General History for Colleges and High Schools

by P. V. N. Myers

SETTLEMENT OF THE NORTHMEN IN GAUL.—The Northmen began to make piratical descents upon the coasts of Gaul before the end of the reign of Charlemagne. Tradition tells how the great king, catching sight one day of some ships of the Northmen, burst into tears as he reflected on the sufferings that he foresaw the new foe would entail upon his country.

The record of the raids of the Northmen in Gaul, and of their final settlement in the north of the country, is simply a repetition of the tale of the Danish forays and settlement in England. At last, in the year 918, Charles the Simple did exactly what Alfred the Great had done across the Channel only a very short time before. He granted the adventurous Rollo, the leader of the Northmen that had settled at Rouen, a considerable section of country in the north-west of Gaul, upon condition of homage and conversion.

In a short time the barbarians had adopted the language, the manners, and the religion of the French, and had caught much of their vivacity and impulsiveness of spirit, without, however, any loss of their own native virtues. This transformation in their manners and life we may conceive as being recorded in their transformed name—Northmen becoming softened into Norman. As has been said, they were simply changed from heathen Vikings, delighting in the wild life of sea-rover and pirate, into Christian knights, eager for pilgrimages and crusades.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

RISE OF THE PAPAL POWER.

INTRODUCTION.—In an early chapter of our book we told how Christianity as a system of beliefs and precepts took possession of the different nations and tribes of Europe. We purpose in the present chapter to tell how the Christian Church grew into a great spiritual monarchy, with the bishop of Rome as its head.

It must be borne in mind that the bishops of Rome put forth a double claim, namely, that they were the supreme head of the Church, and also the rightful, divinely appointed suzerain of all temporal princes, the "earthly king of kings." Their claim to supremacy in all spiritual matters was very generally acknowledged throughout at least the West as early as the sixth century, and continued to be respected by almost every one until the great Reformation of the sixteenth century, when the nations of Northern Europe revolted, denied the spiritual authority of the Pope, and separated themselves from the ancient ecclesiastical empire.

The papal claim to supremacy in temporal affairs was never fully and willingly allowed by the secular rulers of Europe; yet during a considerable part of the Middle Ages, particularly throughout the thirteenth century, the Pope was very generally acknowledged by kings and princes as their superior and suzerain in temporal as well as in spiritual matters.

EARLY ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH.—The Christian Church very early in its history became an organized body, with a regular gradation of officers, such as presbyters, bishops, metropolitans or archbishops, and patriarchs. There were at first four regular patriarchates, that is, districts superintended by patriarchs. These centred in the great cities of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch. Jerusalem was also made an honorary patriarchate.

PRIMACY OF THE BISHOP OF ROME.—It is maintained by some that the patriarchs at first had equal and coordinate powers; that is, that no one of the patriarchs had preeminence or authority over the others. But others assert that the bishop of Rome from the very first was regarded as above the others in dignity and authority, and as the divinely appointed head of the visible Church on earth.