In England the misery of the population had reached its maximum. The immigration of the Norsemen had been succeeded by numberless invasions, accompanied with all the horrors of barbarism and religious hatred; for the Danes who devastated the shores in this age were as remorselessly savage, and as bitterly heathen, as their predecessors a hundred years before. No place was safe for the unhappy Christianized Saxons. Their sufferings were of the same kind as those of the inhabitants of Normandy when Rollo began his ravages. Their priest-ridden kings and impoverished nobles could give them no protection. Bribes were paid to the assailants, and only brought over increasing and hungrier hordes. The land was a prey to wretchedness of every kind, and it was slender consolation to the starving and trampled multitudes that all the world was suffering to almost the same extent. Saracens were devastating the coasts of Italy, and a wild tribe of Sclaves trying to burst through the Hungarian frontier. At Rome itself, the capital of intellect and religion, such iniquities were perpetrated on every side that Protestant authors themselves consent to draw a veil over them for the sake of human nature; and in those sketches we require to do nothing more than allude to the crimes and wickedness of the papal court as one of the features by which the century was marked. Women of high rank and infamous character placed the companions of their vices in the highest offices of the Church, and seated their sons or paramours on the papal throne. Spiritual pretensions rose almost in proportion to personal immorality, and the curious spectacle was presented of a power losing all respect at home by conduct which the heathen emperors of the first century scarcely equalled; of popes alternately dethroning and imprisoning each other—sometimes of two popes at a time—always dependent for life or influence on the will of the emperor, or whoever else might be dominant in Italy—and yet successfully claiming the submission and reverence of distant nations as “Bishop of all the world” and lineal “successors of the Prince of the Apostles.” This claim had never been expressly made before, and is perhaps the most conclusive proof of the darkness and ignorance of this period. Men were too besotted to observe the incongruity between the life and profession of those blemishes of the Church, even when by travelling to the seat of government they had the opportunity of seeing the Roman pontiff and his satellites and patrons. The rest of the world had no means of learning the real state of affairs. Education had almost died out among the clergy themselves. Nobody else could write or read. Travelling monks gave perverted versions, we may believe, of every thing likely to be injurious to the interests of the Church; and the result was, that everywhere beyond the city-walls the thunder of a Boniface the Seventh, or a John the Twelfth, was considered as good thunder as if it had issued from the virtuous indignation of St. Paul.

But just as this century drew to a close, various circumstances concurred to produce a change in men’s minds. It was a universally-diffused belief that the world would come to an end when a thousand years from the Saviour’s birth were expired. The year 999 was therefore looked upon as the last which any one would see. And if ever signs of approaching dissolution were shown in heaven and earth, the people of this century might be pardoned for believing that they were made visible to them. Even the breaking up of morals and law, and the wide deluge of sin which overspread all lands, might be taken as a token that mankind were deemed unfit to occupy the earth any more. In addition to these appalling symptoms, famines were renewed from year to year in still increasing intensity and brought plague and pestilence in their train. The land was left untilled, the house unrepaired, the right unvindicated; for who could take the useless trouble of ploughing or building, or quarrelling about a property, when so few months were to put an end to all terrestrial interests? Yet even for the few remaining days the multitudes must be fed. Robbers frequented every road, entered even into walled towns; and there was no authority left to protect the weak, or bring the wrong-doer to punishment. Corn and cattle were at length exhausted; and in a great part of the Continent the most frightful extremities were endured; and when endurance could go no further, the last desperate expedient was resorted to, and human flesh was commonly consumed. One man went so far as to expose it for sale in a populous market-town. The horror of this open confession of their needs was so great, that the man was burned, but more for the publicity of his conduct than for its inherent guilt. Despair gave a loose to all the passions. Nothing was sacred—nothing safe. Even when food might have been had, the vitiated taste made bravado of its depravation, and women and children were killed and roasted in the madness of the universal fear. Meantime the gentler natures were driven to the wildest excesses of fanaticism to find a retreat from the impending judgment. Kings and emperors begged at monastery-doors to be admitted brethren of the Order. Henry of Germany and Robert of France were saints according to the notions of the time, and even now deserve the respect of mankind for the simplicity and benevolence of their characters. Henry the Emperor succeeded in being admitted as a monk, and swore obedience on the hands of the gentle abbot who had failed in turning him from his purpose. “Sire,” he said at last, “since you are under my orders, and have sworn to obey me, I command you to go forth and fulfil the duties of the state to which God has called you. Go forth, a monk of the Abbey of St. Vanne, but Emperor of the West.” Robert of France, the son of Hugh Capet, placed himself, robed and crowned, among the choristers of St. Denis, and led the musicians in singing hymns and psalms of his own composition. Lower men were satisfied with sacrificing the marks of their knightly and seignorial rank, and placed baldrics and swords on the altars and before the images of saints. Some manumitted their serfs, and bestowed large sums upon charitable trusts, commencing their disposition with words implying the approaching end of all. Crowds of the common people would sleep nowhere but in the porches, or at any rate within the shadow, of the churches and other holy buildings; and as the day of doom drew nearer and nearer, greater efforts were made to appease the wrath of Heaven. Peace was proclaimed between all classes of men. From Wednesday night till Monday evening of each week there was to be no violence or enmity or war in all the land. It was to be a Truce of God; and at last, all their strivings after a better state, acknowledgments of a depraved condition, and heartfelt longings for something better, purer, nobler, received their consummation, when, in the place of the unprincipled men who had disgraced Christianity by carrying vice and incredulity into the papal chair, there was appointed to the highest of ecclesiastical dignities a man worthy of his exaltation; and the good and holy Gerbert, the tutor, guide, and friend of Robert of France, was appointed Pope in 998, and took the name of Sylvester the Second.

[ELEVENTH CENTURY.]

Emperors of Germany.
A.D.
Otho III.—(cont.)
1002.Henry of Bavaria.
1024.Conrad II.
1039.Henry III.
1056.Henry IV.
Kings of England.
A.D.
Ethelred II.—(cont.)
1013.
1015.
1017.
1039.		Sweyn.
Canute the Great.
Edmund II.
Harold and Hardicanute.		}Danes
1042.Edward the Confessor.
1066.Harold, (son of Godwin.)
1066.William the Conqueror.
1087.William Rufus.
Emperors of the East.
A.D.
Basilius.—(cont.)
1028.Romanus III.
1042.Empress Zoe and Theodora.
1056.Michael VI.
1057.Isaac Comnenus.
1059.Constantine X., (Ducas.)
1067.Eudoxia and Constantine XI.
1068.Romanus IV., (Diogenes.)
1071.Michael.
1078.
1081.		{Two princes of the House of the Comneni.
1081.Alexis I.
Kings of France.
A.D.
Robert the Wise.—(cont.)
1031.Henry I.
1060.Philip I.
1096.The First Crusade.

Authors.