General History for Colleges and High Schools

by P. V. N. Myers

Charlemagne must not be regarded as a warrior merely. His most noteworthy work was that which he effected as a reformer and statesman. He founded schools, reformed the laws, collected libraries, and extended to the Church a patronage worthy of a Constantine. In a word, he laid "the foundation of all that is noble and beautiful and useful in the history of the Middle Ages."

DIVISION OF THE EMPIRE; TREATY OF VERDUN (843).—Like the kingdom of Alexander, the mighty empire of Charlemagne fell to pieces soon after his death. "His sceptre was the bow of Ulysses which could not be drawn by any weaker hand." After a troublous period of dissension arid war, the empire was divided, by the important Treaty of Verdun, among Charlemagne's three grandchildren,—Charles, Lewis, and Lothair. To Charles was given France; to Lewis, Germany; and to Lothair, Italy and the valley of the Rhone, together with a narrow strip of land extending from Switzerland to the mouth of the Rhine. With these possessions of Lothair went also the Imperial title.

[Illustration: THE WESTERN EMPIRE As Divided at Verdun (843)]

This treaty is celebrated, not only because it was the first great treaty among the European states, but also on account of its marking the divergence from one another, and in some sense the origin, of three of the great nations of modern Europe,—of France, Germany, and Italy.

CONCLUSION.—After this dismemberment of the dominions of Charlemagne, the annals of the different branches of the Carolingian family become intricate, wearisome, and uninstructive. A fate as dark and woeful as that which, according to Grecian story, overhung the royal house of Thebes, seemed to brood over the house of Charlemagne. In all its different lines a strange and adverse destiny awaited the lineage of the great king. The tenth century witnessed the extinction of the family.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE NORTHMEN.

THE PEOPLE.—Northmen, Norsemen, Scandinavians, are different names applied in a general way to the early inhabitants of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. These people formed the northern branch of the Teutonic family. We cannot be certain when they took possession of the northern peninsulas, but it is probable that they had entered those countries long before Cæsar invaded Gaul.

THE NORTHMEN AS PIRATES AND COLONIZERS.—For the first eight centuries of our era the Norsemen are hidden from our view in their remote northern home; but with the opening of the ninth century their black piratical crafts are to be seen creeping along all the coasts of Germany, Gaul, and the British Isles, and even venturing far up their inlets and creeks. Every summer these dreaded sea-rovers made swift descents upon the exposed shores of these countries, plundering, burning, murdering; then upon the approach of the stormy season, they returned to winter in the sheltered fiords of the Scandinavian peninsula. After a time the bold corsairs began to winter in the lands they had harried during the summer; and soon all the shores of the countries visited were dotted with their stations or settlements.

These marauding expeditions and colonizing enterprises of the Northmen did not cease until the eleventh century was far advanced. The consequences of this wonderful outpouring of the Scandinavian peoples were so important and lasting that the movement has well been compared to the great migration of their German kinsmen in the fifth and sixth centuries. Europe is a second time inundated by the Teutonic barbarians.