In the meantime, the Turks had become a powerful people. They had embraced the Mohammedan religion long before the time of the Crusades, and proved powerful obstacles to the success of those expeditions. About the beginning of the fourteenth century they established an empire of their own in Asia Minor, under Othman or Ottoman, and to this day the Ottoman Empire is a name given to the dominions of their descendants. By degrees they encroached on the borders of the empire of Constantinople, and they were only prevented from subverting it at a much earlier period than they did, by being called upon to defend themselves from the arms of an Eastern conqueror who arose at this time. Tamerlane, otherwise called Timerbek, was a prince of the Usbek Tartars, and a descendant from Ghenghis Khan. After having overrun Persia, and a great part of India and Syria, this great conqueror was invited by some of the minor princes of Asia, who were suffering under the Ottoman tyranny, to come and protect them. Tamerlane was flattered by the request, and having brought a great army into Phrygia, he was there met by Bajazet, the Ottoman emperor, who readily gave battle, but was defeated and made prisoner (1402). Tamerlane made Samarcand the capital of his empire, and there received the homage of all the princes of the East. Illiterate himself, he was solicitous for the cultivation of literature and science in his dominions; and Samarcand became for a while the seat of learning, politeness, and the arts, but was destined to relapse after a short period into its ancient barbarism. The Turks, after the death of Tamerlane, resumed their purpose of destroying the empire of the East. The honor, or disgrace, as it may be thought, of effecting this, fell to the lot of Mohammed II, commonly surnamed the Great. At the early age of twenty-one, Mohammed projected this conquest. His countrymen had already passed into Europe; they had possessed themselves of the city of Adrianople, and indeed had left nothing of all the empire of the East to the Greeks but the city of Constantinople itself. The preparations made for defense were not such as became the descendants of Romans, and the powers of Europe now looked upon the East with the most supine indifference. The Turks assailed the city both on the land side and on that of the sea; and battering down its walls with their cannon, entered sword in hand, and massacred all who opposed them (1453). Mohammed, like many other ambitious conquerors, showed himself unwilling to destroy unnecessarily. The imperial edifices were preserved, and the churches were converted into mosques; the exercise of their religion was freely allowed to the Christians, and this privilege they have never been deprived of. Constantine (for that was the name of the last, as well as the first emperor of the East) was slain in battle. From the time that it was founded by Constantine the Great, the city had subsisted 1123 years. Mohammed liberally patronized the arts and sciences. He was himself not only a politician, but a scholar, and he invited both artists and men of letters to his capital from the kingdoms of Europe. But the taking of Constantinople had an effect contrary to his wishes: it dispersed the learned Greeks, or Greeks who were called learned, all over Europe; and this, among other things, may be looked upon as a help to the great revival of letters which the fifteenth century witnessed. The taking of Constantinople was followed by the conquest of Greece and Epirus; and Italy might probably have met with a similar fate, but for the fleet of the Venetians, who opposed the arms of Mohammed with considerable success, and even attacked him in Geece; but the contending powers soon after put an end to hostilities by a treaty. By this time Europe was trembling at Mohammed’s success, and was afraid, not without reason, that he might pursue his conquests westward. It was relieved from fear by his death, which took place in 1481. His descendants have continued to our own day to occupy one of the finest countries in Europe; and it was only in the present age that Greece was liberated from their dominion.
RISE OF CIVIL FREEDOM AND SOCIAL IMPROVEMENT.
Civil freedom, as we have seen, dawned first in the great commercial cities of Italy, whence it spread to Germany, Flanders, and Britain. This important change in society may be traced to the institution of free communities of traders, or guilds of merchants; and such confederacies were a necessary consequence of the usurpation and tyranny of the nobles and feudal possessors of the soil. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the usurpations of the nobility became intolerable; they had reduced the great body of the people to a state of actual servitude. Nor was such oppression the portion of those alone who dwelt in the country, and were employed in cultivating the estates of their masters. Cities and villages found it necessary to hold of some great lord, on whom they might depend for protection, and became no less subject to his arbitrary jurisdiction. The inhabitants were deprived of those rights which, in social life, are deemed most natural and inalienable. They could not dispose of the effects which their own industry had acquired, either by a later will, or by any deed executed during their lives. Neither could they marry, nor carry on lawsuits, without the consent of their lord. But as soon as the cities of Italy began to turn their attention towards commerce, and to conceive some idea of the advantages which they might derive from it, they became impatient to shake off the yoke of their insolent lords, and to establish among themselves such a free and equal government as would render property and industry secure. The Italian cities were the first to emancipate themselves, and their example was followed in other great seats of population, the king of the country in general countenancing the establishment of free communities, in order to gain support against the encroachments of the overgrown power of the barons. The first community of this description formed in Scotland is understood to have been that of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which received its charter from William the Lion. Towns, upon acquiring the right of community, became so many little republics, governed by known and equal laws. The inhabitants being trained to arms, and being surrounded by walls, they soon began to hold the neighboring barons in contempt, and to withstand aggressions on their property and privileges. Another great good, of fully more importance, was produced. These free communities were speedily admitted, by their representatives, into the great council of the nation, whether distinguished by the name of a Parliament, a Diet, the Cortes, or the States-General. This is justly esteemed the greatest event in the history of mankind in modern times. Representatives from the English boroughs were first admitted into the great national council by the barons who took up arms against Henry III in the year 1265; being summoned to add to the greater popularity of their party, and to strengthen the barrier against the encroachments of regal power. Readers may draw their own conclusions from an event which ultimately had the effect of revolutionising the framework of society, and of rearing that great body of the people commonly styled ‘the middle class.’
The enfranchising of burghal communities led to the manumission of slaves. Hitherto the tillers of the ground, all the inferior classes of the country, were the bondsmen of the barons. The monarchs of France, in order to reduce the power of the nobles, set the example, by ordering (1315–1318) all serfs to be set at liberty on just and reasonable conditions. The edicts were carried into immediate execution within the royal domain. The example of their sovereigns, together with the expectation of considerable sums which they might raise by this expedient, led many of the nobles to set their dependents at liberty; and servitude was thus gradually abolished in almost every province of the kingdom. This beneficial practice similarly spread over the rest of Europe; and in England, as the spirit of liberty gained ground, the very name and idea of personal servitude, without any formal interposition of the legislature to prohibit it, was totally banished.
While society was assuming the semblance of the form it now bears, the progress of improvement was accelerated by various collateral circumstances, the first of which worth noticing was:
The Revival of Letters. The first restorers of learning in Europe were the Arabians, who, in the course of their Asiatic conquests, became acquainted with some of the ancient Greek authors, discovered their merits, and had them translated into Arabic, esteeming those principally which treated of mathematics, physics, and metaphysics. They disseminated their knowledge in the course of their conquests, and founded schools and colleges in all the countries which they subdued. The western kingdoms of Europe became first acquainted with the learning of the ancients through the medium of those Arabian translations. Charlemagne caused them to be retranslated into Latin; and, after the example of the caliphs, founded universities at Bonona, Pavia, Osnaburg, and Paris. Similar efforts were made in England by Alfred; and to him we owe the establishment, or at least the elevation, of the university of Oxford. The first efforts, however, at literary improvement were marred by the subtleties of scholastic divinity. Perhaps the greatest and wisest literary character of the middle ages was an English friar, named Roger Bacon. This extraordinary individual was not only learned, but, what was more uncommon in those times, he was scientific. Hallam asserts that he was acquainted with the nature of gunpowder, though he deemed it prudent to conceal his knowledge. He saw the insufficiency of school philosophy, and was the first to insist on experiment and the observation of nature as the fittest instruments by which to acquire knowledge. He reformed the calendar, and made discoveries in astronomy, optics, chemistry, medicine, and mechanics.
It is to Italy, however, that we owe the first and greatest exertions in the revival of letters. The spirit of liberty which had arisen among its republics was favorable to the cultivation of literature and accordingly we find that not only did they produce many individuals who were most active and successful in bringing to light the relics of classical lore, but that there also arose among them men possessed of the highest order of original genius. Florence produced Dante so early as 1265. Dante was associated with the magistracy of his native city in his earlier years; but having given dissatisfaction in that capacity, he was banished, and in his exile produced his great poem entitled the ‘Divine Comedy.’ It is a representation of the three supposed kingdoms of futurity—Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise—divided into one hundred cantos, and containing about 14,000 lines. The poem has been much praised. Petrarch, born in the year 1304, was likewise a Florentine by birth. The misfortunes of his father had impoverished the family, and Petrarch was too proud to take the usual method of retrieving his affairs. His genius, however, earned for him the friendship of many Italian princes, and even of more popes than one, although he had exerted his talents to expose the vices of their courts. Petrarch’s personal character seems to have exhibited some unamiable traits; but he has sung of love, friendship, glory, patriotism, and religion, in language of such sweetness and power as to have made him the admiration of every succeeding age. Boccaccio, like the two great poets named, was a Florentine. He was born in 1313, and his name has descended to posterity less associated with his poetry than the light, elegant, and easy prose of his novels.
The discovery of Justinian’s Laws, as detailed in the Pandects, was another event which powerfully tended to modify the barbarism that prevailed during the middle ages in Europe.
The invention of the Mariner’s Compass must be reckoned of still greater importance, and yet it is absolutely unknown to whom we owe it. That honor has been often bestowed on Gioia, a citizen of Amalphi, who lived about the commencement of the fourteenth century. But the polarity of the magnet at least was known to the Saracens two hundred years before that time; though even after the time of Gioia, it was long before the magnet was made use of as a guide in navigation. ‘It is a singular circumstance,’ says Mr. Hallam, ‘and only to be explained by the obstinacy with which men are apt to reject improvement, that the magnetic needle was not generally adopted in navigation till very long after the discovery of its properties, and even after their peculiar importance had been perceived. The writers of the thirteenth century, who mentioned the polarity of the needle, mention also its use in navigation; yet Campany has found no distinct proof of its employment till 1403, and does not believe that it was frequently on board Mediterranean ships at the latter part of the preceding age.’ The Genoese, however, are known in the fourteenth century to have come out of that inland sea, and steered for Flanders and England. But by far the greatest sailors of the age were the Spaniards and Portuguese. This latter nation had little or no existence during the greater part of the middle ages, but in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, they were able to expel the Moors from a great part of their country; and in the beginning of the fifteenth, John, surnamed the Bastard, who was then their king, was the first European prince who exhibited a respectable navy. It was in 1486 that this adventurous people first doubled the Cape of Good Hope.
The discovery of America (1493) may be mentioned supplementarily to the invention of the mariner’s compass, as an event which, without it, could never have taken place. The immortal honor of that discovery rests with Christopher Columbus, a sailor of Genoa. After unsuccessful applications at almost every court in Europe, and braving obloquy and contempt, Columbus at last obtained a miserable force from Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain; and with no landmark but the heavens, nor any guide but his compass, he launched boldly into the sea, and at last conducted Europeans to the great western hemisphere.