The Conversion of the Barbarians.

Most of the Barbarians held to a vague form of religion, and as soon as they came into contact with Christianity they were readily converted, though they found it hard to wholly lay aside their pagan practices and ideas. Many of the East Goths professed Arian Christianity by the end of the fourth century, and some followed Nestorius (d. 451) and set up Nestorian communities, which spread rapidly in Asia and India. By the middle of the sixth century Nestorian Churches could be found in Ceylon, Malabar, among the Huns, in Mesopotamia, and in all lands east of the Black Sea.

About 432 the Irish had been converted by Patrick (St.), and they in their turn proved the most enthusiastic of missionaries, Most famous of all was Columba (St.) (d. 597), who founded in Iona the central mission station. whence missionary teachers went out to convert the British driven westwards by Anglo-Saxon invaders. The Anglo-Saxons were themselves converted to Christianity by Augustine (St.), who landed in Kent in 597. He had been sent by Pope Gregory the Great (590-604), and he met with striking success owing to the help of the Frankish princess Bertha, who was the wife of Ethelbert, king of Kent.

Ethelbert feared lest Augustine and his followers should practise magical arts upon him, so he received them out of doors. "But they came indued with Divine, not with magic power, bearing a silver cross for their banner." (Bede, "Ecclesiastical History.")
The King and all his subjects became Christians, to the joy of Queen Bertha, and soon other Saxon rulers followed suit.

Pope Gregory also reconciled the Arians in Spain to the Catholic Church, and he persuaded the Lombard King to be baptized. Gregory was a persuasive man, as well as a very learned one; perhaps this accounts for part of his success. Before long the Anglo-Saxon Church was sending out missionaries to convert their kinsmen in the Netherlands and Germany. One of the earliest of these was Willibrod, who went to Frisia in the year 690. A few years later, in 716, Winfrith of Crediton, more often known as Boniface (St.), left his Devonshire home to take up missionary work in Germany. He gathered disciples round him, and built churches and convents, and he organized bishoprics under the archbishopric of Mainz.

At the Pope's request he visited the Franks, and helped them to reform their Church, and then, as an old man, he went to preach to the wild tribes in Friesland. These would not hear his message, and put to death the "Apostle of Germany," but his work was done. No one man has ever done more to Christianize and humanize savage tribes than this gentle west-countryman, and he had the satisfaction of achieving substantial and permanent results during his lifetime.

THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE

The Empire from Constantine to Justinian .

Constantinople, often known as Byzantium, in mediaeval times soon became equal to Rome in size and population, and more than her equal in wealth. Ships of all countries came to her excellent harbour, bringing products from both East and West, and Byzantium was throughout the early middle ages, the richest city of the Christian world.

Under Julian. "the Apostate" (361-363) came the final assertion of paganism. Julian repudiated the Christianity he had once professed, and devoted himself to Greek philosophy, but when be died - and legend has it that his dying words were: "O, Galilean, thou hast conquered! " - Christianity was restored as the official faith of the Empire, and paganism died away.

In the year 395 the anal severance's between East and West took place. The Western Empire became the prey of the Barbarians, and although the line of Emperors lingered on until 476, their power was a mere shadow. With the deposition of Romulus Augustulus in 476, his power was nominally transferred to the Eastern Emperor, but this was a transference of a ghostly, not a material authority. For some years at the end of the fifth century it seemed probable that the Byzantine Empire would be over-run by the East Goths, but they passed on towards Italy and the Empire was saved.

The Reign of Justinian, 527 - 565.

"The Emperor Justinian," wrote his biographer. Procopuis, "succeeding to the throne when the state was decayed, added greatly to its extent and glory." No detail was too small for Justinian's supervision, and he used to spend whole nights working out his schemes, or pacing the halls of his palace wrapped in thought, for daylight hours were too short for all the work he wished to do. Finance, law, engineering, music and . theology he studied with the greatest industry and application.

Above al,. Justinian is famed for his work in examining and codifying Roman law, the "Corpus Juris Civilis " which he compiled. and which profoundly influenced the whole course of Civil and Canon Law.

Procopuis says that, " finding the laws obscure through their unnecessary multitude, and confused by their conflict with one another, he firmly established them by reducing the number of those which were unnecessary. and in the case of those that were contradictory, by confirming the better ones."

To his contemporaries Justinian seemed scarcely human, yet be married (to the horror and scandal of his court) the beautiful and talented actress Theodora, who overcame criticism by her model behaviour as Empress. All through his reign Justinian manifested the greatest passion for building. He built a great number of churches in his dominions, and harbour works and bridges, forts and palaces. He arranged a scheme for the water-Supply of Byzantium, in which great cisterns were to be provided to store the water in time of plenty, and personally supervised its details. He built a convent for reformed prostitutes, he rebuilt the Emperor's Palace, and above all, he built the great church of Hagia Sophia (generally, though incorrectly) known as "Saint Sophia."

For this church materials were brought from every corner of the Empire, and the two most skilled architects of the day were employed in its construction- Porhyry was brought from Egypt, and marble columns from Ephesus and from the Temple of the Sun at Rome, gold, silver and precious stones - nothing was too good for this church with its beautiful mosaic-covered dome, and its exquisite carvings and inlay of precious marbles. When the great work was finished, open and justinian drove up in his chariot to open "Saint Sophia," bystanders heard him murmur! "I have surpassed thee, O Solomon!"

Justinian's ambitions did not stop short here; he was engaged in an almost continuous war with Persia, and he despatched a fleet and troops to fight the Vandals in North Africa. He was able to add the whole North African coast line, and part of Spain to his dominions, and then turned his attention to Italy. At Ravenna, where the last of the Western Emperors had held their court, Justinian built the church of San Vitale, where mosaic portraits of himself and Theodora are still to be seen. Ravenna was ruled by a viceroy, named an Exarch, and remained under Byzantine rule until the middle of the eighth century.

Justinian did what he could to promote the welfare of his people: for instance, it was due to his enterprise that silk-worms were brought from China (probably by Nestorian monks) concealed in walking-sticks, and so that silk weaving was begun which afterwards became one of Byzantium's most famous industries. On the other hand. Justinian's great schemes and his wars were so expensive that the people groaned under a crushing load of taxation, and the resources of the Empire were crippled, leaving his successors a legacy of debt.

The Empire after Justinian's death.

Justinian left his successors a great heritage, but not the means of keeping it together. Most of his Italian conquests were quickly lost, although Byzantine power there was not completely destroyed until the Norman invasions of the eleventh century. The Lombards in the seventh century invaded northern Italy, while the Mohammedan conquests took from the Empire its lands in North Africa and Spain, and before long (675) the Moslem's were besieging Byzantium itself. After the first wave of conquest had subsided, the Byzantine Empire recovered something of its former influence, but nothing of the lost territories. Finally, it was a Christian onslaught which brought it ruin, when the Crusaders sacked Byzantium in 1204 and so weakened the Empire's defences that in 1453 it fell an easy prey to the Turks, who had been devouring it piecemeal for a century.

THE KINGDOM OF THE FRANKS

The Merovingian Kings.

The Salian Franks, a tall blond race of men who worshipped Teuton gods, had settled in the lands known to us as Belgium. They were ruled by a member of the house of Meroveus, and no Merovingian king could reign who had suffered his locks to be shorn, for long flowing hair was in the Frankish view a sign of royalty.

From Belgium the Franks advanced through Gaul, conquering as they went, and by the Sixth Century they were firmly established. They had their own code, or Salic Law, under which they lived. When the most famous of Merovingian kings. Clovis (481-511) married a Christian princess, he allowed her to keep her religion, and when a son was born he, too, was allowed to be a Christian, but for a long time Clovis clung to his old pagan beliefs. At last, however, when he was hard-pressed during a battle, he cried out that if Christ would bring him aid, he would be baptized. Clovis won the battle, and kept his promise; and he and 3,000 of his men were received into the Christian church at Rheims in 496. In this way the people of the Franks accepted Christianity.

Clovis himself remained pagan at heart, and retained all the savage cunning of an uncivilized ruler, but he had changed the whole course of the history of his people. He it was who chose Paris as the capital of his kingdom, and this, too, had far. reaching results.

The Carolingians.

The conquests of Clovis, at the expense of the Visigoths in the south, were continued by his successors, and the Frankish Kingdom reached the height of its power under King Dagobert (628-638). Soon after this, the power of the Merovingian kings began to pass from them into the hands of court officials, until nothing was left to them but the royal title and the royal flowing hair and beard.

For some years the heads of the Carolingian family had held the office of Mayors of the Palace, who guarded the royal demesne lands and were in many ways far more important than the kings. Charles Martel (the "Hammer") was a splendid warrior, and won the gratitude of all Christendom as well as of his own people when he defeated the Mohammedan armies at Tours in 732. He became a hero to the Franks, and his son Pepin "the Short" inherited much of his glory and all his ability. He succeeded in extracting from the Pope the non-committal remark, " He who possesses the authority should doubtless possess the title also " - and in 751 he cut the hair of the last of the Merovingian rulers, thrust him into a monastery, and reigned instead from 751 to 768. Thus the title as well as the power passed from Merovingians to Carolingians, who retained it for more than two centuries, until the last of them in his turn had to give way before a too-powerful vassal.

Hugh Capet and his Successors.

The great figure of Charlemagne (768-819) dominates Europe at the end of the eighth and beginning of the ninth century, but his career belongs rather to the history of the Empire than the history of the Franks. The Carolingian line became feebler and feebler, and the kings were quite unable to deal with the invasions of the Northmen, who were harrying the coasts, and who even ventured to attack Paris. It was the Duke of Paris, not the king of the Franks, who repulsed the savage invaders, and only his courage and enterprise which saved the capital.

In 987 the last of the Carolingian rulers of the direct line died, and the nobles were only too glad to elect Hugh Capet, the Duke of Paris, in his stead. Like the Pope in 751, in 987 the Archbishop of Rheims gave his sanction, saying "our crown goes not by inheritance, but by wisdom and noble blood."

Under the Capetian kings, who ruled until the middle of the fourteenth century, and who included such distinguished rulers as Philip Augustus (1180-1223), St. Louis IX (1226- 1270) and the handsome but unworthy Philip IV (1285-1314); under these monarchs France grew into a compact state, no longer a loose collection of tribes owing nominal allegiance to a powerless ruler.

The Coronation of Charlemagne.

Christmas Day, the year 800, is an easy date to remember, and it is one of the most important in mediaeval history, for on that day Charles the Great (768-814), King of the Franks and conqueror of Saxons and Lombards, was crowned Emperor in St. Peter's at Rome by Pope Leo III (795-816).

The Eastern Empire had declined in power since the days of Justinian, and the name of "Emperor" meant little or nothing to western ears; indeed, the Greeks at this time were ruled by a woman, the infamous Empress Irene 797-802). Either Pope Leo III or Charlemagne himself conceived the idea of reviving the ancient and hall-forgotten glories of the Roman Empire and of founding a great Christian world-wide Empire on the lines of the "Civitas Dei." the dream and ideal of Augustine (St.). Charlemagne was not, however, blind to the difficulties which would certainly arise, and it is said that be hesitated for a long time before he accepted the Imperial Crown.

Charlemagne had inherited the whole of what is now France, as well as Lotharingia, Swabia, and Bavaria. By his conquests of Saxony in the north, and of the Dalmatian coast, and of two-thirds of Italy, and the north of Spain, he had extended his boundaries to include most of Christian Europe. His vast dominions included many races, and it was no easy task to govern them, apart from his responsibilities as Emperor.

Charlemagne tried the experiment of sending out "missi dominici" on the same lines as the "itinerant justices" of Henry II (1154-1187) three centuries later in England. It was their business to ensure that justice should be properly administered, to check abuses, to assert the royal power, and to hunt down robbers and generally to superintend the morals of both clergy anti laity. These "missi" disappeared after the end of the ninth century, and even in Charlemagne's day it seems that bribery was the rule rather than the exception.

Charlemagne stands foremost among all heroes of mediaeval romance, chiefly because he is the hero of that most popular mediaeval epic, the "Chanson de Roland," which tells of the exploits of Charlemagne and his "Paladins "- chief among them the famous Oliver and Roland. "Magnus" was affixed to his name soon after his death: to his contemporaries he was King Charles who always loved and sought after wisdom.

His biographer, Eginhard, gives an attractive picture of Charlemagne and his court. He represents the Emperor as a fine, strong, and attractive looking man, with a great love of riding, hunting, and swimming. He dressed simply, wearing the ordinary Frankish dress of linen shirt and drawers, a fringed tunic and cross-gartered hose, and in winter a jerkin made of otter-skin. He cared nothing for pomp, but was the most hospitable of men, keeping open court and welcoming all foreign visitors. He was an affectionate father and never dined without his family, and when he rode abroad all his sons and daughters accompanied him. Indeed, he loved his daughters so much that "he would give them in marriage to no one. - But he kept them all at home, saying that he could not forego their society."

Charlemagne greatly encouraged learning, and for many years Alcuin of York and many other scholars were to be found at his court. He endowed schools in his dominions, and did much to improve the quality of the church services, for he was a keen musician. In many ways he was enlightened, yet he had his moments of barbarian savagery, which betrayed his Frankish blood. When he conquered the Saxons he ordained that "If any man among the Saxons being not yet baptized, shall hide himself and refuse to come to baptism, let him die the death." Such was the first of the Holy Roman Emperors, (The title was not applied to him, but to Otto the Great. To Otto the Great) a commanding figure, typical of his own and the hero of later times, a Christian champion, retaining at heart something of the wild barbarian, yet cultured and enlightened and with great personal charm.

In the year 814 Charlemagne died, and his dominions passed into the far less capable hands of his son Lewis "the Pious." His sons rebelled against Lewis, and in 843, by the Treaty of Verdun, the Empire was divided into three sections, and again later on it was subdivided among Lewis's grandsons. By 888 the Empire was finally divided between the Frankish and German and Italian states, and of Charlemagne's Empire scarcely a vestige remained.

The Saxon Emperors, 936-1002.

The next man to revive the Holy Roman Empire was not a Frank, but a Saxon, and it was his aim to make the Empire a German perquisite; he was Duke of Saxony first, Emperor afterwards. The foundations of the fortunes of Saxony were laid by Henry "the Fowler" (918-936), but it was his son Otto I, "the Great" (936-974) who crossed the Alps and subdued Italy, conquered the fierce Hungarians at the battle of Lechfeld (955), and in 962 received the Emperor's crown at Rome.

To Otto the Great is due that close connection between the German crown and the shadowy position of Holy Roman Emperor which was to become of such great import; his aim was to define this position, to make it concrete and substantial. Otto combined the feudal character of his kingship with his new office; indeed, he feudalized the Empire, claiming allegiance to himself as Emperor just as to a feudal lord on a gigantic scale. When he died, in 973, he had, at least temporarily, achieved the fusion of the Empire and the German Kingdom.

Otto II (973-983) attempted to carry on his father's work, but met with no striking success. It was his grandson, the young Otto III (983-1002) who came near to realizing an even more ambitious ideal. He had been brought up south of the Alps (for he had a Greek mother) and his tutor had been the great and cosmopolitan scholar, Gerbert, afterwards Pope Sylvester II (999-1003).

In 996, when Otto III was only fifteen, he declared himself of age and marched into Italy. Where the elder Otto's schemes were splendid, those of the younger were magnificent; his mind was so tuned up to his conception of the Empire as a sacred institution that he took little account of Germany. He was full of schemes for the regeneration of both Empire and Papacy, and he saw in Rome the sacred and eternal city, the centre of the world. He had an intense enthusiasm for ancient Rome and was obsessed with the glamour of her past.

Otto's six crowded years as Emperor were full of promise, for he was no mere visionary and could take a strong line of action when occasion demanded. Otto I was a splendid specimen of his age, with practical national ideals; Otto III, the "Wonder of the World," was an imperialist to the core. He might have accomplished marvels, had he lived, but he died of fever near Rome in the year 1002.

The Hohenstaufen Emperors, 1152-1250.

The title of "Holy Roman Emperor" was first officially applied to Frederick of Hohenstaufen (1152-1190), known to posterity as "Berbarossa," from his red beard. Like Otto I and Charlemagne, Frederick made his way to Rome and was there crowned Emperor (1155), but unlike them, he went on his own initiative, not at the invitation of the Italians (or a faction of them). The consequence was that he had to fight every step of his way, claiming that the ancient glory of Rome was vested in him and his German followers. "I am the rightful possessor," he said "let him who can snatch the club from Hercules."

The Lombard cities, enriched by the new flow of trade brought to them by the Crusades, rejoicing in their newly-found power, took up the challenge. From his first visit in 1155 until ho finally made peace with the cities in 1183 (the Peace of Constance), Frederick was involved in a continuous and bitter struggle, in which he appeared as the oppressor of freedom, when all he wished for was to be the peacemaker.

In Germany, Frederick was more successful. In his own person he united the two rival factions of Germany, for his mother was a "Guelf" and his father a" Ghibellinc." He represented the best characteristics of a fundamentally Teutonic character, and it is not surprising that he failed to appreciate the Italian point of view. In Germany he brought peace, but not without a struggle, for the valiant Henry the Lion succeeded in defying his power for many years, during which the Emperor was concerned with Italian affairs.

At length Henry was forced to submit, and in 1181 he was exiled for three years. Now that his most dangerous rival was removed, Frederick ruled Germany with skill and success, developing agriculture and commerce, and granting to the German towns encouragement and freedom, for which the Lombard Communes had been obliged to fight.

The adoption of Frederick Barbarossa as a national hero is singularly fitting. Many far less worthy men have been endued with fabulous posthumous virtues. Frederick was a noble Emperor, he wished to be a generous conqueror, and he was universally acclaimed as the father of his own people.

Frederick's son Henry VI (1190-1197) was clearly a man of ability, a scholar and a poet, but his tenure of the Imperial office had only fleeting results. It is to his grandson the second Frederick (1197-1250), known to his age as "Stupor Mundi," that we must turn for the last of the great mediaeval Emperors. At three years old he became King of Sicily, the inheritance of his Norman mother, and his tempestuous childhood was spent mainly in Palermo, and under the guardianship of the powerful and ambitious Pope Innocent III (1198-1216).

Frederick II is perhaps the most brilliant figure of the Middle Ages, in his versatility and complexity. His incisive, subtle mind spent itself in propounding great schemes and solving the most difficult problems. He had none of the sage and well-balanced qualities of his grandfather, he was passionate, sceptical and cruel, he founded the University at Naples, and made friends with the most learned men of his day, whether Europeans, Arabs or Jews. He himself was a poet, and he was equally interested in medicine and law. Artists and scholars of all races flocked to his court, and found in him a patron of the best and highest type.

Frederick II should have been an ideal Emperor, yet the very qualities that made him "Stupor Mundi" led to his downfall. After the death of Innocent III, Frederick was involved in a series of struggles and bitter quarrels with the Papacy, leading to his excommunication at the very moment when he was leading a crusade to Palestine. His contemporaries feared him even more than they admired him, and when he died a legend was circulated that he was not dead but would come again to deliver Germany. This legend was afterwards transferred to his grandfather.

Henry VII and the De Monarchia.

Although Frederick II was the last of the great Emperors, there was one more attempt to revive the ancient glories of the Empire which deserves attention because it inspired one of the greatest of mediaeval classics, the "De Monarchia" of Dante Alighieri (d. 1321). This work is a defence of the principles of world empire, and an argument against the usurpation of power by the Papacy. "it is admitted," Dante wrote, "that the whole human race is ordained for a single end. ("The Latin Works of Dante" (Dent), p. 141)

Therefore there must be one guiding or ruling power. And this is what we mean by monarch or emperor. Thus it appears that for the well-being of the world there must be a monarchy or empire." Dante wrote, too, a letter to the Emperor, begging him to come into Tuscany without delay.

By the end of the twelfth century the factions of "Guelfs and Ghibellines" had spread from Germany to Italy, and their original provenance was forgotten. The Pope was the natural head of the Guelf party, the Emperor of the Ghibellines, and it was by Ghibelline invitation that Henry of Luxemburg made his way to Italy to seek the Imperial crown. He had been elected Emperor in the face of great opposition, and his position in Germany was far from secure.

Henry VII. (1308-1313) was "a noble but powerless man, (Gregorovius; "City of Rome"; vol. vi. part I) and he set out for Rome with an army of only 5,000 men, chiefly mercenaries. He halted at Milan and at Pavia, where he received the iron crown of Lombardy. Despite his determination to be above all parties, Henry soon' found himself involved in local quarrels and was obliged to become increasingly Ghibelline in sentiment.

At last he reached Rome, and in 1312 obtained the coveted crown, but the Romans would not allow him to be crowned in St. Peter's; they barricaded the streets and stood about in defiant groups, ready to fly to arms. Henry VII was crowned in the Lateran, and soon afterwards left Rome and made his way north to lay siege to Florence. It was a half-hearted attempt, and met with no success, and Henry withdrew his troops and again turned southward.

Near Siena he caught fever and died in the year 1313, and with him perished Dante's last hopes of a deliverer. In Paradise Beatrice points out his throne, and refers to him as the regenerator of Italy, (" Divina Commedia," Par. xxx., 137.) but Dante's confidence was misplaced. Henry of Luxemburg ("the squint-eyed") had no great qualities, nor had he the opportunity nor the necessary resources to make a lasting conquest. He was a good man, and a sufficiently able man, and he had fine ideals, but the task that had been too much for Saxon and Hohenstaufen Emperors was far beyond his puny strength. From his death onwards the Empire sinks lower and lower until it finally crumbles away.