padua Leopold invited the
European powers to enter the lists for his ill-used
brother-in-law, to avenge by forcible means every insult to
the dignity of the king, to recognize no constitution of
France of which the crown should not voluntarily approve.
Bischoffswerder, of his own accord and contrary to his
instructions, then signed the Vienna treaty of the 25th of
July by which both parties (Prussia and Austria) mutually
guaranteed each other's possessions and promised each other
help in case of internal disturbances. … Public opinion in
Prussia greeted the Austrian alliance with deep mistrust, …
but King Frederick William approved the arbitrary steps of his
friend (Bischoffswerder). He met Leopold soon after in
Pillnitz … and rejoiced in the thought that the league of the
two chief powers in Germany would last eternally, to the weal
of coming generations. In all of these mistaken acts there was
no immediate threat against France. In Pillnitz those émigrés
who urged war were sternly thrust aside and all that was
obtained was the empty declaration of August 27; the two
powers announced that they considered King Louis's cause a
matter common to all sovereigns; in case all European powers
should agree, there should be interference in France's
internal affairs.
{3773}
This meant nothing whatever, for everyone knew that England
would have nothing to do with armed intervention. And even
these obscure conditions were abandoned in Vienna when King
Louis, in the autumn, was reinstated in his dignities and
voluntarily accepted the new constitution. The Revolution
seemed to have come to a standstill, the emperor was
completely pacified. … It was France and France alone that, in
the face of this peaceable attitude of the German powers,
forced the war upon them. … The antipathy of a great majority
of the nation [France] to the republic was to be overcome by
the glamor of military successes, by the old darling
dream-project of natural boundaries. The financial needs of
the state were to be remedied by a mighty plundering
expedition. … While the war-like mood in the legislative
assembly increased from day to day, in the negotiations with
the emperor paltry disdain was shown; not even was a definite
indemnity offered to the estates of the empire in Alsace. It
was then that the House, carried away by the stirring speeches
of the Gironde, demanded a solemn declaration from the emperor
that he would give up the plan of a European league and would
show his readiness to support France according to the old
treaties of alliance with the Bourbons. The penalty of refusal
was to be immediate war. Upon Leopold giving a dignified and
temperate reply war was declared against Austria on April 20th
1792. … A doctrinary speech of Condorcet's announced to the
world that the principles of republican liberty had risen up
against despotism. The glove was thus thrown down to the whole
of ancient Europe: for Prussia, moreover, the Vienna Treaty
now became binding, having meanwhile been supplemented by a
formal defensive league."
H. von Treitschke,
Deutsche Geschichte im 19ten Jahrhundert
(translated from the German),
volume 1, page 114-124.
See, also, FRANCE: A. D. 1791 (pages 1271-1275).
GERMANY: A. D. 1796-1807.
Germany and Napoleon.
"With the Italian campaign of 1796 began the second epoch of
the revolutionary era, the more fruitful one for the world at
large. The propaganda of the revolution now first began to
take actual effect and in Central Europe a new order of things
superseded the old division of lands, the traditional forma of
state and society. It was through Bonaparte's victories that
the weapons of France first acquired an indisputable
ascendancy. … As was the case with her manner of making war,
so did France's European policy take on a new character in the
hands of the victor of Montenotte and Rivoli. … In the head of
the great man without a home, to whom the soul-life of
nations, the ideal world, ever remained an unknown quantity,
the horrible conception of a new world-monarchy had already
found a place. The images of the Cæsars and the Carolingians
stood in dazzling splendor before his mind. The rich history
of a thousand years was to be annihilated by a single grand
adventure; the multiform culture of the West was to yield to
the sway of one gigantic man. This new and altogether
un-French policy of conquest rushed to its goals with a
wonderful assurance and want of conscience. Bonaparte's
perspicuity recognized at once by what means Austria,
victorious in Germany but worsted in Italy, could be forced
into a temporary peace: … he offered the imperial court the
possession of Venice in return for Milan, Belgium and the left
bank of the Rhine. … Under such conditions the Peace of Campo
Formio was entered into on October 17th 1797. Once more the
Holy Empire was to pay the penalty for Austria's defeats, and
once more, with greater hypocrisy than ever before, there rang
out in the diet those unctuous, imperially-paternal phrases
with which the un-German imperial power was wont to bemantle
its dynastic policy. Whereas among the conditions of the
secret articles of Campo Formio were the mutilation of the
German western boundary, the secularization of ecclesiastical
territory, the compensation of foreign princes at the cost of
the empire: the published version of the treaty spoke only of
the unviolated integrity of the empire. … At last, however,
the unhallowed secret had to come out. At Christmas-tide 1797
Mainz was vacated by the imperial troops. There came to light
the whole hopelessly confused relationships of the two
similarly-fortuned nations of central Europe when, at the same
time, the French occupied the unconquered bulwark of the Rhine
provinces and the conquered Austrians marched into the city of
St. Mark. Soon afterwards the envoys of France at Rastadt
openly came forward with the demand for the left bank of the
Rhine. It was the first official forewarning of the
annihilation of the Holy Empire. … So deep was the empire
sunken when the dreaded 'Italicus,' on the occasion of a
flying visit to Rastadt first cast a glance into German life.
On the shallow intrigues of this fruitless congress did
Bonaparte base his judgment of our fatherland. He saw through
the absolute nullity of the imperial constitution and
complacently came to the opinion that if such a constitution
had not existed it would have been necessary to invent it in
the interests of France. … It seemed to him high time to win
the petty dynasts entirely for France by gratifying their
greed of land, and thus to rob sundered Germany of its
nationality (dépayser l'Allemagne). … On February 9th, 1801,
the Peace of Luneville proclaimed openly and unequivocally
that which the treaty of Campo Formio had only secretly and
obscurely provided: that the Rhine was henceforward to be
Germany's boundary. A district of nearly 1,150 square miles
and containing nearly four million inhabitants was thus lost
to Germany. … With uncanny cold-bloodedness the German nation
accepted the fearful blow. Scarcely a sound of patriotic wrath
was heard when Mainz and Cologne, Aachen and Treves, the
broad, beautiful lands that had been the scene of our earliest
history, passed into the hands of the stranger. How many
bitter tears had the decrepit generation of the Thirty Years
War once poured forth for the sake of Strassburg alone! … The
first consul resumed the plan which Sièyes as ambassador in
Berlin had sketched already ill 1798. He prepared a threefold
division of Germany and, in order to bring the defenceless
minor states wholly in his power, sought first to thrust back
the two chief German powers as far as possible towards the
east. … The great man-scorner now invented an infallible means
of gaining sway over these south and west German provinces.
{3774}
Not in vain had he probed the German higher nobility at
Rastadt into the inmost recesses of their hearts. He created
our new intermediate states for the purpose, through them, of
securing forever Germany's disintegration. The host of petty
princes, counts and imperial knights, were burdensome to him
because they belonged mostly to the Austrian party and were of
no use in war. Among the electors and dukes, on the contrary,
there was useful material enough for the formation of a crowd
of French vassals; … they had almost all, during the recent
wars, made separate treaties with the enemies of the empire.
As rebels against that empire and its emperor they had
abandoned the ground of legality and broken their bridges
behind them. If the man who was omnipotent now took under his
protection these political hermaphrodites who were fit neither
to live nor die; if he satisfied their greed by throwing them
some crumbs from the belongings of their lesser co-estates and
tickled their vanity by means of pretentious titles and a show
of independence; if he rolled together the hundreds of tiny
territories into some dozens of new accidental states with a
history of yesterday and entirely without a legal title,
living solely from the favor of France; if he then led his
satraps to audacious wars against their fatherland and hurried
them on from one felony to another, rewarding new
lackey-services by new booty—where was the wonder? They had
sold their souls to him and he was able to reckon on it that
they would rather kiss the boots of the stranger than ever
submit to subordinate themselves to a German commonwealth. …
Bonaparte, meanwhile, had long made up his mind to resume the
war with his unassailable enemy [England]. Already in March
1803, long before the breach occurred between the two western
powers, he sent his confidant Duroc to Berlin with the notice
that he saw himself compelled to seize Hanover. … Therewith
the last and sole pride of the Prussian policy, the neutrality
of North Germany, was threatened with its death-blow. … And
meanwhile the Holy Empire was made to drink the cup of shame
to the very dregs. When Bonaparte caused the Duke of Enghien,
seized within the limits of Baden, to be led to execution,
only foreign powers like Russia, Sweden and England dared in
Regensburg to demand satisfaction for the scandalous breach of
the peace of the empire. Baden on the contrary, by Napoleon's
command, begged most earnestly that the painful matter might
not be followed up any further; while the rest of the
plenipotentiaries took their holiday before the time and thus
by their flight cut off all further negotiations. In May 1804
the Napoleonic empire was founded. … A hard, distrustful
foreign rule weighed upon Germany even before its princes had
formally made their submission to the emperor. … Thus
prepared, Napoleon proceeded to realize in his own way the
idea of a German triad with which Hardenberg had just been
amusing himself. Not in bond with Austria and Prussia but
independently and in opposition to them was France's old
protegée, 'la troisième Allemagne,' to take political form and
shape. … In the spring of 1806 the rumor spread at the German
courts that a new and extensive mediatization was to take
place. Once more, as had happened four years previously, the
envoys of our high nobility hastened to Paris on behalf of
their lords, to secure by flattery and bribery their share of
the booty. … The Rhine confederation of Louis XIV was
resuscitated in an incomparably more pronounced form. Sixteen
German princes renounced the empire, declared that they
themselves were sovereigns and that every law of the venerable
old national commonwealth was null and void. They recognized
Napoleon as their protector and placed at his disposal an army
of 63,000 men to be used in any continental war in which
France should engage. … German particularism entered into the
bloom-time of its sins. … The anarchy of a new interregnum
broke in upon Germany. Faustrecht held sway, exercised no
longer by bandit nobles but by princely courts. Napoleon
regarded with mistrust any and every expression of national
feeling in the enslaved land. The interest of France, he wrote
to his Talleyrand, demands that opinion in Germany remain
divided. A certain Yelin of Ansbach published an anonymous
pamphlet, 'Germany at its lowest Depth,' a well-meant writing,
full of feeling, and one which, in an age of iron, had only
the peaceful advice to give: 'Weep aloud, oh noble, honest
German!' But even this pious ejaculation of a harmless petty
citizen seemed to the emperor a matter for alarm and he caused
the book-seller Palm, who is said to have aided in spreading
the book, to be court-marshalled and shot. It was the first
judicial murder of Napoleonism on German ground, and the
clever people in Bavaria began to doubt whether the Rhine
Confederation had, after all, really brought about the victory
of freedom and enlightenment. … A new act of treason on the
part of Napoleon led at last to the out-break of the
inevitable war. Often and solemnly had Napoleon assured to his
Prussian ally the possession of Hanover. It was now suddenly
reported in Berlin that the emperor, who all through the
summer had been carrying on peace-negotiations with England
and Russia, had not scrupled to offer to deliver back to the
Guelphs their hereditary lands. When this news reached him
Frederick William at once (August 9) wrote to the Czar: 'If
Napoleon treats with England concerning Hanover he will ruin
me.' The king foresaw that in a short time the miserable
condition in which things had been in February would recur
again and that Prussia had only the choice left of once more
in silence suffering herself to be shamefully plundered or of
opposing by arms the ingress of the grand army. That was why
the Prussian army was placed on a war-footing and made to
assemble in Magdeburg's territory. With this step of
justifiable self-defence the war was decided. … Nothing could
have been more honest than the unsparingly upright defiance of
the king to Napoleon; nothing more righteous than the three
demands of the Prussian ultimatum of October: withdrawal of
the French from Germany, recognition of the North German
Confederation, a peaceful agreement as to the remaining
questions at issue between the two powers. Even from the
verbose, clumsy war-manifesto there breaks forth occasionally
a tone of dignified national pride: the king takes up arms 'to
free unhappy Germany from the yoke under which it is being
crushed. Nations have certain rights independent of an
treaties!' … Already on the 15th of October (1806) Napoleon
laid a contribution on all the Prussian provinces this side
the Weichsel of 159 million francs, declaring that the result
of the battle of the former day (Jena) had been the conquest
of all these lands.
{3775}
Never had the man of fortune boasted so outrageously, and yet,
through a strange turn of fortune, the most unhallowed of his
lies was to become literally true. Immediately after the
defeat the court of Saxony carried out its long-planned
desertion and went over to Napoleon. A week after the battle
the Prussian territory to the left of the Elbe, and the
possessions of the House of Orange and of the electors of
Hesse, were provisionally incorporated in the French empire. …
On July 7-9, 1807, the Peace of Tilsit was signed, the most
cruel of all French treaties of peace, unprecedented in form
as well as in contents. It ran, not that the lawful king of
Prussia ceded certain lands to the victor, but that the
conqueror, out of regard for the emperor of all the Russias,
granted back to its sovereign the smaller half of the Prussian
state. And this scandalous phrase, which contemporaries only
looked upon as a freak of Napoleonic arrogance, expressed
simply the naked truth. … Alexander did not wish the last
narrow dam which separated the Russian empire from the lands
of the vassals of France, to be torn away. … Prussia retained,
outside of the 5,700 square miles which the state, exclusive
of Hanover, had owned before the war, only about 2,800, … of
9¾ million inhabitants only 4½ million. The work of Frederick
the Great seemed undone."
H. von Treitschke,
Deutsche Geschichte im 19 Jahrhundert
(translated from the German),
volume 1, pages 164-265.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER),
and after (pages 1314-1349.)
GERMANY: A. D. 1815-1848.
After the struggle.
The Zollverein.
"In Austria, in the decades succeeding the wars of liberation,
their reigned the most immovable quiet. The much-praised
system of government consisted in unthinking inactivity. The
Emperor Francis, a man with the nature of a subaltern
official, hated anything that approached to a constitution and
a saying of his was often quoted: 'Totus mundus stultizat et
vult habere constitutiones novas.' Metternich's power rested
on the 'dead motionlessness' of affairs. As far as his German
policy was concerned his aim was to hold fast to the
preponderating influence of Austria over the German states,
but not to undertake any responsibilities towards them. … As
for Prussia, in spite of the great sacrifices which she had
made, she emerged from the diplomatic negotiations and
intrigues of the Vienna Congress with the most unfavorable
disposition of territory imaginable. To the five million
inhabitants that had remained to her five and a half millions
were added in districts that had belonged to more than a
hundred different territories and had stood under the most
varied laws. There began now for this state a time well filled
with quiet work, the aim and object being to create a whole
out of the various parts. … The founding of the Burschenschaft
[student league] in Jena, the antagonistic attitude of the
Weimar press, the Wartburg festival with its extemporized
conflagration scene, excited scruples and fears in the ruling
circles. The murder of Kotzebue and the attempt on Ibell's
life showed the growing fanaticism and called forth stronger
measures from the governments. … Metternich recognizes their
usefulness for the carrying through of his reactionary
measures. … At a meeting in Teplitz he succeeds in winning
Frederick William III for his plans. In Carlsbad, over the
heads of the members of the federal diet, the most decisive
regulations were adopted which culminated in the appointment
of the Mainz Central-Investigation-Committee … and confirmed
Metternich's unhallowed rule in Germany as well as the reign
of that most miserable reaction which called forth a burst of
indignation even from the most moderate-minded patriots, and
which laid the land open to the scorn of the foreigner."
Bruno-Gebhardt,
Lehrbuch der deutschen Geschichte
(translated from the German),
volume 2, pages 501-504.
"The Congress of Vienna created in 1815 a form of government
for Germany which was very unsatisfactory in character. It
was, however, so constituted that a national development at
some future time was not rendered an utter impossibility. The
German confederation was rather, on the whole, provisional in
its character; this fact comes out more and more plainly with
each thorough analysis and illustration of its constitution
and of its institutions. The main thing was that the German
confederation preserved unimpaired the dualism in Germany.
Technically the emperor of Austria had the honorary direction
of the confederation; practically he possessed as emperor of
Germany little r no power. In point of fact the German
imperial title was only a decoration for the ruler over a
variegated mixture of peoples, in the midst of which German
nationality was hard pressed by the national strivings of the
other races. In reality the strongest member of the German
confederation was the kingdom of Prussia, although according
to the federal laws it stood on a like footing with Bavaria,
Saxony, Hanover and Würtemberg. … This German confederation
was only capable of eking out its existence in a long period
of freedom from European disasters. … Only gradually, in the
various heads, did the opinion begin to form of the historical
vocation of Prussia to take her place at the head of the
German confederation or, possibly, of a new German empire.
Gradually this opinion ripened into a firmer and firmer
conviction and gained more and more supporters. The more
evidently impossible an actual guidance of Germany by Austria
became, the more conscious did men grow of the danger of the
whole situation should the dualism be allowed to continue. In
consequence of this the idea of the Prussian hegemony began to
be viewed with constantly increasing favor. A great step
forward in this direction was taken by the Prussian government
when it called into being the Zollverein [or customs-union].
The Zollverein laid iron bands around the separate parts of
the German nation. It was utterly impossible to think of
forming a customs-union with Austria, for all economic
interests were as widely different as possible; on purely
material grounds the division between Austria and Prussia
showed itself to be a necessity. On the other hand the
economic bonds between Prussia and the rest of the German
lands grew stronger from day to day. This material union was
the prelude to the political one: the Zollverein was the best
and most effectual preparation for the German federal state or
for the German empire of later days."
W. Maurenbrecher,
Gründung des Deutschen Reichs,
pages 4-5.
{3776}
"Paul Pfizer wrote in 1831 his 'Correspondence of Two
Germans,' the first writing in the German language in which
liberation from Austria and union with Prussia was put down as
the solution of the German question and in which faith in
Prussia was made a part of such love to the German fatherland
as should be no longer a mere dream. … 'So little as the dead
shall rise again this side the grave, so little will Austria,
which once held the heritage of German fame and German glory,
ever again become for Germany what she has once been.'"
W. Oncken,
Das Zeitalter des Kaisers Wilhelm
(translated from the German),
volume 1, pages 69-70.
The formation of the Zollverein "was the most important
occurrence since the wars of liberation: a deed of peace of
more far-reaching consequences and productive of more lasting
results than many a battle won. The economic blessings of the
Zollverein soon began to show themselves in the increasing sum
total of the amount of commerce and in the regularly growing
customs revenues of the individual states. These revenues for
example increased between 1834 and 1842 from 12 to 21 million
thalers. Foreign countries began to look with respect and in
part also with envy on this commercial unity of Germany and on
the results which could not fail to come. … A second event
happened in Germany in 1834, less marked in its beginnings and
yet scarcely less important in its results than the
Zollverein. Between Leipzig and Dresden the first large
railroad in Germany was started, the first mesh in that
network of roads that was soon to branch out in all directions
and spread itself over all Germany. … A direct political
occurrence, independent of the Zollverein and the railroads,
was, in the course of the thirties, to assist in awakening and
strengthening the idea of unity in the German people by making
evident and plain the lack of such unity and its disastrous
consequences. This was the Hanoverian 'coup d'etat' of the
year 1837. … In that year William IV of England died without
direct successors. … Hanover came into the hands of the Duke
of Cumberland, Ernest Augustus. … The new king, soon after his
inauguration, refused to recognize the constitution that had
been given to Hanover in 1833, on the ground that his
ratification as next heir to the throne had not been asked at
that time. … By persistent efforts Ernest Augustus … in 1840
brought about a constitution that suited him. Still more than
this constitutional struggle itself did a single incident
connected with it occupy and excite public opinion far and
wide. Seven professors of the Gottingen university protested
against the abrogation of the constitution of 1833. … Without
more ado they were dismissed from their positions. … The brave
deed of the Gottingen professors and the new act of violence
committed against them caused intense excitement throughout
all Germany. … A committee composed both of conservatives and
liberals was formed in Leipzig and raised collections, in
order by honorable gift to replace at least the material
losses of the banished professors. … In the course of the
forties the idea of nationality penetrated more and more all
the pores of German opinion and gave to it more and more, by
pressure from all sides, the direction of a great and common
goal. At first there were only isolated attempts at reform …
but soon the national needs outgrew such single expressions of
good will. … A tendency began to show itself in the public
opinion of Germany to accept the plan of a Prussian leadership
of all un-Austrian Germany."
K. Biedermann,
Dreissig Jahre Deutscher Geschichte.
volume 1, pages 9-91.
See, also, GERMANY: A. D. 1814-1820,
to 1819-1847 (pages 1531-1533).
GERMANY: A. D. 1862-1890.
The Bismarck policy.
"Blood and iron" speech of the Prussian Premier.
On the question of the reorganization of the army, which was
brought forward early by Prince William (afterwards King and
Emperor) after he assumed the Regency in 1858, the Prussian
Diet placed itself in determined opposition to the government.
At a session of the Budget Commission of the House of
Representatives, September 30, 1862, Deputy Forckenbeck
offered the following resolution: "Whereas it is also feared
that after the declaration of the royal state government made
the 29th inst. the same would continue the expenditures for
the organization of the army on its own responsibility which
have already been rejected by the House for the year 1862 and
the rejection of which is likewise to be expected for 1863,
according to the acknowledgment of the government itself, and
Whereas a direct insistence of the prerogatives of the
people's representatives is urgently required, the House of
Representatives declares as follows:
1. The royal government is requested to lay the estimates for
1863 before the House as speedily as possible for their
constitutional consideration, so that the amount of the same
may be constitutionally fixed before January 1st 1863.
2. It is unconstitutional for the royal government to direct
expenditures which were by resolution of the House of
Representatives definitely and expressly rejected."
The Minister of State, Herr von Bismarck, spoke on these
resolutions as follows: "I would willingly accept the
estimates for 1862, if I could do so without entering upon
explanations which might prove prejudicial. Either side might
abuse its constitutional rights and be met by a reaction in
kind from the opposite side. The crown, for instance, might
decree dissolution twelve times in succession without
violating the letter of the constitution, yet would it be an
abuse of power. It may refuse to accept a striking out of
estimates without measure. Where will you draw the line? At 6
millions? at 16? or at 60? There are members of the National
Verein [National Union]—an organization highly respected for
the well known fairness of its demands,—very estimable
members—who declare all standing armies as superfluous. Well
then, if the House of Representatives should hold such view
must not the government repudiate it? The 'cool headedness' of
the Prussian people has been referred to. Well, it is a fact,
the great self-assertion of individuality among us makes
constitutional government very hard in Prussia; in France,
where this individual self-assertion is wanting, it is
otherwise. There a constitutional conflict was no disgrace,
but all honor. We are perhaps too 'cultured' to tolerate a
constitution; we are too critical; the ability to pass
judgment on measures of the government or acts of the
legislature is too universal; there is a large number of
'Catilinarian Characters' [existences in the original] in the
land whose chief interest is in revolutions. All this may
sound paradoxical; yet it proves how hard constitutional life
is in Prussia.
{3777}
The people are too sensitive about the faults of the
government; as if the whole did not suffer when this or that
individual minister blunders. Public opinion is changeable,
the press is not public opinion; everyone knows how the press
originates; the representatives have the higher task of
directing opinion, of being above it. To return once more to
our people: our blood is too hot, we are fond of bearing an
armor too large for our small body; now let us utilize it.
Germany does not look at Prussia's liberalism but at its
power. Let Bavaria, Würtemberg, Baden indulge in liberalism,
yet no one will assign to them the rule of Prussia; Prussia
must consolidate its might and hold it together for the
favorable moment, which has been allowed to pass unheeded
several times. Prussia's boundaries, as determined by the
Congress of Vienna, are not conducive to its wholesome
existence as a sovereign state. Not by speeches and
resolutions of majorities the mighty problems of the age are
solved—that was the mistake of 1848 and 1849—but by Blood and
Iron. Last year's grants have been made, no matter on what
grounds; I am seeking sincerely for a road to harmony: the
finding of it does not depend on me alone. It were better, the
House of Representatives had not made an accomplished fact.
When the appropriations are not passed, then the way is clear.
The constitution affords no relief, for interpretation is
opposed to interpretation, 'summum ius, summa iniuria' [the
highest law, greatest injustice], 'the letter killeth.' I am
glad that the chairman by certain turns of speech admits the
possibility of an understanding, of a different vote of the
house on a new proposition of the government; I am searching
for the same bridge; when it will be found is uncertain. The
establishment of a budget for this year is barely possible;
the time is too short; our conditions are exceptional. The
government concedes the principle of the earliest possible
handing down of the estimates. But you say, this has been
promised so often and has not been done. Well 'You must trust
us for honest people.' I do not share in the interpretation
that it was unconstitutional to make expenditures that have
been denied, all three factors [i. e. Commons, Upper House and
Crown] must agree upon an interpretation, before it stands."
Die Politischen Reden des Fürsten Bismarck
(translated from the German),
volume 2, pages 20, 28-30.
"Otto von Bismarck-Schoenhausen, born April 1, 1815, was a
Junker [squire, aristocrat] from top to toe, but from the very
first, as was the case with all the Junkers of Prussia,
Pomerania and the Mark, his life had been thoroughly merged in
that of the Prussian state. He had first called attention to
himself in 1847 at the general diet (Vereinigter Landtag]. In
1849 he came forward in the chamber of deputies, in 1850 in
the Union Parliament at Frankfort—always as the goad of the
extreme right, and each time his appearance gave the signal
for a violent conflict. Perfectly unsparing of all his
opponents, very anti-liberal but very Prussian, very
national-minded, in spite of being such a Junker, Bismarck
flared up with especial violence against the democratic
attacks on the army and the monarchy. … To Frankfort Bismarck
came as the sworn defender of the policy of reaction. The
Austrian party, thinking him to be a man of no consequence,
greeted his coming with joy. He soon made himself unpleasant
enough, especially to the Austrian presidents of the federal
diet. … He refused to accept the servile role which Austria
had apportioned to him; his objections in matters of form and
on unimportant occasions prepared the great fundamental
anti-Austrian uprising. A feeling of pain came over him at the
sight of the Prussian submission to Austria, but at the same
time he was seized with a thirst for vengeance. … In
Frankfort, too, he learned thoroughly to know German affairs:
the utter weakness of the Confederation and the misery of
having so many petty states. … To his mind the goal of
Prussian policy was to drive Austria out of Germany and then
to bring about a subordination of the other German states to
Prussia. … Nor did he make the least secret of his warlike
attitude towards Austria. When an Austrian arch-duke, who was
passing through, once asked him maliciously whether all the
many decorations which he wore on his breast had been won by
bravery in battle: 'All gained before the enemy, all gained
here in Frankfort,' was the ready answer. In the year 1859
came the complications between Austria and Italy, the latter
being joined by France. This Italian war between Austria and
France thoroughly roused the German nation. … Many wanted to
protect Austria, others showed a disinclination to enter the
lists for Austria's rule over Italy. … Bismarck's advice at
this time was that Prussia should side against Austria and
should join Italy. In the spring of 1859, however, he was
transferred from Frankfort on the Main to St. Petersburg: 'put
on ice on the Neva,' as he said himself, 'like champagne for
future use.' … In June 1859, in view of the Italian war, it
had been decreed in Prussia that the army should be mobilized
and kept in readiness to fight. … When, later, in the summer
of this year, the probability of war had gone by, the Landwehr
was not dismissed but, on the contrary, a beginning was made
with a new formation of regiments which had already been
planned and talked over. … On February 10, 1860, the question
of the military reorganization was laid before the diet, where
doubts and objections were raised against it. … On the 4th of
May, at the same time when the law about civil marriages was
rejected, the land-tax, by which the cost of the
army-reorganization was to have been covered, was refused by
the Upper House. The liberals were disappointed and angered.
The ministry was soon in a bad dilemma: should it give way to
the liberal opposition and dissolve the newly formed
regiments? The expedient that was thought of seemed clever
enough but it led in reality to a blind alley and was
productive of the most baneful consequences. The ministry
moved a single grant of 9,000,000 thalers for the purpose of
completing the army and maintaining its efficiency on the
former footing. The motion was carried on May 15, 1860, by a
vote of 315 against two. … The new elections for the house of
deputies in December 1861 produced a diet of an entirely
different stamp from that of 1858. … The moderate majority was
now to atone for the sin of not having come to any real
arrangement with the ministry on the army question; for the
new majority came to Berlin with the full intention of
crushing the army-reform. … The chief task of the newly formed
ministry of 1862 was to solve the military question, for the
longer it had remained in abeyance the more complicated had
the matter become.
{3778}
The newly-elected diet had been in session since the 19th of
May. The majority was determined to draw the conclusion from
the provisional nature of the army-reorganization grants that
no such grants were any longer to be made. The battle cry of
the majority of the diet was that all further demands of the
government for the military reform were to be refused. … But
how would this result? … The new officers had an actionable,
legal claim to their salaries; who was to pay them? The budget
for 1862 was already in great part expended. … Were the
ministers themselves to pay the damages? Such seems to have
been the idea of the fanatics in the parliament. … By
September 1862 the belligerent and uncompromising attitude of
the liberal majority had induced King William to lay aside his
earlier distrust of Bismarck. He allowed him to be summoned
and placed him at the head of the ministry. Most stirring was
the first audience which Bismarck had with his king in the
Park of Babelsberg on September 23. The king first of all laid
before Bismarck the declaration of his abdication. Very much
startled, Bismarck said: 'To that it should never be allowed
to come!' The king replied that he had tried everything and
knew no other alternative. His convictions, contrary to which
he could not act, contrary to which he could not reign,
forbade him to relinquish the army-reorganization. Thereupon
Bismarck explained to the king his own different view of the
matter and closed with the request that his Majesty might
abandon all thoughts of abdication. The king then asked the
minister if he would undertake to carry on the government
without a majority and without a budget. Bismarck answered
both questions in the affirmative and with the utmost
decision. … The alliance between the king and his minister was
closed and cemented on that 23rd of September in Babelsberg to
endure for all time. … To this bond of allegiance which joined
king and minister, Prussia and Germany owe all the glory that
has fallen to their share. … In the summer of 1863 was
originated the famous Austrian project of reform. … The
proposals of Prussia that there should be one central head of
Germany with popular representation from the whole nation was
entirely thrust aside and, on the contrary, a federal
directory was recommended with a parliament of delegates from
the separate diets. … In spite of Prussia's absence the
assembly of princes took place at Frankfort. King John of
Saxony again travelled to Baden to urge King William to attend
but the latter again declined. Not but that this refusal cost
him a great struggle. … Bismarck had to threaten with his
resignation before he could make the king remain firm; … he
did not breathe freely again until the Saxon king had taken
his leave. Then with his powerful hand he demolished a plate
of glasses that stood before him; that cooled his anger and
his excitement and he was once more the polished courtier. …
Bismarck's policy now met with a great piece of good fortune.
Through the death of the king of Denmark, namely, the
Schleswig-Holstein question was forced to a final solution and
this offered Bismarck an opportunity of trying his diplomatic
skill, while at the same time it gave the Prussian army a
brilliant occasion for showing what it could accomplish. In a
series of bold moves Bismarck steered through the
complications of the Schleswig-Holstein question; it is the
first stage in his great career of victory. … But in spite of
all the successes of the Danish war the diet continued in its
opposition. A loan for the war was refused; any loan made
without the consent of the diet was declared unconstitutional
and not binding. … The subsequent grant for the costs of the
war was refused. … Naturally the Prussian war-budget could not
be made up, and the land continued to be governed without a
budget. The details of the debates on these subjects are today
only of minor interest. Much time was lost in mutual insults
between Bismarck on the one hand and Virchow and Gneist on the
other. Bismarck challenged Virchow to a duel, Virchow refused
the challenge. … By April 1866 Bismarck had cleared the
political field for his war against Austria; the necessity for
that war had long been apparent to him. … That the German
question could only be settled by the separation of Austria
from Germany and that this separation could only be brought
about by a war between Prussia and Austria had, in the course
of years, become clear to all patriots who knew anything of
history. With incomparable perspicuity the statesman who had
led Prussia's policy since the autumn of 1862 had grasped the
idea and had seen to carrying it out with the whole force of
his iron will. Already in the autumn of 1863 he had drawn up
the program of what he intended that the German Confederation
should be. … The history of the world had not for centuries
seen such a war as 1866. … It was then that King William and
his minister, crowned with victories, asked the Prussian diet
for indemnity: i. e. for an acknowledgment of their good
purposes in spite of their illegal acts. … In point of fact
the diet had been wrong and the king and his minister had
acted wisely and well; in point of form they had broken the
letter of the law. … In the years 1862-1866 Bismarck had held
off Napoleon with incomparable political skill. He had always
refused the French demands, but so that Napoleon in each case
could cherish some hope and could venture again and again to
approach Prussia with some new lure. Not until August 1866 did
Napoleon receive a thorough and open repulse. Bismarck then
answered every threat of the French with the counter-threat of
a German war. The refusal of Bismarck and his king brought
Napoleon into a very bad position as regarded the French
people. In the minds of the latter a war against Germany was a
foregone conclusion since 1866. … On the 8th of July (1870)
the French envoy came to King William in Ems and demanded that
he should forbid Prince Leopold to accept the crown of Spain.
… It is a popular fiction that the king turned his back on
Benedetti, or that he answered that he 'had nothing more to
say to him,' or that he out and out refused him an audience.
An extra of the German papers of July 14th did indeed read to
that effect: Bismarck himself had drawn up the notice for the
papers. He had made no false additions, but here and there he
had erased and omitted some of the words spoken at Ems, thus
rendering possible at least the whole false conception of the
matter. Bismarck ventured on such a step, having clearly
counted the costs; the result showed how closely he had made
his calculations. …
{3779}
It was the war of 1870 that fundamentally changed the
relations of the chancellor to the mass of the people. After
1871 he was immensely popular. … People believed that he could
do anything, that he could make possible what was impossible
for other men. … Bismarck was very soon surrounded with an
almost mythical halo."
W. Maurenbrecher,
Gründung des Deutschen Reichs
(translated from the German),
pages 13-258.
See, also, GERMANY:
A. D. 1861-1866, and after (pages 1537-1548).
GERMANY: A. D. 1863.
Formation of the first Socialist party by Lassalle.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1862-1864 (page 2949).
GERMANY: A. D. 1870-1874.
The "Kulturkampf" in its first stages.
Speeches of Bismarck.
"For reasons relating to its own internal affairs the state,
even though it took no special attitude to the dogma of
infallibility in itself, could not avoid being drawn into the
conflicts which that dogma was bound to call forth between its
upholders and its opponents. It was the duty of the state to
prevent the evil results to its citizens of the anathema which
the bishops hurled at those who denied the infallibility; it
was necessary for it to interfere and, by introducing civil
marriages, to render marriage possible to those apostates who
were not allowed to receive the sacraments; it was necessary
for it to protect in the exercise of their office those of its
public teachers who rejected the new dogma, even if their
spiritual superiors should declare them unfit to hold such
office. In cases, finally, where whole congregations, or
majorities of them, remained true to the old teachings it was
necessary for the state to protect them in the possession of
their churches of which the bishops tried to deprive them.
Already in November and December 1870 the first cases had
occurred with regard to which the Prussian minister of
education had been obliged to draw these conclusions.
Professors of the Bonn and Breslau universities who, because
they denied the infallibility, had been forbidden to lecture
by Archbishop Melchers of Cologne and Prince-bishop Forster of
Breslau, appealed to the protection of the minister. Certain
pastors and teachers of gymnasiums, who had joined in a
declaration drawn up at Nuremberg (August 25, 1870) against
the new dogma, and who had in consequence been threatened with
ecclesiastical punishments, did the same. Mühler had no other
course than to declare that, so far as officials appointed by
the state were concerned, the state must maintain its
exclusive disciplinary power, and that he would continue in
future to regard as catholics those whom he had so regarded
before the decree of infallibility was passed, even if they
saw fit to reject that dogma. Similar conflicts broke out in
Bavaria where the minister, Lutz, upheld the pastor Renftle,
of Mering near Augsburg, in the enjoyment of his benefices in
the face of the bishop, and where the Munich professors,
Döllinger, Friedrich, Huber and others courageously refused
such assent to the dogma as the Archbishop Scherr, on October
20, 1870, demanded from them. Döllinger's written
justification of himself, published on March 20, 1871, seemed
to give a firm basis and a distinguished leader to the whole
movement. … Twelve thousand signatures were collected in a few
weeks for an address to the king of Bavaria and an appeal was
made to the catholics of Germany, Austria and Switzerland in
favor of common action. … Meanwhile the other party had been
busy enough. Hundreds and hundreds of ecclesiastics protested
against Döllinger's assertion that thousands of the clergy
thought as he did. A lay assembly in Munich, held on April 23,
which expressed itself in favor of infallibility, was the
forerunner of countless similar ones. … Already some weeks
earlier the archbishop of Munich had ventured to excommunicate
Döllinger. … On August 27 Lutz sent a writing to Archbishop
Scherr claiming the right to regulate afresh the relations
with the church as the dogma of infallibility was something
essentially new: at the same time he announced that the
government would do its utmost to protect the upholders of the
old teachings and to secure the independence of civil affairs
from ecclesiastical right of compulsion. In Munich such
decisive measures would probably not have been adopted had not
matters in Prussia taken a similar turn. The conflict had been
brought to a climax here by the demand of Bishops Krementz and
Ermeland that two teachers in Braunsberg, Wollmann and
Treibel, should be dismissed for denying the infallibility.
This demand the minister had refused on March 18, 1871, and on
June 29 had even given his approval to the regulation that
scholars who should obey the orders of the bishop to absent
themselves from the class in religious instruction of these
teachers should be expelled from the gymnasium. The bishop had
retaliated by excommunicating the two teachers in question, as
well as Professor Michelis, one of the chief opponents of
infallibility. In the dioceses of Cologne, Paderborn and
Breslau also, the conflicts had become more fierce on account
of excommunications imposed by the bishops. Still more
important was it that the chancellor of the empire had now
personally entered the lists. As his cool attitude already
before the council had given reason to expect, the Vatican
dogma did not much trouble him. All the more alarming seemed
to him the agitation which the clergy were stirring up among
the Polish nobles, and the league of Guelphism and Catholicism
as illustrated by Windhorst's position in the Centre. … He
[Bismarck] caused the announcement to be made in an article of
the Kreuzzeitung that the government would not only continue
on the defensive against the Centre, but in turn would proceed
to attack it. The ultramontanes had better consider whether
such a struggle could turn out to the advantage of the Roman
Church. If, he concluded, three hundred years ago Teutonism in
Germany was stronger than Romanism, how much stronger would it
be now when Rome is no longer the capital of the world, but on
the point of becoming the capital of Italy, and when the
German imperial crown no longer rests on the head of a
Spaniard but of a German prince. … In the Federal Council Lutz
moved an amendment to the criminal code which should threaten
any clergyman with imprisonment up to two years if he should
misuse his office and discuss state affairs so as to disturb
the peace. … This 'pulpit-paragraph' was accepted with 179 to
108 votes and became law December 14th 1871. … The Prussian
diet was opened on November 27, 1871, with the announcement of
four new laws which should regulate marriages, the
registration of civil personal matters, the withdrawal from
existing churches, and the supervision of schools. …
{3780}
The conservative party was in wild excitement over these
measures and the Kreuzzeitung became the organ of decided
opposition, especially against the school-supervision law
which was chosen as the first object of attack. The
conservatives collected petitions from all parts of the land
to kill this law which they prophesied would make the schools
a tool of atheism, a hot-bed of revolution, unnationality and
immorality. They succeeded in getting together more than
300,000 signatures. … At the first reading in the House of
Deputies the school-supervision law was passed, although by a
majority of only 25 votes. … At the second reading the
majority increased to 52. … The chief struggle was expected in
the House of Lords. … The vote here was favorable beyond all
hopes, resulting on March 8th in a majority in favor of the
law almost as great as that in the House of Deputies. … By no
means calm was the attitude of the pope towards the increasing
complications, and when, a few weeks later, on June 24th,
1872, he received the German 'Leseverein' in Rome he
complained bitterly of the prime minister of a powerful
government who, after marvellous successes in war, should have
placed himself at the head of a long-planned persecution of
the church; a step which would undoubtedly tarnish the glory
of his former triumphs. 'Who knows if the little stone shall
not soon be loosened from above that shall destroy the foot of
the Colossus!' The chief cause of this embitterment lay in the
expulsion of the Jesuits which had meanwhile been decreed by
the diet. … The more the national opposition to the Roman
claims increased, the more passionate did the frame of mind of
the ultramontanes become; and also, in no small degree, of the
pope. An allocution addressed to the cardinals on December 22,
1872, surpassed in violence anything that had yet been heard.
… Even Reichensperger found it advisable in excusing a
vehemence that thus went beyond all bounds to call to mind
that the Latinized style of the papal chancery was not to be
taken too literally. The German government, after such a
demonstration, had no other alternative than to recall the
last representative of its embassy to the papal court. …
Already in November Minister Falk had laid before the House a
draft of a law concerning the limits of ecclesiastical
punishments and disciplinary measures; on January 9, 1873,
followed the drafts of three new laws. … Still more
passionately than in the debate concerning the change in the
Constitution did Bismarck come forward in the discussion of
April 24-28. … Windhorst and Schorlemer-Alst answered him back
in kind. … With violent attacks on Bismarck they prophesied
that these Draconic laws would rebound against the passive
opposition of the people; that dawn was glimmering in men's
minds and that the victory of the Church was near. To the
great majority of the German people, who had followed the
political-ecclesiastical debates with the liveliest interest,
such assurances seemed almost laughable. They felt sure of
victory now that Bismarck himself had seized the standard with
such decision. The 'May Laws' which the king signed on May 11,
1873, were considered a weapon sure to be effectual, and even
the advanced-liberals, who had followed many of the steps of
the Government with hesitation and doubt, declared in an
appeal to their electors on March 23 that the conflict had
assumed the proportions of a great struggle for enlightenment
(Kulturkampf) in which all mankind were concerned, and that
they themselves, in junction with the other liberal parties,
would accordingly support the Government. … On August 7 (1873)
Pius IX sent a letter to the emperor under pretext of having
heard that the latter did not sympathize with the latest
measures of his government. He declared that such measures
seemed to aim at the annihilation of Catholicism and warned
him that their final result would be to undermine the throne.
He deduced his right to issue this warning from the fact that
he was bound to tell the truth to all, even to non-catholics:
for in one way or another—exactly how this was not the place
to make clear—everyone who had received baptism belonged to
the pope. The emperor answered on September 3rd in a most
dignified tone. … 'We can not pass over in silence the remark
that everyone who has been baptized belongs to the pope. The
evangelical faith which I, as your Holiness must know, like my
forefathers and together with the majority of my subjects,
confess, does not allow us to accept any other Mediator in our
relations with God save our Lord Jesus Christ.' … Among
protestants this royal answer was greeted with jubilant
acclamations and even in foreign lands it found a loud echo.
The aged Earl Russell organized a great meeting in London on
January 27, 1874. … Soon after the opening of the Prussian
diet Falk could bring forward the draft of a law which handed
over to state-officials [Standesbeamte] all matters referring
to the celebration of marriages and the registration of civil
personal matters. This draft was sure from the first of a good
majority. … On March 9th 1874 the law could be proclaimed. In
the same month still the deputies Hinschius and Völk made a
motion in the diet to introduce civil marriages throughout the
whole empire. … It furthermore seemed necessary to take
stronger measures against bishops and priests unlawfully
appointed and whom the state had either deposed or refused to
recognize. The mildest measure was to remove them from their
dioceses or parishes, to banish them to certain fixed places
and, in the worst cases, to expel them altogether from the
lands of the empire. … The draft of the law (to this effect)
was warmly supported and at last, April 25, 1874, was accepted
by a vote of 214 to 208. … On July 13th, 1874, as Prince
Bismarck, who had gone to take the cure in Kissingen, was
driving to the Saline the twenty-one year old
cooper's-apprentice Kullmann, of Magdeburg, fired a pistol at
him, and wounded him in his right hand which he had just
raised for the purpose of saluting. At once arrested, Kullmann
declared to the chancellor, who visited him an hour later in
his prison, that he had wished to murder him on account of the
laws against the church. … The reading of ultramontane papers
and the violent discourses of the catholic clergy had driven
him to the deed. He atoned for it with fourteen years in the
House of Correction. Not alone did public opinion make
ultramontanism accountable for the deed, but Bismarck himself
laid very strong emphasis on the fact that the criminal had
spoken of the Centre as 'his party.' 'You may try as hard as

you please to rid yourselves of this murderer,' he cried out
in the diet of December 4th, 'he none the less holds fast to
your coat-tails!'"
C. Bulle,
Geschichte der neuesten Zeit
(translated from the German),
volume 4, pages 20-41.
{3781}
At the Session of the Lower House of the Prussian Diet January
30, 1872, Deputy Windthorst spoke in opposition to the royal
order for the abolition of the separate Roman Catholic section
of the department of worship and public instruction and Prince
Bismarck, in reply, said: "The party to which the gentleman
belongs has contributed its share to the difficulty of
obliterating the denominational standpoint in matters
political. I have always considered it one of the most
monstrous manifestations in politics, that a religious faction
should convert itself into a political party. If all the other
creeds were to adopt the same principle, it would bring
theology into the parliamentary sessions and would make it a
matter of public debate. … It has always been one of my
fundamental principles that every creed ought to have full
liberty of development, perfect liberty of conscience. But for
all that I did not think it was a necessary corollary that a
census of each denomination be taken merely for the purpose of
giving each its proportional share in the Civil Service. …
Where will you stop? You begin with a Cabinet; then you count
the Chiefs of Division. I do not know what your ratio is—I
think you claim four to seven—nor do I care to know. The
subordinates in the Civil Service follow next. It is a fact,
moreover, that the Evangelicals are by no means united in one
denomination. The contrast is not merely between Protestants
and Catholics. The United Prussian Established Church, the
Lutheran Church, the Reformed Church, all have claims
analogous to those of the Catholics. As soon as we cut up the
state into denominational sections, giving each creed its
proportional share, then the large Jewish population will come
in for its part, a majority of which, distinguished by its
special capacity, skill and intelligence, is peculiarly fitted
for the business of the State. … We cannot admit the claim of
the ecclesiastical authorities to a further share in the
administration and in the interest of peace we are obliged to
restrict the share they already have; so that we may have room
beside each other and be obliged, as little as possible, to
trouble ourselves about theology in this place."
Die politischen Reden des Fürsten Bismarck
(translated from the German),
volume 5, pages 231-240.
In the German Parliament, May 14, 1872, on the question of a
grant of 19,350 thalers for the German embassy at the See of
Rome, Prince Bismarck spoke as follows: "I can easily
understand how in considering this item of the estimates, the
opinion may be held that the expenditure for this embassy was
superfluous, as it does no longer consider the protection of
German citizens in foreign parts. Still I am glad that no
motion for the striking out of this post was made, which would
be unpleasant to the Government. The duties of an embassy
consist not merely in affording protection to their
countrymen, but also in keeping up the political relations of
the Government which it represents with that to which it is
accredited. Now there is no foreign sovereign, who, in the
present state of our laws, might be called upon to exercise,
in accordance with those laws, prerogatives in the German
empire like those of His Holiness, approaching almost to
sovereignty, limited by no constitutional responsibility.
There is therefore great importance for the German empire in
the character that is given to our diplomatic relations with
the head of the Roman Church, wielding, as he does, an
influence in this country unusually extensive for a foreign
potentate. I scarcely believe, considering the spirit dominant
at present in the leading circles of the Catholic Church, that
any ambassador of the German empire could succeed, by the most
skilful diplomacy, or by persuasion (comminatory attitudes
conceivable between secular powers are out of the question
here)—I say no one could succeed by persuasion in exerting an
influence to bring about a modification of the position
assumed by His Holiness the Pope towards things secular. The
dogmas of the Catholic Church recently announced and publicly
promulgated make it impossible for any secular power to come
to an understanding with the church without its own
effacement, which the German empire, at least, cannot accept.
Have no fear; we shall not go to Canossa, either in body or in
spirit. Nevertheless it cannot be concealed that the state of
the German empire (it is not my task here to investigate the
motives and determine how much blame attaches to one party or
the other; I am only defending an item in the Budget)—that
the feeling within the German empire in regard to religious
peace, is one of disquietude. The governments of the German
empire are seeking, with all the solicitude they owe to their
Catholic as well as Lutheran subjects for the best way, the
most acceptable means, of changing the present unpleasant
state of affairs in matters of religion to a more agreeable
one, without disturbing to any degree the creedal relations of
the empire. This can only be done by way of legislation—of
general imperial legislation—for which the governments have to
rely upon the assistance of the Reichstag. That this
legislation must not in the least infringe upon the liberty of
conscience,—must proceed in the gentlest, most conciliatory
manner; that the government must bend all its energies in
order to prevent unnecessary retardation of its work, from
incorrect recording or errors in form, you all will admit.
That the governments must spare no efforts for the
establishment of our internal peace, in a manner least
offensive even to the religious sensitiveness of those whose
creed we do not share, you will also admit. To this end,
however, it is before all things needful that the Roman See be
at all times well informed of the intentions of the German
governments, much better than it has been hitherto. The
reports made in the past to His Holiness, the Pope, on the
state of affairs in Germany, and on the intentions of the
German governments, I consider as one of the chief causes of
the present disturbances of denominational relations; for
those presentations were both incorrect and perverted, either
by personal bias, or by baser motives. I had hoped that the
choice of an ambassador, who had the full confidence of both
parties, both on account of his love of truth and reliability,
and on account of the nature of his views and his
attitude—that the choice of such an ambassador as His Majesty
had made in the person of a distinguished prince of the church
[Cardinal Prince Hohenlohe] would be welcomed at Rome; that it
would be taken as an earnest of our peaceable and conciliatory
intentions; that it would be utilized as a means to our mutual
understanding.
{3782}
I had hoped that it would afford the assurance that we would
never ask anything of His Holiness, but what a prince of the
church, sustaining the most intimate relations to the Pope,
could present before him; that the forms with which one
sacerdotal dignitary confers with another would continue to
prevail and that all unnecessary friction in a matter so
difficult in itself would be avoided. … All this we had hoped
to attain. But alas! for reasons which have not yet been
submitted to us, a curt refusal on the part of the Papal See
frustrated the intentions of His Majesty. I dare say such an
incident does not often occur. It is customary, when a
sovereign has made choice of an ambassador, out of courtesy to
make inquiry at the court to which the chosen ambassador is to
be accredited, whether he be persona grata or not. The case of
a negative reply, however, is extremely rare, bringing about,
as it must, a revocation of the appointment made not
provisionally, but definitely, before the inquiry. Such a
negative reply is equal to a demand to annul what has been
done, to a declaration: 'You have chosen unwisely.' I have now
been Foreign Minister for ten years; have been busy in matters
of higher diplomacy for twenty-one years; and I can positively
assert that this is the first and only case in my experience
of such an inquiry receiving a negative reply." Deputy
Windthorst, in reply, criticised the procedure of the German
Government in this affair, and justified the position taken by
the papal court, saying: "I believe, gentlemen, for my part,
that it was the duty of the Cardinal to ask the permission of
his master, the Pope, before accepting the post. The Cardinal
was the servant of the Pope, and as such, could not accept an
office from another government without previous inquiry. … The
case would be the same if His Holiness had appointed an
adjutant general of His Majesty as papal nuncio, only more
flagrant, for you will admit that a Cardinal is quite a
different person from an adjutant general." Prince Bismarck
replied: "I do not wish to discuss here the personal criticism
which the gentleman made on His Eminence, the Cardinal, but I
would say a word about the expression 'master' which was used.
The gentleman is certainly well versed in history, especially
ecclesiastical history, and I wish to ask him, who was the
master of Cardinal Richelieu or Cardinal Mazarin. Both of
these dignitaries were engaged in controversies and had to
settle important differences with the See of Rome, in the
service of their sovereign, the king of France; and yet they
were Cardinals. … If it should please His Holiness to appoint
an adjutant general of His Majesty as papal nuncio, I should
unconditionally advise His Majesty to accept him. … I am an
enemy to all conjectural politics and all prophesies. That
will take care of itself. But I can assure the gentleman that
we will maintain the full integral sovereignty of the law with
all means at our disposal, against assumptions of individual
subjects of His Majesty, the king of Prussia, be they priests
or laymen, that there could be laws of the land not binding
upon them; and we are sure of the entire support of a great
majority of the members of all religious confessions. The
sovereignty can and must be one and integral,—the sovereignty
of the law; and he who declares the laws of his country as not
binding upon himself, places himself outside the pale of the
law."
Die politischen Reden des Fürsten Bismarck
(translated from the German),
volume 5, pages 337-344.
The following is from a speech of Prince Bismarck in the Upper
House, March 10, 1873, during the discussion of the May Laws:
"The gentleman who spoke before me has entered on the same
path which the opponents of these bills followed in the other
house by ascribing to them a confessional, I might say, an
ecclesiastical character. The question we are considering is,
according to my view, misconstrued, and the light in which we
consider it, a false light if we look upon it as a
confessional, a church question. It is essentially a political
one; it is not, as our catholic fellow citizens are made to
believe, a contest of an evangelical dynasty against the
Catholic Church; it is not a struggle between faith and
unbelief; it is the perennial contest, as old as the human
race, between royalty and priestcraft, older than the
appearance of our Savior on earth. This contest was carried on
by Agamemnon at Aulis, which cost him his daughter and
hindered the Grecian fleet from going to sea. This contest has
filled the German history of the Middle Ages even to the
disintegration of the German Empire. It is known as the
struggles of the popes with the emperors, closing for the
Middle Ages when the last representative of the noble Suabian
imperial dynasty died on the block beneath the axe of the
French conqueror, that French conqueror being in league with
the then ruling pope. We were very near an analogous solution
of this question, translated into the manners of our own time.
Had the French war of conquest been successful, the outbreak
of which coincided with the publication of the Vatican
Decrees, I know not what would have been narrated in Church
circles of Germany of 'gestis Dei per Francos' ['Gesta Dei per
Francos,' 'Deeds of God by the French' is the title of a
collection by Bongars, containing the sources of the history
of the crusades.—Footnote]. … It is in my opinion a
falsification of history and politics, this attitude of
considering His Holiness, the Pope, exclusively as the high
priest of a religious denomination, or the Catholic Church as
the representative of Churchdom merely. The papacy has at all
times been a political power, interfering in the most resolute
manner and with the greatest success in the secular affairs of
this world, which interference it contended for and made its
program. These programs are well known. The aim which was
constantly present in its mind's eye, the program which in the
Middle Ages was near its realization, was the subjection of
the secular powers to the Church, an eminently political aim,
a striving as old as mankind itself. For there have always
been either some wise men, or some real priests who set up the
claim, that the will of God was better known to them than to
their fellow beings and in consequence of this claim they had
the right to rule over their fellowmen. And it cannot be
denied that this proposition contains the basis of the papal
claims for the exercise of sovereign rights. …
{3783}
The contention of priesthood against royalty, in our case, of
the Pope against the German Emperor, … is to be judged like
every other struggle; it has its alliances, its peace
conventions, its pauses, its armistices. There have been
peaceful popes, there have been popes militant, popes
conquerors. There have been even peace-loving kings of France,
though Louis XVI. was forced to carry on wars; so that even
our French neighbors have had monarchs who preferred peace to
war. Moreover in the struggles of the papal power it has not
always been the call that Catholic powers have been
exclusively the allies of the pope; nor have the priests
always sided with the pope. We have had cardinals as ministers
of great powers at a time when those great powers followed an
antipapal policy even to acts of violence. We have found
bishops in the military retinue of the German emperors, when
moving against the popes. This contest for power therefore is
subject to the same condition as every other political
contest, and it is a misrepresentation of the issue,
calculated to impress people without judgment of their own,
when it is characterized as aiming at the oppression of the
church. Its object is the defense of the State, to determine
the limits of priestly rule, of royal power, and this limit
must secure the existence of the State. For in the kingdom of
this world the rule and the precedence is the State's. We in
Prussia have not always been the pre-eminent object of this
struggle. The papal court for a long time did not consider us
as its principal opponent. Frederic the Great was at perfect
peace with the Roman See while the contemporary emperor of
Catholic Austria [Joseph II.] was engaged in the most violent
contention with the Catholic Church. I wish to prove thereby
that the question is entirely independent of creed. I will
further add that at the Vienna Congress it was King Frederic
William III., thoroughly and most strictly evangelical, nay,
it might be said, anticatholic in his belief, that it was he
who insisted upon and carried through the restoration of the
secular rule of the pope; nevertheless he departed this world
while engaged in a struggle with the Catholic Church. In the
paragraphs of the constitution we have under consideration we
found a 'modus vivendi,' an armistice, concluded at a time
when the State was in need of help and thought to obtain this
help or at least some support in the Catholic Church. This
hope was based upon the fact that at the election for the
national assembly of 1848 the districts in which the Catholic
population preponderated elected, if not royalists, yet
friends of order,—which was not the case in evangelical
districts. Under this impression the compromise between the
ecclesiastical and secular arms was concluded, though, as
subsequent events proved, in miscalculation as to its
practical effects. For it was not the support of the electors
who had thus voted but the Brandenburg ministry and the royal
army that restored order. In the end the State was obliged to
help itself; the aid that might have been given by the
different churches did not pull it through. But at that time
originated the 'modus vivendi' under which we lived in peace
for a number of years. To be sure, this peace was bought only
by an uninterrupted yielding of the State, by placing its
rights in regard to the Catholic Church, without reservation,
in the hands of a magistracy which was originally intended to
be the guardian of the royal Prussian prerogatives against the
Catholic Church, but which in fact ultimately became a
magistracy in the service of the pope, in order to guard the
rights of the church against the encroachments of the Prussian
State. Of course, I refer to the Catholic section in the
Supreme Church Council [the Church Council is a Protestant
body.—Foot-note]. I mean of the Ministry of worship. … When we
were yet in Versailles I was somewhat surprised to learn, that
Catholic members of parliamentary bodies were asked to declare
whether they were ready to join a religious party, such as we
have now in the Party of the Center, and whether they would
agree to vote and agitate for the insertion of the paragraphs
we are at present considering into the constitution of the
Empire. I was not much alarmed then at that program; I was a
lover of peace to such a degree. I knew from whom it emanated;
partly from an eminent prince of the church [Bishop Ketteler
of Mayence] whose chief task it was to do for the papal policy
what he could. … I was completely deceived. … When I returned
here I saw how strong was the organization of this party of
the church militant, against the state. … What, was this
program? Read it. There are pamphlets in everybody's hand,
written with spirit, pleasant to read. Its object was the
introduction of a state dualism in Prussia, the erection of a
state within the state to bring it about that all Catholics
should follow the guidance of this Party of the Center in
their private as well as their political conduct, a dualism of
the worst kind. Under different conditions a dualistic
constitution might work well in an empire. Witness the
Austro-Hungarian monarchy. But yonder it is no religious
dualism. With us the construction of two denominational states
is aimed at, to be engaged in a dualistic struggle, one of
which was to have for its supreme ruler a foreign church
potentate, whose seat is in Home, a potentate who by the
latest changes in the constitution of the Catholic Church has
become more powerful than ever before. If this program were
carried out, we were to have instead of the one formerly
integral state of Prussia, instead of the German Empire then
at the point of realization—we were to have two state
organizations, running side by side in parallel lines; one
with the Party of the Center as its general staff, the other
with its general staff in the guiding secular principle, in
the government and the person of his Majesty the Emperor. This
situation was absolutely unacceptable for the government whose
very duty it was to defend the state against such a danger. It
would have misunderstood and neglected this duty if it had
looked on calmly at the astounding progress which a closer
examination of the affair brought to light. … The Government
was obliged to terminate the armistice, based upon the
constitution of 1848, and create a new 'modus vivendi' between
the secular and sacerdotal power. The State cannot allow this
situation to continue without being driven into internal
struggles that may endanger its very existence. The question
is simply this: Are those paragraphs of the constitution [of
1848] dangerous to the State, as is contended for by the
government of His Majesty, or are they not?
{3784}
If they are, then it is your duty as conservatives to vote
against the retention of those paragraphs. If you think them
entirely harmless then you hold a conviction which the
government of His Majesty does not share, and as it is not
able to assume the responsibility for the administration of
the affairs of the State with these articles of the
constitution in force, it must surrender it to those who
consider them harmless. The Government, in its struggle for
the defense of the State, applies to the Upper House for aid
and assistance for the strengthening of the State and its
defense against attacks and machinations that undermine its
peace and endanger its future. We trust and believe that this
assistance will not fail us with the majority of the Upper
House."
Die politischen Reden des Fürsten Bismarck
(translated from the German),
volume 5, pages 384-391.
GERMANY: A. D. 1871-1873.
Adoption of the gold standard.
See MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1871-1873 (page 2220).
GERMANY: A. D. 1871-1895.
The organization of the modern German Empire.
"The idea of the unity of the empire in its purest and most
unadulterated form is most clearly typified by the German
diet. This assembly, resulting from general elections of the
whole people, shows all the clefts and schisms which
partisanship and the spirit of faction have simultaneously
brought about among the different classes of the people and
among their representatives. But there is not one among all
the prominent factions of the German diet which owes its
formation to territorial differences. The changing majorities
and minorities have assumed their form more curiously in our
parliament than in any other in the world, but there never has
been a single case where in taking a vote North Germans have
come forward in a body against South Germans or vice versa, or
where small and medium states have been pitted against the one
large state. If the constitution of the empire reminds each
deputy that he is a representative of the whole people, the
best part of the provision is that it comes to be looked upon
as a matter of course; it belongs to the very essence of a
parliamentary assembly that it should see in a particular
constellation of opposing factions only something exceptional.
How indispensable a parliamentary organ which actually
represents the unity of the people is to every state in a
confederation is best shown by the energy with which the
Prussian government again and again demanded a German
parliament at the very time when it fairly despaired about
coming to an understanding with its own body of
representatives. In the middle between the head of the empire
and such a diet as we have described is the place occupied by
the Federal Council (Bundesrath): not until we have made this
clear to ourselves can we fully understand the nature of this
latter institution. Each of its members is the plenipotentiary
of his sovereign just as were the old Regensburg and Frankfort
envoys. It is a duty, for instance, for Bavaria's
representative to investigate each measure proposed and to see
whether it is advantageous or not for the land of Bavaria. The
Federal Council is and is meant to be the speaking-tube by
which the voice of the separate interests shall reach the ear
of the legislator. But all the same, held together as it is by
the firm stability of the seventeen votes which it holds
itself and by the balancing power of the emperor and of the
diet, it is the place where daily habit educates the
representatives of the individual states to see that by
furthering the welfare of the common fatherland they take the
best means of furthering their own local interests. Taken each
by himself the plenipotentiaries represent their own
individual states; taken as a whole the assembly represents a
conglomeration of all the German states. It is the upholder of
the sovereignty of the empire. If, then, the federal council
already represents the whole empire, still more is this true
of the general body of officials, constituted through
appointment by the emperor although with a considerable amount
of co-operation on the part of the federal council. The
imperial chancellor is the responsible minister of the emperor
for the whole of the empire. At his side is the imperial
chancery, a body of officials who, in turn, have to do in each
department with the affairs of the whole empire. The imperial
court, too, in spite of all its limitations, is none the less
a court for the whole empire. Not less clearly is the
territorial unity expressed in the unity of legislation. In
the circumstances in which we left the old empire there could
scarcely be any question any longer of real imperial
legislation. Under the confederation beginnings were made, nor
were they unsuccessful; but once again it was primarily the
struggle against the strivings for unity that chiefly impelled
the princes to united action. The 'Carlsbad decrees' placed
limits to separate territorial legislation to an extent that
even the imperial legislation of to-day would not venture upon
in many ways. The empire of the year 1848 at once took up the
idea of imperial legislation; a 'Reichsgesetzblatt' [imperial
legislative gazette] was issued. In this the imperial
ministry, after first passing them in the form of a decree,
published among other things a set of rules regulating
exchange. The plan was broached of drawing up a code of
commercial law for all Germany for the benefit of that class
of the population to which a uniform regulation of its legal
relationships was an actual question of life and death. So
firmly rooted was such legislation in the national needs that
even the reaction of the fifties did not venture to undo what
had been done. Indeed the idea of a universal code of
commercial law was carried on by most of the governments with
the best will in the world. A number of conferences were
called and by the end of the decade a plan had been drawn up,
thoroughly worked out and adopted. It has remained up to this
very day the legal basis for commercial intercourse. It is
true it was not the general decrees of these conferences that
gave legal authority to this code, but rather its subsequent
acceptance by the governments of the individual states. But
the practical result nevertheless was that, in one important
branch of law, the same code was in use in all German states.
Never before, so long as Germany had had a history, had a
codification of private law been introduced by means of
legislation into the German states in common; for the first
time princes and subjects learned by its fruits the blessing
of united legislation. But a few years later they were ready
enough to give over to the newly established empire all actual
power of legislation: only, indeed, for such matters as were
adapted for common regulation, but, so far as these were
concerned, so fully and freely that no local territorial law
can in any way interfere.
{3785}
What the lawgiver of the German empire announces as his will
must be accepted from the foot of the Alps to the waves of the
German Ocean. Thus after long national striving the view had
made a way for itself that, without threatening the existence
of the individual states, the soil of the empire nevertheless
formed a united territorial whole. But not only the soil, its
inhabitants also had to be welded together into one
organization. The old empire had lost all touch with its
subjects—a very much graver evil than the disintegration of
its territory. So formidable an array of intermediate powers
had thrust itself in between the emperor and his subjects that
at last the citizen and the peasant never by any chance any
more heard the voice of their imperial master. … In three ways
the German emperor now found the way to his subjects. Already
as king of Prussia the emperor of the future had been obeyed
by 19 millions of the whole German population as his immediate
subjects. By the entrance of a further 8 millions into the
same relationship on the resignation of their own territorial
lords by far the majority of all Germans became immediate
subjects of the emperor. The German empire, secondly, in those
branches of the administration which it created anew or at
least reorganized, made it a rule to preserve from the very
beginning the most immediate contact with its subjects: so in
the army, so in the department of foreign affairs. The empire,
finally, even where it left the administration to the
individual states, exercised the wholesome pressure of a
supreme national authoritative organization by setting up
certain general rules to be observed. The empire, for
instance, will not allow any distinctions to be made among its
subjects which would interfere with national unity. If the
Swabian comes to Hesse, the Hessian to Bavaria, the Bavarian
to Oldenburg, his inborn right of citizenship gives him a
claim to all the privileges of one born within those limits.
For all Germany there is a common right of citizenship; and
this common bond receives its true significance through
numerous actual migrations from one state to another, the
right of choosing a domicile being guaranteed. … It belongs in
the nature of a federative state that it should not claim for
itself all state-duties but should content itself with
exercising only such functions as demand a centralized
organization. In consequence we see the individual states
unfolding great activity in the field of internal
administration, in the furtherance of education, art and
science, in the care of the poor: matters with which the
empire as a whole has practically nothing to do. All those
affairs of the states, on the other hand, which by their
nature demand a centralized administration have been taken in
hand by the empire, and the unity of public interests to which
the activity of the empire gives utterance is shown in the
most different ways. There are certain affairs administered by
the empire which it has brought as much under a central
organization as ever the Prussian state did the affairs of the
amalgamated territories within its limits. With regard to
others the empire has preserved for itself nothing more than
the chief superintendence; with regard to others still it is
content to set up principles which are to be generally
followed and to exercise a right of supervision. It would be
wrong, however, to imagine that the two last-mentioned
prerogatives are only of secondary importance. The
superintendence which the German emperor exercises over the
affairs of the army, the chief part of which, indeed, is under
his direction as king of Prussia, is sufficient in its
workings to make the land-army, in time of war, as much of a
unit as is the consolidated navy. … Customs' matters form a
third category, with regard to which the empire possesses only
the beginnings of an administrative apparatus: all the same we
have seen in the last years how the right of general
supervision was sufficient in this field to bring about a
change in the direction of centralization, the importance of
which is recognizable from the loud expressions of approval of
its supporters and also in equal measure from the loud
opposition of its antagonists. … In the field of finance the
empire has advanced with caution and consideration and at the
same time with vigor. In general the separate states have
retained their systems of direct and indirect taxation. Only
that amount of consolidation without which the unity of the
empire as a whole would have been illusory was firmly decreed:
'Germany forms one customs and commercial unit bounded by
common customs limits.' The internal inter-state customs were
abolished. The finances that remained continued to belong to
the individual states—the direct taxes in their entirety, the
indirect to a great extent. The administration of the customs
on the borders even remained in the hands of the local
customs-officials, only that when collected they were placed
to the general account. But the unconditional right of the
empire to lay down the principles of customs legislation gave
it more and more of an opportunity to create finances of its
own and to become more and more independent of the scheduled
contributions from the separate states. … Judicial matters are
the affair of the individual state. With his complaints and
with his accusations the citizen whose rights have been
infringed turns to the court established by his territorial
lord. But already it has been found possible to organize a
common mode of procedure for this court throughout the whole
empire; the rules of court, the forms for criminal as well as
civil suits are everywhere the same. … The general German
commercial code and the exchange regulations, which almost all
the states had proclaimed law on the ground of the conferences
under the confederation, were proclaimed again in the name of
the empire and were supplemented in certain particulars. As to
criminal law a general German criminal code has unified the
more important matters and, with regard to those of less
importance, has legally fixed the limits to be observed by the
individual states. Work is constantly going on at a civil code
which is to be drawn up much on the same lines. The German
nation is busily engaged in creating a German legal system
according to which the Prussian as well as the Bavarian, Saxon
or Swabian judge is to render his decisions. Furthermore, a
century-long development in our civilized states has brought
it about that a supervision, itself in the form of legal
decisions, should be exercised over the legality of judicial
sentences. Here again it was in commercial matters that the
jurisdiction of a supreme court first showed itself to be an
unavoidable necessity.
{3786}
Then it was, however, that after a slumber of seventy years
the old imperial court rose again from the dead, not entirely
without limitations, but absolutely without the power to make
exceptions. The imperial court at Leipzig is a court for the
whole empire and for one and all of its subjects. If we turn
to the internal administration it is chiefly matters
concerning traffic and intercommunication which call by their
very nature for regulation under one system. Although the
management of local and to some extent also of provincial
postal affairs is left as far as possible to the individual
states themselves, the German post is nevertheless imperial,
all the higher officials are appointed by the emperor, the
imperial post office passes its rules and regulations and sees
that they are carried out with reference to the whole empire.
Just this branch of the administration indeed has had to halt
at the Würtemberg and Bavarian frontiers, but in these two
states also the legal foundations of the postal system have
been adopted in all essential points. And if in the actual
administration the differences likewise begin to vanish, the
reason for this is more gratifying than is the fact itself:
the extraordinary triumphs, namely, of our imperial post,
which of themselves invite imitation and a breaking down of
barriers. The introduction of the penny tariff has increased
the amount of mail matter to four or five times what it was
before. Postcards, invented by the director of our postal
system, are already [1885], issued annually by the 150
million. The parcels-post, made cheaper and more convenient,
has attained such importance that it has actually come to
serve as a regulator of prices for the retail business of
mercantile houses. Great differences of price in different
parts of the empire become more and more an impossibility so
soon as one only has to pay ten pfennigs per kilo (2 pounds)
to procure the same goods in two or three days from the
cheapest place, be it ever so far off. What is true of the
post is true also of the telegraph which has come again to be
one with it. Here, too, we can observe how the centralization
in the empire has been of especial advantage to just those
places which lie most out of the way. Chiefly in connection
with existing or newly created post offices, the imperial post
office, in the first five years after the direction of the
telegraph came into its hands, opened more than four thousand
telegraph counters—on an average two new counters a day!
Through an extended system of treaties the German imperial
post has regulated its relations to foreign lands and paved
the way for the World-postal-association, the first such
association in the history of the world to take in states from
all four quarters of the globe. … Compared with the postal
system the other branches of inter-communication and of
internal administration seem to be only in the first stages of
centralization; but here, too, much has been accomplished. The
railroads stand under the direction or supervisory
administration of the individual states, but unity with regard
to time-tables, connections, fares and forwarding has been in
so far preserved that differences which might interrupt
traffic are avoided as far as possible. The governments of the
confederated states are under obligations 'to allow the German
railroads, in the interests of general communication, to be
administered as one unbroken network.' A separate Imperial
Railroad Bureau watches over the fulfillment of this
agreement. Nothing, however, has given clearer expression to a
unified system of intercommunication in Germany than the
equalization of the coinage. In old times, when all or at
least the chief territorial lords possessed the unrestricted
right of coinage, each state did not, indeed, have its own
standard, for how would it have been possible to invent
several hundred standards of coinage? But when the territorial
lord did make up his mind to adopt some existing system he
usually chose one that was not in vogue in the state next to
him, so that the boundaries of his own state might be the more
clearly defined. That was how it came about that a map of the
coinage standards of Germany looked almost as variegated as
the map of its states. … Still worse than with regard to
coined money—which, after all, always had a natural regulator
in the actual market value of the silver or gold—did the want
of unity show itself in the matter of paper money. Not only
did the various states have different principles on which they
issued it, and a different system of securities in funding it,
but one and the same state would continue to use its old paper
money even when issuing new on another principle. Hundreds of
different bank-notes were in use, many which had long been
called in continued still to circulate until some unfortunate
last holder had to pay the costs. He who had thus learned a
lesson at his own expense became very cautious and would
refuse even the best paper money. The black Schwarzburg notes
looked so grimy that the petty folk in their own land
considered them out of date and preferred Prussian money. … In
the matter of coins the empire found no general European model
to go by. The mark, which was finally chosen as the unit of
coinage, had the double advantage of facilitating a transition
from the old thaler days and of inaugurating a firm
relationship to the franc of the Romanic coinage system, the
pound of the English world, the gulden of the Austrian empire
(so soon as the latter power resumed metal coinage). The
introduction of a gold basis gave the young coinage system a
solid basis on the most precious metal. The mints remained in
the hands of the separate states, but the coin was issued 'on
account with the empire.' The coins accordingly bear on one
side the image of the territorial lord who issues them, on the
other, to give them general validity, the coat of arms of the
empire. … Founded thus on a system of firm finances, on the
uniform administration of justice in all lands, on an internal
administration which, however varied, nevertheless fulfills
the necessary demands of unity, the German empire shows a
measure of consolidation the best outward expression to which
is given by its army. Among the two million men on land and on
sea who are ready to protect the Fatherland's boundaries there
is not one who has not sworn fidelity to his imperial master:
among the generals, not one who has not been appointed by the
emperor. The most cherished of all duties binds the German to
his German Fatherland. If, as regards the land-army, the
princes still have a certain right of administration over
their own contingents: on the man-of-war, where the sons of
all the states that border on the sea come together, every
possible distinction vanishes. The German navy knows no other
flag, no other cockade, than the black-white-and-red."
I. Jastrow,
Geschichte des deutschen Einheitstraumes und
seiner Erfüllung (translated from the German),
pages 285-303.
{3787}
GERMANY: A. D. 1883-1889.
Bismarck's Sickness, Accident and Old-Age Insurance Laws.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1883-1889 (page 2955).
GERMANY: A. D. 1883-1894.
Acquisitions in Africa.
See (in this Supplement) AFRICA: 1883, and after.
GERMANY: Libraries.
See LIBRARIES, MODERN (page 2010).
----------GERMANY: End--------
GHENT, Treaty of (the text).
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814 (pages 3355-3358).
GIRTON COLLEGE.
See EDUCATION (page 745).
GODIN, and his Social Palace at Guise.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1859-1887 (page 2947).
GODOY, The Ministry of.
See (in this Supplement) SPAIN: A. D. 1788-1808.
GOLD AND SILVER, Production of.
See MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1848-1893 (page 2217).
GORTON, Samuel, in Rhode Island.
See RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1641-1647 (page 2641).
GRANGERS, The.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1866-1875 (page 2951).
GRANT, General U. S.: Report on affairs in the South.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (page 3562).
GREAT SEAL, Lord Keeper of the.
See LAW, EQUITY: A. D. 1538 (page 1990).
GREECE: Outline Sketch of ancient history.
See EUROPE (pages 991-996).
GREECE: Commerce, ancient.
See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE, ANCIENT.
GREECE: Libraries.
See LIBRARIES, ANCIENT (page 2002.)
GREECE: Medical Science.
See MEDICAL SCIENCE, GREEK (page 2124).
GREECE: Money and Banking.
See MONEY AND BANKING (pages 2201 and 2202).
GREELEY, Lieutenant, Polar expedition of.
See (in this Supplement) ARCTIC EXPLORATION: 1881-1884.
GREGORY I., Pope (called the Great).
See PAPACY: A. D. 461-604 (page 2422).
GREGORY VII., Pope, and the Empire.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1056-1122 (page 2427);
GERMANY: A. D. 973-1122 (page 1441);
and CANOSSA (page 386).
GRINNELL EXPEDITIONS.
See (in this Supplement)
ARCTIC EXPLORATION: 1850-1851, 1853-1855.
GRIPPE, La, Early appearances of.
See PLAGUE, ETC.; A. D. 1485-1593,
and 18TH CENTURY (page 2542).
GUILDS, OR GILDS.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1720-1800 (page 2933).
GUNBOATS, Jefferson's.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1804-1805 (page 3332).
H.
HABEAS CORPUS, President Lincoln's suspension of the writ of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861-1863 (page 3447).
HAHNEMANN, and the system of Homœopathy.
See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 17-18TH CENTURIES (page 2139).
HALL, Captain Charles F., Arctic explorations of.
See (in this Supplement)
ARCTIC EXPLORATION: 1860-1862; 1864-1869; and 1871-1872.
HALLER, Albrecht von, The medical system of.
See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 18TH CENTURY (page 2141).
HANSA, The.
See (in this Supplement)
COMMERCE, MEDIÆVAL;
and GERMANY: 13-15TH, and 15-17TH CENTURIES.
Also, HANSA TOWNS (page 1624).
HAPSBURG, Early fortunes of the family of.
See (in this Supplement) AUSTRIA: A. D. 1273-1349.
HARMONY SOCIETY, The.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1805-1827 (page 2937).
HARVEY, and the discovery of the Circulation of the Blood.
See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 17TH CENTURY (page 2133).
HAYES, Dr. Isaac I., Arctic explorations of.
See (in this Supplement)
ARCTIC EXPLORATION: 1860-1861, and 1869.
HELMONT, John Baptist, The medical system of.
See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 16TH CENTURY (page 2133).
HENRY, Professor Joseph,
Invention of the electric telegraph.
See ELECTRICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION:
A. D. 1825-1874 (page 772).
For other work of Henry;
T. O'Conor Sloane
The Standard Electrical Dictionary
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26535
HERCULANEUM, Libraries of.
See LIBRARIES, ANCIENT (page 2005).
HIGHER-LAW SPEECH, Seward's.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1850 (page 3387).
HINDU MEDICAL SCIENCE.
See MEDICAL SCIENCE, HINDU (page 2123).
HIPPOCRATES.
The Hippocratic Oath.
See MEDICAL SCIENCE, GREEK (page 2125).
HOFFMANN, Frederic, and Humoral Pathology.
See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 17TH CENTURY (page 2136).
HOLLAND: Commerce.
See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE, MEDIÆVAL, and MODERN.
HOLLAND: Libraries.
See LIBRARIES, MODERN (page 2013).
HOLT, Lord, and the Law of Bailments.
See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1698-1710 (page 1971).
HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE, The.
See (in this Supplement) GERMANY: A. D. 9)62;
also, page 2652.
HOMŒOPATHY, Origin of the system of.
See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 17-18TH CENTURIES (page 2139).
HUDSON, Henry, Northern voyages of.
See (in this Supplement)
ARCTIC EXPLORATION: 1607, and after.
HUNTER, Dr. John, The work of.
See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 18TH CENTURY (page 2139).
HUTCHINSON, Governor Thomas.
Conversation with King George.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774 (pages 3210-3213).
{3788}
I.
ICARIA.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1840-1883 (page 2943).
ICILIAN LAW, The.
See ROME: B. C.456 (page 2665).
INDIA, Ancient Commerce.
See (In this Supplement) COMMERCE, ANCIENT.
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS, The question of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1807. and 1816-1817 (pages 3335 and 3360).
INTERNATIONAL, The.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1862-1872,
and 1872-1886 (pages 2950 and 2953).
INVESTITURES, The question of.
See (in this Supplement) PAPACY: 11-12TH CENTURIES;
also page 2427.
----------ITALY: Start--------
ITALY: 11-15th Centuries.
Commerce of the city republics.
See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE, MEDIÆVAL.
ITALY: A. D. 1154-1190.
Invasions of Frederick Barbarossa.
"In November Frederick appeared in Lombardy and hung up his
shield on a high post as a token that he was to hold a review
of the army and a general court. The most of the complaints of
the cities were directed against Milan, but on complaint of
Pavia the emperor first attacked Tortona. … A horrible
chastisement was inflicted on the city; … the inhabitants were
driven away. … Now at length Frederick turned his attention to
Rome. On June 18, 1155, he marched into the Leonine City and
was at once crowned in St. Peter's. … The results of this
first Italian expedition were nevertheless small. The emperor
had not conquered Rome; William I of Naples was more
independent than ever; in northern Italy after Frederick's
departure Milan was pre-eminent. By her authority Tortona was
built up again. The Milanese sent the city a brass trumpet
with which to call her inhabitants together once more. … The
emperor was determined to put an end forever to all this
opposition. In July 1158 an immeasurably greater expedition
started with the express purpose of restoring the authority of
the empire in Italy. … The Milanese in addition (having after
a short siege recognized the emperor's claims) paid a fine,
gave 300 hostages, … and afterwards made their submission in
the humblest manner: the nobles with drawn swords across their
shoulders, the people with cords around their necks, fell down
before the emperor and did him homage. … It was in pursuance
of Frederick's intention, and of his desire to settle the
matter once and for all, that to his purposed diet in the
Roncaglian plains he also summoned some teachers of law from
Bologna. … Enough, in the assembly at Roncaglia through a well
authorized judicial sentence, those regalia [royal rights]
which had gone over to the civic communes were adjudged to the
emperor, save in cases where by special privilege they had
been relinquished to special cities. The emperor was
recognized as the highest legislative power. … Frederick had
set himself the great problem of uniting together authority
and freedom. In the best possible monarchical spirit he
expressed it that he wished an empire resting on a legal
foundation in order to maintain every man in his freedom. But
it is none the less evident that he wished the centre of
gravity to lie in his own authority. It was not the demand of
the regalia alone that caused the trouble, but just this
principle, and it comes to the fore in the clearest manner in
his relations with Milan. The agreement on the occasion of the
peace with Milan had been that the civic authorities should be
freely elected but should be invested by the emperor. In
Roncaglia on the other hand it was decreed that the emperor
should nominate the authorities subject to the assent of the
people. A slight change, but one which in reality betokened an
immense difference. Thus at the diet of Roncaglia did the
empire unfold once more its full glory. But in the carrying
out of these decrees, and especially in the matter of
nominating the authorities; immeasurable difficulties now
showed themselves. … On this matter, then, it had to come to
blows. At the very first attempt in Milan a popular tumult
arose. Frederick instituted proceedings which ended with a new
banning of the city. … Large as the city was a way was found
of cutting off from it all supplies. Through extreme want it
was at last compelled to surrender and to beg for mercy. … The
city was actually made to cease to exist. It was to be divided
into four different places. If every trace of it was not
completely obliterated this was solely due to regard for
certain churches. The Milanese were treated like a tributary
people on conquered territory. … In November 1166 the emperor
started out to drive Pope Alexander from Rome. But already
under his eyes the Lombard cities were bestirring themselves
against him. They were discontented on account of oppressions
which they were obliged to suffer more through the violence of
the imperial officials than from any fault of the laws. … The
Lombards considered that if the pope were again to be beaten
they should find no more help against the power which was
holding them down. What especially goaded them on was the
firmness of the imperial rule, its methodical and stern manner
of proceeding against every one who opposed it. … It was after
the imperial governors in consequence of the growing
disaffection had claimed and received new hostages that the
representatives of Cremona, Brescia, Ferrara and Mantua came
together in Pontida (April 1167). … The decision of the
Lombards was, not to consider due to the emperor any more than
had been considered due to him at the death of Henry V and to
oppose him by force should he demand more. They restored
Milan, which joined them, compelled Lodi to go over to their
side and captured, as they had once done before, the treasure
of the emperor which was in Trezzo. … Frederick thought to
crush all opposition in Upper Italy if he could only withdraw
from it the help of the Greeks and of the pope. He therefore
turned first against Ancona which the emperor Manuel had
captured and compelled the city to give him hostages. … He
then attacked Rome. … They (the Germans) conquered the Leonine
City after a bloody fight. The emperor himself appeared,
installed his own pope and caused his queen to be crowned
(August 1, 1167). Alexander fled, the city of Rome consented
to make peace. … Thus had the main point been gained and the
emperor prepared to renew the struggle against the Lombards.
{3789}
It was then that his brilliant army, beyond a doubt the most
efficient of its age, was struck down by the hand of fate. A
plague broke out which ravaged the city as well as the army,
but which almost annihilated the latter. … He could no longer
strike an effective blow at the Lombards. But he did not on
that account lose his head. In Pavia he pronounced the bann
against the cities; they answered by now first strengthening
their bonds of union on a large scale. The cities which had

previously been allied with Venice, and all the others,
entered into a league which all were to swear to uphold; at
the head of it was Venice. They were to make common cause in
war and peace and to perform no services other than the
customary ones. … The emperor felt that he could not cope with
this new development and left Pavia. Only after great perils
did he escape. They strove quite openly to take his life. With
only a few companions he rescued himself. … In March 1172 the
emperor represented to the princes that the contagion of
faithlessness with which Italy had contaminated herself was
seeking to spread itself out over Greece and Sicily. The term
for the imperial campaign nevertheless was only set for two
years later. … In July 1174 the emperor with his army crossed
the Alps over the Mt Cenis. At this very time the Italians had
opposed to him a new bulwark—a new city which they called
Allessandria in honor of the pope. The emperor first attacked
this but met with an opposition similar to that which
Archbishop Christian experienced before Ancona. … Many
conferences took place between the imperial plenipotentiaries,
the delegates of the cities and the papal legates. But these
latter, standing as they did at the same time in league with
the Greek emperor and the king of Sicily, felt themselves to
be the stronger. … Everything depended on his [Frederick's]
procuring new help. … The great all-deciding question was
whether Frederick would have Henry the Lion on his side; not
indeed exclusively on account of the actual help that he would
render but because his name in itself would increase the
prestige of the emperor. … The power of an emperor in its full
development seemed unbearable to Henry the Lion, even as in
earlier times it had been unbearable to the German princes. …
Henry's defection gave courage to the Italian cities. … On May
29, 1176, a battle took place near Legnano. … Brave as the
emperor was he nevertheless suffered a complete defeat. … The
letter is extant which the Milanese wrote to the Bolognese
concerning the battle. Countless, so they exclaim, are the
slain, the drowned, the prisoners. We have the shield, the
standard, the lance and the cross of the emperor. Incalculable
is the booty. … It is the battle through which the freedom and
the progress of Italian nationality were founded. … Here [in
Venice] now, with the pope and the king of Sicily a peace,
with the Lombards a truce of six years was brought about. Then
took place that famous meeting of the pope and the emperor in
Venice, on the 24th of July 1177. … With the cities the
emperor closed the peace of Constance in the year 1183. He
acknowledged therein the extension of their jurisdiction over
the surrounding territory and sanctioned their league but
retained for himself three things:
1. his regalia, of which however an estimate was to be made
according to their value and which were to be compensated for
by payment of a fixed sum from each city;
2. the investiture of the consuls; …
3. the right that appeals should be made within Italy to
imperial representatives.
It does not appear that these reservations greatly interfered
with the liberty of the cities. … In a word, the two opponents
of the empire in Italy had achieved great victories. The
emperor had abandoned the idea of maintaining the old
supremacy of the empire over the church and of subjecting the
cities to his administration; he did not however on that
account break off his connection with them. In 1184 he again
came to Italy; for a yearly sum of 300 lire he abandoned all
the rights that he had hitherto claimed from the cities and
allied himself with them. … Meanwhile the emperor succeeded in
making the greatest possible acquisition in Lower Italy. For
that Norman kingdom which the Germans had so often attacked in
vain there was only an heiress left, Constance, aunt of the
ruling king. Bitterly as the pope opposed it the emperor was
nevertheless able to bring about a marriage between her and
his son Henry VI. and thus to secure for him the sure prospect
of succeeding to Naples and Sicily. … Without knowing it
Frederick thus tied a new knot which was to be decisive for
the fate of his house and, we might even say, of Germany
itself."
L. von Ranke,
Weltgeschichte
(translated from the German).
volume 8. pages 171-209.
ALSO IN:
K. Lamprecht,
Deutsche Geschichte.
See, also, ITALY: A. D. 1154-1162, to 1174-1183
(pages 1811-1813).
ITALY: A. D. 1644.
First publication of gazettes, or newspapers.
See PRINTING AND PRESS: A. D. 1612-1650 (page 2592).
ITALY: A. D. 1870.
Law of the Papal Guarantees.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1870 (page 2477).
ITALY: A. D. 1882-1895.
Acquisitions in Abyssinia.
See (in this Supplement) AFRICA:
1882, 1885, 1889, 1889-1890, 1890-1891, 1894-1895.
ITALY: Constitution.
For a translation of the text,
see (in this Supplement) CONSTITUTION OF ITALY.
ITALY: Libraries.
See LIBRARIES, RENAISSANCE, and MODERN (page 2012).
----------ITALY: End--------
J.
JAPAN: A. D. 1894-1895.
War with China.
See (in this Supplement) COREA.
JAPAN: Libraries.
See LIBRARIES, MODERN: JAPAN (page 2024).
JEANNE D'ARC, The family, the home and the circumstances of.
See (in this Supplement) FRANCE: A. D. 1423-1429;
also, page 1175.
JEANNETTE, Polar voyage of the.
See (in this Supplement) ARCTIC EXPLORATION: 1879-1882.
JEFFERSON'S GUNBOATS.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1804-1805 (page 3332).
JENNER, Dr. Edward, and the discovery of Vaccination.
See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 18TH CENTURY (page 2140).
{3790}
JEWS:
Ancient commerce.
Connection with the Phœnicians.
See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE, ANCIENT.
JEWS:
Ancient money.
See MONEY AND BANKING: JEWS (page 2203).
JEWS:
Medical Science.
See MEDICAL SCIENCE, JEWISH (page 2124).
JOAN OF ARC, The family, the home and the circumstances of.
See (in this Supplement) FRANCE: A. D. 1423-1429;
also, page 1175.
JOSEPH II., Emperor: His character and his reforms.
See (in this Supplement) AUSTRIA: A. D. 1780-1790.
JUDICATURE ACTS, The.
See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1873 (page 1981).
JURY, Trial by.
See LAW, COMMON (page 1956, and after).
JUSTICES OF THE PEACE.
See LAW, CRIMINAL: A. D. 1344 (page 1983).
JUSTICIARY, Chief: Disappearance of the office.
See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1265 (page 1962).
K.
KANE, Dr. Elisha Kent,
Polar expeditions and adventures of.
See (in this Supplement) ARCTIC EXPLORATION:
1850-1851, and 1853-1855.
KARNATIC, The.
"Bishop Caldwell says: 'When the Muhammadans arrived in
Southern India, they found that part of it with which they
first became acquainted-the country above the Gháts, including
Mysore and part of Telingána—called the Karnataka country. In
course of time, by a misapplication of terms, they applied the
same name Karnatak, or Carnatic, to designate the country
below the Gháts, as well as that which was above. The English
have carried the misapplication a step further, and restricted
the name to the country below the Gháts, which never had any
right to it whatever. Hence the Mysore country, which is
properly the true Karnatic, is no longer called by that name;
and what is now geographically termed "the Karnatic" is
exclusively the country below the Gháts, on the Coromandel
coast, including the whole of the Tamil country and the
Telugu-speaking District of Nellore.'"
W. W. Hunter,
Imperial Gazetteer of India: Karnatic
(volume 5).
KASHGAR.
See TURKESTAN (page 3130),
and YAKOOB BEG (page 3662).
KASSHITE, OR KASSITE, DYNASTY, The.
See SEMITES: THE FIRST BABYLONIAN EMPIRE (page 2890).
KENT, Chancellor, and American jurisprudence.
See LAW, EQUITY: A. D. 1814-1823 (page 19(3).
KILMAINHAM TREATY, The.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1881-1882 (page 1797).
KING'S LIBRARY, The.
See LIBRARIES, MODERN (page 2014).
KING'S PEACE, The.
See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 871-1066, 1100, 1135, and 1300
(pages 1956, 1958 and 1963).
KNIGHTS OF LABOR, The.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1869-1883 (page 2952).
KOCH, Dr. Robert, Bacteriological studies of.
See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 19TH CENTURY (page 2146).
KOLDEWY, Captain, Polar expedition of.
See (in this Supplement) ARCTIC EXPLORATION: 1869-1870.
KOREA.
See (in this Supplement) COREA.
KULTURKAMPF, The.
See (in this Supplement) GERMANY: A. D. 1870-1874.
L.
LAFAYETTE, General: Visit to the United States.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1824-1825 (page 3365).
LAND, Ultimate property in.
See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1776 (page 1974).
LAND, Indian right of occupancy.
See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1823 (page 1976).
LAND ACT OF 1881, The Irish.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1881-1882 (page 1797).
LAND REGISTRATION.
See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1630-1641 (page 1969).
LAND-TRANSFER REFORM.
See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1854-1882, and 1889
(pages 1980-1981).
LASSALLE, Ferdinand, and German Socialism.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1862-1864 (page 2949).
LATIN UNION, The.
See MONEY and BANKING: A. D. 1853-1874 (page 2218).
LAW, Roman.
See ROMAN LAW (page 2652).
LEE, Arthur, in France.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776-1778
(pages 3242-3244).
LEGAL TENDER NOTES.
See MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1861-1878 (page 2219).
LEO THE GREAT, Pope.
See PAPACY: A. D. 42-461 (page 2421);
and HUNS: A. D. 452 (page 1689).
L'ESTRANGE, Roger, and the early newspaper press in England.
See PRINTING AND PRESS: A. D. 1654-1694 (page 2596).
LEVANT, The.
A term applied to the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean,
from the western part of Greece round to the western border of
Egypt—more specifically to the coasts and islands of Asia
Minor and Syria. The name—which signifies "rising" hence "the
East"—was given to this region by the Italians.
LIBEL, The Criminal Law of.
See LAW, CRIMINAL: A. D. 1770, and 1843
(pages 1984 and 1986).
LIBERTY, Religious.
See in this Supplement:
TOLERATION, RELIGIOUS. (page 3807)
LINCOLN, Abraham:
Debate with Douglas.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1858 (page 3401).
First Inaugural Address.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: (page 3417).
First Message.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: (pages 3421 and 3448).
First call for troops.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: (page 3423).
Proclamation of Blockade.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: (page 3427).
Suspensions of Habeas Corpus.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: (page 3447).
Message proposing compensated Emancipation.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: (page 3453).
{3791}
Letter to Horace Greeley.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: (page 3476).
Preliminary Proclamation of Emancipation.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: (page 3480).
Final Proclamation of Emancipation.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: (page 3487).
Letter to General Hooker.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: (page 3489).
Letters to New York and Ohio Democrats.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: (page 3407).
Address at Gettysburg.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: (page 3514).
Proclamation of Amnesty and Message.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: (page 3515).
Plan of Reconstruction.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: (page 3518).
Re-election.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: (page 3533).
Hampton Roads Peace Conference.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: (page 3546).
Second Inaugural Address.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: (page 3549).
Last Speech.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: (page 3551).
At Richmond.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: (page 3554).
Assassination.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: (page 3(55).
LINE-OF-BATTLE SHIP.
See SHIP OF THE LINE (page 2901).
LISTER, and Antiseptic Surgery.
See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 10TH CENTURY (page 2145).
LIVINGSTONE, David, Explorations of.
See (in this Supplement) AFRICA: 1840, 1840, and after.
LOBENGULA, War of the English with.
See SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1885-1893 (page 2965).
LOMBARD BANKERS AND MONEY-CHANGERS.
See MONEY AND BANKING (pages 2205 and 2206).
LORD KEEPER OF THE GREAT SEAL, The.
See LAW, EQUITY: A. D. 1538 (page 1000).
LOUIS IX., King of France (called St. Louis).
See (in this Supplement) FRANCE: A. D. 1226-1270.
François Guizot,
Great Christians of France: Saint Louis and Calvin.
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62518
LOUIS XV., King of France, Fatal foreign policy of the reign of.
See (in this Supplement) FRANCE: A. p. 1715-1770.
McCLINTOCK, Captain, Franklin search expeditions of.
See (in this Supplement) ARCTIC EXPLORATION:
1852-1854, and 1857-1859.
McCLURE, Captain, Franklin search expedition of.
See (in this Supplement) ARCTIC EXPLORATION: 1850-1854.
McKINLEY TARIFF ACT, The.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION: A. D. 1890 (page 3085).
MADAGASCAR.
See (in this Supplement) AFRICA.
MANCHUS.
MANCHURIA.
"The Manchus, from the earliest period of Chinese history,
have occupied the country bounded on the east by the Japanese
Sea, which is drained in its southern portion by the Tumun, by
the right affluents of the Ya-lu-kiang, and by the upper
portions of the left affluents of the Liau; and in its
northern portion by the right affluents of the Upper Soongari,
and the Lower Soongari, and Lower Amoor, with their affluents
on both sides. This extent of country may be fitly called
Manchuria Proper, to distinguish it from the present political
Manchuria. This latter embraces not only the real Manchuria,
but also a tract on the east side of the Liau, composed of the
lower valleys of its left affluents, and of the Liau
peninsula, and another on the west of the Liau, lying between
its right bank and the Great Wall. Now these two tracts, known
severally as Liau-tung or Liau East and Liau-se or Liau West,
have, from the earliest historical periods, been occupied by a
Chinese population, with the settled habits of their nation:
agriculturists, artisans, and traders, dwellers in villages
and cities. Hence, though situated beyond the Great Wall, it
has always been a part, though a very exposed and often
politically separated part, of China Proper. Manchuria Proper,
as above defined, is a mountainous, well-watered tract,
formerly altogether covered with forests, of which large
portions still remain. The principal mountain range is the
Chang-pih-shan, or Shan-a-lin, or Long White Mountains. … As
the great arid plateau, the Shamo, has given to the Mongols
their national characteristics, so the Long White Mountains,
with their northerly spurs, separating the Upper Soongari, the
Hurka, and the Usuri, have constituted the character-giving
home and stronghold of the Manchus. These, unlike the Mongols,
who have 'moved about after grass and water,' have always been
a settled people, who in ancient times dwelt during the cold
season in holes excavated in the sides of dry banks, or in
pits in the earth, and during summer in huts formed of young
trees and covered with bark or with long wild grass. They
have, unlike the Mongols, from the earliest periods been
somewhat of agriculturists; like them they have always reared
domestic animals. … It has hitherto been the custom among
Occidentals to speak of the Manchus as 'Tartars;' but if, as I
believe, this name generally conveys the idea of a people of
nomadic herdsmen, and usually large owners of camels, it will
be seen from the foregoing sketch that it is altogether a
misnomer as applied to the Manchus. … In the 11th century
before Christ this nation appeared at the court of the Chow
dynasty as Suh-chin, and presented tribute, a portion of which
consisted of stone-headed arrows. In the 3d century after
Christ they reappeared as Yih-low. … In the 5th, 6th, and 7th
centuries after Christ we find them under the names of
Wuh-keihs, and Mo-hos, still described as rude barbarians, but
politically organized as a confederation of seven large tribes
or seven groups of tribes. At length, in the beginning of the
8th century, a family named Ta, belonging to the Suhmo-Mo-hos,
that member of the confederation whose territory lay
immediately on the north of Corea and north-east of Liau East,
established themselves as rulers over the whole of Manchuria
Proper, over Liau East, and over a large portion of Corea. In
A. D. 712, the then Whang-ti, or Emperor of China, conferred
the title of Prince of Po-hae on the head of the family; but
the immediate successors of this prince shook off even the
form of vassalage, and by their conquest of Northern Corea and
Liau East, assumed a position of hostility to the Whang-ti.
Po-hac, the name adopted by the new rulers, became the name of
the Manchu Nation; which under it for the first time takes a
place in history, as constituting a civilized State with a
centralized administration. … It was overthrown by the Ketans.
About these the Chinese accounts conflict as to whether they
were a Manchu or a Mongol tribe: I consider them more of the
former than of the latter. They took their rise in the valleys
of the Hu-lan, a small northern branch of the Soongari, which
falls into the latter about 100 miles below its junction with
the Nonni.
{3792}
The Ketans had possessed themselves of Eastern Mongolia, and
been engaged in successful war on China before they, in A. D.
926, attacked the Po-hae state, which they speedily overthrew,
incorporating into their own dominions all Manchuria Proper
and the East of the Liau. Before the middle of the 10th
century, they had conquered nearly all Mongolia and Northern
China. … They assumed for their dynasty the name of Liau, that
of the river which flows past this port. Under the eighth of
the line, their power had sunk so much that it fell easily
before the attacks of A-kuh-ta, the chief of a purely Manchu
tribe or commune, the Neu-chins, whose original seat was the
country between the Upper Soongari and the Hurka. The
Neu-chins rebelled against the Ketans or Liaus in A. D. 1113.
Within 15 years, they had possessed themselves of the whole of
Manchuria, Mongolia, and Northern China, driving the Chinese
Whang-ti to the south of the Great River, and themselves
establishing a rival line under the name of Kin, or Golden;
adopted because their own country Manchuria 'was a
gold-producing one.' The Neu-chins or Kins were in their turn
overthrown by the Mongols, under Ghenghis Khan and his
immediate successors. Manchuria came under their power about
A. D. 1217, Northern China, about A. D. 1233, and Southern
China, about A. D. 1280, when they established—it was the
first time the thing had happened—a line of non-Chinese
Whang-tis in undisputed possession of that dignity. … The
Mongol dynasty maintained itself in China for about 90 years,
when (in A. D. 1368) the last Whang-ti of the line was driven
to the north of the Great Wall by the forces of a Chinese
rebel, who established himself at Nanking as the first
Whang-ti of the Ming dynasty."
T. T. Meadows
(Quoted in A. Williamson's "Journeys in North China,"
volume 2, chapter 4).
In 1644 the Ming dynasty was overthrown by a domestic
rebellion in China, and a Manchu prince, called in by one of
the generals of the fallen government, established himself on
the throne, where his descendants have reigned to this day.
See CHINA:A. D. 1294-1882 (page 420) and after.
MANSFIELD, Lord, and Commercial Law.
See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1756-1788, and 1783 (page 1973).
MARSHALL, John, as Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court of the United States.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1801 (page 3326).
MARX, Karl, and the socialistic movements of his time.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1839-1894, 1843-1883, 1862-1872
(pages 2941, 2945, 2951).
MASAILAND, Exploration of.
See (in this Supplement) AFRICA: 1860-1861, 1871 and after.
MASHONALAND, English occupation of.
See SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1885-1893 (page 2965);
also (in this Supplement) AFRICA.
MASSACHUSETTS, Free Libraries in.
See LIBRARIES, MODERN (page 2021).
MASTER OF THE ROLLS.
See LAW, EQUITY: A. D. 1066 (page 1988).
MATABELELAND, English occupation of.
See SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1885-1893 (page 2965);
also (in this Supplement) AFRICA: 1888.
MEDICAL PROFESSION, Women in the.
See WOMAN'S RIGHTS: A. D. 1842-1892 (page 3658).
MENNONITES, The.
"The Mennonites take their name from Menno Simons, born in
Witmarsum, Holland, in 1492. He entered the priesthood of the
Roman Catholic Church, and in 1524 was appointed chaplain in
Pingium. Two years later he began to read the Scriptures,
which he had hitherto ignored. Becoming a close student of
them, his views on various doctrines soon changed, and he was
known as an evangelical preacher. … He renounced Catholicism
early in 1536, and was baptized at Leeuwarden. In the course
of the following year he was ordained a minister in what was
then known as the Old Evangelical or Waldensian Church. From
this time on to his death, in 1559, he was active in the cause
of evangelical truth, traveling through northern Germany, and
preaching everywhere. The churches which he organized as a
result of his labors rejected infant baptism and held to the
principle of non-resistance. A severe persecution began to
make itself felt against his followers, the Mennonites; and,
having heard accounts of the colony established in the New
World by William Penn, they began to emigrate to Pennsylvania
near the close of the 17th century. … Successive immigrations
from Holland, Switzerland, Germany, and, in the last
twenty-five years, from southern Russia, have resulted in
placing the great majority of Mennonites in the world on
American soil, in the United States and Canada."
H. K. Carroll,
The Religious Forces of the United States,
chapter 28.
MICHIGAN WILD CAT BANKS.
See MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1837-1841 (page 2215).
MIDDLE AGES, Commerce of the.
See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE, MEDIÆVAL.
MILLS TARIFF BILL, The.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION: A. D. 1884-1888 (page 3085).
MINNESOTA, University of.
"Two years after the organization of the territory, the
Legislature petitioned Congress for a grant of 100,000 acres
of land to endow a university, and on the very day of this
petition two townships were set aside for that purpose. The
Legislature went on to enact that the University of Minnesota
should be established at or near the Falls of St. Anthony and
should have the income from all land thereafter granted by the
United States for University purposes. Under this grant the
regents selected a large portion of the lands and erected a
costly edifice, but they were soon obliged to mortgage both
building and lands in order to meet the obligations incurred.
Affairs were in this condition when Congress passed the act
admitting Minnesota to the Union, by which two townships of
land were granted for the use and support of a State
university. … Efforts were at once made to open the
university, but the financial crisis of 1857 and the Civil War
checked further action and encumbered the university with
debt. … The present organization of the university dates from
1868, when an act was passed 'to reorganize the University of
Minnesota and to establish an agricultural college therein.'
In the following year college classes were first organized.
The act of 1868 provided that the university should have the
income from the agricultural college grant. … From the
university lands that have been sold something over $800,000
has been received, from which there is an annual income of
about $37,000."
F. W. Blackmar,
History of Federal and State Aid to Higher Education
in the United States
(Bureau of Education, Circular of Information, 1890, no. 1),
pages 295-297.
{3793}
MISSIONS, Christian, in Africa.
See (in this Supplement) AFRICA.
MISSISSIPPI RIVER: The question of navigation in dispute with Spain.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1784-1788 (page 3293).
MORMONS: Abandonment of Polygamy.
See UTAH: A. D. 1882-1893 (page 3591).
MORRISON TARIFF BILL, The.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION: A. D. 1884-1888 (page 3083).
MORSE, SAMUEL F. B., Telegraphic inventions of.
See ELECTRICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION:
A. D. 1825-1874 (page 773).
T. O'Conor Sloane
The Standard Electrical Dictionary
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26535
MORTON, Dr., and the discovery of Anæsthetics.
See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 19th CENTURY (page 2144).
MOSQUITO COUNTRY.
See (in this Supplement) NICARAGUA.
N.
NANSEN, Dr., Arctic expeditions of.
See (in this Supplement) ARCTIC EXPLORATION: 1888, and 1893.
NAPOLEON I., and Germany.
See (in this Supplement) GERMANY: A. D. 1796-1807.
NARES, Captain, Polar voyage of.
See (in this Supplement) ARCTIC EXPLORATION: 1875-1876.
NATIONALIST MOVEMENT, The.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1888-1893 (page 2956).
NETHERLANDS, Commerce of the.
See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE, MEDIÆVAL, AND MODERN.
NEUTRALITY, The Queen of England's Proclamation of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (page 3428).
NEW CHURCH, The.
See (in this Supplement) SWEDENBORG.
NEW HARMONY COMMUNITY. The.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1800-1824,
and 1805-1827 (pages 2936-2937).
NEW JERSEY, College of.
See (in this Supplement) PRINCETON COLLEGE.
NEW LANARK, Robert Owen's experiment at.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1800-1824 (page 2935).
NEWNHAM HALL.
See EDUCATION (page 746).
NICARAGUA, AND THE MOSQUITO INDIANS.
The question of the sovereignty of Nicaragua over the Mosquito
country was settled affirmatively by a convention concluded in
November, 1894. Great Britain at the same time gave assurances
to the United States that she asserts no rights of sovereignty
or protection over the country in question.
NIHILISM.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1860-1870 (page 2948).
NILE, Exploration of the sources of the.
See (in this Supplement) AFRICA.
NON-INTERCOURSE, The Jefferson policy of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1804-1809.
and 1808-1810 (pages 3332 and 3338).
NORDENSKIÖLD, Professor (Baron),
Achievement of the Northeast Passage by.
See (in this Supplement) ARCTIC EXPLORATION: 1878-1879.
NORTH AMERICA, The Bank of.
See MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1780-1784 (page 2212).
NORTHEAST AND NORTHWEST PASSAGE, Search for.
See (in this Supplement) ARCTIC EXPLORATION.
NORWAY, Libraries of.
See LIBRARIES, MODERN (page 2013).
O.
OBERLIN COLLEGE.
"Oberlin is a development from the missionary and reform
movements of the early quarter of our century. Its direct
impulse was the new spirit of active benevolence which tested
old doctrines by experience and by their fitness for organized
philanthropy. Its foundations were laid 23 years after the
organization of the American Foreign Missionary Association, 7
years after the first American temperance society, 15 years
before the first public move to extend the rights of women,
and in the same year with the American Anti-Slavery Society.
All of these reform movements were more or less united in the
Oberlin movement. The founders were themselves home
missionaries in the West and among the Indians, and Oberlin
has ever since been vital with the missionary spirit. From the
first, alcoholic beverages have been excluded. Although not
adopting the extreme doctrine of woman's rights, yet Oberlin
was the first college in the world to admit young women to all
its privileges on equal terms with young men; and as for its
anti-slavery leanings, it had received colored students into
its classes 28 years before emancipation. Such bold disregard
of the old landmarks was not attractive to the power and
wealth of the country, and so for 50 years Oberlin owed its
life to the sacrifice and devotion of its founders and
instructors. … In 1831 John J. Shipherd, under commission from
the American Home Missionary Society, entered upon his work as
pastor of the church at Elyria, Ohio. … In the summer of 1832
he was visited by Philo P. Stewart, an old school friend in
the days when they both attended the academy at Pawlet,
Vermont. Stewart, on account of the failing health of his
wife, had returned from mission work among the Choctaws in
Mississippi, but his heart was still burning with zeal for
extending Christian work in the West. The two men, after long
consultations and prayer, finally concluded that the needs of
the new country could best be met by establishing a community
of Christian families with a Christian school, … the school to
be conducted on the manual labor system, and to be open to
both young men and young women.
{3794}
It was not proposed to establish a college, but simply an
academy for instruction in English and useful languages, and,
if Providence should favor it, in 'practical theology.' In
accordance with this plan the corporate name 'Oberlin
Collegiate Institute' was chosen. Not until 1851 was a new and
broader charter obtained, this time under the name of 'Oberlin
College.' The name 'Oberlin' was chosen to signify the hope
that the members of the new enterprise might be moved by the
spirit of the self-sacrificing Swiss colporteur and pastor,
John Friederich Oberlin."
J. R Commons,
Oberlin College
(in Bureau of Education,
Circular of Information, 1801, no. 5),
pages 55-56.
OERSTED, and his discovery of the Electro-Magnet.
See ELECTRICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION:
A. D. 1820-1825 (page 772).
T. O'Conor Sloane
The Standard Electrical Dictionary
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26535
OHIO UNIVERSITY.
"Ohio University bears the double distinction of being the
first college in the United States founded upon a land
endowment from the national Government, and also of being the
oldest college in the Northwest Territory. … The university
owes its origin and endowment to the Ohio Company of
Associates, who in 1787 purchased a large tract of land from
the old board of treasury for the purpose of colonizing it
with pioneers from New England. … The honor of obtaining this
endowment belongs to Dr. [Manasseh] Cutler. … In 1795 the
lands to be devoted to the support of the university were
located. The townships selected were those now called Athens
and Alexander, in Athens County. General Rufus Putnam, who was
deeply interested in the proposed institution, used his
influence to secure settlers for the college lands. … December
18, 1799, the Territorial legislature appointed Rufus Putnam,
Benjamin Ives Gilman, and Jonathan Stone 'to lay off, in the
most suitable place within the townships, a town plat, which
should contain a square for the colleges; also lots suitable
for house lots and gardens for a president, professors,
tutors, etc., bordering on or encircled by spacious commons,
and such a number of town lots adjoining the said commons and
outlots as they shall think will be for the advantage of the
university.' … In 1802 the legislature of the Northwest
Territory passed an act establishing a university and giving
to it in trust the land grant."
G. W. Knight and J. R. Commons,
History of Higher Education in Ohio
(Bureau of Education,
Circular of Information, 1891, number 5).
ONEIDA COMMUNITY, The.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1848 (page 2946).
ONTARIO SCHOOL SYSTEM.
See EDUCATION, MODERN (page 733).
OTHO THE GREAT, and the restoration of the Empire.
See (in this Supplement) GERMANY: A. D. 962.
OWEN, Robert, and his social experiments.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1800-1824, 1805-1827,
and 1816-1886 (pages 2935, 2937, and 2938).
OYER AND TERMINER, Courts of.
See LAW, CRIMINAL: A. D. 1285 (page 1982).
P.
PAMIR, The.
The Pamir and Tibet, which converge north of India and east of
the Oxus, form jointly the culminating land of the continent.
Disposed at right angles, and parallel, the one to the
equator, the other to the meridian, they constitute the
so-called 'Roof,' or 'Crown of the World,' though this
expression is more usually restricted to the Pamir alone. With
its escarpments, rising above the Oxus and Tarim plains west
and east, the Pamir occupies, in the heart of the continent,
an estimated area of 30,000 square miles. With its
counterforts projecting some 300 miles, it forms the western
headland of all the plateaux and mountain systems skirting the
Chinese Empire; it completely separates the two halves of
Asia, and forms an almost impassable barrier to migration and
war-like incursions. Yet notwithstanding its mean elevation of
13,000 feet above arable land, it has been frequently crossed
by small caravans of traders or travellers, and by light
columns of troops. The attempt could not fail to be frequently
made to take the shortest route across the region separating
the Oxus from Kashgaria, and Europe from China. Hence the
Pamir has often been traversed by Greeks, Romans, Arabs,
Italians, Chinese, some as traders, some as explorers, some
inspired by religious zeal. But of these travellers very few
have left any record of their journey, and all took the lowest
routes across the plateau."
E. Reclus,
The Earth and its Inhabitants: Asia,
volume 1, chapter 3, section 2.
PANIC OF 1873, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1873 (page 3574).
----------PAPACY: Start--------
PAPACY: 11th Century.
The Church and the first Crusading movement.
See (in this Supplement) CRUSADES.
PAPACY: 11-12th Centuries.
The Question of the Investitures.
"By investiture in mediaeval church law is meant the act of
bestowing a church office, with the use of symbols, on the
clergyman who has been appointed to fill it. It is especially
to signify the act by which secular princes conferred on the
chosen candidates the offices of bishop and abbot that the
word is used since the eleventh century. The struggle which
the papacy and the church carried on in the last half of the
11th and on into the 12th century for the purpose of doing
away with this same right of the princes to confer such
offices is called in consequence the war of the investitures.
That the nomination of the bishops was a right pertaining to
the sovereign was a view of the matter which had gained ground
already in the time of the Frankish monarchy. The German kings
up to the eleventh century insisted all the more on this right
from the fact that the bishoprics and imperial abbacies had in
course of time lost their original character of church
organizations. They had been appanaged with imperial and other
lands, with political and public rights, with immunities,
rights of coinage etc. … They had, in consequence, become
transformed into political districts, on a par with those of
the secular princes and obliged, like the latter, to bear the
public burdens, especially that of providing war-contingents
and supplies. It Is true that in the period in question,
although for the most part the king openly and freely filled
the bishoprics and abbacies of his own accord, some elections
had been carried through by the cathedral chapter, the other
secular canons, the nobles, vassals and ministeriales of the
bishopric. This was usually on the ground of royal privileges,
of special royal permission, or of a designation of the
candidate by the king.
{3795}
However the person might have been elected he could only enter
into possession of the bishopric or abbacy after the king had
formally conferred the office upon him. The death of a bishop
would be announced to the king by envoys from the episcopal
residence who at the same time, handing over the episcopal
crosier and ring, would beg that the king would see to the
refilling of the vacant office. It need hardly be said that
any new candidate who might in the meantime have been elected
presented himself likewise at court. The king discussed the
matter of the bestowal of the vacant bishopric or abbacy with
his secular and ecclesiastical nobles and councillors. His
next step was to confer the office on the candidate he had
chosen by means of investiture, that is by handing him the
episcopal crosier and ring. The candidate in return had to
take the oath of fealty and to perform the act of homage, the
so-called hominium. This is how an episcopal office, at that
time regarded as a conglomeration of ecclesiastical and
secular rights, was regularly filled. … After the middle of
the 11th century there began to show itself within the
reform-party, which at that time gave the tone at Rome, a
tendency, ever growing stronger, in favor of achieving the
complete liberation of the church from the secular influence.
The German kingdom and empire were to be subordinated to the
papacy as to the proper controlling power. Those who held
these views declared that the investiture of the bishops and
abbots by the king was simony because, as was the custom on
the part of those receiving other feudal grants, certain
presents were made in return. It was demanded that the
episcopal symbols, the ring and the crosier, should no longer
be disposed of at the hand of a layman. As a matter of fact
there had frequently been carried on an unworthy traffic with
the bishoprics in consequence of the manner of conferring
them. The ecclesiastical legislators, besides passing general
laws against simony, came forward at first cautiously enough
with the regulation that the clergy should accept no churches
from the hands of a layman. The direct clash with the German
court came later, in 1068, where the king had conferred the
bishopric of Milan as usual through investiture, while the
people, under the influence of the papal reform-party,
demanded a bishop elected canonically and with Rome's consent.
The king did not give way and Gregory VII, in the Roman synod
of 1074, increased the severity of the earlier laws against
simony, opening the struggle in a synod of the following year
by ordaining that the people should not be present at
ecclesiastical functions performed by those clergy who had
gained office through simony, the reference being to those
bishops who adhered to the king. Furthermore the royal right
of conferring bishoprics by investiture was now directly
denied. With this attack on an old and customary prerogative
of the German king, one to which in earlier times had even
been expressly acknowledged by the pope, an attempt was made
to thoroughly undermine the foundations of the German empire
and to rob the royal power of one of its chief supports. The
bishops and abbots were princes of the realm, possessing,
besides a number of privileges, the large feudal and allodial
holdings which went with their churches. They had, on behalf
of their bishoprics, to sustain the largest share of the
empire's burdens. The crown found in them the chief props and
supports of its power, for the ecclesiastical principalities
could be freely granted to devoted adherents without regard to
the hereditary dynastic claims of families. The only legal
bond by which these princes were bound to the crown was the
investiture with its oath of fealty and homage. The
prohibition of this, then, denoted the cessation of the
relationship which assured the dependence of the
ecclesiastical princes on the king and on the empire and the
performance of their duties to that empire. It delivered over
the considerable material wealth and power of the imperial
bishoprics and abbacies to a clergy that was loosed from all
connection with the crown. With regard to the manner in which
in future, according to the opinion of Gregory VII or the
church-reform party, the bishoprics were to be filled, the
above-mentioned synod does not express itself. The decrees of
the Roman synod of 1080, as well as Gregory's own further
attitude, however, make it appear unquestionable that, with
the formal restoration of the old so-called canonical election
by clergy and people in common with the metropolitan and his
suffragans, he purposed the actual subjection to the pope of
the episcopacy and of the resources which in consequence of
its political position stood at its command. From the election
of a secular clergy which should be freed from national and
state interests by the carrying out of the celibacy laws—an
election in which metropolitans who were to be kept in
dependence on the papal throne were to play their part—there
could result as a rule only bishops submissive to the papal
court. All the more so as the Roman synod of 1080, in a form
probably intentionally vague, gave the pope a right,
concurrent with that of the archbishop, of testing the
elections and of hindering any such as might be objectionable
to the court of Rome. That the bishops and abbots elected in
this way were to retain their former possessions and
privileges in the empire was taken by Gregory VII as a matter
of course. But were this the case their considerable resources
stood wholly at the disposition of the papal chair; on the
pope it depended what amount of services he would still allow
for the benefit of the empire. Nay, more, as regards the
ecclesiastical princes the pope would actually have taken the
place of the emperor and king and could command the movements
of the most insignificant vassal of a bishopric. … The dispute
was finally ended by the concordat agreed to at Lobweisen
(near Lorsch) and announced at Worms: … In the concordat the
emperor renounced wholly the former investing with the
bishop's and abbot's office by means of crosier and ring, and
granted that in all churches these offices should be filled by
canonical election and by the free consecration of the person
elected. On the other hand the pope granted that the election
of bishops and abbots belonging to the German kingdom might
take place in presence of the emperor but without simony or
violence, and that the emperor should have a right, employing
the sceptre as a symbol and causing homage to be rendered, to
perform the investiture—before the consecration, namely—with
regard to the regalia, i. e. the totality of the landed
possessions and rights which belonged to the individual
bishopric or abbacy. …
{3796}
With the Concordat of Worms the church and the papacy, after a
long struggle, had gained the victory over the empire. Even
though the papal party had not been able to put through all
its demands with regard to the question of investitures, yet
the empire was compelled to renounce rights which had been
exercised unassailed for centuries, and thereby to confirm the
emancipation of the papacy from the former imperial
overlordship, thus stamping its position as an independent
political power. This success was the more considerable for
the reason that the agreement of Worms had established the
ecclesiastical and imperial rights only in the most general
terms and in an equivocal form, but had left the further
development of the new manner of conferring the offices to be
decided by practice. … If already the Hohenstaufens of the
12th century had succeeded only with great efforts in
protecting themselves against such interpretation of the
Concordat as infringed on the imperial rights, there was,
naturally, in the 13th century,—in view of the condition of
the empire, the political situation of Germany, and the
predominating supremacy of the papacy,—no further question of
such an attitude. … In this form of interpretation, given to
it by usage and derogatory to the imperial rights, the
Concordat of Worms remained the basis of the German imperial
law regarding the collation of bishoprics and imperial
abbacies until the dissolution of the German empire in 1806."
Hinschius,
Investiturstreit
(Herzog's Realencyklopaedie für protestantische
Theologie und Kirche, volume 6).
See, also, PAPACY: A. D. 1056-1122 (pages 2427-2431).
PAPACY: A. D. 1162-1177.
The Pope and the Emperor.
"In this fullness of his power [after the destruction of
Milan, 1162] the emperor came anew into conflict with the
papacy. Reason enough for it was that the emperor intended to
treat Rome also as a city of the empire like the rest. …
Between the claims of the two powers there was an ineradicable
fundamental difference which showed itself at every moment.
What the papacy did, to continually bring forward and maintain
new rights, the empire could, after all, do also. Among other
ways the remarkable contradiction finds utterance thus, that
the emperor claims to be above the law, the pope above
tribunals; the one is the chief, unrestricted lawgiver, the
other the chief judge over all. The emperor rose up in injured
self-esteem when the pope used the word 'benefice' in speaking
of his relations with the empire. The pope was forced to
explain the word, which had two meanings, in its more harmless
sense. The Lombard cities always maintained that they had been
strengthened in their opposition by Adrian IV. It is probable
that already between the emperor and this pope a struggle
would have taken place; but Adrian died (at Anagni, September
1, 1159), and after his death there was a disputed papal
election. There was a powerful imperial faction among the
cardinals but a still more powerful anti-German one. At the
election it came to a hand to hand fight, as it were, between
the two candidates. The purple mantle was just about to be
laid on the shoulders of the anti-imperial cardinal Roland
when the imperial candidate Octavian rushed in and tore it
away from him. The latter was first proclaimed in Rome as
Victor IV, the former was consecrated in Ninfa as Alexander
III. The emperor saw here an opportunity of extending his
power, indirectly at least, over the papacy also. He ordered
both popes to appear at a council which he called. He took
occasion to recall to remembrance an old right of the empire,
the right of holding councils and passing judgment on the
papacy. He accordingly appointed a church assembly to be held
in Pavia and invited to it, as he says in his summons, all the
bishops of England, France, Hungary, Denmark and his own
kingdom. What a conception he had of his own dignity is shown
by the words: 'It is enough to have one God, one pope, one
emperor, and it is proper that there should be only one
church.' In venturing once more to pass judgment on
Frederick's actions and to inquire, solely from a historical
point of view, how far his ideas deviated from previous ones I
find that in this case he went to work exactly as he did
against the cities. From the oldest times church conflicts had
been settled by the emperor with the assistance of a council;
since the days of Otto I immense achievements had been made in
this way; but never yet had a German emperor called together
at the same time the bishops of all other kingdoms.
Frederick's deviation lay herein, that he appropriated to
himself this right. He did not stop at what was customary and
a matter of precedent but, on the basis of his own ideal
conception of the imperial rights, extended his claim until it
became altogether universal. It might have been possible to
maintain this claim; but, so much is certain, it could only

have happened after previous arrangement with the other
monarchs. The council was attended from all parts of the
empire on the one side or the other of the Alps. The emperor
left the deliberations in the hands of the clergy. They
declared in a body for Victor; the emperor spoke last and
accepted him. Thus did he understand the imperial power, thus
did he wish to exercise it. But it is evident that herewith
the whole conflict with the papacy came into an entirely new
stage. The emperor with his council wished to decide which
pope all Europe should obey. Naturally he met with opposition.
John of Salisbury expresses the point at issue very well;
'who,' he says, 'has made the Germans judges over the
nations?' One might almost say this had been their claim. In
so far as they appointed the emperor they wished also to have
the precedence over other nations. … Of the popes only one,
the favored one, Victor, submitted; the other, Alexander III,
declared the pope should summon and not be summoned, should
judge and not be judged. He was not willing to plunge the
church into a new slavery. For the time being Victor
maintained the supremacy in Italy. … The Romans dated their
legal documents according to the years of his pontificate.
Meanwhile Alexander III fled to France. He found support here
mainly from the fact that the western nations would not accord
to the emperor the supremacy over Europe which was implied in
his decision regarding the papacy. … For a moment the kingdom
of England seemed about to join in the church policy of the
German empire; they formed as it were a Germanic party. The
strict papistical idea was more the Romanic; but at the same
time it was that of the expanding freedom of the people.
{3797}
That is why Alexander III had also on his side the Lombard
cities which were opposing the emperor. Here too it was not a
mere faction but a grand idea. The cities, with their striving
for a constitution to a certain degree autonomic and resting
on a basis of free elections, sided with the idea of the
independence of the European kingdoms. From the depths of
European life arose mighty strivings which opposed the idea of
the emperor to renew the Roman empire and its prerogatives. …
In the year 1165 Alexander, coming from Salerno, was escorted
by William I [of Sicily] into Rome. This great opposition
against the German empire was joined also by the Greek
emperor, Manuel. He wished himself to attain the rule of the
Roman empire and in return the Greek and the Roman churches
were to be united. All at once Emperor Frederick found himself
involved in a most dangerous struggle, but he was determined
to fight it out. And he had the empire of the Germans on his
side in the matter. At a great diet in Wurzburg, at the
especial prompting of the imperial chancellor Raynald,
archbishop elect of Cologne, the emperor and the princes swore
never to acknowledge either Alexander III or any pope elected
by his party. Indeed no future emperor was to be elected who
would not promise to act accordingly. Stern obligations were
further attached to this oath. … In November 1166 the emperor
began his expedition for the purpose of driving out Pope
Alexander. But already under his very eyes the Lombard cities
were bestirring themselves against him."
L. von Ranke,
Weltgeschichte
(translated from the German)
volume 8, pages 179-185.
"The battle of Legnano, fought on May 29th, 1176, ended in
disaster and defeat. Frederick himself, who was wounded and
thrown from his horse, finally reached Pavia after days of
adventurous flight, having meanwhile been mourned as dead by
the remnant of his army. All was not yet lost, indeed, … but
Frederick, although he at first made a pretense of continuing
the war, was soon forced by the representations of his nobles
to abandon the policy of twenty-four years, and to make peace
on the best terms obtainable with Alexander III, and through
him with the Lombard cities. The oath of Wurzburg was broken
and the two treaties of Anagni and Venice put an end to the
long war. … The terms of the treaty were finally assented to
by the emperor at Chioggia, July 21st, 1177. Alexander now
prepared to carry out his cherished project of holding a
mighty peace congress at Venice; and there, at the news of the
approaching reconciliation, nobles and bishops and their
retinues came together from all parts of Europe. Now that the
peace was to become an accomplished fact Venice outdid herself
in preparing to honor the emperor. The latter, too, was
determined to spare no expense that could add to the splendor
of the occasion. He had negotiated for a loan with the rich
Venetians, and he now imposed a tax of 1,000 marks of silver
on his nobles. Frederick's coming was announced for Sunday,
July 24th, and by that time the city had donned its most
festive attire. … A platform had been constructed at the door
of the church, and upon it was placed a raised throne for the
pope. … Having reached the shore Frederick, in the presence of
an immense crowd, approached the papal throne, and, throwing
off his purple mantle, prostrated himself before the pope and
kissed the latter's feet. Three red slabs of marble mark the
spot where he knelt. It was a moment of world-wide importance;
the empire and the papacy had measured themselves in mortal
combat, and the empire, in form at least, was now surrendering
at discretion. No wonder that later ages have fabled much
about this meeting. The pope is said, with his foot on the
neck of the prostrate king, to have exclaimed aloud, 'The lion
and the young dragon shalt thou trample under thy feet!'"
E. F. Henderson,
History of Germany in the Middle Ages,
pages 277-279.
PAPACY: A. D. 1870-1874.
The "Kulturkampf" in its first stages.
See (in this Supplement) GERMANY: A. D. 1870-1874.
----------PAPACY: End--------
PARIS: A. D. 1788-1789.
The city during the Revolution.
See (in this Supplement) FRANCE: A. D. 1788-1789.
PARIS: Municipal Libraries.
See LIBRARIES, MODERN: (page 2011).
PARRY, Captain, Northern voyages of.
See (in this Supplement)
ARCTIC EXPLORATION: 1819-1820, and after.
PATENT-RIGHT.
See LAW, EQUITY: A. D. 1875 (page 1994).
PATRONS OF HUSBANDRY, The.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1866-1875 (page 2951).
PEARY ARCTIC EXPEDITIONS.
See (in this Supplement) ARCTIC EXPLORATION:
1886, 1891-1892, and 1893-1894.
PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1785.
The first Protective Tariff.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION: A. D. 1785 (page 3065).
PENNSYLVANIA BANK, The.
See MONEY AND BANKING: A, D. 1780-1784 (page 2212).
PENNSYLVANIA GERMANS.
"At the close of the Thirty Years' war there ran through
Protestant Germany a broad line; upon the one side of that
line stood the followers of Luther and Zwingli, of Melanchthon
and Calvin—these were the Church people; upon the other side
stood Menno Simon and 'The Separatists'—these were the Sect
people. It was a line which divided persecution by new
boundaries, and left the faggot and the stake in new hands,
for the Peace of Westphalia had thrown the guarantees of its
powerful protection only over the one side of this Protestant
division. … When 'the news spread through the Old World that
William Penn, the Quaker, had opened an asylum to the good and
the oppressed of every nation, and Humanity went through
Europe gathering up the children of misfortune,' our
forefathers came out from their hiding places in the forest
depths and the mountain valleys which the sun never
penetrated, clad in homespun, their feet shod with wood, their
dialects ofttimes unintelligible to each other. There was
scarcely a family among them which could not be traced to some
ancestor burned at the stake for conscience sake. Judge
Pennypacker says: 'Their whole literature smacks of fire.
Beside a record like theirs the sufferings of Pilgrim and
Quaker seem trivial.' … The thousands of Germans, Swiss and
Dutch who migrated here on the invitation of Penn, came
without ability to speak the English language, and without any
knowledge, except that derived from general report, of the
customs and habits of thought of the English people.
{3798}
They went vigorously to work to clear the wilderness and
establish homes. They were sober, religious, orderly,
industrious and thrifty. The reports the earlier settlers made
to their friends at home of the prosperity and liberty they
enjoyed in their new homes, induced from year to year many
others to come. Their numbers increased so much as to alarm
the proprietary officials. Logan wanted their immigration
prevented by Act of Parliament, 'for fear the colony would in
time be lost to the crown.' He wrote a letter in which he
says: 'The numbers from Germany at this rate will soon produce
a German colony here, and perhaps such a one as Britain
received from Saxony in the 5th Century.' As early as 1747,
one of the proprietary Governors attributed the prosperity of
the Pennsylvania colony to the thrift, sobriety and good
characters of the Germans. Numerous as they were, because this
was in its government a purely English colony, the part they
took in its public affairs was necessarily limited. The
Government officials and the vast majority of the members of
the Assembly were all English. During the long struggle in the
Colonies to adjust the strained relations with Great Britain,
the Germans were seemingly indifferent. They saw no practical
gain in surrendering the Penn Charter, and Proprietary
Government, under which they had obtained their homes, for the
direct rule of the British King. They could not understand the
distinction between King and Parliament. … When, therefore, in
1776, the issue was suddenly enlarged into a broad demand for
final separation from Great Britain, and the creation of a
Republic, all their traditional love of freedom was fully
aroused. Under the Proprietary rule, although constituting
nearly one-half the population of the colony, they were
practically without representation in the General Assembly,
and without voice in the Government. The right of 'electing or
being elected' to the Assembly was confined to natural born
subjects of England, or persons naturalized in England or in
the province, who were 21 years old, and freeholders of the
province owning fifty acres of seated land, and at least
twelve acres improved, or worth clear fifty pounds and a
resident for two years. Naturalization was not the simple
thing it now is. The conditions were exceptionally severe, and
comparatively few Germans qualified themselves to vote. The
delegates to the Colonial Congress were selected by the
General Assembly. In November, 1775, the Assembly instructed
the Pennsylvania delegates not to vote for separation from
Great Britain. The majority of the delegates were against
separation. … At the election for new members in May, 1776, in
Philadelphia, three out of four of those elected were opposed
to separation. The situation was most critical. Independence
and union were not possible without Pennsylvania.
Geographically, she was midway between the Colonies. She was
one of the wealthiest and strongest. Her government was in the
hands of those opposed to separation. One course only
remained. Peaceful efforts in the Assembly to enfranchise the
Germans, by repealing the naturalization laws and oath of
allegiance, had failed, and now this must be accomplished by
revolution, because their enfranchisement would give the
friends of liberty and union an overwhelming and aggressive
majority. This was the course resolved on. The Philadelphia
Committee called a conference of committees of the Counties.
On the 18th of June, 1776, this provincial conference,
numbering 104, met in Philadelphia. The German counties were
represented no longer by English tories. There were leading
Germans in the delegations from Philadelphia, Lancaster,
Northampton, York, Bucks and Berks. In Berks, the royalist
Biddle gives place to eight prominent Germans, headed by
Governor Heister, Colonels Hunter, Eckert and Lutz. The
proprietary government of Pennsylvania, with its Tory
Assembly, was overthrown—foundation, pillar and dome. This
conference called a Provincial Convention to frame a new
Government. On the petition of the Germans, the members of
that Convention were to be elected by persons qualified to
vote for Assembly, and by the military associators
(volunteers), being freemen 21 years of age, resident in the
province one year. This gave the Germans the right to vote.
Thus says Bancroft: 'The Germans were incorporated into the
people and made one with them.' The 19th of June, 1776,
enfranchised the Germans, and made the Declaration of
Independence possible. … It is absolutely true, that, as the
English people of the province were divided in 1776, the
Germans were the potential factors in securing the essential
vote of Pennsylvania for the Declaration of Independence. …
Throughout the Revolution, these Germans … were the steadfast
defenders of the new Republic. Dr. Stille, in his recent
admirable 'Life of Dickinson,' concedes that 'no portion of
the population was more ready to defend its homes, or took up
arms more willingly in support of the American cause.'
Washington, when in Philadelphia after the war, testified his
high appreciation of the hearty support the Germans gave him,
and the cause he represented, by worshiping with his family in
the old German church on Race street. The descendants of the
Pennsylvania-Germans have settled all over the West,
contributing to Ohio, Illinois and other Western States, the
same sturdy, honest population that characterizes
Pennsylvania. From Revolutionary times until now, they have
borne an honorable part In the Nation's history and progress."
E. K. Martin and G. F. Baer,
Addresses
(Proceedings,
Pennsylvania-German Convention, April 15, 1891),
pages 14-24.
PENNY NEWSPAPERS, The beginning of.
See PRINTING AND PRESS: A. D. 1830-1888,
and 1853-1870 (page 2601).
PETER, ST., and the Church at Rome.
See PAPACY (page 2417).
PETER THE HERMIT, and the first Crusade.
See (in this Supplement) CRUSADES.
PHŒNICIAN COMMERCE.
See (In this Supplement) COMMERCE, ANCIENT;
also PHŒNICIANS (page 2530).
PINEL, and the treatment of the Insane.
See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 18-19TH CENTURIES (page 2142).
PITT, William.
See CHATHAM.
{3799}
PLYMOUTH BRETHREN, The.
"The rise of Plymouth Brotherism was almost contemporaneous
with that of Tractarianism, and, far apart as the two systems
appear to be, they were partly due to the action of similar
causes. In both cases there was a dissatisfaction with the
state of spiritual life, and a longing for something more
real, more elevated in tone, more practical in results. … The
society or 'assembly,' as the Brethren love to call it, was a
development. There was no purpose on the part of its founders
of establishing any new sect or party. A few men with
spiritual affinities, desiring a religious fellowship which
they could not find in the ordinary services of their Church,
grouped themselves in small companies and held periodical
meetings for the study of the Scriptures, for Christian
conference, and for prayer. From the very beginning the
movement had attractions for devout men of high social
position and some culture. Mr. Darby, who was one of the
leading spirits in Dublin, and who is said by those who have
had personal acquaintance with the inner life of the Brethren
to wield a power over his followers to which there is no
parallel among ecclesiastics, except in the case of the Pope
himself, was originally a curate of the Church of Ireland. Mr.
Benjamin W. Newton, who was one of the principal members of
the similar society in Plymouth, which has given its name to
the movement, was a fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. Dr.
Tregelles, another of the Plymouth company, was a
distinguished Biblical scholar. Mr. A. Groves, who, perhaps,
rather than Mr. Darby or Mr. Newton, may be regarded as the
promoter of these meetings, but who early withdrew from the
party when, on a return from a visit to the East, he found
that their social religious gatherings were rapidly developing
into a distinct sectarian organization, was a student for the
Anglican ministry at Trinity College, Dublin. The Brethren
despise culture, and yet apart from men of culture it is hard
to see how the movement could have had such success."
J. G. Rogers,
The Church Systems of England in the 19th Century,
lecture 10.
POLAR EXPLORATION.
See (in this Supplement) ARCTIC EXPLORATION.
POLARIS, Voyage of the.
See (in this Supplement) ARCTIC EXPLORATION: 1871-1872.
PORTUGAL: Commerce.
See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE, MEDIÆVAL, AND MODERN.
PORTUGAL: Exploration, and colonization in Africa.
See (in this Supplement) AFRICA.
PRINCETON COLLEGE.
The College of New Jersey, more commonly called Princeton
College, "originated in the plan of Jonathan Dickinson, John
Pierson, Ebenezer Pemberton, Aaron Burr, with others, to found
an institution 'in which ample provision should be made for
the intellectual and religious culture of youth desirous to
obtain a liberal education, and more especially for the
thorough training of such as were candidates for the holy
ministry.' Its first charter was granted in 1746 by the
Honorable John Hamilton, President of His Majesty's Council,
and is noteworthy as the first college charter ever given in
this country by a Governor or acting Governor with simply the
consent of his Council. A second and more ample charter was
granted September 14th, 1748, by the 'trusty and well-beloved'
Jonathan Belcher, Esquire, Governor and Commander-in-chief of
the province of New Jersey. After the war of the Revolution,
the charter was confirmed and renewed by the Legislature of
New Jersey. The Corporation is styled in that instrument 'the
Trustees of the College of New Jersey.' … On April 27th, 1747,
the Trustees made a public announcement that they had
'appointed the Rev. Jonathan Dickinson, President,' and that
the college would be opened in the fourth week of May next at
Elizabethtown. President Dickinson having died on the 7th of
October following, the Rev. Aaron Burr assumed the duties of
the Presidency and the college was removed from Elizabethtown
to Newark. Soon after, it was removed from Newark to
Princeton, where in 1754-1755 the first college building was
erected. … The College of New Jersey, as now constituted,
includes the John C. Green School of Science. This
institution, which has its own professors and instructors, was
founded in 1873 upon an endowment of Mr. John C. Green. The
first college building, erected in 1754-5, was named Nassau
Hall, at the request of Governor Belcher."
College of New Jersey,
Catalogue, 1893-4,
pages 8-9.
ALSO IN:
J. F. Hageman,
History of Princeton and its Institutions.
PROFIT-SHARING EXPERIMENTS.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1842-1889,
and 1859-1887 (pages 2944 and 2947).
PROUDHON, and the doctrines of Anarchism.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1839-1894 (page 2941).
PROVISIONS OF OXFORD.
See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1258 (page 1962).
PRUSSIA, The rise of.
See (in this Supplement) GERMANY: A. D. 1618-1700;
also, page 309.
PULLMAN STRIKE, The.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1894 (page 2957).
R.
RAE, Dr., Franklin search expeditions of.
See (in this Supplement) ARCTIC EXPLORATION:
1851, and 1853-1854.
RAILWAYS, in modern inland commerce.
See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE, MODERN.
RAPP, George, and the Rappites.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1805-1827 (page 2937).
REDWOOD LIBRARY.
See LIBRARIES, MODERN:
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: (page 2019).
REFORMATION, The Protestant: Outline sketch.
See EUROPE (pages 1053-1065).
REFORMATION, The Protestant:
The beginning in Germany.
See (in this Supplement) GERMANY: 16TH CENTURY;
also, page 1456.
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
See below: TOLERATION, RELIGIOUS.
RENAISSANCE, Libraries of the.
See LIBRARIES, RENAISSANCE (page 2008).
ROCHDALE SOCIETY, The Co-operative.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1816-1886 (page 2938).
ROME:
Outline sketch of the history of the Republic and the Empire.
See EUROPE (pages 996-1013).
{3800}
ROME:
Charlemagne's restoration of the Empire in the West.
His imperial coronation and its significance.
"The Germans, who had destroyed the Western Empire, now, after
having been received into Roman civilisation and the bosom of
the Church, effected its restoration. And the Church, whose
laws controlled the West, created anew from within herself the
Roman Empire, as the political form of her cosmopolitan
principle, and that spiritual unity within which the Popes had
embraced so many nations. Her supremacy over all churches of
the West could, moreover, only attain complete recognition
through the Emperor and the Empire. The restoration of the
Empire was rendered necessary by the formidable power of
Islam, which not only harassed Byzantium, but, from the side
of Sicily and Spain, also threatened Rome. The Greek Emperors
could rule the West together with the East so long as the
Roman Church was weak, so long as Italy lay sunk in lethargy,
and the German West swarmed with lawless barbarians. It was no
longer possible to do so when the Church attained
independence, Italy consciousness of her nationality, and
Europe had become united in the powerful Frankish Empire, at
the head of which stood a great monarch. Thus the idea of
proclaiming Charles Emperor arose, and thus was carried out
the scheme with which the irate Italians had threatened Leo
the Isaurian at the beginning of the Iconoclastic controversy.
The West now demanded the occupation of the Imperial throne.
True, the Byzantine Empire had, in the course of time,
acquired a legal sanction. Byzantium, however, was but the
daughter of Rome. From Rome the Imperium had proceeded; here
the Cæsars had their seat. The illustrious mother of the
Empire now resumed her rights, when, as in ancient times, she
offered the Imperial crown to the most powerful ruler of the
West. … A transaction so momentous, and rendered necessary by
the ideas of the time and the demands of the West, but which,
nevertheless, bore the semblance of a revolt against the
rights of Byzantium, could scarcely have been the work of the
moment, but more probably was the result of a sequence of
historic causes and resolutions consequent upon them. Can we
doubt that the Imperial crown had been the goal of Charles's
ambition and the ideal of such of his friends as cherished
Roman aspirations? He himself came to Rome evidently to take
the crown, or, at least, to form some decisive resolution with
regard to it, and during his sojourn in France the Pope had
declared himself ready to help in the accomplishment of this
great revolution. … We may suppose that Charles's clerical
friends were the most zealous supporters of the scheme, which
perhaps was not received by the Pope with a like degree of
enthusiasm. Alcuin's letter proves that he, at least, had
already been initiated into the idea; and the Frankish envoys,
after a year spent in Rome, had doubtless come to an
understanding with the Romans, on whose vote the election
mainly depended. The Romans it was who, exercising the ancient
suffrages of the Senate and people, had elected Charles their
Patricius, and who now, in virtue of the same rights, elected
him Emperor. And only as Emperor of the Romans and of Rome did
he become Emperor of the entire State. A decree of the Roman
nobility and people had undoubtedly preceded the coronation;
and Charles's nomination as Roman Emperor (in strict
accordance with the plan of a papal election) was effected by
the three traditional elective bodies. The great revolution
which extinguished the ancient rights of the Byzantines was
not to appear the arbitrary deed of either King or Pope, but
the act of God Himself, and therefore the legal transaction of
Christendom, as expressed by the voice of the Roman people, of
the parliament of the united clergy, optimates, and citizens
assembled in Rome, Germans as well as Latins. The Frankish
chroniclers themselves say that Charles was made Emperor by
the election of the Roman people, quote the united parliament
of the two nations, and enumerate the list of the members who
took part in the parliament: the Pope, the entire assembly of
bishops, clergy, and abbots, the Frankish senate, the Roman
optimates, and the rest of the Christian people. The
resolution of the Romans and Franks was announced to Charles
in the form of a request. Are we to believe that, like
Augustus in former days, he made a feint of reluctance to
accept the supreme dignity, until it was forced upon him as an
accomplished fact? Are we to receive as hypocritical the
assurance of a man so pious and heroic, when he asserts that
the Imperial crown came upon him wholly as a surprise, and
adds that he would not have entered S. Peter's had he known of
Leo's intention? Had not Charles's son, Pipin, been purposely
recalled from the war against Benevento, in order to witness
the Imperial coronation? An explanation of these conflicting
statements has been sought in the statement of Eginhard, who
maintains that Charles's hesitation was dictated by respect
for Byzantium; that he had not yet assented to the scheme, and
had sought by negotiations to gain the recognition of the
Greeks to the election; that, therefore, the coronation really
did take him by surprise, and, with regard to the time chosen,
seemed inopportune. This view is supported by reasons of
probability, which, however, solely concern the occasion
chosen for the coronation, since to his elevation to the
Imperial throne Charles had already long given his consent. …
When, in later times, the German Empire came into conflict
with the Papacy, doctors of canon law advanced the theory that
the Emperor received the crown solely by favour of the Pope,
and traced the investiture to Charles's coronation at the
hands of Leo the Third. The Emperors, on the other hand,
appealed to the shout of the people: 'Life and victory to the
Emperor of the Romans, crowned by God,' and asserted that they
derived the crown, the inalienable heritage of the Cæsars,
from God alone. The Romans, on their side, maintained that
Charles owed the crown entirely to the majesty of the Roman
Senate and people. The dispute as to the actual source of
Empire continued throughout the entire Middle Ages, and, while
exercising no actual change in the world's history, revealed
an indwelling need of mankind; the necessity, namely, of
referring the world of facts back to a rudimentary right by
which power becomes legalised. Pope Leo the Third as little
possessed the right to bestow the crown of Empire, which was
not his, as Charles did to claim it.
{3801}
The Pope, however, regarded himself as the representative of
the Empire and of Romanism; and undoubtedly, as the head of
Latin nationality, and still more as the recognised spiritual
overseer of the Christian republic, he possessed the power of
accomplishing that revolution which, without the aid of the
Church, would have been impossible. Mankind at large regarded
him as the sacred intercessor between the world and the
Divinity; and it was only through his coronation and unction
at the papal hands that the Empire of Charles received divine
sanction in the eyes of men. The elective right of the Romans,
on the other hand, in whatever form it may appear, was
uncontested, and in no later Imperial election could it have
been of so decisive legal significance."
F. Gregorovius,
History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages,
book 4, chapter 7, section 3 (volume 2).
ROME: Ancient commerce.
See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE, ANCIENT.
ROME: Money and banking.
See MONEY AND BANKING: ROME (page 2203).
RONALDS, Sir Francis, The telegraphic experiments of.
See ELECTRICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION: A. D. 1753-1820
(page 771).
ROSS, Captain, Polar Expeditions of.
See (in this Supplement)
ARCTIC EXPLORATION: 1829-1833 and 1848-1849.
RUSSIA, Libraries of.
See LIBRARIES, MODERN (page 2013).
RUTGERS COLLEGE.
"Rutgers College, located at New Brunswick, was chartered by
George III. in 1770, and was called Queen's College, in honour
of his consort. The present name was substituted by the
legislature of the State, in 1825, at request of the trustees,
in honour of Colonel Henry Rutgers, of New York, to whom the
institution is indebted for liberal pecuniary benefactions.
The charter was originally granted to such Protestants as had
adopted the constitution of the reformed churches in the
Netherlands, as revised by the national synod of Dordrecht, in
the years 1618 and 1619. … The Theological College of the
Reformed Dutch Church is established here and intimately
blended with the literary institution."
T. F. Gordon,
Gazetteer of the State of New Jersey.
(bound with "History of New Jersey"),
page 86.
S.
SAINT SIMON, and Saint-Simonism.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1817-1825 (page 2939).
SALVATION ARMY, The.
"Some people of to-day seem to have the idea that the Rev.
William Booth was Jove, and that the Salvation Army sprang
from his brain full-grown and fully armed. Far from it; a boy
trained in the Church of England is converted among Wesleyan
Methodists, and, believing thoroughly in what he professes, is
constrained to feel interested in the salvation of others. He
is much moved by some revival services that he hears conducted
by the Rev. James Caughey, an American evangelist, and the
effect of the straightforward, conversational style of
preaching, makes an impression upon him that is never
forgotten. Through all the years that follow, among all the
scenes of his labors as a Methodist minister, he never forgets
that simple, open-air preaching, that pushing home of the
truth, with its wonderful results, and year after year only
increases the conviction that the masses can only be reached
by going to them, and never, never saved by waiting until they
come to us. Years passed away before William Booth and his
wife came to the point where they could step out, shake off
traditional methods and means, and begin to carry out
evangelistic work on lines forbidden by the churches. …
'Nothing succeeds like success,' and when the first results
were between three and four thousand souls in four little
towns of Cornwall, there was a decided leaning toward them,
overpowered, though, at a meeting of the Wesleyan Conference,
which promulgated the strange formula that 'evangelistic
movements are unfavorable to Church order.' However, the work
was carried on steadily, until that memorable Sunday [July
5th, 1865] on Mile End Waste, East London, from which William
Booth consecrated himself to the salvation of the ignorant,
and from which he dates all statistics referring to his work
as an independent movement in the religious world. From this
time forward, without interrupting in the least the open-air
work, one shelter after another was secured and appropriated
for mission work, here a tent or an old stable, there a
carpenter's shop, until the movement was strong enough to
warrant the lease of 'The Eastern Star,' a notorious
beer-house, which was used as book-store, hall, and classroom.
From this place, with its name of good hope, hundreds of souls
went forth to make the wilderness blossom like the rose, so
far as their humble homes were concerned. Sheds, lofts,
alleys, tumble-down theatres, well-known places of resort or
of refuge were preferred as being familiar to the class of men
who were to be reached. Such was the Salvation Army in its
early years, merely a 'mission.' with no more idea of
development into an 'army,' with military rule and
nomenclature, than we at the present time have of what may
come to us in the next twenty years."
M. B. Booth,
Beneath Two Flags,
chapter 2.
"In 1873 Mrs. Booth, overcoming her own intense reluctance,
began to preach. In 1874 and the two following years the work
spread to Portsmouth, Chatham, Wellingborough, Hammersmith,
Hackney, Leeds, Leicester, Stockton, Middlesborough, Cardiff,
Hartlepool, and other towns, where recent converts of the
humblest rank—tinkers, railway guards, navvies—took charge of
new stations. In 1876, shaking itself more and more free from
the trammels of custom and routine, the Army deliberately
utilized the services of women. In 1877 it spread still
further. In 1878 it 'attacked' no less than fifty towns,
and—more by what we should call 'accident' than by
design—assumed the title of the Salvation Army. It also
adopted, for good or for evil, the whole vocabulary of
military organization, which has caused it to be covered with
ridicule, but which may undoubtedly have aided its discipline
and helped its progress. In 1879 advance was marked by the
imprisonment of three Salvationists—who refused, as always, to
pay the alternative fine—for the offence of praying in a
country road near a public-house, which was regarded as
'obstructing the thoroughfare.'
{3802}
In this year began also the establishment of training homes
for the instruction and equipment of the young officers; the
printing of the 'War Cry'; the use of uniforms and badges; and
the extension of the work to Philadelphia and the United
States. In 1880 the United Kingdom was mapped into divisions.
In 1881 the work was extended to Australia and the colonies,
and so stupendous had become the religious energy of the
soldiers that they began to dream of the religious rescue of
Europe as well as of Great Britain and its empire-colonies.
Since that year its spread, in spite of all opposition, has
been steady and continuous, until, in 1890, it excited the
attention of the civilized world by that immense scheme of
social amelioration into which we shall not here enter
particularly. At the present moment [1891] the Army has no
less than 9,349 regular officers, 13,000 voluntary officers,
30 training homes; with 400 cadets, and 2,864 corps scattered
over 32 different countries. In England alone it has 1,377
corps, and has held some 160,000 open-air meetings. This
represents a part of its religious work. Besides this it has
in social work 30 rescue homes, 5 shelters, 3 food depots, and
many other agencies for good."
F. W. Farrar,
The Salvation Army
(Harper's Magazine, May, 1891).
In one of his addresses, delivered during his visit to the
United States, in February, 1895, General Booth said: "We
have, with God's help, been able to carry our banner and hoist
our flag in 45 different countries and colonies, and we are
reaching out day by day. We have been able to create and bring
into harmonious action, with self-supporting and self-guiding
officers, something like 4,000 separate societies. We have
been able to gather together something like 11,000 men and
women, separated from their earthly affiliations, who have
gone forth as leaders of this host." In the same address,
General Booth gave the number of the Army newspapers as 27,
with a circulation of 50,000,000,—presumably meaning the total
issues of a year.
SARACENS, Medical Science of the.
See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 7-11TH CENTURIES (page 2129).
SARDANAPALUS.
See SEMITES: THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE (page 2892).
SCHULZE-DELITZSCH, and the Cooperative movement in Germany.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1848-1883 (page 2946).
SCHURZ, Carl.
Report on affairs in the South.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (page 3562).
SCHWATKA, Lieutenant, Polar explorations of.
See (in this Supplement) ARCTIC EXPLORATION: 1879-1880.
SECESSION, The Federalist Movement of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1803-1804 (page 3329).
SERVIA, A. D. 1893. Royal Coup d'Etat.
"A great sensation was created by the announcement, January
19, that Milan and Natalie, the divorced parents of King
Alexander, had become reconciled at Biarritz. Whether this had
political significance was unknown, but rumor connected it
with various incidents bearing on the pending elections. The
Skupshtina was dissolved in November, and the Liberal
government, by energetic measures, put the electoral machinery
in such shape that at the voting in March a small Liberal
majority was secured in the place of the enormous Radical
majority that had controlled the former legislature. When the
Skupshtina assembled, April 6, the Radicals, in resentment at
certain proceedings of the government designed to increase its
majority, left the hall and refused to take part in the
session. The troublesome situation thus produced was wholly
abolished by a coup d'etat of King Alexander, April 13. At a
banquet in the palace, at which the regents and cabinet were
present, the king suddenly accused them of misrule and
demanded their resignations, saying that he would assume the
government himself. On the refusal of the regents to resign he
ordered them under guard, and on the following day a new
ministry was appointed, with M. Dokitch, a Radical, at its
head. Careful arrangement of the troops had insured that no
resistance could be made to the king's acts, and no blood was
shed. The constitution makes eighteen the age at which the
king attains his majority, but Alexander is not yet seventeen.
His action was greeted with general favor throughout the
country. An explanation of the affair is found in the
ill-disguised relations of the Radicals with the pretender
Karageorgiewitch, and the dread of Milan and Natalie that the
hostile policy of the regents toward the Radicals, who are in
a majority in the land, would precipitate an overthrow of the
reigning dynasty." The elections which followed the coup d'
état gave the Radicals an overwhelming majority in the
Skupshtina—122 members out of 134.
Political Science Quarterly,
June and December, 1893.
SEWARD, William H.,
The "higher law" speech of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1850 (page 3387).
SIEMENS, Dr. W., and his dynamo-electric inventions.
See ELECTRICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION:
A. D. 1831-1872 (page 774).
T. O'Conor Sloane,
The Standard Electrical Dictionary
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26535
SINGLE TAX MOVEMENT, The.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1880 (page 2955).
SLAVE TRADE: Abolition in the United States.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1807 (page 3335).
SLAVERY, Petitions against, in the American Congress.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1835, 1836, 1837-1838, and 1842,
(page 3373, and after).
SOCIAL PALACE AT GUISE, The.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1859-1887 (page 2947).
SOCIALIST PARTIES IN GERMANY.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1862-1864,
and 1875-1893 (pages 2949 and 2953).
SOLOMON.
SOLOMON'S TEMPLE.
See JEWS: (page 1902);
and TEMPLE OF SOLOMON (page 3093).
SOMMERING'S TELEGRAPH.
See ELECTRICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION:
A. D. 1753-1820 (page 771).
SOUTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1861.
Monarchical cravings.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (page 3426).
SPAIN: Outline Sketch of general history.
See EUROPE
(pages 1016, 1034-1035, 1050-1051, 1055-1065, and after).
{3803}
SPAIN: A. D. 1034-1090.
The exploits of the Cid.
"Rodrigo Diez de Bivar, who came of an old Castilian stock,
was born in 1026—others say 1040—and was thus a contemporary
of William the Conqueror, of England. Diez was his patronymic,
meaning the son of Diego (in English James), and Bivar, the
village of his birth, near Burgos, where the site of his house
is still shown. His name of 'El Cid,' the Lord, or 'Mio Cid,'
which is exactly 'Monseigneur,' was given him first by the
Moors, his own soldiers and subjects, and universally adopted
by all Spaniards from that day to this. Such a title is
significant, not only of the relations between the two
peoples, but of Rodrigo's position as at once a Moorish and a
Spanish chief. 'El Campeador,' the name by which Rodrigo is
also distinguished, means in Spanish something more special
than 'champion.' A 'campeador' was a man who had fought and
beaten the select fighting-man of the opposite side, in the
presence of the two armies; which points to a custom derived,
as much else of early Spanish, from the East. Rodrigo earned
the name, not at the expense of any Moor but of a Christian,
having when quite a youth slain a Navarrese champion in a war
between Castile and Navarre. The first mention of his name
occurs in a deed of Fernando I., of the year 1064."
H. E. Watts,
Christian Recovery of Spain,
chapter 3.
"Sancho III. of Navarre, who died in 1034, had united almost
all the Christian states of the Peninsula under one dominion,
having married the heiress of the county of Castile, and
obtained the hand of the sister of Bermudez III., the last
king of Leon, for his second son, Ferdinand. The Asturias,
Navarre, and Aragon, were all subject to him, and he was the
first who assumed the title of King of Castile. To him the
sovereign houses of Spain have looked up as their common
ancestor, for the male line of the Gothic Kings became extinct
in Bermudez III. … D. Sancho divided his states amongst his
children: D. Garcia became King of Navarre, D. Ferdinand, King
of Castile, and D. Ramirez, King of Aragon. The Cid, who was a
subject of D. Ferdinand, entered upon his military career
under that monarch's banners, where he displayed that
marvellous strength and prodigious valour, that constancy and
coolness, which raised him above all the other warriors of
Europe. Many of the victories of Ferdinand and the Cid were
obtained over the Moors, who being at that time deprived of
their leader and without a central government, were much
exposed to the attacks of the Christians. … The arms of
Ferdinand and the Cid were not, however, always directed
against the infidels. The ambitious Monarch soon afterwards
attacked his brother-in-law, Bermudez III. of Leon, the last
of the descendants of D. Pelagius, whom he despoiled of his
states, and put to death in 1037. He subsequently attacked and
dethroned his eldest brother, D. Garcia, and afterwards his
younger brother, D. Ramirez, the former of whom he likewise
sacrificed. The Cid, who had received his earliest
instructions under D. Ferdinand, made no scrupulous enquiries
into the justice of that prince's cause, but combating blindly
for him, rendered him glorious in the eyes of the vulgar by
these iniquitous conquests. It is also in the reign of
Ferdinand that the first romantic adventures of the Cid are
said to have occurred; his attachment to Ximena, the only
daughter of Count Gormaz; his duel with the Count, who had
mortally injured his father; and lastly his marriage with the
daughter of the man who had perished by his sword. The
authenticity of these poetical achievements rests entirely on
the romances [of the Chronicle of the Cid]; but though this
brilliant story is not to be found in any historical document,
yet the universal tradition of a nation seems to stamp it with
sufficient credit. The Cid was in habits of the strictest
friendship with the eldest son of Ferdinand, D. Sancho,
surnamed the Strong, and the two warriors always combated side
by side. During the lifetime of the father, the Cid, in 1049,
had rendered tributary the Musulman Emir of Saragossa. He
defended that Moorish prince against the Aragonese, in 1063;
and when Sancho succeeded to the throne in 1065, he was
placed, by the young King, at the head of all his armies,
whence, without doubt, he acquired the name of 'Campeador.' D.
Sancho, who merited the friendship of a hero, and who always
remained faithful to him, was, notwithstanding, no less
ambitious and unjust than his father, whose example he
followed in endeavouring to deprive his brothers of their
share of the paternal inheritance. To the valour of the Cid he
owed his victories over D. Garcia, King of Galicia, and D.
Alfonso, King of Leon, whose states he invaded. The latter
prince took refuge amongst the Moors, with the King of Toledo,
who afforded him a generous asylum. D. Sancho, after having
also stripped his sisters of their inheritance, was slain in
1072, before Zamora, where the last of his sisters, D. Urraca,
had fortified herself. Alfonso VI., recalled from the Moors to
ascend the vacant throne, after having taken an oath,
administered by the hands of the Cid, that he had been in no
degree accessary to his brother's death, endeavoured to attach
that celebrated leader to his interests by promising him in
marriage his own niece Ximena, whose mother was sister-in-law
to Ferdinand the Great and Bermudez III. the last King of
Leon. This marriage, of which historical evidence remains, was
celebrated on the 19th of July, 1074. The Cid was at that time
nearly fifty years of age, and had survived his first wife
Ximena, the daughter of Count Gormaz, so celebrated in the
Spanish and French tragedies. Being soon afterwards despatched
on an embassy to the Moorish princes of Seville and Cordova,
the Cid assisted them in gaining a great victory over the King
of Grenada; but scarcely had the heat of the battle passed
away when he restored all the prisoners whom he had taken,
with arms in their hands, to liberty. By these constant acts
of generosity he won the hearts of his enemies as well as of
his friends. He was admired and respected both by Moors and
Christians. He had soon afterwards occasion to claim the
protection of the former; for Alfonso VI., instigated by those
who were envious of the hero's success, banished him from
Castile. The Cid upon this occasion took refuge with his
friend Ahmed el Muktadir, King of Saragossa, by whom he was
treated with boundless confidence and respect. He was
appointed by him to the post of governor of his son, and was
in fact intrusted with the whole administration of the kingdom
of Saragossa, during the reign of Joseph El Muktamam, from
1081 to 1085, within which period he gained many brilliant
victories over the Christians of Aragon, Navarre, and
Barcelona. Always generous to the vanquished, he again gave
liberty to the prisoners. Alfonso VI. now began to regret that
he had deprived himself of the services of the most valiant of
his warriors; and being attacked by the redoubtable Joseph,
the son of Teschfin, the Morabite, who had invaded Spain with
a new army of Moors from Africa, and having sustained a defeat
at Zalaka, on the 23d of October, 1087, he recalled the Cid to
his assistance.
{3804}
That hero immediately repaired to his standard with 7,000
soldiers, levied at his own charge; and for two years
continued to combat for his ungrateful sovereign; but at
length, either his generosity in dismissing his captives, or
his disobedience to the orders of a prince far inferior to
himself in the knowledge of the art of war, drew upon him a
second disgrace about the year 1090. He was again banished;
his wife and son were imprisoned, and his goods were
confiscated. It is at this period that the poem … commences.
It is in fact the fragment of a complete history of the Cid,
the beginning of which has been lost."
J. C. L. S. de Sismondi,
Literature of the South of Europe,
chapter 23 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
R. Southey,
Chronicle of the Cid, from the Spanish.
R. Markham,
Chronicle of the Cid, edited with introduction.
G. Ticknor,
History of Spanish Literature,
period 1, chapter 2 (volume 1).
SPAIN: 15-17th Centuries.
The waste of the commercial opportunities of the Spaniards.
See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE, MODERN.
SPAIN: A. D. 1788-1808.
Charles IV., Marie Louise, and Godoy.
"Charles III. had just died when the French Revolution
commenced. He was the best sovereign that Spain had had in a
long time; he left good ministers: Aranda, Campomanès, Florida
Blanca; but it was not given to them to continue his work.
This reparative reign was followed by one the most
disintegrating. Spain, elevated anew for an instant by an
intelligent prince, was, in a few years, under the government
of an imbecile one, to founder in an ignoble intrigue. The web
of this latter was begun immediately upon the accession of the
new king. Charles IV. was forty years old; corpulent and
weak-minded, simple and choleric, incapable of believing evil
because he was incapable of conceiving it: amorous, chaste,
devout, and consequently the slave of his wife even more than
of his temperament, the first years of his marriage blinded
him for his entire life. Scrupulous to the point of separating
himself from the queen when he no longer hoped to have
children by her, he took refuge in the chase, manual labor,
violent exercise, caring only for the table, music and
bull-fights, exhausted when he had followed his trade of king
for half an hour. Small and without beauty, dark of
complexion, but with some grace, with elegance and above all
carriage, Marie Louise of Parma was at once superstitious and
passionate, ignorant, uneasy, with a very frivolous soul as a
foundation, with obstinacy without firmness, with artifice
without intelligence, with intrigue leading to no result, more
covetousness than ambition, much emptiness of mind, still more
of heart. Her husband seemed to her coarse and brutish; she
despised him. She detested her eldest son and cared moderately
for her other children. She was thirty-four years old, of
perturbed imagination, of uneasy senses, without any curb of
religion or virtue, when she ascended the throne and the
fortune of Godoy threw him in her way. He was a small
provincial gentleman; for lack of something better, he had
entered the life-guards at seventeen. He was then twenty-one.
He was very handsome, with a grave beauty frequent in the men
of the south, which gives to youth that air of restrained and
imperious passion, to mature age that impenetrable and
imposing exterior so well calculated to conceal mediocrity of
mind, barrenness of heart, despotic selfishness, and all the
artifices of a corruption the more insinuating because it
seems to be unaware of itself. The queen fell in love with
him, and abandoned herself wildly; he took advantage of it
without shame. She was not satisfied to make of Godoy her
lover, she desired to make a great man of him, a minister, to
make him a partner in her power. She introduced him to the
court and into the intimacy of the royal household, where
Charles IV. tractably became infatuated with him. Marie Louise
had at first some circumspection in the gradation of the
honors which she lavished upon him, and which marked, by so
many scandals, the progress of her passion; but she was very
soon entirely possessed by it. Godoy obtained over her an
ascendancy equal to that which she arrogated to herself over
Charles IV. Thus on the eve of the French Revolution, these
three persons, so strangely associated, began, in court
costume, and under the austere decorum of the palace of Philip
II., that comedy, as old as vice and stupidity, of the
compliant husband duped by his wife and of the old mistress
exploited by her lover. At the beginning of the reign, Charles
IV. from scruple, the queen from hypocrisy, Godoy from policy,
became devout. The queen wished power for Godoy, and Godoy
wished it for lucre. It was necessary to set aside the old
counsellors of Charles III. They were philosophers, the nation
had remained catholic. Marie Louise and Godoy relied on the
old Spanish fanaticism. The ministers very soon lost
influence, and after having secluded them for some time, the

queen disgraced them. A complete reaction took place in Spain.
The church regained its empire; the Inquisition was
re-established. It would appear then that the Revolution must
necessarily have found Spain hostile; a Bourbon king and a
devout government could but detest it. But before being a
Bourbon the king was a husband, and Marie Louise was devout
only to mask her intrigues. The same passions led her to
desire by turns, war to make her lover illustrious and peace
to render him popular. This debilitated and corrupt court
found itself given over in advance to all the suggestions of
fear, to all the temptations of avidity. Those who had to
treat with it did not fail to profit by its feebleness to
dominate it. We see it successively linked to England, then to
France; treat the Revolution with consideration, condemn it
with violence, combat it without vigor; seek an alliance with
the Directory, and abandon itself to Napoleon who annihilated
it. France found at Madrid only too much docility to her
designs; the illusions that she conceived from it became more
fatal for her than were for Spain the incapacity and turpitude
of its rulers. The French were led by the habits and
traditions of the 'ancien regime' to treat the Spaniards as a
subordinate nation consigned to the role of auxiliary. Holding
the court of Spain as cowardly and venal, the politicians of
Paris neglected to take account of the Spanish people. They
judged them to be divisible and governable at mercy.
{3805}
It was not that they despised them nor that they intended to
reduce them to servitude as a conquered people; but they
thought that the last Austrian kings had enervated and
enfeebled them, that they had been uplifted from this
decadence only by the Bourbons, that that dynasty was
degenerating in its turn; that another foreign government,
more intelligent, more enlightened, more resolute, alone could
take up again the work of reparation and bring it to a
successful result by means of rigorous treatment and
appropriate applications. What Louis XIV. had undertaken
solely in the interest of despotism, France, herself
regenerated by the Revolution, had the right and the power to
accomplish, for the highest good of Spain and of humanity.
These calculations in which the essential element, that is to
say the Spanish character, was suppressed, deceived the
Convention, led the Directory astray, and ended by drawing
Napoleon into the most fatal of his enterprises."
A. Sorel,
L'Europe et la Revolution française
(translated from the French),
part 1, pages 373-377.
SPAIN: Libraries.
See LIBRARIES, MODERN (page 2013).
----------SPAIN: End--------
STAMP TAX ON NEWSPAPERS, English.
See PRINTING AND PRESS: A. D. 1712,
and 1853-1870 (pages 2599 and 2602).
STANLEY, Henry M., Explorations of.
See (in this Supplement) AFRICA: 1866-1873, and after.
SUEZ CANAL, Effects of the opening of the.
See (in this Supplement)
COMMERCE, MODERN: THE RECENT REVOLUTION IN COMMERCE.
SUMERIAN.
See SEMITES: PRIMITIVE BABYLONIA (page 2888).
SUMNER, Senator Charles, The assault of Preston Brooks on.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1856 (page 3398).
SUMTER, Thomas, in the War of the American Revolution.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780 (page 3273).
----------SWEDEN: Start--------
SWEDEN: A. D. 1810.
The election of Bernadotte.
"It was necessary to look out for a new successor to the
throne. Adlersparre desired the brother of the deceased crown
prince, Frederic Christian, duke of Augustenborg, thinking by
this means to secure the fruits of the revolution and to keep
in view the union between Sweden and Norway. He succeeded in
persuading Charles XII. to give his voice for this prince, and
the council of State even sustained this idea, with the
exception of Adlercreutz who proposed the emperor Alexander's
brother-in-law, the Duke of Oldenburg. A third candidate was
King Frederic VI. of Denmark, and even Napoleon himself worked
in secret for him as he had by this time realized the
advantage of the formation of a strong Northern power as a
balance against Russia. But the king of Denmark as a candidate
was far from popular among the Swedes, and still less prospect
was there of the election of prince Gustaf. The Swedish
government which had made its determination sent a writing to
Napoleon in order to gain his influence in favor of the
prince. The message was sent in duplicate by different roads.
The choice of the Swedish government did not meet his
approval; still he declared that he would not oppose it. One
of the couriers who brought the above writing to Paris, was
lieutenant in Upland's regiment, baron Carl Otto Mörner. This
young officer was no friend of the candidacy of the Duke of
Augustenborg; like many other Swedes, especially in the army,
he desired as a successor to the throne a warrior, above all a
French marshal, persuaded that in that way Sweden would most
readily gain the alliance with France, and revenge upon
Russia. Among the French marshals Bernadotte, prince of Ponte
Corvo, was particularly known in Sweden through his contact
with them during the last wars and to him their thoughts had
turned in the first place. Young, bold, and forward, at the
same time full of the wish to be useful to his country, Mörner
had contrived to obtain the office of courier in order to find
a successor to the crown at his own risk. He calls on a
certain Captain La Pie whose acquaintance he had made on a
former visit to Paris, and explains his plans, and La Pie
strengthens him in his ideas, that Bernadotte would be
preferable before Macdonald, Eugene Beauharnais, and others
whom Mörner had in his mind. Through La Pie and the Swedish
general consul Signeul, Mörner obtains the necessary
information which enables him to meet the Marshal. He calls on
Bernadotte and finds him, however careful in his utterance
regarding the matter, not opposed to the project; nay
Bernadotte hastens immediately after the conference with
Mörner to the emperor to impart it to him. Napoleon, who had
officially been informed of the thoughts of the Swedish
government, looked on the whole matter as a ghost of the
brain, but declared that he would not meddle with it. At
Mörner's last visit (27 June 1810) Bernadotte gave him leave
to communicate that the emperor had nothing against
Bernadotte's election and that he himself was ready to accept
if the choice fell on him. It is easy to imagine the
astonishment of Engström, the minister of state, when he heard
Mörner's description of his bold attempt in Paris. 'What do
you bring from Paris?' Engström asked, when Mörner came into
the foreign Minister's cabinet in Stockholm. 'That I have
induced the prince of Ponte Corvo to accept the Swedish
crown.' 'How could you speak to him about it without being
commissioned?' 'Our only safety lies in the prince of Ponte
Corvo.' 'Are you sure that he will receive it so that we are
not doubly committed?' 'Certainly. I have a letter here.'
'From him to you?' 'No, from me to him.' 'Boy.' exclaimed
Mörner's relation, his excellency Von Essen, at the end of the
conference, 'You ought to sit where neither sun nor moon will
shine on you.' But Mörner's project won more and more favor in
the country though he himself was arrested in Orebro, whereby
the government desired to prevent his presence as a member of
the house of knights at the special diet called at Örebro for
election. Through messengers and a pamphlet on the succession
in Sweden he though absent worked for his plan even among the
estates which met the 23d July 1810."
Sveriges Historia, 1805-1875
(translated from the Swedish by L. G. Sellstedt),
pages 29-31.
See, also,
SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1810 (page 2831).
SWEDEN: Libraries.
See LIBRARIES, MODERN (page 2013).
----------SWEDEN: End--------
{3806}
SWEDENBORG, and the New Church.
"Swedenborg was born in 1688, and died in 1772. The son of a
Lutheran Bishop of Sweden, a student at several universities,
and an extensive traveler throughout all the principal
countries of Europe, he had exceptional opportunities for
testing the essential quality of contemporaneous Christianity.
… Until he was more than fifty years of age, Swedenborg had
written nothing on religious subjects, and apparently given
them no special attention. He was principally known, in his
own country, as Assessor Extraordinary of the Board of Mines,
and an influential member of the Swedish Diet; and not only
there, but throughout Europe, as a writer on many branches of
science and philosophy. In this field he acquired great
distinction; and the number and variety of topics which he
treated was remarkable. Geometry and algebra, metallurgy and
magnetism, anatomy, physiology, and the relation of the soul
to the body were among the subjects which received his
attention. There is to be noticed in the general order of his
publications a certain gradual, but steady, progression from
lower to higher themes,—from a contemplation of the mere
external phenomena of nature to a study of their deep and
hidden causes. He was always full of devout spiritual
aspirations. In all his scientific researches he steadfastly
looked through nature up to nature's God. … Maintaining this
inflexible belief in God and revelation, and in the essential
unity of truth, Swedenborg, in his upward course, at last
reached the boundary line between matter and spirit. Then it
was that he entered on those remarkable experiences by which,
as he affirms, the secrets of the other world were revealed to
him. He declares that the eyes of his spirit were opened, and
that he had, from that time forward, conscious daily
intercourse with spirits and angels. His general teaching on
this subject is that the spiritual world is an inner sphere of
being,—not material, and in no wise discernible to natural
senses, yet none the less real and substantial,—and that it is
the ever-present medium of life to man and nature."
J. Reed,
Why am I a New Churchman?
(North American Review, January, 1887).
"The doctrine of Correspondence is the central idea of
Swedenborg's system. Everything visible has belonging to it an
appropriate spiritual reality. The history of man is an acted
parable; the universe, a temple covered with hieroglyphics.
Behmen, from the light which flashes on certain exalted
moments, imagines that he receives the key to these hidden
significances,—that he can interpret the 'Signatura Rerum.'
But he does not see spirits, or talk with angels. According to
him, such communications would be less reliable than the
intuition he enjoyed. Swedenborg takes opposite ground. 'What
I relate,' he would say, 'comes from no such mere inward
persuasion. I recount the things I have seen. I do not labour
to recall and to express the manifestation made me in some
moment of ecstatic exaltation. I write you down a plain
statement of journeys and conversations in the spiritual
world, which have made the greater part of my daily history
for many years together. I take my stand upon experience. I
have proceeded by observation and induction as strict as that
of any man of science among you. Only it has been given me to
enjoy an experience reaching into two worlds—that of spirit,
as well as that of matter.' … According to Swedenborg, all the
mythology and the symbolisms of ancient times were so many
refracted or fragmentary correspondences—relics of that better
day when every outward object suggested to man's mind its
appropriate divine truth. Such desultory and uncertain links
between the seen and the unseen are so many imperfect attempts
toward that harmony of the two worlds which he believed
himself commissioned to reveal. The happy thoughts of the
artist, the imaginative analogies of the poet, are exchanged
with Swedenborg for an elaborate system. All the terms and
objects in the natural and spiritual worlds are catalogued in
pairs."
R. A. Vaughan,
Hours with the Mystics,
book 12, chapter 1, (volume 2).
"It is more than a century since the foundation of this church
[the New-Church] was laid, by the publication of the
theological writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. For more than half
of that time, individuals and societies have been active in
translating them, and in publishing them widely. There have
been many preachers of these doctrines, and not a few writers
of books and periodicals. The sale of Swedenborg's writings,
and of books intended to present the doctrines of the church,
has been constant and large. How happens it, under these
circumstances, that the growth of this church has been and is
so slow, if its doctrines are all that we who hold them
suppose them to be? There are many answers to this question.
One among them is, that its growth has been greater than is
apparent. It is not a sect. Its faith does not consist of a
few specific tenets, easily stated and easily received. It is
a new way of thinking about God and man, this life and
another, and every topic, connected with these. And this new
way of thinking has made and is making what may well be called
great progress. It may be discerned everywhere, in the
science, literature, philosophy, and theology of the times;
not prevalent in any of them, but existing, and cognizable by
all who are able to appreciate these new truths with their
bearings and results. … Let it not be supposed that by the
New-Church is meant the organized societies calling themselves
by that name. In one sense, that is their name. Swedenborg
says there are three essentials of this Church: a belief in
the Divinity of the Lord, and in the sanctity of the
Scriptures, and a life of charity, which is a life governed by
a love of the neighbor. Where these are, there is the Church.
Whoever holds these essentials in faith and life is a member
of the New-Church, whatever may be his theological name or
place. Only in the degree in which he so holds these
essentials is anyone a member of that church. Those who,
holding or desiring to hold these essentials in faith and
life, unite and organize that they may be assisted and may
assist each other in so holding them, constitute the visible
or professed New-Church. But very false would they be to its
doctrines, if they supposed themselves to be exclusively
members of that Church, or if they founded their membership
upon their profession or external organization. For there is
no other true foundation for this membership than every man's
own internal reception of the essentials of the Church, and
his leading the life which its truths require."
T. Parsons,
Outlines of the Religion and Philosophy of Swedenborg,
chapter 14, section 5.
ALSO IN:
E. Swedenborg,
The four leading Doctrines of the New Church.
G. F. E. Le Boys Des Guays,
Letters to a Man of the World.
B. F. Barrett,
Lectures on the New Dispensation.
SWITZERLAND, Libraries of.
See LIBRARIES, MODERN (page 2013).
{3807}
T.
TAORMINA.
TAUROMENION.
About 392 B. C. Dionysios, the tyrant of Syracuse, expelled
the Sikels, or natives of Sicily, from one of their towns,
Tauromenion (modern Taormina) on the height of Tauros,
overlooking the site of the old Greek city of Naxos, which
Dionysios had destroyed ten years before. He peopled the town
anew with some of his mercenaries; but after his death the
scattered Naxians were brought together in it, and made it
their home. "The city thus strengthened by new colonists grew
and prospered, and became specially remarkable for the wealth
of its citizens. Greek Tauromenion ran through the usual
course of a Sikeliot city in later times. Settled again by a
Roman colony, it lived on till the days of its greatest glory,
as the last of Sikeliot cities to hold out for Christ and
Cæsar against the assaults of the besieging Saracens. But even
that greater memory does not shut out the thoughts of the
stirring early days of the city. … The rocks and the heights
are there still, and not the rocks and the heights only. There
is the wall with the work of the Sikel and the Greek side by
side. There is the temple of the Greek changed into the church
of the Christian apostle of Sicily. There is the theatre, the
work of the Greek enlarged and modified by the Roman; the
theatre which, unlike those of Syracuse and Argos, still keeps
so large a part of its scena, 'and where we hardly mourn the
loss of the rest as we look out on the hills and the sea
between its fragments. … The matchless site would be something
even without a story, but at Taormina the story is for ever
written on the site. On the long ridge of the town, on its
walls and gates, on the rocks on which it stands, on the
prouder rocks which rise above it, we may truly say that, of
all who have assailed or defended the mountain-city, alongside
of the names of Ibrahim and of Roger, the first names in the
long story of Tauromenion dwell there also."
E. A. Freeman,
History of Sicily,
chapter 11, section 2 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
The Century,
September 1893.
TELEGRAPH, Invention of the Electrical.
See ELECTRICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION (pages 771-772).
T. O'Conor Sloane,
The Standard Electrical Dictionary
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26535
THIRTY YEARS WAR, The effects of.
See (in this Supplement)
GERMANY: A. D. 1648; also page 1484.
"TIPPECANOE AND TYLER TOO."
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1840 (page 3377).
----------TOLERATION, Religious: Start--------
TOLERATION, Religious: A. D. 1631-1661.
Denied in Massachusetts.
See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1631-1636, to 1656-1661
(pages 2103 to 2109).
TOLERATION, Religious: A. D. 1636.
Established by Roger Williams in Rhode Island.
See RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1638-1647 (page 2639).
TOLERATION, Religious: A. D. 1649.
Enacted in Maryland.
See MARYLAND: A. D. 1649 (page 2094).
TOLERATION, Religious: A. D. 1689.
Partial enactment in England.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1689 (page 909).
TOLERATION, Religious: A. D. 1778.
Repeal of Catholic penal laws in England.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1778-1780 (page 936).
TOLERATION, Religious: A. D. 1827-1829.
Removal of disabilities from Dissenters and Emancipation
of Catholics in England and Ireland.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1827-1828 (page 952);
and IRELAND: A. D. 1811-1829 (page 1784).
TOLERATION, Religious: A. D. 1869.
Disestablishment of the Irish Church.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1868-1870 (page 969).
TOLERATION, Religious: A. D. 1871.
Abolition of religious tests in English Universities.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1871 (page 970).
----------TOLERATION, Religious: End--------
TORQUEMADA.
See INQUISITION (page 1751).
TRADE.
See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE.
TRADE-MARKS, Protection of.
See LAW, EQUITY: A. D. 1875 (page 1994).
TRADES UNIONS.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS:
A. D: 1720-1800 (page 2933), and after.
TSIAM NATION, The.
See TONKIN (page 3115).
TULANE UNIVERSITY, or University of Louisiana.
"This institution had its origin in certain land grants made
by the United States 'for the use of a seminary of learning.'
By an act of the General Government passed in 1806 one
township of land was granted for the above named purpose, and
in 1811 another township was added to this and both were
confirmed by an act (of 1824) which also authorized their
location. The first movement toward the utilization of these
grants was made in 1845, when the following clause was adopted
in the amended Constitution: 'A university shall be
established in the city of New Orleans. It shall be composed
of four faculties, to wit: one of law, one of medicine, one of
natural sciences, and one of letters.' … The university was
chartered in 1847. … For many years the university received
but meagre support from the State. … By the Constitution of
1879 the institution was endowed permanently by authorizing
the sum of not more than $10,000 payable annually [for five
years] to the university. At the expiration of this period the
university was united with the Tulane University (in 1884).
Since that time no appropriations have been made by the
Legislature."
F. W. Blackmar,
History of Federal and State Aid to Higher Education
in the United States
(Bureau of Education, Circular of Information,
1890. number 1), pages 272-273.
TYPHOID FEVER, Appearance of.
See PLAGUE; 18TH CENTURY (page 2543).
U.
"UNCLE TOM'S CABIN," The effect of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1852 (page 3392).
-----------UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Start--------
{3808}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Historical Geography.
The historical geography of the United States possesses, in a
unique degree, a two-fold character. These divisions of the
subject are best described by the words exterior and interior.
While such a classification is, of course, inevitable in the
history of every nation, the fact remains that, with the
United States, these divisions stand in a different relation
to each other from any that appear usually in the historical
geography of other countries. The difference is chiefly one of
relative importance. The internal historical geography of the
Old World nations, barring the feudal period, involves so
largely questions concerning mere provincial administration
that it has no claim, from a geographical standpoint, to an
importance equal to the shifting of the great national
frontiers. Examples of this are found in the Roman and
Byzantine empires, and in the majority of the modern states.
In our own case however the order of interest is reversed. Our
internal geography has attracted the chief attention of the
student, not so much from the greater difficulty of the
subject as from its vast importance in the early history of
our government. It is not, indeed, too much to say that the
organization of the present government under the constitution
is an event of scarcely greater importance than the
determination of the final policy of the states and the nation
concerning the unoccupied western lands. It is this fact alone
which gives the higher degree of relative importance to our
internal historical geography. The general facts concerning
our external geography are quickly told. The outlines of the
entire subject are contained in the enumeration of the eight
cessions, as follows:
the original territory ceded by Great Britain at the
peace of Paris in 1783 (see page 3287);
the Louisiana purchase from France in 1803
(pages 2049, and 3327);
the acquisition of Florida from Spain by the treaty of 1819
(page 1154);
the admission of Texas in 1845 (page 3102);
the undisputed acquisition of the Oregon country by treaty
with Great Britain in 1846 (page 2402);
the first Mexican cession by the peace of Guadalupe
Hidalgo in 1848 (page 2175);
the second Mexican cession, known as the Gadsden purchase, in
1853 (page 133);
and the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867 (page 30).
The enumeration of these eight acquisitions, all of which,
save the final one are shown on the first United States map,
affords a complete picture of the successive stages of our
territorial growth. The occasion of these different
annexations, as well as their exact territorial extent, would
involve us in a series of details which are beyond the purpose
of the present article. It should be observed, however, that
in several cases the map shows the territories in question as
finally determined by treaty or survey, rather than their
actual extent as understood at the time the annexations were
made. This is one of the inevitable disadvantages in the
purely cartographic treatment of such a subject. The
historical map is compelled from its nature to give a tangible
appearance to matters which are often very intangible in fact.
In the case, for example, of what we may call the first United
States, the country as recognized by the treaty of Paris, the
western line of the Mississippi was the only boundary which
was not the subject of future discussion. The southern
frontier as arranged at Paris was affirmed by treaty with
Spain in 1795. On the other side, however, Great Britain
retained a number of posts in the Old Northwest up to the Jay
treaty of 1794; the boundary between the upper Mississippi and
the Lake of the Woods, imperfectly described in the Paris
treaty, was not settled until 1818; the line from the
intersection of the St. Lawrence to the Sault Ste. Marie was
established in 1822 by joint commission under the treaty of
Ghent; while the Maine frontier question, the most difficult
and obstinate of all our boundary disputes, was not finally
settled until the year 1842. The Louisiana purchase of 1803
brought in fresh questions concerning our territorial limits.
On three sides, the North, West and Southwest the frontiers of
this vast area were undefined. On the northern side the
boundary was settled with Great Britain by the treaty of 1818
which carried the line along the forty-ninth parallel to the
Rocky Mountains, while the treaty of 1819 with Spain, which
ceded Florida to the United States, also defined the limits of
Louisiana on the South-West. This line of 1819 has an
additional importance, in that it drew the frontier between
Spain and the United States along the forty-second parallel to
the Pacific coast. The importance of this lay in the fact that
it gave us a clear title on the Spanish side to the so-called
Oregon country. The exact connection, real or supposed,
between this territory and the Louisiana country was for many
years one of the disputed points in American historical
geography. The belief in this connection, at one time general,
undoubtedly had its origin in the undefined character of
Louisiana at the time of the purchase, and the fact that our
government turned this indefiniteness to its own purpose in
advancing its Oregon claims. It is now clear, however, from
the evidence of the old maps, the official statement of the
limits of the region, of which there is but one in existence
(the Crozat grant of 1712) and lastly the understanding of
France herself at the time of the cession, that Louisiana did
not include in its limits any part of the Pacific watershed. A
map published in a subsequent work of the French
plenipotentiary placed the western boundary of Louisiana at
the one hundred and tenth meridian. A line drawn in this
arbitrary fashion and unsanctioned by the terms of the treaty
itself may be regarded merely as one of convenience. If this
view is correct it is certainly more convenient and, at the
same time, more logical, to consider the western boundary as
extending to the Rocky Mountain watershed,—a line which would
not deviate to any radical extent from the meridian in
question. The historical connection however between the
Louisiana purchase and our subsequent acquisition of the
Oregon country is perfectly clear. The exploration of the
latter followed almost immediately but its final annexation
was delayed by the opposing claim of Great Britain. In this
controversy the claim of the United States was merely relative
as opposed to that of England. The just claimant was
undoubtedly the king of Spain, whose rights, based on
discovery, antedated those of either of the contesting powers.
The Spanish title, however, having, as we have seen, been
relinquished by the treaty of 1819, the issue between Great
Britain and the United States became clearly defined. A joint
occupation of the disputed territory by the two powers ensued
from 1818 to 1846. In the latter year was negotiated the
compromise treaty, which continued our northern line of 1818
on the forty-ninth parallel from the Rocky Mountains to the
Pacific coast. From the treaty of 1846 we may date the
completion of our northern frontier, although the ownership of
certain islands between Vancouver and the mainland was not
settled until 1872.
{3809}
A few more years witnessed the completion of our southern
frontier, as well. In 1845 Texas was admitted to the Union.
The western boundary of the Rio Grande, claimed by the new
state under her constitution of 1836, led directly to the war
with Mexico, and by that war to the great additional cession
at Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. The southern boundary was
finally completed by the Gadsden purchase of 1853. Coming now
to the study of our internal geography, we find ourselves in
contact with what is practically a distinct subject. Here we
encounter a whole series of those weighty questions, the
solution of which figures so prominently in the early history
of the American government. We have already noted that the
first western boundary of the United States was placed by the
treaty of 1783 at the Mississippi river. But during the Paris
negotiations our ally France and quasi ally Spain both opposed
this westward extension of our territory and it was long an
open question, even after our independence itself was assured,
whether we should not be compelled to accept a western
boundary on the Appalachian range. Years before the final
settlement of the question at Paris, the expectancy of the
Mississippi boundary had given rise to questions which caused
an undercurrent of dissension between the states during the
entire period of the Revolutionary War. In their relation to
the western land question, the thirteen original states divide
themselves into two classes, the claimant and non-claimant
states. In the first class were Massachusetts, Connecticut,
New York, Virginia, the two Carolinas and Georgia; in the
second, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Delaware and Maryland. The claims of the seven first named
states covered every inch of our prospective western domain
and in the country north of the Ohio, known as the Old
Northwest there were opposing claims of two and in some
districts of even three states to the same territory. The
extent of these claims is indicated on the map of the
Federated states in 1783. They rested for the most part upon
the royal grants and charters to the colonies, and, in the
case of New York, upon the treaties with the Iroquois. Their
relative merits where conflicting, or their collective merit
as a whole, are questions which we will not attempt to
discuss. It is sufficient to observe that if insisted upon in
their entirety they would have presented an insuperable
obstacle to the formation of an American federate government.
In the proceedings of the Continental Congress, as well as in
the state legislative bodies, touching this western domain, we
may find the germs of nearly all the political and
constitutional questions which have made the greater part of
our subsequent history. The relative rank and power of the
states, the obligation of one state towards another, the
individual rights of states as opposed to the collective
rights of the Union; all of these questions entered into the
great problem which the nation was now called upon to solve.
The objections to the western claims by the non-claimant
states, though urged with varying degrees of vehemence and
accompanied with many widely differing alternatives, may be
fairly resolved into the two following contentions: that it
was unjust that so vast a domain, whose acquisition at the
peace could only be insured through the joint labor of all the
states, should thereafter become the property of a certain
favored few, and also that the claims if allowed would in the
end give the claimant states a preponderating power which
would be extremely prejudicial if not dangerous to the others.
Of all the non-claimant states, Maryland was the most
determined in her opposition, and it is to her that Professor
Herbert B. Adams in his monograph on "Maryland's Influence
upon Land Cessions to the United States," assigns the chief
credit for the final creation of the first national domain
(see page 3280). The claim though a just one cannot be
asserted without an important qualification. The proposition
advanced by Maryland, that a national title to the western
lands be asserted by a clause in the Articles of
Confederation, was manifestly one to which the claimant states
would never give their consent. It was due, however, to the
action of Maryland,—which refused for more than three years,
from November 1777 to March 1781, to ratify the articles,—
that the question was kept open until the claimant states, in
order to complete the circle of the Union, found it necessary
to adopt the policy of voluntary cessions, suggested by
Congress. The history in detail of the several state cessions
involves many questions concerning the distribution and sale
of public lands which need not concern us. Some of the offers
of cession, at first conditional and partial, were made
absolute and final, as, one by one, the besetting difficulties
were cleared away. The dates of the final cessions by the
seven claimant states in order were as follows:
New York 1781,
Virginia 1783,
Massachusetts 1785,
Connecticut 1786,
South Carolina 1787,
North Carolina 1790,
Georgia 1802.
Certain land reservations north of the Ohio, as shown on the
map of the United States in 1790, were made by both Virginia
and Connecticut; but Virginia renounced jurisdiction over
these lands in the cession, and Connecticut did likewise in
1800, the two states reserving merely the property rights. The
territory south of the Ohio was not included in the Virginia
cession of 1783 but the district of Kentucky was made the
subject of a second cession in 1789. The completion of this
list closed the interesting chapter in our history covered by
the state cessions and gave to the United States the
sovereignty over its first great western public domain. Before
pursuing this subject further, let us see in what relation the
cessions stand to the present form of the thirteen original
states. Some boundary contentions still remained, but these
are not of historic importance. The claim of Massachusetts in
what is now "Western New York was settled by joint commission
in 1786, while Pennsylvania purchased a tract of land on lake
Erie from the general government in 1792. At the present day
sixteen states stand upon the territory which remained to the
original thirteen, the three additional ones each springing
from the partition of one of the older states. In 1790 New
York assented to the independence of Vermont, which was
admitted to the Union in the following year; in 1820 Maine was
separated from Massachusetts and admitted; and finally, in
1862, West Virginia was set off from Virginia and became a
state in 1863. We will now resume the subject of the
disposition of the western lands.
{3810}
We have already noted the termination of that stage of their
history which involves the territorial claims of individual
states. The second stage concerns itself with the evolution of
what may be called the American system of territorial
government. The first, indeed, had not reached its completion
before the second began to receive the greater measure of
public attention. The western land cessions to the government
were made with the general understanding, tacit in most cases,
but in that of Virginia explicitly stated, that the ceded
territory should eventually be formed into additional states.
The first national domain may therefore be regarded as a
district held in trust by the government for a special
purpose. This view, which was not only required by the terms
of the Virginia cession, but also represented the general
sentiment of the time, has formed the basis of our entire
subsequent policy in dealing with the national domain,—a
policy which has remained unaltered even in the case of the
immense territories that afterwards came into the direct
possession of the government by treaty with foreign powers.
The one question remaining was the erection of the legislative
machinery which should provide for the government of the
territories during their preparation for statehood. The
problem was finally solved by the Ordinance of 1787 for the
government of the Northwest territory. This famous ordinance,
the first of the long series of acts concerning territorial
government, was the last noteworthy piece of legislation under
the old Articles of Confederation, and the year which
witnessed both the successful inauguration of our territorial
policy and the adoption of the new constitution is the most
memorable in the entire history of American institutions. The
history of the enactment of the Ordinance, for many years
veiled in obscurity, has been fully elucidated by the late W.
F. Poole (monograph on "The Ordinance of 1787"); the full text
is printed in its proper place in this work (page 2380). Many
of its provisions, suited only for the special occasion of
their use, are now antiquated and obsolete, and neither their
letter nor spirit find a place in subsequent territorial
legislation. But the fact remains that this act was in a
certain sense the great proto-type; it was the first to
organize and set in motion the machinery of our territorial
policy. A policy that has provided without friction for the
tremendous national expansion which has ensued during the
present century may justly be regarded as one of the greatest
achievements in the political history of the American
government. In our own day, when the admission of a new state
or the erection of a new territory is regarded as hardly more
than a routine event in the working of our political system,
it is easy for us to underestimate the vital importance of the
first steps which were taken concerning the regulation of the
national domain. It was because those steps were to determine
in a measure our entire future policy, that the history of the
old Continental Congress should form an absorbing theme for
every student of our internal geography. It is unnecessary to
follow this subject in detail through its later history, which
is simply a monotonous record of legislative enactments for
the organization of new territories or the admission of new
states. The principle had been fully established; the history
of the next century, followed step by step, can show very
little beyond its consistent application. Political
considerations have, it is true, often delayed or prematurely
hastened the admission of new states, but there has been one
case only where we have been called upon again to face a
question similar to that which was solved by the old congress.
The circumstances of the admission of the republic of Texas
bear no analogy to that of any other state received into the
Union since the formation of the government. Here was, not a
state created by mere legislative enactment, but an
independent foreign sovereignty, admitted to the Union at its
own solicitation, bringing with it as a dower a territory
immeasurably greater than the national policy had ever before
assigned to a single state. Once more therefore we have the
old question of a troublesome state sovereignty in immense
unoccupied lands. The comparative absence of friction in the
solution of this new problem proves again the efficiency of
the old policy in dealing with all such questions. No cession
of territory was wrung from Texas or in this case even
solicited. The state was admitted to the Union in 1845
claiming a continuous western boundary on the Rio Grande. In
1850, after the peace of Guadalupe Hidalgo had determined our
boundary on the Mexican side, Texas sold to the General
Government, for the sum of $10,000,000, all of her territorial
claims north and west of her present boundaries. With some
modifications the history of the original cessions repeats
itself in this transaction, which was the last occasion of a
great transfer of territory to the Union by one of its
members. There are many other features in our internal
geography, among the most notable the institution of slavery,
which would be worthy of attention were the space to permit.
In view of this limitation, however, we cannot pursue the
subject beyond this general review of its main outlines. There
is a dearth of works on American historical geography
subsequent to the Declaration of Independence. It is a
subject, indeed, which cannot be very satisfactorily studied
simply through the literature dealing exclusively with the
topic. Of the atlases Professor Albert Bushnell Hart's. "Epoch
Maps Illustrating American History" is the best; the most
serviceable of the text works is Henry Gannett's pamphlet on
"Boundaries of the United States and of the several States and
Territories, with a Historical Sketch of the Territorial
Changes," published as bulletin Number 13 of the United States
Geological Survey. Townsend MacCoun's "Historical Geography of
the United States" and the later chapters of Walter B.
Scaife's "America, its Geographical History" are also useful.
An excellent account of our geographical history during the
early years of the Government, covering the period of the
state cessions, may be found in B. A. Hinsdale's Old
Northwest, with a View of the Thirteen Colonies as constituted
by the, Royal Charters." For a more careful study there is of
course no substitute for the texts of the grants, charters,
treaties and legislative acts of Congress, and the more
important of these are freely quoted from in Mr. Gannett's
work.
Alan C. Reiley.
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1863.
Adoption and Organization of the National Bank System
of the United States.
See MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1861-1878 (page 2219).
{3811}
UTOPIAS.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS (page 2932).
UZBEGS.
A Turkish branch of the Tatars of Turkestan.
V.
VOLAPUK.
A proposed universal language, invented in 1879 by a
Swabian pastor, named Schleyer.
VOLTA, The electrical discoveries of.
See ELECTRICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION:
A. D. 1786-1800 (page 771).
W.
WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY.
See EDUCATION (page 743).
WHEATSTONE, Prof., Inventions of.
See ELECTRICAL DISCOVERY (page 773).
T. O'Conor Sloane,
The Standard Electrical Dictionary
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26535
{3812}
CHRONOLOGY OF IMPORTANT AND INDICATIVE EVENTS.
TO THE CHRISTIAN ERA. [BEFORE]
B. C. 4777.
Beginning of the Egyptian dynasties as given by Manetho,
according to the latest computations. [Uncertain date]
2250.
Beginning of the reign of Hammurabi, or Chammurabi, the
first important king of Babylonia. [Uncertain date]
1500.
Independence of Assyria as a kingdom separate from
Babylonia, and rise of Nineveh. [Uncertain date]
1330.
Beginning of the reign in Egypt of Ramses II.,
the Sesostris of the Greeks. [Uncertain date]
1260.
Death of Ramses II., king of Egypt, and accession of
Merneptah or Merenptah, supposed by many writers to be
the Pharaoh of the Oppression. [Uncertain date]
1200.
Exodus of the Children of Israel from Egypt.
[Uncertain date]
1120.
Beginning of the reign of Tiglathpileser I.,
king of Assyria. [Uncertain date]
1000.
Beginning of the reign of King David. [Uncertain date]
960.
Death of David and beginning of the reign of Solomon.
[Uncertain date]
776.
Beginning of the Olympiads.
753.
The founding of Rome. [Uncertain date]
745.
First war between Sparta and Messenia.
734.
Founding of Syracuse by Greeks from Corinth.
725.
End of first Messenian War.
722.
Overthrow of the kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians.
Captivity of the Ten Tribes.
685.
The second war between Messenia and Sparta.
668.
End of the second Messenian war.
640.
Birth of Thales. [Uncertain date]
624.
Supposed date of the legislation of Draco, at Athens.
[Uncertain date]
612.
Conspiracy of Cylon at Athens.
608.
Accession of Nebuchadnezzar in Babylonia.
606.
Destruction of Nineveh and overthrow of the Assyrian
empire by the Medes. [Uncertain date]
601.
First invasion of Palestine by Nebuchadnezzar.
598.
Invasion of Palestine by Nebuchadnezzar.
594.
The Constitution of Solon adopted at Athens.
586.
Capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar.
End of the kingdom of Judah and exile of the remnant
of the people to Babylon.
560.
Tyranny of Pisistratus established at Athens.
551.
Birth of Confucius [Uncertain date] (d. 478).
549.
Overthrow of the Median monarchy by Cyrus,
and founding of the Persian.
546.
Overthrow of Crœsus and the kingdom of Lydia by Cyrus,
king of Persia.
538.
Conquest of Babylon by Cyrus.
529.
Death of Cyrus and accession of Cambyses
to the throne of Persia.
525.
Conquest of Egypt by Cambyses, king of Persia.
Birth of Æschylus (d. 456).
521.
Accession of Darius I., king of Persia.
520.
Birth of Pindar. [Uncertain date]
516.
Invasion of Scythia by Darius, king of Persia.
[Uncertain date]
514.
Birth of Themistocles [Uncertain date]
(d. 449 [Uncertain date]).
510.
Expulsion of the Pisistratids from Athens.
509.
Expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome. [Uncertain date]
Founding of the Republic (Roman chronology).
508.
Political reorganization of Athens by Cleisthenes.
506.
Subjection of Macedonia to Persia.
500.
Rising of the Greek colonies in Ionia, against the Persians.
495.
Birth of Sophocles (d. 405 [Uncertain date]).
493.
League of the Romans and Latins.
492.
First secession of the Roman Plebs.
Creation of the Tribunes of the People.
490.
First Persian expedition against Greece.
Destruction of Naxos by the Persians.
Their overwhelming defeat at Marathon.
489.
Condemnation and death of Miltiades at Athens.
[Uncertain date]
486.
Accession of Xerxes to the throne of Persia.
484.
Birth of Herodotus. [Uncertain date]
480.
Second Persian invasion of Greece.
Thermopylæ.
Artemisium.
Salamis.
Retreat of Xerxes.
Carthaginian invasion of Sicily.
Battle of Himera.
Birth of Euripides. [Uncertain date]
479.
Battles of Platæa and Mycale and end of
the Persian invasion of Greece.
478.
Beginning of the tyranny of Hieron at Syracuse.
477.
Formation of the Confederacy of Delos, under Athens.
471.
Exile of Themistocles from Athens.
Birth of Thucydides (d. 401 [Uncertain date]).
{3813}
469.
Birth of Socrates [Uncertain date]
(d. 399 [Uncertain date]).
466.
Naval victory of the Greeks over the Persians at Eurymedon.
Outbreak of the Plague at Rome.
Revolt of Naxos from the Delian Confederacy.
Fall of the tyrants at Syracuse.
465.
Murder of Xerxes I., and accession of Artaxerxes I.
to the throne of Persia.
464.
Great earthquake at Sparta.
Rising of the Helots,
or beginning of the third Messenian War.
460.
Birth of Hippocrates.
458.
Commencement of the Long Walls of Athens.
457.
Beginning of war of Corinth, Sparta, and Ægina with Athens.
Battle of Tanagra.
456.
Athenian victory at Œnophyta.
455.
End of the third Messenian War.
450.
End of war against Athens.
Framing of the Twelve Tables of the Roman Law.
The Decemvirs at Rome.
Birth of Alcibiades [Uncertain date] (d. 404).
447.
Defeat of the Athenians by the Bœotians at Coronea.
445.
Conclusion of the Thirty Years Peace between Athens
and Sparta and their allies.
Ascendancy of Pericles at Athens.
Peace of Callias between Greece and Persia.
Birth of Xenophon. [Uncertain date]
444.
Creation of Consular Tribunes at Rome.
Exile of Thucydides from Athens.
435.
War between Corinth and Corcyra.
432.
Complaints against Athens.
Peloponnesian Congress at Sparta.
Revolt of Potidæa.
431.
Beginning of the Peloponnesian War.
Invasion of Attica.
430.
Second invasion of Attica.
The Plague at Athens.
429.
Death of Pericles at Athens.
Capture of Potidæa.
Birth of Plato (d. 347).
427.
Destruction of Platæa by the Peloponnesians.
Massacre at Corcyra.
425.
Surrender of Spartans to the Athenians at Sphacteria.
Accession of Xerxes II., king of Persia.
421.
Peace of Nicias between Athens and Sparta.
End of the first period of the Peloponnesian War.
415.
Expedition of the Athenians against Syracuse.
Mutilation of the Hermæ at Athens.

Accusation and flight of Alcibiades.
413.
Disaster to the Athenians before Syracuse.
Renewal of the Peloponnesian War.
411.
Oligarchical revolution at Athens.
The Four Hundred and their fall.
Recall of Alcibiades.
409.
Carthaginian invasion of Sicily.
406.
Victory of the Athenians over the Peloponnesians in
the battle of Arginusæ.
Execution of the generals at Athens.
405.
Defeat of the Athenians at Aigospotamoi.
Successful revolt of the Egyptians against the Persians,
and independence established.
404.
Fall of Athens.
End of the Peloponnesian War.
401.
Expedition of Cyrus the Younger.
400.
Retreat of the Ten Thousand under Xenophon.
Birth of Timoleon [Uncertain date] (d. 337).
391).
Condemnation and death of Socrates at Athens.
War of Sparta with Persia.
395.
League of Greek cities against Sparta.
The Corinthian War.
390.
Rome destroyed by the Gauls.
389.
Birth of Æschines [Uncertain date] (d. 314).
387.
Peace of Antalcidas between the Greeks and Persians.
385.
Birth of Demosthenes [Uncertain date] (d. 322).
384.
Birth of Aristotle (d. 322).
383.
Betrayal of Thebes to Sparta.
War of Syracuse with Carthage.
379.
Overthrow of the Olynthian League by Sparta.
Deliverance of Thebes.
371.
Defeat of Sparta at Leuctra.
Ascendancy of Thebes.
Arcadian Union.
370.
Peloponnesian expedition of Epaminondas.
361.
Adoption of the Licinian Laws at Rome.
362.
Victory and death of Epaminondas at Mantinea.
359.
Accession of Philip to the throne of Macedonia.
357.
Outbreak of the Ten Years Sacred War in Greece.
356.
Burning of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus.
Birth of Alexander the Great (d. 323).
353.
Final conquest of Egypt by the Persians.
352.
Interference of Philip of Macedonia in the Greek Sacred War.
First Philippic of Demosthenes.
343.
Deliverance of Syracuse by Timoleon.
First Samnite War in Italy.
341.
End of first Samnite War.
340.
Adoption of the Publilian Laws at Rome.
338.
League of Greek cities against Philip of Macedonia.
His victory at Chæronea.
His domination established.
Subjugation of the Latins by Rome.
336.
Assassination of Philip of Macedonia,
and accession of Alexander the Great.
335.
Revolt of Thebes.
Alexander's destruction of the city.
334.
Alexander's expedition against Persia.
His victory at the Granicus.
333.
Alexander's victory over the Persians at Issus.
332.
Alexander's sieges of Tyre and Gaza.
His conquest of Egypt and founding of Alexandria.
331.
Alexander's victory at Arbela.
Overthrow of the Persian empire.
{3814}
330.
Alexander's destruction of Persepolis.
326.
Alexander in India.
Defeat of Porus.
Beginning of second Samnite War in Italy.
323.
Death of Alexander the Great at Babylon.
Partition of his dominion among the generals.
Revolt in Greece.
The Lamian War.
322.
Subjugation of Athens by the Macedonians.
Death of Demosthenes.
321.
Beginning of the Wars of the Successors of Alexander.
Founding of the kingdom of the Ptolemies In Egypt.
Defeat of the Romans by the Samnites at the Caudine Forks.
317.
Execution of Phocion at Athens.
307.
Athens under the rule of Demetrius Poliorcetes.
306.
Royal titles assumed by Antigonus (as king of Asia),
Ptolemy, in Egypt, Seleucus Nicator, in Syria, Lysimachus,
in Thrace, and Cassander, in Macedonia.
305.
Siege of Rhodes by Demetrius Poliorcetes.
304.
End of the second Samnite War in Italy.
301.
Battle of Ipsus.
Overthrow and death of Antigonus.
298.
Beginning of third Samnite War.
295.
Roman defeat of the Gauls at Sentinum.
290.
End of the third Samnite War.
287.
Birth of Archimedes [Uncertain date] (d. 212).
286.
Adoption of the Hortensian Laws at Rome.
280.
Invasion of Italy by Pyrrhus, king of Epirus.
Invasion of Greece by the Gauls.
Rise of the Achaian League.
278.
Pyrrhus in Sicily, in war against Carthage.
275.
Defeat of Pyrrhus at Beneventum.
264.
Beginning of the first Punic War between Rome and Carthage.
263.
Athens captured by Antigonus Gonatus.
255.
Defeat and capture of Regulus in Africa.
250.
Founding of the kingdom of Parthia by Arsaces.
[Uncertain date]
247.
Birth of Hannibal [Uncertain date] (d. 183).
241.
End of the first Punic War.
Roman conquest of Sicily.
Revolt of the Carthaginian mercenaries.
234.
Birth of Cato the Elder (d. 149).
Birth of Scipio Africanus the Elder [Uncertain date](d. 183).
227.
War of Sparta with the Achaian League.
222.
Roman conquest of Cisalpine Gaul completed.
221.
Battle of Sellasia.
Sparta crushed by the king of Macedonia.
218.
Beginning of the second Punic War between Rome and Carthage.
Hannibal in Italy.
217.
Hannibal's defeat of the Romans at the Trasimene Lake.
Cœle-Syria and Palestine ceded to Egypt by
Antiochus the Great.
216.
Great defeat of the Romans by Hannibal at Cannæ.
214.
Beginning of war between Rome and Macedonia.
212.
Siege and reduction of Syracuse by the Romans.
211.
Hannibal at the Roman gates.
210.
Ægina taken by the Romans and the inhabitants
reduced to slavery.
207.
Defeat of Hasdrubal on the Metaurus.
206.
Birth of Polybius. [Uncertain date]
205.
End of first Macedonian War.
202.
Scipio's decisive victory at Zama, in Africa,
ending the second Punic War.
201.
Subjection of the Jews to the Seleucid monarchy.
200.
Roman declaration of war against the king of Macedonia.
197.
Decisive Roman victory over the Macedonians at Cynoscephalæ.
196.
Freedom of the Greeks proclaimed by the
Roman general Flamininus.
195.
Birth of Terence [Uncertain date] (d. 158 [Uncertain date]).
191.
Romans defeat Antiochus of Syria at Thermopylæ in Greece.
Final subjugation of Cisalpine Gaul by the Romans.
190.
Decisive defeat of Antiochus at Magnesia, by the Romans.
Beginning of Roman conquest in Asia.
189.
Fall of the Ætolian League.
185.
Birth of Scipio Africanus the Younger (d. 129).
171.
The third war between Rome and Macedonia.
168.
Roman victory at Pydna;
extinction of the Macedonian kingdom.
Birth of Tiberius Gracchus [Uncertain date] (d. 133).
167.
Revolt of the Jews under Judas Maccabæus,
against Antiochus, king of Syria.
165.
Judas Maccabæus in Jerusalem; the Temple purified.
161.
Defeat and death of Judas Maccabæus.
157.
Birth of Marius (d. 86).
149.
Opening of the third Punic War between Rome and Carthage.
146.
Roman destruction of Carthage and Corinth.
Greece absorbed in the dominion of Rome.
138.
Birth of Sulla (d. 78).
135.
Assassination of Simon Maccabæus;
accession of John Hyrcanus to the High Priesthood.
133.
Outbreak of the Servile War in Sicily.
Attempted reforms and death of Tiberius Gracchus at Rome.
Reduction of Numantia.
121.
Death of Caius Gracchus at Rome.
111.
Beginning of the Jugurthine War between Rome and Numidia.
{3815}
106.
Birth of Cicero (d. 43).
Birth of Pompey the Great (d. 48).
105.
Great defeat of the Romans by the Cimbri at Arausio.
Royal title taken by Aristobulus in Judea.
104.
Ending of the Jugurthine War by Marius.
102.
Destruction of the Teutones at Aquæ Sextiæ by the
Romans under Marius.
101.
Destruction of the Cimbri by Marius.
100.
Adoption of the Apuleian Law at Rome.
Birth of Julius Cæsar (d. 44).
95.
Birth of Lucretius (d. 55).
90.
Outbreak of the Social War, or struggle of the Italians.
88.
Beginning of the first civil war (Marius and Sulla) at Rome,
and of war with Mithridates, king of Pontus.
Unsuccessful siege of Rhodes by Mithridates.
87.
Campaigns of the Romans under Sulla against Mithridates in Greece.
Marian proscriptions at Rome.
Birth of Catullus [Uncertain date] (d. 47 [Uncertain date]).
86.
Sulla's capture of Athens and victory at Chæronea.
Death of Marius.
Birth of Sallust (d. 34 [Uncertain date]).
84.
End of the first Mithridatic War.
83.
Return of Sulla to Italy;
burning of the Temple of Jupiter;
civil war at Rome.
82.
Sulla master of Rome;
the Sullan reign of terror.
80.
War with Sertorius in Spain.
79.
Sulla's resignation of the dictatorship.
78.
Death of Sulla.
74.
Opening of third Mithridatic War between Rome and
the king of Pontus.
73.
Rising of the Roman gladiators under Spartacus.
72.
Assassination of Sertorius in Spain;
Pompey in command.
71.
Defeat of the gladiators and death of Spartacus.
70.
Consulship of Pompey and Crassus at Rome.
Cicero's impeachment of Verres.
61.
Pompey's campaign against the pirates of Cilicia.
66.
Command of Pompey in the East.
Overthrow of Mithridates.
65.
Birth of Horace (d. 8).
64.
Extinction of the Seleucid kingdom by Pompey.
63.
Consulship of Cicero at Rome;
Conspiracy of Catiline.
Pompey's siege and conquest of Jerusalem;
the Asmonean kingdom made tributary to Rome.
60.
The first Triumvirate at Rome.
59.
Consulship of Cæsar at Rome.
58.
Beginning of Cæsar's campaigns in Gaul.
Exile of Cicero from Rome.
57.
Recall of Cicero.
56.
Roman conquest of Aquitaine.
55.
Cæsar's first invasion of Britain.
53.
Roman war with Parthia;
defeat and death of Crassus at Carrhæ.
51.
Cæsar's conquest of Gaul completed.
50.
Beginning of the second Civil War at Rome;
Cæsar's passage of the Rubicon.
49.
Cæsar's campaign against the Pompeians in Spain;
his conquest of Massilia.
48.
Cæsar's victory at Pharsalia;
death of Pompey in Egypt;
Cæsar in Alexandria.
46.
Cæsar's victory at Thapsus;
death of Cato.
45.
Cæsar's victory in Spain.
44.
Assassination of Cæsar at Rome.
43.
The second Triumvirate at Rome;
murder of Cicero.
Birth of Ovid (d. A. D. 18).
42.
Battles of Philippi;
destruction of the Liberators.
40.
Herod proclaimed King of Judea.
37.
Conquest of Jerusalem by Herod.
31.
War of Antony and Octavius;
victory of Octavius at Actium, establishing his supremacy.
30.
Death of Antony and Cleopatra;
annexation of Egypt to the Roman dominion.
29.
Triumph of Octavius celebrated at Rome;
title of Imperator given to him;
closing of the Temple of Janus.
27.
Title of Augustus assumed by Octavius at Rome.
12.
Expedition of the Romans under Drusus into Germany.
9.
Last German campaign and death of Drusus.
8.
First campaign of Tiberius
(afterward Roman emperor) in Germany.
4.
Probable date of the birth of Jesus.
Death of Herod, king of Judea.
CHRISTIAN ERA.
First Century.
1.
Beginning of the Christian Era.
4.
Campaign of the Emperor Tiberius in Germany.
6.
Deposition of the Herodian ethnarch Archelaus;
Judea made a district of the Roman prefecture of Syria.
9.
Destruction of Varus and his Roman legions
by the Germans under Arminius.
14.
Death of Augustus;
Tiberius made Emperor of Rome.
Expedition of Germanicus into Germany.
23.
Birth of Pliny the Elder (d. 79).
26.
Pontius Pilate, Roman procurator in Judea.
{3816}
27.
Completion of the Pantheon at Rome.
29.
Crucifixion of Jesus. [Uncertain date]
Martyrdom of Saint Stephen.
35.
Conversion of Saint Paul. [Uncertain date]
37.
Death of the Emperor Tiberius.
Accession of Caius, called Caligula.
Birth of Agricola (d. 93).
Birth of Josephus (d. 95 [Uncertain date]).
40.
Birth of Martial. [Uncertain date]
41.
Murder of the Emperor Caligula;
elevation of Claudius to the throne.
Restoration of the Herodian kingdom of Judea
under Herod Agrippa.
43.
Roman invasion of Britain by Aulius Plautius
and the Emperor Claudius.
44.
Death of Herod Agrippa;
extinction of the kingdom of Judea.
50.
First missionary journey of Saint Paul. [Uncertain date]
51.
Capture of Caractacus, king of the Trinobantes, in Britain.
Adoption of Nero by Claudius.
52.
Second missionary journey of Saint Paul. [Uncertain date]
Birth of Trajan [Uncertain date] (d. 117).
53.
Felix, procurator of Judea.
54.
Murder of the Emperor Claudius and accession of Nero.
Saint Paul at Athens. [Uncertain date]
55.
Third missionary journey of Saint Paul. [Uncertain date]
Birth of Tacitus. [Uncertain date]
59.
Festus made governor of Judea.
Arrest of Saint Paul.
Murder of Agrippina.
61.
Destruction of the Druids of Britain;
revolt under Boadicea.
Saint Paul in Rome. [Uncertain date]
62.
Birth of Pliny the Younger. [Uncertain date]
64.
The burning of Rome;
first persecution of Christians.
65.
Conspiracy of Piso.
Execution of Lucan and Seneca by the command of Nero.
66.
Revolt of the Jews.
67.
Campaign of Vespasian against the insurgent Jews.
68.
Suicide of the Emperor Nero;
Galba proclaimed Emperor.
69.
Murder of Galba;
brief reigns of Otho and Vitellius;
Vespasian raised to the throne.
Revolt of the Batavians under Civilis.
70.
Siege and destruction of Jerusalem by Titus.
78.
Beginning of Agricola's campaign in Britain.
79.
Death of the Emperor Vespasian and accession of Titus.
Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum.
Pestilence in the Roman Empire.
81.
Death of the Emperor Titus and accession of Domitian.
96.
Murder of the Emperor Domitian;
Nerva raised to the throne.
97.
Adoption of Trajan by Nerva.
98.
Death of the Emperor Nerva and accession of Trajan.
Second Century.
106.
Completed Roman conquest of Dacia by Trajan.
115.
War of Rome with Parthia.
Trajan's conquests in Asia.
Martyrdom of St. Ignatius.
Great earthquake at Antioch.
116.
Rising of the Jews in Cyrene, Cyprus and Egypt.
117.
Death of the Emperor Trajan and accession of Hadrian.
Relinquishment of Asiatic conquests.
118.
Campaign of Hadrian in Mœsia.
119.
Hadrian's visit to Britain.
121.
Birth of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (d. 180).
131.
Birth of Galen.
132.
Savage revolt of the Jews, savagely repressed;
name of Jerusalem changed to Ælia Capitolina;
complete dispersion of the Jews.
138.
Death of the Emperor Hadrian and
succession of Antoninus Pius.
161.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus made Emperor on
the death of Antoninus Pius.
Roman war with Parthia begun.
165.
End of war between Rome and Parthia.
Sack of Seleucia and Ctesiphon.
Acquisition of Mesopotamia by Rome.
166.
Great plague in the Roman Empire.
167.
Beginning of the wars of Rome with the Marcomanni and Quadi.
174.
Great victory of Marcus Aurelius over the Quadi.
180.
Death of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius;
and accession of his Bon Commodus.
186.
Birth of Origen [Uncertain date] (d. 253).
192.
Murder of the Emperor Commodus (December 31).
193.
Pertinax made Emperor, and murdered;
sale of the throne of the Roman Empire to Didius Julianus;
contest of rivals;
accession of Septimius Severus.
198.
Siege and capture of the Parthian city Ctesiphon
by the Romans.
Third Century.
208.
Campaign of Severus against the Caledonians of Britain.
211.
Death of the Emperor Severus;
accession of his sons, Caracalla and Geta.
212.
Murder of Geta by Caracalla.
213.
First collision of the Romans with the Alemanni.
215.
Massacre at Alexandria commanded by Caracalla.
217.
Murder of the Emperor Caracalla;
elevation of Macrinus.
218.
Overthrow of Macrinus by Elagabalus.
{3817}
222.
Murder of Elagabalus;
Alexander Severus made Emperor.
226.
The new monarchy of Persia;
fall of the Parthian power;
rise of the Sassanidæ.
235.
Murder of the Emperor Alexander Severus;
accession of Maximin.
237.
Fate of the two Gordians at Rome.
238.
Overthrow and death of the Emperor Maximin;
elevation of the third Gordian.
244.
Death of the Emperor Gordian;
accession of Philip.
249.
Death of the Emperor Philip;
accession of Decius.
250.
Decian persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire.
Gothic invasion of Mœsia.
251.
Victory of the Goths over the Romans;
death of Decius in battle;
accession of Gallus to the imperial throne.
253.
Murder of the Emperor Gallus;
accession of Æmilianus.
First appearance of the Franks in the Empire.
Murder of Æmilianus and accession of Valerian.
259.
Invasion of Gaul and Italy by the Alemanni.
260.
Roman war with Persia.
Defeat and capture of the Emperor Valerian;
accession of Gallienus.
267.
Accession of Zenobia, queen of Palmyra.
268.
Murder of the Emperor Gallienus;
accession of Claudius II.
Invasion of Thrace and Macedonia by the Goths
checked by Claudius.
270.
Death of the Emperor Claudius II.;
accession of Aurelian.
Dacia yielded to the Goths.
Italy invaded by the Alemanni.
273.
Defeat and capture of Zenobia, queen of Palmyra,
by the Emperor Aurelian.
275.
Murder of the Emperor Aurelian;
accession of Tacitus.
276.
Death of the Emperor Tacitus;
accession of Probus.
277.
Roman repulse of the Franks.
Invasion of Germany by Probus.
282.
Murder of the Emperor Probus;
accession of Carus.
283.
War of Rome with Persia.
Death of Carus;
accession of Numerian.
284.
Murder of the Emperor Numerian;
accession of Diocletian.
286.
Maximian made imperial colleague of Diocletian.
287.
Insurrection of the Bagauds in Gaul.
288.
Revolt of Carausius in Britain.
292.
Galerius and Constantius Chlorus created "Cæsars."
296.
Revolt of the African provinces of Rome;
siege of Alexandria.
Birth of Athanasius [Uncertain date] (d. 373).
297.
Roman war with Persia;
defeat of Galerius.
298.
Victorious peace of Rome with Persia;
extension of the Empire.
Fourth Century.
303.
Persecution of Christians by the Emperor Diocletian.
305.
Abdication of the Emperors Diocletian and Maximian;
Galerius and Constantius Chlorus become "Augusti";
Maximin and Severus made "Cæsars."
306.
Constantius Chlorus succeeded as "Cæsar"
by his son Constantine;
beginning of civil war between Constantine and his rivals;
defeat of the Salian Franks by Constantine.
312.
Conversion of the Emperor Constantine to Christianity.
313.
Constantine and Licinius share the Empire.
Toleration Edict of Milan.
316.
Birth of Saint Martin of Tours (d. 397).
318.
Opening of the Arian controversy.
325.
First general Council of the Church at Nicæa.
330.
Removal of the capital of the Empire from Rome to
Byzantium (Constantinople).
337.
Death of the Emperor Constantine;
partition of the Empire.
340.
Beginning of Civil War between the
three sons of Constantine.
348.
Defeat of the Romans by the Persians at Singara.
353.
Constantius sole Emperor.
Synod of Aries.
354.
Birth of Saint Augustine, bishop of Hippo (d. 430).
355.
Julian made Cæsar;
his defense of Gaul.
361.
Death of the Emperor Constantius and accession of Julian;
revival of Paganism.
363.
Expedition of Julian into Persia;
his retreat and death;
accession of Jovian;
Christianity again ascendant.
364.
Death of the Emperor Jovian;
accession of Valentinian I. in the West
and of Valens in the East.
365.
Great earthquake in the Roman world.
367.
First campaigns of Theodosius against the Picts and Scots.
368.
Repulse of the Alemanni, from Gaul.
375.
Death of Valentinian;
accession of Gratian and Valentinian II. in the West.
376.
The Visigoths, driven by the Huns, admitted to the Empire.
377.
Rising of the Goths in Mœsia and
indecisive battle of Ad Salices.
378.
Death of the Emperor Valens in battle with the Goths at
Adrianople.
Invasion of Gaul by the Alemanni and
their repulse by Gratian.
379.
Theodosius named Emperor in the East by Gratian.
380.
Trinitarian edict of Theodosius.
381.
Second general council of the Church, at Constantinople.
382.
Conclusion of peace with the Goths by the Emperor Theodosius;
final settlement of the Goths in Mœsia and Thrace.
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388.
Overthrow of the usurper, Maximus.
Formal vote of the Senate establishing Christianity in the
Roman Empire.
389.
Destruction of the Serapeum at Alexandria.
390.
Sedition at Thessalonica and massacre ordered by Theodosius.
392.
Final suppression of Paganism in the Empire, by law.
Murder of Valentinian II., Emperor in the West;
usurpation of Eugenius.
394.
Overthrow of the usurper Eugenius.
395.
Death of the Emperor Theodosius;
accession of his sons, Arcadius and Honorius;
final division of the Empire.
Invasion of Greece by Alaric;
capture of Athens.
398.
Suppression by Stilicho of Gildo's revolt in Africa.
400.
Alaric's invasion of Italy.
Fifth Century.
402.
Defeat of Alaric by Stilicho.
Birth of Phocion [Uncertain date] (d. 317).
404.
Removal of the capital of the Western Empire
from Rome to Ravenna. [Uncertain date]
Banishment of the Patriarch, John Chrysostom,
from Constantinople;
burning of the Church of St. Sophia.
406.
Barbarian inroad of Radagaisus into Italy.
Breaking of the Rhine barrier by German tribes;
overwhelming invasion of Gaul by Vandals, Alans,
Suevi, and Burgundians.
407.
Usurpation of Constantine in Britain and Gaul.
408.
Death of the Eastern Emperor, Arcadius,
and accession of Theodosius II.
Execution of Stilicho at Ravenna;
massacre of barbarian hostages in Italy;
blockade of Rome by Alaric.
409.
Invasion of Spain by the Vandals, Suevi, and Alans.
410.
Siege, capture and pillage of Rome by Alaric;
his death.
Abandonment of Britain by the Empire.
The barbarian attack upon Gaul joined by the Franks.
412.
Gaul entered by the Visigoths.
Cyril made Patriarch of Alexandria.
414.
Title of Augusta taken by Pulcheria at Constantinople.
415.
Visigothic conquest of Spain begun.
Persecution of Jews at Alexandria;
death of Hypatia.
418.
Founding of the Gothic kingdom of Toulouse in Aquitaine.
420.
Death of Saint Jerome, in Palestine.
422.
War between Persia and the Eastern Empire;
partition of Armenia.
423.
Death of Honorius, Emperor in the West;
usurpation of John the Notary.
425.
Accession of the Western Emperor, Valentinian III.,
under the regency of Placidia;
formal and legal separation of the
Eastern and Western Empires.
428.
Conquests of the Vandals in Spain.
Nestorius made Patriarch of Constantinople.
429.
Vandal conquests in Africa begun.
430.
Siege of Hippo Regius In Africa;
death of Saint Augustine, bishop of Hippo.
431.
Third general Council of the Church, held at Ephesus.
433.
Beginning of the reign of Attila, king of the Huns.
[Uncertain date]
435.
Nestorius exiled to the Libyan desert.
439.
Carthage taken by the Vandals.
440.
Leo the Great elected Pope.
441.
Invasion of the Eastern Empire by Attila and the Huns.
443.
Conquest and settlement of Savoy by the Burgundians.
446.
Thermopylæ passed by the Huns;
humiliating purchase of peace with them
by the Eastern Emperor.
449.
Landing in Britain of the Jutes under Hengist and Horsa.
[Uncertain date]
Meeting of the so-called Robber Synod at Ephesus.
450.
Death of the Eastern Emperor, Theodosius II.,
and accession of Pulcheria.
451.
Great defeat of the Huns at Chalons;
retreat of Attila from Gaul.
Fourth General Council of the Church, held at Chalcedon.
452.
Invasion of Italy by Attila;
origin of Venice.
453.
Death of Attila;
dissolution of his empire.
Death of Pulcheria, Empress in the East.
455.
Murder of Valentinian III., Emperor in the West;
usurpation of Maximus.
Rome pillaged by the Vandals.
Birth of Theodoric the Great (d. 526).
456.
Supremacy of Ricimer, commander of the barbarian
mercenaries, in the Western Empire;
Avitus deposed.
457.
Marjorian, first of the imperial puppets of Ricimer,
raised to the throne of the Western Empire.
Accession of Leo I., Emperor in the East.
461.
Marjorian deposed;
Severus made Emperor in the West.
Death of Pope Leo the Great and election of Pope Hilarius.
467.
Anthemius made Emperor in the West.
472.
Siege and storming of Rome by Ricimer;
death of Anthemius, and of Ricimer;
Olybrius and Glycerius successive emperors.
473.
Ostrogothic invasion of Italy diverted to Gaul.
474.
Julius Nepos Emperor in the West;
accession of Zeno in the Eastern Empire.
475.
Romulus Augustulus made Emperor in the West.
476.
Romulus Augustulus dethroned by Odoacer;
extinction for more than three centuries of
the Western line of emperors.
477.
Beginning of Saxon conquests in Britain.
480.
Birth of Saint Benedict (d. 543).
481.
Founding of the Frank kingdom by Clovis.
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483.
Election of Pope Felix II.
486.
Overthrow of the kingdom of Syagrius,
the last Roman sovereignty in Gaul.
488.
Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, commissioned by the
Eastern Emperor to invade Italy.
489.
Defeat of Odoacer by Theodoric at Verona.
491.
Accession of Anastasius, Emperor in the East.
Capture of Anderida by the South Saxons.
492.
Election of Pope Gelasius I.
493.
Surrender of Odoacer at Ravenna; his murder:
Theodoric king of Italy.
494.
Landing of Cerdic and his band of Saxons in Britain.
[Uncertain date]
496.
Defeat of the Alemanni at Tolbiac by Clovis,
king of the Franks;
baptism of Clovis.
Election of Pope Anastasius II.
Sixth Century.
504.
Expulsion of the Alemanni from the Middle Rhine by the Franks.
505.
Peace between Persia and the Eastern Empire.
501.
Overthrow of the Gothic kingdom of Toulouse by Clovis.
511.
Death of Clovis;
partition of the Frank kingdom among his sons.
Monophysite riot at Constantinople.
512.
Second Monophysite riot at Constantinople.
515.
Publication of the monastic rule of Saint Benedict.
518.
Death of the Eastern Emperor, Anastasius,
accession of Justin I.
519.
Cerdic and Cynric become kings of the West Saxons.
525.
Execution of Boethius and Symmachus by Theodoric,
king of Italy.
526.
Death of Theodoric and accession of Athalaric.
Great earthquake at Antioch.
War between Persia and the Eastern Empire.
527.
Accession of Justinian in the Eastern Empire.
528.
Conquest of Thuringia by the Franks.
529.
Defeat of the Persians, at Dara,
by the Roman general Belisarius.
Closing of the schools at Athens.
Publication of the Code of Justinian.
531.
Accession of Chosroes, or Nushirvan,
to the throne of Persia.
532.
End of war between Persia and the Eastern Empire.
Nika sedition at Constantinople.
533.
Overthrow of the Vandal kingdom in Africa by Belisarius.
Publication of the Pandects of Justinian.
534.
Conquest of the Burgundians by the Franks.
535.
Recovery of Sicily from the Goths by Belisarius.
536.
Rome taken from the Goths by Belisarius for Justinian.
537.
Unsuccessful siege of Rome by the Goths.
539.
Destruction of Milan by the Goths.
Invasion of Italy by the Franks.
540.
Surrender of Ravenna to Belisarius;
his removal from command.
Invasion of Syria by Chosroes, king of Persia;
storming and sacking of Antioch.
Formal relinquishment of Gaul to the Franks by Justinian.
Vigilius made Pope.
541.
Gothic successes under Totila, in Italy.
End of the succession of Roman Consuls.
Defense of the East by Belisarius.
542.
Great Plague in the Roman Empire.
543.
Surrender of Naples to Totila.
Death of Saint Benedict.
Invasion of Spain by the Franks.
544.
Belisarius again in command In Italy.
546.
Totila's siege, capture and pillage of Rome.
547.
The city of Rome totally deserted for six weeks.
Founding of the kingdom of Bernicia
(afterward included in Northumberland) in England.
Subjection of the Bavarians to the Franks.
548.
Death of the Eastern Empress, Theodora.
549.
Second siege and capture of Rome by Totila.
Beginning of the Lazic War.
552.
Totila defeated and killed by the
imperial army under Narses.
553.
End of the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy;
restoration of the imperial sovereignty.
Fifth General Council of the Church, at Constantinople.
Establishment of the Exarch at Ravenna,
representing the Emperor at Constantinople.
555.
Pelagius I. made Pope.
558.
Reunion of the Frank empire under Clothaire I.
560.
John III. made Pope.
563.
Founding of the monastery of Iona, in Scotland,
by Saint Columba.
565.
Death of Belisarius and of the Eastern Emperor Justinian;
accession of Justin II.
566.
Conquest of the Gepidæ in Dacia by the Lombards and Avars.
567.
Division of the Frank dominion into the three kingdoms
of Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy.
568.
Invasion of Italy by the Lombards;
siege of Pavia.
570.
Birth of Mahomet. [Uncertain date]
572.
Renewed war of the Eastern Empire with Persia.
573.
Murder of Alboin, king of the Lombards.
Subjugation of the Suevi by the Visigoths in Spain.
574.
Benedict I. made Pope.
578.
Accession of the Eastern Emperor Tiberius Constantinus.
Pelagius II. made Pope.
582.
Accession of Maurice, Emperor in the East.
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588.
Kingdom of Northumberland, in England,
founded by the union of Bernicia and Deira under Æthelric.
589.
Abandonment of Arianism by the Goths in Spain.
590.
Gregory the Great elected Pope.
591.
Peace between Persia and the Eastern Empire.
597.
Mission of Saint Augustine to England.
Death of Saint Columba.
Seventh Century.
602.
Revolt in Constantinople;
fall and death of Maurice;
accession of Phocas.
604.
Death of Pope Gregory the Great.
Death of St. Augustine of Canterbury. [Uncertain date]
608.
Invasion of Asia Minor by Chosroes II., king of Persia.
610.
Death of the Eastern Emperor Phocas;
accession of Heraclius.
Venetia ravaged by the A vars.
614.
Invasion of Syria by Chosroes II.;
capture of Damascus.
615.
Capture of Jerusalem by Chosroes;
removal of the supposed True Cross.
616.
First expulsion of the Jews from Spain.
Advance of the Persians to the Bosphorus.
622.
The flight of Mahomet from Mecca (the Hegira).
Romans under Heraclius victorious over the Persians.
626.
Siege of Constantinople by Persians and Avars.
627.
Victory of Heraclius over Chosroes of Persia, at Nineveh.
Conversion of Northumbria to Christianity.
628.
Recovery of Jerusalem and of the supposed True Cross,
from the Persians, by Heraclius.
630.
Submission of Mecca to the Prophet.
632.
Death of Mahomet;
Abu Bekr chosen caliph.
634.
Death of Abu Bekr;
Omar chosen caliph.
Battle of Hieromax or Yermuk;
Battle of the Bridge. [Uncertain date]
Defeat of Heraclius.
Compilation and arrangement of the Koran. [Uncertain date]