Cristo Raul.org

Reading Hall The Doors of Wisdom

THE HANSA, 1150-1400. THE IBERIAN PENINSULA, 1000-1344. ENGLAND, 1087-1189.

IT is impossible to write the history of the world with any clearness or success, unless it is regarded from some central point of view. The central position adopted in this history has been that of the empire and the papacy, the two powers which kept the states of Europe together as a single society, and whose dissolution in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century brought about a new epoch and began modern history. We have now reached, roughly speaking, the end of the thirteenth century, when the empire is receiving a new form under the house of Hapsburg; the papacy is approaching a time of weakness, by the removal of the see to Avignon, from which it has never recovered; and the kingdoms of Europe, in consequence of the loosening of these bonds, are beginning to assert themselves ; while the crusades and the spirit which animated them have come to an end by the fall of Acre in 1291. We must now deal with Spain, England, and France separately, taking the history of each of them down to the middle of the fourteenth century, leaving the fortunes of the empire and the papacy to be described later, except so far as they are dealt with in the annals of the countries we have mentioned. To follow a completely chronological order is impossible, and we must adopt a compromise.

The weakening of the central power of Europe produced leagues to insure the mutual protection which the superior authorities were not able to supply, and we will give some account of the most powerful and distinguished of them—the Hansa—which will serve as a specimen of the rest. The inner unity of Europe, apart from political alliances, was begun by commerce, and its first notable appearance is found in the connection between England and Germany, or, more exactly, between the two great commercial cities of Cologne and London. Cologne was the only seaport of the German empire, and as early as the reign of Aethelred II we find a statute regulating the tolls payable for German participation in London markets. Henry II, in a decree of 1157, took the merchants of Cologne under his European special protection, and Richard Coeur-de-Lion, on Commerce. passing through Cologne after his imprisonment, gave the citizens the privilege of free commerce in all England, with liberty to visit all fairs. The Plantagenet kings were favorable to foreign trade, and in the fourteenth century foreign merchants were useful to English kings for the purposes of loans, and the English barons, who were in conflict with the monarchy, found it also to their interest to encourage them. On the other hand, the English towns and guilds, which had begun to assume an important position, were anxious to preserve a monopoly. Another important commercial league was formed in Belgium, where seventeen towns leagued together for mutual protection. The Flemish towns were chiefly occupied in weaving cloth, for which the raw material came from England, the English climate being especially suited to the production of pure wool. The manufactured cloth often came back to England, but we do not find fine cloth made in England till the time of the Tudors.

The growth of international commerce made new financial arrangements necessary, and the Italians were the first financiers. In the fourteenth century they first adopted the system of companies of shareholders, which had their consuls and other agents in northern Europe. The financiers also began to frequent certain quarters in different towns, such as the Rialto in Venice, which may be regarded as the parent of our modern exchanges. The Lombards became famous as lenders of money, but their business was regarded as unchristian, and the taking of usury was forbidden by the church; consequently money-lending fell into the hands of the Jews. But the Lombards had accumulated a large amount of capital, and, to some extent, took the place of the Jews, who were expelled from England under Edward I in 1290. Dante has made us familiar with the hatred with which the Caorsini, or inhabitants of Cahors in France, were regarded, who were usurers, but the name was given to all the usurers in southern Europe, just as bankers were called Lombards. The Caorsini came first into England in 1285, under the protection of the pope, to whom they lent money. In the next century, their place was taken by the so-called Lombards, who were chiefly Florentines, represented by the great houses of Bardi, Varrazzi, and Frescobaldi, and who lent money to sovereigns, sometimes at a great loss.

In the thirteenth century, a new set of merchants came from the Baltic, under the name of Easterlings. The Cologne Hansa opposed them strongly, and they had to ask for assistance from Frederick II. The Hamburgers obtained the right to make a separate Hansa in 1266, and the Lübeckers in the following year. At last Cologne had to give way, and the three Hansas of Hamburg, Lübeck, and Cologne became one. They established, in 1282, a factory on the Thames, called the Steelyard, and it remained the property of the Hansa till 1852. Similar factories were founded at Bruges in Belgium, Bergen in Norway, and Novgorod in Russia. They were surrounded by walls, and the gates were closed at night.

One of the principal seats of the Hansa was the town of Wisby, in the Swedish island of Gothland. It is still worth a visit, but it once had forty-two towers sixty or seventy feet high, eighteen churches, mighty walls, and 12,000 citizens. In Russia, Kiev was for many years the great market for exchanging the products of the East with those of northern Europe. But at last it was found that an easier passage lay through northern Italy. A settlement of the Hansa was now established at Great Novgorod, and the merchants of St. Nicholas’ Hof, in Wisby, transferred themselves to St. Peter's  Hof in Novgorod. The river Volkov divided the city into two parts, the trading town being on the right bank, the municipality on the left. The Novgorod merchants assembled in the church of St. John, and founded St. John's Guild. The town was a virtual republic, and was governed by a popular assembly. But it was difficult of access. Ships bound for it passed from the gulf of Finland up the Neva, and through Lake Ladoga to the mouth of the Volkov, and had to tranship their goods into lighter vessels, for the completion of the journey of eighty miles. Two convoys came from Germany every year, the winter convoy and the summer convoy. There was also a land convoy, but it was considered of less importance. The foreign traders were known as Latins; they were under the special protection of the church, and had an organization of their own, with a code of laws. St. Peter’s court, as it was called, was governed by two aldermen, and in cases of difficulty appeal was made to Wisby, but Lübeck gradually asserted herself, and obtained first a share and then a supremacy in the government of the Novgorod Hansa. Lübeck did not secure her power without a struggle. She had to contend with Denmark, who was ambitious for the control of the Baltic trade. In order to maintain her position as the staple between East and West, she was always trying to prevent direct communication between the two, and there was no difficulty in this when the Sound was impassable from ice.

But in the earlier times the most important centre of international commerce was Bruges. It was a place for the exchange of the products of western and southern Europe for those of the East. The produce of the Levant came from the Rhine and from France. Ships laden with wine arrived from Gascony, Portugal, and Spain. In the thirteenth century the Easterlings appeared, though at first they had no permanent settlement. Bruges owed its mercantile importance to being a seaport : it was connected by canals with Sluys and Damme, both on the coast—though transhipment was generally necessary—and great dykes, built at the end of the twelfth century, protected it from floods. But, like Ghent and Ypres, it was also a manufacturing town, its chief product being cloth, which it wove, refined, and dyed.

During the weakness of the empire which succeeded the fall of the Hohenstauffens, the commercial towns began to form leagues of mutual protection. There were three principal groups. The Wendish group, which formed the kernel of the Hansa league, consisted of Lübeck, Rostock, Stralsund, Wismar, Greifswald, Hamburg, and Luneburg. Lübeck and Hamburg formed an alliance in the middle of the thirteenth century, making common cause against pirates and sharing the expense. There were also the group of the lower Rhine and Westphalia, and the group of the Netherlands. With other smaller groups, these principal groups made up the Hansa. But a well organized confederation of all the commercial towns never existed, and all attempts to form such a league were failures. Lübeck indeed did her best to create one by holding meetings, passing statutes, and imposing contributions, but the meetings were not attended, the statutes were not obeyed, and the contributions were not paid. No looser confederation is known to history. Lübeck was no Athens, and the Hansa no Delian League. It had no powers of armed compulsion : indeed, most of its component towns were subject to the emperor. The Teutonic Knights exercised jurisdiction over the towns in their domain, which did not become independent till that Order fell. And, though at one time or another, some ninety towns paid contributions to the Hansa, the payment was not continuous and the geographical limits were very badly defined. Lübeck exercised a supremacy, and summoned meetings, but the only sanction for their resolutions was amongst themselves the boycott, and against foreigners the strike; and the use of these weapons at different times was often the cause of disaster to the towns who employed them. It is difficult to lead commerce back into paths which it has once deserted. At the close of the fourteenth century, a body of pirates made their appearance in the North Sea, known as Vitalian Brothers, a name which is supposed to be connected with a desire to provide themselves with victuals. They conquered Gothland, passed into the North Sea, and plundered Bergen, so that the Hansa had to arm themselves against them and summon the southern towns to their assistance. However, in April 1402, the pirates were defeated, and their leaders made prisoner. The history of the Hansa after 1400 will be treated of later.

THE IBERIAN PENINSULA, A D. c. 1000-1344.

We must now turn our attention to the Iberian peninsula, where the struggle between the Christians and the Moors was proceeding with great intensity. The dynasty of the Omayyad’s died out about the end of the tenth century with Hisham III, a descendant of the great Abdurrahman. The power of the khalifs still continued in Bagdad and Cairo, but in Cordova it was lost forever. The empire, once so powerful, was broken up into tiny principalities, each town with its emir, vali, or cadi. Perpetual war raged between them, the stronger always endeavoring to suppress the weaker. In this manner, some thirty years later, Cordova fell into the hands of the emir of Seville, who was the most powerful Mohammedan sovereign in Spain, except the emir of Toledo. But in May 1085, Alfonso VI, king of Castile, made his triumphal entry into Toledo. He promised the inhabitants the possession of their property, the practice of their religion, and the maintenance of their laws and privileges. But many Christians from the north settled in the town, and swelled the numbers of the Mozarabian Christians, whose worship had been tolerated by the Moors. Archbishop Bernard of Sahagun took possession of the great mosque at Toledo for Christian worship, while Talavera, Madrid, and other towns gradually suffered the same fate as Toledo.

In 1086 the Almoravids of Morocco, a very powerful tribe, which from a family of simple Bedouins had gradually become masters of Morocco, were invited into the peninsula to oppose the encroachments of the Cross. In the great battle of Solara, not far from Badajoz,  Alfonso and the Castilian knights were severely defeated, and ten thousand Christians’ heads were sent to deck the battlements of Spanish and African fortresses. The Almoravids soon proved themselves rather masters than allies, and, by the close of the century, they were ruling over the southern portion of the peninsula. Seville was conquered by them in 1090; Granada, Malaga, Jaen, and Cordova fell before their victorious onsets. Saragossa alone remained independent, and, with its surrounding districts, formed a buffer state between the Christians and the Moors. To this period belong the exploits of the great commander, the Cid, Ruy Diaz, the Campeador, praised in Spanish romances as the paragon of the heroic virtue, the crown of chivalry, the pattern and prototype of the manly warrior. The last action of his life was the conquest of Valencia in 1095.

After his death, deeper misfortunes fell upon the banner of Castile. On May 30, 1108, was fought the battle of Ucles, in which Sancho, the youthful son of the aged king, Alfonso, hoped to drive the unbelievers from that mountain city, and to show himself worthy of succession to the crown. But he was slain on the battlefield, and with him perished the flower of Castilian chivalry. Alfonso could not survive this disaster, for Sancho had been the hope of his life. He was the son of his fifth wife, the daughter of the Emir Mohammed of Seville, who had been converted to Christianity. His first four wives had only borne him daughters. He died just a year afterwards—the "Shield of Spain", as he was called, the conqueror of Toledo, the strongest barrier of his country against the Moors—and his death gave new lustre to the line of the Almoravid rulers. Thus, at the beginning of the twelfth century, the peninsula was still divided between Mohammedans and Christians, the Christians being settled in the kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, and Portugal, and in the marquisate of Barcelona. The individualism, the spirit of separation, which has, through a large portion of her history, so fatally weakened Spain, was even then apparent, and a powerful prince of Navarre, Leon, or Galicia could easily assert his independence against his feudal sovereign. However, the Moors began to yield ground, and in 1118, Saragossa, so long the abode of Moslem emirs, became the capital of Alfonso I of Aragon, who reigned from 1104 to 1134. He received the title of Batallador, the fighter of battles.

In the middle of the century, a rising of the original Spanish Moors against the Almoravids took place in Andalusia, led by Dissensions Abdel Mumin, the successor of a mahdi who among the had founded a religious sect, and had preached a crusade in Morocco. Algeciras was conquered; Gibraltar and Xeres opened their gates; in Seville and Malaga public prayers were offered for the success of the new prophet. In their distress the Almoravids called to their assistance Alfonso VII, the successor of Alfonso VI, the "Shield of Spain", whose career we have related. Alfonso was glad to seize an opportunity which was so much to his advantage, and, with the help of Count Raymond Berengar of Catalonia and Count William of Montpellier, wrested Tortona from the Moors, and gained, for a time, possession of Almeria. To the period immediately preceding his death we owe the military orders of Calatrava, Alcantara, and Compostella, which for some time defended the frontiers of the Ebro and the Douro against the Moslems, in spite of the internal dissensions of the Christian kingdoms. But, since the days of Almanzor, no prince had fought with such success against the Christians as Almohad Abdel Mumin, the Commander of the Faithful. In twenty years, he founded an empire which extended from the edge of the Sahara to the banks of the Guadiana, and from the shore of the Mediterranean to the coasts of Cyrene. He was equally great as a general and as a statesman; he gave his empire a firm political organization, and placed his army and his fleet on a solid foundation of security. In Morocco he founded an empire for the training of civil servants and officers; in Seville and Cordova he revived the splendors of Omayyad culture, but without the luxury and effeminacy which accompanied it. His life was simple, as his aims were clear. War and conquest were the chief objects of his soul. After a reign of thirty-three years, he was succeeded in 1163 by his son, the Cid Jusuf, and his son James Almanzor brought the century to a close. In 1195, the Moors won the victory of Alarcos, in which the flower of Christian chivalry—not only the knights of Calatrava, Alcantara, and Compostella, but those of the Temple and St. John—covered with their corpses the stricken field. But the Cross was at last avenged in the mighty battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, fought on Monday, July 16, 1212. Pope Innocent III had proclaimed a general crusade against the infidel. A crowd of ultramontane knights—it is said 110,000 in number—came from all parts of Europe to assist the Spaniards. Many of them retired before the battle, but, notwithstanding this, the Christians marched forth from Toledo on June 21 to meet the Moslem invaders. They found the passes of the mountains strongly guarded, and were despairing of success when St. Isidore, the patron saint of Madrid, presented himself in the guise o f a bearded shepherd, and pointed out a bye-path by which the col could be turned. The victory was complete : it is said that more than 100,000 Moors were killed. The Moslem supremacy in Spain received its death-blow. For many years afterwards was celebrated in Madrid, July 16, the yearly festival of the triumph of the Cross. After the catastrophe of Las Navas, the decline of the Moslem rule proceeded with steady progress, only checked by the dissensions ranks of the Christians themselves. In 1236, Ferdinand III of Castile, who bore the title of Saint, became master of Cordova, the capital of the khalifs, after a long siege. The Moslem inhabitants were compelled to leave the town and to settle in other cities, and the mosque was turned into a cathedral, now one of the wonders of the world. In 1248, Seville suffered a similar fate; the Moors emigrated from Andalusia in thousands, some to Granada, some to the Moorish settlements in Murcia, and some over the sea to Africa.

To the loss of Seville is due the rise of the Alhambra. The kingdom of Granada was tributary to Castile, but the fertility of its soil and its commercial importance raised it to eminence. Moorish customs, which were dying out in Murcia, Valencia, and Andalusia, remained unchanged in Granada, where a number of civilized Moors of good birth were collected together, who preserved inviolate the traditional culture of their race, the love of science and education, of poetry and song, of music and architecture. The Alhambra bears everywhere inscribed upon its walls, “There is no conqueror but Allah”, like the “Honi soit qui mal y pense” of the English Windsor. The origin of this was that when Mohammed lbn al Hamah returned to his dominions after the taking of Seville, he was saluted by his subjects with the Cry of “Garlib” (the conqueror), and he replied, “There is no conqueror but Allah”. Under him and his successors, the little Saracen kingdom was able, from time to time, to assert its independence, and to gain a few precarious triumphs. But in 1340 was fought the battle of Salado, the theme of many a Spanish song. Here the Moorish power was crushed for ever, and four years later the harbour of Algeciras, the connecting link between Africa and Spain, fell into the hands of Alfonso XI of Castile, leaving the expulsion of the Moors a mere matter of time.

Still, to the outward eye, the kingdom of Granada presented a proud appearance, and retained much of its old splendor and magnificence. It was protected on the sides of the north and east by the lofty range of the Sierra Nevada, rich with mineral treasures, supplying in the heat of summer a refreshing breeze from its snow-covered heights. The valleys, watered by countless streams, contained pastures on their upper, and vines and fruits on their lower slopes. The lofty plateau of the Vega, watered by the river Xenil, was covered by cornfields and orchards, while the harbors of the coast received ships from all the nations of the world. In the midst of this earthly paradise there arose, like a crown of beauty, the city of Granada, seated on its double hills, defended by walls and towers, adorned by palaces and mosques, surrounded by pleasure gardens, filled with splashing fountains and shady arbours. On one of these hills stood the castle of the Alhambra, a jewel which needs no praise, “shining”, as an Arab poet says, “like a star through the foliage of olive groves”. Granada had a sufficient army to defend it, and, if its inhabitants failed, the warlike hosts of Africa could be summoned to its assistance. Under pressure, the Moorish prince could place 100,000 armed soldiers in the field, comprising formidable archers and light Arabian cavalry. But for more than a hundred years a good understanding was maintained with the court of Castile, until the reign of Muled Abul Hassan, which began in 1466. When, in 1476, a tribute was demanded by Queen Isabella, the emir replied that the mines of Granada no longer yielded gold, but steel, and in 1481 he attacked, on a stormy winter’s night, the little mountain fortress of Zahara, on the frontiers of Andalusia. The garrison was cut to pieces, and the inhabitants—men, women, and children—were carried off as slaves to Granada. When the news reached the Moorish capital, an aged priest cried out, “The ruins of Zahara will fall upon our own head; the days of the Moslem empire in Spain are numbered”. We must now leave this history—the fall of Granada belongs to the close of the Middle Ages.

ENGLAND, A.D. 1087-1189.

The history of England now claims our attention, but, for the reasons before mentioned, it will not be treated in detail. On the death of William the Conqueror in 1087, his second son, William, called Rufus or the Red, was crowned in Westminster Abbey, eighteen days later, by Archbishop Lanfranc. This excellent prelate died in 1089. His place as adviser was taken by Ranulf Flambard, the justiciar, an unscrupulous character, who rose to be bishop of Durham. His great object was to obtain money for the king’s extravagance, and he did this by putting pressure on the law courts, and exacting more rigorously the payment of feudal dues. It is said that William neither feared God nor respected man, but, as he suppressed the power of the barons, he was popular with the English, who were also gratified by the separation of Normandy, which had been left by the Conqueror to Robert, his eldest son. Rufus incorporated Cumberland with England, and fortified Carlisle; he conquered South Wales, and established his authority in Scotland, so as to make the English and Norman elements of civilization predominate in the Low­lands. After the see of Canterbury had been vacant for four years, it was filled by the appointment of the great Anselm to the archbishopric. But Rufus opposed all Anselm’s wishes, and quarreled with him so constantly that in 1097 Anselm withdrew to the continent, and thus in 1099 was present at the Lateran Council, which decided against lay investitures. In the next year, Rufus was killed by an arrow in the New Forest, while out hunting.

Rufus was succeeded by his brother Henry, who reigned for thirty-five years (1100 to 1135). Robert of Normandy had not yet returned from the first crusade, and the English acknowledged Henry as their king, fearing an interregnum. He was an able man, and Well educated, as his title “Beauclerc” implies, but he was willful and immoral. At the same time, he respected the Christian faith, at least outwardly. On his accession, he issued a charter, which is memorable in English history. He promised the church freedom in its government and the abolition of evil customs, such as keeping bishoprics vacant. He also promised to the barons that he would exact nothing from them beyond what was authorized by law, that he would not force marriages on heiresses or widows, that he would render feudal dues less oppressive, and that he would allow the disposal of personal property by will. He promised to the people that he would enforce the laws of Edward the Confessor, as improved by William, and that he would maintain the standard of the coinage. This charter may be regarded as the foundation of the Great Charter, which was granted in 1215.

In the first year of his reign, he imprisoned Ranulf Flambard, and married Matilda, daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland and Margaret, the granddaughter of Edmund Iron-side, thus uniting the Norman and Saxon dynasties. In the following year, Robert, returning from the East, with the glamour of a successful crusader, and supported by the Norman barons, invaded England and attacked Henry, but the church and the people were too strong for him, and a treaty was made, by which Robert acknowledged his brother’s right to the crown. Robert of Belesme, the most stubborn and most powerful of Henry’s antagonists, a monster in human form, whose savage cruelties were long the subject of poetry and legend, was conquered by Henry and deprived of his castles. He fled to Normandy, and stirred up the impetuous Robert to rebel a second time against his brother. At this time Robert’s Apulian wife died, and he was deprived of the revenues which she had brought him from southern Italy, so that he lost the allegiance of his nobles.

Henry invaded Normandy, and offered Robert favorable terms, but he preferred the arbitrament of arms. On September of 28, 1106, forty years to a day after the battle of Hastings, the battle of Tenchebrai was fought between the two brothers. The duke was defeated and four hundred of his knights were taken; Robert of Belesme escaped, but many years afterwards was captured by Henry and confined at Wareham, where he died, Robert and Edgar Aetheling, the last male of the Saxon royal line, the uncle of Queen Matilda, were among the captives. Robert was detained for twenty-eight years in confinement, dying in 1134 in the castle of Cardiff, a fiery spirit with a tragic history.

He had a son, William Clito, whose claims to the duchy of Normandy were supported by Louis VI of France. This led to repeated wars with France, until, after the death of Clito in 1128, Normandy and Maine were secured to England. In 1107, the question of Investitures, long disputed between Henry and Anselm, was decided by the Concordat of Bec. Bishops and abbots were to be elected by the church, but in the king's court, and with his sanction; the pope or the archbishop was to confer spiritual rights by the gift of the ring and the crosier, but the bishop or abbot elect was first to do homage to the king for the lands of his see. Anselm died two years later, at the age of seventy-six, a worthy champion of papal power and of scholastic learning.

Henry now set himself to give England a strong government. Roger, bishop of Salisbury, was made justiciar, and with his help Henry organized the king’s court, the curia regis, and connected the courts of the shire with the royal court. A ministerial nobility, dependent upon the crown, gradually grew up in the place of the independent barons, whose power Henry destroyed. Royal castles, well garrisoned, took the place of the feudal castles, which were allowed to fall into decay. Queen Matilda died in 1118, a terrible loss for Henry. She left a son, William, deeply loved by his father, and a daughter, Matilda, who married the Emperor Henry V of Germany. But on November 25, 1120, a terrible catastrophe occurred. William was crossing from Normandy to England, with a throng of noble men and women, who were keeping themselves warm on a cold winter's night with copious libations. The White Ship, as she was called, ran upon a rock, and those in her were thrown into the water. William was drowned in an attempt to save his sister, the Comtesse de la Perche. It is said that Henry never smiled again. A second marriage brought him no children, so that the crown was left to his daughter Matilda, known as the Empress Maud, who was recognized as heiress to the kingdom of England and the duchy of Normandy. After she had lost her husband, she married Geoffrey of Anjou, the son of the powerful crusader Fulk, who was known as Plantagenet, from the sprig of broom which he always wore in his cap. Henry died in Normandy, in December 1135, but his body was brought to England and buried, in the abbey of Reading, which he had founded. He was a wise and powerful Sovereign, who loved war and the chase, living mainly in the forests of Windsor and Woodstock. He left a number of illegitimate children, the best loved of whom was Robert of Gloucester. He favored science and learning, and encouraged the seminaries of Bec, Canterbury, Oxford, and Winchester. Under his reign, good historians made their appearance, and, although Latin was the common tongue amongst learned persons, Norman-French came into use and took the place of Anglo-Saxon among the upper classes.

While Matilda was declared in Normandy to be the successor of Henry, matters took a different turn in London. The Angevin husband of the empress was unpopular, whereas Stephen, count of Blois, a son of Adela, the daughter of William the Conqueror, who was the possessor of great wealth from his marriage with the heiress of Eustace of Boulogne, was greatly beloved, and was supported by the seneschal, Hugh of Bigod, by his own brother Henry, bishop of Winchester, and by the majority of the people. He was crowned by the archbishop of Canterbury on December 22, even before King Henry was buried. But he had no capacity for government. It was said of him by a contemporary that he was the mildest of men upon earth, the slowest to take offence and the readiest to pardon, very easy of approach to the poor, and liberal of alms. He was entirely unable to keep his barons in order, so that in his reign anarchy triumphed and the poor were oppressed. The nobles, whether singly or combined, were equal in strength to the king, and were therefore able to resist his authority. As the law courts were impotent, war was the only resource.

The consequences of this weak government were not long in showing themselves. David, king of Scotland, Empress Maud’s uncle, invaded England, and was bought off by the gifts of the earldom of Huntingdon to himself, and of Carlisle to his son. Robert of Gloucester, half-brother of Matilda, although he took the oath of allegiance to Stephen, maintained an armed neutrality, fortified by the possession of the strong castle of Bristol. Stephen allowed the nobles to build castles all over the country, filled with retainers who were no better than robbers, who plundered the country and burned the towns, so that the common people believed that “Christ and His saints were asleep”. To secure his power, Stephen used the treasure left by Henry to engage a force of mercenaries, wandering soldiers, chiefly  from Flanders and Brabant, called Brabançons, assisted by others from Brittany, commanded by the counts of Penthièvre and Richmond.

In 1137, King David made another invasion of England, supported by a rising in the south-west. He was, however, opposed by the aged Thurstan, archbishop of York, who was carried through the army in a litter and so inflamed the courage of the soldiers. Also, Walter Espè, an old warrior with long hair and beard, addressed the host from a platform. A battle was fought near Northallerton, called the Battle of the Standard, from the appearance in it of the Italian caroccio. The Scots were entirely defeated. But, in the treaty of Durham, which closed the war, signed on April 9, 1138, Henry, the son of David, was invested with the county of Northumberland. Stephen now alienated the church by his imprisonment of Roger, bishop of Salisbury, and his nephew Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, who had offended him by setting themselves up like the barons and building castles in imitation of them. Even Henry of Winchester took the side of the clergy, and, as legate of the pope, summoned a council at Winchester, which, however, came to no conclusion. In 1139, Empress Maud landed, and was allowed by Stephen to pass freely to Bristol, where she found an army levied by her half-brother, Robert of Gloucester. In battle at Lincoln in 1141, Stephen was defeated, made prisoner, and carried off to Bristol. In 1142, Maud was crowned at Winchester. But she made herself unpopular by her strict government, and was compelled to fly to Gloucester. Robert was taken prisoner by William of Ypres, and Henry, who had crowned Maud, now returned to his brother’s side. The civil war continued for six years with varying fortunes. The empress was nearly captured at Oxford, and with difficulty escaped over fields covered with snow, and the king nearly suffered the same fate. In the anarchy which ensued, the west of England acknowledged Matilda, the east of England Stephen, the north of England King David of Scotland, and the centre of England was divided amongst the great earls. In 1147 Robert of Gloucester died, and the empress left England.

The second crusade diverted the attention of the combatants to other matters; Frederick Barbarossa became emperor, and Henry, Matilda’s son, married Eleanor of Aquitaine, the divorced wife of Louis VII of France. Henry now landed in England in 1153, and by the efforts of Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, and Henry of Winchester, a treaty was signed at Wallingford, at which it was arranged that Stephen should reign for the remainder of his life and be succeeded by Henry. This was made easier by the fact that Eustace, a son of Stephen, had died in the previous year. Stephen himself died shortly afterwards, on October 25, 1154.

Henry II reigned for thirty-five years, from 1154 to 1189. He was a great European prince, and the founder of the judicial and parliamentary systems of our country. Of his four sons, two became kings of England, and of his three daughters, Matilda, the eldest, married Henry the Lion of Saxony; the second, Eleanor, the king of Castile; and the third, Johanna, William the Second, king of Sicily. Besides the kingdom of England, Henry ruled over Normandy and Maine, in right of his mother, Anjou and Touraine in right of his father, and Poitou, Saintonge, Limousin, Guienne, and Gascony in right of his wife, so that he possessed a large portion of France. He was a man of great ability and untiring energy. He had the merit, shared by other English kings, of recognizing that the real foundation of his power was the welfare of the nation which he governed. His reign may be divided into three periods. In the first, from 1154 to 1162, he succeeded in weakening the feudal government of the nobles and establishing the royal authority. He destroyed what are called the “adulterine” castles which had been built in the reign of Stephen; he sent out of the country the foreign mercenaries whom Stephen had employed; and he resumed the royal estates which had been alienated by his predecessor. Following a precedent set by Henry I, he allowed his feudal barons to commute their yearly service for a pecuniary payment called scutage, which, besides rendering the barons less warlike, gave the king money with which he could hire mercenaries. He levied it first in 1159 for the prosecution of a war in Toulouse. At this time the papal see was held by Nicholas Breakspear, the only Englishman who ever wore the tiara. He used the authority over islands supposed to be a prerogative of the pope by investing Henry with Ireland, which however, he had to conquer.

The second period of Henry’s reign, which lasted from 1162 to 1172, was occupied by his struggle with the church, his judicial reforms, and the conquest of Ireland. In 1162, Thomas Becket was made archbishop of Canterbury, at the age of forty-four. He was born in London, of Norman descent, and belonged to the middle classes. He was educated at Merton Priory in Surrey, and at the University of Paris, and then entered the service of Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury. He was one of the most remarkable of Englishmen, and deserves the reverence with which he has always been treated. He was extremely religious, an able ruler, very lovable, but, at the same time, headstrong and impetuous. He was made chancellor in 1154, and showed himself a good financier and an able judge. He succeeded in upholding at the same time the dignity of his office and the authority of the king. But when he became archbishop he transferred the zeal which he had displayed for the crown to extend the privileges of the church. When money was required for the war in Wales, Becket opposed Henry’s attempt to appropriate a local tax called the “Sheriff's Aid”, the first instance of opposition to the king's financial measures since the Conquest. In 1164, at the royal palace of Clarendon, near Salisbury, a document was passed, called the Constitutions of Clarendon, recording in sixteen clauses what Henry declared to be the English customs, of which the following are the most important : —(1) The separate trial of the clergy by their own order was forbidden. Those accused of crime were to answer the charge in the king’s court—to be tried, indeed, in the ecclesiastical courts, but, if convicted, to be degraded and sent to the king’s court for sentence. (2) In order to check the appeals of the clergy to Rome, they were not allowed to leave the kingdom without the king’s licence. (3) All appeals from the ecclesiastical courts were to go to the king, and were to be finally decided in the archbishop’s court, unless the king allowed them to be taken to Rome. (4) All elections to archbishoprics, bishoprics, abbacies, and priories were to be made by the clergy in the king’s chapel and with his assent, and the person elected was to do homage to the king before consecration. (5) The sons of villeins were not to be ordained without the consent of their lords. (6) No tenant in chief of the king or member of his household was to be excommunicated or placed under an interdict without the king’s knowledge.

After some hesitation, Becket accepted these articles as binding on the church. But he soon repented of his action. He shut himself up in his palace at Canterbury, and refused to perform any priestly functions until Pope Alexander should order him to resume them. The pope, however, denounced the new constitutions. Whom was Becket to obey? In a case which now arose, he violated them by appealing to the Holy See. He was condemned for this and other matters in a council held at Northampton, and fled to France, carrying with him his pallium and his seal. Crossing from Sandwich, he at length reached Gravelines on November 2, 1164. After visiting Pope Alexander III, he took up his abode in the Cistercian abbey of Pontigny, which had been assigned to him as a residence. From this refuge he was driven by the action of Henry. After expressing his confidence that God, who fed the birds of heaven and clothed the lilies of the field, would not desert him and his, he retired to the monastery of St. Columba at Sens. The quarrel between the archbishop and the king shook the courts of Europe, and efforts were made in every direction to reconcile them. We have no space to relate the thrilling story. At length, in 1170, when the king’s eldest son had been crowned by the archbishop of York, to the disgust of Becket, who asserted his right to perform the ceremony—when the French king, Louis VII, was offended that his daughter Margaret, young Henry’s wife, had not been crowned with him, and there was danger of war—when the pope threatened Henry with an interdict,—Henry, like a wise statesman, yielded. A reconciliation took place between the two enemies in a meadow near Tours, on July 22, and on December 1 Becket returned in triumph to his cathedral at Canterbury.

But he had many enemies, who declared that he had not returned in peace, but with fire and sword, to make his brother bishops a footstool under his feet. Three of the bishops went to France, found the king at the castle of Bures, near Bayeux, and told him that he would have no peace so long as Becket was alive. Henry broke out into wrath against the man who had eaten his bread, and now trampled him under foot—whom he had covered with benefits, and who now treated him and his house with scorn. “By what cowards”, he cried, “am I surrounded! Is there no one who will rid me of this paltry priest?”. Four of his nobles, fired by these words, immediately left for England by different roads—Richard Fitzurse, “Son of the Bear”; Hugh of Moreville, a rich baron of Northumberland; William Tracy; and Richard Brito. The king sent to call them back, but it was too late. Becket had set out to visit young Henry at Woodstock, taking with him three valuable horses as a present, but he heard in London that the young king would not see him. He returned in wrath to Canterbury, preached on Christmas Day, from the text “Peace on earth, good will towards men”, and excommunicated all those who stirred up strife between him and the king. He embittered the feelings of his enemies, and on December 29, 1170, was barbarously murdered by the four knights in the cathedral. When the body was undressed, they found it clothed with a hair shirt, and bearing traces of recent penance. The people streamed to the scene of the murder, the very blood was reverenced as holy, and Becket was proclaimed a saint by the acclamation of the throng before he was canonised.

Before this momentous scene, Henry had effected important constitutional changes. In 1166, the Assize of Clarendon had established in criminal cases the “Jury of Presentment”, by which twelve men of rank and position swore to reveal all guilty persons, but to accuse no man falsely, and which was the origin of our present grand jury. By the Grand Assize, a jury of recognition was introduced into civil cases, which was the origin of our petty jury. A free­holder who had been deprived of his land might demand a “Jury of Recognition” to judge his case. In 1215, when the ordeal was abolished as a method of trial, by the pope, it became the duty of the Jury of Recognition to judge the cases brought forward by the Jury of Presentment. Also, in 1169, steps were taken to reduce to submission the island of Ireland, granted to Henry by the pope, which was effected Conquest by the labors of Robert FitzStephen, Richard of Ireland, FitzGilbert, better known as Strongbow, and Maurice FitzGerald. An opportunity had arisen when Dermot, king of Leinster, was driven from his kingdom and sought help from Henry. Dermot died in 1171, and Henry went to Ireland to receive the submission of Strongbow, who had become too powerful. A council was held at Cashel, by which the church of Ireland, which had hitherto been independent, was brought under the authority of the pope. After this, the population of Ireland was divided into three sections—the inhabitants of what was called the Pale, that is, the district immediately around Dublin, who were loyal to the English crown; the mixed Anglo-Irish, who dwelt in the open country; and the wild and rebellious natives in the west. These three sections were constantly at war with each other. After the conquest of Ireland, Henry was reconciled with the pope, and was solemnly absolved at Avranches in 1172. He renounced ostensibly all new customs prejudicial to the church, but in effect a compromise was made—even, at last, on the question of the trial of criminous clerks.

The last eighteen years of Henry’s reign were clouded with sorrow. In 1173, three of his sons—Henry, Richard, and Geoffrey—rose against him, assisted by their mother, the Queen Eleanor, and by the king of France. Young Henry did not care to wear the crown without having some regal authority; Richard and Geoffrey hoped for appanages in France; Eleanor was enraged against her husband in consequence of his infidelity; and Louis VII would have been glad to see the French and English possessions of the British crown in different hands. Hugh Bigod and several of the earls took the side of the rebels, and William the Lion, of Scotland, invaded the kingdom from the north. Civil war raged on both sides of the Channel. Henry called mercenaries to his aid, including the dreaded Brabançons. Battles were fought at Dol in Brittany, and at Bury St. Edmund’s in England. Henry became convinced that the only remedy for these evils, which he regarded as a punishment for his own misdeeds, was to do penance at the shrine of the martyr. So, on July 12, 1174, happily in the middle of summer, after hearing a sermon from Gilbert, bishop of London, he went, clad in the shirt of penance, into the crypt, was flogged on his naked back by the priests and monks, and spent the night on the bare stones with prayers and tears. The next day he heard mass, presented the cathedral with costly gifts, was absolved from all his sins, and entered London with rejoicings. The penance soon produced its effect. On the very day that it was completed, William the Lion was defeated at the battle of Alnwick, and was taken prisoner. Hugh Bigod submitted. The kings of France and England made friends at Gisors. William the Lion, released from prison, acknowledged the supremacy of the English crown over the Scottish in the treaty of Falaise. Henry, accompanied by his reconciled son, gave solemn thanks at the shrine of Becket for his friendly interposition.

In 1176, Henry set himself to continue his judicial reforms. The Assize of Clarendon was amended by the Assize of Northampton, which divided England into six circuits and established a system of travelling judges, which still continues. A famous treatise on the laws of England was compiled, perhaps by the Chief Justiciar, Ranulf de Glanville. The old curia regis was reorganized, five judges being separated from the general fisco-judicial staff in 1178, and required to remain always in the King’s Court, and hear all cases brought before them; the authority of the sheriffs was strengthened in the counties; and all the departments of government were reformed. Henry obtained for himself so much reputation by these reforms that, in 1177, he was chosen as arbitrator between the kings of Castile and Navarre, who had long been disputing with regard to their respective frontiers. In 1181, the Assize of Arms made regulations for the national militia, known by the Saxon name of the Fyrd; and in 1184 the Assize of the Forest laid down rules for the management of the forest lands.

In 1183, the young Henry began to rebel once more against his father, but on June 11 he died suddenly at Marcel in Querci, the king sending him the ring from his finger, in token of forgiveness. He was more of a Frenchman than an Englishman, but was admired by both friend and foe for his knightly virtues, and praised by the poets of both the south and the north. After his death Henry liberated his wife Eleanor from prison, in which she had been confined for ten years, and allowed her to come to Normandy. He might have looked forward to a few years of happiness, had it not been for his extravagant affection for his worthless son John, the stubborn temper of his son Richard, and the treachery of Geoffrey, who joined King Philip Augustus, Louis VII’s successor on the throne of France, in an attack on Normandy, but died suddenly in Paris, a posthumous child, Arthur, being born to him on August 19, 1186.

In 1187 occurred the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin, the effect of which we have already described, and in the same year war broke out again between Henry and Philip II. The expense of the new crusade was met by the imposition of the Saladin tithe, already mentioned, which was the first tax on personal property. The war still continued; Le Mans, Tours, and Samur fell into the hands of the French; Brittany was in rebellion; John and Richard deserted their father. Henry lay in the castle of Chinon, broken in mind and body. He acknowledged himself to be the vassal of the king of France, but when he saw that his son John was among the rebels he uttered a curse against him and Richard, and gave up the ghost on July 6 : he was buried in the monastery of Fontevrault. He was undoubtedly a great king, as we have learnt from the relation of his life. We have said nothing of his love for the fair Rosamund Clifford, whose son Geoffrey became chancellor and bishop of Lincoln.

Notwithstanding the domestic troubles of his reign, he left England in every respect in a better condition than he found her. But the court was French, and, in order that England might acquire her self-consciousness and proceed on the course of orderly advance, it was necessary that she should lose her possessions in France.