CHAPTER II.

THE FRANKISH CHURCH AND THE PAPACY, FROM THE DEATH OF LOUIS THE PIOUS TO THE DEPOSITION OF CHARLES THE FAT.

a

A.D. 840-887.

THE history of the Carolingians after the death of Louis the Pious is marked by a continuance of those scandalous enmities between the nearest kinsmen which had given so unhappy a character to his reign. Sometimes these enmities were carried out into actual war; but after the battle of Fontenailles, in 841, where the loss is said to have amounted to 40,000 on one side, and on the other to 25,000 or 30,000, they more commonly took the form of intrigues, of insincere alliances, and selfish breaches of treaties.

Charlemagne had found great difficulty in keeping together the very various elements of which his vast empire consisted. As often as he led his troops into any quarter, for the purpose of conquest or of suppressing rebellion, an insurrection usually broke out behind him. In order to conciliate the nationalities which were united under his sceptre, he appointed kings to govern them, as in Aquitaine and in Italy. By his system, which was continued under Louis, these kings were to be subordinate to the "senior" or head of the family; the whole empire was to be regarded as one, subject to the chief. But in the beginning of the period now before us, this system is broken up; the delegated government by kings is found to have been the means of organising the different nations for resistance to the idea of unity, and for asserting their independence of each other. Language played an important part in the dissolution of the empire. From the time of the Frank conquest of Gaul, Latin had been the language of the church and of the state, while German had been that of the army. The king and the chiefs were familiar with both; but in the south the Latin(or rather the "rustic Roman," which differed from the more

See Nithard, De Dissensionibus Filiorum Ludov. in Pertz, iii.

b Martin, ii. 414. Some have made the total slaughter 100,000 (Murat. Annali, V. i. 3). But these numbers are beyond the truth, and perhaps the effects of the battle have been exagge

correct official Latin)-was native, and the German was acquired by learning, while the reverse was the case in the northern and eastern territories. The populations which used these different languages as their mother-tongues now became separate. At the treaty of Strasburg, in 842, Louis of Bavaria took an oath in German, and Charles of Neustria in the Romance dialect, and they addressed their subjects in the same tongues respectively. The Romance oath is the oldest monument of French; the other is the oldest specimen of German after the baptismal renunciation of St. Boniface's time. A like scene was enacted at Coblentz, in 860, when, in pledging themselves to the observance of certain articles, Louis and the younger Lothair employed the German language, and Charles the Romance.*

m

The treaty of Verdun, by which the empire was divided in 843 between the three sons of Louis, established each of them in entire independence. The portion of the second brother, Louis, may be broadly spoken of as Germany; Charles the Bald's share may with a like latitude be styled France; while Lothair, the emperor, had a territory lying between the two-long and for the most part narrow, reaching from the mouths of the Weser and the Scheldt to the frontier of the duchy of Benevento, and including the two imperial cities-Rome, the ancient capital of the world, and Aix, the chief seat of Charlemagne's sovereignty. The Rhine served for a considerable part of its course as the eastern boundary of this territory; but a deviation was made from it, in order that Louis might include within his dominions Mentz, the see of Boniface and ecclesiastical metropolis of Germany, with the suffragan dioceses of Worms and Spires; while this cession was compensated to Lothair by a tract to the east of the river in the lower part of its course." of its course." Lothair's kingdom, not being marked out by any older boundaries of population or language, was called from him Lotharingia. By a later partition, the portion of it north of the Alps was divided between Louis and Charles the Bald, when Louis added to his dominions the countries

A.D. 870.

Sismondi, iii. 59-60; Gfrörer, i. 34. They are given by Nithard, iii. 5, in Pertz, ii. 665-6, with notes by J. Grimm.

See p. 110, note r; Bähr, 62. * Pertz, Leges, i. 473.

m The Gauls, unwilling to renounce the glory of three centuries and a half, now styled themselves Franks, and their country Francia, while the eastern Franks began to be called Germans.

Sismondi, iii. 9-10.

" Gfrörer, i. 21-2, 54, 58. See the second map of Germany in Spruner's admirable Atlas, pt. ii.

• Gfrörer, i. 57. Hence the name of Lorraine, afterwards given to a part of it. Some writers have supposed that Lotharingia was called after the younger Lothair, son of the emperor; but see Bouquet, vii. 188.

of the German and Belgic tongues, and Charles acquired those in which the Romance prevailed."

The feeling of nationality also showed itself in the rebellion of the Bretons under Nomenoë, who compelled Charles to acknowledge him as king, and established a new hierarchy under the archbishop of Dol, independent of the Roman connexion; in the revolts of the Saxons, who killed or drove out their governors, and resumed the profession of paganism; and in the subdivision of France towards the end of the century into a great number of petty principalities, although other causes also contributed to this result."

Charlemagne had endeavoured to provide a defence against the northern pirates by fortifying the mouths of rivers; but this policy was now neglected. No longer content with ravaging the coasts, the fierce barbarians of the north made their way in their "serpent" barks up every river whose opening invited them, from the Elbe to the Adour. They repeatedly plundered the more exposed cities, such as Hamburg, Dorstadt, and Bordeaux ; they ascended the Rhine to Mentz, and even to Worms; the Moselle to Treves; the Somme to Amiens; the Seine to Rouen and to Paris, once the Merovingian capital, and still the chief city of Neustria, rich in churches and in treasures, and with the royal monastery of St. Denys in its immediate neighbourhood. From Paris, they made their way up the Marne to Meaux and Châlons, up the Yonne to Sens and Auxerre. The Loire gave them a passage to Tours," the city of St. Martin, and to Orleans; the Vienne, to Limoges; the Charente, to Saintes and Angoulême ; the Garonne, to Toulouse. They sailed on to the Spanish peninsula, plundered Lisbon, passed the strait of Gibraltar, and successfully encountered the Arabs of Andalusia; even the coast of Italy felt their fury. Everywhere they pillaged, burnt, slew, outraged women, and carried off captives. After a time, growing

b

Sismondi, iii. 85-7. For a list of places plundered by the Northmen, see Palgrave, Normandy and England,' i. 419-20, 582; for further details, Depping, Expeditions Maritimes des Normands,' Paris, 1826.

6

Hist. de Languedoc, i. 751. b Depping. i. 134-5.

e Ib. 165-9. See the story of their plundering the ancient Etruscan city of Luna. Dudo, in Patrol. cxli. 622-4; Guil. Gemet. i. 10 (ib. cxlix.). d Dudo, 622.

bolder through impunity, they would leave their vessels on the greater rivers, and strike across the unresisting country to pillage inland places of noted wealth—such as Ghent, Beauvais, Chartres, Bourges, Rheims, Laon, and Charlemagne's own city of Aix, where they stabled their horses in the imperial palace. They established permanent camps, often on islands in the great rivers, and ravaged in a wide circle around them. Many of these pirates were exiles or adventurers who had fled from other countries to the regions of the north; many were men, or the offspring of men, who had suffered from the forcible means employed by Charlemagne for the conversion of the pagans. Their enmity against Christianity was therefore fierce and unsparing; there was religious hatred, as well as the lust of spoil, in the rage which selected churches and monasteries as its especial objects. Wherever the approach of the Northmen was reported, the monks deserted their abodes, and fled, if possible, leaving their wealth to the invaders, and anxious only to rescue the relics of their patron saints." The misery caused by these ravages was extreme. From dread of them, husbandry was neglected, and frequent famines ensued;' even wolves were allowed to prey and to multiply without any check. The condition to which Aquitaine was reduced may be inferred from the fact, that a bishop was translated from Bordeaux to Bourges, on the ground that his former diocese was rendered utterly desert by the pagans. Many monks who had been driven from their cells threw off the religious habit, and betook themselves to a vagabond life." And a striking proof of the terror inspired by the invaders is found in the insertion of a petition in the Gallican liturgies for deliverance "From the fury of the Northmen." o

k

m

However divided by dissensions among themselves, the Northmen always acted in concert as to the course which their expeditions should take. They kept a watch on the movements of the Carolingian princes, and were ready to take advantage in every quarter of their discords and of their weakness. Sometimes, it would seem, they were not only attracted by the hope of booty,

but were bribed by one of Charlemagne's descendants to attack the territories of another.

The martial spirit of the Franks had been exhausted by the slaughter of Fontenailles. Many of the free landholders-the body on which the old Frankish system mainly relied for national defence- sought a refuge from the miseries of the time by becoming serfs to abbots or nobles who were strong enough to protect them; and thus their military service was lost. The Franks were distracted by faction, and, instead of combining to resist the common enemy, each party and each class was intent on securing its own selfish interests. The nobles in general stood aloof, and looked on without dissatisfaction while the Northmen pillaged towns or estates which belonged to the crown or to the church.t In a few cases, the invaders met with a vigorous resistance-as from Robert "the Strong," the ancestor of the Capetian line," and from his son Odo or Eudes, who, with the bishop, Gauzelin, valiantly defended Paris in 885.* But a more usual course was that of paying them a large sum as an inducement to depart for a time— an expedient which pressed heavily on the people, who were taxed for the payment, while it ensured the return of the enemy after a short respite. A better, although not uniform, success attended the attempt to appease the northern chiefs with grants of land. They settled on these estates; they and their followers were baptised, and took wives of the country, by means of whom the northern language was soon extinguished among their offspring; they became accustomed to their new homes, and gradually laid aside their barbarian ferocity."

To the east, the Slave populations pressed on the German portions of the empire, and engaged its sovereigns in frequent wars; and on the south of France, as well as in Italy, the Saracens were a foe not less terrible than the Northmen on the other coasts

4 Luden, vi. 171. This is much insisted on by Gfrörer (e. g. Karol. i. 20, 135, 158, 411), and perhaps Dean Milman may have gone too far in altogether setting aside his views on the subject (ii. 356), although Dr. Gfrörer's constant straining after originality, and parade of a paradoxical acuteness, interfere very seriously with the respect which his knowledge and abilities might claim; while his frequent changes of opinion-beginning in Rationalism, and resulting for the present in Romanism -destroy all confidence in his judg

ment.

Regino, A.D. 842 (Pertz, i.); Guil.