of the empire. An expedition from Spain had made them masters of Crete in 823. Four years later they landed in Sicily, and, by degrees, they got possession of the whole island, although it was not until after half a century (A.D. 876) that Syracuse fell into their hands. They seized on Cyprus and Corsica, devastated the Mediterranean coast of France, sailed up the Tiber, carried off the altar which covered the remains of St. Peter, and committed atrocious acts of rapine, lust, and cruelty. The terror inspired by these adventurers-the offscourings of their race, which in Spain and in the East had become more civilised, and had begun to cultivate science and literature d-drove the inhabitants of the defenceless towns to seek a refuge in forests and among mountains." Some of the popes showed much energy in providing the means of protection against them. Gregory IV. rebuilt and fortified Ostia, to which he gave the name of Gregoriopolis. Leo IV., who was hastily raised to the papal chair on an emergency when the Saracens threatened Rome, took very vigorous measures. He fortified Portus, in which he planted a colony of Corsican refugees; drew a chain across the mouth of the Tiber, and repaired the walls of Rome. With the approbation of the emperor Lothair, who contributed largely to the expense, he enclosed within a wall the Transtiberine district which contained the church of St. Peter and the English Burg; and to this new quarter he gave the name of the "Leonine City." Nicolas I. also contributed to the defence of Rome by strengthening the fortifications and the garrison of Ostia.' But in the south of Italy the Saracens were triumphant. They established a sultan at Bari, although after a time that city was recovered from them by the united A.D. 871. forces of the emperors Louis II. and Basil the Macedonian. Naples, Amalfi, Salerno, and other cities, finding resistance impossible, entered into alliance with them, and joined them in plundering. But for dissensions among themselves, the Moslems would probably have become masters of the whole peninsula." A.D. 852. m g h e Anastas. 244. 210. k 1 8 See p. 236. Anastas. 240-3; Gibbon, v. 209 i Anastas. 260. k Chron. Casin. 8. m Const. Porphyrog. v. 55; Famin, i. 298. Muratori, however, denies that the Greeks shared in the capture (Annali, V. ii. 115). n Erchempert. A.D. 876 (Pertz, iii.); Gibbon, v. 209. The royal power in France was greatly impaired by the changes of this period. Among the earlier Franks, there had been no class of nobility, properly so called, but consideration had depended on wealth and power alone; nor had the counts originally been landholders, but officers of the sovereign, invested with a dignity which was only personal and temporary. But from the time of the civil wars between Louis the Pious and his sons, the Frankish princes found themselves obliged to pay those on whom they depended for support by a diminution of their own prerogatives and property." The system was continued; at the diet of Quiercy, in 877, Charles the Bald, with a view of securing the consent of his chiefs to his projected expedition into Italy, granted that their lands should descend by inheritance, and only reserved to the sovereign the choice of a successor in cases where the tenant should die without male issue; nay, as we shall see hereafter, in his eagerness to gain aid towards the extension of his dominions, he even consented that his crown should be regarded as elective. The nobles, thus erected into a hereditary order, became more independent; they took advantage of the weakness of the sovereign; and, by the end of the century, the dismemberment of the empire had been so much imitated on a smaller scale that France was broken up into no fewer than twenty-nine independent states.s The Frankish clergy suffered severely in their property during the troubles of the time. Not only did Louis and his sons habitually employ the old resource of rewarding partisans with gifts of ecclesiastical benefices, but they even carried it further than before, by extending it to religious houses which had hitherto been regarded as exempt from this kind of danger. The abbey of St. Martin's itself the most revered, as well as the richest, of all the sanctuaries of Gaul-was granted by Charles in benefice to Robert the Strong. Almost every council has its piteous complaint that the property of the church is invaded in a manner more fitting for pagan enemies than for her own sons; that the poor, the strangers, the pilgrims, the captives are deprived of the endowments founded for their relief; that hospitals, especially those of the Scots," are diverted from their object, so that not only are guests not entertained, but those who had dwelt in them from infancy are turned out to beg from door to door; that some lands are alienated in such a way as to cut off all hope of recovery; that the sovereigns grossly abuse their patronage by bestowing spiritual offices on laymen. The only weapon which the church could wield against the rapacious laity was excommunication; but neither spiritual terrors nor tales of frequent judicial miracles were sufficient to check the evil. Another frequent complaint relates to the decay of letters among the Franks." Charles the Bald was a patron of learned men, and took pleasure in their society; but, while literature enjoyed this courtly and superficial encouragement, the institutions by which Charlemagne had endeavoured to provide for the general instruction of his subjects were allowed to fall into neglect.b But in other respects the clergy gained greatly. The sixth council of Paris, in 829, had asserted for them a right to judge kings. This power had been exercised against Louis by the rebellious bishops at Compiègne, and his restoration had not been accomplished without a formal act of the church. Charles the Bald admitted it, as against himself, at the council of Savonnières, in 859; and in all the disagreements of the Carolingians, each prince carried his grievances to the pope-thus constituting the Roman see a general court of appeal, and weakening the rights of all sovereigns by such submission. Ecclesiastical judgments were popularly regarded as the judgments of God. Bishops asserted for themselves an exclusive right to judge all matters relating to the clergy, and, by the superintendence which they exercised over morals, they were able to turn every scandal of the nandi jam pene in naturam conversa Conc. Aquisgr. A.D. 836, iii. 19; Conc. Theod-vill. A.D. 844, c. 3 (Pertz, Leges, i. 381); Conc. Vern. II. A.D. 844, cc. 12, &c. (ib. 383-5); Conc. Sparnac. A.D. 846 (ib. 389-90); Conc. Meld. A.D. 845, cc. 40, 41, 75, &c.; Conc. Carisiac. A.D. 858, Ep. ad Ludov. (Hard. v. 466, seqq.); Conc. Sparnac. A.D. 859, c. 14; Conc. Duziac. II. A.D. 874 (Hard. vi. 148-9); Conc. Trecass. II. A.D. 878, c. 3, &c. y Sismondi, iii. 126, 150. 2 E. g. Conc. Valent. IV. A.D. 855, c. 18; Conc. Tull. ad Saponarias, A.D. 859, vi. 10 (Hard. v. 499). Heric of Auxerre, in his dedication of the Life of St. German to Charles, speaks of Greece as deserted by her scholars that they might flock to the Frankish court, and describes Ireland as "pene totam cum grege philosophorum ad littora nostra migrantem." Patrol. cxxiv. 1133. b Gfrörer, Karol. ii. 166-7. Many cathedral and monastic schools, however, continued to flourish. See Hist. Litt. iv. 224, seqq.; Bähr, 39-45. e Lib. iii. 8, citing a speech ascribed by Rufinus to Constantine (Hist. Eccl. i. 2). The substance of this council is identical with a treatise 'De Institutione Regia,' by Jonas, bishop of Orleans (Patrol. cvi. 279, seqq.). d See p. e C. 3 (Pertz, Leges, i. 462). Guizot, ii. 326. royal house to the advantage of the church. They became more and more active in politics; they claimed the power of bestowing the crown, and Charles appears to have acknowledged the claim. Yet, although they endeavoured to gain for themselves an exemption from all secular control, that prince still kept a hold on them by means of his missi.m The most prominent among the French ecclesiastics was Hincmar, a man of strong, lofty, and resolute character, of a mind at once subtle and eminently practical, of learning which, although uncritical and indifferently digested, raised him above almost all his contemporaries, and of great political talent." Hincmar was born in 806, of a noble family in Neustria, and at an early age entered the monastery of St. Denys, where he became a monk under Hilduin. He took an active part in restoring the discipline of the house, and to the end of his days he observed the monastic severity of life. His attachment to his abbot was shown by becoming the companion of his exile in 830; but notwithstanding this, and although his own feelings were no doubt in favour of the unity of the empire, he withstood all Hilduin's attempts to draw him into rebellion, and to the last preserved the favour of Louis, by means of which he was able to effect his superior's recall. In 845 he was promoted to the archbishoprick of Rheims, which had not been regularly filled since the deposition of Ebbo, ten years before. He accepted the dignity on condition that the property which had been alienated from it to laymen during the vacancy should be restored," and he held it for thirty-nine years. His province, and even his diocese, were partly in Neustria and partly in Lotharingia-a circumstance which brought him into connexion with the sovereigns of both countries. To him, as the successor of St. Remigius, it belonged to crown kings, and to take the chief part in state solemnities ;" and he gave full effect to his position. His political influence was immense; he steadily upheld the cause of the church against both the king and the nobles, and in its behalf often opposed the princes to whose interests in other respects he was zealously devoted. But most especially he was the champion of the national church and of the rights of his sovereign against the growing claims of the papacy." The popes endeavoured to take advantage of the weakness of Charlemagne's descendants in order to shake off the golden chains with which the great emperor had bound them, and in this endeavour they were greatly aided by the effect of the partition of the empire; inasmuch as they were thenceforth in no way subject to any prince except the one who held the imperial title and the kingdom of Italy, while they were yet brought into relation with all the Carolingian sovereigns, and became general arbiters between them.* On the death of Gregory IV. in 844, Sergius II., after some tumultuary opposition from a rival named John," was consecrated without waiting for the imperial confirmation. Lothair, indignant at the slight thus shown to his authority, sent his son Louis to call the new pope to account. The prince was accompanied by Drogo, bishop of Metz, with a numerous train of prelates and counts, and was at the head of a large army, which is said, in its advance towards Rome, to have committed much wanton slaughter and devastation, and to have lost many of its soldiers, who, in punishment of their misdeeds, were slain by lightning. Sergius received Louis with the usual honours, but would not permit his troops to enter the city; nor would he allow the doors of St. Peter's to be opened to him, until, in answer to a solemn adjuration, the prince had professed that he came without any evil intention, for the good of Rome and of the church. The pope crowned him as king of the Lombards, but resisted a proposal that the Romans should be required to swear allegiance to him, on the ground that such oaths were due to the emperor alone. fresh oath should be taken to the y Sismondi says that in his contests with Nicolas I. Hinemar seemed to be restrained by the feeling that his appointment was open to question (iii. 148). But it was investigated, and it would appear that he had really nothing to fear in this respect, so that we must rather suppose him to have been restrained by political considerations. M. Guizot well describes him as a mixture of the logician with the man of business, the practical part of his character controlling the other; and points to Bossuet as a parallel (ii, 358-9). M. Ampère, whose estimate of Hincmar is unfavourable, says that in his character "il y a de l'évêque de Meaux et un peu de l'évêque d'Autun" (iii. 168). The He consented, however, that a emperor. Drogo returned to authors of the 'Histoire Littéraire' are also unfavourable to him, chiefly on account of his behaviour to Gottschalk, whose cause they, as Augustinians, espouse. z Planck, iii. 26-8, 31. Anastas. 227. b Ib. 227-9. Schröckh questions this writer's account of the affair as too favourable to the pope (xxii. 68). Luden thinks that Sergius outwitted Louis (vi. 9). Muratori takes occasion to observe that the practice of conferring the kingdom of Italy by the iron crown at Monza, Milan, or Pavia, was not yet introduced. Annali, V. i. 20. |