CRISTO RAUL.ORG '

THE UNIVERSAL HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY

FROM JUSTINIAN TO LUTHER. AD 518-1517

CHAPTER V

FROM CLOVIS TO CHARLEMAGNE

CLOVIS,

KING OF THE FRANKS

THE baptism of Clovis was as significant as the conversion of Constantine. It was an event which influenced the history of the world.

In the country which is now France, three races of invaders had fixed themselves by the end of the fifth century: the Visigoths in the south-west, their kinsmen the Burgundians in the south-east, the Franks in the north. The two former races had embraced Arianism, worshipping Christ as a mere demigod; the Franks were still worshippers of the old German deities.

These Franks were divided into two principal groups, the Ripuarians, who dwelt on the bank of the Rhine, and the Salians, who lived near the Issel or Sala. When the Roman Empire fell into pieces, in 476, the chief of the main body of the Salians was Childeric the son of Merovech. His people lived about Tournai and his warriors probably numbered about six thousand. He died in 481 and his successor was a boy of fifteen years, Clovis (Clodowech), the true founder of the Frankish monarchy. He began his career of success by conquering Syagrius, a Roman general who had carved out for himself a principality in and around Soissons, and posed as 'King of the Romans'. Clovis annexed this realm and the population of Gallo-Romans lived on good terms with their Teutonic conquerors. About 492 he formed a desire to marry Clothilde, a daughter of the king of the Burgundians and a Catholic. A most romantic story of the wooing of Clothilde is told by the so-called Fredegarius, who lived early in the seventh century and probably derived his story from old traditions of some value. The union took place and realized the hopes of the episcopate of Gaul and especially of St. Remi (Remigius) of Reims. But Clovis remained a pagan, and reproached the wife whom he loved when their first child died while still wearing his white baptismal robe. The child, he said, would have lived if he had been baptized in the name of his father's gods. But the brave queen “thanked God because He had taken her first-born child into His kingdom”.

A second child was baptized, sickened, but survived. Clovis nevertheless did not abandon Thor and Odin. But in 496 he had to face an invasion of the Alemanni, who pressed across the Rhine and occupied the country between the Rhine and the Vosges mountains. Clovis met them with his army, and all seemed lost when he implored the aid of Christ and vowed that if he won the victory he would be baptized. The king of the Alemanni fell and his army was defeated. And on Christmas Day 496, amid a splendor worthy of the occasion, Clovis was baptized at Reims by St. Remi, who is said to have uttered the words, “Bow thy neck, 0 Frank, worship what thou hast burnt, and burn what thou hast worshipped”.

The news of this conversion sent a thrill through western Christendom, and the orthodox outside his dominions looked to Clovis to deliver them from their Arian rulers. His attack on Burgundy was a failure. But in 507 he routed the Visigoths about ten miles from Poitiers, slaying the mighty Alaric in single combat, and occupied Bordeaux and Toulouse. He won four-fifths of Gaul, and in 510, in the great basilica of Tours, he was invested with the tunic, the purple mantle, and the diadem. The next year he died. He was no saint, but he was not insincere; and we can well believe the tale told by Fredegarius that Clovis was so moved by the story of Christ's Passion that he exclaimed, “If I had been there with my Franks, I would have avenged His wrongs”.

It is St. Gregory of Tours (d. 594) who, in his History of the Franks, and his record of saintly lives, makes the France of the sixth century live once more. It was an age of cruelty, of cupidity, and of superstition. But those who pierce through the dull records of somber crimes and trivial miracles can discover not only romance but also true religion. The Christians were surrounded by heathen neighbors and their Christianity was crude and adulterated. But they believed in the presence and power of God and in the friendship of His saints; they were impressed by the self-renunciation of lonely hermits and of wealthy men and women who bestowed all their goods to feed the poor; they could honor a chastity preserved amid the fires of temptation. The lives of the common people were sad and sordid; but their religion led them into a happier country, and the worship of the Church gave them visions of peace and beauty. And Gregory himself, though he regrets the rusticity of his Latin, was a master of the art of narrative, able to write just what he had seen and heard. He can describe the crowds that thronged the roads to a festival, or the hermit in his lonely cave in the primeval forest, or the mysterious lights that hovered over the forgotten tombs of saints and martyrs, or his own debate with an Arian legate from the Visigothic court in Spain.

After the victories of Clovis, Arianism disappeared from Gaul except in the south-eastern corner. In Africa the Vandal laws were specially directed against the Romans and the Catholics; but the persecution, sometimes very severe, varied according to the temper of the different rulers and the state of foreign politics. The Vandal Empire was finally crushed by Justinian’s general Belisarius in 533. The Visigoths in Spain were fierce persecutors, but the conversion of King Reccared the Visigoth to Catholicism in 589 secured the ascendancy of Catholicism. Near the close of the fifth century it seemed as if the whole of the Teutonic world would be Arian, worshipping a Christ robbed of His eternity. One hundred years later Arianism was vanishing like an evil dream, and it disappeared when the Lombards of Pavia renounced it in the middle of the seventh century.

The Church of Spain, with the aid of the Visigoth kings, acquired a compact and vigorous organization. It enjoyed a provincial and inter-provincial system of government under the Bishop of Toledo, 'metropolitan bishop of the royal city'. It was he, and not the Pope, who had the recognized right to intervene in the nomination of every bishop in the kingdom. Spain had its own canon law and its own elaborate liturgy, which was generally abandoned in the eleventh century, but still survives in a chapel of the cathedral of Toledo. The Church was almost entirely autonomous, and in 636 Eugenius, Metropolitan of Toledo, said that he could find in the New Testament no ground for supposing that St. Peter possessed any unique authority. The Church of Spain was shattered by the Muslim invasions of the next century.

While the conversion of the Franks to Catholic Christianity prepared for the extinction of Arianism, the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons supplied the Teutonic races with Catholic missionaries of apostolic zeal. When we think of the work accomplished by the missionaries of the seventh and eighth centuries, we must bear in mind that the Slavs had submerged the country east of the Elbe, and that west of that river there were continual wanderings and wars of the great Teutonic tribes. The Frisians, who in race and language are akin to the purest English, occupied the greater part of Holland and the adjacent coasts, extending from Ostend to the river Ems. South of Slesvig a large area was occupied by the Saxons. Their neighbors the Franks had poured southwards, conquering the Romanized Celts in the country to which they gave the name of France, and pushing against the Frisians in the north, as well as the Saxons to the east and the Thuringians beyond the Saxons. In the seventh century these three latter races were pagan; whereas the Alemanni, whose name became applied to all German people by the French of later times, were already accepting Christianity from the Franks.

THE MEROVINGIANS

We saw that Clovis died in 511. His sons extended their rule over nearly the whole of Gaul. They subdued the kingdom of Burgundy and they got back from the Ostrogoths Provence with its famous capital Arles, 'little Rome in Gaul', still famous for its Roman antiquities and the classic features of its inhabitants. The Frankish realm tended to fall into three, and then into two, well-marked divisions. The practice of dividing the kingdom prevailed for several generations, each death of a king involved a new partition, and the king of each division was called 'King of the Franks'. The three divisions were Austrasia, 'the Eastern land', Neustria, 'the Newest land', and Burgundy, which was often ruled by the King of Neustria. The principal town of Austrasia, the eastern part of the Frankish kingdom, was Metz; and the principal town of Neustria, the western part, was Paris, which had been sagaciously selected by Clovis as his centre.

Until the death of Dagobert, in 639, the kings of the Mero­vingian dynasty displayed considerable energy and variety of interests. Their inherited love of fighting found an outlet in battles at home or abroad. And their newly acquired culture expressed itself in the building of villas, and in the efforts of King Chilperic to enforce the addition of four new letters to the Latin alphabet invented by his own royal hand. After Dagobert the Merovingian kings were neither warriors nor men. They were debauched youths who lolled in their palaces, took the air in litters drawn by oxen, and met with the early death that was merited by their vices. It was therefore inevitable that local officials should try to usurp the royal prerogatives, and that the substance of royal power should be grasped by the 'Mayors of the Palace'. Such was the origin of the new dynasty which derived its name of Carolingian from Charlemagne, its most famous scion.

Dagobert in his youth was under the guardianship of Arnulf, Bishop of Metz, and Pepin I, called 'of Landen', mayor of the palace of Austrasia (d. 640). Pepin’s daughter married a son of Arnulf. Their son Pepin II, called 'of Heristal', secured complete predominance in Austrasia, defeated the Neustrians in 687, and thereby became in fact, if not in name, sole master of almost the whole of Gaul. He fought against the Frisians, the Alemanni, and the Bavarians, and died in 714. He was succeeded by his illegitimate son Charles Mattel (d. 741), who seized the mayoralty in both kingdoms. Charles divided his realm between his two sons, giving the east to Carloman and the west to Pepin III, called 'the Short' (d. 768), a monarch no less important in ecclesiastical history than was his father.

So much at least seems necessary as a preliminary to an account of the united work of the English and the Franks in promoting the knowledge of the Gospel.

St. WILIBRORD

Willibrord (d. 739), an Anglo-Saxon, first established Christianity firmly among the Frisians. He was the son of Wilgils, a Northumbrian, and was educated in Wilfrid’s monastery at Ripon. When he was twenty he went to study in Ireland, and thus he became trained in the two distinct types of Western Catholicism, the Celtic and the Roman. In 690 he was sent by St. Egbert, a famous Northumbrian ascetic, with eleven companions, to Frisia. Like his three predecessors among the Frisians, Amandus, Eligius, and Wilfrid, he had to contend with many difficulties. The Frisians were struggling for their national existence against the Christian Franks, and Rathbod, their king, was a hardened pagan. Failing to convert the subjects of Rathbod, the Anglo-Saxon missionary went to the Frank, Pepin II, and preached in the Meuse districts to the conquered Frisians. He went to Rome and obtained the approval of Pope Sergius I for his work. He went to Heligoland, where the native population still retains its Frisian tongue, and there he violated the heathen sacred places. For this he was brought before Rathbod, who was so much impressed by Willibrord’s courage that he spared his life. Once more, at great peril, he destroyed the famous idol of Walcheren.

In 695 he again visited Rome, and Pope Sergius consecrated him as archbishop of the Frisians. Pepin II assigned him Utrecht as his Episcopal city, and he consecrated bishops and built churches and monasteries. He was visited by Wilfrid about 703. He was also honored by Pepin’s successor, Charles Martel, who proved himself to be the champion of Christendom by defeating the Arabs at Poitiers, and thereby saving France, and eventually Europe, from the domination of the Crescent (732). Willibrord died in 739 at Echternach, one of the monasteries which he had founded near Trier.

St. WYNFRITH

Wynfrith (680-754), another Anglo-Saxon, is the saint who has the greatest right to be called the apostle of the Germans. He was born at Crediton, and educated first at Exeter and then at the monastery of Nursling near Winchester. He went to Friesland in 716, but as the redoutable Rathbod was then fighting against Charles Martel, it was hopeless to attempt much for the conversion of Rathbods people. He went back to Nursling, and then proceeded to Rome with a letter of introduction from the Bishop of Winchester. Pope Gregory II received him favorably and gave him authority to evangelize Germany. Then with the new name of Boniface I he went through Bavaria and Thuringia, and when Rathbod died, in 719, he worked for three years in Frisia. Then he went to Hesse and converted many of the heathen in Amoeneburg. He made a second journey to Rome and in 722 was consecrated bishop by the Pope after taking an oath of allegiance to the apostolic see. He left Rome armed with letters to Charles Martel and other prominent persons and began to continue the evangelization of Hesse and Thuringia. He called from England a band of missionaries, both monks and nuns. Pagan practices were still rife among the native semi-Christians. Among them was the veneration of sacred trees, a survival of which remains in the so-called 'Christmas tree', which was introduced into England from Germany in the nineteenth century. Boniface endeavored to strike at the root of the evil by felling an oak dedicated to Thor, near Fritzlar, and from the timber he erected a chapel dedicated to St. Peter. His courage was rewarded by a large number of conversions. In 732 Gregory III made him an archbishop

After the death of Charles Martel, in 741, and the accession of his son Pepin III, the activity of Boniface became even wider than before. Helped by Carloman and Pepin, and by Pope Zacharias, he set to work to reform the whole Frankish Church. In 742 began a series of Church Councils; the rules of the Church were enforced, heathen practices condemned, and dioceses were grouped under metropolitan sees. Some difficulties came from within the Church; Boniface had to deal with the heresy of an Irish priest named Clement and the 'prophecies' of a Frankish bishop named Aldebert. Their opposition failed, and in 744 he prepared to occupy the important see of Cologne. But the deposition of Gewilib, Archbishop of Mainz, made it seem desirable that Boniface should be the new Archbishop of Mainz, a place of pre-eminent influence. He resigned the see in order to devote his closing years to Frisia, the country of his first evangelistic efforts. He went there with a large body of fellow workers and many thousands of Frisians were added to the Church. But he had not long to wait for a martyr's crown. On the Eve of Whitsunday, June the 5th, 754, at a place near Dokkum, where he arranged to administer confirmation, he was met by a band of heathens, who slew him and his fifty-two companions. His remains were afterwards removed to the monastery church of Fulda, which he had founded.

Boniface was certainly both one of the noblest and one of the most successful of missionaries ever born on English soil. The Christianity of Germany, fragmentary and without spiritual control, was in danger of sinking into the worship of Thor and Odin. Boniface saw the peril, and by making the Churches of Bavaria, Hesse, and Thuringia coherent systems united to each other and subject to Rome, he consolidated both the religion and the culture of a vital part of central Europe, and prepared for. their expansion to the north and to the east.

Pepin III (d. 768) was consecrated and crowned as King of the Franks, some say by St. Boniface himself. To be solemnly crowned was the custom of the Byzantine Emperors, who in this had copied a practice of the Jews as old as the time of Samuel and Saul. The ceremony impressed the Franks and Pepin had it repeated. Pope Stephen II, threatened by the Lombard king Aistulf, fled to Gaul. He was received with great honor, and in July 754 himself crowned Pepin in the abbey of Saint-Denis. Thus began in France the theory that a king rules by 'right divine', a theory which held sway in France for more than a thousand years, until the downfall of Louis XVI. Stephen bestowed upon Pepin the title of 'patrician of the Romans', a title which had been given to foreign princes in former days by Roman Emperors.

If Charles Martel had proved himself the defender of Christendom, Pepin proved himself the protector of the Pope. He twice invaded Italy, defeated Aistulf, and sent an envoy into the exarchate of Ravenna to demand the keys of the cities of the exarchate. He then bestowed the exarchate with twenty-two towns upon 'St. Peter and his successors'. This was a doubly significant event. It was the foundation of the Papal States; over which the Popes exercised temporal power until 187o. It was also the nearly complete severance of Italy from the Eastern Empire.

CHARLEMAGNE

CHAPTER VI

CATHOLICISM AND NATIONALISM IN THE NINTH CENTURY