[Footnote 148: See "Rome under Paganism," etc., vol. 1. pp. 50-53.]
At the close of the Crusades the nobles began to learn their proper place. Petty fiefs and small republics disappeared, and one strong and regal executive swallowed up a multitude of inferior and vexatious masteries. The barons became the support of the throne whose authority they had so long weakened, and ceased to oppress the people as they had done for ages. Cities multiplied, and rose to opulence; municipal governments flourished, acquired and conferred privileges, and afforded to the industrious abundant scope for wholesome emulation, and laudable ambition. All the arts of life were brought into exercise, and a new and middling class of society was called into being. The merchants, the tradesmen, and the gentry obtained their recognized footing in the community, and numberless corporations, guilds, and militia testified to the growing importance of the burgess as distinguished from the noble and the villain. [Footnote 149]
[Footnote 149: See Mably, "Observations sur l'Histoire de France," iii. 7.]
Well-ordered governments on a large scale involved of necessity the cultivation of the soil. Myriads of acres which, before the Crusades, had been barren or baneful, now smiled with waving corn, or bore rich harvests of luscious grapes. The want of bulky transports to convey large cargoes of men and munitions to the East had caused great alteration and improvement in the construction of ships. [{647}] Navigation and commerce gained fresh vigor; maritime laws and customs came to be recognized, and were reduced, about the middle of the thirteenth century, into a manual called Consolato del mar, [Footnote 150] Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and Marseilles rose to wealth and splendor; sugar and silks were manufactured; stuffs were woven and dyed; metals were wrought; architecture was diversified and improved, medicine learned many a precious rule and remedy from Arab leeches; geography corrected long-standing blunders; and poetry found a new world in which to expatiate. None of these results were unforeseen by the prescience of Rome. She knew that it was her mission to renew the face of the earth; nor, in pursuing her unwavering policy in reference to Islamism, did she ever forget that it was given her from the first to suck the breasts of the Gentiles, and to assimilate to her own system all that is rich and rare in nature, wonderful in science, beauteous in art, wise in literature, and noble in man. The Roman Church had ever been the friend and patron of those slaves whom Cato and Cicero, with all their philosophy, so heartily despised. [Footnote 151] She did not indeed affirm that slavery was impossible under the Christian law, but she discouraged it. "At length," says Voltaire, whose testimony on such a point none will suspect, "Pope Alexander III., in 1167, declared in the name of the Council that all Christians should be (devaient étre) exempt from slavery. This law alone ought to render his memory dear to all people, as his efforts to maintain the liberty of Italy should make his name precious to the Italians." [Footnote 152] Lord Macaulay has spoken frankly of the advantage to which the Catholic Church shows in some countries as contrasted with our forms of Christianity, and says it is notorious that the antipathy between the European and African races is less strong at Rio Janeiro than at Washington. [Footnote 153] On the authority of Sir Thomas Smith, one of Elizabeth's most able counsellors, he assures us that the Catholic priests up to that time had used their most strenuous exertions to abolish serfdom. Confessors never failed to adjure the dying noble who owned serfs to free his brethren for whom Christ died. Thus the bondsman became loosened from the glebe which gave him birth; many during the Crusades left their plough in the furrow, and their cattle at the trough, and escaped from service they had long detested; and many knights and lords who returned from the Holy Land emancipated their serfs of their own accord. Free hirelings took the place of hereditary bondsmen; and the peasant's life assumed a pleasant and civilized aspect. In proportion as Rome's genuine influence prevails in any country over clergy and people, the traces of the fall diminish, and those of paradise are restored.
[Footnote 150: E. M. de Monaghan, p. 219. ]
[Footnote 151: Cic. Orat de Harusp, Resp. xii. ]
[Footnote 152: Sur les Moeurs, ch. 83. ]
[Footnote 153: Hist. of England, chap. i.]
The Roman pontiff have often been accused of interfering in the private affairs of princes. But the charge is unjust. It is part of their mission to repress all moral disorders, and especially to punish the licentiousness of sovereigns whose bad example promotes immorality among their subjects. Their jurisdiction is fully admitted; their right of granting or refusing a divorce no Catholic prince disputes any more than their right of inflicting penances in case of adultery or incest. To deny them, therefore, the opportunity of investigating the very cases on which they must ultimately decide, would be manifestly inconsistent and absurd. When Lothaire II. of Lorraine drove away from his court the virtuous Teustberghe, and accused her of disgraceful crimes, who can blame Nicholas I. for having espoused the cause of this persecuted queen, and excommunicated in council her unjust lord? Did the popes "interfere" in such matters otherwise than in the interests of humanity; and if they had [{648}] consulted their own ease and comfort, would they not have abstained from such interference altogether? Let the world call it papal aggression, usurpation, political scheming, or what other hard name it will, the true Christian will see in it nothing but disinterested devotion to the voice of conscience and the good of society. God himself seems to have declared in favor of Pope Nicholas in the affair alluded to; for when Louis le Germanique took up arms to avenge his brother, and marched on Rome, the pontiff met his armies with fasting and litanies, and with no other standard than the crucifix given by the Empress Helena containing a fragment of the true cross. The victorious king was overcome by these demonstrations, and, imploring the pope's pardon, submitted to all his conditions. [Footnote 154] We hesitate not to affirm that the "interference" of the popes in temporal affairs has more than once saved Europe from Islamism, even as at the present time they are saving her from total infidelity. Whether successful or unsuccessful, they struggled with equal constancy and valor against that formidable power. About the year 876 Mussulman hordes infested the country around Rome to such an extent that at last scarcely a hamlet or drove of oxen remained to suffer by the widespread disaster. Three hundred Saracen galleys menaced the mouth of the Tiber, and John VIII., deserted and betrayed by neighboring dukes, implored by letter the aid of Charles the Bald and the Emperor Charles of Germany. Yet he failed, and that not so much through the strength of the Mohammedans as through the base conduct of princes called Christian, who cast him into prison, and then drove him to find refuge in France. Often have the popes been obliged to follow the example of John VIII., and look forth from their retirement in foreign lands on the tempest they have braved and escaped. His 320 letters show how much temporal affairs occupied his attention, because God willed that his spiritual authority should show forth its civilizing tendency in temporal intervention. His conflict with Islamism, which seemed unproductive at the time, bore fruit in after ages.
[Footnote 154: Milman's Hist. of Latin Christianity. ]